I might not have much choice in how long I stay alive. But I do have some say in how much life I can pack into the days I have left. How much happiness I can experience. I have zero to lose now.
I nod. “Okay, yes. You can take me to dinner.”
He smiles then, the tiny gap between his front teeth visible. It’s a real smile. An excellent smile. A not-at-all-despicable smile. I think about the first time I saw him downstairs after he moved in. When he bowed to me in the hall with those glittering eyes. How my stomach had flipped with distant, impossible-seeming possibility. And then, when he told me to fuck off that morning, immediately feeling like an idiot for thinking of him at all. Now I know it was because his beloved twin sister had just died. Of course he told me, a grumpy woman at the door, complaining about his music, to fuck off. But I didn’t think about that. All I thought was that this man was simply confirming everything I already knew about people. They were all terrible.
I wonder if I had tried again to make conversation, if we’d have found ourselves in the same scenario as this, only with more time to see what came of it.
“I’ll see you at seven,” Cooper says before turning on his heel and striding back down the hall.
I guess we’ll never know.
35
A few years ago, in a rare burst of confidence and hope, I bought the sexiest, most beautiful dress I’d ever seen, from a boutique on Westbourne Grove. It was only when I got back to my flat that I realised I actually had nowhere to wear it. And even if I did, it was way too glamourous and slinky for someone like me. It’s been hanging unworn in my wardrobe ever since. I decide that I might as well wear the pale green dress with the slit tonight because I literally have nothing left to lose. If I’m going to dive into these last two days, I might as well really dive in. While the heat wave has finally broken, it’s still warm, so I tie my hair up with a black ribbon, brushing the hair so much that the waves sort of puff out, making the ponytail super voluminous. It looks cool, I think. My heel blisters mean that the only footwear I can conceivably wear without ripping my feet to shreds is a pair of silver flip-flops I picked up last summer. They might not exactly go with this dress, but at least I can comfortably walk in them.
I opt for some tinted moisturiser and dab on more of the glossy lip balm that Leanne lent to me for the gala.
Cooper has an appointment somewhere before our date, so the plan is to meet him outside the restaurant. I have no clue what to expect, this being my first date and everything, but as I shuffle down the street with the other summer revellers, I am filled with nerves that feel very different to the nerves I’m used to. These nervous jangles are soft and bright and twinkling, not the heavy thunking darts of dread I’ve previously felt.
I’ve never been to Chelsea, so I use a newly downloaded map app on my phone to find the way to the restaurant—a place called Concept and Caramel. As I reach the restaurant, a discreet-looking building with darkened windows, I see a group of teenagers sitting on a wall opposite. Two of the teenagers are laughing at one of the others, a younger-looking girl with buck teeth and acne-scarred skin.
I halt and watch as one of the older kids nudges the other as if to say,Watch this, and then takes a huge wad of pink gum out of his mouth before splatting it onto the younger girl’s head with a slap that is audible to me from across the street. I picture Gen and Ryan doing the same thing to me. You’d think teenagers would have thought up new, more interesting ways to harass each other. Some things just never change.
Before I can think about what I’m doing, I march across the road to where one of the girls is laughing at the “joke” while the other teenager takes a pic on his phone. The younger girl has tears in her eyes. I can tell this is not her first rodeo with these goons.
“Hey, idiots,” I say to the two older kids. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”
Their mouths drop open like I’m Beyoncé or something. I do look pretty good tonight, to be fair. “Whoa,” the boy says.
“Are you okay?” I say to the younger girl. She nods forcefully but it’s clear that she’s not.
“You’re a loser,” I say, pointing to the older girl. “And you’re a loser,” I say to the older boy. “And you know what? You’re always going to be losers. Making other people feel bad because of your own lack of talent or personality or charisma might feel good now, but it’s a trap.”
The older girl sniggers.
“Oi!” the younger girl says, her voice shaking. “They’re my friends. They were just having a laugh.”
“They’re not your friends,” I say to her, chest aching at her attempt to downplay what’s going on, a move I’m horribly familiar with. “They’re a couple of lowlifes who are bullying you for kicks. Stand up for yourself, for fuck’s sake!”
Her chin wobbles a bit. “Don’t shout at me.”
“Hey! Delphie! Hi!” I whirl around to see Cooper waving at me from outside the restaurant on the other side of the road. “You okay?”
I blink and swallow down my anger. “Just a sec,” I call back. “I’m sorry for shouting,” I say to the girl, pointing to the gum in her hair. “Olive oil will get it out. You don’t have to cut it.”
My own chin wobbles.
The younger girl just stares at me slightly horrified. The older two giggle, but they sound nervous.
“Try to be kinder,” I say to them with a sigh. “Bullying people is just…it’s pathetic.”
With one last hard stare, I turn on my heel and go to meet Cooper for our date.
Before I can even process what just happened and how I feel about it, Cooper and I are met at the restaurant front desk by aman with a curled-up moustache, wearing a full velvet jumpsuit in neon green. He looks, somehow, glorious.
“Guys, I’m Sullivan, and I’m the maître d’. Welcome to Concept and Caramel—‘the Experience.’ ”
I side-eye Cooper, who does a sort of nervous gulp as we are led through a corridor to a large white room where groups of cool-looking people sit at large white tables, some of them licking their plates, some of them eating with their fingers, most of them laughing and shrieking. The other waiters are all in velvet jumpsuits of varying neon colours. This is what restaurants are like these days? This is not the impression that TV and film have given me.
