on fire’ had been designed especially for Gaby and Emma. Nadia had sat there more or less mute as the two swapped outrageous dating stories and entered into a flirting competition with the wait staff. They’d never graduated to hanging out without her, but every time Nadia invited one out, the first question would always be if the other one was coming. Nadia knew it was childish to feel envious over how they’d clicked, but … well. She was envious at how they’d clicked. She’d been trying to see them separately just lately. Not that she’d made that clear out loud or anything. She didn’t want to seem immature.
Nadia let her temper calm down so that by the time their starter plates had been cleared and Emma said, ‘I still think you should put an advert up in response,’ Nadia was able to relax into herself and smile. She knew her friend only wanted what was best for her.
‘No!’ Nadia said, laughing. ‘Oh god! I just don’t think I can!’
Emma was impatient. ‘How are we going to find him then?’
‘I don’t know! Maybe I don’t even want to find him!’
‘Well, that’s bollocks,’ said Emma. ‘You’re a shit liar and I can tell that’s a lie.’ She poured them both more wine. ‘I can tell you’re gagging for it to be you. Look at you! Texting all maybe it is me! all day and then being moody tonight. You’re afraid to be excited. I see you.’
‘Oh shut up,’ Nadia said light-heartedly.
‘You’re going to have to be on the lookout. Like, on that 7.30 train every morning, the end near the escalators. That’s where you should start. Stake the joint out a bit. If it is for you, surely there will be a guy hopefully looking at you, all “Notice me! Notice me!”’
Nadia giggled. ‘Well, yes. That I can do.’
She twisted at the napkin in her lap.
‘And – I’m sorry for snapping about Ben. He really was just … awful. He used such horrible mind games to make me doubt myself, and make myself smaller. I lost myself to him. I’m glad that relationship happened because fucking hell I learnt so much, but …’ She absentmindedly fiddled with the cloth. ‘He ruined me. My head knows love is real and not all men are so horrible, blah blah blah. But my body. It’s like muscle memory or something. I get tense just hearing his name.’
Emma nodded, understandingly. ‘That’s a thing, you know.’
‘Getting tense at somebody’s name?’
‘Yeah. Muscle memory is a thing. We store trauma in our muscles and that’s why we get pain in our bodies sometimes: it’s old wounds in the fibres of our being.’
Nadia didn’t really understand. Trauma in the fibres of her being? It wasn’t like Awful Ben had hit her or anything; although, one night, in a rage, he had hit himself, and the sound of it – thwack – had scared Nadia into knowing that if she didn’t leave she could be next. It started out as words, accusations and little niggles, but within a few weeks Nadia found she couldn’t breathe properly around him, and yet still felt like she couldn’t end it, that she was somehow bound to him. She was terrified to stay, but even more terrified to leave. She never thought she would be one of ‘those’ women, but it turned out there are no ‘those’ women – only ‘those’ men.
‘Yeah, I know it sounds crazy, but there’s stuff you can do to let your body release like, bad memories. Really, really!’
Emma was exposed to all kinds of stuff through the paper she worked for. She’d once been silent speed dating where she had to do a slow dance to classical music, with a stranger, the only points of their body touching being one finger and with eye contact unbroken. She said it was the most erotic three minutes of her life. Or, another time, she’d ended up at a New Year’s Eve party with an ex-footballer who now sold bagels on the TV, and he offered her a threesome with his fiancée. Emma had said yes.
‘Emma, if this involves a woman fingering me in front of an audience I will actually kill you.’ That was another thing Emma had done – a Yoni love class that meant everyone had their vulva massaged by a teacher wearing a beaded kaftan and latex gloves. It was supposed to cleanse their energy and encourage deeper orgasms. Emma had orgasmed in front of an audience of six other women who’d paid £350 for the half-day workshop and who then afterwards took it in turns to hug her in congratulations.
‘Oh god,’ said Emma, ‘I’d never do that again. I think it was her herbal steam that gave me that recurring thrush, you know. No. This is just lolling about on mats in our Lululemon, but it works! Denise at work did it and said she cried in class and then got on with her life. That she really felt her energy shift. In fact – let me text her for the name.’
Nadia had never known anybody as interested in the ridiculous and the sublime as much as Emma. That was probably why they got on – Emma encouraged Nadia to experiment more, to be a little braver, and Nadia made Emma a little more thoughtful. She smiled at her friend as she texted, and looked out across the restaurant. It was almost full, and she lingered her gaze on a table of City boys across the room. It could be any one of them, she thought, surprising herself in her hopefulness. Literally, if it is for me, the guy who wrote it could be in this very room.
‘That guy could literally be anywhere, couldn’t he?’ she said, as much to herself as to Emma.
‘I’m telling you,’ Emma said, setting her phone back down on the table, screen-side down. ‘Write him back! You’ve got nothing to lose.’
Nadia hesitated. She didn’t. There was nothing to lose. Because if she wrote back and it actually wasn’t meant for her, the only person who would know was him. And they were strangers. Nadia could even laugh it off and say she thought she was writing to somebody else too. And if the guy turned out to be an axe-wielding serial killer who lived with his mother and had voted LEAVE, Nadia could simply deny she was the author of any return note. She could blame Emma. Feign total ignorance.
Emma bent down to her bag. ‘Hold on,’ she said, rustling through her stuff. ‘I’ve got an idea.’
She resurfaced with a notebook and two pens, victorious. Nadia watched her open it on a fresh page, and write in loopy cursive: ‘TRAIN GUY ADVERT’.
‘You’re really going to make me do this, aren’t you?’
‘Yup,’ said Emma, pen poised above the page. A waiter came and topped up their glasses. ‘We’ll have another bottle, please,’ Emma said to him. ‘I think my friend is going to need it.’ Nadia smiled at him weakly.
‘So. I’m thinking you should be direct about this,’ Emma said. ‘His advert contained a compliment, but wasn’t too sickly, and that was cute, right? That hit the right note?’
‘If it was for me,’ Nadia said.
‘If it was for you, his tone was just right, right?’
‘Well, we’re here still talking about it and thinking of writing back to him, so … yes. The boy did good.’
‘The man did good.’
‘Man, yes,’ said Nadia, not realizing how good it felt to make the distinction between man and boy. She was twenty-nine. She should be dating men. ‘And listen, I don’t want to sound too desperate or anything, though, you know? That’s important.’
‘Well, you’re not desperate, is the thing.’ Emma seemed to have a flash of inspiration, and she held up a finger as if to say, hold on! ‘What about …’ Emma started to scribble something down, smiling to herself. The waiter delivered a new bottle and asked if they wanted fresh glasses. Nadia said no, eager to get rid of him, in the nicest possible way, so she could see what Emma was writing. Emma passed the paper over to Nadia, who silently read:
Hey sexy papa, your advert hit my heart so hard it hurt, and I can’t wait for you to hurt me a little more. I’ll bring the whips and chains, and you bring your dazzling charm. Friday night work? Love, the devastatingly