The Love Square

‘Francesco?’ Stuart said, and Penny realized with mortification that he’d been stood behind the counter watching as all of this happened.

‘Yes mate?’ Francesco replied, not making eye contact with Stuart as he spun back around, instead immediately catching Penny’s eye again, grateful for the excuse to elicit another smile. She had bright red hair piled on top of her head and not a scrap of make-up. She looked tired, like she’d already been in the kitchen for hours, but her cheeks had flushed to make her glow, and her voice, when she’d spoken, had reminded him of something. He felt like he’d met her before, somewhere. He wanted permission to keep staring, to keep looking.

‘Are you seeing anyone?’

That got his attention. Francesco looked to Stuart. ‘Ah, I’m not gay, mate. Sorry.’

Stuart rolled his eyes and motioned towards Penny. ‘Not for me. For her.’ Penny’s eyes widened in horror. ‘The one that’s slack-jawed and dripping over there.’

‘Me?’ Penny squeaked.

‘You’re single?’ Francesco questioned.

Penny looked from Francesco to Stuart, and then back again.

‘Well, yes, but—’

‘Oh. Cool. Well—’

Stuart cut him off by handing him an order pad and pen.

‘Write your number down,’ Stuart commanded.

Francesco laughed. ‘God, there’s no messing around here, is there?’ he laughed. He looked at Penny. ‘Is that … okay? If I do that?’

‘Sure,’ yelped Penny, three octaves higher than she normally spoke. ‘Yes. Okay. Um … awesome. I will … use it. Yes.’ She inexplicably did a thumbs-up mixed with a finger point. Later Stuart would say to her: you were real cool, Pen. Real, real cool.

Francesco scribbled down his digits as Penny glared at Stuart and Stuart supervised Francesco, nodding encouragingly as he handed the slip of paper over to her.

Penny smiled.

Francesco smiled.

They stood, neither of them saying anything.

This stuff doesn’t happen! thought Penny. This stuff doesn’t happen to ME!

‘Okay then,’ said Stuart. ‘This is the bit where you both say goodbye. We’ve got a café to run.’

‘Bye,’ Francesco said, shaking his head as if he couldn’t quite believe it.

‘Bye,’ said Penny, giddy.

‘You’re both very welcome,’ said Stuart, ushering Francesco out. ‘Especially you,’ he added, for Penny’s benefit, winking. When Francesco was out of earshot he added: ‘I told you it could be the very next man to walk through that door.’

‘Well yeah,’ said Penny, lowering her voice, her eyes fixed on Francesco’s bum through the window – she’d have to have been dead not to notice how his jeans hung low on his waist, his boxers peeking over the top. ‘But a man who looks like that – there’s got to be something wrong with him, hasn’t there? Nice guys don’t … swagger.’

Francesco gave one last look back before he got into the bread van. Penny and Stuart each raised a hand to wave at him.

‘Right?’ she prompted Stuart.

‘Put that number into your phone right now, right this second,’ he said. ‘Before you lose it. If there’s something wrong with him, at least find out what it is.’

‘Like that’s not the story of my life,’ Penny replied sceptically, still waving at Francesco and his cute bum.

After service had ended that day and Bridges was closed, Penny sat outside in the unseasonably warm March sunshine. (‘Fake spring’ her uncle called it. ‘There’s three fake springs before May, but don’t be fooled: a week of sun does not a change of season make.’) All day she’d been turning over what had happened that morning in her mind – getting Francesco’s number that way. What did she have to lose by texting him? But then, what if he’d only passed along his number because he was too embarrassed not to? Penny couldn’t quite engage the ‘sod it’ muscles it took to make a move on him. He was gorgeous, though. Really … urgh. She didn’t want to use the word ‘sexy’ but it was the most appropriate one that came to mind. He might be too sexy, thought Penny. If I’m a six out of ten and he’s a nine, he probably wants to date another nine. That’s just hot people maths.

Penny rolled a cigarette from the pouch of tobacco in her lap, using a menthol filter. She knew smoking was bad for her, and yet that was part of the appeal. She let herself have one a day, like Obama apparently did. A good girl doing a bad thing. Lighting it, she simultaneously fished her phone out of her apron, pulling up WhatsApp to send a voice note to her sister Clementine. She held down the record button and slid it up so that it locked, meaning she could talk at length without needing to keep her finger pressed down.

‘So, a thing happened this morning,’ she started, thus beginning the kind of monologue that she and Clementine lovingly called ‘Personal Podcasts’. Clementine was a project manager for Stella McCartney, which meant she was seldom in the country for more than one week at a time before she had to fly off to Tokyo or Helsinki or Milan to oversee the building and fitting of a new store. For the past two years their bond had subsisted mostly on these voice notes recorded and listened to at all hours of the day and night. Sometimes it was easier to be honest about their lives without the other one there – like truths whispered between lovers after dark, when it was simpler to say what needed to be said. In truth, Clementine’s job had brought them closer, even though they were physically far apart.

‘This guy … Oh I don’t know. This is so dumb.’ Penny sucked on her roll-up and exhaled loudly. She explained all about acquiring Francesco’s number and concluded with, ‘I’m going to text him. That’s what I came on to tell you. I’m going to text him because I am a grown woman in charge of herself and it’s not a big deal. That is what he gave it to me for. So I could use it. Which I am going to do. Use it. Me. To text him, Mr Hot Stuff, right now, in a minute.’

She stubbed out her cigarette with the heel of her trainer and gently tucked it into the side of a bay tree at the back door, in amongst all the other butts she told herself she’d ‘collect all at once’ to ‘save time’ but hadn’t done in about six months.

‘Anyway, tell me your news when you can. I know I just made this all about me. But, sisterly entitlement and all that, isn’t it. I just needed to talk myself into being brave. Love you! Send photos from Miami! I am now going to text the handsome man!’

Except, once Penny had sent the voice note, she sat staring at her phone, turning it over in her hand, most definitely not texting Francesco. She stared at the darkening sky and let out a sigh. Cristian hadn’t wanted her. Trevor hadn’t wanted her. The Iraqi estate agent hadn’t wanted her. Why would this guy be any different?

Dare I … she wondered. Images of Cristian playing on the dating app the night before flashed up in her mind, the shame and degradation washing over her once again.

‘Damn it,’ she said, unlocking her phone. She couldn’t get the idea of feedback from another man out of her mind. She thought about it for a minute and then typed:

Oh hey – me again. Penny. I was wondering if I could ask you one thing. Not being weird or anything, but I think there’s something you could help me with?

She was in luck: it came up at the top of the screen that Cristian was online, and then that he was typing back.

… ok??? Cristian replied.

Penny took a breath and decided to just go for it. I saw you playing on Bumble when I was coming back from the bathroom last night, she explained. So obviously you just weren’t that into me. I’m not saying your ex isn’t back in the picture, but even if she isn’t you decided you didn’t fancy me. And that is totally cool! That’s ok!!! But I’ve been really unlucky with dating, and I wondered if there was something I did to mess it up? She hoped she didn’t sound like she was begging him to change his mind. She sent another message: Honestly, I’m not trying to be a bitch or anything. I really am hoping you can solve the mystery (to me) of my eternal singledom!

Cristian is typing, her phone promised, before his reply pinged back.

lol. Soz that u saw that. Not that we r married or anything lol.

Lol, she replied.

Penny hated that she had replied with a ‘lol’. She hated that she was even asking the question. The man couldn’t even spell his texts properly! But if she was going to message Francesco, she wanted information first. She wanted to know how to protect herself. She wanted to make sure that if there was one thing that was turning these men off that she knew, once and for all, what it was, so she could decide if she was willing to change it or not.

Cristian continued: I mean, ur fit and everything, so don’t worry about that.

Thanks. You too!

It took everything she had in her not to add an emoji, but he didn’t deserve the happy face with the jazz hands. Was Cristian always this much of a moron? Penny reflected that they hadn’t really exchanged many messages before they’d gone out together – she’d just straight up asked him out, because it was draining to keep messaging and she didn’t have time in her schedule to waste. He was an eloquent conversationalist – or, at least, she remembered him as one. Although … huh. Now she thought about it, he hadn’t asked her many questions about herself, and he did tend to explain things to her that she already knew, even after she had said she knew them. Bloody hell, maybe I’ve been so desperate to couple up that I willingly got dickmatized, she thought, remembering what her best friend Sharon had said to her about straight women who become hypnotized into forgetting their partner’s flaws at the promise of sex. ‘And it doesn’t even have to be good sex!’ Sharon had insisted. ‘Just a warm body to wake up next to!’ Bugger, thought Penny. Bugger, bugger, bugger.

Penny’s realization was interrupted by his reply.

If I was gonna say anyting maybe your laff is a bit loud

My laugh is too loud?

It’s like confidence and that innit? You don’t mind people looking and that. I like my women a bit more quiet.

Right. I’m too confident?

A bit, yeah. Sorry if I’m affending you or whatever but you asked!

How could Penny be ‘accused’ of being ‘too confident’ when literally her lack of confidence is what meant she was asking this man for feedback about herself in the first place? She started to type a response. At first she tried to make a joke about it, but then she hit the delete button and re-typed outrage at such blatant misogyny instead. She deleted that, too. Penny sat and stared at her phone and tried to reason with what she’d advise anyone else to do. If a friend told her they’d texted a date that didn’t work out to ask for ‘feedback’ what would she say?

She took a breath.

‘Bollocks to this,’ she declared, and swiped left on the message thread to hit ‘delete’. Then she went to contacts and hit the ‘i’ by Cristian’s name, scrolling down to block his number.

‘That’s better!’ she avowed out loud, a feeling of relief washing over her that she might have lost perspective for a moment, but she’d pulled it back from the brink. She certainly wouldn’t be telling Clementine about this slip in judgement. There was nothing wrong with her. If Cristian didn’t fancy her that was, like Stuart had pointed out, Cristian’s problem.

Admittedly, it was a shame that Cristian’s problem left Penny as the one on her own.

She put her phone back into her trouser pocket and stood to go back inside. She wasn’t going to worry about Cristian, and she certainly wasn’t going to get her knickers in a twist over the delivery man from this morning, either, who’d no doubt be yet another in a long string of anticlimaxes. No. It was better to swear off men altogether for a bit. She could always go on another wellness retreat, or buy a new vibrator, instead. Perhaps she’d finally join the Netball team at the leisure centre. Anything but men. Just for a little while. Maybe what she’d said to Stuart was right – that she’d plough on with her life single, and truly start preparing to find a surrogate. At least that way she’d be protected from dating disappointment. Trying to stay hopeful was costing her emotional wellbeing way too much. Couldn’t there be more to life than trying to find a bloody man?

2

‘Well hello, you,’ Penny’s best friend Sharon said in her thick Irish accent as Penny climbed into the backseat of their Uber. ‘Who are you out to impress tonight? You look – well, there’s no other word for it – sensational.’

‘Oh, this old thing?’ Penny asked, putting on a faux-shy voice as she fixed her seatbelt and leaned across to kiss Sharon’s cheek.

Penny revelled in the opportunity to get dressed up. She spent much of her life smelling, as Stuart lovingly joked, like burnt cream and boiled ham, so to shower with her favourite oils, and style her hair and wear a dress that she’d actually taken the time to iron, felt like stepping into a different side of her personality. She was always herself, but in a ruffled red midi dress she’d picked up at one of Stoke Newington’s Church Street boutiques, she felt girlish and pretty, and it was difficult to feel that way in the Crocs and chef’s whites of her day-to-day. She liked reminding herself she could be both versions of Penny.

‘No but seriously,’ said Sharon, getting a proper look at her. ‘I thought you were off men?’

‘What’s that got to do with anything?’

‘Are you telling me you’re not on the pull? That you wore false eyelashes for me?’

Penny reached for her face self-consciously. ‘Is it too much?’

‘No, no,’ Sharon insisted. ‘It’s the perfect amount.’

‘I just wanted to remind myself that I can be cute, when I try.’

‘You’re cute all the time!’ asserted Sharon.

‘You know what I mean,’ Penny said. ‘It’s not often I go out somewhere so fancy on a school night.’

‘You look gorgeous and if you wanted to tell me the same I wouldn’t be offended.’

Penny laughed. This is why she found it so easy to be around her – Sharon was fun and to-the-point and never took anything too seriously.

‘Sharon!’ she said, as if only now seeing her for the first time. ‘Look at you! You’re a knock-out!’

‘Why, thank you.’ Sharon pushed her forearms under her boobs to emphasize the low cut of her top.

‘I hope you’ve checked those things lately,’ Penny prompted, as the driver looked at them both in the rearview mirror.

Sharon nodded. ‘Once a month, in the shower, like you taught me,’ she replied.

Penny winked at her.

Sharon lived around the corner from the café with her partner and two kids in a Victorian terrace her parents bought for £260,000 twelve years ago, and was now, aided by London inflation, worth a cool £1.2 million. Sharon used to work in FinTech – financial technology – but gave it all up when she had kids to become a florist, age thirty-nine. She was talented, and did the flowers for Bridges. That’s how Penny had met her two years ago now.

‘I’m excited,’ Penny told Sharon as they arrived, joining the queue at coat check and rifling through their handbags for change to tip the porter. The women had been invited to the soft opening of a new restaurant in Notting Hill called Ecclesiast. Dofi, a colleague from Penny’s days at Grayshott Hall – the first ‘proper’ kitchen job after culinary school for them both – had gone out on her own finally. Penny had been just as ambitious as Dofi once, but after the cancer her priorities had shifted. A little North London café was one thing, but Penny knew a whole restaurant that did lunch and dinner, could turn a hundred and fifty covers a day, employed scores of people and was probably vying for a Michelin Star, was quite another. Penny was able to be genuinely happy for Dofi though, because – perpetual singleness aside – Penny was actually really in love with how she’d set up her own life, too. They both had businesses that were right for them.

‘Huh. I was sure I’d put some pound coins in here,’ Penny muttered, absentmindedly still searching her through her clutch. ‘Have you got two quid?’

A voice boomed over her shoulder as she looked through her bag one last time: ‘Just these two please, Darius.’ As a man passed two coats to the coat-check attendant, one brushed Penny’s bag, tipping it out of her hands and onto the floor.

She crouched down without thinking to collect the spilled contents before they were trampled on, as Sharon bristled, ‘Hey, excuse you! I think you owe my friend an apology, sir!’ She said the ‘sir’ sarcastically, making it clear the man who’d barged past them was anything but a gentleman. Good old Sharon.

Penny stood as the perpetrator turned to face them.

‘I’m so sorry, I didn’t see—’ the man started, a slightly odd melody to his words, like maybe English was his second language.

‘Oh!’ said Penny in surprise. ‘I know you!’

In front of her was the bread delivery guy who’d been in the café the other week – still handsome, but cheeks flushed now. Penny literally saw his recognition of her rise up to his eyes just seconds after she’d recognized him.

‘Hello,’ he said, coolly, obviously taken aback to see her. ‘I’m sorry about that. My spatial awareness obviously needs some work.’

‘No,’ Penny insisted, trying to sound kind and friendly. She didn’t want him to feel uncomfortable at the sight of her when it was he who’d been brave by giving her his number. ‘It was me – I wasn’t looking where I was stood. I was looking for change. I’m sorry.’

God, that face. Francesco’s face. And his voice, too – his voice gave Penny’s body a physical reaction. Her nipples bristled under her dress. Her breathing changed. Why hadn’t she texted him?

Francesco nodded, his face impassive. Penny couldn’t get a read on him. The friend beside him said, ‘Do you guys need tip money? I’ve got change.’

Sharon held out her palm to reveal two coins. ‘We’ve sorted it,’ she said. ‘I found some in my bag.’ Penny could tell she was waiting to have the situation explained to her – how everyone knew one another.

There was a pause as Penny and Francesco took each other in, neither really smiling or frowning, just looking, both wondering what to say.

‘I didn’t text,’ Penny settled on, right as Francesco said, ‘Well, have a great night. This should be really good.’

‘Oh,’ said Penny. ‘Yes.’

‘Don’t worry about it.’

‘I’m sorry,’ Penny faltered.

‘What did you do?’ asked Sharon, looking between them, confused.

‘Enjoy your night,’ said Francesco’s friend. It all happened so fast. Francesco was already walking towards the dining room to be greeted by the hostess before Penny could think of anything to say to keep him chatting. She watched him go. The friend half-smiled at them and turned away himself.

‘Ahhh,’ Penny moaned, scrunching up her face.

‘What was that?’ probed Sharon. ‘Or rather, who was that?’

‘Oh god. He came in the café a couple of weeks ago and Stuart told him to leave his number for me but I didn’t use it. I think he was a bit embarrassed. Like I’d stood him up or something. I wonder why he’s here, and how he knows Dofi.’

‘Well,’ said Sharon, taking Penny’s coat from her for the porter. ‘You’d be embarrassed, too, wouldn’t you? If you hit on him and he said he’d call and then he changed his mind.’ She slid the tip money across the counter. ‘I mean, nobody died, but still. Even my ego would be bruised over that.’

‘I know,’ Penny said. She was still watching the space where Francesco had stood. He was even more attractive than she’d remembered. She felt awful that he’d seemed so awkward. Had she been awkward? She’d definitely been awkward.

‘Is there a reason you didn’t text him?’ Sharon said, following her gaze. ‘Because, if you don’t mind my saying so, that seems a little short-sighted. He’s …’

Penny exhaled through her nostrils loudly. ‘Yeah. He is.’ Then she added: ‘There was a reason. Like I said, and, may I remind you, you agreed it was a sound idea – I’m not doing men right now, am I?’

‘I’d do that one, though,’ snickered Sharon, raising her eyebrows suggestively, and Penny gave her a playful shove.

‘Do you think he’s too handsome?’ Penny asked, letting the waiter unroll her napkin and place it on her lap. ‘Look at him. A man like that could rely on his face for his whole life, never having to develop a personality.’

‘I definitely don’t think a man like that is a riot in the sack, put it that way. I’ll bet he’s never had to even try to get a woman into bed,’ Sharon mused.

She stabbed at the sharing plate between them.

‘The best ones are like my Luke. He didn’t become hot until he was twenty-nine and grew into his lanky frame and started to see a proper barber. Before that he was so unlucky in love that he didn’t have sex until he was twenty-five. Not even third base. He was a proper Chris Martin type. Don’t tell him I told you that.’

‘Luke lost his virginity at twenty-five?’ Penny said, amazed. ‘How old was he when you met him?’

‘Thirty-one. But because he’d never been hot, he worked really hard at sex and it was all about me. You know how with some men it’s like, the script is three minutes kissing, one minute rubbing over your trousers, two minutes oral and then he sticks it in until he comes, because that’s the objective? That he comes?’

‘Depressingly, the answer to that question is yes.’

‘Not with Luke. He’d be down there all afternoon if I asked him to. Just wants me to have a good time. And from the second or third time we were together I realized I was coming harder with him than anyone before because it never felt like a rush. He wasn’t getting my pleasure out of the way so that he could get his own. It was as if just having me naked was the pleasure for him. I suppose because for fifteen years he didn’t really have that.’

‘Awwww! All he wanted was a naked woman in his bed and then he got you! I can’t believe I didn’t know all this!’

‘Ah,’ whispered Sharon. ‘I don’t like to brag.’

‘Yes you do,’ teased Penny.

‘Yeah,’ laughed Sharon. ‘I do.’

Penny kept stealing glances back in the direction of Francesco as they chatted, so much so that she’d angled her chair in a way that meant she didn’t have her back to him. She was sure he was looking at her, too.

Penny couldn’t believe what had happened in the café that morning. It was so conflicting – theoretically, she knew she was worthy of being loved, or at least fancied, but in practice she was so utterly petrified of it. She was terrified of being let down, yet again. Because there always seemed to be an ‘again’. And another. And another. But then, how she felt seeing Francesco this second time, how silly and nervous and electrified she felt in his presence – it was a hell of a rush. There was no way she was imagining the connection. Not now she’d felt it twice. It was this exact feeling that always made her reason, okay. One more shot at hope. Why not?

‘Two things,’ Sharon said. ‘First: you’re going to hurt your neck if you keep straining to see that guy. Second: try the watermelon and pecorino salad. It is very, very good.’ She waved her fork into the air in the direction of the dish closest to her.

‘I told you Dofi knew what she was doing,’ Penny said, reaching over. ‘I mean, everything is just magnificent, isn’t it? So good. She taught me a lot of what I know about pairing flavours.’

‘You need to do something like this at the café,’ Sharon insisted, going in for more. ‘I’d be there every day for it.’

Penny took a forkful and turned in Francesco’s direction again as she chewed.

She couldn’t help herself.

‘Okay,’ said Penny. ‘Take two. I’m going to go and talk to him. You’ve convinced me.’