“Fun?” Sophie smirks.
“No,” I say flatly, pulling on my headphones and glancing at the empty desk next to me with a sudden sense of foreboding. No Ronald. No rubber plant. Except on some level I’m watching for them, waiting for them, and it suddenly hits me that I’m allowing my life to fall back into exactly the same shape it was the first time round: gravitating toward familiarity and repetition, the way I always do. Encouraging the sameness, because even when it’s awful, I still like it more than change. Slipping back into time as if it’s an old pair of comfy slippers I refuse to throw away, even though they’re not even that comfortable anymore and my toes are sticking out and getting cold.
And this wasn’t the point of what it is I’m trying to do.
I’m supposed to be taking risks, making changes, and if I don’t—if I simply wrap myself in the comfort of a timeline I already know—I’ll just end up where I was at the beginning, and I’ll have wasted my time.
Worse: I’ll have wasted all of them.
Swallowing, I get out my phone.
Hi Will. It’s Cassie. Would you like a drink
sometime?
In my original timeline, Will texted me first. I waited, and checked my phone fifteen times an hour, and then I assumed I’d read the entire situation wrong and gave up. Except maybe that was the start of our failure to connect: me, failing to take the initiative. Me, being too cautious, lacking spontaneity or impulsivity. Me, reading things wrong and processing the world fifty times too slow.
Maybe love prefers to be eaten warm, like biscuits out of the oven.
My phone pings.
I’d love a drink! You free tonight? Xx
And obviously my answer is no. My answer is: I have never in my entire life been free tonight, because if we haven’t arranged it days in advance and I haven’t spent the day mentally preparing myself for social interaction, I am not coming.
Your poorly arranged plans are of no interest to me.
Except, last time all my dates with Will were subjected to my schedules and itineraries—a color-coordinated calendar, shared across emails—and now I’m starting to wonder if that doesn’t rip the romance out of a blossoming relationship somewhat. From a boyfriend’s perspective, I can see it might be difficult to connect with a woman who needs advance warning in writing before any interaction can take place, like applying to the council to build an extension.
Icarus may have ignored warnings and flown too close to the sun—culminating in a flaming, drowning ball of feathers—but at least he leaped. I’d have been stuck in that Cretan tower forever: planning flight paths, double-checking the fortnight’s weather conditions and laminating blueprints.
It’s time to be brave, so this time I type:
Sure thing! Where? Xx
14
I spend the rest of the day on Google.
With one work document open so I can flick to it whenever Barry walks past, I search for answers the way I always do: not in the fundamentally biased advice of nearby loved ones—largely because I don’t actually have any—but in the reassuringly objective words of billions of people I have never met and don’t particularly want to meet.
That kind of collective impartiality results in data I can really trust.
Swiveling my screen so nobody can see it, I type:
How Do I Connect
There’s a lot of information about hooking up my phone to my TV, so I try again.
How Do I Connect With Humans
Now I sound like an alien, so I try a third time:
How Do I Connect With Other People
And...jackpot.
Within 0.66 seconds there are 11,560,000,000 results, which is comforting. I am clearly not the only person who finds bonding difficult. In fact, with those stats I’d argue that the real mystery is whether there is anyone left who doesn’t.
With a pad and a pen, I make a neat list, highlight the important bits and pop it in my bag: if I need a prompt I can always pretend I’m looking for a lipstick. The clock hits five and—slightly self-consciously—I run a hand through the front of my hair, undo a top button on my jumpsuit and attempt to make myself look like a sexy, desirable human woman who hasn’t spent the entire day researching the fundamentals of basic communication.
“Date?” Sophie asks as I turn my computer off.
“Seventh of June,” I reply, slinging my bag over my shoulder, and I’m three floors down before I realize what she meant.
According to the internet, you are supposed to start a date by Smiling With Your Whole Heart, which would be tricky even if it wasn’t literally impossible: my face doesn’t really move much, no matter how I feel. Happiness and sadness and anger and period pain all look much the same for Cassandra Penelope Dankworth; I am a remarkably consistent creature, and will probably age quite well.
But the moment I see Will, I still feel my face stretch into a wide, genuine smile; maybe because he’s beaming at me too.
“Hello.” Will leans forward to kiss my cheek. “Are they closed?”
He smells so calm, of something foresty and cool, and I quickly have to remind myself that this is our first date, we’re not actually four months into a relationship, we haven’t had sex yet and I’m definitely not allowed to wrap my arms and legs around him like Scylla and drag him to the bottom of the ocean.
“No.” I put my tissue back in my bag and move away from the little keyhole I rubbed in the pub window so I could see inside. “I just wanted to see what it looked like before I went in. I’ve never been here before.”
By moving the date forward, I’ve also somehow changed the venue. Our first date was brunch this Saturday, but now it’s Thursday evening we’re in a pub. I’m feeling lost, and slightly wishing I’d spent thirty fewer minutes looking up How to Bond Better and a little more time looking up exactly where I would be attempting it.
“Me neither.” Will smiles, throwing all his weight against the heavy wooden door. “My work colleague said it would be nice and quiet, though. So I guess it’ll be an adventure for both of us!”
Will’s positivity is one of my favorite things about him. I love the way he makes everything feel exciting. It doesn’t matter if it’s a trip to a DIY shop to pick up grout whitener or a five-day trek across the Andes to find spectacled bears, Will approaches life like it’s the start of the Odyssey and he can’t wait to get cracking. I suddenly feel quite proud. I guess trying out a brand-new pub without researching it in detail first is a bit like meeting him halfway. I am truly trying to Compromise, just like the bossy random strangers online told me to.
“Where works?” Will gestures around the room with a gracious hand. “You pick. I’ll go grab us some drinks. What would you like?”
Scanning as fast as I can, I attempt to assess every potential spot.
One table is too close to the front door (disruptive), another too close to the toilet (smelly); one is far too near a group of loud, braying men in suits (noisy, smelly, disruptive and also really irritating). One table faces the window (bright) and I take strongly against one because of the shape of the chairs (Gothic, prone to collecting dirt). I frown. Everything is a little bit...scabby. Sticky. At times like this, I can see both why I was nicknamed Goldilocks at school and also why it wasn’t a term of affection. (“Cassandra must stop being such a fusspot.”)
“There,” I decide, pointing to a dank corner.
“Then I’ll grab a candle too,” Will responds cheerfully. “So we can actually see each other’s faces. What would you like?”
“Hang on.” I sit down at my chosen table, then realize there’s an air vent blowing straight down on top of me. “Sorry, I’m going to have to choose again.”
Standing up, I hover for a few seconds around each available table like a bee collecting nectar. One seems good but on further investigation is too near a fridge, and I can feel the low drone of it like a finger running down the back of my neck. I won’t be able to focus on a single word Will says, and Listen Properly is very high on the list currently sitting in my handbag.
“Cassandra?” Will says, watching me with a small smile. “Drink?”
“Oh.” I choose a table and sit down. “Red wine, please.”
Luckily, I made that decision years ago: partly so at least one element of social activity would always be reliably consistent, and also to make the entire process a little bit simpler. Will grins, nods and strides over to the bar, so I make the most of his absence to double-check the list. Most of it is self-explanatory: normal human rules. Smile. Listen. Ask questions. Don’t talk about yourself all the time. Make eye contact. Don’t act as if you know everything. Don’t correct people with a very apparent sense of satisfaction. Focus. Be open. Give compliments. Remember what they’ve told you.
Some of which comes naturally to me, and some of which does not.