Page 81 of What It's Like in Words
AT WORK,STEFAN WAStraining a Canadian girl called Amber. Amber had a tattoo of a wolf on her wrist, and at lunch, a banker howled. Nice ink, he said, handing her money for the coffee that I had made him. Keep the change, Amber.
Thanks, she said, putting the eighteen pence into the tip jar.
It did feel sad that I was here on my birthday again. Shift work was acceptable in my twenties, but I was thirty now and, according to Amy, should have special paint on my walls. And I still hadn’t heard from Ruth. We always planned our birthdays together. For her thirtieth she had wanted to go to Vegas, but we couldn’t afford it, so we went to the casino in Leicester Square.
At last, the shift ended, and I was hanging up my apron when Virinder charged through the doors. Surprise! I’m taking you for dinner! My stomach dropped. He was dressed in a textured blue suit, and his teeth looked newly whitened.
Amber elbowed me. Is he your boyfriend? she said, hitting the “your” unambiguously. I used to love when people commented on Virinder’s appearance, but now it bothered me, his preplanned meals, the time spent in the bathroom, how he always kept his muscles tensed. I indicated my work clothes and said that I wasn’t dressed for dinner, but he said that didn’t matter.
See you later, girl, Stefan said.
VIRINDER TOOK ME TOa restaurant near Bank with dark walls and lobsters in glowing blue tanks. City couples surrounded us. Women in tight dresses with hair extensions. Men with short haircuts and strong aftershave. I took off my coat, and Virinder pointed out a coffee stain like it was adorable. I wondered how adorable he would think it was if I threw coffee on his shirt.
Happy thirtieth, he said. I’ve always wanted to date an older woman. I smiled, but I hated the joke. I thought about the short, dead, crispy strands of gray in my hair. The women in this restaurant didn’t have gray hair.
Virinder ordered us champagne and said that he hoped that it was okay that he hadn’t got me a present. The meal and the flowers will have to be enough, he said with a wink. Then he added that we had only just had a celebration dinner for my book, verbalizing the letters “LOL.”
I’ve told you before that I don’t like champagne, I said.
I’ve seen you drink champagne lots!
You’ve seen me drink prosecco and slowlysiptheoccasionalglass of champagne.
Well, slowly sip this, then. It’s a hundred a bottle.
When the food arrived, Virinder did most of the talking. He spoke about his brother, who had just had another baby, and reminded me that I had promised to give him some dates for us to visit. Then he talked about how much he wanted children and asked how many I wanted. I hated that. A man would be asked whether he wanted them at all.
I’m not sure I want them, I said.
He told me that his friend Kelly used to say that, but now she has four.Four, he repeated, and laughed. He talked about how he couldn’t wait to propose. He said that he understood feminism, but, for him, he liked the tradition. That will be my surprise, he said. And her surprise will be when she tells me that she is pregnant. He was looking at me like he was talking about me, but he was using the third person. I wondered then if he actually loved me or whether he had just decided to. He told me once that he had broken up with a woman because she wasn’t “the one.”
Virinder, why do you like me?
He laughed. Baby, what?
I told him to tell me the truth. Why do you want to be with me? His smile flattened. He said that I was different from the other girls. That I made him laugh. He liked that I was a writer, and he liked taking care of me.
Then he asked me the same question, and I answered honestly: I loved hearing you talk about India and your family on our first date.I loved how positive you were. I loved how dedicated you were to your career.
Why are you speaking about me like I’m dead?
I told him it was unintentional. He said that he was pleased that I had mentioned India because he hoped to take me there. I asked where he considered home, Mumbai or London. He didn’t pause for breath. London, because I was born here, he answered, like a game show contestant thrilled to have been asked a question they knew the answer to. I moved food around my plate. He asked if the gnocchi was okay. I told him that it was just filling. How’s your steak?
Amazeballs!
We chewed again until the waiter (whose name was Rish, because Virinder asked) cleared the plates. Virinder joked about the way that he was holding them. I’d drop them everywhere! The waiter smiled with blank eyes. Virinder told me that he would give him a generous tip. It’s so important, he said. I screwed my hands into fists and told myself that I just had to get through dinner.
Did you speak to your mum today?
Just get through dinner.
No, Virinder, it’s Friday.
Even on your birthday?
I didn’t acknowledge the question, I just continued drinking champagne. He watched and refilled my water glass. In nine months, I had never seen Virinder drunk. I wanted to fly across the table, slam my knee into his chest, and shove the one-hundred-pound champagne bottle into his mouth.
We ordered dessert, and Virinder asked what I was going to do next with my writing. I told him that I couldn’t think about what was next until I knew whether or not this book was dead. He hummed like he understood, then went into an unrelated anecdote about a guy at work who thought he was interested in corporate law but now works in pensions.
