‘Yeah,’ I agreed weakly. ‘That’s me.’
She lifted her head slightly to examine me, an expression I knew only too well.
‘You still haven’t really explained what happened. Did you quit? Was it layoffs?’
‘I was ready to come home,’ I said, also ready to draw a line under the conversation. ‘It’s a long, boring story, not worth the waste of breath.’
She gave me a sideways glance as her wine arrived. Sumi, ever the lawyer, knew when a case was closed.
‘Your mum and dad must be thrilled to have you home?’
‘They’re making me live in a shed.’
Sumi’s eyes lit up. ‘I have many follow-up questions.’
‘You may not ask them,’ I replied. ‘But you can help me set up my new phone if you like.’
I pulled a sexy black slab out of my bag and modelled it with my best game show hostess hand movements while my friend contributed the appropriate ‘oohs’ and ‘ahhs’. Even though I couldn’t really afford it, I had to have a phone. I’d had a work one in DC and the moment I’d handed it back in, it was like having my arm cut off. The ancient handset I’d been using in the interim was so slow, it would have been easier to send my friends telegrams than it was to text.
‘My phone is so old you practically have to put twenty pence in the back to make a call,’ Sumi muttered, admiring my new technology. ‘But I can’t face learning how to use a new one. I’ve gone full Luddite.’
‘Oh, I’ve got no idea how to use it but look how pretty it is.’ I gazed lovingly into the glossy screen and blinked with delight as it unlocked itself, opening up the home screen. ‘Look at that! I didn’t even have to press anything.’
‘Facial recognition,’ she said darkly. ‘Another reason not to upgrade, I don’t need the Russians saving my face to some mad database.’
‘Why the Russians?’ I asked, peering at the virgin, unscratched screen. So beautiful.
‘It’s always the Russians,’ Sumi said, a knowing look on her face. ‘The Russians or Mark Zuckerberg. Or both. In fact, do we even know he’s not Russian?’
‘Yes, Sumi,’ I replied, holding my phone at a safe distance and studying it carefully. ‘We do.’
My sister, Jo, could pick up any item of technology and, within three seconds, she’d have a gluten-free, vegan pizza on its way, her favourite music playing through an unseen speaker and five potential dates lined up for the weekend, all while checking her blood pressure and livestreaming footage from the Mars Rover. I had to work a little bit harder. The woman in the shop had set up the basics but I was going to have to figure out the rest for myself. For the last three years, I’d had to listen to all my albums on shuffle because I was too embarrassed to ask anyone how to turn it off.
Sumi took a deep swig of her wine and sighed with pleasure. ‘Have you downloaded the apps yet?’
‘Give me a break. I’ve had the phone for half an hour, this is the first time I’ve looked at it since I left the shop,’ I replied, sighing at her impatience before casting my eyes towards the floor in shame. ‘I downloaded Tinder.’
She pulled a bowl of snack mix down the bar and began popping peanuts into her mouth as her eyebrows wiggled up and down suggestively. Free snacks on the bar were definitely a plus point for this place.
‘Don’t get excited,’ I warned. ‘I downloaded it, that’s all, I didn’t activate my profile. I think I should probably find a job before I start looking for a shag.’
‘Absolutely, one hundred percent agreed, you’ll hear no arguments from me,’ Sumi said right before she grabbed my phone, held it up in front of my surprised face, swiped, tapped and, five seconds later, my Tinder profile was reactivated.
‘You’re a monster,’ I told her as she sat beside me, swiping through my options. Dozens of different faces gazed up at us, a smorgasbord of available men just waiting to be tapped. ‘You know I’ve never had any luck on the apps, no one does, it’s totally pointless. Besides, I’m not ready.’
‘I met Jemima on an app, Lucy met Creepy Dave on an app,’ Sumi reminded me, as though invoking Creepy Dave might help her argument. ‘Look at your pictures, they’re amazing! You look fit and nice and not like a complete arsehole. That’s Tinder gold.’
‘Thanks.’ I cringed at a clearly staged photo of me with my mouth open laughing at absolutely nothing. ‘Fat lot of good they’ve done me so far.’
‘No bites?’
‘The last date I went on arrived thirty minutes late, dripping in sweat, wearing his running gear and, because that wasn’t bad enough, his knob kept falling out of his shorts.’
‘If his knob was big enough to fall out of his shorts, you might have been a bit more understanding,’ Sumi, a lesbian who had literally never even touched a penis, suggested.
I reached across her to nix a photo of a white man proudly displaying his dreadlocks. Immediate red flag.
‘And if his mum hadn’t been waiting for him outside the bar, I might have been.’
‘Maybe his mum was an Uber driver who needed some practice?’
‘Maybe he was the next Norman Bates?’
Sumi frowned at London’s love offerings. Man with a baby tiger, man skydiving, man on top of a mountain. Man on top of a mountain holding a baby tiger immediately after skydiving.
‘I know you’re going to tell me you’re too busy to be in a relationship right now but I do think a good shag would sort you right out,’ she said, causing the man sitting to my right to choke on his gin and tonic. ‘It’s good to clear out the cobwebs, you know?’
‘I’m not against the idea of being a relationship,’ I told her, politely pretending not to notice as my seat neighbour sopped up his drink with several napkins. ‘I’m against the idea of dating. I don’t have the time or energy to waste drinking overpriced cocktails with people I never want to see again.’
‘Oh, of course,’ Sumi agreed innocently. ‘Because you’re so busy living in your parents’ shed not working?’
‘Put that down as my headline,’ I told her, catching my own eye in the mirror behind the bar. I looked tired. ‘I do want to find someone, eventually. No one wants to be the weird single friend that shows up to family parties in last night’s eyeliner and scares the children, but it’s too much right now.’
‘But a good first date is the best.’ Her eyes sparkled as she gazed into a memory. ‘All the laughing and talking and finding reasons to touch each other, wondering who’s going to make the first move, wondering if they’ll ask you out again, wondering when they’re going to text …’
Sumi’s first dates sounded as though they’d been a lot more fun than any of mine. ‘That sounds great,’ I said, giving her a look. ‘But Frasier isn’t going to rewatch itself, is it?’
Her smile softened into something more understanding. ‘I think you need to get back on the horse. I think you might have forgotten how much fun horses can be, if you give them a chance.’
‘All the horses I ever rode were destined for the glue factory,’ I reminded her.
‘To new horses,’ she said, tapping her glass against mine. ‘Sexy, clever horses with their own teeth, financial stability and a home that isn’t a shed.’
‘What about a stable?’ I suggested.
‘Only