She called up one of his portfolio photos. He was leaning with one hand on a doorframe, wearing a slim-fitting long-sleeved T-shirt that emphasised the lean lines of his body. He was smiling just enough to dig a crease in his left cheek. He looked as if he was about to start a conversation, or reach out and touch the observer.
He looked nearly exactly as he’d looked when he’d stood outside the ladies’ room, talking with her.
Rationally, she knew it meant he’d been acting. But the familiar pose still made her warm, made her breath come faster.
‘Oh, crap,’ she moaned. ‘Why did I decide it would be a good thing to date a model?’
Her laptop made a ‘whishht’ sound and a little box popped up in the corner of the screen to tell her that Jonny Cole had logged into the chat program they sometimes used.
He’d probably emailed her earlier; he emailed her just about every day. But she’d been so busy this morning and this afternoon after lunch that she hadn’t had time to check any personal stuff, and whatever he’d sent was most likely buried in her inbox. And of course since she’d got home she’d been angsting.
But Jonny would calm her down. She opened her email application and began to scroll through messages, looking for his return address. Most of the stuff she had that wasn’t work-related was spam about stock tips and enlarging her penis. How she was supposed to find the single message that actually meant something …
Her laptop chimed. A glance told her it was Jonny hailing her. She abandoned her inbox and clicked on the chat icon.
Hello gorgeous! How are you?
She could see Jonny’s message appearing as he typed. Jane hadn’t seen Jonny in person for fifteen years, but she could remember well what he used to look like when they were kids and he would come over to her house nearly every day to play. He’d been a skinny boy with a brown bowl cut, knobbly knees, and round glasses. He was a lot more fragile than her four older, boisterous brothers; at times, his shyness had made him seem even more fragile than Jane was herself. Jane was used to being around bigger boys, but Jonny always liked hanging around with her more than with her brothers.
Whenever she pictured him now, at twenty-seven, she thought of him as a skinny man with the same bowl cut and round glasses, sort of like a grown-up Harry Potter. He was a self-described computer geek, but she bet he was cute.
It was typical of him that he called her ‘gorgeous’. Of course, he hadn’t seen her in fifteen years, either.
Before she replied, Jane glanced down at herself. She wore the skirt of her brown suit, and a shell top. Her light daily make-up had probably worn off, and her plain brown hair was pulled back into a clip, as usual.
She looked businesslike. She wasn’t gorgeous. She typed back:
Hey Jonny. I’m fine.
Liar.
The reply came back lightning-fast, so quickly it made her gasp in the empty room.
Jay had said nearly the same thing.
Suddenly Jane was blinking back tears. She’d fought and fought for the past few days to act as if everything was okay, as if she had no worries. She was sick of it. Surrounded all day, every day, by people who wanted her at peak efficiency, who didn’t want to know how she felt, and when she came home, she was all alone. She didn’t even have anywhere comfortable to sit because Gary had taken his couch.
Gary and I broke up.
She typed and sent it before she could think better of it. And then she did think better of it, and wrote the more honest truth:
Gary left me for another woman.
It was a moment before Jonny replied.
I understand. I’m sorry, Jane.
He’s a bastard.
Well, that goes without saying.
And she’s a waitress with bad shoes.
Again, a slight pause before Jonny wrote back.
Why does her job make a difference?
Because I’ve worked so hard to be a success, to be good at my job, and Gary was proud of me. He said he was proud of me. And then he leaves me for somebody who comes home every night smelling of other people’s food?
As soon as she typed it, the answer felt inadequate, but she didn’t think she was going to get much closer to the truth typing into a silly little box, so she sent it.
I was wondering about the shoes, but now I think I get it. You’re saying she doesn’t even have good taste and it feels unfair.
It’s mostly because Gary wears these Italian shoes and I had some comfortable slippers I used to wear around the house and he kept on commenting about them until I had to throw them away. I’ve never found another pair that was so comfortable. How come it’s okay for her to wear crappy shoes and I can’t even keep my slippers?
Her fingers were flying over the keyboard and Jane didn’t feel like crying any more. Instead, she felt lighter. It was a huge relief to say what she was thinking to somebody who wouldn’t judge her and who tried to understand, even if it was via a computer and a network, even if it was to someone whom she never saw in person. She hit ‘send’ and started typing again immediately, without even taking a breath.
So now I’ve got this date tonight with this gorgeous model person and I don’t know what to do.
It’s a date?
Jonny’s reply came back fast as thought.
Yes. And I don’t know what to do.
Excuse me for a moment, while I run around the room whooping in joy.
Jane laughed out loud. She loved Jonny’s sense of humour, and it was typical of him that he was so happy for her that she had a date.
Okay, I’m back. I think I scared the neighbours. So what do you mean, you don’t know what to do?
Jane sighed.
I haven’t dated for ages. I’m not sure how you behave. Even with Gary, we didn’t really date … we were working together and we just sort of got together. I’m not sure I know what to do with a man.
I’m sure you know perfectly well.
She glanced down at herself again. Plain Jane, career woman with no social life. She couldn’t even keep a man faithful to her when she was engaged to him.
She understood men, she thought. She’d grown up with four brothers, after all. Most of her colleagues at work were male. She’d always thought that men were refreshing, because they usually said what they meant, and the motivations for their actions were usually pretty clear.
But when it came to relationships, she obviously didn’t have a clue. Because she’d thought that everything with Gary was fine, right up until the minute he’d introduced her to his new girlfriend. She wrote:
I don’t know what men like in a woman. I’m not sure what they think is sexy, or what they’d like a woman to do on a date.
She pressed ‘send’, and then, in one of her impulses, her second today, she typed:
Tell me