‘Whatcha reading?’ Eddie said, sneaking up behind Nadia and kissing her cheek as she sat at the bar of the Dean Street Townhouse, nursing an oatmilk latte. The weather had turned colder that late September week, forcing the population of London to switch from light jackets to lined macs, and open-toed sandals to ankle boots with socks. As Nadia had walked across Blackfriars Bridge and up past Somerset House and through Covent Garden, she’d gradually caught a chill on her bare legs that meant by the time she’d got to Soho she needed warming right through. As she’d supped at her coffee she already had a sneaking suspicion that it was too late, that she’d wake up sick tomorrow morning. She really hoped not. She was the grumpiest sick person in the world.
‘Gah!’ she said, flicking the newspaper closed guiltily.
Eddie slid into the spot next to her. ‘I’ve never seen somebody so embarrassed to be caught reading the paper,’ he said, good-naturedly. ‘Were you reading the Missed Connections section again? You’re obsessed!’
Nadia grimaced, trying to look playful. It was true, she did still check the Missed Connections, just in case. (In case of what? she thought. In case some random guy wants to stand me up again?)
‘I just think it’s romantic,’ she said to him, sliding the paper away from her.
‘I think having the courage to chat up a beautiful woman sat alone at a bar is romantic,’ said Eddie, opening the drinks menu. He looked across to her and winked. He liked sitting side by side with her at a bar – it felt like ‘their’ thing, since that’s how they’d met.
Eddie closed the drinks menu again, without ordering, and said, ‘I want to say something. And I don’t think you’re going to like it.’ He looked as though he was in pain – his face was screwed up funny. Nadia had never seen him like this before.
‘Oh yeah?’ replied Nadia.
‘Yeah,’ said Eddie.
She looked at him expectantly.
‘I like you, Nadia. You know that, right? I liked you right from the moment you gave me a hard time when I sat down beside you that night.’
‘I like you too,’ Nadia said.
‘Well. You see, that’s the thing.’
Nadia creased her eyebrows together, struggling to follow.
‘I’m not sure that you do,’ Eddie said.
Nadia didn’t understand. Of course she liked him! They’d spent most of their spare time together for almost two months now. They laughed and cooked and did all the things that couples do. She thought he was fun! A fun, nice guy!
‘Why on earth would you think I don’t like you?’ Nadia said, bewildered.
Eddie stumbled over his words. ‘Maybe I didn’t say that properly. I mean, of course you like me. But I mean – sometimes it feels like you’re … distant.’
‘Distant?’
‘Distant. Like you’re with me, but your mind is somewhere else. I feel like we get on, and have a nice time, but I always thought … I supposed I always thought being with somebody would feel different, you know? Deeper, somehow. I feel like what we have here, it’s fun, and it works, but it’s not …’
‘Deep?’
‘… Yeah.’
Nadia didn’t miss a beat. She knew what this meant. She knew by the way he hadn’t actually taken off his coat, now she thought about it, that he was breaking up with her.
‘So this is it?’ she said.
Eddie shrugged. ‘I didn’t mean for it to be. But I’ve been thinking about it – I can’t lie. I feel like I’ve kind of put it all out there, Nadia – given you all of me, and I don’t get all of you back. It’s a bit embarrassing.’
Nadia reached out to touch his arm. ‘But babe,’ she said. ‘I told you. My ex, he was … I’m trying, okay? I’m really happy with you.’
Eddie narrowed his eyes at her, as if trying to read the spaces between her words. ‘But could you be happier? With somebody else? Because …’
He wasn’t finishing any of his sentences properly. ‘Because you think that you could be?’ Nadia supplied, and Eddie nodded.
Nadia didn’t know what to think. There wasn’t a huge bodily reaction to what Eddie was saying – she didn’t want to throw up, or cry. But her ego was bruised by it. Because what he was saying was that she wasn’t enough. And all her old doubts and insecurities flooded back to her, about how she was never enough, about how no man ever truly wanted her, how she wasn’t as easy to love as other women.
‘I don’t know what to say.’
Eddie half smiled. ‘I guess what I wanted to know is: is there somebody else? Or, do you wish there was? Because I don’t feel like enough for you.’
He didn’t feel like he was enough for her? But wasn’t he saying she was the one lacking? Before she spoke, her tummy did a little leap as she thought: Train Guy. Those notes back and forth that there had been, the anticipation she’d had – it had been exciting. But it was nothing – Eddie was an actual real person, whom she’d talked to directly and slept with and made plans with. She wanted more time to decide, was all. Needed more time to fall for him. She could, if she tried. She was sure she could.
‘There’s nobody else, of course there isn’t!’ Nadia said. ‘Eddie, I’m having a really great time with you.’
Eddie nodded. ‘Okay then,’ he said. ‘Well, I’ve told you how I feel.’
‘So what now?’
‘So, let’s go home, and eat, and keep enjoying this.’
‘Even though you think you’d be happier with somebody else?’
Eddie looked at her. ‘I guess I just wanted some reassurance, is all,’ he said. ‘I’m falling for you, Nadia.’
Nadia took a breath. He was falling for her. She was enough. That felt good to hear. She needed him to fall for her. She needed to know for sure that she was enough. And she’d feel the same soon. Time. She just needed time.
‘So … we’re going to keep doing … this?’ she said.
‘If you want to,’ Eddie replied, and Nadia did. She really, truly, desperately wanted to feel as deeply as Eddie did. She wanted to fall for this good, good man. She wanted to make him happy. She wanted to be happy herself.
‘Let’s pay and go,’ she said, reaching for her bag. ‘I just need to find my card.’ She rooted around for her wallet, lost in the depths of her navy leather bag. She felt the edges of a plastic rectangle. ‘Got it,’ she said, triumphantly. She half wondered why her card wasn’t in her wallet and when she fished it out she saw why. It wasn’t her card. It was the card from that night – the one that said D E WEISSMAN. She’d forgotten she had that – his card from that night. She dropped it back into her bag like it was on fire, and Eddie said. ‘I can get it, babe. Ça va sans dire.’
‘Savva what?’ Nadia said.
‘Ça va sans dire. It’s French. It means, “it goes without saying”.’
‘I have literally never heard that used in conversation in my life.’
‘A lot of people haven’t. But don’t you think it sounds classy? Ça va sans dire …’
Nadia cocked her head at him. She thought it sounded pretentious, and suddenly, in that moment, everything about him bothered her. His stupid phrase and his stupid jacket and his stupid kindness and honesty.
‘But like,’ she said, pushing the issue, ‘if a lot of people don’t know what it means, why say it?’
‘Because I like it,’ he countered. The barman held out the card machine and Eddie tapped his card against it.
‘But, wouldn’t you rather be clear in your communication? It’s like you’re using it to be deliberately confusing. So that people ask you what it means and you get to tell them.’
Eddie laughed, nonplussed by her tone. ‘What’s wrong with that? I get to teach them something.’
‘But it’s showing off.’
‘It’s not.’ That’s all he said. It’s not. And typically, that’s why Nadia had respected him: Eddie knew who he was and what his values were, and wasn’t swayed by what other people thought. And just like that Nadia went from desperate to hope and to try with this man beside her, to angry. Irrationally angry. She knew, frustratingly, that she was better than this. She knew, in the blood pumping through her pissed-off veins, that she had let herself down because she should have been honest with him. Should have told him that she did think of somebody else, was holding a part of herself back. She had continued to see this man because she had been lonely, and on some level thought this was all she was worth – an almost. She was so mad at herself! She knew, she fucking knew, that it was better to be alone than with the wrong guy. And she had tried with Eddie. Even if she hadn’t explicitly known he was the wrong guy, in her gut she knew he wasn’t the right one. Two months was enough to know. It was inconvenient to acknowledge that, but it was true.
Outside, Eddie said, ‘What is wrong with you?’ and Nadia turned to him and said, ‘You’re right, aren’t you? This isn’t working.’
Eddie’s mouth opened and closed. ‘Literally I tried to break up with you for your sake five minutes ago and you got me to give it another chance, and now you’re breaking up with me?’
Nadia looked at him. She felt like a grade A bitch. She hadn’t meant to string him along. She hadn’t meant any of this. She felt ashamed, then – ashamed to have acted less than her best self. It was at that moment that a familiar shape caught her eye, and even though Eddie was stood before her wanting a response, she was distracted. It’s Gaby! she thought. She was so relieved to see her. She’d last seen her outside of work at their Bellanger brunch, weeks ago – and Gaby had only stayed an hour before having to dash off somewhere else. She’d been working across at MI6 on a project lately too, so hadn’t even been around at the office. Even if Nadia couldn’t communicate what was happening she’d feel stronger and braver just from a hug. Nadia hung back from calling her name, though. Something wasn’t right.
Gaby was holding somebody’s hand behind her, and Nadia saw Emma come into view. They were out without her. Why would they be out without her? Instinctively Nadia took a step back into the doorway of the bar.
‘What are you doing?’ said Eddie, to which her only reply was, ‘Sssssshhhhhh!’
From under the awning of the restaurant, she watched her work best friend and in-real-life best friend, a heavy feeling settling in the pit of her stomach. They’ve ditched me, she thought. They’ve ditched me to hang out without me. Nadia felt humiliated – and also totally infantilized. She’d felt weird about them chatting with each other and how they knew things about each other more and more, as well as, well, not exactly ganging up on her, but definitely forming an allegiance together, acting like their own two-person army without her. Emma had outright lied to her earlier, saying she had a date. Nadia felt betrayed. And yet, she was mesmerized by watching what unfolded.
Gaby pulled Emma’s hand behind her, and spun around so that the two women were facing each other. Their noses pressed against one another. Wow, Nadia thought. They’re wasted. But it was only 6 p.m. Were they really drunk? And then they kissed. Not politely, or like friends, but full-on hands-in-each-other’s-hair open-mouthed snogged. Emma pulled away and laughed with her head tipped back, and Gaby put a hand on the back of her neck and sort of ruffled her, smiling.
‘Fuck,’ Nadia said, out loud. ‘They’re not drunk – they’re in love.’
Eddie crouched down next to her. ‘Isn’t that—’
‘Yeah,’ Nadia said, watching them walk down the street until they disappeared, holding on to each other the whole time.
‘Fuck me,’ said Nadia, bewildered.
‘You didn’t know?’ Eddie said.
Nadia stood back up, all the way, glancing one last time in the direction her two friends had gone. ‘I didn’t know,’ she said.
Eddie nodded, concerned. ‘Do you want a drink? One for the road?’
Nadia looked at him. This man, who even after she had picked a fight and been rude and mean, even after she had effectively wasted two months of his life, making out like she could love him when she’d known all along, if she was going to be really honest, that she wouldn’t – even if she tried really hard! – was, as ever, upholding the very tenets of gentlemanly behaviour that would make him the perfect catch for somebody else.
‘You’re going to find the biggest, most brilliant love, you know,’ she said to him.
‘Thanks,’ he said, sadly. ‘I hope so.’
‘You are. You’re a wonderful man, and I’m sorry if I’ve left you worse than I found you.’
Eddie looked up at the darkening sky. ‘I think I’m going to take a walk,’ he said. ‘Are you going to be okay?’
‘About us? I will be.’ She rolled her eyes. ‘About my best friends secretly … what? Dating? Did it look like love to you? I don’t even know. I guess this is why they’ve both fallen off the radar lately.’
‘As long as they’re happy, right?’ Eddie said.
‘Well, yes,’ Nadia said. ‘But it’s easier to be happier for people when you know what’s going on.’
Eddie smiled. ‘Can I kiss you on the cheek?’ he said.
Nadia offered up one side of her face, and Eddie said, ‘All the best, Nadia. I hope you find what you’re looking for.’
Nadia watched him turn away, in the opposite direction to the one Emma and Gaby had taken, and said in return, ‘All the best, Eddie.’
She watched him amble down the road, his hands in his pockets and his overnight bag slung over his shoulder, and once he’d disappeared Nadia looked back towards where her friends had been. She’d been left in one direction, and left in the other, and as evening fell and the temperature dropped, she stood, all alone, not knowing where to head next.