Faith and I were sat up in bed and on our second cup of tea when my mobile hummed on the bedside table. She got to it before I did and handed it over, and even that struck a strange chord. Rowan would have looked.
I hit answer then speakerphone. ‘Morning, Betty.’
‘Who did you go home with last night?’ she asked without missing a beat. She sounded rough with cigarette smoke and singing.
Faith laughed. ‘Morning, Betty.’
‘Oh.’ She spoke away from the phone, then. ‘Nah, she took Faith home … Not like that, you filthy-minded sod.’
‘Lily, is that?’ I asked.
Betty spoke into the phone again. ‘How did you guess? This silly cow rocks up at mine at the arse end of sunrise because she’s managed to lose her keys. It’s a good job I was awake, isn’t it?’
‘Wait, why were you …’ Faith started but petered out. ‘Actually, I don’t what to know.’
‘I was seeing someone out.’
‘He was cute!’
‘Lily says he was cute.’
‘Oh, don’t worry,’ Faith answered, ‘we heard her. Wait, why was Lily up at … Actually, I still don’t want to know.’
‘What are you two doing today?’ Betty asked, then.
Faith and I swapped a look. We hadn’t talked about what we’d do past having a third cup of tea, and maybe going to the café across the road to get egg sandwiches. But if Betty was asking then she likely had something in mind. It can’t be anything too bad, though, I thought, it’s a bloody Sunday after all. Faith wrestled my near-empty mug away from me and slipped out of bed to replenish it.
‘We haven’t really made plans. I don’t—’
‘Cool, we’ll be over in a bit.’
She hit the call end before I could answer. While Faith wasn’t around to see, I clicked into WhatsApp again to check for signs of life from Rowan. He’d texted me in the early hours of the morning, long after I’d passed out with my face pressed into Faith’s back, to say he missed me and he hoped I was okay. I replied first thing – I miss you. Did you go out last night? – but the double-tick hadn’t changed colour yet.
*
Faith had been explaining the intricacies of online dating for nearly an hour. In the end, Lily suggested setting up multiple accounts rather than choosing just the one platform. But Faith cautioned against it – ‘That’s a lot of pressure for a beginner’ – so they opted for Plenty of Fish. Tinder was, apparently, universally known for hook-ups and nothing more and they decided between themselves that that, too, was likely too much pressure for someone who didn’t know what they were doing – their words, not mine, but they weren’t wrong. When they started to ferret through my Facebook profile pictures to try to find something recent that didn’t feature Rowan I felt moved to step in.
‘Isn’t this something I should be a part of?’
Betty snorted. ‘Yeah, okay.’ There was a long silence, at the end of which she looked up at me from her phone. ‘Oh, God, you’re being serious. I’m sorry, Edi, I – well, sure, absolutely, you should be a part of this.’ She handed me her phone and shifted to stand behind me so she could watch over my shoulder as I typed in details. Faith and Lily took up residence either side of her. Edi’s Angels. I would have laughed at the idea if it hadn’t felt so tragic. ‘Okay, we’ve input your email address and all the rest of it already, so if you hit that button,’ she pointed, ‘then you can start building your profile.’
I followed instructions, and there appeared a drop-down menu asking: What are you here for?
‘Casual hook-ups,’ Lily answered without a pause and I craned around to look at her. ‘I’m sorry, were you looking for a deep and meaningful connection to go with your future husband?’
‘She’s got a point,’ Betty added. ‘If this thing with Rowan is a temporary agreement, you won’t exactly be dating anyone with a mind to make it into something serious.’
I rubbed at my forehead. ‘This is too hard.’ And I didn’t like Betty’s use of if.
Faith dropped on her knees so she could sit level with me. ‘It doesn’t need to be. We’re literally only doing this to show you different ways of meeting people. So, put that you’re looking to meet new people, and then also tick that you’re open to dating. If you get a casual hook-up, great; if you meet someone who treats you better than Rowan, even better.’ I turned to throw her a look, but she winked at me, as though trying to soften the blow. ‘Does that help?’
Again, I followed instructions and waited for the next screen to appear. ‘I think so.’ But then the next question posed an even harder dilemma: What are you interested in?
‘Edi?’
I looked around. I wasn’t sure whether it was Lily or Betty trying to get my attention.
‘You okay, babe?’ Lily set a hand on my shoulder. ‘We lost you there.’
‘No, no, I’m fine,’ I lied. ‘It’s just, I – I mean, didn’t I already answer this?’
‘No, babes,’ Betty took over, ‘before it was what you’re interested in, like casual hook-ups, now it’s what you’re interested in, like boys or girls.’
‘Or non-binary,’ Lily added.
‘Yep, or that.’
‘I …’ I didn’t know why it was so hard. Boys, obviously. Obviously?
‘Unless you feel like really pushing the boat out with this whole open relationship thing—’ Lily squeezed my shoulder ‘—in which case click all and move on.’
‘I love that you realise that sleeping with women is such a fucking delight that it can be considered as pushing the boat out.’ Faith looked over my head to Lily, who laughed.
‘I mean, I don’t have first-hand experience. But you seem really happy with it.’
‘I personally have zero complaints.’ Faith squeezed my knee. ‘Boys is fine, too, though.’
‘Okay, boys,’ I said, as I clicked the option. ‘Yep, boys.’ The next screen appeared, just like before, and the conversation moved on to what I was interested in, meaning hobbies. Lily and Betty argued over my head – ‘She likes reading … Is that an interest?’ – and Faith lowered her voice to talk to me.
‘Are you okay, Edi?’
I flashed a tight smile. ‘I think so?’
‘There’ll be women on there, you know.’
‘I’m sorry?’
‘Women. Even though you hit men, there’ll be women. It’s this weird thing that happens with online dating. You get it a lot when you hit the women for women option. Blokes will have set up a “lesbian account” but with their actual photo, like the sight of some middle-aged hairline leaning in front of a sunset is going to make or break someone’s sexual preference. But I’ve heard that women do it, too, on women seeking men accounts. So, you might match with women.’ I don’t know what my face did, but she felt the need to build on her explanation. ‘I’m just saying when you start looking you might come across women. Like, it can happen.’
I nodded along like I understood, and on the surface I did. But I wondered what Faith was implying. Like a heavy-handed doctor testing reflexes, her comments catapulted me back to my teenage bedroom. The place-memory was alive with the smell of Impulse and breath mints, swallowed and sprayed at leisure after all the crafty cigarettes smoked out of my bedroom window. I could remember the pink walls, the grease of the Blu-Tack stains that just wouldn’t come out, no matter how hard Dad and I had tried with them. Then I remembered the window seat, where I’d been when I kissed—
‘Reading, dinners out, and watching romantic comedies,’ Betty announced.
Faith rolled her eyes. ‘What?’
‘My interests. They’re trying to decide on my interests.’
‘Novel concept, ladies, but we could just ask Edi what she’s interested in.’ Faith stood up and groaned as she moved. ‘Shit, I’m old. Tea?’
‘Tea.’ Lily was the first to answer. ‘I’ll help.’
Their chatter trailed out of the room as they disappeared, leaving Betty and I behind to tick boxes and tell lies – ‘Put that you’re interested in the gym.’ I added details as quickly as she could come up with them, but I still couldn’t get my own head out of the drop-down menus – and why they’d been so hard to find answers for …