Page 19 of Our Stop

Oh god, oh god, oh god,she thought to herself.You are fucking this up, royally!

‘You’re very handsome,’ she continued. ‘Probably even more so with the beard.’ Her words tumbled out over each other in a nervous pile-up. ‘And very romantic. Well done. You are handsome and romantic. That’s … the … jackpot! Handsome and romantic is the jackpot!’

‘Ma’am,’ somebody beside her said. ‘Are you okay?’ The voice turned away from her. ‘Is she okay?’

The man was looking up at her, and Nadia had a nauseous feeling in the pit of her stomach that told her something was wrong. Very wrong.

‘I’m just nervous, is all,’ she said, her voice squeaky now. ‘I don’t normally … you know … go up to men on public transport, and—’

The man stood up. The tube was pulling into London Bridge station, her stop.

‘Get the fuck away from me,’ the guy said, leaving her to stand staring at the space he had vacated, hot with humiliation. She came to just as the doors were beginning to close, realizing she had better get off as well. She hoped it didn’t look like she was following him.

An older man with grey hair and white sticky bits of dried spittle at the corners of his mouth, a man who Nadia couldn’t be certain had brushed his teeth that morning, or any morning, actually, tapped her on the shoulder as she stood to catch her humiliated breath and, as she turned around, stood there hopefully and said, ‘I’ll go out with you.’

Nadia’s jaw dropped. ‘I … No, thank you,’ she said, scurrying off towards the escalator, wanting nobody in the history of the world to ever talk to her ever again.

‘Whore!’ the man shouted behind her.

Nadia’s phone buzzed as she crossed the road to her office.

Anything?said Emma.

Nadia sent back a sad face emoji.I just hit on the wrong guy, she typed.Well. At least I hope it was the wrong guy. If that was the right guy I definitely blew my chance.

What happened?????!!!!

Oh god, I can’t. I’ll tell you later.

There had been a moment when Nadia saw a woman with a blonde bob and a fake Louis Vuitton bag in her carriage, and her imagined narrative was interrupted by the worry that maybeshewas the devastatingly cute blonde.

No, Nadia thought,no way. She’s got press-on fake nails!

Nadia hated that – that she’d been reduced to making another woman the competition and thinking bad thoughts about her. Even if the woman was wearing an awful lot of winged eyeliner for that early in the morning. Nadia had so wanted this all to be true – for this to be her romantic moment. She hadn’t understood how hungry she was for it until the temptation had been waved in her face, and it had appeared it had made her territorial. She wanted to protect what she thought of as hers.

Gaby was waiting for her in the lobby at work.

‘Anything?’ she said, handing her a tall black coffee, which was lucky because Nadia had already given up on her KeepCup. It was too much of a faff to make coffee before she’d had coffee, ironically.

‘You will not believe the arse I just made of myself,’ Nadia cringed. ‘I hit on two men, neither of whom were Train Guy.’ She took a sip of the coffee Gaby had handed her. ‘Thank you for this, by the way.’ She took another sip. ‘I say neither were him – at least I hope they weren’t. I made such a twat of myself that I’m not sure I can ever get on the underground again. I looked like a desperate, man-hungry old bag with no life. It was awful.’

‘Oh god,’ said Gaby laughing, and then, realizing laughter probably wasn’t the best response given how genuinely upset Nadia seemed, said, ‘I mean. I am laughing in solidarity with you. Love makes fools of us all!’

‘I’m sad about it!’ Nadia said, laughing too, now. ‘I waited all of last week to see if he would write back, and he finally did, and then I couldn’t find him!’

‘It was a cute advert – I saw it.’

Nadia looked at Gaby, who shrugged.

‘I am a tiny bit invested in this,’ Gaby said. ‘And I am glad you are too. I wasn’t sure which way it was going to go at first.’

Nadia took another gulp of coffee. ‘Oh shut up. You know as well as I do that I love love, and woulddieif a man put an ad in the paper for me. I’d decided to hope this was all going to be gloriously romantic and a story I told for years to come until I started to hump the leg of any thirty-year-old with a beard on the commute. It’s shameful!’

‘Nadia, you are hilarious.’

‘I’m pathetic!’ Nadia laughed. They got into the lift together and rode up to Gaby’s floor.

Gaby checked the time on her phone. ‘I’ve got an 8.30 a.m.,’ she said. ‘Which is so inconvenient. Meetings should be afternoons only. It fucks my whole morning up when I have to take time out. I hate it!’

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