Page 1 of Teacakes & Tangos
PROLOGUE
I was getting the distinct feeling I’d been stood up.
Glancing at my phone for the millionth time, I clocked that I’d been waiting in the bar of the Swan Hotel for exactly fifteen minutes past the time we’d agreed to meet – but ‘Stephen’ (GSOH, likes football and chickens) still hadn’t appeared.
I’d trawled through the responses to my online profile and narrowed it down to two ‘possibles’.
‘Gary’ looked nice and ‘normal’ in his photo – although since he’d posted only one picture, I couldn’t help feeling a little doubtful. It was probably the best photo ever taken of him, shot from exactly the right flattering angle when he was standing roughly a hundred yards away from the camera. It was also quite possibly a decade old.
Not that I was in any way cynical about the opposite sex these days. Why would I be? Being dumped by my fiancé thirteen days before our big white wedding was obviously something I’d taken completely in my stride. (Ha ha.)
My other possible match, ‘Stephen’, had caught my eye mainly because I’d found the ‘likes football and chickens’ mildly intriguing. Not the football bit, but the ‘chickens’.
Was he genuinely into ‘the good life’? Did he really have hens pecking away in a coop in his back garden? Or was it much more mundane than that? Had he actually meant to say ‘likes chicken’? Without the ‘s’? Which would obviously suggest that any future dates were likely to feature a well-known chain of restaurants beginning with the letter ‘N’.
I stifled a sigh, wishing I’d stayed in and watched TV, instead of faffing around getting dressed up for a date I didn’t even wantto go on... a date which Iwouldn’thave gone on – if it hadn’t been for the fact that I was doing it for Dad.
I’d promised him faithfully that I’d get back onto the dating scene and I wasn’t about to back out.
So I’d sit here until ‘Stephen’ showed up and then maybe I’d have something interesting to report to my darling dad tomorrow at the hospital...
Eight Days Ago
CHAPTER ONE
‘Hey, Anika, listen to this.’
‘Go on?’ I smiled over at Dad, who was sitting at the kitchen table ploughing through a bowl of healthy bran flakes and flicking through one of my glossy magazines.
‘It says here the root of all unattractiveness is neediness. While the root of allattractivenessisnon-neediness.’
I paused in my frantic search for my water bottle to think about this. (I had a job interview and I’d have to leave for the bus in the next ten seconds or risk being late.)
‘What are you saying, Dad? That the reason my fiancé dumped me was because I was too needy?’ I grinned because I knew that of course he didn’t mean that. Dad hated Loathsome Les as much as I did. Possibly even more.
‘No, of course not.’ Hesitating, he shrugged. ‘The problem with Les was that he turned you into a different person, that’s all. He whittled away at your self-esteem until eventually he had you doing and saying the things you thought would make him happy. You weren’t your lovely, bright, confident self anymore.’
I nodded. ‘Looking back, I was forever seeking his approval but never getting it, and neverlikelyto get it, either,’ I said gloomily. ‘He was so subtly controlling but I couldn’t see it at the time.’
‘Anyway, that’s all in the past now,’ said Dad cheerily. ‘You don’t need someone who wants to turn you into his idea of perfection.’ He threw the magazine aside and stood up rather gingerly, a protective hand to the base of his spine. ‘You’re perfect exactly as you are. You don’t need to change for anyone. You just need to realise it, that’s all.’
‘You’re biased, Dad. I’m definitely not perfect.’
‘I’m not saying you are. No one’s perfect.’ He grinned. ‘Not even me.’
I chuckled. ‘Look, much as I’m enjoying this dissection of my personality, I’m going to be late if I don’t go now.’
‘Which is why I’m giving you a lift.’ Dad headed for the door. ‘You don’t want to be late for this interview.’
‘But it’s your morning for volunteering at the charity shop, isn’t it?’
‘Er, no. I’ve switched days. There’s... something I need to do this morning.’
‘Ooh, very mysterious. Tell me more.’
He shrugged. ‘It’s not that mysterious. I’m seeing the physio for my back.’
‘Oh, right. You didn’t mention it.’
