Page 78 of The Fallback

‘Rarely?’

‘Exactly. She’ll probably never know she’s sent it to you.’

‘But isn’t that like––’

‘No,’ said Nadia firmly. ‘Because if you tell her you know, then she will always know that you know and then she’ll be forced to act irrationally.’

‘Such as?’ Rosie asked weakly.

‘Firing you,’ Nadia shot back. ‘I’m joking!’ she said quickly seeing the look of panic on Rosie’s face. ‘As if Rachel has ever been irrational. She can’t fire you simply because she sent you an email outlining her sexual proclivities in eye-watering detail. Imagine what HR would say if she tried.’

Rosie groaned at the thought.

‘But I think it’s much better to say nothing and let it all drift off into the ether. Except when you see Rachel and the VC in the same room, and it all comes flooding back to you.’ Nadia cackled evilly and Rosie rolled her eyes.

‘Just don’t end up doing something stupid and forwarding that to anyone.’ Nadia pointed her finger at Rosie.

Rosie rolled her eyes again. ‘I know?’ she said. ‘That’s why I got you here to look at it rather than sending it on to you.’

‘Very wise,’ replied Nadia leaping suddenly from her chair. ‘Right, I have to go. I have a pressing engagement with Year Two maths homework.’ She mimed shooting herself in the head and wandered out of Rosie’s office.

* * *

Rosie still hadn’t managed to get certain images out of her mind by the time she got home that evening. She’d tried listening to Miley Cyrus at top volume which hadn’t helped but had got her dirty looks from the Clapham Mummies on the Northern line. She’d downloaded an incredibly boring podcast on genome editing, which had begun to have the required brain-numbing effect until Rachel was mentioned as an upcoming guest and immediately an image of the VC naked from the waist down had sprung into her mind. Obviously, these images were drawn entirely from descriptions in the email and not from Rosie’s first-hand experience, but that made them no less real and she shuddered nonetheless.

Now not only did she have to worry about Mitch and BioChem, but also not accidentally exposing her boss’s illicitandexplicit affair with the Vice Chancellor. Her list of things to be anxious about was growing daily. She slumped into one of her kitchen chairs and stared morosely out of the window wondering how long she could waste deciding on what to order on Deliveroo, and hoping that the same driver who had delivered the last three nights would be on a different route for the evening. She was all out of the ability to deal with judgement right now.

Her laptop pinged at her. It was sat at the far side of her kitchen table and she half-heartedly pulled it towards her. The previous week, driven completely insane by the constant traffic, she had turned the dating notifications off on her phone but she hadn’t yet done so on her laptop. Rosie hadn’t looked at them in days, her mind on Mitch instead, but something tonight caught her eye: a familiar name.

Quickly, she pulled the laptop closer to her, her breath catching in her throat. She must be mistaken, her mind playing tricks on her. How much excess stress and anxiety did one have to experience in order to hallucinate? Or maybe there were two of them? One of them on this dating app sending her a message, and the other her ex-boyfriend, the one who had stolen her heart when he’d left for America all those years ago. Because surely it couldn’t be the same Connor Ryan who was now messaging her, could it?

Her attention was now fully snared as she clicked open the message, only pausing momentarily to consider how the sight of Connor’s name could still have an effect on her all these years later. She was intrigued to know what this alter ego of Connor’s was like and she allowed herself a smile to think how funny it would be if she ended up going on a date with him. She just imagined the teasing that Mitch would subject her to, before she stopped and reminded herself that they weren’t even on speaking terms, let alone teasing terms.

Opening her messages, she gave an involuntary gasp; just from the opening lines she could tell that this wasn’t an alter ego. This was him,herConnor Ryan, the one who had left her heartbroken at Heathrow when he had moved to Washington to pursue his dream of reenactingAll The President’s Menand winning a Pulitzer for his efforts.

Hi Rosie

After months of procrastination, I finally succumbed to the pressure to join the online dating world. I had resisted because I couldn’t believe that I would find the one on here. My friends called me a snob and perhaps they were right. Because the first person I saw on here was you. Some would call this a blast from the past, I would prefer to call it fate.

I’m in London and would love to meet for a drink if that’s not an inappropriate thing to ask? If it is, I apologise and you can tell me, or just block me, whichever you prefer. I couldn’t ignore the feeling that it was destiny that led me back to you on here.

Connor

Rosie sat back in her chair and stared at her screen. What were the chances? That after all these years, Connor would be back in London, single, and that the algorithms had aligned and thrown them together? For a moment she thought she might be dreaming. This sort of thing didn’t happen in real life, did it? If Mitch had been speaking to her, she would have picked her phone up immediately to discuss it with him. But he wasn’t and so she didn’t. She considered calling Jasmine but she was worried Jas would say something less than constructive, such as pointing out that getting over Mitch by getting under her ex was not especially healthy.

Rosie recognised Connor immediately from the tone of his message. Well-written and to the point, confident but self-effacing too. It brought up so many memories of their time together and despite herself she smiled, momentarily forgetting all the other rubbish stuff that was going on in her life.

Rosie’s hands hovered over her keyboard… Was this a good idea? Even to meet him for a drink might open a whole can of worms. She had successfully erased him from her life for a reason. But there was also a part of her that wondered if maybe he was right, and this was fate. And, silencing Jasmine’s imaginary voice, maybe this was the answer to her heartache over Mitch. If anyone could make her forget about Mitch, it would be Connor Ryan.

Before she could over-analyse everything that had led her to this point, and where her decision might take her next, she typed a reply. It was no good trying to be clever with language, Connor would see straight through that. He made wordplay into an art form. Rosie kept her reply brief although she was dying to ask him so many questions: about where he had been, how long he had been back in London for, and most importantly, how many girlfriends he'd had over the years.

It suddenly struck her that he could have been married or had children for all she knew. But something more than hope told her he hadn’t. She had always told herself that Connor was too much of a free spirit to put down roots, and that’s why things hadn’t worked out between them. The star-crossed lovers narrative would have to have been rewritten if all it took was a different girl on a different continent to persuade him to settle down.

Hey, stranger, what are the chances? Lovely to see your name pop up. Let me know when you’re free. Rosie x

* * *

Connor suggested they meet for a coffee near her work the very next day. He had wasted no time in replying with both a time and a place, presuming that Rosie would be free. For half a second, she had thought about playing it cool and pretending to be busy, but given she hadn’t seen him in over a decade, was desperate to find out everything he had been up to and he had picked a place right around the corner from her work, she decided against it and messaged him back to agree. She knew she was going against every rule in the dating handbook by appearing too available and keen, but it wasn’t like the dating handbook had firm guidance for what to do when your ex turned up out of the blue, offering to meet you at an incredibly convenient locationandyou were trying to get over the heartbreak of falling out with your best friend who you had secretly been in love with for a decade. When they updated it to include that guidance, Rosie would follow it. Until then she would live by her own rules.

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