Page 2 of The Key to My Heart

‘Hi,’ he says, stooping a little as the music volume increases. Lucy’s right, although annoyingly, she mostly always is. Heisgood-looking, this poor targeted man chosen to heal my squashed, run-over crab apple of a heart. And the teeth – Colgate-ad levels of nice. Lucky him. ‘Natalie, right?’

‘That’s right.’

‘Cool.’ He extends a large hand, and I take it. Strong, smooth, not dirty, not sweaty like a bag of damp turnips. That’s something at least. ‘I’m Tom.’

‘Tom.’

He dips his head in a nod. ‘So, er, your friend said you’re here because your mate got married?’

‘Yep,’ I say as someone squeezes past, jamming my ribs into the side of the wooden bar. ‘Yep, that’s … that’s right. Priya. She got married a couple of monthsago, then buggered off on the longest honeymoon on earth. It was a Christmas wedding. All the bells and whistles.’

‘Interesting.’ Tom gives a twitch of a smile. ‘Any snow?’

‘Faux-snow. Loads of it.’

‘Blimey.’ He blows out a breath between his lips. ‘I was expecting a no, but – faux snow. They meant business then, these friends.’

‘They definitely did. Even made a honeymoon baby.’

‘Productive.’

A woman behind the bar leans across the counter, tips her chin at me. Two giant acrylic pineapples for earrings swing like pendulums at the side of her head.

‘Margarita, please,’ I order loudly, and she nods, as another ridiculous out-of-place dance song strikes up to actual diners’cheers –weirdly out of place for a restaurant with a crayon station and a sunbathing spatchcocked chicken embellishment on the window. ‘I don’t understand this place,’ I’d said to Lucy, when we arrived, and she’d replied, ‘Well, why do restaurants even need to be understood, Natalie?’ I turn to Tom with the teeth. ‘So, who are you here with?’

‘Couple of mates,’ he says, swirling the drink in his glass. His eyes are blue, and his dark lashes are curly in the way they only are for people who don’t care for them. Teeth. Lashes.Lucky him times two.‘One of them, Si, he’s back from travelling. Got divorced and went all Eat Pray Love on us. Hadn’t seen him in – maybe two years, until tonight?’

‘Oh. That’s nice.’

‘Sort of,’ he says with a wince.

‘Sort of?’

‘Yeah, well, he’s come back a bit Russell Brand. You know? Full of wisdom. Grown a beard. Rocked up wearing a carpet.’

I laugh. Well, at least he’s funny. The last time I found myself at a bar like this, the guy produced a piece of paper from his wallet that listed a treatment plan for his ingrowing toenail. ‘Ah, well, it happens to us all, I’m afraid, Tom,’ I say. ‘I lost my mate Lucy for a while – to wisdom and carpets.’

‘Oh, yeah?’

‘Yep. She went travelling for six months. Came backobsessedwith essential oils and enemas. Kept meditating. Hollowed out an alarming amount of roasted sweet potatoes.’

Tom laughs, and it’s a laugh I know Priya would say made her vagina explode, if she were sitting here instead of me. It’s deep, warm, a slight rasp. He smells nice too. Fresh, like showers, warm, lemony aftershave.

‘Six ninety-nine.’ The bartender with the earrings places a drink down on the bar, on top of a tiny, black napkin. She holds out a card reader, unsmiling.

‘Thanks.’

‘Ah, shit, let me—’ Tom dives a hand into his back pocket, and I scan my debit card on the luminous screen before he can grab the bill.

‘It’s fine,’ I say, taking a huge mouthful, and then another, and he looks at me like he’s witnessing someonego to town on a whole Peking duck with their bare hands beside him. ‘I’ve got it.’

‘O-kay, but I was actually going to—’

‘Look. Tom.’ I duck now, as if to level with this poor soul lumbered with me. ‘I’m sorry – andthanks. But I don’t want you to buy me a drink. Honestly. It’s very sweet. But no.’

Tom the Target stares at me.

‘But I’d really appreciate it if you could just – you know, carry on doing this? Talk to me for ten minutes, laugh a bit, and then I don’t know, you can say you got bored or something—’

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