Page 27 of Textbook Romance

‘And Rachel McAdams is like, what… thirty?’ I say.

Ben shakes his head. ‘How old is Rachel McAdams?’ he asks Siri on his phone. We all arch our heads over his screen. ‘She’s forty-four. And quite frankly, it’s criminal how as an actress she has been overlooked when Ryan Gosling did so well out of The Notebook. How old is Zoe?’

‘Forty-three. She’s forty-four in March,’ I say again, a little too quickly.

‘Older can be good. Some of the best sex I’ve had has been with older lovers. They know what they want, they have less hang-ups,’ Ben mentions. Frank keeps quiet. The difference between my two roommates is that I suspect Ben has played the field whereas Frank stands by the gate of that field quite content, not really knowing how to play at all.

‘You make her out to be some sort of cougar style MILF,’ I say, conscious I’m defending her honour. ‘She’s just a nice soul and maybe someone who doesn’t realise that about herself.’

Ben smiles. ‘There’s a story here on her profile. It’s public. Do you want to see it?’

‘Will she know I’ve seen it?’ I ask tentatively. ‘I don’t want to look weird.’

‘It’s my phone, I’ll just look like some random person who’s come across her profile.’

I nod, not really sure if I should be delving into her life like this. But the video that comes up makes me smile. It’s her half dancing to Jungle in her kitchen with two teenagers that I will assume to be her children. Her hair flies about and it’s obvious she doesn’t know she’s being filmed. It reminds me of the woman I met at that wedding. Three is the Magic Number, says the text over the video.

‘Those are some old kids, though. When you said she had kids, I assumed they were smaller. The boy there has more facial hair than Frank,’ Ben says, studying the video. Frank strokes his upper lip subconsciously.

‘They’re thirteen and fifteen,’ I add. I like how they look after their mum in the video, how they sing along completely out of tune and get their mother to join in. Those look like two kids who adore her completely.

‘So Brian really is a shit then. Can I put that as a comment?’ Ben asks.

‘No, you can’t,’ I say, trying to downplay my horror at the thought.

Ben looks over at me, holding on to a spring roll in his hand. ‘You’re staring at your phone a lot. Did you send the older lady a picture of your…’ He fiddles with the spring roll in his hands. Frank seems distraught at the comparison given his mother must have rolled that with her fair hand.

‘No, I did not.’

‘Then our boy is crushing,’ he says out the corner of his mouth. Ben would know. He’s known me long enough that when I meet someone I like, I procrastinate. I try to reason whether it’s a good idea and, in this case, the cons list is incredibly lengthy. But sometimes it’s hard to ignore a spark. Sometimes there’s a person who shines so brightly in the corner of your eye that your attention keeps moving towards them.

‘I am not crushing, leave me alone,’ I reply, flaring my nostrils.

‘Never,’ Ben says, pouting his lips into a kiss. And his eyes still follow me as I look down at Ben’s phone, Zoe’s video still playing on a loop. I can’t help but smile as I see her dancing.

FIVE

Zoe

‘Wait, did he send you the chicken drumstick emoji or the real chicken?’ Mia asks me, messily eating a sandwich and stealing her husband’s crisps on the staff room sofas. Behind her sounds the familiar ping of the microwave, the boiling of kettles and the whispers of conversations as our colleagues recount the horrors of their mornings. This is how we endure the teaching profession – we share and relate whilst we heat up last night’s leftovers, trying to find some humour in everything. I hear about how in physics, a child tried to escape out of a second-floor window. How in French, a child tied someone’s shoelaces to a table and they’re now in medical with a fat lip.

‘The real chicken,’ I tell Mia.

‘So, basically he sent you a cock.’

I widen my eyes. I mean, Lottie had questions, too, but then we also got into a semi-argument because it turns out that when I was dancing like a bloody loon around our kitchen, trying to copy some viral dance routine, she was filming the whole thing and putting it on social media with public privacy settings and it was watched. Not only by my friends but from the looks of it, random strangers called Ben that I don’t even know.

‘Also, rewind there. You both went on to Nando’s? Like on a date? How did I not know about this?’

I shrug. ‘It was a week ago. We’ve all been busy,’ I explain.

Ed’s eyes widen at this point. ‘Jack’s literally just started. Did you have relations with him?’ Mia clings on to Ed’s arm in response to his politeness.

‘Oh god, no… He was just good company. It was nice. He’s nice…’

They both sit back on the sofa opposite me with curious looks, still chewing their lunch. Mia narrows her eyes. ‘Ed, I don’t know your mate well enough. Is he nice?’

‘The implication there being that I would be mates with a complete idiot,’ Ed replies. ‘He’s a good person.’

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