‘Ah yes, your companion is already here.’
Owen clears his throat, touches his hair again, straightens his jacket, follows the woman through the winding path between the tables until he is there. In front of her.
Owen says, ‘Hi. Deanna?’
And she immediately says, ‘It’s De-ahna. Not De-anna.’
He says, ‘Oh. Sorry.’ Then he says, ‘I’m Owen.’
‘I guessed,’ she says. She’s smiling but Owen can’t work out if she’s being facetious or not.
‘Shall I sit down?’ he asks.
She nods and rubs awkwardly at the tips of her elbows.
He realises he should have kissed her, or shaken hands with her, or something like that, but she threw him off completely with her correction of the pronunciation of her name and now he feels as though he’s fallen off the tracks and can’t get back on them. It has been at least ten seconds since either he or Deanna said something and he sees Deanna staring at him, strangely.
‘Are you OK,’ she says, ‘or …?’
Her eyes go to the door and he thinks that she is suggesting that they should maybe cut the date short, that it has already goneso wrong, in under a minute, that they should end it now. He sighs and lets his shoulders drop. And then he does something quite out of character, because he feels so very much like he has nothing left to lose.
From a soft, open part of his psyche that he barely knew existed, he says, ‘I’m really sorry. I’m a bit …nervous.’
She smiles encouragingly.
He says, ‘In fact, I’m very nervous. Unbelievably nervous.’
Her face softens completely now and she says, ‘Well, then, that makes two of us.’
And now Owen looks at her, properly, for the first time since he walked into the restaurant and he sees a pleasant-looking woman, possibly not as smooth-skinned as the woman in the photographs on the screen of his phone, eyes possibly not as bright or quite as blue, jawline a little less sculpted. But it is her, recognisably her, and she is looking at him playfully, as though wanting him to say something else. His mind immediately empties and he blanches but she laughs and it’s not a laugh of derision or humiliation, it’s a laugh of kindness, a laugh that says, ‘Look at us, on a Tinder date, isn’t this nuts?’
A waiter arrives to take an order for drinks.
Owen thinks of the money sitting in his bank account, the money he never spends, and while Deanna peruses the wine list he looks at her and says, ‘Champagne?’
He sees immediately that he has hit a jackpot of some description, that Deanna is the type of woman to respond very positively to the suggestion of champagne. She opens her mouth to say something and he opens his mouth and finds himself saying, ‘My treat.’
She smiles and says, ‘Well, in that case then,’ and closes her wine list.
They spend some time discussing what to eat and then Deanna looks up at Owen and says, ‘You know, you look better in real life than you do in your online pics.’
Owen smiles, almost laughs, and says, ‘Wow, thank you. That photo was probably the best photo I’ve ever seen of myself, so …’
There’s a short silence and Owen realises what he’s supposed to do. He clears his throat and he says, ‘You look much prettier, too.’
It’s not entirely true; she doesn’t. But she’s certainly far from ugly. Her photos were not dishonest.
‘Thank you,’ she says.
‘Your hair is a lovely colour.’
Itisa lovely colour, a kind of brittle toffee shade, with blonder bits at the ends.
‘Takes three hours in the salon,’ she says, touching the tips. ‘I’m naturally mousey.’
‘Mice are good, too,’ he says. And she tips her head back and laughs.
A waiter appears with their champagne and makes them feel suitably special as he arranges an ice bucket and chilled, misted glasses in front of them. He shows Owen the bottle and Owen knows that he is to nod, just once and say, ‘That’s good,’ even though he can’t remember the last time he had champagne.