some doing to keep a straight face. He’s from Chicago, and we’re meeting at a burger bar. Which seems like a bit of a cliché, but there you go.’
‘I hope they do a vegan option.’
‘They do, I checked. And about thirty different flavours of milkshake, which made me rethink my life choices a bit. But there’ll be a dairy-free one, I expect.’
‘Well, make sure you report back,’ Robbie said, and as the door closed behind me I heard him say, ‘Sheldon. Oh my word, you couldn’t make it up.’
On the train, I checked my phone to remind myself what my date looked like, and the exact location of Dexter’s. I was feeling nervous, but nothing like as jittery as I’d been the first time I went to meet a stranger for a date. Give it a couple more goes, I told myself, and I’d be taking all this in my stride. I’d survived so far – how bad could this home-loving, family-minded man actually be?
Dexter’s was in a chichi part of West London where I rarely ventured. The street was lined with the kind of boutique that displays just one cashmere jumper in the window, and you know that nothing in there – not even a pair of socks – will cost less than a hundred pounds. There was a florist, an artisan chocolate shop and a place that sold handmade stationery.
Sheldon lived nearby, he’d told me, and worked in finance. Clearly he was making shedloads of cash, to be able to afford a house in an area like this. As I walked, I let myself imagine briefly what his future wife’s life would be like – my life, if he turned out to be The One.
I’d have a massive car – one of those Chelsea tractors I disapproved of on environmental grounds – that I’d drop the children off at their private school in, even though I disapproved equally of fee-paying schools. Then I’d go to my barre exercise class in my Lululemon sportswear, before having a massage or a manicure and meeting a friend for lunch. In the afternoon I’d take the children to their activities – riding lessons, I supposed, or fencing or Japanese or something. I’d give them their tea and they’d be in bed by the time Sheldon got home from work, and I’d be freshly made up and smiling, with a chilled bottle of Chablis ready for us.
I’d have a massive fuck-off shoe collection and a massive fuck-off Valium habit.
Shaking my head at my own silliness, I pulled my mind back to the present. I hadn’t even met Sheldon yet, never mind married him, had his babies and developed a substance-abuse problem as a result. But I had arrived at our designated meeting spot.
Dexter’s was a diner-lover’s diner, that was for sure. It had bright red plastic benches in the booths, metal holders stuffed with paper napkins on the tables, and stripy red-and-white straws in the chunky glasses the customers were enthusiastically slurping milkshakes from. There were 1980s-style airbrushed prints of Coke bottles, fries, hot dogs and ice-cream sundaes on the walls, complete with photo-realistic drips of sauce and condensation that made me hungry just looking at them. The waitresses I could see were wearing ra-ra skirts in neon colours and tight cropped T-shirts with the restaurant’s name on them in a 3D typeface.
I paused outside, glancing faux-casually over my shoulder through the plate-glass windows. First prize was for spotting Sheldon before he spotted me, and not looking like a weirdo in the process. Only problem was, I couldn’t see anyone there who might be him. The restaurant wasn’t large – fifty covers, maybe – and it was full of groups of teenagers, families and one table of ultra-slim, heavily made-up women in designer clothes stuffing food into their faces in a kind of guilty frenzy.
But anyway, I was here even if he wasn’t. If he didn’t show up, I’d just have to front it out and enjoy a trash-tastic feast on my own. I pushed open the door and stepped in, then hesitated for a second looking for a free table.
‘Welcome to Dexter’s.’ A waitress approached me with an iPad secured to a clipboard. Authentic, I thought. ‘Do you have a reservation?’
‘No, I’m meeting someone but I’m not sure if he’s…’
I stopped, my attention caught by a waving hand across the room. That was Sheldon, I was pretty sure. The man I’d seen in his profile pictures, with crinkly brown hair, straight white