cycle shorts, listening to his Bach playlist, longing for someone just like Sarika.
“He’ll lie about it,” says Sarika comfortably. “He’ll put ten minutes. It’s fine.”
She’s really not getting the point.
“Sarika, listen,” I say in frustration. “What if there’s an amazing guy who’s six foot five and vegetarian and he lives twenty minutes away from Crouch End…and you’ve ruled him out? This is nuts!”
“Ava, stop freaking out,” says Sarika calmly. “You have to have some deal-breakers.”
“No you don’t,” I say adamantly. “I don’t have any deal-breakers. I want a good man, that’s all. A decent, civilized human being. I don’t care what he looks like, what his job is, where he lives…”
“What about if he hates dogs?” says Sarika, raising her eyebrows.
I’m silenced.
He couldn’t hate dogs, because only really strange, sad people don’t like dogs.
“OK,” I concede at last. “That’s my only deal-breaker. He has to like dogs. But that’s the only one. Literally.”
“What about golf?” chips in Nell craftily.
Damn her. Golf is my Achilles’ heel. I’ll admit I have an irrational loathing for the game. And the outfits. And the people who play it.
But in my defense, it’s because I used to live near the snootiest golf club in the world. There was a public footpath across the land, but if you even tried to go for a walk on it, all you got was furious people in matching sweaters flapping their arms at you, telling you to be quiet, or go back, were you an idiot?
It wasn’t just me who found it stressful; the council had to have a word with the golf club. Apparently they brought in a new system of signs and it’s all fine now. But by then we’d moved away, and I’d already decided I was allergic to golf.
However, I’m not admitting that now, because I don’t like to think of myself as a prejudiced person.
“I don’t have a problem with golf,” I say, lifting my chin. “And anyway, that’s not the point. The point is, two matching lists of attributes aren’t love. Algorithms aren’t love.”
“Algorithms are the only way,” says Sarika, squinting at the screen. “Mmm, he’s nice.”
“OK, where’s the algorithm that tells me what a guy smells like?” I retort, more passionately than I intended. “Where’s the algorithm that tells me how he laughs or the way he ruffles a dog’s head? That’s what matters to me, not all these irrelevant details. I could fall in love with a scientist or a farmer. He could be five feet tall or seven feet. As long as there was chemistry. Chemistry.”
“Oh, chemistry,” says Sarika, exchanging grins with Nell.
“Yes, chemistry!” I retort defiantly. “That’s what matters! Love is…is…” I grope for words. “It’s the ineffable, mysterious connection that happens between two humans when they connect, and they feel it…and they just know.”
“Ava.” Sarika regards me fondly. “You are a love.”
“She’s getting in practice for her romantic-writing course,” suggests Nell. “You realize Lizzy Bennet had a zillion deal-breakers, Ava? No arrogant snooty types. No idiot clergymen.” Nell nods at Sarika. “Put that one in.”
“No idiot clergymen.” Sarika pretends to type, grinning at me over the top of her laptop. “Shall I put, Only those with stately homes need apply?”
“Very funny.” I sink down next to her on the sofa and Sarika puts a conciliatory hand on mine.
“Ava. Babe. We’re different, that’s all. We want different things. I want to bypass all the time-wasting. Whereas you want…chemistry.”
“Ava wants magic,” says Nell.
“Not magic.” I flinch slightly, because my friends always make out I’m too romantic and rosy-tinted, and I’m not. “What I want is—” I break off, my thoughts a little jumbled.
“What do you want?” asks Nell, and she sounds genuinely curious. At last I draw breath.
“I want a guy who looks at me…and I look at him…and it’s all there. We don’t have to say anything. It’s all there.”
I break off into a misty silence. It has to be possible. Love has to be possible—otherwise, what are we all doing?
“I want that too.” Sarika nods, breaking the spell. “Only within ten minutes from a tube station.”
Nell guffaws with laughter and I raise a reluctant smile.
“I’ve got a date tonight, actually,” I reveal. “That’s why I can’t stay.”
“A date?” Sarika’s head jerks up. “You’re telling us this now?”
“I thought you were packing for Italy,” says Nell, almost accusingly.
“I am packing. After my date.”
“Exciting!” Sarika’s eyes sparkle at me. “Where did you meet him, at the ice cream social?”
“No, at the assembly rooms,” says Nell. “He helped