‘You hate dating. Are you feeling okay?’ He came over and laid the back of his hand over my forehead.
I brushed him off. ‘Hilarious. But no, I’m serious. I might as well start practising what we’ve been preaching.’
‘Well, this is gonna be good.’ Dexter went back to his computer, signalling the end of our slightly elongated lunch break. ‘Let the games begin.’
***
Rory pulled me as soon as everyone had wandered back to their desks, groaning at the prospect of another four hours’ work. There weren’t enough doughnuts in the world to erase that kind of pain.
‘Any other life-altering decisions I should know about?’ He straddled his desk chair, scooting into the middle of our shared office and staring at me over the top of my computer. ‘Decided to throw caution to the wind and never write a to-do list again? Suddenly woken up with a desire to climb Everest?’
I grabbed my planner, half ignoring him. ‘It is not that big of a curveball. I can’t put off dating forever.’
He narrowed his eyes. ‘There’s being open to dating, and then there’s using Level and reporting back to the whole office. It was just a joke, Pen. Don’t feel you need to prove this point.’
I sighed, scribbling another task in my planner that I’d woken up in the middle of the night thinking about. Being a borderline workaholic was my thing, but this was different. My office dignity was at stake. It was time for Penny’s spontaneous era, a concept that I knew Joe would find particularly hilarious.
‘I’m a multi-tasker, Ror. It’s in my blood. In fact, I’ll do it right now.’
He was staring at me, taken aback. There were not many things that left Rory McCarthy speechless. The first part was easy; of course I had Level already downloaded onto my home screen. I clicked ‘set up profile’ and input my details, turning the screen so that he had full view. Penny Webber. 26. Computer programmer. South-East London.
‘Computer programmer.’ Rory blinked back at me. ‘The app is supposed to be honest.’
‘I am a computer programmer. No one has to know that I’m a CEO too. I don’t want to scare anyone off.’ I recoiled at my own words. See? There it was already, one of the things I hated most about dating. Already trying to temper myself.
‘There, done. Complete. Penny is online dating.’
I still had the questionnaire to fill out, but the hard part was done. I could do it later whilst I was waiting for the kettle to boil, and by 5 p.m. there would (hopefully) be six perfect matches waiting for me. Maeve was going to lose her shit. Rory went back to his desk, shaking his head.
‘You could try it too, you know.’ I smirked at him when he turned around. ‘First one to have a successful date wins. You haven’t dated since Lottie.’
Rory was usually the first person to get competitive, especially where I was involved. I readied myself with a comeback.
‘I don’t know – this is your adventure, not mine.’ He shrugged, running his hand through his curls. ‘I’m not really in the mood for it at the moment.’
I was completely thrown off. ‘What, dating? You’re always in the mood for it.’
I couldn’t count the number of times he’d stopped by my uni room between the hours of ten in the evening and one in the morning, five-pack of Sainsbury’s chocolate chip cookies in hand (the fluffy, gooey ones from the bakery), ready for a first-date debrief. We’d discuss every element of his night, from the awkward hello to the slightly alcohol-induced kiss goodbye. There had been a particularly good one in first year where he’d been so nervous, he’d walked out without remembering to pay. Maeve and I had never let him live that one down. It had become less frequent over the years, and things had been a bit vague after his breakup with Lottie, but still, he’d never been not in the mood for it. Dating was, for all intents and purposes, our life’s work.
He was halfway out the door now on the way to a meeting. ‘People’s interests can change. Want me to take this one for the both of us and make notes?’
Our finance meetings happened biweekly, and they were my least favourite. No one ever warned you how much your workload changed when you became a company owner rather than just someone with an idea.
‘Have I ever told you I love you, Rory McCarthy?’
He nodded, saluting me before heading off into the meeting. I opened Level again, tempted to box off some of the questions whilst I waited for my emails to load. I stared at the first one. Would I prefer dinner, or an activity-based date? I thought about the reality of playing minigolf with a stranger and wanted to bang my head against my desk.
‘Hey boss.’ I jumped, turning my phone face down as Dexter came into our office. ‘Ready to talk about the coding for the voice notes?’
I grabbed my notebook. ‘Absolutely.’
We’d been brainstorming for weeks about what a new level within Level might look like, and we were leaning towards a way to exchange voice notes even before you saw each other’s faces. There was something so revealing about the way people spoke, and how they spoke about the things that mattered – or didn’t matter – to them. Other dating apps were starting to incorporate voice notes too, so we needed to get ahead of the curve. I tried to imagine what I’d say in a voice note; Maeve would go on a rant about burnout in the workplace, Rory would probably do an impression from The Office (US version) … Who was I when I wasn’t at work? And who would be my own perfect match? One thing was absolutely for sure: if our algorithm for love couldn’t manage to partner me up, what could?
4
Another useless reply lit up my screen.
‘This is hopeless.’ I turned my phone over on the kitchen counter with disappointment, taking the hair claw clipped to my belt and pulling my hair up in a knot. It had been a particularly humid day in the office. ‘It’s a good job you’re getting this out of your system, Mum’ – I gestured to the bowl of wedding cake batter – ‘because you won’t be making one of those for me in this lifetime, I can assure you.’
Mum paused her fondant moulding to pat my shoulder, getting orange dye all over my white T-shirt.
‘Really?’ I said, frowning. ‘Did that not seem inevitable to you?’
She ignored the jab, focusing back on the fondant. ‘I’ve got some Vanish in the cupboard, I’ll sort it after I’ve managed to get the shape just …’ She leaned back and squinted at her creation. ‘Does this look like a carrot to you?’
The fondant shapes were a little stumpy. ‘Maybe a Chantenay?’ Or something phallic that I definitely was not voicing to my mother.
‘You’re right. More length.’ Her tongue was stuck out in concentration; not the most hygienic visual. Her apron had illustrated cupcakes on the chest, with glace cherries for nipples. Mum was 53 going on 15 when it came to her sense of humour. But nipple apron or not, she was a damn good baker. Baked goods had been a constant during our childhood (the other children’s birthday cakes paled in comparison to my own replica of Barney the Dinosaur), but it hadn’t been until two years after the divorce that she’d taken the plunge and applied for a loan to open her own shop. Flash forward thirteen years, and it was the go-to bakery in Greenwich. Last week I’d had to queue for twenty minutes to get cookies for a team meeting. Family favouritism? Our mother didn’t know her.
‘Explain the carrot thing to me again.’
She stopped what she was doing to stare me down. ‘Penny, the first rule of professional baking is to never be judgemental about customer requests.’
I was pretty sure she’d made this rule up after the first time she’d been asked to make a penis cake for a hen do. Funnily enough, that custom cake didn’t make it onto the Fondant & Flour Facebook page.
‘Me, judge? Never. Now explain the carrots.’
Mum sighed. ‘Apparently, the bride wants the top tier – carrot cake – to have a fondant bride, groom, and five miniature bunnies to represent her childhood pets.’
