One in a Million

I reached for the coffee cup with an apologetic smile. Sam did not smile back. Sam looked really quite annoyed.

‘I have a fire marshal question,’ I said. ‘How many books do you think you have in here?’

‘Three hundred and seventeen,’ he answered without hesitation. ‘Why is that a fire marshal question?’

‘Fire hazard,’ I replied. ‘All those books, no second exit. It’s important for me to know all this stuff.’

‘I’ve got some very rare texts in here,’ he said, taking off his glasses and pinching the bridge of his nose. ‘Very old, very fragile. I can’t even touch them without gloves. If there’s a fire risk, I need to know.’

‘Should be fine.’ I turned to take in the sheets of paper stuck to the glass. They had been taped up with such care. ‘Is that what the paper is for? To keep the light off the books?’

‘What?’ Sam looked puzzled. ‘Oh no. That’s to keep people out. I didn’t realize the building would be quite so … social.’

‘Did anyone explain to you what a co-working space was before you signed up?’ I asked. He shrugged, unaware or unconcerned, it didn’t matter. ‘Most people here are pretty chummy.’

‘I’m not most people,’ he said bluntly. ‘Now, is there anything else I can help you with? I’m quite busy.’

‘Just trying to be neighbourly, given your situation,’ I slipped the pastry box back in my tote bag, not entirely upset about the idea of eating them all myself. ‘Where’s your blow-up bed gone?’

‘I’d rather not talk about it,’ he said, tapping on his keyboard and refusing to make eye contact. ‘And I’m really very busy, so if you’re done—’

‘When I broke up with my ex, I didn’t really deal with it that well at first,’ I said before he could finish. Sometimes the best course of action was to just keep talking until they gave in. Not often but sometimes. ‘It wasn’t until a few days after it really hit that we were over. It’s the little things, isn’t it? No one to go to the pictures with, no one to laugh at your in-jokes. Whenever we drove anywhere, whoever was in the passenger seat would always put their hand on the person who was driving’s thigh and I remember the first time I went out in the car after he left, I got halfway to Tesco and had to pull over because I was sobbing like a baby.’

I pulled my fingers through the ends of my ponytail, combing out a stray knot, wishing he would do the same.

‘That sounds terrible and I’m very sorry,’ he said robotically. ‘And now you’ve unburdened yourself, do you think you might let me get on with my day?’

I should have known he wasn’t going to make this easy.

‘I truly think you’d feel better if you talk about it,’ I told Sam, taking a sip of the coffee I’d brought for him. ‘Whenever me or Miranda are going through a tough time, we always feel better after we’ve talked it through.’

‘Two questions I will surely regret,’ Sam replied, taking off his glasses and pinching the bridge of his nose. ‘Who is Miranda and why should I talk to you about my personal life?’

‘Miranda is my business partner,’ I said with a patient smile. ‘And my best friend. Since forever. Well, since we were eleven, which is a very long time these days. And you should talk to me because I’m here and I’m nice and because spending twenty-four hours a day in your office is unquestionably unhealthy behaviour. I don’t want to have to be the person on the Ten O’Clock News six months from now, saying “We’re all so surprised, he was always so quiet and polite …”’

‘I shall try to make a point of scheduling my rampage on a day when you’re out of the office,’ Sam said, ‘Thank you for your concern, but I don’t think it qualifies you to act as my relationship counsellor.’

‘My sister is a proper psychologist!’ I exclaimed, making him jump. ‘Totally qualified and everything, she’s very good.’

‘And my brother is a brain surgeon, but that doesn’t mean you want me rootling around inside your skull, does it?’

‘Is he really?’ I asked with suspicious eyes.

‘No,’ Sam replied coolly. ‘He isn’t.’

‘That would be good though, wouldn’t it?’ I said, taking another sip of too hot coffee. Should have got it iced. ‘Very Grey’s Anatomy.’

He pressed his hands hard against his head and let out a surprisingly shrill shriek for a grown man.

‘You’re not going to leave, are you?’ He peered out at me from between his fingers, without moving his hands away from his face. I offered him a winning smile and a thumbs up. Sam threw his hands up in the air and took a deep breath and I could sense victory.

‘Get your coat,’ I ordered. ‘Let’s go and get a coffee that won’t kill you.’

He picked up a red-and-black plaid donkey jacket.

‘Actually, leave your coat,’ I said. ‘Let’s just go.’

In the bright, unforgiving light of a summer’s day, Sam looked downright sickly, his baggy clothes hanging off his tall frame, giving the impression of a consumptive tramp. Blinking into the sun behind his glasses, he followed me through the streets, muttering, huffing and generally making noises you might expect to hear from your grandad’s odd neighbour.

‘It can’t be a lot of fun, sleeping in the office,’ I said as we turned onto the sun-speckled street. ‘Couldn’t you stay with a friend? Family?’

I tilted my head upwards to bask in the blessed rays as Sam shirked away, immediately moving into the shade.

‘I don’t want to be a burden to anyone,’ he replied. ‘My brother is away at the moment. When he gets home next week, I’ll go and stay with him.’

‘You haven’t got a key to your brother’s house?’

Sam shook his head.

‘Why not?’

‘Because I haven’t. My brother and I are very private people,’ he said. ‘As you might have noticed. But probably haven’t.’

‘I still think it’s weird,’ I said, checking the back pocket of my jeans for my debit card. ‘I’ve always had a key to my sister’s house.’

‘He moved last month and he hasn’t had a spare key made yet,’ Sam said. ‘He’s recently divorced.’

‘Oh, well that’s good!’ I said brightly, before immediately correcting myself. ‘I mean, oh, that’s terrible, I’m sorry. I only meant you could help each other through these difficult times. Or something.’

‘Yes, perhaps you could send him a murderous pastry when he gets back from Japan,’ he replied, pausing on the edge of the pavement to look both ways before he crossed. ‘We’re both allergic to penicillin as well, in case you really wanted to do us in.’

I wasn’t entirely sure where we were walking but this was Shoreditch, we’d run into a coffee shop sooner or later, it seemed as if every other building was churning out caffeinated beverages these days. Bike shop slash coffee shop, Pilates studio slash coffee shop, gynaecologist slash coffee shop. You couldn’t move around these streets for coconut milk flat whites. But my plan had more to do with getting him out of his office and seeing if I could loosen him up a bit than it was to caffeinate the shit out of him.

‘Tell me what happened with your girlfriend,’ I said, attempting to drag the conversation back on track. We were still some distance away from matching BFF tattoos. ‘Can I help at all?’

Sam closed his eyes and opened them again as though he half-expected me to have disappeared.

‘I shouldn’t think so,’ he said. ‘I’m really not comfortable talking about these things with someone I don’t even know.’

‘Me?’ I threw my arms out into the air, accidentally slapping a passing bike courier. ‘Open book. My name is Annie, I’m thirty-one, I grew up in South-West London with my mum and my sister. Child of divorce, dad’s remarried, not keen on the new wife. I’m a Libra, favourite colour is blue, trainers over heels but boots over trainers. Sweet over savoury except when it comes to cheese, slightly short-sighted in my left eye but I don’t need glasses unless I get really tired and, yes, this is my natural hair colour.’

He gave me a hard look.

‘Perhaps you can explain to me,’ he said, ‘how any of that helps the fire-marshal sister of a psychologist help me with my relationship predicament?’

Well, at least he’d bought the bit about me being a fire marshal.

‘Firstly, I am a girl,’ I said, gesturing towards the front of my general T-shirt area. Sam looked away in mock or real distaste, I wasn’t sure. ‘And sometimes it helps to get another girl’s perspective. Secondly, I also have half a psychology degree of my very own and I am prepared to put it to good use on your behalf.’

‘How does someone get half a degree?’ Sam asked.

‘Because you do half psychology and half English and then graduate realizing you’re not qualified for anything,’ I replied swiftly. ‘Now, spill: what happened with you two crazy kids?’

He walked on for a moment, taking long strides that spurred me into a half-skip to try to catch up.

‘She said I was boring,’ he replied, without looking at me. ‘She said we don’t have anything in common any more and that I care more about my books than I care about her.’

The easiest thing to do would have been to tell him what he wanted to hear but in this instance, I wasn’t sure it would help. He did seem awfully fond of a lot of dead white men and a man who cared more about the lord lieutenants of Ireland than getting the bone was indeed a conundrum.

‘How long have you been together?’ I asked, treading softly. Press, don’t poke.

Sam pulled his dimmed features into an almost smile. ‘Six years,’ he said. ‘Almost six. We met when I was starting my PhD, she was doing her masters.’

‘She’s a historian too?’

‘No.’ He looked almost disappointed. ‘She got a job in the finance department at the university to help pay for her programme and ended up dropping the degree to do that instead.’

He untethered the man bun, unleashing long, wavy blond hair that any self-respecting mermaid would have been proud of. A thirty-something-year-old man, maybe not so much.

’Your hair is very long,’ I said as a statement of fact.

‘So is yours,’ he countered, caressing his ratty ends. ‘And no one complains about that. It’s double standards.’

‘Yes, but my hair is long on purpose,’ I pointed out. ‘And I spend actual money to have someone style it. Your hair is just … there.’

He snapped the elastic band from around his wrist and twisted the whole thing back up behind his head.

‘Elaine hates it,’ he replied, scratching his beard. ‘She says I don’t care about the way I look.’

I blew out my cheeks, searching for the most tactful way to ask my next question.

‘Not to be rude,’ I said. ‘But do you?’

‘I’m clean,’ he replied, sitting up straight. ‘My clothes are ironed, I don’t smell. Just because I don’t want to waste money on expensive clothes I don’t need doesn’t mean I don’t take pride in my appearance.’

A plan began to come together in my brain as we walked on in silence. Maybe I was going to be a sad, old spinster with many odd pets, but that didn’t mean everyone had to die alone.

‘You’re so quiet,’ I said, dodging a tag team of charity volunteers in neon tabards waving clipboards in our direction. I was already supporting every single charity you could possibly think of thanks to my crippling middle class guilt. Couldn’t afford a settee but two quid a month to help ex-circus elephants readjust to life in Africa? Where do I sign?

‘Not everyone has to talk all the time,’ Sam said. ‘I’m thinking.’

‘What about?’

‘Do we have to be out here?’ He wrapped his jacket tightly around him as I led the way across the street to the square. Even though I’d told him to leave it. Even though it was boiling hot outside. ‘Because I’d really rather not be.’

‘Why not? It’s grass, it’s trees, it’s flowers,’ I replied, adopting a cheery tone. ‘And hating on Hoxton is very 2007. Can you just go with it for now? It’s nice to be outside.’

‘Not for me, it isn’t,’ he grumbled. ‘My hay fever is killing me. Car exhausts don’t help. Everyone smoking those ridiculous electronic cigarettes.’

He crossed his arms over his hideous jacket and sniffed. I watched a ridiculously attractive man I vaguely recognized from The Ginnel walking a Boston Terrier through the gates of the square, and sighed. Why couldn’t he have walked through the front door behind Dave the Postman? Cheekbones that you could slice bread on that one. And an Insta-friendly dog! There was no justice in this world.

’So how did you leave things with your girlfriend?’ I asked, deliberately slowing my pace now we were inside the square and forcing him to follow suit. ‘Elaine, isn’t it?’

‘She said she needed time to think about things,’ he replied tersely. ‘And that she would be able to think more clearly if I wasn’t in the flat.’

‘But you don’t want to break up?’

He inclined his head once in agreement.

‘Correct.’

‘So why aren’t you banging her door down with a bunch of flowers the size of China and begging her to take you back?’

‘Firstly, because I still have a shred of self-respect,’ Sam replied, picking a speck of lint from his shoulder. ‘And secondly because she isn’t home. She texted me this morning to say she’s gone away with her friends, on a …’ he paused, looked around and then cleared his throat. ‘A bitch trip.’

The very idea of this man being involved with a woman who would go away on a bitch trip was blowing my mind.

‘If she’s away, why don’t you go home?’ I asked, settling myself down on my favourite bench. He shook his head stiffly and reluctantly took a seat beside me.

‘One of her friends is flatsitting,’ he replied. ‘Besides, she asked me to leave, I can’t let myself back in while she’s in another country. It wouldn’t be right.’

Some men were too honourable for their own good. Not many, but at least one.

‘On your own blow-up bed be it,’ I said. ‘Do you know when she’ll be back?’

He pulled out his phone, an actual Motorola Razr that I couldn’t quite believe still worked, and scanned his texts.

‘She’ll be gone for at least two weeks,’ he replied. ‘And she says not to call because she won’t answer.’

Classic.

‘Which means she wants you to call,’ I said, holding out my hand for his phone. Rather than pass it over, he looked at me oddly, snapped it shut and slipped it back into his coat pocket.

‘That doesn’t make any sense,’ Sam said, untying and retying his abundant ponytail. ‘Why would she tell me not to call if really what she wanted was the opposite?’

‘Don’t ask me, I don’t make the rules,’ I replied. ‘But if she really didn’t want to talk to you, she’d just block your number or end your call when you tried to ring. This is a test, Sam. And you’re failing.’

‘I think you’re wrong,’ he said. ‘And can you stop calling me Sam?’

I looked at him, sitting there on the bench in his baggy jeans, worn-out polo shirt and hideous, hideous donkey jacket, such a supremely sad look on his face. I hadn’t just been given an opportunity to win a bet. I’d been given an opportunity to perform an act of extreme kindness, to do something good for another person, for the whole planet. The universe had dropped Sam in my lap for a reason and that reason had to help him back onto the path of true love. And possibly to set fire to that bloody awful coat while I was at it.

‘She’s away for at least two weeks, that gives us lots of time,’ I said, running the pendant of my necklace back and forth as my brain ticked over. ‘When was the last time you and Elaine went on holiday?’

‘Four years ago,’ he said. ‘We spent a weekend in Dorset in her aunt’s caravan. It was dreadful.’

‘Have you ever taken her for brunch?’

‘It’s a made-up meal,’ he replied. ‘And I won’t waste money on it.’

‘And when was the last time you bought her flowers?’

‘No flowers. I have hay fever.’

Anyone else would have given up then and there. Anyone else would have washed their hands of this ridiculous situation, marched straight back into Charlie Wilder’s office and admitted defeat. But I could not. At least, not without a fight.

‘Dr Samuel Page, today is your lucky day. I am going to help you,’ I said. ‘As of right now, you are enrolled in the Annie Higgins School of Better Boyfriends,’ I announced with a flourish. ‘Boyfriend Bootcamp, if you will. I’m going to teach you how to be the best bloody boyfriend on the face of the earth. By the time we’re finished, Elaine will be back from her holiday and you will be the living embodiment of her perfect man.’

His face looked … Well, who knew what his face looked like under the beard, but his eyes were not nearly as grateful as I’d have hoped.

‘How are you qualified to run a boyfriend bootcamp, exactly?’ he asked. ‘Do you have a boyfriend?’

‘Moving on,’ I replied with a slap on the knee. ‘We’ll go through all the basics. Listening, doing nice things without being asked, planning ahead for special occasions, making the bed, putting the toilet seat down, accepting that sometimes it’s nice to have throw pillows on the bed for absolutely no reason and you don’t have to make a massive fuss about it.’

‘And what’s in this for you?’ Sam looked extremely dubious about my plan. ‘Other than some sort of sadistic pleasure, clearly. You don’t even know me.’

‘What makes you think I’m not offering out of the goodness of my own heart?’ I asked, pulling on my coin pendant.

‘Of course,’ he nodded. ‘How silly of me. What a wonderful, generous person you are. Do they still have the Pride of Britain awards? Let’s get you one of those. Or perhaps we go all out and nominate you for a knighthood.’

I had a feeling he was being sarcastic.

‘I did always want a Blue Peter badge,’ I replied. ‘Any chance you know anyone at the BBC?’

Sam ignored me. ‘What’s the catch?’

I truly was a terrible liar so there wasn’t any point trying to pretend.

‘Do you know Martin? Who owns The Ginnel?’

He curled up his bottom lip to make a not especially impressed face and nodded.

‘What about Charlie from the advertising agency upstairs?’

‘Haven’t come across him as far as I’m aware,’ he replied. ‘But who knows who else has been letting themselves in my office without my knowledge?’

‘Well, Charlie and Martin were being rude about my job and my company and so, we made a bet that I couldn’t make a random person famous on Instagram inside thirty days,’ I explained, holding out my hand to shush him when his mouth flew open. ‘Before you say no, I won’t ask you to do anything you don’t want to, your involvement will be super-minimal and we won’t post anything without your approval.’

‘Absolutely not,’ he said, getting up with a face like thunder. I didn’t need to get to know him better to understand how completely averse he was to this plan. ‘I hate Facebook and I can’t even claim to understand Twitter. Why would I even consider this, just to help someone I don’t even know win a bet?’

‘Good news, this isn’t Facebook or Twitter,’ I said with accompanying jazz hands. ‘It’s Instagram.’

From the look on his face, that was not an improvement on the other two platforms.

‘And before you say no, I reckon we can sell at least a thousand copies of your book in the first month,’ I added quickly. ‘If not more.’

That caught his attention. He stopped pacing next to the bench and held onto the back to steady himself.

‘But I’ve only sold forty-seven copies of it,’ he said, sitting down again. ‘And it’s been out for two years.’

‘Really?’ I asked, perplexed. ‘And you’re still writing another one?’

He nodded, then rested his forearms on his knees, folding his limbs as though he were trying to pack himself away.

‘I could come up with any number of inspirational quotes right now,’ I told him, shuffling closer but still keeping a safe distance. ‘But the best thing I can do is exactly what I do every single day: get you online and sell the shit out of your book. And I’ll help you get your girlfriend back at the same time. Doesn’t sound like too bad of a bargain, does it?’

Sam considered the deal while I watched the handsome man from the office pretend not to see his dog taking a dump. Fine, they were all as bad as each other.

‘How exactly was I selected for this bet?’ he asked.

I smiled and pinched my shoulders together. ‘You walked through the door at the right time.’

‘Or the wrong time,’ he said, rubbing his palms along his long legs. ‘Fine. What would I have to do? To help you?’

‘Practically nothing,’ I replied, although the truth was I had yet to work that part out. ‘Couple of photos maybe, nothing too sexy, no dick-pics.’

His eyes snapped open behind his glasses. I saw for the first time, they were a beautiful shade of almost cornflower blue. He looked lovely when he was terrified.

‘I’m joking. Obviously.’

It was possible I’d gone too far too fast. It was also possible he had no sense of humour.

‘I take what I do very seriously. I have to give lectures, I have to collaborate with other academics. I don’t want to be turned into a joke and plastered all over the internet,’ he said, breathing out heavily. ‘The logic of social media is something that escapes me entirely.’

‘You absolutely, one hundred per cent will not be a joke of any kind,’ I told him, adding a conditional ‘probably’ in my head. ‘We don’t even have to put you in the pictures if you don’t want to be.’

‘I wouldn’t have to be in any of the pictures?’ he asked, interest piqued.

An unforeseen wrinkle but hardly a dealbreaker. There were lots of successful accounts that didn’t show their creators.

‘You won’t have to be in any of the pictures,’ I promised. ‘I can work around that.’

‘And if I agree to this, you won’t be letting yourself into my office morning, noon and night, demanding I do this, that and the other? I do still have a book to write.’

‘All right, Dad.’ I hid my smile at his negotiation tactics. ‘But I am going to need some time and effort from you. Otherwise boyfriend bootcamp is going to be a bust, isn’t it?’

He fell silent for what felt like hours. Point number one in his training programme was going to be easy. When someone says something to you, they usually want you to say something back in a timely fashion. It was called a conversation.

‘This all feels like a terrible mistake,’ he said finally as my phone vibrated. It was a text from Miranda, she needed me back at the office. ‘Maybe Elaine was right. Maybe I should crawl back into my hole and stay there.’

I sucked the sticky summer air in through my teeth, suddenly wondering which part of this deal was going to be the most difficult.

‘Crawling back into your hole is rarely the best solution to a problem,’ I said. ‘Trust me, I’ve done it loads. You can do better, Sam. Now, who wants to sell some books and get their girlfriend back?’

I thrust my arm high into the air.

‘Hmm,’ he said, standing up and shoving his hands deep into his baggy pockets. ‘We’ll see. I’m trying to get through my footnotes for the last chapter before the end of the week and they’re hardly going to write themselves.’

‘Sam?’ I lowered my arm slowly to my side as he walked away. ‘Don’t leave a girl hanging. Do we have a deal?’

‘I need to think about it,’ he said, glancing back and then turning around and setting off without me. ‘I’ll give you my answer on Monday.’

I sank back onto the bench and watched him walk hurriedly out of the square onto the street, rapid-fire sneezes soundtracking him on his way.