‘Are you spontaneous? A loyal friend? What about hobbies? Good-humoured?’
‘Uh . . .’ I was stumped. Questions rarely stumped me, but this one did.
‘Just trying to get to know my prospective fake girlfriend a little better, outside of work, that is.’
‘Not spontaneous. I have few friends. I play Pokémon, the card game, and if you mean by “good-humoured” whether I’m a naturally genial person, then no on that too. But if you’re asking whether I have a good sense of humour, then also no on that one.’
His lips twitched into yet another smile. ‘I find you very friendly. And so far, from what I’ve gathered, you have a great sense of humour. Unconventional, definitely, but not lacking, which I suppose are all good qualities for a fake girlfriend.’
‘So does that mean you’re accepting my proposal?’
He observed me for a while, which made me very uncomfortable. He looked at me like someone at a zoo might observe an exotic creature that they’d never encountered before. He probably hadn’t. Not many people encountered someone like me, and I was acutely aware of that. People often told me that, and I was never sure if it was a compliment, or not.
‘There’s one thing I need to know about you before I agree to this,’ he finally said.
‘What?’
‘Your name would be a good start.’
‘Oh! Yes. That would be appropriate. I’m Pippa. Pippa Edwards. It often gets shortened to Pip, which I don’t like at all. A pip is a fruit seed. Not a person.’
‘Pippa, not Pip, nice to meet you. I’m Andrew Boyce-Jones, as you know. My friends often shorten it to BJ, which I absolutely despise.’
‘Yes, I can see why that would be a very regrettable abbreviation. Why didn’t they shorten it to Andy?’
‘Because when your friends are adolescent boys, they tend to choose names like BJ over Andy.’
‘Yes, teenage boys tend to be very obsessed with sex. It’s all the hormones. It’s very natural though. And then of course there’s all the masturbating as well . . .’ I tapered off, thinking about a statistic I’d once read about this particular activity, but was brought out of it by what sounded like another laugh-cough-choke combo.
‘You okay?’ I asked.
‘Fine! Fine. But, wow. Only ten minutes in and we’ve discussed fertility, marriage and puberty. What’s next?’
‘You telling me definitively whether or not you’ll be my fake boyfriend?’
‘It is the most unconventional proposal I’ve ever been presented with—’
‘So that’s a no?’
‘But it does have some strange kind of genius to it too.’
Strange genius. Another phrase I’d heard a lot in my life. And again, I was never sure if it was meant as a compliment. Synonyms forstrangeincludedodd, weird, bizarreandalien. And those did not sound like complimentary words.
‘So it’s a yes then?’
‘Are you sure?’ he asked again.
‘The way I see it is that we both have the same problem. I don’t like problems. I only like solutions, and I’ve found a solution to our mutual problem, so it makes sense that we should solve it together.’
There was a long interlude before he spoke again. ‘Sure. Okay. Why not? I’m in Cape Town for the weekend anyway, so let’s do it.’
CHAPTER5
The plane took off very smoothly, and it was strange to hear Andrew’s voice in another setting. I’d only known his voice through my headset in the air traffic control tower, not in a coffee shop, or inside a plane. Yet another surprise this day had delivered. I hoped there weren’t going to be too many more. I’m not sure how many surprises a person like me can take in one day.
I checked my seatbelt once more and pulled my small notebook out of my handbag. Lowering the tray table, I opened it and poised my pen above the paper.
Small talk for tonight, I wrote, and underlined it.
