‘A game? What kind of game? I’m not spinning that bottle while there’s still booze in it.’
‘Tell me three facts about yourself,butonly one of them can be the truth.’
‘Hmm, OK.’ I sit up straight and put on my thinking face, while he stares at me looking mildly amused. Three facts about me? Like what? I’m older than I once was? I tweeze my chin daily? Ugh, this is hard.
Before he dozes off, I pluck two lies out of the air and one fact from my brain. ‘Right. Are you ready?’
‘Ready.’
‘Fact number one: I was once proposed to in the Bronx Zoo. Fact two: My favourite film isBeaches. Fact three: I have an irrational phobia of biting into fruit.’
He narrows his eyes at me and tries to read my poker face but I’m giving nothing away.
‘Hmm… the fruit one could very well be true, as could the zoo. I’m not buyingBeachesthough.’
‘No? Why?’
‘Too sentimental. So, I’m calling bullshit on that.’
I laugh. ‘Fine. You’re right. So, which is the truth? Fruit or the zoo?’
‘The zoo is too obscure to be fictional. I’m going with that one.’
I throw my arms in the air and delightedly tell him he’s wrong. ‘Nope, never even been to New York. I am in fact freaked out at the thought of biting into fruit, in case there’s something living inside it.’ I shudder but maintain my winner’s stance.
‘So where did you get proposed to?’
‘Nowhere! I’ve never been proposed to!’ I happily exclaim before grasping that this admission probably doesn’t require winner’s arms. I place them back beneath the water and purse my lips. I’m forty and no one has ever considered me marriage material. I suddenly don’t feel like a winner.
He senses my melancholy and splashes me. ‘No moping, fruit face. It’s my turn now.’
I nod and smirk as he theatrically clears his throat. ‘Fact one: I lost my virginity to my friend’s mum. Fact two: I am good friends with Adele. Fact three: I studied piano at university for two years before deciding to become a journalist.’
‘I’m not buying the first one, that’s just a scene fromAmerican Pie.’
‘OK…’
‘And those hands look far too big and clumsy to play the piano. Guitar maybe, but not piano… so I’m going with Adele. For some reason that seems the most believable.’
‘Wrong,’ he declares. ‘Because they are in fact, all true.’
My eyes double in size. ‘No! Really? Are you bullshitting me?’
He beams proudly. ‘Stephanie Hepburn, mother to John. New Year’s Eve, 1994. He never found out. And I started playing piano when I was five. Studied at the Royal Academy. Met Adele through classmates.’
I’m stunned. ‘Why did you give up?’
He shrugs. ‘I decided that I wanted to write more than I wanted to play.’
I can’t help but be impressed. This man is full of surprises. He can play the piano and knows Adele, and all I brought to the conversation was unbitten fruit and spinsterdom.
An hour later, we’ve finished the wine, my fingers are beginning to prune and I’ve laughed so much my sides hurt.
‘If it makes you feel any better, I proposed to my wife three times before she said yes.’
‘Not really. All that does is inform me that someone’s been askedthree timesand I’m still at zero.’
He laughs. ‘I think I should have read the signs after the second knockback. I just meant that it’s made out to be a bigger deal than it actually is.’
