If You Don't Know Me By Now. A. Michael L.

that he always managed to get the last word. She was going to make him suffer over whichever chai-drinking hipster chick he fell in love with today. That was certain.

      But when no one was looking she clapped her hands with glee and allowed herself a little dancing bum wiggle of joy. Laptop or not, he’d said it was a date. This whole London thing was looking up.

      *****

       ‘Young, Rich Couple seek Barista as Personal Chew Toy’

       It’s busy, a Saturday afternoon. Don’t ask me why your average coffee shop should be overpopulated on a Saturday afternoon. I would desperately hope that people had better things to do. But, they don’t. So there’s a big queue, and I’m running back and forth, getting orders. This has worked sufficiently for the last five minutes. And then they arrive.

       Mid-twenties, beautiful, and entitled. You may recognise the word ‘entitled’ in these blogs. It’s a trait I find equivalent to being homicidal. Possibly worse, depending on whether they sound like a toff (when killing you, or ordering you around, it’s all the same really).

       ‘Hi, can I get your drinks started?’ I squeak in my excited, ‘grateful to serve you’ voice.

       ‘Oh, oh, darling, I think she’s talking to us!’ The woman puts her hand to her chest in surprise, like the corgi just declared she needed to go for a tiddle.

       ‘Are you talking to us?’ the man says in confusion.

       ‘Yes … yes, I am. Can I take your drinks order … sir?’

       The woman then steps forward, while the man throws his hands up, like the concept of ordering is just far beyond him. Women’s business.

       ‘I’ll have a skinny latte, a chai tea latte –’

       ‘Are they both medium?’ I jump in, suddenly aware she’s going to regale me with a torrent of orders.

       ‘They’re all medium,’ she says pointedly.

       You’ve only told me two. Two is both. I have an English literature degree, so don’t mess with me, bitch.

       ‘Okay, both medium,’ I say to myself as I mark the cups with the appropriate hieroglyphs. ‘Anything else?’

       ‘Yes, as a matter of fact …’ She then lists a few more pretentious drinks, and I can tell exactly which one is for her (sugar-free vanilla soya cappuccino extra-hot) and which one’s for him (medium skinny latte) and can imagine who their friends are, depending on the variety. The kooky girl with the good stories has the chai tea latte. The two guys who don’t really drink coffee, but didn’t feel like they could ask for a coke have got regular lattes. The filter coffee with pouring cream is for the driver on what is no doubt a jaunt to a country estate for the weekend, in what I would presume is either a Mercedes SLK or a BMW. It’s fifty-fifty odds that one of them is named Binky.

       ‘Oh, oh, actually, I think I’ll have a brownie. I’ll be so terribly bad!’ The man, before this comment, could have been considered attractive.

       Weird, a brownie, my money would have been on –

       ‘Oh, and a granola bar, yum!’

       There it is. The grand order of the world has been restored. You are not a unique snowflake, with the wings of a butterfly. You are a subject created of class, income and whatever magazines you read.

       Mr Previously-Attractive then continues to repeat, loudly, to his girlfriend about the brownie, for the next three minutes, while I am making their drinks.

       ‘Where is it, why hasn’t she got it? Was he meant to get it? Did I pay for it?’

       Well, if you looked at the price you were paying instead of throwing down a fifty-pound note, maybe you’d know.

       I hand over the five drinks, the granola bar and the brownie, and Previously-Attractive looks at me in surprise, a crooked grin appearing.

       ‘Well, aren’t you a good girl!’

       And I’m back to being the corgi.

       ‘Come on, darling,’ the girlfriend replies. ‘Binky’s got the Merc running. We need to be in Windsor by five.’

       Chapter Eight

      They met in the Hope and Anchor the next day. Imogen tried to pretend she hadn’t made an extra bit of effort. A subtle flick of eyeliner, a top that wasn’t four sizes too big. A pair of jeans that maybe hugged a little bit more than usual. She still had her huge ugly cardigan on, though, the one that looked like a wool factory had exploded. Just so she still felt like herself. Her stomach was in her throat, and she hadn’t managed to eat since they made plans yesterday. Part of her hoped this didn’t carry on into multiple dates – she’d end up waif-like. She thumbed the edge of her fluffy sleeve, looking at her laptop, her pint of cider sitting untouched beside her.

      Every time she heard a floorboard squeak, she looked up. Keith walked past, ruffling his grey hair as he went to rewrite the specials on the board. ‘You’re making me nervous. What you waiting for, the firing squad?’

      ‘Worse,’ she grumbled to herself, demanding that she get a grip. It was a date. It wasn’t like she hadn’t been on a date before. Except that, well, yeah, she sort of hadn’t. She hadn’t dated anyone back home. Partly because she lived at home, and she was too busy with uni and work, and it just seemed very time-consuming, dating someone. Mostly, it was because she didn’t find anyone who interested her. She’d spent years studying stories, and learning about fairy tales. Sure, she knew that life wasn’t a fairy tale, that men weren’t knights in shining armour, and she was quite capable of saving herself, thank you very much. But reading all those epic stories, dying for love, holding love up on this high pedestal – it made modern-day love seem a little … boring. Seemed like all the love stories back home had started with being felt up round the back of the wheelie bins, getting drunk, getting pregnant, and getting stuck with each other. Or just going to the cinema a lot, and creating drama when things got boring. Imogen was happier with the stories in her head.

      She was just contemplating exactly how depressing this was on a scale of one to ten when a voice behind her made her jump.

      ‘Hey!’

      She took a deep breath to steady herself.

      ‘You scared the crap out of me,’ she breathed, trying to smile as she looked up at him, standing just behind her. ‘Hi.’

      ‘Hi.’ Dec smiled, and somehow she sensed he’d made an effort, too. His reddish-brown stubble was slightly more styled than usual, and he had on a grey, thin-knit top that strained across his biceps when he moved. He gestured at her. ‘Do you wanna slide down so I can sit next to you?’

      She blinked at him.

      ‘So I can see the screen and we can do all the stuff we need to do?’ he said slowly, waiting for the penny to drop.

      Imogen shook her head. ‘Yeah, sorry. Thought you’d want to grab a drink first.’

      Now he looked embarrassed. ‘Yeah, of course. Sorry. That makes more sense. I’ll … go do that.’ He bounded off to the bar, where Keith grinned pointedly at her, moving his eyes between them. Imogen briefly closed her eyes and took a second to breathe. Calm the hell down, for God’s sake, she told herself, he’s just working on your computer.

      In her head, Demi’s voice conjured a fair few dirty responses, and that made her feel better. She slid her bag and