Page 11 of Stella is Starting Over

‘Are you hungover?’

‘Why does everyone keep asking me that?’

‘You just look a bit. . . off.’

Someone’s untouched piece of cake is sitting on a plate on the garden wall, so I decide to adopt it. I peel the white icing off the top, relishing how it tastes exactly the same as it did when we were kids.

‘I’m fine,’ I say, my teeth slightly sticking together. ‘Just had a shit week.’

‘Why?’

I shrug. ‘Romantic stuff.’

She looks surprised, which is fair because I don’t give much away to any of my family when it comes to dating. ‘Like what?’

‘I was seeing this girl and it was supposed to be casual. We got on really well. She lives in Dublin. We’ve had a kind of regular-casual thing going for a while. But then she got feelings for me, and I ended up really hurting her, and she won’t return my calls and I feel like a piece of shit.’

Georgie rolls her eyes. ‘Where did you meet her?’

‘A dating app.’

‘Which one?’

I don’t think Georgie knows anything about dating apps, but I tell her anyway.

‘Dom!’ she says. ‘You tit. That’s for people who are dating dating. Like husband, marriage, babies dating.’

I give her a perplexed look because Georgie is married with a two-year-old; this isn’t her world.

‘I’m not dead,’ she retorts. ‘I read stuff, I have friends, I know stuff. If you’re dating to find someone who actually doesn’t want a commitment, you need to go on Tangl.’

It is fairly embarrassing that Georgie, married, knows more about this than I do, so I don’t admit that I have no idea what she’s talking about.

‘Good idea,’ I say, nodding along. ‘Yeah. Okay, that’s a plan.’

‘Good,’ she says. ‘Now, I love you but please go home. I’m supposed to sleep when the baby sleeps.’

‘He’s two.’

Georgie points towards the gate. ‘Out.’

Stella

Despite my oldest friends deeming me some kind of tragic nymphomaniac, my enthusiasm for Tangl doesn’t seem to be slowing down. In fact, I’ve fallen into a routine where I do a swiping binge before the start of ‘Jump & Jiggle With Mummy’ and then spend the whole thing, while jumping up and jiggling and worrying about my pelvic floor, thinking about all the matches that could be rolling in like little rewards while I can’t look at my phone. Then after the class, when Rose is exhausted from being thrown in the air and expected to hold maracas, I watch the other mums – who all seem to know each other – go off together, then I park up at a bench with a hot cup of coffee and a sleeping baby, and devour every single match. A treat.

This week, the same routine. We get up, get dressed, get fed, plod our way down the road and through the park to the class, revelling in the fact that the sun is out. I make it through the class without wetting myself and afterwards, instead of the coffee-and-a-flirt routine, I keep walking to the supermarket and do a food shop. I fill the basket under the pram with fruit because Rose basically only eats berries at the moment (must google a second mortgage later as a result) and I try to find something I can bring myself to eat. As is kind of standard at the moment, nothing looks tempting. I tell myself over and over again as I walk around the shop, thinking about the prospect of being elderly and living alone, that this is good for me. The app was a distraction. A crutch. I have to feel my feelings, not hide behind distractions. Lovely, distracting distractions.

I expect Rose to wake up in the shop but she doesn’t, so now I’ve got a quandary on my hands. If I go home she’ll inevitably wake up because she’s got a sort of sixth sense about our house and the prospect of getting to go in her Jumperoo (brightly coloured plastic, makes loud noises, purchased by my mother who I still haven’t forgiven). If I go back to the park and get a coffee, she’ll probably sleep for another half an hour, and won’t be overtired by the time her nap rolls around. So I sit on the bench, face in the sun, and try to think about how nice it is to be outside in nature. Think about the blue sky, and the green grass, and all the ducks on the pond. And feeding the ducks at the pond with Rose in a year or two. And how I’ll be the only person at the pond feeding the ducks without a husband or a partner. And now Rose is never going to have any brothers or sisters because her father is a feckless arsehole who abandoned me for the most embarrassing, pointless reason imaginable. And before I know it, I’m unlocking my phone and the picture of Rose’s round, pink face is replaced by the loading logo for Tangl. The letters each light up gold and shiver and then, bam, 148 new matches.

I am starting to get a slight twinge in my left thumb as I swipe through all the pictures from these men, indiscriminately saying yes to anyone who looks like they’ve had a shower recently. Opening the app has given me an almost worryingly lovely sense of relief, the closest thing I can compare it to was when I finally got the epidural I’d been claiming I didn’t want during Rose’s birth. All the loud thoughts about my future and Rose’s future, and how I’m going to afford the mortgage, feel a little bit quieter as messages roll in.

Heyyyyyy

So you’re a designer. . . (that’s how I sell myself on my profile) maybe you could help me sort out my new bedroom?

I like that puppy in your second pic!

I’m smiling down at my phone, deciding who to reply to first when another one flashes up. It’s from a man named Dom, who I don’t even remember swiping on. He’s tall and dark-haired with a stubbly beard and freckles. He sends me a waving emoji, which I initially ignore because I’m learning that men who just send emojis don’t have great chat. But then there are three dots to indicate that he’s typing, and Rose is still asleep, so for some reason, I wait.