Act 1

6 years later

The empty chair in front of her was a growing frustration. Kathleen had arrived ten minutes early for her Tinder date, while her date was now running twenty minutes late and hadn’t responded to her message asking where he was. She sighed and stared at the burning candle on the table, just a little tea light, but still enough for that romantic atmosphere she had missed so dearly. The window beside her showed a darkened sky; her plans for dinner to begin at sunset had been ruined.

The restaurant was full of couples and families, all happily chatting away, sat eating their meals. Kathleen went to check her phone again. The time stood out against her tulips wallpaper. 19:34. He was twenty-five minutes late now. She went to text Shannon, when finally, a man sat down opposite her.

“You must be Kathleen” he said. His hair was scruffy, and his face was covered in stubble. He was wearing a nice clean shirt, but Kathleen had seen that he was wearing it with jeans.

“You finally found me” she said, with a chuckle. Kathleen had decided to wear her nice dark blue dress that she hadn’t worn for a while, and she was wearing a full face of make-up, even her favourite red lipstick she’d had to conserve since it had been discontinued. Her dark hair was neatly pinned behind her head; she had wanted to curl it but hadn’t had the time. “Kane, I presume?”

“Bingo,” he mimed a finger gun and winked, as if he had said something cool. “I’m sorry I kept you waiting. Traffic was a nightmare”

It was always traffic, wasn’t it? Never any other excuse. No matter. She tried to shove out the cynical thoughts and instead feel a romantic atmosphere.

Kane picked up the menu in front of him. “I suppose you’ve already had time to choose something. Why don’t we just get the same? I’m so hungry, I won’t mind what I have anyway.”

“Sure” she said. The sound of cars passing by outside filled the gap in conversation. Kathleen began mentally preparing herself for the rest of the date, something she’d done earlier but needed redoing after waiting so long.

If he asked if she was into politics, that was a good sign, as it would mean his views were acceptable enough to discuss on a first date. She’d say she didn’t really follow it much but voted Labour because they seemed trustworthy. She wouldn’t mention she was a feminist unless if he seemed to be progressive. If he was a Tory, she could live with it, and it would honestly be preferable to some kind of Corbynite die-hard. If he asked about family, she’d mention her parents but not their divorce; not a good idea to mention divorce on a first date. She could bring up her siblings, how they’d all been more adventurous than her and were all spread to the four corners of the globe.

Somewhere someone dropped a plate, which loudly shattered, and the whole room came to a small moment of shocked silence before picking up where they’d left off. A family sat at a booth table got up to leave; their plates were still covered in glossy red sauce.

Kathleen looked across at her date. He was fiddling with his napkin, head tilted to look down at the table. She sighed internally and realised she would have to be the one to break the ice.

“How long have you been in Burton?” she asked. A simple, effective question that could lead to any topic.

“Eight years” he said, looking up from his napkin. “I found a job here after my parents kicked me out. It’s been a good home to me.” He was smiling gently.

“Oh?” she said, “If you don’t mind me asking, why did they…?” He looked like a normal, if still a bit immature guy. If he had piercings or tattoos, she would have thought it was drugs. Maybe they were Mormons or something? They were uncommon, but not too uncommon in the West Midlands.

“They caught me with my at the time boyfriend, and, well, didn’t want me in the house anymore” he said, followed by a little nervous laughter.

A car horn blared outside. Someone was stuck in the carpark, blocked by someone who had parked in front of them. A member of staff ran outside to ID the offending car and find its owner.

“Wait, you’re gay?” Kathleen said, feeling sort of deja-vu. “If you’re gay, why are we on a date?”

“No, no, I’m bisexual” he said. “You do know what it means, right? I love both men and women. Most cis-het women just see me as gay, and it can get frustrating. But, if you haven’t heard of it, that’s okay”

“Cis-het?” Cameron had used these words to describe her, and she still found them offensive, even as she refused to learn what they meant.

“Forget it” he said, placing his hands on hers. “My point is that I’m attracted to you just as any straight guy would be, even if I’m not a straight guy but Kane Guy.” He did the finger gun and wink again, and it took Kathleen a moment too long to remember that his surname was Guy and so this was an attempt at a joke.

As she gave a pained smile, the waiter appeared and took their orders. She and Kane both had the goat’s cheese starter, and the pork chop main. She suppressed a joke about both her and Kane both ordering the same men too, not wanting to stir the pot any further.

“Your accent sounds a little northern” Kane said, as the waiter left. “Did you move to Burton too?”

“Yes, I’ve been here for about six months” she said. She was thinking about how to talk about her move without mentioning Cameron. Cameron was gone and it wasn’t worth bringing him up when she was trying to move on.

“Burton isn’t exactly an exciting place to live” Kane said. “Why’d you move here?”

Shit. It was unavoidable. She braced herself for the second awkward topic. “Well, I was still with my ex-boyfriend Cameron at the time. We, came here to start a family, but it didn’t work out”

“Oh” Kane shrank back a little, his hands moved to fiddle with the napkin again.

“I- look- He wasn’t who I thought he was. I really tried my best to make it work out, but in the end, I just had to break things off.” She dreaded what she knew she’d have to say, only briefly considering lying, deciding Kane wouldn’t be worth it anyway if he didn’t take this well.

“Right” Kane said. “Was he, what, a sociopath or something? An incel?”

“No, no, he, ugh, I suppose I should say ‘she’, came out to me as a woman” she rolled her eyes at the memory of when he’d finally had the nerve to tell her.

Kane was quiet. He stared out across the restaurant for a moment, still fiddling with that napkin. She could tell he was regretting the date, and she scrambled for a way to salvage the conversation.

“So, your profile mentions you like to read?”

Kane looked back to her. His face was contorted in anguish, but he gave her back a smile. “I read a lot of sci-fi and fantasy books,” he said, “I don’t suppose you’d know The Left Hand of Darkness?”

Oh, this sounded like some nerd thing. She wished Tinder had an option to filter out nerd readers from actual readers, instead of just lumping them all in together. “…no”

The waiter brought over their mains. It seemed that Stoves’n’Kings was one of those places that just brought out the food when it was ready, instead of having the decency to start with your starters. Kathleen sighed internally, but Kane looked happy that with their food they finally had something in common.

“How’s your pork?” he said, neatly slicing off a part of the meat, and skewering it.

Kathleen looked down at her food. Everything should have been fine. Everything about her meal was what she’d always expected. But something was wrong, and she was grasping around for someone to blame.

“It’s good,” she said, forcing down a mouthful of tender flesh.