‘WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON?’ she texted in angry capital letters, and held the phone in front of her, waiting for a response. None came.
Jade felt the oppressive heat of the midday sun burning her exposed shoulders and neck, so she climbed back into her rental car and turned the air conditioning on full blast. She had travelled so far and Kevin was so close, there was no reason that she could see why he would reject her.
She contemplated the farm ahead, then turned over the car’s ignition, performed a U-turn and began to drive slowly along the highway back in the direction from which she had come. She felt hurt and humiliated.
Jade pinched the skin between her thumb and forefinger to stop herself from crying. There must be an excuse, she thought: he was too nervous to face her and she’d backed him into a corner. She considered what her reaction might’ve been had Kevin suddenly turned up unannounced on her doorstep. (Bloody elated, she thought to herself, but then again, she knew that Kevin was a lot quieter than she was.) She had gone and put him in a very awkward position and he needed time to process. She would give him that and then try again later. She told herself off for her spontaneous stupidity and seethed at Shawna and Lucy for having encouraged her to go along with this ridiculous idea.
She drove in the direction of a town she’d passed some twenty miles back. Once there, she would check into a hotel. Later, maybe even tomorrow, she would text Kevin and talk him around.
Are you stupid? Jade suddenly thought to herself. She blinked hard and furrowed her brow. Why are you blaming yourself for this? Since when have you ever let a man make you question yourself? Kevin’s the one in the wrong here, not you.
Her mind raced as a whole other host of thoughts came to her mind, reasons why he might not want to see her. She had watched enough episodes of MTV’s Catfish to know that hopeful romantics are duped all the time online by people pretending to be someone they’re not. Maybe Kevin was actually a woman putting on a deep voice when they spoke, or maybe he was old enough to be her father and hadn’t wanted to say? Or perhaps he didn’t live with his parents on the farm but with his wife instead?
That must be it. Kevin was married and that’s why he hadn’t wanted to Skype or FaceTime, in case his wife caught him. And he was probably talking to Jade on a secret, second phone his wife had no idea he owned.
Maybe he had a child too, or even several children with several wives, like the TV shows she’d watched about polygamists. After all her gloating that Kevin was different to all the scumbags Lucy and Shawna dated, it turned out that he was just the same. She punched the steering wheel in frustration.
The more thought Jade gave it, the more credible her theories became and, in turn, she became even more furious. What a nice cosy set up Kevin had with his loved ones here in Australia and a girlfriend he would string along in another country. As long as he was cautious, how could he ever get caught out? It wasn’t like his Match would travel to the other side of the world and turn up at his house out of the blue, was it?
‘She sure as hell would,’ Jade muttered, feeling her temperature rise alongside her confidence. She jammed on the car’s brakes and skidded to a halt, and after another hasty U-turn she was speeding back towards the farm, then down the dirt track towards the white buildings ahead, spitting gravel and dry earth in her wake.
The white wooden single-storey farmhouse with the silver corrugated iron roof sprawled out in several directions ahead of her. A handful of cars and trucks were parked in front of it, their windows wound down but empty. For a farm, and a dusty one at that, everything looked surprisingly clean and polished, and not as impoverished as Kevin had her believe. A hosepipe lay next to a row of colourful flowers planted in pots. There were more hanging from baskets attached to eaves. Jade was certain the place had a woman’s touch, but there were no swings or slides or children’s toys that she could see, so maybe the Williamsons hadn’t started a family yet.
Several hundred metres away, she could hear the cattle braying in a huge shed and, way into the distance, she thought she could just about make out a large flock of sheep so small, they looked like tumbleweed glued to a painting of the horizon.
Jade turned to face the house and didn’t even need to take a deep breath before marching towards the porch door, clueless as to what she was going to say but determined to make her mark regardless. She rapped the knocker until she heard footsteps shuffling inside. Eventually the door opened and a face appeared.
The man standing before her looked just like her Match, but she knew what she felt in her gut was true.
‘You’re not Kevin,’ she began, and took two steps backwards.
Chapter 19
NICK
‘Very funny, who am I really Matched with?’ Nick asked.
‘I’m not joking. Look here.’ She held out the phone so he could read. ‘It says “Nicholas Wallsworth. Your designated Match is Alexander, male, Birmingham, England. Please see instructions below to discover how to access their complete profile.”’
‘Give me that,’ Nick said, and snatched the phone from her hand, unamused by her prank. But when he read the email himself, he realised Sally wasn’t kidding.
‘You’re gay!’ She laughed. ‘My boyfriend, strike that, my fiancé is gay!’
Nick re-read the email then put his phone down on the kitchen counter. ‘This is bollocks,’ he said. ‘They’ve either made a mistake or someone is having a laugh at my expense.’
‘Well, it’s 99.9999997 per cent accurate, which is far more reliable than a lie detector test.’
‘Well, then, there’s still margin for error, and if there’s margin for error then errors must theoretically be possible. And this is the proof that an almighty fucking error has been made.’
‘Babe, don’t get angry,’ Sally said, stifling her laughter. ‘But that would make you the first person in the world to be mis-Matched – the only person out of about one-and-a-half billion who’ve registered. I think you need to face facts, my darling, you are a gentleman who enjoys the company of other like-minded gentlemen.’
‘Oh, be quiet, Sal.’ Nick was becoming irritated. ‘This Match Your DNA crap is just a money-making scam, otherwise they wouldn’t charge you a tenner to tell you who you’ve been Matched with. Horoscopes are more credible than this.’
‘Hey, it’s not a problem,’ Sally teased. ‘I’ve always wanted a gay BFF and it turns out I’m about to marry mine.’
Nick rolled his eyes. ‘I’m not gay, all right?’
‘Bisexual then? I don’t have a problem with that. You know I had my moments with girls when I was in uni.’
‘I think I’d have known about it by now if I were. You don’t just get to the age of twenty-seven without a single moment of attraction to another man and then suddenly you’re bisexual or gay because you’ve licked a cotton bud and a test says you are.’
‘I didn’t realise you were so homophobic.’
‘I’m not! Believe me, if I were one or the other, you and I would not be living together and about to get married. It’d open up a new world of opportunities for me and I’d be out there trying to stick my dick in a whole load of new places.’
‘You’re taking this very seriously.’
‘I just don’t want you thinking that I’m a secret closet case, because that’d mean our whole relationship was a lie. And this is the most honest relationship I’ve ever been in.’
Jade felt the oppressive heat of the midday sun burning her exposed shoulders and neck, so she climbed back into her rental car and turned the air conditioning on full blast. She had travelled so far and Kevin was so close, there was no reason that she could see why he would reject her.
She contemplated the farm ahead, then turned over the car’s ignition, performed a U-turn and began to drive slowly along the highway back in the direction from which she had come. She felt hurt and humiliated.
Jade pinched the skin between her thumb and forefinger to stop herself from crying. There must be an excuse, she thought: he was too nervous to face her and she’d backed him into a corner. She considered what her reaction might’ve been had Kevin suddenly turned up unannounced on her doorstep. (Bloody elated, she thought to herself, but then again, she knew that Kevin was a lot quieter than she was.) She had gone and put him in a very awkward position and he needed time to process. She would give him that and then try again later. She told herself off for her spontaneous stupidity and seethed at Shawna and Lucy for having encouraged her to go along with this ridiculous idea.
She drove in the direction of a town she’d passed some twenty miles back. Once there, she would check into a hotel. Later, maybe even tomorrow, she would text Kevin and talk him around.
Are you stupid? Jade suddenly thought to herself. She blinked hard and furrowed her brow. Why are you blaming yourself for this? Since when have you ever let a man make you question yourself? Kevin’s the one in the wrong here, not you.
Her mind raced as a whole other host of thoughts came to her mind, reasons why he might not want to see her. She had watched enough episodes of MTV’s Catfish to know that hopeful romantics are duped all the time online by people pretending to be someone they’re not. Maybe Kevin was actually a woman putting on a deep voice when they spoke, or maybe he was old enough to be her father and hadn’t wanted to say? Or perhaps he didn’t live with his parents on the farm but with his wife instead?
That must be it. Kevin was married and that’s why he hadn’t wanted to Skype or FaceTime, in case his wife caught him. And he was probably talking to Jade on a secret, second phone his wife had no idea he owned.
Maybe he had a child too, or even several children with several wives, like the TV shows she’d watched about polygamists. After all her gloating that Kevin was different to all the scumbags Lucy and Shawna dated, it turned out that he was just the same. She punched the steering wheel in frustration.
The more thought Jade gave it, the more credible her theories became and, in turn, she became even more furious. What a nice cosy set up Kevin had with his loved ones here in Australia and a girlfriend he would string along in another country. As long as he was cautious, how could he ever get caught out? It wasn’t like his Match would travel to the other side of the world and turn up at his house out of the blue, was it?
‘She sure as hell would,’ Jade muttered, feeling her temperature rise alongside her confidence. She jammed on the car’s brakes and skidded to a halt, and after another hasty U-turn she was speeding back towards the farm, then down the dirt track towards the white buildings ahead, spitting gravel and dry earth in her wake.
The white wooden single-storey farmhouse with the silver corrugated iron roof sprawled out in several directions ahead of her. A handful of cars and trucks were parked in front of it, their windows wound down but empty. For a farm, and a dusty one at that, everything looked surprisingly clean and polished, and not as impoverished as Kevin had her believe. A hosepipe lay next to a row of colourful flowers planted in pots. There were more hanging from baskets attached to eaves. Jade was certain the place had a woman’s touch, but there were no swings or slides or children’s toys that she could see, so maybe the Williamsons hadn’t started a family yet.
Several hundred metres away, she could hear the cattle braying in a huge shed and, way into the distance, she thought she could just about make out a large flock of sheep so small, they looked like tumbleweed glued to a painting of the horizon.
Jade turned to face the house and didn’t even need to take a deep breath before marching towards the porch door, clueless as to what she was going to say but determined to make her mark regardless. She rapped the knocker until she heard footsteps shuffling inside. Eventually the door opened and a face appeared.
The man standing before her looked just like her Match, but she knew what she felt in her gut was true.
‘You’re not Kevin,’ she began, and took two steps backwards.
Chapter 19
NICK
‘Very funny, who am I really Matched with?’ Nick asked.
‘I’m not joking. Look here.’ She held out the phone so he could read. ‘It says “Nicholas Wallsworth. Your designated Match is Alexander, male, Birmingham, England. Please see instructions below to discover how to access their complete profile.”’
‘Give me that,’ Nick said, and snatched the phone from her hand, unamused by her prank. But when he read the email himself, he realised Sally wasn’t kidding.
‘You’re gay!’ She laughed. ‘My boyfriend, strike that, my fiancé is gay!’
Nick re-read the email then put his phone down on the kitchen counter. ‘This is bollocks,’ he said. ‘They’ve either made a mistake or someone is having a laugh at my expense.’
‘Well, it’s 99.9999997 per cent accurate, which is far more reliable than a lie detector test.’
‘Well, then, there’s still margin for error, and if there’s margin for error then errors must theoretically be possible. And this is the proof that an almighty fucking error has been made.’
‘Babe, don’t get angry,’ Sally said, stifling her laughter. ‘But that would make you the first person in the world to be mis-Matched – the only person out of about one-and-a-half billion who’ve registered. I think you need to face facts, my darling, you are a gentleman who enjoys the company of other like-minded gentlemen.’
‘Oh, be quiet, Sal.’ Nick was becoming irritated. ‘This Match Your DNA crap is just a money-making scam, otherwise they wouldn’t charge you a tenner to tell you who you’ve been Matched with. Horoscopes are more credible than this.’
‘Hey, it’s not a problem,’ Sally teased. ‘I’ve always wanted a gay BFF and it turns out I’m about to marry mine.’
Nick rolled his eyes. ‘I’m not gay, all right?’
‘Bisexual then? I don’t have a problem with that. You know I had my moments with girls when I was in uni.’
‘I think I’d have known about it by now if I were. You don’t just get to the age of twenty-seven without a single moment of attraction to another man and then suddenly you’re bisexual or gay because you’ve licked a cotton bud and a test says you are.’
‘I didn’t realise you were so homophobic.’
‘I’m not! Believe me, if I were one or the other, you and I would not be living together and about to get married. It’d open up a new world of opportunities for me and I’d be out there trying to stick my dick in a whole load of new places.’
‘You’re taking this very seriously.’
‘I just don’t want you thinking that I’m a secret closet case, because that’d mean our whole relationship was a lie. And this is the most honest relationship I’ve ever been in.’
