Penny thought of herself as an entertaining date – interesting and interested. She had friends and family she loved, a business she was proud of, some fun stories and – so she’d been told – eyes that danced with mischief. Did she spit when she laughed, and nobody had ever mentioned it? Did she talk about herself too much? Was it her cup size, or her dress size, or her hair colour? Weren’t redheads supposed to be a novelty? Was it because she asked too many questions?

She didn’t know how to be anybody but herself, and yet herself, Penny Bridge, was apparently repulsive to all mankind because none of them wanted to actually be with her. She had half a mind to text Cristian back and ask him straight: why didn’t any of her dates ever pan out? If the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result, Penny was officially bonkers. She kept hoping that the next date might be different, that the next man might be different, but they never were. Maybe Cristian could tell her what needed to change. Would it be weird to ask him? He was, after all, one of the people best placed to make suggestions. What did the other women on the dating app have that Penny didn’t?

‘You don’t need to change a thing,’ urged Stuart, kindly. ‘You only have to get it right once. This space engineer is a fool if he’s blowing you off. A damned idiot.’

Penny sat across from Stuart at the serving counter, watching him arrange the grapefruit-orange crostatas and a goat’s cheese double crumb cake she’d just brought up from the kitchen. This was Stoke Newington, one of the more achingly bougie boroughs of North London, so he was using breeze-blocks as support for the charcoal slate trays, all at varying heights. It was terribly hipster but genuinely quite good to look at, so she let him do as he pleased. Bridges was her café, and she cooked, but his aesthetics defined the space where the customers ate.

‘But I’m so tired, Stu. I’m so sick of this feeling – of holding my breath to get some stupid validation from a stupid man, and then feeling like I need to eat a pint of ice cream and cry-wank to The Notebook when it doesn’t happen. Do I smell like desperation?’

‘You smell like burnt cream and boiled ham, Pen, like you do every day.’

‘Ha, ha. Thanks.’ She rolled her eyes at him playfully. She did smell, though – that was the life of a chef in a small breakfast and lunch café, to carry the faint odour of cooking from 7 a.m. until 4 p.m., Tuesday to Saturday.