Chapter Text
Chapter 1
“Are you sure you want to do this?”
“Yes,” says Dani, with absolute certainty. She’s peering at her phone, thumb hovering over the app she has just downloaded. Just a little lavender swirl with the name ‘Greet’.
“I mean, can’t you just do this the old fashioned way? Meet someone, go out a few times, get to know them?” Rebecca sounds concerned.
“Jesus Becs. It’s 2019, get with the times. If she wants a hook-up, let the girl have a hook-up.” Jenna, Bec’s unapologetically wild room room mate is definitely Dani’s best ally in this situation.
Rebecca chews her lip. “Its just. It’s your first time. Don’t you want to meet someone? Know them a bit first?”
Dani doesn’t look at her, just keeps staring at her phone. “I will be meeting someone. And then I’ll be kissing them. And then there will be sex.”
“This doesn’t sound like you. It’s all I’m saying. This seems like a major departure from Dani.”
Dani sighs. “That’s why Becs. I’m so tired of being me. I’m finally out, I’m finally ready and I want to know what it’s like. Without worrying about all the -” she waves her hand flappily around the room “- other stuff.”
“You like the other stuff.”
“Then I can find the other stuff later. Right now I just want to know what sex with a woman is like.”
Dani lets her thumb hit the app and watches as it opens.
“Right, login in screen. Need a user-name.”
“Poppins.” Both Rebecca and Jenna say with finality. It’s an old joke, borne off the brief time she spent as a nanny to some rich Londoners before finding her feet at the school where she met Becs. As nicknames go, she thinks she can do worse and it’s not taken so scant minutes and confirmation emails later, she’s in.
“Gotta pick some photos,” she murmurs. “Oh god. This is too much pressure.”
“Whip your top off and we’ll get some good ones,” grins Jenna evilly. “If it’s sex you’re after…”
“Yeah, I’d like to save something for the imagination!”
“Use that one I took of you on London Bridge, you’re gorgeous in that,” says Rebecca, chewing on a carrot stick.
Dani takes a deep draught of her Shiraz and brings the photo up. She does look good in it, relaxed, smiling, leaning against the railing. “I’m wearing sunglasses though.”
“So we’ll look for one without for the next one.”
She clicks the bridge photo and then continues to scan through her phone until Becs yells “Stop!”
“That one. Definitely that one.” Jenna agrees.
“Really? It’s just me looking at the camera. I think I took it for work?” It’s a nice photo. She’s in front of a red door, and you can just, barely, see the upper ear piercing she got upon liberating herself from her previous life.
A rebellion – her mother had called it. Freedom is what Dani had called it.
She throws the photo in.
Another drink of Shiraz and she thinks she might, possibly, be ready to start.
Rebecca and Jenna settle either side of her on the couch, as she leans forward and clicks on to the filter part of the app. She clicks within 30 miles because who wants to commute for a one night stand, and then she hovers over the rest of it.
“Age,” Jenna says. “Find someone your age.”
“That’s not fair!” Rebecca protests. “Someone older may have more experience.”
“Sure, if she wants to go to bed with an Indigo Girl in a mullet.”
“That’s a stereotype!”
Dani ignores them and clicks 20-40 in the age range. She’s rather annoyed there’s a weight filter, but leaves it empty and then hovers over the ‘What Are You After’ prompt. Eventually she digs out some courage and clicks ‘casual’
“Mistake!” Rebecca claims over her shoulder, but she’s several screwdrivers in so Dani just ignores her again.
Clicking the ‘Find Now’ button gives her butterflies.
“It’s fine,” Jenna pats her on the shoulder. “You don’t have to swipe on anyone.”
“True,” she murmurs back. But she wants to. She’s gotten up all the courage to do this tonight, flanked by her wing-women and a hefty dose of red wine. She’d like it to go somewhere if possible.
The first three profiles that pop up are not for her. There’s a strange aggression to them that makes Dani uneasy. Confidence is good, she thinks, but she doesn’t know that she wants to meet up with an All-British Shagging Champion, as one profile proclaims.
The fourth one is a rather pretty blonde, sporty and with a great profile in sunlight.
“Nope,” says Jemma. “Look, trans.”
Both Dani and Rebecca turn to look at her. “Seriously?”
“What? I thought you were after-”
Dani rolls her eyes and cuts her off. “Wow, massively transphobic or what! Women are women, that’s a woman.” She looks at the profile a little closer. “And, no.”
“See!” Says Jenna.
Dani points to the small line that says ‘Tie me up and whip me till I bleed’ – “Each to their own but that’s not quite what I’m after. Couldn’t care less if she’s trans, but the whipping is a no.” She swipes left.
It is at that point that the breath stops in her chest.
“Wow,” says Rebecca, sitting up straight.
“Uh, double wow,” says Jenna.”
Dani just stares. She feels her heart beating in her chest, hard, like it wants out of its cage.
“Is she holding a flower?” Jenna remarks. “Bit cliché isn’t it.”
“Not when your profile says you’re a gardener,” Rebecca retorts.
Dani can’t talk. There’s something about the dark haired woman that has her trembling. She wouldn’t even say that it was because she was stunning, even though, she absolutely was. There was just a casual beauty to her that made Dani want to reach out and touch the screen.
A quick scan told her that ‘Leafling’ was 29, a gardener, liked tea and was after casual. No further information offered
She sat, frozen, still staring at the single profile picture offered.
“OK you have to hit that.”
“You do. Dani, this is the first decent one you’ve found.”
“We’ve only looked at five,” says Jenna. “But yes, hit that.”
Dani still hesitates. Somehow this has gone from zero to one hundred in the space of seconds. She’d been kind of hoping for around sixty, to ease herself in. This profile though, this woman, is speeding ticket territory.
“Swipe babe. Swipe.”
“No way is she going to swipe back,” Dani murmurs.
“Hey, don’t talk yourself down like that. You’re a catch. And you’re hot.” Rebecca pats her on the back.
“Yeah, I’d do you,” Jenna smirks, making them both turn and look at her again. “I mean, you know, if I liked women and all.”
Dani shakes her head, and goes back to the profile. She might, Dani thinks, be a bit too good looking.
It’s then that Rebecca reaches over her shoulder and swipes right.
“Becs!”
“What?! You weren’t going to and I’m here to help you make the most of your opportunities.”
“Oh my god. Oh my god,” Dani puts her phone down. “I can’t… oh boy.”
“I thought you wanted this!”
“I do but… she is out of my league. And now I’ve swiped and oh God.”
Jenna shrugs. “She’s not, but if she thinks so, she’ll swipe left and therefore is an asshole you don’t need to see pucker. If she swipes right, then she knows you’re A Grade and you have nothing to worry about.”
Dani would like to believe her, but she’s still shaking.
“Lets see some more?” Becs is slurring a bit now.
“No. No I think I need a break,” Dani says. She makes sure her phone screen is locked and slips it in her pocket, standing up and walking the apartment small living area shaking her hands back and forth. “Oh god I swiped on someone.”
“You swiped on hot gardener,” Jenna corrects. “Imagine that fucking you into the mattress. Geez. Maybe I like women a bit after all.”
Dani’s brain does that thing where for a second, it goes white hot with flashes as Jenna’s words hit home. She doesn’t even imagine it, just the words are enough for her palms to sweat and the anxiety to peak. Who was she kidding? Yes she’d come out. Yes she’d declared her intent to date women, possibly not women, but definitely women, and yes she’d thought she was ready but now that she’s dipped just the barest toe in the water, she’s having second thoughts.
What if she wasn’t enough? What if she was terrible in bed? What if…
In her pocket, she feels the barest vibration. A notification. Her head darts up, as she stumbles out of her thoughts and looks at Jenna and Becs, who are still on the couch and now discussing the finer points of whether or not strap on sex was like sex with a real penis.
Dani does not, as it turns out, need to hear this conversation.
“I’m going home.”
“It’s nine o’clock.”
“Yes, but I’m currently having a heart attack and really, really, really need the time out.”
Becs stands up, looking concerned. “Hey, are you ok? I’m sorry.” She comes up, puts her hands on Dani’s biceps, looking into her eyes.
“I’m… I’m ok. Just need some time to think.”
Becs nods. “You don’t ever need to do anything you want yeah. Ten seconds and you can delete the whole app.”
Dani nods. It’s good advice, true advice.
Becs calls her an uber, and insists on putting her in it herself. It’s only in the quiet backseat of the car that Dani dares to pull her phone out of her pocket and open the notification.
Leafling wants to chat.
**************************
It is safe and warm in the tiny shared flat that Dani co-rents with Tim. He’s an Australian chef who sleeps all day, works all night and leaves her delicious leftovers. He’s not untidy, they barely share the space at the same time and he seems to keep his conquests elsewhere so it’s been working quite well. Dani would love her own place but there’s no way she could afford it on a teachers salary in London.
Her bedroom is a sanctuary, and she forces herself to get ready for bed, into comfortable pyjamas and face washed, teeth brushed, before pulling out her phone again.
She opens the app, and there’s a new tab down the bottom.
The gardener has swiped right.
She clicks on it, before she can think better of it, and a small chat window opens up with the name Leafling in green.
Poppins: Hi.
There’s a pause, and for a moment Dani is both simultaneously fearful that it’s too late and she’ll have to wait for tomorrow, and also that a reply will happen right now and she’ll have to face it. Then, that terrible curse, the typing ellipses appears.
Leafling: Hi.
….
Leafling: Witty conversationalists aren’t we.
Dani laughs, out loud, and feels her panic settle down a little.
Poppins: Sorry. I’ve never spoken to a leaf before so I wasn’t sure how to start.
Leafling: It’s alright. I’ve never spoken to a magical flying fictional character either. Was a bit afraid you may hit me with your umbrella.
Poppins: Umbrella safely stowed at the front door. You’re all good.
Leafling: I promise to behave. For now.
Dani’s heart rate jumps. Flirting. OK. Well, that makes sense.
Poppins: I have a very stern teacher voice you know. I won’t hesitate to use it.
Oh god, was that too much? That was too much right?
Leafling: You say that like it’s a bad thing.
Not too much. Maybe too much now that Dani’s head is on fire again, but not too much.
Poppins: Are you really a gardener?
Leafling: I am. Are you really a P.L. Travers novel?
Poppins: Sorry to disappoint. I really am a teacher though. Used to be a nanny, hence the nickname.
Leafling: I like it. Rolls off the tongue.
That brings Dani images of rolling tongues and that, she decides, may be too much imagining for tonight. She settles back against her pillows and crosses her legs.
Poppins: Doing anything interesting?
Leafling: Talking to a blisteringly hot woman online. You?
Dani smiles again. It’s a line, and it makes her blush, but it also makes her smile.
Poppins: Trying to remember how to flirt.
There’s a brief pause, and then the ellipses appears. Then it disappears and reappears and disappears and Dani thinks she may have a stroke before,
Leafling: Seem to be doing OK from this angle.
Poppins: Glad to hear it. Most of my daily interactions are with fourth graders.
Leafling: Pretty sure you’re not supposed to flirt with them.
Poppins: I DON’T. Hence my concern.
Leafling: Most of my daily interactions are with plants, so you’re still doing better than me. Although if my charges annoy me I can always just cut their heads off.
Poppins: Yeah, they’re not happy when I try that.
Leafling: Might pull the other wee gremlins into line though, make an example of one.
Poppins: The paperwork alone is prohibitive.
Leafling: Oh, pernicious paperwork. Best not chance it then. Probably shouldn’t take child rearing advice from me either.
Poppins: I’m pretty glad I don’t have to rear them. Just mold their little minds and throw them back at the end of the day.
Leafling: Sounds a bit like gardening really. I can’t make a tomato grow cucumbers, but I can make it grow really nice tomatoes.
Dani thinks it may be the most understood she’s ever felt in one sentence.
Poppins: Most people think teachers are just glorified babysitters.
Leafling: Most people think Brexit was a good idea.
Poppins: I’m not from England so that one confused the hell out of me for a long time.
Leafling: Intriguing. Am I to guess where you’re from? Give me some clues at least.
Poppins: That would be showing my true colors.
Leafling: Aaaah, American.
Poppins: Hey! How did you figure that out so fast.
Leafling: You can’t spell colours.
Dani stares at the chat, and grins.
Poppins: Got me.
Leafling: Have you been here long?
Poppins: Nine months. Still settling in I guess.
Leafling: Looking for someone to show you the ways of Merry Old England?
Dani types a sentence and then hovers over the send button. It is definitely the most forward thing she has ever typed in her entire life.
Poppins: Looking for someone to show me the way around an English girl.
…
…
…
Leafling: Bold.
Poppins: Too bold?
Leafling: Definitely not. Might be a bit late to take you on a tour tonight, if you’re interested that is.
Dani breathes out, unaware that she’d been holding one in for some time. She’s shaking again, can’t believe this has all happened, but now there’s a distinct frisson of excitement running under. Leafling, it turns out, is not just gorgeous, but funny and seemingly smart. It’s a powerful, if dangerous combination.
Poppins: I’m interested. Are you free Friday evening?
Leafling: I am. Could be persuaded to meet up.
Poppins: Sounds suspiciously like we’re making plans to do so then.
Leafling: Would it be rude if I asked to meet somewhere public first? Just to make sure you’re not the second iteration of Ted Bundy and you can check I’m not Jill the Ripper?
Poppins: That seems like a smart idea. I’m still relatively new to London, you want to pick somewhere?
Leafling: There’s a bar called A Batter Place. Pretty easy to find.
She drops the address into the chat and Dani rubs her thumb over it, checking. Not too far from her flat actually.
Poppins: Seven? Is there a dress requirement for a baseball restaurant?
Leafling: Baseball?
Poppins: Batter – as in, batter up.
Leafling: Oh. No. We don’t really do baseball over here. It’s the worlds worst baking pun. They do amazing cakes.
Poppins: Well now I feel like an idiot
Leafling: Still looking OK from this angle. It’s nice to have a fresh perspective on things, no need to apologise for being yourself.
Dani can’t help but look back at the small icon with that face in it again. Who was this woman?
Leafling: Casual dress. I think that’s in line with what we both said we wanted right. Casual?
Dani can’t help but blush at that one too. She’s spent this short conversation falling deeply in like with a basically anonymous human and now her initial plans have been brought back into view.
Well. If she’s going to do a one night stand, surely she can do worse than a fucking gorgeous Brit with a sense of humour.
Poppins: Casual then. See you Friday? Best get some sleep, school starts early.
Leafling: Sleep well. Don’t let those gremlins run you ragged. See you Friday.
And then, to save Dani the worry of having to decide to reply or not, the chat goes grey, indicating that the gardener has logged off.
She doesn’t sleep well, her brain a riot of conflicting thoughts. Perhaps she should have taken Rebecca’s suggestion and gone out to a bar. There were plenty of places around London that had women’s nights. Rebecca had offered to take her to any she wanted, where she could have eyed women up and down, met someone, gotten to talk to them first. She could arrange dates, and go slowly, test the waters gently instead of plunging straight off the diving board.
She could have, and down the line, she hopes maybe she can make a connection, but for now, she just has a curiosity she needs to assuage.
It’s hard to explain it to anyone, even herself, why she thinks this is a good idea. One night stands are exactly the opposite of what she’s used to. Hell, she isn’t even sure she enjoys sex. She knows, theoretically, that when done right people enjoy it, it just hasn’t been her experience thus far. She also knows that she’s to blame for a lot of that. It wasn’t like Eddie hadn’t tried. He’d pointed out repeatedly that he’d tried. It hadn’t ever worked.
Hell, it had never worked for Dani alone either. Now she’s overthinking it, because if she really thinks that it won’t work, then why is she even bothering with this. With someone as good looking and funny as the hot gardener no less.
Perhaps, Dani thinks, because if anyone is going to prove that Dani’s body isn’t a pointless wasteland, that she may as well go for the best candidate.
Her sleep is fitful, full of dreams of wispy brown curls, flower petals and soft touches. Half way through those soft touches turn grabbing, and cold, leaving her feel sick and pawed at. She wakes multiple times, and manages to get back to sleep but in the end, when morning comes, she feels like she hasn’t slept at all.
Maybe she should have suggested a night sooner than Friday, because it’s only Wednesday and that means she has two nights to fret. It also, she reasons, means that she has two nights to cancel, and that’s reassuring and frightening at the same time.
She pulls herself through the work day, grateful for Rebecca slipping her a coffee at morning tea. “Drink after work?”
She nods, although she has no intention of partaking in alcohol. She’d only had one wine the night before to fortify herself, generally she refused to drink on school nights. Still, she could use the sounding board of her friend.
Three pm comes late, and when all the children are gone, she can’t help but groan and plonk her head down on the desk. She pulls out her phone, opens the app, but the chat is still grey, hanging where it was last night. She starts to type a cancellation, and then her eyes drift to the portrait in the corner again. God, she really is quite good looking this gardener. She deletes the message.
“Time to be brave Clayton,” she says to herself.
“Sign of madness you know, talking to yourself.” Rebecca sticks her head around the corner.
“At least I know what I’m going to say in response.”
“Do you mind if Peter comes to drinks?”
Dani tries not to make a face. She doesn’t like Peter, but she loves Rebecca. Apparently her poker face isn’t up to much.
“I know he’s a bit of an arse. But he’s fucking amazing in bed.”
“You don’t need to justify your relationship to me.”
“Need to justify it to myself sometimes,” Rebecca shrugs. “I tell you what. I’ll tell him to meet us at six and we’ll go at five. Get a good hour of girl chat in before he gets there and if you want to scarper after, well, we can tell him you have marking to do.”
“I do have marking to do.”
“Good, because you can’t lie to save yourself.”
Dani makes a face at her, but it’s true, she can’t.
She busies herself tidying the room, and then rocks up at the wine bar at four thirty instead because it’s too much bother to go home in between. Despite her previous promise, she orders herself a glass of white and sips the chilled drink slowly. One won’t hurt.
Becs shows up at ten to, and settles in with her own glass.
“OK, so what did she say?”
“Hmm?”
“Hot gardener.”
Dani narrows her eyes. “How do you know we talked?”
“Because there is no way she swiped left on you, and you look like you didn’t sleep as well as usual.”
Dani sighs. “It’s really annoying to be this transparent you know. I feel like I’m some kind of stereotype.”
“There’s nothing wrong with being a good person Dani. It’s why we all love you so. Now, tell me.”
“Um, she’s really nice. She’s funny. And… we may have agreed to meet on Friday.”
Rebecca makes a noise somewhere between a squeal and a cry, and grabs her arm. “Oh my god you have a date!”
Dani shakes her head. “I… don’t think it’s a date.”
“Wait, what? You’re not going to her house are you. That is not safe, I won’t let -”
“Chill Becs, we agreed to meet somewhere neutral.”
“Good, because I am not letting my best friend get axe murdered by a balding man named Ron from Birmingham.”
Dani looks perplexed.
“Catfishing is a thing Dani.”
“Ron is very convincing if that’s the case. Flirts very well.”
“Oh there was flirting.”
“Of course there was flirting. Hence agreeing to meet on Friday. Some place called… A Batter Place?”
Rebecca sips her wine. “Oh I’ve heard of that. Really good food. How is this not a date? You’re going out to dinner with a hot, hot woman. That’s a date.”
Dani scratches her head. “I mean, she specified casual on her profile right. And I specified casual on mine. So this is… casual.”
“A casual date.”
“I think it’s code for ‘scope each other out before deciding if sex is on the menu’.”
“Isn’t that what you want?” Rebecca picks up a bread stick and points it at Dani, waving the point. “You specifically said that’s what you wanted.”
“It is.”
“Well then.”
“I can still be nervous.”
“Yes you can. Are you clean?”
Dani looks at her, eyes wide and slightly appalled. “Becs!”
“What? It’s a really reasonable question. She’s going to want to know.”
“I’ve only ever been with Eddie,” she hisses. “And he was only with me. So yes, I’m clean.”
“Make sure she is.”
Dani covers her eyes with her hand. “Oh God. This is a mistake.”
Rebecca shakes her head. “It’s not. Seriously. Sex is not a mistake. But, you should ask anyway.”
Dani folds her arms on the table and lies her head on them, groaning. Her words are too muffled for Rebecca to hear them so she pokes her in the head with a bread stick instead.
“What?”
“I said, I have no idea how to ask someone that.”
“Easy – ‘Areyou health screened?’”
Dani looks at her. “Just that?”
“Yeah. If she doesn’t understand, move on.”
“It sounds like I’m asking her if she has Tuberculosis.”
“One,” Bec crunches the bread stick, “you want to know if she has Tuberculosis. Two, this is absolutely an OK question if you end up in bed. Before bed. Just ask.”
Dani nods. “OK. OK I can ask that.”
“Buy dental dams?”
“Wait WHAT?”
“Seriously Clayton, have you researched this at all?”
Dani knows she’s blushing to the roots of her hair. And now the panic attack she’s having is threatening to take out her vision. She feels Bec’s hand on her arm. “Hey, hey it’s OK. Count to ten. It’s OK. Stop hyperventilating, it’s OK.”
Slowly, but surely, the counting and breathing works until she looks Rebecca in the face again. “OK, this is definitely a mistake and I’m cancelling.”
Rebecca grabs her phone hand and holds it, gently, but firmly. “No. You’re not.”
“I can’t do this.”
“You can’t go to dinner with a hot chick on Friday?”
“I can’t sleep with her!”
Rebecca laughs. “You don’t have to. Just go to dinner, see what happens, and let it move naturally.”
Dani senses her heart rate slide a little more into the normal zone, not yet all the way there, but better.
“Naturally?”
“Yes.”
“Ok. But… the…. Dams?”
“Maybe don’t try for advanced lesbianing until you’re ready.”
Dani would have blushed harder then, but she feels like she’s already the proverbial tomato.
“Seriously. We’ll have a safe word, I’ll make sure I’m sober. You send me a text and I’ll come get you the second you need me OK. We’ll pretend Jasper got out and I need help finding him.”
Jasper, Rebecca’s very aged cat, rarely stirred from his cat bed other than for dinner. The idea of him actually hauling his plump form up to a window or door to escape was ridiculous, but it wasn’t like the gardener would know that.
“OK. What’s the safe word.”
“Help?”
Dani gives her a pointed look.
Rebecca laughs. “OK, OK, tell me its going Splendidly.”
“Splendidly?”
“Yep. Perfectly Splendidly.”
“Yeesh, does anyone really talk like that?”
“Not Americans,” Bec’s ate the last of the breadstick to punctuate her point. “Also, my incredibly sexy penis attached to a regretful personality has just rocked up outside.”
“Oh my god I don’t know why you’re dating him.”
“Multiple orgasms.” Bec’s waves to Peter, who strides over with the confidence of a white man who always gets what he wants.
“I’d settle for one,” Dani mumbles under her breath. She’s glad Rebecca doesn’t hear it over the hubbub of the bar.
“Evening Dani,” Peter slides in next to Rebecca and puts an arm around her. To Dani, it looks possessive, if for no other reason than her body throws up a muscle memory of the same sensation. She hates it. Rebecca seems fine though, even if she is two wines in.
“Peter.”
“We having dinner here or heading on?” He checks his watch, looks at Bec and there’s some kind of non-verbal communication there. Dani doesn’t know what it means, and doesn’t want to.
“Actually I’m going to head home. Have some tests to mark from today,” she smiles serenely at Peter and he looks pleased at this information. She knows she doesn’t have the best poker face, but at least she seems to be fooling him.
“See you tomorrow Becs?”
“Mmmhmm, see you then.” She seems distracted in her reply, and Dani only notices Peter’s hand high on Rebecca’s thigh as she stands and grabs her bag.
The night air comes as a relief from the suddenly suffocating atmosphere inside the bar. Dani opts to walk home, not far at all, and busy enough to be safe. If anything, watching Peter with Rebecca has made her feel even better about her plans on Friday night. She wants freedom to see, and do, and explore. What she doesn’t want, is heavy hands on her thigh and some kind of presumed ownership. She’s had enough of that.
Naked shenanigans with a hot gardener suddenly seems like the best idea she’d had in awhile.
It’s enough to buoy her home, and through her night time routine, until she begins feeling itchy again. She picks up the phone and before she can think better of it, opens the app and goes straight to the chat page.
She does, if she thinks even for a second, find it interesting that she hasn’t looked at any other profiles. If she’s going to go out on a limb, maybe one at a time is the right way.
Poppins: Still on for Friday?
There’s a long moment of staring at the grey chat, before it goes green all of a sudden, and those ellipses, once her nemesis, are giving her hope once again.
Leafling: Sorry who is this?
Dani’s heart leaps to her throat, and her fingers shake as she tries to think of an appropriate response.
Leafling: Just kidding – yanking your chain if you’ll forgive the pun.
Poppins: I most certainly will not, that was rude!
Leafling: What if I promise to make it up to you?
Poppins: You had me going there for a second. Might take some considerable making up.
Leafling: Consider me appropriately contrite and the first round on me.
Poppins: Hmmm. That all you’ve got?
Dani feels bold. Like there’s a little world all of it’s own in this chat and she has room to spread her wings. She hugs a knee to her chest and grins, staring at the screen happily.
Leafling: Well, I do have one or two other tricks up my sleeve .
Poppins: Like someone cheating at poker?
Leafling: Like someone who knows how to use their hands.
Poppins: The two are not mutually exclusive.
Leafling: You have a point. Ok, if I have to pull out the big guns – double chocolate fudge. With fresh whipped cream.
Poppins: You had me at chocolate but I’ll admit to being a bit lost now.
Leafling: Cake. A Batter Place is famous for cake. And I promise once I buy you a slice of the double chocolate fudge, you’ll forgive me.
Poppins: With fresh whipped cream?
Leafling: Hand on my heart.
Poppins: How was your day?
Leafling: Have you ever stood on a ladder in cold rain while pulling the muck out of three hundred year old gutters?
Poppins: I have not had that pleasure, no.
Leafling: Sometimes I regret my life choices.
Poppins: I had no idea gardening was so glamorous .
Leafling: The gardening is good. The gardening I love. Getting my hands good and dirty in soil, making things grow, designing, nurturing, it’s good.
Poppins: And the gutters?
Leafling: Sadly the other half of my job title is maintenance for the outside of the building where I work. Big old house with grounds. And you have to clean gutters out at least twice a year or they clog up and then water gets in. You don’t want to meet the housekeeper if I’ve let water leak in.
Poppins: Scary?
Leafling: I once left muddy footprints on her floor by accident. I thought she was going to take me out with a broom.
Poppins: Oh my. First an umbrella, now a broom. You’re living life on the edge.
Leafling: Luckily she’s one of my best friends, so I sweet talked her out of it. Reckon it worked with the umbrella too.
Poppins: I still have it if I need it.
Leafling: Duly noted.
Poppins: I wish I didn’t have Math tests to grade.
Leafling: Oh the poor kids. What have you been torturing them with?
Poppins: Fractions.
Leafling: Now I really feel sorry for them.
Poppins: I’m the one who has to mark them.
Leafling: I’ve enough empathy for the lot of you, don’t have to take sides.
Poppins: Sadly, I should go. This is more fun than marking but it won’t do itself. Hope tomorrow is less gutter and more growth.
Leafling: Thanks. Hope tomorrow is less fraction-ous .
P oppins: That was a truly awful pun.
Leafling: My other best friend is the worlds greatest, or worst, pun maker. I learned from him.
Poppins: You may be challenging him for the title s then.
Leafling: Trust me, I’m not. You should go, marking and all that. See you Friday.
Poppins: Goodnight.
Leafling: Gnight.
She stands up and grabs the pile of tests, regretfully staring at the again grey chat. She could have tried to mark and chat at the same time, but she knows it would have distracted her too much to work. Even if she does feel like she could talk to the gardener all day. Even though she doesn’t even know her name. She assumes they’ll introduce themselves on Friday, should neither of them turn out to be serial killers or Ron from Birmingham.
She tries to put the gardener out of her mind, concentrate on work. She does get through the pile, but she still can’t quite get the picture from the back of her mind: beautiful eyes, a perfect nose, curly brown hair and a flower.