Ione Cowry

Chapter One

Humans love to share meals, give each other food, and cook for one another. These actions are important for building social bonds, showing care and commitment to others, making romantic gestures, and creating dopamine rushes. But what’s also interesting is the role of cooking in the evolution of our brains. Primates have a higher density of neurons in their brains than other animals, but the human being, with eighty-six billion, is an outlier even in that group. And to cut a long story short, it’s all because we learned to cook food. Cooking food predigests it. Now, I know that doesn’t sound sexy, but it does mean we don’t need to spend most of our waking hours eating and digesting enough food to mostly just run our bodies and only be able to power about thirty percent as many neurons. We get all the neurons and all the time. And with that time and brain power, we can have all the feels. We can invent alphabets and write letters, poems, songs, and stories. Make music and jewelry, grow flowers, and make a performance of our love. Think about that next time you’re slaving over a hot stove for your paramour.

Extract from ‘The Love Roadmap’ by Dr. Harper Larsson

My toe is being tweaked. I open my eyes. For fuck’s sake—he’s down on one knee. Again. The jazz on stage is ruined for me now that I have to deal with this.

My head jerks up from the frame of the deckchair. I gulp my champagne and tighten the cashmere wrap around my shoulders. His signature orange hoodie blends into the sunset that reflects across the lake’s surface. I lean forward toward him.

He’s proffering that damn ring again. It’s preposterously large. A lump of pressurized carbon clasped in a metal band for me to display on the weakest finger of my weakest hand. That bulletproof smile of his, that I used to admire, is making my blood pressure rise. I take a deep breath and forcibly drop my shoulders, then—

‘Mason. Stop it. Please just get back in your chair.’ In my peripheral vision, I see someone twisting in their seat, their phone pointing in our direction. Heat prickles up my neck and spreads across my face.

‘Harper,’ he starts. I roll my eyes. ‘Will you marry me?’ Ugh. He has an annoyingly loud voice.

‘I told you, no. Once in March, in Positano, when you ruined my tiramisu. No. Then, in Cornwall, in June, I explained, at quite some length, why marriage isn’t for me. I said no. Remember? How I’ve learned the hard way that being free is better for me? And that I’ve literally done the research. It’s a shit deal for women. That mental trauma when divorce comes knocking—I’ve seen it all. You remember that?’

He looks at me blankly. He may have a brain problem. Some kind of early-onset dementia? I look at the picnic he brought along this evening: my favourite brand of champagne, Veuve. Melton Mowbray pork pies—my guilty pleasure. There’s nothing wrong with his memory. I shake the thought away.

It’s now July. The time between these incidents appears to be narrowing. How long until this becomes a daily occurrence? I shiver, despite the air temperature being well into the nineties.

He squints at me. ‘Well?’

More heads swivel towards us. More cameras point in our direction.

I’m not sure which of us is more recognizable. I mean, we’re not A-listers—we’re not film or rock stars. He’s a Silicon Valley entrepreneur, not in the three-comma club yet, but by no means unknown and definitely excessively wealthy. He invests heavily in his PR.

I do a bit of television and radio and consult for an internet dating site. I’m a best-selling author. My Instagram profile reads, “Sexpert neurologist Ph.D. Writer. Eternal spinster. Chemistry-based matchmaker. Good at Bananagrams.”

My follower count recently jumped to over fifty thousand, mostly thanks to the range of marital aids just launched with me as their brand ambassador. This kind of nonsense from Mason could entertain a journalist or two or some YouTube viewers for sure. Start a thread on TattleLife.

He and I met on Instagram. After liking every single one of my deeply feminist posts for three months, he’d finally DMed me, asking me what my favorite neuron was. I think I said mirror. His moderately intelligent and relevant question was a welcome relief from the onslaught of dick pics.

‘So,’ he says, his pale gray eyes unbinking. ‘What about now? Now, will you?’

‘No. I won’t. What part of “eternal spinster” do you not understand?’

‘It’s a woman’s prerogative to change their mind,’ he says.

‘That adage offends me,’ I say. ‘Although interestingly, there could be some truth in it, like with most adages. Synaptic transmission does alter during oestrus, so we do think differently.’ I snap back to the matter at hand. ‘But my synapses aren’t going to go wonky enough at any time of the month to make me change my mind about this.’

‘Shame,’ he says. ‘I thought I’d got the timing right.’

Wait. What? Is he tracking my cycle?

‘Tenacity is one of my strengths,’ he says. ‘I’ll keep trying. You’ll get there in the end.’ He snaps the clamshell case shut and slips it in his jeans pocket as he gets to his feet and settles back down in his deck chair next to mine. He runs his hand across his shaved head as he looks at me. He’s so damn cocky.

I hold eye contact while I tip the rest of my glass of champagne onto the grass and dump it in the ice bucket. I unwind my legs and haul myself out of the deckchair. I slip on my gold sandals, cool against the soles of my bare feet, and brush a couple of creases from my navy jumpsuit. Bending and grabbing my purse as I stand, I whisper my final words in his ear.

‘We. Are. Done.’ His indestructible smile fails to waver.

I walk away.

I whip through the festival gates, off the grass, and onto the street. The tall gray buildings of Geneva glow rosy. I hammer out a WhatsApp message. There are many great things about being a scientist, but the possibly best thing is that you have friends all over the planet. Tonight, her name is Mathilde. I was due to see her for brunch tomorrow, and as I summon an Uber to whisk me to her door, she messages back:

‘I’m at home so no worries. You’re just a few hours early! Plus, I could do with a break from this paper.’

Mathilde is an anthropologist. We met on our first day at Brown when we were eighteen.

‘Well, the festival’s loss is my gain. To what do I owe this unexpected pleasure?’ she asks, laughing and pouring neat Reyka over ice and a slice of lime in a cut crystal tumbler. She likes some hygge, this one, a lot of Scandinavian running through Viking roots, just like me. The silk kaftan kissing her curves reflects the other side of her family tree. It’s the color of reindeer moss. She’s wrapped her braids up into a top knot, and huge gold hoops swing from her ears.

‘That guy I’m here with—Mason—he proposed again. What a jerk.’ I guzzle greedily from the glass the instant she hands it over and nestle myself deeper into the shabby dove-colored velvet of her couch.

‘How many times is that now?’ she asks, settling herself next to me, laying a long arm along the back of the couch.

‘Three. Total drag.’

‘But kinda romantic,’ she says, and I cross my arms. ‘You don’t think,’ she starts, ‘that this forever single thing is maybe wearing thin? You’re thirty-five now. Give it another five years, and you’ll be panic-buying a husband and burning your hard-earned cash on boosting your egg production.’

‘Nope.’ I clonk my glass down on the coffee table. 'I’ve dumped him.'

‘Sometimes it seems like you’re determined to be alone forever.’ She raises one of her perfect eyebrows.

‘Quite the opposite. I want to live my life as one long, amorous adventure. I want to fall in love many, many times. I live for that craziness, that obsessiveness, when I connect with someone new.

‘Sure, it’s a total pain when it fades away and you have to detangle your lives—I’ve spent way too many alcohol-addled nights picking over the bones of breakups. But there’s no joy without pain. No love without grief.

‘That’s just life, isn’t it? Pros and cons. Ups and downs. I don’t want to get saddled with a husband—or wife—and children. I’m going to skip that whole last part and just enjoy the ride, or rides.’ I wink at her, and she does laugh, but then—

My cell phone vibrates on the coffee table, and I pick it up. I’ve been tagged on Instagram. Mason has posted a picture captioned, She said yes!

My initial stress response narrows my blood vessels, raises my heart rate, and makes me breathe rapidly. In short, I feel dizzy.

I remember him taking the picture just after we’d arrived at the festival earlier in the evening. A selfie of the pair of us holding up our first glasses of champagne, the lake shimmering behind us, reflecting the blue sky. We’re both wearing shades, but our smiles look happy.

Swiping to the right, there’s a hand. It’s wearing that stupid ring. I mean, it is very pretty, but—

But it’s not my hand. Obvs. It has talons for nails, for starters, and anyone who knows me knows I can’t bear mine clattering on my keyboard, so I keep them short. Also, the French manicure is decorated with tiny pearls. Pretty, but not my style.

‘What the actual fuck?’ I say when my head stops swimming and show Mathilde this outrage. She takes hold of my cell phone and glances at my hand.

‘Um. Yeah. So that’s weird.’

‘Why would he do this?’

‘First stage of grief is denial?’ She’s scrolling through the comments. ‘On the plus side, generally, people do seem very happy for the both of you.’ I snatch my cell phone back from her.

‘Okay, so this needs to stop right now. How do I make it stop?’ I say, my breathing shallowing again.

‘Call him?’ Mathilde suggests, cocking her head at me.

‘And say what?’ I drain my vodka and dump the empty tumbler down on the table.

‘Remind him that you did not, in fact, say yes, but declined his proposal, and ask him to take the post down?’ She leans towards the table, unstoppers the bottle, and pours. The ice has not yet even melted in my glass. I take a slug. Dial his number. It rings three times and goes to his voicemail. I hang up.

‘He doesn’t do phone calls. Says they’re very ten years ago. Voicemail bugs him even more. We kind of agree on all of that, actually.’

‘Okay. So, send him a message.’

I type out a WhatsApp—

Mason! What the fuck? What is that Instagram post? Take it down NOW!!!

I show it to Mathilde before I hit send.

‘Too cross?’ she says.

‘I am cross. I’m fucking livid!’ I respond, grabbing a pillow and hurling it across the room. She laughs.

‘What’s the outcome you’re looking for here?’ she asks.

‘For him to stop fucking around and take that down like right now.’

‘You’d be able to think more clearly if you calmed down,’ she says and pats me on my knee as she sips her own vodka. I stare at her. She’s unflinching.

‘Nobody, in the entire history of humankind, has ever calmed down when they’re told to calm down.’ She’s right, though. His provocation has triggered a state of hot cognition. I close my eyes, and take a deep breath, hold it for four beats. And just like that, we become a historical anomaly.

‘Also, think about it for a second—what’s the chance he’s done this specifically to get a reaction out of you?’

See—this is why we are friends. Mathilde is a strategic thinker with a deep understanding of human behavior. Like me. Much deeper than Mason’s. We should be able to win this battle if we put our brains to it. I delete the draft message and start again.

Hey, Mason - I’m sorry tonight didn’t turn out as you’d hoped. I understand you’re upset. Would you like to take the Instagram post down, or would you prefer that I comment on it?

‘Better,’ says Mathilde, and I hit send. ‘It’s empathetic, almost friendly. Could you be friends with him?’

‘Er, no,’ I say. ‘It’ll be difficult to be friends after this.’

I show her his response. It says:

The internet’s going mental for our news, Harper! What a story to tell our grandkids!

‘Right,’ says Mathilde.

He’s not wrong. About the first part, anyway. The post already has over two thousand likes, and it has been, I check the clock against the timestamp on the post, forty-two minutes. There are also hundreds of comments. Stuff like OMG! This is amazing news! Such a beautiful couple! Can’t wait to see your dress. #couplegoals.

‘I feel like I’m going a little nuts,’ I say. ‘I mean, I don’t think I could have been any clearer.’

‘Honestly,’ says Mathilde, 'you’ve never been known for being ambiguous. Most people, in my experience, consider you quite straightforward. Forthright, even.’

‘Forthright?’ I shout.

‘Yes,’ she says and catches my eye, and I see the twinkle in hers and the twitch in her lips, and my mirror neurons react. Then it’s like we’re eighteen again, sharing a joint, and we’re laughing so hard we are clutching our bellies, and our jaws are starting to ache. When we finally come up for air, we chink our glasses, catch our breath.

‘Right,’ she raps her knuckles on the table. ‘Action plan?’

‘This,’ I say. And I write the following in Notes:

You can’t believe everything you read, especially on the internet. One man’s truth is another woman’s lie. Thank you for all the positive comments regarding my supposed engagement to @therealmasonquinn. Sadly, our relationship has run its course, and there will be no wedding. We thank you for respecting our privacy during this difficult time.

Mathilde nods, and I copy and paste the text into my Instagram meme template in the Canva app and post it. When I close Instagram, that red dot on my WhatsApp shows nineteen unread messages. None new from Mason, but three from my agent, Ulrika Maude.

The first: Big congrats Harper! Amazing news!

The second: I’ve been meaning to contact you all week. Fantastic opportunity for you.

The third: When are you back?

I reply: Check my Insta. Land at City at 16:30hrs tom.

She replies: Meet me at Scott’s at 7 pm?

I reply: I’ll be there.

Mathilde and I spend the rest of the night drinking the vodka, dancing to Maroon5, and laughing at the many sexual entanglements we’ve found ourselves in over the years. Her new girlfriend sounds brilliant—a harpist called Viola, dexterous and delicious, she says. Brunch the following morning is a fairly somber affair, thanks to our raging hangovers. She drives me to the airport, and we hug in the car at Kiss and Fly. I have just enough time to get home and shower before heading out to dinner.

Ulrika looks incredible when she arrives at the white-linened table where I am already ensconced.

I am always early. I have an almost pathological fear of being late. Therapists have pointed to various root causes for my allegrophobia, including my people-pleasing habits, existential dread, the pursuit of purpose, and control freakery.

In the eight months I’ve known her, Ulrika has always been precisely on time. One of the many reasons I love her.

And she always looks incredible, but tonight she’s shining with the aura of the freshly fucked. Her eyes are bright, and her black dress is tight. There’s a lot of cleavage. A gold chain trails down between her tanned breasts. Her hair is jumbled on top of her head like she had no time to do anything more with it between rolling out of bed and strutting in here. She looks like sex, sexy, like someone who’s been having a lot of sex. She glows.

‘Who is he?’ I ask before she’s even sat down.

She picks up the glass of champagne I have waiting for her and sips from it as she settles into her chair. Contemplating her answer. Smiling to herself. Settling it back on the table, she finally treats me to her reply.