for Fandango’s One Word Challenge (FOWC) of 7 September 2020, online.

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One evening, chilling at home, Anna walked into the lounge to find Asha tapping merrily away on her laptop. As she wandered through to the kitchen, she heard Asha’s giggles.

– What you doing?

– I’m just finishing up with something on the web, I’ll tell you in a mo.

she promised. Meantime, Anna opened the fridge to pour a glass of cool, white wine. When Anna returned to the lounge, a glass in each hand, Asha was free.

– What was that?

– Mmmmm, thanks. That? Oh, I was just chatting to some guy online.

– Yeah? Tell me more…

Asha was perennially single. When she did find boyfriends, they tended just to last five minutes before Asha became bored with them.

– Well, you know how busy I am at work, right? And you know the complete drips we meet when we go out? So, I joined this site…

It transpired that Asha had joined a dating site. And the guy she had been chatting to did not seem all that bad. Late twenties, about their age, professional, owned his own apartment…. Asha had been chatting to him, on and off, for a couple of weeks. He sounded like a regular Adonis and had recently suggested meeting up for dinner.

– You’re never gonna do it, are you? All sorts of creeps go on the web.

– No, don’t be silly, this is just a bit of fun.

It was surprising, therefore, when Asha casually mentioned, two days later, that she was going out for dinner on Saturday evening. Online Guy had talked her around.

– What? You’re sure about this?

– Well, I thought about it. He’s a funny guy. Meeting in a restaurant over by St. Paul’s, public place etc. If I get uncomfortable, I just turn around and walk out. Besides, you never know… Loads of people meet online these days.

Saturday arrived, and Asha was having trouble deciding what to wear. Too prim, too revealing, too obtainable, too unobtainable, and so on. She settled on a plain white tee with black suit. Elegant, Anna told her. As Asha was leaving, she fixed a yellow carnation to her lapel.

– What’s that all about?

– Oh, it’s nothing. It’s just so we’ll recognise each other in the restaurant.

An hour later, entering the restaurant, Asha looked straight past the short, overweight, middle-aged man sitting at the bar, who was wearing a yellow carnation.

I’ve written a background to these characters, in the posts below.