Friday Fable: Hay fever

The entire office was buzzing with the news of the recent engagements. Although seemingly unrelated, Daniel proposed to Dani and Andy had asked Cat, and there was much flashing of manicures and sparklers followed by guffaws and back slaps. The women and some of the queens all compared the rings they had seen to what their eventual band would look like if ever they were to be asked, if Mr Right ever got around to asking or if they finally were to meet Mr Right. The men quietly sweated into their undershirts because it is common knowledge that, once wedding fever takes hold, there is little else that their significant others would be willing to talk or think about while dropping some very heavy hints along the lines of thinking about the future and needing some advance warning to have their nails manicured (because who wants to have unsightly cuticles for the close-up of the ring, and Cat really should have known better than to let everyone see her hangnail).


It was on days like this that working remotely really appealed to Fionnuala (Fynn for short; she'd tried Finn for a while but soon tired of explaining that she was indeed a representative of the fairer sex). The only way she heard about anything that went down in HQ was by following the various chat groups in the company's internal messenger service. Working remotely meant that she could lurk and virtually eavesdrop without really having to contribute. Every so often she'd drop a comment just to see the astonished replies that betrayed how her co-workers had almost forgotten she was there. Today they'd uploaded pictures of the happy couples and their respective jewels, and she'd offered her congratulations. In one of the side chats, Brenda and Carine were debating rose gold over white gold (white gold was classier but rose gold was cooler), and in another Kristen and Rabakah (a posh pronunciation of Rebecca, Fynn joked to herself) were trading dating app secrets such as how to get more likes, when and how often to answer DMs (direct messages, duh) and which filters to avoid on Insta.

"Who needs social media when I have an up-to-the-minute feed with all the gossip I could every wish to read?" Fynn was in the enviable position of being able to see all the chat groups for the whole company. The IT crew had obviously given her administrator privileges without meaning to, so she had to be careful about which chats she made her presence known. She didn't think, for example, that the overly steamy messages between the company's receptionist and the IT Support Desk intern (a whole 15 years her junior) required any input from her. Whereas the channel for her department's product Q&A definitely needed a like or laughing emoji. She used the laughing emoji the most because very often the Q&As that were posted were passive aggressive quotes from clients, which could be entertaining in their own way.

Although most people in the company saw the job as a stopgap, Fynn loved it. Every other week a parcel was delivered to her house with a new patent that would shortly be released on the market, and her job was not only to use it and figure out how it worked, but also to write a how-to manual for the product. Some of the writing was easy. If it was electric or had a power source, users had to keep away from water or avoid opening the housing for the electrical component. If there were sharp moving parts, children had to be supervised, or the product was deemed unsafe or unsuitable for them. Sometimes she received really interesting gadgets, like the pocket vacuum cleaner. It was a brilliant invention that folded into itself so that it was no longer than a mobile phone and no wider than a golf ball. The powerful motor had a bag attached to it that was made of parachute material, which was a great space saver, making it washable and environmentally friendly, and it sucked better than the lovechild of Dust buster and Dyson. She'd immediately tested it in her car and loved finding all those missing coins and earrings that had accumulated under the seats or in the footwells. Other times she received articles that she found less interesting, like a spirit level with built-in laser lights to help the user see, down to the last millimetre, how straight their construction was. She'd tested it on her existing pictures hanging on the wall and regretted doing so after a few minutes because she realised that her pictures were not as aligned as she had thought and that, although it bothered her to know this, she was going to have to live with the skewness because she couldn't be bothered to remove all the nails and hang the pictures again.

This week she was writing about yet another garlic press. It seemed as if the perfect one had yet to be invented or there had to be some fad somewhere about the merits of garlic that sent shoppers into a froth until they found the best device that peeled and pressed and self-cleaned. The one lying on her desk today promised to be able to crush walnuts and garlic, and it could but she would not advise using the two ingredients after each other without giving the press a good rinse in between.

She looked up just as the message notification sounded. Kevin was having a meltdown again because a typo had been discovered in one of the manuals, and the client was freaking out. She chuckled to herself and was about to minimize the window when the doorbell rang. That was probably next week's assignment. A quick glance inside the box confirmed her suspicions. Her boss had warned them that someone would be receiving a dud product for next week. Fortunately she was fair about giving everyone a chance with a dud, and this week Fynn's number was up. It was a USB-powered coaster designed to keep one's mug warm. The problem with previous iterations of this device was that it was either too hot or not hot enough and reports had come in about shattered mugs, melted mouses (one had developed something resembling a plastic tumour on its side) and a "lack of free USB ports for something that failed to keep my frothy chai warm". It was time for a lunch break, Fynn told herself. She took her sandwich and glass of ginger beer onto the balcony and listened to the traffic while she chewed. It was a beautiful day, and she found herself moving with the sun as it tracked across the floor. Her mobile pinged as an email landed, and her heart skipped a beat as she opened the app. It was from Flyboy, which was her nickname for Max.

Only Fynn's best friend knew about Max. They'd met on a neighbourhood exchange platform. She'd offered baked goods in exchange for help with odd jobs. Max had been the only respondent to her request for help with installing a new bathroom cabinet, but he'd specified that he would do the job in exchange for a kilogram of buttermilk rusks. Since she was sick of using a torch and a hand mirror at night to brush her teeth, she was happy to oblige. He'd come round with his cordless drill in one hand and a toolbox to rival that of the handymen on almost every home improvement show she'd ever seen in the other, and not only installed the cabinet (with some help from Fynn, of course), but he'd also designed and made extra attachments to make sure it could also support the weight of her hairdryer. After Max had finished the rusks (he'd polished the lot off in under 10 days), he'd emailed her again, asking if she needed other DIY assistance. His enthusiasm for DIY and her sudden interest in home improvement inspired Fynn to bake biscuits, loaves of bread, croissants and interesting pastries, tarts, cakes and, after one particularly tricky installation of some shelves in her home office, a pile of French toast. They met up every other Saturday, and Fynn looked forward to seeing him all week.

Max was like the boy version of her, she'd told her best friend, Em. He made her laugh, and listened to her stories about the weird product descriptions she'd read from manufacturers in Asia. Her favourite story was the one about the countertop rotisserie. The manual had said that she needed to "spread legs and insert prick in chicken bum and pump chicken until prick is shafted and chicken is stiff". That line had obviously required a lot of reworking. He had enjoyed editing that version of the sentence into more hilarious versions until they were both laughing so much that she clutched her middle and swore she'd pulled a muscle. On days when the weather was too nice to drill or paint inside, they'd meet at their local DIY store and browse the aisle, speculating about other things they could build or tweak at her flat. Thereafter, they would invariably grab a coffee or lemonade from the food truck outside and walk a bit more, delving into other topics like his dream house or her first holiday abroad after winning the lottery. Eventually, they could not come up with any more projects so, since they both had busy lives, they kept in touch by writing. The emails were friendly, almost like personalised newsletters, and always sounded as if they were merely picking up from the last conversation.

Max was a great writer, and although his time was taken up with his job (he was an architect by day, handyman by moonlight and blogger whenever he felt he had something worthwhile to say) and his hobby (he was a model aeroplane enthusiast), he always managed to find time to write her emails that made her smile and turned her insides to custard. Today's update was no exception, and the subject line of "Ssssour dough!" made her impatient to read on. She knew he'd been reading about the science of sourdough and had been experimenting with the recipe by adding dates and nuts or raisins and cubes of hard cheese. He'd attached photographs of his latest loaf, still steaming from the oven as the butter slid over a thick slice. She sped through his news and then her heart stalled.

"Hello?"
To Fynn's ear, Em sounded annoyed. To everyone else, she sounded professional. "How hot is your kitchen today?"
Em laughed. "You know me so well. The blasted supplier didn't deliver the spelt flour I ordered, so I've spent half the morning on the phone trying to source some at short notice. What time is it?"
"It's just gone one o'clock."
"Fabulous. The perfect time for a cuppa." Em held the phone away as she shouted, "Gemma, I'm going round the back!" After a pause, she said, "So I take it you've heard from Max?"
"You got all that from 'Hello'?" Fynn chuckled. "He sent me pictures of his sourdough."
"That better not be a euphemism."
"Ew! We don't send each other those kinds of pictures. This one is with cranberries and brie."
"Sounds interesting, but I know that's not why you called."
"He asked me on a date."
"What? I thought you already were dating."
"I prefer to think of it as courting. We met a few times, had many laughs, there was that almost kiss and then all the emails..."
"But nothing official. You're moving slower than a 1990s Jane Austen adaptation..."
"Which in the era of swipe right is quite refreshing."
"When you say stuff like that, I regret giving up smoking." She could hear Em's sitting down grunts. "Where's he taking you?"
"We're meeting in the park."
"Don't you dare bake him anything."
"What? No... I wasn't... How did you...?"
"Fynnie, I love you, but you give way more than you get in relationships. Anyway, if he wants your biscuits and buns, he's going to have to earn them."
"I'm going to ignore the double entendre and ask what you mean."
"I mean, stop giving boyfriend privileges to a pen pal."
"But I love the seeing the look on his face when he eats one of my shortbread biscuits."
"Oh, you're in trouble."
"Tell me about it."
"So did he say it was a date date or just a meet-up with strong hint that baked goods be brought along?"
"He said he wanted to meet me in the park. Nothing about being baked."
"Har har. You know as well as I do that he's hoping you'll bring something."
"What I want to know is, why now?"
Em paused, and Fynn imagined her biting her bottom lip in the way she did when she was thinking. "Your emails - have they become more serious and sincere?"
"I think so. We've been talking about a lot of personal stuff. Our dreams and so on."
"Oh, he's clever. He was waiting to see if he wanted to take a gamble on you before actually gambling."
"I'm nervous, Em."
"I would be too. But consider this: men rarely invest time and energy in something unless they're really interested. He's been writing to you for what, three months?"
"Yeah."
"So there's your answer. It's a one horse race for you, doll. The question is whether you want to win it."

Fynn uploaded her document and updated her time recording before logging off for the week. She'd had a lot of time to think about what Em said and to consider what she hoped to gain from meeting Max. She called her mother as she always did on a Friday evening and listened to her berate the disrespectful youth, the corrupt politicians, the strange people she somehow always seemed to encounter in the queue at the pharmacy and her sister's latest drama at work. Her mother was about to launch into another discussion about her sister's lack of organisation, when Fynn said, "How did you know Dad was the man for you?"

Her mother's smile changed the way her words sounded. "Hay fever."
"Um... Not the answer I was expecting, but thanks."
Her mother laughed. "No, really. It was early in the year, and I had to do some stupid volunteer job for extra credit for this course I was taking at university. The pollen count was off the charts that year, and I had the worst hay fever. Your father was helping me with the job - I think it was SRC elections or something like that - and he brought out a cotton hanky that smelled of Old Spice which, and I swear this on my life, cured my hay fever. I looked over at your father, my hero, and breathed easily for the first time in days. So falling in love feels like that first gulp of air you breathe after days of having hay fever: you're a bit giddy, somewhat refreshed and your eyes are still misty from the effects of the pollen. I know it probably sounds like nonsense now, but one day you'll understand what I mean."

That Saturday, the sun broke through the curtains, and Fynn felt sure she would be in for a great day. She baked an apple cake for herself (just in case she needed comfort food if the meeting was a disaster), and by the time two o'clock rolled around, she was positively hopping with nerves.

Em texted her a good luck message with lots of hearts and flowers. She grinned and said, to nobody in particular, "Maybe today I'll get hay fever," before stepping out of the door and walking down the street to the park, the snowdrops nodding as she passed.