Perfect Match: a laugh-out-loud romantic comedy you won’t want to miss!

Ted clutches the side of my desk and leans against it in a pained attempt at nonchalance.

‘Nice day, isn’t it?’ he observes, gazing out of the window. The September sky is shrouded in clouds, although the sun is peeking out between a few of them. It’s a fairly ordinary-looking day as far as I can tell, but Ted gazes towards the horizon, bewitched.

‘Yes, lovely!’ I enthuse.

‘Heading to an open-air cinema event later, hopefully it doesn’t rain!’ Ted says.

‘Hopefully!’

Poor Ted. He tries so hard to be cool but it never quite works out for him. He subscribes to Time Out’s mailing list and he’s always banging on about this or that up-and-coming burger place or Shoreditch’s cat café, and he absolutely loves outdoor cinema nights in random run-down locations. But even though he may have done every gimmicky thing there is to do in London, he’ll still never be trendy. Ted’s another long-term singleton. I wonder what his username would be if he did online dating… Probably something really creepy like YourSpecialTeddy. Repressing a shudder, I push the thought out of my mind.

‘Anyway.’ Ted peels his clammy hand from my desk. ‘I need the paper to be done by the end of the day and it’s got to be spot on. You know what the infections lot are like.’ He pulls a face.

‘Okay, sure. No problem!’ I add, a little too brightly as he wanders off.

I read the first sentence: ‘Catheter-associated urinary tract infections (CAUTI) are one of the most commonly occurring healthcare associated infections, Urinary Catheters can frequntly become colonised with micro-bacteria; but most do not lead to infection.’ I rearrange the sentence, adding a full stop and a dash, removing unnecessary capitals and semicolons and correcting ‘frequntly’. It ends up vaguely readable, but still, one sentence in and I’ve already had to make five changes and this document is… I flick through it… seventy-three pages long! Great. Just great.

I take a few sips of my tea and try to pull myself together. Things could be worse. They could be a lot worse. It’s not like I’m down the mines or anything. I could be down a dark, wet, horrible mine. All I have to do is sit here, in front of my computer, and make some changes to a document. It’s fine. Except, I can’t help feeling like I’m wasted on this. I don’t want comma corrections on this document to be my legacy. An image pops into my mind of my funeral. Ted standing at the podium with a tear in his eye.

‘She worked tirelessly for the betterment of catheters,’ he’ll sob, wiping his eyes with a sodden hanky that, naturally, he’ll have been storing up one of his roomy sleeves. ‘None of us at Shadwell Medical Research Centre will ever forget her.’

No! I shudder, trying to shake the image from my brain. I was put on this earth to be a writer, a real writer. But somehow, writing a novel is taking a lot longer than I thought it would and simply dreaming of the Booker doesn’t pay the rent (if it did, I’d be living in a Chelsea mansion right now). I let out a gusty sigh. I shouldn’t be so downbeat. Maybe my luck will change. Maybe I’ll win the lottery and then I’ll have all the time in the world to write. Yes, that would be perfect. But I’m not an idiot. I know I can’t go planning my life around winning the lottery! No, Deal or No Deal is far more likely. I reckon I’m quite in tune with the universe and most people win at least something on that show, don’t they? I open up a Google browser and type in ‘How to apply…’ I’m about to add ‘to take part in Deal or No Deal’, when Sandra swoops by my desk to check out what I’m working on.

She picks up the paper.

‘Oh, UTIs. Interesting.’ She nods approvingly.

I laugh, assuming she’s being funny, but she hands the document back to me with a sad smile, as if I lucked out and she didn’t.

I take the paper from her, abandon my Deal or No Deal plans for now and reluctantly get to work.

By 6 p.m., I’ve picked up an inhuman amount of knowledge on catheters, drunk a gallon of tea and corrected so many diabolically written sentences that I’m beginning to seriously consider setting up an educational outreach campaign: Medics Need Literacy Too.

‘Here you go, Ted.’ I plonk a new, freshly printed version of the document down on his desk.

He picks it up, scanning the front page with his well-trained, punctuation-hawk eyes.

‘Looks good, Sophia,’ he says, flicking through the pages.

He starts stroking his chin as he appraises my work. He could really do with a beard for moments like this but I’m not in the mood for Ted’s ponderings. It’s the end of the day and I just want to go home, have some dinner and get a nice early night.

‘Great! Well, see you tomorrow!’ I say, edging my way to the door.

‘Wait, Sophia!’ Ted calls me back. ‘Seeing as you’ve done such a good job on this, I’ve actually got another paper you might like to do. It’s not quite as innovative as this one, but I think you’ll still find it interesting.’

He rifles through his desk drawer. ‘Here it is!’ He hands me a paper with a big smile.

Stifling a sense of dread, I read the title: Prevent Catheter-induced Urinary Tract Infections Using Sterilisation.

I can feel Ted watching me, waiting for a reaction.

‘Thank you, Ted,’ I croak.

‘No problem,’ he replies, with a kind smile.

I walk back to my desk, abandon the paper and bolt to the door.

‘Right, see you tomorrow!’ I call across the office, barely waiting for a response before the door swings shut behind me

I head to the tube station and catch the DLR home, feeling glum. I remember when Ted started giving Sandra all the papers on fungal infections, I thought it was absolutely hilarious. But now, thanks to some horrible karmic twist of fate, I seem to have become the office’s resident catheter specialist. I don’t know which is worse - fungal infections or catheter-induced UTIs. Actually, come to think of it, I’ve probably drawn the short straw.

*

‘Hey,’ Kate mumbles, peering over the back of the sofa as I arrive home. She’s sitting with Max watching EastEnders.

‘All right, Sophia?’ Max turns around and gives me a little salute.

I hang my coat up by the door.

‘Hey guys.’ I walk over and sink into an armchair.

‘What’s up? You look a bit down,’ Kate says, looking over at me.

I shrug. ‘It’s nothing.’

I can tell from what she’s wearing that Kate probably hasn’t left the house today. She’s in her black and white striped Beetlejuice leggings, the ones she always dons for lounging around. Max is wearing his off-duty actor-wear – black jogging bottoms and a tight black t-shirt. Kate’s legs are stretched out over his lap. They’re always like this. If they’re not on stage, you can guarantee they’ll be watching DVDs or soaps, carrying out ‘research’ as they call it. But I guess they don’t have much energy for anything else, or at least Kate doesn’t anyway. It’s her first week off for nearly a year. She’s playing Desdemona at the Globe and finally decided to have a break, letting her understudy step in until Friday. Unlike Kate, who can’t get enough of playing Shakespearean heroines, Max doesn’t really go in for the classics. At the moment, he’s pretending to shoot up every weekend while playing Mark Renton in a pub theatre adaptation of Trainspotting. He fixes me with a concerned look.

‘You sure you’re okay?’ he asks.

Part of me wants to offload about the catheter papers, the creepy messages on Dream Dates and the dick pic, but I know they’ll just laugh and I can’t face being the hilarious singleton today.

‘Yeah, I’m fine, just a bit tired. Long day.’ I force a weak smile.

‘Fair enough,’ Max remarks.

‘Oh…Poor Soph.’ Kate pulls a glum face, reaches over and squeezes my knee.

My phone buzzes. One new message from Dream Dates.

Jonno582:Hey Sophia,

Have you heard what scientists are saying? There are only going to be eight planets in the solar system after I destroy Uranus.

‘What the fuck?!’

‘What is it?’ Kate asks.

I look up from my screen. Both she and Max are looking over.