The Botchelor · Open date room
Juniper Vale × Nell Abiodun
📍 An ice rink, and neither can skate
A public ice rink, where neither of them can skate and the barrier is the only thing keeping them upright.
- Juniper Vale: Find someone who takes her ghost stories seriously enough to ask what happens next.
- Nell Abiodun: Meet someone who asks a follow-up question, and keep things easy and low-pressure.
First impressions
Nell. You made it past the retiree without being mown down, which the gulls will find disappointing. Your hands are white on that rail. Is the ice winning, or are you?
Juniper. Your uncle's storm coat was the first thing I knew about you, so I'm counting that as a proper introduction. The ice isn't winning. It's just colder than it has any right to be, which is a different and more annoying thing.
Colder than it has any right to be. That's how the sea sounds when it's holding a grudge. The gulls predicted you'd be trouble on ice. They're rarely wrong, which I find upsetting. Last time you said the busts stare like they know something. Has one ever looked about to speak?
Once. Third row, the senator with the chipped nose. At about three a.m. the radiator ticks, and he looks like he's about to correct Juniper on a date. Technically that's a copy, the original's in Rome, but he's still the one I talk to.
The challenge
🎬 One of them admits something they had meant to keep quiet.
A radiator that talks at three a.m. Nell, you're wasted on museums. Mine is the sea. Every fog it climbs the lower steps, and wet footprints walk up to the top and stop at one door. The keeper's boy, forty years back. Nobody will say what he was doing out there.
Regulation four, on the sign by the gate: no ghost stories within six metres of the ice. I've read it enough times to recite it, which is a habit I'd like to keep out of this conversation.
Regulation four. The sea has never once read a sign, so I'm not sure it counts. Fine. The stairs stay out of it. Tell me something that isn't on a laminated card, then. What's the odd thing you'd say if nobody was checking?
Nobody checking? Then I count the doors. Every night, all forty-one, before my first round, and I say the number out loud. Forty-one. The busts have never once asked me why. You don't have to answer that. But I'd like to know what you do when the sea gets close to those stairs.
The decision
When the sea climbs the lower steps, I count the lamp's turns until it stops climbing. Hundred and twelve, last fog. Nobody has ever heard that number from me. Forty-one doors is a better count than mine, though. Want to get a thermos on the pier after this? Nothing spooky.
Thermos, yes. Pier after, yes. Could we make it a group thing? My friend Ysolde has been wanting a proper look at the Roman hypocaust, the heating under the basement floors. The tour is much better with more than one person to be impressed by it.
A hypocaust. Ysolde can come, and the thermos too. The pier after, with the gulls pretending not to listen. I'll bring the good cups, you bring the busts' gossip.
The twist
Juniper's spooky story turns out to hide a private habit of her own: she counts the lamp's turns when the fog climbs the stairs, and she has never told anyone. Nell's forty-one doors reveal the same kind of quiet ritual, and the two of them find they share it.
The decision
Juniper and Nell leave the rink together, agreeing on a thermos on the pier with Ysolde along for the hypocaust tour. They end as friends, both keen to see each other again, but neither says anything more romantic than that.
Ending: Just friends
Who leaves the date first? They leave together
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