The Good Girl Discount

Fern divides the restaurant bill before Alex has finished reaching for it.

She checks the receipt, taps a number into her phone and transfers her half. Then she puts the phone away and asks whether he wants to walk for a while.

Alex says yes. His evening has become unexpectedly difficult to interpret.

He met her on a dating app after announcing that he was done with Patong. Too much drama, he told his friends. Too much money involved. He wanted someone normal.

Fern seemed to meet the specification.

Thirty. An office job in Phuket Town. Her own scooter. A sensible handbag that contained tissues, a charging cable and receipts from things she had actually bought herself.

She asked what he did for work, rather than how long he was staying. He liked the distinction.

Their first date lasted two hours. She went home because she had work in the morning. Alex told a friend this was refreshing.

Their second date ended at roughly the same time.

He found it slightly less refreshing.

By the third week, Fern has declined a late-night drive, a spontaneous trip to a beach club and an invitation to come over after midnight. She has accepted dinner on Friday, provided they choose somewhere near town because she needs to collect a parcel first.

Alex starts describing her as hard to read.

He is used to attention arriving in recognizable forms. A woman staying all afternoon. Messages during her shift. Someone happy to change plans when he says he is free. He understands these things as chemistry.

Fern has responsibilities that continue even when he is available.

When he invites her to spend the weekend at his place, she says Saturday night could work. Sunday morning she has promised to help her sister move a wardrobe.

He asks if the sister could find someone else.

Fern looks at him for a moment.

“Could you?”

He laughs, but she is not joking.

That night, he tells a friend there is something missing. The friend asks whether he likes her.

Yes.

Whether she asks him for money.

No.

Whether she is seeing him.

Yes.

The friend waits.

Alex cannot explain the disappointment without making it sound worse.

He wanted a woman with her own life. He had not considered that her own life would occasionally take priority over him. He liked the idea of financial independence much more than the experience of being unnecessary to someone's rent.

On Friday, Fern arrives with the parcel, asks about his week and kisses him before they sit down. She remembers that he dislikes coriander and checks with the waiter.

The attention is there. It is simply not available on demand.

After dinner, she pays her half again.

On the walk to her scooter, Alex says he sometimes feels she does not need him.

Fern fastens her helmet.

“No,” she says. “I like you.”

He stands there, waiting for the part he thought came next.