Launch Bay – Sandra 13

[For back story go here: Story so far at 12 June 2020 and more recent Sandra episodes]

On Thursday, Bentley received notification of unpaid income tax on a stack of investments made over the last five years. Naturally he had not made any investments over the last five years.

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Sandra felt she was far too busy today to consider the implications of what the dating app had thrown her way. It was kind of interesting that there was someone out there who might take a shine to her, given the right set of circumstances and so on, but ultimately – even though she’d never tell anyone this herself – it was just a series of zeros and ones trying to determine her future, a set of super-fast logic circuits (plus a couple of random curve-balls thrown in by Trinny because she thought she knew about these things) which linked two otherwise unlinkable people together. 

And let’s face it, she thought. It’s not like the app had a track record. Like at all.

So she ploughed on through the usual slew of client demands, setting priorities as she went – a press release here, a review there, requests left, right and centre. Few things were out of the ordinary now, and that was a little disheartening because it was always nice to feel that one was being creative, especially as it featured in your job description.

Having dealt with ongoing matters, Sandra started considering ideas for their app launch. She'd already attracted a good amount of positive feeling towards the project and alongside those already signed up and testing the product there were a number of interested media people ready and willing to give her coverage. Admittedly some of these were cynical about the whole thing and may well have been interested from the point of view of watching what they thought would be an impressive car crash, but she'd welcomed their interest anyway and ensured their expectations would not be met but entirely obliterated by the success story they were going to be.

She checked the back-end of the app for current usage figures and found that she was no longer the sole tentative match. A total of fifteen possible couples had been identified. Either the app was getting better or Trinny and Adrian were getting more desperate and lowering their thresholds. But the app was moving away from being solely about that, and instead was packed with useful info about ‘safe’ dating, drinking and meeting up around the world.

Even without a significant other, this app could significantly change your life, thought Sandra and then made a note of that, even if it was too wordy to be of use at the moment.

She let her mind wander over the ‘something different’ theme for their launch. It would have to be entirely online – or at least most people would be online even if she and Trinny were physically together as hosts. So how to do this?

And then she realised the app had given her the answer already. Fifteen possible couples, well they could get a few of those online and talking with each other for a start.

And then she realised her own significant other, Dave, knew about online social events. After all he was the one who had run the cocktail party back at the beginning of lockdown. From what she could remember that had gone well, been well attended and, before the gin had done its job, she had found it enjoyable. Although because the gin had done its job she couldn't entirely remember why it had been enjoyable. 

She wondered whether she was imagining that there had been a live piano player in tux and bow tie sat at an electric keyboard in the top corner window providing background ambience. Was there really an optional dance floor window which could be entered if you wanted to go into the Disco room and merrily shout at fellow ‘dancers’ over the top of some classic electro hits? Plus the option of shouting in bold type rather than actually have to speak at all? No matter if these had been there or not, she listed them as possibilities for her own event. AND their own AI chat bot could be on call to answer questions and generally natter with people who found the whole meeting real people on line thing tiring and too much after all this time. 

Yes, Dave would help with this too. He would bring a fresh view to everything she required – it didn't need to be anything serious between them, she told herself, indeed, the less serious the better. Even if she could pick his brains for a few minutes it could make all the difference. There was literally no pressure on the pair to become a pair and certainly not to become the first successful coupling delivered by Together... Apart (or Apart... Together) although if that happened too then…

And so Sandra tapped the ‘send request’ key that would tell Dave she was interested in getting in touch with him.