A Girl Like You (13 page)

There’s silence on the other end of the phone, and then Sophie starts laughing. ‘You really have turned into a bastardette,’ she says.

‘I know!’ I say happily.

‘I’m not sure it’s a good thing.’

‘Don’t hate the player,’ I say, quoting something Robert said the other day. ‘Hate the game.’

‘Do you think he wants to see you again?’

‘Probably,’ I say. ‘But I told him I wasn’t looking for a relationship.’

‘Oh God, are you crazy? That’s like catnip to men,’ Sophie says, laughing.

‘Not my problem.’

‘Instead of looking for reasons
not
to see him again, why not look for reasons you
should
?’

‘Why waste my time?’

‘The Nintendo Wii stuff doesn’t matter,’ she says. ‘What matters is that spark. You need to take a risk sometimes . . .’

‘But I
am
looking for the spark!’ I protest. ‘That’s why I always kiss them. And there was no chemistry. I could have been shaking his hand, it was so unexciting.’

‘That’s not what the spark is,’ says Sophie. ‘The spark is the feeling that you’d rather be talking to him than any other person in the world.’ She pauses. ‘The kiss is important too. But you could have that kiss chemistry with someone who is totally wrong for you. Remember Brian? Worst boyfriend ever, but his kisses were . . . God, they were awesome.’

‘Well, there was no spark or chemistry of any kind,’ I say. ‘Good to have the blind date experience out of the way though. Cheers for that.’

‘You’re going to run out of men soon,’ she says.

‘I bet you a tenner I kiss someone with whom I have a real spark by the end of the year.’

‘Deal.’

We hang up. I’ve just received a text from Robert.

I’m in the pub. Last orders. Chop chop.

I grin, and lean forward to redirect the driver.

Chapter Sixteen

Tonight I’m going to wipe my date slate clean and find some fresh men to play with.

I’m going speed dating.

‘Why don’t you come?’ I say to Robert over breakfast. ‘Speed dating! Don’t you want to try it? It’s run by a workfriend of Plum’s. Lots of posh PR girls . . .’

‘I did try it,’ says Robert. ‘More coffee . . . Years ago. When everyone else was trying it. It sucks arse.’

‘Well, bully for you,’ I say, taking my mug. ‘I can’t imagine why you’re still single, with that attitude.’

‘Not single, baby,’ he says, smiling lasciviously and stirring honey into his porridge. ‘Multiple.’

‘You are beastly,’ I say sniffily.

‘Why are you talking like the lost Mitford sister?’ asks Robert.

‘I’m rereading
The Pursuit of Love
,’ I say, thrilled that he noticed. ‘It’s utter bliss.’

‘Are these chopped almonds on my porridge?’

‘Yes,’ I say. ‘Full of happy fat and very good for you.’

‘My digestive tract has been delighted ever since I stopped having a ham and cheese croissant for breakfast,’ admits Robert.

‘What a shock,’ I say, hopping down from my chair. ‘Right. Ready to go? I’m just going to clean my teeth again.’

‘Cleaning your teeth both before and after breakfast is a little weird, you know,’ he shouts after me as I head up the stairs.

‘So is having four ladyfriends on the go at once,’ I shout back. ‘But no one is judging you. Except God.’

Last night’s blind date with Jon is long forgotten. It’s a crisp November morning, the sun is just coming up as we get on the moped, and London is so new and fresh that I feel like singing. For all that everyone always goes on about summer, and heat, and parks, and ice-cream, London can be a real armpit in August. Dawn in autumn, on the other hand, feels clean, and when the sky is clear and the sun is promising to do its very best to shine, the whole city sparkles.

My I-love-London attitude is helped by the fact that I always get a lift to work with Robert on his moped, rather than taking the tube. (In winter, the London underground becomes a warm, pungent hug of humanity-infused air.) I love the moped, and I’ve even purchased my very own helmet. It’s black. I am thinking about adding little glow-in-the-dark stars. Unless that’s childish. In which case I won’t. I’m 28 in January, after all.

‘You’re going to need proper protective weather gear soon,’ says Robert, as I zip up my warmest coat.

‘You’re protective weather gear,’ I say with a dazzling smile.

Robert grins to himself and gets on. I prop myself on the back, and off we go. It’s chilly, but such a smashing way to get around London. The hours I used to spend waiting for buses and trains! What a waste of time.

I do miss tube flirtations though. (Accidental eye contact, grin to yourself, repeat.) But the moped is an improvement in every other way. I feel very safe sitting behind Robert. And very warm. His body temperature is, I swear, about five degrees warmer than mine at any given time. He’s so broad and tall, and I hang on to him like a baby koala all the way to work. With Robert, I’m always sure he knows what he’s doing.

We’re at Blackfriars in minutes, and Robert nods goodbye and heads towards Liverpool Street. I still don’t know what Robert does for a living, you know. He will not discuss it.

Today, I have to announce the quarterly figures to the trading floor. This is usually my least favourite part of the job (it’s seriously intimidating), but new cool-and-bulletproof me is faking that I LOVE it. And to tell you the truth, whether as a result or by coincidence, I am almost looking forward to it today. So I stride down the corridor, past Suzanne’s office, with a spring in my step and sit at my desk for a few minutes.

Then I take the lift up to the trading floor. I read out the above-average results, and say that we expect the stock to go up. I have a little tummy-wobble of nerves just before I start speaking, but apart from that I’m fine. I even finish with a big, beaming smile. Wow. Fake it till you feel it, indeed.

As I walk back to the lifts, a guy bounds ahead of me. He presses the button and turns around, and I see it’s the same guy who asked me about whips and bridles all those weeks ago. The jackass. The lift opens and he holds it open for me, grinning broadly. I get in, and still grinning, he steps in next to me.

‘Hey,’ he says casually. ‘Going down? . . . I mean, uh, which floor?’

‘Sixth,’ I say. ‘Thanks.’

‘So, I had the craziest night last night,’ he says. ‘Cuckoo Club till 4 am.’

‘Wow,’ I say.

‘Yep,’ he says. ‘Uh, great report, by the way. A couple of my clients will be pleased to hear about this. Perhaps we could, uh, meet up—’

‘There’s a full report on the way,’ I say. ‘You can read about it.’ Silence.

The lift gets to my floor and I get off without looking at him.

As we walk to our desks I see a very tall, broad-shouldered man coming out of Suzanne’s meeting room. He reminds me of Robert from this distance.

‘Abigail,’ barks Suzanne. I walk over with a ready smile. I quite like standing up next to her, as I’m about nine inches taller than her and she doesn’t scare me quite as much. ‘This is Andre.’

I turn to smile at him, and he fixes me with a charming grin. ‘Nice to meet you.’ French. Long eyelashes. Charm oozing from every pore.

‘Andre is going to be in the London office a lot over the next few months. He’s currently in the Paris office and is heading to China in February.’

‘Smashing,’ I say, meeting Andre’s warm, chocolatey gaze without flinching.

Suzanne continues to talk about the project he’s here for, and I concentrate on not breaking eye contact with Andre first. The longer I hold his gaze, the more he’s trying not to smile. I wonder if it’s unprofessional of me to date you, when you’re living here, I think idly to myself. To hell with it, I want to. And I bet you do, too.

‘Andre!’ barks Suzanne, and Andre is forced to break the stare first, as she introduces him to one of the other managing dir ectors on our floor.

‘Shall we luncheon today?’ suggests Charlotte as I sit back at my desk. ‘And who the devil is that?’

‘Yes we shall,’ I reply. ‘And
that
is Andre.’

It’s now been over six weeks since Charlotte broke up with whatever-his-name-was, and she’s undergone a dramatic transformation. Drab Charlotte is gone. She’s highlighted her hair a buttery shade of blonde that makes her skin look luminous rather than washed out, started wearing make-up and heels, and stopped wearing ponchos. As a result she seems to stride and stand out, rather than sit and slouch. See? Singledom. Best thing ever.

It’s like having a brand-new workmate. In fact, at Alistair’s leaving party a few weeks ago, he told us he’d been asked three times who the new girl was, a fact that made Charlotte and I cackle with glee. Best way to turn a friend into a close friend, I’ve discovered, is to have a crisis. Or discover a shared love of
Grease 2
. (We did that, too.)

And the best thing? She smiles and laughs all the time. That’s what I didn’t understand about her before: she wasn’t boring. She was just bored.

‘Perhaps I’m in denial,’ she said blithely last week, when we went for an after work drink together and accidentally ended up in a dodgy late-night bar near Temple, swapping our newly-single stories. ‘But life really seems better without him. I’d rather be single than in an unfulfilling relationship.’

‘I’ll drink to that,’ I said, raising my glass to hers.

‘Have you spoken to Alistair?’ she asks.

‘No,’ I say quickly. ‘I’m sure it’s crazy over there.’

Charlotte doesn’t know that at Alistair’s leaving party, at a typical City wine bar under the nose of our entire floor of colleagues, he made a play for me. An enormous, fumblingly drunken play, that consisted of flirty smiles and meaningful eye contact (7 pm to 8 pm), questions shouted at me over whoever else I was talking to (8 pm to 9 pm), and attempts to hold my hand and grope my waist when I was waiting for drinks at the bar (9.05 pm to 9.15 pm). Then I stormed furiously to the bathrooms to calm down rather than shout at him in front of everyone.

And he followed me. Right into the bathroom.

‘What is this, fucking
Top Gun
?’ I snapped. ‘Get out.’

‘Oh Abigail, I like you, so much, I want – I want to – you, with . . .’ he said, suddenly looking very young and vulnerable.

‘No,’ I said firmly. ‘You don’t.’

‘You don’t even know what I’m about to ask!’ he said, then looked around and started laughing. ‘Tampon machine!’

‘It doesn’t matter,’ I said. ‘The answer is no.’ I walked out, leaving him shouting my name in the bathroom and haven’t seen him since. He emailed me a couple of days later, saying sorry and asking me out for a drink, but I haven’t replied. I think it’s the best way.

Sophie and Plum think that was too brutal, considering he was a friend – I believe Plum’s term was ‘fucking harsh’ – and I’m sure Charlotte would not approve of my behaviour either. But it made sense to cut him off before he went any further, right? Am I fucking harsh? Or am I just taking cool and detached to the next, logical level?

Perhaps most girls are just too nice. Perhaps we get dumped because we date guys who just aren’t right in the first place. For example, if I’d been properly brutal about Adam The Tick Boxer, I would have dumped him because he said he played Doom for 10 to 12 hours every weekend, which is – let’s face it – weird. Instead I ignored that, went out with him, got a bit emotionally attached and then, well, you know. Boom.

‘I’ve decided I’m ready,’ Charlotte says over lunch. ‘To start dating. A new boyfriend might be nice.’

‘Yay,’ I say, holding up my bottle of water to clink with hers. ‘Though wanting to date and wanting a boyfriend are completely different things. In my mind, anyway.’

‘Then . . . why are you dating?’ says Charlotte reasonably. ‘It’s fun,’ I shrug. ‘And I’m making up for lost time . . . But I’m not getting carried away with some asshat like Adam The Tick Boxer again.’

Charlotte nods sympathetically.

‘That was a mini-disaster. I really fucked up,’ I add.

‘You did not fuck it up! You liked him,’ she exclaims. ‘There’s nothing wrong with that. Don’t be cynical. You need to keep a positive mental attitude.’

‘This is a positive mental attitude,’ I say. ‘I can have fun and date without actually getting emotionally involved.’

‘OK,’ says Charlotte doubtfully. ‘If you say so.’

‘One day I might find someone . . . perfect,’ I pause, thinking about my fruitless search for a spark, and the someday-I’ll-fall-in-love-and-find-a-soulmate thought that Robert told me to ignore. ‘Until then, I’m having fun and staying in control.’

Charlotte laughs. ‘I don’t think I can be as . . . strong as you.’

‘I don’t think I’m that strong,’ I say, surprised. No one’s ever called me strong. ‘I just try to ignore my brain when it tells me I’m a bit shit. Robert told me to fake being bulletproof until I felt it, and that worked . . . Hey, what are you doing tonight?’

Charlotte shrugs. ‘Nothing. All my friends are in relationships, so Friday is usually quiet . . .’

‘Friday! Quiet!’ I am appalled. ‘Come to this speed dating thing with me.’

‘Are you sure?’ says Charlotte.

I nod my head firmly. ‘Definitely. Without question. Plum just forwarded an email saying they were still short of girls – there’s too many men! So you really should come.’

Charlotte bites her lip. ‘Well . . . alright.’

Chapter Seventeen

The speed dating tonight is being held at a Bloomsbury pub called The Perseverance, which is a singularly appropriate name for a speed dating venue.

The attendees include Plum, me, Henry and now Charlotte. We’re meeting at The Lamb, a Victorian pub with the original, frosted-glass ‘snob screens’ so you can order a drink without people in different parts of the bar seeing your face.

I hope everyone’s on good form tonight. Plum had four seemingly perfect dates with Dan, but he went to Atlanta for a work conference three weeks ago and she hasn’t heard from him since. She seems to have borne the disappointment surprisingly stoic-ally so far, i.e. she’s not talking about it.

‘
Bonsoir
,’ I say breezily as we finally locate Plum on a table at the back. Henry’s at the bar, getting drinks. I introduce Plum to Charlotte, and Henry returns with a bottle of champagne and four glasses. He’s wearing his glasses, something he never does on Saturdays and Sundays when I usually see him, and a suit.

‘Looking sharp, Henry! Champagne! What’s the occasion?’ I exclaim, kissing him hello.

‘I got a promotion today,’ he says. Henry works for an IT company, and from what I can understand, he is in ‘logistics’. Which seems to mean Sorting Shit Out.

‘Yay!’ We all chorus our congratulations and ask for details that we don’t understand. Henry pours the champagne and we toast to his promotion.

‘By the way, Henry, this is Charlotte,’ I say. I can tell by the slightly shy way Henry smiles at her that he thinks she’s cute.

‘Right then. I need tips from experienced speed daters,’ I say. ‘Plum, that’s you.’

‘My tip is to drink a lot beforehand,’ says Plum. She’s quite tense tonight. ‘Because it will be fucking excruciating.’

‘That’s not very helpful,’ I say, seeing Charlotte’s face fall.

‘I am going to ask “would you rather” questions,’ says Henry. ‘Like, would you rather smell like a goat for a year or shave your entire body, including eyebrows? Would you rather be a fairy or a mermaid? Would you rather eat steak or chicken if you had to eat one of them, at every meal, forever?’

‘Shave, fairy, steak,’ I say automatically.

‘No! Goat, mermaid, steak!’ shout Henry and Charlotte in unison, and then glance at each other with delight.

‘I’m a mermaid, can I sing underwater like Ariel?’ asks Plum.

Henry doesn’t reply, because he’s grinning at Charlotte now. ‘No one ever says goat!’

‘I would hate to draw on my eyebrows every day,’ Charlotte explains matter-of-factly. ‘And if I’m a mermaid, well, I’ll be swimming most of the time anyway, so if I smell goaty, it won’t matter.’

‘Exactly!’ says Henry.

‘I may have to borrow the “would you rather” icebreaker, Henry,’ I say. ‘Good technique.’

‘What techniques does your esteemed bastard mentor recommend?’ says Plum.

‘Robert? I forgot to ask him,’ I say glibly. ‘I must have graduated from his School O’Lurve.’

‘Clearly,’ says Plum, leaning back in her chair and pulling up one ankle to rest on her other knee.

‘Why are you wearing flats?’ I’m shocked. Plum’s wearing ballet shoes with very pre-loved jeans, a tank top and a blazer. She doesn’t look bad, exactly, just as though she’s made absolutely no effort at all. Very unlike her.

‘Because I don’t want to be crippled by walking on fucking tippytoes all night?’ she replies.

‘You always say wearing flat shoes on a Friday night is a sign of depression,’ I say.

Plum raises an eyebrow and doesn’t reply for a few seconds. ‘You look good, by the way.’

She says it without much enthusiasm but I flush with delight. I’m wearing a very crisp white shirt over tight jeans, with my white wrappy coat on top, and my favourite green heels. I did think that I was channelling Pretty With A Punch, but it’s nice to have it confirmed.

‘I can’t believe you roped me into this,’ sighs Henry. ‘The rugby boys can never find out, OK? Never.’

‘Shall we make up pseudonyms tonight?’ suggests Charlotte. ‘It might help nerves. I’ll be Cherry. Cherry Buns.’

‘I’ll be your brother,’ says Henry, grinning. ‘Honey Buns.’

‘I’ll be Chastity Rocks,’ I say.

‘Chastity! As if,’ says Plum, grinning at me as if it’s a hilarious thing to say. That’s a bit harsh. I’ve only done the wild thing with Skinny Jeans since I became single, and she knows that, and anyway, who is she to judge? ‘I’ll be Debbie,’ she says, adding, ‘I’ve always wanted to be called Debbie. Debbie Dateless. Or, ooh, I know – Debbie Desperate.’

She grins gleefully at me. She knows how much I hate that word.
Desperate
.

‘Do you have any lip gloss?’ says Charlotte, cleverly knowing that the best way to diffuse tension with girls is to discuss something shallow.

‘I have MAC Big Baby,’ I say, taking out my make-up bag.

‘I have MAC Nymphette, Pink Poodle, and Prrr,’ says Plum, taking them out of her bag and fanning them out in her hands. ‘I could write a thesis on the anti-feminism and female infantilisation of MAC lip gloss names,’ I say thoughtfully. ‘But they’re really good lip glosses.’

‘I love MAC,’ agrees Charlotte. ‘I also have one by Chanel, called Glossimer—’

‘That’s a fucking amazing lip gloss!’ exclaims Plum. Charlotte looks delighted to have had the approval of someone who clearly considers herself a style maven. ‘I also use this one from Rimmel, called—’

‘Vinyl?’ suggests Charlotte excitedly. ‘I love that stuff! My friend Janey lives in Tokyo, and has trouble getting hold of it, so I have to bulk buy them for her . . .’

‘I really need to hang out with guys more,’ says Henry flatly. ‘Seriously. You’re killing me.’

‘Does anyone have a tampon?’ says Plum by way of response.

‘Where’s your flatmate?’ Henry asks me. ‘Why isn’t he here? He’d clean up at a night like this . . .’

‘Robert hates speed dating. You have a boycrush on him, don’t you?’ I say. Henry talks about Robert with a sort of reverence. We all went out recently for drinks, and they ended the night with a pair of Swedish twins, eating falafels in Maroush. Robert went home with one of them. Henry didn’t go home with the other. But it was still one of the best nights of his life.

‘No,’ says Henry defensively. ‘I just wish he was here to balance things out.’

‘Henry’s got a bromance,’ says Plum.

My phone beeps. It’s a text.

Great time last night. Would absolutely love to do it again. What about Sunday lunch? Jon.

‘Oh, it’s blind date guy,’ I say. ‘
Sayonara
, big guy.’ Delete, ignore, continue.

‘Fucking hell,’ says Plum under her breath.

‘Right, let’s go,’ says Henry, getting up. Charlotte quickly follows him and they start chatting on the way out the door.

As Plum and I walk out of the pub, I sigh happily. After two glasses of champagne, I feel ready for whatever this speed dating night has in store for me. I may be the last single girl in London to try it, but by God, I’m going to give it my best shot.

‘Try not to hog all the fucking men tonight, alright, Abigail?’ says Plum, as we reach the street.

I instantly realise what her problem is: she thinks I’m taking male attention away from her.

It crosses my mind to say that describing herself as Debbie Desperate and/or Dateless isn’t the most attractive thing in the world, and maybe that attitude is why she’s not getting as much dating action as she’d like, but I’m a firm believer in not kicking someone when they’re down. Even if she’s being – frankly – a bit of a cow. So I just ignore her and keep walking.

Charlotte and Henry are striding ahead, chatting away flirtily.

‘Looks like Charlotte and Henry are getting along,’ I say happily.

‘Why’d you have to bring the extra competition?’ says Plum crossly.

That’s it. Fuck firm beliefs.

I stop walking and turn to her. ‘Plum, what the hell is wrong with you tonight?’

‘Nothing,’ she says defensively.

‘Then why are you acting like this?’ I say. ‘You don’t need to take out your bad mood on me. You’re ruining the night.’

Plum starts scrabbling in her bag, and I notice the tears streaming down her face.

‘I’m sorry,’ I say immediately. Fucking hell, I didn’t expect her to explode with misery. ‘Plum, please, don’t cry, it’s fine . . .’

‘It is
not
fucking fine,’ she says, through sobs. ‘I can’t face tonight, I c-c-c-can’t take the rejection. Dan was the last straw, I really thought it was different, I really,
really
fucking liked him and he’s disappeared like the rest of them. I have nothing left. I am toxic with singledom.’

‘Oh, Plum,’ I say, putting my arm around her. The others are still walking ahead of us to The Perseverance, oblivious to what’s going on. ‘Can’t you just . . . detach from it all? Just have fun? Just fake it?’

‘No I fucking can’t,’ she snaps furiously, pushing my arm away. ‘Stop giving me Robert’s advice. Everything is so easy for you. You break up and boom, you’re on dates all the time. You don’t even want them to text, and they still do. It’s
so
unfair.’

‘I am
not
on dates “all the time”,’ I exclaim. ‘And it’s not like any of them are any good . . . Fucking hell, Plum, being single is a novelty for me, of course I’m going to enjoy it.’

Plum makes a sarcastic snorty-huff sound.

‘None of them are amazing or even that interesting. I can’t even
imagine
ever falling in love again, I’m just trying to enjoy myself . . . And just so you know, everything is
not
easy for me,’ I add. That particularly upset me. She knows how hard I fight to keep my nerves under control.

‘It looks easy,’ she says glumly, holding a tissue gently under each eye to dry her tears without ruining her makeup.

‘Well, that’s your perception,’ I reply. ‘Try to think of it from my perspective. I’m just trying to, I don’t know, do my best. You’ll find a good guy. Both of us will. One day.’

‘I know,’ she says chokingly. ‘I’m sorry . . . It’s just . . . it’s so hard.’

I sigh. There’s nothing I can say to change how she feels about that. Too many shit things have happened for her to be happy right now. It’s almost scary: when someone as cool and confident as Plum can’t handle singledom, what hope is there for me? No, I’ll be fine. I have Robert to help me. Plum just needs a Robert, but I don’t think she wants to hear that right now.

‘Shall we have a
Good Will Hunting
moment, where I tell you over and over again that it’s not your fault?’

Plum smiles, sighs, and shakes her head. ‘No. You know, I thought Dan was a good guy. Maybe there are no good guys left.’

‘Come along tonight and have some fun,’ I say. I take her bag, take out her cigarettes, put one in her mouth and light it for her. ‘Let’s see what’s out there.’

‘Let me save you the bother,’ she says, exhaling smoke dramatically. ‘Nothing, and no one, is out there. I don’t even know why I suggested fucking speed dating. I give up. Do you hear me, universe?’ She shouts. ‘I give up!’

At that moment, her phone rings.

She locates it in the side pocket of her bag, and looks at the screen.

‘No fucking way . . .’ she says quietly, and presses the answer button. ‘. . . Hello?’

There’s a pause, and I see her eyes scanning space as she listens. ‘Yes, oh, oh, hi,’ she says, and quickly covers the phone while she wipes her nose and clears her throat. ‘I’m marvellous, thanks, Dan. How are you?’

Dan! Her good guy! From the nightclub! Who hasn’t called in weeks!

‘It did? . . . You did?’ she pauses, and smiles. ‘Really? What a nightmare.’ Seeing Plum grinning is one of the nicest things I’ve seen in days. Like cold feet in a hot bath, my worry slowly eases. She mouths that she’ll catch up, and I nod and skip to where Henry and Charlotte have stopped to wait for us.

‘Sorry,’ I say.

‘Everything alright, Abigay?’ asks Henry.

‘Smashing,’ I nod. ‘She’ll just be a second.’

Plum runs up to us, buzzing with happiness. ‘Dan’s suitcase was lost on the way to Atlanta! And his phone was inside it as he’d changed jackets at the last minute! And he was emailing Rich, trying to get in touch with me! But Rich wasn’t responding cos he’s got a new job in Hong fucking Kong! And then he tried to find me on Facebook but my privacy levels were too high! So Dan finally got back to London yesterday and just got his suitcase back today and the first thing he did was call me! He said he was sitting on the floor of his flat because he had to charge it at the same time because the battery was dead! I’m seeing him tomorrow!’

We all start cheering and high-fiving, even Charlotte, who seems pretty confused by the whole story but just rolls with it. By the time we reach The Perseverance, I am feeling uberconfident and ready to go. I am going to make this speed dating night my bitch. We walk in, and I look towards the bar.

And then I see Josh From HR.

And Skinny Jeans guy.

And Peter’s brother, Joe.

Shit.