Love Is a Thief (14 page)

Result 4 of 4,235,672—’What a man can be, he must be.’

What a man can be, he must be, if he wishes to feel truly satisfied. This is a broad definition of the need for self-actualisation and relates to a person’s full potential and realising that potential, becoming everything one is capable of being otherwise one will never truly feel satisfied
.

‘Hi!’ A voice from behind drew me back out of my laptop screen like a wormhole.

Peter Parker appeared from nowhere and sat himself down on the stool next to mine. He looked at me with a strange level of amusement.

‘OK, so I can’t dance. I admit it. I have an allergic reaction to coordinated dance steps. In future I will operate within the realms of truth.’

‘Within the
realms of possibility
, Kate, and it’s possible you could be a wonderful dancer if you put your mind to it
and stopped fibbing about your appearances at the Dance Olympics—which doesn’t actually exist.’ He leant across me and peered at the screen of my laptop. ‘Aren’t you supposed to be at work?’ he said, reading down the list of my
Google
results.

‘I am. I’m researching,’ I said, trying to ignore the fact that his face was mere millimetres from my own and he smelt like a man-sized version of a giant chocolate bar. I found myself leaning in to sniff his neck, which he noticed, and flinched away as if I’d stung him. ‘I’m, er, I’m reading about
nature versus nurture
and the human need for love,’ I said, closing my laptop, praying to God he hadn’t seen the other tab I’d had open—the one where I’d been reading about his horoscope and the sexual compatibility of our signs.

‘OK, Professor Winters, tell me about the human need for love, which I am deeply suspicious of.’

‘You’re suspicious of humans or you’re suspicious of love?’

‘I am suspicious of a human need for anything other than water and basic nutrients.’

‘You’re suspicious of
all
human needs? Across the board?’

‘Need is a social construct, Kate. It’s a weakness, and as such I’m suspicious of it.’

‘What about the human need to urinate? Does that make you suspicious? And do you think we could have said
suspicious
more times in the last few minutes?’

‘You make me suspicious, Kitkat. And yes, we probably could. Suspicious, suspicious, suspicious, suspicious, suspicious. So tell me about your suspicious work.’

‘Well, I’ve been wondering why so many of us get distracted from doing the things we love. Why we opt for the love of others over the love of ourselves. I wanted to know if there was a biological reason for us disconnecting from our dreams.’ Peter was frowning. ‘I have an analogy.’

‘Now I’m suspicious of your analogy.’

‘Imagine we are all given a compass at birth—’ Peter nodded ‘—and we plot a route to our chosen destination. But sooner or later we meet someone who wants to come aboard our boat—’

‘Is the boat we’re referring to the great vessel we call
The Love Boat?’

‘Peter, you can call it what you like—the principles here are always the same. So imagine you meet someone who you quite like—’ we both seemed to go a little pink ‘—and that person, who you like, wants to come aboard your ship, so you make one tiny change, less than 0.005 of a degree, so they can come with you on your journey.’

‘Who wouldn’t make a 0.005 degree alteration for someone they liked?’

‘Exactly,’ I said, getting pinker by the second. ‘But the thing is, after several weeks, months, years, that 0.005 change has left you miles and miles and
miles
off course, if you can even remember where you wanted to go in the first place. And if you do remember, the about-turn needed to get back to where you were originally going is so enormous it could be detrimental to your relationship with your passenger, who is now well and truly a part of the ship’s crew. So I’ve been thinking, it might be helpful to set up some kind of drop-in centre or Love-Stolen Dreams Academy, somewhere
where young women could check in with their compass, if you will, at various different stages in their lives. I was thinking ages 16, 18 and 25, to make sure they are really connected to who they are and what they love doing, make sure that’s being translated into their choices at college, university and professionally—a nationwide mentoring programme, I suppose. Because if the need to have someone on your boat is a biological one, stronger than the need for self-actualisation, but both are necessary for happiness, then a mentoring programme might help us stay connected to ourselves, which would keep us connected to happiness, which …’ I was petering out into more of a mutter. ‘Well, it’s a silly analogy, I know that, I just thought, well, there must be a better way …’

‘Kate, that’s an amazing idea, really. It’s amazing, all of you, I mean, all of it, it’s amazing. And traditionally girls do outperform boys until their late teens so if you started guiding them at 16 and continued to do so until their mid-twenties you’d be on hand during what appears to be the stage where they get knocked off track.’ I knew none of the above but nodded as if I’d reached the same conclusion. ‘You know, I think you should speak to someone at the Department for Education. They are really open to new initiatives for kids and young adults.’

‘The Department for Education?’ I guffawed. ‘Peter, I write for a trashy magazine and hang out in basement champagne bars under the guise of legitimate research. I’m not governmental material. Who would I even speak to? What would I say? How do you know they are open to new ideas?
And is it possible for me to ask more questions in one sentence?’

Peter handed me a glass of champagne before taking a deep breath and beginning,

‘I went to school with the current Education Secretary. He’s a very nice man. He’s not above hearing the views of other people. If you think you’ve identified a weakness in the current education or pastoral care system you should flag it up. It’s your duty as a British citizen. I can help you if you like. And, yes, you probably could have asked more questions in one sentence, and have done in the past, although any more and I do find it hard to remember and respond to them sequentially, but I would try, so feel free to bombard me. I’m a Gemini, so there’s enough of us to cope.’

Great, he saw the horoscope tab. I gulped down my champagne hoping the bubbles would fill the gapping crater of embarrassment. Peter watched me, slowly sipping on his own.

‘Kate …’ he said, leaning in towards me. ‘If I’m honest, I really
really
didn’t know what to expect meeting you again after all this time.’ He looked deep into my eyes. ‘But you are just like you, just like you were, a grown-up version of Kate but with laughter lines.’

‘There are no lines!’

‘There are a few lines, Kate,’ he said, gently running his fingers along my forehead to the apparent laughter lines around my eyes. ‘I like them.’

I realised I was holding my breath and found myself leaning ever so slightly in towards him. ‘Kate, I actually have to go,’ he said, jumping off his stool, reclaiming the exact distance
between us that I’d encroached upon. Which made me wonder if Peter and I were fridge magnets, because every time I moved so much as an inch closer to him he was always repelled back the other way. ‘But if you’re free later on maybe we could meet for dinner, talk through your idea for a school’s programme?’ Or my idea for an electronic pulse that negates the opposing forces of magnets. ‘Or we could talk about our sun signs?’ Embarrassing. ‘Your choice, unless you have another important writing commitment in a different champagne bar?’

‘Actually I can’t tonight. Leah wants me to go and learn about my inner child with her. Apparently it’s whiny and incomplete and it’s trying to talk to me but I won’t listen.’

I started to blush. I mean
who
has to say no to a dinner date with Peter Parker in order to communicate with one’s inner child? Me, that’s who. I was going to kill Leah. I had been on more of her Love-Stolen Dream than anyone else and she was still banging on about past life regression then guilt-tripping me into going on stupid courses with her.

‘So what about tomorrow?’

‘Tomorrow I have
True Love
’s annual office cocktail party. Chad is going to be there making sure we all attend. I’d invite you but I can assure you it’s not fun. People get drunk, really drunk, and they fornicate. People would try touching you.’ I was concerned the drunk handsy lady would be me.

‘OK, so no dinner, no fornicating and no drunk-touching, but come and meet me Friday. I’m taking your
Fat Campers
for a run around Hyde Park. Come and join us. It will make you feel as good as a
KitKat
, Kitkat.’

‘Peter, please stop calling me that.’

‘So I’ll see you Friday?’ he said, kissing me on the cheek then dashing off before I could say no. I watched him disappear into the art deco wood-panelled elevator as another exquisitely attractive man arrived in Menswear. I immediately recognised him as Jenny Sullivan’s Ken Doll husband and he headed straight for my favourite section, Men’s Shoes.

I’m not sure if it was the shame of the recent dance class, or because I probably should have been working in the office, but I ducked out of sight and hid. Ken Doll glided into Men’s Shoes and was already bending over trying on his first pair when I spotted her. She came up behind him and wrapped her slender arms around his muscular waist. He turned around, bent down and kissed her. It was one of those breathy, slow-motion kisses that make you stop and stare in the street, the man with one arm around the woman’s lower back, the other gently in her hair, the couple unaware of anyone else in the surrounding area. It had been a really long time since I had been kissed like that and my heart emitted a little cooing noise as it remembered the kiss of Gabriel. And it seemed as if Jenny Sullivan hadn’t been kissed like that either, because the woman Ken Doll was kissing was 100%
not
her.

floating restaurant | pepperpots

‘faith is believing something you know ain’t true’
(mark twain)

‘O
h … my … mother … fluffing … God!’ We were at Pepperpots’ legendary and liquor-heavy Wednesday evening Happy Hour and I’d just told Federico about Jenny Sullivan’s husband trying on ‘new shoes’. All I could see were the whites of his bulbous eyes as he processed the information. He looked as if he were doing complicated algebra in his head. ‘This is huge, Kat-kins! This is mammoth! This is a walrus at the end of the dinosaur era when the only surviving creatures were small and birdlike. This sticks out, Katkins. It’s incongruous. That’s what incongruous means. It means a ruddy great dinosaur stood with a bunch of small birds. And what are the politics when you see someone cheat? What is the correct response if that person is not an official friend? Do you shut up? Is that what you do? Do you fess up? Do you up and leave?’ He got up from his chair walked around it, then sat back down. ‘You know, I’d
heard rumours about him.’ Federico was shaking his head. ‘There had been mutterings like butterflies fluttering but I just thought it was jealous gossiping.’ He crossed his legs, then his arms, then placed his index finger on his chin.

‘Why would Jenny Sullivan’s husband even think to cheat?’ I asked, hoping Federico might better understand the inner workings of the penis-obsessed male mind. ‘What could be better than being with Jenny Sullivan? There is no greener grass; there is concrete, and roadworks and urban scrubland.’

‘Perfect isn’t sexy, Kat-kins,’ Federico said, shaking his head. ‘It’s annoying. No one wants their imperfections highlighted by the perfection of their perfect plus one. Would you want to wake up every morning, turn and see some godlike perfect boyfriend lying next to you only to think, “I’m a bit average in comparison”? No, you would not.’ I would. ‘Perfection makes us behave badly. It reminds us of our imperfections so we act up like the flawed, imperfect beings they’ve reminded us that we are. She spends her entire life telling us how perfect she is so he has to become imperfect. It’s a universal law.’

‘Whatever happened to taking responsibility for ourselves? Treating others as we wished to be treated? Turning the other cheek?’ Actually I’m not sure that last one’s relevant, unless it’s a bottom cheek, which seems wholly inappropriate under the circumstances. ‘And what about poor Jenny? Does she even know?’

‘Kat-kins, if he’s been playing around for as long as I’ve heard rumours about him playing around then she has to know. I even heard a story that he’d shagged a
Dior
model
on the
London Eye
, and that’s got glass walls, Kat-kins, glass frickin walls! Not to mention there’s no bathroom in those little capsules to clean up afterwards. Well, no wonder super-bugs are being passed all over the bloody place with viruses so strong no antibiotics can fight them off—you’ve got Jenny’s husband wandering all over the place shagging in London’s landmarks without a washroom or an anti-bacterial hand-wash in sight. He’s like a giant germ production centre. His germs are like the
Coca-Cola
of the bacteria world in that they are frickin everywhere transcending language, ethnicity and almost all border controls. MRSA, Kat-kins. It’s a killer, a silent deadly killer.’ He ordered another Dark & Stormy from the heavily subsidised cocktail menu while muttering to himself about dinosaurs and NHS budget cuts. And I didn’t believe for a second that Jenny Sullivan knew about her husband’s infidelity. When would burying your head in the sand be preferable to facing the truth? Jenny didn’t deserve to be cheated on, not now, not ever and certainly not because she was a little bit too perfect.

‘With great power comes great responsibility,’ I said to Federico, who rolled his eyes then speed-dialled Chad from his ridiculously small phone. ‘We need to help her!’ I exclaimed, mostly to myself, and to a nearby bowl of peanuts, just as Grandma and Delaware joined us for what turned out to be a rambling lecture on the most inflammatory of all subject matters …

‘ … Because I’ve given this a lot of thought, Kate,’ Grandma continued, now on her third large glass of champagne, ‘and I think you were under the impression that you had to give up your ambition and personal goals in order for your relationship
with Gabriel to work.’ Federico was violently nodding his head in agreement. ‘So you denied your vagina.’