The Dating Detox: A laugh out loud book for anyone who’s ever had a disastrous date!

The Dating Detox: A laugh out loud book for anyone who’s ever had a disastrous date! Gemma Burgess ‘A laugh-out-loud funny take on modern dating for lovers of Paige Toon and Adele Parks. Perfect to read while you’re detoxing in January!’ Closer MagazineA supremely unlucky in love, late twenty-something living in London decides to leave the whole sorry business of dating behind – at least for a while.Dating is a dangerous sport. So after her sixth successive failed relationship, romantically-challenged 20-something Sass decides she’s had enough.The Dating Detox is born. No men, no break-ups, no problem.The result? Her life – usually joyfully/traumatically occupied with dates, clothes and vodka – is finally easy. Chastity rocks. No wonder nuns are always singing. Everything falls at her feet. Especially men.Will Sass break the rules? Why does fate keep throwing her in the path of the irritatingly amusing – and gorgeous – Jake? Will she ever roll the dice and play again? Or is a love-free life too good to risk losing? The Dating Detox Gemma Burgess Copyright (#ulink_06be5d7a-d2d3-59c4-87c2-3e50335dcb03) Published by Avon an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk) First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Publishers 2009 This ebook edition published by HarperCollins Publishers in 2017 Copyright © Gemma Burgess 2009 Gemma Burgess asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library. This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. 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Ebook Edition © 2017 ISBN: 9780007332823 Version: 2016-10-31 Dedication (#ulink_6e32db70-b5dc-5a1b-847b-b3f73bde2303) For Anika and Paul Contents Cover (#u12922c1e-d854-5338-bb4f-82b9bba198cd) Title Page (#u88f5dba0-ad6a-57b5-a671-8c1b6c8a4ac0) Copyright (#ulink_9a3bdb88-730a-5fa5-9ac6-e341ab4b2dba) Dedication Prologue (#u9aa7f49b-242f-51bf-99d4-743fcd1db441) Chapter One (#uf09def0e-9617-54d2-855f-ff25f71e8c21) Chapter Two (#u149a02d8-0693-5ea6-a678-57d9991a9c78) Chapter Three (#u408a9a5b-ca6b-5675-9301-3ff27310ca3f) Chapter Four (#u192b622b-901b-5389-8c0e-6d07fcfab068) Chapter Five (#u682fd3d3-0220-5d05-b6ff-c3fa97a33469) Chapter Six (#ub4515efa-d26e-55a4-b6d4-8cd7187892e0) Chapter Seven (#u5761c15f-b9a3-5512-9749-9c615e39305a) Chapter Eight (#uf78db9d7-cc3e-53c1-b7df-4974e68cd4fa) Chapter Nine (#ub7f96183-67b0-5d15-8052-fe07cd8dfab4) Chapter Ten (#u8f4545ce-0741-5653-9bdf-bbf74ea5b7cb) Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Fourteen (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Fifteen (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Sixteen (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Seventeen (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Eighteen (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Nineteen (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Twenty (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Twenty-One (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Twenty-Two (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Twenty-Three (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Twenty-Four (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Twenty-Five (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Twenty-Six (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Twenty-Seven (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Twenty-Eight (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Twenty-Nine (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Thirty (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Thirty-One (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Thirty-Two (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Thirty-Three (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Thirty-Four (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Thirty-Five (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Thirty-Six (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Thirty-Seven (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Thirty-Eight (#litres_trial_promo) Epilogue (#litres_trial_promo) The Dating Guide (#litres_trial_promo) Acknowledgements (#litres_trial_promo) About the Author (#litres_trial_promo) About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo) Prologue (#ulink_2dd00584-a60b-5496-9c4d-7c246543f861) Nine months ago I knew the second I walked into this party that it wouldn’t be any fun. Every person here looked around when we walked in. Then they welcomed Rick and ignored me. That was two hours ago and now here I am, in my stupid librarian costume, sitting in the kitchen alone, trying to enjoy myself and failing. Very. Badly. My friends aren’t here, which doesn’t help. They’re all having dinner together in a pub in Westbourne Grove. I wish I was with them. But I have to be here. My boyfriend Rick is here. He is friends with the guy who’s throwing this party. Or he knows a guy who knows him. Something like that. Where the hell is he, anyway? I haven’t actually seen Rick in ages, but I don’t want to be one of those socially-needy girlfriends. Especially after last night. Hell, people at this party are unfriendly. Perhaps they don’t get that I’m dressed as an ironic geek. The theme is ‘Come As Your Childhood Ambition’, and I’m surrounded by sexy nurses and Pink Ladies and ballerinas and air hostesses. (Aspiring to jobs that don’t come with a revealing/girly costume doesn’t seem to have occurred to these women as five-year-olds.) I should have come as Prime Minister or something. But I really did want to be a librarian. The men are dressed as Indiana Jones and Luke Skywalker and knights and things like that. For God’s sake, I’m 28 years old. I can handle an unfriendly party, can’t I? We’re in a large flat just off Kensington Church Street, and it’s packed. It’s just the kind of party I usually love. Lots of people having loud conversations and being funny and silly. I don’t know anyone, so I ought to just flick the insta-banter switch, go forth and jazz-hands myself around the party, conquering friends. I tried to do that earlier, but they just seemed to not hear me, or look through me. Or something. So I don’t want to try again. If only my friends were here. I wonder how much longer I can sit in this stupid kitchen, pretending to read and send non-existent texts. This is so not me. I wish I didn’t look so dowdy. I’m wearing a tweed skirt and carrying a pince-nez and a stack of books. I felt terribly chic and witty when I was getting ready, now I just feel drab and lost. I could go home. But that might upset Rick. Plus, they’re his friends, and I would really like to get to know them better. I’ve never really met any of them before. Seriously, where the sweet hell is Rick? He seems stressed tonight. I know his work is crazy at the moment. He was texting me about it the other night. Seeing him less is probably good for our relationship anyway. I just hang out with my best friends when he’s busy. Or hang out by myself in the kitchen at parties where everyone’s a bit weird and unfriendly. That’s good fun too. (Sigh.) ‘Are you a teacher?’ says a guy who just walked into the kitchen. He’s dressed as a cricketer. (How imaginative.) ‘Librarian,’ I say, and add, in my best librarian tone, ‘Shhhh!’ He frowns slightly, gets a beer out of the fridge and says ‘Freeeeeak…’ under his breath as he walks away. See? I repeat my mantra (‘posture is confidence, silence is poise’) to myself and smoke another cigarette. That’s it, I’m going to look for Rick. Kitchen, living room, dining room, balcony, second balcony…no, no, no, no, no. Just people who look around at me, see that I’m not interesting enough to bother with, and turn back to each other to keep talking. Fuck me, I hate this party…Sheesh, this place is packed. So many doors. He wouldn’t have left without me, would he? Maybe he’s near the front—oh, here— Oh my oh my oh my oh my God. Rick, on a bed, with nothing on but his judge’s wig, straddled by a near-naked Pink Lady. It’s Frenchy. I can tell because she’s still wearing her Pink Lady jacket and it’s got ‘Frenchy’ embroidered on the back. They’re having sex, holy shit, they’re having sex. It takes a few seconds before they even notice I’m standing in the doorway. Then they both look around at once. (People look so odd when they’re having sex. No wonder I’ve never understood the whole porn thing.) ‘Fuck!’ says Rick, and then lies back on the bed, pushing the girl off him. She giggles and nearly falls off the bed. I need to get out of here. I need to get out of here now. I back out of the doorway as quickly as I can, stack of books and pince-nez in my left hand and my dull little librarian’s bag over my right shoulder, and dash for the front door. I feel sick. I can’t breathe. How could he? How could he do that to me? I’ve got to get out of here. As I open the front door, I hear people behind me whooping. They must have seen him with the Pink Lady too. They’re all laughing. I hate those people. I hate them. How could he do that? Is he even going to follow me? Is he even going to say anything? How could he do that? When I’m here, I’m at the same fucking party? How could Frenchy do that? She was always my favourite Pink Lady. That’s not a rational thing to think. Be rational, damn it. Pull yourself together. How the hell do you get out of this mansion block shithole? I feel sick. I feel like throwing up. I am definitely going to throw up. Where can I…ah, a plant pot. Lovely. I lean over the pot, bend the plant out of the way, and start dry-heaving. Up come my three vodkas and the peanut butter sandwich I ate before I left home. I can see my teeth marks in the bread. Gross. I must chew my food more. I stand up and wipe my mouth. My hands are shaking and tears are running down my face. How could he, how could he? Why hasn’t he followed me? Has he even called me? I’ll check my phone…no, nothing. What happened between us arriving at the party together and him shagging someone else? Did I do something wrong? Who the hell shags at parties anyway? She must have seduced him. I hate her. I’m going to call him. Maybe it’s a huge mistake and he’s hammered and thought she was me. That would be…no, that would not be good either. Please, please let this not be happening. He doesn’t answer the first time I call, so I try again. On the seventh ring, he answers. ‘Yes?’ ‘It’s me…I’m…How could you do that, Rick?’ ‘Pretty easily,’ he says, and starts laughing. His voice is muffled. What is funny about this? What? Is he talking to someone else? ‘Who is she?’ ‘No one you know.’ Is he even going to apologise? ‘I’m so upset…’ I say. He doesn’t say anything. ‘Did you plan this? Why did you even…’ (I start crying, but try to hide it) ‘…ask me to the party?’ ‘I didn’t ask you to the party. Don’t give me that shit. You asked what I was doing and assumed you were coming too.’ I’m still crying silently, trying to quieten my shaky breathing. Typical lawyer, trying to point score even when completely in the wrong. ‘I…I…’ I can’t talk. ‘How could you d-d-do this to me? It’s so h-horrible of you…’ I hear him sigh impatiently. I don’t know what to say now and my stammering seems to have kicked in, so I don’t say anything. Please, please let him apologise. I want to go back in time and stop this from happening. Dear God, if it is even the tiniest bit possible, please send me back in time right now to stop this from happening. Or just make him ask me to forgive him. Or even say sorry. Once. Instead he just says: ‘I can’t deal with this. I just…I don’t love you and I don’t want you anymore…I gotta go.’ You know when you jam your fingers in a drawer and you know a split second before the pain hits that it’s going to hit, and your chest has that weird icy seizure? That’s what I have right now. And then he hangs up, and the pain hits me, and I’m standing outside some mansion block on Kensington Church Street with a stack of books and my pince-nez and my handbag and I squat down—which isn’t easy in heels, you know—and bury my face in my hands. I can’t breathe. I want to vomit, but nothing is left in my tummy. I can’t bear this. I can’t bear to wake up tomorrow and have this as a memory. Fucking, fucking, fucking bastardo. Never again. I will never let this happen again. Chapter One (#ulink_b3debc9b-cc35-5fff-9de4-870070a276e3) This morning Well, I thought I’d discovered the secret to never getting dumped again. And then Posh Mark came over to see me last night. And now I’m back in the bearpit of the singles. Yet again. The whole thing is just horrific. Not as horrific as the Rick/Pink Lady night all those months ago, I grant you, but horrific for the fact that it is now my sixth—SIXTH!—break-up in a row, with me as the breakee, and now I have to go and do it all over again. No, not today, I know, but eventually. Oh God, the idea is so exhausting. These are not particularly positive thoughts to have before you’ve even opened your eyes on a Wednesday morning. I sit up in bed and survey the detritus of last night: used tissues strewn around my pillow in a halo, chocolate wrappers all over the bed, a fag pack spent and crushed on the floor. Mon dieu, quel clich?. I flop back down on the bed and close my eyes again. I want to cry, but I actually can’t be bothered. OK, I’d better tell you the background so you can get up to speed. Break-Up No.6: Posh Mark. We met a few months ago in January, at a theme party (‘80s Movies’). He was wearing a girlish flowery dress, a frizzy wig and carried a watermelon around all night. Wouldn’t you have given him your number? Exactly. (I was wearing khaki shorts, a white-fringed jacket and little white cowboy boots like Sloane Peterson. If you’re asking.) So I made eye contact, he came over, I did my flirty thing, and then he asked me out. Posh Mark was definitely not a bastardo. I realised that on our first date, at Eight Over Eight (sexy Far East vibe and delightful first date place, and my God do I know a lot of them). Posh Mark lived in Holland Park (expensive, leafy area of London, jam-packed with the sedate rich), was warm and affectionate (if a bit clingy with the hand-holding), liked to read (sports biographies, but whatever), didn’t work in any of the ‘arsehole’ industries (law, banking, medicine) and greeted everything I said with an open-mouthed, utterly delighted smile (rather like a Labrador, and I do love an appreciative audience). Crucially, he seemed to fit the criteria. Which was, basically, no bastardos. You see, after the Rick-shagging-a-Pink-Lady fiasco (Break-Up No.5)—and the weeks of utter, utter misery interspersed with binge-drinking that followed—the criteria for men I’d even consider dating changed slightly: they had to be too nice to dump me. Which—if anyone is taking notes—is not a reason to go out with someone. Posh Mark was also the opposite of Rick in every way he could be. Polite, easy-going, tall and very, very nice. We fell into a complacent co-dependency pretty fast. He called every night, texted every morning, discussed weekend plans by Wednesday, and was generally a Boy Scout of a boyfriend. My cup runnethed over. No, I didn’t want to be with him forever, but I decided not to think about that right now, thank you very much. And after the soul-destroying storm of Rick, he was a wonderful protective harbour. Brutal honesty: he was (whisper it) a tiny bit dull and, um, thick. But he’d worn the Nobody-Puts-Baby-In-The-Corner costume. He obviously had a funny, clever side somewhere. And hot damn, he was nice. As mentioned. And so we come to last night. He came over to see me unexpectedly. He said that he needed to talk. (Cue familiar stomach curl.) He said that when he met me, he was bowled over by how ‘rahlly sahriously lovely, basically’ I seemed. He said that I was ‘so fun to be with, rahlly, rahlly so…yah, so fun’ and his friends loved me, which was, obviously, gratifying to hear. Then he said ‘I just feel like you’re, ahhh, rather reserved.’ Huh? ‘I just…After this much time one should know, you know, whether it’s going to work or not and…I don’t feel like we have rahlly gotten to know each other, Sass, and maybe, uh, it’s because you were only recently, uh, single…’ Don’t you mean permanently single, I wanted to say. And it wasn’t that recent. The Rick thing ended almost six months before I met Posh Mark. Six ghastly months. ‘Annabel thinks perhaps, uh, you’re still in love with him. With your ex.’ Annabel can blow me, I thought. Slightly chubby Sloane-ista with a pashmina so permanently attached to her jowls that I’ve nicknamed her Pashmina Face to myself. She probably wears it at the beach. She’s also one of Posh Mark’s best friends and, naturally, comes complete with a blatant agenda. And I’m not in love with fuckfeatures Rick. ‘So perhaps we should just, you know, be mates.’ Mates? Oh God. ‘What do you think?’ I didn’t think anything very much, actually. And I’m not great at talking about feelings. Not lately. In fact, I never said anything to Posh Mark about how I feel (or don’t feel). I thought he’d like it that way. ‘I’m…I’m…’ I’m not able to finish a sentence? I felt helpless. I didn’t want Posh Mark to go, but I couldn’t think of a reason why. Because I don’t want to start again? I wondered if I could say that. Probably not. Slumping down on the couch and burying my head in my hands seems a better option than speaking. Despite a tiny voice in my head saying ‘you’re not actually surprised, are you?’, a much louder voice told me he was a lovely non-bastardo who had made me feel happy(ish) post-Rick, when I thought nothing would, ever again. And now I have to start all over. So I cried. ‘I’ll miss you,’ I croaked through my hands. And I will. He stroked the inside of my arms for hours when we watched DVDs and had perfectly muscley arms just built for spooning on a Sunday morning. (Does that sound shallow?) ‘I’ll miss you too, Sass. Rahlly. I feel ah-paw-leng doing this to you. I’ve had such a bloody good time with you, sahriously.’ I smiled into my hands. I love the way he pronounces appalling. So posh. And he pronounces my name with the longest-drawn-out ‘a’ sound you’ve ever heard. Saaaaarrrrhs. ‘Since the night we met. That hilarious pahty…Hugo made me take him out for a big night at Da Bouj, you know, in return for the outfit that you loved.’ Pause. The way he abbreviates Boujis to Da Bouj is irritating, but— Outfit? ‘The 80s costume, you know. With the watermelon. From Girls Just Wanna Have Dancing, or whatever it was, yah? It was all his idea. Well, he saw someone else wear it at a party up in St Andrews once, basicallah. And you were dressed as The Breakfast Club.’ Well, if I needed distracting from the idea that I’m being broken up with for the sixth time in a row, then voil?. For the rest of the night, through him saying goodbye, and me calling Bloomie and Kate to announce that dating someone who isn’t a bastardo won’t prevent you from being dumped, falling asleep in a haze of nicotine and mild hysteria, and waking every two hours for a self-pitying-but-not-really-heartbroken little weep, I thought about that sentence. Did I actually fall in love, no, sorry, in LIKE with someone because he wore a funny costume that his friend saw someone else wear at some rah party in fucking Scotland? What the hell is wrong with me? And he didn’t even know that Sloane Peterson was in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. Enough thinking. I pull back the duvet, scattering tissues and wrappers across the bed, and shuffle to the mirror. I don’t look that great, but I’ve certainly looked a lot worse. I will try to look as ace as possible today, so that the world rewards me by doing something really ace for me. That’s sartorial karma, you see. I’m a firm believer in it. Chapter Two (#ulink_2ea2f017-2c42-5006-8ed4-14de67be3fbb) Shampoo, condition, scrub with exfoliating gloves and body wash, brush teeth, shave armpits, then shave legs (one razor in each hand so each leg is done in about seven seconds—that’s an as-yet unpatented time-saving move I invented when I was 14). Towel, hairdryer once-over, moisturiser, deodorant, perfume. Throughout my morning routine, my brain is on a loop titled ‘disbelief’. Because I just cannot believe it’s happened again. I picked the nicest guy I could fucking well find and it fucking well happened again. Let’s start at the beginning. Break-Up No.1: Arty Jonathan. I was 22, and had been living in London about a year. (No one ever dates in their first six months of living here; they’re too busy avoiding psycho flatmates, drinking in bad chain bars and getting the wrong District line tube.) I met Arty Jonathan at a workmate’s party one night in Caf? Kick in Shoreditch, which was cutting-edge-indie cool at that time, rather than yuppie-indie cool as it is now. Arty Jonathan was gorgeous in a shaven-headed, mockney kind of way. He teased and flirted and flattered me, and I became helplessly giggly in his presence. He said he was an ‘avant garde’ artist—which meant he’d secure deadlines for shows at a ‘space’ and then throw something together last minute out of whatever rubbish he found on the way there. Avant garde, I now know, is French for pretentious, and any mention of the phrase makes me want to laugh hysterically. He’d had various jobs over the previous few years (producing indie films that never got greenlit, managing bands that never got signed) and had lots of stories that made me laugh. You’re right, of course: he was a talentless cockmonkey. I’d like to blame inexperience, or perhaps I’m just a bit thick, but he seemed interesting…I think I was probably looking for someone unlike every good public school boy I’d known at university. And his self-belief was stupendous. I’m a sucker for a confident man. Looking back, I cringe at how green I was to be impressed by a dude like that. I was an art groupie for an artist who hadn’t really created anything. I’d sit quietly in the Bricklayer’s Arms in Hoxton, buying way more than my fair share of rounds, listening to Arty Jonathan and his friends gossip about Young British Artists that I’d never heard of and they didn’t actually know. We’d snog. He’d draw doodles for me. They made jokes about the establishment, some of which were very funny, even though I didn’t know what the establishment was yet. Then, after about two or three months of this, and just as I was starting to wonder why Arty Jonathan never did any of the things he talked about doing and notice that he recycled all his best lines and jokes, he ended it. He looked at his watch when we were walking towards the Barley Mow one Saturday lunchtime and said: ‘I have to go to King’s Cross. My girlfriend is arriving from Leeds in an hour. We’re going to Paris for the night.’ I was sledgehammer-stunned by this, rather than heartbroken. There is a difference. What hurt more was that he was a bit of a freeloader, and in fact, two days before he dumped me, he’d ‘borrowed’ ?200 off me. He said his bankcard was broken. But clearly, he wanted the money to take his girlfriend to Paris. And I was too timid/stupid/polite to ask for it back. I just nodded and walked away as quickly as I could and never contacted him again. (I’ve never liked confrontation.) My friends from university started to move to London soon afterwards, so life improved immeasurably, and I tried to chalk it up to experience. At least it knocked some of the naivety out of me. God, Arty Jonathan was a long time ago. And yet here I am. Single. Again. What shall I wear today? Unsurprisingly, given my newly single status, mild heartache and general blues, I feel like being an Urban Warrior today. I throw on blacker-than-black opaque tights, black boots, a black dress and a black motorcycle jacket with studs. Hair in a ballet bun, some scary black undereyeliner and a few careful minutes with my eyebrow pencil. (I’m obsessed with my eyebrows. They are my b?te noire.) Outer Self is thus prepared for the day. Check with Inner Self. Inner Self is not as prepared. Inner Self would like to curl up at home and watch Gossip Girl on the internet all day, despite fact that Outer Self is old enough to play a mother on Gossip Girl. I eat a banana, standing up in the kitchen(ette), noting happily that my never-home flatmate/landlord Anna has left the dingy little 60s-era front room as pristine as ever. I’ve rented a room here for years. The shower is dreadful, the carpets are worn and the furniture hasn’t been changed since Anna’s parents lived here in the early 70s. But Pimlico is a good area: no real personality (it can’t decide if it’s posh/scuzzy/boring) but it’s about 15 minutes from Oxford Circus, home of practically every flagship high street fashion brand and tourist hell. My room is very quiet and light, Anna and I enjoy a good flatmate relationship (friendly without being in each other’s pockets), and it’s tr?s, tr?s cheap. She could actually get more for it, even given the shittiness of the place, but she doesn’t seem to care. Most of Anna’s time, when she’s not away for work, is spent with her boyfriend, who I’ve never met. I get the feeling she’s hoping to move out soon and in with him. I give the kitchen a quick once-over with a dishcloth, ignore the huge pile of my unopened bank statements on the breadbin, grab my lucky yellow clutch and head out the door to the tube. I would try a skippy-bunny-hop on my way out the door, but I don’t think I can manage it today. Sigh. I swing into the newsagents to buy Grazia for a little pick-me-up. As I’m waiting in line, a 20-something guy walks in. He’s wearing rugby shorts and a T-shirt with ‘I taught that girlfriend that thing you like’ written across the front. I lower my gaze behind my sunglasses and check him out. Big strong thighs, good chunky knees like huge walnuts. Mmm, the rugby-playing man. Shame it comes with a predilection for obnoxious T-shirts and ‘boys-only’ nights out that end with pissing in the street. Break-Up No.2: Rugger Robbie. He played rugby—obviously—with some of the guys in my newly-arrived uni crowd, and after three months of random snogging, we started going out. Rugger Robbie was a classic Fulham rugby boy: easy-going and actually very sweet. You know the type: intelligent but not introspective, good humoured but not humorous. (Yep, the antithesis to Arty Jonathan.) We mostly hung out in our large group of friends; we were all earning money for the first time in our lives, and life was one long party. (Which was fortunate, as Robbie and I would quickly have run out of conversation at one-to-one dinners.) He shared a horrifically messy flat off Dawes Road with three other rugby guys, and got so shit-faced with the rugby boys every Saturday night that once I met up with him at the Sloaney Pony or Crazy Larry’s, I’d have to carry him home practically straightaway and take off his shoes and jeans for him. One time, I woke up to find him pissing on the curtains. ‘At least I got out of bed,’ he said apologetically the next day. For some reason, this didn’t bother me at the time. I liked Rugger Robbie despite his habit of getting apoplectically drunk because he just seemed so straightforward and familiar after the strange, intimidating pretensions of the East London crowd. And he had a really, really good body. (Ahem.) So I settled into it and decided he was an excellent boyfriend, and was quite content with life. Until, after about three months of properly being together, he said, ‘I’m going to Thailand for Christmas. I’ll call you when I get back.’ And then texted me in mid-January: I met someone else in Thialand I’m sorry I’ll see you around Dumped via text. With a misspelling. Or typo, to give him the benefit of the doubt. Sure, it was no great love affair—Rugger Robbie never really made me laugh and frequently responded to things I said with ‘you’re bonkers’. (I’m so not, but since he had no imagination, I blew his fucking mind.) But I’d grown quite fond of him, so it hurt. That’s the thing about being dumped. Even if you don’t care about him that much, it still hurts. Because if you don’t care much about the dude and you’re still dating him, he must not care about you far, far more to actually go to the trouble of dumping you. I did have boyfriends at university, since you ask, but they hardly count. It was so much easier then. You’d see them in lectures or at parties and get a crush, and know them via their friends so you could weed out freaks, and flirt for ages and then finally snog, and once you snogged three times, boom! You were going out. Then you’d both agree it was over and move on to someone else. It was easy. Not anymore. Oh fuck me, again. I can’t believe it’s happened again. As I walk up towards Victoria station, Grazia tucked underneath my arm, I decide to call Bloomie. She gets to work by 7 am every day, because she has a high-flying job. In a bank. (Note: despite high-flying job in aforementioned arsehole industry, Bloomie is not an arsehole.) ‘Mushi mushi?’ ‘You know, Bloomerang, you’re not Japanese.’ ‘You better now, Sassafras, my little drama queen?’ ‘Dude, I give up. If you pick someone interesting, they’re a bastardo and they’ll dump you. If you pick someone kind, they’ll be boring and, apparently, they’ll still dump you. What. The. Fuck.’ ‘So you are better, darling?’ ‘Yes. I’m fine. I’m just fucking over…this…shit.’ Sometimes when I’m upset I get dramatic. It makes me laugh. And that kind of makes me feel better. Even when I’m lost in Break-Up Memory Lane. ‘Sass, darling,’ Bloomie whispers. I don’t think talking on the phone is really approved of in her office. ‘I thought we agreed last night that it was better you stopped toying with Posh Mark? You would have thrown him back into the sea sooner or later.’ Bloomie is one of my best friends, and manages to say ‘dahling’ at least four or five times a minute. It’s not pretentious from her, for some reason. She grew up in Chicago, as her dad’s American, but her parents moved to London when she was about 16, so her accent is a bit of a mongrel between East Coast USA and posh London. She’s been exactly the same since the first time we met, on the first day of university. Bloomie is also a total alpha: always leading the way, immensely more self-assured, together and tougher than I am, and sometimes—and she knows this too—rather spiky. But she’s utterly lovely and funny, of course. Why else would I be friends with her? And since I’m the kind of person who’s quite happy standing on the sidelines smoking fags and making quips rather than leading the pack, we fit together very well. Together with Kate, who I’ll tell you more about later, we’ve seen each other through about 19 boyfriends, 16 holidays together, probably over 250 coffee-and-fags-and-shopping Saturday afternoons, and truly countless hangovers, yet we still don’t run out of things to talk about. ‘I must be doing something wrong. I’ve been dumped six times in a row, Bloomie!’ ‘Darling…it’s just really, really, really, really fucking bad luck.’ Suddenly the reality of both statements hits me. I really have been dumped six times in a row. And it can’t just be bad luck. I must be an absolute loser and no one will ever love me again. (Why would Bloomie say I am a drama queen? I mean really.) So I start to cry, ish. Mostly I snuffle into the phone. Bloomie makes soothing noises for a while, and then she clears her throat and says abruptly: ‘Darling, seriously, I have to work. Let’s have a drink tonight. We can talk about this properly…I’m not being, you know, negative, but I don’t want to see you get into a post-Rick spiral…’ How could she remind me of that? ‘Sheesh, of course I won’t. You’re on for drinks, though.’ ‘Good, darling, that’s the spirit. I’ll ask Katie too, and email with detes later. Sayonara.’ This perks me up, naturally, and I stride, like the Urban Warrior my outfit makes me, to the tube station, with a cheeriness I don’t really feel. Despite my heartbreak/ache/mild graze, I can’t help but notice a few good-looking men as I walk through and down to the Victoria line. They’re all heading towards the District line. I wonder where they go. Where was I? Ah yes. Now, on Break-Up Memory Lane, we come to a large speedbump. Break-Up No.3: Clapham Brodie. I met him in the Bread and Roses pub in Clapham just after I turned 25, following a long dry spell during which I had an excellent time and met no one I really fancied. At all. I had lots of flirtations, of course, and still went on a few dates—just to keep my tools sharp. When none of the guys tried particularly hard to keep seeing me after one or two (or three or four) dates, however, it was actually more depressing than if I’d actually liked them, if that makes sense. But I really liked Brodie. Damnit, he was cute, with perfect teeth, like an American. And he really made me laugh. Clapham Brodie was a product manager, whatever the hell that is, and lived in Clapham. (Clapham is an area in South London that is popular with young people because it’s quite affordable, quite safe and quite nice…oh God it’s boring.) All his friends lived in Clapham, and every restaurant or bar he ever went to was in Clapham. ‘I will never leave Clapham,’ he said on our first date. ‘It is the centre of the universe.’ He was full of quips that tickled me, though looking back, I’m not sure he was joking about that. So. Clapham Brodie. Very funny guy. He kept up a running patter of playful silliness that I adored. We had long, giggly dinners at Metro and the Pepper Tree, where he made up food voices (‘don’t eat meeeeeeee!’ squeaked pasta, ‘who are you callin’ chicken?’ barked stirfry—I know what you’re thinking, but it was funny at the time). We danced to 80s music in Caf? Sol on Fridays and bad dance music in Infernos on Saturdays (if we were drunk enough to consider it), and spent Sundays in the Sun pub, people-watching and making up voice-over conversations for strangers. I found him hilarious, if a tiny bit deluded about his own intelligence (he once corrected my pronunciation of hyperbole, incorrectly). And we never talked about anything serious, ever. I’m not a particularly serious person, so that was fine by me. After a few months of what I considered to be a rather nice relationship, I heard him refer to me as ‘a friend…with benefits’ when he was talking to his mates in a bar. A cold chill ran over me, but I was too chicken to bring it up that night. (The ol’ fear of confrontation strikes again.) ‘How do you…uh, feel about, us, what’s going on with us?’ I asked his teddy bear Ivan the next night, as we watched DVDs in his bedroom. (Clapham Brodie liked to chat via the medium of the teddy.) ‘I am bear. I feel ggrrrrrrrrrrreat!’ growled the toy. (Ivan was Eastern European.) I glanced at Clapham Brodie. He kept his eyes on the TV. I decided to try again, in a silly way he might respond to. ‘Do you think…are we…you know, officially going steady? Like, swinging hands?’ I asked in an American accent that I hoped belied my hopeful tone. Clapham Brodie put the toy down and looked at me. ‘I was wondering when this would come up…’ he said, and promptly dumped me. If I hadn’t asked him, he would have let us keep wandering on for months. Friends with benefits infuckingdeed. Bastardo. I was quite upset about Clapham Brodie, I must admit. The ability to be silly is so attractive and rarer than you might think. Shall I just tell you about Break-Up No.4 quickly? Go on, then. We’re nearly done in my Tour O’ Heartbreak. Break-Up No.4: Smart Henry. A bit less than a year after Clapham Brodie, I met Smart Henry at a BBQ in Putney. (People who live in Putney have to bribe you to come and visit them by offering you food.) I was there with Bloomie, who was dating the BBQ host, a man now known as The Hairy Back. Smart Henry was The Hairy Back’s cousin. Smart Henry lived in Putney too, in a grubby little terrace. He was very tall and thin and scruffy, and always wore a battered tweed jacket that had belonged to his father, which made him look like a genteel English professor-in-the-making. Smart Henry seemed to have the perfect combination of indie cred (he freelanced for the NME and reviewed films and bands for the Guardian), genuine braininess (he had a degree from Cambridge) and politeness (he stood up when I approached the table, and always made sure I had a drink), with just enough silliness to surprise and satisfy (he’d frown at me when I teased him and say funny, mock-patronising things like ‘you’re smarter than you look’, or ‘that’s a spanking for you’). He always called me by my real name—Sarah—rather than Sass, which everyone has always called me, ever since I can remember. Smart Henry was also older than me—32 to my 26—which was refreshing. Enough of these boys, I thought, I want a man. He was nonchalant about everything, and suggested cool, grown-up things to do—like see arthouse films, or go to new restaurants no one else knew about yet, or art fairs where we’d drink brandy out of his hipflask and make up faux-expert reviews. He was a bit serious and detached, but I put that down to age. I was happy. Then just less than six months after we met (a record long relationship for me), Smart Henry announced he was moving to the States to go to Harvard for an MBA as he was ‘fed up with earning fuck all’ and wanted to ‘make some serious coin’. So he broke up with me, and I went home and cried. Was I really devastated? I don’t know. Yes. I think I was. But I was tired. I felt like I’d been dating for decades. It seemed like they always really liked me until they got to know me. And each time I met someone new, I tried to be as positive and open and hopeful as I could be. Each time I got so damn fond of them and I’d wonder if I was falling in love. I thought they were having fun. I certainly was. (Though then again, I find it pretty easy to have a good time. It’s one of my better qualities.) But each time it went wrong. Of course, over the years I also met a lot of guys who were almost great, with one fatal flaw. I don’t think I’m being too picky, either. Would you date someone who had a horrible snake-tongued kissing technique, or who ate with his mouth open, or talked about money all night, or admitted to an extensive Crocs collection, or who said stupid things like ‘Global warming, I’m not sure I believe in it’? (‘It’s not the tooth fairy,’ I replied. “Believing” makes no difference.’) Well, I wouldn’t. One date was enough. Sometimes I ignored them afterwards, sometimes they ignored me, whatever: a disappointing mistake is a disappointing mistake. Oh, Smart Henry. I hope you’re making some serious coin now. You cockmonkey. If I’d only known what was ahead of me. The next guy was Rick. I can’t bear to think about him right now. I just can’t. Anyway, I’m almost at work. I get out of the tube at Piccadilly Circus and start walking up past Burger King to my little corner of Soho. I love it at 9.30 am. The streets are scuzzy, and fresh air mingles with the smell of last night’s sin, but the sun is shining in its absent-minded London way, and Soho looks all small and personal. Not big famous naughty Soho. My nice little Soho, with my favourite little hidden coffee shop, where they know what I like without me having to go through the whole ‘latte but with a bit less milk slash macchiato but with a bit more milk’ thing. I work in a tiny advertising agency on a little road just near Golden Square, just around the corner from Piccadilly Circus. My first ever boss, Cooper, left the (big, glossy, soulless) ad agency we worked at to start it, and after a few months of witnessing the Machiavellian politics at the big agency, I scurried off to join him. It’s a fun job, not a real job like being a doctor or a teacher. But I like it. Anyway that’s all I’ll say about work for the moment. The only thing more boring than hearing about other people’s jobs is hearing about other people’s dreams. Chapter Three (#ulink_3e575eee-e564-5868-9724-cfe1d67195cc) ‘I had the most bizaaaaaaaaaaarre dream last night!’ chirrups Laura as I walk into the office. She’s a Mac monkey—that is to say, a very junior designer. Very kooky, very sweet, constantly stunned and excited by everything. ‘Really?’ I say, turning on my computer and settling at my desk. I sit in the far corner, facing the room, back to the wall, so I can see everything that’s going on. If I slouch in my seat, no one can see me from behind my monitor. It’s the perfect place to hide on a day like today. ‘I dreamed that you were marrying Mark Ronson! Can you imagine? Mark Ronson? Hahahaha! And you were wearing this fabulous fabulous long long dress in a sort of creamy Thai silk, you know, like oh, what’s it called, like, uh, oh…Hmm. Oh no, that’s not it, not Thai silk, I mean the other one. The heavier one but with a shine but not like cheap shine, like, expensive shine?’ ‘Satin?’ ‘Yes! And it was sort of gathered here and here, with a big thingy here, and we were in a big church and Coop was there, but he was painting the walls, no, they weren’t the walls, they were the puzzle windows, you know? The puzzle see-through windows? With the—the colouredy light, you know?’ ‘Stained glass?’ ‘Yes!’ I let Laura’s streaming dream commentary ebb and flow around me. Coop isn’t in the office this week. He’s been in Germany, meeting some old clients to sweet-talk them into being new clients. This is extremely lucky, as I feel vague and distracted all morning. I edit some copy I wrote yesterday, cheer myself up with Go Fug Yourself, and over lunch take a very serious look at topshop.com, shopbop.com and netaporter.com. Soul-cheering retail therapy from the comfort of my desk. I don’t buy anything, obviously. Anything purchased the day after a break-up will be forever afflicted with the taint of heartache. And for me, netaporter.com only exists so that I can recognise the designer knock-offs when they hit Zara and H&M. ‘Sass, my job needs a quick proof,’ says a flat male voice. Ah, yes I didn’t tell you—I’m what they call a copywriter. Theoretically, I help think up advertising, erm, ideas. (If that’s not an oxymoron.) We’re a tiny agency, which means there’s not the usual creative team structure there is in big places, and I do just about everything else to do with words, too: posters and websites and emails and leaflets and all the millions of little things that you read every day that someone has to write. And proofread. ‘Now,’ the voice adds. I look up. It’s the senior art director. Andy. He’s in his late 30s: short, scruffy, with a pot belly and curly, slightly dirty hair. He dresses like many creative hipster hobbit clones: dirty skinny black jeans, battered studded belt, yellow 70s-motif T-shirt with too-short sleeves revealing arms with the muscle tone of a toddler. Most of the time you’ll find him spouting predictable counterculture snob-pinions in a loud mockney voice. He’s also fundamentally sexist and uneducated, which makes him prone to saying things like ‘Jane Austen? Mills and Boon in a corset, innit?’ which is, obviously, stupid on about ten thousand levels. It’s odd, because he thinks he’s so daringly creative and maverick—shades of Arty Jonathan—but of course, he’s just following a different party line. Lots of art directors, of course, are brilliant and funny and original, like Cooper. But quite a few of them are like Andy. (It goes without saying that I’d never date someone like him, doesn’t it? That’s probably another reason I spend so much time in bars: I’m never going to meet someone via work.) ‘What job?’ I say, getting up from my desk and following him. He’s already walked away from my desk, knowing I’ll follow. Arrogant bastardo. ‘Shiny Straight,’ he says, sitting down on his chair with a spin and a sigh. He’s referring to one of the shampoo brands we work for. I nod, and look down at the copy on his screen. He can’t even be bothered to print it out for me to read properly. It’s an A5 ad insert that goes into magazines like Cosmopolitan and Elle. (Yeah, those annoying leaflets that fall out when you’re reading…someone has to write them. Sorry.) But I’ve never seen this ad before. Reading it briefly, I can quickly see that it’s all wrong. The strapline (the big type at the top) is new. The supporting copy (the smaller type below that talks about the product) only uses one of the three key words the client requires us to use. The whole thing sounds weirdly formal, not girly and friendly the way it’s meant to. It doesn’t even have a clear call to action—that’s what we call the line that tells people what to do (like go online to register for a freebie, or use the leaflet as a discount voucher, or whatever). It’s just a jumble of lines I’ve written before, put together all wrong. And there’s a punctuation mistake. It’s a mess. (Did I say it’s boring hearing about people’s jobs? Too bad, dudes. I have the conch. Heh.) ‘I’ve never seen this before,’ I say, looking up at him. He shrugs. ‘Where is this copy from?’ I try again, blushing slightly. I find his obvious contempt hard to deal with. I repeat my mantra: posture is confidence, silence is poise. (It’s not a particularly clever mantra, I know, but it stops any nervous babbling when I’m confronted with a difficult situation. And it really does make me stand up straight.) ‘I wrote it,’ he says breezily. He means he copied and changed things from my previous work, the douchebag. ‘And Charlotte approved it.’ Charlotte is the account manager. She’s in charge of making sure the good people at Shiny Straight are happy with everything we do, and prone to giving me briefs that say things like ‘it’s bespoke and tailored and personal’, not realising these all mean the same thing. She is not responsible for writing. If anyone is responsible for writing in this 12-person agency, it’s Cooper, or it’s bloody well me. ‘Just proof it, Sass. It’s not a big deal.’ ‘Why, um, was that?’ I ask, trying to look calm as I stare at the dreadful copy on screen. ‘Why didn’t you ask me?’ ‘Last-minute brief. Didn’t have time to include you. I’ve read enough of them to know what to say,’ he says. ‘Anyway, it’s the design that counts. Words are bricks, as they say.’ I glance over at him, my scalp prickling with anger, and see him looking at his design underlings with a smug smile. ‘Well, I can’t, um, approve it,’ I say. My cheeks are burning. ‘I can’t approve that copy.’ The entire creative department—Andy, his two art directors and a freelance illustrator—is looking over. Laura, who they put over on my side of the room because she’s a girl and they love their little boys’ club, is staring at me. Even Amanda, our receptionist/Office Manager (she prefers the latter title, always in caps, so I tend to call her Amanda The Office Manager in my head) says ‘one moment please!’ and puts her caller on hold so she can devote all her attention to what’s going on. I want to tell him that it’s crap copy, and words aren’t bricks, and he’s an arsehole, but I can’t. As you know, I hate confrontation. Plus, I think everyone else really likes him, though I have no idea why, so they’re all probably laughing at me. ‘Well, I’m not staying here all night waiting for you to write the fucking thing. So proof it, or I’ll just get Charlotte to.’ ‘Cooper…’ I hesitate. I’m sort of friends with Cooper, more than anyone else is anyway, and everyone knows it, so I try to never use him as a pawn in this sort of battle. I wonder if that’s why I always lose them. ‘Cooper would probably prefer we didn’t miss the deadline with the printer. Which is in ten minutes, by the way. So just fucking proof it. Fix the essentials.’ He’s being openly hostile now. I take a deep breath. I can feel tears sneaking into my eyes. Why do I cry whenever I’m angry? This is the last thing I need today. It’s not that important. I’ll just give in. I lean over the computer, fix the punctuation mistake (an errant apostrophe in ‘its’) and look up at him. ‘There. That wasn’t so hard, was it?’ he smiles. His lips are dry and cracked. And I know if I got within two feet, his breath would smell of coffee and badly-brushed teeth. I turn around and walk back to my desk. Andy snickers and covers it up with a cough. Who cares? It’s only a stupid ad. But copy is my job. I could have written the shit out of that. And they should have briefed me. Ignore it. Now a crap ad is going out. What if Cooper sees it? What if the client realises how crap it is? It doesn’t matter. At times like this, I really miss Chris, the art director I worked with at the big agency. He was talented and nice. Which shouldn’t be as unusual a combination as it is. I hide behind my monitor at my desk as our little room goes back to normal, and get an email from Kate. She can’t join us for drinkydinks tonight, so we’re catching up tomorrow night instead. I don’t know why I just said drinkydinks. I’m sorry. I’m not quite myself today. Andy leaves me alone for the rest of the day, talking instead to his art minions about Doom, or some other sociopathic computer killing game, and how good he is at it. I try to work, but my mind keeps wandering. I’m sure that by now, you know what it’s wandering back to. Dumped again! Six times. Etc. OK, let’s get it over and done with. The man I caught shagging a Pink Lady. Break-Up No.5: Rick. I didn’t even really fancy him at first, honestly. We met outside the Westbourne in Notting Hill one sunny Sunday afternoon in late summer two years ago. From that very first meeting, he pursued me with an intensity that was hard to resist. I mean, he really pursued me. Sarcastic texts, funny emails, more wordplay than you could shake your innuendo at, flirty flattery…As you can imagine, I was a bit of a skittish dater by this stage and tried hard to see the potential bastardo in any man. And I thought he was too slick, too arrogant, too charming, so I tried to stay away from him when I could, and was sarcastic and flip when I couldn’t. That seemed to interest him even more. His flatmate worked with Bloomie, and they were friendly and somehow we seemed to run into him a lot at bars and parties. Loads of women were always after him—I wouldn’t call Rick the most handsome man I’ve ever dated, but he had charisma. And he always made a beeline for me, which was flattering, obviously. So, after about four or five months of Rick’s charm offensive, during the dark, endless depths of January when it’s really, really depressing to be cold and single, I said yes to dinner. We met up one Thursday at Notting Hill Brasserie, where the food and wine and ambience combine to make you feel important and happy and interesting, all at once. And we talked till they closed. It was the best first date I’d ever had. He bared his soul, and I bared mine, and I realised that what I’d thought was slick arrogance was just hard-earned confidence (he’d won several scholarships to school and university) and genuine charm. We found each other interesting, and funny, and smart—at least he kept telling me he thought that…I now think he was lying, of course. But I thought he was wonderful. We kissed, and sparks went off in my chest. At the end of the night he said, ‘I know what you’re thinking. You’re wondering if I’ll call tomorrow. I’ll do better than that.’ He called me the minute I got home and we talked till I fell asleep. I was smitten. (I mean smote. No, smitten.) For the first three months, I was in dating heaven. Rick was sharp and witty and worldly and attentive and all those other attractive things that make a girl flexible at the knees. But then, almost overnight, he started to, well, be not quite so nice. He stopped emailing and texting first (an absolute must, and yes I am a feminist, dash it, but all the same), and didn’t suggest meeting up as much as he used to—in fact, he would wait for me to gingerly bring up the subject and then say ‘let’s play it by ear’ to see if something (someone?) more exciting came up. He never asked how I was, or what I had planned that week. He’d ignore my call on a Thursday and not return it all weekend while I tried to remain positive and think, ‘It’s cool! He doesn’t have to see me! I love me-time!’ and then on Sunday afternoon would text me to come round for, well, not-particularly-interesting hangover sex and a DVD. Which he chose. So it was something like Sin City. Or Death Proof. A bastardo, in other words. A Class-A bastardo cockmonkey that I should have ditched the minute he turned sour, like milk. But I didn’t. I tried to pretend I was fine and happy, and made excuses to my friends and myself: he’s working, he’s stressed. I felt him pulling away, dimming the addictive, warming spotlight of his adoration and I couldn’t bear it. We’d been perfect! He knew me, I knew him! I spent days and nights racking my brain, thinking how to make him go back to adoring me like he had at the beginning. I analysed every text and email, and hoped and hoped and hoped that everything would go back to being good. Don’t look at me like that. You’ve probably done it too. Everyone has one person they really lost their head over. And he was mine. Why, you ask? Because I thought he understood me? Because I thought I understood him? Because of my immature, impossibly hopeful disposition? Because all my previous relationships paled in comparison? Because each successive break-up had left my self-esteem in tatters? Or because all my previous disappointments made me determined to hang on to this one potentially perfect happiness if I could? I don’t know. There are a thousand possible reasons. None are really good enough. And you know what’s even worse? Even during those six torturous weeks of him acting like this, we’d meet up once a week or so—me, sick with nerves obviously—and it would be bliss again. He’d apologise, blame work for being too busy to see me, we’d have a bottle of wine and talk and laugh and sparkle and I’d adore him more than I ever had before, despite the days of confidence-eroding worry beforehand. I’d feel totally secure, blissfully happy, utterly content. And it was during one of those nights when I told him I loved him. I know! Don’t look at me like that. Trust me, I know I shouldn’t have said it. I hadn’t planned it, it just popped out. It’s not the kind of thing I’d ever, ever have said if I’d been in the least bit in control of myself. I’d never said it to anyone else. Maybe I felt so happy and relieved that the sparkly secure feeling was there after a particularly long week with almost no contact from him. Maybe—probably—I subconsciously thought I’d prompt him to say he loved me too, and we’d go back to being sparkly all of the time. Who knows? The female brain is an annoyingly mysterious thing. Even to us. At the time I thought I meant it, by the way, but I realised pretty soon it wasn’t love…it was more like addiction. And no, of course he didn’t say it back. He just smiled, and kissed me. (We were in his kitchen cooking spaghetti bolognese, which I hate but every boyfriend I’ve ever had thinks he can cook better than anyone in the world.) In a split second I realised he wasn’t going to say it back, because he didn’t love me, and never had. I wanted to run away and cry, but instead I poured another glass of wine and kept smiling. It doesn’t matter. Everything will be fine. Just hang in there and be positive and show him what a good girlfriend you are. And the next night was the ‘Come As Your Childhood Ambition’ party. For weeks—months—afterwards, I kept getting hammered and crying. I honestly felt like I should look like a human raisin, I cried so much. I turned 28 just two weeks after he dumped me. That birthday was a real low point. Bloomie organised a dinner for me and I had to keep a tissue folded in my palm to mop up the tears that just burst from my face, even when I didn’t think I was crying. I then got as drunk as I could, threw up, and had to be taken home by 10 pm. God, that was a pathetic period of my life. I hate that me. I fucking hate her. After every other break-up I’d bounced back pretty fast, with the help of the magic trifecta of friends, clothes and vodka, ready to head out and have some fun again. But not this time. Recovering from Rick was like recovering from a debilitating illness. I needed liquids (vodka), darkened rooms (bars) and rest (vodka-induced comas). I don’t even know why Rick affected me like that. He just did. It was—oh God, it was a car crash. In comparison, the Posh Mark break-up was like skinning my knee. Rick never called me to apologise, by the way. In fact, we didn’t even have the excruciating/satisfying/sad ritual of giving each other’s things back. His flatmate gave Bloomie my eye make-up remover and various underthings I’d left at his house. (He had left nothing at mine. He’d refused to stay over after a few token efforts at the beginning. Another bastardo sign, by the way. The home game advantage is huge.) I’m really not a victim, though you probably think I’m an absolute basket case after everything I’ve told you. You know, I secretly wonder—and sorry for using you as a shrink, but I can’t afford a real one—if, after six months of rampant partying post-Rick misery, I actually went out with Posh Mark not because he was nice and wouldn’t dump me, but because I expected it to fail. At least if I didn’t like him that much, it wouldn’t hurt. Hmm. Bloomie calls those kinds of relationships ‘emotional blotting paper’: they prop you up after a relationship Hiroshima until you get enough time and perspective to recover and start thinking about dating someone you actually like. And waking up wrapped up in nicely-muscled arms is better than waking up alone. Sort of. Oh fuck me, I can’t imagine doing it again. Or rather, I can imagine it, but I just can’t face it. It’s so depressing to think about. So many mistakes. And I don’t want to go through it all again. Meeting someone, liking them, going out with them for dinner, waiting to see if they’ll call again…it’s exhausting, and it never works out for me. I’m obviously romantically-challenged. I just…I want out of this game, I really do. Chapter Four (#ulink_9e4c15b4-0ed7-5905-98d5-819eb68531d7) At 5.30 pm, I leave work as quickly and quietly as I can—noting on the way out that today’s Urban Warrior sartorial theme clearly failed miserably and I should rechristen it Andy’s Urban Victim—to head down to meet Bloomie in a bar about ten minutes’ from South Kensington tube station. I’d like to get a black cab, but can’t quite justify it. (I spend an inordinate amount of time justifying the expense of black cabs to myself. My two go-to excuses are that it’s late so the tube could be dangerous—which it never really is within Zone Two—or that I’m wearing very high heels.) On the number 14 bus on the way down the Fulham Road, I try to talk myself into being in a good mood. Despite the universe throwing every happy loved-up person in London in my path tonight (how can they all find love and not me? How can the drab little beige thing in front of me be calling her boyfriend to say she’ll put dinner on for when he gets home? Why, damn it, why am I unable to achieve that?), it’s not actually that hard. I’m cheery by nature, I love after-work drinks, I love Bloomie and I love the place where we’re meeting. It’s a restaurant called Sophie’s Steakhouse, but we only ever go to the bar part. It’s not quite a pick-up joint, but not all couples; not too rowdy, but not too quiet; not too cool and not too boring. In short, it’s the perfect place for the freshly single. I push past the heavy curtain inside the front door, and see the usual young, rather good-looking West London crowd. There are some gorgeous men in here, as ever, though I know they’re probably a bit rah-and-Rugger-Robbie for me. A few floppy-haired Chelsea types in red corduroy trousers (where do they sell those things and how can we make them stop?), a couple of older business-type guys waiting alone in suits for wives or girlfriends, and I can sense, but not see, a group of five guys having an early dinner in the restaurant part, as they turn around to look at me as I come in. I know it’s only because, well, I’m female, but still. It’s gratifying. Especially today. Bloomie is, as usual, about half an hour late, so I kill time reading the fun bits of the paper someone else has left behind (you know, the celebrity bits, and the movie and book reviews). As soon as she arrives we start as we always do: with a double cheek kiss and a double vodka. Things move swiftly from there. I don’t want to get hammered tonight as it’s only Wednesday and payday isn’t for another ten days, but quite soon we start going outside for cigarettes (neither of us smokes, except in situations of extreme stress, like last night, or drinking, or, um, gossiping on a Saturday, or sometimes on the phone), which is a sure-fire sign we’re here for the long haul. Before I know it, I’m slapping the table with one hand to emphasise my point (which point? Who can say? Any point! Pick a point, please) and making dramatic absolute statements that start with ‘I will NEVER’ and ‘There is no WAY’. From drink one to two we talk about Posh Mark, from drink two to three we talk about Eugene (the extremely lovely guy she’s been dating for a few months. She calls him The Dork because who the sweet hell is called Eugene?), with a quick side-wind into talking about Bloomie’s recently-redundant-and-leaving-soon-to-travel-the-world flatmate Sara, from three to four we talk about the state of the economy. (Just kidding! We talk about Posh Mark and Eugene again. Obviously.) And then drink five hits. And the thoughts that have been percolating in my brain all day tumble out. ‘Bloomie. Bloomster. Listen to me. I can’t do it again. I can’t do it again.’ ‘What? Drink?’ Bloomie is writing The Dork a text, with one eye closed to help her focus. ‘No—I mean, yes, I’ll have another drink…um, yes, a double, please. I can’t…I can’t date anymore, I can’t do it, I’m useless at it and I can’t do it.’ I’m hitting the table so hard to emphasise every point that my hand starts tingling. ‘Get a grip, princess.’ ‘Seven years of this shit, Blooms. Six failed relationships. I don’t want to do it anymore. I just want it all to go away.’ ‘It’s seven years of bad luck, that’s all. Wait!’ Bloomie throws up her hands melodramatically. ‘Did you break a mirror when you were 21?’ ‘I mean it…I can’t do it again. The whole dating thing is fucked. You see someone for ten minutes in a bar and they chat you up and ask you out, and boom! You’re dating, but how can you possibly know if they’re really right for you?’ ‘Well, you hope for the best,’ shrugs Bloomie, with all the confidence of someone in a happy relationship. ‘No. I can’t bear it…The nausea, the hope, the waiting for him to call, the nausea, and on the rare occasions that everything is really good and he likes me and I like him, the nausea of waiting for him to dump me. As he will, because he always does, no matter who the fuck he is. I’ve done it too many times, and I look back on them all and feel so angry at myself for dating them in the first place…And have I mentioned the nausea?’ Bloomie looks at me and frowns. ‘Is this really about Rick? Because I swear to God, that guy was…’ ‘No,’ I interrupt quickly. ‘Of course it is not. I am over him. I really think, I mean I know, I know I am over him.’ ‘OK…’ she says doubtfully. ‘Why don’t you just concentrate on work for a few months and not worry about it? That’s what I did after Facebook guy and it was the best thing I could have done. And after Bumface. And The Hairy Back.’ These are her ex-boyfriends. She pauses.‘I always concentrate on work, actually.’ She starts to laugh. ‘Imagine if I hadn’t had such a shit lovelife! I’d never have had any promotions.’ I look at her and sigh. I’ve never had a promotion. ‘I am a failure at my job, Bloomie. Today was…’ I close my eyes. I can’t bear to think about work. I’ve told Bloomie about my inability to deal with Andy before, and she suggested ways to handle it, but I’m just not able to tackle things like she does. (I believe the technical term is ‘head on’.) ‘It’s nothing, it’s not worth even discussing. I should just quit my job. I’m so bad at it. I’m a failure! At everything!’ Oh, there goes the drama queen again. Sashaying away. ‘Hey. Come on. You’re great at your job,’ she says loyally, reaching a tipsy hand out for my shoulder. ‘Though I wish you’d be as ballsy with them as you are with us.’ I raise a doubtful eyebrow at her. ‘Being ballsy with my best friends isn’t exactly hard. It’s the rest of the world that’s difficult.’ ‘I had a bad day too,’ says Bloomie supportively. ‘You know, this is the first time I’ve left work before 8 pm in a month. I hate it.’ She so doesn’t hate working late, but I’ll leave that. ‘Really? Are you OK? What’s happening?’ I take a sip of my drink. I’m hungry, but the drinks here are expensive, and dinner will have to wait till I get home. ‘Don’t you read the papers, darling?’ she says, laughing. I notice, for the first time, the bags beneath her eyes, and that her nails are uncharacteristically bitten. ‘It’s more that nothing good is happening…I just need to keep my head down and not lose my job.’ ‘Oh, um…yes,’ I say, stirring my drink. When it comes to the world of finance, I’m clueless. Have the banks started collapsing again? I always picture them tumbling down piece by piece. ‘I’m sure you won’t lose your job, Blooms.’ ‘Yeah, yeah, it’ll be fine,’ Bloomie says, making a batting-away motion with her hand. ‘And The Dork is an excellent distraction. That’s what you need. You need a Dork to distract you.’ ‘No,’ I say, and sigh deeply. ‘I can’t make the right choices no matter what I do…It will never work out for me. Never. And I don’t want to try anymore.’ ‘I know you,’ says Bloomie, laughing. ‘You say that now, but tomorrow you’ll see some hot dude in a bar and think, yes, please.’ ‘Exactly! I even walked in here tonight checking the guys out and wondering which of them might ask me out. I really do think like that, and I’ve been single for less than 24 hours. What the hell is wrong with me? I’m in a vicious circle where my life revolves around dating, but dating is bad for my life. It’s called an addiction!’ ‘No, it’s not. It’s called being a single in your 20s.’ ‘Well, I’m over it,’ I say. ‘I’m sick and tired and fed up with the whole fucking thing. As God is my witness, I am not dating anymore.’ ‘You’re not religious, Scarlett O’Hara,’ says Bloomie, poking her ice with her straw. ‘You’re not even christened.’ ‘OK then, as Bloomie is my witness…’ I pause for a second, and slam both my hands down on the table so hard that the bartenders look over in alarm. ‘Yes! Yes! I will officially cease and desist from dating and everything to do with it from this moment forth. No more dating, no more dumpings. Officially. For real.’ ‘No men?’ ‘No men.’ ‘No sex?’ ‘No sex.’ ‘No flirting?’ I pause for a second. ‘No obvious flirting. But I can still talk to guys…’ ‘You need to draw up a no-dating contract, then.’ ‘Do it,’ I say, taking out a cigarette and perching it in my mouth expectantly. ‘I’m cleansing my life of men. It’s a total testosterone detox. A dating detox. Shall we call it Dating Rehab?’ Bloomie snorts with laughter. ‘No let’s make it happier than that. We’ll call it the Love Holiday!’ says Bloomie happily, looking through her bag for a pen. ‘Love Holiday? That sounds like a Cliff Richard movie. No, it’s a…it’s a Sabbatical. A Dating Sabbatical.’ ‘What if you meet the man o’ your dreams?’ I roll my eyes. ‘Come on. What are the odds of that?’ Bloomie cackles with laughter. ‘When will you know it’s over?’ ‘Six months. That’s the average Sabbatical, right?’ ‘Dude, seriously. That’s a long time to ignore real life, even for you.’ ‘That’s the point…OK, three months,’ I grin. ‘Right, I need some paper. I’ll ask the bartender. Another drink?’ As Bloomie heads towards the bar, I gaze around, looking in delight at all the men I won’t be dating. I feel deeply relieved to have the whole issue taken away. I can’t believe I never thought of this before! I am brilliant! High-fives to me! Chapter Five (#ulink_0e59ca00-e0bc-5514-b8dd-14996e5dcac4) The next morning I wake up with a predictably dry and foul-tasting mouth. I open one eye, noting thoughtfully the crusty-eyelash sensation that means I demaquillaged imperfectly, and discover a piece of paper on my right breast. Naturally, dear reader, you’re one step ahead of me—I’d expect nothing less—and you know already that this piece of paper will be the list that I remember reading (with one eye shut, due to mild vodka-induced double-vision) as I went to sleep last night. THE DATING SABBATICAL RULES 1 No accepting dates. 2 No asking men out on dates. 3 Obvious flirting is not allowed. 4 Avoid talking about the Sabbatical. 5 Talking about the Sabbatical is permitted in response to being asked out on a date. Until then it would just intrigue them and be another form of flirting and in fact be taken as a challenge. 6 No accidental dating, ie, pretending you didn’t arrange to meet them just for a movie or something when you blatantly did. 7 No new man friends. It is just as confusing. And it would open up opportunities for non-date-dates, ie, new-friend-dates, which are just the same as dates, when you get down to it. 8 Kissing is forbidden. Except under extreme circumstances, ie, male model slash comic genius is about to ship off to sea to save the world and as you say goodbye he starts to cry and says he never knew true love’s kiss. 9 Actually, if you meet a male model slash comic genius who is about to save the world, you can sleep with him. Otherwise keep your ladygarden free of visitors as it will complicate matters. None. At all. 10 No bastardos. I signed it and Bloomie signed it. Our signatures have, unsurprisingly, slightly more flair than usual. In fact, I’ve added an ‘Esq’ to mine. Hmm. What the hell is a ladygarden? Shampoo, condition, fuck shaving the armpits, brush teeth extra thoroughly, no one will see my legs, to hell with exfoliating, towel, where the fuck is the moisturiser, who cares, deodorant, perfume. My sartorial motivation today is comfort. So I turn to some very old Levi 501s, a soothing, eight-year-old grey T-shirt I call Ol’ Grey, a brown cardigan, woolly socks and Converses. I look like a Smashing Pumpkins fan. A male one. In 1992. This isn’t working. Normally, when I doubt my outfit, I give myself the ‘if I think it works, it works’ speech, but I can’t make this one fly. I take everything off and think for a moment. What else is comforting? Living in the 70s would be comforting, I think. No email or mobiles, you could smoke everywhere, and use a typewriter. How simple. So I put on some very flared blue jeans, a ribbed white top, my Converses again, pull my damp hair into a side plait, lace a mildly retro silk (polyester, whatever) scarf from H&M through the belt loops and tie in a side knot, and consider myself again. Ah yes. Vaguely Co-Ed 1972. This will do fine. Thank fuck I work in advertising and can wear anything I want; if I had to put on a suit right now I’d slash my wrists…Make-up…hmm. My eyebrows are being blatantly annoying, and I don’t have the patience to deal with them today. Lots of mascara, some bronzer and blush to fake good health, lipbalm. I add a beige checked men’s coat I bought in a charity shop and voil?. Slightly watery-eyed, but not bad. I check my watch. It’s taken me twice as long to get ready today as yesterday. This is the reason that I don’t drink. (Much.) On the tube on the way to work I ponder the Dating Sabbatical. Obviously, it’s kind of a silly idea. But also so easy. An easy way to put off dealing with being back in the singles game. I could go on a Dating Sabbatical and nurse my aforementioned bruised heart—OK, OK, so it isn’t bruised and I didn’t really give Posh Mark much thought at all yesterday. (Jeez, you’re a tough crowd.) But my heart is very shy right now and it doesn’t feel like coming out to play for awhile. It would rather eat chocolate in the bath and read Jilly Cooper’s Polo. I open my lucky yellow clutch to take out the Dating Sabbatical Rules for a quick review, and pull out a bunch of receipts from drinks last night adding up to over ?60. Yikes. I mentally add this to the spreadsheet I keep in my head of incomings and outgoings. (No, it’s not a foolproof way to plan my finances, but it works for me. Ish. Since I don’t earn much money, I have to make some sacrifices to spend as much as I like on what I consider essentials, like clothes and vodka and black cabs. So I don’t belong to a gym, never get my hair done, and spend almost nothing on things like, you know, food. I eat a lot of baked beans, tinned tuna, bananas and toast.) I get to work, the perfect coffee in hand, and email Bloomie: Duuuuuude. I’m still in. She replies: Ha, really? Fine. You can test it tomorrow night at Mitch’s party. I reply: Roger that. I hide behind my computer all day. Andy doesn’t look at me once, and though I’m meant to talk to him about a new brief, I decide to send him an email about it when he’s out at lunch. I just can’t face him today. I’m meeting up with Kate for dinner. She’s the third in our trifecta from university, but is slightly more absent from our social lives over the last year or so as she’s in a ridiculously stable long-term relationship. We meet near her work in Mayfair at The Only Running Footman, a pseudo-rustic pub. It’s packed with finance-type people drinking away their worries but we find a seat in the restaurant bit downstairs. I notice quite a few very good-looking men here. Shame I’m on a Dating Sabbatical and not looking, I remind myself. Over burgers and beers I explain the theory of the Dating Sabbatical to Kate. She nods very seriously and poses relevant and poignant questions, all of which I answer with what’s becoming rather slick aplomb, till— ‘Alright, Sass. This all seems like a very you thing to do. But what if you meet someone you actually want to go out with?’ I pause, chip in the air. ‘How do you mean?’ ‘What if you…you know, you meet someone you really, really fancy and want to go out with?’ ‘A guy? That I fancy? And want to go out with?’ I’m flummoxed. This idea hadn’t even occurred to me. I haven’t met someone I really wanted to date in years. I just sort of do it as it seems like something to do. And if they’ve gone to the trouble of asking, unless I find them ugly or sleazy or loserish or I’m positive they’re a bastardo, then I think I should say yes, and then just see what happens. (Though this approach, as history shows, hasn’t really worked out.) But I can’t exactly tell Kate that. It sounds stupid. ‘Hmm…well…I guess I never want to go out with anyone till he asks me out. I might think someone across the bar is hot, or whatever, but I just don’t think about it much more than that till he’s made the first move. Why waste the energy?’ ‘That seems kind of…reactive,’ says Kate carefully, dunking a chip in the huge dollop of English mustard at the side of her plate. It’s really weird how much she likes English mustard. A little more about Kate: very pretty, very short and thus kind of adorable. Probably my sweetest friend. She and Bloomie and I have been close friends since about day one of university, when we met in halls, got hammered together on cider and discovered a shared love of Jeff Buckley (yep, such clich?s). She grew up in a little town in Cambridgeshire, going to Brownies and riding horses, and still has that milk-fed prettiness such girls always get. Boys always loved her. Men love short women, have you ever noticed? I’m on the tall side, by the way. And I’ve never had a boyfriend tall enough to wear three-inch heels with. (Does my dating agony ever end, I ask you?) Sorry, back to Kate. She’s an accountant, though I don’t really know why, as she read Italian and French at university. She even spent a year in Florence. She’s always been a bit of a control freak, the person who makes plans weeks in advance and panics when things change unexpectedly. Perhaps that’s what accountants are like. Kate lives with her boyfriend, a guy called Tray. Bloomie and I referred to him as Tray Nice when we first met him, then Tray Serious. Now it’s Tray Boring. He’s perfectly nice, but brings nothing to the conversational table. It’s not that I don’t like talking to him, exactly. It’s just that I like talking to everybody else a lot more. I guess they must have some crazy connection to make Kate stay with him for three years. As my dad always says, no one sees the game like the players. (He is a bottomless well of sporting/relationship analogies.) She seems pretty happy these days—a bit quieter and less prone to silliness than she used to be, and we don’t see her as much as we used to, but happy. ‘Did you like Tray before he asked you out?’ Kate squints in thought. ‘I don’t know…I just thought he seemed very intelligent and sort of…kind. Kind and interesting to talk to. And I’d decided I wanted that in my next boyfriend. Yeah, I guess I did like him first.’ ‘And sexual chemistry?’ ‘Oh, yes, yes, all that too,’ says Kate quickly. ‘And you know, I really was intent on having someone kind. I’d met so many, uh…bastardos. Remember Dick the Prick? And The Missing Link?’ I start laughing. Dick the Prick was a guy she met when she first moved to London, but he cheated on her and she dumped him. The Missing Link wasn’t awful, but he wasn’t particularly nice either. He was thick and pretty. ‘So after all your bastardos you decided to proactively find a clever non-bastardo?’ ‘Uh…yes.’ ‘That’s just like me and…’ I pause for a second to remember his name ‘…Posh Mark! He was kind!’ And thick, I add silently. Fuck me, I’m callous. ‘Yes, but I’m not sure how well suited you and Posh Mark ever were. Tray and I have a lot in common. I enjoy his company. He’s very intelligent,’ she adds. Again. Hmm. She sounds a little Stepford Wife-y and she’s not meeting my eye, but I decide to agree with her. ‘You’re right. Lucky you, darling. So important to have someone kind and intelligent.’ There might be something wrong here, but I’m not going to push it. Kate doesn’t talk about her feelings unless she wants to. She has that nice reserved thing going on; not in a cold way—she’d do anything for any of us. I think it’s shyness. You never know if she’s really great or utterly miserable until she wants you to. I wish I wasn’t such an open book. My mother can read my mood by how many rings it takes me to answer the phone. ‘How are you feeling about Posh Mark, anyway, Sass?’ says Kate. I rang her on Tuesday night and bawled, embarrassingly. ‘Oh, fine,’ I say truthfully. ‘He was, you know, a life raft. Better than drowning in a sea of self-pity and vodka.’ ‘Nicely put,’ grins Kate. ‘So where’s off the list now?’ ‘Eight Over Eight, because that was our first date place,’ I say, taking a thoughtful bite of my burger. ‘And Julie’s, because we used to go there for brunch when we stayed at his place.’ ‘Are there any brunch places near your place that aren’t tainted by ex-boyfriends by now?’ Kate says, laughing. She professes to not understand why I refuse to go back somewhere that reminds me of someone who dumped me. Especially as the list is getting slightly ridiculous. ‘None,’ I reply honestly. ‘Pimlico is one big no-go zone for me these days. I may have to move.’ We move on to gossiping about people we know, and talk about the party at Mitch’s place tomorrow night. The guestlist seems to be snowballing, with lots of people I haven’t seen in ages. Yay. I siphon off the back part of my brain and leave it to go through my wardrobe and plan an outfit. We finish our burgers, pay the bill and decide to go outside to finish our beers with a fag. ‘God, I miss smoking,’ sighs Kate. ‘Mwhy mdya qvit?’ I say, talking with my cigarette in my mouth as I light hers. So classy. She takes a drag and exhales happily. ‘Tray hates it, and he IS right. It does kill you.’ ‘Yes, he is right. It does.’ There seems nothing more to say. See? Even saying his name halts conversation. ‘How’s the world of accounting?’ I ask. ‘Scintillating,’ says Kate crisply. ‘At least I’ll never be out of a job, no matter what happens to the economy.’ ‘Why?’ ‘Accountants are always needed. We’re like prostitutes. One of the world’s oldest professions.’ This, from Kate, is outrageous. She’s in a funny mood tonight. Funny odd, not funny haha. ‘Oh well, that’s good,’ I say, starting to laugh. ‘What are you doing on Sunday? I’ve probably got the flat to myself all weekend as usual, so we could have an all-day movie fest. We’ll start with Sixteen Candles, then Overboard’—did I mention I have a thing for Goldie Hawn? I totally do—‘then Dirty Dancing, then Pretty Woman, then 13 Going On 30. Holy shit, that film makes me cry.’ ‘13 Going on 30 makes you CRY?’ ‘Yes. Whenever Jennifer Garner cries I lose it. I don’t know what it is. I saw her cry on Alias once, and I had only just flicked over from another channel, so I had no idea what was going on, and I cried my arse off…though we could sub in Old School and end on a high. Marvellous film.’ ‘Marvellous,’ agrees Kate happily. ‘Don’t you feel, though, that chick flicks are all the same?’ I splutter in mock outrage. ‘The SAME?’ ‘Yah, you know…the same. They all kind of suck.’ ‘So? Christmas kind of sucks and is always the same, too. Do you hate Christmas?’ Kate starts to laugh. ‘No…’ ‘Actually, chick flicks DON’T suck. In fact, Katiepoo, the chick flick is a formula designed to satisfy, but always with small subtle variations. The girl is somehow identifiable. The guy is somehow unattainable.’ I start to warm to my argument. ‘There is fashion. There is a dancing scene. There is some kind of klutzy friend, though sometimes the heroine is a klutz too. Then somewhere along the line, there is a fear that he’s messed up forever and has to prove himself to her to win her love.’ Kate nods. ‘Yah. I picked the plot up. When I was six.’ ‘In fact, forget Christmas. Chick flicks are like all my favourite things in life—burgers! Really high heels! Weekends in New York! Sexual encounters! Every single one is different, but has the same essential components and is—hopefully—equally pleasing!’ We both laugh. OK, we cackle. The two-beer buzz is delightful. ‘Uh…ladies. May I trouble you for a lighter?’ Deep voice. American. Male. Late 20s. I glance at Kate’s face, but she’s staring at Mr America behind me. I turn around, getting out my lighter at the same time. ‘Sure,’ I hand it over and he grins and lights his cigarette. Extremely cute, in a jock kind of way. Baggy pale blue jeans, Ralph Lauren Polo T-shirt, short floppy American-banker haircut. He must be fresh off the boat. American men wear very bad jeans till they realise every other man in London wears his jeans darker and tighter. Then they all buy Diesel jeans. (They never change their hair.) ‘Thanks,’ he leans back and exhales, a small smirk on his face. ‘So you like chick flicks as much as sex, seriously?’ ‘It’s awfully rude to eavesdrop.’ Kate’s phone rings. ‘It’s Tray—back in a sec…’ Hmm, I have to wait for Kate and talk to Mr America. I could wait inside, if I was going to be really strict about this not dating men thing…But he’s so cute. Preppy, Ivy League and cute. Damn it, come on Sass, I chide myself. I should not be noticing this shit. I decide to finish my fag and put the Dating Sabbatical to the test. I run over my mantra in my head, more out of habit than need. After all, I’m not able to date him, so there’s no need to feel nervous. But he is kind of good looking. ‘Personally, I can get behind any John Hughes movie, so I’m with you on Sixteen Candles. But I’m not sure about Overboard.’ I look back at him like I’m surprised he’s still there. (Am I breaking Rule 3? Obvious flirting? Nah, this isn’t obvious yet.) ‘I heart Goldie Hawn. She’s brilliant.’ ‘Sure, but give me Private Benjamin any day.’ ‘Oh, I love that film! “Go check out the bathroom, it’s FABULOUS!”’ Mr America laughs. ‘Yeah, I can see that you’d like that line.’ I grin, and our eyes meet. He’s very confident. Sexual frisson, bonjour. ‘So…I loved your little speech there.’ ‘The chick flick speech? I was just being silly…’ ‘I like silly.’ Why can American men say lines like that and get away with it? It must be the accent. This one’s particularly cocky. It’s terribly attractive. However, I never know what to say back when someone’s coming on to me so openly, so I just smile and take a drag of my cigarette. ‘Could I get your number…perhaps we could have dinner sometime?’ I pause and smile. Shit. Time to put the Dating Sabbatical into action. ‘I know a lot of movies. I could quote ’em to you all night.’ He grins. Perfect teeth. Another attractive American trait. ‘I’d love to, but I’m not dating right now.’ (There, that was easy. Rule 1: no accepting dates, and Rule 5: talking about the Sabbatical is permitted in response to being asked out on a date.) ‘I don’t get it. You’ve got a boyfriend?’ ‘No, I don’t. I’m just—I’m not seeing anyone at the moment.’ ‘Did someone just break your heart?’ I laugh. ‘No! I’ve just…I’m…I’m not dating right now. I’m taking a break from uh, seeing guys.’ ‘You’re gay?’ His tone is disbelieving. ‘No.’ ‘You’re just…not dating.’ ‘Yup.’ ‘For how long?’ ‘Three months,’ I say airily. ‘Possibly, probably, longer.’ I don’t want him to think he can line up a date for three months’ time. Especially since I’d probably say yes. Saying no to this date is hard enough as it is. (See? Dating IS an addiction. Thank betsy I’m detoxing. Every time I say no, it will get easier. Just say no.) ‘That’s, like, pathetic. Some guy must have really done a number on you.’ This riles me. ‘Oh, please. I’m just not dating right now.’ ‘Hey! I’m not going to fight with ya about it!’ He stubs out his cigarette and throws two finger guns at me. ‘Your loss.’ He storms back into the bar just as Kate comes back. ‘That was Tray…I’ve gotta go home. What the hell happened there?’ ‘Rejection,’ I say happily. ‘My first Dating Sabbatical rejection in action. His response was “YOUR LOSS”.’ I imitate the finger guns, adding a ‘peeyong’ shooting sound for good measure. Kate and I collapse with laughter and head down towards the tube. Chapter Six (#ulink_7c0e7168-0827-5147-981f-88f455935b90) Right. The morning routine. I snooze till a delightful 8.25 am, and then take a long lazy shower with no shampoo or conditioner as I want fresh hair for Mitch’s party tonight and a double-wash makes my hair flop like it’s pre-product-1972, brush teeth, scrub with exfoliating gloves and body wash, shave pits and legs, blah-blah, you know the rest already. Today Outer Self is channelling Tough Nu Wave Cookie, so I throw on pointy blue shoes, skinny white jeans, a sleeveless black turtleneck and a black blazer. As I pop up the collar of the blazer and roll up my sleeves, I wonder if I look a bit odd and decide not to think about it. I realised a few months ago that I really haven’t changed my fundamental approach to dressing since I was 13. I pick a theme and keep adding things till I get there. (Favourite outfit when I was 13: DMs, black opaque tights, jeans shorts, a black belt with a peace sign buckle, a white T-shirt and a black blazer. Would definitely wear the same outfit now, minus perhaps the peace sign belt.) Brush hair vigorously to make the day-old grease look like shiny newness and throw it into a dishevelled chignon thing. Win the daily Battle Of The Brow. Inner Self is thus ready to face day two of Dating Sabbatical. I grab my lucky yellow clutch and run downstairs. As I head into the kitchen(ette) to grab a banana and a tin of tuna, I see Anna curled up with her duvet on one of the 60s settees. ‘Morning Anna!’ I call. She moans in reply and I look back around at her. ‘Are you OK?’ She raises her head and I see her eyes. They’re all swollen and pink like a newborn puppy. Yikes. ‘Don and I broke up,’ she says, reaching for a box of tissues hidden somewhere in the duvet. ‘Oh…dear…’ I say, and come over to perch on the side of the settee. His name is Don? No one has been called Don since 1955. ‘Is there anything I can do?’ ‘No, no, I’ll be fine,’ she says, snuffling into a tissue. She looks up at me dramatically. ‘He has a wife, you know. I’m not sure if she’s the separated kind.’ Double yikes. Even I wouldn’t get into that situation. I look at Anna whimpering on the couch. She’s very pretty, about 30 or so, one of those tall girls with long brown hair and long elegant arms. I swear my upper arms are abnormally short. Anyway, back to Anna. I don’t know what to say to make her feel better. ‘That’s not…um…good.’ ‘I’m just so tired of it,’ she sighs, blowing her nose. ‘The reason I went for that prick was that I was tired of game-playing single guys. He said he was unhappy and separated, and I thought that he’d be perfect for me, or else I wouldn’t have done it, I’m not that kind of person…and then last night he told me they were going to try to work things out…And none of my friends understand, they’re all in long-term relationships or married…’ Oh Jeez. Anna and I aren’t close enough to have this conversation. ‘Um, oh…’ I say. ‘You’ll be fine, Anna. Have a nice hot shower and get dressed and you’ll feel better.’ She shakes her head, staring blankly into space. I can see she’s having conversations in her head. Unhappy ones. I try again. ‘You really will, Anna…I know how hard it is. I’ve been dumped six times in a row.’ ‘Really?’ she says, looking over at me with new interest. ‘How the hell have you survived?’ ‘Um…I just sort of kept going and hoped for the best, I guess. And well, right now, I’m officially not dating. I’m on a Dating Sabbatical. I can’t make the right decisions, so I’m not making any at all. I can’t date men, accidentally or on purpose, for three months.’ I pause. ‘Like a nun.’ ‘I love that idea,’ she says. ‘It’s the only way. Nothing else works. Nothing. You can try as hard as you like to be careful and you’ll still fuck up. I had my first boyfriend 18 years ago. I’m so tired of it all…’ ‘Exactly,’ I nod. This is kind of sweet, we’ve never had a conversation like this. ‘I should leave for work, Anna…are you OK? Do you have plans tonight? My friend Mitch is having a party if you’d like to come…’ ‘Oh, thanks, but I’m heading up to Edinburgh to see my mum,’ she says, pulling herself up into a sitting position. ‘I’d better get up too. The good people at Unilever won’t survive without me.’ I wonder what she does. I should probably know. ‘OK, well, have fun,’ I say. I lean over and give her an awkward hug. Her face smushes into my collarbone. Sigh. Bad hugs suck. ‘Hope you feel better soon.’ ‘Thanks,’ she says, getting up off the couch. ‘Maybe I should try my own Dating Sabbatical.’ I turn to smile at her as I head out the door. ‘Maybe you should!’ On the way to work I reflect on last night’s loss of my Dating Sabbatical virginity. Mr America had been confident, cute and funny. Just the kind of guy I always like. He’d also revealed himself to be an utter brat with a bit of a bad temper. Without question a cockmonkey, a bastardo classico. If I’d agreed to go out to dinner with him, I would have been charmed by the good looks, impressed by the confidence, seduced by the banter—and dumped in a few months when he got tired of me. I know it, because that’s what has happened every time before. Well done me. I can handle the Dating Sabbatical. In fact, I can thrive on it. I feel terribly happy all of a sudden. Strong and happy. I skippy-bunny-hop a couple of steps, and high-five myself. No, I really do. (A self-high-five involves jumping in the air and clapping your hands together, with the back of one hand facing you and the other coming up to clap it from below. It looks funny, but it feels great. I highly recommend you try it.) A guy walking by flinches instinctively as though I was going to hit him and I get the giggles. Day Two of the Dating Sabbatical is going to be good. I get to work with my tailored-to-my-personal-tastes coffee, and, seeing that Andy isn’t in yet, sing ‘Goooooood morning!’ as I reach my seat. Laura looks up and narrows her eyes. ‘You look soooooo different today! What is it? Oh, oh, oh, I meant to tell you—though how could I have told you before when I didn’t see you! And last night I left work and I thought I saw you! Only it wasn’t you. And it looked just like you and I was thinking, what is she doing in Hackney? Because obviously you live in Putney!’ ‘Pimlico?’ I say. ‘So…what do you need to tell me?’ ‘Oh! Yes! Coop wants you. In his office, well, it’s not an office, but you know, at his desk. Because he’s here.’ ‘Thank you, Laura,’ thunders Coop from the other side of the Chinese silk screen that separates his desk from us. It’s silly, really, as he can hear everything. I walk around it and sit down with a cheery morning face that I’m pretty sure will annoy him. Coop was very good looking back in the 80s, I think. He had a moderately successful New Wave pop group. Then, the 90s saw him partying hard with Oasis and Blur (well, perhaps not with them per se, but certainly near them), which aged him and made him look a bit craggy and bloaty. He got into advertising at about that time too. These days he’s in love with a German woman called Marlena, a former model and fledgling jewellery designer, who eats, lives and breathes organic and forces him to do the same, so he’s the picture of mildly irritable health. Coop’s habitual manner is distracted and grumpy, but the minute he actually concentrates on anything he’s rather fun to be around. I think it’s because creating ads is one of the only things he really enjoys. And he seems to think I’m good at my job, which is always nice, and I think as a result I’m more confident around him than I am with anyone else at work. (As one of my primary school teachers wrote in an end of term report once: ‘She responds well to praise and approval.’ Heh.) And over the years he’s been lovely every time I come in crying about a break-up, though he always pretends he can’t remember anything about it afterwards. ‘You. Wordgirl. Explain what the hell has been going on here with these scamps.’ When he says scamps, by the way, he doesn’t mean lovable little rascals; he means creative ideas. I sit down next to him and talk him through the scamps. As I do, I hear Andy get in. Odd how even his voice makes me shudder inside. ‘Anything else to report?’ he asks, looking through the scamps one last time. I shake my head. ‘Nope.’ That’s a lie, but he’s not looking at me and can’t tell. Thankfully. He’d worm the Andy story out of me in about one minute. ‘Good. Good to know you’re here when I’m away. Safe hands,’ he adds, writing something in the notepad he carries everywhere. ‘Do you have any holidays booked over the next few months? Weekends away?’ ‘Nope,’ I shrug. ‘I’m not dating,’ I add helpfully. He looks up, frowns, and ignores me. ‘May need you to help entertain the Germans a few times. They’ll be coming back and forth from Berlin.’ ‘Me? With potential clients?’ ‘Yes, and you’ll present all the award-winning work you’re about to create.’ He goes on to explain everything. The Germans, it turns out, head up a huge personal care company called Blumenstrau?e—tampons and toothpaste and razors, oh my!—and they’re launching four of their most popular products in the UK next year. We’re going to work with them for a few months working out launch plans, and if they like us, we’ll get the business. Sort of a pitch-by-fire. I realise quickly that this pitch is a very big deal. It could be the making of this agency, and Coop’s career. ‘That’s brilliant, Coop,’ I say. ‘I can’t wait.’ ‘Thought you’d like it,’ he says. ‘Actually, wordgirl, I want you to head up this one.’ Me? I’m speechless. He glances at his watch. ‘I’m late for a thing. Call a company meeting, tell everyone about the pitch, and that there’s going to be a lot of work for the next few months. Lots of late nights, and no neglecting existing clients.’ I have to bear bad tidings? And create another scene after Wednesday’s drama with Andy? ‘Um…’ I say, trying to think of a way to get out of it. The dog ate my public speaking voice? ‘Why not email everyone? Better coming from you?’ ‘No,’ he says, standing up. ‘People never read those emails properly. Nothing beats being told in person. Scott already knows.’ That’s the senior account director, a smooth-talking Ken-doll type. ‘He’s with Shiny Straight today at a strategy roundtable. Anyway, I want you to answer any questions about the Germans and whatnot. I’ll be back later.’ I go back and hide at my desk for a minute, thinking. I have to call a company-wide meeting to tell everyone to kiss goodbye to their social life? I can feel panic rising in my chest. Why, why would Cooper make me do this? I can’t do it. I really can’t. I look at the clock. It’s still early. I’ll just wait till everyone has their breakfast and coffee. Then they’ll be in a better mood. I email Amanda The Office Manager about the brainstorm and Google Blumenstrau?e. Lala. Procrastination. Panic-led procrastination. I feel a bit ill. Maybe I am coming down with something. At 11 am I can’t put it off anymore. Cooper could be back any second. With a nauseous feeling in the pit of my stomach, I send an email to all staff to meet in the creative room immediately. As the accounts people wander in, looking around for Cooper, I clear my throat and walk over to the centre of the room. ‘Cooper isn’t here, but he asked me to…’ I start. No one is listening. In fact, the account managers are chatting away about Charlotte’s new manicure. Andy is on his mobile. His underlings are looking at something on YouTube and snickering. Amanda The Office Manager is picking her breakfast out of her teeth whilst Laura is twisting her hair and snipping off split ends. She’ll end up with hair like a haystack, but now isn’t the time to tell her that. ‘Everyone!’ I say louder. Laura glances up and quickly drops her hair and the scissors. Everyone else continues as they were. I pick up a spoon and empty glass left over from breakfast on Laura’s desk, and clink them together. The first few clinks don’t quite connect, but the last three are quite loud. Everyone stops what they’re doing immediately and looks at me. I feel the blood rush to my face. Just get on with it. I lean against Laura’s desk, faking a nonchalance I certainly don’t feel. Posture is confidence, silence is poise. ‘Hi, everyone…Uh, as you know, Coop’s been away for the past week in Germany…and the good news is, we are pitching for a huge German toiletries company that’s about to launch in the UK.’ The words all tumble out of my mouth in a rush, and I pause to clear my throat and calm down. Everyone is looking at me and—surprisingly—actually listening. ‘We want to handle it all for them: from strategy for the launch to packaging to branding and online and offline campaigns and well, everything. If we win, it’ll immediately double and eventually triple the size of the agency, so it’s a pretty big deal.’ Everyone snaps to attention. For the next five minutes I answer questions about the German company. It takes Laura to get to the point. She’s probably the smartest person in the room. ‘When is the pitch? And what do we have to do?’ ‘The work starts today,’ I say, and I can hear a few people groan under their breath. Oh fuck. I really, really do hate telling people things they don’t want to hear. ‘Brainstorm at 3 pm. All staff are invited, compulsory for creatives. Now, um…there’ll be weekly meetings with them rather than just the one big pitch. Coop knows the, uh, head guy, and he’s, um pitching us as the kind of agency that works as a partner, not a supplier…’ I look around. Everyone’s still paying me total attention. Gosh. I clear my throat. ‘The good news is that there’s no one else competing with us for the job—yet. The bad news is that if they’re not happy, we will lose them straightaway. Which means the pressure is going to be pretty consistent over the next few months. Coop wants everyone to help. So there’ll be a lot of late nights and possibly weekend work…’ I hear even louder groaning. Oh shit. Mutiny. Andy speaks up. Oh double shit. ‘We can’t do that on top of everything else. It’s not possible.’ ‘Well, it has to be,’ I say to the wall, as I don’t dare to meet his eyes. ‘I’m already here till eight every night,’ he says. ‘My team and I work harder than anyone else. We need extra support. I know a couple of freelancers. I’ll call them.’ ‘No,’ I say, looking at his chin. ‘Everyone in this agency works hard, Andy. If you and your team didn’t spend half the day looking at YouTube, you wouldn’t have to stay late to get the work done.’ I see the account managers smiling at this. ‘It’s creative research,’ he says loudly. ‘We need stimulus. We actually create things, you know…’ God, you’re pathetic, I think. Suddenly I don’t feel intimidated by him. Right this second, I don’t care if he—or any of them, actually—likes me or not. I am in charge of this pitch, and I am not going to let some charm-challenged man-boy fuck it up for me. I stand up and look him straight in the eye. ‘Well, for the next month, you and Danny and Ben are going to have to get your creative stimulus outside working hours. This is the most important thing to ever happen to this agency. I don’t want creative to be responsible for losing this account, and I’m sure you don’t either.’ He stares at me without speaking. I stare back. He looks away first. Fucking hell! Yeah! Danny raises a hand. Gosh, what am I, a teacher? ‘Yes, Danny?’ ‘One of the clients at my last agency was Johnson & Johnson. I know the market. I’d like to be involved.’ ‘Great.’ Dude, what part of ‘Coop wants everyone to help’ don’t you understand, I think. Then he flickers a little smile at me and I realise he might actually be speaking up to show support to me, and give two fingers to Andy. Double gosh. Charlotte clears her throat and raises her OPI I’ve Got A Date To K-Night!-manicured hand. ‘I’d really like to be involved too, my team will be able to manage all my existing clients.’ Her ‘team’—two account execs (recent graduates that she works like dogs)—glance at each other in anguish. ‘Is that OK?’ Even Charlotte is treating me like I’m in charge? ‘I’m sure that’s fine. You’ll have to run it past Scott, though.’ She nods. Everyone is looking at me expectantly. What do I say now? Class dismissed? ‘OK, well, see you all the boardroom at 3 pm.’ The office disperses quickly, but the rise in buzzy chatter shows how excited everyone is about this pitch. Shit, it really is a big deal, you know. And Coop asked me to be in charge, kind of. As I walk back to my desk, Laura beams at me and I wink back. I feel pretty good. In fact, I feel great. I sit down and realise my heart is racing with excitement. I just can’t believe how well that went. I look over. Andy is loudly inviting his team out for coffee. And a Sass-slagging session, I expect. Laura and I are not, obviously, invited. I’m busy for the next few hours doing work for existing clients, and when Coop comes back and looks over to me with raised eyebrows, I just nod back with a little smile. Everything is fine, dude. Totally fine. The 3 pm brainstorm goes equally well. Apart from Andy loudly denigrating every idea I have, and coming up with none of his own. My brain is 100% dedicated to the task at hand. Men, love, dating—these things are no longer worthy of my time and energy. As the meeting finishes, I stand up and say ‘Thanks everyone’, mostly to genuinely thank everyone but also as I want Andy to know that he hasn’t beaten me. He ignores me. I grin at Cooper on my way out and he gives me the thumbs up back. I choose to take it as a message of solidarity. Thank God he’s back from Germany. It’s so much nicer sitting in the office without big bad Andy dominating it. With only a few hours left till the weekend, I settle down to one of my favourite regular jobs: a monthly chatty email to teenage girls about their spots for a skincare client of ours. (When they sign up to the social networking bit of this skincare site, they’ll get an email a week for a few months. It’s mostly skin-related stuff, and some period/hormone/ hygiene/boy talk. And the odd discount and competitions and prize draws.) Let’s see…Discover the power of perfect skin. Discover the joy of perfect skin. Imagine perfectly soft, deeply clean skin. Finally, perfect skin could be yours. Picture perfect skin, every day. Transform your skin, and your life. Yikes, that’s a bit much. Let’s go with the first one. Discover is a nice strong active word, and alliteration is always a positive pleasure. Plus, it’s not promising perfect skin. You can’t really promise something like ‘Perfect skin, guaranteed’. You have to just talk about how good it could be to get perfect skin. Otherwise—according to the neurotic marketing manager at the skincare company, anyway—someone who uses the stuff and gets a spot could sue. (Really, who would bother?) The power of positive persuasion. That’s what I’d title today. Coop positively persuaded me to take a bit of a lead role in telling everyone, and I positively persuaded everyone to get behind it. As I start writing the rest of my peppy teenage copy, I get lost in an odd, reflective mood. Poor teenage girls, I muse. I found it quite tough being a teenager. I was attacked by a shyness bug from 14 through 17, and had a slight stammer/babble problem when I did talk. It’s not exactly unusual: apparently Kate was shy, too. (Bloomie never was, unsurprisingly.) Some girls must be born knowing how to make life happen exactly as they want it to. I assume they’re not the ones reading these skincare emails, but I’ve seen them on the King’s Road in Chelsea: dewy-skinned, pouty little 16-year-old madams with the air of cream-fed, much-adored cats. I was not one of those girls. When I was 13, my parents moved from London to Berkshire, and I changed from a bookish, liberal little Notting Hill school where everyone was a bit keen and giggly and geeky like me, to a rather posh, uptight, sporty, country one where the lustrous-haired pouty missies ruled the roost. They looked at me, recognised my stammering inadequacies instantly, and dismissed me. And of course, when someone doubts you, the more you doubt yourself, until you’re unable to talk at all, or at least I am. That’s when I started the mantra. ‘Posture is confidence, silence is poise.’ The idea was that if I looked confident and poised, I’d feel confident and poised. And people might think I was about to say something brilliant. And then, if I did want to say something, they might actually listen, which might stop me stammering. In other words, fake it till you make it. Thanks to my mantra, I survived school. Then I went to university, where I met kindred spirits, particularly in the form of Bloomie and Kate, and discovered I didn’t really need the mantra anymore. Everything is so much easier when you have friends who think you’re funny. Inside every shy girl is a loud showoff dying to get out. I still grasp the mantra like a security blanket in times of need. Which is basically, when something intimidates me. Like work. Or a bad date. Or, now that I think about it, every time I ever saw Rick, towards the end. Hmm. The mantra certainly worked this morning. Everyone acted like I was, well, not to sound too dramatic, but like I knew what I was talking about. But that’s not because of the mantra: I really did know what I was doing, and everyone else knew it too. Fuck fake it till you make it. I made it. I fucking made it. I just had a good day at work. Not just a good day. An awesome day. Thinking this, I stare at the wall for a few minutes till I realise it’s ten to five and my copy is due at 5.30 pm. I push everything else out of my head and finish the email copy, proofread it, and send it to the account manager. Oooh, the adrenaline rush of a deadline met. I know I’m breaking my don’t-talk-about-work (or dreams) rule, by the way. Don’t worry. It’s nearly the weekend. All I usually think about on the weekend is what to wear and where to drink. (And in the olden days, who to date.) As I head down to the tube, I skippy-bunny-hop a couple of steps. Then right outside the Crown pub on Brewer Street, I run smack-bang into Cooper coming out of the door with his pint, almost knocking him over in the process. I never go to the Crown. Smart Henry broke up with me there. ‘Coop! I’m so sorry!’ I exclaim, laughing. ‘I was running for the tube…’ Cooper grins at me. ‘You were skipping, actually.’ I laugh even more, and turn to look at the guy he’s with. About 35, very nice grey suit, slightly too-long hair. Rather chiselled cheekbones and bluer-than-blue eyes. I quickly compose myself and look back at Cooper, who introduces us. His name is Lukas, and he’s about to move to London from Berlin to be the UK MD of Blumenstrau?e. (That explains the Euro haircut.) ‘Oh, fantastic,’ I say. ‘We’ve been talking about your company all day.’ ‘I’ve been talking about it for eight weeks, since I joined,’ Lukas says, smiling at me and holding very thorough eye contact.‘Please, let’s talk about something else. Like…what you would like to drink.’ Is he flirting? ‘Oh, um, I’d love to, but I have to get home. I have plans tonight,’ I say. (Rule 6: No accidental dating.) ‘Thank you, though. Lovely to meet you. I’ll see you soon.’ ‘Yes, you will,’ he says back. ‘Very soon.’ His German accent is mild, and gives his words a nice clipped sound. ‘Have a good night.’ Definitely flirting. Slightly sleazy. Probably a bastardo. ‘See you Monday,’ says Cooper. I hurry down to the tube, running over everything that happened today again, and realise I should try to put work out of my head and think about what to wear tonight. Normally I’d have had that sorted by about 10 am. God, what’s happening to me? Chapter Seven (#ulink_6cc9c4be-bc7e-506d-bf27-bfb939c55099) The party is just getting underway when Bloomie and I get there at about 9 pm. On the way, I reread the Dating Sabbatical Rules, and then fold them up and tuck them safely in my lucky yellow clutch. I’ve resolved to never be without them. Mitch lives in the far back end of Chelsea, almost in Fulham, in a fully party-proofed little flat: there’s a tiled, wipe-clean kitchen, a living room with—this is key, I’m sure you’ll agree—no carpet, and a not-particularly-nice back garden that can’t get ruined. Despite cosy appearances, it fits over a hundred people with the appropriate social lubricant (gin, vodka, beer, wine). Right now, only about 15 people are in the front room, mostly playing that never-ending party game, No My iPod Playlist Is Better, and a few more are in the kitchen. Bloomie dashes off to join them and unload her goodies. I see Mitch supervising the iPod war, kiss him hello, and then feel obliged to kiss everyone else in the room hello, which means I’m basically tottering around darting my head about everyone’s face like a little bird for the next three minutes. Finally, I finish working the room and get back to Mitch. Mitch is one of my best friends, but forget any ideas you might have about me secretly falling in love with him or vice versa: he spent the first year of university chasing after Bloomie and I, then resigned himself to best friendship, and now professes to find us physically revolting. He’s a banker, like Bloomie, but I’m afraid he probably is an arsehole, at least some of the time. He’s also a complete tart, but since he never leads the girls to believe it’ll be anything more than just sex, he gets away with it. Just. ‘How’ve you been, Special Forces? I heard about you and Posh Mark.’ ‘Mmmm,’ I say. Special Forces is his nickname for me—because of SAS/Sass. Except when I’m really drunk. Then he calls me Special Needs. ‘Tough luck, though he was too thick by half. But for fuck’s sake don’t talk to me about your feelings. DO talk to me about this intriguing Sex Vacation.’ ‘Dating Sabbatical.’ ‘Whatever.’ ‘Big crowd tonight, Bitch?’ I ask. It’s not a very clever nickname, but it makes us laugh. ‘Don’t change the subject…But about seventy or so, I should think,’ Mitch says, scanning the tight-white-jeans-encased bottom of a girl in the iPod group. He turns to me. ‘I’m a trendsetter, you know. These parties are totally recessiontastic.’ ‘Huh?’ I say. ‘Houseparties are the new going out. Front rooms are the new Boujis Beer is the new Cristal.’ ‘Oh, right.’ ‘Where’s Gekko? I need to talk to her about a work thing later.’ ‘Kitchen.’ Mitch calls Bloomie ‘Gekko’ in a rather sweet Wall Street reference—she says she hates it, but I’m not sure she does. He walks through to the kitchen, high-fiving and low-fiving people all the way. Mitch is good at collecting people. Most of the crowd tonight will be our university friends, and then satellite friends from everyone’s work, school and extended family. Being part of this insta-crowd makes living in London a lot easier: an ever-evolving gang without too much effort. My first year in London, pre-Mitch and Eddie and Bloomie and Kate joining me, is barely worth talking about. I call it The Lost Year, the one before I went out with Arty Jonathan. I spent most of my time getting drunk with the other new, green Londoners in horrible chain bars, and taking nightbuses back to Mortlake, an area in South London that you can only get to by buses and sheer willpower, where I shared a manky little flat with four strangers. Then, thankfully, the old group all moved to London and I quickly phased out my new friends for the cosy reassurance of my old ones. ‘Sass! I hear you’ve become bitter!’ says Harry, a podgy architect who’s been involved in a passionate conversation about Jack Johnson for the past few minutes. He was skinny on the first day of university. His shirt now strains against his gut so tight that I can see the cavernous shadow of his belly button. I smile at him and don’t say anything. He adds cheerfully, ‘Sworn off all men!’ The rest of the iPod-battlers look up and grin. Holy shit, my friends are gossips. Looks like news of my Dating Sabbatical has hit the streets. Rule 4: avoid talking about the Sabbatical. ‘I’d rather swear off them than under them!’ I reply cryptically. I’ve made better comebacks, but I decide to pretend it was a killer riposte, raise a knowing eyebrow at Harry and swan off to the kitchen to find Bloomie. Despite work very nearly getting in the way of a timely sartorial decision, I managed to come up with a rather soul-cheering outfit. It’s a rather short fitted black mini dress with sheer black tights and ankleboots, and my hair done in a rockabilly-quiffy-ponytail thing. (Yes, yes, why I am dressing as a Robert Palmer girl meets Elvis when I ostensibly don’t want to attract attention is a mystery to me too, but old habits die hard. Anyway, ‘drop your style standards’ isn’t one of the rules.) Bloomie is standing at the counter, a cigarette jammed in the corner of her mouth like a cowboy as she manhandles a bottle of vodka, a bottle of blue Cura?ao, a punnet of blueberries and a blender lid. Eddie—one of my other best friends in London—is standing next to her, holding two bottles of Morgan’s Spiced Rum, a bag of bananas, a coconut and some mango juice. This is the point of Mitch’s houseparties, by the way. We all bring various ingredients, he borrows blenders from everyone who has one (are you kidding? I don’t own an iron, dude, let alone a blender) and we make up cocktails and name them. Yes. It’s dangerous. ‘This is it, kids,’ announces Bloomie as dramatically as you can with a cigarette in the corner crease of your lips. ‘Prepare to experience the most mind-blowingly awesome cocktail since the Knickerless Bloomer.’ That, obviously, was the name of her cocktail at the last party (white rum, coconut milk, Malibu, strawberries and a pinch of cinnamon). ‘No fucking Malibu this time,’ calls Mitch, as he leaves the kitchen with a round of shots for the iPod brigade. ‘Every cocktail Gekko makes has fucking Malibu in it. It’s like being at school. And stop fucking smoking in my kitchen.’ ‘You wish, Bitch, my darling…’ says Bloomie, very obviously more concerned with arranging the ingredients on the counter. I lean over and kiss Eddie hello. Eddie and I dated for two weeks at university, and broke up for heartfelt reasons now forgotten. (He doesn’t make the list as one of the official breakups, obviously.) Eddie’s been in a long-distance relationship for the past two years with a girl called Maeve who lives in Geneva, of all places. They see each other once every two months, and he doesn’t even talk about her much. I secretly suspect he’s just lazy and doesn’t want to bother to play the field. Eddie’s an engineer. What he actually does all day, I just don’t know. Builds things? ‘What’s shaking, Edward?’ I ask. ‘Not much,’ he says.‘My sisters are in London tomorrow night. They’re going to Spain on Sunday. Wanna help me entertain them? Dinner, somewhere cheap and cheerful in Notting Hill?’ ‘Good luck finding that,’ interjects Bloomie. ‘Love to,’ I say. ‘Love the lovely sisters. How’s Maeve?’ ‘Good, fine, she’s fine. Now, do you know how to open a coconut?’ ‘“Open” a coconut?’ I repeat. ‘I’m making a tropical punch.’ ‘What a stunning idea,’ I say. ‘Not original enough for you, my little creative bunny? Fine. Here’s a twist for you: when someone drinks it, you have to hit them in the face. Get it? Tropical punch.’ I start to laugh. ‘Take my fag, darling,’ Bloomie interrupts. This darling means me, I know, so I reach over and take it from her mouth, and she immediately whirls around and throws her hands in the air. ‘Everyone! I have a secret weapon! I have a pestle and mortar and I shall be muddling blueberries with sugar as the base for tonight’s winning cocktail!’ The crowd in the kitchen laughs and whoops. After a few minutes of muddling, and some blending of ice, vodka and Cura?ao, she pours the cocktail into about 15 of the many double-shot glasses Mitch purchased specifically for his parties. She raises her glass: ‘A toast to the Blue-mie Moon!’ and drinks it. We all repeat ‘the Blue-mie Moon!’ and follow suit. (If this drink takes its inspiration from the mojito, then it’s a long-distant, slightly inbred, unpleasantly blueberry-skin-filled cousin.) The night has begun. An hour later, and we’ve had Mitch’s Marvellous Medicine (tequila and cr?me de menthe; disgusting), the Molasses Fiend (this one was mine, and if I may say, it was a toffee-espresso delight), a Deep Deep Burn (Tabasco—need I say more?) and a Bite Me (butterscotch schnapps and Baileys, garnished with crushed up bits of Crunchie). Eddie has been banished outside to wrestle with the coconut and a large cleaver, and someone new has discovered, as someone new always does, that blending lemonade and ice leads to tears. Bloomie and I have taken up our customary early-party position perched up in the big kitchen window, so we can hold our fags outside and comment on activities inside at the same time. It’s a delicate operation in a mini dress, but the adroit placement of a teatowel over my thighs sees me through. The best thing about sitting in the kitchen window, of course, is that it’s low-effort socialising: everyone comes in when they arrive to say hello and try a cocktail or five before situating themselves near the booze-and-ice buckets planted strategically around the living room, stairs and garden. I tell Bloomie about my night with Kate, and the finger-gunning Yank. She cackles with laughter. ‘I also had some rather good stuff happen at work today,’ I grin, and waggle my eyebrows. Bloomie whoops. ‘About fucking time, darling. Did you bitchslap them back into place?’ ‘Something like that,’ I say. ‘I won’t bore you with the details…Where’s The Dork?’ Her face goes gooey with happiness. ‘On the way. He just texted me. He had to have dinner with his sister tonight. She’s pregnant. Her name is Julie. She lives in Paris. She sounds really nice.’ I am shocked. This kind of babbling is entirely unlike Bloomie and utterly delightful to see. We smile at each other, but before we get caught in a sickly-sweet moment I quickly turn my smile into a manic, scrunchy-nose-frowny-pig grin and turn my face back into the kitchen…just as an utterly divine man walks in from the living room. He’s very tall, with broad shoulders and dark hair. And his eyes are locked directly on my scrunchy-pig face. Shit. I quickly try to set my face to pretty, but it’s too late. He’s already glanced over me and back to the group of people he walked in with. Good thing I’m not in the market to get attention from men, I say to myself. Bloomie swings her legs back in. ‘Mitch’s cousin is here!’ she says to me. That’s Mitch’s cousin? I think. Mitch is blond and skinny. She hops down from the window sill with the careless aplomb of someone wearing jeans, and skips through the crowd shouting ‘Jake!’ I ease my way down delicately and decide, Dating Sabbatical or not, I can’t quite face meeting a good-looking man named Jake who just saw me looking like a pig and will therefore dismiss me without a second thought. Instead, I turn to see what the current mixologist is up to. It’s Fraser, another old friend from university. He’s looking his usual prematurely middle-aged self in corduroy trousers and a slight belly, and is pulling Valrhona chocolate powder, Ben & Jerry’s ice cream, full-fat milk and a bottle of brandy out of an Ocado delivery bag. We kiss hello. ‘Help me!’ he says. ‘How the bugger do I work this godawful contraption?’ ‘It’s a blender, sweetie,’ I say. ‘Holy fatgrams, Batman, what the sweet hell are you making?’ ‘Dessert cocktail. Had one on a date the other night. Ruddy nice, actually.’ Fraser’s dad was in the army and Fraser talks just like him. Gruff, with very abbreviated sentences and archaic curse words. ‘The cocktail or the date?’ I ask. ‘Cocktail. Date got blotto and threw up. Waste of a night, actually. Think I was boring her.’ ‘No way,’ I say. ‘Not possible.’ It’s entirely possible, if he started talking about the history and structure of the British Armed Forces. He’s such a lovely guy, but this is probably the fiftieth bad-first-date story I’ve heard him tell. ‘She clearly has a drinking problem, Fraymund,’ I say, as we finish measuring in the ingredients and press blend. ‘Onwards and upwards. Now, what are you going to call that? The Muffin Top? The Spare Tyre?’ Fraser laughs. ‘I was going to call it the Dessert Cocktail.’ ‘Good call,’ I say. We pour the thick concoction into the glasses and ring the large bell Mitch also bought specifically for these parties. (He takes them seriously. Did I mention that?) Everyone without a drink crowds round and takes a glass, and Fraser leads the toast (‘The Dessert Cocktail!’), then writes the name of the cocktail on a chart on the wall. It’s delicious, though—unsurprisingly—sickeningly rich. The crowd gives it a seven out of ten. I then show Fraser how to take the blender apart (‘Cripes, it’s like a ruddy rifle,’), blast it with the hose in the sink and leave it upside down on a teatowel to dry, next to the other blenders waiting for their next chance to shine. Fraser starts talking to two girls standing next to the chart about the merits of full-fat milk, and I collect all the used glasses in the kitchen and run them through hot soapy water. ‘This is far too complicated. Whatever happened to good old-fashioned drinking?’ says a voice behind me. I turn around and—you’ve probably guessed it, but it’s true—the scrunchypig-face guy is talking to me. What did Bloomie call him? Jake. I assemble my thoughts quickly. ‘This is drinking on a more evolved level. It’s taken years to iron out the kinks.’ During the last four seconds, I noticed a few more things about him. He’s about six foot three, I’d guess. Slightly crinkly-round-the-edges eyes. Teeth almost straight and very white. Eyelashes dark but not too long. Lips look like they get sunburnt a lot. In short, attractive as hell. Go-go-Gadget mantra. Posture is confidence, silence is poise. ‘Looks like a slick operation to me,’ he says. I nod nonchalantly. ‘The last remaining kink is that as the night goes on, the names and scores become hard to read. So we never really know who the winner is.’ ‘Hmm.’ He looks over at the chart. ‘Well, I came prepared and I am ready to conquer.’ Fuck, I shouldn’t even need my mantra, goddamnit. You are on a Dating Sabbatical, missy. And remember Rule 3: no obvious flirting. ‘What do you have?’ I ask. ‘Passionfruit. Vodka. Pineapple juice. Ginger.’ ‘How intriguing. Do you have a name yet?’ ‘Let’s think of one as you help me make it.’ He looks over at me and grins. Fuck, I adore a bit of charming bossiness. No, really. I do. ‘OK.’ I busy myself chopping and scooping passionfruit into the blender, and he slices the rind off the ginger. Working side by side like this, we lapse into silence for a few seconds and I desperately try to think of something offhand and witty to say. All I can think about is how close he is to me and it’s making me feel all hot and tingly and flushed. Hey—stop that. I know what you’re thinking. Of course I won’t break the Dating Sabbatical Rules for the first guy I’m really, truly, seriously attracted to (in ages, by the way, like, years). Wait, why am I trying to think of something to say? Rule 3, damnit, remember Rule 3. ‘I need something,’ he says abruptly. ‘I’m sure we’ve got it. People bring every possible ingredient…I mean, someone even brought a puppy last time.’ ‘A puppy? In a cocktail?’ he exclaims, turning to look at me straight on for the first time. I nod up at him, trying to ignore the buckling feeling in my tummy. ‘It was tragique, but tasty. The mutt-tini.’ Is that obvious flirting? ‘Mutt-tini. Nice. I was going to say cockerspanieltail, but I can see I’ll have to improve on that.’ He grins at me and the buckling doubles. I feel like I’m sweating. Am I sweating? Suddenly, he spies Bloomie’s pestle and mortar. ‘Fucking bingo!’ He grabs it, throws the chopped ginger in and starts smushing it into a pulpy juice. ‘Honey!’ I say. ‘Yes, sweetpea?’ he shoots back. I giggle. Foolishly. (Is that obvious flirting? No. Just politeness.) ‘No, HONEY. You need honey in this. With ginger.’ ‘Gosh, you’re smarter than you look, aren’t you?’ Jake says admiringly. I make a dumb blonde face, bat my eyelashes and chew my little finger. (OK, OK. I admit. That was verging on obviously flirtatious. I straighten out my face and try to look serious.) ‘OK, honey…ginger…passionfruit…pineapple juice. I have a feeling it’s going to be too sweet…Shall we taste it and find out?’ ‘Oh no. You can’t do that,’ I say sadly. ‘No tweaking. It means people have to really think about the ingredients before they arrive.’ ‘How fascist.’ I giggle again. Shit, I’m acting silly. Oh hell, the tingly tingles…Good banter, good looks…and he doesn’t seem to be angling towards asking me out. He’s flirting, but in such a delightfully playful way. It’s so annoyingly attractive. I need someone to intervene. There must be a hint of bastardo there somewhere. I’ll locate it soon, forget about him immediately, and continue to adhere to the Rules. ‘How about lemon juice? Or lime juice?’ I suggest. ‘Yes, yes, yes.’ We chop and squeeze two lemons and two limes and add the juice to the mix in the blender. He glugs in about a third of a bottle of vodka, I add the ice, he slides on the lid rather dextrously—big hands, surprisingly strong-looking fingers, badly-bitten thumbnails, what the hot damn am I doing fantasising about being manhandled like a blender lid—and presses blend. He smiles at me and I smile back. Mmm. (Argh! Sexual frisson extraordinaire. Arr?tez.) ‘The name!’ I gasp. ‘You have to name it before the blending is done!’ ‘Hot Diggity! The Hottentot! Too Hot To Handle!’ Jake shouts, then hits himself in the forehead with his free hand. ‘NO! God, that film was diabolical.’ ‘What?’ I laugh helplessly at the panicked look on his face. ‘Ummm…ummm…the Gingersour? The Throatwarmer? The Linda Lovelace?’ ‘Filthy stream of consciousness…’ he replies disdainfully, switching off the blender. ‘Forget all that. I hereby christen this cocktail the Minx. I think it will be sweet, refreshingly zesty and rather hot.’ I’m trying to figure out if he kind of means me, and if so what the appropriate response might be, when Mitch appears bearing a tray of used double-shot glasses behind us. ‘Alright children, let Mummy through, washing up here…Thank God I bought three hundred of these fuckers.’ He dumps them all in the soapy washing-up water. I assemble some clean dry glasses, and Jake fills them, rings the bell and raises a toast to the Minx. It’s a very good cocktail: a mix of citrusy sweetness with a warm gingeriness. ‘Mmmm. Not bad for a beginner,’ says Mitch, pouring himself a second and going through a sniff-sip-ponder wine-tasting rigmarole.‘It must be in the genes, cuz. Shame you missed Mitch’s Marvellous Medicine. It was the best so far.’ I look over at Jake and shake my head, mouthing ‘No, it wasn’t’. He grins and, as Mitch looks quickly from him to me, trying to figure out what’s going on, Jake quickly starts talking to cover it up. ‘I had some excellent help,’ he says. ‘Jesus is in my heart and helps with everything I do.’ I snort with laughter. I try to think of something witty to say back, and realise I really am, without a doubt, obviously flirting now, that he’s flirting back, that I’m planning on how to obviously flirt more, and wondering where he lives, what he does, what his neck smells like, how long it might take him to ask me out and what I might wear on our first date. In other words, I’m hellbent on breaking the Dating Sabbatical Rules and they’ve only existed for 48 hours. I walk over to the fridge and get three bottles of Corona out to buy myself a second to think. I am almost breaking all the Rules for a tall handsome smartarse. The kind of guy I always get caught by, the bastardo kind who makes me laugh and then breaks my heart when he decides he doesn’t want me anymore. He’s like Rick. A better-looking, taller, funnier Rick. That’s all. Right. Time to find Bloomie and get far, far away from this temptation. I hand over the beers, take a deep breath and say ‘Must dash, boys…’ to Mitch. I try not to look at Jake, but can’t resist sneaking a glance as I walk away. He’s smirking at me. See? Smartarse. Chapter Eight (#ulink_6d50d000-8d6f-5229-9800-5cde1565bb74) The party is really warming up now, with people spilling out of the living room into the back garden. Someone has won battle of the iPods (Marvin Gaye). I see Fraser talking to his flatmates in the middle of the living room and decide to say hi. ‘Here she is!’ exclaims Ant as I walk up. I snogged Ant once, when I first met him, under the influence of tequila and…uh, tequila. Regretted it instantly. He would be handsome if he wasn’t so sleazy. And mildly monobrowed. He now seems rather happy with himself. ‘The girl everyone’s talking about! She’s taken a vow of spinsterhood!’ ‘You’re all talking about me?’ I say. Great. Looks like I’m a laughing stock, then. ‘How dull your lives must be.’ ‘A serial dater like you, renouncing all men? I’m surprised it wasn’t in the News of the World.’ Ant laughs like a hyena, and the other flatmates, apart from Fraser, join in. ‘When did your Dating Sabbatical start, Ant? About eight years ago?’ says Fraser. I smile at him gratefully. Now that is a riposte. ‘We were just talking about the recession,’ says one of the flatmates earnestly, a rather sweet geek called Felix who I think has a thing for me. However, he laughed along with the rest of them so I’m not going to be nice to him. ‘How fascinating,’ I reply. He looks crushed and I feel bad. I shouldn’t pick on geeks. ‘I’m a bit clueless about it, I’m afraid, Felix,’ I add. ‘It’s bloody boring stuff,’ agrees Fraser. ‘You won’t be clueless soon, when you have to pay for your own meals every night,’ says Ant. ‘No more steak dinners ? deux for you.’ I hate to say it, but he has a point. Dates have been a good source of meals for the past few years. Of course I always make an effort to pay, but they never let you. Certainly not on the first date. I wonder if Jake likes steak. I could cook it for us both at home. In my kitchen. Perhaps, if we all become really poor, we’ll have to share baked beans on toast. No, scratch that. Baked beans are not a date-friendly food. I could…oh, I could make an omelette. I wonder if he likes eggs. I’m interrupted from my—utterly ridiculous and very non-Sabbatical-compliant—reverie by Mitch, who approaches the group with his arm thrown around the neck of the white jeans girl. ‘Don’t talk to Sass, darling. She’s a MAN HATER,’ he stage-whispers. The girl giggles, hiccups, and seems to throw up slightly in her mouth. As everyone falls about laughing, I smile/grimace at Mitch and wait to see if I’ll think of something witty to say. I don’t. I wonder if Mitch told Jake about the Sabbatical already. Oh God, I shouldn’t care. Suddenly I feel very tired. I decide to avoid all men for the rest of the night, and walk over to talk to Tory, a girl Eddie worked with years ago. She’s nice enough, but she talks about sex almost constantly. It’s kind of weird. I think he invites her to parties because she’s guaranteed to score with someone. She’s party insurance. (Is that mean of me? Oh well.) ‘So, no dating for you, Sassy, yeh?’ she grins, after a bit of basic chitchat. ‘I heard all about it. I’m going to do it too!’ ‘Really?’ I say. I hate being called Sassy. ‘Er, wow. That’s great.’ ‘Yeh. Just sex, you know? The whole emotions-and-talking thing is just…such a waste of time,’ she says, taking a long swig of her drink and casing the room. I nod, and excuse myself to go to find Bloomie. I manage to stop at only two groups as I walk around the party, and have a moderately entertaining banter with them. However, my paranoia is now switched on and I’m convinced everyone is laughing at me. I can’t see Jake anywhere. Not that I’m looking for him, I meant because I’m trying to avoid him. I finally find Bloomie in the backyard with Kate—who I didn’t think was coming, so it’s a rather nice surprise—and Eugene. ‘Hello, princesses,’ I say, kissing Kate and Eugene. He’s not really a dork, obviously. He’s in his early 30s, works in finance with Bloomie—they met in a conference call, of all the romantic stories—and is half-French, though he grew up mostly in London and has no trace of an accent. He still has that skinny, sexy, floppy-haired French guy thing going on. He can wear big square scarves knotted around his neck and still look pretty hot, which is an incredible feat when you think about it. ‘What’s news here then? Everyone in the rest of the party is talking about me, apparently.’ Kate nods. ‘You or the economy. And you’re more fun.’ I sigh. ‘Sheesh. How you doin’, Eugene?’ ‘Smashing,’ he grins, and looks at Bloomie. She giggles and grins back. What the sweet hell is that about? Other people’s relationships are mystifying. ‘Where’s Tray?’ I say, as though I suddenly noticed his absence and was upset by it. ‘Oh, he’s at home,’ says Kate, looking over to the house as if it was unexpectedly fascinating. ‘He’s…working. Do you have a cigarette, Sass?’ I glance over to exchange a quick look with Bloomie, but she’s still gazing at Eugene. Kate’s staring into space. I wonder what Jake is doing, and involuntarily look at the kitchen window. I only see Ant emptying a bottle of Diet Coke and a bottle of rum into the blender and pressing blend. Dickhead. I get out three cigarettes and light all of them, in my mouth, at once, then hand one each to Kate and Bloomie. An old trick from university. It’s so not cool that it’s almost cool. ‘Wow, you guys…you’re like the Pink Ladies,’ says Eugene. Oh, for God’s sake. ‘Wrong thing to say, darling…’ says Bloomie, laughing. He looks perplexed. ‘I’ll explain later…’ she adds, and they smile at each other happily. I wait for them to talk more, but they seem to be communicating through the medium of loving gazes. ‘Young love, huh, Katie?’ I say, turning away from the happy couple. ‘Mmmm,’ Kate says absently. Gosh, what a bunch of funsters. Bloomie’s BlackBerry rings, and the expression on her face changes from happy to stern so fast it’s like she’s swapping those comic/tragic drama masks. She hands Eugene her drink without speaking, answers it and barks ‘Susan Bloomingdale…’ as she walks away. ‘It’s 11 pm on a Friday!’ says Eugene, half to himself. ‘It’s probably the States,’ I say. ‘She works with the San Fran office a lot, right? Don’t you do the same sort of job, anyway?’ He shrugs in his nonchalant Gallic way, and looks quizzically at us. Well, at me. Kate seems to have checked out for the time being, and is here in body only. ‘I’m an analyst,’ he says. ‘And I’m not obsessed with it.’ ‘Neither is Bloomie,’ I say loyally, and slightly untruthfully. ‘She kind of gives everything 100%, that’s all.’ Eugene nods.‘Well, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to the kitchen to get a drink. Can I get you anything?’ ‘I’m all good,’ I say, glancing over at Kate, who’s still mute. ‘She’s all good, too.’ I stand in silence for about 30 seconds, waiting for Kate to speak. ‘Kate,’ I say, taking a drag on my cigarette. She doesn’t respond. ‘Kate, I’m pregnant.’ She’s in a trance. I sigh and look around the back garden. Everyone else is talking loudly or drinking messily. The noise levels of the party seem to have doubled. The Killers are playing very loudly and I hear a whoop from the living room that probably means Mitch is doing The Worm across the carpet. The first houseparty of my Dating Sabbatical is suddenly turned up to eleven, and I’m completely unsure what to do with myself. I’m not even sure if I’m having fun anymore. Everything was fine till I met Jake. ‘Hello, trouble,’ says a voice behind me. I turn around. Oh, my God. It’s Rugger Robbie. My ex-boyfriend. Break-Up No.2. Fucking hell, I haven’t seen him in years. I thought he moved to Brisbane to be with the girl he met in Thailand. The girl he left me for. ‘Robbie!’ I smile, kissing him hello. I can’t pretend to be upset about it all, five years later. Especially when I’m not. ‘You look fantastic!’ Rugger Robbie says, looking me up and down very obviously. ‘How are you?’ ‘Thanks,’ I say. ‘I’m great.’ He doesn’t look fantastic, so I can’t say it back. The fit rugby body has become a fat rugby body, and his face looks like someone has pumped it full of air from the cheekbones down. ‘So, Sass, what are you up to these days?’ he asks jovially, staring at my boobs. It’s most off-putting. ‘Still living in London?’ ‘Yep,’ I say. ‘Are you back here on holiday?’ ‘From where—Brisvegas?’ he asks. God, people who say Brisvegas are irritating. ‘Nah, I came home about six months ago.’ ‘Is Kerry with you?’ I ask politely. That was her name. ‘Oh, no,’ he says, eyes flicking up to meet mine. ‘We broke up. I’m living with Riggsy and Martin again, just off Fulham Palace Road. It’s just like old times!’ ‘How fun,’ I smile. I wonder if he’s still pissing on curtains. ‘Well, nice to see you, I’d better see if Mitch needs any help with, uh, something.’ I glance at Kate, who still seems to be in some kind of waking coma. What the fuck is wrong with her? ‘Hey, uh, can I get your number?’ Rugger Robbie asks. ‘I’d love to take you out for dinner sometime. We should catch up.’ ‘Should we?’ I snap, and then catch myself and smile sweetly at him. ‘Afraid I can’t, Robbie. Take care though. Come on, Katie.’ Before either of them can reply, I grab her hand and we stride towards the house purposefully. ‘Whoa, Thelma and Louise!’ exclaims a guy standing outside the door. He’s wearing a T-shirt with an absolutely huge Abercrombie & Fitch logo. ‘Serious faces, laydeeeez! It’s a party! Aren’t you having fun?’ We stop and look at him. ‘Make me laugh, then,’ I say. ‘Uh…’ he says, looking for inspiration to his friend next to him. ‘Too late,’ I say and we walk through. ‘Wow, that was a bit harsh,’ says Kate. ‘I’m just not in the mood right now,’ I say, leading Kate up to a small cabinet in the hallway. ‘It’s been a very, very long week, and I deserve a party, and I don’t think I’m going to be in the mood to party till…’—I lean down, slide open the door and pull out half a bottle of Jagermeister—‘I’m Jagerunk.’ Kate’s eyes light up. ‘That’s been there since the last party?!’ she exclaims. ‘Brilliant!’ We walk into the kitchen, grab a few clean double-shot glasses, and start pouring out Jagermeister. It’s pretty heaving with people, and in the corner I can see Fraser enthusiastically snogging Eddie’s henna-ed workmate Tory. It’s a bit early for that, isn’t it? He’s really putting his shoulders into it and everything. Ew. Two guys are standing next to the fridge looking at us. ‘You know,’ says one very loudly, turning to the other, ‘my life really HASN’T changed that much since winning the lottery.’ I turn around and look at him and start cackling with laughter. ‘Dude…that’s the best line I’ve ever heard,’ is all I can manage to say, wiping the tears from my eyes. ‘For that, you have to do a shot.’ ‘No problem!’ he grins. He’s kind of shiny, with lots of moles on his face. He and his friend step up to the kitchen counter next to Kate and I, and we all do a shot simultaneously. ‘Oh, that was probably a bad idea,’ sighs Kate. Bloomie and Eugene appear, holding hands. ‘No more work calls all night! Ooh, shots? Without me? What do you think you’re playing at?’ asks Bloomie. ‘You’re up,’ I say, and in another minute, we’ve all done another. ‘Now, THAT one was a bad idea,’ I say to Kate. Mitch lands with a massive thump at our feet after doing a triple roly-poly across the living room and into the kitchen, and pretends to do the breaststroke across the kitchen floor on his tummy. He looks up at Bloomie and I and smiles. ‘Gekko and Special Needs. My two favourite girls…That was the Triple Axel Extreme Roly-Poly…I always nail it.’ ‘Bitch is into extreme sports,’ explains Bloomie to Eugene. ‘Why aren’t I one of your favourite girls?’ says Kate in an injured tone. ‘The Extreme Roly-Poly is nothing compared to the Extreme WORM!’ shouts Mitch from the floor. ‘So, do you come here often?’ I turn back around. It’s mole-faced lottery winner guy. From a great line to a shit line in sixty seconds. I look him straight in the eye, and say in a tone that means ‘fuck off’: ‘No.’ He exchanges a glance with his friend and they walk away. Bloomie picks up the bottle of Jager. ‘Another!’ Rugger Robbie charges into the kitchen.‘Hi, gang! Shots? YES!’ He comes over, putting a sweaty hand around my waist. ‘I’m out,’ I say, moving away from the group so Rugger Robbie’s hand falls away. My throat, stomach and indeed head all feel rather warm. Bloomie pours herself, Rugger Robbie, Eugene and Kate a shot, then leans over and pours another shot in Mitch’s mouth. He gurgles appreciatively. Robbie offers me the dregs of his shot. I shake my head and try not to make eye contact. Harry bounds into the kitchen. ‘My turn for cocktails! I’m making a Sticky Surprise.’ I exchange glances with Bloomie, and we head to the living room, followed by Eugene and Kate. The Irish guys have cleared all the furniture to one side, and are holding a rhythmic gymnastics competition cheered on by the whole crowd. At the moment, one guy is doing an absolutely beautiful routine with an invisible ribbon. He dips and jumps, swirls and turns, and it’s breathtaking, till Mitch runs in from the kitchen and rugby-tackles him to the side of the room. The Jager has just hit my central nervous system, which is not an unpleasant feeling. Someone turns the music up, and Bloomie and Eugene climb onto a coffee table and start dancing. Kate takes out her phone, reads a text and heads towards the garden with a stressed look on her face. Hmm, something going on there. Then I look up to see that Jake has just walked in from the garden and is looking at me. We make eye contact. I look away quickly. Ignore him. No, that’s rude. Say hi. No, ignore him. I look back at him, as if seeing him for the first time, and acknowledge him with a quick nod. He nods back. It’s so swift that it makes me smile. As he starts to walk over to me, I evaluate my Jagerunkness. It’s certainly given me a kick, but that’s why I did them. I can handle it. Don’t I have a mantra for potentially indimitating situations? I mean…portently intimidating situations? I mean…what? ‘Mistress of the Minx cocktail,’ he smiles. ‘Having fun?’ ‘I…yes. Yes, yes, I am.’ Where the fuck is my mantra? ‘You’re a very silly girl for drinking Jager like that, did you know that?’ He was watching me doing Jager shots? ‘It’s been a bad week. And don’t call me a silly girl. I am a silly WOMAN.’ ‘A very silly woman.’ ‘Mmmmmm,’ I say. He has very nice eyes. And I really do like his shoulders. At least I don’t have that buckling tummy feeling anymore. I don’t feel much of anything, actually. Bzzzzzjagerbuzz. ‘I think I ought to go home.’ I do? Do I think that? ‘Probably,’ he agrees. ‘I believe you just did two enormous shots of a 70-proof drink in less than three minutes. Where’s your partner in crime?’ ‘She’s there,’ I say, pointing at the coffee table, and look up to see Bloomie, but she and Eugene have disappeared. Outside for a snog and a cigarette, I expect. ‘Shall we go sit outside and have a little chat while you sober up a bit?’ asks Jake. I look up at him and frown. ‘No. Nooooo. Nonono.’ ‘Sheesh, don’t overreact. It’s not like I’m asking you on…a date.’ This sobers me slightly. I look him straight in the eye. My powers of deduction are drunk. He doesn’t seem to be making fun of me, but his eyes are laughing. ‘Your eyes are laughing,’ I say. ‘What?’ he says, and starts laughing out loud. I’m not sure what to say, so I don’t say anything at all, but smile at him. Shit, I shouldn’t be smiling, that’s like flirting. I try to scowl instead and end up making what I fear is a very odd face. ‘I feel glazed,’ I say. Where did that come from? ‘You look glazed,’ he nods, then leans in towards me slightly. ‘But you—’ At that exact second, Kate walks up to us quickly. ‘I’ve got to go home, sweetie, I’ve got a cab outside…’ Thank God. I can’t remember the Dating Sabbatical Rules right now, and I probably couldn’t even read them if I got the damn sheet out of my clutch, but I’m pretty sure I’m close to breaking them. I look over and see Robbie in the kitchen screaming ‘BEER BONG!’ I’ve got to get out of here. ‘Can I come?’ ‘Of course! But, like, I’m really leaving now. No long goodbyes.’ ‘I’m ready. I’ll text Bloomie goodbye,’ I nod. I look up at Jake. His eyes aren’t smirking anymore. ‘Uh…bye.’ ‘Bye.’ ‘Bye.’ We carefully step around an Irishman doing an impressive routine with an invisible hoop, over Mitch, who’s passionately snogging the white jeans girl, and head out the door. Chapter Nine (#ulink_125c0bc4-bd75-516e-a2af-49bdcc58712f) For the first time in what must, realistically, be years, I’m not waking up the day after a party thinking about the guy who asked me out last night, the guy who dumped me, or the guy next to me. I’m not nursing a sad heart, hoping for a text, or waiting for a kiss. I’m not planning what to wear if he—whoever he might be—asks me out, or dealing with someone else’s hangover. I’m just lying here, all by myself, in the middle of the bed, arms and legs reaching to each corner like a starfish, stretching and sighing happily. I weigh up the benefits of getting tea and toast to bring back to bed versus the effort required, and decide it’s worth it. I only have minor desert-floor mouth and, in fact, don’t feel too bad at all. Sleeping for eight hours can cure anything, seriously. I’m back in bed, starfishing and munching, within a few minutes. This is great. Of course, I can’t lie. After a few minutes of happy contented-ness, I am kind of thinking about Jake. I’m kind of thinking about the fluttering in my stomach when I was standing next to him in the kitchen. You know, here’s all it comes down to: he is possibly the sexiest man I’ve ever met. I mean, really. And perhaps it’s all Kate’s fault for talking about fancying someone, because I haven’t been attracted to someone like that in years. Maybe ever. I normally evaluate the attractiveness of a guy in a sort of detached way, ie, nice hair, bad shoulders, good teeth, etc. But last night was different. I reacted to Jake like a chemical thing exposed to another, um, chemical thing. (Fill in the blank. I can’t.) I had a genuine tingly feeling every time I was near him. I have a mild tingly feeling just thinking about him now. My phone beeps. Breakfast, the usual place, at 11 am? From Bloomie. Yay, she’s taking Saturday off work, for a change. I reply. See you there. I wonder whether he was teasing me at the end of the night about my Dating Sabbatical. But—and here’s the best part—I don’t wonder if he’ll call. He can’t, since he doesn’t have my number. I don’t want him to, since, after all, I know very well it’d go wrong in the end and I’d be dumped and miserable, again. I can’t break the Dating Sabbatical, especially not for a guy like him. He’s too arrogant to be really nice and too smartarsey to not be a bastardo. When I remember all that, Jake flits out of my mind as easily as he flitted in, and I feel at ease and in control again. I smile smugly. I have outwitted the first stumbling block to the Dating Sabbatical. High-fives to me. My thoughts turn to the weekend stretching ahead. I’ve got a stellar Saturday planned: coffee with Kate and Bloomie and a tour of the vintage stuff on Portobello Road, followed by a walk across Hyde Park with coffees and an intense inspection of H&M and Zara in Knightsbridge. That should do us for a few hours. (Never attempt Topshop on a Saturday: only the Oxford Circus one is any good, really, and it’s colonised by gangs of petrifying teenage girls.) Shower, soap, shave, scrub, dry, moisturise…I’m feeling kind of smug and pleased with myself, and so decide to take tranquil inspiration from Manhattan Mommies. I wear caramel quilted ballet slippers, white jeans, a gold belt, a white vest and a caramel cardigan. (Isn’t it strange how everything I wore on Wednesday felt perfect, but would be so wrong today?) I tie the silky (polyester) scarf through a little loop on my lucky yellow clutch for a bit of flair. Hair is clean and straight. My eyebrows do exactly what I tell them to. Outer and Inner Selves are serene and content, walking hand in hand down Madison Avenue. On the way to Notting Hill I get a text from Mitch. Did you get the number of the bus that hit me last night? I reply: Don’t call her a bus, darling, she seemed lovely. Mitch texts: Harhar. Joe wants your number. I know from last time you fucking crucified me that I’m meant to ask you first so I am. Reply asap I’m not your sexretary I reply: No. I’m not dating at the moment. I think for a second, and then text again: PS Which one was Joe anyway? Mitch texts: A&Fitch tshirt I reply: Oh God no. No no. Talk later dude. Thanks for last night. Hmm, how odd. I wasn’t nice to that guy and yet I made enough of a good impression for him to pursue asking me out? Weird. My phone beeps again. Hey trouble. Ant here. Wld U like to go 4 a drink 2moro night? :-) Ugh, txt spk is almost as creepy as monobrowed Ant. What the hell? I think for a few minutes and then reply: Hello Ant. I’m flattered, but unable to, due to aforementioned Dating Sabbatical commitment. Ant texts: Come on. A drink isn’t a date. I reply: I’m sorry. I can’t. I took a sacred vow. My phone rings. It’s Ant. I hate it when people ring just after texting you. I’m not sure why it’s so rude, but it is. I turn it to silent and jump off the No. 52 bus. I am so excited about today. I’ve got ?150 in my purse, earmarked to burn on clothes. That’s quite a lot when you’re shopping at H&M and Zara, you know. (Do not speak to me of credit cards. I got into several thousand pounds of debt at 23—?4,893 to be exact—and, after a huge and nasty kerfuffle with my bank and my parents, it took years to pay off. Even thinking about that makes me feel sick. So I prefer to just not think about the whole money thing. That’s why I never open bank statements.) Kate’s already in our favourite booth in our favourite little Westbourne Grove caf? when I finally get there at a few minutes past 11 am, and so is my large latte-with-less-milk-slash-macchiato-with-extra-milk. A triple espresso is waiting for Bloomie, who turns up 30 seconds after me. Hot damn, Kate is a planner. ‘You look natty!’ exclaims Bloomie. She is looking extremely pretty this morning: very pink of cheek and bright of eye. Lots of sex, I expect. (Mmm. Sex. I’ll think about that more later. I’m going to miss it. Why was I so phenomenally attracted to Jake? Is it my body just being annoying, as it knows it can’t have any action at the moment? It’s quite unlike me. Hmm.) ‘Thanks sweeeedie,’ I say, sliding into the booth and pulling my coffee towards me. ‘How did we all pull up today?’ ‘Smashing, actually,’ grins Bloomie. ‘I had to make it up to Eugene for the work call last night.’ She stretches and yawns. ‘I can comfortably say I excelled myself.’ ‘Ew,’ I say. ‘Fine,’ says Kate, scanning the menu. ‘I don’t know why you’re reading that, Kate, my girl,’ I say. ‘You’re obviously going to have a BLT with a pint of English mustard on the side.’ ‘And you’re obviously going to have a plain ciabatta with your utterly minging Parma ham,’ she retorts, folding it with a flourish. ‘Oooh, that reminds me.’ She flips open a diary to the ‘notes’ section (does anyone actually use that section?) and writes down ‘ciabatta’ on a multi-columned list. ‘What’s that?’ ‘Supermarket shopping list.’ ‘Is that in order of aisle?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Fucking hell.’ ‘Can we order, darlings? Dying here,’ interrupts Bloomie. We order. Bloomie fills us in on what happened at the party after we left—all hell broke loose; apparently that Irish crowd are chaos merchants when it comes to houseparties—and I tell them quickly about talking to Jake last night, skipping over the tingly attraction part and making sure to add that I am definitely not interested due to the wonderful, wonderful Sabbatical, and about waking up this morning and feeling so happy to be in bed by myself. I also tell them about the texts today. On cue, my phone beeps. From a mystery number: Robbie here! Hope you don’t mind but Mitch gave me your number! Would you like to go for a drink on Tuesday! We should catch up! I’ve missed you’re laugh! Ugh. Fucking Mitch giving my number to ex-fucking-boyfriends. And his grammar is appalling. I show them and delete it without replying, and then show them Ant’s text. ‘I barely spoke to him,’ I say, mystified. ‘I think he’s a dick.’ I tap a quick text to Mitch: I said don’t give out my number! The curtain pisser is stalking me! From Mitch: He’s with me now. Took your no. without asking me. And he just read that text harhar. Kate and Bloomie collapse with giggles. ‘Screw him,’ I say. ‘He dumped me five years ago.’ ‘Right on, sister,’ says Bloomie supportively. ‘But you were so obviously just killing time with him…’ ‘I was?’ I say. I don’t remember that. ‘You never answered his calls when you were out with us, remember…? Maybe I’m wrong, I just didn’t think you were that smitten.’ ‘Hmm,’ I say. That’s interesting, I don’t remember that. Nonetheless, he did dump me via text. And he’s nowhere near as cute as he used to be. And I’m on a Dating Sabbatical and not interested. ‘Why the hell is sleazy Ant trying to ask me out, though? And some Billy guy wanted my number…’ ‘Simple economics,’ says Kate, the accountant. ‘It’s supply and demand. You are not available, so demand for you is high.’ ‘No, no. It’s her pheromones. She is giving off some crazy look-but-don’t-touch, hey-big-boy aura. That’s what it is,’ says Bloomie. ‘Are you still drunk?’ I ask her. ‘Probably,’ she nods, sipping her espresso. ‘I adore Jake, by the way. He’s just the kind of man I can see you with.’ I’ll ignore that. She’s a bit too direct sometimes. ‘How come you know him and I don’t?’ I ask. Bloomie thinks. ‘Skiing that March when you had to work, I guess. And he was at that party at Fraser’s that you didn’t go to—the one just after you and Rick broke up, when you couldn’t get out of bed.’ I’ll ignore that, too. ‘He moved here like a month ago or so.’ ‘Where from?’ ‘Edinburgh, maybe? I don’t know.’ ‘He doesn’t have a Scottish accent, though,’ I muse. I catch Bloomie throwing Kate a knowing look. ‘Why don’t you ask him all these questions? Mitch could arrange a set-up,’ she smiles. ‘Well, unfortunately I’m on a Dating Sabbatical and therefore not interested,’ I say airily. ‘Very unfortunate!’ agrees Bloomie with a grin, which turns into a yawn. ‘I’m fuuuuh-king shattered.’ This is an imitation of Posh Mark. Bloomie loved his accent so much. ‘Saahriouslaah.’ ‘You cannot imitate my ex-boyfriends when I am on a Dating Sabbatical,’ I say firmly. ‘It’s not in the Rules,’ says Bloomie. ‘Tragic’lah.’ Kate dunks the whole of the end of her BLT in the English mustard, and says quietly, ‘I have something to tell you guys.’ ‘I swear to God, darlings, I can’t sleep with The Dork next to me. He’s so fuuuuuh-king sexy, I want to attack him all night. And now I’m so tired and I have to go to work later—’ ‘Shut up, Bloomie!’ I mutter, seeing that Kate has started to cry. ‘I’m thinking about leaving…I’m thinking about…leaving…’ ‘Leaving Tray?’ I say. Kate nods. Great big tears start running down her face. I scrabble for some tissues. Stupid lucky clutch, nothing useful is inside. ‘I just can’t bear it, and I have been feeling so…trapped, and then after dinner the other night talking to you, I don’t know, I think when I met Tray I just did what you’re doing, but instead of opting out of dating I just chose the safest, most boring route possible…and now I’m so safe…and so…bored…and I’m living with him…’ This is all a bit convoluted, and hard to hear through the sobs. I haven’t seen Kate cry in years and years, it’s kind of scary. ‘How long have you been feeling this way?’ asks Bloomie. We are both suddenly patting and stroking Kate as though she is a dog. ‘Months.’ Kate takes a deep shaky breath. ‘Months. But there was Christmas, and then his birthday, and then we had a holiday booked…’ ‘You can’t stay in a relationship just because you have holidays booked,’ says Bloomie. ‘And then I went home and suddenly it was all I could think about, and I talked to Mum and she said that it wasn’t bad to feel this way…’ ‘It’s not!’ we chorus. ‘And then I have days where I think, he is so kind and so smart, and I could do worse, and every other man in the world would just break my heart the way all those arseholes did before. And so what if I don’t fancy him and he doesn’t like to talk and doesn’t enjoy the things I enjoy? I need to grow up and start realising that life isn’t all excitement and fun.’ It’s not? I think to myself. ‘He doesn’t like to talk?’ says Bloomie. ‘Oh, no, he does…I mean he just doesn’t like, um, talking as much as I do. He likes to come home from work and…not talk. And I know he’s stressed about his job and all that, but God! He doesn’t TALK. At ALL. All NIGHT. And his idea of a good holiday is hiking and he never fucking laughs.’ It’s very unlike Kate to swear, and she’s almost only talking to herself now. ‘But like, that’s OK! I’m such a bitch for judging him!’ ‘Oh, darling, you are not a bitch,’ says Bloomie. ‘Of course you want to be with a guy who is, you know, a real partner. And someone to laugh with, someone who likes at least some of the things that you like, someone who just accepts you and adores you.’ Kate nods and sighs. I look at Bloomie incredulously. Acceptance and adoration? That sounds amazing. I’ve never had that. Ever. I can’t imagine having it. I wonder if Bloomie has that with Eugene. I wonder if I’m even capable of it. I shake myself quickly. This is not the time to think about my stupid dating inadequacies. Kate needs us. ‘Katie…’ I say. ‘Have you spoken to Tray about any of this?’ ‘Are you kidding?’ she says. ‘I’d break his heart. And when it comes down to it, I know there’s only one answer. I have to leave him…I don’t want to marry him. And I don’t think he really wants to marry me, as he never mentions it either. Fucking hell, even the idea of it makes me feel like I’m drowning…so what were we thinking moving in together?’ Bloomie and I are nodding in unison. ‘And, oh, guys, this is such bad timing. My company is imploding and everyone is walking around scared stiff of being made redundant. It’s so awful. If I cared more, I’d hate it, but I don’t. I feel completely detached from everything. Completely. I feel like I got this life by accident…’ Oh dear, she’s spiralling. I know that feeling. When you can’t find anything nice to think about, so you just think about everything that’s shit in your life and get more and more depressed. ‘Katiepoo, don’t spiral,’ I say. ‘Huh?’ says Kate. ‘I thought you said you were like a prostitute? Never out of work?’ ‘I’ve been trying to tell myself that, too…’ She shakes her head in despair. ‘Wow, you guys have weird conversations…Katie, you can deal with work later,’ says Bloomie decisively.‘Deal with Tray now.’ ‘Yeah, well, I mean, obviously, I need to end it and move out before I waste any more time…’ She starts crying again. ‘I feel fucking trapped, guys. I can’t stay with him, but I can’t bear the idea of hurting him either. And…where will I live?’ ‘You don’t have to decide today,’ I say. ‘You can live with me!’ exclaims Bloomie. ‘Sara is moving out!’ ‘Really? When does she move out? I could stay with my sis for a few weeks…’ says Kate, then checks herself. ‘No, no, wait. I can’t discuss this now. I can’t make a plan for what to do after I—if I—leave him. It feels so callous.’ She blows her nose about four times. ‘I’m not going to think about it again today. Until I decide what to do there is no point. Right. What are we doing now?’ God, she’s controlled. ‘Are you sure? Are you sure you’re OK?’ I say. ‘I’m fine!’ she says, checking her reflection in the mirror next to the table. ‘Really? Do you want to talk about this some more?’ adds Bloomie. ‘No!’ Kate says briskly. ‘That’s enough. I’m sorry for burdening you with my shit. Let’s go shopping.’ She really does seem fine now. No trace of the tears from 30 seconds ago. Bloomie gives a barely perceptible shrug. She’ll talk more when she’s ready, I guess. Chapter Ten (#ulink_11cd5746-4d23-5312-8235-5399cc3a9776) The restorative power of a good shop can never be underestimated. I know that sounds shallow, but it’s true. The next few hours pass in a lovely daze of walking, shopping, coffees, cigarettes, chocolate (for energy) and the trying on of lots and lots of clothes. By about 2 pm I’ve bought a short black dress (yes, I have four of them at home, what’s your point?), a weird but lovely boiled wool blazer, a white wifebeater vest with the perfect neckline (you know how hard they are to find) and a new pair of jeans. They’re super-super-skinny, which I thought I was over. It turns out I’m not. High-fives to me, and high-fives to awesome cheap fashion. I didn’t even spend all of my budget. All the more for black cabs and vodka, I think happily, moving the money around in the spreadsheet—OK, let’s be honest, it’s an abacus—in my head. At 2.30 pm I get another text from Rugger Robbie: Playing hard too get? Ugh. Delete. How can he not know the difference between ‘to’ and ‘too’? Kate seems fine, though kind of distracted. I’d bet she wishes she hadn’t talked to us at all; I think sharing emotions makes her embarrassed. How retro. ‘You alright, darling?’ I say, as we leave H&M in Knightsbridge. ‘Fine! Fine. Honestly. Fine.’ ‘Your stiff upper lip is quivering,’ I say. Kate laughs despite herself. ‘Well, thanks for, uh, talking.’ ‘Anytime, you know that.’ Bloomie clears her throat. ‘And Sara moves out in three weeks…’ Kate nods and looks away. Bloomie changes the subject. ‘Well, I’m utterly shattered, darlings. I have to work for a few hours, then have a wee powernap before tonight. One of The Dork’s French cousins is having au revoir drinks in somewhere in Notting Hill. Want to join?’ ‘I’m meeting Eddie and his sisters for dinner around there. I’ll text you afterwards…Katiepoo?’ ‘I might drive up and see my parents, actually,’ says Kate. ‘I need to think. Come on, let’s get the tube.’ I decide to walk home. It’s one of those breezy strange March days in London, when the sun has decided to pretend it’s in the C?te d’Azur in mid-summer. I love unexpectedly sunshiney Saturdays in London. Everyone laughs more and talks louder and smiles at strangers more than usual. Serene contentment, consumer’s euphoria and sunshine intoxication? Hot damn, this is the best I’ve felt in months. In the past five days, I reflect, I’ve recovered from a break-up, had a great day at work, enjoyed a party where I didn’t pull (or find my boyfriend cheating on me, for that matter) and made some outstanding wardrobe additions. Jake floats into my head, and floats out again just as easily. He’s a bit handsome. But I’m not dating. So it just doesn’t matter. And it’s all thanks to the Sabbatical. Maybe my flatmate Anna really should do the Sabbatical. Maybe Kate should, after breaking up with Tray, obviously. In fact, maybe everyone should. Maybe I should launch it as a club. What would a strapline for the Dating Sabbatical be, I wonder happily to myself. Opting out is the new in? There’s no sex in this city? I put on my iPod, start walking in time to the beat (Tom Petty, ‘American Girl’) and sing along out loud all the way down Sloane Street. (No one can hear me. People don’t walk down Sloane Street. They just jump in and out of blacked-out Rolls-Royces to Chanel and Louis Vuitton and Chloe.) I can’t wait to get to work on Monday and work on the German job, I think to myself. Then I start laughing at the idea that I am actually looking forward to work. Still singing, I take a short cut through Belgravia (Carl Douglas,‘Kung Fu Fighting’), avoiding the Pantechnicon Rooms, a wonderful pub where I used to go with Smart Henry and can therefore no longer visit, cut over Eaton Place (Beach Boys, ‘Don’t Worry Baby’) and walk down Elizabeth Street just as my favourite song of the moment comes on: Jay-Z, ‘99 Problems’. No one’s near enough to hear me, so I start singing along and nodding my head and moving my arms like I imagine Jay-Z would. If you don’t know the song, please Google it. The first line says it all. At the precise moment I’m singing this line rather loudly, a tall man walks out of one of the posh bakeries on Elizabeth Street. It’s Jake. I do a textbook double-take, stop and say ‘Oh—hi! Hey. Hi,’ take out my earphones and start to giggle nervously. Конец ознакомительного фрагмента. Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес». Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию (https://www.litres.ru/gemma-burgess/the-dating-detox-a-laugh-out-loud-book-for-anyone-who-s-ever/?lfrom=688855901) на ЛитРес. Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.