All the Single Ladies Page 14

  I shift in my seat. ‘So . . . you wouldn’t consider changing the reporting structure?’

  He smiles. ‘Tell you what. Why don’t you email me with your ideas about the structure and I’ll give it my consideration.’

  ‘Erm, I did, Piers – a couple of times,’ I mutter, finding it very difficult to conceal that I consider him a grade-A knobhead.

  ‘Did you?’ he replies, raising an eyebrow smoothly. ‘Hmm. Which staff members are causing the issue?’

  ‘It’s not an issue, exactly . . . I don’t want to overstate it. But Deana Arbinger and Natalie Maxwell.’

  He looks at me blankly and shakes his head.

  ‘Both blonde. Long legs. Tanned. Very, very tanned.’

  Realization seeps across his face. ‘Oh . . . those two! It’s been a while since I had a one-to-one with those two,’ he smiles.

  I bite my lip.

  He winks. ‘Email me again and I’ll see what I can do, eh?’

  I’m still bubbling with indignation four hours later when I’m at Ellie’s house, sitting on her patio watching the sun go down. The one thing that can be said for the issue is that, momentarily at least, it interrupts my constant thoughts about Jamie.

  ‘Any more of that sparkly stuff going?’ Ellie asks as Alistair emerges with a bottle of wine and some glasses.

  ‘You’ve cleaned us out,’ he says, pulling up a chair.

  I wouldn’t say Jamie, Ellie, Alistair and I were a regular foursome, but we certainly did the odd thing together. Sitting here like this prompts a vivid flashback of a barbeque at Ellie’s mum’s house last summer. I can’t put my finger on anything specific that happened, but I do remember, as the smell of burnt sausages and British summertime infused the air, experiencing a real sense of contentment. Of everything being well and good with the world. It’s not a feeling I have today.

  ‘Don’t be depressed about your crap boss,’ says Ellie.

  I snap out of my daze. ‘Oh I’m not too worried about him.’

  She nods. ‘So what’s eating you? Let me guess . . .’

  ‘I’m fine,’ I shrug, but, now she’s mentioned it, my thoughts are dragged back to Jamie again.

  She raises an eyebrow.

  ‘Oh Ellie, it’s not working,’ I bluster. ‘Our plan. My mission to win him back. Every time I think he’s going to change his mind, he doesn’t. He tells me he needs more time. Or that I should “leave the door open”.’ I roll my eyes.

  Ellie shoots me a look, then glances at Alistair. He excuses himself to check that Sophie’s still asleep.

  ‘Is that what he said? That you should leave the door open?’ She looks into the distance defiantly. ‘I don’t think that’s a reasonable thing to ask you to do, Sam. I want to see you two back together more than anything. But part of me wonders whether this is just a prolonged period of purgatory for you while Jamie indulges his mini-midlife crisis.’

  Now I start to get uncomfortable. ‘It’s not like that, Ellie. You know it isn’t. He’s confused, that’s all.’

  ‘How often are you in touch these days?’

  ‘We text every day or two.’

  ‘Well, he needs to start thinking of your feelings, not just his own.’ She turns and clutches my hand before saying tentatively, ‘You know, it really might be better for you to make a clean break.’

  I pull my hand back in horror. ‘Ellie! He’s the love of my life. I couldn’t make a break – clean or otherwise – even if I wanted to.’ I take a deep breath and try to stay calm.

  For the first time since the break-up I have a sense that she doesn’t really understand. That she doesn’t appreciate quite how much Jamie means to me.

  ‘Ellie . . . he’s simply asking me to give him some time, that’s all. I’ll admit it’s killing me because all I want is for him to turn around and make the decision we all know is the right one. But I can’t force the issue any more than anyone else.’

  She bends down and picks up the wine bottle at her feet, topping up my glass before turning to her own.

  ‘Okay,’ she concedes. ‘I’m frustrated with him, that’s all.’

  ‘You are?’

  She bites her lip. ‘I do think something, though. Don’t bite my head off for suggesting this . . .’

  ‘I’ve already eaten.’

  ‘So far, the strategy has been for you to look like you’re moving on. To stay cool, to not go to pieces, to make him a bit jealous by doing the odd bit of flirting. I don’t think it’s enough.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘So far, Sam, you’ve just pretended you’re moving on. You haven’t really been doing it. I think you need to stop pretending.’

  ‘But I don’t want to move on,’ I protest. ‘I want Jamie back and I’m not going to stop until either I succeed or he tells me he never wants to see me again.’

  Ellie shakes her head. ‘I think you’re wrong to look at it like that. It’s not healthy, Sam. You’re obsessing over Jamie, when you need to remind yourself that you’ve got as much going for you without him as you did with him.’

  ‘This is starting to sound like an edition of Loose Women.’

  ‘At the moment, Jamie knows he could have you back in a second, so he has no incentive to get his act together. You need to disabuse him of that notion immediately.’

  ‘How do I do that?’

  ‘Easy,’ she says, draining her glass. ‘We need to get you a boyfriend.’

  Chapter 34

  ‘This is insane. Categorically, horrifically insane.’

  Ellie throws me a look as if I’m exaggerating. I’ve never before questioned my best friend’s mental state. But she has me closeted in her study, along with Jen and herself, to persuade me to do something I’d never have dreamed of doing. Even in the days when I was single and desperate. Join a dating website.

  ‘We need a picture of you,’ says Ellie, as if this is the most normal thing in the world to do on a Friday night.

  ‘What about that one at Paul and Wendy’s wedding last year? You looked gorgeous in that,’ says Jen enthusiastically.

  I glare at them, unable to remove my chin from the desk. ‘Jennifer. Ellie. You. Cannot. Be. Serious. Not least because I had watercress stuck in my teeth in half those pictures.’

  They smile at me demonically as if to say, ‘Of course we’re serious!’

  ‘You honestly think I’m going to put my picture on this bloody thing and announce to the world that I’m shopping for another bloke?’

  ‘Oh it’s not like that,’ Ellie says dismissively. ‘Everyone does it this way these days.’

  ‘Everyone? So why aren’t you, Jen?’ I ask defiantly.

  ‘She’s attached. She’s got her waiter,’ Ellie reminds me.

  ‘I haven’t any more,’ Jen confesses.

  ‘Oh. Sorry, Jen,’ I say. ‘When did this happen?’

  ‘Yesterday,’ she replies, looking surprisingly un-depressed. ‘At least I know what went wrong with this one.’

  ‘Too much texting?’ suggests Ellie.

  ‘Actually,’ she says proudly, ‘I dumped him.’

  This is a first.

  ‘He wanted to do webcam sex. And phone sex. And every type of sex except real sex,’ Jen tells us. ‘And while I’ve got nothing against it in principle . . . I mean, if I was married to a man who worked on an oil rig or something . . . well, I’d get that.’

  ‘But?’ asks Ellie.

  ‘He lived five minutes away. Plus, I’d only known him three weeks, which begged the question of what he’d want to do after three months.’ She takes a deep breath. ‘Worse than that, though . . . I was no good at it, especially the phone stuff.’

  ‘Really?’ I frown.

  ‘I couldn’t stop giggling. And squirming. And –’ she shrugs – ‘I guess I’m not a throbbing-cocks and hungry-pussy sort of girl.’

  There isn’t a great deal you can say to that.

  ‘You get seven times more interest if you put a picture on this,’ Ellie annou
nces, drawing us back to the website. ‘So you’re going to get nowhere without one.’

  ‘You say that as if I want to get somewhere,’ I point out.

  Ellie tuts and closes down the site. ‘Fine! I’m trying to help you, Sam. I’m starting to think you don’t want to help yourself.’

  A silence lingers.

  ‘Look, I’m sorry,’ I reply sheepishly. ‘I know you’re trying to help. And while I get the idea of finding a boyfriend, at least a pretend one, I feel uncomfortable doing it this way. On webuyanydate.com. It’s so embarrassing.’

  Ellie scrunches up her nose.

  ‘I know loads of people do it these days,’ I continue, preempting her response. ‘I know that someone in your accounts department is getting married to someone they met online, and that my second cousin Sarah shagged a bloke who looked like Ashton Kutcher on a dating website.’

  ‘Really? I wonder if he’s still on there,’ muses Jen.

  ‘Then what’s the problem?’ adds Ellie. ‘Besides, have you really got time to wait around for it to happen the old-fashioned way? It’s only a few months until Jamie’s going to be flying off into the sunset. You need to get your skates on.’

  ‘I’ll do it if you will,’ Jen says, nudging me.

  I look up. ‘Really?’

  ‘It’s not as if I’ve got anything to lose. Neither, by the way, have you.’

  We spend the next hour and a half perfecting our ‘profiles’, which isn’t as easy as it sounds. I don’t know why, but trying to sum myself up in less than seven paragraphs proves impossible because: A, it’s cringe-worthy, and B (and this is really sad), I’ve spent so long defining myself as one half of a couple, I struggle to define just me.

  So Ellie writes mine for me. But that involves fifteen rewrites and several major amendments by me – including the removal of any reference to my bra size – before we end up with a version close to acceptable.

  ‘“I’m happy, sociable, ambitious, optimistic and easy to get along with”,’ Ellie reads out loud. ‘“I love my job but value my leisure time too. I am looking for a man who is loyal, well-travelled and with a good sense of humour.”’

  ‘Am I looking for those things?’ I ask.

  ‘Course,’ she replies. ‘Besides, everyone thinks they’re loyal, well-travelled – even if the furthest they’ve been is Devon – and have a good sense of humour. You should get plenty of takers.’

  She returns to the keyboard. ‘“I do a huge amount of charity work in my spare time” . . .’

  I frown. ‘But I don’t. I don’t have enough spare time. I’d like to do charity work—’

  ‘Sam,’ interrupts Ellie. ‘You have taken it upon yourself to help more children in Africa than the United Nations has done. You’ve got so many good causes on your Facebook profile I’m surprised the thing hasn’t crashed. You can’t emerge from the supermarket unless you’re plastered in collection-box stickers for everything from Macmillan nurses to the Cats’ Rescue Society.’

  ‘Actually, I don’t do cats.’

  ‘What’s wrong with cats?’ asks Jen indignantly. She has two.

  ‘Nothing. But there’s a whole world of people out there. I’ve got to prioritize.’

  ‘You put some cash in an RSPCA collection box two weeks ago,’ Ellie says accusingly.

  ‘Look,’ I huff. ‘The point I’m making is that none of this is charity work. This is giving away my loose change. They aren’t big donations.’

  ‘They are when you add them up,’ Ellie insists. ‘Right, final sentence: “I also love sports and am the captain of my local volleyball team.”’

  ‘I haven’t been near a volleyball since fifth year!’ I snort.

  ‘Everyone bends the truth a little,’ Jen says dismissively. ‘Besides, it will instantly conjure up an image of you in those teeny shorts the American girls wear on the beach.’

  ‘Which is a hideous image,’ I point out.

  A long debate ensues during which Ellie and Jen repeatedly maintain that this is about creating an impression – not reality – and eventually I lose the will to live, so give up. A volleyball champion I apparently am.

  I only hope nobody asks to see my dive and roll.

  With my profile posted, the next stage in finding a boyfriend – or someone who can pose as my boyfriend until my rightful one comes back – involves searching the website.

  ‘Now for the good bit,’ says Ellie, bringing in a pack of crisps the size of a sleeping bag.

  I am astonished to discover that on this website alone there are 427 eligible men within a twenty-mile radius of my postcode.

  ‘That’s unbelievable,’ gasps Jen.

  ‘I thought you’d been out with most of them,’ quips Ellie, prompting Jen to throw the bag of Kettle Chips at her head.

  It is fair to say, however, that while we have no complaints about the quantity, the quality is, well, variable. While you can happily filter out men for being too short, too heavy or living too far away, there is no filter that comes under the heading ‘Loser’.

  Some are so firmly in the ‘not if he was the last man on earth’ category I feel like crying for them. Such as the guy who fills up all eighteen available picture slots with photos of him and his parrot. Or the one who repeatedly emphasizes his enthusiasm for boiled eggs. Or the ‘lusty older man (aged fifty-six)’ looking for an ‘attractive and energetic younger lady (max twenty-three) to share no-strings adventures’.

  Then there’re the usernames. Between ‘Cunninglinguist’ and ‘Iwillgetyou’, I’m convinced some must’ve been in the throes of a hallucinogenic trip when they signed up.

  Having said that, I’m also pleasantly surprised. The majority are clearly normal, nice men who simply haven’t found the right woman. And there are a few who are nothing less than devastatingly gorgeous.

  As the night wears on, I reach several conclusions:

  A.

  There are so many pictures of men snowboarding – presumably an attempt to give off a sporty image – that Britain should declare it a new national sport.

  B.

  About ninety per cent list among their interests: cuddling up with a bottle of wine and a DVD. I can’t help wondering why they wouldn’t prefer cuddling up with a good woman.

  C.

  This is actually quite good fun.

  I’m not as enthusiastic as Jen, of course, who was sold in minute one.

  ‘This is like being in a sweet shop,’ she says breathlessly, clicking away on her laptop.

  ‘This one looks good,’ exclaims Ellie, who has taken on the role of my professional agent. She brings up the profile of a nice-looking thirty-year-old who lives in Frodsham.

  ‘He says he’s looking for a woman “aged max ninety-nine”,’ I tell her. ‘I’m not saying I want someone fussy but a little more discernment is in order, surely?’

  ‘How about this one, then?’ she says.

  I start reading. ‘He can’t spell.’

  She throws me an exasperated look. ‘Are you after someone beautiful and single or someone to write essays for you?’

  ‘I could never be attracted to a man who couldn’t spell,’ I reply, sticking to my guns. ‘There needs to be equality on an intellectual level, Ellie. I couldn’t go out with a thicko—’

  ‘Even if he looked like this?’ Jen asks, gesturing to her screen.

  I look over her shoulder at the profile.

  His username is Iluvpotnoodles. He has smooth tanned skin, mesmerizing eyes and – as displayed in the fifteen shots of him on a beach – the most sumptuous biceps I’ve seen outside a professional swimmers’ convention. I read his advert:

  LOL! I never thort I wuld do this sort of thing – LOL! But thort I wuud try my look. LOL!

  ‘Ooh,’ I bite my lip. ‘Moral dilemmas . . .’

  ‘Let’s give him a “wink”,’ Ellie suggests. And before I have a chance to argue, she has officially declared my interest in a man attempting to break the world record in the use of the term ‘L
OL’.

  This is only the start. Jen and Ellie spend the rest of the evening winking so often you’d think they were touting for business ahead of a busy night in the bordello. Fortunately, these particular ‘winks’ are all virtual ones, because otherwise I’d be seriously worried for both their virtue and their optic muscles.

  ‘What happens now?’ I ask.

  ‘We wait and see if anyone responds,’ shrugs Ellie.

  Within an hour, I’ve had four winks, two of whom (not, I should point out, the nineteen-year-old from Turkey called ‘Ilovematureladies’) are promising.

  One wants to ‘instant message’ me. He’s not one of my favourites. In all honesty, I suspect immediately that he won’t be my type; he’s too skinny and has too many ju-jitsu pictures.

  But I remind myself of two things: first, that I’m not genuinely looking for a boyfriend (whatever Ellie thinks) – only a stand-in; and second, he can spell.

  Ten minutes into our chat he has a question for me.

  ‘So, how did you get so good at volleyball?’

  Chapter 35

  When I wake the next morning, my head is filled with a too-familiar subject: Jamie. Even now, nearly seven weeks after he left, I roll over in a half-sleep, expecting to drape my arm over his torso and press my body against his. The brutal reality hits me in seconds: I’m spooning my spare pillow.

  As I open my eyes and let sunlight filter in, my thoughts turn to the men on the dating website. Scores of them, all over the country – the world, in fact – who are waking up on this Saturday morning, alone. Having still not found their soul mate. It was obvious last night that there was nothing wrong with most of them. There were solicitors, firemen, writers, doctors, entrepreneurs – all with one thing in common: they haven’t found ‘the one’.

  The fact that I have found ‘the one’ only makes me more determined to keep hold of him. Even if I’m not one hundred per cent sold on Ellie’s methods.

  I drag myself out of bed, pull on my dressing gown and make a cup of tea to take through to the study, where I log on to my laptop with an unnerving thought: what if nobody asks me out?