I need more wine.
“Bloody hell! Those lot are thirsty for some dating action if you know what I mean.” She chuckled, mischievously.
“I need more wine.”
“Already? Right hang on and I'll get you more. Just pace yourself, will you? This is meant to be a positive exercise, how crap are you going to feel when the feedback you get is ‘she was too pissed to speak’?”
“Wine, Elle; now.”
“See? You’re becoming more assertive already and this is only the second time we’ve hung out. I’m telling you: it’s onwards and upwards, Princess.”
I had finished my third glass of wine before the hostess reappeared and ushered us into a side room to discuss what would be happening in the evening ahead. My head was already swimming and I wasn’t paying much attention but from what I gathered I just had to sit there and every three minutes a different ‘match' would come and chat with me. I severely doubt there was any science behind these so-called matches. I was certain we would just be talking to every man that signed up – compatible or not, I had a feeling that the women outnumbered the men anyway.
Cheery, the hostess, was clapping her hands for our attention and the excited women at the front finally settled down to hear how they were going to meet their Prince Charming. I decided I should keep my eye-rolling to a minimum or Cheery would murder me.
“Alright, ladies! I just need your attention a wee minute more. Thank you. Now, once you’ve met all your suitable matches, you just put a wee tick beside their name if you want to chat more or a wee cross, if not. There’s plenty of eligible men here tonight ladies and if you just bear with me a wee minute more we are going to get you all sorted.”
I decided that if I had to listen to her wee voice for the entire evening I was going to use one of the tea light candles they were passing off as romantic ambience to set the curtains on fire, or her hair extensions, no that's too much – just the curtains.
I wobbled back out to the bar to find Elle talking animatedly with the bartender.
“Where’s my wine?” I said with a slight slur in my words.
“Jesus, Oliver Reid lives. Here’s your wine, although by the looks and sounds of it I should cut you off already.”
I smiled as sweetly as I could and took the glass from her.
“Your teeth are grey. Now, you’re never going to get married. Your true love could be next door filling out a questionnaire looking to meet an aggressive air hostess as we speak.”
“If he’s my true love then he won’t mind about my grey teeth. Do you ever think about teeth?
“No, Eleanor I can’t say that I do,” she replied.
“Like, aren’t they just tiny, explosed bone?”
“Explosed?”
“You know what I mean.”
“You’re spilling your wine. Next drink is water, lightweight.”
She took me by the hand and we walked back into the side room to meet our soulmates.
Chapter 13
I can't remember if I felt the pain of a headache or the wave of nausea first. All I knew was that I was waking up to the mother of all hangovers and I needed Ben to get me water because there was no way I was making it down the stairs anytime soon. With eyes still closed, I blindly felt for his chest to tap him so he'd wake up.
I eventually felt the warmth of his skin under my fingertips. I started tapping and mumbling his name to try and get him to stir. When he didn’t move I poked him more violently until I heard a protesting voice that did not belong to my husband.
“Bloody hell, Eleanor!” said Elle.
It all came screaming back to me: the wine, the speed dating, the wine, the booth, the wine, something about teeth…
Where am I?
My eyes shot open and I did not recognise the bed or the bedroom I was in. I sprang into an upright position and instantly regretted it when the blood pounded faster through my head and my stomach flipped like it was readying itself for an immediate evacuation. I lay back down with my arms across my eyes hoping to keep them from popping out of their sockets.
“Ugh, it feels like my brain and my eyes are too big for my skull and they’re both trying to get out,” I lamented.
“You? Brain too big? Nah, love. After your display of – what I hope was you on drugs – no one could ever think your brain was in danger of being too large for that head of yours.”
She lay on her side and rested her head on her elbow.
“Are you ready to dissect that absolute car crash?” She asked, knowing I wasn’t.
“Water, first.”
“My days as your drink enabler are done. The kitchen is downstairs, the door at the back of the hall. Grab me one while you're there.”
I assumed I was in no position to argue and shuffled my sorry frame out of the bed. It was only now I looked down to see that all I was wearing was my bra (a crappy one at that) and my jeans, which seemed to be on back to front.
How is that even possible?
“Water, first,” I repeated, aloud.
“As much as I enjoy the sight of you in a greying bra that you’ve clearly had since the dawn of time, can you shove on your top before you flash more members of the general public?”
“I’ve never as much as owned a bikini and yet you’ve now seen my underwear for the second time in less than a week.”
“Thank you?” she said, sounding completely unsure if it should have been an honour or not.
I shuffled down the stairs and crept into the kitchen, hoping that I wasn’t about to walk in on her husband and children eating breakfast, like I was some dodgy one-night stand. It was empty and I thanked the universe for one bit of good luck. I filled two pint glasses that were already in the sink. I gulped mine down straight away and refilled it while mentally trying to put the night together. As I reached for the tap again, I noticed smudging on my arm. It was a phone number.
Oh, sweet mother of God.
I began to spiral and the panic in my chest was wakening up. I ran up the stairs spilling most of the water out of the glasses and kicked open the bedroom door, startling Elle.
“What the?” She exclaimed as she sat upright on the bed.
“Tell me everything! What is this number? Did I cheat on Ben? Where does Ben think I am? Did I tell him? Am I single mother?”
Her blank expression was all I could look at while the rest of the room began to spin.
“That is a lot of questions,” she replied, evenly. “Give me the water and sit down, before you fall down.
“This is called hangover anxiety, and judging by the amount we put away last night you can expect to question all your major life decisions for the next three days.
“Do you remember when you were younger and you didn’t have to deal with that type of crap? Like physical hangovers are completely fine for me, I can deal with that type of rubbish but the anxiety stuff that catches you when you’re trying to sleep is the worst, isn’t it?” she pondered.
“Are you seriously talking to me about the different type of hangover when my marriage hangs in the balance?”
“I can see you’re not in form for chit-chat.”
I watched as she dug in her handbag that had been lying at her bedside. She pulled out her phone and read a text message out:
Ben: Hi Elle, yeah Amy was never great at handling the red wine! That’s no problem; I’ll leave Adam to school in the morning and take Arthur to my in-laws. Get Amy to give me a call in the morning. Good luck with research!
“Now, you can stop looking at me with that bemused look on your face. I covered for your drunk arse,” she said, smugly. “I told him I was researching a book about the lives of the single millennial and one of the chapters was about dating so I ‘dragged’ you to this speed dating evening, where you drank three glasses of wine and didn’t talk to anyone. Your conscience is clear and you don't have to lie to Ben about where you were because clearly, you are rubbish at lying.”
“But you did ‘drag’ me. You l
iterally ambushed me with the evening and then physically restrained me until I agreed to go,” I protested.
“I see it very differently, besides my point is still valid. I saved your arse. If I had sent you home in the shape you were in, you would be getting the guilts from a grumpy husband and trying to function as an adult for the school run. I’m a damn saint, Amy.”
“Right, I’ll send off the official notification to the Vatican. Just tell me why I have my trousers on back to front, I have someone’s number on my arm and what exactly happened after we got there?”
“What do you think I would be the patron saint of?”
“Elle!”
“Alright, alright. So Cheery as you insisted on calling her let us into the far room after they finished tallying all our answers on that questionnaire so we could get the ‘very best speed dating experience’ by being paired with people that met our wants, or whatever. Complete bullshit of course because I asked for an academic with a trust fund, mummy issues and a tendency to prematurely ejaculate.”
She took a large gulp of water and continued.
“You wrote ‘non-applicable’ in that box. Talk about not playing ball, so I crossed that out and wrote down ‘someone with a pulse’. Don't you roll those eyes at me, Eleanor the air hostess. Now, where was I? Right, so you were already bladdered before anyone even came to sit in front of you. No judgement here, love, I’m actually quite impressed. I tried to keep up; I gave it a good try with the wine but failed miserably. I went onto shots instead, that stuff is rough.
“I remember one night I had crap-all money and there was a promotion on in the bar, all shots were £1 a pop. I had twenty three. Actually, I think I’m lucky I didn’t die. I did miss a presentation at art college the next day but at least I wasn’t dead.”
“Elle!” I interrupted. I didn’t have the time or patience for her trip down memory lane.
“Christ! Keep your clothes on – for once. Ok, so this is when things get a bit fuzzy for me too. I remember you talking really animatedly to some tree surgeon. This was apparently the funniest thing you’d ever heard. You kept telling him if you guys got married your mum would finally be proud of you because you married a doctor.
“I tried to make things better by making a few bush trimming jokes but he got up and left your table before the bell went for time and completely blanked my table next to you.
“The next guy was a ‘nerd’ according to you but when he didn’t like your alleged compliment about nerds being totally ‘in’ this season you cried because you’d hurt his feelings. He spent the rest of the date on your side of the table comforting you. You used his sleeve to wipe your nose. He also walked past my table and decided to stay on the far side of the room for the rest of the event.
“Then there was my favourite of the night,” she said, straightening up as she spoke. “You started off pretty shaky, I mean you were still snivelling about the nerd but you perked up when you had another few sips of wine. The guy was trying to ask you questions but you were too busy asking me about your mascara. I’m not joking, it was a complete mess. You looked like a panda with hay fever at this stage. Any normal person would have just kept walking past that table, but fair play to number three, he stayed. He only started to panic after he told you he was a dentist and you flipped out. You kept showing him your teeth and talking about them being ‘exposed bones’. You were really freaking him out. You said something like: “We’re soul mates; you have to love my grey teeth.” That was the tipping point for him.
“He must have said something to Cheery because we were kicked out after that. I didn't even get to talk to anyone; you kept scaring them off before they got to my table. We just went to the main bar and had a couple more drinks. You were so panicked that you were going to get lost and never be found again so I wrote my number on your arm in eyeliner so you could go to the toilet by yourself like a big girl.”
“And my trousers?”
“What about them?”
“They’re on back to front.”
She shrieked with laughter.
“I’d forgotten about the trousers! You went to the toilet by yourself – to prove to me you ‘weren’t that drunk’ – and when you came back they were on that way. Again, that is pretty impressive stuff; I can barely get my jeans closed when I’m that pissed, never mind get them on backwards. I’m telling you, Amy, you were a legend. Bloody, crazy person when you’re drinking, but I don’t think I’ve laughed that much in my life. Come on, I’m bound to have something that fits so I can burn those clothes for you. They’re bound to completely saturated in spilt drinks, sweat and regret.”
She left some leggings and an oversized t-shirt on the bed and left me to get changed. I remembered the baby wipes in my bag and thanked myself for being such an intelligent and well-prepared person. I was clearly still drunk if that’s what I took away from hearing everything that I had been up to over the last twelve hours. The inner bitch was going to have a field day on this drunken behaviour for months.
By the time I got down to the kitchen, there was dry toast and a fresh coffee waiting for me. Elle was busying herself around the room and not paying attention to her hungover guest.
“Where’s the family?” I asked.
“They stayed with the in-laws last night.”
“Oh, that's nice. Is that a regular thing so you have a night off?”
“Something like that.”
It was the slight shift in her expression when she answered that aroused my suspicion.
“What does that mean?”
“It means me and the old man aren’t getting on so great these days so he’s living with the folks while we get our shit together. The girls stayed with him last night, I’ll pick them up at dinner.”
“What? When did this happen? Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Yesterday morning, and before you ask: no it wasn’t because he brought home that take-away. It’s been coming for a while. I just need a breather, you know?”
“Yeah,” I answered half-heartedly. I really didn’t know. I didn’t know her husband, their dynamic, their history, I barely knew Elle and now I’m in the middle of a marriage breakdown. I was starting to feel really conscious that I was in too deep with this friendship. I wasn’t even sure it was a friendship. I just wanted to go home.
“Do you want to talk about it?” I asked, inconvincibly.
Please say ‘no’.
“No thanks, not right now.”
Oh, thank goodness.
“Well, I’d better get a taxi home and get myself sorted for picking up Adam from school and all that other nonsense.”
I tried to keep it light but I could see her mood had crumbled from the jovial one she had woken up with. Maybe I was overthinking it, she could just be hungover.
“I’ll phone you a taxi, I won’t go with you for the car, I’ll walk in later; could use the exercise.”
I was so grateful by the time the taxi beeped the horn outside. The conversation was uneasy after the revelation about her relationship and I knew I was becoming more awkward by the second. I promised to text her later on but as I sped away in the taxi I knew I had no intention of ever seeing Elle or being caught up in this whirlwind for one second longer.
Chapter 14
Elle was right about one thing: hangovers in your thirties were the worst. I felt ill for days after my night of drunken stupidity, with Elle, and all I wanted was food that was deep fat fried.
I decided not to be a complete monster and text her – albeit two days later than I had said I would. I didn’t have the nerve to cut her out of my life but I still felt that I needed distance from the drama of someone else’s marriage woes. Still, even though I tried to convince myself I was doing the right thing, I felt like one of those horrible fuck-boys your mother warns you about. I spent the night with her and then refused to see her again. I justified my behaviour by telling myself I had my own family to handle, a brain verging on the dangerous side of depressed an
d I really should be spending my free time to helping Joseph and his café.
Ben asked minimal questions about my night on the town and he gave up asking when I was meeting Elle again after my third shrug as an answer. I felt reassured that life would get back to normal soon enough and in the meantime when I felt guilty I could just pour my energy into raising the children – or, realistically, my phone.
Tuesday came back around and that meant facing Joseph. Yet again, I had very little to offer him. I had been playing around with some marketing ideas based on the phrase: “a cuppa Joe at Joe’s” but it was all just flat and I really didn’t want to be on the receiving end of one of Joseph’s scathing looks, like poor Michael.
I decided to drive, simply so I could make a quicker exit from Shame Street should he start shouting at me. I put the radio up loud enough to drown out my inner bitch – who had been living it large, thanks to my residual hangover.
The street seemed to be busier than any other day I’d been down this way. By the time I got parked, I managed to build up some courage in order to face Joseph. I hated the thought of coming back empty-handed again.
I had hoped to sneak in and have a few minutes alone, so I could compose myself and put together a speech, but as soon as I walked through the door I was face-to-face with him.
There was nowhere to hide and my rabbit-caught-in-the-headlight look didn’t go unnoticed, but instead of looking at me in anger he bundled me up into a huge hug. I could barely breathe and I was feeling more awkward the longer the hug went on. By the time he released me my head was dizzy from the lack of oxygen.
“Ah! Amy, you little angel,” he said as he tried to come in for another hug – which I managed to sidestep.
“Thank you,” I said, completely unsure as to what I had done to deserve such praise.
“No, Amy, thank you.”
I finally caught my composure long enough to realise that the café was packed. I was completely confused, I had done nothing – less than nothing. I’d spent a week trying to regurgitate a tired phrase about coffee.
Amy Cole has lost her mind: The perfect laugh out loud, feel-good comedy (The Amy Cole series Book 1) Page 11
