The rest of the class – including Sheila – falls about laughing.
Can you believe it? Jo once ate seventy four sweet corn kernels in under a minute using only a toothpick and it’s me that everyone laughs at? I think I should just keep quiet about that little mishap in future.
I’m up last.
I tell the class what they really want to know about each other. I tell them that Stephanie is married – to an Italian man called Paolo; that Cathy is engaged; that Georgina has just bought a house with her boyfriend; that Audrey has been married for thirty six years; that Tara thinks she’s far too young to get married right now; that Jo met her boyfriend speed-dating – and he’s just asked her to marry him, and that Bev is still waiting for Mr Right to come along and sweep her off her feet.
This information could come in very handy, you know. When I’m looking for interviewees. When all those magazines out there start fighting over my feature idea…
CHAPTER TWENTY SIX
Maybe they have emailed me instead. Although, that’s not necessarily a good thing, is it? An email would be more likely to be a rejection, wouldn’t it? If they don’t want you they’re hardly going to want to waste fifty pence on a second-class stamp to tell you so, now are they? Or maybe they would choose to email you to tell you that they want you – because it’s quicker, thus allowing less time for you to be snapped up by some other lucky magazine. Hmm…
I force myself to wait a full week and then I take a look.
I have seven unread emails, Google Mail informs me.
One is an advert for a new credit card, which I delete. I don’t earn enough to pay off the one I already have.
One is my Nectar Points statement. I have 43 – approximately enough to buy one plastic carrier bag.
One is details of my new subscription to -
What the hell?!
I told Katie categorically last week: “I am not joining an Internet dating site.”
“Absolutely not,” I said.
To which she replied: “Why not? It’ll be fun.”
To which I replied: “For you maybe, watching me make a complete tit of myself.”
To which she replied: “You won’t make a tit of yourself. Loads of people do it these days.”
To which I replied: “Would you do it?” Which was a bit daft really – she was bound to say yes, just to make me do it.
“Yes, if I was single,” she fibbed, glancing over at Matt to check he wasn’t listening.
He wasn’t.
He was watching football.
She could have promised to join with me and snog-test a few blokes on my behalf while the football was on and Matt wouldn’t even blink.
“You big fat fibber,” I said. She pretended to look hurt at that, but she knew I was right. Katie would so not join an Internet dating site. She would rather be single for the rest of her life than look for a man on the World Wide Web.
“I’d rather be single for the rest of my life than look for a man on the World Wide Web,” I told her.
She hadn’t listened, clearly.
“What have you done, Katie?” I shout from the living room through to the kitchen where she is cooking spaghetti bolognaise.
“I don’t know what you mean,” she says, peering around the door licking sauce from a wooden spoon.
“Why have I got four emails from [email protected]?
“How should I know?”
“I’m not doing it,” I say.
“Whatever,” she says, shutting the door. “But I still don’t know what you’re talking about.”
I stare at the screen, scanning the rest of my emails.
I’m told I have messages from Darren, Lee and Jason on the MoreDatesForYou website.
I should just delete them.
They’re probably not my type.
And besides, like I said, I’m not into Internet dating. As if I’m going to meet Mr Right through a computer.
But then…
What if they’re really nice?
But they’re probably not. I should just delete them.
But it wouldn’t hurt to take a quick look…
No. I won’t bother. I minimise the screen and start a game of patience. I make a bad move right away so I re-start the game. I do like to beat the computer.
One of the messages could be from my Mr Right, you know.
I can’t believe I just said that.
They could though.
Oh, what the hell. I close my game and open one of the emails. It takes me to the MoreDatesForYou homepage. Where I am asked for my username and password to log in.
Well that’s that then.
And I’m about to close the laptop altogether when I hear a noise.
It’s the sound of paper being pushed under a door.
I slide off the sofa and pick it up. The words beckywriter and firstfeature1 stare up at me in Katie’s handwriting.
Sitting back down on the sofa I grin through the closed door and tap the details into the computer.
I have three unread messages.
I open the first and I’m taken to a new screen containing a message from Darren and an empty picture box with the words ‘picture not yet uploaded.’ Call me cynical, but…
“Hi Becky. I just wanted to say I liked your profile. I think we could be a good match. Daz x”
Daz?! And what profile?
I open his profile.
A good match? Is he kidding? Or should I say, he’s got to be kidding! He’s 5’1” for starters. And forty five, for heaven’s sake. And the last time I checked I was not an avid train-spotter or a devoted fan of the Thunderbirds (I quote, ‘I have every episode ever made on VHS’). I select ‘Thanks for your message but I don’t think we are a match’ from a list of standard replies, and move onto the next message. With trepidation…
It’s from Lee, who at thirty one and 5’9” looks more promising. Until I look at his picture and discover he’d have made an excellent stand-in for Toy Story’s Mr Potato Head.
I feel a bit mean, thinking that. He’s probably got a lovely personality. So I read his message.
“Hello sexy lady. Fancy some fun? If so, I’m just the man to give it to you…if you know what I mean…”
Yuck! Gross! I’m not even going to dignify that with a response – standard or otherwise.
Instead I delete it and open the final message.
It’s from Jason, who looks normal enough from his profile.
“Hi Becky. I’m new to this, so not really sure what to say, but I just wanted to say hi and that it would be good to get to know you. Your profile sounded normal – and not many of them do!”
I close his message and go to my own profile to see what Katie has written about me.
I’m a twenty seven year old writer, apparently. Well, that’s sort of true. I’m tall-ish and slim, with long straight brown hair and brown eyes. And I love hanging out with my friends, eating Jammy Dodgers, watching Sex & The City and cheesy chick-flicks, and working out in the gym.
I’ll kill her. I do not love working out in the gym. I hate working out in the gym. Particularly when it involves the humiliation of having to be rescued by a tall dark handsome stranger.
The picture is one of me at my 21st birthday – taken right before the whole snogging-on-the-kitchen-worktop episode. I still look the same. A couple of pounds heavier maybe, with a few more grey hairs than I had back then. But not so different that a guy wouldn’t recognise me standing outside the bar where we’d arranged to meet.
Ahem…
If I was actually interested, that is.
Which I’m not.
Oh, what the hell. What harm can it do?
I re-open Jason’s message and hit reply. And then I stare at the screen for the next five minutes.
This is hard. What are you supposed to say to a complete stranger? Do I tell him about me? Ask him about him? Tell him my friend suggested I use the Internet to find out how you know you’ve met Mr
Right?!
Yeah, right. I might as well throw in the towel now and join Emma at the convent.
“I’ve put Emma on as well,” Katie says, as we slurp our way through spaghetti bolognaise.
“On what?” Matt asks.
“Don’t tell him,” I shout, at precisely the moment Katie does exactly that.
“MoreDatesForYou,” she says, with a huge grin. She’s enjoying this.
“Internet dating,” she clarifies, noting the confusion of a man who has never had to resort to such humiliating methods to get a date.
Predictably he laughs out loud. So hard that a piece of spaghetti flies out of his mouth and dangles on the end of his chin before landing back on his plate.
He takes a swig of his lager.
“You don’t need the Internet to find a man, B,” he says. “There are plenty of guys out there who’d love to go out with you.”
“Thanks. I think. But even if I did want to meet someone,” I look pointedly at Katie, “the only men I ever meet these days are either two feet tall with paint up their nostrils – or their dads.”
“I’ve got plenty of mates I could set you up with.”
“Hey, I paid good money to set them both up on MoreDatesForYou,” Katie laughs. “Stop trying to put her off.”
“I’d have to be interested in the first place to be put off,” I remind her. “Honestly guys, I appreciate your concern. And your efforts,” I say, looking at Katie. “But when I’m ready to date again, I’ll tell you.”
Katie raises her eyebrows at me.
“Honestly,” I say. “You’ll be the first to know.”
CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN
After another week the rejections are coming in thick and fast – by post and by email.
We’re talking journalism rejections, by the way, not those of the Internet dating variety.
Their responses have ranged from ‘we are not currently hiring freelancers’, to ‘we do not commission unpublished writers’ (which seems a bit unfair – I mean, how are you ever going to become published if they won’t commission you until you are?), to ‘we do not feel your idea is suited to our magazine, but wish you well with your endeavours’ – all of which amount to the same thing – ‘your idea is a load of bollocks and we strongly advise that you phone your ex-boss and beg for your job back’.
And, I have to admit, I’m on the verge of doing exactly that when on Thursday something totally fabulous happens.
I am painting a little girl’s lips (with completely harmless paint, and her mother’s express permission, I hasten to add) so that she can kiss a plate she’s decorating for her daddy’s birthday (it also has her handprint and her footprint, and would have had a print of her ponytail too had I not stopped her in the nick of time) when I hear The Lion Sleeps Tonight coming from my handbag (it’s my new ringtone).
It’s Katie.
“Matt just phoned!” she screeches down the phone, almost perforating my eardrum.
“He had to pop home to fetch something and there was a message on the answer phone,” she says.
“It was the editor of Love Life. Jennifer something-or-other.”
“Jennifer Dutton?” I ask, wedging the phone between my ear and my shoulder and gently prising the toddler’s face away from the plate before she is completely covered in paint. Her mother has had to make a mad dash to the toilet with her other offspring who has just regurgitated an entire custard cream down his dungarees. Fiona and Caroline have their hands full on the other side of the room supervising a Thomas the Tank Engine birthday party.
“Yes, I think so. Anyway, she got our letter. Your letter, I mean. And she wants to talk to you about your idea. She left a number for you to phone her back on.”
“Oh my god!” I say, resorting to removing the plate altogether from the child, who now has green paint all over her forehead.
“What’s the number?” I grab a piece of tracing paper from the table and scribble it down as Katie reads it out.
“Let me know how you get on,” she says.
“I will. I better go. I have a green face that needs urgent attention.”
I fold the piece of paper and push it into my back pocket, surveying the mess now in front of me.
“Look at the state of you, young lady,” I laugh – just as her mother is emerging from the toilet.
“I’m sorry, she’s a bit of a mess,” I confess. “But on a positive note, her plate looks great.” I fetch it from the counter to show her.
“Don’t worry,” she laughs, pulling a packet of baby wipes out of her bag and wiping the artist’s face.
“That’s lovely Ella,” she says. “Aren’t you a clever girl? Shall we go home now darling? Take Charlie home for a bath?”
“I painted my face,” she tells us both, clearly extremely chuffed with herself.
“I can see that. Daddy will be so pleased with his plate, won’t he?”
“It’ll be ready by Monday for you to pick up,” I say, taking the money she hands me.
“Okay. It might be my husband who collects it. If it is, perhaps you could put it in a box or something so he doesn’t see it?”
“That’s fine. He just needs to give Ella’s name and whoever’s in at the time will be able to find it.”
“Great. Thanks so much. And sorry for the mess,” she says, putting one child in his pushchair and encouraging the other to put her cardigan on.
“Say thank you to the lady,” she tells her.
“Thank you lady.”
“You’re welcome.”
When I’ve cleared the table and wiped it down, I take Ella’s plate into the back room and glaze it ready for firing.
Then I empty the kiln. And restock the shelves. And tidy Inspiration Island – sorting the books in alphabetical order, stacking the stencils in order of size and arranging the paints from light to dark. And I mop the floor, because it’s looking a bit grubby
“Are you going to make that phone call or not?” Fiona asks, after the last Thomas the Tank Engine fanatic has finally left the building.
“What?” I ask, wiping the mop over a particularly stubborn blob of paint.
“The magazine? The editor? The dream?”
I turn around and find them both – her and Caroline – staring at me, grinning.
I look at my watch. It’s 4.30pm. We close in 30 minutes.
“Go on. Get out of here,” Caroline laughs. “But make sure you phone us with the good news.”
“Thanks Caroline.” I lean the mop up against the wall and fetch my coat and bag. And then I leave. To find out whether my dream might actually come true after all.
Do you think she was phoning to tell me she likes my idea? Or to offer me a job? Or to invite me for an interview?
Wow, this is so exciting.
Or do you think she’s phoning to ask me to stop wasting her time with ridiculous feature ideas that I don’t even know how to write, and to tell me that she wouldn’t use it in her magazine if it was the last feature idea on earth? Which wouldn’t be nearly so exciting, obviously.
There’s a café down the road called A Slice of Naughty. I go there and order a cappuccino and a slice of chocolate fudge cake – for Dutch courage, you understand. I’d rather have a gin and tonic, obviously, but I don’t want to be slurring my words down the phone at Jennifer Dutton when the Dutch courage kicks in.
But I don’t eat the cake, or drink the cappuccino. I just sit there, and stare at the telephone number on the table in front of me. I need a few more phone calls like this one – it would do wonders for my diet.
The truth?
I’m scared.
I can’t bring myself to dial the number, because as soon as I do, the dream could be over, and I could find myself back at Penand Inc processing discounts for treasury tags and bulldog clips.
I don’t think I realised until right now how much I want this. How right Fliss was. And Love Life? Well, that would just be amazing.
It’s a women’s magazi
ne that was launched about a year ago. And it’s really popular. Jennifer Dutton, the editor, is American. She was poached from a magazine over there which became the biggest selling women’s magazine in the country within nine months of being launched. Love Life is looking set to follow suit with her in charge. A feature in this magazine could set me up as a journalist.
“Love Life. How may I direct your call?” the voice on the other end of the line asks me when I finally pluck up the courage to dial the number. (Without the help of chocolate fudge cake, I might add.)
“Could I speak to Jennifer Dutton please,” I say in my best telephone voice. It sounds nothing like me.
“Certainly. I’ll put you through to her secretary.”
Of course. That figures. Jennifer Dutton is far too important to speak to me herself.
“Thank you,” I say, feeling slightly foolish.
“Hello. Abbie Kingston. How can I help?”
“Oh, hello, this is Rebecca Harper. I have a message to call Jennifer Dutton,” I explain, cringing at my telephone voice.
“Ah yes, Rebecca. I’ll just see if she’s free.”
Oh. My. God. My heart is beating so fast I’m afraid it might actually come flying out of my body.
“Hello Rebecca. Thanks for returning my call,” she says, in a soft American accent.
“Oh, no problem,” I say. Can you tell from someone’s voice that their heart is beating at one hundred times its normal speed?
“I was very interested to read your proposal,” she says. Very interested? That’s got to be good, right?
“And I wanted to discuss it with you.” Discuss it? Discussions are not good, are they? Chats – chats are good. Discussions are not good.
“Here at Love Life we don’t generally take on trainees, Rebecca.” See what I mean? Discussions are not good. Discussions are bad.
“But I was very impressed with the piece you sent me about your colleagues at…, now where was it, Pens & Paper?”
“Penand Inc,” I correct her, hesitantly. Impressed? Did she just say impressed?
The Little Shop of Afternoon Delights Page 140
