THE HUSBAND HUNTERS

by LUCY LAING

  This had better be worth it, I thought through gritted teeth, trying to calm my breathing. I need to spot Paul with Claudia Schiffer after all this. The liquid rubber took five minutes to apply then special bandages to strengthen the mould were put on and I had to lie still for another 15 minutes whilst they dried.

  It took every ounce of self determination not to panic and start clawing at the mask. Lie back and think of something nice, I instructed myself, picturing a beautiful beach in the Caribbean. Anywhere but in this hot airless studio being suffocated by a rubber mask. And we couldn’t call out to each other either. I could hear Kaz and Rach talking at the side of the room, but I couldn’t join in.

  After what seemed like an eternity, Max peeled the mask back and I started to take huge gulps of air. I’ll never take being able to see and speak for granted again. As I struggled down from the chair, with Max looking at me with a puzzled expression, I took a quick look around. None of the other girls seemed to be panicking. Kaz was now having hers done, and she looked relaxed, like she was having a spa treatment.

  ‘That was great, really soothing, said Tash, taking off her Alice band. ‘When they were painting the rubber onto my face, I could feel myself falling asleep.’ She went over to the mirror. ‘And there’s not even a tiny bit gone into my hair either,’ she said, examining her fringe. ‘Brilliant.’

  We had to wait another hour before the masks were ready, so we sat in Lena’s office drinking cups of coffee. And I must admit when Lena brought them out, all that torture had been worth it. We screamed with laughter when we put them on. Lena had altered our facial characteristics slightly, so we didn’t look like ourselves. Rach had tried to persuade her to make her nose smaller, but as Lena pointed out, her own nose needed to fit into the mask, so it wouldn’t fit properly. Rach had pouted in disappointment - I think she had thought it could be an alternative to plastic surgery. I was thrilled with my mask - Paul would never recognise me with this on. I could stand right outside his gate and he would walk straight past me. I had to agree with Rach. There was a certain thrill to wearing a disguise.

  I hung the latex mask up when I got home, on the back of my door above my dressing gown, and sat on my bed looking at it. It did look quite odd really. I got up and put it on my dressing table instead. I didn’t want to wake up in the night and think there was someone hanging on the back of my door. That would be really freaky.

  ‘What are you doing for dinner?’ Scarlett asked, coming into my bedroom. She saw the mask on my dressing table and her eyes widened. ‘Is that a gimp mask?’ she asked. ‘I didn’t know you were into that sort of thing Bee.’

  ‘I’m not,’ I said crossly, shoving the mask in my underwear drawer. I didn’t want Scarlett to know I was planning to stalk Paul for a few days. I decided to give her the drama excuse thing too. ‘Tash’s friend is putting on a play and wants me to be in it, and I’ve got to wear it.’ She looked at me as if she didn’t quite believe me.

  ‘But you’ve never been into drama Bee,’ she said. ‘I’ve known you for years and you can’t act your way out of a paper bag.’

  ‘I can,’ I said, glaring at her. It was turning into a stand-off. ‘I was in Alice in Wonderland once, as a flower.’

  ‘How old were you then?’ Scarlett said, trying not to laugh.

  ‘I was eight, but the teacher said I was really good,’ I added, lamely. Scarlett stood up.

  ‘Well let me know when you’ve been nominated for an Oscar,’ she said. ‘In the meantime, do you want any tea?’

  ***

  ‘I nearly choked when you were telling Lena about our supposed forthcoming production,’ said Soph to Tash, as we sat in the restaurant two days later for the meeting.

  ‘I thought it sounded very plausible, ‘ said Tash. ‘It was much better than telling her why we really needed them. Although I’m dammed sure I’m never going to be using mine to stalk a boyfriend.’

  ‘You might need it some day, you never know,’ I said.

  ‘I’m more likely to be in a play where five girls change their identities, than use it to stalk anyone,’ said Tash, adamantly.

  ‘Anyway Bee, when are you going to be stalking Paul?’ asked Kaz.

  ‘Not until next week. Scarlett mentioned he was away on a conference this week, so I’ll have to do it when he gets back. I haven’t decided when yet. Who’s going to come with me?’ I asked, looking around the table. ‘Soph?’

  Soph dropped her eyes.

  ‘I can’t,’ she mumbled, looking down at the table.

  ‘Why not?’ I asked.

  ‘I’m really busy that week,’ she said. ‘I’ve got meetings at work and I’ve got to do loads of planning for them. ‘ She still wouldn’t look at me. I shrugged, and looked at Rach.

  ‘I thought you’d never ask,’ she said, grinning. ‘Count me in.’

  ‘OK, but just the masks. No hideous long overcoats and orange scarves this time,’ I told her, firmly.

  ‘Anyway the purpose of today’s meeting is to draft the e-mail to Jennifer Anniston,’ interrupted Kaz, banging her pen on the table for some order. ‘How do we plan to start it off?’ she said, looking around at us all.

  ‘We’ve got to be careful,’ I said. ‘We don’t want to go charging in like a herd of elephants and make her feel like she wants to slit her wrists over her disastrous love life.’

  ‘Yes, but we’ve got to point out the obvious to her,’ said Tash. ‘Brad has been all cosy for the last few years with Angelina, whilst Jen has been marooned on a desert love island. He’s playing happy families whilst she is left alone. She’s got to get it sorted,’ she added firmly. ‘No messing around.’ Eventually, after much arguing and discussion we agreed on the following e-mail.

  Dear Jen.

  You don’t know any of us, but we are five girls from Cheshire, UK, who have set up a club called The Husband Hunters to try and find ourselves a husband. We haven’t had much luck ourselves, and our love lives, have in short, like yours, been disastrous. So we are letting our friends help us find husbands - and we think that would be a really good idea for you to try it too.

  (We wanted a paragraph here to say how successful the club had already been, but as Tash had pointed out the previous week, we haven’t had much success so far: think charred duck testicles, Kaz’s failed gym skirt mission and me being stood up. We wanted to impress Jen, not put her off, Tash had added.)

  So we are cordially inviting you - even though you are ten years older than any of us - to join our club for us to help you find a decent man. It doesn’t matter than you live thousands of miles from us. We can link you up by web cam and you can join in the meetings.

  (Soph said wouldn’t Jen be pissed off if she could see us tucking into garlic bread and pasta during the meetings whilst she munched on a celery stick on the other side of the world. Kaz said we could arrange to link up with her after we’d finished eating.)

  Membership is free. So Jen, you have nothing to lose. Let us have a go at sorting your love life out for you.

  (I wanted to put in a paragraph about how sorry I felt for her and how much I would like to see her back with Brad. But Kaz said I would come across as a mad stalker and frighten her off. We didn’t want her to know how much time I devoted each week to dissecting her life through every celebrity magazine I could lay my hands on.)

  We look forward to hearing from you.

  Kind Regards

  Bee, Tash, Kaz, Rach and Soph.

  p.s. We can e-mail you all the minutes of previous meetings so far, so you can catch up to date. (I said these would have to be edited as I didn’t want Jen thinking of charred duck testicles every time she talked to me on the web cam)

  Kaz sent the e-mail draft around to us all the following day with the minutes. It read well. I was confident that Jen would be really keen on joining.

  PROGRESS REPORTS.

  * Kaz and Soph have been to suss out Ben in the potted plants section of the local garden centre. We had all got very excited a
t this piece of news. Soph reported that he was actually very good looking, wearing a tight sleeveless white t-shirt. They had gone over to say hello to him. But then a few minutes later, a colleague called Trevor had walked up to him and asked him for his help repotting. ‘He had looked very deeply into his eyes,’ Kaz had told us. ‘And they both walked off, laughing together. He looked a bit gay to me.’

  That was disappointing. ‘Aim for something bigger,’ Tash had urged Soph. ‘Try the climbing outdoor plants or better still, the water features department.’

  Soph to go back to the garden centre and scout around other sections.

  * Kaz reported that James and Caroline are completely loved up following their engagement. He went to cheer her on during the marathon last weekend. He had asked Kaz where the ‘cute’ doll had gone from her locker. ( I think it’s a good thing that he’s out the picture. If you ask me, James must be completely thick. How could anyone think that voodoo monstrosity was anything like cute.)

  * Bee and Rach to try out the latex masks and stalk Paul on his return from the work conference. See if there is any sign of female movement around and outside the house - or any male movement. Kaz had added that last bit in, just in case Paul was gay. I quite liked that possible explanation as I couldn’t argue with Mother Nature (again!).

  * Everyone to start thinking of a list of possible suitors for Jen. Soph asked could we include English actors or would it only have to be American ones. It was decided to make two lists, as Jen could always be encouraged to buy another home in London or the Home Counties.

  * Soph’s wedding dress has been sold out of the charity shop window. Soph reported this, full of relief that she wouldn’t end up as Miss Havisham. She confessed that she had been having nightmares and had woke up screaming one night after having dreamt she was trapped in one of Miss Havisham’s massive cobwebs. I hadn’t the heart to tell her that I had persuaded my mum to go in and buy Soph’s wedding dress to put her out of her misery.

  * Tash reported that she had been watching reruns of Casualty every night since Soph had rescued the little girl who was choking. She was quite confident that she could now perform a heart transplant, deliver a baby (Rach looked quite green at this one) and amputate a right leg.

  I laughed at the last one, imagining Tash trying to deliver Rach’s baby. She is quite tactless, so I could picture her rummaging around in Rach’s insides, swearing at Rach for not being more helpful.

  Rach told me after the meeting that she doesn’t plan to have Tash anywhere near her when she gives birth, and could I lock her in my bedroom when she goes into labour to keep her well away.

  I downloaded the e-mail to Jen onto my desktop, located her fan club e-mail address in my notebook and carefully typed it in. I pressed ‘send’ and sat back, watching the little envelope fly across the screen.

  I must check my e-mails every few minutes, I thought, in case Jen replied back straight away. I was confident we would hear from her almost immediately. She’d be mad to pass up an opportunity like this.

  ************************************

  CHAPTER NINE

  At the next meeting we decided we needed to produce a list of possible suitors for Jen. Kaz said Jen could e-mail back at any time and might expect us to have some suitable husbands already lined up for her.

  We decided on the following initial list:

  1. Colin Firth. Any female would definitely agree to Colin as a potential suitor. He is married, but one in three marriages end in divorce, so he could well be free in time. And Jen will definitely love the wet shirt look - she is female after all.

  2. Our very own Darcy who runs the stable yard. Steve Clark still hasn’t got a girlfriend and Tash could do with some help mucking out all the horses at the yard.

  3. David Schwimmer, who played Ross in Friends. Kaz said they would be a very popular tabloid couple and Ross was always really lovely to Rachel, Jen’s character in Friends.

  4. Nick the photographer. Although Kaz said that she thought Jen was perhaps too old for Nick as he did go after schoolgirls. I also pointed out that Jen was pretty trendy and I didn’t think Nick’s 80’s leather jacket would look particularly good on the Hollywood red carpet.

  5. Angelina Jolie. Tash insisted on this one as she said that Jen may in the future get fed up with men and want a lesbian relationship, and Angelina was very beautiful. I pointed out that Angelina may not be the best choice for Jen. It may cause some friction.

  The next morning, I logged onto my e-mail, expecting to have an e-mail from Jen flashing up on my screen. I couldn’t believe it. There were no new messages. No blinking little envelope from thousands of miles across the Atlantic.

  What was she playing at? I’d expected her to jump at the chance of joining the HHC. Mind you she could always be on holiday.

  ‘I’ll give her a few days,’ I said out loud, without thinking.

  ‘Who are you going to give a few days?’ asked Nick, who was sitting less than five yards away from me.

  ‘Jennifer Aniston,’ I said, swinging around in my chair. ‘I can’t believe it, we asked her to join the HHC and I haven’t heard back from her.’

  ‘Now let me get this straight,’ said Nick, slowly, leaning back in his chair and raking his hands through his hair. ‘You haven’t had an e-mail back from an ultra famous, mega rich, Hollywood film star - yeah I agree, that’s strange,’ he said, shaking his head in despair at me. ‘What have you emailed her about anyway? I didn’t realise you were that close,’ he added, sniggering into his coffee.

  I could see Nick looking at me with that slightly pitying expression that he gave me quite often, as if he was talking to his mad old auntie. I don’t think he believed that I had emailed Jen. I could see it in his eyes. He was humouring me, in that totally unfunny way of his.

  ‘We’ve invited her to join the club,’ I said, crossly. ‘What else would I be e-mailing her about?’

  Nick had just taken a mouthful of coffee, and in an instant it had shot out of his mouth and hit the wall near Maria’s office door.

  ‘Wow that was good,’ I said admiringly. ‘You’ve shot that at least ten feet.’

  He ignored me and was still looking at me incredulously.

  ‘You’ve asked Jennifer Aniston to join the Has Beens, Hags and Crones,’ he asked. ‘Tell me you’re joking. Even you are not mad enough to do that.’

  ‘Yes we have, and why not? Because she’s a Hollywood star doesn’t mean that she couldn’t do with a little help sorting out her love life.’

  ‘She hasn’t emailed you back yet then?’ asked Nick, looking smug.

  ‘No, but I’m sure she will do,’ I said, indignantly. ‘She won’t want to pass up on an opportunity like this. It could be a chance for her to find true happiness.’

  ‘And you are proposing to either find her a husband, or give her advice on who she dates?’ laughed Nick.

  ‘Yes,’ I said, curtly. ‘And what is wrong with that?’

  ‘Well all I can say is don’t offer her any cooking advice, and don’t take her away on holiday with you,’ said Nick. ‘I don’t think Jen would take very kindly to being paraded around the whole of Italy in the Fanny Wagon. It may be a bit of a comedown from being chauffeured around Los Angeles in a limousine.’

  I didn’t want to listen to Nick anymore. I knew it was a good idea to invite Jen into the HHC and when she did e-mail back, I was going to print her reply off and stuff it into his mouth and force him to eat every single word.

  Angrily I picked up my handbag, but I only managed to get hold of one strap and the entire contents tipped out on the floor.

  ‘What on earth’s that?’ asked Nick, pointing to something that had rolled under my chair. I picked it up, and nearly dropped it again like a hot potato. It was Kazza’s blasted voodoo doll with all its pins still sticking out in all directions.

  I took one look at Nick’s face. I think I had tipped the top of the ‘mad-o-meter’ and it was time for a swift exit. I wasn’t eve
n going to bother explaining about the voodoo doll. He looked like he couldn’t cope with any more madness in one morning, so I shot him a stare that could kill, flung my handbag over my shoulder and walked out the door to meet Kazza for lunch.

  ‘You probably did look a bit mad,’ agreed Kazza, ten minutes later as we queued up for our pasta. ‘ But then he’s a bloke, and men just don’t understand the complicated intricacies of women.’ I looked admiringly at her.

  ‘God, that was good Kaz,’ I said.

  ‘I know,’ she said smugly, setting her pasta down on the table. ‘But it’s true,’ she added. ‘We know and completely understand the reasons for e-mailing Jen, and for me having the voodoo doll, but a man would never appreciate that.

  There is only one thing that they are useful for - and usually they aren’t that good at that either. I once had a boyfriend who thought my nipples were like two tuning knobs on a radio. It was horrendous. I kept telling him nicely that it wasn’t doing anything for me, but he wouldn’t listen. I dumped him shortly after that. My nipples just couldn’t cope with it.’

  I laughed at the thought of Kaz dumping the Nipple Menace. But she was right. Most men were a dab hand at the remote control and when it comes to fine tuning a football match on telly, their fingers are amazingly nimble and deft. But show them a clitoris and suddenly their nimble fingers become as clumsy as five sausages stuck on a stick. Why did we want a husband anyway, when men are such losers? I thought, twirling a piece of pasta on my fork. Suddenly the thought of being in a remote hillside nunnery seemed quite appealing.