But I didn’t care. Kissing Michael was well worth a bout of the sniffles. When I saw Becky the following day for a first-date postmortem, she sighed and rolled her eyes in despair. She had heard it all before. The kiss. The thunderbolt. The beginning of an obsession that could only end in disaster … But when, between Lemsips, I described Michael to her in more detail, she couldn’t help but nod approvingly. He was an accountant, just like her boyfriend; therefore she couldn’t complain that he was a flaky creative type. (I had a penchant for flaky creative types.) And he wasn’t devastatingly good looking. (Becky thought his frankly average looks a plus, since it meant that he wouldn’t be as arrogant as some of the better-looking guys I had loved.) Then I let her know that Michael had told me he’d had a live-in relationship that lasted five years. That, Becky decided, was the clincher. It was proof that he wasn’t afraid of commitment, but it came without the complications of a starter marriage and subsequent divorce.
“Perfect. I like the sound of him,” said Becky. “From what you’ve told me, I would say he’s mature. He’s got a proper job. He’s already tried out commitment. He sounds to me like a man about to ripen and when he does …” She grinned.
Ripening. This was Becky’s favorite theory. Men don’t look for Miss Right in the way that we girls spend our time looking for the perfect man. Instead men get “ripe.” They reach a stage in their life when all their mates are getting married or their hair starts to fall out and they decide it’s time to settle down before no one decent will have them. They marry the next girl who smiles at them in passing. All we girls have to do is be in the right place at the right time to catch a ripe one before he hits the ground and starts to go rotten.
“Yep,” said Becky, nodding wisely. “It sounds to me as though you have finally found your one.”
Could it be true? I so wanted to believe it.
When Michael texted moments later to ask if I was free on Friday night, Becky’s judgment was confirmed.
“It’s only Monday and he already wants to know what you’re doing on Friday night. That is an excellent sign,” she said. “Just don’t screw it up.”
Well, thank God for that, I thought. After years of dating men who were about as ripe as a “perfectly ripe” avocado from the supermarket (the ones that go from rock-hard to rotting without passing edible), I had found my ready man. My Mr. Ripe.
Though once again I had thrown strategy out of the window (who needs strategy when you’ve found true love?), I soon noticed that Michael did everything The Rules girls said a serious man ought to. I was used to guys who called at the last minute to ask if I would meet them in their part of town for a quickie after the pub closed. In contrast Michael always made an effort. He called me early in the week to make plans for the weekend. He would always make sure I got home safely. He considered my likes and dislikes when choosing activities. He was unfailingly chivalrous. He didn’t seem to have anything to hide.
So, naturally, I fell for him. I fell as hard as a penny from the top of the Empire State Building that cracks the pavement for miles around. And he seemed to be falling for me, too. When I cooked for him (I’m a great cook; baking cakes is my hobby), he would sigh in ecstasy at whatever I put in front of him and tell me that I would make someone a wonderful wife. And, as Becky pointed out, men never use the word “wife” in front of someone they consider to be fling material. They would rather boil their own testicles.
“It means he’s taking you seriously,” she told me sagely.
I dared to dream of the wedding I had imagined for myself since I was four years old, when I had watched Diana marry Charles in the ultimate fairy-tale dress on the black-and-white TV set in my grandmother’s house. Never mind how that particular marriage turned out.
So, months passed. Became a year. And I felt as though I was finally, truly living the dream.
On the first anniversary of our meeting, Michael took me out to dinner at J. Sheekey, the famous fish restaurant in Covent Garden. He ordered a bottle of champagne. Not just the house stuff, either; it was vintage, because there was more to celebrate than just our twelve months of being together. That day Michael told me that he had been made a partner at Wellington Burke, the accountancy firm where he worked. This was big news, he said. Really big news. It was the career jump he had been working toward since he’d first learned to add and subtract. It meant much more responsibility, he explained. And more money. It meant that he could afford to upgrade his two-bedroom flat in Stockwell for something far more befitting his new status.
I was thrilled. Something more befitting his new status! I immediately imagined the tall Victorian house on the edge of Wandsworth Common where we would raise our beautiful children. I saw myself in the kitchen with professional standard fixtures and fittings, making elaborate birthday cakes for the golden-haired twins.
When Michael warned me he would have to work extra hard now, I told him I would be there to make life easier for him. Michael’s promotion to partner made the fact that I had recently been refused a pay raise somewhat easier to handle. How much longer would I have to keep my crappy job anyhow, now that Michael was starting to think about our first marital home?
Except that he wasn’t.
A couple of months later Michael sold his flat in Stockwell and bought a bigger flat in a chichi new development by the riverside in Battersea. He was thrilled with the built-in coffee machine and the integrated sound system. I stood on the balcony that would be incredibly impractical and dangerous for a toddler and bit my lip. There was nothing about the flat that said family home. But I chose not to say anything. I was comforted by an article I’d read only recently, which said that men often have a final fling before settling down, and that final fling could take the shape of an unsuitable apartment with an integrated entertainment system rather than shagging someone at the office. The magazine writer’s advice was to let him get on with it. Be understanding.
“It’s a great flat,” I said. “It’ll be very easy to sell on.”
“Sell on?” said Michael. “What are you talking about? I’ve only just moved in.”
“Yes, but eventually …”
“I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of this view,” he said, wrapping his arms around my waist.
I decided that it was best to cut short the resale conversation and help Michael “christen” his new bedroom.
Looking back, I can see that the riverside flat was the first red flag, but I soon rationalized the significance of it away. Michael had never really had money before. It was understandable that he wanted to spend his hard-earned cash on a few of the things he had lusted after as a student and twenty-something. As time went on, however, it became increasingly difficult to ignore the fact that Michael was ticking the boxes on a very different list from mine.
A few months after the new apartment came the new car. A two-seater sports-model BMW. Red paint, soft top, and definitely no room for a baby seat. He also bought a set of golf clubs and a fancy mountain bike. Then, on the advice of his new temporary secretary—an Essex blonde ten years my junior—he booked a personal-shopping session at Harvey Nics and his wardrobe went from “geek” to “chic” in the space of an afternoon. He even changed his hairstyle.
“Why didn’t you make me get rid of those terrible jeans?” he asked me. “I looked like Simon Cowell.”
“I thought you liked looking like that,” I said. “And, anyway, you know I would love you whatever you wore.”
I didn’t tell him that I had hated those bloody jeans but had resisted the urge to forcibly update his wardrobe because I had read in another women’s magazine article that you should never try to change a man’s appearance until you had a ring on your finger. Otherwise you would just be giving him the makeover he needed to upgrade to a better girlfriend. I wanted Michael in those awful high-waisted trousers because I didn’t want any other woman to notice the prince I saw beneath the horrible turtleneck sweaters and the poo-brown suede blouson. While I still had n
o engagement ring, his Iranian-president style suited me just fine.
“Well, it’s all going to the charity shop,” said Michael as he flicked through a copy of GQ (to which he’d just taken out a subscription). “I’ll drop it off on my way to the gym.”
The gym?
New flat, sports car, fancy clothes, and the gym. The four self-improvements of the Apocalypse.
Michael’s personal growth was now in stark contrast with the lack of forward motion in our relationship. I couldn’t help comparing our time line with that of Becky and her man, Henry. Becky had met Henry just a couple of weeks before I met Michael. Eighteen months on, she had moved into Henry’s flat. I still lived a forty-minute bus ride away from Michael. Farther away, in fact, than when he had his flat in Stockwell.
On the second anniversary of their first meeting, Henry took Becky to Paris and proposed to her at the top of the Eiffel Tower. He’d had the ring made specially. A diamond solitaire on a band engraved with the words FOREVER YOURS. Meanwhile, Michael took me to the Thai restaurant just along the river from his bachelor pad and spent the entire evening checking his BlackBerry for news of some important assignment. So much for a celebration. It turned out he hadn’t actually remembered it was our anniversary. We were only at the restaurant because he hadn’t had time to fill the fridge. He looked very surprised when I pulled out my anniversary card.
“I’ve also made a cake,” I said. Inside the Marks & Spencer’s carrier bag beneath the table was a chocolate sponge with thick butter icing.
“Ashleigh,” said Michael, “you know I’m trying to diet.” He was determined he would have a six-pack for the summer.
“But two years …”
“Is it really two years?” he said.
I couldn’t help but notice the expression that crossed his face, albeit briefly. That expression said “two years” with a sense of horror rather than wonder. I would never forget it, despite the big smile that Michael plastered on right away.
“In that case I suppose I’ll have a little bit of that cake you brought. Just for you.”
We missed Becky and Henry’s engagement party to go to Michael’s company’s Christmas party, which took place in a marquee specially erected for the party season in the middle of the City. Michael, who looked his best ever in a bespoke tuxedo (oh, yes, he was buying bespoke now), swanned around that tent like master of the universe. He left me talking to some of the dullest people on earth while he schmoozed senior partners and important clients. He spent a lot of time talking to one woman in particular. She had big hair and an even bigger chest, which was barely contained by her bright red dress. She did a lot of giggling and hair flicking. I couldn’t imagine what she found so amusing about my man.
“She can’t be an accountant,” I said to Helen, my old university friend, who was about to leave Michael’s firm to give birth to her first baby (with Kevin, the chap who bought her the crotchless panties for her thirtieth).
“Oh, no,” said Helen. “You’re right. She’s not. She’s an interior designer. She’s been redoing the reception areas. I think she’s from Brazil.”
When Michael came back to my side ten minutes later, I told him that I wasn’t feeling too good and wanted to go home.
“Shall I get you a car on the company account?” he said. He didn’t offer to come with me. Seeing the woman in the red dress circling menacingly, I told him that I suddenly felt better and stayed to the bitter end.
When Michael took to the dance floor for “Dancing Queen”—a song I hate—I followed him like a shadow. I felt as though I was dancing for my life.
Cut to: four months after that terrible Christmas party.
It was an ordinary Wednesday morning in the office. Back then I was working for a small advertising company called Maximal Media. It sounds more exciting than it was. I bet you’re thinking innovative campaigns for mobile phones and sugar-free energy drinks that go well with vodka. In reality, we had a nice line providing services for the manufacturers of such exciting products as ironing-board covers and easy-clean juicers. The sort of thing you see advertised in the back of the Sunday Express magazine.
I’d been with the company pretty much since I left college, back when I thought that advertising was a glamorous career worth pursuing. I had jumped at the chance of a temp admin job that consisted largely of fetching coffee. I worked my way up from that job to the position of account manager with responsibility for just about everything regarding the clients I was given. And over the years I had been given some corking clients. Remember those infomercials in which an aging soap actress demonstrates the ease of using a stair lift? That’s some of my best work. I seemed to get assigned a lot of the golden-ager products.
In fact that morning I should have been working on a presentation for the clients from Effortless Bathing, whose product was not, alas, a swanky swimming pool but a walk-in bath for the elderly and infirm. You know the kind of thing. It looks like an ordinary bath but it has a little door in the side so that you don’t have to clamber over and risk a fall. Instead you step in, sit down, turn on the taps and die of hypothermia while you wait for it to fill. It was a very boring product, but my boss, Barry, had promised the people from the step-in-bath company all sorts of excitement and sexy innovation in their push for sales-figure glory. Tasked with turning those promises into advertising gold, I had so far spent the best part of two hours doodling hearts on my notepad.
As soon as I was sure Barry had left the office for a “business lunch,” I risked logging on to my networking accounts. Facebook first. And that was when it happened.
The first thing I noticed was that Michael’s Facebook status, which he hadn’t updated in months (how could he find the time now he was a partner at Wellington Burke?), was showing something new. And somewhat cryptic. It said, “Michael Parker is making some tough decisions.”
Tough decisions about what? I wondered. I went through the possibilities. He had mentioned a few weeks earlier that he had been head-hunted by another accountancy company. Was he still thinking of leaving the firm he had been with for so many years to take another job? I thought he’d decided against it. Or perhaps he was being facetious? When he said “tough decisions,” was he talking about the decisions he had to make regarding the new carpet he wanted for his flat? The previous weekend he had gotten into quite a bad mood as he examined various different swatches in search of the elusive carpet that would fit in with the chic, pale ultimate-bachelor furnishing scheme he wanted and yet not show too much dirt.
I was just about to leave a message on his wall saying, Go for the oatmeal Berber, when the live news feed on my profile page refreshed itself with some very strange and unwelcome news indeed.
It said, “Michael Parker is no longer listed as ‘in a relationship.’ ”
This devastating tidbit was accompanied by a graphic of a tiny red heart in two pieces.
You can imagine my reaction. I spat tea onto my keyboard. Michael Parker is no longer in a relationship? What the hell did that mean? I quickly sent him a message via the site: “Wot’s with the relationship update?” And then I sent him a text for good measure: “Just saw your Facebook page. No longer in a relationship? Very funny. Ha ha ha.”
It had to be a slip of the mouse or, at worst, a very bad joke, but Michael responded to neither request for an explanation. I called his mobile. He didn’t pick up. I put that down to the fact that since he’d been made a partner, he’d moved to an office on the other side of the building and the mobile reception was patchy there, but when I called his direct line, he didn’t pick that up, either.
“He’s just gone into a meeting,” said Tina, his unnecessarily gorgeous assistant.
“Will you tell him to call me as soon as he gets out?”
“Of course.”
I felt a little relieved by that exchange. There was nothing in Tina’s voice that suggested anything was awry. But three hours later Michael still hadn’t phoned me back and I was starting to get
anxious. It began to dawn on me that Michael might be serious. I ran through all the possible reasons why Michael might be in a bad mood with me. Was he still upset about the small disagreement we’d had a couple of nights before, when I’d asked him if he wanted to go halves on renting a country cottage with Becky and Henry over the August bank holiday and he said he hadn’t thought that far ahead? Or maybe he was angry because I’d questioned why he was spending so much time at the gym when I loved him just the way he was: slightly soft around the edges. In retrospect, I could see it was a mistake to have used those words.
All those little things suddenly seemed like perfectly good reasons to start a passive-aggressive fight by changing your relationship status on stupid Facebook. But it was about to get worse.
When I logged back on to Facebook to send Michael a message asking if he could elaborate on what I might have done wrong, I discovered that Michael was no longer on my friends list. I had been unfriended.
Unfriended by my own boyfriend! It was the ultimate humiliation. And still Michael refused to get in touch with me. I needed another girl’s view. I called Becky, who was a teacher, and had her pulled out of an A-level history class to talk to me.
“What’s happened? Are you hurt?”
Becky had told all her friends that she could never talk during work hours unless something had gone seriously wrong. I had always respected her request, but that day … Well, this was serious in my opinion.
“Michael has unfriended me.”
“What?”
“Becky, I think I’ve been dumped.”
“Ashleigh! What are you talking about? The school secretary said it was an emergency.”
“And being dumped by the love of my life isn’t?”
“When did he dump you? And how come you’re not sure that he did? What on earth is going on?”
I explained exactly what had happened, hoping that Becky would tell me I had overreacted. She would read between the lines and come up with some other explanation. Of course Michael hadn’t dumped me, was the answer I was hoping for. It was clear he was just messing around. Or Facebook had been infected by a computer virus that had wiped everyone’s relationship status clean. I should check my own status for a start. But Becky had no such good news for me. She dismissed out of hand my idea of a brain tumor that had altered Michael’s personality and said that the simplest explanation is usually accurate. As far as she could see, the simple explanation was that I had really been dumped.
Getting Over Mr. Right Page 2
