Hating Valentine's Day

by Allison Rushby - Hating Valentine's Day

  Rachel picks up. ‘Taking a sickie?’ I ask.

  ‘Who’s the hot date?’

  I look up from the phone. ‘Sally!’

  She doesn’t turn, but waves a hand over her head.

  ‘There’s no hot date.’ I sigh, wondering how much I should, or want to, tell. ‘It was just a groom. He was hungry, so we had a, um, working lunch.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘You don’t have to sound so disappointed.’ I laugh at Rachel’s tone. ‘Are you taking a sickie or not?

  ‘No. They’ve taken all the kids to see an exhibition at the art gallery. We drew straws to see who’d go and I got lucky. Actually, I was calling about dinner. Here. Tonight. I know it’s short notice, but I didn’t think you’d be doing anything…’

  ‘Gee, thanks. I guess I’ll have to cancel that première and send the Valentino gown back.’

  Rachel sighs. ‘You know I didn’t mean it like that. I just knew you’d be taking it easy before this weekend. It’s no big affair—just a casual, relaxed dinner at ours. And before you ask, no, I’m not setting you up.’

  ‘Did I suggest in any way that you were? Dinner would be lovely. What time and what can I bring?’ We finalise the arrangements and then I make my second call—to Justine at work. ‘It’s me,’ I say when she picks up.

  ‘Who’s the hot date?’

  If only my friends weren’t so predictable. I repeat the working-lunch-with-a-hungry-groom story.

  ‘Oh.’ I get the same reply I had from Rachel. But Justine recovers faster. ‘Oh, well. Hey, you’ve got to come out tomorrow night. That’s what I called for. It’s Drew’s birthday.’

  Drew’s birthday? He didn’t mention that. ‘Oh. OK. Great.’

  ‘And Drew says you have to come because he’s never seen you outside of the apartment. He’s starting to think you’re on home release from jail or something. He said next time he’s over he’s going to check out your ankles for those little tags.’

  My eyebrows raise themselves with this. ‘Is that right?’

  ‘Can you make it? I think we’re just going to grab something to eat and meet up with a few of his friends at some club or other.’

  ‘Um.’ I think about work first, as per usual. I don’t think I’ve got anything on, but I reach for my diary and flip through the pages quickly. ‘Yep. I’d love to come. Leave me a note about it. I’m going to Rachel’s for dinner. And before you ask, no, she’s not setting me up. She promised.’

  Justine laughs. ‘Sure. We’ll see.’

  ‘Yeah, yeah. Very funny. I’ll talk to you later.’ I hang up again.

  ‘You’re a terrible liar.’ Sally swivels around on her seat. ‘ “It was just a groom. He was hungry, so we had a, um, working lunch,”’ she mimics.

  I laugh. ‘Is that what I sounded like? I am a terrible liar.’

  ‘I’ll coach you some time.’ Sally slaps her thigh loudly. ‘Now, chop-chop,’ she says. ‘Finish up what you’ve got to do and I’ll shout you a drink before you have to run off.’

  ‘What are we celebrating?’ I ask her.

  She winks. ‘Well, sweetie, fish like Drew don’t come along every day. And to me he’s certainly looking like a big marlin that you shouldn’t waste any time reeling in.’

  Funny, I think, as Sally grins at me. Advice on reeling in marlins from a toothy dating shark.

  Y Y Y Y

  I try to get the most out of the vodka, lime and soda that Sally buys me that afternoon, just in case.

  Just in case the man that’s sure to be sitting across from me at Rachel’s dinner party is the kind of fish John West’s sister would reject.

  But this time Rachel happens to be telling the truth. There really is no extra guy. No ring-in. Just Rachel and Ryan and four other people (two couples) that I haven’t met before. There’s not even any mention of Valentine’s Day—well, unless you count the heart-shaped crème brûlée that Rachel gives me with a big nudge. But heart-shaped crème brûlée I can deal with. Crème brûlée me up any day, whatever the shape, I say.

  All in all, I have a really nice time.

  I even manage to have a long chat with Ryan, which is nice. More like back to normal. Like the old days.

  And as I back out of Rachel and Ryan’s driveway for the second time in a week, I stop for a moment and wonder if things really are different this year…

  I wonder if everybody really is going to leave me alone this Valentine’s Day.

  I wonder, just for a moment, what it would have been like for Drew and I to have been the fourth couple at that table.

  And then I remember who I used to sit with at Rachel and Ryan’s dining room table and I dismiss the idea just as quickly as it popped into my head.

  Y Y Y Y

  Back at the ranch, I take a quick shower and jump into bed, where I toss and turn for at least forty-five minutes before I give up and switch on my bedside light in order to read for a while. After my eyes have scanned the same page three times, I realise reading isn’t going to help. I’m all worked up, and no amount of valerian, Tania’s breathing and relaxation exercises or counting fluffy white sheep jumping over fences is going to see me nodding off.

  I close my book and listen to Justine padding around her bedroom. When I finally hear her light switch off, I get up and tiptoe out to the lounge area. I get myself a glass of water and settle down on the couch to watch some mind-numbing TV. I only glance away from the screen for a second, to pick up my glass from the small side table, but when I look back…

  I scream.

  As hard and as loud and as ear-piercingly as I can. And when I run out of breath I do it again.

  Louder.

  This time the small, pink-suited man standing on my coffee table screams back.

  I stop screaming and clap a hand over my mouth. The man laughs in a strange, effeminate manner and holds one hand out, offering me something—a rose. A red rose. ‘For you, mademoiselle,’ he says, with a bad French accent and a curt bow.

  This makes me pause. I look from the rose to him, and back again. ‘You’re not French,’ I say, the words popping out of my mouth, my brow furrowed.

  He folds his arms, the rose suddenly gone. ‘Damn. What gave me away?’

  ‘Well, the bad French accent for a start.’ My gaze moves down onto the floor and around the coffee table, searching for the rose.

  ‘Right. Right.’ He nods. ‘Got to work on that one.’

  Weird. I can’t see the rose anywhere. Though not as weird, I have to admit, as the fact that a miniature man is standing on my coffee table.

  OK. I turn and glance down the hallway. Where’s Justine? Why hasn’t she heard me scream and come running?

  ‘Um, how much French do you actually know?’ I say absent-mindedly, trying to keep the little guy talking until she gets out here. I’ve heard the police say that’s what you’re supposed to do in this kind of situation—(In this kind of situation? What am I talking about?)—make him remember you’re a human being with feelings too.

  He shrugs. ‘The usual. The “How do you dos”, the “s’il vous plaîts” and the “do you speak French” shit. The basics. Oh, and most importantly, “tout le monde faire le danse du hamster”.’

  ‘What does that mean?’ I say, turning back to stare at him. I don’t remember the phrase from my high school French.

  ‘Everyone do the hamster dance.’ He grins a toothy grin.

  Hmm. My gaze flicks sideways down the corridor, fast. Where is Justine?

  ‘She’s not coming.’

  My eyes flick back rather smartly then, and my breathing starts to come a bit quicker. I remember Mrs Batty-Smith and gulp. ‘Um, is this a dream?’

  ‘Do you think it’s a dream?’

  I pause. ‘I don’t know. I guess so,’ I say worriedly, concerned now that I didn’t make time to go to the doctor yesterday or today. Maybe there’s really something wrong with my health. Maybe I have epilepsy or sleep apnoea or something. Yes. Or something worse.

  Even
worse.

  Like a brain tumour.

  The little man rolls his eyes. ‘Oh, come on. You don’t have a brain tumour…’

  Well, that’s something. I glance back at the figure on my coffee table for a second and try to assess the situation as level-headedly as someone can when they’re facing a small man on their IKEA-ware who can read their thoughts.

  I don’t know what to think. I raise my arm to inspect the small pinching bruise. It’s fading. Slowly. No, I don’t know what to think—other than I must be completely and utterly stressed out to be having another one of these episodes. Anyway, none of that matters now. What matters now is, what to do? I’ve learnt enough from Mrs Batty-Smith to work out that where these apparitions are concerned I should roll with the punches and do whatever it is my brain’s telling me to do. If I go against it, things tend to become nasty. I guess I’ll just act as if my whole life is Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds-weird, see what happens and go to the doctor first thing tomorrow morning. If my brain hasn’t haemorrhaged, that is.

  ‘Fine with me!’ the little man says cheerfully, and begins to inspect my apartment.

  I’m starting to calm down until he turns around, and then I almost completely lose it. It’s seeing his back that does it. The guy on my coffee table isn’t just any dwarfish guy—it’s Cupid. Cupid is standing on my coffee table.

  It’s the wings and the bow and arrow set that give it away.

  I can’t remember if I mentioned my hate of all things Cupid before or not, but if I didn’t I’m going to mention it again now.

  I hate Cupids. And cherubs too, just to set the record straight. I hate their fat little protruding pot bellies. Their stuntedness. Their blindingly shiny goldness at weddings.

  ‘Is that right, gorgeous?’ he pipes up again, moving around to face me once more. This time he crosses his arms.

  My mouth falls open and I move further back on the couch as he says this, wriggling away as far as I can from him. How does he do that? And, come to think of it, what is he wearing? I freeze, halfway through shuffling backwards, and stare. It can’t be…but I think it is…Now I move forward again on the couch in order to touch it, not being able to help myself.

  ‘Hey, hey, hey!’ He takes a step back. ‘Don’t touch what you can’t afford, darlin’.’ He smooths his hands down his suit as he speaks.

  ‘Is that really velvet?’ I stare at him incredulously.

  ‘Only the finest.’

  ‘Pink velvet? The finest pink velvet?’

  ‘Yes. The finest pink velvet. You got a problem with that?’

  I pause. No, I think. No, I don’t have a problem with that. It’s my hallucination, after all. And, hey, at least I’ve had the good grace not to make myself the one who looks like a pimp. And really he does look like a pimp. I mean, the guy—Cupid—is wearing a pink velvet suit complete with a pink-edged white carnation and a white ruffled shirt that’s been dragged kicking and screaming into the new millennium from the seventies. It’s a bit of a strange get-up, considering Cupid doesn’t usually wear very much at all.

  ‘An expert on it, are you? What would you do, honey? It’s either nothing or a little strip of strategically placed red velvet. I decided it was better to subvert the patriarchy, if it’s all the same to you.’

  ‘And the comb-over?’ I counter, staring at his balding head.

  He shrugs. ‘I think it gives me that little extra something. Takes ten years off me. Whaddya reckon?’

  I don’t know what to say to this—to someone who thinks a comb-over gives him a certain je ne sais quois, to quote some of that ‘French shit’, as he put it so elegantly before. I say nothing.

  He says nothing back.

  And it’s in this brief silence that I finally have time to start paying more attention to the niggling thought that’s been playing on my mind since I stopped screaming a few minutes ago. There’s something about him. Something vaguely familiar. Something about that shade of pink…

  ‘Oh!’ I suddenly point at him, and wriggle so far back on the couch I actually end up sitting on the headrest. ‘Oh!’ I point harder—at his outfit. ‘Oh!’ It takes me quite a while to form something like a coherent sentence. ‘It—you—it…’ I splutter, but then take a deep breath and try again. ‘It’s you—you I’ve been seeing. The pink flashes. I’d recognise that colour anywhere. I’m not going crazy…’ I pause as I realise what I’m doing—talking to Cupid who’s wearing a pink velvet suit. ‘I think.’

  ‘Not quite yet, anyway. Guess I should introduce myself, then, eh? Tony’s the name. You’d know me as Cupid normally, but tonight I’m filling in for the Ghost of Valentine’s Day Past.’

  Valentine’s Day Past? The words ring a bell in my mind. Hang on, that was what Mrs Batty-Smith said to me, wasn’t it? That I’d be visited by three spirits? I’d remembered them from my Dickens collection—the ghosts of Christmas Past, Christmas Present and Christmas Yet to Come. But Valentine’s Day Past? Huh? Oh, but wait. Justine was teasing me about my book the other day, wasn’t she? What did she say again? Something about needing a forklift to get it into bed with me? Ah, so that’s it.

  ‘This is ridiculous,’ I say, swivelling around on the couch so I can see down the hallway. ‘OK, Justine. You can come out now. And bring the TV cameras with you.’

  Nothing.

  I wait a long, long time before I turn back again. And when I do I start laughing—crazy laughing. What else can I do, after all? ‘Hang on, did you say Tony?’ I say.

  ‘The one and only—in town for one show only.’

  I laugh harder.

  ‘What’s wrong with Tony?’ he says, arms crossed.

  I remember I’m supposed to be keeping on his good side. ‘Nothing. Sorry, I didn’t mean to be rude. It’s just that I didn’t expect Cupid to, you know, have a name.’ I pause and gather my wits. Roll with it, Liv. Roll with it. ‘So, Tony, what are you doing here? On my coffee table, that is?’

  ‘Like I said, filling in for the Ghost of Valentine’s Day Past. He’s busy. Hot date or something. I don’t know. So I’m here to save you,’ he says, nodding, as if I should know. As if I should have it down in my diary.

  ‘And you would be saving me from…?’

  ‘From yourself.’

  Oh, but of course. I’d forgotten about the note I had made in my diary: Tuesday 9 February—remember to accidentally drop hairdryer in water while having relaxing midnight bath.

  ‘Very funny,’ Tony pipes up, having read my thoughts again. ‘I’m here to help. You don’t have to be so snarky about it.’ He pushes one hand in his back pocket and pulls something out—a packet of cigarettes. ‘You mind? Before we head out?’

  ‘Um, well, kind of. You can on the balcony, if you want…’ I only catch on to what he’s saying halfway through my sentence. ‘Wait. What did you just say? We’re going out?’ God, this really is the strangest dream.

  ‘Going out? Surely are.’ And with this he jumps neatly from the coffee table and starts off across the room. ‘Come on.’

  I sit and look at him.

  He swivels on the spot when he gets halfway across the room. ‘Come on! The sooner we go, the sooner we get back,’ he says.

  I chew on my lip for a second before I get up and take a cautious step or two across the room.

  ‘Well?’ Tony nods his head at the door beside him and I take a peek out on the balcony and consider his words about getting back. About getting it all over and done with. This at least makes sense—is something I can relate to. I tell myself this is all part of the dream, or the hallucination, or whatever it is I’m having here. And the sooner I go along with what has to be done, the sooner it really will all be over and I can get some sleep. And make that doctor’s appointment.

  I take another step forward, closer to the door. ‘Well, OK.’

  ‘That’s the girl,’ he says, reaching up for the lock. He’s too short. He jumps, trying to flick it open a second time.

  ‘Here,’ I say, taking the final step forward
to unlock it and slide it open. ‘Let me do it.’

  ‘Ta, love.’ He steps out onto the balcony and immediately lights up. I watch as he takes his first big drag and then slowly exhales. ‘Oh, I needed that, didn’t I?’

  I take one last look outside before I step onto the balcony, not wanting a repeat performance of what I’d seen in the powder room at the crematorium. There’s nothing to worry about, however. It’s quiet and still outside, nice and cool. There’s the occasional noise from the apartment blocks around us—the odd person watching TV, talking to flatmates or friends—but that’s it. I keep one eye on Tony at all times, having learnt my lesson with Mrs Batty-Smith. He puffs away joyously, and I realise, as I watch him out of the corner of my eye, that I should perhaps be more disturbed by all this than I am. Cupid is on my balcony. His name’s Tony, he’s wearing a pink velvet suit, a carnation and a ruffled shirt and he is making me wait for him while he finishes a fag.

  He catches me staring at him and double takes.

  ‘Right. Right. Sorry. We’ll be off then.’

  ‘Off?’

  ‘Yeah, like I said. Give us your hand.’ He offers me one of his.

  I hesitate, not knowing where we’re going or how we’re going to get there.

  ‘Oh, I forgot. You’re one of those, aren’t ya? One of the Cupid-haters.’

  ‘It’s nothing personal. I—’

  ‘Not personal?’ He snorts. ‘Not personal? How can it not be personal, eh? Still, you’re hardly the first. Seen hundreds. I’ve got something for the likes of you lot.’ With this, he opens one hand, and in a flash something appears in it. It looks like a harness. The sort you put on children’s backs at the shops so they don’t go wandering.

  ‘You’ve got to be joking.’ I look at him. ‘I’m not five. And it’s a bit…’

  ‘Kinky? Yeah, I know.’ He looks downcast for a second, but then recovers and grins. ‘I always try this one first. May as well have a go, yeah?’