Some Girls Do

by Murphy, Clodagh

  ‘And you were right,’ Yvonne said. ‘See? You’re so wise. That’s the advantage of age.’

  ‘Hey, a minute ago you were saying I wasn’t much older than you.’

  ‘Well, you’re older in wisdom.’

  ‘Anyway, if you couldn’t handle Luca, what makes you think I could?’ Claire might have been older in years – and even in wisdom – but she knew that Yvonne had far more experience than her when it came to men.

  ‘I have complete faith in you,’ Yvonne said airily.

  ‘Seriously, Yvonne, you know I’m out of practice. Don’t you think I should start off with someone a bit easier?’

  Claire’s social life had taken a nosedive three years earlier when she’d moved back to Ireland to look after her mother, and somehow she’d never managed to kick-start it again. She still couldn’t understand how she had let herself get into such a rut, but time had gone by so quickly. Suddenly she’d realised she hadn’t been on a single date since she’d returned home. And the longer it went on, the harder it was to change anything. She felt like such a fuddy-duddy, compared to Yvonne, her life so circumscribed. When she had been Yvonne’s age, life had seemed full of possibilities. Studying in Edinburgh, she’d had a nice circle of friends, gone on dates … It all seemed like a lifetime ago now.

  ‘Luca might be just what you need,’ Yvonne said, her eyes bright. ‘Dive in at the deep end. I mean, you don’t have much time, do you? Your mother isn’t going to be laid up for ever.’

  ‘No, that’s true. All good things must come to an end,’ Claire said drily.

  ‘Oh, you know what I mean.’

  ‘Well, I’ll do my best.’

  ‘Still, maybe you’re right – from nought to Luca might be a bit too much. But there’ll be lots of cute guys to choose from. Don’t worry, you won’t go home empty-handed.’

  It sounded more like a threat than a promise. Claire was dreading this party more by the minute. She was relieved when Tom emerged from the back room where he had been doing ordering and paperwork.

  ‘How’s your mother, Claire?’ he asked, as he joined them.

  ‘She’s fine. I called the hospital and she’s over the operation, back on the ward.’

  ‘Glad to hear it. She’ll be there for a few more days, I suppose?’

  ‘Yeah, they’re keeping her in for two or three days, and then she has four weeks in a convalescent home.’

  ‘Oh, that’s great. It’ll be a nice break for you,’ Tom said. ‘Why don’t you go early today? You can visit her and still get home at a decent hour.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Positive. Yvonne and I can cope with the hordes,’ he said, indicating the lone customer he had passed earlier, who was browsing the travel shelves. ‘Can’t we, Yvonne?’

  ‘Absolutely!’

  ‘Okay, thanks.’ Claire smiled gratefully at him.

  ‘Oh, look! He’s getting away!’ Yvonne wailed as the customer headed for the door.

  ‘He was looking for guides to Bolivia,’ Tom said. ‘We don’t have any.’

  ‘But we’ve got Chile!’ Yvonne said, already moving from behind the desk to chase after the man. ‘I hear that’s much nicer.’

  ‘She’s amazing, isn’t she?’ Tom said admiringly, as Yvonne accosted the man at the door and led him gently back towards the travel section. ‘Born to sell.’

  ‘No one goes home empty-handed …’

  Chapter Two

  Claire breathed a contented sigh as she let herself into the house that evening having paid a visit to the hospital on the way home. Her mother was still groggy after the anaesthetic so she hadn’t stayed long, but now that she knew the operation had gone well, she could relax and enjoy the rare luxury of having the house to herself. She didn’t like to admit it to Yvonne or Tom – she felt guilty acknowledging it to herself – but it was nice to have the freedom to be spontaneous and to please herself, with no one else to answer to or worry about.

  Her mother’s health had been so bad over the past year – hardly a month had gone by without some incident. Claire had come to dread getting a phone call at work to tell her that Espie had been rushed to hospital and as she turned the corner into their road each evening after work, she would find herself automatically checking for an ambulance outside their door. It was a relief to know that her mother would be surrounded by medical staff for the next few weeks and that, if anything happened, she was in the right place.

  Claire had enjoyed living alone when she was at university, and it was nice to have the freedom and independence of her single life again, if only for a short while. Of course, things were different now. When she was a student, all her friends had been footloose, and there was always someone to ring up on the spur of the moment to go for a drink or see a movie. But she had left her university friends behind when she’d moved home, and she had lost touch with most of her old schoolmates. Though she had loved Edinburgh, she sometimes wished she had gone to university in Dublin so she would have had college friends living nearby. Lisa, her best friend since childhood, had moved to Canada at the start of the year, and though they emailed and Skyped regularly, Claire missed having her around. Other friends were pairing up, so she saw them less and less, and over the past few years, her circle had shrunk to the point where it was almost non-existent.

  Nowadays she did most of her socialising online. She chatted to people on Twitter and Facebook, most of whom she’d never met, and the closest thing she had to a sex life was writing her blog – Scenes of a Sexual Nature – in which she lived vicariously through the erotic adventures of her alter ego. It was a quiet, almost nun-like existence for a girl of her age, and from time to time she worried that she was becoming a freakish loner. Even her mother occasionally suggested that she should be out enjoying herself with people her own age, meeting men, falling in love and having adventures. But Claire had never been the type for adventures. She hated nightclubs and was content to spend quiet nights in reading, chatting to her online friends or watching television with her mother. Besides, her dismal social life gave her more time to devote to writing and blogging. Sometimes when she thought about the future, she feared that life had left her behind and she would never catch up. The idea scared her, but she tried not to dwell on it too much, and mostly she was happy with things as they were.

  But it was very different from the life she had envisaged for herself – a life that had seemed to be rolling out in front of her just three years earlier. After studying English literature, followed by an MA in creative writing, she had been planning to move to London and get an entry-level job in publishing. She had been looking forward to finding work and a boyfriend, starting a career … and then she had got the call that changed everything. Her heart still leapt into her mouth whenever she remembered the night Ronan had rung to tell her their mother had been rushed to hospital with heart failure. Claire had dashed home, not knowing what she would find. Espie had pulled through, but tests revealed a heart condition that needed constant monitoring and care. Despite her mother’s protests that she was fine living alone, Claire would never have felt easy about it and, besides, she wanted to be on hand in case her mother had another crisis.

  At first she had tried to find a job in publishing, but if they were hard to come by in London, they were even scarcer in Dublin. So, determined to make the most of her circumstances, she had decided to shelve the idea for a while, get a relatively undemanding job, and concentrate instead on her writing. All her life, she had dreamed of being a writer, so it looked like a satisfactory Plan B. She had taken the job at Bookends, intending to devote all her free time to her novel.

  It hadn’t worked out like that, though. Between her job and her mother, she had found she didn’t have as much time to herself as she’d hoped, and progress on the novel had been slow and patchy. Then, a couple of years ago, she had written an erotic piece as an exercise for a creative writing class. She had enjoyed it so much that she had set up a blog to practise sustaining a voice
convincingly – as well as to give herself an outlet for her creativity that didn’t demand as much of her time.

  She hadn’t expected it to be so successful, but the feedback had been gratifyingly enthusiastic from the start and spurred her on to continue. Now it was one of the most widely read and popular sex blogs on the net. It was fun to write, and its success was a great source of pride and satisfaction. She loved getting an instant response to something she had written, and the way her followers engaged with her was a tribute to how completely she had been able to inhabit her character, the anonymous NiceGirl. Her ‘About Me’ set out her mission statement:

  I’m not a slut or a skank, just a nice girl who likes sex. Because nice girls do.

  NiceGirl had her own Twitter and Facebook accounts, with thousands of friends and followers. Claire often wondered what they would think if they discovered the reality – a twenty-eight-year-old woman who lived at home with her mother and had had sex only a few times in her life. Even then she hadn’t been sure what she was doing.

  They would probably think she had all the hallmarks of a serial killer, she thought wryly, as she settled on the sofa with a glass of wine and opened up her laptop. There was a long, newsy email from Lisa, who was having a ball in Toronto. Claire enjoyed reading about her friend’s adventures. If things had been different, they would have gone to Canada together. Instead, she was in the same old rut, and when she tried to dredge up some news to put in a reply, she couldn’t think of a single thing.

  She put the email aside to reply to later, and settled down to finish the blog post she had started at work. When she had published it, she logged onto Twitter as @NiceGirl and posted the link to it with the message:

  In which I talk about shitty break-ups … literally.

  Scrolling down her timeline, reading through recent tweets, she saw that Mark Bell was around. A well-known London publisher, he was young, handsome and hugely influential, and Claire knew she wasn’t alone in having a massive crush on him. He was the pin-up of London publishing, and had caused quite a flurry of excitement among the female members of her class when he had given a seminar on her MA course. As @NiceGirl, she had struck up an online friendship with him, and she loved their flirty, sparky relationship. He was a big fan of her blog, which was enormously flattering given his stature in the publishing world. She rated his opinion highly. She flicked back and forth between her blog and Twitter as the comments started rolling in on both, and it wasn’t long before Mark tweeted her.

  PublisherMark @NiceGirl Hello you! So, what are you wearing?

  This had been a running joke between them since she had done a couple of posts on phone sex.

  NiceGirl @PublisherMark Isn’t this a bit public for that sort of thing?

  PublisherMark @NiceGirl Thought we could combine phone sex & exhibitionism by doing it in public on Twitter.

  NiceGirl @PublisherMark Two of my favourite things! What are *you* wearing?

  PublisherMark @NiceGirl Necktie

  NiceGirl @PublisherMark Nothing else?

  PublisherMark @NiceGirl It’s dress-down Tuesday here.

  NiceGirl @PublisherMark I bet your staff appreciate that.

  PublisherMark @NiceGirl My rod and staff are delighted. They enjoy the freedom.

  Claire giggled and took a sip of her wine.

  PublisherMark @NiceGirl Actually, I was working at home today. But the cat likes it.

  NiceGirl @PublisherMark How is the cat?

  PublisherMark @NiceGirl She’s great. Very feline.

  NiceGirl @PublisherMark Huh! Typical cat.

  PublisherMark @NiceGirl You never told me what you’re wearing.

  NiceGirl @PublisherMark A big smile.

  PublisherMark @NiceGirl Did you wear that for me?

  NiceGirl @PublisherMark Of course. I know it’s your favourite.

  Locksie @PublisherMark @NiceGirl Oh, get a room, you two!

  @Locksie was Emma Locke, a colleague of Mark’s and a mutual Twitter friend.

  PublisherMark @NiceGirl @Locksie Don’t pay any attention to her. Just jealous because we’re burning up Twitter with our smokin’ hot chemistry.

  NiceGirl @PublisherMark We’ll have to get a smoking room, then.

  PublisherMark @NiceGirl Or we could get steamy in a steam room. Sorry about Mr Handy, by the way.

  NiceGirl @PublisherMark Oh, well, better to be the dumper than the dumped on.

  PublisherMark @NiceGirl I never thought he was right for you anyway. Seemed like a bit of a shit.

  NiceGirl @PublisherMark He was full of it all right. Very anal.

  PublisherMark @NiceGirl So, about that room …

  NiceGirl @PublisherMark I don’t know. How would your cat feel about that?

  PublisherMark @NiceGirl She’s not the jealous type. We have a very open relationship.

  NiceGirl @PublisherMark Really?

  PublisherMark @NiceGirl Yeah. I suspect she already has someone else on the go.

  NiceGirl @PublisherMark Comes home smelling of another cat?

  PublisherMark @NiceGirl Doesn’t come home at all some nights. Always out catting around. *Sniff*

  NiceGirl @PublisherMark She doesn’t deserve you.

  PublisherMark @NiceGirl Well, I’m open to offers. You sound like a nice girl …

  NiceGirl @PublisherMark Hey, ‘nice’ is my middle name. Actually, it’s my first name.

  Claire had another sip of wine and relaxed back against the sofa, feeling warm and tingly from their flirting. This was so much more fun than spending the night in a packed, noisy bar, with random guys hitting on her with cheesy lines. Okay, there wasn’t even the chance of a snog but the upside of that was that she didn’t have to endure the tedium of standing around for hours in uncomfortable shoes, bored to death, shouting herself hoarse to be heard over pounding music. Chatting to Mark, she felt she was experiencing a little bit of the London literary life she had always dreamed of. She was grateful that the internet gave her access to it in some small way, but it also made her yearn for it in real life – socialising with people who cared about the same things as she did and shared the same interests, finding a boyfriend who belonged to that world, maybe meeting Mark himself …

  She drifted away from Twitter to check the comments on her blog, and she was in the middle of typing a reply to one when a direct message popped up on Twitter. Her heart skipped a beat when she saw it was from Mark and she felt a little spark of pleasure, almost as if he had touched her.

  PublisherMark Hi! Could we meet up IRL? I have a proposition for you.

  Claire’s heart was pounding as she read the message. She felt excited and a little nervous. She had never expected their flirting to carry through into real life. Had he really meant it about getting that room? she wondered, simultaneously thrilled and appalled. It took her a while to decide on a noncommittal response.

  NiceGirl What sort of proposition?

  PublisherMark It’s about your blog. Would like to discuss doing a book. DM me your email address if you’re interested.

  Claire experienced a fleeting twinge of disappointment, but it was quickly replaced by elation. Mark was interested in turning her blog into a book. This could be huge! Maybe Mark was about to make her dream of becomming a published author a reality.

  She sent him the anonymous email address she used for blog purposes, and then she waited. She had expected him to email her immediately, but the minutes ticked by and nothing appeared in her inbox. He seemed to have disappeared from Twitter. She scrolled back through her timeline and found that his last tweet had been when he was chatting to her. She would just have to be patient, she thought, trying to busy herself with replying to comments on her blog and chatting to other people. Finally, she decided to step away from the computer for a while, and went to the kitchen to make dinner: a watched inbox never delivered.

  She had just made sauce and put pasta on to cook when she heard the email alert on her laptop and raced back to the sofa. It was from Mark with th
e subject ‘Proposition’. She was almost afraid to read it, hesitating for a few seconds before clicking it open.

  Hi NiceGirl

  It was good to chat this evening, and thanks for the email address. Sorry for the delay in getting back to you. I was meeting some friends on the Heath for a run and they turned up.

  So, here’s the thing. As you know, I’m a big fan of your blog, and I’d love to publish a book based on it, if you’d be interested in doing that. I think we could sell a lot of copies. Perhaps we could meet up to discuss it, if you’re willing to reveal your true identity. It would be great to meet you in person.

  Hoping to hear from you

  Mark x

  Claire scanned the email rapidly, barely able to take in what it said. Then she read it again, analysing every word and nuance. The tone was less chummy and a little more formal than when they were chatting on Twitter, which was only to be expected when he was contacting her in a professional capacity. But he had signed off with a kiss, and there was nothing proper or professional about that. She was going to meet him in real life – and he was interested in offering her a book deal! She squealed with delight, hugging herself as she read the message again. Then she jumped up and did a little dance around the living room, glad her mother wasn’t there to witness it. There was no way she’d have been able to explain her behaviour, and it was nice to celebrate a little, even if she was alone. She poured herself some more wine and raised the glass to her laptop in a toast, then sat back down and composed herself to type a reply.

  Hi Mark

  I would love to do a book based on the blog. It would be a dream come true for me! It would be great to meet you in person. I’m in Dublin (Ireland, not Ohio). But I would be happy to come to London to meet you, if that suits.