by Tracy Bloom
“Besides, our party will be way better,” Jackie ploughed on. “Because Dave’s brother works at cash ‘n’ carry.”
No-one said anything as Jackie looked around expectantly.
Suzie tugged hopefully at Jackie’s arm.
“Come on Jackie,” she said. “We’re disturbing their meal. Let’s go and get something to eat eh?”
“What about you Drew?” asked Jackie undeterred. “You’re up for it aren’t you? Last year we told our Jamie that he could have a shandy if he did the Macarena dance for thirty minutes solid whilst wearing a Margaret Thatcher mask. We’re thinking of putting him up for Britain’s Got Talent next year.”
Drew glanced towards Emily and thought of the pianist that her parents hired most years as entertainment.
“Like I said we always go to my parents,” repeated Emily whilst throwing Jackie a false apologetic smile.
“But it wouldn’t hurt to have a change would it? Just for this year,” said Drew surprised to hear himself even suggesting it.
Confusion crossed Emily’s face for a moment before she re-composed herself. “You know we always go there. We always have and we always will,” she said brusquely, picking up her menu again and pretending to study it. “Besides I’ve already told them we’re going.”
“Tell them you’ve had a better offer,” said Jackie getting dangerously close to Emily’s personal space again. “Better still, bring them with you. The more the merrier.”
“Not sure it would be their cup of tea,” said Emily holding her ground.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” asked Jackie leaning further forward.
“Come on,” begged Suzie tugging again at her arm. “Leave it eh Jackie. We’ll miss Dave’s gig at this rate.”
“Put it this way,” said Emily ignoring Suzie in her effort not to be intimidated by Jackie. “I doubt they’ve ever heard of Britain’s Got Talent never mind watched it.”
“Are they Deep Purple fans then?” ploughed on Jackie. “Dave’s in the tribute band, Cheap Purple. You might have heard of them. They’re in the middle of a tour at the moment.”
“Where of?” asked Emily. “Strangeways?”
Jackie gasped and stepped back quickly then stumbled. She pulled herself up to her full height and pointed at Emily.
“Stuck-up cow,” she said before grabbing Suzie by the arm and turning to leave.
“It was a joke,” said Emily unconvincingly as Jackie staggered towards the exit pulling Suzie behind her.
Drew stared after the pair horrified. Suzie looked over her shoulder and mouthed a sorry to Drew just as they were about to walk through the door.
“I’d better check they’re okay,” he said getting up before Emily had a chance to stop him.
He found them outside on the pavement trying to hail a taxi. Jackie saw him first and walked straight over, flinging her arms around him. “Sorry I called her a cow,” she said leaning her head on his shoulder.
“Let’s just forget about it shall we,” said Drew trying to extract himself from Jackie’s abundant exposed flesh.
“I’m so sorry Drew,” said Suzie who looked flustered and teary. “We shouldn’t have come.”
“It’s fine really,” he said.
“You could still come to our New Year’s party,” said Jackie flinging her arms over him again.
“I don’t think that would be appropriate do you?” said Drew. “Thanks for the invite though.”
“Fair enough,” she said releasing him and wandering aimlessly towards a taxi that had pulled up.”
Drew and Suzie hovered awkwardly together, neither knowing what to say.
“I hope we haven’t ruined your night,” said Suzie with a tremble in her voice. “After all you’ve done for me today.”
“We’ll be fine,” reassured Drew. “Go on, off you go,” he urged as Jackie shouted to Suzie from the waiting cab. “I’d better go back inside to Emily.”
He watched them as they drew off, Jackie waving cheerily through the back window and Suzie looking downcast, clearly concerned over the impact her friend had made. He walked back into the restaurant and decided to take a detour to the gents and gather himself before he headed back to the table.
He locked himself in a cubicle and put his head in his hands. He felt physically sick as he wondered how he was going to handle Emily when he went back to the table. He knew she would be condescending and critical of both Jackie and Suzie for the rest of the night and he really wasn’t sure how he would cope with that.
But that wasn’t the real reason why his insides were churning. What he had no idea how to handle was the thing that no-one else had seen during the incident. An occurrence that was far more upsetting than anything else that had happened during the last few minutes. Something he knew he’d never experienced before in his life.
He’d sat there in the middle of the restaurant and felt his heart leap, his breathing quicken and a feeling of joy rush round his body. He hadn’t moved. Nothing had changed. All that had happened was Suzie walked into the room.
Chapter 12
Dear Suzie,
I met my soul mate in a bar a few weeks ago. It felt like we were made for each other. We liked all the same things, even rum and raisin ice-cream and I have never met anyone who likes rum and raisin ice-cream. We talked all night until eventually my mates got fed-up of me looking googly-eyed at Peter (he has the same name as my first pet rabbit!) so they left me to it. I ended up going home with him and he was the perfect gentleman even offering to make up the spare bed. But it felt so right that I ended up sleeping with him. Afterwards we both said that we had never felt like this before about anyone. The next day he had to work so I left early. He took my number and promised to call but that was three weeks ago. I have been to the bar that we met in nine times but he is never there. I have driven past his house every night on my way home from work but he is never in. I have even been to his local supermarket and loitered in the ice-cream section but still no sign. Now I think something bad has happened to him. Do you think I should call the police?
Desperately Worried of Didsbury
Dear Dim of Didsbury,
To coin a phrase, “He’s just not that into you”. Nothing bad has happened to him, he just never wants to see you again. .
Now the crucial thing here is how you deal with this. No tears and no feeling sorry for yourself. Most importantly what you must NOT do is walk away quietly. An entire book was written giving this advice and guess what? – it was written by a man. How convenient and how devious to make women think that this route would actually give them the upper hand. What rubbish. You make the biggest fuss possible to make him think twice before he does it again to another woman.
You are going to post a note through his letter box telling him you need to meet him secretly later that night because your boyfriend has found out that you slept together and you are very concerned for his safety.
When you meet you should tell him your boyfriend is a bouncer and you are engaged to be married. One of his bouncer mates saw you leaving the bar together and snitched on you. He has pulled a photo off the closed-circuit television that has been circulated to all the bouncers in Manchester and there is a reward on his head. Preferably very bruised head. Suggest he doesn’t go out at all for at least three months when maybe it will have died down. Finally, apologise for using him just for sex and wish him luck in finding a nice girl.
Let me know how you get on.
Suzie
Suzie hit save on her laptop and lent back on her kitchen chair. She let out a long sigh as the early Sunday afternoon silence enveloped her and she wondered what she should do with the rest of the day. She had already been through her usual Sunday ritual. Lying in bed until she was bored she had eventually mooched downstairs for strong coffee before throwing her full length winter coat over her pyjamas to wander to the corner shop. There she had purchased two newspapers, one trash and one serious just in case she bumped into someone she knew
. She had also scanned the jumbled shelves for some kind of delicious treat that contained no calories. After a fruitless search she had settled for her usual box of Mr.Kiplings apple pies then rushed home to munch her way through most of them by the time she made it to the tabloid gossip section. The TV had muttered gently in the background with its so-called hangover programming that was really just an excuse for it being crap.
Then the dreaded hours had arrived at around one o’clock in the afternoon. The papers had been read, pies eaten, coffee drunk and crap hangover TV shows replaced by serious political debate or John Craven wittering on about badgers. The dreaded Sunday afternoon social desert for any single person. Hangover cured there was a sudden desire to socialise, to get out into the real world, to feel part of the human race again. But as everyone knows that is exactly the time when the rest of the world chooses to retreat into their nests. Couples snuggle up on sofas and watch Sky Sports or Eastenders depending on who wears the trousers in the relationship. Families gather around the table and tuck into Sunday lunch leaving singles to flounder through the long hours of a Sunday afternoon with nothing to do and nowhere to go and most importantly no-one to share it with.
Starting her column for the week had provided some relief but now Suzie needed another distraction to get her past the endless alone time looming in front of her.
At 1.56pm exactly she crumbled. With a deep sigh she pulled out the drawer underneath the TV and surveyed her collection of romantic comedy DVDs - or relationship porn as Jackie called it. Just one she thought. Anything was better than going out of her mind. She decided to close her eyes and just pick one. She couldn’t bear to sit there for the next twenty minutes and analyse each storyline to decide which would cheer her up most or depress her least. Her blind selection produced When Harry Met Sally which she was pleased with. A quality rom-com if ever there was one produced long before Sandra Bullock got in on the act and reduced chick flicks to pointless pap. (While You Were Sleeping accepted of course. A truly excellent piece of pointless pap.)
She slid the disc into the DVD player and staggered back to the sofa on all fours. She fluffed a cushion under her head and prayed sleep would come before Sally realises she’s alone and nearly forty.
She felt a satisfied glow as she heard the first few familiar lines. Then as Harry began his farewell to his college sweetheart full of abundant “I love yous,” and promises to be in constant touch, she started to feel uneasy. By the time Harry had uttered the words “I miss you already,” she was head first in a nostalgic despair over her now long dead college romance.
His name was Antony. They had met during fresher’s week on the steps of the student union bar. They both had a rabbit-in-the-headlights look on their faces, the hallmark of any new student who’d not had a gap year. Neither of them had the back catalogue of egotistical stories set in exotic landscapes like Brazil or Guatemala that gave the gappers their confident swagger. They bonded over their lack of world travel and body piercings, choosing to reminisce over the brushed-cotton sheets and real gravy they had left behind along with their doting mothers.
It wasn’t long before Antony had as good as moved into her room in halls where they lived virtually as man and wife. They collected mutual friends along the way, mainly couples of course, who shared their love of cosy dinner parties with copious amounts of chilli and cheap red wine.
Suzie thought she had it made. She had no doubt that sometime in the future she would become one of those women who say, “My husband and I met at college.”
As Suzie watched an elderly couple appear on screen and tell the story of their romance, she felt deeply sad that her story had not turned out as she had expected. She hit the pause button and wandered upstairs into her bedroom. She opened the wardrobe and pulled down a large cardboard box, coughing as disturbed dust rose up. She held it in her arms for a moment considering whether to put it straight back before she trudged her way downstairs.
She laid the box on the rug in the sitting room and hit play on the DVD to reveal Sally blissfully kissing a man in an airport.
“Sucker,” she said to the screen quietly.
What she found at the top of the box caused her heart to sink even lower. She yanked the large jiffy bag out causing a puff of dirty grey confetti to flutter over the carpet like ashes as the padding oozed out of a ripped corner. How fitting she thought as she slowly extracted a clutch of envelopes and spread them on the floor. Each one bore her name and one of a selection of addresses that charted her progression around the dodgy suburbs of Manchester during her twenties. She spotted one addressed to the halls of residence she lived in during her first year of college and pulled out some flimsy sheets of writing paper that matched the envelope. The sight of fountain pen ink made her want to run back to the early nineties and beg someone to stop developing the computer there and then. It seemed so quaint and old fashioned and so utterly, utterly romantic. Antony’s signature at the bottom of the page revealed itself like a long-lost friend. Three kisses falling perfectly over the tail of the last letter of his name. She had to read quickly; the force of his early love for her somehow blasted right off the page making it hard to breathe. She deduced it had been written during a rare weekend home to see his parents during term time. He had been gone for just two nights and still felt the need to write to her. How utterly amazing. And how unbelievably archaic it now seemed. Was it conceivable that today’s electronically-enhanced man would even consider sitting down with pen and paper, writing a letter, going to the post office to buy a stamp and then posting it? Why, now that it’s ten times easier and quicker to communicate don’t we use the extra time to compose even more meaningful dialogue with the ones we love? Two pages of handwritten prose professing inner-most feelings and desires have been replaced by just four symbols. L8R? And we call that progress.
She flicked through the other forty or so envelopes now scattered on the floor to see if she could spot one that would have been written towards the end of the relationship. Eventually she found a large pale green envelope with her last address on it. She pulled out a birthday card and for a moment was confused. It wasn’t the type of card you would get from a boyfriend. It was a stupid, funny card with badly-drawn cartoon animals on the front making some pathetic joke about age. She opened it up and was amazed to see that it was from Antony. Love Antony it said. No kisses this time on the Y. No kisses at all. No message of undying love. Just a scribbled Love Antony in green biro of all things, inside a birthday card with joke-telling old badgers on the front. If ever there was a signal that a relationship was dead and buried, there it was in cartoon colours sitting in her lap.
She surveyed the bookends of her relationship with Antony she held in her hands. How had they descended from the giddy heights of matching stationery and fountain pen fervour to the depths of petrol station card patheticness? She held the birthday card up and shredded it into tiny pieces throwing each individual scrap at the TV screen as she did so.
Her sport was interrupted by the shrill ring of the doorbell. Sunday afternoon hell interrupted by a visitor. Her prayers had been answered. She rushed to the door praying it wasn’t Jehovah’s Witnesses. She was desperate, but not that desperate. She flung open the front door and there stood Drew in his Sunday afternoon casuals, hands deep in pockets looking like he was just about to take off again. She smiled with relief. A good long chat with her old mate Drew would be the perfect way to wile away an hour or so. Then it would be nearly tea-time and another Sunday afternoon knocked on the head.
“Come-in, come-in,” she said tugging on his arm before he could run away.
“Can’t stop,” he said too quickly, looking awkward.
“No,” she cried. “Just come in for a minute.” She panicked as the hour she had mentally just deleted, loomed large again.
“No honestly, stuff to do,” he protested.
“Just come in will you,” she said virtually pulling him through the doorway. “You can’t make me talk to you on t
he doorstep in my dressing gown.”
“Only for five minutes then,” he said as she slammed the door behind him.
“Make yourself at home,” she beamed, pointing towards the lounge door. “I’ll just go and make myself decent.”
“Er yeah,” he said. “Good idea.”
She ran up the stairs at break neck speed and threw on some clothes. Her sweatshirt had a coffee stain down the front but she knew Drew wasn’t the type to hold that against her. She ran back down and screeched to a halt inside the lounge doorway and breathlessly shrieked, “Tea?”
There was no reply from Drew who was perched nervously on the edge of her sofa surrounded by the sea of love letters sprinkled with torn up pieces of birthday card and grey jiffy bag fluff. To make matters worse Meg Ryan was happily gasping away in the background having a fake orgasm.
“I think I’d better go,” he said getting up. “I’m not sure I need to be a part of whatever is going on here.”
“No,” she shrieked grasping his shoulders and forcing him to sit back down. “You have to stay. I was just looking at some old love letters that’s all. I need to start thinking about my next revenge actually so it’s great that you’re here. You can help me work out how I can give Antony a taste of his own medicine.”
“No Suzie,” said Drew shaking his head. “I’ve come here to say that I cannot be a part of this anymore. It’s just …”
“But I need you,” she cried out.
Their eyes locked for a moment as she felt panic swirl around her body. Drew gave her confidence and she wasn’t sure that without him she could be the brave confident woman who was capable of standing up for herself in such dramatic ways.
It was Drew who looked away first. He stared at his shoes whilst he muttered. “I can’t Suzie. I’m really sorry but it’s time for me to leave you to it.”
“But why?” she whined. “We made such a great team yesterday. We were awesome. You said so.”
