Single Woman Seeks Revenge: Another Very Funny Romantic Novel

by Tracy Bloom

  “Majestic Hotel. Can I help you?” a voice replied after way too many rings.

  “Do you have a glitter ball in your ballroom?” she blurted out.

  “Excuse me?”

  “Do you have a glitter ball in your ballroom?” she repeated urgently. Did this woman not realize how crucial this information could be?

  “Err, no madam, not usually although a gentleman did have one installed last night for a special occasion so it is possible if you’d like us to look into it for you?”

  Suzie didn’t hear the last part of her answer because she’d already put the phone down. Or rather she’d dropped the phone on the floor, buried her head in Drew’s shirt and wept until she could weep no more.

  Chapter 26

  It was Monday 22nd of December and she was wearing her favourite dress without tights and six inch heels. She had debated tights for a good hour that morning. Trying the dress with and without them several times before finally deciding that she looked better without. The fact that she could no longer feel her toes as she pushed open the door of the Manchester Herald building, barely registered. The only thing she was aware of that morning were her raw emotions, so utterly and totally worn to shreds that she felt like she’d been on a coffee binge for the last twelve hours. The fact that she had indeed been on a coffee binge for the last twelve hours gave her a complete out of body experience as she watched herself slowly climb the stairs to the first floor where her desk was. Where her desk was next to Drew’s desk. She paused again as she got to the top of the stairs, smoothed down her dress, rubbed her lips together to ensure maximum gloss coverage and painted a huge smile on her face.

  The first sign that the morning could prove challenging came as she passed Clare on her way to the kitchen to get coffee. She paused to ask her how her boyfriend was post the party but was greeted with a frosty glare followed by a pointed stare at the floor avoiding all eye contact. After her initial shock Suzie carried on to her desk determined to focus on the key task of the day.

  She stared at the floor for the rest of her journey unwilling to let any other distractions enter her mind as she approached Drew. Finally she saw the welcome sight of his waste paper basket and allowed herself to look up mentally repeating, her carefully-rehearsed first words.

  “Drew I am so sorry, I ….’” she blurted out until she clocked that his seat was empty.

  Must be on a coffee run she thought to herself. She sighed with relief. Time to gather herself.

  Having taken her coat off she sat down and nervously drummed her fingers on the desk top. What now she thought. She was too wired even to attempt any work. She had to get this sorted before she could ever concentrate on anything ever again. She gazed at her desk hoping for some kind of distraction but the usual chaos urgently needing her attention only acted to further increase her impatience to see Drew. She looked at his desk and wondered at his organizational skills and capacity for neatness. It made her smile fondly, a reaction to thoughts of Drew she had slowly but surely woken up to over the last twenty-four hours. Twenty-four hours of watching the moment. The moment in every romantic comedy when the couple fall in love. As she watched her heart physically ached as she realised she wished with all her heart that she was Meg Ryan at the top of the Empire State Building when Tom Hanks arrives to start their life together. She realised for the first time that however happy she made herself getting her own back on the men who broke her heart, and however happy she made the women whose hearts she tried to mend, never in a million years could she ever make a woman as happy as that. As happy as when cupid strikes. But more than that she had spent twenty-four hours watching these films and realising that every hero was not a patch on Drew. None of them laughed at her jokes like he did, none of them believed in her like he did, none of them were her rock, none of them got her, none of them completed her and every other cliché that exists in the world of love. Clichés that are irritating until you fall in love and then they become your clichés.

  Of course, along with the realization that Drew had given her her hope back came the knowledge that she had destroyed her own happy ending. Not just destroyed it, crushed it to death in the most horrific way possible. She’d spent a long time in mourning believing her life to be over. Realising she’d got it totally and utterly wrong. At the depths of her despair she found herself staring yet again at the image of Sandra Bullock on screen in While You Were Sleeping as she stood at the altar marrying the wrong brother. It was then that it struck her how stupid she was and hope crept back. Happy endings don’t just happen. There is always something that goes wrong. Something that forces you to strive even harder to live your destiny. What would a happy ending be without the misery you have to experience as a prelude? She realised in her rom-com fuddled state that blowing off Drew’s declaration of true love was merely the hurdle she had to overcome to prove that this is what she truly wanted. Thank you Sandra she’d whispered. Thank you for reminding me. Then she had stayed up all night preparing her speech, preparing her outfit, preparing everything for the following morning when she would be able to reconcile with Drew and live happily ever after.

  Still no Drew. It can’t take this long to make coffee she thought. Maybe he’s out interviewing she thought devastated. She had so planned this moment that any blip was a cause for major upset. She leant over to see if his computer screen was switched on so she could take a look at his calendar. Nothing happened when she moved the mouse. Nothing apart from her noticing that his Manchester City mug used to contain his Manchester City pen and pencil set was not perched on top of the hard drive as usual. Which was odd because no-one was allowed to touch this small shrine.

  Her hand flew to her mouth. She stood up so quickly her chair tipped over behind her, weighed down by her coat. She threw open his top drawer. Empty. His hanging file drawer. Empty. His drawer usually kept locked for fear of Suzie stealing his secret stash of gummy bears. Empty. The bears were gone. Which meant Drew was gone.

  No this wasn’t supposed to be happening. This could not be happening. Where the hell was he? What was going on?

  She ran. She ran as fast as she could in six inch heals up two flights of stairs and down a corridor until she got to the editor’s door. It was closed but she didn’t pause to knock. Just flung it open, falling into the office completely breathless and having acquired a limp.

  “Where is he?” she huffed, trying to control her breathing.

  “Suzie,” exclaimed Gareth angrily. “You cannot just come barging in here.”

  “Where is he?” she repeated.

  “I have no idea who you are talking about but now you are here I want a word with you.”

  “Where is he?” she said yet again more desperately.

  “Shut up and sit down,” said Gareth looking very angry indeed.

  She slumped in a chair and tried to get her breath back.

  “So when were you going to tell me?” he asked looking very unhappy.

  “Tell you what?”

  “That the Mirror have offered you a job?”

  Mirror? Job? She couldn’t even think about that now, she had much bigger things on her mind.

  “I can’t believe it Suzie. I gave you such a great opportunity here with Dear Suzie, and you’re going to throw it in my face and go and work for a competitor.”

  Hang on a minute thought Suzie, Gareth’s words somehow sinking in. Dear Suzie was all her idea and the Manchester Herald is hardly competition to a national tabloid.

  She opened her mouth to defend herself but all that came out was her repeated plea for the whereabouts of her colleague.

  “Drew?” he said finally listening to her desperate request. “You want to know where Drew is?” he laughed. “He’s gone Dear Suzie. And after the way you treated him on Saturday I’m not surprised.”

  “Gone where?” she asked, desperate now, feeling her future slipping through her fingers.

  “I have no idea. He said he needed to get away. Get away from you no doubt.
” He stood and crossed his arms, relishing her anguish.

  The tears started to fall then. Tears of exhaustion and extreme disappointment.

  Eventually Gareth conceded enough to hand her a tissue.

  “Is he coming back?” she managed to sniff.

  “Not sure,” said Gareth. “Said he’d call in the New Year. So thanks to you Dear Suzie, it looks like I’ve also lost my best reporter.”

  She buried her head in her tissue unable to meet his eyes. The room was quiet for a few moments as Suzie sat reeling from the news, feeling like she’d been stabbed in the heart with a blunt knife. Then Gareth spoke up and pushed the knife in even deeper.

  “I’ll print the story,” he said.

  “What story?” asked Suzie through a blur.

  “I’ll print the story of how Dear Suzie is not the female warrior she has painted herself as. The story of how she stole another woman’s fiancée. The story of how she broke the kindest most romantic man in the world. I’ll print that story if you go to the Mirror and then Dear Suzie will be no more because you’ll never get another woman to trust you again.”

  Suzie drew a sharp breath. How could he do that to her? How could he do that to Drew?

  “You are evil,” she breathed.

  “I think you’ll find that you’re no Snow White yourself,” he replied with a smug grin.

  She stared at him for some time. She had started the day so full of hope and now Drew was gone and her boss was threatening to destroy her career.

  Chapter 27

  “What if I stay?” she asked bursting back into Gareth’s office an hour later. His threat and the news of Drew’s disappearance had caused a cold hand of panic to clutch at her heart and she’d started to hyper-ventilate. Eventually Gareth had called for a first aider and Di had come to the rescue, paper bag in hand, and led her down to the canteen bawling her eyes out between desperate gasps for breath. Three bags later and a whisky miniature that Di kept for emergencies and she was starting to breath normally. Sitting there in a daze whilst Di droned on about the over fifties speed dating event she’d been to the previous week, a sense of determination started to override the panic. She’d cast herself as a romantic heroine now and she couldn’t allow the disappearance of her leading man and the threats of the Evil Baron Editor to get in her way. She would get that happy ending if it killed her.

  “Front half of the paper, full page, picture with byline,” Gareth replied without batting an eye when she burst into his office for the second time.

  “Full editorial control,” she barked back.

  “Yeah, yeah, whatever,” he said waving his hand dismissively.

  “In writing, in the hour or else I walk,” she said turning to leave.

  “You got it,” said Gareth smugly. “You won’t regret it,” he shouted after her as she strode down the corridor.

  “I won’t, you might,” she muttered to herself as she dashed down the stairs to start work on her column immediately. She had no time to lose.

  Chapter 28

  “I am not printing this crap!” said Gareth the following day, slamming the copy for her latest column down on her desk.

  “It’s not crap,” said Suzie defiantly.

  “No, you’re right. It’s actually pathetic drivel.” replied Gareth. “Where’s the hate? Where’s the vitriol? Where’s the blunt honesty?” He slammed his hand on the desk at the end of each sentence.

  “This is what women really want,” said Suzie pointing at the column calmly.

  “I do not give a shit what women really want,” said Gareth turning red. “I want Dear Suzie back so you’d better start writing now.”

  “Giving a shit about what women really want is what made the column so successful in the first place. Now I am telling you this is what women really, really want.”

  “So you’ve changed your mind about what women want, is that what you’re telling me?”

  “Precisely.”

  “Bloody women,” shouted Gareth putting in head in his hands.

  “And I’d like to point out that my new contract says I have full editorial control,” said Suzie, putting it under Gareth’s nose where that particular clause had been highlighted in pink.

  “Full editorial control to be as vicious as you have been in the past, not to submit this nonsense,” he said.

  “Gareth,” she said calmly. “This column will have the best response yet, believe me. This is going to work.”

  “It had better or your job is on the line young lady,” he said strutting away.

  Suzie sat back and picked up the sheets of paper that Gareth had thrown on her desk and chewed her lip as she read it for the millionth time. It had better work or everything was on the line she thought.

  Dear Readers,

  I would like to end this year with my official Christmas message, knowing that it is crazy season out there when it comes to affairs of the heart.

  Looking for love is a lot like Christmas. Endless build-up and huge expectations which inevitably lead to disappointment.

  And yet every time we expect it to be different. Every time we hope and dream that this will be the one that lives up to the fairy tale.

  For that reason I have decided that there will be no more Dear Suzie column as you know it.

  Why? Because the last thing I want is for you to stop looking forward to Christmas. You stop looking forward to Christmas and you have lost all hope in the joy that life can bring. I don’t know about you but that is not someone who I want to spend time with.

  And I have come to realise that I don’t want you to stop looking forward to love. Dear Suzie has become so focused on the agony of failed love and how to fight that battle that it has forgotten the fundamental reason why you have all written those painful letters in the first place.

  Because you all know that the biggest joy we can experience is to love and be loved and the active pursuit of that is our most important role in life.

  And so this column in future will focus on how to find true love, not how to beat someone up who failed to love you back. Because as satisfying as revenge can be, it will never make you as happy as finding someone to love and to love you. After all there are a million love songs but hardly any are written about revenge.

  And if all that throws you into a blind panic as to how you’re going to cope, putting yourself out there to find love knowing that it doesn’t happen without agony, pain and disappointment, then you will be pleased to know that I have my first piece of advice to help you.

  Just follow this basic rule.

  Look for your reflection. Just look into his eyes and see what he sees. Honestly and truthfully. If you see yourself in a way that you want to be seen, in a way that makes you look your best then you know it’s right. You have the makings of a happy relationship.

  If the reflection you see is bad, when you realize in your heart of hearts he doesn’t see you how you want to be seen then walk away. Walk away before he puts you in agony because for sure he will. Let him be the first to know he’s just not worth it before you get anywhere near the level of needing revenge. Why waste your time? Go and search somewhere else for your best reflection.

  Merry Christmas

  Suzie.

  Suzie gulped before she carried on reading. She had written one other letter for the special Christmas edition and this was the one that really mattered. It was a risk she knew, but she didn’t know what else to do.

  To whom it concerns

  I saw my reflection. I saw my reflection just for a moment in your eyes on that dance floor, under the glitter ball. And then it was gone. Ruined by my stupidity, by my selfishness, and by my self-importance.

  I would do anything to see that reflection again. I know you are not a man on the verge of disappointing me. Quite the opposite. All you have done is given me confidence and self-esteem while all I have done is be a big disappointment to you. Exactly what I have accused every man on the planet of being.

  I realise now
that we are all human and that we all make mistakes. Maybe some mistakes do deserve to be punished, but now I realise everyone deserves the chance to put it right. And I want to put it right with you. Because I need to see that reflection again. And I need you to see your reflection in my eyes because the way I see it, it’s outstanding.

  Please give me the chance to put it right. Please come back. I want the happily ever after and I want it with you, just like Harry and Sally.

  You’ll know where to find me.

  Suzie

  Chapter 29

  New Year’s Eve – 8.00pm

  Jackie looked up from the large bowl that she was pouring a bottle of Ouzo into.

  “When did you last go to Greece?” asked Suzie.

  “With you, you muppet,” she replied. “You remember. To celebrate my divorce. We lived on this stuff.”

  “But that must be nearly ten years ago?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Won’t it taste bad?”

  “Probably. But how else do you get rid of the disgusting muck you bring back off holiday. I’ve got some Limonchello to put in it. That’ll make it taste better.”

  “I think I’ll stick to wine,” said Suzie pulling a face.

  “Should you be drinking? You don’t want to be pissed when he comes do you?”

  “When who comes,” asked Dave coming over and dipping a plastic cup into Jackie’s deadly cocktail.

  “Drew,” said Jackie reaching for the ginger ale.

  Dave stopped mid sip. “The guy whose best mate you slept with?” he asked, totally aghast. “I can’t believe he’s even talking to you.”

  “He isn’t yet,” said Suzie.

  “But you’ve invited him tonight?” pressed Dave.

  “Not exactly,” said Suzie looking away embarrassed.

  Dave drained his plastic cup, coughed, and then gripped the edge of the kitchen counter as if to brace himself.