by Tracy Bloom
“So tell me Dear Suzie how does he know to come if you haven’t exactly asked him?” he asked.
“I wrote him a letter.”
“And you invited him in the letter?”
Suzie reached for a cup, dipped it in the punch, downed it in one, and then gripped the edge of the kitchen counter as if to brace herself.
“No, I just hinted.” She stared at Dave defiantly.
“You hinted?”
“Yep.”
“Would you please tell me how you merely hinted asking someone to a New Year’s Eve party?” asked Dave, looking confused between Suzie and Jackie.
“I said that I wanted to live happily ever after just like in the film, When Harry met Sally.”
“And that is a request for his company at tonight’s party in what way?” asked Dave his eyebrows shooting upwards.
“Oh Dave for goodness sake, have you no romantic bone in your body?” interrupted Jackie in frustration. “Everyone knows that Harry and Sally get together on New Year’s Eve.”
Dave stared at Jackie for some time with a deeply furrowed brow.
“He won’t get it,” he said finally. “This is some kind of weird trick that you women dream up to get what you want and then you’re pissed off when it doesn’t happen. He’s a man. He won’t get it.”
“You’re right,” said Suzie quietly. “He is a man. He’s a man who went to the trouble of trying to give me my hope back by recreating my teenage years. He put up a glitter ball, he played Rick Astley and drank weak Cinzano,” she said almost crying now. “If he wants to get it, he’ll get it,” she said before grabbing a glass of punch and heading towards the door to the back garden to calm down.
9.00pm
Suzie tried very hard to not keep looking up every time the door went. But it was impossible. Every time the cheerful chime of Rudolf the Red Nose Reindeer rang out from Dave’s seasonal doorbell her heart leapt into her mouth. But time after time it fell back into her sparkly silver sling backs as another batch of Jackie and Dave’s relatives, friends and colleagues trooped in.
She had also realised as she surveyed the swelling numbers of the party that somehow in the last year she had crossed a threshold. Last year, the New Year’s Eve party she had attended had been a strictly adults only affair. Black tie, a band and tasteful black and silver balloons. This year she’d been thrust into the Wacky Warehouse World of New Year’s Eve. Toddlers did their best to trip her up whilst chasing Bob the Builder balloons round and round the living room. Parents were dealing with their booze-drinking teenagers by getting pissed. On her way back from the bathroom upstairs she had caught a young boy and girl playing hide and seek under the coats on Jackie’s bed. It felt like only yesterday when it would have been her on that bed at a party, getting groped no doubt by some drunken male. How had she ended up here, she wondered? Suddenly the lone single female at a family party on New Year’s Eve. The spinster. She hurried downstairs to grab another drink and sit outside the front door until Drew arrived.
10.00pm
“He’s not coming,” shrieked Suzie.
“What?” replied Jackie over the din of some unrecognisable music that the teenagers in attendance had put on.
“I said he’s not coming,” she repeated desperately.
Jackie turned to a near-hysterical Suzie and grabbed both her shoulders.
“He’ll come,” she said firmly.
“Prince Harry not here yet then?” shouted Dave over Jackie’s shoulder.
“I was just telling her that he will come,” said Jackie. “You tell her Dave. He will come won’t he? You don’t go to the trouble that he did and not give her a chance.”
“He’s not coming,” said Dave. “Get used to it.”
“What am I going to do?” wailed Suzie burying her head in Jackie’s shoulder. “I’ve ruined everything.”
“Ignore him for a start,” said Jackie glaring at Dave.
“I’m just giving her the blunt truth sweetheart,” said Dave. “Suzie believes in blunt truth don’t you?” he continued.
Suzie wailed her response.
“That man is a pure romantic Dave Smith,” said Jackie. “And he will come. And when he does take note because you could learn a thing or two off him.”
“If he comes, he’s soft as shit,” said Dave under his breath.
“Dave,” exploded Jackie. “I will not have you swearing in front of the children. Now stop being such a twat.”
“He’s not coming,” shouted Dave.
“He is,” shouted Jackie.
“He isn’t,” shouted back Dave.
“He is,” shrieked Jackie.
“He isn’t,” repeated Dave.
“You’re a wanker,” declared Jackie.
“And you are a stupid cow,” replied Dave just as the track that they’d been shouting over finished and all went quiet.
The throng of kids turned to stare at the feuding couple whilst Suzie fled to get another drink and calm down outside.
11.00pm
“He’s coming,” shrieked Suzie tapping Jackie furiously on the shoulder.
“What, where?” replied Jackie, releasing her lips from a passionate smooch with her husband in the middle of the makeshift dance floor in the living room.
“He’s coming,” she grinned embracing both Jackie and Dave in her slightly drunken excitement. “But he’s not going to get here until midnight is he? Just like Harry. Harry turns up at midnight. I’m stupid. I’ve been watching the door all night and actually he’ll do it just like in the film. He’ll turn up just as the clock strikes.”
“Of course he will,” said Jackie smiling. “Of course he will won’t he Dave?”
Dave grinned back, the grin of a truly drunken man in the arms of his loved one.
“Of course he will,” he repeated before pulling his wife back towards him and engulfing her in his lips.
Just Past Midnight New Year’s Eve
Suzie stared out into the night until she couldn’t see. Her vision went blurred and she realised she had steamed up the double glazing with her tears.
“He didn’t come,” she muttered over and over to herself. She looked at the two glasses she had carefully filled with champagne and balanced on the windowsill in preparation for celebration and realised how stupid she was. Of course he didn’t come. He was never going to come. She’d disappointed him. Really disappointed him, and she expected him to get over it just like that. Expected him to understand she had made a mistake and he had to forgive her. She’d spent weeks telling her readers not to forgive but to punish, and punish hard. How could she expect Drew not to punish her? How could she even dream that not only would he forgive her but that they would both live happily ever after? She was stupid and deserved to be alone at the time of the entire year when it hurt the most.
Eventually she decided she must tear her eyes away from the garden path but didn’t think she could face what was going on behind her. She fully expected to be confronted by a sea of loved-up couples celebrating the new year with a passion, fuelled by hope for the year to come and too many of Jackie’s punches.
She turned around slowly and felt a curious sense of relief as she took in the only other occupants of the front room. A small swarm of children huddled in the dark watching the Cartoon Network on the TV. Over-active, over-cheerful, over-colourful cartoon characters reflected on their exhausted faces.
She felt her heart suddenly soar at frightening speed. Maybe her watch was wrong. Maybe it wasn’t midnight after all. Of course that was it. She hadn’t heard a hint of Auld Lang Syne yet. She looked around desperately for a clock to confirm her assumption but there was none to be found. She bent over and grabbed the remote control out of a half-asleep toddler’s hand and started flicking randomly between channels. She just needed to see Jools Holland and then everything would be alright. She’d know what time it was then.
Just as the sight of champagne-swigging, streamer-festooned celebrities filled the screen she f
elt a sharp pain in her left ankle and let out a magnificent scream. A boy of about seven stood in front of her.
“Give it back or I’ll tell her to bite the other one,” he demanded, nodding at the cute little girl in a reindeer outfit with the sharp teeth.
She dropped the remote control and limped away petrified into the kitchen. Things were not going to plan. In fact things must be way out of control if your first bodily contact of the New Year was a baby sinking her teeth into your leg.
She looked around desperately for Jackie. She needed to see at least one person who loved her. Someone to make her feel minutely better than she did right at this moment. She was nowhere to be seen in the kitchen so she made her way upstairs thinking that she must finally be putting one of her brood to bed. The children’s rooms were empty but she eventually found Jackie with Dave, scrambling under the pile of coats on their bed in a semi-state of undress.
Jackie peered up over a dodgy sheepskin when she heard the door open.
“Did he come?” she shrieked. “Did he come?”
Dave’s rosy cheeks appeared next to her in a flash and looked at a downcast Suzie.
“Of course he bloody didn’t,” he said. “Now if anybody is going to come it’s me, so can we drop all this romance malarkey and just get on with it?” he said to Jackie pulling her back down.
Suzie felt her bottom lip start to tremble. She made a lunge for her red wool coat and turned and fled hearing Jackie shouting after her to come back. She didn’t breathe until she was outside and had slammed the front door shut behind her. Then she wept. She wept and sank to the ground on Jackie and Dave’s front door step at precisely eleven minutes past midnight on New Year’s Eve.
Chapter 30
She had no idea what time it was when she started to walk home. She couldn’t bear to look at her watch again. In fact she couldn’t look at her watch at all, because at some point she had taken it off and thrown it into the blackness in despair.
All she could hear was the steady tap of her shoes and the eerie sound that drizzle makes when it is being whipped around by the wind. Her hair was plastered to her face and she knew it must be cold but she couldn’t feel a thing. Nothing.
She couldn’t feel her feet which was strange. Like she was floating on air. This walk was usually the walk of pain having had a night of full-on dancing in uncomfortable shoes, every step accompanied by a wince. She couldn’t feel her body. She knew she wasn’t numbed by alcohol as she had stopped drinking at 11 o’clock in order to be fully with it by midnight. But the weirdest, perhaps scariest thing was that she couldn’t feel fear. Normally if she were walking the streets of Manchester alone after midnight she would be jumping at every shadow convinced she was about to be attacked. But tonight she didn’t care. No-one else was bothered whether she got home safely or not, so why should she care? This thought added further tears to mingle with the drizzle drenching her face.
As she turned the corner into her street she slowed down to a dawdle. She couldn’t face the thought of her chilly, dark, and empty flat and what arriving there alone would do to her already distraught mood. She couldn’t bear to see the state she had left her bathroom in because she knew it was the perfect picture of the hope she’d felt at the start of the evening. Make-up, hair products, perfumes and moisturisers were strewn everywhere. The essential tools required to herald the start of a new relationship.
But most heart-breaking of all would be to see her bedroom. Cleaned to within an inch of its life, fresh sheets, mood lighting and music at the ready. It was a room waiting for something significant to happen. Now it was an unwelcome reminder of how alone she truly was.
Just yards from her front door she stopped in her tracks. That’s all I need she thought as she tugged unsuccessfully at her heel caught firmly in a crack in the pavement. It would not budge so she was forced to step out of her shoe and feel the unpleasant sensation of grubby wet pavement seep through her tights onto freezing toes. As she bent over and pulled hard at the shoe she became aware of heavy footsteps running towards her and finally her survival instincts started to kick in. This is it she thought panicking. This is it. This is the moment that I die. She yanked furiously at the shoe whilst mentally preparing where on the body of her attacker she should stab with her stiletto first.
Then the footsteps stopped and she could hear heavy breathing above her.
“Let me get that,” said a voice.
Just at that moment the shoe freed itself and Suzie stumbled back falling onto the pavement.
“Leave me alone,” she shouted, brandishing the shoe. “Leave me alone or you’ll get this in the bollocks.”
“Charming,” said Drew holding his hand out to help her up.
“Drew,” she yelped. She stared up at him not feeling the filthy wet pavement now seeping through her dress.
“Are you okay?” he asked, pulling her up. “I didn’t mean to frighten you.”
She continued to stare back at him trying to process the stream of thoughts and emotions running through her head.
“What are you doing here?” she finally managed to ask.
“Well,” he said. “After several viewings of When Harry Met Sally and consultations with several romance obsessed females I finally worked out what you meant in your letter. I’m assuming you wanted me to come and meet you at midnight at Jackie’s party, right?”
Suzie nodded silently, not trusting herself to speak.
“Only I don’t know where Jackie lives do I, you muppet?’
Suzie stared back at Drew dumbstruck. How could she have forgotten something as stupid as that?
“So I thought I’d just wait for you here.”
There was an awkward silence until Suzie finally managed to speak.
“Why?” she asked shyly.
“Because you asked me to,” Drew replied.
“I know, but really why?” she asked again. Come on she thought. Put me out of my misery. Tell me this is the start of us.
“Really why?” he asked looking confused.
“Yeah, really why?”
“Is this one of those weird subtle things again that I have to decipher because I tell you what, we’re going to need a translator.”
“Shall we start again?” she asked.
“Yes please,” he replied.
“I’m so sorry,” she gushed, unable to stop the flow of tears. “For what I did. I’m so ashamed. I was so in the wrong. Can you forgive me?” She looked up at him pleadingly.
He didn’t say anything for a moment then he pulled her towards him.
“I’m not sure,” he said looking into her eyes. “I need to look at you first. Really look at you. I need to see what my reflection looks like.”
She gulped as she stared up into his eyes. Drew’s eyes. Her Drew. Her friend Drew. Her soul mate Drew. She saw him clearly for the very first time. As the person who she wanted to spend the rest of her life with. As the person who she never wanted to disappoint ever again.
“How does it look,” she asked finally unable to bear the suspense.
“I like it,” he said smiling. “I like it very much. I think you take at least ten pounds off me.
She laughed. She threw her head back and laughed. She laughed the laugh of a woman who had achieved the greatest joy in life. To love and be loved.
“Just one more thing,” said Drew when she’d got herself back in control. “If you ever make me watch When Harry Met Sally again it’s over.”
“I don’t need to watch it again,” she said. “I’ve got my own happily ever after standing right in front of me. Well almost happily ever after,” she said putting her arms around his neck and pulling him towards her as they had their first kiss at precisely fifty seven minutes past midnight on New Year’s Eve.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Firstly I would like to say that this book was NOT inspired by the men in my life. Most of the men I know are brilliant. But there is always the odd one isn’t there!
Cheers to
my friend Helen for her down-to-earth wit that has helped me look funny in this book, and to Gemma whose honest support is so treasured.
For technical advice I must thank Marc and Bruce on the football front whilst Mum, Dad, Helen, Andrew, Gillian, Chris, David, and Gillian and Chris in New Zealand offer family sustenance that I simply could not cope without.
Much thanks must also go to Peta Nightingale and Araminta Whitley at the LAW agency for their continued support, along with cake and Prosecco - keep it coming.
Of course I didn’t get the chance to thank everyone for their help in my last book, NO-ONE EVER HAS SEX ON A TUESDAY, so I’m going to do it now. Thanks Kate for being my first reader, your insight was brilliant. Thank you Richard at Mustard Research of Manchester for proving that no-one ever has sex on a Tuesday. You were key! Freerange PR and Diane for their kind help in getting it out there. Colin at Prontaprint, always on hand, I promise to never make you sleep outside again!
Finally I’d like to thank The One Off, a brilliant design agency based in Derbyshire, who having never designed a book cover before did a brilliant job with both my books. I have no doubt of the great contribution they have made to my success.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Tracy Bloom started writing when her cruel, heartless husband ripped her away from her dream job shopping for rollercoasters for the UK’s leading theme parks, to live in America with a brand new baby and no mates. In a cunning plan to avoid domestic duties and people who didn’t understand her Derbyshire accent, she wrote NO-ONE EVER HAS SEX ON A TUESDAY. It went on to be successfully published internationally and became an Amazon Number 1 Best Seller. Now she is chuffed to bits to have a new dream job, making people laugh and sometimes cry through her writing. Back in good old England now and cracking on with writing about other people who screw up their lives in a hilarious fashion including the sequel, NO-ONE EVER HAS SEX AFTER A BABY.
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