It's Got to Be Perfect: the memoirs of a modern-day matchmaker

by Haley Hill

  I laughed.

  ‘But especially stupid cows, that have a choice, yet still want to join the queue.’

  The first rumblings of laughter echoed down the staircase, like the warning tremor before an earthquake.

  ‘Talking of stupid cows,’ Mia said, ‘here’s a herd now.’ The laughter spilled into the lounge bar followed by the five Mandi clones charging down the staircase.

  I smirked at Mia.

  ‘Actually, I think a more appropriate collective noun would be a murder,’ Mia said.

  ‘Or a gaggle?’ I suggested.

  ‘More like a giggle,’ Steve said as he cleared away the coffee cups.

  The new recruits sat around our table, each modelling a different shade of pink like a Mr Marbella nipple colour chart. With their pens poised, and their blonde hair styled in perfect flicks, they looked at me expectantly.

  ‘Where’s Mandi?’ one of them asked.

  I had given up trying to guess who was who. I shrugged my shoulders and turned to Mia, who looked equally baffled.

  ‘She’s supposed to be training us today,’ another one said.

  ‘On what?’ Mia asked.

  They all raised their hands as though it were a test. Mia pointed to the nearest one.

  ‘Transactional relationships,’ she said.

  Mia smiled drolly. ‘Might stay for this one.’

  When we were seated in the meeting room, the door swung open and Mandi burst in to a collective gasp. Her hair was scraped back in a black scrunchie, and she was wearing black jeans and a black t-shirt with the words “Fuck Love” emblazoned across it. Her skin was lacking its usual pink blush and gloss, and under her eyes were co-ordinating black circles.

  She marched towards to the whiteboard, scrawled the letters “T” and “R” in black marker and then turned to face us.

  ‘Transactional Relationships,’ she began. ‘Or Tits and Rich as Mia says.’

  The new recruits gasped.

  Mandi continued. ‘Trading something you have for something you want, that is valued equally by both parties. What’s the oldest transactional relationship in history?’

  One of the recruit’s hands shot up.

  ‘Prostitution,’ she said and then looked up to the heavens as though she had committed blasphemy.

  ‘Yes,’ Mandi said, nodding. ‘Sex for money. What else can sex be exchanged for?’

  The recruits looked puzzled.

  ‘Gucci handbags?’ Mia suggested. ‘A Cartier watch, Michelin star dining, a new pair of boobs, luxury holidays, a mock Tudor house in Essex.’

  Mandi mimed a stop sign. ‘They’re just other variations of sex for money. What else can sex be exchanged for?’

  The collective frown of the recruits deepened.

  ‘Why would one hundred and three girls have sex with a barman? What are they getting out of it?’

  In the corner of my eye, I saw what looked like Steve’s shadow loitering outside the meeting room. One of the recruit’s hands shot up and blocked my view.

  ‘Pleasure,’ she said.

  Mia sneered.

  ‘Intimacy?’ Another one suggested.

  Mandi rolled her eyes. ‘From a one-night stand?’

  ‘She means pseudo intimacy,’ Mia chipped in.

  Mandi’s eyes were still rolling. ‘Anything else?’

  ‘Self-esteem?’ one of the recruits suggested.

  ‘Comfort?’ another said.

  ‘Fun?’ another added and then blushed.

  Mandi walked towards the board and began writing: “fun, comfort, self-esteem, pleasure.” Then she stood back.

  ‘It is widely recognised that one-night stands erode self-esteem,’ she said, drawing a black line through the words. ‘As for fun, I doubt there’s much fun from being banged senseless and then asked to leave.’ She drew another line through that one. ‘Ditto for comfort.’ Another line. ‘And as for pleasure, well, a recent survey reported that over ninety percent of women fail to orgasm during a one-night stand.’

  She spun around and waved her marker in the air. ‘The real reason women have one-night stands is because they’re drunk and think they’ll be empowered by acting like men. Or because they secretly hope it will lead to more. But it won’t. Sex cannot be exchanged for love.’

  The recruits looked on, dumbfounded.

  ‘Nothing except love can be exchanged for love. Not beauty, not wealth, not intelligence, not power, not lies, not manipulation. Nothing. For a relationship to last, the only transaction possible is love for love.’ Mandi wiped away the list. ‘But for that to happen, love must be equally valued by both people.’

  Brandishing the marker again, she slowly wrote out the words “The End” on the whiteboard. Then she gave one more glare to the recruits, then threw down her pen and stormed out of the room.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  The sky was indigo with streaks of magenta and the balmy air sent a shiver down my spine like hot breath on my neck. In front of me, the pool glowed turquoise, its surface rippling like a satin sheet, and beyond, office windows glowed like eyes in the night. Tonight, we were hosting a White Party on the roof terrace of Shoreditch House.

  Tables cloaked with pristine white tablecloths were nestled in the corners. Beside each were two chairs, and on top, suspended in oversized crystal vases were a pair of flickering candles. A glossy white grand piano stretched out next to the pool with the nonchalance of a lazy cat, while jazz bounced into the air with predictable irregularity, the faint hum of traffic providing a comforting base note.

  ‘If people can’t fall in love here, then there’s no hope for them.’

  I turned around and then stepped back, narrowly missing the edge of the pool.

  ‘Mia?’

  She smiled. ‘Thought you might need some help tonight.’

  I frowned.

  ‘Seeing as Mandi’s lost the plot,’ she finished.

  Wearing a plain white slip, with her hair loosely tied up, Mia’s sharp edges seemed to have softened. Her face looked rounder, younger even. I smiled at her.

  ‘I haven’t changed my mind, though,’ she said, pulling a cigarette out of her bag.

  Sighing and gasping, the five recruits swept in and began twirling around the roof terrace, their near-identical dresses spinning up and out. I almost expected fluffy white wings to sprout from their shoulder blades. I turned to Mia, anticipating frenetic eye rolling, but instead, I saw her darting from table to table, decanting chocolates into heart-shaped bowls. I was about to say something but my attention was diverted by Mr Marbella swaggering across the terrace with enough confidence for all the single men in London. Teamed with white linen trousers and a short-sleeved shirt, his fake tan and highlights for once looked almost appropriate for the setting, albeit overshadowed by his watch, which snatched the light at every opportunity like a wannabe at an X-Factor audition.

  ‘Evening ladies,’ he greeted us all, but focused most of his attention on the larger breasted of the recruits, who I think was Minky, although the identical white dresses weren’t helping.

  ‘Can you stop looking at her tits please?’ Mandi seemed to appear from nowhere. She pushed past me and then glared at Mr Marbella.

  With re-glossed lips and the return of her perky flicks, she appeared to have shaken off last week’s blackness, but, as she turned to face me, her eyes looked misty as though a cloud had drifted over her corneas.

  Mr Marbella turned away from her and towards me

  ‘We need to talk,’ he said, nodding towards some chairs alongside the pool.

  Once we’d sat down, I wondered if, finally, he was prepared to have a serious conversation.

  ‘This really isn’t working for me,’ he said.

  I sighed, disappointed there had been no epiphany on his part. ‘No problem. I’ll arrange a full refund.’

  ‘You’re not supposed to agree.’ His dark blonde eyebrows knitted together. ‘You’re supposed to fix it.’

  ‘Fix what? You don�
�t seem to require anything to be fixed.’

  ‘I want to meet someone.’

  I laughed. ‘For what purpose?’

  ‘To get married and have kids. What else?’

  ‘Do you really think you’re going to find that in a bikini on a yacht?’

  He laughed. ‘I don’t wear bikinis. Maybe that’s where I’m going wrong.’

  ‘You know what I mean.’ My mind forged a disturbing image of a string bikini bottom superimposed onto the self-portrait of his genitals. ‘The way you act, the way you look, most women, well the decent ones anyway, wouldn’t consider you for a serious relationship.’

  He leaned forward.

  ‘And why does your future wife have to have perfect tits? They won’t stay that way forever, you know. In a few years, they might be swinging around her ankles like a basset hound’s ears. What would you do then?’

  ‘Surgery?’

  I sighed and then went to stand up.

  ‘Look, I like big tits. It doesn’t mean I’m a bad person.’

  ‘I’m sure that’s true.’ I paused.

  He leaned forward further. ‘But?’

  ‘You have to look and act like a good husband before you’re allowed the chance to be one.’

  He sat back. ‘But if she’s the right girl, she’ll love me for who I am.’

  Mia approached, obviously in earshot and rolled her eyes. For a moment, I was almost tempted to do the same.

  ‘There’s someone who wants to speak to Ellie,’ she said, pulling me up from the chair by my arm.

  Mr Marbella jumped to his feet, swiped a glass of champagne from a passing waiter, and then sauntered off into the crowd.

  ‘We’ll talk later,’ I shouted after him, but my words seemed to bounce back like a failed SMS.

  I turned back to Mia, but she was gone. In her place was a tall, dark-haired man with striking turquoise eyes and a soft smile. He was wearing a white fitted shirt tucked into suit trousers.

  ‘David,’ he said, holding out his hand for me to shake. ‘I popped by to give you a copy of all the paperwork.’

  I smiled, thankful for his help, though mildly baffled as to why he chose a singles’ party rather than an office for a formal exchange of legal documents. Once he had handed me the papers, he stood staring as though he were expecting me to say something.

  ‘So why haven’t you called Kerri?’ I asked, assuming this to be the question he was anticipating.

  ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘I should’ve called her.’

  ‘Well, why didn’t you?’ I noticed I was wagging my finger at him, so I quickly put my hands by my side.

  He smirked. ‘I…’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I feel like I’m in the stand.’

  ‘Where you are legally obliged to answer.’

  He laughed.

  ‘So?’

  He scratched his nose. ‘You didn’t tell me she was so attractive.’

  ‘That’s good though, isn’t it?’

  ‘Well, for most men, I suppose.’

  ‘But not you?’

  ‘No, not me, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Why not?’

  His faced creased. ‘When we spoke on the phone, we really clicked. I felt as though I could tell her anything …’ He paused ‘… but then in person, she looked nothing like I’d imagined she would.’

  ‘Which was?’

  He puffed out his cheeks. ‘I don’t know, I expected her to be more girl next door than Baywatch babe, I suppose.’

  ‘Baywatch?’ I asked, wondering why his benchmark image for a large-breasted woman was nearly twenty years out of date.

  I then imagined Kerri arriving for the date, wearing a late-Eighties red swimsuit and carrying a float.

  He ran his fingers through his hair. ‘Every man was gawping at her and then looking at me as though they were trying to figure out how I did it.’

  ‘Are you sure you weren’t just being paranoid?’

  ‘No. One man actually followed me to the toilets and asked me how I did it.’

  I raised my eyebrows.

  ‘Next to me in the urinal, he looked up and said: “Well it had to be one of two things, so from the look of it, you must be rich”.’

  I stifled a laugh. ‘What did you say to that?’

  ‘I just walked out. But when I got back to the table, there was another man trying to chat her up. And another one sent champagne over while I was sitting there. It was absurd.’

  Just as I was beginning to see his point, an attractive woman started bobbing up and down behind him, seemingly trying to get my attention. It wasn’t until I noticed her dove-grey eyes that I realised who she was. I did a double-take.

  ‘Joanna?’ I asked.

  She smiled and then bounced towards me. David stepped sideways. Her hunched apologetic shoulders had lifted and it seemed that finally the body mix-up had been resolved. Now in receipt of her intended slim, toned figure, she was modelling tight white trousers and a white off-the-shoulder mesh top. Her hair, now a rich brown with honey blonde highlights, hung heavy and shiny around her shoulders. For a few moments, I stood staring at her.

  ‘Come on, I wasn’t that bad before was I?’ she said, before winking at David.

  I forced a smile, feeling oddly disappointed. ‘No, of course not.’

  She cocked her head. ‘But?’

  ‘You said all that gloss wasn’t you?’

  She laughed, revealing an intricately engineered Hollywood smile. ‘I’m still the same person underneath.’

  I noticed David visibly processing her words, a puzzled expression creeping across his face.

  I turned to him. ‘Out of interest, what did Kerri wear on your date?’

  His puzzlement faded in an instant. ‘Red dress. Short and tight. Very tight.’ He seemed to drift into another state of consciousness as he recalled the image.

  Short and tight, I thought as I watched him walk back into the crowd, swiftly followed by Joanna. That’s not exactly what Kerri and I agreed.

  Feeling the effects of the champagne I had guzzled in honour of Joanna’s transformation, I stepped back to a quiet corner of the roof terrace and watched as couples began the familiar fumbled first stages of contact.

  Was Mia right? I wondered. Were they all just lining up for the slaughterhouse like cattle? Couldn’t they see they were destined for as much pain and anguish as they were love and happiness?

  ‘You’re looking a bit thoughtful,’ Mandi said, after she’d tottered over to join me. ‘Are you having one of your philosophical moments again?’

  I smiled. ‘It was just something Mia said about happiness and pain being dished out in equal measures.’

  Her smile faded. ‘As much as I hate to say it, I think she might be right.’

  ‘So you’ve really lost faith?’

  She shook her head. ‘I’ll never lose faith in love,’ she said, looking down and slipping her foot in and out of its sparkly shoe. ‘It’s just hard to accept that it’s not as perfect as I thought it would be.’

  I exhaled a laugh. ‘Disappointing, isn’t it?’

  Tears began to slide down her cheeks, glistening like Swarovski crystals.

  ‘Devastating, more like.’

  I leaned in and wiped them from her face. ‘Shall we play guess who?’

  Predicting who would leave the party with who was Mandi’s favourite game and she followed my forecast like a trader follows the FTSE.

  She smiled.

  ‘Right,’ I said, scanning the terrace. ‘Those girls there …’ I pointed to a group of svelte, bronzed blondes in their midtwenties all wearing micro-minis, ‘… with the legs.’

  ‘Yes,’ she nodded.

  ‘They’ll end up with the traders lined up at the bar.’

  ‘How do you know they’re traders?’

  ‘I just do. Then see the two entrepreneurs over there?’ I pointed at two men standing by the door to the kitchens. ‘They’ll end up with the two girls over there. They work in TV pr
oduction.’

  Mandi frowned. ‘How do you know that?’

  ‘I just do.’

  ‘But how?’

  ‘And that guy over there.’ I pointed at a tall Greek-god-like figure in white linen, his shirt unbuttoned to reveal a sculpted and waxed chest.

  She nodded. ‘Yeah, the fantasy man, every woman wants to walk hand-in-hand with across a white sandy beach.’

  I giggled.

  ‘Where he would pull her to his rippling torso, kissing her roughly while the waves crash violently against the shore,’ Mandi continued, almost reverting to her previous, starry-eyed self.

  I laughed. ‘His large manly hands tearing at her bodice, freeing her heaving bosom, while his member throbs against the soft flesh of her inner thigh.’

  She giggled. ‘His tongue probing purposefully, savouring her scent, the curves of her flesh, the taste of her juices.’

  ‘The he fills her, thrusting with the vigor of a thoroughbred stallion.’

  ‘Until their bodies stiffen, giving way to a tidal wave of a simultaneous orgasm.’

  ‘Then they collapse into each other, exhausted and spent, limbs and souls entwined.’

  We laughed.

  ‘Okay,’ she said. ‘Whose heaving bosom does his throbbing member end up with tonight?’

  ‘No one’s,’ I said. ‘He’s a perfectionist and he’ll be followed around all night by women he’s not interested in. The girl he likes and there is only one… her …’ I pointed to a long-limbed, fresh-faced model type. ‘She will be locked in by an alpha male who won’t let Mr Mills and Boon anywhere near her.’

  Sure enough, as I spoke, the girl was being virtually pinned against the wall by one of the traders.

  Mandi smirked. ‘And what about her?’ she asked, pointing at a pretty brunette.

  I looked on, trying to identify the woman. ‘Oh yes, Joanna.’ I almost failed to recognise her again. ‘She’ll probably be following Mr Mills and Boon around all night, when she should be talking to a more …’ I leaned forward, squinting. ‘Who is that?’

  ‘That’s Greg, he’s a chiropractor. Such a lovely guy. They seem to be getting on, don’t they?’

  We watched as Joanna flicked her hair and stuck out her chest.