50 Ways to Find a Lover (4 page)

The Polish chefs are sniggering in the corner of the kitchen. They have carved a carrot into the shape of a penis and stuck it on the order spike. I am trying to ignore it but I am impressed. It is very realistic. From what I can remember.

‘Very creative,’ I mumble.

I shout my order above the badly tuned radio which is playing Paul Simon’s ‘50 Ways to Leave Your Lover’.

‘Well done bacon, tomatoes, granary toast and lightly done scrambled eggs. When I say lightly done scrambled eggs, I mean nice runny ones – not the hard rabbit poos you did last week, or the bloody raw ones he got the week before.’

Every Saturday I attempt to get this order right for my favourite customer. Every week we stare in disbelief at the inedible scrambled eggs that appear. I don’t know why my favourite customer comes here. Carluccio’s up the road is much nicer. I should tell him. I won’t, though. Seasoned waitresses understand that spending time in friendly conversation with customers can only lead to two things:

The Waitresses’ Manifesto clearly states that customers should be treated with contempt when not being ignored. I have already dangerously contravened this by showing concern about the consistency of my favourite customer’s eggs. Therefore I won’t recommend Carluccio’s and my favourite customer shall have to continue with his weekly risk of contracting salmonella.

I have been working in this little café near Hampstead Heath for seven years. If someone had told me then that I would still be here now I would have got my cellulite-free twenty-two-year-old bottom and smothered their air passages with it. I would have shouted, ‘Don’t be ridiculous, I’m only going to be here for a few months before I’m discovered. By the time I’m nearly thirty I shall have an Oscar on my mantelpiece and Kiefer Sutherland’s baby in my tummy.’

Waitresses shouldn’t be nearly thirty. It’s wrong. The only plus with my waitressing job is that on Saturdays I work here with Julia. I met Julia when I was fourteen. We lived in the same village but went to different schools. I used to see her getting off her coach as I walked home. I admired from afar her dark eye make-up, which was of Robert Smith from The Cure proportions. We finally met properly when it emerged that our fathers were members of the same golf club and they had booked us on a session of golf lessons one summer. The dads were thrilled that we appeared to be so keen on the sport but in actual fact we spent most of that summer sitting on the dead elm behind the third hole, drinking crème de menthe and learning to smoke. Now Julia works for a production company in Soho, which doesn’t pay very much, so I got her a Saturday job here two years ago so she could earn some extra money and entertain me. Julia isn’t a very good waitress, as she spills every drink she serves and usually swears very loudly when she does so. We both eat as much free food as we can and try to ignore the customers as much as possible. I emerge from the kitchen singing, ‘Der de de der, Jack.’ Julia is standing behind the cake counter sticking her finger in a piece of cheesecake.

‘Oh dear, I just accidentally stuck my finger in this piece of cheesecake. We can’t possibly sell it now. Shall we eat it, Chantelle?’ Julia has been calling me Chantelle ever since she heard about the reality TV show. She says it in an exaggerated Essex accent. She thinks she’s funny.

‘I’ve just had a bacon sandwich. Oh, go on then,’ I say, spooning a huge piece of cheesecake into my mouth and attempting to sing, ‘Bay be boo bam, Stan’ with my mouth full.

‘Will you be launching a pop career, Chantelle?’ Julia giggles.

‘Will you be shutting up, Julia?’

‘Chantelle, you shouldn’t have too much cheesecake as the camera puts pounds on you,’ says Julia, finishing it off.

‘Sorry, I know you’re busy, girls, but could I have another coffee?’ shouts my favourite customer. It looks like a friendly grey bear and a Russian ballet dancer mated to create him. He has angular features and silver hair. He always has a tan, which makes him look healthy. He comes in for breakfast every Saturday, which makes him glamorous, and he reads the
Guardian
from cover to cover, which makes him clever. He is quite hard to age because although he is grey he has a young-looking face. I would guess that he is forty-seven.

‘Bloody hell, you’re so demanding!’ I say to him, hands on hips, with a big sigh. I make his caffè latte.

‘Have you heard that Sarah is going to be a reality TV superstar?’ Julia says, putting the coffee down on his table and spilling it slightly. I stand behind the counter, wincing at Julia’s flagrant disrespect for the code of waitressing.

‘Pray tell,’ he says, mopping up the spillage with a napkin.

‘Well, she’s been single for years, and this reality TV show is going to try to find a man who could put up with her. Isn’t that right, Chantelle? They’re going to call today to tell her if she’s chosen and if she is the cameras start rolling on Monday.’ Julia sits down at my favourite customer’s table. Waitresses the world over throw down their aprons in disgust.

‘Well, that sounds very exciting. All the best with it. I’m surprised a nice attractive girl like you is single though.’

‘You do know that you’re my favourite customer, don’t you?’

‘Oh, Sarah had given up on love and was intent on remaining a spinster but now the reality-TV genre has changed her and she’s seen the light. Now she can’t wait to find a man to boff.’

‘Julia!’ I howl, embarrassed.

‘So what are you young ladies up to this evening?’ smiles my favourite customer.

‘I’m staying in with a bottle of red wine. The new series of
The X Factor
is starting.’ The words squirt out of my mouth like a premature ejaculation. My favourite customer looks horrified. I blush.

Suddenly I have a vision that I am lying naked in bed with a lovely man watching
The X Factor
. I don’t know what Fran has done to me but since my interview I can’t stop daydreaming about having a man. It’s getting quite bad. This morning, after I’d pressed Snooze, I fished my teddy out from down the side of the bed and spooned it. I know no one will report me but it’s weird. For ten minutes this morning I spooned a stuffed animal and imagined it was a man. A real man with warm naked bum cheeks pressed into my lap and a hairy chest I could run my fingers through. I know that in real life a real man would have smelt or snored or farted into my lap but in my daydream he didn’t. And it was bliss.

I notice that Julia is waving her hand in front of my face saying, ‘Coo-ee’ and am jolted back into the conversation.

‘Sorry, not very rock-and-roll is it?’ I mumble, embarrassed by my lack of both concentration and planned Saturday-night shenanigans. Suddenly the sound of Bros can be heard clearly over the softly playing Mozart.

‘Oh my God, it might be them,’ hyperventilates Julia. She springs up and my favourite customer’s coffee is knocked into his lap.

‘Bollocks,’ she screeches.

I rush towards him with some paper serviettes. I stand hovering, holding them above his groin. He takes them from me.

‘Answer your phone!’ he insists, dabbing his crotch.

I pick up my mobile. It’s a withheld number. I rush into the kitchen to take the call.

‘Please, God,’ I whisper. ‘I know you never thought you’d hear me say this but please, please say they chose me to do the reality TV programme so I can find a nice man to spoon and watch
X Factor
with. It’s not much to ask, he doesn’t have to look like Kiefer Sutherland, just not too scary-looking, and please can he be kind and funny.’ I am just about to ask if he can like my family too when my phone stops ringing and my voicemail takes the call. Bollocks. Julia comes into the kitchen.

‘What did they say, Chantelle, are they going to use you? Sare, answer me, are they using you?’ she screams.

‘Um, she’s leaving a message.’

‘Oh my God, it’s so exciting!’ she screams again.

‘Jule, you really should get back into the café, someone might come in and nick all the money.’

‘Fuck it, there’s only about £1.70 in the till anyway. Check your phone!’

‘But what if they have chosen me?’

‘It’ll be great for you, Sare.’ She comes over and hugs me. ‘It’s OK to want a man, you know, and the show will be an adventure, something you can tell your kids.’

‘But it’ll start on Monday!’ I protest.

‘Good! Sare, what have you got to lose?’ she asks me seriously.

I think about what I have to lose. At the moment my life consists of haranguing my agent to see if he can get me an audition for
Casualty
, talking nonsense to Simon and writing letters to the casting people of
24
. I look at Julia and nod slowly.

‘Sare, check your bloody message,’ she insists.

I put the phone to my ear. My favourite customer pokes his head into the kitchen:

‘Um, sorry about this, ladies, but there’s a large group . . .’ He catches sight of the carrot cock and trails off for a moment. ‘That’s quite a work of art isn’t it? A, um, large group of cyclists out here all want serving.’

‘Seriously, a large group of sweaty cyclists?’ enquires Julia eagerly before pulling her hair free from her ponytail, licking her lips and going out to serve them. They leave me alone save for the three Polish chefs, who are creating some potato balls to join the carrot cock. I listen to the message. ‘Sarah, it’s Fran. We’ve made our decision. I’m afraid we’re not going to use you. I’m really, really sorry. I actually think that you would have been perfect for this, but one of the other girls has a sister who’s getting married soon, and it will give us some great footage, so, oh, I’m really sorry. Look, I think you should get out there and try to meet some men anyway. I really think you could meet someone special. Don’t give up on love, please don’t. Life’s too short.’

four

‘Jesus, look at the state of you!’ blurts Simon. ‘It’ll be all right, Sare, you don’t need a TV show to find you a man.’

‘I’m not crying about that, you knob! Look,’ I blub, pointing at the telly, ‘Simon Cowell just told her she’s fat and she can’t sing – and her mum’s ill!’ I am lying in bed in my pyjamas watching
The X Factor
. I must look awful. I’ve been crying since
The X Factor
started. It’s nearly finished.

‘What’s happened to your teeth?’ he asks, bending down to look at me closely.

‘They’re probably black from the red wine,’ I weep. Once I start crying I find it very difficult to stop.

‘We’re off out,’ he whispers.

Ruth, Simon’s girlfriend, pops her head into my room. Ruth is my age, blonde, tall and toned. She would be utterly gorgeous were it not for a very large nose. She works in the City for a company called Goldman Sachs. (Simon and I prefer to call it Scrotum Sacs.) I like her but there are two things that annoy me about her. One is that she has the most beautiful voice I have ever heard outside the movies. She sounds like Julie Andrews in
Mary Poppins
. It is not a voice that someone who works in finance should have. It is the sort of voice that Sarah Sargeant, aspiring actress, should possess. The other thing that annoys me about her is that she’s super-sorted. She owns a flat and has a share portfolio. I have to console myself with the thought that she’ll be buggered when the markets crash. I suspect that everything inside her head is neatly arranged in clearly marked Tupperware containers. Mine on the other hand is arranged in a big pile of mush. I’m quite sure she has never watched
The X Factor
in her life.