Crazygirl Falls in Love (25 page)

We all drain our glasses to the last drop, even the small
skinny girl seated two spots from me.

An hour later Nico, Blue and the Beer boys (who we’ve found
out are called Harry and William, what are the odds, huh?) are four
toasts in. Blue is slurring his words, a lot, and I can see that if
it wasn’t his male dignity on the line he would have stopped
toasting quite some time ago. But even if Blue asked to stop Nico
would be having none of it. Nico is a quintessential feeder, but to
be fair he’s actually drinking more than the other lads. During the
second toast he filled up their glasses only three quarters of the
way, but continued to pour his to the brim. He has drunk almost two
bottles in the last hour but remains remarkably composed. The only
thing that might give away his inebriation are the toasts
themselves. They’re getting longer and more random. The last one
lasted fifteen minutes and featured a tribute to his dead dog
Mishka and the Tale of the Cut Lip (basically he cut his lip as a
kid and has never licked an envelope since).

After the sixth toast Nico jerkily grabs Eva and they race to
the dance floor, leaving the rest of us feeling woozy and
wined-out. The four girls and Wills and Harry are talking. Blue
puts his arm around my chair,

“Peanut?” he slurs.

“Yeah?”

“Were you and that Spanish guy dating?”

“Would you count a piece of red fabric as evidence of a
relationship?”

He looks blankly at me.

“Never mind. No, we weren’t dating. C’mon let’s go for a
dance.”

I stand and take his hand but he pulls me back down into my
seat.

“What are you most scared of in life?” he mumbles.

I think for a moment,

“Spiders, clowns, heights, tunnels, elevators, scout masters,
creepy little girls in horror movies, especially the ones who crawl
out of TVs, sharks and crocodiles and box jellyfish and rip tides
and to be honest anything do with water and the ocean. Did I
mention spiders? Then there’s fear of failure and
rejection…”

Blue’s laughter interrupts my ramblings,

“Shouldn’t have asked. My only fear is performing in
public.”

“But you’re a DJ?”

“I’ll tell you a little secret,” he puts his arm around my
shoulder and pulls me in closer, “DJing is really easy, you just
show up with a couple of CDs or a playlist.”

Wills, Harry and the four girls have left for the DF. We watch
them leave then I give Blue a sceptical look.

“But you still have to be in front of a crowd of people every
night?”

“I block them out with the headphones,” he replies.

“Oh come on, dancing isn’t performing! You need an audience to
classify it as a performance.”

“You’re an audience, the people out there are an audience, and
I really don’t fancy looking foolish. It’s not going to happen I’m
afraid, I’ve never been able to play or sing or dance or even speak
in front of a group of strangers.”

“That’s a shame, you have a good voice,” I say, thinking back
to his singing-in-the-shower vocals.

I sigh and shrug my shoulders. I tell him
that in that case I’ll have to go for a dance on my own.
Play that Funky Music White Boy
is blasting out of the speakers and I can’t not
dance to this. I tell Blue I’ll be back shortly and head off,
leaving him on his own.

I spot our friends near the stage. Nico is doing the Monster
Mash (Frankenstein arm gestures) trying to make Eva laugh and it’s
working because she’s in fits of giggles. The situation is a tad
more serious around Wills, Harry and the four girls. Small skinny
girl is grinding up against Wills, presenting herself like a horny
baboon. One of the other girls is shooting her dagger eyes. I guess
Wills is the prime fillet and everyone wants a piece.

I quickly decide it’ll be better to dance with Nico and
Eva.

A few tracks later we empty the centre as
the MC announces the bridal waltz. Angrypants and Neville glide to
the middle and Lionel Richie’s
Endless
Love
comes on. The newlyweds do a solid
job, Angrypants told me that they’d been rehearsing it for months.
After Lionel, INXS’
Never Tear us
Apart
comes on. Nico and Eva pair up, small
skinny girl and Wills pair up, Harry and one of the other girls
pair up, and the two leftover girls laugh and decide to slow dance
together.

And I’m left on my own.
How fitting
. I start to mooch my way
back to the table but I stop when I see Blue walking towards me. I
can’t hold back the smile. He puts his arms around my waist while I
lift mine to his shoulders,

“But you said you’re terrified of public performances?” I
ask.

“I thought I’d make an exception.”

We dance to INXS then Celine Dion comes on.
Halfway through My
Heart Will Go On
Blue whispers,

“Worst DJ ever.”

I laugh,

“No, you still take top spot. You never told me why you were
in such a funk last Friday?”

“Did you want the long version or the short?”

“Short please, I have a feeling the DJ is gonna start belting
out Savage Garden soon, then we’ll need to make our
escape.”

“Well you see, I saw my ex just before I snapped at you. She
did a few things before my set just to antagonise me.”

I’m surprised. Blue doesn’t strike me as an easily antagonised
type. A clueless doofus, yes, but not ill-tempered or
irritable.

“What happened between you two?”

“She cheated.”

“Really? But you’re such a catch, what kind of an idiot would
cheat on you?”

Oh shit I shouldn’t have said that. Backtrack, backtrack
now!

“I mean…” I try to cover up, “I’m so sorry to hear that, what
a cow. Are you okay?”

“Yes I’m fine, it happened last year and I’m over it, but I
don’t exactly count her as a friend. It was the usual relationship
story. The beginning was great, I thought she was the most
brilliant thing since sliced bread. Fast forward a year and I
couldn’t look at another girl or I’d be yelled at, and saying hi to
one was considered cheating. I wasn’t allowed to hang out with my
mates and I was miserable because everything I did was wrong, even
the stuff that yesterday was wrong that I changed was wrong again.
Then I found out she was sleeping with some old rich guy, and we
parted ways.”

“Oh Blue…”

My confidence in everything I’ve ever held
dear has been shaken to the core.
Men
are supposed to be the bad ones,
the evil doers, the ones who screw us around and hurt us and treat
us badly. I mean, I know women do bad things too, I’m not a
nincompoop, but I never truly acknowledged it properly until now.
Blue is a nice guy. Why would someone do that to
him?

“And you still see her sometimes?”

“No, we met when we both worked at Loft but she quit after we
broke up. She knows the manager and last Friday he called her up
because he was so short staffed. She agreed to fill in and that’s
when I saw her.”

“Wait a minute wait a minute wait a minute. She was a waitress
last Friday?”

“Yes.”

“Is she average height, with a big mane of frizzy brown
hair?”

“Yes, how did you know?”

“Oh my gosh, that was Surly!”

I tell him about Grumpy the Waitress who served me, Chloe and
Mags.

“So I guess everyone was in a bad mood that night,” I
finish.

“No doubt she was. I gave her a piece of my mind before her
shift, when I saw her making out with Jerry the geriatric.
Honestly, the only good thing that came out of that relationship
were the free clothes.”

“Free clothes?”

“She was a fashion designer specialising in
sportswear.”

I think of the out-of-control colour combinations, the tank
top muscle shirts and teeny tiny shorts. I start laughing as Celine
finishes and Girls Aloud come on (boy this really is the world’s
worst DJ). I sense it would be the wrong time to tell Blue that
Surly’s outfits make him look like he belongs in a mental asylum.
The shorts, my god, those shorts! I try a different approach as we
pull apart and begin walking back to the table,

“Can I say something and you have to promise you won’t get
offended?”

“Of course you can, my little Peanut.”

“Surly should stick to her day job because she’s most
definitely not the hottest designer in town. Would it be okay if,
to repay you for coming out tonight, I buy you a couple of new
running outfits? It’s not good to hang onto old relationship
baggage.”

And by baggage I really mean it. Those clothes make you look
like a bag lady just raided a rapper’s garbage can.

“Sounds good. Can I reciprocate? You always run in those huge
Dad t-shirts. I’d love to buy you the shortest, tightest top
possible so that I can finally see more than just your
legs.”

“You’re a sleaze.”

“And proud of it.”

Back at the table I see the wedding cake has made its rounds.
Small slivers sit on napkins in front of each seat. Yum! The cake
was one of the only parts of the wedding where Angrypants actually
took my advice. She wasn’t sure what to pick so I suggested
traditional fruit cake. I love fruit cake, she loves fruitcake,
everyone loves fruit cake. Bits of ultra sweet dried fruit soaked
in rum, mixed with sugar and butter and fat then drenched in rum
again - what’s not to love?

My cake fuelled excitement is short lived as I feel a familiar
cramping in my chest. Before I explode in a cyclone of hiccups I
decide to tell Blue something I’ve been meaning to say since he
bought me that Cornetto.

“Hey Blue?”

“Yes babe?”

“You did make me want to kill myself less today. Thank
you.”

“My pleasure. Say, any idea how we’re getting back to London
tonight?”

Chloe’s been ignoring my calls all morning. Last time we were
this long out of contact was when Emma and Mags dragged me (under
false pretences) to that yoga retreat in Goa. Party town Goa, they
said. A week of fun and frivolity, they said. Turned into five days
of hell where we were forced to endure four hours of yoga a day and
lived on a diet of soy porridge and papayas. Mags and Emma thought
it would do me good to stop drinking and partying (this was during
the post He Who Shall Not Be Named phase where I’d turned into a
raging alco).

I didn’t do very well at Yoga Camp. I kept getting kicked out
of class for giggling at the names of various positions (plow pose…
tehe). Being asked to leave all the time worked in my favour
because I could barely manage a full session anyway. I’m a runner
and runners have tight hamstrings, so every minute of every session
was agony. I complained all day and night about the lack of meat
and booze (“You call this a holiday? This isn’t holiday!”). I got
stuck in several positions where Mags had to untangle me. I tried
to pull one of the celibate yogis. Twice. And on our last night I
was caught sneaking out at 9:00 p.m. (a full hour after bedtime,
shock horror) to go to the nearest town to get me some real food
and a proper beverage. The camp manager felt so sorry for me by
that point that she took me out herself and treated me to a banana
lassi.

Anyway, besides the week Emma and Mags lured me to Satan’s
butthole, Chloe and I have always been in constant contact. So
whilst I’m not one to panic, I’m starting to panic.

I try calling Chloe again. No answer, so I
start making a coffee but as I do I notice two evil looking spiders
making a web on the kitchen window. Fast as can be I whip out my
vacuum, zap the little bastards, then try calling Chloe for the
sixth time today. When it rings out, again, I decide to take
matters into my own hands. Dusting off my
Kate-Winslet-frolicking-through-the-English-countryside-themed bike
(decorated with ribbon-woven spokes and a flower basket) I start
off for her apartment, taking the scenic route through Kensington
gardens. I know it’s a bit lame to ramble about weather, but we
have been having the most fabulous week. Apart from that
Apocalypse Now
style
storm on Thursday every day has registered cheerful, blue
skies.

Speaking of Blue, he niggles at the back of my mind as I pedal
under the warm glow of the midday sun. With no car booked to take
us back to London (I’d forgotten to organise the return trip, smart
huh?) we found ourselves in a bit of a pickle. I suggested calling
a taxi. Blue countered, saying we should check into a hotel. I told
him it wasn’t going to happen. He accused me of being presumptuous.
We bickered back and forth for a while. He argued that a hotel made
sense because a taxi would be way more expensive and if we stayed
overnight we could explore Brighton a bit more tomorrow.