The Single Girl's To-Do List (16 page)

‘OK, fine,’ I said more to myself than Ana. ‘I’m sorry about the other day; I was totally out of order. Now I really need a wee. Can I get past, please?’

She pushed herself against the wall, creating enough space for a Chieftain tank and a double-decker bus to get through side by side.

‘Thanks,’ I muttered. ‘Dan’s upstairs.’

‘I know you’re just jealous,’ she said once I was a few feet away. ‘Of Dan and me. With your “poor me, I’ve been dumped” sob story.’

I stopped in my tracks and turned slowly.

‘Seriously? You think I’m jealous of you and Dan?’

The two girls standing at the sinks suddenly fell silent and began to wash their hands in slow motion.

‘I know you are,’ she pouted. ‘He’s always talking about you. You’re obsessed with him. It’s sad.’

‘He’s always talking about me and I’m the one that’s supposed to be obsessed with him?’

That one didn’t make sense, even for Ana.

‘Ana, Dan and I are friends,’ I explained slowly. Veronica had given me a pass once, I wouldn’t get a second one; I could not lose my temper. ‘We’ve been friends for years. The reason I lost my temper on Monday was because I’d just broken up with my boyfriend and I was a bit hungover. I’m sorry, I was out of order, but trust me, I am not obsessed with Dan.’

Although you did quite like it when he stroked your arm, you schlaaag, an unhelpful voice in my head reminded me.

‘Whatever,’ she dismissed, standing up straight. ‘It’s just kinda sad, don’t you think? You get dumped, fuck up your hair and then go after someone else’s boyfriend?’

Had to say, I much preferred her afraid.

‘Although I wouldn’t have thought you had it in you,’ Ana fluffed her long blonde hair so that it settled around her bare shoulders. Her skintight gold Hervé Léger bandage dress made my formally racy black number look like I’d borrowed it from the Queen. ‘You’re just so boring.’

‘Boring?’

Don’t hit her, don’t hit her, don’t hit her.

‘Dull as shit actually. No wonder your boyfriend dumped you. Probably shagging your nan for some excitement.’

I couldn’t hit her. I’d be fired. And she was from Bas Vegas after all, probably pretty handy in a fight. And those two cows who had been washing their hands longer than Lady Macbeth were hardly likely to help me out in a pinch.

‘Probably,’ I agreed, stretching my arm out towards her. I was pleased to see her flinch.

‘Tattoo, Raquel?’ She slipped back into her coquettish laugh. ‘Who do you think you are, Angelina Jolie?’

‘Hardly.’ I reached across her face and punched the fire alarm as hard as I could. The sirens and the sprinklers kicked in immediately. ‘I don’t steal other people’s men.’

Well, that cleared the loo pretty quickly. Ana ran out screaming, closely followed by the two witnesses. Emerging back onto the dance floor, I saw a full evacuation was in full flow. Hmm, maybe I should have thought about this one a bit more carefully.

‘Rachel, come on, it’s a fire alarm!’ Emelie grabbed my arm and pulled me towards the door. ‘This is insane. Did you see Ana? And Dan?’

‘Did you?’ I looked around, panicked. Sure enough, there was Ana sobbing on Dan’s shoulder and bleating at a man in an orange high-vis vest. Oh dear. Before I could leg it, she was pointing at me and shrieking hysterically. I caught Dan’s eye for a moment and realized he was trying not to laugh. I paused and felt a small smile on my lips. I had to stop drinking. And getting tattoos. And dying my hair red. Actually house arrest from now on might be for the best.

‘Excuse me, miss.’ An authoritative voice to the side of me got my attention as the sprinklers stopped. The ballroom was almost empty, save for me, Emelie, Dan, Ana and a couple of fire wardens. And a policeman. ‘This young lady tells me that you set the fire alarm off.’

‘She does?’ I was still watching Dan. The arsehole was enjoying this.

‘She did it,’ Ana wailed at the top of her voice, all pretence of a pretty accent vanished. From here on in, the only way was Essex. ‘She facking did it.’

I was delighted to see whoever had taken care of her make-up for the evening hadn’t bothered using waterproof formulas. She looked like a blonde, bedraggled Alice Cooper.

‘Aren’t you Anastasia Smith?’ Emelie stepped forward, looking oddly starstruck. ‘The model?’

‘Yes,’ she resumed character flawlessly, a beat too late. ‘I am.’

‘The overpaid, talentless old slag who is too stupid to remember someone’s name?’

Oh, Emelie.

‘Right, that’s
it
,’ Ana pushed Dan to one side and launched herself at Emelie. In the blink of a false eyelash, I was in the middle of the world’s sexiest catfight. It was just a shame we weren’t streaming it live, directly to Perez Hilton: we probably could have made some money. Ana lashed out with her acrylic claws but Em was right in there, punches swinging. All my money was on the redhead. As long as that redhead wasn’t me.

‘Bugger,’ I yelped, taking a swipe to the face and falling to my knees.

‘Friendly fire! Sorry!’ Em panted as the policeman pulled her off, Dan tackling Ana at the waist.

And so it was, piss wet through, the skirt of my dress all torn up and with my second black eye of the week, that I was carted off to the police station.

‘Em?’ I whispered, torn between hoping my mum would never find out about this and wishing they would turn the siren on.

‘Rachel?’

‘Do you think I can count this as breaking the law?’

She sighed and rested her wet head against the back seat.

‘Yeah, Rach.’ She held up her handcuffs to gesture towards mine. ‘I reckon you can.’

Matthew had been delighted when we’d called him from the police station but less amused when we called asking him to bring our ID in. The problem with tiny evening bags was that they didn’t really facilitate the carrying of passports. Not that I’d been planning on getting arrested.

‘When we put “break the law” we meant nick something,’ Matthew yawned in the taxi home. He really hadn’t needed to come down in his pyjamas but I was grateful regardless. ‘Break the speed limit. Put a cat in a dustbin. Not set the fire alarms off at The Savoy and punch a supermodel in the face.’

‘Emelie punched the supermodel in the face,’ I clarified. ‘And I didn’t set the fire alarms off at The Savoy. There are no witnesses, only Ana’s word against mine and, as the lovely police officer pointed out, she’s a bit mental. It was clearly an accident.’

Em sat silently between us. She stared straight ahead, dazed and confused.

‘I’m glad you’re taking the new you thing seriously,’ he replied. ‘But maybe, when you write the letter to Simon, you don’t do it in the blood of a sacrificial virgin, OK?’

‘OK.’ That sounded like a fair compromise. ‘Oh, and Dan tried to kiss me.’

‘What?’ Emelie snapped out of her catatonia and Matthew spat his coffee all down the back of the driver’s seat.

‘Sorry.’ He gave me a full Exorcist turn across the back seat of the cab. ‘Dan tried to kiss you? Before or after your
Ocean’s Eleven
impression?’

‘Before,’ I rubbed my shoulder, thinking about the shiver down my spine when he’d touched me. ‘We were talking and then he just leaned in a boom. Busted a move. And Ana reckons he thinks I’m obsessed with him?’

‘No one’s obsessed with him but himself,’ Matthew scoffed. ‘Hot or not, he’s a totally self-absorbed knob.’

‘I know,’ I nodded thoughtfully. ‘She says he talks about me all the time.’

‘Ew,’ Em chimed in, ‘that’s so weird. And, more importantly, was he a good kisser?’

‘I didn’t actually kiss him.’ And I absolutely did not regret that fact, I reminded myself. ‘I stopped him.’

‘Oh,’ she looked disappointed. ‘Oh!’ And then strangely happy.

‘That guy at the bar, he was looking for you.’ She shone the light of her phone into her clutch. ‘He said he went to the loo and when he came back you were gone. He gave me his number. Ashley or something?’

‘Asher,’ I said, taking the slip of paper. Wow. He actually had gone to the toilet. I’d walked away from a cute yoga instructor that told the truth to narrowly avoid kissing an arrogant photographer who was full of bullshit. ‘Wow.’

‘The miracle of the list.’ Em waved her hands around and made spooky noises. ‘Call him. Tomorrow. Or I will.’

‘Think you two have done enough communicating on my behalf,’ I said, resting my head on Emelie’s shoulder and watching the lights of London rush by. Strangely enough, I was quite tired. ‘I’ll call him.’

Thursday morning came around altogether too quickly. When I finally came to around eleven, I lay in bed for an hour, trying to work out just what exactly had come over me the night before. Just what had come over Dan. And whether or not I would ever work again. At least I had one welcome distraction. A Facebook friend request from Ethan. I lay looking at my phone, happily scanning through his photos and rejoicing in the lack of an apparent significant other. If it weren’t for the fact he openly specified that he was interested in women, I’d have been worried. As it was, I was just taking in all the different action poses. Ethan rock climbing. Ethan running in a race. Ethan walking his dog on a beach. Thank you Mark Zuckerberg, all is forgiven.

I tapped out a short message, enjoying the fluttering feeling in my stomach.

‘Hi Ethan, great to hear from you too. I can’t believe you’re in Canada, but I can absolutely believe you’re a music teacher. You were always the best in orchestra.’

Too cheesy? Nah, I rolled over onto my belly, I was leaving it in. It was true, and weren’t you supposed to flatter boys’ egos?

‘Unsurprisingly, my career didn’t take a musical route. I’m a make-up artist now, living in London. I share a flat with my best friend in Islington, it’s fun.’

Technically that was true. Yes, Emelie had her own place, but she hadn’t spent a night there since Simon had and ‘I live alone because my boyfriend abandoned me but my best friend is temporarily staying with me on suicide watch’ just didn’t have the same devil-may-care ring to it.

‘Do you still have family over here?’

Roughly translated as the world’s worst version of ‘do you come here often?’

‘Loving the pictures of your dog. I think about getting one all the time. Anyway, must dash, busy day – speak soon!’

And round off the message with three out-and-out lies. Perfect.

After five more minutes of Facebook stalking, I rolled across the bed to locate my handbag and pulled out my notebook and pen. The single girl’s to-do list was coming along a treat, but today it was time for a more common-or-garden variety of list. It was bizarre; I hadn’t gone a day without making a to-do list since 1998. I’d even made one every day on holiday, even if all it said was go to beach, drink lurid-coloured cocktails and pass out. In fact, they were some of my favourites, even if Em tried to piss on my chips by complaining that diarizing a hangover didn’t make it any easier to deal with. Figuring it would help my brain stop thinking mad thoughts about moving to Toronto and having beautiful children who played ice hockey and pronounced about ‘aboot’, I started on a new list. Matthew’s birthday was on Saturday and I was contractually obliged to throw him some sort of party. Usually this took place in the pub, due to my general lack of hostess skills and Simon’s general grumpiness at finding king prawns from the Iceland party platter down the back of the sofa a week later.

But not this year. This year I was throwing him the party to end all parties and there wouldn’t be an Iceland platter in sight. Oh no, this year we were M&S catering all the way. M&S catering and enough booze to put Mel Gibson on his arse. Or that one from Girls Aloud who liked a drink. I never could remember her name.

First things first: online invite. It really was true, nothing actually happened now until it happened on bloody Facebook. So what if it was only two days to the party, it wasn’t like anyone had anything better to do, was it? We were 28: Saturdays weren’t for having fun. They were for X Factor and family events you were obligated to attend. Once I’d sent a desperate plea to everyone Matthew had ever met, I went to work on the real list. I’d basically been falsely imprisoned the night before; after all, I deserved a treat. And oh what a treat. Food shopping list, booze shopping list, present shopping list. And I still had to buy a dress for my dad’s wedding. The purple silk Warehouse sale number that I trotted out to everything just wasn’t going to cut it any more. If only I had a lucrative and high-profile job in Sydney to look forward to …

For the first time in I couldn’t remember how long, I actually had to put some thought into getting dressed. All my new ensembles were hung up along the curtain rail, out where I could see them and where they could block the bloody sun out of my bedroom. It looked like some kind of very glamorous branch of Oxfam. What to wear today? Now, was Thursday more of a stripy sundress day or a floral Fifties option? I opted for the floral number and tiptoed into the living room to check myself out in the mirror. Being a short-arse, I had to climb on the sofa to get the full effect. And it wasn’t horrible. My new bob skirted around my shoulders and the pretty patterned dress squared up my skinny shoulders with adorable cap sleeves. The biggest miracle was that, somehow, the dress had created a waist where there was No Waist. On anyone else, it would have been criminally short, but my midget proportions worked in my favour on this occasion. It looked good. I, on the other hand, did not. Unless waxy corpse was the ‘in’ look of the season. And, as a professional, I was pretty sure it wasn’t. Ever.

Settling on the sofa, I opened my make-up kit and started to play. A little foundation, a lot of blusher, some mascara, maybe a flick of blue eyeliner? I didn’t know if it was just because the girl in the mirror was gradually beginning to look human, or because I hadn’t had to do this professionally for all of three days, but making myself up was fun. I looked lovingly at the colourful pots of MAC eye shadow, stroked the rubberized casing of my Nars blusher, smiled sweetly at my Lancôme lip gloss. I had to stop thinking of make-up as drudgery, just like everything else. Maybe if I was a better ad for my own work, I’d get more editorial stuff. I didn’t need Dan to take me to Sydney; I was bloody good at my job. Veronica should just put me forward and the editors could make a call based on my book. Redhead Rachel had spoken.

Before I left the house, I put a couple of minutes’ thought into Matthew’s birthday present. Usually, buying for old friends was an easy job, but he was impossible. He despised shopping for himself but he hated when people bought him clothes. If you gave him skincare products, you were calling him old. He was a foodie but he had a nut allergy. He loved sweets but if you got him chocolate, you were trying to make him fat. And even though he loved music, he was a terrible, terrible muso snob and so CDs were out of the equation. Possibly some vintage vinyl but, even then, it had to be mint. And not ironic. So vinyl was an option. There was only one thing I could be certain he would love and that was a clone of himself. If all else failed, there was his annually requested gift, a bottle of whiskey and gay porn. The gift that kept on giving.

Vinyl.

Simon’s vinyl.

I shot up off the sofa and catapulted over to the music stand in the corner of the room. Simon had insisted on buying a turntable a couple of years ago and ever since had been collecting rare vinyl to show off whenever my brother or any of his muso friends came over. As far as they were concerned he specialized in the Sixties. In reality, I knew the only music that ever got any play on his iPod was Lady Gaga’s first album and Coldplay’s last record. Not even
Parachutes
. There it was. His treasured ultra-rare Beatles record. The one he’d held to his chest and whined like a baby until his mum had given it to him. Hmm. Couldn’t hurt to get it valued, could it? I’d probably be doing him a favour. And if I had something very valuable on the premises, I could be robbed. He’d feel awful if I was robbed and murdered in the night because he’d left me here alone with a rare Beatles record. I should get it valued. I was going to Soho anyway. Popping it into a protective sheath fashioned out of two issues of
Heat
, I slipped the record in my bag and left the house, feeling strangely elated.

Soho always seemed like a strange part of London to me. Close enough to Oxford Street for tourists to wander in accidentally, mingling with the middle class ‘meedja’ types who weren’t cutting edge enough to have moved their business out east, and of course gay man upon gay man upon gay man. Not literally upon each other obviously. At least not in daylight hours. Most of my time on its cobbled streets was spent either in one of the classy hotels on shoots or hanging out in the Friendly Society with Matthew and Stephen in happier times. In unhappier times, it was the O Bar for an hour until he’d pulled, at which point I’d go and repeat the process with Emelie at Floridita before meeting Simon for a Wagamama’s round the corner. Maybe I was a bit boring. But today Soho only meant one thing: birthday shopping. Determined to redeem myself for last year’s boxer shorts and beer combo (I’d been very busy. And very lazy), I headed into Vinyl Junkies, looking for something special.

Record shops aren’t made for girls. This was a fact. Just like comic shops, Dungeons & Dragons tournaments and reading the newspaper on the toilet, record shops, especially specialist vinyl stores, were property of the Y-chromosome. I felt uncomfortable the second I walked through the door, just wishing I’d gone for jeans and trainers instead of a dress and eyeliner. The two middle-aged men, one bald, one overly hirsute, both misogynists, had me pegged as a novice before I’d even opened my mouth.

‘Hi.’ I gave them my best please-don’t-laugh-in-my-face-or-rip-me-off smile.

They gave me their best you’re-shit-out-of-luck-darlin’ nods in return.

‘I’m looking for a record,’ I squeaked. ‘For a birthday present.’

They exchanged a look.

‘Course you are,’ Bald Music Shop Man replied. ‘We’ve got lots of records, though. Anything in particular?’

Great. They had confirmed that I was a moron. Why hadn’t I asked my brother Paul to come with me? He was probably best friends with these arseholes.

‘My friend’s a bit of a muso,’ I elaborated, scanning the glass display cases behind the counter. ‘He really likes …’

Oh dear god, my mind was completely blank. Why? Why? Don’t say it Rachel, don’t you dare say it.

‘He really likes music.’

Neither Bald Music Shop Man nor Hairy Music Shop Man had an answer to that. OK, there was only one way to save this. Delving into my bag, I pulled out my
Heat
sheath.

‘Don’t think we’ve got anything they’re reviewing in that, darlin’,’ said Hairy Music Shop Man. This was the funniest thing Bald Music Shop Man had ever heard.

With a tilt of the head and a small smile, I peeled away the Cheryl Cole cover and revealed my bounty. Oh, would you look at that? Suddenly I had the attention of both muso men.

‘While I’m here, I was wondering if you could have a look at this for me.’ I laid the record on the counter very carefully. John, Paul, George and Ringo looked up and gave me a smile.

Obviously, these were men who weren’t able to communicate in a non-sarcastic fashion and so I took their silence as approval.

‘It’s my mother’s,’ I lied unnecessarily. ‘I want to get it valued for her. Obviously I’ve looked online.’

I hadn’t looked online.

‘Um, well.’ Bald Muso Man went to pick it up but paused, looking to me for approval. I gave him a nod and quietly enjoyed the power trip. ‘I don’t know, it’s rare.’