The Single Girl's To-Do List (21 page)

I rolled across the bed to grab the phone off the floor and scream at whoever had disturbed my much-needed beauty sleep. Except it was Matthew.

‘You’re not dead then.’

‘I’m not but I nearly was.’ He sounded far too perky for, good god, seven a.m. on a Sunday. I’d had less than four hours’ sleep. I wondered what exactly they’d given him at the hospital. And whether or not he had any left. ‘And my near-death experience got me thinking. This to-do list thing is fine, but we need to step it up, Rach. I mean, any one of us could die any day.’

‘Matthew, you’ve been allergic to nuts all your life,’ I yawned. ‘You’ve been hospitalized five times, one of those times because you ate a Walnut Whip on a dare. Besides, we’re very much down to the step-it-up section of the existing list as it is. What do you want?’

‘Nothing,’ he lied. Matthew’s normally laconic tones always got squeaky when he wasn’t telling the truth. It was a symptom of the gay gene; he just wasn’t as smooth a liar as straight boys. ‘I just think we need to take more chances in life.’

‘Can we take chances after I’ve had another three hours’ sleep?’ I gave myself a desultory sniff. ‘And a shower?’

‘You need to shower and you need to pack.’ He sounded worryingly excited. East 17 reunion tour excited. ‘I’ll be round for you in an hour. We’re going away.’

‘What are you talking about?’ It really was far too early for his madness. ‘Away where? I’ve got to talk to my agent about getting back to work. I’ve had a week off already.’

‘One more week won’t hurt,’ he said. ‘You haven’t had a holiday in ages and I’ve already put the tickets on hold. I can’t save them for more than an hour. Tell Emelie to get herself sorted as well. I assumed you’d make me invite her. You need your passports.’

‘Matthew, I need to hang around here in case Veronica manages to get me on that Sydney job, you know that,’ I whined. Sydney. Sun. Sand. Half a planet away from Simon.

‘Yeah, because Dan is absolutely going to take you to Australia on a job now, isn’t he?’

Ohhhh. Good point, well made.

‘Passports. One hour. I’m on my way.’

It took every ounce of strength not to remind Matthew that my estranged dad, whom I hadn’t laid eyes on since I was two years old, hadn’t died twelve months previously, leaving me with a gaping father-figure complex and buckets and buckets full of cash. I had to work for a living and to pay off my ever-increasing credit-card bill. But in the moment it took to decide that, no, he needed to be told, Matthew hung up. And that was that.

I flopped back down against my pillows, taking a moment to enjoy the massive empty bed before committing myself to standing up. Wherever we were going, there’d better be lots of opportunity to lie down.

Em was already in the living room, eating a slice of pizza that had clearly been left out all night after the party. She was disgusting sometimes. She was also reading my letter to Simon.

‘Matthew just called telling me to get my arse into gear and not to forget my passport,’ she shouted at me as I shuffled through to the kitchen for coffee. ‘Did they give him the wrong drugs at the hospital? Has he got brain damage? Have you given Matthew brain damage?’

I turned around to see her holding up her hand for a high-five. I shook my head and she put it down again, disappointed.

‘Apparently he’s got some flight on reserve and he’s coming to get us in an hour,’ I explained. ‘That’s all I know.’

‘It’s not that I don’t love being friends with an ex-trolley dolly,’ she began. ‘It’s just that he never calls and says, I’m taking you to Honolulu, does he? If it’s Düsseldorf again, I’m not going.’

‘Düsseldorf was OK,’ I reminisced privately over a particularly good schnitzel. ‘I mean, as a place, it was lovely.’

‘Düsseldorf was OK?’ Emelie raised an eyebrow. ‘Whatever.’

‘I’m not really in a rush to go anywhere.’ I leaned against the fridge with my coffee. ‘Especially not in the next hour. Can’t we just watch
Hollyoaks
and then get twatted over Sunday lunch like normal people?’

‘Amen, sister,’ Emelie nodded. ‘You can tell him that when he gets here. After you’ve finished apologizing for poisoning him.’

‘Hmm,’ I sipped the lukewarm cup of Nescafé. ‘Maybe I’ll go and pack …’

When Matthew’s keys rattled the lock, I was sitting on the sofa, looking at my mini-suitcase and glugging down a second mug of coffee. It was still only eight a.m. and I wanted to be awake when Matthew announced we were going to the arse end of Norway for a week. Em was in the other room, screaming at a pair of ‘piece of shit Jimmy Choos’ that refused to fit in her bag. I could have offered to put them in mine, but listening to her yelling at inanimate objects while Simon Rimmer and two of McFly failed to make a risotto on the telly was far more entertaining. It was terrifying how much stuff she’d carted over here in the space of the last week. She had more clothes here than I now owned. Which had made packing something of a piece of piss for me.

‘Who’s ready for an adventure?’ Matthew threw himself on the sofa and looked at me with wild eyes.

I pressed my lips together and gave him a narrow-eyed look. ‘You made me spill my coffee.’

‘You poisoned me,’ he replied with an equally catty look. ‘Even?’

‘Maybe,’ I relented. ‘So where are we going?’

‘OK.’ He rubbed his palms on his jeans. ‘So, the whole nearly dying because you don’t know how to make a cheesecake thing sort of got me thinking. I know we’re trying to train you up to be a good single girl, but I think it’s also important that we start taking chances. So we’re going to Canada.’

‘We’re not going to Canada,’ I responded immediately. Almost as quickly, Emelie’s head appeared around the door.

‘Canada? No way.’ She shook her head. ‘There’s no way we’re going to Canada. I have a busy week.’

‘You, why not?’ he said to me. ‘And you, you haven’t had a very busy week since 2003.’

‘I work very hard,’ she said. ‘Just because I work from home, doesn’t mean I don’t work. I have to approve all the new Kitty Kitty products; I’m developing new style-guide art; I‘m working on—’

‘Wah wah wah,’ Matthew made a very unflattering quacking gesture with his hand. ‘Whatevs.’

‘Children, inside voices please. Matthew, we can’t go to Canada. Ethan will think I’m a mental if I just turn up on his doorstep.’

‘We’re not just turning up on his doorstep,’ he sighed. ‘You’re going to Vancouver for work, so you’re just stopping over in Toronto. See? I’ve thought of everything.’

I looked at Matthew’s excited face. And then at Emelie’s angry face. I wondered what face I was pulling. Who actually packed a bag and left the country? OK, so I didn’t have anywhere I needed to be for the next few days. And no, it wasn’t like anyone was counting on me doing anything. And Matthew would have paid next to nothing for the tickets. No one could deny that putting some distance between myself and the flat could only be a good idea, and god knows Sydney was definitely off the books. A week away and then back for Dad’s wedding, ready to start work again. Matthew had definitely had worse ideas. Like Düsseldorf.

‘It’ll be a good break, get you away from all of this,’ Matthew promised. ‘It’ll be fun.’

‘It would be nice to get away,’ I admitted. Redhead Rachel was already dragging her case down the street and hailing a cab. ‘And it is on the list.’

‘Seriously?’ Matthew looked as though he didn’t quite believe me. ‘We’re going? I’m not going to have to give you the rest of my very convincing argument?’

I pointed at my suitcase and waved my suitcase at him. ‘Before I change my mind.’

‘You’re not really going?’ Em pointed at me with a stiletto. ‘We’re not really going to go?’

‘Right, either you admit that you’re wanted for murder over there or you shut your face and get in the taxi that will be here in three minutes,’ Matthew snapped. ‘I’m not dragging you off to Guantanamo Bay, I’m taking you on a first-class flight to a beautiful city to stay in a nice hotel for a couple of days with your best friends. Or supposed best friends. Can you please get over yourself for one minute and say thank you?’

Em pressed her lips into a tight line. I didn’t know what she was going to say but I knew it wasn’t going to be good.

‘Rachel shagging some random from when she was sixteen isn’t going to make Stephen come running back to you, you know.’

Oh, wow. The big guns.

Matthew didn’t have an answer for that. But his breathing became audible and his grip on my Snoopy mug became dangerously tight. When the doorbell rang, it seemed like the loudest sound I had ever heard. Silently, Matthew stood up, pushed Emelie out of the way and headed to the door.

‘I literally have no idea why you said that,’ I whispered. ‘Why,
why
would you use the “S” word?’

Em’s face was completely white. ‘You need to talk to him about that.’ She shook her head. ‘I know he hasn’t told you.’

‘Hasn’t told me what?’ There was something I didn’t know? What? I was missing something and I didn’t like it.

I heard the front door slam shut as quickly as it had opened and Matthew marched into the living room, grabbed a pile of letters from the coffee table and marched back out again. He was recycling my junk mail before we went on holiday? And there was me thinking how mad my mum would be if she knew I hadn’t bleached the toilet.

‘Matthew?’ I gave Em a quizzical look but she just shrugged, Jimmy Choo still in hand. ‘Can you see him?’

‘I think he’s gone outside,’ she said, peering down the hallway. ‘He’s not on the stairs.’

‘If he’s gone to set himself on fire or something, I’ll be well annoyed,’ I muttered from the sofa. ‘Now, seriously, what’s going on with you two? What don’t I know?’

But Matthew wasn’t giving her an opportunity to answer. He opened the door, slammed it shut behind him and marched back up the hallway.

‘Emelie, stop bloody whining, put your shoe in your handbag and get downstairs,’ he ordered. ‘Rachel, that was Simon.’

‘At eight in the morning?’ Em looked confused. ‘On a Sunday? Is he ill?’

‘He always gets up early on a weekend,’ I said blankly. ‘He’s got football practice.’

‘He came for his post,’ Matthew clarified. ‘He has now got his post and will not be bothering you again. He will also not be talking to estate agents about selling your flat until you tell him he can. Now, the taxi’s here, shall we leave?’

I stared, speechless. Matthew Chase. Man of action.

‘Better get a move on then.’ Em slipped her shoe into her handbag and pulled up the handle to her suitcase. ‘Canada it is.’

There really was only one thing for it. I left regular Rachel with her ex-boyfriend, her blonde hair and her Sky Plus box full of
Glee
repeats sitting on the sofa watching
Something for the Weekend
and let Redhead Rachel drag my suitcase down the hallway and out to the black people-carrier on the street.

Canada, it was.

Fourteen hours, one first-class flight and several glasses of champagne later, Redhead Rachel was in Toronto and ticking ‘travel’ off her to-do list. I leaned over the desk that ran the length of the room and stared out of the window. I couldn’t quite believe it. Granted the view of another building and a couple of garages wasn’t very grand, but it certainly wasn’t Islington either. We weren’t in Islington. We were in bloody Canada. The hotel itself was, as Matthew had promised (on the recommendation of international jetsetter, Jeremy), absolutely gorgeous if terrifyingly trendy. It was a bit like checking in to the set of
Mad Men
while being surrounded by the cast of
Gossip Girl
. Once we were safely up in our room, Emelie threw herself across the squishy mattress.

‘OK, I’ll see you two later,’ she said, closing her eyes. ‘You crazy kids have fun, I’m knackered.’

‘Get off your arse.’ Matthew grabbed her leg and dragged her down to the foot of the bed. ‘We’re going down to the bar; it’s only –’ he looked at his watch, realized he hadn’t reset it and shrugged – ‘well, it’s early.’

Em looked to me for support but I was too busy sitting cross-legged in the big square chair checking out the room service menu. ‘There’s a four-hundred-dollar vibrator on here.’ I felt all the colour drain from my face. ‘Where have you brought us?’

‘I bet it’s not real. I bet no one has ever ordered it.’ Matthew waved away my fear. ‘It’s just one of those trendy hotel things. I bet they wouldn’t have one if you called down for it.’

‘Right,’ I wasn’t convinced. ‘Um, is it me or is that the shower? In the middle of the room?’

Em and Matthew both looked up.

‘Why is there no shower curtain?’

Apparently international jetsetter Jeremy had failed to mention that the rooms didn’t have bathrooms. They had shower cubicles in the bedroom. At the end of the bed. Clear glass shower cubicles three feet from the edge of the bed. Not even a trace of frosting to protect your modesty.

‘You are not getting naked in front of me,’ Matthew looked horrified. ‘I’ll wait outside.’

‘You’re really going to sit outside the room every time one of us wants a shower?’ Em asked.

‘Well I’m not going to sit and watch, am I?’

Poor gay Matthew.

‘Better look away now then.’ She stood up and started stripping off. ‘I always feel disgusting after flying.’

I launched myself into her spot on the bed and grabbed the remote control. ‘Bagsy I go after you.’

‘Oh dear god,’ Matthew held his hands over his eyes and headed towards the door. ‘I’ll be in the bar getting drunk enough for this not to bother me. You might need to carry me back to bed.’

Post-shower, Emelie promptly lay down and passed out. Refusing to listen to my anti-jetlag advice, she was already tucked up in the great big bed before I got in the shower. By the time I stepped out, she was fast asleep. Or at least pretending to be so she didn’t have to go down to the bar and watch Matthew do his bit for international relations. Why did I always have to be mother? I looked at my sparse wardrobe options. It was Sunday evening. No need to go over the top but – given what I’d seen hanging around reception when we walked in – a little effort might be required. At least lipstick. Maybe eyeliner. Ensemble-wise, I went for cropped black Capri pants and the longest stripy T-shirt in my collection, hoping I could pass for continental chic and not a bit tired and lazy. There was a good enough argument to support either if you could be bothered to look for it. Slipping my room key into my big old bag, I locked a loudly snoring Emelie in on her own. And tried not to be jealous.

Even though it was a Sunday, the Sky Yard was packed with people; even after two loops, I couldn’t spot Matthew. Once I felt sufficiently awkward, I shuffled towards an empty table in the back and played people-watching while I waited for a waitress. Everyone in there was irritatingly cute and hipster but there was not a single mountie or lumberjack in sight. My mum would have been so disappointed. Matthew, however, would surely have been delighted: my gaydar was going off in a big way. Hopefully he hadn’t ditched me before I even got there. After a couple more minutes, I gave in and took out my phone to text him. I’d been avoiding looking at it for fear of a message from Simon or Dan, but there was nothing from either of them. Rather than entertain the sick part of me that was disappointed, I invested in the part that was excited to see a new message from Ethan. I’d messaged from the airport to tell him about my last-minute job in Vancouver, including two-day layover in Toronto to meet the stylist. It seemed like a plausible excuse – or at least one that a male high school teacher wouldn’t question.

The message loaded slowly but, at last, there it was, right next to that adorable picture of Ethan and his dog.

‘Hey, you’re coming to Toronto? Actually, I guess by the time you read this, you’ll be in the city. That’s amazing! Will you have time to hang out? Crazy that you’re coming just when we got back in touch. Give me a call when you get into town, my schedule is pretty clear.’

He wanted to hang out. He was only mildly suspicious. He’d actually given me his mobile number. These were all good things. If he hadn’t been suspicious at all, I’d have worried he was backwards or religious or something. But I wasn’t quite ready to call him; instead I tapped out a text saying I had the entire next day free and that I’d love to hang out. A tiny electric thrill ran up my spine as I pressed send. This was very exciting.

‘Someone looks pleased with herself.’ A painfully pretty creature sat herself in the empty seat opposite me. ‘Is this seat taken?’

‘Um, not right now?’ I watched as she sat herself down with complete ease.

Was this the done thing in Canada? People just sat down with you in bars? And I was really selling this girl short by referring to her as people; she was clearly some sort of glamazon, sent by the gods of the to-do list to make me question whether or not I was really trying. Glossy, coffee-coloured curls, olive skin, perfect manicure and fresh, glowing make-up. I immediately assumed pro. Make-up artist that was, not the other kind of pro who hung out in hotel bars.

‘Cute shirt,’ she looked me up and down. ‘American Apparel?’

‘Topshop.’ I was too confused and English to come up with a return compliment before the waitress appeared at our side, but her outfit was effortlessly classy: black cigarette pants, dove grey T-shirt, tasteful jewellery. Maybe she was a fashion editor.

‘Drinks, ladies?’ The waitress looked appropriately bored through her layers of eyeliner.

‘Uh, wine?’ I peered at the menu in front of me. ‘White wine?’

‘We have a great chardonnay,’ she suggested.

‘No they don’t,’ my tablemate answered for me. ‘She’ll take the sauvignon. Me too. In fact, we’ll take a bottle.’

‘On its way.’ The waitress turned on her high heel.

‘The chardonnay is that bad?’

‘Intervention bad,’ she nodded. ‘I’m Jenny, by the way.’

I hoped to God that Em didn’t decide to venture downstairs. If these two were ever in the same place at once, the world might just implode or something.

‘Rachel. Are you from Toronto?’ I asked.

‘Oh god no. Canada would never lay claim to me.’ She pushed her hair back from her face. ‘I’m not nearly nice enough. I’m just here for work.’

I nodded, still not entirely sure what to say.

‘I’m not a hooker,’ she replied, no trace of a smile on her face, ‘if that’s what you’re thinking.’

‘Oh, no, I didn’t think that. I didn’t. Really.’ I hadn’t thought it! I hadn’t!

‘Relax, I’m fucking with you.’ She placed a super-soft hand covered in elaborate cocktail rings on my arm and tried not to laugh. ‘Brits, you’re all so sensitive. No, I am here for work, I’m from New York. Way too much of a bitch to pass for a Canadian.’

‘So what do you do?’ I asked, scanning the bar for Matthew or our wine. I wasn’t bothered which came first as long as it came fast.

‘I’m a stylist.’

‘No way.’ I looked down at the Facebook exchange between myself and Ethan. I loved it when fate worked out to make me not a liar.

‘Yeah,’ Jenny replied. ‘I know, it’s retarded. I dress people for a living.’

‘Not at all,’ I assured her. She was right, the sauvignon was good. ‘I’m a make-up artist.’

‘Really? That’s awesome.’ She raised her glass. ‘You’re here on a job?’

My phone buzzed on the table between us. Ethan had replied already.

‘No, I’m just here with friends.’ I looked around for said friend but fate was working against me this time. ‘And, maybe there’s a boy. Sort of.’

‘When isn’t there a boy?’ she asked. ‘But a sort of a boy in a foreign country? That sounds like the kind of story you want to share with a complete stranger in a hotel bar on a Sunday night.’

I smiled. Usually I wasn’t great at making small talk with new people. Or even people in general, but it was impossible not to like this girl. Over one and a half glasses of wine, I gave her the mid-length version of the Ethan story, including the list, leaving in Simon, leaving out Dan, and then we read the text message. He suggested brunch at my hotel.

‘So say yes already,’ Jenny gave me a killer grin. ‘Brunch can’t hurt, right?’

‘Can’t it?’ I paused for a second before replying with a restrained ‘see you then’, and stuck my phone back in my bag.

‘Depends what you think is gonna happen with this guy?’ Jenny pulled her hair back into a ponytail-slash-semicontrolled explosion. ‘Is this just a fun rebound hook up or are you thinking along the lines of a more life-changing fairy-tale happily ever after?’

‘Potential fun hook-up?’ Even I didn’t sound convinced. ‘Given that life-changing fairy-tale-type affairs are usually just that.’

‘OK, couple of things. One, don’t count out the fairy tales, especially concerning Brit girls and foreign guys.’ She counted her points off on her decorated fingers. ‘Two, don’t take this the wrong way, but you really don’t seem like the random hook-up kind of gal and, three, any idea what his expectations are?’

I carried on sipping my wine. She raised an excellent point. ‘I have no idea what he’s thinking.’

‘So if he was thinking: awesome, here’s this cool chick I had a crush on in high school and I’m recently single and she’s recently single and she’s just in town for the night, so why not? How would you feel about that?’ She templed her fingers on the table. ‘Good or bad?’

‘Maybe not great?’

‘Right?’ She raised both eyebrows. ‘And what happens if you meet, you have some crazy connection and you realize he’s the one?’

‘The one?’ I tucked my hair behind my ears with a smile. ‘Is there such a thing?’

‘There really is,’ Jenny assured me. ‘And not to sound like a complete dick but, when you meet him, you’ll know.’

I gave her a disbelieving look.

‘Oh yeah,’ she went on. ‘Sweaty palms, nausea, racing heart and, for most of us modern girls, an utter conviction that he is absolutely, positively, not the one. It’s usually that guy.’

We sat in silence for a moment while I tried to convince myself there was no way she talking about Dan.

‘So you ticked off everything on the list?’ Jenny asked.

‘I have two things left.’

‘Anything I can help with?’

I frowned, wondering how she’d feel about a lovely Saturday afternoon at a church in Godalming. ‘I have to do a bungee jump or something similar and I have to find a date to take to my dad’s wedding next Saturday so I can turn up looking amazing with someone amazing. At this point, the bungee jump is going to be easier. Says the girl who can’t climb a stepladder to paint her ceiling without getting dizzy.’

‘It actually might be.’ She looked so happy. This girl really was a problem-solver. ‘I’m pretty sure they’ve got one of those slingshot bungee-ball things at Niagara Falls and they start on the ground so you don’t even have to climb up anything to do it. It’s not that far from here. Would that count?’

If I knew what a bungee ball was, I would be calling them up and booking myself in. This girl was amazing.

‘It might.’ I scribbled ‘Bungee ball – Niagara Falls’ in my notebook. I hadn’t even thought about Niagara Falls being close by – we had to go. I’d been obsessed with them ever since
Dirty Dancing
. Although the reference to Acapulco in the same scene had been ruined for me by the Phil Collins song. I had no interest in going loco down in Acapulco or anywhere else with Phil. ‘I will be so happy when I’ve crossed everything off this list. There’s a chance I also need to make an appointment to see someone about my OCD. Not that I’m turning light switches off fourteen times or anything.’

‘I love making lists. Objectives. Resolutions. Really, I totally get you,’ she said. ‘But now you’ve got to work out how to put what you’ve learned into practice. No point writing a list, ticking it off and then forgetting about it. You gotta start living it every day.’

‘Well, I wasn’t planning on getting a tattoo and crashing a charity ball every week but, yeah, I think it’s encouraged me to branch out a bit,’ I agreed. ‘I was blonde until a week ago.’

‘No way? See, you’re gonna be fine.’ She waved a hand to dismiss my concerns. ‘Great job, great friends, totally cute. You’ve got it all figured out.’

‘Really?’ I laughed. ‘Please tell my mother that. Are you single?’

Jenny took a deep breath, swirled her glass and then drank the rest of her wine down in one.

‘I am single.’

‘Can I ask why?’

She smiled but it didn’t make it up into her eyes. ‘Guy I love doesn’t love me. He just moved in with someone else actually.’

‘Do you think anyone actually chooses to be single?’

‘Yeah, sure,’ she said. ‘But choosing it and wanting it, two totally different things. I think a heap of people sit down and think, hey, I need some me time, but I don’t buy the idea that they go to bed alone every night with a smile on their face. I’d rather be single than be with the wrong guy, but I don’t think anyone wants to be alone. I don’t want to be alone.’

‘You remind me of one of my friends,’ I said, trying to commit her wisdom to memory to repeat back to Em and Matthew.