Where Have All the Boys Gone? (2 page)

Lucca swung her heavy beige-blonde hair in a circle. ‘I know why you call it “blind date” now,’ she hissed.

Miko shrugged. ‘Why?’

‘Because I want to stab my eyes out with fork! Tell me, why does he think I am interested he meets Robert Kilroy-Silk?’

Katie and Miko both shrugged.

‘Why he want tell me – before drink before dinner even that he is not ready for long-term relationship?’

‘Would we be better off with Italian boys?’ asked Katie sympathetically.

‘No! Only if you be their mother always.’

Lucca made a wild emphatic gesture that indicated a general wrath towards the male species altogether and headed off to dish out more abuse to the coffee machine.

‘Lucca’s much more beautiful than me,’ mused Katie sadly.

‘Yes, she is,’ said Miko.

‘But still gets dickheads.’

‘Who do you get then?’ asked Miko.

Terence, clearly. He’d seemed all right when they’d met at that barbecue. OK, there’d been lots of other people there, and quite a lot of beer, but now…As if doing the opposite of reading her mind, Terence confidently placed a podgy hand on her knee. Inside, Katie recoiled.

‘I just want you to know,’ he said, boozily breathing in her face. ‘I’m just in this for a bit of fun, yeah? Nothing too serious.’

Katie hadn’t liked the way the conversation with Miko was going.

Really, what was wrong with her? True, Katie Watson would never win any international modelling competitions. She liked to watch documentaries where hatchet-faced women run up to lanky adolescent girls in the street, whisking them off to new modelling worlds of fun and rock stars in Milan and Tokyo, but she never kidded herself that was
her
destiny. Olivia said once this had happened to her, but although she certainly was lanky, Katie thought she might have been a) telling a fib (not out of character for Olivia), or b) been a victim of a misunderstanding concerning teenage prostitution.

Katie was, well, cute, she supposed. ‘You’re a cutie,’ her ex-boyfriends had said. None of them had ever said, ‘Katherine Watson, you are the most staggeringly beautiful thing I have ever seen in my life. I would kill for you. I would lie down and die for you. Your muddy-coloured eyes sparkle like moonbeams; your soft lips, though not in the Angelina Jolie class, are like peaches. Your wide hips are life in my hands and your slightly short stature I consider nothing but a delight.’

Still, it made her look younger than she was, that was something about having a pixie face and a pointed chin. Although she was definitely growing out of the age where
she could wear pigtails to accentuate trying to be cute, which she supposed had benefits in no longer having men ask her how long her stockings were.

OK, on a level of perfectly scientific analysis, she was better looking than about sixty-five per cent of the people she had been to school with and, according to Friends Reunited, every single one of them now had kids. All of them. Even Magda with the Sellotape on her glasses and you couldn’t tell if she was looking at you or not. Even Mary Tracey Frances McGoolie, who gave off BO like a blowtorch. And, up until now, Katie hadn’t had a date for four months.

Four months, entirely chap-free. And if she was being strictly honest…she doodled about while her computer warmed up, still staring into the lobby…if she was going to be utterly honest, Clive hadn’t really been the stuff of her dreams. In fact, if she was honest she’d only dated him to break her
previous
three-month date-free desert. That was why she hadn’t minded so much that he had a skin condition behind his ears and scratched it all over his caesar salad.

Katie quickly sniffed under her armpits. OK, so it wasn’t that.

‘What are you doing?’ asked Miko.

‘Nothing!’ said Katie. ‘Checking my email.’

Miko looked under her own armpit.

‘Have you got something new from IT they haven’t told the rest of us about?’

‘No.’ Katie sighed. ‘What’s wrong with me Miko?’

Miko gave her a narrow look. ‘Nothing,’ she said.

‘That sounded like hmm hmm BUT,’ said Katie. ‘You know, as in nothing…BUT; or I’m single…BUT.’

‘But look at the facts,’ said Miko.

‘Ahh,’ said Katie.

‘We’re in the middle of a crisis.’

‘I wish people would stop saying that. What crisis?’

‘The no-men crisis, you idiot.’

‘Is that a real crisis?’

For the first time Katie noticed that Miko wore false eyelashes to go with her false nails. Was anything about her real? Was that Katie’s problem –
too
real?

Miko stared at her.

‘What?’ asked Katie.

‘You mean you really don’t know there’s a crisis?’

Miko patiently indicated the big glass lobby wall again. ‘Girl. Girl. Baldie. Girl. Girl. Don’t you get it?’

‘There are no men?’

‘Durr.’

‘But that’s just something people say. We say it every day.’

‘Because it’s true,’ said Miko. ‘Why do you think I bought these tits?’

‘Maybe I should buy some tits,’ said Katie absentmindedly in the Square Root, hiccuping for good measure.

Terence’s little toad eyes lit up. ‘I think you look gorgeous,’ he said hopefully. Katie couldn’t believe she’d just said that out loud and, taking it as her own final warning, stood up. If his job was as brilliant as he’d been claiming for the last three hours, perhaps he wouldn’t mind getting the drinks. She stumbled to the ladies.

On Tuesday night the girls had met up in the wine bar. All around them were lots of other girls having girls’ nights out. A lot of white wine was being slugged. Shoes and voices were high. The only man in sight was the waiter. ‘Oh God,’ said Louise. ‘Keep me out of sight of the waiter.’

‘That waiter is the biggest slag in NW11,’ said Olivia loudly. ‘Oh. Sorry Louise.’

Louise was pink. ‘I’d had too much white wine. They serve it in those enormous glasses.’

‘And then a dog ate your homework,’ said Katie. Really, she wanted to talk about work but it was really difficult with Olivia there. Recently, she’d felt as if, on some level, there was a tiny teeny-weeny possibility that doing PR for new food and drink products was…perhaps just the slightest bit…pointless? Not that there was necessarily anything wrong with anchovy pretzels and pink cola, it’s just, that sometimes – like every morning on the Tube – she wished maybe she were doing something a little more useful.

‘What was he like?’ said Olivia to Louise, eyeing the dark-haired waiter preening himself in the bar mirror and deftly jamming two glasses down in the glass washer as if it were an incredibly cool thing to be doing.

‘Perfunctory,’ said Louise uncomfortably. ‘He gave me the impression that, working here, it’s part of his job description.’

‘Ladies.’

He had materialised at their elbow. Louise was suddenly peering for something so deeply in her fake Birkin she looked like a horse with a feedbag.

‘What’s that thing we’re meant to get because we’re too cool for chardonnay now?’ asked Olivia.

‘Pinot Grigio,’ said Katie. ‘Tastes the same, more expensive.’

‘Ah, the plastic Prada bag school of ordering,’ said Olivia. ‘One of those please.’

‘Of course,’ said the waiter. ‘You all look very nice tonight.’

‘Thank you,’ said Louise from the nose up. ‘Again.’

The waiter gave her a quizzical look which showed absolutely no signs of recognition whatsoever, and scooted off.

‘Maybe you should rethink that whole “having unbelievably casual sex” thing,’ said Olivia.

Louise grimaced. ‘I’m getting over Max, OK, and having a great time. Really, really great. Plus, as I keep telling you, it’s the law of averages. If there’s only one perfect person out there for you, you’ve just got to get cracking. And never look back.’

‘What if the one perfect person out there for you is a pig?’ said Olivia dreamily. ‘Or married to Jennifer Aniston?’

‘What if they live in Laos?’ said Louise. ‘That’s what bothers me. Or if they speak Tulag. Did you know that’s the hardest language on earth to learn?’

The other girls stared at her as the waiter popped out the cork from the bottle with practised ease and poured them large glasses.

Louise looked sulky as all around them the women squawked and chattered, their slim legs and expensive shoes glinting in the flattering soft light reflecting off the beige leather chairs. Katie looked at Louise and worried about her. And herself.

‘Goodnight Terence,’ said Katie when she got back from the loo. She tried to be as nice as possible.

‘£60!’ Terence was saying. ‘For this shit! Jesus!’

‘Would you like me to go halves?’ she asked.

He shrugged. ‘If you like.’

Crossly, Katie put down half the money, noticing Terence counted out his share and didn’t leave a tip.

She felt infinitely more sober once she hit the open air. She liked walking in the city at night. People and couples
lurched, shouted or shuffled along, no one paying her the blindest bit of notice.

The familiar sounds of sirens and late-night misadventures echoed as she cut down past the Opera House, her heels clattering on the cobbles, leaving the heavy traffic behind her. A chap was weaving slightly by the side of the road, and she subconsciously hurried up a little bit.

‘’Ello darlin’,’ he shouted after her. ‘You look nice.’

Probably only compared to him, a very drunk man attempting to take a piss on the street, but still, she appreciated the gesture.

She was wondering how low she could possibly plummet on her male-attention appreciation charts, when suddenly, out of nowhere the man was right in front of her. She jumped six feet in the air.

‘Fuck!’ she said. ‘You gave me a fright.’

Her heart started to pound, hard, when she realised it wasn’t the same man after all. She couldn’t work out who this person was or how he had landed in front of her, but late on a Thursday night on a deserted street, it didn’t feel good…Her eyes whipped around to the side, but the genial drunkard was gone.

‘Ah,’ said a soft voice with a slight accent. ‘Yes. That can be what happens.’

He was tall and, with her heart banging furiously, Katie saw that he was dressed all in black, with a hat pulled down over his eyes. He was standing directly in front of the streetlight and she couldn’t make out his face. Oh shit oh shit oh shit. This was not good. Man in black on deserted street – either there was Milk Tray involved or this was definitely the opposite of good. Her eyes flicked to the side to see where she could run to and she cursed her ridiculous heels.

‘No,’ warned the voice. ‘Running. Don’t do it. I have
a knife. Or a gun. Or something really bad. And you look like a nice person.’

Katie stared at him, frightened beyond belief.

‘I – I am a nice person,’ she said, her voice two octaves higher than normal. ‘Can you let me go?’

‘I can always tell,’ said the man. ‘I only go for nice people.’

Oh fuck oh fuck. She was going to get raped or killed or kidnapped or tortured. The worst, the most awful thing was happening. Oh God. She was in the middle of one of the most crowded cities in the world. Where the hell were all the people? Oh no. She was going to be left for dead in an alley. She wondered how they’d describe her in the papers.

‘Show me your phone,’ said the man gruffly. He took her by the arm – Katie flinched and started shaking like a foal – and led her to the dark side of the road. They could have been a couple talking.

Her phone. Of course. If she were an actress in
24
she would have thought to have done something useful with that. But she knew from her trembling fingers she’d have been incapable of pressing the tiny keys as she drew it out of her bag.

‘This is a shit phone,’ said the man, staring at the cheap little black handset.

‘Yeah,’ said Katie. Everyone kept telling her it was a shit phone. Maybe that would save her life – or make him kill her out of sheer disgust at her poor taste.

The man dropped it on the ground and crushed it under his boot. ‘You should be more stylish,’ he said. ‘You should have a better phone.’

He carefully took her bag from her and started rummaging inside.

‘And look at this mess. What a mess. How can you
ever find anything in here? It’s full of tissues and lipsticks.’

‘It’s to deter muggers,’ said Katie. She still couldn’t get a look at his face, but for a murderous rapist, he didn’t seem very interested in her. In fact, he was looking at her lipstick with more interest.

‘You have a boyfriend?’

‘What?’

‘Yes, I think you have no boyfriend. You should ditch the orange lipstick. Orange, not good for you. Maybe why you have no boyfriend.’

‘Are you going to make me up like your dead mother and rape me to death?’ asked Katie in a panic.

It was dark, but she could catch the incredulous glint in his eye.

‘No!’ he laughed. ‘I’m going to take,’ he emptied out the coin section. ‘Twenty-four pounds and nineteen pence. And these cards, for about half an hour. Don’t worry. They’ll give you the money back, so it’ll be fine. Except for the twenty-four quid. Sorry about that.’

‘Don’t apologise,’ said Katie, furious. ‘Don’t do it!’

‘Yes,’ said the man. ‘No. I’m going to do it.’

He handed her back the bag.

‘That’s a messy bag. You should have a stylish bag. Don’t you have anyone to look after you?’

‘Shut up!’

‘Nice girl like you. Should have a nice man to look after you. Buy you nice bags.’

He looked regretful. ‘Well. Thanks. Have a safe trip home. Have you got a travel card?’

‘Yes.’

‘Good. OK. Be safe. Bye!’

Katie turned around to stare at him as he dived off, quick as a cat. Her heart couldn’t quite take in what had happened
and kept whumping away, and she suddenly found it difficult to get her breath. She leaned against the wall.

‘Fuck,’ she heaved.

The drunk man wobbled over.

‘Hello darlin’!’

‘Where the fuck were you?’ she shrieked at him. ‘I could have been killed!’

He straightened up and managed to focus for a second.

‘Sorry love,’ he slurred. ‘I’ve already got a girlfriend.’