A Girl Like You (6 page)

‘I need someone who can create volume, stimulate sales. I don’t need someone who just sits back and reads. You’re too passive.’

I flinch.

She isn’t done yet. ‘I expect more. Step. It. Up.’

I am nodding so hard that my neck is starting to hurt. The ‘you’re too passive’ remark particularly stings.

I clear my throat. ‘Yes, thank you, I know, I know.’

Suzanne narrows her eyes. ‘It’s up to you. The question you need to ask yourself is,
what do I want
?’

I stop nodding and stare at her for a second. It’s that fucking question again. She raises an overplucked eyebrow and looks at me.

‘What do you want, Abigail?’

I open my mouth to speak and shut it again. I have no answer, none at all. What’s wrong with me? For a second I fight the urge to cry. What the fuck
do
I want?

‘That’s all,’ she dismisses me. I walk out, shaking my head to clear my thoughts. What a day. And it’s not even lunchtime yet.

The last thing I’m in the mood for is my date with that Skinny Jeans guy tonight. But I’m damned if I’m going to miss out on a chance to get the dating experience I need. I’m meant to be meeting him at 8 pm. I think I should have a couple of drinks at home first to get me in the mood.

Chapter Eight

Friday morning, 8 am.

My phone wakes me up, which is lucky, since I’m (a) meant to be at work by 7 am every day (b) not in my own house (c) naked.

I’m on the edge of a double bed with strange pale blue sheets, and as I turn my head to figure out how the hell I came to be here, I spy a naked man sleeping next to me. It’s Skinny Jeans guy.

I gasp in shock, fall onto the floor and scramble around the bedroom frantically looking for my phone. My heart is beating violently, my head pounding at the same pace, oh God, oh God – ah, it’s in my bag. Under my bra.

I look at the caller ID. It’s Plum.

‘Fuck!’ I whisper, instead of hello.

‘So, how was it?!’ she says excitedly.

‘Wrong tense,’ I mumble, as I crawl frantically around the bedroom on my hands and knees looking for the rest of my clothes. Knickers! On the bookshelf. Sweet.

‘Don’t tell me you’re at his house?’ Plum starts to laugh hysterically.

‘I don’t remember, I don’t remember anything,’ I mumble.

‘What the fuck happened?’

I grab my jeans from their hiding place half under the bed, whispering furiously. ‘We were on our date, in a bar, and I called Robert for advice, and he suggested I have a shot for liquid confidence, and I did, but then I think I had too many . . .’ I writhe on the floor to pull on my jeans without standing up, accidentally drop the phone and pick it up quickly.

‘So! Do you like him?’ asks Plum chattily.

‘No, yes, I don’t know, I have to get out of here, I have to call in sick . . .’ I decide against putting my bra on and stuff it in my bag. My top is, oddly, folded on the floor. Why would I do that, I wonder? Then again, it is one of my favourite tops. I just bought it on the weekend with Plum and she suggested I wear it on my date. It’s the most perfect, dove-grey asymmetric top from Cos and I can’t tell you how much I wish I’d bought it in black, I might go – oh, shit. Back to the nightmare.

‘OK. Sorry. Get home and call me. I’ll call in sick for you,’ she says.

‘God, I love you,’ I whisper.

We hang up, and I open the bedroom door silently and crawl out on my hands and knees, my handbag strap firmly in my mouth. Skinny Jeans hasn’t even stirred. I wonder why he isn’t at work. What does he do again? I try to remember. Ah, yes – he works for a film production company. His day doesn’t start till 10 am.

I find myself in a living room, and spy the detritus of last night: an overflowing ashtray, empty wine bottles and – oh please God no – a bottle of whisky. My jacket is on the couch, along with my shoes. I put them on, fumbling over the stupid finicky fucking shoe straps on these YSL-via-Zara beauties, and stand up for the first time today. I nearly faint from the sudden rush of blood/oxygen/booze to my head. I feel simultaneously hot and cold, nauseous and fuzzy, and I’m trying not to think about the fact that maybe, yes, I might, possibly, yes, I probably, definitely had sex with Skinny Jeans last night.

The used condom on the floor next to the bed kind of gives it away. Three cheers for safe sex.

I close the front door as quietly as I can and, squinting helplessly as the grey morning burns my eyes, look around for some kind of sign that will let me know where I am. Think woman, think . . .

I hurry to the end of the street to look at the street sign. It says W10, what’s that? North Kensington? Ladbroke Grove? I don’t know! It’s so fucking quiet! There’s no traffic noise, nothing . . . I walk as fast as I can to the end of the road and look up and down the next road. Which way should I go? The street at the bottom looks busier, so I speedwalk towards it, silently vowing to never leave the house without sunglasses and Panadol again. And a personal chauffeur and car.

I reach the end of the road and pivot around and around on one leg like a drink-defiled netball player, desperately looking for a street sign. Chamberlayne Road, that sounds familiar, doesn’t it? Kensal Rise? I think so.

Where the fuck is a black cab? Please God, please send me a black cab. One finally turns up, and I bleat ‘Primrose Hill’ as I get in, collapse on the back seat, and take a deep, shaky sigh.

What the fuck happened last night?

The first hour or so was fine. We met at Negozio Classica, made chatty, flinty, witty repartee that was one part fun and one part hard work, and one part petrifying nerve-wracking hell, and shared two bottles of wine. I was in a bad mood about my disastrous day at work, so I definitely drank faster than I usually would have. (Too passive, my arse, I remember thinking, as I flirtily ordered a second bottle of wine from the waiter.)

Then we went on to a restaurant called Taqueria where I was overjoyed to discover they had margaritas and other potent libations of the Tex-Mex persuasion. Robert’s right, I thought happily, as the waiter whisked away my picked-over tacos and delivered my fourth tequila-based cocktail, dating
is
fun.

Skinny Jeans was slick, flirty and very confident. I laughed at everything he said, laughed even harder at everything I said, and after a few drinks, found it easy to play the cool/detached card as instructed. Right up till he started playing with my hands after dinner. Curling his fingers around my fingers, tracing my palm with his thumb, smiling at me, looking into my eyes . . . It was completely unnerving. I ran to the toilet in a panic and rang Robert.

‘What do I do, what do I do?’ I gabbled.

‘What’s going on?’ asked Robert.

‘Umm, he’s looking me in the eye a lot, and playing with my hands, and it’s like, I don’t know, a seduction thing. I’m finding it very hard to be cool and detached when it makes me want to run away . . .’

‘You can leave anytime you want.’

‘No, I want to stay,’ I said bravely. ‘I’m going to have a proper date if it kills me.’

‘If you don’t like the seduction routine, just take your hands away. You’re in total control.’ I made a hurrumph sound. ‘Maybe you should have a shot of something. Liquid confidence.’

Good fucking idea, Robert, I think now. The cab is nearly home, and going past our local shops. Do I need anything? Because I sure as shit am not leaving the house once I get there. I might never leave it again. I have bottles of water in the fridge (hydration is urgently needed), and lots of those dissolvable sparkling vitamin tablets and please God let me have painkillers. I don’t have any crumpets but fuck it, I can do without.

All I need to do is survive the rest of the day, one minute at a time.

I finally get into my tiny en suite bathroom, nearly dying of exhaustion from the effort of climbing the stairs, and gasp in shock for the second time today: last night’s carefully applied make-up is now Courtney Love On A Bender, and my smooth ponytail is an Amy Winehouse-y rat’s nest: knot upon knot upon knot. I look like that anti-binge drinking ad. God! It’s so not me. Social drinker, enthusiastic drinker, animated drinker, yes – but not binge drinker . . . I can’t bear to deal with it right now. I’ll just wash the rest of me and worry about the hair later.

Then I start gagging in the shower, and, spilling water everywhere, have to hang on to the toilet seat to vomit up the poisonous sour taste of half-digested wine and whisky.

Hello, rock bottom. Fancy seeing you here.

Finally, I’m in bed with the curtains closed and my room nice and cold and dark. My heart is still hammering and I’m panting light, shallow breaths.

I hate alcohol.

What else happened last night? After Taqueria, we went to a pub around the corner, which I can’t remember very well, and we did tequila shots at the bar, and then we went to a downstairs bar with a DJ, and I have a feeling more shots were involved. I remember rubbing the belly of a fat man at the bar ‘for luck’. And I gave a girl in the toilets a make-over, and showed her the importance of blending. I think I was dancing to Marvin Gaye, yes I was and oh God, I think I did splits on the dance floor.

WhyLordowhy.

We definitely snogged in the last bar, and then we were in a cab snogging more, and I think I was on his lap but I can’t remember, and oh God, I am a slutbag, we were back at his, and we drank more (more?!) and that’s about it. Blackout before the R-rated bit starts.

I’ll try to drink the first bottle of water.

Fucking hell, that is exhausting.

I need a hug. I make a little whimpering mew sound to myself, then stop. Even that is exhausting.

My phone rings. It’s Plum again. It takes me a long time to pick it up, press the right button and hold it to my head.

‘Fuck,’ I say again.

‘Are you OK? Are you home?’

‘Yes,’ I say. ‘Did you call work?’

‘You have a throat infection that will keep you in bed all weekend,’ she says crisply.

‘Oh, that’s lovely,’ I whisper. ‘Oh God, Plum, I’m dying, I’m fucking dying . . .’

Plum is openly laughing now. Why is someone else’s hangover and drunken remorse always amusing?

‘I just threw up,’ I whisper.

‘If I were there I’d hold your hair back,’ she says. ‘I’d even braid it for you.’

I moan slightly. ‘It’s fucking Robert’s fault. I hate him. He told me to have shots for confidence.’

‘How many shots did he tell you to have?’

I pause. ‘One.’

‘How many did you have?’

About sixteen.

‘Shut up, Plum,’ I instruct. ‘I am hanging up now.’

I decide to lie as still as I can to get the poundpoundpounding in my head to go away. I’m sweating and shaking lightly. My scalp hurts. I try to ignore the waves of drunken remorse that are washing over me, the flickering images of last night that are moving around my head in a nightmarish kaleidoscope . . . Don’t think about it now, Abigail, just don’t think about it.

Somehow, by holding my head at just the right angle, the bottle of water clasped to my chest, I fall asleep.

Chapter Nine

I wake up just past 5 pm to see Robert in my doorway.

‘What the hell happened to you?’

I feel like I’ve just been hit in the mouth with a bucket of sand. I sit up unsteadily, try and fail to croak hello, and after several attempts, hold a bottle of water to my lips and drink till I have to collapse back on the pillow. God, water tastes good. So good.

‘Nice hair,’ he says. ‘Very sexy.’

‘Well, Robert,’ I say finally, ignoring the hair comment. ‘Some idiot told me shots would relax me.’

‘I said have a shot, not a bottle,’ replies Robert, leaning against the doorframe and folding his arms. He’s trying not to grin. And failing. ‘How was your walk of shame?’

‘It wasn’t a walk of shame,’ I moan. ‘It was a dash of total fucking mortification. I am full of remorse. I showed my fifi to a strange man. And I don’t even remember it.’

‘Your fifi doesn’t care. Have a shower and get dressed, Abby. We’re going out.’ I’ve noticed him calling me Abby recently, which no one has done since I was little.

‘I can’t possibly face the world. I am a harlot and a lush. I should be branded.’

‘We can brand you later. We’re going out,’ Robert says firmly.

‘I can’t possibly leave the house after my behaviour in the past 24 hours. I’m putting myself under house arrest.’

‘Get dressed,’ he yells, walking down the stairs.

Leaving Skinny Jeans’ house this morning has turned into a fuzzy half-memory. Just like most of last night. I wonder what time we got to bed, I mean sleep.

Flashback: lying on a pillow, kissing Skinny Jeans and looking over at his bedside clock as it hit 5.03 am.

‘Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuck!’ I shout.

‘Get up!’ shouts Robert up the stairs.

I reach into my drawer and pull out my dissolvable vitamin Cs and Solpadeine stash, pop them into the remaining water and swirl them around till they’re all dissolved. Sipping it, I lean over and switch on my iPod player. Quite randomly, it’s ‘Get Over It’ by OK Go. How appropriate.

Ah, the joy of a hot shower. I lather up with as much soap as I can and scrub my head with my poshest shampoo, and spend a careful ten minutes on my bed hair with a wide-tooth comb and half a bottle of conditioner.

‘Where are we going?’ I yell down the stairs at him. ‘What should I wear?’

‘Something sharp,’ he replies. Something sharp?

I open my wardrobe doors. Come on, Abigail. It’s time to start speaking clothes. Not what Plum tells you to wear, not what Peter used to like you to wear . . . but what you want to wear.

I feel like looking invincible and effortless tonight, because I feel just the opposite on the inside. So I take out my new Topshop jeans that make me feel extremely tall and thin, and pair them with a super-lightweight white vest. I add a blazer and a long, skinny red scarfy thing, and put on a pair of boots that add a good four inches to my height.

Invincible. But effortless. Yes.

Halfway through blow-drying my hair, Robert knocks on my door.

‘Room service.’ He walks in with a Bloody Mary and two crumpets smothered liberally with peanut butter. ‘I thought you might want to line your stomach.’

‘How did you know I love crumpets?’ I say, delightedly. ‘I thought I’d run out.’

‘You’ve always got a crumpet attached to your face on weekends, it doesn’t take a genius to figure it out . . .’ he says. ‘I picked them up on the way home. And everyone loves Bloody Marys.’

‘Thank you . . . but I don’t think I should drink again. Ever.’

‘A Bloody Mary isn’t drinking, it’s like nature’s Solpadeine.’

I look at him expressionlessly and sip the Bloody Mary.

‘Wowsers, that’s good . . . You’ve shaved,’ I comment.

‘You told me to,’ he replies. ‘Did you just say “wowsers”? Like Inspector Gadget?’

The next half hour is a mix of chewing, slurping, makeupping and smiling. I almost feel better. The Bloody Mary is extremely spicy. The peanut butter is chewy and just a tiny bit salty. And my make-up is – God bless it – working wonders. I need a little extra highlighter and concealer tonight, but apart from that I look surprisingly alright. I’ve had about 10 hours sleep, I guess.

I suddenly feel inexplicably cheerful.

I wonder what Robert has planned for us tonight. I hope it’s fun.

I check my phone for the first time since this morning. Seven missed calls and four texts. I love feeling popular. The texts are from Sophie, Josh From HR and ohfucktwofromSkinnyJeansguy. I listen to a message from Mum, asking me about my bridesmaid dress preference. No one else left a message. Everyone I know is too impatient to bother leaving a voicemail.

Sophie:
So I hear you’ve been a very bad girl. Details.

Josh From HR:
Hi!!! What are you up to this weekend? Fancy a catch-up? Maybe dinner in SW17? xxx

Skinny Jeans:
Devastated. I am devastated that you would leave me like this. x

Skinny Jeans:
Well, you can ignore me, but I had a great night. Let me know if you fancy it again some time.

‘Fuuuuuuuck,’ I say to myself, and flop facedown on my bed and moan. I feel sick again.

If I was going to have the first one-night-stand of my life, wouldn’t it be good if I could actually remember it?

And yes, by the way, it was definitely a one-night-stand. I’m too mortified given my drunkenness, and I don’t want to see him again, anyway. He’s kind of cute, but his anecdotes centred largely on getting stoned. I kept thinking,
Stick it out, Abigail, this is experience, this is experience . . .

I’m going to be brutal, as per Robert’s instructions. Josh From HR is just ew, and Skinny Jeans . . . I can’t face it. So I won’t. For some reason, the decision to ignore them both makes me feel stronger and in control.

I flip through the rest of my texts from last night. They’re all from Robert, all in reply to apparent text questions from me. From the end of the night, backwards:

1.32 am I am sleeping Abigail.

12.37 am Don’t worry about it. Lots of people get caught snogging in bar toilets.

12.20 am Have a glass of water. I don’t speak drunk.

11.57 pm Maybe he doesn’t know what comatose means.

11.41 pm Everyone’s seen Pretty In Pink. He’s lying. PS I can’t believe you’d choose Stef.

11.37 pm Try this, then. Ducky versus Blaine – who should Andie have picked?

11.16 pm How about this: You look like the kind of guy who sings in a choir. Am I right?

10.24 pm Dater’s block, huh. Very funny. Try complimenting him on something he’s wearing in a slightly sarcastic way.

9.43 pm Relax. Are you even having fun? Did you have a shot? Remember, you can always leave.

We were kicked out of a bar for snogging in the toilets?

I never want to see Skinny Jeans again. It will be easy because I am never going to get off my bedroom floor. I will die here. Of mortification.

I moan at the ceiling pathetically for a few seconds.

Ooh, text.

It’s Henry.

Abigay. What are you doing tonight and can I join?

I invite him along, and resume my position.

It’s at this second that I remember that I have not had a bikini wax since quite a long time before Peter and I broke up. My moan turns into a loud squeal of anguish.

‘What now?’ Robert is in my doorway again.

‘Nothing,’ I say sulkily. ‘My friend Henry is coming along, by the way.’

‘Tell Uncle Robbie what’s wrong,’ he says, coming into the room and crouching down next to me.

I sigh, and meet his amused eyes. ‘I just realised that I have not had a bikini wax in a long time. It’s pretty bad. I should have had a sign on my knickers saying Abandon Hope All Ye Who Enter Here.’

‘Only the penitent man shall pass, huh?’ Robert starts laughing. ‘Hey. I hear the full bush is coming back into fashion anyway.’

‘“The full bush”? Says who, the pubic topiary style mavens?’ I pause. ‘I’m sorry I bothered you so much. With the texts, I mean.’

‘There was nothing good on TV. It was a nice distraction.’

‘You were at home?’ Robert is never home on a Thursday.

‘Of course not. I was with bowler-hat girl. She has a TV in her bedroom.’

‘That’s nice.’ I peer at him through my fingers. ‘I’m a woman of easy virtue,’ I add mournfully.

‘Oh, come on. What is this, 1955? No one is judging you except yourself.’

‘Sleeping with a virtual stranger and being too drunk to even remember it is a pretty bad fucking mistake, Robert. It’s just not something I
do
. Ever . . .’

‘Just shake it off. Remorse is a pointless emotion. Be bullet-proof. That’s key to surviving single life . . . What did he say this morning?’

‘Nothing,’ I say, taking out my notebook and adding
Bulletproof
to the list. That’s a good one. ‘I crept out before he could wake up and act like men in films do, all awkward and uninterested . . . what’s that line in
When Harry Met Sally
? Pretend he had to, you know, clean his andirons.’

‘What’s an andiron?’

‘I don’t know.’ I sigh deeply, and look at the ceiling. ‘I don’t want to stay here tonight with nothing but my remorse for company, that’s for sure. OK, let’s go.’

‘Well, at least you pre-empted the number one rule, princess,’ says Robert as we leave the house a few minutes later.

I almost can’t bear to ask. ‘What’s that?’

He holds the front door open for me. ‘Always leave them before they leave you.’

Oddly, that does make me feel better. I pause on the doorstep to add it to my notebook list.

Always leave them before they leave you.