Anybody Out There - Marian Keyes (8 page)

He tore a bit off, in a real bon vivant's way, and approached. I could see the way this was going:
he was planning a seduction via bread--once I'd tried his creations, I'd go all swoony and fall in
love with him. I was dealing with a man who'd seen Chocolat once too often.
"Close your eyes and open your mouth." Oh, cripes, he was going to feed me! God, how
excruciating, how 9 1/2 Weeks.
But he didn't even let me eat the damn thing. He rubbed it around inside my mouth and said,
"Feel the roughness of the crust on your tongue." He moved it back and forth and I nodded yes, I
was feeling the roughness.
"Take your time," he urged. "Savor it."
Oh God, this was a public place, I hoped no one was looking at us. I opened my eyes and shut
them again quickly: a woman walking her dog was in fits. Her hands were on her knees, she was
laughing so much.
When Greg felt my tongue had been sufficiently cut to ribbons by the rough crust, he exclaimed,
"Now taste! Taste the salt of the dough, the sourness of the yeast. You getting it?" I nodded yes,
yes, saltiness, sourness. Anything to speed this up.
"Taste anything else?" Greg asked.
I couldn't say I did.
"A sweetness?" he prompted. I nodded obediently. Yes, a sweetness. Make this be over.
"A citrus sweetness?" he said.
"Yes," I mumbled. "Lemon?"
"Lime." He sounded disappointed. "But close enough."
Next up was an aged-cheddar-and-red-onion focaccia, which I had to smell for about half an
hour before I was permitted to eat any. Followed by a French yoke--perhaps a brioche--where I
had to admire its many airholes, which apparently gave it its delicious lightness.
The pi�ce de r�sistance was a chocolate bread, which he made me crumble, so that little nuggets
of chocolate went all over my skirt and, despite the cold evening, managed to melt.
Over the course of ninety long, chilly minutes, Greg made me lick bread, smell bread, watch
bread, and caress bread. The only thing he didn't make me do was listen to it.
And there was nothing else to eat: no coleslaw, no chicken legs, no turkey slices.
"We live in carb-phobic times," Jacqui later remarked. "Does he know anything?"

Bloodied but, at this stage, quite bowed, I was in no mood when, the following day, the cute
bartender rang me at work and said, "Got a great idea for our date."
I listened in silence.
"I'm part of a project where we build houses for some poor folks in Pennsylvania--they provide
the materials, we provide the labor."
A pause for me to praise him. I didn't. So, sounding a little confused, he continued: "Going down
this weekend. Be great if you'd come along. We could really get to know each other and...you
know...do some good for our fellowman."
Altruism: the latest fashion. I knew all about these projects. Basically a group of young New
York pissheads descend on a poor rural community in Pennsylvania and insist on building some
misfortunate bastards a house. The city folk have the time of their lives, running around, playing
with power tools, and staying up all night, drinking beer round a campfire, then effing back to
New York and their lovely level-floored apartments, leaving the poor rural community with a
leaky, lopsided house, in which all furniture sits on a slope, and if something has wheels, it rolls
across the floor until it bangs into the wall.
"You gotta give something back" is the mantra of these guys. But what they really mean is
"Ladies, see what a wonderful human being I am." And sadly, many women fall for the ruse and
sleep with them at the drop of a nail gun.
Weariness washed over me.
"Thank you for asking," I said. "But I don't think so. Nice to meet you, Nash--"
"Nush."
"--sorry, Nush. But I just don't think it's for me."
"Whatever. Got plenty of other chicks."
"I don't doubt it. I wish you well."
I slammed the phone down and turned to Teenie at the next desk. "You know what? I've had it
with New York men. They're fucking lunatics! No wonder they have to go to speed dating, even
in a city where women are crawling the walls with desperation for a date."
Teenie pursed her silver lips into a sympathetic moue. (She never wore normal-colored lipstick;
unlike me, kookiness came naturally to her, she was kooky to the bone. Despite this we were
great pals, she was my favorite of all the McArthur staff.)
"Whoever heard of going on a date and building a house? A fucking house--"

The phone rang, interrupting my rant; I took a deep raggedy breath and said, "Candy Grrrl
publicity, Anna Walsh speaking."
"Hey, Anna Walsh, it's Aidan Maddox speaking."
"Oh, right."
"What have I done?"
"Are you calling to ask me out?"
"Yes."
"Bad timing. I've just sworn off New York men."
"Oh, that's okay. I'm from Boston. So what's going on?"
"I've had the weirdest week, with the weirdest dates. I don't think I can take another one."
"Date? Or weird date?"
I thought about it. "Weird date."
"O-kay. How about we go for one drink? Is that unweird enough?"
"Depends. Where are we having it? A beauty salon? A freezing park? The surface of the moon?"
"I was thinking more of a bar."
"Okay. One drink."
"And if, by the end of the drink, it's not working out for you, just say you've got to go because
there's a leak in your apartment and the plumber is coming. How does that sound?"
"Okay. Just one drink. And what will your get-out clause be?" I asked.
"I don't need one."
"You could say you've got to get back to the office to finish stuff for a breakfast meeting the next
day."
"That's very thoughtful of you," he said. "But I don't think so."
11

M      um fought her way over to my bed.
"I just spoke to Rachel. She'll be here on Saturday morning." Two days away. "And the two of
you'll be flying back to New York on Monday. If you're still sure that's what you want."
"It is. Is Luke coming over with her?"
"No. And thank God for that," Mum added heartily, lying down beside me.
"I thought you liked him."
"I do like him. Especially since he's agreed to marry her."
"I think it might have been since she agreed to marry him."
Rachel and Luke had been living together for so long that even Mum had given up hoping that
Rachel would "stop making a show of us all." Then, just over two months ago, to everyone's
great surprise, they announced their engagement. Initially, the news plunged Mum into despair
because she concluded the only reason they were getting married after all this time was because
Rachel was pregnant. But Rachel wasn't pregnant; they were getting married simply because
they wanted to and I'm very glad they went public when they did, because if they had waited
even a few days longer, they'd have felt that out of deference to me and my circumstances, they
couldn't. But the date was set, the hotel was even booked--it was owned by a "recovery" friend
of Rachel's who was giving them a good deal. Mum had been horrified when she'd heard: "A
drug addict! It'll be just like the Chelsea Hotel"--and if Rachel and Luke backed out now, they
knew I'd feel even worse.
"So if you like Luke, what's the problem?"
"I just wonder..."
"What?"
"I wonder does he wear underpants?"
"Jesus," I said faintly.
"And if I stand too close to him, I feel like I want to...to...I feel like I want to bite him."
She was staring at the ceiling, locked in some Luke-centric reverie, when Dad stuck his head
round the door and said to Mum, "Phone."
She gave a little jump, then heaved herself off the bed, and when she returned, she was clearly
troubled.

"That was Claire."
"How is she?"
"She's coming from London on Saturday afternoon, that's how she is."
"Is it a problem?"
"She's coming because she wants to see Rachel in person to beg her not to get married to Luke."
"Ah." Just like she'd begged me not to marry Aidan.
Maybe she'd had a nerve doing such a thing, but as it had happened, I'd definitely had my
doubts. I'd known Aidan was a risk--although, funnily enough, not in the way it turned out.
Should I have listened to Claire? In the last few weeks spent sitting in the garden watching the
flowers, letting my tears leak into my wounds, I'd thought about it a lot. I mean, look at me now,
just look at the state of me.
I kept asking myself if it was better to have loved and lost. But what a stupid, pointless question
because it's not like I was given any choice.
"I'm not having Claire shag up this wedding on me," Mum said.
"It's not her fault." After her own union had gone so disastrously wrong, Claire began to deride
marriage as "a load of bollocks." She went on about women being treated like serfs and that the
"giving away" bit reduced us to nothing but chattel, being passed from the control of one man to
another.
"I want this wedding to go ahead," Mum said.
"You'll have to get a stupid-looking hat. Yet another one."
"A stupid-looking hat is the least of my worries."
12
W      hen Rachel arrived on Saturday morning, the first thing Mum said to her was, "Look
radiant, for the love of God. Claire is coming to tell you not to get married."
"She isn't?" Rachel was amused. "I don't believe it. She did that to you, too, Anna, didn't she?"
Then, realizing she'd put her foot in it, she jerked as if someone had just rammed a poker up her
bum. Quickly she changed the subject. "How radiant do you want me to look?"

Mum and Helen surveyed Rachel doubtfully. Rachel's look was the low-key sleek New York
downtime one: cashmere hoody, canvas cutoffs, and superlightweight trainers, the kind that fold
in eight and fit in a matchbox.
"Do something with your hair," Helen suggested, and obediently Rachel unclasped a clip on top
of her head and a load of heavy dark hair tumbled down her back.
"Why, Miss Walsh, you're beautiful," Mum said sourly. "Comb it! Comb it! And smile a lot."
The thing was, Rachel was already radiant. She usually was. She had an air about her, a sort of
throbbing stillness, with the faintest suggestion of a secret dirty streak.
Then Mum clocked the Ring. How had she not noticed until now? "And wave that yoke around
every chance you get."
"'Kay."
"Right, let's see it."
Rachel eased the sapphire ring off, and after a scrabble between Helen and Mum, Mum got it.
"By Janey," she said fiercely, clenching her hand into a fist and punching the air. "I've waited a
long time for this day."
Then she examined the ring in great detail, holding it up to the light and squinting, like she was a
gem expert. "How much was it?"
"Never you mind."
"Go on, tell us." Helen joined in.
"No."
"It's meant to be a month's salary," Mum said. "At least. Anything less and he's taking you for a
fool. Right! Time for us all to make our wish. Let Anna go first."
Mum gave me the ring and Rachel said, "You know the rules: turn it three times toward your
heart. You can't wish for a man or money, but you can wish for a rich mother-in-law." Again, as
she realized what she'd said, she went poker-up-the-bum frozen.
"It's okay," I said. "It's okay. We can't go on tiptoeing round it."
"Really?"
I nodded.
"You sure?"

I nodded again.
"Okay, let's see your makeup bag."
For a while, squashed between Rachel, Helen, and Mum, all of us strewn with cosmetics,
everything seemed normal.
Then we pretended to be Claire.
"Marriage is just a form of ownership," Mum said, doing Claire's soapbox voice.
"She can't help it," Rachel said. "Her abandonment and humiliation traumatized her."
"Shut up," Helen said. "You're ruining the fun. Chattels! That's all we are, chattels!"
Even I joined in. "I thought getting married was all about wearing a lovely dress and being the
center of attention."
"I hadn't thought through any of the gender-political implications," we all (even Rachel)
chorused.
We laughed and laughed, and even though I was aware that at any moment I might descend into
uncontrollable weeping, I managed to keep laughing.
When we'd finished making fun of Claire, Rachel said, "What'll we talk about now?"
Mum suddenly said, "I've been having funny dreams lately."
"About what?"
"That I'm one of those girls who's marvelous at kung fu. I can do one of those kicks where you
twirl around in a circle and take the heads off of twenty fellas while you're doing it."
"Good for you." It was nice to have a mother who had fashionable dreams.
"I was wondering if I might take up Tae Bo or one of them yokes. Maybe myself and Helen
could do lessons."
"What are you wearing in the dreams?" Rachel asked. "Special kung fu pajamas and stuff?"
"No." Mum sounded surprised. "Just my ordinary skirt and jumper."
"Ahhh." Rachel held up a finger in an attitude of wisdom. "That makes a lot of sense. You feel
you're guardian of the family and we need protection."
"No, I just like being able to kick lots of men in one go."

"Clearly you're under almost intolerable stress. With everything that's happened with Anna, it's
understandable."
"It's nothing to do with Anna! It's because I want to be a superhero, Charlie's Angel, Lara Croft
self-defense woman." Mum sounded close to tears.
Rachel smiled very, very kindly--the sort of kindly smile that gets people killed--then went off
upstairs for a snooze. Mum, Helen, and I lay in silence on my bed.
"You know what?" Mum broke the quiet. "There are times when I think I preferred her when she
was on the drugs."
13
F   or our one-drink date, Aidan and I went to Lana's Place, a quiet, upmarket bar, with
concealed lighting and muted, sophisticated tones.
"This okay?" Aidan asked as we sat down. "Not too weird?"
"So far," I said. "Unless it's one of those places where the bar staff tap-dance at nine o'clock
every night."
"Jesus." He clutched his head. "I never thought to check."
When the waitress took our order, she asked, "Should I open a tab?"
"No," I said. "I might have to leave in a hurry.
"If you turn out to be a weirdo," I said after she'd gone.
"I won't be. I'm not."
I didn't really think he would be. He was different from the speed-dating guys. But it doesn't do
to be too trusting.
"We have matching scahs," he said.
"Hmm?"
"Scahs. On our right eyebrows. One each. Isn't that kind of...special?"
He was smiling: I wasn't to take this too seriously.
"How'd you get yours?" he asked.