Crazygirl Falls in Love (11 page)

In my daydreaming I haven’t noticed Angrypants has walked back
out. Stalker is grinning at me,

“Looks like it’s just you and me, kiddo,” he says, lifting his
arm for a high five.

I reluctantly raise my hand and he smacks it,
yelling,

“Go team!”

Back at my desk I look dejectedly at the time in the bottom
right hand corner of my screen. 11:20 already?! My phone starts
ringing and Chloe’s name pops up.

“Hey Chlo.”

“Hey, do you want to grab lunch today? Promise I won’t ditch
you this time.”

“I’m sorry I can’t, I have way too much on.”

“Bugger. Let me know when you free up.”

“Sure, definitely. How’d it go at Rumba? Sorry I
left.”

“No problem, Antonio and I were right behind you. We grabbed
some sushi then shared a cab. Then he asked to dinner this
Friday.”

I gasp.

“Yay! That’s super news, where are you two lovebirds
going?”

“He suggested Nobu.”

I gasp again.

“That’s one of the nicest restaurants in London!”

“No it’s not, it’s a cluster fuck of nightmares. I won’t be
squeezed between tables like sardines in a tin can.”

I say nothing. My silence and its associated disapproval say
it all. Chloe sighs and continues,

“Don’t worry, I suggested Zuma instead. I’m not one to break a
promise. But he did something weird on Saturday night and I’m not
sure…”

“Oh no. Chloe… no!” I interrupt.

“What?”

“Don’t talk that way about him, you’ll only
talk yourself out of this date. You
need
this date.”

“
That is such a masculinist thing to say, nobody needs a date,
but besides it’s a non-issue because I told him I’d go.”

“Alright!” I pump a fist in the air, “honey I hate to a bitch
but would you mind if I call you back later? I’ve been put on a
case with Stalker but first I need to finish another report which
has about a million review comments and the track changes are
stuffing up the formatting and...”

Chloe laughs, tells me to chill out and hangs up. I stare for
the briefest moment at my phone as I drop it back on my desk. I
hope the Stranger texts me today… But before I sink into a super
cheesy daydream about him and me and a yacht and a deserted island
I shake it off, Taylor Swift-styles. I have work to do! I power
through lunch, right up to the moment Stalker pops over to my desk
and says it’s time to go. I sigh. I barely made a dent in
Schmermesco and I’m not prepped at all for the Lloyds opening
meeting.

Sarah is waiting for us in a taxi
downstairs. She talks about the wedding for most of the journey. As
much as I am totally not looking forward to celebrating her
‘special day’ (
pfft, marriage, what a
stupid institution
), I also cannot wait for
it to be over. All she’s talked about besides work for the past two
years has been this blasted wedding.
Jonesy, do you think ivory suits my complexion, or should I
stick to traditional white? Jonesy, peonies or normal roses?
Jonesy, cream and white dahlia blooms or taller lilac stems?
Jonesy, which song should we play as we sign the wedding
certificate, Brandenburg Concerto No. 2 in F or Piano Sonata no. 15
in C Major?

As the months rolled on my patience grew
thin, to the point where I would see her in the hallway and run in
the opposite direction. I’ve felt like the office’s Gingerbread man
for months (run run run as fast as you can), and believe you me,
I’d much rather be
eating
gingerbread than
acting
gingerbread. Mmm…
gingerbread…

We arrive at the Lloyds office and sign in at reception. It’s
all very standard. Clients know we are off the charts expensive
(you don’t wanna know how much I charge per hour, and you’d die if
you knew Angrypant’s rate) so clients are usually waiting for us in
a designated room. Today is no exception. Security clear us to
level 24 where a kind, matronly receptionist is waiting. She says
the Lloyds team are waiting and walks us to the meeting
room.

I walk in first, Angrypants and Stalker following close
behind. We are quite a stylish sight – two tall ladies in black
suits and banker shirts, a young lad in a dark grey number with a
Hermes tie and French cuffs. Even if he does sometimes forget to
take his head out of cupboards, at least he looks the part of a
lawyer.

We’re not alone in our power dressing. Three men are sitting
at the end of the long table waiting for us, all suited up with
brightly coloured ties and perfectly pressed shirts. They rise to
greet us. The first is an elderly gentleman, the second is a kid in
his early 20s, the third is….

My heart stops.

Unfortunately, my legs also stop, which Angrypants and Stalker
are not expecting. Angrypants smashes into the back of me, and
Stalker into the back of Angrypants.

“Oof.” I hear Sam.

“Jonesy, what the fff… hell?” Sarah hisses as she regains her
composure.

I don’t answer. I cannot take another step forward. He Who
Shall Not Be Named rises to shake my hand, smiling like a
snake.

***

There are several dating rules that have transcended cultures
and crossed even the most extreme international boundary (i.e. they
apply in Saudi Arabia too). These rules are entrenched in
humanity’s basic moral code. One of them is that if a guy decides
to break up with you in order to pursue a hotter, prettier, taller,
slimmer version of yourself, he is a jerk. Another is if a guy
cheats on you with a hotter, prettier, taller, slimmer version of
yourself, he is a super jerk.

And if a guy cheats on you repeatedly with a hotter, prettier,
taller, slimmer version of yourself, then breaks up with you for
said hotter, prettier, taller, slimmer version, then decides to use
the excuse, “But babe, we never actually established we were in a
relationship” while you’re still wearing your engagement ring, he
is the Antichrist.

I will never, ever forget that day. I swear I’m still going to
be thinking about it on my death bed. I hadn’t seen it coming. The
previous weekend we had been checking out reception venues and I’d
almost decided on the dress. He called me that morning asking if I
wanted to have lunch. Manhattan Grill? I had been busy at work (as
usual) but Angrypants wasn’t around and I’m not one to pass up a
steak. Halfway through our cow flesh feast, after a casual
conversation about our mornings and the movement of his stocks on
the LSX, he had said matter-of-factly,

“Penny, we need to call off the engagement.”

In my right hand my fork fell onto my plate. In my left the
bread roll I had been holding dropped into my lap, smearing butter
all over my skirt.

Those words were the verbal equivalent of him taking the
butter knife I had just used and stabbing me in the heart with
it.

Then he told me he had met someone else. That felt like he had
lodged the butter knife deep in my chest and was slowly twisting
it. The agony was palpable, real. It was just as bad as any
physical torture I could imagine.

I’m pretty sure I stopped breathing for a few minutes. When
the air eventually found its way back into my lungs I started
wailing so loudly that the Maître d’ came over and asked if
everything was okay. We walked out of the restaurant and he sat me
down on the step.

“But… but… You told me those messages on your phone were from
an old married woman from your work? You told me they were
nothing?”

He hadn’t responded.

“How could you!” I had yelled.

“Penny, we never actually
established
that we were
in a relationship.”

My tear filled eyes momentarily dried. I had looked from him,
down to the engagement ring sparkling happily on my finger, back to
him. He went on to say that he was not my partner, had never been
my partner and had never considered me to be his.

“I never considered us ‘serious’.” He had raised his hands to
put ‘serious’ in virtual quotation marks, “I mean, were you? I know
over the past few years we’ve travelled, lived together, all of it,
but did we ever actually establish a meaningful connection, which
is the crux of a relationship? No, I don’t think we
did.”

My heart, lungs and other vital organs collapsed from the
butter knife blows, and I dissolved into a weeping mess of pain
that I didn’t come out of for what seemed an eternity. It was a
specific type of grief, one filled with fear and physical agony,
like someone had taken a giant ice cream scooper and gone to work
on my organs. I’d never experienced anything like it.

So this is what a broken heart feels like.

The next few days were spent in a state of shock, not really
registering what he’d said. Then over the next two weeks it dawned
on me that something very bad had happened. I cried every ten
minutes that first week. It was like a preset timer, every ten
minutes the waterworks would start. I couldn’t sleep and I didn’t
eat a thing (lost ten kilograms in eight days and the bones of my
chest started to jut out – not a good look). Then the preset timer
reset itself to every thirty minutes, so that in the second month I
cried every hour, but still didn’t eat much, didn’t exercise,
didn’t go out. In the third month I cried once a day, usually in
bed while trying to fall asleep. By the fourth month my doctor had
prescribed me with anti-depressants (after Emma forced me to make
an appointment), so that in the fifth I cried hardly at all. Six
months in and I was back to exercising and eating normally again.
But I remained a shattered vessel for a long time.

My friends’ approach to comforting the new-suicidal-me varied
hugely,

“He’s an utter twat, not even worth you thinking about
anymore,” was Chloe’s comfort line.

“
No matter what, I’m here for you. Even if I have to sleep over
every night for the next year, I will!” Emma’s comfort
line.

My sister was always doing something to
cheer me up during those months, cooking dinner or putting
on
Breaking Bad
or
sleeping over. It turned out she only had to sleep over six times,
all during that first week. I didn’t want to be alone. I couldn’t
be alone. So we stayed up all night, night after night, watching
awful Rom Coms like
Hangover II
and
Couples
Retreat
. I don’t know how we managed to
stay up all those nights and still go into work the next
day.

“Penny, you are beautiful, you are fun, you are nice. You’ll
be snapped up in no time!” was Mags’ comfort line.

Mags’ approach involved a lot of positive reinforcement and to
be honest, hers was the one that cheered me most. I wanted to be
snapped up. I wanted some proof that there were still nice guys out
there. I wanted to be able to look in the mirror and say, “Yep,
still got it.” Instead, over the next year I would look in the
mirror and see a colossal failure.

And now, eighteen months after The Really Awful Breakup, here
he stands, the man who crushed my spirit and buttered my
chest.

***

“Penny! Nice to see you, you look great.”

He shakes my hand while I stand frozen, a
human lump of shock. I remain there, deaf and dumb, shaking his
hand over and over and over again.
Don’t
breathe. Don’t think. Don’t smile. Don’t scowl. Don’t do anything
or you will faint.
I can hear Sarah and Sam
making introductions but it feels like they are speaking from a
galaxy far, far away. I can barely hear anything over the deafening
helicopter noises battering my eardrums from the inside. I think
it’s called ‘brain panic’. Or it’s sudden onset tinnitus but that’s
silly, I’ve never used power tools and I keep my ears really
clean.

“What are you doing here?” I manage to croak as I let go of
his hand.

Was he always this short or am I just comparing him
unfavourable to the Stranger?

“I’m Lloyds’ new Commercial Manager.”

“But… But you’re a stock broker?” I stutter.

“Things change, Dumplin’.”

I’m not
surprised, a broker as allergic to making money for their clients
as you ought to switch careers
. But I hold
my tongue. Sarah’s voice is echoing in my head next to the anxiety
attack helicopter noises, her line from earlier playing like a
broken record, ‘
We cannot afford to stuff
this one up… We cannot afford to stuff this one up... We cannot
afford to stuff this one up...’

I must refrain from lashing out at this scumbag.

I must survive this meeting.

I haven’t noticed the rest of the room has
sat down, while I’ve continued to stand in a daze. Angrypants
clears her throat loudly from the head of the table where she’s
seated herself. I swiftly sit down, shaking myself as I do.
Get a grip, you can do this
. Sarah is speaking and I silently thank God I’m not running
the show today. If I was the most senior lawyer here it would be me
in charge of the agenda.