Crazygirl Falls in Love (15 page)

I feel like crying for the second time today.

What is this, high
school
? I may as well have a face covered
in zits and a multi-coloured retainer in my mouth
again.

“I have to go,” I manage.

How I leave the venue is a bit of a blur. My
eyes are watery but I don’t let them overflow. Not now, not ever.
Crying is for the weak. I notice Emma in the far corner of the
gardens. She’s standing next to that guy with the vibrant head of
orange hair from Rumba (another side note, what do
you
think of ginger on a
guy? I gotta be honest, it isn’t my favourite. Except Harry and Ed
Sheeran, two fine examples of Ginge Gone Good).

Emma spots me and waves me over, but I look down and hurry
along outside to the taxi rank.

Thursday
– Choda Boy

“Hilary, you forgot to spell check
again
?”

Unlike Chloe’s Majnoon I don’t like my underlings sending me
flawed work. The word ‘prooves’ glares at me from the front page of
the contract. I look up at my poor graduate and try to control the
nuances of irritation in my voice. The poor thing looks
petrified.

“I forgot again, I’m sorry,” she stutters.

“It’s alright don’t stress, but make sure you spell and
grammar check any work before sending it for review, the Tesco guys
are very pedantic about this sort of stuff.”

If Hilary wasn’t such a sweetheart I would
probably have come down a little harder. She’s been with the firm
nine months yet
every single
fucking
time she sends me work there are
spelling mistakes all over the shop. I mean, we’re
lawyers.
In our highly
educated, outrageously overpaid profession the one thing that can
be reasonably expected from us is that we can spell. Or spell
check, whichever is easier.

Usually I wouldn’t care so much (she’ll learn eventually when
Angrypants comes down on her like a tonne of lead potatoes) but I’m
feeling snappy today. I’m still fuming from last night. Cannot get
over the Stranger’s behaviour. Who the hell does he think he is?
I’ve gotten so worked up today that I’ve bumped him from a 9 to an
8.

Hilary apologises again and walks back to her desk. I see my
phone flash. I’m hoping it’s not Emma again. She’s well peeved that
I left the benefit before the costumes were judged. To add salt to
my various male-inflicted wounds she sent me an angry message
earlier saying that Mr KFC got first prize, while she got second.
Fucking Blue.

Thankfully, the message is just Chloe. I’m relieved, but to my
extreme annoyance I’m also disappointed. Every time that light
flashes I still guiltily hope it’s Mr 8, formerly known as the
Stranger. Trust me, I do actually know how pathetic that sounds. I
was stone cold rejected last night yet I still want him to get in
touch? There’s only one word for that: loser.

I check Chloe’s message,

Hey, fancy dinner tonight? There’s a quiz at the Charring
Cross Hotel I wouldn’t mind trying. Oh and the Stranger is a twat,
don’t waste any more energy on him.

(I had messaged her earlier with the saga of last
night).

I respond immediately.

Thanks sweetie. About tonight, I’m a bit shattered, I just
want to go home to bed if that’s okay? I’ll call you tomorrow, so
excited about your Big Date with Antonio! How does it feel to be
loved by someone so beautiful? Then again, after last night I’m
starting to think you have a point, avoiding men and all. I’d
rather donate a kidney then deal with any more of this bullshit. It
really hurts, Chlo, and I feel so shitty. But ignore me. Antonio is
way more decent than the Stranger. You’ll have fun. And your
children will be so beautiful they’d make people on the street cry.
Because of their beauty. Because no one will be as beautiful as
them.

I read over my message, noticing how schizophrenic it sounds.
My body is an angry bubbling toffee pot of lascivious desire for
the Stranger mixed with unabashed fury at his conduct towards women
(i.e. me). Merged with renewed feelings of palpable abhorrence of
Voldemort and frustration with overconfident douchebags like Blue,
I'm a wreck. I spend the rest of the afternoon munching a packet of
Doritos (the big size) and furiously typing my report. Eventually I
notice I’ve created a layer of crisp cheese-crust on my keyboard. I
disconnect it and carry it over to Angrypants’ desk (she’s out at
Phoenix again today) and switch my keyboard with hers. That’ll
teach her. That’ll teach ‘em all. Ha. Mwahaha.

In stark contrast to my dark and stormy mood (which is rapidly
spiralling into out and out insanity), Stalker flits about the
office all day, chipper as a jaybird. He’s counting down the hours
until his and Mags’ second date tomorrow (coincidentally the same
date and time as Chloe and Antonio’s).

Just as an aside, aren’t date nights supposed to be Saturdays?
Fridays are for work drinks, Saturday are spent with that special
someone. If you have a special someone. Which so many of us don’t.
Because life sucks.

Being the Stalker that he is, Sam keeps coming over to my desk
talking about how he’s going to make his Friday night date with
Mags perfect.

I hate to say this… And please don’t judge me too harshly… but
I’m a tad jealous. Stalker may be an idiot, but it he is so excited
about seeing Mags it’s almost cute. Antonio is just as beautiful as
the Stranger and it looks like he’s fallen for Chloe. Then there’s
Emma who has two guys chasing her. Sure they’re married, but hell
she gets treated to the loveliest restaurants and most extravagant
presents. Her messages from earlier revealed that Ginger Guy from
last night was actually Married Guy Number Two, Rusty (with a
nickname like that I should’ve guessed, right?). He had
unexpectedly rocked up to the benefit and surprised her with a
Cartier watch. I still haven't formally met either Rusty or Dublin,
but apparently Dublin is coming to the Re-Re-Housewarming tomorrow
night.

Don’t get me wrong, I am one hundred percent opposed to Emma
succumbing to the lure of desperate blue balled married scum. One
thousand million squillion percent. But Emma has the most tragic of
dating history out of me, Chloe and Mags combined, and that’s
really saying something.

We Jones girls seem to attract douchebags like honey to the
bee. First, there was Emma’s high school sweetheart who cheated on
her with her ‘best friend’ (some friend). In a sauna. In a ski
chalet. While Emma and their other mates were in the lounge room
sipping mulled wine.

Then there was the guy who broke up with her via a Facebook
message. His words were,

I don’t do awkward conversations. I don’t think we should see
each other anymore. Goodbye.

Then the other guy who broke up with her via a Facebook
message,

In the words of the Doobie Brothers ‘whoa whoa listen to the
music.’

(Note to men – it is
not
okay to break up with anyone,
ever, over Facebook)

Then the time she was on a date, fell over a poorly positioned
fire extinguisher and tore and fractured her ankle. The guy said he
‘didn’t like blood’, and left her to wait for the ambulance on her
own.

Then the other boyfriend who cheated on her.
Then the guy who broke up with her via song. He sent her a CD with
one track on it, NSync’s
Bye Bye
Bye
, and a post-it note on the cover that
said, ‘Listen to the song’.

Emma wanted to escape the hell of the Dating
World so desperately (and who could blame her?) that she married at
quite a young age. She was only 23 when he got down on one knee. By
then they had been dating for two years and we all thought he was a
decent enough guy. He even had cynical me fooled. He was attentive,
loyal, hard-working, cute-ish, treated her like a princess. He was
very short and sort of balding (which coined him the nickname Choda
Boy
a la
Orgazmo),
but his personality bumped him from a 4 to a 6. Emma is at least an
8, if not an 8.5. She has the most perfect figure, a lovely face, a
Julia Roberts smile, and such a sweet and optimistic temperament.
She was always the kind, placid one in the family, a stark contrast
to me, the bossy tomboy.

Long story short, he married Emma then
disappeared. He
disappeared
. Poof! Like a puff of
smoke. Who
disappears
after a wedding? A week after they returned from their
honeymoon he announced he had taken a job in the States. He assured
her it was only for a few months. A few months turned into six
months. Emma kept asking him when he’d come back. He kept promising
soon, but soon never happened. Eventually she flew to Philadelphia
and surprised him at his lavish serviced apartment, where he was
having a lavish time with a lavish American
beauty.

That night, Emma broke down as she called me whilst driving
back to her hotel (she almost killed herself and several
Philadelphian cyclists on the way). She told me what had happened
through her howls of devastation. I’m the worst when it comes to
comforting people, so I told her not to worry, it was likely just a
big misunderstanding. I told her to stop crying because it would
just serve to give her one of those scary thunderclap headaches,
and that she should call him tomorrow to get some
answers.

The next day the conversation went thus,

“Why did you marry me if you were going to leave and sleep
with other women?”

“I didn’t really know what I wanted. I thought I wanted to be
married but I guess I didn’t realise what marriage really
meant.”

“What did you think it meant?”

“I thought we could do whatever we wanted for the next five
years then meet up again and have kids.”

(It started to dawn on Emma that she may have made a big
mistake)

“You realise that’s not what a marriage, or even a
relationship, is?”

“Yeah...”

“So why on earth did you ask me to marry you?!”

“I knew some guy would take you off the market soon, there are
no hot ones left by the late-20 mark. I do want to be with you
eventually and start a family, but not yet. I need some time to
travel and explore. So I married you so that you’d be mine until I
was ready to settle down.”

(A big,
big
mistake)

“And what makes you think I won’t divorce you?”

He had sniggered,

“I’ve met your parents, they’re the most extreme Catholics on
the planet. There’s no way they’d let you divorce me.”

The next day Emma filed for divorce and I was Skyping our
hysterical Mum and Dad telling them to shut up. Then I called Emma
and we began brainstorming legal alternatives to
homicide.

Appointing myself as legal counsel I
immediately began working on an annulment. It goes back to the
Dating Scale. Emma didn’t know he was a 4 when she married him. He
artificially level jumped. As a legally trained impartial witness,
that was grounds for dissolution of the contract. It was a blatant
misrepresentation of a previously undisputed factual record
requiring a conclusive resolution. Em had signed a contract with
the incorrect information at the outset, which made the contract
void
ab initio
(fancy lawyery way of saying ‘from the
beginning’).

See, Choda Boy had big ambitions. He wanted a stellar career,
lots of money, a flash car and of course the biggest prize of them
all – a hot partner. But, he knew that if he showed his piggish,
selfish, egomaniacal self, he could only reasonably expect to get
another 4, maybe a 5 if he was lucky.

But… say he pretended to be the greatest boyfriend since Aiden
from Sex and the City? Say he pretended to be the most affable and
affectionate gentleman this side of Pride and Prejudice? This would
push him to a 6, and if he found a 7 or an 8 who was emotionally
scarred and fragile (Exhibit B. Ms Emma Jones), he could
pounce.

He faked being a 6 for as long as it took to tie her down
(read. trap into marriage). We still don’t exactly know why. Emma,
Chloe, Mags and I spoke about it at length for over a year. Did it
start off as an innocent level-jumping social experiment that
spiralled out of control? Or was it a more deliberate ploy to
flaunt the rules of the Dating Scale?

Or… he had mentioned kids in that final conversation with
Emma. Was he trying to bump up his children’s number? Had he
cottoned onto the genetic reality that two 4s make 4 babies, and
that by breeding with Emma he’d produce a… Wait a minute, 8.5 plus
4 divided by two is… six point something. A six point something
baby?

So let that be a warning to y’all - sneaky, manipulative
people will fake it. They can get away with being artificially high
numbers for days, weeks, even months if they’re good. Choda Boy was
an extreme case, for he had been even more Machiavellian about it.
He had pretended for a three full years (two years dating plus a
one year engagement). That takes an unscrupulous amount of
underhanded deceit. That takes a heart of pure evil, Lex Luther or
Doctor Doom styles. Or that scary snake guy from Conan the
Barbarian.