Crazygirl Falls in Love (27 page)

“My god Penny,” Chloe is shaking her head and she’s calmed her
voice, “honestly, sometimes the only thing holding this friendship
together is that I don’t say half the things I actually want
to.”

“Well I don’t really fancy listening to what those things
might be! I don’t know why you’re going all Chris Brown on me and
calling me names, but I don’t have to stand here and take this
shit.”

I angrily slurp a final mouthful of coffee (waste not, want
not), pick up my backpack and walk out. I slam her front door as
hard as I can behind me and sprint up the small flight of stairs,
two and a time. Walking quickly out of the block of flats I unlock
the latch on my bike and start down the road, pedalling
furiously.

Voices justifying my behaviour and
condemning Chloe’s start whirl pooling through my mind.
Chloe’s a cow
, they
say.
She was wrong
, they say. You didn’t do anything bad, and even if you did
how dare she say those things? You don’t call your friends selfish
bitches, you just don’t. And I don’t obsess over guys. I don’t! She
says she’s biting her lip with things I do that annoy her? Well,
what about all the things
she
does to annoy
me
? Like… Umm… Compulsive list
making. And when she buys magazines or newspapers she always checks
the entire stack meticulously to get the most crisp, clean
copy.

I take a deep breath as I cross back over Putney
Bridge.

Then another.

Maybe… maybe she doesn’t have all that many things that annoy
me. And maybe, just maybe, she made a couple of reasonable points
today. Did I really bully her into the date? I encouraged, sure,
but I didn’t think I was bullying? Maybe what I consider a strong
suggestion is interpreted by others as intimidation? But Chloe
doesn’t get intimidated by anyone, she’d just tell me to sod off. I
didn’t put a gun to her head, and I encouraged because I care about
her. I really do.

As I replay the rest of our fight in my mind
one of Chloe’s comments keeps hammering home -
You obsess about yourself and your relationships and I put up
with it.

True, I was devastated and needy after He Who Shall Not Be
Named. And true, when I get oxytocin-poisoned I get a bit of
premature-love-syndrome. But it’s not that bad, is it? As I ride up
Fulham Road dodging buses I try to make myself feel better, but
then I remember that voice message I left on Chloe’s phone
yesterday. The mean one. And all those times I’ve whinged about bad
dates and bad men. Chloe’s always been understanding, always
listened. And the first time she endures a horror date I respond
with laughter?

I should have been more sensitive. She was obviously upset and
there I went, charging in like a bull in a China shop. I should
have played it differently, with kindness and compassion. Why did I
do the brash and brazen comedy routine when she needed a shoulder
and a sympathetic word?

I admit, it scared me seeing my bestie
looking frail and damaged. Chloe can’t be broken by men, she
just
can’t
be.
Crazy Poo didn’t break her, and before him the acid addict didn’t
manage it either. If Chloe has given up because of a butthole
(literally), if she can’t manage all that the world of
male-shittiness has to offer, what hope do the rest of us have? Me,
Mags, Emma, all the other women out there, we don’t possess one
tenth of the strength Chloe has. I guess I thought (hoped) that if
I was my usual self this morning (the Amazingly Unfunny Penny
Routine) she would go back to her normal, strength-of-a-mountain
self, too.

But is she really all that strong, or have I just been
projecting an illusion to help myself with my various relationship
issues?

And as young feminists of a new age, have we all morphed into
the same type of women? Beautiful, assured, all broken in different
ways?

The thought angers me. Why does it have to
be this way? Why do men do this to us? Treat us like rubbish, wear
us down, whittle us away until we’re nothing more than brittle
toothpicks? Chloe was right. What Antonio did
wasn’t
funny, and humouring that sort
of behaviour just condones it and leaves the guys free to do it
again.

I’m finally home. I carry my bike upstairs
and hang it up on the wall in my hallway. I’ve made my decision. I
am going to set things right with Chloe no matter what. Falling
onto my bed I pull out my phone. Four messages flash up. I hope one
is from her but no luck, and that’s completely understandable
because I
have
been a selfish bitch.

The first message throws me for a loop. It’s He Who Shall Not
Be Named.

Looking forward to tomorrow’s meeting?

I don’t have the time or energy to waste on this sorry excuse
for a person so I delete the message immediately. Thank goodness
Stalker is representing our team tomorrow, as long as he is manning
the job I never have to worry about Voldemort again.

The second is Mags. She’s responded to my semi-panicked text
from this morning as to the whereabouts of Chloe (and whether
spiders survive in vacuum bags),

Hi hun, I got a text from her Friday night after she left
Antonio’s. She didn’t have the nicest words to say about him. I
haven’t heard from her since, will try calling her now. Sam and I
went out last night and he’s invited me out AGAIN today! I really
like this guy! Oh and about the spiders, don’t be afraid, you’re
bigger than they are.

Thanks Mags, thanks a bunch. I’m also bigger
than grenades and guns and viruses, but I’m scared of them, too. Ah
well, at least she didn’t do the usual “they’re more afraid of you
than you are of them” line. I hate that line, my Dad used to use it
all the time. Trust me, those hairy balls of death are
NOT
more scared of me
than I am of them. Spiders are
fucking
scary
!

The third message surprises me. It’s the Stranger.

Hola florecita. I am sorry about yesterday. I needed to be
with my football team.

Fuck you.

The fourth is Stalker,

Yo P-Diddy! Know of any fly Indian joints I could take Mags
to tonight? The one near me ain’t got no flow

This one just never learns, does he? I ignore Stalker’s
message. There are loads of nice Indian places to choose from.
Instead, I type two quick messages. The first is to
Emma,

Hey, are you out with the Beautiful People today? If so,
where and can I join?

One to the Stranger (just in case Emma doesn’t
respond),

Are you doing anything today? If you are out with the rest of
the guys I would love to meet up.

I go to the laundry to change the bag of my Dyson 2000.
Feeling relieved, I crack open a cider and head to the sitting
room, where I’m intending on indulging in Happy Sofa Time until
Emma or the Stranger respond. But then I see it....

Mother of God. It’s
another
member of the spider clone
army, staring at me with its beady little eyes from the sitting
room’s curtain drapes. It’s quite high up, so I grab a newspaper
and try to squish it, but I miss. It scuttles further into the
drapes in that creepy-as-fuck way they have of darting around, and
I can’t see it anymore. Terrified I’m sharing a room with a living,
breathing, and most importantly hidden, arachnid, I shakily open my
laptop and type ‘When you kill a spider do its spider friends seek
revenge?’

Mercifully, Emma messages back that very moment.

***

I forgot today was the summer solstice. Strolling down from
Notting Hill Gate I can’t quite believe it’s 9:00 p.m. and still
broad daylight. The first thing I see as I wander into the Ladbroke
Arms is Emma. She’s at the bar laughing with some people I don’t
recognise. I stealthily sneak up behind her and lightly tug her
ponytail. She turns around and smiles when she sees me,

“Hey sis!” she gives me a hug.

“Hi chicken, how are you?”

“Great, how was the wedding?”

When I finish telling her about yesterday (she displays
suitable expressions of revulsion after the Stand Up and joy when
Blue met me on the DF), I get straight to the point of why I
came,

“I need to speak with Antonio, is he around?”

She says the Beautiful People are outside. I leave my empty
pint of cider on the counter (between the start and end of the
Wedding in Brighton Saga Emma had bought me a drink).

I find Antonio, the Stranger, David and Juan in the beer
garden. As I approach I overhear Antonio saying,

“…
fifty crunches, then twenty five pull ups, fifty
push ups, fifty floor wipers and twenty five more pull
ups.”

I walk into the middle of the foursome, pushing a confused
David and elbowing an irate looking Juan, so that I am facing the
Stranger and Antonio.

“Mi corazón!” the Stranger smiles as he sees me, “your eye
looking better, no?”

The world momentarily blurs when I meet his navy eyes, long
thick eyelashes and pearly white smile. He’s wearing a tight,
chestnut coloured shirt with those light coloured trousers the men
of this island are so fond of. Damn.

I shake myself,

“Look, I’m really,
really
not here to speak with you,
because you’re an utter twat, but I think you should know that that
colour really works on you, and you should seriously consider
investing in more maroon.”

My piece to the Stranger said, I face Antonio. My eyes are as
glaring and fierce as I can manage. I probably look like a squinty,
malnourished Chihuahua, but it’s a risk I’m willing to take. I
point my finger into his twenty-five-pull-upped chest,

“What you did to Chloe makes me sick!” I yell.

“Sorry?” Antonio asks, clearly surprised by my
tone.

“Don’t give me that crap. How could you have sent her that
photo? What kind of a creep are you?”

He laughs,

“Chill out mi amor. Here, have a drink with us like a good
little girl.”

He shoves his half finished pint unceremoniously under my
nose.

“I don’t appreciate the callous attitude and I don’t
appreciate your smelly beer!”

I knock it out of his hand and it goes flying, glass hitting
the side of a table then smashing onto the pebbled ground. The
group sitting at the table look up sharply.

“Whoa whoa whoa, easy tiger!” Antonio laughs, putting his
hands up.

“What you did is
not
on. Sending a photo of your butt
to anyone is not on!”

Antonio shares a look with the other three. Juan is looking
uncomfortable, staring down at the ground and shuffling his feet.
Video Game David looks utterly discombobulated, and the Stranger
seems… absent. He’s smiling that same vacant smile he always
has.

As Antonio continues smirking my internal anger fit helixes
through and around my chest and mouth and brain, and I start
hearing that familiar English accent speaking to me from the realms
of my psyche…

Back Satan, I can handle this on my own.

“You know what Antonio? You’re not worth the toilet paper you
wipe that butt crack with, and if you ever pull something like that
again…”

“What? You’ll hit me over the head with your rolling
pin?”

Antonio looks at the Stranger and they begin to laugh. I look
at my crush in amazement (did he really just laugh at me?). I look
back at Antonio with angry hatred. Rolling pin? A misogynistic
one-liner delivered to an accomplished female lawyer with Polish
heritage and a violent temper? Is he insane? I start shivering with
the injustice of it all.

“I am *this* close to beating the living shit out of you, you
unscrupulous prick,” I threaten, raising my hand into a pinch
motion.

“I’d like to see you try, chica.”

I take in the cobblestone abs poking through
his tight t-shirt, his chiselled shoulders and bloated ‘roid arms.
He is testosterone incarnate, and shit me I would have zero chance
if we faced off, mano-a-mano. That doesn’t deter me though. In
those documentaries on BBC sometimes the animals that succeed
aren’t the bigger predators, but the smaller prey species. Like the
mamma sparrow who charged the hawk. A sparrow has
zero
chance against a
hawk. But because she charged aggressively it freaked him out, and
he flew away from her nest. That was a good
episode.

“Bring it, bitch!” I yell, Mamma-sparrow-posturing with all my
might, “you’re such a piece of shit! If you were in my toilet I
wouldn’t bother flushing it! My toothbrush means more to me than
you ever will!”

Antonio smiles at the other three, who are looking at me as if
I’ve lost my mind. Antonio nods to the Stranger as he
says,

“You were right hombre, she’s a live
one.
Anyway,
que quiere otra cerveza?”