Crazygirl Falls in Love (29 page)

“What exactly do you mean by risking everything?” her hands
are clenched at her sides.

“If it was Mum talking she’d say your
immortal soul. That’s one,” I raise my hand with one finger lifted,
“But there’s so much more. Two,” I raise another finger, “you will
lose the respect of everyone who finds out about this, including
me. Three, you risk being devalued and massively hurt should he go
back to his wife. Four, don’t you think it’s a little bit risky
investing in a guy who has
already
cheated on one wife? What’s stopping him cheating
on you? He’s just a taller version of
Choda
Boy
with an Irish
accent.”

My usual tactics of intimidation aren’t working. Emma doesn’t
try to run away, or change the subject. She answers
calmly,

“Take no risks and you risk more than ever. I’m going to keep
seeing him, and there’s nothing you can say to change my mind,
because since we’re being honest, I don’t want to end up like
you.”

“Which is what?”

“Cynical, closed. Since the engagement you’ve shut out any
chance of feeling something real.”

“Bullshit, you just caught me crying over the
Stranger!”

“Don’t, Penny. I know you better than anyone and you weren’t
crying over him. You were crying over yourself.”

“Was not.”

“Was too. And you’re not going to care about anyone again
until you start properly dealing with what happened with He Who
Shall Not Be Named.”

“I have achieved complete closure over that particular chapter
of my life.”

“That is such baloney, for gosh sake we’re not even allowed to
use his real name!”

Hmmm. Good point.

She continues,

“There are two ways of dealing with a breakup, the healthy way
with proper food and exercise and meditation, and the bad way, with
binge drinking and sleeping with any guy who pays you a compliment.
Which category do you think you fell into?”

I’m furious again. I only slept with seven,
maybe nine (maybe eleven...) guys after the engagement was called
off. That’s not
that
many!

“Fuck you Em, and fuck your fucking
yoga-camp-meditation-eating-nothing-but-rabbit-food way of dealing
with stuff technique. I deal with things differently to you. End
of.”

Stop. Stop right now before your sister disowns
you.

“You’re spiralling, Penny. Look at what you’ve become, you’re
attacking people now.”

“Antonio isn’t ‘people’, he’s a slightly higher evolved
version of a gorilla. And don’t make this about me, I am so tired
of people making everything about me all the time. Yeah, I have
flaws, I snack on crisps instead of fruit, I seek external
validation from men, I drink myself stupid every weekend, but it’s
not like the rest of London’s twenty-somethings aren’t doing
exactly the same thing. This is about you and the married
guy.”

I try to calm my voice but it’s shaking and I can feel I’m
about to start crying again, so I quickly blurt,

“You know that being with him while he’s
still married is wrong. You
know
that.”

But nothing I’m saying is getting through, I can see it in my
sister’s green eyes,

“If you’re going to constantly judge me, and
condemn every decision I make, then I’m sorry but I don’t want you
in my life. This is
my
life, not yours. You’re free to stuff up yours as you see fit,
so please give me that same courtesy.”

“But I don’t want you to stuff it up. Don’t you see? I’m
trying to protect you.” I plead.

“I’ve tried to protect you a lot more that you ever did me,”
Emma replies, “we all have. But we can’t help you anymore. Pull
your shit together, put on your trainers and go for a run when you
get home. It’s the only healthy emotional outlet you seem to
have.”

“Oh right, because your ‘healthy’ coping
mechanisms have been
soooooooooooo
useful thus far. You owe me five days annual leave
for that fucking yoga camp!”

“You know what, scratch what I just said. As soon as you get
home instead of going for a run, look up
‘transference’.”

“I already know what it means, it’s the process of being
transferred, I do real estate transactions for crying out
loud.”

I feel smug and awesome for the half second before Emma
answers,

“Not the legal definition, the mental health one.”

And for the second time today someone I love is walking back
inside the Ladbroke Arms. Someone who had come out here because
they wanted to help, and who now cares about me a little less than
before.

***

I feel like a train wreck as I drag myself home. Could my
shambolic attempts at fixing my fight with Chloe have gone any
worse? How did it spiral so badly? All I wanted was for Antonio to
send Chloe an apology. That’s all. Even a text would have sufficed.
Not only did I not achieve that, I alienated my sister and broke
off whatever it was the Stranger and I had. Actually, that last bit
was probably a good thing. Pretending that he might come round to
dating me was like taking a spoon of poison every day. Slow,
painful, inadvertent suicide.

I slowly put on
Sex
and the City
and slump into the sofa,
feeling haggard. I eat a quarter of the Paul chocolate mud flan
thing I bought on the way back. I shove big chunks into my mouth
with my hands (I don’t feel like I deserve cutlery). It’s more a
loaf than a flan. It is very thick, very rich and weighs as much as
a small dog (maybe it was designed for one of those mega birthday
parties for popular people, the price reflected as much). Half way
through the episode I wail through chocolate covered
teeth,

“How could you do that to Aiden, Carrie? He
loved
youuuuuuuuuu
!”

I determine to stop consuming the mud loaf. Flan contains
sugar, and massive sugar highs are dangerous for me. I’ll start
hyperactively messaging random people I haven’t spoken to in months
just to hear my phone ping, because no one has sent me a message
since midday. Not Chloe. Not the Stranger. Not Emma. No one. So no
more mud-flan for me.

I give in and eat more anyway.

Scared I might develop rapid onset diabetes
I force myself off the sofa, take out the Dyson and start furiously
vacuuming the apartment, trying to find that rouge spider from
earlier. I don’t find it but I do locate my missing turquoise
earring on the kitchen floor, lace panties in the folds of the sofa
along with used paper napkins, old pizza crusts and my Taj Mahal
snow globe from my trip to India.
So
that’s where it went...
As I dust it off I
notice I’m humming
Why Why Why
Delilah
.

I brush my teeth to stop myself from eating more
flan.

I give in and eat more anyway.

I watch more
Sex
and the City
until I reach the end of
season six and have to put on the first movie (“How could you do
that to Carrie, Big? She loved
youuuuuuuuuu
!”)

I ponder going for a run but decide not to for the following
reasons: It would suck, it’s too warm, I can’t be bothered, I
forgot to wash my sports bra, my iPod is in the other room, my
water bottle is empty, I’m full of chocolate, I should order a
curry instead.

I order a curry.

All these distractions are still not enough to stave off the
Bad Feelings. It suddenly becomes all too clear that my life, with
all its former purpose and aspirations, is slipping away from me in
a chocolatey landslide of tragedy. How could they do this to me?
How could my sister, my best friend and even despicable loverman
maliciously stand by while my reasons for living slip from my
grasp?

The curry arrives and I eat it and it’s delicious.

I decide that the meaning of life is chicken tikka masala. Who
needs friends?

I finish the flan.

I vacuum the house again. Mid-vacuum I
notice I’ve entered a hyperglycaemic seizure of
spider-paranoid-cleaning, running around like a maniac
singing
Ghostbusters
at the top of my lungs (but replace ‘ghost’ with
‘bug’).
Derden derdel der dern, derden derdel der dern. Derden
derdel der dern, derden derdel der dern,
BUGBUSTERS!

Sugar slump sets in around midnight.

Just before crashing I remember to look up the meaning of
transference.

Transference: unconscious redirection of feelings from one
person to another. It is often manifested as rage, hatred,
mistrust, parentification, extreme dependence or an erotic
attraction.

I read an article on it. Freud would have called my lashing
out at Emma today an unconscious recreation of an emotional trauma.
I would call it the dramatic culmination of a punch in the face, a
red t-shirt that meant nothing, a best friend who now hates me and
a lovely sister who was the easiest target for me to vent it all
out on.

I semiconsciously drag myself into the office, wiping the
sleep from my right eye. I can’t rub my left because it is caked in
concealer, powder and natural glow fake tan stuff. It’s 7:30 a.m.
I’m make up free besides the eye cover (which praise god has
worked, my black eye is unnoticeable). I’m wearing my oversize
tulip shaped pregnancy dress (the only work outfit I don’t have to
iron) and I’m gripping a Starbucks extra creamy extra strong double
everything frappuchino as if it were a lifeline.

I feel groggy, grumpy and on edge. I was in such a foul mood
earlier I almost yelled at my nice Starbucks guy (who’s the
spitting image of Michael Cera) just because the shop hadn’t
updated their price list. He charged me £2.20 for a scone when the
sign said it was only £2.00. Bloody outrageous!

(FYI - You know you’re in a bad way when 20p
feels like an extortionate amount to get jibbed out of. Anyway,
I
did
manage to
hold in the scone-price-induced rage tornado.
Just.)

As I slurp my sugary concoction I walk past
Partners Corner, and can’t quite believe my eyes. It’s Angrypants.
She’s been here awhile already, the empty bowl of porridge sitting
beside her is testament to that. I don’t know quite what to make of
it, I mean, it’s the
Monday after her
wedding
? Hair perfectly straightened in
that fashionable bob she wears, horn rimmed glasses perched on her
nose, she is reviewing a report over a steaming mug of coconut tea
and a punnet of blueberries. She’s the vision of a perfect worker.
A perfect lawyer. A perfect consultant. Her image inspires the
usual feelings of annoyance and doubt and self-loathing I get
whenever I’m in her presence. Because I’m not that. I never have
been, and I never will.

I walk sadly to my desk, sipping my frappuchino, trying not to
get upset that this woman is so much more hard working and diligent
and good looking than the rest of us are, and makes us all look
like lazy jerks. And her blueberries are making me furious with
myself for my morning breakfast choice, which is essentially a lump
of sweet dough smothered with jam and clotted cream (Michael Cera
tried to make it up to me with extra condiments), washed down with
liquid cake. Although I gotta say, this frappuchino is damn good. I
love the way they mix those scrumptious Starbucks brews.

I dump my heavy bag onto my desk, remove my trusty laptop and
set up, glancing at the worn paper pad sitting innocently on my
desk. The pages have got crinkles in the corners from my nervous
habit of crinkling them. Ten minutes later I’ve written a to-do
list for this morning, and it ain’t pretty:

Complete commercial section and costing spreadsheet for
Hastings bid - send to SD

Sustainability in the property market - submit article for
IEMA newsletter (pfft, like that’s ever gonna happen. Mention how
you were shot down by senior management after suggesting we stop
buying those pesky 0.5L water bottles for the kitchens)

Return PWC’s call re. Tesco end of financial year
audit

Gary Morton – email asking how spacial considerations are
incorporated into ATM design. Smaller the ATMs the smaller the
rental fees, to be negotiated into our contracts

Julie Singh - email requesting commercial team contacts for
HSBC

Get your ass down to the Polish consulate to renew your
passport

Pay off work AMEX (do this TODAY! You are getting a
disastrous credit rating)

Submit application for Howard Stern Award (Innovation in
Legal Consulting category)

Personal Development Plan for next year, set goals, send to
SD

Organise meeting with grads to help them set their
goals

Look up contact deets for Ikea Category Manager and
Commercial Manager. Send introductory email