The Dating Detox (33 page)

When I realise that, actually, I really can afford this trip, and we spend the next hour booking and planning, my mood improves immeasurably. It’s a highly successful distraction for both Kate and I. Kate’s problem is, obviously, about ten times more serious than mine, I know, but it doesn’t mean the fight with Jake isn’t playing on a loop in a little TV screen in the back of my brain. I don’t talk to the girls about Jake. Bloomie asks me once if I want to talk about him, and I simply shake my head. I don’t. I don’t I don’t I don’t.

All I have to do, in fact, is ask Cooper if I can have Friday off. I send him a quick text asking if it’s OK if I call him, and when he responds ‘no problem’, I take a deep breath and bite the bullet. He picks up after two rings.

‘May I take a half of Friday off?’

‘Why?’

‘Weekend away.’

‘Yeah, that should be OK. Make sure the team knows, of course. And don’t let anything slip.’

‘I will and…um, won’t.’

‘Fine. See you tomorrow.’

And it’s that simple. Odd how very easy it is to get what you want in life. All you have to do is ask for it. I wish someone had told me that earlier.

It’s outside-in happiness, I know, but thank goodness we are going to New York. To keep my mind off Jake, and stop the weekend playing in a loop in my head, I start making packing lists and shopping lists and reading nymag.com the moment I get home on Monday night.

Tuesday isn’t a great day. I get to work to find Cooper in a foul mood. He seems to be regretting his decision to let me take Friday afternoon off. We’ve had whiny emails from two long-term clients: they feel they’ve been neglected recently. Since we’ve been focusing on the German pitch so much over the past few months, and Andy
was in charge of ensuring that everything else was up to scratch, this isn’t surprising. Cooper immediately tells me I’m personally responsible for everything that goes out to those two clients from now on. So the week is pretty high-pressure, and brings me back down to earth. I may have got a raise, but in return, I’ve also lost my hiding-in-the-corner status.

The next few days spin by. I wake up at 6 am, and bloody Jake is always the first thought in my head. I banish him, and then go for a run. I don’t try to write. I’m just not in the mood. The busy, Andy-free workdays spin by, and then when I get home I call Bloomie and Kate to talk about New York and read in bed till I fall asleep with my book on my chest. These are all excellent distractions. Just like vodka and clothes used to be. But much better for my liver and bank balance.

Kate’s gone home to stay with her parents for a few nights, but she seems on excellent form, channelling all her control-freak skills into planning the perfect weekend for us. We’ve all been to New York enough times that we don’t want to bother with too much touristy stuff and none of us can really afford to shop too much, which just leaves eating and drinking and walking. Three things that both we and New York excel at.

Kate also texts me at one point to tell me that the feeling you get when you realise you don’t have to think about your job or your boss or your office politics ever again is like flying. I reply telling her to stop smoking crack. She replies that she can’t keep replying to my texts as she’s planning a practice pack. Yes, you read that right. Not just having a practice pack, but
planning
a practice pack.

Whenever I have a quiet moment and start thinking about Jake (maybe he’ll know great places to go in New York? After all, he lived there), I slap myself in the face (metaphorically), and tell myself to get a grip.

I don’t hear from him all week, of course. Not that I thought I would. (OK, I kind of thought I would.) (Well I hoped.) (No, not hoped. Wondered. I wondered if I would.) (It crossed my mind.)
(Like, once.) Late Thursday morning, the Germans come in for a meeting to look over our latest work. It’s the first time I’ve seen Lukas since the Mahiki night, but with everything else that’s going on, I can’t summon the energy to be embarrassed about it anymore. Coop and I present the work together, with Sally, the schmoozy account director, looking on and making fatuous comments here and there. On their way out, Lukas lingers for a minute behind the others.

‘Sass. Can I take you to lunch?’ he asks. ‘If it doesn’t interfere with your Sabbatical, of course.’

I blink. Why would the Sabbatical stop me having—oh, shit. Rule 6, no accidental dating. Rule 7, no new man friends. I’ve started to think of the Dating Sabbatical as my shield from Jake, rather than a life philosophy like I did before. I ponder for a moment. What harm could it do?

‘Come on,’ he says. ‘You look like you need something to eat. I am hungry. So let’s have lunch together. It is so much better for the digestion than eating alone.’

‘I’d love to,’ I say. ‘But Lukas…’

‘I’m your client,’ he says. ‘I know.’

We walk out of the office and down to a little café near Golden Square, order at the counter and take a seat outside. Lukas tucks into a full English with all the gusto of a non-Englishman, and I take a bite of my Parma ham ciabatta.

‘So, come on,’ he says. ‘Tell me what has happened. I can see something has. You’re not worrying about what happened at Mahiki?’

If only that was it. ‘No…not at all.’

‘Good,’ he says. ‘I asked you for dinner, you said no, it was no big deal. I am not in luff with you.’

I grin at him.

‘Actually,’ Lukas continues. ‘I am asking out every nice girl I meet at the moment. It is the opposite of a Dating Sabbatical. I am casting my net very wide.’

‘A Date Trawl!’ I exclaim. It’s a bit weird talking to a client like this, but it’s impossible not to like him and Coop wants everyone to get along. He’s a good guy. Maybe he could ask Kate out. ‘How’s that going for you?’

‘Not so bad,’ he says. ‘I have three dates lined up in London, and one back in Berlin. I’m moving here in two weeks, so it’s time to concentrate more on London.’

‘Nice work,’ I say. Wow. And I thought I was a serial dater.

‘I know,’ he shrugs with false modesty. ‘You should have dinner with me on Saturday night and I can tell you all about it.’

I start laughing. I do like him. He’s fun. And very direct. ‘No. I can’t anyway. I’m going to New York for the weekend with my girlfriends. Sunday is my birthday, actually.’

Lukas leans back in his chair. He’s finished the entire plate of fried English breakfast. I look down at my ciabatta. I’ve taken two bites.

‘Do you mind if I smoke?’ I say.

‘Of course not,’ he grins. ‘You can smoke and I can tell you what I think you should do.’

I light a cigarette and raise my eyebrows at him. This bossy German thing is amusing. Still, he’s not quite as charming as some people when they’re being bossy…Damn it, stop thinking about Jake.

‘You should go to New York with your friends. Celebrate the ending of the Sabbatical and have a lovely birthday. Then come back here and go for dinner with me.’

I smile at him and shake my head.

‘It’s only been three months,’ I say. ‘I think I need about three years off dating.’

We start chatting about London bars and restaurants, as he wants tips on the best new places for his dates. After 20 minutes I say I’d better get back to work, and Lukas wishes me a happy trip to New York before hailing a cab. I smile as I walk back to the office. He’d be easy to hang out with. Easy is good. Easy is
better than men who call you names and call your bluff. Maybe we could be friends. To hell with Rule 7.

But then again, why bother to break one Sabbatical rule? Why not just break them all? And if that happens, why not break it for someone I really like? Why am I even thinking about breaking the Sabbatical?

I don’t know.

I don’t know anything.

I skippy-bunny-hop home on Thursday night—it was a slightly forced skippy-bunny-hop, I’ll admit, and I have to use all my willpower to not think about Jake—and start packing.

We’re hardly there at all, really—we arrive Friday night and leave Sunday night—but it’s more than enough time to have a bit of fun and obviously I will need a wide range of outfits to choose from, according to the mood I’m in. I check the weather predictions online. Yay. It’s 24° Celsius and sunny over there. It’s already been arranged that Bloomie and Kate will be picking me up, from my house, in one of those cheap airport minicab services at midday tomorrow.

I’m all done in ten minutes. Goddamnit I am a good packer. I phone Bloomie to see how she and Kate are getting on. Bloomie is giddy with delight that she’s managed to fit everything into an overnight bag. Kate is taking the biggest suitcase she owns.

‘What are you taking, darling?’ Bloomie asks.

‘I am taking a very small suitcase,’ I say. ‘Although I do have approximately 21 possible outfits.’

‘I knew you would, that’s why I didn’t pack much. Between you and Kate I’m completely sorted,’ she says, then I hear her call to Kate: ‘Kate! We don’t need a first aid kit!’

I can hear Kate’s voice in the background. ‘In case of emergencies!’

‘No.’

‘Blooooooooomiiiiiiiieeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.’

I haven’t heard Kate whine like that in years.

‘Sorry, Sass darling. How’s your week been, anyway? You’ve been very quiet on email.’

‘I’m great. Work. You know.’

‘Haven’t thought about Jake?’

‘Nope.’

‘The Sabbatical still on?’

‘Yep.’

‘Want to do anything special for your birthday on Sunday?’

‘No, definitely not,’ I say.

‘Why can’t you take your own advice?’ sighs Bloomie.

I’m trying to figure out what she means when she suddenly says: ‘I have to go. She’s trying to pack a pillow…KATE! DROP IT!’

‘What if I don’t like the pillows in the hotel?’ I hear Kate shouting back.

‘I give up on both of you,’she says.‘See you at midday tomorrow. And get a good night’s sleep.’

She damned me to a bad night’s sleep with those words. I turn my light off at 11 pm and can’t remember how to fall asleep. And it’s because Jake is in my head.

Again.

I don’t invite him in, you know. He just appears. I keep thinking about things he said, and stories he told me, and they remind me of stories I wish I’d told him, because I think he’d like them and they’d make him laugh. I think about him saying he adored me, and talking about my left earlobe.

And I think about our fight. I can’t even remember it very well now, I’ve run over it so many times that it’s like a scratchy, jumpy old VHS video tape in my head. A few not-nice things stick out, like him calling me pathetic and idiotic, and some nice things, I think, like about how amazing it was whenever he was with me. And at some point, he definitely said ‘No one
wants a shit relationship. No one. You don’t need a Dating Sabbatical to believe that. But everyone wants a good one…Everyone.’

Hmm.

It must be 1 am. Is it 1 am? I look over at my clock radio. It’s a 1.23 am! Sleep, damnit. Think about something else.

I’m 29 in three sleeps. Twenty fucking nine! That’s depressing. That means I’m going to be 30. Which never really occurred to me before now. (I’m really not that bright sometimes.) I wonder if I’ll still be on a Dating Sabbatical when I’m 30. Or 40. Or 50. God, that’s a depressing, stupid idea, isn’t it? And yet, what’s the alternative? To keep having my heart broken and be dumped and be in an eternal date-dump cycle?

Rock, meet hard place.

Stop thinking about it. Sleep. Sleeeeeeeep.

And he said I was scared. And that I was pathetic and idiotic, which I know I’ve already mentioned but that bit keeps coming back to me. And a bastardo.

What did I say to him? OK. I definitely mentioned the Sabbatical. And I said I don’t want to get involved. And he said that was bullshit, and that I was already involved.

I am already involved.

And pretty soon after that I kicked him out. And we lost our tempers. And he called me a fucking bastardo. And I told him I had no reason to trust him, and called him a bastardo and a jackass, I think.

I am a fucking bastardo.

Shut up, little voice.

If it was the other way around, and I’d met someone I felt a squirmy-warm-tummy with, and they’d run away every time I’d seen them and then kicked me out of their room after we’d kissed and talked all night, I’d…yeah, I’d probably think he was a fucking bastardo.

Please sleep, brain. Please.

I try to read for awhile to clear my head of Jake. Then at 1.57 am I turn off my light again. Jake is back immediately.

Please fuck off, I say to him.

You made a mistake, he says back. It’s not me that you don’t trust.

And then suddenly, I think I must be asleep, and dreaming, because I’m talking to Jake. (Remember that thing I said once about dreams and jobs being just about equal when it comes to boring topics? Well, too bad again. I still have the conch.)

I’m sitting on a sofa with Jake, outside a hotel. We’re facing a beach, it’s overcast and not too hot and there’s a mild breeze. We’re talking to each other, but the conversation keeps being whisked away with the wind. At one point I shuffle over from my side of the sofa to lean against him and he cuddles me under the crook of his arm. I relax into him, my legs stretched out next to his. ‘I’m 5.9, you know,’ I say. ‘You’re 5.8,’ he replies. ‘I’m not. I’m really tall,’ I say. ‘Oh, Minxy,’ he says.

And with that, I wake up.

Sorry, I had to share that with you. Analyse it if you want. I’m damn well not going to.

It’s 6.40 am. I still have almost an hour before I have to get up. I lie in my lovely cool room in the early June half light. How nice it is to lie here. And not think about Jake.

I’d like to think about Jake.

Well, you can’t.

I drift back to a dream-free sleep for 50 minutes. When I wake up again, I feel reasonably refreshed. Forget Jake. Today is Going To New York Day. It’s sunny outside. Let’s go.

Work is blissfully uneventful, and I hurry home at 11.30 am, swiftly change into my travel clothes (old comfy jeans, white T-shirt, blazer—which is almost boring till I hitch the jeans up with a belt, add aviators, roll the sleeves up and decide I’m a Transatlantic Cindy Crawford circa ’91), and am downstairs, with my suitcase, at 11.59 am on the button. At midday Bloomie and Kate roll up in the minicab, and with much happy yelping I put my suitcase in the back of the car and jump in.

‘Passport?’ says Kate.

‘Yep.’

‘Money?’

‘Yep.’

‘And here’s your online check-in confirmation, the hotel’s phone number and address and a map of the area around the hotel, and the phone number of the British consulate in New York.’

‘What do you think is going to happen this weekend?’ I say, putting it all in my lucky yellow clutch. It barely fits.

‘I don’t know,’ she says. ‘But it pays to be prepared.’

Bloomie pulls out her phone and calls Eugene. He doesn’t pick up, so she leaves a message. ‘I love you, darling. I’m just
calling you to tell you that. I’ll call you from the airport.’ She hangs up, and sees Kate and I looking at her. ‘Shut up.’

We get to Heathrow Terminal 5, which is a bright shiny spaceship of an airport, check our luggage and stroll through Immigration. We’re lining up to put our bags through the security check when Bloomie gasps.

‘There’s Jake!’

‘Where? Where?’ I say, and immediately crouch down on the ground. (The machine operator sees me doing this but is too fat to get up and see what I’m doing. Great security, Heathrow. I feel really safe.)

‘Is it him? Where?’ hisses Kate.

‘There!’

‘No! That’s not him!’ says Kate.

‘Where? Where?’ I shriek, in an under-my-breath kind of way.

‘Gone now, darling,’ says Bloomie. ‘He was walking that way. I’m sure it was him.’

‘I’m sure it wasn’t,’ says Kate.

‘Oh my God, why are you doing this to me?’ I say, still crouched on the floor.

Well, now my nerves are completely shot. We have about half an hour before we board, and wander through duty free smelling the perfumes. I can’t really enjoy it though, as every step I take, I am doing frantic 360-degree turns looking for Jake. I look like a paranoid ballet dancer. I don’t see him. Of course.

‘Got another surprise for you,’ says Bloomie, as we start walking to the gate. ‘Check your boarding pass.’

I check it. I haven’t really looked at it since Kate checked us in. It looks totally normal. ‘Is it OK?’ I say anxiously.

‘We’re flying Club World, baby!’

‘What?’ I say. ‘But—’

‘Honestly, we realised on Tuesday that we both had the points and we were like, why not,’ says Bloomie. ‘It’s just so much better.’

‘How often does a girl lose her job, you know?’ says Kate. ‘Consider it an early birthday present!’ I go into paroxysms of delight about flying Club World and thank them both profusely. This is going to be the best birthday ever.

Urgh, my birthday.

‘We could go to the lounge, but it’s not that great,’ says Bloomie. I’m crestfallen at this. Hanging out in the lounge would be amazing for me.

We get to our gate and start lining up to board. After our intense chattiness and hyperactivity over the past few hours, we’re hitting a little sugar low, and are all standing and shuffling in relative silence (with the occasional 360-degree check for any Jake-shaped men) when I get a tap on the shoulder.

‘I told you I’d see you around.’

It’s Rob, Mr America from Harlem-slash-the-Lonsdale. We all exclaim excited hellos and offer cheek kisses, and he joins us in the queue, politely apologising to the people behind us.

‘I’m sorry, ma’am, sir, I just haven’t seen these ladies in a while…’ He turns to us. ‘So what gives? A weekend in New York? Shopping, drinking, eating?’

‘Can I pick D, all of the above?’ I ask.

He laughs. ‘Sure. You ladies staying in Manhattan?’

‘Is there anywhere else to stay?’ says Bloomie, echoing my thoughts. ‘Oh yes, Brooklyn.’ Damn, I forgot about Brooklyn.

‘And, like, three other boroughs…and then there’s a little thing called New York State…?’ he says, shaking his head at us in mock-disapproval. ‘How you doin’, Kate? You look a little worried. Bad flyer?’

‘No, no, I’m just checking things off in my head,’ she says, looking up at him anxiously.

‘I’m taking a couple of Valium the second I get on this flight,’ he says, in a slightly lower voice. ‘I need to rest up before the weekend. An old work buddy is having the 30th to end all 30ths
tomorrow night. You guys should come. I mean, if you don’t have any other plans?’

‘We’d love to!’ exclaims Bloomie. She’s overcompensating for Kate and I being such freaks today, I think.

‘We’d love to!’ I add, slightly belatedly.

‘Awesome,’ he says. ‘It’s tomorrow night, downtown. You guys know the Meatpacking District, right? What’s your number? I’ll text you the details.’ He looks at me expectantly. I tell him my number. ‘Finally! God! That was like, harder to get hold of than my MBA.’

I start laughing, half at him as I don’t know if he’s being funny or is genuinely a bit of a wanker, and half because it is pretty funny that it’s taken three separate meetings for me to acquiesce to handing over my sacred digits. A couple of years ago I would probably have fallen over myself to give him my number.

He sends me a quick text:

About freaking time, baby…

I can’t think what to reply, so I don’t reply anything at all, just nod at him. ‘Got it.’

We walk through the gate and down the stinky little alley to the plane. I hope Rob isn’t sitting near us. That would really be annoying. I want to giggle and be silly and I can’t with him around.

‘You guys flying coach?’ he asks.

‘No, Club World,’ I say, trying not to sound too elated.

‘Me too.’

Damn.

Bloomie, Kate and I settle in our seats and pretend to nonchalantly look through the free toiletry bag. Well, I’m pretending. The other two have flown Club World before, so their nonchalance could be genuine. It’s pretty fucking awesome as far as I’m concerned. Kate is across the aisle by herself (‘I’d much prefer it,’ she said as we boarded, ‘I don’t like talking on planes. I need to concentrate to remain calm’), and Bloomie and I are sitting sort of top-and-tailed yet side-by-side.

I stuff my bag under my seat and look up to see Rob putting his bag in an overhead locker on the other side of the cabin.

‘See you on the flip side,’ he says, winking at me, putting two little pills in his mouth and washing them down with a gulp of water. Definitely a cockmonkey.

I catch Bloomie’s eye and we both do a little jumping up and down in the seat dance. ‘OK, I’m sick of you now,’ she says, flicking up the fan-shaped thing separating us. A second later she flicks it down. ‘PSYCH!’

The silliness continues until we’re taxiing down the runway. I reach across the aisle to hold Kate’s hand for take-off, as I have a feeling she’ll appreciate it. After we’ve taken off, I slowly unpick each of her fingers hooked rigidly around my own.

‘What do you do when you’re flying by yourself?’ I ask.

‘You’d be surprised how many people are willing to hold hands during take-off,’ she says.

Right after take-off, Bloomie pulls out her laptop.

‘What are you doing?’ I ask.

She looks over guiltily. ‘I didn’t get to work till half past nine today. It’s the first time I’ve ever gone in past 8 am…I was in bed with The Dork…So I just have to review something and then send a quick email when we land…’

I watch three episodes of
Arrested Development,
then stretch out and try not to think about Jake. After last night’s sleep antics, I’m exhausted. I fall asleep and don’t wake up until we land.

After going through passport control at JFK, we get our bags, jump in a cab (a yellow cab!) and 45 minutes later, we’re driving in the early evening sunshine across a bridge (I think it’s the Williamsburg Bridge, but who knows) to MAN-GODDAMNHATTAN.

We’re all fizzing with excitement as the city, with its shiny skyscraper-packed beauty, gets closer and closer. The buildings seem part of a single entity from far away, and then when you’re near
enough you can see that each one stands alone and proud, with its own personality and history and attitude. It’s almost overwhelming: too big, too beautiful…Then, three seconds later, Manhattan swallows us up and we’re inside it, we’re there, I mean—we’re here!

See, this is just what I needed to distract me from Jake.

What do you mean, distract you from him? Nothing happened. A bit of a chat, a bit of a kiss, he’s a roosterprickcockmonkeybastardo, over.

But I miss him.

Shutthehellup.

Mkay.

The taxi pulls up at the Standard Hotel, which is a tall square building that appears to rather awkwardly straddle the High Line, a public park-slash-walkway on the far west side of the Meatpacking District.

‘I thought we were staying at a boring hotel midtown?’ I say, as we get in our cab. I’ve been so distracted that I didn’t even hear Bloomie give the taxi driver directions. She turns to me and shrugs.

‘This deal was better. And so is this hotel.’

She’s right: it’s an extremely cool hotel. We check in and the charming bellhop takes us to our room, which is huge, especially in my limited experience of hotel rooms in New York. Our room has views over the Hudson and all the way uptown. I can even see the Empire State building, twinkling away in the dusky light. And there are views from the bathroom, too. So you can have a bath and look out.

‘Wow,’ we all say in unison.

I flop down on the bed and sigh. I’m suddenly shattered.

I miss Jake.

Shut up.

‘I’m ordering us coffees on room service,’ says Kate. ‘It’s only 7 pm, but it’s midnight at home, and I think we need the
caffeine because tonight we’re going out to dinner. Now get dressed.’

Everyone should travel with a control freak at least once in their lives. It’s so much easier.