The Park Bench Test

Sarah Lefebve

A division of HarperCollinsPublishers

www.harpercollins.co.uk

Contents

Sarah Lefebve

Dedication

AUTHOR NOTE

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR

CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE

CHAPTER TWENTY SIX

CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN

CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT

CHAPTER TWENTY NINE

CHAPTER THIRTY

KATIE

FIONA

CHAPTER THIRTY ONE

CAROLINE

CHAPTER THIRTY TWO

GEORGINA & TARA

CHAPTER THIRTY THREE

JO

STEPHANIE

AUDREY

CATHY

BEV

CHAPTER THIRTY FOUR

CHAPTER THIRTY FIVE

GRAHAM

CHAPTER THIRTY SIX

CHAPTER THIRTY SEVEN

CHAPTER THIRTY EIGHT

CHAPTER THIRTY NINE

CHAPTER FORTY

CHAPTER FORTY ONE

CHAPTER FORTY TWO

CHAPTER FORTY THREE

CHAPTER FORTY FOUR

CHAPTER FORTY FIVE

CHAPTER FORTY SIX

NATALIE

CHAPTER FORTY SEVEN

CHAPTER FORTY EIGHT

CHAPTER FORTY NINE

CHAPTER FIFTY

CHAPTER FIFTY ONE

CHAPTER FIFTY TWO

CHAPTER FIFTY THREE

CHAPTER FIFTY FOUR

CHAPTER FIFTY FIVE

CHAPTER FIFTY SIX

CHAPTER FIFTY SEVEN

CHAPTER FIFTY EIGHT

CHAPTER FIFTY NINE

CHAPTER SIXTY

CHAPTER SIXTY ONE

CHAPTER SIXTY TWO

CHAPTER SIXTY THREE

CHAPTER SIXTY FOUR

CHAPTER SIXTY FIVE

CHAPTER SIXTY SIX

CHAPTER SIXTY SEVEN

CHAPTER SIXTY EIGHT

CHAPTER SIXTY NINE

CHAPTER SIXTY SEVENTY

CHAPTER SEVENTY ONE

CHAPTER SEVENTY TWO

CHAPTER SEVENTY THREE

CHAPTER SEVENTY FOUR

CHAPTER SEVENTY FIVE

CHAPTER SEVENTY SIX

CHAPTER SEVENTY SEVEN

Love Romance?

About HarperImpulse

Copyright

About the Publisher

Sarah Lefebve

There is one word to sum up my life – chaotic! I have two small children who, though I love more than life itself, have an amazing capacity to create untold mess, laundry and general havoc. I have a very untidy self-employed husband whose ability to leave stuff literally all over the house knows no bounds. I have two step-sons whose love of lego has left me many a time nursing bruised feet and cursing those little plastic bricks and I have a love of both red wine and Cadbury’s milk chocolate – frequent large helpings of which force me to the gym on a regular basis.

I also obviously have a passion for writing – so when I am not tidying up after my family or dashing to the gym that’s what you’ll find me doing. I just wish there were more hours in a day!

For Ruth, my oldest friend, who found her Mr Right.

And for Tom, my brother-in-law, who always wanted to know when this book would be published.

Well here it is!

AUTHOR NOTE

In The Park Bench Test the heroine Becky needs to find out how you know you’ve met Mr Right. As I was single when I first started writing the novel (I am now married with two small children!) I was blissfully unaware how you knew when you’d found “the one”! To give the story a bit of authenticity, therefore, I interviewed my own friends, family members and colleagues on this issue. In other words, the interviews in The Park Bench Test are genuine – and not a figment of my imagination! Names have been changed to protect the innocent!

PROLOGUE

Love flies, runs and rejoices; it is free and nothing can hold it back.

Thomas À Kempis (1379-1471)

When I was eight years old Ken asked Barbie to marry him.

Barbie said yes.

I wanted to know why.

I wanted to know everything when I was eight. I wanted to know why I had two eyes and two ears, but only one nose and only one mouth. I wanted to know why grass was green and why sky was blue. I wanted to know why my eyebrows didn’t grow to be as long as my hair.

And I wanted to know why Barbie loved Ken.

It was the first day of the summer holidays and my best friend Emma and I had laid on a lavish wedding for our bride and groom – in a marquee made out of four plastic tent poles and a pink lacy pillowcase from Laura Ashley. It was the place to be that Saturday afternoon, with an enviable guest list that included four other Barbie dolls, My Little Pony – who’d plaited her mane for the occasion, Paddington Bear – minus one wellington boot which Emma had dropped out of the window while she was showing my mum the flower we’d forced into his buttonhole, and a naked Tiny Tears, all of whom were treated to a wedding breakfast of chocolate digestives and Love Heart sweets.

It wasn’t the first time they‘d got married but it was the first time we ever questioned why Barbie wanted to marry Ken. Not that we thought there was anything wrong with Ken – he was quite cool really, particularly in the white sparkly trousers we had made for him out of one of my dad’s old handkerchiefs, some Pritt Stick glue and a pot of blue glitter.

My mum was helping out at the village plant sale, so it was my dad who had drawn the short straw.

“Daddy,” I said, my tone giving away the fact that I was about to ask a question he’d rather I had saved for my mum.

“Yes Rebs,” he replied hesitantly, over the top of his newspaper. My dad still calls me Rebs. Everyone else calls me Becky – or B. He likes to be different.

“Barbie loves Ken, doesn’t she?” I asked, pulling off the bride’s luminous green swimsuit, which probably convinced my dad he was about to have to deliver his “birds and bees” speech a little earlier than expected.

“Yes that’s right, love.”

“Why does she?”

“Why does she what, love?” he said, half listening, half reading his newspaper.

“Why does she love Ken? Why does she want to marry him?”

Of course, the answer was obvious – Barbie was marrying Ken so that Emma and I could get our hands on enough chocolate digestives and Love Heart sweets to make ourselves sick. But my dad chose to overlook this minor detail.

“What makes you ask that sweetheart?” he asked instead, buying himself a bit of time to come up with a plausible answer, no doubt, while simultaneously breathing a sigh of relief that he wasn’t going to have to explain where babies came from.

“I just wondered.”

“Well,” he ventured, both Emma and I now hanging off his every word.

“Well…he’s her Mr Right, I suppose.”

Hello?

We were only eight years old, dad.

“What’s a misterite?” Emma asked, trying to flick a bit of glitter off her finger.

My dad thought about it for a moment.

“Mr Right is the man a lady loves and wants to spend the rest of her life with. He’s the man she wants to marry. Because he makes her happy. Because they’re sort of meant to be together, sort of, I guess…”

You had to hand it to him – it was a damn good try.

“Does that mean you’re mummy’s misterite, then daddy?” I asked, still intrigued, while Emma, clearly less than impressed with this explanation, had returned to the task of making Ken a sparkly vest to go with his trousers.

“That’s right darling,” dad said, beaming – maybe because he was my mum’s Mr Right, maybe because he’d managed to answer the question without her help, probably a bit of both.

I may have only been eight years old, but I am pretty sure that was the very moment I decided I believed in Mr Right. And that one day I would find him.

I suspect it was also the moment that Emma decided it was absolute bollocks. That there was no such thing as Mr Right. And that the best she could ever hope for was to find someone who’d stick around longer than her dad did.

“But why?” I asked my dad for the third time, buttoning up Barbie’s wedding dress while Ken waited nervously in the marquee. “Why are you mummy’s misterite?”

My dad looked up from his newspaper and pondered the question for a second.

“Because, Rebs. Just because.”

CHAPTER ONE

Somewhere there waiteth in this world of ours

For one lone soul another lonely soul,

Each choosing each through all the weary hours

And meeting strangely at one sudden goal.

‘Destiny’, Sir Edwin Arnold (1832-1904)

“Sorry, sorry,” I shout, running down Pretty Street where Emma and Katie are both waiting for me outside the shop.

I look at my watch. I’m 30 minutes late. Damn.

“Sorry,” I say again, trying to catch my breath. I really should work on my fitness.

I hug them both.

“The train was delayed leaving Leeds,” I explain. “And then we had to stop in Grantham to replenish the buffet car. I blame the fat git in coach D – every time I went past him to get to the loos he was scoffing another king size Mars Bar. And then I had to wait 20 minutes for a bloody tube. The underground was packed. Whose idea was it to go wedding dress shopping in London on the first day of the January sales?” I ask. “Oh yes – yours!” I say, grinning at Katie.

“Let’s have another look then. I’ve forgotten what it looks like already.”

She waves her left hand in my face and I throw my head back, pretending to be blinded by the sparkle.

“Gorgeous,” I say, and she beams – which is pretty much all she’s been doing for the last ten days, I suspect.

“Right then. Let’s get this show on the road,” I say, pushing open the door to Maid in Heaven.

“I’m sorry,” a lady with half-moon glasses perched on the end of her nose and a tape measure wrapped around her neck tells us when we explain we’ve come in search of a wedding dress for Katie – a little pointless really, given that we are stood in a shop full of the bloody things.

“We’re fully booked,” she says. “You really should have made an appointment.”

I don’t like the way she’s looking at us – like she would look at something sticky on the bottom of her shoe. Lips turned down, nose tilted slightly in the air. I’m tempted to pull that tape measure a little tighter…

“What about this afternoon?” Katie asks.

The woman shakes her head.

“Fully booked,” she repeats. “All day.”

She reaches for a big leather diary from a desk and flicks nonchalantly through the pages until she stops at the first one that isn’t completely obliterated with brides’ names, telephone numbers and dress sizes. She taps the page decisively.

“April the third,” she says, ever so slightly sarcastically. Anyone would think she’s trying to make a point. “I can fit you in on April the third.”

“APRIL THE THIRD?” Katie shrieks. “That’s…” – she counts on her fingers quickly – “…four months away. I want to get married on September the eighteenth. I can’t wait four months!”

“SEPTEMBER EIGHTEENTH?!” the woman shrieks, obviously now in competition with my friend as to who can inject the most alarm into three simple words. “September the eighteenth, this year? In that case you really should have made an appointment.”

Katie looks at Emma and me.

If I didn’t know better, I’d say she’s going to cry.

But of course I do know better. I’ve known Katie for nearly ten years. Katie would never let a nasty woman like this make her cry.

“I’m sorry,” she tells her, instead, “I’m used to shopping in Marks and Spencer and Next, where you don’t have to make an appointment to use a cubicle.” And then she glances over to the rails of dresses on display at the back of the shop, and grimaces.

“In any case,” she says, “I really don’t think you have what it is I’m looking for.”

Emma and I grimace too – just for good measure. And then the three of us leave the shop and leg it back up the road laughing.

The woman at the next shop is not quite so nasty. But she does laugh at us. How rude.

“Have you any idea how many men propose over Christmas and New Year?” she asks.

Katie looks crestfallen. I think she thought it was just Matt – that it was just the best day of his and hers lives – not every Tom, Dick and Harry’s.

“We filled three months of the diary in one week,” she explains.

“Okay. Thanks anyway,” Katie says.

And so we leave shop number two.

Katie looks at her list.

Old New Borrowed Blue is next. But it’s a tube ride away. I’m not sure I can face the underground again just yet. I’ve only just got over the ordeal of being pressed up against Worzel Gummidge all the way from Kings Cross to Knightsbridge. I don’t think I’ve ever held my breath for so long. I almost held the Metro paper between us as a makeshift barrier until I discovered someone had already used it to scrape a bit of chewing gum off the bottom of their shoe.

“Let’s go grab a coffee,” I suggest. I’m a tea drinker actually, but nobody says that do they? – ‘Let’s go grab a cup of tea’ – unless they’re over sixty five and planning on ordering a fruit scone to go with it.

“Good idea,” Emma and Katie both agree.

“So, Emma. Have you changed your mind yet?” Katie asks, before shovelling a huge forkful of chocolate fudge cake into her mouth. She’s as skinny as a rake too. There’s no justice.

“I can’t, Katie,” she says, offering her a piece of double chocolate chip cookie with extra chocolate – presumably in the hope that it will help soften the blow.

Emma is refusing to be a bridesmaid – on account of the fact that it will jeopardise her own chances of ever walking down the aisle.

What can I say? My friends are a little odd.

“Three times a bridesmaid, never a bride,” she told Katie the moment she blinded us for the first time with her newly acquired diamond ring on Boxing Day, when we met at my parents house in Sussex for leftover turkey and recycled Christmas cracker hats.

“You were only five when your godmother got married!” Katie had argued. “And Alison and Paul are already divorced, so that doesn’t count either.”

“Age is irrelevant. And the only way to reverse the curse is to be a bridesmaid another four times. And even if Becky does get off her arse and marry Alex,” Emma had said, looking pointedly at me, “that still leaves me three times short, and I don’t know anybody who’s even remotely close to getting that ring on their finger. Sorry Katie, I can’t do it.”

Personally I think she’s just trying to avoid the humiliation of wearing a peach dress in front of all of Katie and Matt’s friends and family. Not that Katie is planning on dressing us in peach. At least I hope she’s not. It’s every bridesmaid’s worst fear, isn’t it – being made to look like a giant helping of peach cobbler? Or worse still, being forced into some floral number that looks like it has come straight from your Auntie Mabel’s living room curtain pole.

Anyway – a battle ensued, involving a minor strop on both parts and an in-depth discussion on every possible superstition from the importance of good manners when coming face to face with a lone magpie, to the day-long good fortune to be had from seeing a penny and picking it up (frankly I’d be much happier to see a £20 note and slip that into my pocket – but maybe that’s just me).

Katie relented, eventually, and agreed that Emma could do a reading instead – on the proviso that she comes on every shopping trip that involves the wedding in any way, shape or form. Starting today.

She’s not quite given up trying to persuade her yet though.

“I can’t afford to risk it,” Emma explains, for the umpteenth time. “I have such shit luck with men.”

She’s right. She does.

She has no trouble meeting men. And getting them, for that matter. Emma is stunning – with legs up to her armpits, and perky boobs. And the blonde hair. And the blue eyes. And she’s a lovely person too. Makes you sick, doesn’t it?

Men, for Emma, are a bit like buses. Buses which turn up in the most unexpected places. In the baggage claim area at Gatwick Airport following a teachers’ conference in Glasgow, for example. Or the frozen vegetable section of her local Tesco Express. Or the back row of a karate class (the one and only class she ever made it to, I hasten to add, being too busy, as she inevitably was, loved up with the guy from the back row).

Yes – Emma can get the men.

It’s just the keeping them that she tends to have a problem with. Before long, either they lose interest – or she does.

Either she’s about to add her toothbrush to the pot on their bathroom sink and a spare pair of knickers to their bottom drawer when they give her the elbow or she decides she doesn’t want them anymore, in which case they tend to hang around like a bad smell.

Emma’s last four boyfriends, in no particular order, were:

Greg – who told her he loved her on their third date. He sent her 12 bunches of flowers, 37 voicemail messages and 52 text messages in six days. On the seventh day she dumped him. Good decision, I think.

Dean – who couldn’t get it up. But she really liked him and was prepared to help him through it – and would have done, had she not discovered that he had told all his mates she couldn’t keep her hands off him, that they were at it like rabbits and that they had virtually cleared the local branch of Boots of their entire supply of Fetherlite Durex. She dumped him after six weeks and promptly told his mates exactly why they weren’t at it like rabbits.

Barry – who most certainly could get it up – and did so on a regular basis. Just not exclusively for Emma, as she discovered when she let herself into his apartment to surprise him on his birthday after fibbing that she was busy – only to discover he had already put on his birthday suit for someone else.

And Peter – who dumped her after she discovered he was growing marijuana in his bathtub and suggested he might like to take up a more law-abiding hobby – like draughts or ping-pong.

Emma doesn’t believe in Mr Right. She just wants to meet someone she likes – or loves – enough to want to stick around. When she was seven her dad left her mum for his secretary and moved to the South of France. Maybe that’s why. I don’t think she’s ever got over it.

“So have you made any other plans yet?” I ask Katie, blowing on my tea.

She nods and waves her hand to signal she intends to give details. But her mouth is still full of chocolate fudge cake.

“You don’t have to eat it all in one go,” I tell her. “We’ve got all day, you know. My train doesn’t leave until eight.”

I normally stay the night with Katie and Matt. It’s a long way to come from Leeds just for the day – but I have to go home tonight as Alex and I have a christening to go to tomorrow.

“Well, we’ve set the date, obviously.”

They’re getting married on the anniversary of the day they met – six years ago. September the eighteenth. Nine months from now. She’s assures us that’s coincidental. I’m assuming she’s telling the truth. I’m guessing she wouldn’t choose to give birth whilst walking up the aisle.

“And we’ve booked the venue - a lovely little church in Beaulieu in the New Forest followed by a reception at the Montagu Arms Hotel.”

Matt took Katie to Beaulieu for the weekend when they had been together for a year. Katie fell in love with the place and told him when they got married that was where she’d like them to do it. Even back then she knew she’d met the one.

“You’ll love it,” she says, draining her coffee cup as we get ready to leave. “It’s so beautiful. I couldn’t believe it when they said it was available on the date we wanted. They’d had a cancellation, I think. Obviously someone decided not to get hitched after all,” she grins, pleased that someone else’s misfortune has turned into her own good luck.

It’s also due to a cancellation that we are finally able to make it all the way into a wedding dress shop without being laughed straight back out again. Old New Borrowed Blue has had a cancellation.

“You’re a lucky girl,” the owner tells Katie in a very teachery voice, as if she’s telling her off for colouring outside the lines.

“We’ve just this minute had a cancellation. The bride is sick, apparently.” From the tone of her voice I’d say she doesn’t believe the bride for one minute. I’d say she hears this excuse all the time. I’d say she thinks the bride has actually been dumped but doesn’t want to admit it.

“Great,” Katie says, before realising how that sounds.

“What I mean is, great that you’ve had a cancellation, not great that the bride is sick, obviously … ”

She takes our coats and shows us upstairs to a waiting area next to numerous racks of dresses. There are big comfy sofas, wedding photographs all over the walls, and piles and piles of wedding magazines stacked up on a large glass coffee table.

“Catriona will be with you shortly,” she says. “Feel free to browse.”

We are about to start rifling through the magazines when Catriona arrives.

She introduces herself, before asking: “Which one’s the bride?”

I quickly push Katie forward, before she gets any ideas that it might be me.

“I am,” Katie says, at the same time as Emma says “not me”. You can tell by her tone that what she really means is “not bloody me!”

“Wonderful,” Catriona says.

I like her. She isn’t nasty and she hasn’t laughed at us. Yet. She’s in her mid forties, I’d say. She’s small, and smartly dressed in a navy trouser suit and white top. She looks like she knows what she’s doing. And she’s smiling too. For now.

“When’s the big day?”

“September eighteenth,” Katie volunteers.

“Oh good. That gives us plenty of time then. That’s twelve, thirteen, fourteen … twenty one months,” she says, flicking through the months in her diary.

“No, September the eighteenth this year,” Katie says.

“SEPTEMBER THE EIGHTEENTH THIS YEAR?!” Catriona gasps. “But that’s nine months away!” she says, verging upon becoming hysterical.

“Yes?” Katie says, panic beginning to sound in her own voice, although she is not entirely sure why.

“Nine months?” Catriona repeats, this time as a question, presumably to check she has heard right.

“I’m not pregnant,” Katie says, defensively.

“I didn’t think for a moment that you were, dear. But nine months is really not very long at all to plan a wedding. A wedding is the best day of a girl’s life, after all.” She looks like she might actually be about to have a nervous breakdown. Anybody would think we’d just told her Katie was getting married tomorrow and needed a dress making from scratch.

“They want to get married on the anniversary of the day they met,” Emma explains, helpfully.

“So what about next year?” Catriona suggests, in a deadly serious tone. “I mean, for starters you won’t be able to have any of these dresses here, because we’d never get them in time,” she says, sweeping her arms dramatically across a rail of dresses. It’s no great pity, frankly – a good ninety per cent of them are hideous meringues and would therefore fall at Katie’s first test – ‘will they make me look remotely like Katie Price when she married Peter Andre?’

“Or here. Or here,” she continues, on a roll.

“What about these?” Emma asks, pointing out what appears to be the only rail that has not yet been waved at dramatically.

“Well, yes, those would be okay,” she says, almost begrudgingly. “But you’d have to order it pretty soon. We wouldn’t have much time to play with. Especially if you needed it altering at all. Which you probably will. What sort of thing are you looking for?” she asks Katie, who has already started rifling through the rail.

“I don’t want a meringue,” she says decisively. “I don’t like fussy things. No lace. No frills. No bows. No fuss. I want something white, but not too white. And I’d prefer it to be strapless.

“But I would happily try straps,” she adds hastily, registering the look on Catriona’s face, who appears to be mentally narrowing down the list of options by the second.

“I can spend whatever I need to,” Katie tells her, silently thanking her dad who is paying for the wedding, “but I’d rather not spend a fortune,” she continues, because she is not the sort to abuse her dad’s generosity.

At the mention of sort-of-unlimited cash Catriona’s mood perks up considerably and she takes over the rifling.

“You go in there and strip off while I get some dresses ready for you to try on,” she tells Katie, who obediently dumps her bag and coat on my lap and disappears behind a white linen curtain into a cubicle.

Moments later Catriona hangs three dresses on a rail outside the cubicle and pokes her head around the curtain.

“Take your bra off too, love,” she instructs Katie, inviting herself into the cubicle and pulling the curtain across behind her. I look at Emma and grin.

“How are you doing?” I call out several minutes later when they still haven’t reappeared.

It’s hard to tell but the loud guffaw from the other side of the curtain may well be a clue.

“Almost there,” Catriona shouts.

Emma and I flick through the magazines while we are waiting.

“Blimey! Guess how much this one is,” I say to Emma, holding up Bride Be Beautiful and pointing to the dress at the top of the page. I quickly cover the price with my finger.

“Dunno. Twenty pence,” she says, glancing up from White White Weddings.

“No, seriously, guess.”

“I want to say about eight hundred quid but judging by your reaction it’s probably more like five grand?”

“Twenty-five grand!” I tell her, bringing the magazine right up to my face. I must have misread it. “That’s ridiculous!” I say, having established there is nothing wrong with my eyesight and that, yes, this wedding dress really does cost almost as much as my annual salary.

“That’s a deposit on a house, for heaven’s sake.”

“If I ever get married, I’ll be doing it on a beach somewhere in my bikini,” Emma says. She would too.

“Why waste all that money on a dress that’s only going to be worn for a few hours – and on a day when all your new husband can think about is getting you out of it?”

Catriona pokes her head outside the curtain – to check we are still here probably – there’s a fabulous cake shop around the corner which I’m sure must be an incredible temptation when you are on the tenth or eleventh dress and the bride still hasn’t found one she likes.

“She’s ready girls,” she announces, before sweeping back the curtain and waiting for Katie to emerge.

“So. What do you think?”

“I don’t like it,” Emma says, screwing her nose up.

“You don’t get a say,” Katie tells her.

“What have you made me come for then?”

“Consider it your punishment.”

Emma says nothing – just rolls her eyes at me.

“What do you think Becky?” Katie asks me, not before giving Emma one more moody glance for good measure.

“Well, it’s okay … But there’s probably something out there that is more you,” I confirm, before she promptly disappears back behind the curtain.

“I am NEVER going to find a dress,” Katie says, despondently shoving a prawn cracker in her mouth.

We’ve come to China Palace for dinner before I head home. And we’ve ordered enough to feed an army, after Katie complained she had ‘not eaten a thing all day’. I did point out that this wasn’t strictly true – that she had in fact wolfed down an extra large helping of chocolate fudge cake as well as an entire king size bag of giant chocolate buttons between 2:12pm and 2:18pm. Single-handedly. The chocolate fudge cake she conceded, but the chocolate buttons didn’t count, apparently, since ‘chocolate buttons are an addiction, not a source of sustenance’.

Life is not fair. Katie can eat chocolate all day every day and never put on an ounce, whereas I only have to sniff the empty packet and I put on five pounds. And it’s not even as if I can just say ‘to hell with it’ and sod the five pounds. I have a bridesmaid dress to squeeze into. Or will do, anyway, if we ever get Katie sorted out first.

“You’ve tried on five dresses,” Emma laughs. “I don’t think you need to panic just yet, hun.”

“Yes, but I hated them all. Hated,” she repeats, slopping a spoon of sweet and sour chicken onto her plate. “And so did you two. God I hope it’s easier finding you a bridesmaid dress Becks. Unless you just want to get a wedding dress and have a double wedding?” she asks hopefully, eager for someone to share her frustration.

I shake my head as I help myself to some chicken with cashew nuts.

“Sorry hun, you’re on your own. But don’t worry. You’ve got plenty of time, despite what any of these wedding shop witches tell you. They’re bound to tell you to hurry – they want you to buy one of their dresses. They don’t want you to take your time and look elsewhere.”

“Yeah, I guess you’re right. So, anyway, enough wedding talk. Tell us how it’s going with Jim, Emma.”

Jim is Emma’s current man. She met him at the chip shop after a drunken night out in Brighton and offered to let him dip his chips in her curry sauce. She’s a classy chick, our Em. And despite her inexcusable opening line, it appears to be going well. I think it’s been about two months now, which is something of a record for her.

“It’s going really well, actually,” she grins.

I think she really likes this one because she goes all mushy whenever you mention his name – a bit like a lovesick teenager.

“We’re going away in a few weeks - to this posh hotel in Hampshire. Jim won this spa weekend at his work’s Christmas do. Two nights’ bed and breakfast with spa treatments for two. Let’s just say I think we might be missing out on the breakfast – and the spa treatments!” She licks her lips and smiles sweetly – like butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth, when in actual fact she’s planning the dirty weekend to end all dirty weekends.

“So when are we going to meet him?” I ask. “You don’t want to let it go too far. You might have to dump him if Katie and I don’t approve.”

“Oh you’ll approve,” she assures us. “He’s gorgeous. And totally fabulous in bed!”

“Excellent,” Katie says, helping herself to more egg-fried rice. She’s got hollow legs, I’m sure.

“So?” I ask.

“So what?”

“So when are we going to meet him? It’s not often you go this gooey over someone. It’s time we met the guy.”

“I’ll sort something out soon, I promise. But you’ll definitely love him.

“You know what…” she says, biting into a prawn cracker – a pause for thought. “He might just be Mr Right.”

“You don’t believe in Mr Right,” I remind her.

“I know I don’t. But someone this good in bed has to be as close as I’m gonna get to him, damn it!”

CHAPTER TWO

A soul mate is someone who has locks that fit our keys, and keys that fit our locks.

Excerpt from ‘The Bridge Across Forever’, Richard Bach

I’ve thought more than once since that little ‘chat’ with my dad that I might have found Mr Right.

When I was nine I thought it might be Jonathan Jamieson because he gave me a bit of his Sherbet Dib Dab after I fell over in the school playground and grazed my knee.

When I was thirteen I thought it might be Andrew Bradley. We ‘went out’ for two whole weeks, which basically means we held hands on the school bus and passed love letters to each other during maths classes when we were supposed to be working out simultaneous equations.

And when I was sixteen I thought it might be Stephen Clarkson – my first proper boyfriend. But that didn’t mean anything because at sixteen I was also convinced that Brad Pitt, Tom Cruise and Johnny Depp could all be Mr Right.

I’m not sure I’ve ever thought Alex is Mr Right.

Alex is there to meet me when I arrive back in Leeds station on Sunday night. I have been instructed to warn him that weekends in London are the norm from now on. “We have a wedding to prepare for,” I keep being told. I’m not sure who this ‘we’ is she’s talking about. I was under the impression it was Matt she was marrying.

He takes it well, and rather than moaning about how we’ll hardly see each other, points out that it will mean more time for football and nights out with the lads without having to feel guilty. There’s nothing quite like feeling appreciated, is there? But Alex’s easy-going nature is one of the things I love about him – that and his lovely bum.

“I thought we’d pick up a bottle of wine and a DVD on the way home,” he says.

“Lovely,” I say, squeezing his thigh appreciatively as he changes gear.

All you really need to know about Alex is this – he’s lovely.

But to elaborate – he’s gorgeous, he’s funny, he’s incredibly generous, he can cook – and bake – which is a definite bonus since I can do neither. He makes the best banoffee pie I’ve ever tasted, which just happens to be my all-time favourite dessert. And he has the best bum in the world. No, really, he does. It’s perfect. Dead pert, but soft as a baby’s bum. I can’t keep my hands off it. Well, I didn’t use to be able to anyway. Alex used to joke that if we ever split up I’d want custody of his bum. He’s right, I would.

So why haven’t I ever thought Alex is Mr Right – especially after all those lovely things I’ve told you about him (did I mention his lovely bum)?

I wish I could tell you. I really do.

But I don’t know.

I love him, of course I do. I love him a lot. But if he was Mr Right I wouldn’t question it, would I? Just like you wouldn’t question whether a banana was a banana, or whether a bowl of cornflakes was a bowl of cornflakes. You know it’s a bowl of cornflakes, so you don’t need to ask.

So if Alex was Mr Right, I wouldn’t need to ask myself the question, right?

But I do need to ask.

I am asking.

I met Alex in my final year at university, at the Student Union Christmas ball. He was stood next to me at the bar, but despite looking particularly scrummy in his tuxedo and bow tie, he couldn’t get himself noticed by the male bar staff who were more interested in serving all the gorgeous girls in their skimpy dresses. I like to include myself among their number but I suspect my being served was more down to the fact that I was leaning so far over the bar I was practically poking one of the barmen in the eye with my reindeer antlers.

Out of pity I offered to get Alex’s drink for him and, well, to cut a short story even shorter, we basically spent the rest of the evening snogging in a corner. Admittedly, pity no longer played any role. I can only blame my actions on a combination of seven gin and tonics and Alex’s gorgeousness, which – by sheer luck rather than good judgement I’m sure – still existed the following night when I left my beer goggles at home for the evening and met him for a post-snog drink.

Fast forward six years and here we are, both still in Leeds, nothing much changed except for the fact that it’s now our jobs that are paying for the drinks and not our overdrafts/student loans/parents. That, and the fact that we now live together – in a rented house for now, but we are saving for our own place. Well, strictly speaking, it’s Alex who is doing the bulk of the saving, earning, as he does, almost twice as much as I do and having considerably fewer pairs of shoes to buy each month.

And I love him.

I absolutely do.

But…

But what?

I don’t know.

But isn’t the very existence of a ‘but’ enough? And now I’m not talking about his lovely bum.

How do you know? If someone is the one, I mean? How do any of us know? It was easy for Barbie – Emma and I decided for her that Ken was Mr Right. But who decides for the rest of us? We have to do that for ourselves, which hardly seems fair. It would be so much easier if we all came with a label saying who we belong to.

Maybe Alex is my Mr Right. Maybe I just haven’t found his label yet?

CHAPTER THREE

Had I the heaven’s embroidered cloths,

Enwrought with golden and silver light,

The blue and the dim and the dark cloths

Of night and light and the half-light,

I would spread the cloths under my feet;

But I, being poor, have only my dreams;

I have spread my dreams under your feet;

Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

‘He wishes for the cloths of heaven', W.B. Yeats

Bollocks.

It’s Monday morning. Quite how it can be is beyond me. It only feels like five minutes since I switched off my computer and dumped my dirty mug in the office sink.

I contemplate phoning in sick. This is not a first. I contemplate phoning in sick every Monday morning. The possibilities are endless – I could put a peg on my nose and pretend I have the flu. I could tie a scarf tightly around my neck, cut the air supply to my vocal chords and pretend I have tonsillitis. I could come out with complete gibberish and pretend I’m hallucinating – though I tend to come out with complete gibberish a lot of the time, so this probably wouldn’t be terribly convincing.

I never actually do phone in sick. Not because my excuses are not entirely plausible, but because I like to think of myself as a conscientious employee, persevering with the rest of the rat race in the face of sheer boredom.

I used to be depressed when I woke up on a Sunday morning because I knew I was going back to work the next day. Now I’m depressed when I wake up on a Saturday morning, because I know that the next time I wake up I will be going back to work the next day. I spend Monday to Friday wishing my life away for the weekend, and Saturday and Sunday depressed that the weekend is almost over. Which, if you think about it, leaves only Friday available for not being miserable, when I’m too stressed out after a whole week in the office to really appreciate it.

I must get out more.

I love my job, I love my job, I love my job.

This is not a statement of fact, by the way, merely a mantra I am trying out.

I’m saying it to myself every morning as I make my way into Penand Inc’s head office in the misguided hope that it might eventually come true.

It’s not working.

I have a terribly glamorous job, you know.

I sell pencils. No, really, I do. I sell pencils. Okay, so I’m selling myself short. I also sell pens. And pencil sharpeners. And Post-It notes. In fact – take a look around your desk – anything you can see, the chances are I sell it. Or, at least, I work for the people who sell it.

It wasn’t meant to be like this. I never intended to sell pencils for a living. No, in actual fact, I was meant to be the next Carrie Bradshaw. Not necessarily being paid to write about sex, but being paid to write at least – being paid to do what I love. It doesn’t have to be Carrie, of course. I’d settle for Kate Hudson’s character in How To Lose A Guy In Ten Days.

How To Give Up Your Dream Job And Sell Pencils Instead.

How To Convince The Bride-To-Be That Peach Only Suits A Peach.

How To Tell Your Boyfriend You’re Not Sure He’s The One…

The plan was to move back home and look for a journalism job in London after my finals. But then Alex got a great job up here with a high profile law firm. And I wanted to be with him, so I stayed too. I got a temporary job. It was meant to be a short term thing. Just until I had paid off some of my (rather hefty) student debts. Just until I began pursuing my ‘real’ career by pestering unsuspecting editors of local newspapers to give me a job.

That was five years ago.

I love my job, I love my job, I love my job, I chant as I walk through the automatic doors, smile sweetly at Marie on reception and swipe my ID card to let me through the security door.

I often wonder why they make it so damned difficult to get into this building. We’re really not that keen on getting in, after all. It would make far more sense to make it harder for us to get out, if you ask me – getting out is much more popular.

I love my job, I love my job, I love my job, I continue up the stairs to the second floor. It was my New Year’s resolution never to take the lift, on account of the fact that I’m supposed to be on a diet. Because I’ve just been asked to be bridesmaid. And because I ate far more than my fair share of a Christmas kilogram tub of Cadbury’s Miniature Heroes.

Not that I’m a fatty or anything. But I could do with losing a pound or two, because I’m sure peach looks even less attractive when you’re wearing a spare tyre underneath it.

Anyway, it’s the second week in January and I haven’t succumbed yet. Apart from the day after the office Christmas party (held on January sixth for reasons I will never understand) when I was feeling particularly hungover. But that doesn’t count, because it was a Christmas party, and so technically still December. Okay, so I’m a cheat. I hold my hands up. But everyone knows that New Year’s resolutions are made to be broken.

My heart sinks when I see my desk. Plummets, in fact. I don’t know why I’m even vaguely surprised. What did I expect – that Mary Poppins would pop in over the weekend, click her fingers and magic everything into its correct folder, drawer and filing tray (not that I actually have any filing trays to speak of)?

I’m surprised I’m not forever being disciplined over the state of my desk. You could actually grow things in the mugs that have, on occasion, been found on my desk. They say mould produces penicillin, don’t they? If that’s right then I’m pretty sure that the contents of a mug that was (allegedly) found on my desk last week could probably have saved a small community from the bubonic plague.

I don’t know what happened really. I was such a tidy child. I would spend hours tidying my already immaculate bedroom. All my cassettes were neatly filed in alphabetical order in their wall-mounted plastic storage cases, my white pants were kept separate from my coloured ones, my socks separate from my tights, and all my games were stacked neatly on top of the wardrobe in size-order – Game of Life and Monopoly at the bottom, Yahtzee at the top. If I ever found a loose playing piece I’d painstakingly slide out the relevant game, open it up and put the piece away in its proper place before returning the game to its correct position.

Now I’d probably just lob the loose playing piece to the top of the wardrobe and hope it didn’t bounce back and hit me in the face; my bills are filed in the kitchen drawer, along with old freebie newspapers and menus for a dozen different takeaways; CDs are put away in whichever empty case happens to be close to hand – which is fine, until Alex goes to play his favourite Stereophonics album when he’s driving the lads to a footie match and my favourite Will Young CD blasts out of the car stereo instead; and the Sex & The City quiz cards are scooped up and put away back to front and out of order, giving the cheats among us the perfect opportunity for a sneaky glance at the answers while they are being sorted (I remain convinced this is how Katie beat both me and Emma hands down on their last visit).

I’m even worse at work. My desk is an embarrassment, to be honest. It is littered with coloured pens, enough Post-It notes to create my very own roll of Post-It-themed wallpaper and dozens of scraps of paper covered in illegible notes under the scribbled heading ‘to do’. Organised chaos, I call it. But there really is no excuse. I work for an office supplies company, after all, with unlimited pen pots, filing trays and notepads at my disposal.

I am one of eight account planners at Penand Inc who set up and manage new accounts after unsuspecting office managers have been hypnotised by our sweet-talking salesmen – and women – and their copies of our two-inch-thick glossy catalogue.

I’m really an admin assistant with a fancy title and a salary to match, which is probably why I have stayed for so long. You get used to earning decent money, don’t you? Especially after being a student when you are used to pooling your coppers for a loaf of bread to make cheese on toast after a night in the student union bar.

I work with the biggest bunch of knobs. Dickheads, all of them, except Felicity and Erin, who I share an office with. Between us we look after the big national companies. There were four of us but Hannah, the senior account planner, was sacked last month for stealing a bottle of Tippex. Strictly speaking, it wasn’t the Tippex that got her the sack. If they were that petty then I’d have been out on my ear long ago – I could open up my own branch of WHSmiths with all the pens and Post-It notes that have made their way home in my handbag over the years. The Tippex was merely the straw that broke the camel’s back, shall we say, because Hannah didn’t just nick the odd pen or pencil, or pad of Post-Its, or bottle of Tippex. She nicked an entire office. Well, obviously not an office as such, but everything needed to equip one. Her boyfriend was starting up his own recruitment agency and Hannah thought it would save him a few quid if she got him a few bits from work. Like pens and pencils, and a ream of paper or two, for example. I’m sure she didn’t actually intend to put the flat-pack beech-effect corner desk with matching filing cabinet into the boot of her car. Or the traditional executive leather facing manager’s chair. Or the Canon C1492X printer scanner. Although, if she had stopped there then she may well have got away with it. But when she was spotted leaving the warehouse with a 12-pack of Tippex – there’s only so much Tippex a person can get through, even if your employers are paying for it – suspicions were aroused, and an investigation was launched. In other words, Hannah was summoned to personnel where she ‘fessed up and was promptly handed her P45.

Which has left Fliss, Erin and I holding the fort. And for some ludicrous reason the two of them have nominated me to be in charge of the team until a new senior account planner is appointed. Erin says she isn’t ‘boss material’ and Fliss says she’s past it.

But I’m a terrible leader. I hate telling other people what to do. I’d rather do something myself than have to ask somebody else to do it.

Fliss and Erin are very sweet though. They never take advantage of my complete inability to delegate. If the roles were reversed, I can’t promise I wouldn’t completely take the piss – come in late, take extra long lunch hours, leave early…

Come to think of it – I do all that already…

As if to prove my point, they are both already in as I survey the nuclear disaster that is my desk.

“Cup of tea, Becky love?” Fliss asks, illustrating one of the many reasons I totally adore her.

“That’d be fab, Fliss, thanks,” I reply, shrugging my coat off and draping it over the back of my chair.

Erin and Fliss are the perfect people to share an office with. Fliss makes a fabulous cup of tea, and Erin, despite being on a permanent diet, always has a well-stocked bucket of Maltesers hidden between the hanging files in her desk drawer.

Fliss is amazing. She has worked for Penand Inc her whole life. Well, almost. Thirty-eight years to be exact. Can you imagine that? Working for the same company for nearly forty years? If I’m still at Penand Inc when I’m forty, never mind sixty, someone please put me out of my misery.

Not that I’m knocking Fliss. It’s what you did in her day, isn’t it? You joined a company straight from school and stuck with them, getting your carriage clock after thirty years and a big retirement bash a decade or so later. Incidentally, why a carriage clock? Why not something more useful like an iPod, or a Kindle, or a weekend in Paris? A carriage clock, tick-tocking away on your mantelpiece, is surely just a brutal reminder of all the time you wasted working for a company that deems you worthy of nothing more than a carriage clock?

Fliss has had her carriage clock, but she has another few years to go before the big bash. She’s thinking about early retirement though. She should. She can afford to. Her husband Derek has just sold his veterinary practice. They’re loaded. But she says she’d miss Erin and I too much. She says we keep her young.

Despite that claim, Fliss has been doing her damndest to get rid of me for the last eighteen months. In the nicest possible way, of course.

“Don’t be like me,” she keeps saying. “Still here when you’re sixty.”

No chance.

“You’re wasted here, lovey,” she says.

Fliss knows my real goal is to be a writer. I wrote a short piece about her once – and Erin and Hannah – after I realised how much they all made me laugh.

For weeks I kept a little notepad in my desk drawer and every time one of them did or said something funny I would write it down. Like the time Erin laughed so much at a joke I told she did a huge fart in the middle of the office cafeteria. And the time Hannah told us she’d forgotten to take her contact lenses out before she went to bed and woke up the next morning thinking there had been a miracle. And the time Fliss came out of the ladies with her skirt tucked into her knickers.

When I had completely filled the notepad I wrote a short story about them. It was only meant to be for the girls to read, but they loved it so much they made me submit it for the company magazine.

And ever since then, Fliss has been on at me to “chase my dreams.”

“Malcolm wants us to split the Leeds accounts between Roger Calvin and Dave Anderson,” Fliss tells me, flicking the kettle on and dropping tea bags into three mugs. We’re not supposed to have a kettle in our office – we’re supposed to use the kitchen on the third floor, but we can’t be arsed. We’re rebels. And it gives us a little thrill every time we plug it in, knowing there’s a chance we might get caught.

“Why, for heaven’s sake?” I ask.

Fliss shrugs.

“Does he realise how much time that’s going to take us?”

“Bill is leaving, apparently. He and his wife are moving to France to run a Bed and Breakfast. He says he’s had enough of doing a job he hates.”

“I know how he feels,” I say, immediately regretting it, as I sense Fliss lifting one foot up onto her soapbox. Three, two, one…

“So leave. I keep telling you that you should.”

You don’t want to be like me…

“You don’t want to be like me…”

Still here when you’re sixty…

“Still here when you’re sixty…”

You’re wasted here, lovey…

“You’re wasted here, lovey. Go and use that degree of yours.”

Chase your dreams…

“Chase your dreams, Becky.”

“Yeah, I will Fliss,” I say, getting the milk out of the fridge – another illegal appliance – “just as soon as we’ve changed these accounts over.” I grin at her and she shakes her head, resigned to the fact that she’s probably stuck with me.

I switch on my computer and wait for it to whir into action, Fliss’s words ringing in my ears.

It would be great to be that brave – to just chuck it all in and ‘chase your dreams’. People do it all the time, supposedly. You read about them in magazines, don’t you – people who pack in their high-powered city jobs to run a pig farm in the Yorkshire Dales, people who swap their laptops and Blackberries for packets of doilies and recipes for fruit scones and run their own tea rooms, people who give up their six-figure salaries to become aid workers in Rwanda? People who give up something safe and secure, to do something they actually want to do.

It happens.

CHAPTER FOUR

Alex is out when I get home. He plays five-a-side football on a Monday night with the boys from work.

I unlock the door and trample on a pile of mail on the doormat.

There is more than usual and for a brief moment I imagine that the contents of one of these envelopes is about to change my life. A letter telling me I have been picked at random to win a year off work, for instance, notification that I have won the competition I entered for an all-expenses-paid trip to Australia, or a letter saying that I’ve been headhunted by Hello magazine.

As if…

But as I open the envelopes and stare at the property details for seven different houses for sale, I realise that one of the envelopes really could be about to change my life.

Do you think I should be considering buying my first house with a man I’m not sure is Mr Right?

Me neither.

I look at the details just long enough to come out in a cold sweat before putting them down on the coffee table. Upside down. Underneath the newspaper. If I can’t see them, I can pretend they are not there, that they don’t exist, that I’m not about to have to make one of the biggest decisions of my life.

CHAPTER FIVE

When I get into the office the next morning I phone Katie.

“Hello, Books!, Katie Roberts speaking,” she answers.

Katie is a publicity manager for a big publishing company in London. She works in the entertainment section, which basically means she gets to swan about the country accompanying celebs on their book tours. Last year she met three film stars, two footballers and a well-known soap-star who has written her autobiography at the ripe old age of twenty four.

It’s her ideal job. Not just because she’s some maniac celebrity stalker, but because she loves books. When she and Matt started renovating their flat in London, Matt’s first job (he’s an architect) was to put in a wall-to-wall bookcase in their living room. It’s already half-full. It’s a wonder the floor hasn’t fallen into the flat below under the weight of it. And it’s going to get worse. Instead of the traditional wedding gift list of Egyptian cotton bath sheets and Jamie Oliver muffin moulds, they are asking their guests to buy them a copy of their own favourite books. Knowing Katie and Matt’s friends they’ll end up with eighty nine copies of the Karma Sutra and one copy of Delia Smith’s Complete Cookery Course Volumes 1-3 from Katie’s Great Auntie Rose.

“It’s me,” I say. “How’s things?”

“Good. You?”

“I’m bored.”

“I thought you might be. You don’t usually phone this early. Haven’t you got enough to do? I’ve got some press releases you can write if you like?”

“I’ve got plenty to do. I just can’t be bothered to do it!”

“I don’t know why you don’t just look for something else. You’ve hated that job for as long as I can remember.”

“Is it really that long? Hmm… Maybe I’ll just pack it in and move back home…”

“Really?” she asks, excited.

“No, not really,” I laugh, though I’m not entirely sure why.

The worst thing about staying up in Leeds with Alex is being away from my friends. Katie moved back to London as soon as we finished our finals and Emma has never been far from the south.

“Katie…”

“Yes?”

“If I ask you something, will you promise to forget all about it when everything’s okay again?”

“Yes.”

“What do you think about Alex? About him and me, I mean. Do you think Alex is right for me?”

She says nothing for a few seconds.

And then, “I don’t know.”

It’s not what I expected her to say. I mean, I didn’t expect her to say yes, or no even, but I guess I expected her to be a bit more surprised that I was asking – a bit more surprised that I am having doubts at all. I forget sometimes how well she knows me.

I take a slurp of lukewarm tea and wait for her to say something else. I know she will. Katie never finishes anything with ‘I don’t know’.

“Well, personally I think you are perfect for each other,” she says. “You have the same values. You find the same things funny. You are both incredibly gorgeous, obviously,” she laughs at this one. “You love each other. And you want the same things out of life.

“But whether you want those things with each other is a different matter altogether. And only you can answer that. Only you know if he’s the one for you, B.”

“Yeah, I know,” I sigh.

And I do. I know it’s up to me. I think I just want someone else to make the decision for me. But it doesn’t work like that, does it? I have to find that damn label myself.

“Let’s chat about it at the weekend,” Katie says. “Are you still coming? I’ve made an appointment for 12pm.”

“Yes. Alex is going to bring me to work in the morning and Fliss said she’ll drop me at the station.”

“Excellent. And Emma’s going to meet us at the shop. I’ve got a good feeling about this shop, B. I think it might be the one.”

CHAPTER SIX

“I think I might want to split up with Alex,” I tell Katie and Emma as we take a well-earned break from wedding fever on Saturday to get some lunch. We’ve found a lovely little Italian restaurant around the corner from All Things Bride And Beautiful, which is very handy as we’ll be going back there as soon as we’ve stuffed our faces. They have loads of dresses that Katie likes and she’s only tried on fifteen so far.

“What?” Emma says, as the spaghetti she has just spent the last five minutes twirling onto her fork falls back onto her plate in a heap.

“I think I might want to split up with Alex,” I say again.

“That’s what I thought you said. Why?”

Katie takes a bite of her pizza while I bring Emma up to date on my love life.

“I am happy,” I say. “I’m just not sure Alex is Mr Right.” This is the wrong thing to say to Emma, who rolls her eyes at me.

As I’ve said, Emma doesn’t believe in Mr Right. She thinks the whole idea is, and I quote, ‘codswallop.’ She thinks that the best you can hope for is to meet someone who loves you, who you love back, and who doesn’t drive you too far up the wall when they leave their dirty underwear on the bedroom floor, drink the last of the milk before putting the empty carton back in the fridge, or delete the final part of a three-part drama that you haven’t quite got around to watching yet.

“Right, shmite,” she says. “You love him, yes? And he loves you?”

I nod.

“Well, there you go then.”

“But what if there’s someone else out there I’m meant to be with?”

“And what if there isn’t? And you throw away what you have with Alex for nothing? You said you’re not sure he’s Mr Right. But you’re not sure he isn’t either, right? So what if he is?”

“I don’t think she’d be questioning it if he was, Em,” Katie says, my fellow follower of the Mr Right religion.

“Well I think you’re both bonkers,” Emma says, abandoning her spoon and chopping up her spaghetti with a knife and fork instead.

“I know you think it’s rubbish but I’ve always believed in Mr Right,” I tell Emma back at All Things Bride And Beautiful while we wait for Katie to emerge from the fitting room in dress number sixteen. “Ever since we held that wedding for Barbie and Ken and I asked my dad why Barbie wanted to marry Ken.”

“Oh god! Yeah!” she laughs. “When we made ourselves sick on Love Hearts! And made Ken those sparkly trousers out of one of your dad’s old hankies and some glitter!”

“Yeah. Well, I’m just not sure Alex is my Ken.”

Today we are being looked after by Pippa. And she is looking a little concerned. I guess this is not the sort of conversation you would normally hear in a wedding shop. More like gushings of eternal love and all things fabulous.

“Better I discover it now, before I get to the point where you’re getting me to strip off and try on wedding dresses,” I tell her as she scuttles away to fetch dress number seventeen.

“Maybe you’ll get it when you’ve met someone you’re crazy about,” I tell Emma.

“Who says I haven’t already?” she says, suddenly grinning like the Cheshire Cat.

“So things are still going well with Jim then?”

“Really well, actually. He’s cooking me dinner tomorrow night. He says there’s something he wants to talk to me about.”

“Ooh, what do you think it is?”

“I’m not sure. But I think maybe he’s going to ask me to move in with him.”

“Wow. That’s exciting, Em.”

“I know. I really like him, B.”

“What’s he up to this weekend?”

“He’s in London, actually. He was meant to be away for some work thing but it was cancelled.”

“Why don’t you phone him? Get him to meet us for a drink. Katie and I are dying to meet him. Aren’t we Katie?” I shout through the cubicle curtain.

She pokes her head out, looking a little flushed.

“What?”

“Emma’s Jim. He’s in London this weekend. I said she should call him so we can meet him.”

“Absolutely,” she says, disappearing back behind the curtain.

“I could, I guess. He’s pretty busy, I think, but I can ask.”

She takes her phone out of her bag and dials Jim’s number.

“It’s ringing,” she mouths. I hear him answer.

“Hello you,” she says. “I was just wondering if you fancy meeting up for a quick drink. I’m in a wedding dress shop with Becky and Katie,” she tells him. “They want to meet you. And I’ve probably kept you to myself for long enough!” She looks over at me and grins. I nod enthusiastically.

“No…Yes…Oh, that’s a shame. Oh well, never mind. Another time. Becky’s down here all the time at the moment, anyway. Are you still okay to pick me up from the station tomorrow night?

“Great…okay, see you tomorrow.”

She switches off her phone and tosses it back in her bag.

“He says he’s already made plans to meet up with a mate,” she says. She looks disappointed. I think she really likes this guy. I hope it lasts. She deserves a bit of luck on the love front.

Emma and I have been friends our whole lives. Well almost – since we were barely out of nappies. We grew up in the same street in a little village by the sea near Brighton. From the moment she and her family moved in next door, Emma and I were inseparable. She and her brother Sam sat on the curb watching my brother Johnny and I playing hide and seek with the rest of the kids in the street while their parents supervised the removal men. The first time she spoke to me was to tell me where Johnny was hiding when I was ‘it,’ which I was chuffed to bits about because he had won every single game so far and was being a smug little git about it.

We walked to school together every day with our matching My Little Pony lunchboxes and on weekends we’d spend hours playing with our Barbie dolls – usually at Emma’s house because she had the Barbie mansion. It was brilliant – it was four storeys high and had a pulley-operated lift on the side, a kitchen sink with taps that you could get real water to come out of and a four poster bed which though it was very swish was clearly designed without heed to Barbie’s enviably long legs.

Every summer my nana and granddad hired a beach hut near their home in Bognor Regis for the holidays and they would take the two of us there as much as we could pester them to. It was our summer treasure trove – filled with buckets and spades, inflatable dinghies and fishing nets that we used to scoop up crabs from the rock pools. My granddad had a greenhouse and we’d spend hours walking up and down the path behind the huts looking for ice-lolly sticks which he’d use to label his plants. We played mini-golf on the green across from the beach and went to the amusement arcades on the seafront and played on the two-pence machines until we’d spent all my granddad’s coppers.

I’ve known Emma so long I don’t really know a life without her as my friend. We’ve grown up together, really,

My friendship with Katie had a far less innocent beginning – evolving primarily from a mutual appreciation for red wine and a mutual aversion to studying. We met at university, where we were both studying English, both of us chronically overworked with our eight hours of lectures a week…

We met in our hall of residence and quickly became friends after it dawned on us that we were, in fact, the only two vaguely normal girls in our block – my immediate neighbours, just to illustrate, being:

To my right – Wendy, the maths student away from home for the first time, who not only still considered it cool to wear Converse trainers with fluorescent socks, but also considered it cool to wear a different coloured Converse trainer and a different coloured fluorescent sock on each foot.

To my left – Heather, the religious Medic who wore hand-knitted jumpers with pictures of elephants on them, and who liked to begin each and every day with a solo rendition of ‘I’d like to teach the world to sing.’

And directly opposite, Victoria, the token Goth. Enough said.

We spent the next three years together – two of them in halls, and one in a student house with our goldfish Bob (now sadly in goldfish heaven) – getting pissed, getting as many guys as possible to snog us at the hall balls, and, miraculously, making it to the odd lecture.

Emma and Katie met each other loads of times while I was at uni, but it was at my twenty first that they really hit it off.

It was an elaborate affair – much like Barbie’s wedding – with a big marquee in the garden decorated with embarrassing photographs of me, blown up to humiliating proportions and pinned to every available surface – me in a pram, me sitting on the potty, me on my first day of Brownies, me playing a Christmas tree in my primary school play, me and Emma as Perkin and Pootle from The Flumps for the school carnival (Emma was not pleased with my dad for digging out that one)…

We had a pond back then, which my dad had fenced off with some tent poles and a bit of fluorescent ribbon. Whether it was there to stop people falling, jumping in or throwing things in, I never did establish. But I do recall helping my dad drain the pond the following summer and discovering an item or two that had mysteriously gone missing – coincidentally around the night of that party. Namely, a garden gnome, my mum’s best whisk, and the remote control for the kitchen television. I don’t know where the garden gnome fits in but I do remember Emma and Katie giving the guests an impromptu Karaoke performance of Girls Just Wanna Have Fun, both of them hunting frantically for anything that could pass as a microphone.

I also recall, I’m sorry to say, how I went missing just as my dad was about to make a speech in my honour and was spotted through the kitchen window, by absolutely everyone at the party – gathered, as they were, for dad’s speech – sat on the kitchen worktop with my legs wrapped tightly around Alex, snogging the face off him.

I’m a much classier chick these days.

Anyway, despite my own mortification at the whole spectacle, Emma and Katie were united in their approval, shouting frankly unrepeatable encouragement through the fanlight window at us. In between stuffing whole profiteroles in their gobs, that is. And so, another great friendship began.

And the three of us have been best mates ever since.

We know it’s good from the way Pippa theatrically sweeps back the curtain and practically shoves Katie out of the cubicle at us.

“What do you think?” our friend asks. She’s beaming.

And for what must surely be the first time in history, Emma and I are both simultaneously speechless.

Well, almost.

“It’s beautiful,” I whisper, as if I’m afraid to say it out loud in case the spell is broken and she turns into a pumpkin or something.

“That’s the one, Katie,” Emma agrees. “You look stunning.”

“Turn around,” I instruct her. “Let’s see the back.”

It’s an empire line dress. Ivory. Strapless. With tiny little glass beads in the bodice which sparkle in the light. The buttons on the back are similar to the beads – only bigger – and they go virtually all the way to the ground. I make a mental note to allow plenty of time for button-fastening on the day.

“It’s fab, isn’t it?” Katie asks.

She doesn’t need us to tell her.

Standing unobtrusively behind her, Pippa beams too. What a lovely job – witnessing the moment a girl finds the dress that she’ll wear on the biggest day of her life.

She’s soon business as normal though, when Emma lunges forward to hug Katie.

“Don’t touch the fabric,” she urges. “It’s only a sample dress, but we do like to keep them in pristine condition.”

“Oooh,” Emma mumbles, jumping back. “Sorry! I’m just so excited!”

After completing the paperwork and putting a significant dent in Katie’s dad’s bank account, we spend the rest of the day celebrating at a trendy wine bar in Wimbledon called The Hedge. It was only meant to be a pit stop on the way home, but it’s one of those places with comfy sofas that once you have collapsed onto you just can’t seem to drag yourself off, no matter how hard you try. Which we don’t, obviously.

Between us we polish off a couple of bottles of red, two packets of pistachios and a bowl of olives. We then succeed in emptying an entire carriage on the tube – stop by stop – with our rendition of Billy Idol’s White Wedding. And when we finally reach Katie’s flat we all climb into bed with Matt, waking him up and telling him that when he sees Katie in her dress he will think he has died and gone to heaven.

He rubs his eyes, surveys the three of us cuddled up together next to him and calmly informs us: “I already do!”

CHAPTER SEVEN

It’s Monday. Again. Bollocks.

And I’m back at work. Again.

Thirty-eight new emails, twelve new accounts to open, nine credit limits to chase, countless arsey salesmen to get right up my arse. So to speak.

I got the train back from London on Sunday morning. I figured I ought to spend at least a few hours with my boyfriend this year.

We cooked – or should I say Alex cooked – roast chicken, and we watched ‘50 First Dates’ on DVD. I asked Alex if he loved me enough to ask me out on a first date every single day for the rest our lives. He said he did.

Maybe Drew Barrymore’s character had it good. To be able to feel that first longing for someone in the pit of your stomach every day. To never reach that point where they piss you off by leaving toenail clippings on the bathroom floor. To never reach that moment when you need to ask if something is ‘right’. That has to be good, doesn’t it?

We went to bed after that. And had sex for the first time in six weeks.

“The milk’s off,” I tell Fliss and Erin, sniffing the carton I have just pulled out of our illegal fridge. “I’ll nip out and get some fresh. Do you want anything?”

“Get us a packet of Hob Nobs,” Fliss says, handing me a £1 coin. “My treat.”

I’ll start my diet tomorrow.

When I return fifteen minutes later, Fliss and Erin are both on the phone and there’s a Post-It note in the middle of my computer screen, informing me Alex called – at 9.42am. It’s from Fliss. The neat handwriting and the reference to the exact time tell me that. And the Post-It. If Erin had taken the call it would have been a note scribbled on the back of a sweet wrapper saying ‘Al phoned’. Either that or she’d have forgotten to tell me altogether.

I move the Post-It to the side of my screen and dial Alex’s mobile number while I wait for the kettle to boil.

“I can’t talk long, I’m making tea for the girls,” I tell him when he answers. Priorities…

“Are you doing anything tonight after work?” he asks me.

“No,” I say, immediately regretting it. It’s always wise to find out why you are being asked before you give your answer, I find.

“Great. I’ve arranged for us to look at some of those properties we got details for.” He means the ones I hid. On the coffee table. Upside down. Underneath the newspaper.

See what I mean? Clearly what I should have said was “yes, I am going out, and I am going to be out all evening, tonight, tomorrow night and every night from now until next Christmas”.

Bugger.

I quickly consider my options. Option 1 – stay at work and tell him I had an urgent can’t-possibly-get-out-of-it last-minute meeting. Option 2 – tell him the car wouldn’t start and I had to get the AA out, but they got lost on the way. Option 3 – ‘forget’, and drag Fliss and Erin to the pub. Or option 4 – I could just go. Because I can’t put it off forever. Well, I suppose I could, but I suspect that might get a bit tedious before long.

“Great,” I say.

I’ll just have to say I hate them all instead. That I wouldn’t live in those hell holes if you paid me.

Which would have worked like a dream, had they not all been absolutely fabulous. Just what we’ve been looking for, in fact.

What are the bloody odds? We have viewed some right dumps in the last few months – dry rot, mould, nicotine-stained flock-lined wallpaper, carpets stained with cat pee…

Hence I didn’t think I was being unrealistic in thinking this lot would at the very least have a bit of damp or an avocado bathroom suite to speak of.

But no. Each and every one of the four properties we have just been to view were perfect. With a capital P. Our dream homes, you might even say.

They are all in ‘nice’ safe areas, all within our budget, and the most any of them need is a fresh lick of paint on the walls. One even has a brand new fitted kitchen and a brand new bathroom suite – both exactly what we would have chosen ourselves.

Bollocks.

“I think we should make an offer on that one in Maple Road,” Alex says when we get home. “That place isn’t going to be on the market for long.”

“I don’t think we should rush into it,” I tell him. “We still have plenty more to look at.”

“But it’s exactly what we’re looking for,” he laughs. “And we can afford it!”

He’s right. It is. We can.

“I don’t know,” I say, desperately trying to come up with something I didn’t absolutely love about it.

“The kitchen could be a bit bigger,” I venture.

“Says who?” he laughs. “You’re not the one who’ll be using it!”

He’s right. Again. As I said – I can’t cook. I don’t cook. Not if I can help it anyway. Not unless beans on toast counts as cooking. And even then I’d probably burn the beans. Or the toast. Or both.

In our last year at university when Katie and I shared a house, she and Alex tried to get me on Can’t Cook, Won’t Cook. I only found out when we got a phone bill with a premium number listed on it over and over again. Katie only admitted what she’d been up to when I accused her of phoning sex lines. I think I was actually a bit disappointed to discover my best friend wasn’t a secret sex addict after all.

I never did get on the show. I was probably too bad even for Can’t Cook, Won’t Cook.

“Okay, but let’s just wait a day or two and see how we feel then,” I say.

“Fine. But don’t blame me if someone else gets there first and we lose the house.”

“I won’t.”

I phone Katie on her mobile as soon as I leave the house the next morning.

“We’ve found a house,” I tell her, before I’ve even said hello.

“Hang on a sec, B, I’m just paying for a coffee…Thanks mate,” I hear her say. There’s a loud clunking noise as she puts the phone down on the counter. Then the noise of the zip opening on her purse, and coins dropping in…a big slurp of cappuccino froth.

Does she not realise I am in the middle of a crisis that requires immediate attention?

“B? Sorry, what did you say?” Now the sound of heels clicking along the pavement.

“We’ve found a house. Alex and I. It’s perfect it’s in a nice area it’s five grand under our budget it’s got a brand new bathroom and a brand new kitchen and it’s got wooden flooring in the living room the good kind not the shit kind what am I going to do?” I’m so desperate for her to tell me, I don’t even draw breath.

“What do you want to do, B?” Click, click, slurp…

“I don’t know,” I admit. “Katie…can I ask you a question?”

“Of course.”

“Do you ever think that Matt might not be the one?”

“No. Never…Becks, is this just about Alex?”

“What do you mean?”

“Is there someone else?”

“No!” I shout, a little louder that I’d intended. “God no. I wish it was that simple. No, I just keep wondering if the thoughts I’ve been having are normal. Maybe everybody questions at some stage whether they are with the right person. Maybe it doesn’t mean anything. But then you don’t question it, do you?”

“No. I know Matt is the one for me. I can’t imagine my life without him. I see myself growing old with Matt.”

I can see myself growing old with Alex. I can. I can see us sitting in our slippers, holding cups of cocoa, watching Countdown and re-runs of Heartbeat on UK Gold. But that means nothing really. I can see myself growing old with anyone if I look hard enough. Jude Law, for example, or Aidan from Sex & The City (lovely guy – can’t imagine what Carrie was thinking,) or that cute new doctor in Holby City. But just because you can see it, doesn’t mean it’s right, or that it’s going to happen – Jude might not feel the same way about me, for instance and, well, sadly Aidan isn’t even real.

But more importantly – not growing old with Alex – I can see that too.

I suddenly remember Katie on the other end of the phone.

“B?” she is saying. I think I’ve worried her. The clicking has stopped. So has the slurping.

“Yeah?”

“Do you still love Alex?”

“Yes.”

“And do you know for sure that he’s not the one?”

“Not for sure, no.”

“Then you need to find out. You could just be having a wobbly moment.”

“Yes, but how do I do that?”

“Maybe you should have some time apart? Maybe you could go and stay with Felicity for a few days?”

“But what about the house?” I ask.

“Forget the house. You can’t possibly consider buying a house with Alex while you’re feeling like this. It would be total madness. You’ll have to stall him.”

“How?”

“Can’t you just tell him you didn’t like it?”

“He wouldn’t believe me. It’s perfect.”

“There must be something wrong with it. Why are the owners selling?”

“I’m not sure. They’ve just had a baby so they’re probably looking for somewhere bigger.”

“There you go – tell Alex you want to wait and find something bigger.”

“But we can’t afford anything bigger.”

“Exactly. Tell him you want to wait and save up a bit more money so you can get something a bit bigger. So that when you have kids you won’t have to move. That’ll be enough to put the wind up him!” she laughs.

Now I don’t know what frightens me more – the thought of buying a house with someone who might not be Mr Right, or the thought of having children with him.

“It might work, I guess.”

CHAPTER EIGHT

Let’s fall in love –

In our mid thirties

It’s not only

Where the hurt is.

…

We’ll make the whole thing

Hard and bright

We’ll call it love –

We may be right.

‘The Proposal’, Tom Vaughan

Great minds think alike.

On reflection, Alex thinks we should save for longer too. He thinks we should spend the money we have saved so far on something else.

On getting married.

They say there comes a point in your life when you know you’ve met the person you want to spend the rest of your life with.

By the same rule, I can now confirm there comes a point when you know for sure you haven’t.

And when your boyfriend is knelt in front of you holding out a sparkling platinum and diamond engagement ring and asking you to marry him is not, you might say, the ideal moment for it to happen.

Alex is not Mr Right.

Why?

I don’t know.

I just know.

CHAPTER NINE

My true love hath my heart, and I have his.

‘The Bargain’, Sir Philip Sidney (1554-1586)

Have you ever broken somebody’s heart?

It’s horrible. I think I’d rather have my own heart broken. I think it would hurt less.

Telling Alex I can’t marry him is without a doubt the hardest thing I have ever had to do in my life.

I don’t have to say the words. My eyes tell him for me, when they fill with tears. Not the happy kind.

“You don’t want to marry me, do you?” he asks quietly, clutching the ring in his hand.

I shake my head.

“But it’s not because I don’t love you.” It seems like such a stupid thing to say. Do I think it will soften the blow somehow? A consolation prize of sorts? Hard luck mate, she won’t marry you, but on the plus side, she does love you.

“Then why?”

It’s a fair question.

“I don’t know. I just can’t.” As answers go it’s inadequate. But it’s the only one I have.

Of course, saying yes would have been easier. Because I do love Alex. And I know we could have a good life together. And I am scared I won’t ever meet that person I seem to have convinced myself I’m meant to be with – that person I think I might love more than I love Alex. But I also know if I did marry Alex, then I’d be settling. And we both deserve more than that.

The next day I move out.

CHAPTER TEN

The minute I heard my first love story

I started looking for you, not knowing

How blind that was

Lovers don’t finally meet somewhere

They’re in each other all along

Jabal ad-Din ar-Rumi (1207 – 1273)

Fliss and Derek have offered me their spare room while I sort my life out. It’s quiet where they live. You can hear the slightest noise. The pipes creaking as the central heating cools down. An insect hitting the window outside. My own heart beating.

I can’t sleep. I’m not used to being alone in bed. I’ve spent nights away from Alex, of course, but it’s been a long time since I’ve slept alone because I am alone.

I haven’t told anyone yet – apart from Katie. I can’t face the questions. People who believe in Mr Right will be surprised because they thought I was happy and because they thought Alex was Mr Right. And people who don’t believe in Mr Right will just think I’m bonkers. And everyone will want to know why. But even I don’t know that.

At 4.30am, after waking on and off all night, I give up trying to sleep and go in search of the kettle.

I’m pouring water into a mug when Fliss walks into the kitchen.

“Oh I’m sorry Fliss, did I wake you?”

“No, no, I’m not a good sleeper these days,” she says. I look at the ungodly time on the clock on the oven.

“It’s my age,” she laughs. “I always wake up early.”

I hold up the hot chocolate. “I hope you don’t mind?”

“Don’t be silly. You must help yourself to anything you want while you’re here, lovey.”

“Do you want one?”

“That would be lovely.”

We take the drinks through to the living room and Fliss turns on a lamp.

Sitting on the sofa I pull my knees up to my chest and balance my drink on them in my hand, blowing on it gently.

A painting on the wall above the television catches my eye. It’s a woman sitting on a deckchair, holding a parasol. I lean forward to confirm what it is I think I’m seeing. The woman in the picture is Fliss, only much younger – about my age.

“Who painted that picture of you in the deckchair, Fliss?” I ask.

“It’s one of Derek’s” she says. “He did it on our honeymoon. We had such a wonderful time,” she smiles, remembering. “We went to Cornwall for the week. Had sunshine the whole time. It was perfect. He painted that picture on our last day. We didn’t want to forget.”

“I didn’t know he could paint. It’s fantastic. It looks just like you.”

I blow on my drink again and sip it tentatively.

“How are you doing, lovey?” Fliss asks. “Are you okay?”

“Not really,” I admit. “But I know it’s for the best.”

“Are you sure? Is there no way you and Alex can work things out?”

“There isn’t really anything to work out – that’s the problem. It’s not like one of us has cheated or anything – you know, something you can get over if you both really want to. It’s more than that.”

“Hmm.” She sips her drink. She probably doesn’t understand. Fliss is of the generation where a guy met a girl, they went out and then they got married. And they stayed together forever – for better or for worse.

I, on the other hand, am from the generation where one in three couples give up on a marriage. Which kind of makes you think twice about doing it in the first place, doesn’t it? Or at the very least it makes you more determined to find the right person in the first place – because surely then it can’t possibly fail – not if you’ve found that one person you are meant to be with.

Or maybe it doesn’t really work like that at all. Maybe there are lots of people out there we could make it work with. But we’re so busy looking for that one person that we can’t see all the other possibilities.

“I do understand, you know,” Fliss says, breaking my thoughts, reading my mind.

“If something isn’t meant to be, you won’t ever make it work. No matter how much you might want to.”

I sip my drink. It’s cooling down.

“Fliss…,” I say.

“Yes, lovey?”

“How did you know Derek was the one for you? How will I know when I have met the right person?”

“Honestly?”

“Yes.”

“When you don’t need to ask that question.”

CHAPTER ELEVEN

“Jim’s split up with me,” Emma tells me the next day, when I phone her during my lunch break.

“He doesn’t love me,” she sobs down the phone. “He says he thinks the world of me, that I’m one of the loveliest people he’s ever met, and that he wishes he could fall in love with me. But that he just hasn’t and doesn’t think he ever will.”

Ouch.

“He says it’s not me, it’s him,” she says, her tone revealing exactly what she thinks of this particular explanation. “He says I am fabulous and that any man would be lucky to have me. Just not him, obviously. Oh B, what am I going to do?”

“You’ll meet someone else,” I reassure her. “You always do.”

“But I don’t want anybody else. I want Jim. I love him.”

“Really?” I ask. She said she really liked him but she’s never mentioned love. “Do you really love him, Em?”

“Yes. No. Oh, I don’t know,” she says. “I guess I just hoped he was Mr Right.”

But Emma doesn’t believe in Mr Right…

“But you don’t believe in Mr Right…”

“Maybe I do. Oh I don’t know. I just really liked him, B. He’s lovely. He makes me laugh. He makes me smile. Made me smile. And he was so bloody good in bed,” she adds, an afterthought that is followed by a fresh wave of sobs.

“Anyway, you rang me,” she says, composing herself with a big snort. “Was there a reason or did you just phone for a chat?”

“Alex asked me to marry him,” I tell her. “And I said no,” I add quickly, before she rushes to congratulate me.

Silence. And then…

“Oh my god B. I can’t believe it. And you let me go on and on about Jim!”

“That’s okay. You’re upset. I understand that.”

“But B. Oh my god. Are you okay? I didn’t think you were being serious the other day. I thought it was just a phase. I thought you really loved him.”

“I did love him. I do love him. Just not enough to marry him. Not enough to know I want to spend the rest of my life with him.”

“Well if that’s how you really feel then I guess you’ve done the right thing. But blimey, I still can’t believe you let me go on about Jim for so long.”

CHAPTER TWELVE

When I get to work the following morning Erin says Malcolm wants to see me in his office.

“He has a 9.30am meeting so he says can you go in before you do anything else.”

No cup of tea then.

“Did he say what it was about?”

“No. He probably just wants to make sure you’re okay.”

“Probably wants to make sure my mind is still on the job, more like.”

I’m being unfair really. As bosses go we could do a lot worse than Malcolm Hurley – Penand Inc’s sales director for as long as anyone can remember, including Fliss. Admittedly he makes our lives a bit difficult sometimes and demands account changes which virtually have us camped out in the office for days on end. And he wears the most shocking ties that require both a strong stomach and dark glasses. And he looks like a slightly better looking version of Shrek – although in fairness you can’t really hold that against him. But on the plus side he does give us generous pay rises and bonuses and always makes sure we have a Christmas bash to remember – even if it is for his not-quite-perfected plate spinning demonstration – with a free bar all night, which really shouldn’t be scoffed at.

But nonetheless, I’m dreading this. I’m already feeling wobbly. What if he’s mean to me and I start sobbing in his office? How embarrassing. Or, even worse, what if he’s really nice to me and I start blubbing because of that instead? It happens, doesn’t it? A few kind words from an unexpected source and, whoosh, enough tears to make Niagara Falls look like a leaky tap.

I knock lightly on his door. If he doesn’t hear me I can slope back to my desk and avoid him for the rest of the day.

“Come in.” Damn.

“Ah, Rebecca,” he says, pushing his glasses up his nose as I enter his office.

“Thank you for coming to see me. I know how busy you girls are. Take a seat.”

I sit in the chair opposite him. I feel like I’m in a job interview.

“Can I get you a cup of coffee?” he asks.

Odd. He doesn’t normally offer hot beverages. Maybe this isn’t going to be as quick and painless as I was hoping.

“Erm, that would be great,” I say nervously, because I am a bit parched as it happens. I’m normally slurping my first cup of tea at my desk by now.

Malcolm buzzes through to his secretary and orders two coffees. I decide not to tell him I’m a tea drinker. He looks at me and smiles.

This is all looking very formal.

Maybe I’ve made some gargantuan cock-up with one of the accounts – given someone too much discount, perhaps, or given a £500,000 credit limit to a dodgy customer who has ordered his maximum and skipped the country with a lorry load of laptops?

Maybe he’s going to sack me. Do you think you’d get coffee if you were getting the sack? To soften the blow, maybe?

Hang on… maybe he is going to sack me. Excellent. If he sacked me then that would force me to do something else, wouldn’t it…?

“How are you feeling Rebecca?” Malcolm asks, interrupting my fantasy. Damn him. “I gather you’re having a few personal problems.”

“I’m fine,” I say, a little defensively. And then I feel bad because he is only showing concern. I think.

“I’m fine, thank you,” I repeat, a little softer this time.

“If you need to take some time off…”

“No, it’s okay, I’m fine,” I say quickly, hoping that will put an end to all this. Although, I would quite like to have my coffee before I go back to my desk. Malcolm drinks the posh stuff, none of your instant rubbish.

And then he leans back in his chair, takes his glasses off and rubs the bridge of his nose. He looks very serious. He looks like he’s about to offer me some words of wisdom on affairs of the heart or something. Oh please no….

Thankfully I am saved by the arrival of the refreshments, complete with a plate of chocolate Hobnobs. My favourite. Actually, that’s a fib. Jammy Dodgers are my favourite, but chocolate Hobnobs definitely come in a close second.

What? You hardly expect me to diet when I’ve just split up with my boyfriend? I need comfort foods. And somehow lettuce and celery sticks just don’t quite make the grade. Hobnobs, on the other hand, most definitely do. I take one and put it next to my coffee on the edge of Malcolm’s desk.

“So, Rebecca,” he says, putting his glasses back on. Back to business then.

I’m a bit nervous. I want to say “So, Malcolm.” I pick up my coffee and take a sip instead.

“As you know we had to let Hannah go last month.”

“Yes,” I confirm.

“For reasons I won’t go into,” he continues.

Who’s he trying to kid? It was the talk of the office.

“Of course,” I say, picking up my biscuit and taking a quick bite before it’s my turn to speak again.

“You have been acting senior account planner since then haven’t you?”

“I have, yes,” I confirm, wiping a crumb from my lip with my thumb.

“And have you been enjoying the role?”

“Oh yes, very much so,” I say.

Yes, I know it’s a big fat lie, but what do you expect me to say? “No, Mr Hurley, I can’t stand the bloody job. In fact, you can shove your rotten job up your bum”?

“It’s giving me some exciting challenges through which I can develop my skills and enhance my experience,” I add for authenticity, before taking another slurp of coffee.

“That’s excellent news Rebecca, excellent news, because the reason I’ve asked you in here today is to offer you the role on a more permanent basis.”

Bollocks.

Does coffee stain? And did I just say bollocks out loud?

“There will of course be a pay rise to go with the promotion,” Malcolm adds, clearly mistaking my horror for financial intrigue, and apparently overlooking the whole ‘bollocks’ faux pas.

“As well as a generous bonus structure,” he says. “I have prepared a contract so take it away it with you to read and perhaps I could ask you to sign it and have it back to me by…shall we say Monday?”

“Right, sure,” I say. “Thank you very much Mr Hurley,” I add, because, again, what else could I say?

“It’s no more than you deserve Rebecca. You are a hard worker and, if you want to, you can go far in this company.”

If I want to. Exactly.

“So?” Erin asks, as soon as I get back to the office.

She can’t bear not knowing anything, that girl. She’ll have chewed her finger nails right down to her knuckles in anticipation while I was gone, because she knew as well as I did that Malcolm didn’t ask me into his office to express his heartfelt concern for my welfare. I was either being bollocked or rewarded. I’m still not sure which category I’d put it in.

“It seems I’m being promoted,” I say, moving the pile of papers that have been dumped on my chair during my brief absence and sitting down. The sales guys are in the office today for their twice-monthly meeting, which means shed loads of work for us. I don’t know why they think it will get done any quicker if they put it on my chair, though. It’s not as if I ever pick it up and get straight on the case – I just move it onto my desk where it has to draw straws with every other bit of paper marked ‘urgent.’

“Wow, that’s great,” Erin says, rushing over to my desk to hug me.

I look over at Fliss, who isn’t saying anything. She doesn’t need to. She doesn’t want me to take this job; I know that. She wants me to leave. She wants me to do what I really want to do.

“Well done, lovey,” she says, eventually. A compromise. “Do you really want it though?” she asks. ‘You don’t really want it though, do you?’ is what she actually means.

“Not really, no,” I admit.

“Why not?” Erin asks, puzzled.

“Wait a minute, Erin love,” Fliss says, holding her hand up to stop her from saying anything else.

“So what did you say to Malcolm then?” she asks me, hopeful.

“I said thank you very much.”

I phone Katie while Fliss makes the tea.

“Books!. Katie Roberts speaking.”

“It’s me.”

“Hi B. How are you doing? How is everything at Felicity’s?”

“I’m okay. Fliss and Derek have been fantastic,” I say, looking over at Fliss and smiling.

“I need your advice. Again.”

“What about? Has Alex phoned you?”

“No, it’s nothing like that. It’s work. I’ve been offered a promotion.”

“Hey, well done! More money then?”

“Yes, and some sort of bonus structure, although I don’t know all the details yet.”

“But? I’m sensing a ‘but’?”

“But I hate working here,” I say. “I hate my job. Do I really want a promotion that’s going to keep me here forever?”

“Nothing’s forever.”

“Well a couple more years at least and a couple more years here would feel like forever.”

“So leave.”

“And do what?”

“What you’ve always wanted to do, but never have.”

“It’s not that easy though is it?”

“Nothing worth doing is ever easy, B. It just depends how much you want to do it. Listen hun, I’ll call you back in a few minutes, I’ve got to take a call from an author.”

“No, it’s okay. I’ll phone you later. I just wanted to tell you.”

“Okay. But if you really want my advice, then I don’t think you should take the job.”

“Really?”

“Yes, really. Leave, B. Come home. There’s nothing stopping you now. There’s nothing up there for you anymore.”

She’s right. There isn’t.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

I’m making a habit of turning people down, it seems.

I’ve done it. I’ve told Malcolm I don’t want the promotion. Or to work at Penand Inc at all, thank you very much.

He was ever so understanding, as it happens. In fact, he even congratulated me on an ‘excellent decision’ and wished me all the best for the future. Until I pointed out that he had misheard me, that is – that I hadn’t said “thank you for the offer, I’m going to take it, you won’t regret it,” and that what I’d actually said was “thank you for the offer, but if I take it I’ll regret it”. Seems I’d never noticed his hearing impairment before.

“I don’t want to look back in ten years and wonder why I never did something I really wanted to do,” I explain, once he has recovered from the initial shock. The concept of not wanting to spend your whole life working for Penand Inc is not one with which Malcolm is familiar. Here is a man who has earned his carriage clock, and then some.

“I see,” he says, despite, I suspect, not seeing at all. “And you don’t want a bit more time to think about it?”

“No. Thank you. I knew as soon as you offered me the job, if I’m honest. But I have thought about it – a lot – and I still feel the same. Now just seems like the right time to make the break, what with Alex and I, and…well…you know…”

“Okay, Rebecca,” he says, getting up from his chair. He’s probably worried I’ll start pouring my heart out. “You’ll be sorely missed, though. You’ve been a great asset to Penand Inc. And of course, it goes without saying that I’ll be happy to give you a glowing reference.”

“Thanks Mr Hurley,” I say, shaking his hand, before turning and leaving his office.

“And Rebecca,” he calls after me. “Do let me know when your leaving do will be, won’t you. I should very much like to help give you a good send off.”

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Today is my last day at Penand Inc. Yay!

I wasn’t sure how I’d feel when it actually came to leave. Delirious, obviously, but I have been here a long time, so I thought a touch of sadness wasn’t completely beyond the realms of possibility.

It’s been okay.

For starters, I’ve done no work whatsoever. All day. I’ve pretended to do some – I’ve sat at my desk from time to time and shuffled papers, clicking on my mouse intermittently for added effect (I was playing FreeCell, but no-one needs to know that). But for the rest of the day I have been wandering around the building saying my goodbyes. Which turns out to have been a complete waste of time as at 4pm, everyone who has ever known me at the company – and several, I suspect, who have never even met me (some people will do anything for half an hour away from their desks) all cram into our office to see me off the premises.

They’ve put “Sorry You’re Leaving” banners up on the walls and tied balloons to my chair and thrown sparkly bits all over my desk.

I’m touched.

And they’ve bought champagne for a toast.

First Malcolm makes a little speech, during which he completely embarrasses me by telling everyone how in my interview he asked me why I wanted the job and I told him it was because I owed the bank £5,000 for all the university partying they had subsidised. He says he gave me the job for my honesty and slaps me on the back. Just as I’m taking a sip of champagne.

Then Fliss says a few words – about how she may be nearly forty years older than me but thinks of me as one of her dearest friends – despite trying to get rid of me for the last year. Which makes me cry. I blame it on the champagne that went up my nose.

And then I get a card – filled with a mixture of both heartfelt and crude sentiments that I’m sure I’ll have great fun reading later – and a present. I knew I was getting one. Everyone who leaves Penand Inc gets a present. But even if they didn’t, Erin ‘sneaking’ around the building clutching an A3 envelope with ‘Becky’s leaving, cough up your cash!’ scribbled on it in big black letters, was a dead giveaway. And I know what I’m getting too – or part of it, at least. Everyone who leaves Penand Inc gets a desk tidy filled with goodies. One of those tubular pen pot things that you loved as a child, but can’t see the point of as an adult when you have to tip the whole thing upside down just to locate the last paperclip that you are sure is in there somewhere, leaving a heap of pens, pencils, useless clusters of two or three staples and a selection of chewed pen lids scattered all over your desk in the process. Which kind of makes a mockery of the name ‘desk tidy’, if you ask me. And when I say filled with ‘goodies’, I do mean that in the loosest possible sense of the word. When you work for a stationery supplier, ‘goodies’ can really only mean pens and pencils and, well,…pretty much just pens and pencils.

It started years ago when some guy was given one as a leaving present because he had always had the messiest desk in the entire building (before my time, clearly) and could never find a pen when he needed one. And it went down so well (he was so touched he cried – imagine his elation if he’d stuck it out for the carriage clock) that it became tradition.

You do get something else. Unless you’re Billy-no-mates, that is, and no-one is really all that bothered to see you go. Or worse still, didn’t know you had arrived in the first place – and even then you’d probably get a couple of extra pens or something.

I’m not a Billy-no-mates, it seems, judging by the two gifts in Malcolm’s hands – and the number of people fighting for space in our office. My desk has been so untidy for so long I had no idea it could accommodate so many butt cheeks.

I open the desk tidy first. It’s pink – my favourite colour. And I’m honoured – as well as the standard blue and black biros and HB pencils, it has a retractable eraser, a miniature stapler and a small cellophane packet of treasury tags.

“Thanks,” I say, putting it down on top of the illegal fridge – the only surface free of bums – and looking at the other gift waiting to be opened.

“Let me guess, it’s a fountain pen,” I joke, relieving Malcolm of the large box-shaped gift. My dad does that every birthday – feels a present that’s obviously a new tie or a pair of socks and says ‘let me guess – it’s a new golf club’.

Blimey, it’s heavy, whatever it is. Definitely not a fountain pen.

I rip off the floral wrapping paper (Fliss’ choice, I suspect).

Bloody hell. It’s a laptop.

“It’s a laptop,” I say, or rather, shriek, at the top of my voice, staring at the box in my hands. And then I go into a major panic. What if it’s just a laptop box with something very definitely not a laptop inside – like a very heavy fountain pen, for instance, or a picture frame, or a box of bath bombs from Lush! Because everyone knows I love bath bombs from Lush!

But no, it really is a laptop.

I know we sell hundreds of them, but even at cost price they aren’t cheap and there’s no way Malcolm would just give one away. And I really need one too – I let Alex keep the one we bought together.

“You’ve worked for Penand Inc for a long time and made a lot of friends who all wanted you to have something to help you in your next adventure, Rebecca,” he says, reading my mind as the last bit of wrapping paper floats to the floor.

“If you are going to be a writer, then you’ll need something decent to write on.”

“I don’t know what to say. I’m stunned,” I say. “Thank you so much everyone.”

“Good luck Rebecca,” Malcolm shouts, raising his paper cup of champagne in the air.

“Good luck Becky,” everyone echoes.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

I stare at the pieces of plate on the floor and smile nervously at my new boss.

“Oops,” I say.

Which is quite fortunate really. I very nearly said “bollocks” instead, remembering just in the nick of time that I am in the company of ten eight-year-old girls in pink sparkly cowgirl hats.

I have a new part-time job. At a coffee shop.

In hindsight, when Katie said that the sister of one of her colleagues was looking for some help at her coffee shop, it might have been an idea to clarify exactly which kind of coffee shop we were talking about.

This is not a quiet little coffee shop where little old ladies come to enjoy a pot of tea with a fruit scone, or where nine-to-fivers take refuge for a few minutes before returning to their offices with tuna baguettes to eat al desko. No, this is a coffee shop where children – and occasionally adults – sit and drink orange squash with malted milk biscuits whilst they ruin perfectly good white plates with pictures of trees and farmyard animals and call it art.

The name Potty Wotty Doodah should have been a bit of a clue.

But, in all honesty, I couldn’t afford to be fussy. I wanted something part time and with as little responsibility as possible to maximise the time I have available for composing begging letters to editors of glossy magazines. Which kind of ruled out half the ‘situations vacant’ pages in the local newspaper. My newly acquired aversion to paperclips and staples ruled out a further twenty per cent – office clerks, administrators, personal assistants, general dogsbodies… And a traumatic experience as a waitress at the tender age of seventeen, when I mistook a vegetable spring roll for a raspberry pancake and served it up with two dollops of vanilla ice cream and a generous helping of raspberry sauce, ruled out the remaining thirty per cent.

I don’t think even I could go wrong with a cappuccino machine. But a cappuccino machine and a slice of art on the side…?

Let me make this clear…

I cannot draw.

I cannot draw to save my life.

No, really, if my life actually depended upon my ability to draw, I would, in fact, be dead.

To illustrate (no pun intended), until the age of ten (okay, fourteen) I drew people with square heads, because I couldn’t draw circles, and with arms that protruded horizontally out of their bodies, because shoulders and elbows were beyond even comprehension to me.

But I haven’t even got to the stage yet where I’m being asked by a five-year-old to draw a giraffe on the side of an eggcup and I’m already a disaster.

Caroline – my new boss – opened Potty Wotty Doodah three years ago, after six years as an art teacher and two years studying business at night school. In other words – she can draw.

It’s adorable. The walls are covered with rows and rows of shelves filled with every kind of plain white pottery you can imagine – bowls, plates, cups and saucers, salt and pepper pots, cookie jars, money boxes. There are even light switch surrounds, doorknobs and toothbrush holders.

The far wall is half-decorated with a mosaic of tiles painted by customers since the café opened, while the other half is waiting for the next three years’ worth.

To the left as you walk in there is a counter where Caroline greets everyone and serves coffee and juice. And in the centre is an island unit – it’s the kind you find in big kitchens, but instead of pots and pans and recipe books it’s filled with picture books, stencils, rubber stamps and tracing paper, and hundreds of bottles of paint. Inspiration Island – that’s what Caroline calls it.

The rest of the room is filled with pine tables and chairs, a different coloured plastic cloth draped over each table, a miniature pinny hanging from the back of every chair.

It’s just like Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory – except you don’t eat the decorations, you paint them.

Caroline has a little girl – Molly, who’s five, and she’s six months pregnant with her second child. She’s starting to take things a bit easier now. Her friend Fiona works here too – but she’s in the process of setting up her own shop – a children’s clothing shop – just a few doors down in the same street, so she isn’t able to work any extra hours.

That’s where I come in.

So – Caroline is a former art teacher and Fiona stitches pictures of angels on t-shirts and socks, whilst I, it seems, am the token pleb who can’t even draw stick-men.

Today, though, stick-men are the least of my problems.

I am learning how to glaze a pot – that’s the bit that makes them shiny when they come out of the kiln, apparently. I haven’t gone near the kiln yet. I’m not sure I ever will after today’s disaster.

I pick up the larger fragments of plate from the floor and apologise to Caroline. Again.

“Don’t worry,” she says kindly. “That’s why we’re doing this – so you can get it right before you start handling the proper stuff.”

By proper stuff she means the pottery with the pretty pictures – straight from the hands of proud little girls and boys – instead of the plain items straight from the shelves. The very thought of touching the ‘proper stuff’ makes me nervous. The last time I had anything to do with any kind of pottery was in art class at secondary school when I accidentally dropped Emma’s cat dish. It was a masterpiece – a bowl in the shape of a cat’s face with delicate clay whiskers sticking out of the sides. She cried for the rest of the day. So did I. It was very traumatic. And we were eleven. Imagine what it could do to a toddler…

“Try again,” Caroline says, handing me the tongs you use to dip the pottery. They look like a pair of industrial-size barbecue tongs. I hold them awkwardly. I feel like Julia Roberts in the scene from Pretty Woman when she’s trying to pick-up snails at that posh restaurant.

I grip a mug like Caroline has shown me, with one half of the tongs at the bottom and the other on the rim, and slowly ease it into the bucket of glaze. It’s a thick blue gloopy substance.

“So why doesn’t everything come out of the kiln blue?” I ask Caroline.

“The blue disappears in the heat, but there are chemicals in the paints which make them resist the heat,” she explains. “Normal paints – poster paints for example – they would burn off.”

“Hmm,” I say, taking it all in, twisting the tongs gently in the bucket, to make sure the mug is coated all over.

“That should do it,” she tells me.

I ease the mug out of the bucket and then watch as it slips out of the tongs and drops back in. It bobs up and down like a bobbing apple at a Halloween party before filling up with glaze and sinking to the bottom of the bucket.

I smile at Caroline. It’s a smile of resignation.

I’m not sure I’m cut out for this. Selling pencils was much easier.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

By the end of the day I have broken one more mug and successfully glazed a dinner plate and a kitten ornament. Keen to leave on a high point I hang up my apron for the day and get the tube back to Katie’s.

I’m staying with Katie and Matt while I get myself sorted. They have said I can stay with them as long as I want. Technically that means I can stay forever – I don’t want to be on my own. But I won’t stay forever. They are getting married soon. They don’t want me cramping their style.

They have a lovely flat in Clapham Junction, just two stops on the Overground from Potty Wotty Doodah. They bought it last year after living with Matt’s parents for almost eighteen months to save for the deposit – a period Katie affectionately describes as her ‘time inside,’ so I know how much it means to her to finally have her own place.

Fortunately I left some of my stuff at Fliss and Derek’s. Katie and Matt’s spare room is tiny – just about big enough to swing a cat. But only just. Any smaller and there would definitely be claw marks on the walls.

It has a single bed, a bedside table with a lamp and a framed photo of Katie and I dressed as witches, and a canvas wardrobe that Katie and I bought the weekend I moved in. I think we both underestimated just how many clothes I own – something we discovered when we hung the last t-shirt on the wooden pole and watched as it popped out of its sockets, spilling the contents onto the floor in a big heap.

“Matt!” we both yelled simultaneously, before collapsing onto the bed in a giggling heap ourselves.

“We’ll see you in a couple of hours,” Katie tells Matt as soon as I get home, giving him a quick kiss on the lips and throwing her bag over her shoulder.

“A couple of hours?” I ask, horrified.

Katie is dragging me to the gym. As if my day has not already been torturous enough…

Katie loves the gym. She goes at least twice a week – runs a few kilometres, cycles a couple of miles, rows the equivalent of a small river or two, does a few sit ups, a few press ups…

I hate the gym. All that puffing and panting – not to mention all the sweating. I keep telling her – it’s ever so unattractive.

And she pays £75 a month for the privilege!

This is the same gym, might I add, where Katie had her underwear nicked from the changing rooms while she was having a work-out before work one morning. I saw this as an opportunity – attempting to get out of going on the grounds of security.

“No-one would want to steal your knickers, B,” she had politely informed me. “They’re old and saggy and off-white.”

I decided not to waste crucial time being offended – that could wait till later – and attempted to come up with an alternative excuse instead.

“I don’t have any gym gear,” I said.

“I have spares,” she told me.

“I’m not a member,” I said.

“I have guest passes,” she announced.

I admitted defeat eventually, of course.

But bloody hell – two hours! Anyone would think we were training for the London Marathon.

We get the tube to the gym where Katie signs me in as her guest. Before I am allowed in I have to fill in a form with my name and address, date of birth and vital statistics – so that they can use them to attempt to con me out of £75 a month, no doubt. And I also have to sign a waiver – to say that I won’t sue them when I come flying off the end of the treadmill and break both my legs. Or words to that effect.

“You never know B, you might meet a man here,” Katie tells me, shoving her bag in the locker and slamming the door shut before it falls back out again.

Katie wants to find me a man. She thinks I need one. She says it’s just like falling off a horse – “you have to get straight back on”.

“Or what?” I asked her, “I’ll forget how to do it?” I’m not quite sure exactly what it was I meant by ‘it.’

“I keep telling you – I don’t want a man right now,” I say, pulling my ponytail tight and digging my knickers out of my backside through Katie’s cycling shorts. Her bottom is a bit smaller than mine, evidently.

“Well keep digging your knickers out of your backside in front of everyone in the gym and you’ll probably be safe,” Katie laughs.

“Where do you want to start?” she asks me.

Nowhere is not an option, I presume.

I look around at the equipment – there are rows and rows of bicycles, treadmills, cross trainers, rowing machines…all with maniacs on them cycling, running, rowing for dear life and getting absolutely bloody nowhere. It all seems ever so tedious. Whatever happened to getting outdoors – on a real bike, on a real road?

“How about the sauna?” I ask.

I have to earn my time in the sauna, apparently. Two miles on the bike and one mile on the treadmill earns me twenty minutes in the sauna, according to Katie’s Law. Well, that sounds easy enough.

There are no pairs of bikes together so Katie and I take the bikes on opposite ends of the row and get to work. Or should I say, Katie gets to work while I fiddle about with the earphones trying to find the best channel on the gym’s sound system.

I settle on what appears to be a dance album and start cycling whilst simultaneously pressing buttons on the bike – completely at random. I must look like someone who doesn’t know what they are doing because the guy on the bike next to me offers to help.

I continue to prod feverishly at the buttons.

“Thanks, I’m fine,” I tell him, even though it’s abundantly clear I’m really not.

By sheer bad luck I seem to have ended up on the hill climb setting. On level 18. Out of 20.

Bloody hell this is hard work. I suspect I may have gone a shade of puce.

I am being watched. I can tell. I look up and the guy next to me is grinning at me in the mirror. He’s quite cute. Actually he’s very cute – in a sweaty kind of way.

Now, is it not bad enough that I have been dragged to the gym against my will, in a pair of shorts that are practically cutting my nether regions in half and been left to the mercy of a machine I have absolutely no idea how to use, without being subjected to the scrutiny of a frankly rather gorgeous guy too?

I am quite possibly in danger of hyperventilating on my level 18 hill climb when cute guys leans over and gently taps my screen, bringing it down to a more manageable level 10 (okay, 4).

“Thanks,” I pant.

How utterly humiliating.

Cute guy has gone and I have clocked up a pretty unimpressive 0.8 miles (okay 0.4 – my only excuse being the cute guy – I was distracted) when Katie comes bounding over 20 minutes later. Where does she get her energy?

I quickly cover the screen with my towel.

“How are you doing?” she asks.

“Yeah, great,” I lie.

“Shall we have a go on the treadmill?” she asks, though I don’t think I actually have a choice.

“Sounds fabulous,” I say, hitting ‘cancel workout’ before she can see the pitiful distance I have cycled.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

On my second day at Potty Wotty Doodah, I am astonishingly given responsibility for operating an oven that reaches temperatures of over 900 degrees and in six short hours I am asked by several naive youngsters to draw a cow and a pig on a seesaw, a giraffe and a hippopotamus playing leapfrog, and two spiders holding hands, amongst other things. On a good note I break only one tile and one saucer. I get home, utterly frazzled, to find a note on the fridge.

B, we’ve popped to see a man about a band. Can you turn the oven on at 6pm. Ta. K&M x

Unlike me, Katie is a veritable Gordon Ramsay in the kitchen. She can make anything out of anything. Literally. While I am on television demonstrating precisely why Can’t Cook Won’t Cook was so named, Katie will be on Ready Steady Cook preparing a four-course banquet from a single tomato, a tin of custard and a packet of salted peanuts.

Between us, Matt and I have negotiated what we consider to be a terrific deal. Katie cooks. He washes. I dry. And for the days she can’t be bothered we’ll get a takeaway. They live a three-minute walk from two Chineses, an Italian, a curry house and a fish and chip shop (yes, we’ve actually timed it).

They are also a four-stop tube ride from the offices of a zillion magazines, which will come in very handy when the flood of invitations to meet their editors lands on the doormat. Which it inevitably will.

It just hasn’t yet, that’s all.

Bollocks.

I have written to no less than twenty seven different magazines so far, begging for a job and so far I have heard absolutely nothing. Not a jot. Zip. Nada.

Okay, so I know I have no journalism qualifications to speak of, and absolutely no knowledge of the magazine industry whatsoever, but apart from that I’m an ideal candidate for a job on a magazine.

Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.

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