Confessions of a Serial Dater (6 page)

At least Jonathan would never do anything like that.

And as I push open my front door, the telephone is ringing, so I dash for it and pick up, because it’s probably Jonathan.

Thank God for safe, dependable Jonathan.

“Hello?”

“Darling,” Elaine purrs down the telephone, and I’m confused, because she never calls me.

“Elaine,” I say, a bit breathlessly on account of being breathless from dashing for the phone. “Lovely to hear from you,” I lie. “Lovely news about the, um, baby.”

“I’m just so excited,” she squeaks in her little-girl voice. “Just imagine, I’m the first of us four cousins to bring a new life into this world.”

“Isn’t it amazing,” I say, conjuring up a very unflattering image of Elaine, all fat and bloated and whalelike at nine months pregnant. And then, because I can’t help it, “I hope the, um, lucky dad is excited, too.”

“Oh, but darling, things are a little tricky for him right now and I’m sworn to secrecy.”

I’m intrigued. Obviously a married man, then.

“Married, is he?” I say before I can stop myself, because although I would never knowingly sleep with a married man, Elaine is not so scrupulous.

“Naughty Rosie,” Elaine purrs down the phone at me. “Let’s just say that we have his public image to think about, but trust me, as soon as the time is right, I’ll tell you all about it.”

Is it just my imagination, or does that sound like a threat?

“You simply
must
come to the party at Mummy and Daddy’s next Thursday,” she stresses. Which is odd, because I
always go to the family Christmas party. Under sufferance, but I do have an arsenal of family I actually like who will also be in attendance. And Jonathan, of course.

“I can hardly wait,” I say carefully as I wait for the real reason for her call.

“It seems like so long since we last had a chance to chat,” she says, hiking up the charm. “And you must bring your wonderful boyfriend with you,” she adds, and my suspicious nature immediately jumps to the conclusion that she means to try to steal him from me. Why else would she bother?

“I’ll certainly try,” I say, as Elaine, Harry and the Blow-Job Episode spring immediately back to mind. I wonder if there’s a way I can uninvite Jonathan, because he’s already got it booked in his diary. Maybe I can pretend the party’s been called off due to—

What am I doing? The one and only time she met Jonathan at Uncle Bill’s sixtieth birthday party back in August, Elaine barely looked at him, because she was dating some rich, handsome investment banker. And besides, Jonathan is a complete sweetie and would never do that to me. It’s one of the reasons I’m so fond of him.

But I wouldn’t trust Elaine with the Pope…even if she
is
pregnant.

“And you must tell Granny Elsie it wouldn’t be the same without her,” Elaine trills, which is plain weird. Elaine can’t stand Granny Elsie.

“Er, yes, she’s very excited about it,” I say, because she is. More about the lavish spread Auntie Pat always puts on, I think.

“And your lovely friends Carmen and Jess—and Charlie, of course.” This is getting weirder by the second, because I know for a fact that Elaine can’t stand my friends, either. “I’m just so happy,” Elaine squeaks again. “I want to put my arms around the whole world and hug it.”

I wonder, as I try to wind down the conversation and get rid of her, if pregnancy has wreaked this miraculous personality change on Elaine?

It is the season of goodwill, after all.

“For indoor or outdoor use only,” the packaging on the Christmas lights wisely instructs me, as I open the box and unravel the long string. As opposed to say, what, exactly? Underwater or in space?

My gorgeous Douglas fir’s been in the back garden all week, just waiting for me to bring it indoors and decorate it, so I thought I might as well get it out of the way. It’s just not the same at Christmas without the smell of pine, is it?

As I place the final bauble on a branch, I take a step back and admire my handiwork. This year, I’ve decided that red and silver will be my tree theme, because they go so well with green, and are very Christmassy, too. I need all the Christmas cheer I can muster.

And now I’m going to watch a movie—something with blood and guts in it—something that doesn’t include cute doctors or beautiful heroines who always get their man.

Jonathan broke up with me earlier.

After hanging up on Elaine, I checked my home phone messages, because time was getting on and I thought it was odd that I hadn’t heard from Jonathan, so imagine my relief when I heard his dulcet tones speaking to me via voice mail. This is what he actually said.

“Er, hi, Rosie. It’s me. Jonathan. Er, it seems Sidney’s toe wasn’t broken after all, hahaha, just a bit, you know, bruised. Just thought you’d like to know.”

That’s sweet,
I think momentarily, barely noticing that his sentence does not include a word of French. And then he drops his bomb.

“Er, I know this is a bit sudden, and I don’t know the best
way to tell you this, but it’s been on my mind for a while. Rosie, you know I wouldn’t willingly do anything to hurt you, especially at this time of year and all. But I think we should take a bit of a break from each other,” he says, and I’m floored. I mean, I know I was thinking we needed to take a break, but I’ve worked through it.

Oh, I just bet he’s met someone else.

“Er, it’s not that I’ve met someone else. Just thought you might want to know that. I’m extremely fond of you, but I think we need to cool things down. Just for a while. Just for a few weeks. Well, take care. Speak to you soon. If you feel you need to, er, talk about it, well, er, I’m here.”

That’s it? That’s my
breakup?

Due to the suddenly boneless quality of my legs, I slump onto the sofa and look up at my Christmas tree, all twinkly and glittery, and I feel so alone. Everyone deserves to have someone to share Christmas with, don’t they?

I just can’t take it in. I bet Jonathan will call tomorrow, and it will all be a mistake, and am definitely
not
going to think about it right now.

Instead, I load
Terminator III
into my DVD machine and settle back for some world destruction. And as I watch people getting terminated,
I
terminate my way through a large pack of tissues and peanuts. Unsurprisingly, the peanut packaging contains the following consumer advice: “Warning: contains nuts.”

I may have to write a thank-you letter to the consumer affairs manager for that one…just as soon as I’ve scraped my heart up off the floor.

“Jonathan casually broke my heart and dumped me via voice mail yesterday,” I announce, just a bit dramatically, to my friends the following afternoon.

Oh. I really didn’t mean to sound so melodramatic. It’s just that I’ve been holding this information tightly squeezed up inside my lungs since last night, and it’s grown, expanded,
and I have to say something to someone or I’ll burst with it. But I just couldn’t face calling anyone last night.

Dumped. With only five days until Christmas. I mean, it just sounds so pathetic, doesn’t it? I am so unlovable that my boyfriend can’t even wait until the New Year to get rid of me.

Jess, who unfortunately has chosen this exact same point in time to arrive at our table with huge Aster stars in her eyes, shrieks, “Well? Well? What do you think? Isn’t he fabulous? Totally fabulous?”

Poor Jess. Her enthusiasm is totally lost on everyone as they fall into stunned silence.

We are all sitting in the Duck & Drake, a small, smoky, dingy, off-the-beaten-track pub in Camden. It is so far off the beaten track that I spent half an hour hunting it down, which is fortunate in a way, because I arrived so late that I was just in time to hear Aster and his band brutally murder their second set.

I briefly considered canceling and going home after lunch at Mum’s, to brood and regain my equilibrium a bit before I told my friends about Jonathan, but I promised everyone I’d be here for Aster’s debut London appearance with Asteroid Attack. Especially Jess.

When I say everyone, I mean Carmen, Jess, my
nice
cousins Flora and Philip, and Charlie, with whom I co-own Odd Jobs.

Philip is the first to absorb my news and recover his tongue.

“Oh, no. I’m so sorry, Rosie,” he tells me sympathetically. “I thought he was rather a nice chap.”

“Nice chaps don’t dump their girlfriends a week before Christmas. What a complete fucking bastard.” Carmen bangs her empty pint glass down on the table.

“I thought you rather liked him,” Flora, sister of Philip,
says to her. “Poor darling,” she adds to me. “I know the future seems bleak and empty, but you will get over—”

“He could at least have had the decency to wait until the New Year, like any normal person,” Carmen jumps back in before Flora can finish. And then, “Sorry for the ‘fucking bastard’ part, Phil,” she tells Philip, who, when not inhabiting pubs dressed in jeans and a sweater, inhabits a Church of England church, dressed in a robe and a dog collar, because he’s a vicar.

“No worries,” he smiles good-naturedly. Philip is always good-natured and tries to see the best in people, but I expect that’s part of his job description. “I don’t suppose it would be of any help to say that it’s the will of God, and that He works in mysterious ways?” he asks me. Then, when I shake my head, “Thought so. Bad luck, though, dear girl.”

“Do you want me to hunt him down and break his legs for you?” Carmen jumps in again, her eyes narrowing to slits as she picks up her next pint and takes a swig. “Sorry, Phil—just pretend you didn’t hear that.”

“But only yesterday you were telling
me
to dump
him,
” I say. She’s already downed two pints of Theakston’s Old Peculier ale since I arrived, and I suspect that her vehemence is directed at her boyfriend, Paul, rather than at Jonathan, since Paul is mysteriously absent.

“That’s not the point,” she says, and I’m thoroughly confused. “You were convenient for the sex, of course. And handy to take along to his Christmas bash. But once you served your usefulness, he dumped you. Therefore he doesn’t have to buy you a Christmas gift.”

“Well, thanks,” I tell her, even more miserable now. “That really makes me feel better about the whole situation. Dumped because he’s trying to save cash.”

“He’s not the only one. Honestly, since Paul turned thirty,
he’s become a real old man about some things. I’ve come to the conclusion that all men are selfish, egotistical bastards who don’t deserve the time of day. Present company excepted,” she adds rather tipsily, looking around at Philip and Charlie. “And, of course, it’s always better to be the dumper than the dumpee.”

“But I thought you were so happy together.” Flora always says this when one of us breaks up with someone. “You seemed so well suited,” she sighs. Flora always says this, too.

Flora, at five feet ten inches, and one hundred and eighty pounds, is very blond and attractive in a Valkyrie-esque, Wagnerian kind of way. She is exuberant and interesting and one of the nicest people ever, but men tend to see her as sister or nanny material rather than wifely material.

“You’ve just got to push out that stiff upper lip, darling,” she advises me. “You’ve got to just climb back in the saddle—jump back into the dating pond as quick as poss.”

Or they are put off by her plummy, modulated, well-meaning bossiness. Her last boyfriends, both of whom were recently separated at the time they met Flora, dumped her and went back to their wives. Apparently, all those long chats and reasoning it through with Flora really helped them sort out their feelings and stiffen their backbones.

Poor Flora. All she really wants is to find someone nice and friendly with whom she gets along.

“Right before Christmas. That’s so—” Charlie, who hasn’t said a word until now, shakes his head and pulls a tissue out of his leather jacket. And dabs at his eyes. “I know what you’re going through, darling—” He breaks off. Charlie got dumped by his One True Love just before Christmas last year.

“I didn’t mean to bring back sad memories,” I say quickly. Until this moment I’d forgotten….

“You
will
get over him and move on,” he tells me, patting my arm. He’s never quite gotten over it, though, and has ap
parently given up on love forever. There have been a couple of guys since One True Love, but they fizzled out before they got going.

“You hated him, didn’t you?” Jess, who, as usual, is still not quite up to speed with the conversation, slumps down on her stool, and we all lunge for our glasses as the table rocks. “I know Aster can be a bit…difficult at times, but he’s got a heart of gold. Truly.”

“We weren’t talking about Hot Stuff over there,” Carmen says, glancing across to the bar, where Aster is chatting up two very attractive women. “Jonathan dumped Rosie yesterday. Via voice mail.”

“Oh. Sorry, sorry, that’s terrible,” Jess says, also sniffling in sympathy. “I don’t know what I’d do if Aster broke up with me. I’d be heartbroken. Heartbroken,” she adds as Charlie hands her a tissue.

“I wouldn’t,” Carmen mutters under her breath just for my ears, because Aster is getting very friendly with those two girls at the bar. He’s practically ignoring poor Jess.

“You poor, heartbroken
soul.
” Jess shakes her head.

“Look on the bright side,” Flora adds in her stalwart voice. “There are more fish in the sea than ever were caught.”

But I want the one that slipped off my hook.

I know that Jonathan can be an idiot at times. And I know that I considered taking a break from him, but that was only my reaction to the Sidney thing and the Dr. Love thing…before I had time to put things in proper perspective.

Since last night, I have run the gamut of all emotions as I flounder alternately from loving Jonathan, to hating him, and then remembering all those kind little things he did for me, like buying me shoes, and helping me with my French, and I get all gooey inside and close to tears.

I didn’t mention the breakup to Mum and Granny Elsie over lunch. Mum spent the whole time rattling on about
Mrs. Henderson at number sixty-three, and how her daughter moved back with her after splitting with her live-in boyfriend, and how nice it was for Mrs. Henderson to have Her Shirley back home. So after that, I just couldn’t face Mum cross-examining me about what I did wrong this time.

I don’t deliberately set out to sabotage my relationships…maybe I’m just not coupledom material, after all.

“Well.” Charlie shakes his head, and we all sigh into our drinks and shake our heads as we fall into a morose silence. I certainly know how to kill ambience.

“Did we all rock or wot?” Aster asks, swaggering over to our table. “Man, did we bring the house down, dontcha fink?” he says. “How about you, Vicar—wouldnta fought this was your cup of tea,” he says, sniggering as if he’s just told a really funny joke. “I would’ve fought that choirs singing hallelujah was more your cup of tea,” he sniggers even more.

“Well, I’m a vicar of very eclectic musical taste,” Philip tells him solemnly. Aster, who has a small vocabulary that obviously doesn’t include the word
eclectic,
stares at him blankly for long moments before answering.

“Sorry, Vicar, just can’t see you wiv an electric guitar.”

And I wonder for the umpteenth time why Jess, who is intelligent, and kind, and rich, and pretty in an odd kind of way, has hooked up with Aster, who is ignorant, and not pretty, and squeezes her for money. At least I think he does.

See, although I am devastated by Jonathan’s callous behavior, I am not quite so devastated that I can’t see my friends’ problems. But who knows what hidden depths Aster has? I suppose it’s all in the eyes of the beholder.

“Er, quite,” Philip says, puzzled. “Very enthusiastic performance.” His eyes soften as he glances from Aster to Jess.

“You were, um, unique,” I say, because they were loud and unmelodic, and Aster cannot carry a tune, but it’s so impor
tant to Jess that we try to like him. Actually, I’ve always thought that Philip had a soft spot for Jess…

“You were loud. And unimaginably unmel—” Carmen begins, and I swiftly kick her leg under the table before she hurts Jess’s feelings, because she’s had a bit too much to drink and would not forgive me if I didn’t stop her. “Unmissable,” she says, glaring at me.

“Remarkable,” is Charlie’s response.

“Interesting, um, arrangements.” Flora pins a diplomatic smile to her face.

“See? I told you how amazing they are, didn’t I?” Jess leaps up like a boisterous kitten and throws her arms around Aster’s scrawny neck, and we all grab our drinks again as the table rocks.

“Watch out, babe,” Aster tells her, removing her arms as he glances back to his fan club at the bar. “I got a persona to maintain. I can’t be having me girlfriend attached to me like a leech the whole bleedin’ time. And you nearly sent them drinks flyin’.”

“Oh, sorry, sorry,” Jess says, her smile faltering just a bit. And I want to smack Aster for being so awful to her. I nervously look around at my friends and know that they want to hit Aster, too. The uncomfortable hostility is so thick you could cut it with a knife.

“She’s not clumsy,” Carmen, unsurprisingly, pipes up, and I give her a warning frown, but she blanks me. But she does smile, and sweetly adds, “Neither is she an avaricious, irascible corsair.”

I hold my breath as Aster absorbs Carmen’s words. Everyone else around the table is holding their breath, too, except for Jess, who instead resembles a small, hurt animal.

“Right you are.” Aster gives Carmen a puzzled smile. I don’t think Aster understood that Carmen just called him a
greedy, bad-tempered fortune hunter. “Er, can I have a quick word,” Aster says to Jess, tilting his head toward the bar. “In private, like.”

“Um, yes. Yes. Excuse me a minute,” Jess says a bit too brightly, her face flushing as she reaches under the table for her bag and follows Aster across the room.

“Carmen, darling, I know you mean well, but
really.
Did you see poor Jess’s face?” Flora says as soon as Jess is out of earshot.

“She is
right,
though,” Charlie tells the table at large. “How else could he afford to buy that new guitar?”

“A bit quieter, old chap,” Philip says to him. “You don’t want Jess to hear you. She’d be very upset if she knew we thought her boyfriend was using her for money.”

“He
is
using her for money,” Carmen says, taking another swig of her beer. “Just watch. He’s an obnoxious prick with no personality. Sorry, Phil.”

“No worries about the language,” Philip tells her. “I’ve heard it all before, you know.”

And sure enough, Jess is reaching into her bag for her wallet. She pulls out some notes and hands them to him.

“But what are we going to do about it? He can’t fucking well keep getting away with it.” Carmen’s face is getting redder by the moment as she gets into her stride. “Anyone with a brain cell can see he’s using her.”

“Maybe we’ve got the wrong end of the stick,” Flora reasons with her, but her heart’s not in it. “It’s entirely possible that Aster intends to pay her back.” She doesn’t really believe that, but she always tries to be so evenhanded in her judgement. “It’s obvious that she completely dotes on him. I don’t think she’d thank us for mentioning the money thing.”

“Yes, she does rather seem fixed on him,” Philip smiles, but his eyes are unhappy. “We need to be here for her, but we shouldn’t, you know, alienate her by maligning her boyfriend.
She might not feel comfortable coming to us for sympathy later if she sees it for herself and breaks up with him.”

Philip does have a good point.

“He does have a point,” Charlie says. “I mean, Carmen, darling, if we all told you that Paul was a loser, which of course he’s not because he’s completely adorable, and that you could do a million times better, how would that make you feel about us?”

“The way things are at the moment, I’d probably buy champagne and offer to bear your children.” Carmen takes another swig of her beer, and I worry more.

“Ha, ha, good one,” Charlie says. “Come on, you know you don’t mean it.”

“Of course she doesn’t mean it,” Flora adds. “You and Paul are just so well suited.”

“Um, is everything okay between you and Paul?” I ask, because I’m not so sure that this is just a normal fight.

Carmen looks around at us for long seconds before replying. “Sorry everyone, take no notice of me. I’m just being my usual pissy, difficult self,” she says, a bit bitterly. “Really. It’s nothing. Paul got a call from one of his photographer friends. The guy was sick and asked if Paul could cover a wedding, and instead of being a reasonable, understanding kind of girlfriend, I overreacted. But he hasn’t exactly missed the musical event of the century, has he? And as Paul says, we have to start thinking about our old age, and pensions, so we can do with the extra money. Oh, enough about me. Let’s rip Aster apart some more, that’ll be sure to cheer me up.”