The Dr Pepper Prophecies (13 page)

Will goes a little pink and rubs the back of his neck. 'Not all of them,' he says.

'But most of them?'

'Kind of, yeah.'

'Have you actually tried all these?' I ask, before I question if I really want to know the answer.

'A lo
t of them just came out of
The Karma Sutra
,' Will admits, going pinker.

Will owns a
copy of
The Karma Sutra
?

'Well…they’re really good,' I tell him.

Which they are.  Especially the…uh…live action ones.

This is weird.  Not weird like your parents having sex, more like your brother.  I’ve just never pictured Will in this…context.

Except for this weird dream I had about him once where we were having sex on his balcony and the whole town was watching.  Which I’ve tried really, really hard to forget about.  And I’ve never mentioned to anyone.

'You should be doing this professionally,' I tell him for the thousandth time.  Then I blush stupidly. 'Web designing, I mean.  No one with real talent should be an accountant.'

Will shakes his head. 'There’s nothing wrong with being an accountant.  There’s steady work, promotion opportunities, a good salary…'

'That’s your father talking,' I interrupt. 'You hate the work, you hate the office politics, you don’t want to be pro
moted because it would mean even longer hours and you don’t need anywhere near the amount you earn because all you buy is computer software.  You have a gift and you should be using it in your work, instead of calculating how much money some corporate madhouse is wasting running the heating and the air conditioning at the same time.'

'It’s not that easy,' Will says, running a hand through his hair. 'I’m not qualified for this stuff, I’m just an amateur.'

'Half the professional websites I’ve used suck,' I say matter-of-factly. 'If you showed any of your sites to an employer, they’d hire you on the spot.'

'Thanks for the vote of confidence,' Will says, smiling slightly.

'I mean it,' I say passionately. 'It’s alright for me to have a dull job, I don’t have any talent.  But you…you’re doing the world a disservice by not using yours.'

'You have talent,' Will says, putting an arm around me and letting my head rest against his shoulder.  He doesn’t seem to have heard the last thing I said. 'You just haven’t found exactly how to use it yet.  You will.  I have just as much faith in you as you’ve always had in me.'

'I’m a screw-up, Will,' I say, suddenly feeling very low. 'I keep bouncing around and making bad choices.  I can't even find something half-decent.  I don’t think I’ll ever find anything I love as much as you love this.'

Will holds me tighter. 'Maybe you just haven’t looked in the right place for it yet.'

'When will I?' I ask, turning my head against his shoulder to look up at him.

Will smi
les. 'I don’t know,' he says, 'but I know I’ll be there when you do.'

Will looks down at me and I look up at him. 

If he leant his head down just a tiny bit, he could kiss me.

Did I really think that?

The doorbell rings and saves me from having to decide.  I have to sit up again properly so Will can get up and answer it, which somehow feels wrong.  I change the page on his website and look at little flying reindeer in the Christmas section.

'Mel.  How nice to see you,' Natalie says, as she swishes in. 
I correctly translate this as ‘Get out of here and leave us alone, you ensemble-challenged cow.'.

'Good evening,' I say, with considerable effort. 'I think that’s my cue to leave.'

There’s always a sort of internal struggle when Natalie turns up unexpectedly, between the part of me that wants to stay on principle (and because it will annoy her) and the part of me that can’t stand watching her with Will.  She ruffles his hair and touches his arm and kisses him – all of which makes me want to throw her off the balcony.  Today, however, thanks to the website, I’ve got a far more disturbing image in my head.  One that makes me physically ill.

'I’ll just use the bathroom before I go,' I say, getting up.

Will doesn’t say I should stay.  I prefer to believe that he’s staying out of it, rather than that he’s siding with her.

I hope to God I’m not wrong.

**

When I come out of Will’s too fancy and too feminine bathroom – recently re-designed by Natalie – I very nearly walk into her.  Because the vulture is perched right outside the door.

'Could we just get one thing clear?' Natalie says sweetly, smiling lethally at me.

'By all means,' I say, a little off guard since I’m not used to having verbal cat fights right after I’ve pulled my trousers up.

'One,' she says, 'I am Will’s girlfriend, not you.  Two, I am not letting him waste himself designing silly little websites for middle-aged men who wear diamond sweaters and still live with their parents, when he has such potential where he is.  Three, I am working very hard to help him advance in his career and I do not appreciate your efforts to drag him down by encouraging him in his more embarrassing hobbies, social leprosy and poorly-developed dress sense.'

She takes a breath.

'When I marry Will, things are going to be different.  If I were you, I would stop treating this apartment as a glorified secret club house and realise that Will has moved on and you are no longer the woman in his life.'

One eye becomes a laser beam that penetrates my skull and starts systematically targeting the pain centre of my brain.

'Have I made my position quite clear?'

I nod. 'Perfectly,' I say.

'Good,' Natalie says. 'Now, get out and seriously re-consider yours.'

And then she pushes past me into the bathroom and shuts the door.

Well, I certainly have clarified my position.

If she marries Will, I will kill myself.

One dull, and yet disturbing, week later, during which Cynthia appeared to have thrown away her watch and I half expected Natalie to send me poison pen letters in the mail, Beth is going on her first blind date.  She’s nervous as a kitten, although I’ve always found that a rather strange expression since all the kittens I’ve come across have been the feline equivalent of professional skydivers.  So, she’s nervous as…I don’t know.  Maybe an owl who’s afraid of the dark.

'Do you like this one?' Beth says, coming out of her room in the tenth new outfit she appears to have acquired since yesterday.  Which is really confusing me, because I thought she was…well, broke.  Although I suppose all those thrilling weekends with the Jane Austen Appreciation Society aren't much of a strain on the bank balance.

'It looks great,' I say, which is precisely what I’ve said about the other nine.  Beth has surprisingly good taste for someone whose usual wardrobe could be described in two words – Sloane Ranger.

'I don’t know,' Beth says worriedly. 'Maybe I look too plain next to you.'

'Well, why don’t you wear my outfit and I’ll wear something else,' I say.  It's not like I'm trying to impress anyone.

Beth shakes her head. 'It looks much better on you anyway.  I think I’ll just try on something else.'

Forget Narnia, I'm beginning to suspect that her wardrobe leads to Oxford Street.

'Will will be here in ten minutes,' I call after her, as she darts back into her bedroom. 'We don’t want this guy thinking you've stood him up.'

Beth returns a few minutes later wearing a compromise between outfits three and six, with eight's accessories.

'Perfect,' I say. 'Now, you’ve got five minutes to do your hair before…'

The doorbell rings.

'…Will gets here,' I finish.

Beth vanishes again as I get up from the table to answer the door.

It's Will.  He's wearing a fancy suit.  He owns a fancy suit?

'I see Natalie’s been playing dress up Ken again,' I say, as I let him in.  He’s even got gel in his hair.  It’s all spiky and weird and not nice.

'One of my networking outfits,' Will says, looking down at himself. 'And yes, she did choose it.  Do you like it?'

I study him.

'It’s q
uite nice,' I say eventually, 'in that it’s an attractive suit.  But you look like Niles Crane.'

Will nods in resignation. 'I did get a certain
Frasier
vibe when I first saw myself in it,' he says. 'I sudden felt like I should be reading Proust and tweezing a muffin.'

'Why do you let her do this?' I ask, stepping forward and starting to undo Will’s yellow silk tie.  He raises an eyebrow at me.

'What?' I say, carrying on. 'I can’t look at you dressed like this all evening.  You don’t look like yourself.  And don’t avoid the question.  Why do you let her do this?'

Will bows his head as I pull his tie off and undo his top button. 'She’s trying to help,' he explains. 'She wants me to be a success.'

I put my hands on his shoulders. 'Yes, but her idea of success is you selling your soul to the Devil.  Otherwise known as the Big Five.  You'll be miserable.'

'You’re not just saying that because you don’t like her?' Will says, covering my hands with his.

'I freely admit that I don’t like her, but that's because I know she won’t make you happy,' I say.

Okay, maybe that's not entirely why.  But it's a big part of it.

'You need someone who accepts you as you are, not whose grand ambition in life is to turn you into someone else,' I add.

'And where do I find such a woman?' Will asks, bringing my hands down from his shoulders, but keeping hold of them.

I sigh. 'I’m not exactly the dating expert,' I say wryly. 'I just want you to be happy and I know you won’t be if you marry someone like her.'

Will half smiles. 'Now I’m getting married?' he asks, pulling a face of mock horror. 'Why on Earth would I want to do that when I can keep spreading my wild oats?'

'You’re a romantic and you know it, stop pulling the macho crap,' I say, half-smiling back.

'Okay, I’m ready,' Beth says, emerging from her room like a butterfly from a cocoon. 'Sorry, am I interrupting something?'

Will drops my hands.

'Of course not,' I say. 'What would you be interrupting?  We need to get going or we’ll be late.'

**

Beth gets steadily more nervous all the way there.  Five minutes
more and I think me and Will would’ve had to take an arm each and drag her in.  As it is, we merely flank her like bodyguards so she can’t turn and flee.

'Wha
t name please, sir?' the Maître d’ asks Will, even though I’m nearest to him.

'Knightl
ey,' Will says automatically.

I wait for the Maître
d’ to check his list and pronounce that we’re not on it.

'I’m sorry, sir, but we don’t appear to have your reservation.'

There we go.

'We’re actually part of the Carmichael party,' I say. 'Has Mr. Carmichael arrived yet?'

The Maître d’ pauses.  If he replies to Will, I may have to slap him.

'I’m afraid not, m
adam,' he says, fortunately for him. 'But I do have that name.  Please come with me.'

'Now I feel silly,' Will murmurs into my ear as we gently guide a rather pale Beth towards our table.

'Didn’t Natalie’s finishing classes cover this?' I murmur back.

Will looks a little sheepish. 'Probably.  I may have daydreamed a little in that lesson.'

'Best thing to do in school,' I whisper back and Will grins.

We settle down.  Beth starts playing with the drinks list.

'Nice place,' Will says, looking around.  Then he lowers his voice. 'Mel, I can’t remember, which fork do I use first?'

I look at them all and shrug. 'Does it matter?' I ask, at my normal volume. 'The object of a fork is to transfer food from the plate to your mouth.  It won’t affect the ultimate fate of the universe if you use the wrong one.'

Will squeezes my hand under the table. 'I love going out to dinner with you,' he says and I smile.

While Beth attempts to camouflage herself and Will scouts out the perimeter, I keep my eyes firmly on the door.  Of us three, I think I’m the most curious to meet David Carmichael.  Imagine, this absolutely stunning guy could walk through the door at any second and sweep Beth off her feet.  Then they'll get married and at the wedding he'll thank m
e profusely and tell everyone 'It's all because of Mel.'.

I knew this was a good idea.

'Beth, it’s going to be fine,' I hear Will say comfortingly. 'You’ve got me and Mel here, so you don’t even have to carry the conversation on your own.  And I’m sure this guy will be nice and normal and we’ll all have a great time.'

Beth’s smile is less watery than it is flat, diluted lemonadery, given its usual sweetness.