The Single Girl's To-Do List (10 page)

‘Done and done.’ Em started tapping away at the keyboard.

It was one thing for him to want to break up with me; it was another thing for him to tell the entire internet. It was just so final, so public. Surely I should be allowed to tell people in my own time? Now 417 people had all been told that I’d been dumped without my knowledge. I hadn’t even told my mum. Bloody Facebook – and to think I’d enjoyed
The Social Network
. Clearly Mark Zuckerberg was the devil. Why was there no official rule about this? Or at least an episode of
Sex and the City
? There was an episode about what to do when your boyfriend has skid-marks; there should definitely be one about this. It’s not as if they achieved anything else in the second movie – surely ten minutes could have been spent clarifying what happens when your boyfriend tells the entire internet that he’s finished with you. Carrie Bradshaw, you selfish cow.

‘What can we do?’ Matthew asked softly.

It took me a moment to realize that the strange raspy sound I could hear was my own breathing.

‘Not a lot anyone can do, is there?’ I bit my lip. ‘I’m just going to have to get on with things.’ One more swig. ‘And get drunk.’

Forty-eight hours ago I’d been a blonde with a boyfriend. Now I was a redhead with a drinking problem. By Saturday, I was set to be a bald smackhead.

Amazing.

By the time I’d calmed down, Emelie had removed any and all traces of Simon from my computer. Matthew had blocked his number from my mobile and I was drunk. Em had said I needed to build up my alcohol tolerance.

‘I need to go to bed,’ I announced, halfway into the third episode of
Come Dine with Me
. ‘I have work in the morning.’

‘Me too.’ Em rubbed her forehead, looking a little the worse for wear. She’d really gone above and beyond and joined me in the Jack Daniel’s fest. ‘I have a meeting. Somewhere. About Kitty Kitty lunchboxes. I really should go home and get some clothes.’

Matthew was reading text messages on his phone and pulling a concerned face. I knew better than to ask who they were from and what they were about. I rarely ever felt better for the graphic detail he was happy to share.

It hadn’t even occurred to me that Emelie hadn’t actually left my side since Saturday morning. Matthew as well. If I hadn’t been feeling so shit, I’d be feeling pretty lucky.

‘You don’t have to stay, either of you.’ I barrelled into her, face first, with a massive hug. ‘I’ll be fine.’

‘I don’t have work – if she’s leaving, I’m staying.’ Matthew looked at me, looked at his phone and then back at me. ‘You’re stuck with me tonight.’

‘I do love you.’ I clambered across Em to give him a hug all of his own. ‘You’re both amazing.’

‘True,’ he said, ruffling my hair. ‘It’s definitely bedtime for you though, red.’

‘I have red hair,’ I said, rolling off his lap into a graceful pile on the floor. ‘It’s pretty.’

‘And tomorrow you’re going to have a hangover.’ He picked me up and carried me off into the bedroom. If only he were my lovely boyfriend and not a giant homosexual. Sob. ‘What time do you need to get up?’

‘Dan’s collecting me at ten,’ I said with a hiccup. ‘S’fine.’

‘I’ll get you up at nine then.’ He deposited me on the bed and kissed me on the forehead. ‘See you in the morning.’

‘Night,’ I whispered to the empty room. All I wanted to do was sleep. Sleep and have the room stop spinning. I rolled onto my front and shoved my face into the pillow. My fingers found the soft edges of Simon’s abandoned T-shirt and curled around it, holding on tight. This would be the first night I was actually sleeping alone. I mean, Simon hadn’t been in my bed before Friday for weeks, but he hadn’t moved out. His things were there even if he wasn’t. I’d never felt alone. The bed had never felt so big and cold and empty. These were the things I was going to have to get used to. Going to bed alone. Getting up alone. Remembering to buy loo roll because no one else would. All my single friends complained about these things endlessly but I’d never given them a second thought. Food shopping stopped being a trolley full of ingredients just waiting to become a wonderful shared meal, and instead became an embarrassing Ben & Jerry’s, Lean Cuisine for one basket full of shame. There was no one to drive you to the doctor’s. You missed endless movies because you had no one to go with. Not that singledom had slowed Simon’s movie-going habits down.

Accepting that sleep wasn’t coming any time soon, I turned on the bedside light and grabbed my handbag from its home on the back of the bedroom door. The bag had been my mum’s in the Eighties. It was electric blue, slouchy leather with an endless number of pockets and ridiculously long shoulder strap that meant it bounced around my knees when I walked. Emelie hated it. Matthew once referred to it as a transsexual horse’s nosebag. I loved it. I had ever since my dad had given it to my mum for Christmas when I was four. It had gone in the loft after the divorce, along with everything else that meant bad memories, but she’d finally handed it over two years ago during an epic clear-out and I hadn’t let it out of my sight since. It might have helped if my sight had been a bit clearer at that exact moment. I swung the bag off its peg with more momentum than necessary, succeeding in not only getting the bag free but also knocking myself in the nose and flat on my back across the bed into the bargain. I should probably stop carrying around three different books in there when I blatantly wasn’t reading any of them.

‘Bugger,’ I muttered, pressing my palm against my eye.

The pain slipped away quickly, either because it wasn’t as bad a knock as I thought or because I’d drunk half a bottle of bourbon – either way, I opened my eye and peered inside my bag. Inside, safely tucked away in one of the many zippered pockets, was my list. As far as I could tell, I had two options. I could lie here in the dark, drunk and depressed, and ultimately cry myself to sleep, or I could remind myself that I wasn’t a hopeless, boring loser. Or, at least, that I didn’t have to be.

There was something a little sordid about changing your life based on notes scribbled on a wine-stained napkin but, right at this second, it was either Simon’s T-shirt or Rachel’s list. And, to be fair, I’d had my life changed for me already. This was just a case of taking control. Today the hair, tomorrow the world.

I took my phone from the nightstand and quickly snapped a photo of myself in all my red-haired glory. God bless the iPhone 4 and its frontal camera. Why was I even so upset? Hadn’t I cut off my hair today? Hadn’t I coloured it red? Hadn’t I called Simon without breaking down and begging him to come back to me? I wasn’t boring. I wasn’t whatever he thought I was. With one last hiccup, I pulled Simon’s T-shirt out from under the pillow and tossed it to the end of the bed. Tomorrow, it was going in the bin with all the rest of the rubbish. Clutching the list to my chest, I lay back and closed my eyes. I’d fall asleep eventually, I just had to lie here and …

‘Come on, Red, get up.’

Being violently shaken by a gay man was never one of my favourite ways to wake up on a Monday morning, let alone when I’d consumed half a bottle of Jack Daniel’s the night before.

‘No, Nana needs her rest,’ I groaned, pulling a pillow over my face. ‘Jesus Christ, my head hurts.’

I prised open one eye to see a man’s hand setting a mug of tea down by my face. Trying to open the other eye only resulted in a shooting pain all the way down my cheekbone. And I was fairly certain there was some drool. Definitely a little drool.

‘Oh. My. God.’

‘Yeah,’ Matthew said slowly. ‘You might want to have a shower and, I don’t know, put on all your make-up before you leave the house.’

‘I never wear make-up for work,’ I protested, trying to sip the tea without making the throbbing in my eye socket any worse.

‘I know,’ he replied in the same voice. ‘Little bit of cover up here maybe.’

He reached out and poked my face.

‘Shit!’ I wailed, spilling the tea all over the floor.

‘What did you do to yourself last night?’ Matthew pulled back one of the curtains to get a better look at my eye. Not that there was a shortage of offensively cheery sunshine in the first place. ‘Looks like you snuck out to Fight Club.’

‘I don’t know, hit myself with my bag,’ I groaned, trying to turn over on to my back but feeling like an upturned cockroach. No, a cockroach was too good for how I felt. Maybe if someone had stood on that cockroach with a Doc Marten boot and pulled three of its legs off before kicking it across the room. And this was why I never drank whiskey. ‘What time is it?’

‘Just after nine?’ He squinted at the clock on my phone. ‘You’ve got an hour.’

‘But I need to sleep.’ I tried to sit up too quickly and got a wave of nausea for my trouble. Back down, Rachel. ‘Or be sick. And then sleep.’

‘Want me to call in sick? You know you get a couple of freebies in this sitch.’

I tried to imagine Dan’s reaction to my pulling a sickie an hour before the shoot was due to start. If he didn’t come round here and kill me, my agent surely would.

‘No, I have to go.’ My stomach churned promisingly as I writhed around onto my back. ‘Did Em get home OK?’

‘Em didn’t get home, she’s on the sofa,’ he replied. ‘It’s not pretty. I’m cutting you both off the whiskey.’

‘Doesn’t she have a meeting?’ Bed was so lovely. Why couldn’t we all just live in bed? Just because it hadn’t really worked out for John Lennon didn’t mean the idea wasn’t worth revisiting.

‘Oh, she’s up,’ Matthew said with a smile. ‘She’s been up most of the night. I recommend that you try not to breathe on your way through the living room. Or use your eyes. Or make any noise. In fact, it might be worth going outside and breaking in through the back window.’

With a sour expression, I rolled off the bed and into the living room, immediately regretting my decision.

‘Oh, Emelie.’ I couldn’t quite believe the sight on my sofa. Her long curly hair was a tangled mess and her face was actually grey. I chose not to look in the bucket tucked away round the corner.

‘Oh god,’ Em actually put her hand up to her mouth. ‘You look like shit.’

That, coming from her?

‘Have you seen yourself?’ I asked. ‘Pot. Kettle. Black. Look into it.’

‘I’ve banished all reflective surfaces.’ She closed her eyes and pointed towards the hot pink throw she’d tossed over the mirror above the fireplace. ‘Don’t make too much noise. Or, you know, any. I don’t want to have to kill you.’

‘Understood.’

Pinballing from wall to wall, I thrust myself forward towards the bathroom. Maybe I should have opted for the no-mirror too. There wasn’t a lot of time to do anything with myself: Dan was supposed to be picking me up in less than an hour. I gently washed my face and then set to covering up the bruise under my eye. It wasn’t too bad. After a couple of minutes with my civilian make-up kit – some Laura Mercier Secret Camouflage, a dab of Touche Éclat and far too much Nars Orgasm blush to perk up my deathly pallor – and I was passable. At least I hadn’t had to bust out the hard stuff, no face and body foundation necessary. I did not look good, but at least I didn’t look as though I’d been punched in the face and then spent all night awake, drinking whiskey.

‘Fuck me,’ Dan said, staring straight at me and not even slightly at the road. He’d arrived dead on the dot of ten and, so far, it was all I could do not to puke in his car. ‘What happened to you?’

‘I cut my hair, I dyed my hair and I got drunk,’ I burbled, leaning into the cool glass of the window, trying to maintain short, shallow breaths. ‘Next?’

‘It’s just, you know, a new look,’ he pointed out. ‘Not that it’s not good. Who did it?’

‘Tina Morgan,’ I replied. ‘It took three and a half hours of Tina Morgan.’

‘That’s weird.’ He was still paying slightly more attention to my hair than I would like given that we were in a moving vehicle. ‘She left me the most bizarre voicemail yesterday. Seriously, like, obscene.’

I didn’t have the energy to laugh but I did force out a smirk. ‘I think she likes you.’

‘Well, she’s not really my type,’ he replied, looking out through the windshield just long enough to hurl abuse at the Ford Mondeo in front.

‘Not everyone can be a supermodel, Daniel,’ I said, closing my eyes behind my giant Aviators. It couldn’t be much further. It couldn’t be much further.

‘What makes you say that?’ he asked.

‘Because you’re shagging Ana?’ I waited for a cheeky shrug or sarky comment but it didn’t come. In fact he didn’t say anything.

‘Because you flirt with every single model on every single shoot?’

We drove in silence for a few minutes. Happily, I was too hungover to feel awkward.

‘Flirting with the models is part of the job,’ he said eventually. ‘There’s nothing to it; it’s just on-set banter.’

‘And off-set shagging,’ I added.

We paused at traffic lights and he turned in his seat to face me. ‘Who exactly am I meant to have shagged?’

‘Aside from Ana?’ I challenged.

‘Aside from Ana,’ he replied.

‘So you are seeing her then?’

Another long pause, another set of traffic lights. Driving through London really was an arse-ache.

He put the handbrake on and stretched one arm out of the window, the other out behind my headrest. ‘What if I am?’

‘What if you are?’ I said, staring at the road ahead. Well, there went my easy date for dad’s wedding. Arses.

‘You’re always bouncing around, telling everyone how wonderful it is to have a boyfriend.’ He pulled off as the lights changed. ‘Ooh, me and Simon are going to Croatia; ooh, me and Simon are decorating the spare room; oh no, I couldn’t possibly come out for drinks, I have to get home to Simon.’

I had to say, I did not care for his impression of me.

‘Do I really do that?’ I was actually fairly certain I didn’t say ‘ooh’ half as often.

Dan shrugged and pushed his curly brown hair out of his eyes. ‘I don’t know. You must or I wouldn’t say it, would I?’

‘Well, no need to worry about that any more,’ I muttered into the window. Why weren’t we there yet? I just wanted to get through the day, go home and look at my list. I had thought maybe today was an ‘angry letter’ day, but perhaps it was more of a ‘breaking the law’ sort of a Monday. Putting a photographer through his own windscreen face first was illegal, wasn’t it?

‘Dumped you, has he?’ Dan laughed.

‘Yes,’ I said simply. ‘Don’t you read Facebook?’

Dan let out a noise that sounded suspiciously like someone had kicked a seal in the face. I turned a tiny bit in my seat to take a look at him. I’d never, ever seen that man look more uncomfortable. And given that I’d seen him shooting several extraordinarily homoerotic D&G underwear campaigns, that was quite the statement.

He looked at me, staring through the darkened lenses of my glasses for just a second too long.

‘What?’ I asked. I would have shrugged for effect but I definitely would have vommed on him.

‘Nothing.’

He looked away and turned the radio on. I closed my eyes and concentrated on remaining vomit-free for the rest of the journey.

Against all laws of god and man, I managed not to throw up in the car and Dan managed to get us to the studio on time. Far more predictably, Ana was, as always, late, and after our fun in-car conversations, two minutes’ peace was wonderful. But not nearly long enough.

‘Raquel!’

Before I’d even had time to crack out the Vita Coco, all six feet of supermodel blew into the studio, ignoring all of the lackeys and hangers-on who were paid to tolerate her, and flew right at me. Her perfume was almost enough to push me right over the edge – supermodels still wore Angel? As she got closer, I stopped being able to smell it and actually began to taste it. And if she hugged me any tighter, my children would be born smelling of it.

‘Oh, honey, I feel a-maze-ing this morning.’ She released her vice-like grip, shook her coat off onto the floor and dropped into my chair. Why had I designed the make-up as a neutral lip and a smoky eye? There was absolutely no need for her to shut up. Aside from it being polite but, obviously, social graces had passed this one by. ‘So you know I was seeing that guy? The one with all the money? Well, I decided I couldn’t be arsed with him any more, called him Friday night to tell him we’re over and he shows up at my flat with this!’

She thrust her hand into my face, almost taking my eye out with an offensively large rock: a large, sparkly, clear diamond mounted on an equally sparkly, diamond-encrusted band. It took me a couple of minutes to focus on it for fear of being blinded. I drew back and switched my attention from the giant engagement ring to her ridiculously beautiful face.

Now was it possible to choke someone to death with a foundation sponge?

‘Of course, I told him I’m not marrying him because, you know, I’m maybe in love with someone else.’ She gave me a knowing look and then craned her neck around to sigh loudly in Dan’s general direction. ‘But he would not take it back. Idiot. But it’s so pretty. What do you think?’

I had nothing. I opened my mouth a couple of times and closed it again. No snappy comebacks, no congratulations, not even an angry rant. I was dry. All those years of working on zoning out and, finally, my brain was doing it automatically. A-maze-ing.

‘Hey Ana, can I please get you on the bed to block out some shots?’ Dan placed an arm in the middle of her back and guided her away.

‘You know you can get me on a bed to do anything,’ she purred at Dan before casting me a filthy look. First-class flirt she might be, but she was still pissed off she was having to block out her own shots and I could tell she somehow knew this was my fault, even if she wasn’t sure how.

‘Thank you,’ I mouthed at Dan, sitting myself in the make-up chair. He nodded and turned the cameras on Ana, who was already tossing back her hair and contorting herself into positions entirely inappropriate for a multipack of white cotton hip-huggers.

Don’t let this get to you, I told myself; this is just how she is. It’s not as if I really want to tear off her eyelids with a Shu Uemura eyelash curler or anything. Except I sort of did. How could anyone want to marry her? And not just anyone, but someone who could afford to put on her finger a diamond big enough to host an episode of
Dancing on Ice
. Ana was beautiful but she was also a cheat, the world’s most fickle woman and – not to be a bitch but – she was also really, really stupid. I was loyal, faithful and not
that
stupid. I wouldn’t be challenging Stephen Hawking to a game of
Countdown
or anything, but I wasn’t a thicko. Still, I couldn’t even hold down a boyfriend who bought me a Nintendo Wii for Christmas. At least I could understand her and Dan: they were the male and female equivalents of each other. But imagine someone normal and rich wanting to marry her?

Trying not to freak out, I opened up my make-up case and concentrated on pulling out various bits and pieces. Primer, foundation, concealer, blusher, bronzer, highlighter … there was an awful lot of make-up involved in making a girl look like she was naturally beautiful, and today it was going to feel like awfully hard work.

Two cartons of Vita Coco, a Berocca and two ibuprofen later, I was feeling, if not looking, something like human, and Ana was back in the make-up chair, consider ably more subdued. She dropped her chin and looked at me as if I was a three-legged dog.

‘Dan says you’re sad,’ she said, sporting her ‘concerned’ face. ‘And that I’m not supposed to ask you about it.’

I gave her a half-smile, pushed back her hair and started cleansing as gently as possible given my limited coordination.

‘So why are you sad?’ she asked after half a second.

‘I broke up with my boyfriend,’ I said, methodically sweeping at her face with a cotton-wool pad.

‘Is that why you’re wearing a wig?’

God, Allah, Buddha, Angelina Jolie and all the saints, someone give me the strength not to punch this woman in the face.

‘It’s not a wig, it’s my hair.’

‘Ohhh.’ She tugged on a strand just to make sure while a very high-pitched squeal went off in my brain. ‘Well, that sucks. And I’m here waving my beautiful, beautiful ring in your face. I’m so dumb.’

‘You weren’t to know.’ I calmly moved on to moisturizer. And failed to correct her.

‘It is definitely over?’ She peeped at me with one eye.

‘It is.’

‘Good,’ she clapped her hands together and giggled. Faintly heartless but – as I’d already established – she wasn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer.

‘You were with that guy for way too long,’ she explained, catching my wrists in her hands. ‘I have so many boyfriends for you. Rich ones. Or hot ones. I am not sure if there are any hot, rich ones who would want … be your type. Which do you prefer?’

I breathed out and reminded myself how incredibly in control I was.

‘Ana, leave it.’

‘No, really, you should just like, totally hook up with some random guy,’ she went on. ‘You’re not ugly or anything. Just let me call one of my guys. I’m a one-man gal from now on anyway. They’ll totally take you out if I ask them to, don’t worry. You need a really good seeing-to, that’s all.’