Kissing Frogs

by Tori Turnbull

  “Please, you’re the first girl who stayed for the whole date.” His voice rose in pitch and volume on each word. “I want you to be my girlfriend.” People stopped to point and stare at us, like we were street entertainers or idiots. A couple of tourists took photographs, and someone started recording it on his mobile.

  “Get up, Simon. Stop it!”

  “I love you.”

  I tried to juggle ten bunches of carnations, my purse, and my mobile phone, which I’d pulled out earlier when I thought I’d have to call a minicab firm. All whilst trying to pry myself free.

  “No, you don’t.”

  “I do. I do.”

  “You can’t be in love with someone you’ve barely met.” People edged closer so they could hear.

  The taxi driver beeped his horn impatiently.

  “It was love at first sight,” Simon said.

  If it was possible to pick the time and place of my death just by wishing it so, he’d be clinging to my corpse.

  “Argh. Help!” Only Simon hanging on to my legs stopped me tumbling to the ground as Stalker John ran past, snatching my handbag and disappearing off into the night.

  “No! Stop! Thief!” I watched my bag, purse, and credit cards disappear, unable to give chase because of my fat Romeo tether. A couple of people in the audience laughed. A few people clapped, clearly thinking my life was some sort of tragic street-art performance.

  Tears welled up and rolled down my cheeks. It was so humiliating. I’d had the most disappointing date of my life (and I’d had a lot of disappointments recently), and a fat blob was strangling my legs and sobbing his love for me at a volume that people in Scotland could probably hear. He’d spent my emergency taxi money on flowers, my bag, including my Underground pass, had been stolen, so I had no way of getting home, and I was going to have to call Mark to come and rescue me.

  I took a swing with my crappy flowers, venting my fury, beating Simon over the head with them repeatedly as he continued to wail his love. With all hope lost, I pressed number one on my speed dial.

  Mark answering tipped me over the edge.

  I was crying properly now, hysterical sobs of anger and self-pity. I could hardly force words out. “C-c-come and g-get me.”

  “What’s happened? KT, honey? Are you okay?”

  “N-n-no.”

  “What did the bastard do to you?” he snarled.

  “J-just come and g-get me. Please.”

  “Where are you?”

  * * * * *

  It took thirteen painfully long minutes for him to get to me.

  It felt like hours. He screeched to the curb in a squeal of brakes and burning rubber, leaping from the car before the engine cut.

  I knew how it looked. He’d never let me live this down. Red carnation heads littered the brick-paved street. I stood in the centre, several bouquets of stalks with a few broken and bedraggled heads in one hand, a fat, smelly man with a greasy comb-over – flapping in the wind – kneeling at my feet, clutching my legs and wailing like a baby as I rained curses down on him.

  Mark’s initial frantic fury vanished. He staggered back to lean against his car, took out his mobile phone, and took a picture.

  “Maaaaarkk.” Great, rolling waves of mirth escaped him in a deep belly laugh. “Get him off meeeee.” My wail spurred him into action.

  “Let go of her, you idiot.” Striding forward, Mark cut straight to the heart of the matter, grabbing a fistful of green jumper and hauling Romeo off me. I assisted, kicking myself loose from his sweaty hold (possibly harder than was actually required). Finally, I was free!

  Mark gripped my waist with one arm, steadying me against his side. After pressing a quick, hard kiss against my hair, he whispered, “You scared me, KT.” He gently pushed me towards his car. “Get in the car before you freeze.”

  I stumbled, taking a shaky step without his support. He released Simon, leaving him on his knees on the pavement, wailing.

  “Be a man, Romeo, and get up!”

  “You don’t understand. I love her,” Simon said.

  “I understand completely. But that’s no excuse for acting like an idiot. Now get up and go home.”

  I clambered into the back of the car, to the sound of applause and catcalls from my audience. Mark swung into the driver’s seat. Barbie sat in the front, blonde hair in a perfect twist, posture stiff, staring straight ahead, radiating frigid disapproval. I could see my own – much less serene – face reflected in the driver’s mirror. My eyes were red-rimmed, though I finally had the tears under control, my cheeks were mascara-streaked and blotchy, and my hair was a tangled mess.

  I shivered. Mark cranked up the heating, and the mouldering smell of Simon began to rise from my dress.

  “Good to see you again, Cindy.” Yes, I was recycling the name in my forced acknowledgement, but I was traumatised. If there was one person worse than Mark to witness my total mortification, it would have to be perfect Barbie.

  “Barbie,” she said through clenched teeth.

  “How’s Ken doing?” I quipped. Who knew I could be so funny under such awful circumstances?

  “That’s mature and original,” she said. “Did you think of it all by yourself, or did your friend out there help? I’m surprised you cut your date short. It looked like the two of you would have a lot in common. From what I saw, he looked the type to live in his mother’s basement and struggle to get a date too.” She continued before I had a chance to think of a witty response. “Nice scent, by the way, suits you. Parfum D’Foist, isn’t it?”

  Mark laughed. “Put the claws away and behave, girls.”

  Uh-oh! Schoolboy error. I didn’t have to wait long for the fallout.

  “I am not a girl.” Barbie turned on him. “So, don’t patronise me. It’s her fault.” A perfectly manicured finger jabbed in my direction. “I don’t know why she’s getting snippy at me. I think I’ve been perfectly reasonable throughout this. I gave up my date so we could come and get her… I don’t see why she couldn’t have got a taxi.”

  He sighed, a put-upon boyfriend sigh. “Barbie has a point. What happened to your emergency taxi money?”

  “Simon spent it.” I slapped the remains of my horrid flowers on the seat. The last few heads fell off. A couple bounced into the front of the car.

  “Why on earth would you let him spend your money on weeds?” Pure disdain laced Barbie’s voice.

  “I thought you hated carnations.” Mark glanced in the rear mirror. “What happened?”

  “I don’t want to talk about it.” I sniffed.

  “You don’t want to talk about it? This is clearly going to be a KT classic. Spill. You owe me. I–” Barbie tensed, and he tried again. “We broke our date early to rescue you.”

  “You took a photo,” I said.

  “I’ll delete it.”

  “Without making a backup or posting it anywhere?”

  His lips twitched. “I can’t make any promises, but the more you tell me, the more likely it is the decision will go in your favour.”

  Bastard.

  I précised as much as possible, but we were still turning off Millbank Road and onto Grosvenor Road before I started to wind down. “And I just don’t understand why it went so wrong. I took your advice and said no when he asked if we could see each other again.”

  He stopped laughing long enough to say, “You should’ve said maybe in a no tone of voice.” I snarled in frustration. “Then said you’d call him and not give him your phone number and not ask for his. You’ve got to learn to read them, KT. This guy obviously couldn’t handle the truth.”

  “Where’s Stalker John when you need him?” Barbie added.

  “Halfway to St James’s with my favourite handbag,” I whined. “It’s not funny,” I snapped as they both laughed. “All the time I was… I was…”

  “Hog-tied?” Barbie’s tone was sugar sweet.

  “Barbie,” Mark said.

  “What? I was only making an observation. You’re the one wh
o drew comparisons between Kate and a pig.”

  “That’s enough, Barbie.” His tone was cold.

  She ignored him. “I’m sure Kate will have learnt a valuable lesson from tonight and won’t make the mistake of making a date with a stranger next time she’s drunk.”

  “You told her?” I glared at Mark in the mirror, feeling betrayed. “Did you show her my profile photo, too?”

  Barbie snorted delicately. He shrugged and turned on the radio, a typical avoidance gesture, cringing when he realised I’d fiddled with the setting last time I was in the car. Magic FM blared out a pop classic, Avril Lavigne’s “Girlfriend”. So appropriate. I picked up the tune instantly and, of course, sang along.

  “You know that song has a tune, don’t you?”

  Bitch. “Thanks for the tip, Babs, but I prefer to listen to the message behind the lyrics.”

  “You want to be my girlfriend?” Mark teased, earning another frigid glare from Barbie.

  “It’s more that I don’t like yours.” Now that he mentioned it though… I had a funny sinking sensation in my belly, like the feeling when I looked up from Romeo and Mark was there, big, solid, and dependable. Breath-taking. It was just a side effect of another crappy date, right?

  No way was I thinking of Mark that way, in a you man, me woman-type way. He was my almost arch-nemesis, for Christ’s sake. Only he didn’t seem that bad right now.

  “Come on, KT. Barbie’s being very understanding about this.” And he’d no doubt pay for their broken date later.

  “I’m being more than understanding.” She turned on him. I listened, unabashed, as she whispered, “I don’t see why our date had to be ruined.”

  Or maybe he’d pay now.

  “I couldn’t leave her stranded with some crazy guy in the middle of the night, Barbie.”

  “She’s a big girl. She can look after herself. I don’t understand why you spend all your time chasing around after her, watching her dates, fixing her place up, picking her up.”

  “She’s practically family,” he said. Now that it was convenient for him, I was suddenly family.

  “No, she’s not. She’s absolutely no relation to you whatsoever.”

  For once, Barbie was right. He wouldn’t kiss his sister with tongue like he had me last night.

  Chapter 15

  When they made the alphabet, they should have put U and I together.

  “Good morning,” I singsonged the next day, as Mark shuffled into the kitchen, hair sticking up in odd directions, wearing grey jogging pants and a t-shirt that looked like he’d slept in it.

  “Not really,” he muttered, eyeing me suspiciously, as if it was abnormal for me to be chirpy in the morning. He glanced at the clock, saw it was afternoon, and realisation dawned… Sarcasm.

  I continued to watch him from my stool at the breakfast counter. He seemed a bit moody and off. “Are you still sulking over having to pick me up last night? I said thank you, and you did tell me to call in an emergency.”

  He downed a couple of aspirin with a cup of strong black coffee. The whisky nightcap he was having when I went to bed last night, whilst he worked on editing his book, obviously didn’t seem like such a good idea this morning.

  “Not everything is about you, Kate.”

  “Ohhhkaaay.” He was calling me Kate, not KT. So he was pissed off with me. Or maybe it was because of his hangover. I decided not to take it personally and continued reading the paper. He clearly hadn’t forgiven me for the tongue bashing he endured from Malibu Stacey all the way back in the car last night. She’d been icy when he dropped me off before taking her home.

  “What are you doing?” he asked grudgingly. I hid a smile. He was all moody and surly when I spoke to him, sidling up, asking questions and poking at things when I ignored him.

  “I’m reading the Evening Standard lonely hearts column.”

  “Why?”

  “Checking out my next weirdo – ah, sorry, date, of course.”

  He did the eyebrow raise. I didn’t know why he was surprised. He was the one who’d forced me into this, and once I’ve made a promise, however shitty (even when I’m blackmailed), I stick to it.

  “Hey!”

  Sinking down onto a barstool, he grabbed the newspaper, scanning the column. “You’re awfully perky, considering last night.”

  “Not really.” I shrugged, taking a sip of his coffee, ignoring his glare of possession. “Fair trade. My paper, your coffee. It needs way more sugar, by the way. Anyway, I’ve been thinking, last night I had the worst date ever. Nothing and no one could beat a night out with Romeo.” I leant across the breakfast bar and heaped another spoon of sugar into my…his…our coffee. “I survived. Things can only get better from here, no matter how weird they are.” He grunted, like he didn’t care about my positive trajectory. “Don’t get me wrong, I won’t be going back online anytime soon. I unsubscribed from Pair-Up this morning.”

  He gave no sign of hearing a word I said. His focus didn’t move from the paper. “Which of these losers did you single out?” I pointed to an ad. He made a scoffing sound and began reading. “Adventurer, tall, slim, fighting fit, presentable, articulate, world-travelled. Loves: sunshine, wine, intellectual conversation. Desires: gorgeous, glamorous, audacious, praiseworthy lady. Any location. It sounds like he raided a thesaurus.”

  I frowned. “I didn’t think it sounded too bad.”

  He plucked the blue pen out of my hand and put a large cross through the advert I’d circled. “He’s self-obsessed.”

  “How can you tell that from a twenty-word newspaper advert?”

  “He spent fourteen words talking about himself and five – let’s call it six – words describing the kind of woman he wanted, and one of those words was desires, as in what he desires from a woman. Therefore, technically, it’s about him and should be added to the fourteen words. Besides, fighting fit? Please, I have a mental image of Rowan Atkinson as Mr Bean in Lycra.”

  If looks could kill, we wouldn’t be sharing the coffee. “You think you’re so smart.”

  “I don’t think I’m smart. I know I am. Harvard, honey.”

  “Forget the fake American drawl. It does nothing for you. You still sound like an idiot.” As always, I came out of our arguments sounding immature and jealous. “Maybe he wasn’t perfect, but there are others.”

  “Sure there are. How do you fancy a Model/Artist, six foot one, thirty-something, white, looking for a smart, stunning babe who doesn’t take life too seriously. Dude.”

  “He did not write dude.” I grabbed the paper, swivelling it around so I could read it. Sigh. Okay, so he had.

  Mark snagged his coffee cup back, doing the irritating eyebrow thing when I made a sound of displeasure. He grimaced at the sweetness.

  “I was thinking more along the lines of Presentable, considerate male, caring, tactile, solvent, n/s, thirty, many interests, WLTM warm-hearted, intelligent, positive lady with GSOH. Twenty-five to thirty-five. London/Essex.”

  Mark rubbed his bloodshot eyes. “I thought you’d have given up by now, especially after last night.”

  Why was he complaining? There was no chance he was going to be on local news with Simon clinging to him crying. Memories of my own hangover were close enough that I cut him some slack and changed the subject, continuing to skim the paper, crossing or circling adverts as we spoke. “So, how’s Gollum? Did she get over her snit?”

  “Her name is Barbie, KT. Anyone would think you’re jealous with your constant name-calling and sniping.”

  “Why would I be jealous?” I said, deliberately misunderstanding. “Gollum does nothing for me.”

  “It’s time to give up when you have to recycle your quips.” He sighed, turning his cup around and around on the counter. “The doll cracks I could get – I mean Barbie, Cindy.” He shrugged. “It was childish, but I could see how it worked. As far as the whole Gollum thing goes, you’re way off.”

  “Of course I am.” I put enough sarcasm in my tone to
make sure he knew I didn’t believe a word of it. “There’s nothing in the least bit similar about Babs and a twisted creature that’s obsessed with getting a ring. Given the way she was nagging and cold-shouldering you in the car last night whilst you yes-ed and no-ed and tried to explain yourself, I’ll revise my earlier estimate and say you’ll be engaged before the month is out.”

  “Not going to happen.”

  “I guess we’ll just have to wait and see, Ken. Where is the Cabbage Patch Kid, anyway? I thought you were going to choose fabric for her living room curtains this weekend.”

  He looked miserable. “She dumped me.”

  “She dumped you? She… ah, Barbie, dumped you?” I stared at him for a solid, silent minute, then realised he wasn’t going to add a punch line.

  He wasn’t joking. Barbie had dumped Mark.

  Why?

  “I’m sorry.”

  “No, you’re not.”

  True. I hated the bitch. I smiled without remorse and refilled his coffee cup, popping another couple of painkillers from the foil tray and handing them to him, ponytail swinging as I leapt back onto my stool.

  “You’re right.” I beamed at him. “You’re better off without the plastic cow. So, what did she say?”

  He stared at me, frowning. I couldn’t have masked my joy that he was rid of her on pain of death. He sighed. “She said, ‘It’s not me, it’s you.’”

  That sounded exactly like something the narcissistic bitch would say. “An interesting twist on the man’s excuse, it’s not you, it’s me. So, did she go into detail?”

  Mark wasn’t without his faults, but everyone knew the breaker-upper had to take the blame for the end of a relationship, unless there was abuse or cheating involved. It was only polite.

  There must have been more to it. I looked him over wonderingly – his eyes were a bit red, and he wasn’t at his best today. Usually, he was pretty hot. Barbie probably got fed up with him always being right. That was really annoying. Unless… Maybe it was something else… My eyes came to a stop at crotch level. “What’s wrong with you?”