Kissing Frogs

by Tori Turnbull

  I sniffed. “Thanks.”

  “You’re a gorgeous girl. We all have our bad days.” Penny spotted the tears and went for bracing comfort to keep things on track. “The camera can catch you from a bad angle, and the next thing you know it’s on magazines–”

  “Or station advertising screens.” Pete chuckled. He turned to my mother. “Why did you choose that picture, Muriel? It’s a bit–”

  I closed my eyes, leaning my head against the back of the sofa, and tried to pretend I was somewhere else.

  “I really don’t see why everyone’s so negative about it,” Mum said. “I like that picture. I think she looks really nice with her hair pulled back off her face, hardworking, intelligent, and polite.” Mum sipped from a cup of tea, enjoying her gossip. I bit my tongue, tucking myself into the corner of the sofa, praying no one would notice me if I said nothing.

  “You’re an attractive girl, intelligent, as your mother says. You’re an accountant, aren’t you, Kate?” Pete asked. I nodded warily. “Why do you think you can’t get a man?” Pete clearly wasn’t as nice as I’d always thought. My eyes shot daggers. I let the silence drag. I didn’t have to open my mouth and add to my humiliation.

  Penny jumped in to fill the dead air. “Maybe it’s like the song says: a good man these days is hard to find.” I smiled gratefully. “Tell us about some of the dates you’ve been on. What were the highlights?”

  “More like lowlights,” Mum muttered. I could see Mark sniggering. Clipboard girl leant against him to whisper in his ear.

  “That bad?” Penny asked.

  I gave in gracelessly. “I wouldn’t recommend advertising in the Underground for dates.”

  “But you must have had hundreds of responses.”

  “Not as many as you would think.” I wasn’t going to admit to single figures the one and only time I’d bothered to listen to my messages, before I deleted the message account. “By the time I’d weeded out the crank calls, lesbians, children, and weirdos” – I shrugged – “I was left taking out a restraining order.”

  “Oh dear,” Penny said. She and Pete looked at each other and chuckled. “What happened?”

  “He knew everything about me. He follows me around, peeks in windows, and stole my handbag. It’s really not funny,” I snapped as everyone on set laughed.

  “R-rumour has it you’ve b-branched out and are trying other avenues to get dates.” Pete had pulled himself together enough to continue.

  I frowned at Mark, who was clearly sharing secrets with clipboard woman, who was obviously passing them on to Penny and Pete via their earpieces. Bastard.

  I said through clenched teeth, “I agreed, under duress, that I’d make a concerted two-month effort to date and try to find a boyfriend, and I’m sticking by that.”

  “Where are you meeting all these men?” Penny asked.

  “She’s been speed-dating, on the internet, through newspaper lonely hearts columns,” Mum said enthusiastically.

  “How did the speed dating go? Did you meet anyone there?”

  “I met a lot of people,” I replied. It wasn’t a lie, exactly. I did meet lots of people.

  “Anyone that you’ll be seeing again?”

  “No, ah…” How could I spin this? “Well, with speed dating, there were so many rumours about why I was both advertising in the Underground and attending speed dating that they kind of got in the way of my meeting anyone.”

  “Rumours? What were they?” Penny asked.

  “Well, there was the one where I was pregnant and looking for a father for my baby, or my favourite: a rich and eccentric relative had died and left me everything in their will, under the condition I married within a very short period of time.” Penny frowned. “Needless to say, it didn’t go anywhere.” I avoided the fact they’d kicked me out. “I did meet a guy who I could have been friends with.”

  “I didn’t spend my pension lump sum for you to make another male friend,” Mum said. “I want you to get married. Have children.”

  “What’s been the best way of meeting men so far?” Penny asked.

  “Probably the newspapers,” I said. “I went on three dates in one day last weekend, and they were all from lonely hearts adverts.”

  “Anyone special?”

  “I made great friend” – I thought of Adam – “and there was one that might have worked, but as I mentioned earlier, I have a bit of a stalker problem, and Chris, the guy, wasn’t interested in the complication. It’s not fun to have someone constantly turning up and making scenes everywhere you go.”

  “Hmm. And the worst?” Pete asked.

  “That’s more difficult. As you so kindly alluded in your introduction” – I hoped he got the sarcasm – “people think I’m desperate. They take liberties.” I pulled a face. “I guess it would be toss-up between the Underground advert and internet dating. No, I take it back. The internet’s definitely the worst. At least if the picture had been better in the Underground, I might have had a chance. The internet’s just the land of the liar.”

  “I can tell there is another story here,” Pete said. “I just wish we had more time so we could explore this further.”

  “We’ve got a couple of minutes yet,” Penny added (I used to like Penny). “Tell us what happened, Kate?”

  The silence stretched. I really didn’t want to share it with an audience of millions, but it wasn’t like I had any pride left to protect. “He lied about being educated, employed, and owning a home. He smelt. His hair was greasy. He sang ‘I Have Nothing’ to me during the film, thinking it was ‘Queen of the Night’, then talked loudly on his mobile phone… to his mother.” I took a deep breath as Penny and Pete both stared, engrossed. “He spent all my emergency taxi money on supermarket carnations, which he then gave to me as a gift, even though I’d paid for them. He made a scene in the middle of the street when I said I didn’t want to see him again.” Penny gave a go-on look. I sighed. “He cried, fell to his knees, and hugged my legs, refusing to let me go, and then, when everyone was staring and taking photos and I was hitting him over the head with the crappy carnations and crying, my favourite handbag was stolen by my stalker.”

  “I think we have some video,” Pete said.

  What? No! I shot a murderous glare at Mark. He shrugged, shaking his head. I sank back into my chair, face burning up as Romeo and I appeared on screen, thanks to the wonders of technology and some shitty audience member with a mobile phone and no empathy.

  In the split second after the video ended, Mum turned to me. “What the heck was that?”

  “An example of my dating pool, Mum.”

  Pete and Penny looked at each other and burst out laughing.

  They laughed.

  And laughed.

  And laughed.

  People behind the scenes joined in, cameras shook, someone dropped a boom, and clipboard girl had to sit down on the floor. Penny was crying and holding on to Pete’s arm as she swiped at the tears.

  “It’s not funny, Kate.” Mum stared at me aghast.

  “I’m not laughing.” My tears were not of amusement. Mark gave me a chin up gesture.

  “So… s… so… h…h…” After a couple of false starts, Pete was the first to pull himself together. “What’s next, Kate?”

  “Well, I only have a couple of weeks left.” And then I was going to find a job on a remote and uninhabited island and hide there until God took mercy on me and I died.

  “What do you mean?” Penny took a couple of deep breaths, wiped her eyes, and let go of Pete’s arm. Her voice trembled and she refused to look at her co-host.

  “I agreed to make a concerted effort to get a date for two months. I only have two weeks left,” I explained.

  “Oh, not long, then,” Penny commented. “I have to say, you came along with a rather yummy-looking man today. What about him? Please, tell me your luck’s changing and he’s not your brother.”

  “It’s funny that you should say that, Penny. Mark is–”

 
Mark cleared his throat loudly and glared at me, shaking his head and mouthing not related in any way.

  Mum took advantage of my distraction. “He’s a friend of the family. He and Kate live together, but it’s not like that. He’s doing his best to try and find someone for her to go out with too.” She added mournfully, “But he’s not had any luck either.”

  “He is a hunk, though,” Penny said. “Have you ever thought of giving it a try?”

  My eyes sought out Mark. He was standing to attention, staring back at me, his raised eyebrow asking so many questions and annoying the hell out of me. I had a couple of questions myself, including: did kissing count as giving it a try? If it did, I’d already tried. Heat burned under my skin. The cameras zoomed in for a close-up.

  My mother unwittingly came to my rescue. “Kate and Mark? Dating?”

  Penny nodded. “They’re both single, aren’t they? They’re not related. They’re living together and they’re friends, so why not? Many people start off really successful relationships with much less than that. Look at him, Muriel. She couldn’t help but be attracted to him. He’s a hunk.”

  Mum seemed too stunned by the idea of Mark and I getting together to comment. Thank God for small mercies.

  Mark and I locked eyes. I had no idea what he was thinking, but I had to acknowledge Penny’s point: he was looking particularly hot today. His hair was getting longer, and curled slightly around his ears and neck. He was dressed casually in dark jeans that clung to his thick thighs and a navy t-shirt that stretched across his broad shoulders. Not that I was about to admit he was hot on live TV. I’d already been humiliated enough for one day.

  Pete took the hint and filled the dead air. “Oh, well, I’m sure we can do something to help. We have over a million viewers a day – some of them are single males, and our female viewers may have brothers or sons. Tell us what you are looking for, Kate, and we can put out an appeal.”

  Great, an appeal, like they did once a month for stray cats and dogs no one wanted to home.

  What was I looking for? Put on the spot, all I could think was “Not Romeo.” Pete and Penny went into another round of laughter.

  “I don’t blame you,” said, Penny recovering first. “Anything else?”

  Under pressure, I fell back on the description I’d used on my dating profile. “A man” – I wanted to get that straight – “who’s employed, single, and not a weirdo.”

  “Well, that all seems pretty do-able.” Penny smiled.

  “What about our cameraman, Joey?” Pete pointed into the dim just off set. I squinted, seeing a slender man with receding hair sticking up around his headset and glasses. Behind him, people darted about, silently shifting things, ushering people around. Most of the people off set wore black and carried clipboards or electrical equipment and other technical stuff – big, hairy booms on metal poles, massive cameras on different kinds of contraptions shooting different angles. “He’s a nice guy: solvent, got his own teeth. Come over here, Joey.”

  “He’s gay, Pete,” Penny said.

  Pete turned to her with a comical look of shock. “No. Really? Joey?”

  “Yes, really. You’ve met his boyfriend, David.”

  “I thought that was his brother!” Pete gave me an apologetic look. “I guess it’s not as easy as I thought setting you up, Kate.”

  “No, it’s not,” Mum agreed.

  Pete turned to the camera as clipboard girl made wind-it-up hand gestures and people started scuttling around one of the other conversational areas. “Viewers at home, you know where to find our details; they’re online and on screen now. If anyone is interested in going for a date with the lovely Kate, you can contact us and tell us why you would be a perfect candidate. We’ll filter applications down to one lucky person, arrange a date, and give you an update on another show.”

  Penny took over smoothly. “Still to come today, we talk selling up and moving to the sunshine. What’s the real cost of living abroad? But first, we’ll find out what to watch this week on Top TV.”

  The competition and voiceover came on screen and Pete and Penny thanked us before moving to the other seating area. Clipboard girl came to lead us off the set. “How did you like your fifteen minutes of fame there, KT?” I growled in response to Mark’s teasing.

  Mum said over her shoulder to Mark, “I can’t believe they tried to set the two of you up!” She made a scoffing sound. Mark’s eyes fixed on mine, glittering hotly. Mum continued to prattle on, oblivious. “I can’t wait to see what happens from the appeal. I bet there’ll be loads of men wanting to date you.”

  I fell into Mark’s hot gaze. Time stretched. There were sounds and movement around us, people and equipment hustling from one part of the studio to another. Penny and Pete talking to camera, but it all became muted, then disappeared. Everything in me slowed and focused on the man in front of me. On Mark. Blood roared in my ears, my heart hammered in my chest, and my breathing grew laboured. He seemed to expand to fill my senses as the outside world dimmed. His exhales became my inhales, which was impossible, given the distance between our mouths. My skin grew tight and prickly, uncomfortable. Deep inside, my womb pulsed, followed by a sinking, tingling heat that spread, causing a fine, trembling weakness to invade my limbs.

  “Jesus!” I stumbled, tripping over a bundle of wires, breaking his mental hold over me.

  What the fuck was that?

  I sucked in a desperate breath, as his hand shot out, holding me up. I stumbled free of his touch, staring straight ahead, breathing hard. I thought – no, was sure – that Mark and I had just skirted some sort of… moment.

  Chapter 19

  If you are what you eat, I could be you by morning.

  “This morning, Mum and Susan watched a recording of our appearance on Before Lunch

  .” It was their first get-together since the wedding, so the insults would have been running hot. “Susan had watched it live, but was keen to get the full enjoyment of critiquing it with Mum.”

  Mark hissed, then said, “I’m glad to have missed it.”

  Mum had been kind enough to give a summary of their overall critique: “Apparently, I could do with losing a few pounds.”

  Actually, she’d said, “Have you thought about getting your stomach stapled or a gastric band fitted, like all those fat, famous women do?”

  “And maybe, no men are interested in me because I’ve let myself go.” I sniffed, forcing the tears back. “I don’t know why I’m upset. It’s not like I was even looking for a man until you two blackmailed me into it… but now I’m un-datable… and fat.”

  Mark growled. “I love your mother, but she’s talking crap!”

  I twisted around from my place sitting on the back step looking out into the garden and graced him with a grateful – if watery – smile. He propped himself against the doorjamb, arms folded over his broad chest, eyes wandering over me.

  Great.

  That was just what I needed: Mark cataloguing all my faults.

  I hunched over, sinking down on the step, tugging my t-shirt over my belly and trying to make myself smaller. I couldn’t handle his brand of “wit” and honesty just now.

  “Okay, so you’re not skinny.”

  I huffed out my breath. What was the point in sucking in my stomach?

  “But it looks good on you. No guy wants a flat-chested stick when he can get… a… ah.” His words echoed in the night. I blinked with shock, a smile slowly spreading across my face. He liked my boobs.

  Go, girls!

  But still, my smile faltered. “I wobble when I walk.”

  “In all the right places.” He leered, waggling his eyebrows.

  “In some of the wrong ones, too.”

  “Not from where I’m standing. I like a woman with curves, something soft and warm to cuddle into. Seriously, you look great. No guy I know would turn you down.”

  “Thanks. I think.” I tugged the hem of my t-shirt up and wiped my tears, then picked up the plate on the decking
beside me. “Do you want to share my chocolate cake? You’re laughing at me again.”

  “I’d like to say I’m laughing with you, but it’s definitely at you.”

  I closed my eyes, savouring the rich, thick, sweet flavour of the gooey cake. This was good, better than good (I refused to think of calories or dimply thighs). I had a lifetime to regret eating the cake, after I’d finished enjoying it. “The problem with people telling me I need to diet is it makes me eat more.”

  He settled next to me, bringing the scent of pine with him. Tugging the spoon from my hand, he helped himself to a generous spoonful of dessert. “Hey! Go easy. It’s a spoon, not a shovel,” I said. He smiled through my death stare. “You’re walking on dangerous ground right now.”

  “What did I do?”

  “You came between me and my comfort food.”

  He looked surprised. “You offered to share.”

  “You were meant to say no! You’re not an idiot. At least, I didn’t think you were.”

  “Some people would say I’m doing you a favour. The more I eat, the less you eat, and I’m cheaper than that packaged diet shit in the back of the cupboard.”

  “Way more annoying, though.” He took another piece of cake. “How come an entire cake weighs less than a couple of pounds, but if I eat one slice, I put on more than four pounds?”

  He considered me over the spoon. “I’m guessing you’re not interested in hearing a rational scientific answer.”

  I trailed a finger around the edge of the plate, scooping up chocolate sauce. He wasn’t going to give me the spoon. He was possessive. I didn’t think I’d held the TV remote control since he moved in. “I guess that’s why I’m fat and single.”