by Shari Low
While she carried on with strange humming thingies, I contemplated my surroundings and realised that, compared to my current place of employment on a dilapidated industrial estate on the outskirts of Slough, working here would be stellar. Literally. The office was in a grand Georgian townhouse in Notting Hill, the kind of building that looked like it housed a stockbroker, his interior-designer wife and three children called Palomina, Pheronoma and Calispera. But any preconceptions had to be dumped at the door, the one that was carved with ancient Mongolian warrior symbols in a bid to ward off evil spirits, negative forces and any local yobs armed with cans of spray paint.
The huge oblong entranceway looked like a mini planetarium. The carpet was black, the walls and ceiling were the colour of the night sky, and fluorescent stars covered every surface. It wasn’t so much a professional office, more the view from the flight deck of the Starship Enterprise. In the corner, a receptionist sat behind a futuristic silver desk, illuminated only by one desk lamp and the flashing red squares on the switchboard. The first thing that had struck me was how miserable she looked–not surprising given that the lack of sunlight probably made her a shoo-in for rickets.
Zara’s office took up the entire first floor and suitably reflected a zany TV New Age guru who looked like a cross between a Woodstock refugee and Cher in her ‘Turn Back Time’ years. The walls and ceiling were draped with rich red silks, giving the whole space the vibe of an elaborate Bedouin tent. Huge plants sat in every crevice and corner, while ornate Persian rugs covered almost every inch of the ebony wood floor. Two trees had given their lives to make her inordinately wide desk, both of them cut vertically in half and then laid side by side–a concept that might have worked a little better if the branches had been removed. Instead, about fifteen feet of shrubbery filled a whole corner of the room. The rest of the floor was covered with the same oversized cushions that Zara sat on now; massive squares of intricately embroidered, rich damask in shades of deep ochre interspersed with small tree stubs that doubled as tables.
Still, at least (unlike the poor, pale, vitamin-deprived receptionist) she had three huge sash windows that filled the room with natural daylight. Or they would have if it wasn’t six o’clock on a January night and pitch dark outside.
Suddenly, Zara jumped up, grabbed a large, gilt-engraved chalice from her desk and headed towards the window I’d been staring at just seconds before. Spooky. Was that a coincidence? Or a bit of psychic prompting? Oh my God–could she read my thoughts? Think nice things, think nice things…
She wrenched up the window and held the chalice outside.
Okaaaaay…So was she:
a) dealing with a cup of tea that was too hot in a sound ecological fashion by using rainwater to cool it down;
b) contravening Health & Safety legislation by passing out a liquid refreshment to a window cleaner who bucked the industry norm by working nights;
c) actually, there wasn’t a c) because I couldn’t think of another logical (or otherwise) reason that she had her arm thrust out of a first-floor window on a cold, dark January night.
‘Father Moon,’ she wailed, ‘send me a sign that I am walking the correct path, the one that leads to the destiny that your wondrous powers will deliver.’
My chin incurred skid marks as it ricocheted off the floor. She was, quite literally, howling at the moon. I didn’t need Father Moon’s divine powers to tell me that this woman was about as stable as a vibrator on a hammock. In a hurricane.
Suddenly, she slammed one hand over the top of the cup, brought it back inside and turned to me, her victorious grin clearly conveying that whatever the bloke in the sky had done, she was chuffed about it.
Gliding across the floor (she appeared to move in a Dalek fashion, due to the barefoot/ long kaftan combination), she brought the chalice to me and gingerly lifted her palm to show me what was inside. ‘He sent one to us,’ she announced, her voice all breathy with joy.
‘Don’t be ridiculous, there’s nothing in there, you mad, mixed-up loon!’ I retorted. But only in my head. In real life I was too stunned to speak and instead just sat with a facial pose that gave her full view of my fillings.
I stared at the inside of the chalice. Nothing. Empty. Void of all contents.
‘He sent us a moonbeam,’ she gushed.
Of course. A moonbeam. I should have noticed.
‘Leni, that’s a sign.’
I waited for her to add, ‘…that it’s time for me to have a long lie down in a dark room until the magic mushrooms wear off.’
‘It’s a sign that we are on the right path,’ she continued.
I was beginning to understand why her previous assistant had decided that the right path for her was the one that led to Heathrow Airport.
I attempted an encouraging, receptive expression, one you might give to a four-year-old who’d just confided that her imaginary friend was having a quick shower before dinnertime.
‘So, Leni, are you absolutely sure that you want to work here?’
Noooooooooo!
So of course I said, ‘Definitely.’
Look, it didn’t involve flushing, I’d broken the habits of a lifetime by actually getting this far, and it paid fifteen grand a year more than my current job. I’d already decided that as long as it didn’t involve sacrificing my firstborn child then I was taking the position.
She sank back down onto her cushion and resumed the meditative position: her legs crossed, eyes closed and her fingers upturned on her knees, thumb and middle finger pressed together.
‘And you’re open to the new challenges and experiences that destiny will bring?’
I nodded again, resisting the urge to make the atmosphere a little more dramatic by adding a ‘hmmm’.
‘Then welcome to our team. I’m delighted to have you here and I think we’ll work together in perfect harmony.’
My higher self gave a silent cheer and embarked on a Mexican wave. I’d done it! Sure, it was bizarre and it was just a little bit terrifying, but the most important thing was that I was no longer facing a heady future in ballcocks. I was PA to Zara Delta. And so what if I didn’t know her rising moon from Saturn’s ring–I’d wing it somehow. After all, how tough could it be? I zipped all my doubts in a mental file, labelled it ‘This Job Makes No Bloody Sense Whatsoever’, filed it away and allowed myself a brief moment of self-congratulation–a month into the New Year and already I was on my way to fulfilling my resolution to change everything about my life. And, let’s face it, this was about as different as it could get.
Zara opened her eyes and gave me a benevolent smile. Maybe working for her would be fine after all. Perhaps I was just a little overwhelmed by her eccentricities and idiosyncrasies and in a few weeks she’d seem perfectly normal.
‘Be here next Monday, six a.m., for Tai Chi, affirmations and a full briefing on your first assignment.’
‘Er…assignment?’
‘Yes. You will of course fulfil the normal role of a PA, and I expect you to be by my side on a daily basis. You’ll only be asked to work in the evenings if your presence is essential. But you do realise that your role also involves an element of practical research?’
I didn’t. So, naturally, I nodded.
‘Can I ask, Zara, exactly what the research will involve?’
‘It’s quite simple, dear. My project for this year is to write a new, pioneering book on the relationships between men and women. There are so many lost little stars out there and it’s my calling to set them on the celestial journey that will lead them directly to their soul mate.’
Aaaaw, she was like Cilla Black with mystic powers.
‘I believe that I’ve developed a new way of interpreting the signs using a combination of ancient Chinese philosophy, psychology, rune stones, mathematics, planetary alignment and the instinct and intuition that I was gifted at birth. And I’m going to use my methods to redefine and reinvent current dating techniques. Forget speed dating, forget all those matchmaking website
s–I’m going to write a defining, ground-breaking, revolutionary guide to wooing a partner depending on his star sign.’
I thought it probably wasn’t the time to enlighten her that Mills & Boon were on the phone asking if they could have the word ‘wooing’ back.
A book on landing men depending on the date they were born? It was ridiculous. Trite. Insulting. Wasn’t the modern woman far more evolved than that? Didn’t we have principles, emotional intelligence and the savvy to find a partner based on like-mindedness, inherent compatibility and how great his abs were?
I had a sudden insight as to why I was still single.
‘So what exactly will I need to do?’ I had a flashing premonition of endless, mind-numbing hours spent in libraries collating information on all the astrological traits and characteristics. I’d then deliver expansive reports to the divine Miss Delta so that she could harness the mighty investigative powers of solid research, an enquiring mind and moonbeams.
‘It’s simple, Leni. I need to hone and test my theories and include references to practical examples and real-life cases in my book. So, over the next few months, I need you to date twelve men, one from each of the signs of the conventional zodiac.’
‘Whaaaat?’
My peachy-clean aura threw a major strop. No way! Forget it. I was not pimping myself out for some ludicrous, half-boiled book by a TV celebrity with a head like a neglected flower basket.
‘You will of course be paid extra for all evening work, and there will be a bonus on completion of each of the twelve studies. So–can I assume you accept the challenge?’
I was outraged. I was insulted. But I was also skint, desperate to get out of plumbing and losing the feeling in my legs. So…
‘Hmmmm,’ I replied.
2
Aligning the Planets
‘So?????’
Their little faces were the epitome of expectation.
‘I got the job!’ I replied gleefully, joining in an exaggerated group hug thing that almost toppled them off their bar stools. They’d been waiting in the pretentious, overpriced wine bar around the corner from Zara’s office for the last two hours, so they were already struggling slightly with minor issues like balance and staying upright.
‘Told you she was desperate!’ Trish exclaimed helpfully.
That’s the thing about Trish–I love and adore her but she went to the Joseph Stalin School of Friendship. She’s brutal, thoughtless, self-obsessed, and prone to dictatorial behaviour. However, unlike Mr Stalin she’s also funny, kind and, underneath the complete lack of compassionate social skills, she has her friends’ best interests at heart. We’ve known each other since our first day at college in London, when I bumped into her as she wandered along the corridor outside the catering department clutching a toffee pavlova (yes, the stains came out eventually). Surprisingly, given her truculent disposition, we’ve never fallen out, although that’s probably because I’m subconsciously aware that if I crossed her there’s every chance she would dismember me while I slept.
The first thing that struck me (after the pavlova) about her was that she was so different from my group of friends back in the sleepy suburb of Norfolk where I grew up. In my little gang of middle-of-the-road, normal, everyday pals, not one of them had a navy-blue Mohican and wore Doc Marten boots with long flowery dresses. She looked like the love child of Sid Vicious and Laura Ashley. In fact, that had been a major puzzlement when her husband Grey first met her. Let’s just get this out of the way–he’s a fireman. No jokes about large hoses, sliding down his pole or relighting his fire, please–that kind of shallow innuendo does nothing but demean the role those courageous men play in today’s society. But he is a big hunka hunka burnin’ love who could set any female’s knickers alight.
Anyway, they got together after he was called to her apartment by a neighbour who spotted thick smoke coming out of Trish’s window. A few bee-baws later he was carrying a semi-conscious Trish out of her front door while the plug-in, hot-wax kit that she’d inadvertently left on after trimming her bikini line burnt down her kitchen. Electrical fault, apparently. Thankfully, she was fine, but when she regained consciousness while waiting for an ambulance, Grey asked her why she was wearing boots with a nightdress. They’ve been together ever since that moment and she vowed right there and then that she’d never again wear floral prints, men’s boots or well-trimmed nethers.
Now her wardrobe is more Kate Moss on a slightly lower budget–a hip, eclectic and edgy combination of vintage and high-street jeans, T-shirts, waistcoats and various other chic pieces that definitely shouldn’t work together but somehow on Trish they just do. Meeting Grey also brought about the last of the Mohican. Her hair is now a screaming shade of scarlet and shaped into a razor-sharp asymmetric chin-length bob, a style that’s maintained in pristine fashion by our mutual best chum Stuart. Another college relationship that’s lasted the distance, we met Stu when he advertised for hair models in the first month of his hairdressing course. Trish and I, fuelled by the combination of permanent bed hair, cheap cider and empty bank accounts, went along, and despite the fact that he bestowed upon us crew cuts that made everyone around us view us in a whole new light (if you’re reading this, Julie McGuiness, thank you for the k.d. lang poster), we’ve been friends ever since.
Oh, and just in case you were doing that whole stereotype thing, Stu is as straight as Russell Brand with the horn. However, he is…
‘That’s great news, Leni! I’m so proud of you! But stop the hugging, honey, because this virus I’ve got might be an airborne one so best to keep your distance.’
…a hypochondriac. Or should I say, the post-millennium version, a cyberchondriac. First sign of a sneeze and he’s on the computer inputing his symptoms into medical websites, and the next thing you know he’s claiming bubonic plague and ringing a bell before he enters the room. Still, much as the web does invariably throw up the most dramatic diagnosis, we’re glad he’s finally binned the old-fashioned medical dictionary. When he was addicted to that he’d get stuck on the same letter for days and go into psychosomatic meltdown. That terrifying week back in 2002 when he contracted piles, pleurisy and pregnancy will be etched on my memory forever.
We keep hoping that he’ll meet his perfect woman and the security will rid him of his morbid obsession, but so far all attempts to set him up with a member of the nursing profession have met with a premature end. He once got as far as a third date with a geriatric nurse but she dumped him in the middle of an episode of ER when he asked her to talk him through a prostate examination. And not in a good way. It’s a shame really because, neurosis aside, he’s a grounded, cool, entirely macho six-foot-tall specimen of gorgeousness with close-cropped black hair, piercing green eyes and an abdominal rack so tight you could play bongo drums on it. Of course, he’d never let you for fear of cracked ribs, punctured lungs and internal bruising.
Oh, and he’s successful. Courtesy of his achingly hip salon, he’s a rising star (vertigo, altitude sickness, anxiety) in the hairdressing world (nits, life-threatening finger cuts, inhalation of toxic perm lotions). He styles Chelsea mothers, precocious teenagers, a few daytime-telly celebs and does the weekly makeovers for What?!! magazine. Trish has vowed that she’ll get him the Great Morning TV! slot one day, but that often involves whisking viewers off to sunny climates so he’ll have to overcome his fear of flying first. Not only is he terrified of the actual big steel tube/plummet to death scenario, but he’s phobic about germs since he heard that aircraft ventilation systems simply recycle the air, spreading everyone else’s bacteria. On the plus side, his in-flight panics often have a silver lining–if first class is quiet, he regularly gets upgraded because the stewardesses are worried that the sight of a terrified grown man sweating in a medical facemask might upset the other passengers.
I hopped onto a bar stool next to them–but not close enough that Stu’s highly virulent Ebola virus could kill me before I’d had a large glass of wine and a packet of Nobby’s Nuts
.
I gave them a full debrief and they were, by turn, astonished, enthralled, proud and…horrified.
‘You have to what?’ Trish almost spat her vino across the table.
‘You’re not doing it,’ Stu commanded, like a stern parent forbidding underage drinking, discos and any contact involving the pelvic region.
‘Right then, Dad, I won’t–but only if you increase my pocket money this week.’
‘I mean it, Leni, it could be dangerous. Twelve men? Do you know that statistically at least two of them will be carrying a sexually transmitted disease? Not to mention that there’s a high chance that at least one will have a criminal record.’
For a macho guy he really did get hysterical sometimes (anxiety disorder, raised blood pressure, wrinkles).
Now that he was looking at me with an expression that sat somewhere between horror and disbelief, with a helping of concern thrown in just to make me feel even worse, my teeth started to grind. Of course he was right. And deep down I knew it. Taking this job would be utterly insane. Dates? I couldn’t go on twelve dates. I’m the woman who takes weeks to decide to try a new washing powder–and even then I feel bad for the old one. But then…My mind flicked to the pile of books at the side of my bed. Shouldn’t I feel the fear and do it anyway? Shouldn’t I fake it until I make it? Shouldn’t I take those ten steps to a new me? Aaaaaargh! Shouldn’t I stop reading bloody self-help guides and actually put some of their theories into action instead?
It was time for me to get a life–one that I actually bloody liked. I could do this. I could. I was feeling the fear so it was time to get on with it.
I decided to bluff bravado.
‘Stu, I’m not going to sleep with them, I just have to date them. You know–dinner, bowling, art galleries and stuff like that. And how bad can it be? Look at my track record in picking men. Ben? Married. Donny? The Olympic World Champion in the field of Unmitigated Boredom. Gary? Ran off with my chiropodist. Goliath? Tried to snog Trish at last year’s birthday barbecue.’