The Accidental Socialite

by Stephanie Wahlstrom

  The boys decided if they couldn’t have men they were going to dance and we ended up in Bodo’s Schloss, an Austrian-themed club in Kensington. The rest of the night was a blur of men who didn’t speak English and chose to speak with their hips, although all they were really saying to me was “I’m a better dancer than you and more likely to date Carlos.” I’m also pretty sure I drank out of a ski boot at some point.

  “After party at my place!” Lucinda must have had a nap when I got distracted in the bathroom, because she drank at least as much as I did and I was half asleep when we’d walked out of Sketch; several hours later at Bodo’s I was practically in a coma.

  “Lucinda, I’m not sure I can keep going. I have to be at work in five hours.” I couldn’t believe how old and lame I sounded.

  “Come on, chicken, sleep when you’re dead. I’ll call some boys.”

  And that was my problem. I didn’t want boys because boys were trouble. I wanted a real man and there seemed to be a lack-of-eligible-men-who-aren’t-douche-bags epidemic in London.

  People started yelling at the table behind us and Lucinda whipped her head around to them and back at me.

  “We have to go!” She grabbed my arm and for a size zero, knew how to throw her weight around.

  I tried to see what she was freaking out about, but it was just a group of twenty-something men pouring champagne over a girl they probably rented by the hour. One of them was vaguely familiar, so I moved to get a closer look and managed to get champagne splashed all over the right side of my face. The guy pouring seemed to recognize me.

  “Paige, that’s Stuart! Get the hell out of here!” yelled Carlos.

  Oh my shit! That wasn’t the guy getting the blowie at Sketch. This was 100% Stuart Smith, and the mutual look of shock on our faces confirmed it.

  I ran towards the door past the stream of iPhones being pulled out of pockets. Outside, Louis had already hailed a cab and was holding the door open for me as I Superman-ed onto the floor. There was a flurry of flashes and banging of cameras against the taxi window.

  “What the fuck?” I was panting and still sitting on the floor of the taxi as it pulled away.

  “Sorry, doll, we had no idea it was him until it was too late.” Carlos helped me up and into the middle seat. That’s when I realized we were two gays short.

  “Don’t worry about them. Are you ok?” asked Louis, his shirt also splashed with champagne.

  “What do I do? It was one thing to have pictures of me crying alone in a restaurant but photos of Stuart splashing me with champagne like a hooker really crumbled my “I don’t know him” defense.

  Carlos shook his head and seemed to feel genuinely sorry for me, which made me feel even worse, because generally he avoided wrinkle-inducing feelings.

  I crawled into my flat and down the stairs. My eyes felt heavy and I was only sure I’d made it to my bed when I woke up in the morning, fully clothed, but safely under my duvet.

  Luckily a plane crashed just off the coast of France killing over one hundred and fifty people, so my second brief encounter with Stuart barely made it into the entertainment pages. Well, I guess not lucky for the people on the plane but, if it was going to happen, I’m glad it happened that night. That still makes me sound like a horrible person.

  I didn’t have any details about the date on Saturday other than Jason was picking me up at ten o’clock in the morning. Which, by the way, is a ridiculous time for a date.

  It was Friday, otherwise known as “try to bribe Carlos into doing sexual favors for Louis to let me into The Cupboard to find an outfit for my date” day.

  “Plllllllleeeeeeeaaaassssseeeee,” I whined, trying to be as annoying as possible to quicken the process. Surprisingly, it wasn’t as effective as I’d hoped. My boobs don’t work as well on gay guys as straight ones.

  “No. Paige, it’s called THE Cupboard, not YOUR Cupboard.”

  “Everyone else does it.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said as he tried to tuck the chocolate Louis Vuitton scarf he was wearing into his shirt.

  “I don’t even know what the date is going to be and I would feel soooooo much better if I was wearing a great dress, and some shoes, and maybe a necklace. I even have my own bag.” I lifted my Mulberry as if it was some sort of reference letter proving that designer goods could be in my possession for a few days without being desecrated.

  Emma poked her head out of her office. “Pickle sandwich,” she said to nobody in particular but everyone in general. Carlos and I spun around but she’d already tucked her little turtlehead back into the frosted glass shell she lived in. I tried not to laugh. Of all of the strange things I could have imagined Emma demanding, a pickle sandwich wasn’t one of them.

  “This one is yours,” said Carlos.

  “I’ll get it if I get to stop by The Cupboard and get a dress, at the very least. Pleeeeease,” I whined one last time and Carlos was tired of our conversation.

  “Fine, a dress, that’s it. Now go. She’ll expect the sandwich in her office within the next five minutes. Remember, just pickle, no butter, no cheese, no anything else. And make sure it’s whole grain bread.”

  Shrugging my shoulders, I got up and headed to the first floor.

  At three in the afternoon, the cafeteria was deserted. During normal lunch hours it was usually packed with people having lunch meetings but refusing to actually eat in front of each other. A man in a paper chef hat behind the deli counter made eye contact with me and then quickly looked away, apparently assuming I was not a girl interested in carbs.

  “Excuse me, could I please have a pickle sandwich on whole grain? Plain, no butter or anything, just pickles.”

  He raised an eyebrow, clearly not used to young women asking for food. The amazing whole grain bread was soft on the inside and crusty on the outside. I made a mental note to come and get a sandwich from him on Monday. It would be way better than waiting in the salad line for half an hour. The man behind the counter reached for a jar of what looked like brown relish.

  “Sorry, nothing else on the sandwich, just pickles.” I smiled so I wouldn’t seem like a cow, but I thought my instructions had been pretty clear the first time. The jar hovered in the air an inch off the counter as he stared at me.

  “You know, pickles. The little green things, kinda like cucumbers?” A lightbulb went off in his head and he pulled out a plate of sliced pickles. I nodded enthusiastically, hoping it would encourage him to lay the pickles on the bread as fast as possible.

  He did just that, every time for a moment hesitating before he put the slice of pickle on the bread, looking up at me as if to say “you sure?” I nodded every time.

  Once the sandwich was made, he handed it to me and I asked him to put it on the Fashionista tab. He let out a small laugh, shook his head, and muttered to himself, “Emma’s sandwich.”

  I didn’t have time to figure out what was so funny. I went back up to my floor and passed The Cupboard where Louis was waiting with a bag. “Here you go, darling. It will look amazing on you.” He kissed me on both cheeks and sent me on my way. I dumped the bag at my desk and knocked on Emma’s door.

  “Come in,” Emma said absentmindedly.

  I walked in the room and there were photos everywhere. Emma was casting for a promotional feature.

  “Here’s your sandwich.” I held up the white paper bag.

  She indicated to the table next to me. “You can leave it there.”

  Emma went back to her photos, so I left the sandwich and backed out as quietly as possible.

  Several minutes later Emma appeared at my desk. I didn’t even hear her open her door. The sandwich was on a plate, dissected as if someone was trying to understand who or what thought that bread and pickles would be a good combination. I was wondering that myself.

  “What, may I ask, the fuck is this?” She raised her eyebrows in bewilderment.

  “It–it’s a pickle sandwich,” I spat out nervously.

>   “Where on Earth are gherkins between two slices of bread a pickle sandwich?”

  Gherkins? Totes fired.

  “That’s what we call those in Canada: pickles.” I pointed at the pickles strewn about the plate.

  Emma realized what had happened and began to laugh uncontrollably. “Of course! Oh my, you must have thought I was mad asking for that. And Vladimir downstairs, he made this for you? Did he know it was for me?”

  Tears of laughter began to seep out of the corner of her left eye. I didn’t know what to say and looked like such an idiot. She turned to go back to her office, shaking her head and letting out the odd giggle.

  Carlos stared at me with his mouth hanging open.

  “Careful, a pigeon might fly in there and nest.” He was a complete jerk for not really explaining what pickle was and I was mad at myself for not clarifying.

  “You little bitch, you get away with everything. She wanted Branston Pickle, it’s like a brown relish. If I’d done that, I’d be on intern duty for weeks.” He was still staring at me.

  I shrugged my shoulders. “Show’s over, Carlito, get back to work.”

  The first thing I heard when I walked into my flat after work was Philip shouting along to B*Witched’s hit C’est La Vie. How an Irish girl band decided to sing a song with a French title, I’ll never know. I’ll also never get the sound of Philip’s screeching—or his tryst with Gemma—out of my head. I hadn’t really seen either of them since the little run-in on Valentine’s Day and I was hoping to avoid both of them for the remaining duration of my stay in this godforsaken flat share.

  My plan was to spend the evening writing a nice group email to friends and family, assuring them I was having the best time ever while obviously avoiding the whole whore on the cover of a national paper incident. For the entire two hours it took me to write the email, clean my room, and pick shoes to match the dress Louis lent me, Philip continued to sing and dance to obscure nineties pop music. Enough was enough and I went upstairs to tell him, under no uncertain terms, to shut the fuck up.

  The scent of cheap aftershave filled the hallway outside Philip’s room. He must have a hot date with Gemma. Gross. I knocked on his door as loudly as I could to ensure he would hear me over Shampoo explaining how much trouble they were in.

  Philip opened the door in a frayed yellowing towel, which was even more disgusting against his sickly white skin. I threw up in my mouth a little so it was hard to get the words out right away.

  “Yes, Paige?”

  “Umm, [cough] do you think you could turn down your music a little [dry heave]?”

  “I’m getting ready to hit the clubs tonight, Paige, and I need to get into my zone. You should know something about that. Where are you headed tonight? We should meet up.”

  In the most literal sense possible, I would rather die.

  “Actually, I was going to have a night in. I have to get up in the morning. It would just be great if you could turn it down a bit. It’s super loud in my room. Thanks.”

  I left before I vomited all over his hobbit feet.

  The next two hours went by similarly to the previous two. You’d have to try hard as a girl to take four hours to get ready. I had no idea what he was actually doing and the more I thought about it, the more I realized I didn’t want to know.

  I went upstairs just before eleven to get a glass of water and the house was quiet. Or so I thought. Just as I filled my glass, Philip came into the kitchen, in his pajamas.

  He saw me staring at him like the total psycho he was.

  “I just had so many plans that I couldn’t make them all, so instead of making people angry for picking one over the other I decided to stay in,” he explained.

  I nodded, left the kitchen without a word, and locked myself in my room. I needed to move.

  ***

  When my alarm went off at nine, it made me realize why the general public tends to date at night. By the time I’d paired the pale pink sweater dress Louis gave me with my brown knee-high boots and the Mulberry, it was ten to ten and I hadn’t even started my hair. I whipped out my curling iron with the will and force of an Olympian and started curling with reckless abandon. That was, until I felt the skin on the back of my neck sizzle. Not only did it hurt, I looked like a teenager who’d just spent an hour in the back seat of a car with her boyfriend.

  I heard the doorbell ring and checked my phone. Somehow I’d managed to make a mess of my hair, scar my neck for life, and was still only running five minutes late. Throwing my heavy-duty concealer in my bag, I ran up the stairs with my coat, hoping Philip hadn’t made it to the door yet.

  As I leaped up the last few stairs, I saw Philip walking towards the door.

  “No! I mean, it’s ok Philip, it’s for me.”

  Philip squinted his eyes in suspicion as I blocked the doorway, and then walked back to his room. I took a deep breath and attempted to compose myself.

  Jason smiled as soon as I opened the door.

  “You look amazing, ready to go?”

  “Of course! Where to?”

  “Told you, it’s a surprise, but you’ll need some ID. Do you have your passport or something?”

  “Uh, ya I guess. Be right back.” I ran and got my passport, praying that he didn’t actually enter my house. Who knows what kind of disease he might catch sitting on that couch. I’d become wary after the whole gross flatmates fornicating thing and haven’t sat on it since.

  I came back upstairs, passport in hand, and thankfully he was waiting at the cab, holding the door open for me.

  This was actually happening. I was giving Jason a second chance and in this harsh winter light and without the warmth of champagne and beef jerky, doubt started to kill the party excited me was having in my head. What if he actually was a jerk? But what if he wasn’t? Everyone made mistakes; I mean, I’d probably made four just walking to the bathroom this morning. One date wouldn’t hurt anyone, right?

  The driver began to swerve through Saturday morning traffic in London. I was hoping Jason would volunteer more information, but instead we spent twenty minutes exchanging small talk about work and I told him all about my flatmates, explaining why he couldn’t ever come inside.

  The anticipation was driving me crazy.

  “So … now can you tell me what the plan is?”

  “You’re dying to know, aren’t you?”

  I nodded my head eagerly. I was the kid at Christmas who ate every candy in the Advent calendar on December first.

  “Well, I thought we’d start off with lunch in a park, then see a museum, and I made reservations at my favorite restaurant for dinner.”

  The car came to a stop but I couldn’t see a park anywhere. Jason paid the driver and ran around the car to get my door.

  “So what’s this restaurant? Must be pretty good if it’s your favorite.”

  “It’s called Guy Savoy.”

  “Sounds very French. Where is it?”

  “Paris.”

  I stopped short when I saw we were in front of St. Pancras Station.

  “Paris?”

  “I thought we’d take a little day trip. What do you think?”

  We were probably moving too fast. I mean, if my mom knew I was leaving the country with a boy I barely knew who had failed to take me to the hospital when I was seriously injured, she’d be pretty mad. But, my mom would also be pretty mad about 90% of what my life had become since I’d left Edmonton, and what she didn’t know wouldn’t hurt her. Plus, PARIS!

  “I think it’s perfect,” I said as I hooked my arm into his and we walked into the station, a couple on our way to Paris for lunch because that’s what people do in Europe. I’M IN EUROPE!

  We stepped onto the train and Jason led me to a spacious carriage with a table seat to ourselves. I was going to Paris, on a train. Only people like Audrey Hepburn did things like that. My brain practically short-circuited when that thought passed through. Even my wildest dreams would call bullshit on this story.

 
; Just as the train pulled away, Jason started to fidget while I stared out the window. He probably hadn’t planned what we were going to do on a train for two hours, and I hadn’t thought about it until we ran out of conversation ten minutes out of London. Guess there was a reason we as a species moved onto air travel. Small talk sucks. But, it was nice to not have anyone tell you to sit down, put your seatbelt on, and turn off your iPod so you can listen to five minutes of instructions that are supposed to prevent you from dying in the unlikely event that the plane plunges thirty-seven thousand feet.

  Jason found a very good solution to our silence, leaving for several minutes and coming back with a bottle of champagne. He filled our glasses with bubbles and placed the bottle back in the ice bucket. I lifted my glass.

  “Here’s to second chances.”

  Jason clinked my glass. “Here’s to second chances, in Paris.”

  We arrived in Paris and the sun was shining brightly, a stark contrast to London. I put on my pair of oversized sunglasses and Jason laughed. “Now you fit in.”

  As we were walking down the Seine on our way to Notre Dame, we passed a hot dog vendor on the street. My stomach growled. Audibly. It didn’t matter if I’d just eaten, when my stomach sensed hot dogs in the vicinity, it made room.

  “These hot dogs are so good. Grab that bench on the bridge and I’ll be right there,” said Jason.

  I guarded the prime bench with my life because it was facing where the river split into two and there was a German couple loitering/conspiring to overthrow me.

  Jason came back in a few minutes holding a full baguette containing a ginormous hot dog covered with baked cheese. I was drooling. Then he brought his other hand out from behind his back and there was, surprise, a bottle of champagne.

  “It’s huge, so I thought we’d share.”

  That’s what she said. It took all of my mental power and also physically biting my lips together to not say that out loud.

  I took a bite of the magical hot dog and as the creamy cheese slid down the side of my face, I panicked. I just managed to catch the cheese before it fell onto the dress which, I reminded myself, did not belong to me.