by LUCY LAING
‘You didn’t need to arrange that second date in the first place, if you felt like that’ I said. ‘If you’d told me after that first date that you didn’t want to see me again I’d have understood.’
I looked over and could see Tash nudging Kaz on the dance floor and pointing over at us. Soph was watching anxiously from across the room. I felt like we were the lead characters in some tense drama. Should I throw a drink over Paul and march out dramatically. That would give everyone something to talk about. But on the other hand, it would be embarrassing. No, I would listen maturely to what Paul had to say.
‘I didn’t start off with the intention of standing you up,’ he carried on. ‘Please believe me. I enjoyed seeing you that first time again, and it was a spur of the moment decision. It was a stupid thing to do and I regret it. I’m sorry.‘
‘Why didn’t you call me afterwards to apologise?’ I asked. It was quite satisfying watching Paul trying to explain himself. It almost made up for the humiliation all those months ago.
He was still looking down at his knees. ‘I was embarrassed,‘ he admitted. ‘So I thought it would be best if I didn’t contact you again. And then I met Soph at the reunion and it became even more difficult.’
He glanced up and his brown eyes met mine. Our faces were only inches apart. If I’d wanted to, I could have reached out and taken his hand. How stupid we had both been to each other. If I hadn’t dumped him all those months ago, would it have been different. Would I have been stood now, being photographed with my two old aunts, with Paul by my side? But it was done now. He was married to Soph. And I had to let go.
‘You left me out in the rain,‘ I said, giving him a gentle punch on the shoulder. ‘Without an umbrella.’ He looked searchingly into my eyes. I laughed, putting him out of his misery. ‘But I had to admit, it was good revenge. I didn’t think you had it in you.’
Paul laughed too. I could see he was relieved. ‘No hard feelings then,’ he said, taking my hand and giving it a squeeze.
‘No, not any more,’ I said, smiling at him. And it did feel good to have forgiven Paul. I looked at Soph and she gave me a wink. I was proud of myself. Tash had always said that I carried a grudge longer than anyone she knew. I couldn’t believe it that I had actually just forgiven Paul. But I had to admit, it did feel easier. Like a weight had been lifted from my shoulders.
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CHAPTER TWENTY
Forgiving Paul had been one thing. As I had pointed out to Tash as we drunkenly left Soph’s wedding in a taxi in the early hours of the morning, it didn’t mean that suddenly all my lifelong grudges would disappear. There was still one major score to settle. On Monday morning I went in to the tailors to pick up Nick’s suit.
‘I need one a bit smaller after all,’ I said to the assistant. ‘There’s been a change of plan.’ The assistant looked surprised, but he went and got a jacket and trousers two sizes smaller.
I went back to the agency with the suit in a zipped up bag. I hung it on the back of Nick’s chair.
‘It’s all there for you,’ I said sweetly. I almost rubbed my hands together. This was going to be the perfect revenge on him.
I’d booked the same day off work and Tash, Rach, Kaz and I were all going to go to the zoo early so we could be waiting for Nick to turn up, waddling in his too tight trousers like a penguin. Soph was the only one who couldn’t come, as she was on honeymoon in the Maldives.
‘Send me a picture on your mobile phone,’ she had begged. ‘Then I won’t feel I’m missing out.
***
On Friday morning we all boarded the train to London. We arrived into Euston station mid-morning, and made our way out to the zoo.
‘His face is going to be a picture when he arrives,’ said Tash, with a laugh. ‘We will all have our cameras at the ready.’
We bought tickets at the entrance and then made our way over to the chimp house. I’d put on Nick’s letter that the presentation would start at 12 noon. I looked at my watch. It was 11.30am. He would be making his way to the zoo right now. I’d kept my mobile switched off all morning. I didn’t want an irate phone call from Nick, wailing that his suit was the wrong size.
We found a bench to the right of the chimp house to wait for Nick. I looked anxiously at my watch. It was now five to 12. Nick was pushing it now as the ‘ceremony’ had been supposed to start at 12.
‘What if he has worked out all along that it was me, and he hasn’t come?’ I fretted to Tash.
‘Oh he’ll be here alright,’ she said, reaching into her bag and pulling out a copy of Heat magazine. I shivered, pulling my coat around my shoulders.
‘Lucky old Soph, sunning herself in the Maldives,’ I grumbled, looking up at the sky. There was a few ominous grey clouds collecting overhead. Typical. It would just be my luck if my plan was washed out.
‘I can’t believe that Paul came over to talk to you at the wedding,’ Tash said. ‘How did you feel when he sat down next to you? You looked as though you were going to have a cardiac arrest on the spot.’
‘I was shocked,’ I admitted. ‘I never imagined that Paul would have the guts to come and speak to me like he did. Not many men would have faced up to what they had done like he did, especially on their wedding day.’
‘I agree,’ said Kaz. ‘Most men would have buried their heads in the sand and ignored it.’
‘Did Soph put him up to it?’ I said. ‘I never got a chance to ask her before they went away.’
‘I don’t think so,’ said Kaz. ‘She told me afterwards that she was so pleased that he’d done it. She still feels terrible about what happened, even though you said you’d forgiven her. I think he told her he was going to do it, but she didn’t ask him to.’
‘I saw Nick watching him talking to you,’ said Tash. ‘He didn’t take his eyes off you whilst Paul was sat there.’
‘Oh that’s only because I’ve told him everything that happened with Paul standing me up. He probably was wishing he was sat there on the other side of me, to get the next juicy installment first hand,’ I said.
A couple of the chimps had started swinging on their ropes and a little baby chimp was climbing up the ropes to follow his mum. He turned upside down, holding on with one foot, whilst scratching his back with the other. The watching crowd started to laugh.
‘It was funny that the fortune teller said you would have chimps in your future,’ mused Tash. ‘We never did find out what that was about.’
‘Well I’m not particularly bothered about not spending the rest of my life surrounded by a tribe of chimps,’ I said. ‘I definitely couldn’t give it all up and start a chimp sanctuary in the middle of a Brazilian rainforest or something.’
‘You might not need to go hotfooting it off to a rainforest. We always said you could meet a zookeeper,’ said Tash. ‘There’s plenty of men in wellingtons around here. Perhaps that’s your destiny.’
‘Before you get too excited and rush off to find me an available zookeeper, lets remember why we’re here,’ I said, looking anxiously at my watch. ‘It’s gone 12 noon now and Nick still isn’t here. What do you think has happened?’
‘Hang on, isn’t that him?’ Tash interrupted, pointing towards the penguin enclosure which was next to the chimp house. Nick was running hell for leather down the path. People were looking at him in surprise as he hurtled past them and towards the chimp house. Even the chimps had started to get excited. They had stopped swinging on their ropes and were jumping up and down on the spot, calling to one another. Nick came to a halt outside the chimp house. He looked puzzled, and looked at his watch and then at the letter.
‘He’s wondering why there isn’t an official gathering of people here,’ I said, chuckling. He still hadn’t spotted us. There was a zoo official standing by the gate of the chimp house, and Nick walked up to her.
I had to laugh, his trousers were at least three inches too short and showed the top of his socks, and the sleeves of his jacket were three-quart
er length. Tash started clicking away with her camera.
I could see the zoo official shaking her head, and Nick showing her his letter. She shook her head again, and he stood there, not knowing what to do. I had to put him out of his misery.
‘Nick, over here,’ I called to him. He spun round and saw me and the girls sitting on the bench. He looked completely shocked to see us there.
‘What are you...’ he started to say, coming towards us. Then he stopped in his tracks, looked at me then down at the letter. Realization dawned on his face.
‘I don’t believe it,’ he said. ‘It was you all along winding me up. There is no competition.’
The girls got up from the bench and left me with Nick. He sat down on the bench, with his shoulders slumped, looking dejected.
‘I was so excited about this competition, and it was you playing a trick on me all along,’ he said.
He was so downhearted, I almost felt sorry for him, but then I thought of the Jen emails and tried to harden my heart.
‘It was to get you back for playing that joke about the emails on me,’ I said. ‘C’mon Nick, you have to admit it was good revenge.’
He was silent. I thought he would have laughed his head off, when he’d seen me waiting for him at the zoo, but instead he looked like he was at his own funeral. He got up from the bench and started to walk off towards the alligator pond. I jumped up.
‘Hey! Nick, don’t take it like that. It was only a joke,’ I shouted, running after him. He turned round and catching me unawares, grabbed me round the waist. Lifting me off the ground, he carried me towards the alligator enclosure.
‘Now it’s time for my revenge,’ he said, grinning at me. ‘Those alligators look like they could do with a lunchtime snack.’
‘Nick! Put me down,’ I screeched, kicking my legs, but it was no good. Nick was strong and he was carrying me as if I was as light as a feather towards the low wall, where the alligators were snapping.
We got to within a few feet of the wall, and he put me down. He didn’t seem mad anymore. Instead he was looking at me with the same expression that I’d seen in his eyes, outside the chip shop that evening.
‘As if I could throw you to the alligators,’ he said, lifting a hand to touch my cheek, ‘even if you have just played the dirtiest trick in history on me.’
This time I couldn’t stop gazing back at him. I’d never noticed Nick’s eyes before. They were a lovely shade of green with little, grey flecks in them. Suddenly I felt like I’d been hit over the head with a sledge hammer. For some insane reason I desperately wanted him to kiss me. What on earth was I thinking? I had never felt this way about Nick before, all the months that we’d been sparring at work against each other – but there was definitely no mistaking this. I felt a heat creep up from the bottom of my feet, all the way up my body until I could feel my face flushing. Suddenly I wanted Nick to do a lot more than just kiss me.
I could see he was feeling it too. Perhaps I had been looking too hard for Mr Right, when he had been right here under my nose all that time.
‘What about Claire?’ I whispered to him.
‘I finished with her ages ago,’ said Nick, not taking his eyes off mine. ‘How could I possibly have carried on seeing her, when all along I’ve been in love with you?’
My head was spinning. Nick had just said he was in love with me. Whaaaat?
‘So how about coming on the best date ever with me,’ he carried on. ‘I know a fantastic little fish and chip shop – does the best fish and chips in Cheshire.’
I grinned. The thought of standing with Nick, next to that smelly tramp in the chippy, suddenly seemed like the most romantic thing in the world. He cupped my face gently in his hands. God, I’d always wanted to be kissed like that – and now it was going to happen. I almost melted as his lips met mine. ‘You’re on,’ I said as we pulled apart. ‘Let’s go...’
I could almost imagine the minutes from Kaz the next morning.
PROGRESS REPORTS.
* Tash is engaged to Rob Beale. It wasn’t the ideal start to marry the teacher with whom you caused such a scandal with ten years ago – but Tash was never going to be conventional. We were lucky she found a husband at all – even if he was someone else's.
* Rach is completely in love with baby Max. She now wants world domination with www.voodoo-doll.org.uk and the orders are flooding in. She says she wants to give baby Max the best upbringing possible and making horrid, scary, little dolls could provide them with just that.
* Kaz eventually put her obsession with money behind her and is now happily shacked up with Adam in his converted barn. Kaz now professes to love
MacDonald’s cheeseburgers and still has a craving for the odd bit of gravel.
* Soph and Paul are now Mr and Mrs Hardman. Even though the club got it wrong at first, Paul did turn out to be perfect husband material, even if it was for someone other than Bee. (And to my surprise I wasn’t even a tiny bit jealous at that one.)
* Any finally...Bee has found her perfect soul-mate in Nick of all people, although a serious revamp of his wardrobe is essential for the continuation of the relationship. (There was no way I was going to be seen dead with Nick in anything resembling a cropped sweatshirt, or that blasted eighties’ jacket. If anyone had told me I was going to end up with Nick, I’d have thought they were crazy – but now that had all changed. It was the manly way he had scooped me up to throw me in the alligator pond, with his arm muscles rippling underneath his T-shirt. A bit Indiana Jones-ish in fact. Mmmmm. Mrs Nick Potts. I liked the sound of that one. Perhaps there would be hope for the Pope and Jordan after all…)
‘This could be the end of the club now,’ I fretted to Nick, as we drove towards the chippy later that night. ‘We’ve achieved what we set out to do, even if it hasn’t ended up quite how we all imagined.’
I thought wistfully back to that first night in the restaurant, when we’d all got so excited over a few bottles of wine, and decided to form the club. It had been such a revelation – the idea of having our friends help us find husbands, instead of having to do it ourselves. It seemed sad that we may have had the last meeting ever, and that I’d never again look on my computer and see the minutes flashing up from Kaz.
‘I think you’d best keep it going,’ advised Nick, putting a warm hand on my thigh. ‘Knowing you lot, you’re bound to keep getting in trouble, and you will need to keep each other on the straight and narrow.’
‘You’re right,’ I decided. ‘Getting hitched is only the start of it. We need to carry on being there for each other, through thick and thin. Who knows what the future holds for us all? We need a motto for this club, and I’ve thought of the perfect one: ‘To the Altar and Beyond.’
‘Whoa!! Hang on a minute,’ said Nick. ‘Who says anything about an altar. There’s no way you are dragging me down the aisle just yet - and I’m not sure I’m the marrying kind anyway. ‘ He glanced sideways at me, grinning. ‘ We may find that we don’t get on, after all.’
‘We know that we don’t get on,’ I said, punching him affectionately on the arm, admittedly a bit harder than necessary. ‘We spent the last few years at each other’s throats. Why would it stop now?’
‘True, but now we can have all the fun of the making up, every time we argue’ said Nick, moving his hand further up my thigh. He pulled over into a nearby lay by and slid across the driver’s seat towards me. ‘We should have started doing this a long time ago.’
Mmmm, making up does have it’s advantages,’ I thought, as he started to kiss me urgently. So Nick thought he wouldn’t be dragged down an aisle did he? Well we’ll see about that. Making Nick into husband material was going to be a tough task. But I’ve always liked a challenge - and this was going to be the biggest challenge of my life. And I had the perfect four girls to help me. Nick wouldn’t stand a chance against the Husband Hunters.
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BAND HUNTERS