‘Is it really that bad?’ John asked, incredulous. ‘Obviously there are a few things I know I’m not perfect at. But this is just how people live, isn’t it?’
‘No.’
‘But don’t other—’
‘No, they don’t. Trust me. No.’
John’s brain looked like it was struggling to adjust to the concept that other adults put dirty clothes straight into a laundry basket, rather than under their bed to mature for two months first.
‘But it’s just stuff. How can Liss get so upset about stuff? She’d shout at me for something and then I’d do it, but it still wasn’t enough for her. She’d still be really cross and huff at me. I didn’t get it. I still don’t.’ He slumped onto the sofa and threw his head back with a dramatic exhalation of breath.
Molly knew that trying to engage on an emotional level right now to explain this would probably leave her as exhausted as a politician’s sexting thumb, and just as grotty. She had to get through to him in some other way. She spied the abandoned dirty kit bag, giving off damp, unwholesome smells on the floor.
‘Imagine you’re playing a football match.’
‘Yeah.’
‘Do you have to tell the goalie to go for the ball each and every time it comes near him? Wouldn’t that be just a waste of breath and really, really annoying?’
‘Absolutely.’
‘And wouldn’t the whole thing be ruined if the guy who was supposed to bring the ball forgot to or just couldn’t be arsed, and you had to go and find another one?’
John nodded.
‘Well that’s just how Melissa feels about having to ask you to put the bins out every week, or how aggravating it was that you never brought home groceries. Each thing you didn’t do was one more thing she had to do. You made her feel like a skivvy. And, a little insight for you, girls don’t like that feeling. We’re aiming more for treasured beauties or regal princesses. Not cleaning ladies.’
‘Ohhh. I’ve never really thought of it like that.’
Molly: 1, Lazy Swine: 0.
‘But it’s just the way I’ve always been, I don’t know how—’
‘Let me stop you right there,’ Molly held up one hand, ‘because that is just not going to cut it out on the battlefields of love. At one stage in your very early life you had “always” worn nappies. This line of thinking wouldn’t legitimise you changing your own adult Pampers on the bathroom floor at twenty-nine, would it?’ Molly surged on, in full flow and asking only rhetorical questions. ‘Being an adult is about changing, adapting. You can’t live like a grubby student anymore, not if you want to cohabit with a civilised adult.’
‘Thanks, Molly. That kind of makes sense. When you put it like that, I suppose I could do with some help.’
Chapter Twelve
‘So he’s put himself entirely in your hands? Mols, you must be in your element.’ Suze tidied a few wisps of russet red hair artlessly into the soft bun at the back of her head. She had one foot on the bar at the back of Max’s buggy, gently bouncing him in his all-terrain vehicle, as she leant back into the curved metal bench. Rachel was casually making an effort at stretching out her calves on the scrubby grass just in front – a token gesture to justify this ‘speed walking’ friend-date turning into more of a stationary speed-gossing session. Satisfied that three stretches was pretty much a workout on their own, she plonked herself down next to Molly and snuck a glossy out of her Nike rucksack. Molly and Rach had decided to approach their exercise regime with a less high-impact mentality, after the aftershocks of that army bootcamp work out took nearly a full week to recover from. Rachel had bent down in the cheese aisle at Sainsbury’s for some Double Gloucester and had to call for help when she couldn’t get back up again. She claimed it was a higher power trying to warn her off dairy.
Suze looked over Rachel’s shoulder and squinted. ‘Am I too old for leggings?’ she asked. ‘Rationally I know I’m not, but then I see Madonna in them and I think blegh. I don’t want to be the kind of mother who looks like she’s stolen her kid’s party clothes.’
‘You know very well that you can wear anything you like and look awesome, mummy or not. Just please don’t buy the propaganda that crop tops are back – I refuse to believe that’s true.’ Rachel shuddered.
‘What do you mean “in my element”?’ Molly asked. ‘I’m doing this to help John. To clean him up and stop all the moping. It’s not going to be fun for me.’
Rachel looked up from her magazine and angled an eyebrow at her best mate.
‘Well, OK, I won’t hate taking charge and putting him straight on a few things. That’s just my little bonus for getting to grips with his domestic ignorance. Do you know, I found seven dirty dinner plates in his room? He just looked all blank and hopeless when I asked him how he thought they’d get from a stack on his desk to being sparkling clean on the drying wrack. Poor, poor Melissa. That woman needs a backdated medal.’
‘Amen to that, girlfriend.’
Molly looked sceptically at her golden haired friend.
‘Sorry, just been reading this interview with Oprah. She really likes to celebrate everything. She hugged the interviewer for passing her a cup of coffee.’
‘You’d hug me for coffee.’
‘Oh, yeah. Good point.’ Rachel nodded.
Suze rubbed her eyes with delicate fingers. ‘You know, compared to Stephen, Max is a domestic dream. At least he can’t move yet and spread even more devastation around the house. If you’re feeling brave, Mols, you could come and test your powers on Steve. I swear, he just takes off his pants and … leaves them. Wherever. Sometimes in the living room. I have given up. I’m paying the cleaner extra to pick them up with those rubbish picker things.’
Molly chuckled. ‘You’re the one with the skills, Suze. You successfully live with a man. It’s more than I’ve ever managed.’
‘You live with one now.’ Suze rolled her sage green eyes.
‘Yes, but one I can kick out with a month’s notice and very little discomfort if I so choose.’
Suze pressed her tongue into her cheek. ‘Good point. Divorces can be so fiddly.’
‘Nearly forgot,’ Molly pointed her finger in the air as if spearing a memory before it could dash off again, ‘I got this postcard from Sam yesterday. I think he sent it not long after they got to Sydney, but he put the wrong postcode on it. His own address. Chuh. Anyway, his being a complete knob aside, it sounds like Psoriasis are having a great time.’
Molly took a postcard out of the big double pocket at the front of her hoody and handed it over to Suze.
Rach craned her head around to see. ‘Ahhh. That wombat can water ski! Sweet. Barbeques, clubs, surfing: wow, they have been busy.’ Rachel read from the scrawled handwriting, ‘Patrick says thanks for remembering him this time. What’s all that about?’
‘Yeah, who’s Patrick? Sounds like someone’s uncle. Or an accountant,’ Suze chipped in, jiggling her foot on the pram a bit harder as Max started to protest in a whimper. ‘Too much girl-talk, too young,’, he seemed to complain.
‘Sam’s uni mate, Patrick, the one whose name always escapes me. He helped John move in. Rach, you met him at mum’s party.’
‘Ohhh, so that was Naked Patrick.’ Rachel nodded, lost in a little memory of the tall dishy stranger with dark chocolate eyes.
‘Yup, and I know I’m sometimes bad with names but his I especially have trouble with his. Every time.’
‘That’s odd. I think I’d make an extra effort to remember someone that attractive who’s famed for getting naked. He was pretty yum. What’s his story?’ Rach asked.
‘He and Sam were in halls together, I think. He had a long-term long-distance girlfriend but it fizzled out a few years ago, according to Sam. He seems perfectly nice, but he is the reason I have Happy John under my feet, so maybe I should try to remember not to like him as much next time I meet him.’
Rach turned over another page in her magazine and inspected some Autumn metallic trends. �
��Or,’ she said, pointing a finger at Molly, ‘you could remember to forget you really remember him next time, and pretend you’ve forgotten. That might annoy him.’
Molly stared at her super-professional pink and lime green trainers as she puzzled that one out. Suze chewed her lip and wondered if she was just slow because of the post-baby hormones.
‘Hey, girls!’ A beaming Josie radiated American chirpiness at them from underneath an oak tree at the edge of the park. ‘I’ve just covered another army fitness session. The usual instructor, Renee, is off with some flesh-eating virus thing but – hey – good for me, huh? Need a warm-down pronto. So, you’re hard it at, right? You guys must be serious fitness fiends.’
Molly and Rachel looked at each other. Molly fiddled with the hem of her Guinness promo T-shirt; Rachel touched at her lipsticked mouth. Suze just brushed a cake crumb off her Diesel jeans and thanked the lord for breast feeding: extreme calorie burning while-you-wait and the perfect excuse not to get into saggy tracky bottoms three times a week.
‘Hey! I don’t know you!’ Josie bounded over to the bench and gave Suze a peck on each cheek. ‘That’s the European way, right?’
‘Hmm!’ was about all Suze could manage. Josie’s energy exhausted her instantly.
‘Anyway, didn’t see you two at the last bootcamp session.’ Josie looked between Molly and Rachel. They both inspected the patchy Peckham grass, desperately trying to improvise a lie that would sound better than ‘We were too scared to come back’.
‘No, we had … a thing that meant we were away.’ Rachel tried.
‘Like, a holiday?’
‘Yes!’ Molly said with a breath of relief as she watched Josie balance on one leg in a stretch that required perfect, practised poise.
‘Cool, then I’ll see you here next weekend. I thought we’d try those great climbing frames they put up in the fall – the big wooden ones you swing along, like a monkey!’ Josie’s smile was like a big blast of Californian sunshine: clean and warm. It was hard not to want to follow her, like an extreme sports Pied Piper. ‘Hey, do you guys want to grab a coffee?’ Josie step back into the deepest lunge Molly had ever seen. She thought Josie’s left leg might have just entered Brixton. ‘I know this great place that will knock you up a mean egg white omelette. Perfect protein!’
The two friends nodded, as Josie moved herself into an eye-watering split.
If egg whites give you thighs like that, Molly thought, why are meringues only in puddings? I’m going to start crunching them into my Special K.
* * *
After Suzanne had made her reluctant departure to see to the ‘stinky bits of my progeny’, the three remaining girls of varying athletic ability sauntered off to a cafe with plenty of scrubbed pine and worryingly few pastries.
Josie squeezed her green tea bag against the side of her mug. ‘Mmmm!’ she exclaimed, catching a nose-full of tea steam. ‘That’s the greatest.’
‘So, Josie,’ Rachel emptied her second sugar sachet into her latte, ‘how come you’re over here in the UK? If you don’t mind me asking such a lame-o question.’ Rachel was painfully conscious that she was slipping in a strange number of Americanisms, something that seemed to happen every time she met someone from the other side of the pond. Her ex from New York, Josh, had found it charming. At first. But they didn’t end up going steady, put it that way.
‘Same old, same old. I had this boyfriend at college that I thought was The One. Now I know he was just The One Big Problem in my life. He got a great job out here and wanted me to come. So I thought, OK, let’s give this a shot. I can take my work with me, after all. A month here in London and he decides it’s moving too fast! What an arse, as you guys would say. I wish he’d told me he had a problem with speed before I spent all my savings on a one-way ticket.’
‘Wow, you really gave it all up for a man? You left behind your friends and family, everything, for your boyfriend?’ Molly looked mystified as she chomped into a toasted bagel. Egg whites had quickly gone off her fitness menu when she realised they had the texture of jellied monkey brains.
‘Sure. I now realise he was the wrong man, but at the time I was just so in love, I didn’t think twice. You have to follow your heart, ladies, am I right?’ Molly and Rachel were beginning to realise that Josie’s sunny Californian disposition meant that she rarely needed an actual answer to a rousing question.
‘I know what you mean,’ Rachel said. ‘You have to take risks to have a chance of getting the big payout in love. Like when I see beyond a man’s lack of colour co-ordination and hope that he’ll have a secret style all of his own under his mismatched socks. Nine times out of ten he doesn’t, but I don’t mind a bit of trial and error.’ Rachel smiled as Josie punched her lightly on the arm.
‘That’s what I’m talking about! It’s just the attitude I psych myself up with before speed dating. It’s pretty much essential if you want to come out with most of the integrity you had when you went in!’ Josie laughed as she loaded up a fork with wobbly egg white.
‘Hey, I’ve always wanted to try that. Is it any good?’ Rach asked, fishing for an invite.
Josie happily took the bait. ‘It’s awesome. Come with next time – I could do with a wing woman. It feels a bit embarrassing at first, but you’ve got to take a risk for love, right?’
‘Hmmm.’ Molly continued to chew.
‘You don’t think so?’ Josie’s face softened.
Rachel leapt in before her best friend could swallow her bagel and elaborate. ‘Molly only gambles with venture capital, not her feelings. She likes to be in control. She’s not a “follow your heart” kind of girl.’
Molly forced down the rest of her mouthful in an awkward gulp. ‘Oi! I do follow my heart. Sometimes. I just weigh things up carefully when it comes to relationships.’
‘You certainly weighed up poor Alex.’
‘What does that mean?’ Molly put down her food, a sure sign that she was rattled. She’d been known to finish three courses before voicing a minor problem in the past, especially if the pudding involved chocolate somehow. Josie leant forward with her elbows on the tiled table.
Rach turned to Josie. ‘Alex was Molly’s boyfriend before university. He was going to Sheffield, she was going to Bristol. The day they got their exam results and knew for sure that they were going to virtually opposite ends of the country, she broke up with him. Right in the school grounds, as he clutched his exam slips. Without so much as one agonised night of indecision.’
‘Because it would have been too hard to be together!’ Molly interjected, a little stung. ‘We wouldn’t have been able to make things work long-distance and I knew I had to really focus on my business degree and getting work in my spare time. One long train trip each month wasn’t going to make for a very romantic relationship. And he would have just got bored and found someone new.’
‘How did you know that? You hadn’t even given it a go.’
‘Yeah,’ Josie chimed in, ‘if you loved each other, you had the chance to work it out. My mom went to Colorado State and my dad studied at Columbia and they stayed together.’ Seeing Molly and Rachel go quiet, as they mentally tried to link these places via any American movie knowledge they had, Josie explained, ‘Colorado is basically on the wrong side of America for a relationship with someone in New York. But they made it work. Here I am to prove it! Plus, my twin brothers, Jody and Johnny. So you just cut Alex loose, huh? I suppose it was,’ Josie took a second to choose her words carefully, ‘the sensible thing to do.’
‘Yes, but I would just like to point out that I did think about it beforehand! It was almost a dead cert that we’d both get our grades, so I planned ahead. I didn’t want to waste any more time – his or mine,’ she added hastily as Rach’s jaw dropped a fraction. ‘Sometimes there are more important things in life, like careers. Relationships can fizzle out in a second, but a career – a good business – will always be there.’ Molly hid her face behind her big coffee mug as she took long gulps from it,
as if to say the subject was as near to being finished as her bagel.
Molly could have sworn she caught Rach mouthing ‘Father issues’ to Josie as she put her mug down, but really didn’t feel like she had any sort of energy to get into that particular quagmire of emotional chat. She knew where her heart lay and at the moment it was following a business plan. And there was nothing wrong with that.
* * *
After they switched back to less contentious chatter, Molly and Rachel learned a lot more about Josie. Most importantly, they learnt that she was bright, breezy and really sweet. They liked her. This was hard to swallow, as she had previously made them run so hard that they thought their lungs would burst into flames and singe their best sports gear. She’d thrown heckles and well-placed insults at them that day in the park to get them going, but she seemed to be a completely different person as she happily prattled on about how different the States were compared to the UK and how it had taken her a full week to get her head round Katie Price. ‘So she’s definitely not a drag queen, then? But her husband is?’
Rachel even spilled the beans about Molly’s selfless task of polishing up John, after her quick success with Sam.
‘I like your style,’ Josie had pointed at Molly with her fork and smiled. ‘So, it’s like a make-over service?’
‘It’s more like your bootcamp, actually, Jose. I don’t pull any punches, put it that way. Somehow these guys have made it through life without some woman laying it on the line. Well, I am happy to be that woman. Hopefully they’ll step out the other side as more confident, fully rounded men, who’ll no longer be a nuisance to womankind.’
The Bad Boyfriends Bootcamp Page 9