Single in the City

by Unknown

  ‘Hey, where’d you go?’ Chloe notices me trying not to look like I’m skulking up on them.

  ‘Oh, just looking around.’ There’s not one covetable item here. The whole collection is exceedingly monochrome and I’m no Safari Jane. Khaki might be chic on the runways but unless you’re hiding from tigers, head-to-toe dung isn’t going to work for most women.

  Chloe glances at her watch. ‘I’m sorry, Barry, I’ve got to go.’

  ‘Hot date waiting?’ he asks with a smirk. Flirty Barry.

  ‘Oh no. Just a friend. By the way, here’s my card. Give me a call, I’d love to talk to you more about opportunities.’ They cheek-kiss, we cheek-kiss, and part.

  ‘Barry, you and Chloe really seemed to hit it off.’

  ‘Oh, well, yes.’ He’s blushing. ‘Did I tell you I was thinking about moving jobs? She’s going to put me in touch with her colleague who covers my space.’

  ‘Well, I think that’s great. And I think she’s great. And obviously you’re great. If you two happened to hit it off, that’d be…great.’ Why do I feel the need to bless their union, like some stiletto-wearing Godfather?

  22

  ‘Now what are you trying to be?’ This is how Felicity greets me at the Patels’ fortieth wedding anniversary party. She’s lucky I recognized that, as a white girl from Connecticut, I have throw cushions more Indian than me and therefore shouldn’t try to pull off a sari. Instead, in a nod to the Patels’ cultural heritage and to British restraint, I’m dazzling in Topshop’s take on Asian hippy chic–pink paisley silk with gold and aqua. (No, not from the closet. That door is now closed to me for ever.) It floats around my knees when I walk, and I’ve got golden bracelets stacked halfway up my arm. They match my gold dancing shoes.

  ‘Hello, Felicity.’ Mwah, mwah. It’s become easier with time to pretend we can stand each other. ‘Do you want me to check on the drinks?’ It’s the only thing she trusts me to do these days. My hard-won triumph over her and Mark was short-lived. After recovering her composure, which took about four minutes, she assured me that while she couldn’t fire me, she could make me wish she had. I have to give her credit. She was true to her word. I’m back to answering phones, making tea and surfing the Internet. I’m only here tonight because I threw a tantrum and threatened to expose her again. I did it partly just for spite. I don’t want her relaxing now just because she’s made partner. It’s not mature, but given that my opportunities for advancement are non-existent, I’m getting job satisfaction where I can. And it’s not all bad. She’s been such a miserable cow that I no longer feel guilty about being a blackmailer. In a cosmic tit-for-tat, we’re now officially even.

  I have to admit that I’m impressed with her efforts tonight. I had my doubts about anyone’s ability to convert the Patels’ local civic hall into a tented mirage. Dark panelled walls and brown carpet will only accommodate so much whimsy. But the DJ is playing a mix of Bangla pop for the kids and sitar music for the oldies. She’s had the walls covered in swathes of red cloth; gold candles are lit by the hundreds and even the bar has been transformed into an exotic tinker’s wagon. The guests all seem to appreciate the effort and the Patels are acting like lovestruck kids, which is remarkable considering that they hadn’t even laid eyes on each other before their wedding day forty years ago. What are the chances that soulmates are thrown together at random like that? About a zillion to one.

  I’m not here tonight to see the Patels feed each other wedding cake. It’s the catering company’s last night working for us. Mark’s sister-in-law finally decided that blood is thicker than money and pulled the plug. When Sam told me, and said he hoped I’d be here tonight, my heart soared. He wouldn’t say that unless he had something to tell me. Despite Janey, despite everything, I can’t help it. I have a terrible case of the Sams, and I fear I may be terminal.

  I pour myself a glass of champagne. Why not? Since Black(mail) Monday, I’ve taken a carpe diem approach to work, even slipping out for a makeover last week. I feel a little guilty betraying my recently discovered work ethic like this. I really thought I was a changed woman, but let’s face it, I’m not fooling anyone. Leopards and shirkers cannot change their spots. So, glass in hand, I surrender to my true nature and go to find Sam. He’s stuffing brown goo into mushrooms.

  ‘Need some help?’

  ‘Nah, you’ll get your dress dirty. Nice dress, by the way.’

  ‘Thanks.’ A blush creeps up my cheeks. ‘So tonight’s the last hurrah.’

  ‘Hurrah.’

  ‘Isn’t Mark’s sister-in-law cutting off her nose to spite her face?’

  ‘Definitely, but vindictiveness is more important than revenue for her.’

  ‘You can’t live on vindictiveness.’

  ‘Tell her that. Hey, did you ever resolve the funeral fiasco?’

  I’ve purposely played down that night considering that I made a fool of myself, asking him out and then bursting into tears. To be honest, I’ve been avoiding him around the office. ‘In a manner of speaking.’ Do I really want to tell him that I’ve stooped to blackmail?

  ‘You’ve kept your job, so you must have done something right.’

  Oh, to hell with making him think I’m perfect. He’s bound to find out eventually anyway. ‘I don’t know if you’d call it right, exactly.’

  He stops mid-stuff, a curious smile crossing his face. ‘What did you do?’

  ‘I blackmailed them.’ My stomach flip-flops while I’m saying this.

  ‘About their affair?’

  ‘Yeah. Stop grinning, Sam. I’m not proud of it.’

  ‘Well, you should be! I think that’s fucking brilliant.’

  ‘It’s immoral.’

  ‘You can’t apply morality to an immoral situation.’

  ‘But two wrongs don’t make a right.’

  ‘Maybe not, but it makes you feel good, doesn’t it?’

  ‘Yeah, I admit it does a little.’ I’m grinning. ‘It hasn’t done anything for my career though.’

  ‘You don’t really want to keep working for Mark, do you?’ He takes a sip of my champagne, leaving a smeary fingerprint on the glass. ‘Sorry…Given that it’s our last night “to get down and party”,’ he says in his remarkably lifelike nerdy voice, ‘we ought to go out with a bang, don’t you think?’

  ‘What do you plan to do, poison the guests or something?’

  ‘I was thinking of drinks.’

  ‘You’re going to poison their drinks?’

  ‘Drinks, Hannah. I was thinking of going for drinks.’

  ‘Will others be coming?’

  ‘Not unless you feel the need for back-up.’

  Is it finally happening? ‘As in a date?’

  ‘If I say yes, will you say no?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘No, you won’t come, or no you won’t say no?’

  ‘No, I –’

  ‘Why is this getting more complicated than it needs to be? Let’s start again. Hannah, do you want to have drinks with me tonight after the party?’

  ‘Yes.’ I’m so happy I could cry.

  Sam has anticipated my dress’s potential to end up over my head again. He hands me his courier bag. ‘Here, put this over your shoulder. No, across. Yeah, like that. It might keep you from flashing oncoming motorists.’

  ‘Are you sure you don’t mind me wearing your handbag?’

  ‘It’s not a handbag.’

  ‘Man purse?’

  ‘I like to think of it as a backpack for the new millennium.’

  ‘Whatever.’ It takes a certain kind of (straight) man to unashamedly carry a pocketbook.37

  ‘Here you go.’ He hands me a glass of Sauvignon Blanc after saying hello to half the bar.

  It drops to the floor and shatters. ‘Shit!’ The entire glass has just splashed up on to his pants.

  ‘You’re supposed to close your fist, you know, grasp the glass when I hand it to you,’ he says, sadly surveying his soaking legs.

  ‘I’m so sorry! I d
on’t know what happened.’ I do, actually. My hands are slick with sweat.

  I’d love to spin a tale about how casual and cool I was on my first date with Sam. But everyone knows that’s not something I’d ever be capable of. Not now that I feel this way about him. So, without apology or preamble, I’m pumping him for information with the single-mindedness of a CIA interrogator. By the time the lights come on and the bartender kicks us out, I know as much about Samuel Ulysses Parker as just about anyone except his parents. Aside from his middle name, I love everything.

  ‘Why’d you grow up in Wyoming?’ As a born-and-bred Northeasterner, I find this an odd place for people to settle voluntarily.

  ‘I was born there.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Well, when two people love each other, they get urges…’

  ‘Funny, Sam. I mean why were your parents there?’

  ‘They’re professors.’

  ‘Ah, then academia runs in your family.’

  ‘Like webbed toes,’ he says.

  ‘You have webbed toes?’

  ‘I’m just saying.’

  ‘So what exactly is in Wyoming?’ I can’t believe I’ve lived my entire life in the US and never, not once, thought about Wyoming. ‘Is that where Wyatt Earp comes from?’

  ‘Not sure.’

  ‘The OK Corral? Do you have buffalo?’

  ‘Me personally? No.’

  ‘But there are buffalo?’ I thought they were extinct. They definitely killed tatonka in Dances with Wolves.

  ‘Millions. Tell you what. Let me save us some time, because otherwise I’m afraid this may take the next month. We have rodeos. We have wild horses. We have Shoshone and Arapaho Indians. We have cowboys and dude ranches. We also have Yellowstone National Park and Jackson Hole.’

  Wow, in Connecticut we have sports-utility vehicles, gated communities and hedge-fund millionaires. I had no idea a guy could come from someplace exotic in the United States. ‘Brothers? Sisters?’

  ‘Two brothers. Older.’

  ‘In Wyoming?’

  ‘One’s in Michigan, the other’s in Tallahassee. They’re professors.’

  ‘You weren’t kidding about it running in the family. Are you sure you don’t have webbed toes?’

  ‘Wanna check?’

  ‘Isn’t it a little soon to see each other’s feet?’

  ‘You’re right. In feudal China, we’d have had to get married first.’

  ‘Are you proposing?’

  ‘Are you a Chinese woman from the seventeenth century?’

  ‘I see your point.’

  I think it’s only fair that after I let him talk about himself all night he at least try to kiss me. I’ve been lingering here next to his Vespa for about a week.

  ‘Hannah, I don’t want to kiss you tonight.’

  ‘Psh. As if I’d let you anyway.’ My face is burning.

  ‘Then stop puckering. I have…something to take care of first. We can’t start that side of dating yet.’

  ‘Janey?’

  ‘Yes. Can I pick you up on Saturday morning?’

  ‘Where are we going?’

  ‘Wait and see. Be ready at nine-thirty.’

  23

  ‘Surprise!’ sings Mom at eight-thirty on Saturday morning. I’ll say. She and Dad are standing on my doorstep. ‘Hannah, how many times have I told you to take your make-up off before you go to bed.’

  Mom, I want to tell her, I didn’t even take my clothes off. ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘Well, you said you were too busy to come home, so we came to you.’ My mother has a knack for making innocuous statements accusatory. How can the Fates do this to me? Sam is due in an hour. I can’t radiate allure while chaperoned. It’s probably too much to hope that they’re only here for a day trip. ‘How–how long are you staying?’

  ‘Oh, just until Monday. Your father has to be back for his prostate exam.’ Her pity-me face is legendary. Dad had a cancer scare a couple years ago but to listen to Mom you’d think the trauma was all hers. My poor father can’t even get credit for a life-threatening disease.

  ‘Well, uh, where are you staying?’

  ‘Silly girl, of course we got a hotel room. You don’t think we’d sleep on your floor, do you?’

  My response is cut off by a half-naked man shuffling along our hallway. Living with Australians has had a few unexpected consequences. One is that I never know who’s sleeping on my couch. ‘Mornin’,’ he waves to Mom. She’s trying not to stare at his erection, which is just about to poke through his boxers. Just great.

  ‘So! What shall we do today?’ Her tone assures me that she’s not the least bit concerned about the poor company her daughter is keeping.

  ‘It’s eight-thirty in the morning.’ I’d like to sleep for about four more hours.

  ‘No, it’s not.’ She grabs Dad’s wrist. ‘It’s…one-thirty.’

  ‘Trust me, it’s eight-thirty.’

  ‘I already changed my watch, Barbara.’

  She obviously believes this a lie. What’s worse, Dad now looks doubtful about his own time-telling ability. ‘How many hours difference is it?’

  ‘Five.’ We’ve had this conversation at least a dozen times.

  ‘Ahead or behind?’

  ‘Ahead.’ Same as always.

  ‘You’re ahead? Or we’re ahead?’

  ‘Well, you’re here. So we’re both ahead…of the US…by five hours.’

  ‘Are you sure? That doesn’t sound right.’

  As if the people looking after the clocks in Greenwich would change that sort of thing simply to vex my mother. ‘I’m sure.’ They don’t look like they’re going to go away. ‘I guess we may as well go get something to eat. I just need to make a call first.’

  ‘Sam? It’s Hannah.’ I hope my parents appreciate the sacrifice I’m making for them. Of course I won’t tell them. All I need today are my mother’s inappropriately personal questions coming from across the table. It’s bad enough when they come from across the ocean.

  ‘I’m on my way.’

  ‘I’m sorry, I can’t today. My parents just showed up.’

  ‘Oh, well, don’t worry, we’ll do it –’

  ‘Next Saturday.’ I’m not leaving this to chance again. And isn’t it ironic that my mother, whose ideal view of the world has always involved sons-in-law, is thwarting my prospects like this? I know what you’re thinking. Why don’t I just make my excuses (lie), tell them to entertain themselves for the day and go out with Sam anyway? Because they’ve raised a good old-fashioned guilt-ridden daughter, one who has never been very good at confronting her parents. Given their jetlag and my hangover, today is not the day to turn over a new leaf.

  ‘Well, sure, next Saturday. Enjoy your folks.’

  As if there’s any chance of that. My parents love the idea of Europe, as long as it’s identical to home in all important ways. Now that my father realizes it’s not the middle of the afternoon, he wants waffles. They’re unconvinced by my explanation that the English haven’t embraced the waffle tradition, unable to grasp the idea that everyone wouldn’t want to eat fried batter with maple syrup for breakfast. ‘What do they eat, then?’ Dad wants to know.

  ‘I don’t know. Eggs.’

  ‘Not pancakes?’

  ‘I guess they eat pancakes. Look, I know a place where we can get pastries, croissants and things, and eggs, and probably an omelette.’ Though I wouldn’t bet on it. ‘Let’s just go there.’

  ‘I don’t understand,’ he says miffily. ‘We make the food they like.’

  ‘No, we don’t, Dad.’

  ‘Tea, for instance.’

  Boiling water. Big deal.

  ‘And English muffins.’

  ‘Those aren’t really English. They don’t exist here.’

  ‘Don’t be silly,’ Mom says. ‘Then why are they called English muffins?’

  ‘That’s right, honey. Mr Thomas brought the recipe from England.’

  That’s what the commerci
al says. Dad believes everything he sees on TV. That’s why Mom no longer lets him use the credit card. Thanks to Suzanne Somers,38 we both got Thigh-Masters one Christmas. I was disappointed but Mom hit the ceiling. You’ve never seen a woman give the cold shoulder like my mother.

  ‘Fine, let’s just go to your restaurant,’ she pouts. ‘We don’t want to put you out.’

  As if I’ve conspired with London’s hospitality industry to keep waffles from my father.

  ‘It’s not putting me out, Mom. They don’t eat waffles here!’

  ‘Now don’t get upset, dear. We’re going to have a nice weekend together.’ God forbid anything unsavoury like defending myself should cloud her vacation. ‘Stand up straight. When you slouch, it makes you look podgy.’

  I’d love to find dealing with my parents easy. It certainly isn’t England’s fault that it’s not; they’re this unreasonable at home too.

  ‘Coffee, please,’ says Mom to the waiter.

  ‘Filter coffee?’

  ‘What is he saying?’

  ‘Cafetière?’ the waiter tries.

  ‘That’s fine, thanks,’ I tell him. ‘It’s okay, Mom, that’s coffee like you like it.’ Almost. I don’t have the heart to tell her that her coffee is going to require some DIY.

  There’s a slight commotion when my father finds out that scrambling eggs is beyond the chef’s abilities. ‘They come fried, sir,’ the waiter says again.

  ‘They come raw in a shell,’ he mutters. ‘Why can’t your cook scramble them?’

  ‘I’ll see if he’ll do it.’

  ‘What is this, Russia?’

  ‘Dad, please. He said he’d check to see if the chef can do them.’ When I cast a beseeching look to the waiter, hoping he has parents like mine, he smiles back. We understand each other.

  Breakfast is served with almost no more trauma. Dad gets his scrambled eggs, most likely with a side of spit.

  ‘What’s this?’ Mom’s eyeing the cafetière like the waiter has set a monkey on the table.

  ‘It’s brewing the coffee.’

  ‘What do you mean, it’s brewing? It’s a pot full of coffee grounds floating in water.’