Jenny Colgan 3-Book Collection: Amanda’s Wedding, Do You Remember the First Time?, Looking For Andrew McCarthy. Jenny Colgan
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‘OK,’ said Fran. ‘I’m just going to take this little piece of junk mail and put it where it belongs …’
I snatched it out of her hand.
‘Come on, Mel. This is low-life trash bastard post. In fact, if you like, I’ll even give you the honour of setting fire to it.’
‘Hey, guys, what’s going on?’ said Nicholas the Intuitive, through a mouthful of chocolate mush. Apparently, if he didn’t get 15,000 calories a day he’d die.
I opened my eyes.
‘Look, I really don’t want to be rude, but would you just GO AWAY!’ I burst out, but I couldn’t hold the moment. ‘Ehm, it’s just that Fran and I have this REALLY IMPORTANT THING to do that we’ve been planning for ages …’
‘Yeah, it’s called the Getting Away From Nicholas Thing,’ said Fran, not quite under her breath.
‘Sure, hey, not a problem, babe. How about I pick you up tonight at seven and we go for a ludicrously expensive dinner at my client’s expense? Chaw chaw chaw!’
‘Unfortunately this THING that Mel and I have to do lasts for AGES,’ said Fran. ‘So sorry. But you have to go. NOW.’
‘Hey, cool your jets. No one ever said that Nicholas Snodley couldn’t take a hint.’
I suddenly ran to the other side of the room and started de-alphabetizing Linda’s CDs in case he tried to give me a kiss. Linda’s CDs: The Greatest Love Songs Ever – One, The Greatest Love Songs Ever – Two and, for a bit of variety, The Greatest Love Songs in the World – Ever! And some dolphin noises.
‘Mel, babe, I’ll ring you soon, huh? About the Brian May Appreciation bash?’
‘Absolutely,’ I said. ‘BYE.’
He went for playing it cool: ‘Yeah, right. What’s your number again?’
I meant to give him the wrong number, but in my confused emotional state got mixed up and accidentally gave him the right one.
‘Ciao then, babes,’ he sleazed, and, bending under the doorframe, he was gone. I swear I could hear the echoing ‘chaw chaw chaw’ down the corridor in his wake.
Out of the frying pan, I thought to myself, picking up the postcard again. I moved back and collapsed on the sofa next to Fran, leaning my head on her shoulder.
‘Please, never do the Nicholas thing again,’ she said.
‘But it’s so much fun for you.’
‘Mel, you know I’d rather grate myself than see you go anywhere near that eight-foot pole of slime.’
I held up the postcard weakly. ‘I missed him so much.’
‘I know you did.’
‘I still do.’
‘I know you do. But what kind of man would do what he did to you without being a total bastard?’
‘I don’t know. Boys are weird.’
‘Yes, they are. All of them. And they think we’re weird. But some of them are nice-weird and some of them are not. Think of Alex as an Amanda of the boy world. He made you feel exactly the same way as that snotty cow did when she took up with all those nobs and dropped you like a stone.’
‘And I still see her.’
Fran sighed. ‘And she makes you miserable. Which means you probably won’t listen to a word I say.’
‘Probably not.’
‘OK, well, fuck that for sisterly advice then. Any mini rolls left?’
We regarded the debris of tinfoil strewn across the floor.
‘That boy frightens me,’ murmured Fran.
I lay back on the sofa, groaning. ‘Oh God. First Fraser, then Nicholas, and now this. I hope karma isn’t true.’ A thought struck me: ‘You don’t think Amanda’s marrying Fraser just to fuck me off, do you?’
‘Probably,’ said Fran, stretching lazily and putting the TV on. ‘Don’t worry. If Alex is coming back, maybe she’ll marry him instead.’
Neither prospect filled me with glee.
I trudged back into work on Monday feeling low. I always felt low at work anyway, so fortunately nobody noticed. Which they could only have done if I’d actually talked to anyone, and I never did. So, just a typical week, really.
I had a dingy grey office with a dead plant and big piles of crap all over it where I was supposed to check copy for a stationery company in Holborn. It was a shitty job going absolutely nowhere, but it demanded minimum brain power and paid more than McDonald’s, so I sat it out. In front of the office the secretarial staff tended to hover, sniffing suspiciously. Given that all I did in my job was read, whereas they typed and answered the phone too, they were very cagey about my presence – I swear I could hear them sharpening their extra-long nails whenever I walked in. Mostly, they ignored me. But even they couldn’t ignore me for three whole days, standing peering out over Holborn Viaduct through my tiny filthy window which didn’t open, holding a postcard and looking painfully wistful.
‘What’s the matter, love?’
Shirley was queen secretary, in her late thirties, with two-tone hair and attitude. Since Fran had given up on me in disgust, and Amanda would have said, ‘Oh, petal, are you going to take him back? … Well, you know best, dear, but he is a Charterhouse boy and they really do have a reputation for it …’ I was desperate for someone to confide in.
‘I, erm, well, it’s my boyfriend. Ex-boyfriend. Ehm, well, he left a year ago without telling me and went to America, and now he’s coming back and I don’t know what to do.’
‘Got any kids?’
‘Gosh, no.’ I was surprised, and felt horribly middle class and at the same time cross that she thought I looked old enough to have kids.
‘’As he got any money?’
‘I … well, not much really.’
‘Tell ’im to fuck off then. Simple, innit? What’s the point of having ’im ’anging around, treating you like that?’
That made perfect sense.
‘Is that really what you’d do?’ I asked.
‘Every time my Stan pisses off, that’s exactly what I do. He knows he loves me, see. So he always comes crawling back. And I make him pay, believe me.’
‘Oh.’ I was confused. ‘So I shouldn’t tell Alex to fuck off, just make him pay?’
‘Up to you, love.’
‘Right. Right. Thanks.’
Oh God, I didn’t know when I was going to get round to picking up my dry-cleaning, never mind considering making a sensible decision about the bastard who tore my heart from its aorta, stomped up and down on it, and gleefully reduced me to the sort of person who considered Nicholas a fantastic night on the town.
Preparing myself a cup of my delicious coffee made with three different sorts of powder scraped off the bottom of other people’s catering tins, I switched on my voice mail, a wonderful invention which had saved me the trouble of ever having to pick up the phone and speak to anyone at work, thereby avoiding being asked to do any. I had five new messages. Gosh, that made me sound popular. I perked up a bit.
It occurred to me, as it had done every half-hour since Saturday, that Alex might have phoned. After all, I’d hardly