Chapter Eight Best Friends
The post-adrenaline crash hits me as soon as I get home.
In the office, I’d been on a real high celebrating the bookings with Charlie, but now I’m back in this empty house with no one to tell. There’s no one watching the sports too loudly, no one grunting a distracted ‘well done’ without looking up, no one waiting for dinner although he could have started it himself. All the niggles you think you’ll never miss, but you do. I miss having someone to come home to.
It hits me so hard, I slump down on the sofa. This is it. It isn’t some temporary blip, this is the long-term. This is how every day will be. Some people love living alone, they even enjoy it, but I’m not sure I’ll ever get used to it. It’s so hard to imagine the rest of my life alone. The house is so quiet and having the radio on constantly to try and hide the fact just isn’t working. They say life is short, but on the days I’m not working and don’t speak to a soul, it feels very long.
I promised Caroline I’d work on my love life tonight and Patty is coming round later to look through the lonely hearts with me. Could I honestly face dating or getting to know someone new? I’ve heard that even online, the fifty-year-old men are looking for thirty-year-old women.
It would be so much easier if things could go back to how they were. Did I try hard enough to keep the family together and get Alan back or did I just let her take him like the last loaf on the shelf?
‘No, please, you have him, I insist.’
I wonder if Alan knows how much I’ve changed. I wonder if the new, dynamic me is what he was looking for when he went off with Amanda.
Perhaps I should just let him know that we could give it another go.
‘Don’t you even think about it,’ is the warning I get from Patty when she visits me next. She starts flicking through the dating sites.
‘See,’ she points out. ‘There are plenty of fish still in the seawithout you having to go back to that washed-up walrus.’
She starts flicking through the profile pictures deciding which ones she would take and which I could have. I take a look through her selections and predictably she’s allocated herself the handsome twenty-somethings while giving me the retirees who like long walks and sunsets.
‘You like nature,’ she says by way of explanation before pouncing on one ad and circling it twice. ‘Look at this: handsome, sports car, own business. He could shake this cougar’s cage any day.’
On behalf of all mothers of twenty-year-old men, I show my distaste. It’s ignored.
‘Or how about this one? Slightly older, likes fine wines, managing director. I’d keep him for best.’
Exasperated, I ask, ‘What would you do if any guy actually asked you out?’
A Mata Hari style sweep of the scarf and a deep throaty voice declares, ‘I’d have him covered in chocolate and sent to my room.’
‘No you wouldn’t, you haven’t accepted a date in four years. You’re a femme-fatale fraud, Ms P.’
‘What did you expect? He did die, you know!’ she cries while stuffing everything in her bag and leaving.
‘Pats, wait, I’m sorry.’
But she’s gone.
* * *
The house falls silent again and I don’t know what to do. I can’t lose Patty too. I’d rather have her back than any man, after all, I’ve known her longer. I’ll date the retirees if that’s what it takes. I try to call her but it goes straight to voicemail. I say I’m sorry for being so insensitive and ask her to call me back. By the time I go to bed, she still hasn’t called. I leave one more message with another apology and say that I’ll stay out of the way until she wants to speak to me again. I hope it sounds understanding rather than dismissive.
I fret about the tone of that message all night and am exhausted when I get up for work. I have a tediously long day waiting for some news. I try to focus and show a real interest in each customer but my heart isn’t in it knowing what I’ve done to her.
This is worse than dating. I wanted to give her space if I’ve offended her but two days on and she still hasn’t been in touch; if I hear nothing soon, I’m going round to her house to beg forgiveness. I’m pacing the shop floor and I must have cleaned the brochure shelves a hundred times. We’ve got a lot to organize for this book weekend and I also want to speak to the wine merchants to see if they’d be interested in designing a tour, but I won’t make a good impression like this. I have to do something because this is torture. Whatever happens next, I know that if someone had hurt me, I’d want them to keep saying sorry. So, although I said I’d wait, I’ve sent a text to apologize. I’ve even put a little x on the bottom. I leave the phone at the office so that I’m not constantly checking it and trek over to the wine merchants to do my best to talk business, filling in the time until she calls me.
When I get back, I’m relieved to see that she’s sent me a text: SRY — BEING DAFT — WILL CALL ROUND TMRW x
I will go to sleep happy tonight.
* * *
Come the morning, I can’t focus on anything until I see Patty, so I decide to start unpacking some of the boxes I brought with me. It’s a fairly random selection, packed when I wasn’t thinking straight, so I have to smile to myself when I open one of them and find it full of my old fitness videos — yes, tape and everything. Goodness knows why I kept them in the first place, never mind transporting them from house to house — I’m glad I did, though.
First of all I pull out the incredible Jane Fonda — all leotards and leggings — ‘feel the burn’ and ‘if it ain’t hurtin’, it ain’t workin’. Like most people, I bought the video, but it turned out that you had to do the exercises, not just watch them. I remember Patty and I giggling at the exercise moves while drinking a bottle of Frascati. We were yelling ‘clench that butt Jane’ at every sip. Not surprisingly, it didn’t work for us.
I bought others hoping they’d suit me better. And I seem to remember every husband in the country buying their wives Cindy Crawford’s video. They obviously thought that the sight of a supermodel frolicking on the beach in a swimsuit would make their other halves feel motivated and good about themselves. It didn’t even have a good soundtrack — not like the one I find now: Paula Abdul’s video. I loved this one.
I put it on and am immediately in full flow: Paula, ‘Straight Up’ and a rather energetic grapevine exercise. I was always good at this aerobics step and I could put a bit of rhythm into it.
Next I find Cher. This one is insane. She’s doing exercise in a dominatrix outfit! At least they play ‘Addicted to Love’. I have the broom handle slung low and am at one with Robert Palmer’s backing singers when there’s a knock on the door.
‘Patty — I was just . . .’
‘I know, I’ve been watching you through the window for ten minutes. Pass me that mop.’
For the rest of the night Robert Palmer has two extra backing singers making him look good. Lucky man.
* * *
Blimey, I’m stiff the next day. Several hours of 1980s fitness videos can do that to you. I creak my way to work grimacing with every movement. I’m sure someone is going to rush up to me any time soon and offer to oil my joints. When did I become this unfit? Surely once upon a time I was a fitness goddess? I shake that ridiculous notion away. That was never the case. I was just young.
Patty rings the office the moment I lower my damaged body into my chair. I put her on speaker to avoid having to lift anything.
‘How are your thighs this morning?’ she asks.
Not even a ‘hello’ then.
‘Mine feel as if I’ve done twelve rounds on a bucking bronco — either the horse or sugar-daddy version.’
‘Twenty minutes of sumo squats with Paula might do that to a girl — no one else on the video was seeing how wide they could get their legs,’ I remind her.
Through the speakerphone, the dirtiest laugh you’ll ever hear fills the office. When she recovers she remembers why she called.
‘I think we should go to a karaoke bar tomorrow night.’
My heart sinks.
‘Oh, Pats, I can’t. Zoe will disown me,’ I protest.
‘She’ll never know and anyway, you don’t have to get up — just stand in the audience and applaud me. Come on, it’ll be a laugh.’
I’ve opened Pandora’s box by getting those videos out. I weigh up my options and they seem to be:
1. Turn Patty down and risk hurting her just when I’ve regained her friendship OR
2. Agree to go along, stay sober and applaud Patty’s solo efforts all night, thereby eradicating all memory of whatever I did to offend her.
I have to go with the second option and Patty’s right, Zoe will never know.