Me and Mr. Darcy

Chapter One

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single girl in possession of her right mind must be in want of a decent man.

There’s just one problem . . .

‘. . . so we had a drink each and shared a pizza, but you asked for two extra toppings on your half, which means you owe . . . Hang on a minute, I’ve got a calculator on my phone . . .’

Sitting in a little Italian restaurant in Manhattan’s Lower East Side, I stare across the checked tablecloth and watch, dumbfounded, as my date pulls out his phone and proceeds to cheerfully divide up the bill.

. . . where on earth do you find a decent man these days?

I’m having dinner with John, a thirty-something architect I met briefly at a friend’s birthday party last weekend.

He seemed nice enough when he asked for my number – nice enough to share a pizza with on a Tuesday evening after work, anyway – but now, watching him hunched over the table, number-crunching, I’m fast realising I’ve made a mistake.

‘. . . an extra seven dollars seventy-five cents, and that includes tax and tip,’ he declares triumphantly, and shows me the screen to prove it.

A very big mistake.

To be honest, I blame Mr Darcy.

I was just twelve years old when I first read Pride and Prejudice and I fell for him right from the start.

Forget the pop stars whose posters I had tacked to my wall – Mr Darcy was my first love.

Devastatingly handsome, mysterious, smouldering and a total romantic, he set the bar for all my future boyfriends.

Snuggled under the bedcovers with my flashlight, I couldn’t wait to grow up so I could find a man like him.

But now I have grown up. And here I am, still looking.

Digging out a twenty-dollar bill from my purse, I pass it to John.

‘Have you got the seventy-five cents?’ he prompts, his hand still outstretched.

You have got to be joking.

Except he’s not.

‘Oh . . . um . . . sure,’ I mutter, and begin rooting around in my change purse.

Don’t get me wrong. I don’t need a man. I have a career, I pay my own rent, I have a set of power tools and I know how to use them. And as for the other thing, well, that’s what battery-operated toys were invented for.

I hand John the seventy-five cents. Then watch in disbelief as he proceeds to count it.

Still, that doesn’t stop me hankering after a bit of that good-old-fashioned romance I’m always reading about in books.

Or daydreaming about meeting someone who could sweep me off my feet and set my pulse racing.

A dark, handsome, faithful man, with impeccable manners, brooding good looks, witty conversation and one of those big, broad, manly chests you can rest your head upon . . .

Instead, in the last twelve months I’ve been on one disastrous date after another.

Now, OK, I know everyone has a bad-date story to tell.

It’s completely normal. Who hasn’t been out with Creepy Guy/Mr Nothing in Common With/The Man Still in Love With His Ex (delete as applicable, or in my case, don’t delete any of them)?

It’s just part of being single. It has to happen once.

And twice is bad luck. But a whole string of them?

For example, here are a few off the top of my head:

1. Bart had ‘issues with intimacy’. Translated, this meant he wouldn’t hold my hand as it was ‘too intimate’, but it was perfectly OK to ask me back to his to watch a porn movie on our first date.

2. Aaron wore white cowboy boots. Which is bad enough.

But after cancelling on me at the last minute, telling me that he had to work late, I spotted the boots glowing in the darkness of the movie theatre that night.

Scroll up and there was Aaron on the back row with his tongue down another girl’s throat.

3. Then there was Derek, the nice school teacher who invited me over for a home-cooked dinner.

Unfortunately, he ‘forgot’ to tell me it was his mother doing the cooking.

Five courses and three hours of listening to how fabulous Derek was later, I managed to escape before she got out the baby photos.

4. And now there’s John, otherwise known as Mr Chivalrous . . .

‘So, how about we do this again?’ he’s asking me now as we’re leaving the restaurant.

‘Oh—’ I open my mouth to reply but instead give a muffled yelp as John lets the door swing back in my face. I just manage to stop it with my elbow. Not that he notices – he’s already on the sidewalk lighting up a cigarette.

Rubbing my bruised elbow, I join him outside. After the warmth of the restaurant the cold hits me immediately. It’s December in New York and it’s way below zero.

‘What are you doing Friday?’ he persists, raising his eyebrows and taking a drag of his cigarette.

Oh, hell, what do I say now?

I falter. Come on, Emily. You’re both adults. It will be fine. Just be honest and tell him.

Tell him what? pipes up a little voice inside me. That you’d rather stick pins in your eyeballs than go on another date with him?

‘Erm, well, actually—’ I say in a constricted voice and then stop mid-sentence as he blows smoke in my face. ‘I’m kind of busy,’ I splutter.

‘Too many parties, huh?’

Trust me, I so want to be honest. Why let him off the hook with an excuse? Why protect his feelings? What about those of the next poor, unsuspecting girl he’s going to date? It’s my duty to tell him. I mean, not only is he cheap and rude, but he has a backpack shaped like a teddy bear.

That’s right. A teddy bear backpack.

I glance at it now. Under the street lamp, you can see its furry face. Despite my feelings, sympathy tugs. Oh, c’mon, don’t be so unkind, Emily. It is kind of cute. For a ten-year-old.

Swallowing my annoyance, I force a smile. ‘Yeah, ’fraid so.’ I nod, rolling my eyes in a ‘Phew, I’m exhausted from all this crazy partying’ kind of way. Honestly, I should be an Academy Award-winning actress, not the manager of a quirky little bookstore in SoHo.

In truth I’ve been to one party. It was at the Orthodontists’ Society and I had a cold. I spent the whole evening popping aspirin and discussing my cross-bite, and I was in bed by nine thirty. The excitement nearly killed me.

‘But it was nice meeting you,’ I add warmly.

‘You too.’

John appears to visibly relax and I feel a warm, virtuous glow envelop me. See. Look what a difference a few kind words can have. Now I feel really good about myself. Saint Emily. Hmm, it’s got quite a ring to it.

Buoyed up by my success, I continue: ‘And I love teddy bears—’

In one seamless move, John takes a final drag of his cigarette, grinds it out under his foot and lunges for me.

Oh, God. This isn’t happening. This can’t be happening.

It’s happening.

For a split-second I freeze. Everything seems to go into slow motion.

I watch him looming towards me, eyes closed, mouth open, tongue sticking out, and realise he’s misinterpreted kindness for a come-on.

Fortunately (or should that be unfortunately?), I’ve been on enough bad dates in the last year to keep my reflexes sharp, and at the last moment I come to and manage to swerve just in time.

His lips crash-land on the side of my face and he plants a sloppy kiss on my ear. Eugghhh. I pull away sharply. Even so, it’s a bit of a struggle as he has his hand wrapped round my waist like a vice.

We spring apart and face each other on the sidewalk.

‘Well, in that case, I think I’ll grab a cab home,’ he says curtly, stuffing his hands into the pockets of his pleated pants.

‘Yeah, me too,’ I reply shakily, wiping my spit-soaked ear with my sleeve.

Silence. We both stand on the kerbside trying to hail a cab.

Finally, after a painful few minutes, I see the familiar sight of a yellow cab with its light on.

It pulls up and I heave a sigh of relief and reach for the door handle, but John beats me to it.

I’m pleasantly surprised. At last! A bit of chivalry.

Heartened, I soften and throw him my first real smile of the evening as he tugs open the door. Perhaps I’ve misjudged him. Perhaps he’s not so bad after all.

Without hesitation, he jumps inside and slams the door.

‘Well, thanks for a great evening,’ he says, sticking his head out of the window. ‘Happy Holidays!’

‘Hey!’ I yell, suddenly finding my voice. ‘Hey, you’ve stolen my—’

But the cab takes off down the street with a screeching of tyres.

Abandoned on the slushy sidewalk, I watch the tail-lights disappear into the traffic and, despite my anger, I suddenly feel myself crumple inside.

Unexpectedly my eyes prick with tears and I blink them back furiously.

Honestly, what’s got into me? I’m being ridiculous.

The man was a total jerk. I’m not upset.

I’m fine, totally fine. And sniffing determinedly, I stuff my hands in my pockets and head off in the direction of the subway.

‘You should have called the cops.’

It’s the next morning and I’m at work at McKenzie’s, a small, family-owned bookstore, where I’m the manager. I look up at Stella, my assistant, who’s standing on a stepladder stacking books.

‘Why? For stealing the first cab?’ Smiling resignedly, I pass her more titles. ‘Please, Officer, my date stole the first cab. He’s not a gentleman. Arrest him.’

‘No, not for that,’ she retorts, putting one hand on her hip and pulling a horrified expression. ‘For wearing pleated pants!’

Stella and I met when she came in for an interview and bowled me over with her extensive knowledge of literature.

At least, that’s what I’d been expecting after reading her impressive CV.

However, five minutes into the interview it became apparent that works of fiction weren’t just limited to the bookshelves.

Having just graduated from fashion college, Stella didn’t have the first clue about books, thought a thesaurus was a dinosaur and finally confessed that the only thing she ever read was her horoscope.