50 Ways to Find a Lover (22 page)

I haven’t spoken to Simon for five hours. Not speaking is hard. It makes the Carol Vorderman detox look easy. I think I should be given a trophy, especially as he has been waltzing into my room every half an hour to talk to me. I either waft him away like a fly or sniff and pretend there’s a nasty smell in the room. Apparently he is the sole UK distributor for Cockalada and already has two orders from shop chains. He is strutting around the flat like Del Boy and has started calling Paranoid Jay Rodney.

It is unfortunate that I can’t talk to him today because I need his advice. I have already submitted my own lonely-hearts ad. And it was free, which is nice. J Lo was right when she sang that song, ‘Love Don’t Cost A Thing’. But now I have to record something called a voicebox greeting, so that if a man likes the sound of my two printed lines, he can dial a number and hear my voice. I’ve decided not to mention that I’m an actress. I don’t want men to assume that I bear qualities often associated with the acting profession like wealth, glamour, famous friends or flawless skin. I’m going to say that I’m a waitress in the hope that the lonely-hearted men will think I’m impoverished and take me out to dinner. But apart from ‘I am a waitress’ what else am I supposed to say? The pre-recorded message of instructions says I should sound confident. The pre-recorded message of instructions is longer than
Gone With the Wind
. Oh no! That was the beep. Bugger! I have to speak.

‘Um, er, hmmm, hello, I’m Sarah and, um, well, I er. I’m looking for someone nice and fun and you know not too scary-looking, so, er, if you wanted to, um, I’ve never done this before . . . um . . .’ I’m thinking what else to say as Simon bursts into my bedroom. He’s carrying three more boxes of Cockaladas.

‘Everybody loves the cock!’ he shouts cheerfully. I look at him with my mouth open. I hear a long beep in my ear. My message is played back. It sounds like a speech therapist’s case study before Simon’s beautifully articulated line about cock.

‘Fuck! Fuck! FUCK!!’ I holler.

That can’t be my Soulmates voicebox greeting. I listen closely to the options on the other end of the line. There must be an option to re-record. Thankfully there is. I do the fly waft to get Simon out of the room.

‘Assured and confident, assured and confident,’ I whisper to myself.

Before I am ready I hear the beep again. I clear my throat. I take a deep breath and am just about to do a sexy, deeply voiced ‘Hi’ when Simon comes back in and shouts, ‘There you go, Sare, ten thousand cocks to keep you busy!’

I can’t speak to him. I make the ‘urgh’ sound and waft him away at the same time. Simon looks at me as though I might have epilepsy. Then he scuttles out of the room.

By the third voicebox greeting I mean business.

‘Hi,’ I begin, slightly lower than I had anticipated; I sound like I’ve recently had a tonsillectomy. ‘I’m Sarah. I’m a waitress, I love working with people, I also love film and theatre and going out for dinner, so if you would like to do that please give me a—’

Simon again. Now he’s dressed in a Mexican poncho, a sombrero and his pants. I stop speaking and stare at him. Simon and I like fancy dress but I’ve never seen this Mexican costume. It’s very good. I hope he lets me borrow it. He starts wiggling his hips wildly and singing in a dodgy Mexican accent.

‘Cockalada, Cockalada, everyone loves the cock.’

I purse my lips. I must not laugh. I must remain strong. I start sniffing and wafting but he takes a Cockalada and simulates smacking himself on the bottom, saying in the same dreadful Mexican accent, ‘I so sorry, Sarah! I so sorry, Sarah!’

My God it’s hard to stay cross with someone when they’re dressed up like a Mexican and singing about cocks. But it’s not until Simon’s little bottom starts bucking up and down as he spanks himself that I weaken and smile.

I start laughing and hold out my hands for a make-friends hug. I still have the phone in my right hand. Bollocks! My lonely-hearts recording! I put the phone to my ear just in time to hear ‘Voicebox recorded, please hang up now.’

twenty-seven

‘You all right there, Dolly?’ I shout to Julia.

‘Stop calling me Dolly!’

She’s standing in front of me in her bra and pants. We’re not having doubts about our sexuality. We’re at a bridesmaids’ fitting for Nikki and Bertrand’s wedding. Dolly is a reference to Dolly Parton, used because we have been here for over two and a half hours largely on account of Julia’s massive breasts.

We are in a bungalow in Guildford belonging to a middle-aged dressmaker called Denise. There are four of us in a room that is surrounded on all sides by wedding dresses. This is the first Saturday in over two years that I haven’t worked at the café and I feel like I am spending it inside a giant marshmallow. The only thing in the room that is not a wedding dress or a person or an item of Eighties furniture is Denise’s Dell laptop. I’m an Apple girl but I’m still looking at it longingly. Paul didn’t email me yesterday. For nearly three weeks I received the same email every day. Yesterday he gave up. His head was probably between two nubile thighs and he forgot. I hope the nubile thighs grabbed his head in a vice-like grip until he went blue. But I still want to check whether he’s sent one today.

I start to hum ‘Nine to Five’. I feel no guilt. Julia did a rousing verse of ‘Fat Bottomed Girls’ when I tried to get my dress on earlier.

‘You couldn’t get your bum in
yours
.’

‘I could with my new Spanx.’ I sigh lovingly and stroke my new Seamless Mid-Thigh Bodysuit. It’s not the most comfy item of clothing, seeing as it is basically a pair of shorts made out of a trampoline. And there is a small chance that I might pass out while walking down the aisle as it seems to cut off all circulation. But I love it all the same.

‘You girls,’ tuts Denise, who’s holding a tape measure around Julia’s bust and shaking her head in wonder.

‘What’s the next quest, Sarah?’ asks Flora, Nikki’s younger sister and the third bridesmaid.

‘Sorry?’ I say to Flora. Flora is the most beautiful woman in the world and consequently often when she speaks no one listens to a word she says. They are too busy thinking, Wow, you’re soooo beautiful, which I was doing just then.

Flora is actually more than beautiful. People often describe their friends as beautiful and when you meet them they’re just very pretty from certain angles. But Flora is super-beautiful. She’s so beautiful she makes Kate Moss look like a bit of a minger. She’s five foot eleven with long hair the colour of sand and skin the colour of a perfect cup of tea. She modelled for a few years but gave it up because she wanted to do something more worthwhile. Now she is training to be a midwife.

‘Your next quest?’

‘Oh, it’s a good one. I’ve got a lonely-hearts ad in tomorrow’s
Observer
.’ I am so excited about tomorrow. I have got a very good feeling that I will meet a clever
Observer
-reading type. The only bummer is Julia and I had to swap our Saturday waitressing shift to be here today. Which means that tomorrow when I receive a message from my
Observer
-reading soulmate I will be up to my cellulite in sexually deviant Polish chefs and overcooked eggs. It’s not how I imagined it at all.

‘Gosh, you’re brave!’ says Denise.

‘Brave,’ I repeat proudly. I like that. I am a courageous pioneer for women. I might get some business cards printed.

‘Gosh, yes. A friend of mine did that. She had a terrible time.’

‘Why?’

‘Well. She met a man who she liked very much.’ Denise keeps her hands on Julia’s breasts while she speaks. ‘I was suspicious of him from the start. Thick neck. Very hairy. Anyway it was all terrifying for her when the child-porn-ring allegations surfaced.’

I start to feel sick. Julia starts to laugh.

‘Shut it, Dolly.’

‘Stop calling me Dolly! They’re not that big!’

‘Oh they’re lovely, nice big buzooms,’ smiles Denise. I mouth the words ‘You’re in there’ to Julia. She sticks her tongue out at me.

‘I just need to pop an extra panel into the bodice of Julia’s dress somehow. It may take me a little while. You make yourselves at home while I set to work.’

‘Denise, when you say “make yourselves at home”, I don’t suppose that means I could just check my emails on your computer?’

‘Of course.’

‘I thought we’d only be here an hour,’ sighs Flora sadly when Denise leaves the room.

‘See if she’s got wireless. We could go on Rachel Bird’s blog,’ says Julia, rushing to me. ‘Flora, have you read the blog
Confessions of a Convent Girl
? It’s brilliant. Unimaginable filth.’

‘No, I haven’t seen it. The only blog I really go on is yours, Sarah.’

‘I love you, Flora.’ I smile at her.

I ignore Julia’s request and quickly check my emails. Nothing from Paul. So that’s that then. I know it’s for the best but I wish I didn’t feel such a sag inside. I switch on to my blog.

‘I’ve got a new comment!’ I whoop. ‘From someone called P the Poet.’

I read aloud:

‘Ah, that’s so sweet,’ says Flora, scrunching up her face as though she’s talking about a baby rabbit.

‘Well, you have to get in touch with him now,’ Julia says with so much enthusiasm that her ponytail starts swishing like it’s at a gymkhana.

‘Er. No I bloody don’t. Since when do a few lines of dreadful verse make a lying, cheating man a hero?’

‘But he’s written you a poem,’ swoons Flora.

‘Hang about! It barely rhymes! Sargeant – event! It’s hardly Eminem, is it? A bit of sushi could do better!’

‘I’m really cross with you,’ says Julia. Blimey, she looks it too.

‘Why?’

‘For God’s sake give the guy a chance to explain!’

I look at Julia for a moment and I firmly say the word ‘No’ before closing my laptop and sulking. And then I add the word ‘Dolly’ to really annoy her.

twenty-eight