The Drought (The hilarious laugh-out loud comedy about dating disasters!) (11 page)

“
I’m sorry
about that, she just came over and…” I started to
explain.

“
No need to
apologise, it’s me who’s late.” Grace said as she hung her coat and
scarf over the back of the chair.

Wow, she looked amazing. More
gorgeous than I remembered. She was wearing a black sleeveless silk
jersey top, shiny dark grey leggings, and black heels.

“
You look
nice,” she said as she sat down.

Damn it, she had beaten me to
it. All I had left in response was a pathetic “Thanks, so do you.”
I groaned inside at how lame that sounded. “Can I get you a
drink?”

“
Yes please.
Bacardi, lime, and slimline tonic.”

As I carried the drinks back to
our table I realised that I was already now on my fourth double
vodka. I would need to pace myself if I was going to get through
this date.

I sat back down and
surprisingly eased into conversation with her. The drink seemed to
have a calming influence on me. She told me all about her job in
market research, but her dream job would be to run her own bar in
the Caribbean. She loved RnB music and romantic comedies. She had
an older sister, and a pet cat called Smokey.

She laughed at
me. Not literally at me, but at my jokes. I had to pinch myself
that I was sitting here with such a stunner. I noticed other guys
around the bar looking at her and I grew in confidence at the fact
that she was
my
date. I started to grow in other places too when she slid her
finger around the top of her glass and then sucked the liquid
off.

I was so engrossed with her
that I hadn’t realised how busy the bar had got while we talked.
The people around us had formed a mini dance floor next to the
table where we sat, and it was growing in numbers.

“
Let’s dance,”
she said, her eyes widening with a big smile on her
face.

This was not good. When the big
man upstairs had been handing out rhythm, he neglected to bless me
with the dancing gene. I was so bad I looked like Frankenstein on
acid when I hit the dance floor. My movements resembled that of a
Daddy Long Legs. I had no coordination or thought to my movements,
and would simply remain in one spot with too much arm movement. It
wasn’t a pretty sight.

The DJ had started to play a
full-set of the latest RnB and hip-hop tracks. I have a rule I
lived by – no white man should dance to RnB, unless you are Michael
Jackson of course.

It is not natural for your
normal run-of-the mill white guy, especially when you gyrated like
a pensioner after a hip operation like I did. And if you were on
the verge of being drunk then it was a total no-no. A drunken white
guy dancing to RnB is never going to have a happy ending.

“
Maybe later,
I’m not really in the mood right now,” I lied. I would never be in
the mood. Ever.

“
Okay,” she
said sitting back and curling her lips downward, playacting how
disappointed she was.

“
Maybe after a
few more drinks,” I stupidly said.

With that she leapt to her
feet. “Right,” she said. “In that case we had better get you
another drink!”

Five minutes
later she returned with
another
double vodka and coke, and two shots of Sambuca.
“Down it,” she demanded with a sexy little smile on her face. We
both slammed the drinks back. She then slid the vodka and coke
towards me. “This one as well. We need to loosen you
up.”

By now I had
drunk seven double vodka and cokes and a shot of Sambuca, and I was
starting to feel light-headed. She took my hand and led me on to
the dance floor. She moved like serpent, her body moving in time to
the beat. She pressed herself up against me. “Relax,” she whispered
into my ear. But all I could think of was
please don’t get a boner.

I was sure that all eyes were
on her. Inadvertently that also meant that all eyes would be on me
and my total lack of rhythm. I attempted to limit my movement,
sticking with the simple sidestep routine. But the more paranoid I
felt, the stiffer my movements became. To complement the shuffled
sidestep I started to bounce my shoulders up and down. I must have
looked like a puppet on a string.

Eventually she put me out of my
misery, leaning towards me and kissing me on the cheek. “Thanks for
the dance,” she said and she took my hand and led me back to the
table.

“
I’m just
going to the bathroom,” she said excusing herself.

I’ve blown it I thought to
myself. I was worried she might not even come back. I hated myself
for not being able to just let go. Grace was right; I did need to
loosen up. I finished my vodka and coke, and made my way to the bar
and bought two more shots of Sambuca and another round of drinks
for us.

“
Snap,” Grace
said as she got back to the table, holding two more Sambuca shots
in her hand. We downed the shots and I took a gulp of my vodka and
coke. I wiped my mouth, and took Grace by the hand. “Come on,” I
said with a determined look in my eyes. “Let’s dance.”

I led her onto the crowded
dance floor and decided to let it all go. I started to feel the
music and moved in time to the beat. After years of making such a
big deal about not dancing, I was now making love to the music and
it felt great. If God is a DJ then I was his disciple. A surge went
through my body. For the first time in my life, I threw my
inhibitions to one side and danced like man had never danced
before. There was an edge to my performance and all eyes were
definitely on me.

Unfortunately for all the wrong
reasons.

In reality, I was completely
pissed. I looked like an octopus that had only two tentacles left
and was trying to compensate for the missing six. One leg remained
completely stiff, while the other leg had a mind of its own and
performed some sort of strange convulsion. At one point I busted
out my version of the running man, then into the worm, completed
with a roly-poly into the disco finger. My face was a picture of
pure concentration as I bit down on my bottom lip and nodded my
head to the bass line. A frown appeared across my brow to show my
fellow dancers that I meant business.

Not content with that, I
followed up with a shimmy directed to different sides of the dance
floor. I finished off with the lasso, ripping my shirt off and
swinging it around my head, like a cowboy trying to snare
cattle.

The memory is
nothing but a blur to me, but sometimes at night I wake up in a
cold sweat from the nightmare of the complete horror performance I
must have put on. Someone once sang a song called
Murder on the Dancefloor.
That night, that song became my anthem.

I didn’t notice Grace slip away
through the crowd that had now gathered around me and were egging
me on to attempt the Macarena. I couldn’t exactly blame Grace. I
can only imagine her embarrassment at having to dance with John
Revolting. To top it all off, I decided to be a crowd pleaser and
performed my version of Macarena. And if you can believe it, I
somehow made my version even worse than the original.

Finally I ran out of steam and
staggered back to our table. Grace was nowhere to be seen. People
were patting me on the back and congratulating me on a job well
done, as they held back tears of laughter. I pulled my shirt back
on, minus three buttons, and headed over to the bar. It was packed
solid and I swayed in my vodka and Sambuca fuelled-state before
pushing my way to the front. I obnoxiously waved a 10 pound note
towards the bar staff. It took me an age to get served, and when I
finally ordered my drink I decided to leave the new barmaid a tip
so I would not have to wait quite so long next time. But a tall guy
with long hair and a dark tan picked up my tray. I grabbed his
hand. “That’s not for you,” I slurred. “That is for her.”

Don’t worry, I’ll make sure she
gets it,” he replied and tried to pull away, but I kept hold of his
arm.

“
No, I want
her to have it.” I forcefully said, my finger swaying in the
barmaid’s direction.

“
Let go of my
arm,” the barman said sternly and tried to pull away again. I made
a grab for the silver tray and he tried pushing me back. “He is
trying to steal your tip,” I shouted to the barmaid, somehow
believing she would see that I was fighting for her honour and come
to my aid.

Instead she called the security
staff over. Two burly doorman grabbed me; one holding me by the
arms while the other lifted my legs up. They scooped me off the
floor and carried me through the bar. I tried to resist, but even
if I had been sober I was no match for these two behemoths. We
reached the fire exit and they launched me at the doors, forcing
them to crash open before I was dumped outside in the rain.

I skilfully managed to land in
a puddle in such a way that 80 per cent of my clothing was soaked
through. From the distance a bright white light approached. For a
moment I thought it was God. But instead it turned out to be a
taxi. It skidded to a halt beside me, splashing the remaining
content of the puddle into my face. The window wound down. “Dan?” I
heard a familiar voice say. I looked up and Grace was looking down
at me. “Is that you?” she said.

“
Grace, I’m
glad I’ve bumped into you,” I said, dragging myself up from the
gutter. “Do you fancy meeting up next week?”

“
Drive on,” I
heard her say as the taxi pulled away and disappeared into the
distance.

Chapter 8:
Valentine’s Day Massacre

Saturday, February 14, 2009 -
8.01pm

Drought Clock: 43 days, 16
hours, 36 minutes

A week had passed since the now
infamous first date with Grace. I had sent her a text the following
morning to apologise and, unsurprisingly, I had not heard back from
her. I couldn’t even keep the incident under wraps as Katie had
told Rob the whole story. She even told him things I couldn’t
remember. At one point I had apparently spotted someone taking the
piss out of my dancing and had engaged in a heated exchange with
them, only to realise it was my reflection in the mirror.

So in the aftermath of what had
been the worst period of my love life to date, the last thing I
needed was Valentine’s Day. I really didn’t want to go out. The
thought of spending an evening being reminded that everyone else
was getting some did not really appeal to me in the slightest. But
I’d promised Ollie I would meet him for beers. Rob had a date with
Katie, while Jack was taking Anna out for a meal. Ollie had as many
options as I did for Valentine’s Day and had nagged me to meet him
for a drink as he reasoned that alcohol was better than any
woman.

I was meeting Ollie in a pub in
Wimbledon called the Three Crowns. Unlike the dozens of trendy wine
bars and gastro pubs that had cropped up in the town over the last
10 years, this was more of your traditional English pub. It was in
desperate need of a paint job, with black and white photos on the
wall capturing images of life in Wimbledon a century ago. It sold
proper ale on tap rather than stocking the shelves with fancy
coloured bottles of alcopops. I was confident this was just the
place where we would not be exposed to countless romantic couples
out celebrating their love for each other. Ollie was already at the
bar when I walked in, nursing a pint, and pretending to text
someone so people wouldn’t think he was on his own.

“
What time do
you call this?” Ollie asked as we exchanged handshakes. I winced as
he crushed my hand as he always did, not realising his own
strength.

“
Sorry, mate,”
I yanked my hand away. “Got here as quick as I could.” He already
had a pint waiting for me. “So how’s work?” I asked taking that
first satisfying gulp of the evening.

“
Not bad, you
know how it is,” Ollie said, pretty much summing up his life as a
postman. I nodded at him and raised my glass back to my mouth. I
glanced around the pub as the silence between us grew in the air.
We both knew what the other was thinking but neither one of us
wanted to say it. Here we were, two single guys out on Valentine’s
Day. Together. It didn’t get any sadder than that. We were on a man
date. It was a sorry state of affairs. I was about to ask Ollie
whether he delivered his own mail, but luckily he had a much more
interesting topic of conversation.

“
I’ve been
shagging this housewife lately,” he said with a big grin. “She’s a
right Milf.”

This was more like it. “How did
that start?” I enquired, quite excited.

“
You know how
it goes, mate. I start by slipping the post through the letterbox,
and then I move on to slipping her one.”

And it didn’t really need any
more of an explanation than that. As men, we didn’t need to examine
everything with a fine-tooth comb. No need for the little details.
Ollie was shagging an older woman. That was all we needed. I raised
my glass to him on a job well done.

Obviously, that is a complete
lie. He told me some disgusting stories about what he had been
doing to this poor, lonely housewife. A gentleman never tells, but
we were far from being gentlemen.

Ollie’s
revelation opened up the door to our first topic of conversation
for the evening – women. Cars and football would come later. We
turned our lack of female companionship on the most romantic day of
the year by engaging ourselves in a bit of women bashing. It
wasn’t
our
fault
we didn’t have dates tonight. We didn’t even want a date. Moaning
about women made us feel much better about our own inadequacies of
not being able to actually find one.