The Drought (The hilarious laugh-out loud comedy about dating disasters!) (24 page)

“
I just wanted
to say that you are a woman and I am a man, and as a man I like
women,” I raised my eyebrows and nodded at Dick, who had an
unsettled expression on his face. I turned my attention back to
Shaila. “And as a man who fancies
women
, I think you are incredibly
attractive.”

Shaila didn’t flinch, but Dick
looked slightly uneasy and now stood with his hands on his hips.
Finally he was getting the message, but just in case he wasn’t
totally clear I continued.

“
So as a 100
per cent
heterosexual
male,” I emphasised the word heterosexual for Dick’s benefit,
“I would very much like to take you out for a drink
sometime.”

There, I did it. After months
of admiring Shaila from a distance, I had finally taken the plunge.
And who said men couldn’t multi-task? I had just managed to put
Dick straight – or at least make it crystal clear that I was
straight – and asked out the girl of my dreams. All in one hit.

“
No,” Shaila
said in no uncertain terms.

“
What?” I
gasped, gobsmacked. I had been so sure she would say
yes.

“
In fact, if
you don’t leave me alone I am going to report you to
HR.”

Shaila locked
her eyes on me, while Dick rubbed his chin ever so smugly. “Has
this
man
been
sexually harassing you, Ms Saxena?” Dick said.

“
Yes,” Shaila
said, her cold eyes locked directly on me. It felt like she had
pierced my chest with her accusation and ripped out my heart. “He
emails me all day, makes inappropriate jokes at every opportunity,
and has been poking me on Facebook non-stop for months.”

“
Is this true,
Hilles?” Dick’s tone changed. “Have you been poking Shaila? Because
this is a serious accusation.”

I broke out in a cold sweat.
How had this backfired so spectacularly? How I wished at that
moment to go back to the days when Dick and I shared our bizarre –
albeit one-sided – sexual tension.

“
It’s okay, Mr
Mussel,” Shaila said, pronouncing it
Moo-Cell
. “I don’t want to take the
matter any further as long as I have some reassurance that the
emailing, the joking, and the poking stops here.”

“
Hilles?” Dick
said looking at me over his glasses.

“
I promise to
stop emailing, joking and poking.” I said sheepishly.

“
I hope so,”
Dick said taking a step toward me. He was so close I could feel his
breath on my face. “Because I’ll be keeping a close eye on you, and
if you step one foot out of line, you will face the consequences.
Understood?”

I wasn’t too sure if he meant
he would have me sacked or he would have his wicked way with me. “I
understand.” I said and scuttled back to my desk.

“
Get your bag
and let’s get the hell out of here,” I told Kelly, practically
dragging her out of the building.

*

We took our drinks and sat
down. I pulled out the piece of paper and pushed it in front of
Kelly. “What is this?” she asked.

“
This is
the
plan,
” I
said, pretty pleased with myself.

I watched Kelly’s face as she
read through Jack’s 10 Commandments. She held it up in front of
her. “You have got to kidding, right?”

“
What?” I
asked, smiling.

“
This is not a
plan,” Kelly said, putting her glass down on the table. “This is a
recipe for disaster.”

“
Please
present your case, Miss Campbell.”

“
My pleasure,”
Kelly said holding the piece of paper in front of her and clearing
her throat. “Point one, getting the party rocking. I think you have
already learned from previous experiences that getting wasted has
not helped your chances with the opposite sex.”

She had a point.

“
Number
two,
Groundhog Day
? Oooh, you wish, Daniel! If only you could find a girl who
would agree to do it over and over and over again.”

Two-nil Kelly.

“
Chat-up lines
do not work, and dancing to power ballads is a big
turn-off.”

Kelly was building up quite a
healthy lead without reply and she was only halfway through the
list.

“
Randy van
Warmer? I don’t even know where to begin with that one, and trust
me, girls know when you boys play your ridiculous transparent
scoring game. And as for David Hasselhoff...”

“
Now stop
right there,” I cut her off. “You can say whatever you like about
the other things on that list but don’t you dare badmouth the Hoff.
The man is a God.”

Kelly laughed and handed me
back the piece of paper. Her phone beeped and I could tell by the
expression on her face that it wasn’t good news.

“
Everything
okay?” I asked.

“
It’s just
Paul again. I told him I was going for a drink with you and he has
got funny about it.”

“
Why?”

Kelly gave me a strange look,
like she didn’t want to tell me what the reason was.

“
What is it,
Kell?”

She put her drink down.
“Remember when your friends sent me that text from your phone? The
one they sent to loads of people in your phonebook?”

How could I forget? Ever since
that day Dick had been trying to coerce me into some bizarre
homosexual cult-type relationship with him. But I had even managed
to screw that up. I was pathetic. I couldn't even seal the deal on
a sure thing, even if it was a gay relationship with a middle-aged
man.

“
Yes,” I
replied.

“
Paul was
going through my phone the other day and saw that message. I told
him it was a joke and explained what had happened, but he got
really angry about it.”

“
I’m so sorry.
Why don’t you invite him down one night after work and I’ll buy him
a beer to apologise?”

“
No, there
really is no need,” Kelly said. “I told him it was ridiculous – you
know, you and me? Besides, I was more angry that he had been going
through my phone.”

“
Would it
really be that ridiculous?” I don’t know why I said it. It just
came out. Even Kelly looked as though she was blushing. “Nah,
you’re right – you don’t even like the Hoff,” I quickly said to
kill the moment.

“
Exactly!”
Kelly replied. “Maybe I should tell Paul how much you love the Hoff
and that would put all his fears to rest.”

“
Bloody
cheek!” I joked.

And just like that we were back
on track. However, I couldn’t help but think about what had just
happened there. I think Kelly was thinking about it as well, but
neither one of us mentioned it for the rest of the evening.

Chapter 16:
Road Trip – Friday Night

Friday, May 15, 2009 -
6.32pm

Drought Clock: 133 days, 18
hours, 5 minutes

“
Shotgun!”
Jack called as we loaded Rob’s car up with our weekend
bags.

“
You can’t
call shotgun, Jack,” Ollie argued.

“
I’m afraid I
am well within my rights,” Jack fired back. “Shotgun can be called
on anything as long as you are in eyesight of the
object.”

“
I know the
rules of shotgun,” Ollie said. “But you are shorter than Dopey,
Doc, and Grumpy. There is no way I am squeezing into the back seat,
while your short arse sits up front with all that leg
room.”

“
Hey, I called
shotgun. Rules are rules.”

“
What about if
I take your rules, wrap them round your little head, and then shove
them straight up your...”

“
The back seat
is fine,” Jack said before Ollie could finish his
sentence.

“
That’s what I
thought,” Ollie said crushing his cigarette under his
feet.

I clambered
into the back of Rob’s car next to Jack and we prepared to set off
for
Tour de Big Gun 2009.

“
Okay,
gentlemen, time to establish the rules of the road trip,” Rob said,
putting on his
Ray Ban
sunglasses and pulling out of his driveway. “On a road trip,
the strongest bladder determines pit stops, not the
weakest.”

“
Agreed,” said
Jack.

“
If you have
to go, go in a cup,” Rob continued. “If there is no cup, go out the
window. If you're not
comfortable
with that, hold it.”

“
Out of the
window it is then,” Ollie said.

“
Rule two, no
sleeping,” Rob said looking around at us all. “It is your moral
duty to stay awake with me as the designated driver during this
journey. If you fall asleep, you will be rolled out at the nearest
service station and left there.”

We all nodded in agreement.

“
Rule three,
music,” Rob turned to face Ollie. “As the co-pilot Ollie, you are
in charge of the radio. This is a
very
important job. You must keep
the whole car entertained and away from stations like Heart FM. Is
that clear?”

“
Crystal,”
Ollie replied.

“
I think I can
assist you here Ollie,” Jack said handing him a CD.

“
What is it?”
Ollie asked.

“
Put it on,”
Jack said with a reassuring hand on his shoulder. “I promise you
won’t be disappointed.”

Ollie slid the
CD in and we all eagerly waited to find out what would come on. The
first song of a road trip is vital – it can set the tone for the
whole trip. We once went on a road trip where the first song
was
Saturday Night
by Whigfield. We never fully recovered after that. It pretty
much ruined the whole weekend.

I was perhaps
more anxious than anyone, as I desperately wanted this trip to be
perfect. I closed my eyes and almost immediately my fears
disappeared as that sweet music started to pour out of the
speakers. It was the type of song that defined a trip. The type of
song that had the potential to turn a good trip into a fantastic
trip. The type of song that
deserves
to be number one on a road
trip playlist.

Here I Go
Again
by Whitesnake.

Each one of us took turns to
sing a line as we built up to the guitar explosion at which point
we all went mental, winding down the windows and singing badly at
the top of our lungs. It didn’t matter if we stopped at traffic
lights; you had to continue singing your heart out. This was pure
power ballads at their very best.

For the next hour we listened
and sung along to Foreigner, Bonnie Tyler, Mr Mister, and Phil
Collins amongst others. Power ballads really are the best driving
anthems in the world. We roared along the open road to our
destination. Well, we popped along the A23 anyway. The key to
breaking my drought would be change, and Brighton offered all of
that and more.

*

I looked out at the busy
streets as we drove along the seafront, and wondered if the girl to
end my drought was out there. We pulled alongside a blue Ford
Fiesta at a set of traffic lights. Three girls sat in the car with
one guy sitting in the back.

“
Hello girls,”
Jack said leaning out of the window. The girls all smiled and
giggled. “I’ll tell you what, lose the goon in the backseat and get
yourself over to the Imperial Hotel.”

The guy in the backseat
exploded, trying to clamber into the driver seat to shout something
back at us. The girls didn’t seem to mind though and simply
laughed. The traffic lights turned green and we sped off, all
pissing ourselves laughing.

“
Did you see
that?” Jack managed to say in between laughs.

“
That was too
funny,” Ollie said. “That guy looked like he was ready to kill
you.”

“
Forget him,”
Jack said. “Those girls wanted us bad.”

“
This is going
to be a good weekend Danny boy,” Rob said lifting his designer
shades on top of his head. “I can just feel it!”

We made it to the hotel just
before eight in the evening, and true to the rules of Jack’s 10
Commandments, we dumped our bags in our rooms and made our way to
the nearest bar.

“
I’m telling
you, Dan, watch me in action and you’ll have no problem getting
your willy wetsuit back in the ocean,” Jack said as we headed into
a bar called Stripes.

“
Sure,” I said
patting Jack on the back and laughing.

“
Hey, I’m
happy to do my buddy a
bro favor,”
Jack replied, pronouncing bro favor like the
Spanish
por favor
.

“
Gentlemen,
please get your purples out for the whip,” Rob said as we all
handed over a £20 note. The first drink went down a treat. It had
been a warm day and the girls around us were certainly dressing
less.

“
Great rack,”
Ollie commented as one girl walked past; our eyes all following her
as we lifted our beer bottles to our mouth.

“
You know, I
nearly called Tit Monday this week,” I said.

“
What’s Tit
Monday?” Ollie asked.