Running in Heels by Anna Maxted Page B

meat in a pan and says, “Andy’s a bit on edge right now.”
    â€œReally. How strange, after a year’s holiday. I didn’t think you ate red meat,” I say, unwilling for the conversation to be diverted.
    â€œI do now. Although this is for Si,” explains Babs. “He’ll be back any minute.”
    I marvel that you can know someone so well—think you can know someone so well—then be confounded by their choice of partner. They’re not who you thought they were after all. You’re not half as intimate as you so boldly presumed.
    â€œPoor Andy. He’s staying with Mum and Dad. They’re driving him up the wall.”
    â€œI thought he owned a flat in town,” I say impatiently.
    â€œHe rented it out while he was away,” she replies. “There’s still a few months left on the lease. He’s looking for a room to rent short-term, but London’s so pricey it isn’t true,” she adds.
    I vaguely sense that Babs wants to communicate more thanher words imply. I grope for a secret meaning but retreat empty-handed.
    â€œHas he tried Streatham?” I say politely. By the look on her face, I have failed as a special agent. I feel hollow and awkward. I am the damsel in distress and I resent Andy’s trying to steal my conical hat with the floaty bit on top. He has short hair and it doesn’t suit him.
    â€œIs he still upset about his fiancée?” I ask dutifully.
    â€œHe was a bit more than upset, Nat,” says Babs. “He and Sasha were together for three years.”
    Yes, and my parents were together for sixteen years. Time for—as Matt would say—a two-faced moment. I heap my voice with hammy woe and sigh, “Poor Andy, it must have been so hard for him.”
    Privately, I think it’s high time he relinquished his teen queen title. The big ballyhoo about Andy is that he was engaged to a girl who left him for another guy a month before their wedding. While this was certainly a great blow, he received lashings of sympathy and got to keep all the presents. Plus the minute she bailed, he quit his megabucks job as a broker, leased out his chrome-and-leather-stuffed penthouse in Pimlico, sold his Audi, and went on a twelve-month boo-hoo sunshine jaunt, working in beach bars, swimming with dolphins, no doubt beading his hair, and finding himself —what a martyr! The men I know find themselves by lolling on the sofa and sticking their hands down their trousers.
    I can barely believe that the sympathy wagon still trundles on. If he were female, the world would be gleefully sorry for about a week, pompously urge him to get on with his suburban little life the next, all the while covertly fanning rumors that he was a shoddy cook and spent too much time furthering his career. If a woman bails she’s a hussy, while a bloke is practically encouraged to leg it. So Andy is treated like a big brave abandoned baby, whereas a jilted woman is tarnished, as if the man’s infidelity is her fault, no wonder he—
    â€œSo,” says Babs, handing me a cup of bionic tea, “Saulditched you.” I’m unsure if her phrasing is compassionate, but decide not to question it.
    â€œBabs,” I say, “you wouldn’t believe how nasty he was.”
    â€œWould his nastiness have something to do with Chris, by any chance?” she replies.
    I grit my teeth. “Possibly,” I say.
    â€œ Quelle surprise ,” says Babs.
    I stare at her. I feel like Julius Caesar with a knife in his back. Meanwhile, Babs is Brutus, watching me bleed to death with interest.
    â€œBabs,” I squeak, “I have been binned by two men in one day!” I burble out the whole sorry tale (excluding the orgasm bit, as I don’t wish to detract from my grief). Babs’s mouth shrinks and shrinks until it becomes a chicken’s bottom. Then she says, “Awh, Nat, I’m sorry. But face it, Chris was a