about Nina?’
I nod grimly. All I want is to get into my car and drive away.
‘Who’d have thought it? Nina! The dirty old slapper. Wait till I see her,’ he says. ‘And who’s this Gordon they kept going on about?’
‘How would I know?’
I open the car door and get in.
‘Well that confirms the wedding then,’ Andy says. ‘I’d been having second thoughts.’
‘What? You can’t bail on me now. Everyone will know I’m a failure who can’t get a man.’
‘Don’t be so silly, Lisa. We’ll keep that between us. What I mean is, if this is what happens when we go for a quiet civilised dinner with your boss and his wife, just think what it’ll be like when I get to meet your whole family and everyone you went to school with.’
I deliberately catch his plaster cast with the car door. He winces, but refuses to cry out. Our eyes meet.
He’s probably right.
Six
I wake shell-shocked on Sunday morning after a fitful night where I dreamed of being chased through a forest by miniature versions of Audrey.
It’s only six-thirty. No normal person would dream of abandoning a comfortable bed so early at the weekend, but I can find little reason to stay put.
Tea gets made, toast buttered and I switch on my laptop. The news is typically miserable and somehow I end up revising my profile at PlaceTheirFace. With Helen’s wedding coming up and Andy booked to play my husband, it probably wouldn’t do to continue telling the world I’m single.
The happiest day of my life takes place in the click of a mouse. If only real life were so easy. I study what I’ve written about my job. It’s a bit pedestrian too. It wouldn’t hurt to tweak things slightly.
It’s not like I’m going to claim to be an astronaut or anything. For one thing, knowing my luck I’ll run into someone who knows every detail of such a job. In front of former friends, they’ll ask awkward questions about decompression tanks. As a kid I always wanted to be a vet, but the prospect of watching a box set of Vets in Action or Animal Police makes my head ache. And someone will present me with a flatulent labrador and expect miracle cures.
How about a writer or a poet? The trouble is, the people I’m likely to run into will feel compelled to be polite and ask where they can pick up a copy of my latest opus. One of them is bound to work in a library or bookshop. Cover blown.
I decide to play it safe and stick with my real job. Box Office Manager isn’t anything to be ashamed of and it won’t take much to embroider the truth and make the theatre sound infinitely more glamourous than it is. People already imagine I spend my days hobnobbing with famous actors.
With that decided, I set about inventing my husband. He’ll be called James. For no other reason than the fact that James was the name of a boy I worshipped at school. He was tall and skinny with dirty blonde hair and icy blue eyes. He wore a battered leather jacket and rode a red moped. Once, I fake-tripped in front of him, sending books flying and he helped pick them up. I swear that as he handed me my bag, a spark shot up my arm. Our eyes met and he treated me to a smile. Though according to PlaceTheirFace, he now lives in Amsterdam with an air steward called George.
For a job, I decide on barrister. Andy once played Atticus Finch in a low-budget version of ‘ To Kill a Mockingbird ’, so I’m sure he can pull off the jargon.
Should he have a moustache? Absolutely not.
A love of Sunday league football? It suggests teamwork, so yes.
I also want him not to be afraid of his feminine side, so boast about joint trips to antique shops and how we bicker over Ryvita in Tesco. Andy will love all the detail.
And now for me.
I work at the Empire Theatre in Manchester where I manage the busy box office. My husband James is a barrister specialising in international white collar crime - I can’t name names, but he’s had a hand in some very high profile cases.’
Too much? Maybe I
I nod grimly. All I want is to get into my car and drive away.
‘Who’d have thought it? Nina! The dirty old slapper. Wait till I see her,’ he says. ‘And who’s this Gordon they kept going on about?’
‘How would I know?’
I open the car door and get in.
‘Well that confirms the wedding then,’ Andy says. ‘I’d been having second thoughts.’
‘What? You can’t bail on me now. Everyone will know I’m a failure who can’t get a man.’
‘Don’t be so silly, Lisa. We’ll keep that between us. What I mean is, if this is what happens when we go for a quiet civilised dinner with your boss and his wife, just think what it’ll be like when I get to meet your whole family and everyone you went to school with.’
I deliberately catch his plaster cast with the car door. He winces, but refuses to cry out. Our eyes meet.
He’s probably right.
Six
I wake shell-shocked on Sunday morning after a fitful night where I dreamed of being chased through a forest by miniature versions of Audrey.
It’s only six-thirty. No normal person would dream of abandoning a comfortable bed so early at the weekend, but I can find little reason to stay put.
Tea gets made, toast buttered and I switch on my laptop. The news is typically miserable and somehow I end up revising my profile at PlaceTheirFace. With Helen’s wedding coming up and Andy booked to play my husband, it probably wouldn’t do to continue telling the world I’m single.
The happiest day of my life takes place in the click of a mouse. If only real life were so easy. I study what I’ve written about my job. It’s a bit pedestrian too. It wouldn’t hurt to tweak things slightly.
It’s not like I’m going to claim to be an astronaut or anything. For one thing, knowing my luck I’ll run into someone who knows every detail of such a job. In front of former friends, they’ll ask awkward questions about decompression tanks. As a kid I always wanted to be a vet, but the prospect of watching a box set of Vets in Action or Animal Police makes my head ache. And someone will present me with a flatulent labrador and expect miracle cures.
How about a writer or a poet? The trouble is, the people I’m likely to run into will feel compelled to be polite and ask where they can pick up a copy of my latest opus. One of them is bound to work in a library or bookshop. Cover blown.
I decide to play it safe and stick with my real job. Box Office Manager isn’t anything to be ashamed of and it won’t take much to embroider the truth and make the theatre sound infinitely more glamourous than it is. People already imagine I spend my days hobnobbing with famous actors.
With that decided, I set about inventing my husband. He’ll be called James. For no other reason than the fact that James was the name of a boy I worshipped at school. He was tall and skinny with dirty blonde hair and icy blue eyes. He wore a battered leather jacket and rode a red moped. Once, I fake-tripped in front of him, sending books flying and he helped pick them up. I swear that as he handed me my bag, a spark shot up my arm. Our eyes met and he treated me to a smile. Though according to PlaceTheirFace, he now lives in Amsterdam with an air steward called George.
For a job, I decide on barrister. Andy once played Atticus Finch in a low-budget version of ‘ To Kill a Mockingbird ’, so I’m sure he can pull off the jargon.
Should he have a moustache? Absolutely not.
A love of Sunday league football? It suggests teamwork, so yes.
I also want him not to be afraid of his feminine side, so boast about joint trips to antique shops and how we bicker over Ryvita in Tesco. Andy will love all the detail.
And now for me.
I work at the Empire Theatre in Manchester where I manage the busy box office. My husband James is a barrister specialising in international white collar crime - I can’t name names, but he’s had a hand in some very high profile cases.’
Too much? Maybe I
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