The Wish List by Jane Costello

am
not
drunk. What a cheek!’
    ‘Sorry,’ he concedes, looking naively guilty. ‘Aren’t you here with friends?’
    ‘I was, but they had to leave. I decided to stay a little longer. There’s no stopping me! Aren’t
you
here with friends?’ In a conversation I’m aware is
less than stimulating, this is the best I can do.
    He gestures to the corner, where a guy with red hair has his tongue down the throat of a tall blonde in a barely there skirt and earrings that look like they belong on the Trafalgar Square
Christmas tree.
    ‘They look like they’re having fun,’ I say.
    He laughs. ‘Whether Jeremy will be as enthusiastic in the morning has yet to be found out.’
    There’s something about the way he says this that alarms me. A tone that isn’t disapproving exactly . . . but hints that this isn’t the sort of thing you’d catch him
doing.
    The second this doubt enters my mind, it takes on a life of its own. What makes me assume he’s single anyway? Or straight? Or – most fundamentally – interested?
    I take a deep breath. If I’m going to go through with this, I need to get down to business and come on to him, at least a little. But, suddenly, I feel stupidly self-conscious, and the
lack of inhibition that’s required for this endeavour deserts me.
    ‘Are you all right?’ he asks.
    I’m about to respond when I get a waft of his aftershave and it sends a flash of heat across my chest that nearly sets my bra straps on fire.
    I reach out and put my hand behind his neck, pulling him into me as I stand on my tiptoes. Then I place my lips languorously on his cheek, noting how much softer than expected his stubble is.
‘I feel great,’ I whisper. ‘But I can think of something that’d make me feel even better.’

Chapter 12
    Waking up after my first ever one-night stand is an experience that I will never, ever forget. From the painful shafts of sunlight to every swirl in that heinous orange and
brown carpet – it’ll be there with me until the day I die.
    Nor will I forget running from the flat. Or rather, attempting to run – with one broken shoe and every tiny, rancid cell in my body pleading for mercy. I hobble down a set of stairs, down
a strange street and don’t stop until I’ve turned several corners and am certain I’m not being followed. At that point, I pause, breathless, aching and on the verge of vomiting,
as I scan the street for any landmarks.
    It’s then that I spot Crosby Cinema and know exactly where I am – miles from home.
    Deep breaths.
    A taxi will cost a fortune from here but I don’t care. Only, as I look in my purse and realise I have precisely four pounds twenty-seven and a handful of Tesco Clubcard vouchers to my
name, it becomes apparent that the train’s the only option, unless I find a cashpoint. Which, in the event, I don’t.
    The trek to the station takes approximately eight minutes, but it’s one of the most unremittingly miserable experiences of my life. Not a single car is capable of whizzing past without its
passengers rubbernecking at this heap of a human being, its broken heels, tangle of hair and asbestos eyes.
    I arrive at the station, pay for my ticket and head for a bench on the platform, desperate to take the weight off my feet. The only available seat is next to a handsome, straight-backed woman in
her early sixties, who is wearing a chic cashmere throw and taupe wide-legged trousers. She is reading the
Mail on Sunday
, from which she pauses, looks up briefly, then sniffs and returns
to the article.
    My eyes surreptitiously dart to the page, which boasts the headline:
    BRITAIN: CAPITAL OF CASUAL SEX
    Next to it, with a nice blue border, there is a panel about genital warts; apparently these have reached epidemic proportions among eighteen-to-thirty-year-olds – a category I remain part
of – just.
    She looks up again and catches my eye. I glance away and straighten my back, as if sitting up nicely is going to alter the fact that,