I didn’t. So, naturally, I nodded.
‘Can I ask, Zara, exactly what the research will involve?’
‘It’s quite simple, dear. My project for this year is to write a new, pioneering book on the relationships between men and women. There are so many lost little stars out there and it’s my calling to set them on the celestial journey that will lead them directly to their soul mate.’
Aaaaw, she was like Cilla Black with mystic powers.
‘I believe that I’ve developed a new way of interpreting the signs using a combination of ancient Chinese philosophy, psychology, rune stones, mathematics, planetary alignment and the instinct and intuition that I was gifted at birth. And I’m going to use my methods to redefine and reinvent current dating techniques. Forget speed dating, forget all those matchmaking websites–I’m going to write a defining, ground-breaking, revolutionary guide to wooing a partner depending on his star sign.’
I thought it probably wasn’t the time to enlighten her that Mills & Boon were on the phone asking if they could have the word ‘wooing’ back.
A book on landing men depending on the date they were born? It was ridiculous. Trite. Insulting. Wasn’t the modern woman far more evolved than that? Didn’t we have principles, emotional intelligence and the savvy to find a partner based on like-mindedness, inherent compatibility and how great his abs were?
I had a sudden insight as to why I was still single.
‘So what exactly will I need to do?’ I had a flashing premonition of endless, mind-numbing hours spent in libraries collating information on all the astrological traits and characteristics. I’d then deliver expansive reports to the divine Miss Delta so that she could harness the mighty investigative powers of solid research, an enquiring mind and moonbeams.
‘It’s simple, Leni. I need to hone and test my theories and include references to practical examples and real-life cases in my book. So, over the next few months, I need you to date twelve men, one from each of the signs of the conventional zodiac.’
‘Whaaaat?’
My peachy-clean aura threw a major strop. No way! Forget it. I was not pimping myself out for some ludicrous, half-boiled book by a TV celebrity with a head like a neglected flower basket.
‘You will of course be paid extra for all evening work, and there will be a bonus on completion of each of the twelve studies. So–can I assume you accept the challenge?’
I was outraged. I was insulted. But I was also skint, desperate to get out of plumbing and losing the feeling in my legs. So…
‘Hmmmm,’ I replied.
‘So?????’
Their little faces were the epitome of expectation.
‘I got the job!’ I replied gleefully, joining in an exaggerated group hug thing that almost toppled them off their bar stools. They’d been waiting in the pretentious, overpriced wine bar around the corner from Zara’s office for the last two hours, so they were already struggling slightly with minor issues like balance and staying upright.
‘Told you she was desperate!’ Trish exclaimed helpfully.
That’s the thing about Trish–I love and adore her but she went to the Joseph Stalin School of Friendship. She’s brutal, thoughtless, self-obsessed, and prone to dictatorial behaviour. However, unlike Mr Stalin she’s also funny, kind and, underneath the complete lack of compassionate social skills, she has her friends’ best interests at heart. We’ve known each other since our first day at college in London, when I bumped into her as she wandered along the corridor outside the catering department clutching a toffee pavlova (yes, the stains came out eventually). Surprisingly, given her truculent disposition, we’ve never fallen out, although that’s probably because I’m subconsciously aware that if I crossed her there’s every chance she would dismember me while I slept.
The first thing that struck me (after the pavlova) about her was that she was so different from my group of friends back in the sleepy suburb of Norfolk where I grew up. In my little gang of middle-of-the-road, normal, everyday pals, not one of them had a navy-blue Mohican and wore Doc Marten boots with long flowery dresses. She looked like the love child of Sid Vicious and Laura Ashley. In fact, that had been a major puzzlement when her husband Grey first met her. Let’s just get this out of the way–he’s a fireman. No jokes about large hoses, sliding down his pole or relighting his fire, please–that kind of shallow innuendo does nothing but demean the role those courageous men play in today’s society. But he is a big hunka hunka burnin’ love who could set any female’s knickers alight.
Anyway, they got together after he was called to her apartment by a neighbour who spotted thick smoke coming out of Trish’s window. A few bee-baws later he was carrying a semi-conscious Trish out of her front door while the plug-in, hot-wax kit that she’d inadvertently left on after trimming her bikini line burnt down her kitchen. Electrical fault, apparently. Thankfully, she was fine, but when she regained consciousness while waiting for an ambulance, Grey asked her why she was wearing boots with a nightdress. They’ve been together ever since that moment and she vowed right there and then that she’d never again wear floral prints, men’s boots or well-trimmed nethers.
Now her wardrobe is more Kate Moss on a slightly lower budget–a hip, eclectic and edgy combination of vintage and high-street jeans, T-shirts, waistcoats and various other chic pieces that definitely shouldn’t work together but somehow on Trish they just do. Meeting Grey also brought about the last of the Mohican. Her hair is now a screaming shade of scarlet and shaped into a razor-sharp asymmetric chin-length bob, a style that’s maintained in pristine fashion by our mutual best chum Stuart. Another college relationship that’s lasted the distance, we met Stu when he advertised for hair models in the first month of his hairdressing course. Trish and I, fuelled by the combination of permanent bed hair, cheap cider and empty bank accounts, went along, and despite the fact that he bestowed upon us crew cuts that made everyone around us view us in a whole new light (if you’re reading this, Julie McGuiness, thank you for the k.d. lang poster), we’ve been friends ever since.
Oh, and just in case you were doing that whole stereotype thing, Stu is as straight as Russell Brand with the horn. However, he is…
‘That’s great news, Leni! I’m so proud of you! But stop the hugging, honey, because this virus I’ve got might be an airborne one so best to keep your distance.’
…a hypochondriac. Or should I say, the post-millennium version, a cyberchondriac. First sign of a sneeze and he’s on the computer inputing his symptoms into medical websites, and the next thing you know he’s claiming bubonic plague and ringing a bell before he enters the room. Still, much as the web does invariably throw up the most dramatic diagnosis, we’re glad he’s finally binned the old-fashioned medical dictionary. When he was addicted to that he’d get stuck on the same letter for days and go into psychosomatic meltdown. That terrifying week back in 2002 when he contracted piles, pleurisy and pregnancy will be etched on my memory forever.
We keep hoping that he’ll meet his perfect woman and the security will rid him of his morbid obsession, but so far all attempts to set him up with a member of the nursing profession have met with a premature end. He once got as far as a third date with a geriatric nurse but she dumped him in the middle of an episode of ER when he asked her to talk him through a prostate examination. And not in a good way. It’s a shame really because, neurosis aside, he’s a grounded, cool, entirely macho six-foot-tall specimen of gorgeousness with close-cropped black hair, piercing green eyes and an abdominal rack so tight you could play bongo drums on it. Of course, he’d never let you for fear of cracked ribs, punctured lungs and