I still grasp the mantra like a security blanket in times of need. Which is basically, when something intimidates me. Like work. Or a bad date. Or, now that I think about it, every time I ever saw Rick, towards the end.
Hmm.
The mantra certainly worked this morning. Everyone acted like I was, well, not to sound too dramatic, but like I knew what I was talking about. But that’s not because of the mantra: I really did know what I was doing, and everyone else knew it too. Fuck fake it till you make it. I made it. I fucking made it.
I just had a good day at work. Not just a good day.
An awesome day.
Thinking this, I stare at the wall for a few minutes till I realise it’s ten to five and my copy is due at 5.30 pm. I push everything else out of my head and finish the email copy, proofread it, and send it to the account manager. Oooh, the adrenaline rush of a deadline met.
I know I’m breaking my don’t-talk-about-work (or dreams) rule, by the way. Don’t worry. It’s nearly the weekend. All I usually think about on the weekend is what to wear and where to drink. (And in the olden days, who to date.) As I head down to the tube, I skippy-bunny-hop a couple of steps. Then right outside the Crown pub on Brewer Street, I run smack-bang into Cooper coming out of the door with his pint, almost knocking him over in the process. I never go to the Crown. Smart Henry broke up with me there.
‘Coop! I’m so sorry!’ I exclaim, laughing. ‘I was running for the tube…’
Cooper grins at me. ‘You were skipping, actually.’ I laugh even more, and turn to look at the guy he’s with. About 35, very nice grey suit, slightly too-long hair. Rather chiselled cheekbones and bluer-than-blue eyes. I quickly compose myself and look back at Cooper, who introduces us. His name is Lukas, and he’s about to move to London from Berlin to be the UK MD of Blumenstrauße. (That explains the Euro haircut.)
‘Oh, fantastic,’ I say. ‘We’ve been talking about your company all day.’
‘I’ve been talking about it for eight weeks, since I joined,’ Lukas says, smiling at me and holding very thorough eye contact.‘Please, let’s talk about something else. Like…what you would like to drink.’
Is he flirting? ‘Oh, um, I’d love to, but I have to get home. I have plans tonight,’ I say. (Rule 6: No accidental dating.) ‘Thank you, though. Lovely to meet you. I’ll see you soon.’
‘Yes, you will,’ he says back. ‘Very soon.’ His German accent is mild, and gives his words a nice clipped sound. ‘Have a good night.’ Definitely flirting. Slightly sleazy. Probably a bastardo.
‘See you Monday,’ says Cooper.
I hurry down to the tube, running over everything that happened today again, and realise I should try to put work out of my head and think about what to wear tonight. Normally I’d have had that sorted by about 10 am. God, what’s happening to me?
The party is just getting underway when Bloomie and I get there at about 9 pm. On the way, I reread the Dating Sabbatical Rules, and then fold them up and tuck them safely in my lucky yellow clutch. I’ve resolved to never be without them.
Mitch lives in the far back end of Chelsea, almost in Fulham, in a fully party-proofed little flat: there’s a tiled, wipe-clean kitchen, a living room with—this is key, I’m sure you’ll agree—no carpet, and a not-particularly-nice back garden that can’t get ruined. Despite cosy appearances, it fits over a hundred people with the appropriate social lubricant (gin, vodka, beer, wine). Right now, only about 15 people are in the front room, mostly playing that never-ending party game, No My iPod Playlist Is Better, and a few more are in the kitchen. Bloomie dashes off to join them and unload her goodies.
I see Mitch supervising the iPod war, kiss him hello, and then feel obliged to kiss everyone else in the room hello, which means I’m basically tottering around darting my head about everyone’s face like a little bird for the next three minutes. Finally, I finish working the room and get back to Mitch.
Mitch is one of my best friends, but forget any ideas you might have about me secretly falling in love with him or vice versa: he spent the first year of university chasing after Bloomie and I, then resigned himself to best friendship, and now professes to find us physically revolting. He’s a banker, like Bloomie, but I’m afraid he probably is an arsehole, at least some of the time.
He’s also a complete tart, but since he never leads the girls to believe it’ll be anything more than just sex, he gets away with it. Just.
‘How’ve you been, Special Forces? I heard about you and Posh Mark.’
‘Mmmm,’ I say. Special Forces is his nickname for me—because of SAS/Sass. Except when I’m really drunk. Then he calls me Special Needs.
‘Tough luck, though he was too thick by half. But for fuck’s sake don’t talk to me about your feelings. DO talk to me about this intriguing Sex Vacation.’
‘Dating Sabbatical.’
‘Whatever.’
‘Big crowd tonight, Bitch?’ I ask. It’s not a very clever nickname, but it makes us laugh.
‘Don’t change the subject…But about seventy or so, I should think,’ Mitch says, scanning the tight-white-jeans-encased bottom of a girl in the iPod group. He turns to me. ‘I’m a trendsetter, you know. These parties are totally recessiontastic.’
‘Huh?’ I say.
‘Houseparties are the new going out. Front rooms are the new Boujis Beer is the new Cristal.’
‘Oh, right.’
‘Where’s Gekko? I need to talk to her about a work thing later.’
‘Kitchen.’
Mitch calls Bloomie ‘Gekko’ in a rather sweet Wall Street reference—she says she hates it, but I’m not sure she does. He walks through to the kitchen, high-fiving and low-fiving people all the way. Mitch is good at collecting people. Most of the crowd tonight will be our university friends, and then satellite friends from everyone’s work, school and extended family. Being part of this insta-crowd makes living in London a lot easier: an ever-evolving gang without too much effort. My first year in London, pre-Mitch and Eddie and Bloomie and Kate joining me, is barely worth talking about. I call it The Lost Year, the one before I went out with Arty Jonathan. I spent most of my time getting drunk with the other new, green Londoners in horrible chain bars, and taking nightbuses back to Mortlake, an area in South London that you can only get to by buses and sheer willpower, where I shared a manky little flat with four strangers. Then, thankfully, the old group all moved to London and I quickly phased out my new friends for the cosy reassurance of my old ones.
‘Sass! I hear you’ve become bitter!’ says Harry, a podgy architect who’s been involved in a passionate conversation about Jack Johnson for the past few minutes. He was skinny on the first day of university. His shirt now strains against his gut so tight that I can see the cavernous shadow of his belly button. I smile at him and don’t say anything. He adds cheerfully, ‘Sworn off all men!’
The rest of the iPod-battlers look up and grin.
Holy shit, my friends are gossips. Looks like news of my Dating Sabbatical has hit the streets. Rule 4: avoid talking about the Sabbatical.
‘I’d rather swear off them than under them!’ I reply cryptically. I’ve made better comebacks, but I decide to pretend it was a killer riposte, raise a knowing eyebrow at Harry and swan off to the kitchen to find Bloomie.
Despite work very nearly getting in the way of a timely sartorial decision, I managed to come up with a rather soul-cheering outfit. It’s a rather