She shut the door on him. ‘Maybe I already have.’
‘Happy Valentine’s Day!’
‘Happy Valentine’s Day!’
The women clinked their glasses together.
‘Pretty good way to spend it,’ said Imogen. ‘Better than being knee to knee with fifty other couples at a restaurant, all paying over the odds for beef in a pink sauce and heart-shaped cheesecake!’
‘Oh absolutely!’ declared Frankie. ‘Or sitting at home staring at your joke Valentine’s card, which depicts you as a cartoon harridan in curlers, and wondering where it all went wrong.’
Grace smiled and nodded but she didn’t share their sentiments. She was not relieved to be single on Valentine’s Day. She was not happy to be out with the girls instead of at home in the warm with James, a huge bouquet of flowers in the silver crackle vase on the sideboard, a card professing his undying and everlasting love on the mantelpiece and a Marks and Spencer’s Meal Deal for two on the coffee table in front of them. He would have run her a bath with candles and Jo Malone; she would be in a perfect dress and heels and ready for a kiss. It was always perfect. She would have done anything to be stuffed in a restaurant with loads of other couples, even if most weren’t speaking to each other. She would have done anything to just have her nice husband back – the one who hadn’t yet cheated – but he was now doing lovely Valentine’s stuff with another woman.
She’d had to be dragged out. Imogen had popped round the other night and told her that as Valentine’s Day was on a Friday this year, they should have a girls’ night on the town. Stuff all the happy couples and all the saccharine rubbish, she’d said, they should celebrate being single and fabulous. Grace had muttered something non-committal about it sounding lovely, but hadn’t planned on actually going. She didn’t want to celebrate being single; she hated it. She missed having a man and missed being in a relationship. But Frankie and Imogen had her sussed and had turned up at six o’clock tonight, in their going-out finery and a bottle of plonk, and had practically pushed her out the door.
Now here she was, in a bar festooned with red balloons, while a DJ played a souped-up version of ‘Love is in the Air’ and a load of singles who had no one to go with dinner with pretended they were about to enjoy themselves.
‘Well done, girls,’ said Imogen. ‘One month single! And it’s been a walk in the park, hasn’t it? I’ve absolutely loved it,’ she sighed happily.
‘Hear hear,’ said a grinning Frankie. ‘It’s been bliss.’
Grace grinned too but she wasn’t feeling it. All she could think about was James in a nice shirt, feeding her a mouthful of M & S scallops over a flickering vanilla flame and some Norah Jones. She couldn’t bear it.
‘Right,’ said Imogen, taking a large sip of her bubbly. ‘Remember what I said. We’re implementing a Don’t Talk to Men rule. The first rule is, if a man approaches and tries to talk to you, you do not respond. You turn your back if you have to. Got it?’
‘Got it!’ said Frankie.
‘Grace?’
‘Yep,’ said Grace miserably.
‘The second rule is, we all help each other to enforce the rule. The third rule is, if a group of men approach, we deflect them en masse and send them on their way. If we’re going to be single for a year, we have to be serious about this. Clear?’
‘Clear!’ shouted Frankie, as though she were doing CPR in an episode of ER.
‘Yay,’ said Grace, weakly.
‘Come on, Grace,’ entreated Imogen. ‘Get with the programme! We don’t want men, remember? We’re going to be single for a year and love it!’
‘Okay, yeah!’ said Grace and punched the air in a salute. She knew Imogen would only keep going on if she didn’t swear her allegiance to the cause. Frankie grabbed her raised fist and shook it triumphantly.
‘Good girl!’
‘Yes, that’s my girl!’ said Imogen. She made them chink their glasses again and down their drinks in one.
It was quite funny at first, when the men were bald and ugly idiots with not an ounce of charm between them. It was easy to send them packing. A man would approach. He’d be ignored or told to go away and he’d go away. It was no loss to anyone. Certainly not to Grace. Then a really gorgeous man started looking at her from across the bar.
Tall. Dark blond hair. Lovely eyes. Nice white shirt. She looked back; he looked back. He looked over; she looked over. Eventually, he walked across to them. He stood directly behind Grace and tapped her lightly on the shoulder. Imogen, like a hawk, spotted his hand and slapped it down.
He scowled at Imogen but was undeterred. He tapped Grace on the shoulder again and said, ‘All right?’
‘Hello,’ Grace said, smiling at him.
‘We’re not talking to men,’ said Imogen, cutting in and planting her face in front of his. ‘I’m afraid you’ll have to bog off.’ This man was obviously not used to such treatment. He cocked his head to one side in amusement and apparent disbelief then pulled at Grace’s arm, trying to get her out of the circle. Imogen had to step it up.
‘She’s not interested. Crawl back to your hole, there’s a love.’
His face was a picture. It was not a picture Grace liked.
‘Lesbians!’ he said, shaking his head at Grace as if to say, ‘Your loss’, then he walked back to his mates, in a bowling gait he hadn’t employed on the way over. She saw him laughing with his friends and immediately scouring the bar for fresh prey; he wouldn’t be wasting any more time.
Grace plastered a bright smile on her face.
‘Thanks, Imogen,’ she said, but internally she sighed a deep, highly disappointed sigh. She was gutted. Okay, he was a bit of a wally saying that about lesbians, but he was gorgeous. And just her type. Tall, dirty blond hair, a naughty grin. How unfair!
She tried to tell herself Imogen was right to dismiss him so smartly. That he was a man and it could only end in disaster. What would be the ultimate best that could happen? He would be wonderful, they would date, fall in love, he would ask her to marry him, then, eventually, he would cheat on her… Still, she wished Imogen hadn’t.
No other man dared approach. After plenty of vodkas had been consumed and they hit the dance floor, they were a ring of steel. Many a man tried to infiltrate and many a man was repelled; Imogen had somehow acquired the dual superhero powers of elbows of titanium and a threatening stiletto heel. Frankie once laughingly tried to have a little boogie with an eager young pup in a suede jacket but he was shot down in flames.
‘It’s only a laugh!’ shouted Frankie.
‘Never give in! Never surrender,’ Imogen yelled back, over Calvin Harris. And she was almost unbearable when Beyoncé’s ‘Single Ladies’ came on – wagging her finger, wiggling her backside, giving it all that. Grace just went along with it. Imogen was right, though, she thought, looking round the packed dance floor. These men were all no-hopers: men who hadn’t got a valentine either, who were out on the prowl, on the pull, to see who they could get. She still hated being single, though.
‘Can I get you a drink?’ a man suddenly said, from her right. He was young. White T-shirt. Floppy hair. Killer smile.
‘No, thank you.’
‘Why not, gorgeous?’
‘I’m not interested.’