Who’s That Girl? by Celia Hayes (6)

Gentlemen Prefer Skinny

“We want another round over here! Hey, did you hear me?” yells Terry, while waving her arms around and indicating her empty glass, in the direction of one of the Collateral waiters who happens to be passing. “Hey, you, are deaf? Oh, well…” After failing to attract his attention, she gives up altogether and turns to look at me instead. I’m holding my head in my hands whilst staring at a plate of french fries covered in ketchup and finishing my Caipiroska cocktail. I’ll admit it might not be the ideal pairing, but right now I’m too drunk to care much. “Fridays in here are the worst, they pay you no attention at all,” she mutters and grabs a handful of nachos from a small bowl.

I wasn’t even in the mood for going out tonight, just for the record. And I have my reasons. Like it being a total waste of time and, let’s face it, it just doesn’t make sense: it’s aesthetically questionable, culturally degrading and, most of all, absolutely pointless. And why wouldn’t it be? How could it not be? For the whole week you drag yourself from house to workplace and back, dressed as if you were going to fight a land war, wearing your glasses and flat shoes and making sure you’ve got lovely dark blue rings under your eyes which go perfectly with your unnaturally pale skin, a special look that can only be achieved by living under neon lights all the time. But on Fridays you suddenly need to try and look like some kind of totally fulfilled modern woman. And it’s the same drama every time; you have about sixty minutes to make up for your last twenty years of procrastination. You put on shoes that you wouldn’t use to torture your worst enemy and a dress that needs an instruction book, and then you slap on enough make-up to embarrass Marilyn Manson. Okay, anyone reading this could object on the grounds that at the moment I’m actually just wearing a pair of jeans and a baggy black pullover, but that’s hardly the point.

The point is that I didn’t want to go out at all, and I thought I’d made that perfectly clear. It’s hardly likely that my perfect soul mate is actually going to show up after dinner in the most boring bar in SoMa. I know that for sure, and so does Terry. We both know I’ll be going back home on my own tonight. So why on earth would I bother getting dressed up?

“Have you ever noticed,” I ask while observing the bottom of my glass, “that they put so much ice in these cocktails that all the strawberries end up at the bottom? And so does that weird sweet stuff… what’s it called?”

“Sugar. It’s just cane sugar.”

“Yeah, that’s the stuff,” I confirm, while trying to find the last chewable piece of lemon. “Cane sugar, that’s what it’s called!” I continue. “Everything ends up at the bottom of the glass and the ice never melts, so you spend a good half hour drinking dirty water and when you finally reach what’s supposed to be a piece of fruit, it’s already as mushy as a marshmallow.”

“Yeah…” she sighs, before swapping to her second typical facial expression, the one which signals her laconic acceptance of my limited mental abilities. I don’t let her distract me from my mission, though, and continue searching among the ice cubes with my straw, though without much success.

“I really don’t get why they have to put so much ice in these things. I’d gladly pay more if they didn’t ruin all my damn cocktails with it!”

“Okay, I’m going to get the cheque and then take you home. I really don’t want to have to watch you throwing up on the floor.”

“Nah, I’m fine, don’t worry,” I say, making a casual gesture. “I’m absolutely fine, just a little tired.” I put my glass down on the table and rub my eyes. “I just need to eat something, though I’m not sure what I want… Maybe a piece of cake? Let me see…” I pick up the menu. “How about a coconut mousse with chunks of dark chocolate and coffee cream?”

“Is that a dessert or the supplies for the NASA Mars mission?”

“Pfffff…” I huff in annoyance, and replace the menu.

“Will you tell me what’s really going on?” she says. Or rather shouts, since it’s the only way to make her voice audible over the pop song with an extremely noisy bass line blasting out of the speakers.

“No, it’s nothing really. I’ve got no intention of boring you by listing all my failures anyway, don’t worry. Tell me about your day – how was it with Carl Urban? Did you manage to squeeze his butt while you were pretending to be looking for the door knob?”

“Ah, well, actually—” she starts, but I cut her off.

“I mean, I can’t go on like this, you know?” I moan, and almost burst into tears. “It’s not fair! I deserved that chance, I’ve been preparing for it for a long time!”

“Please, go on,” she says sarcastically as she watches my outburst, “don’t keep everything bottled up. You know how much I love hearing all about your difficult journey towards alcoholism and sugar addiction.”

“It’s just…” I start, shaking my head, “I am wasting my whole life in that damn cubicle. All I do is take notes, print documents and sort out the mail…” I list in an apathetic voice, while tapping my hand with an index finger. “Actually, that’s not all I do – I also arrange conferences, take people coffee, read e-mails, sometimes I even get to water the plants!”

“Please tell me that you’re joking, I really need to hear you say it. You’re… you’re not actually serious, are you?” she asks, hoping she’s misheard.

Unfortunately, I’m totally serious, and as hard as it is to admit it, I say it out loud: “Yes, I am.”

“Can I get you anything else, ladies?” asks a guy as he approaches our table. He’s covered in piercings and wearing a tight t-shirt that reveals his sculpted biceps.

“I’ll have another of these.”

“And how about you?” he says, turning to me, “can I bring you something?”

My thoughtful colleague answers for me, even though I don’t remember asking her to. “No, she’s fine, thanks.”

“No, I’m not,” I protest, trying to give the guy my Visa card.

“Oh, yes, you are,” she insists, snatching the card from my hand.

“No, I’m not,” I try again.

“Yes, you are, I’m telling you,” she insists stubbornly, stopping me from handing my card to the charming man tapping his fingertips on the table while he waits for us to make up our minds.

“But I want another drink!”

“Sam!” She’s almost about to start yelling at me, but then she decides to change strategy: “Hey, look over there,” she says, trying to distract me by pointing to the TV on the wall behind the bar. “Do you recognise anyone there?”

I know I shouldn’t turn my head, but something in the presenter’s voice manages to capture my attention. Even though I don’t want to make it so easy for her, I eventually turn my head and find myself staring at a bunch of smartly dressed people coming and going. I think I see a face I know very well amongst them, but I need to blink a few times to convince myself that I’m actually seeing what I think I’m seeing.

Terry takes advantage of my temporary distraction to whisper in the waiter’s ear, “Ten dollars if you beat it.”

“Listen lady, this is a free country! If your friend wants a drink you should let her have one,” he protests with a smirk.

“Okay, then. How much do you want?” she says.

“Give me twenty and I’ll keep myself busy on the other side of the room until you two have gone,” he replies immediately.

“Twenty dollars? You must be joking.”

“Wait! Is… is that my Dave?” I mumble, slurring because of the alcohol. I try to raise my arm, but I can’t co-ordinate my movements very well any more and I almost pour the slimy yellowish remains of my drink all over myself. After realising the state I’m in, Terry decides to accept the waiter’s offer.

“Right, take your damn twenty dollars and get lost,” she hisses at him in a low voice, hoping that I won’t hear. But she could have shouted and I still wouldn’t have noticed, because I’m totally enraptured by the TV. Before it was showing a football game, but during the break they’ve turned to the eleven o’clock news. They’re actually only summarising the events of the day, so there’s nothing that hasn’t already been said, written or published on the web. At the bottom of the screen there’s a rolling line of text giving the latest news from Wall Street while above it there are expert shots of the event. I give in to my lowest instincts and start to fantasise about that perfectly tailored tux and those wonderful hands.

“God, Terry, look at him! Just look at him. Isn’t he amazing?” I say, ranting like some demented groupie until the camera pulls out, seemingly with the sole purpose of completely ruining my evening, as it reveals a blonde woman who seems to be very friendly with Dave.

“Okay,” Terry whispers to the waiter as she snatches her money back from him, “sudden change of plan – be a good boy and get her another one.”

“No,” I moan, “That’s not my Dave.”

“And get a move on!” she hisses, then turns towards me with a reassuring smile. “So, what did you want me to see? Did I miss something?”

“He looks more like he’s her Dave,” I say, giving in to the reality of the situation.

“What?” she asks, before taking a look herself. “Do you mean her? Nah, I’m sure he doesn’t even know her name. You know how these things go, it was probably something the press agency came up with,” she continues, trying to cheer me up. I slowly sink down into my chair, unable to take my eyes off the screen. “Anyway, that’s not even today,” she adds when she realises she’s not really helping. “Unless I’m mistaken, I think that’s an event they held last week.”

Three years. I’ve been dreaming about our life together for three whole years, imagining what it would be like to walk hand in hand, buy the Sunday newspaper together, have a picnic in the park together while we lie on a worn out old plaid blanket, all that stuff. I’ve been dreaming about all this as though it might really come true one day. As though a man like that could ever be interested in a woman like me. Deep down, I already know that none of it will ever happen, but knowing something deep down is different from seeing it on a fifty inch hi-def liquid crystal display screen. I didn’t imagine that Dave was a monk in his free time but I was secretly hoping that – like me – he was waiting to meet his soul mate, and that person might be me. Or that he might bang his head on the corner of the photocopier and mistake me for his soul mate when he came round.

Come on, Sam, did you take a good look at her?

And I can’t tear my eyes from the screen…

“Oh God…” I moan, suddenly paralysed.

“What’s up?” Terry asks, her eyes opening wide. “Sam? Sam, are you ok?”

“I’m gonna puke,” I mumble, covering my mouth with a hand.

There’s no time to waste if I don’t want to make the biggest fool of myself ever. “Come with me, hurry up!” she says, while grabbing both our bags and dragging me away from the table.

We walk through the bar holding hands and reach the queue outside the women’s toilets, which are positioned in a private area by the DJ’s console, managing to avoid the hordes of young girls crowding in rapture about their idol.

There are at least five people before me, all of whom look annoyed by how long they’ve had to wait. One quick look is enough, though, to understand who really needs to go first and so I find myself locked in the cubicle before I even realise it, and in the space of a few seconds I manage to vomit up a cheeseburger, a whole portion of fries, two Caipiroskas, a Martini, four olives and half a basket of potato chips, not in that order.

I am sure that the woman I just saw on TV never had to go through anything like this.

I can’t help but compare myself to her and wonder where I went wrong, and my life suddenly looks absolutely miserable – I don’t have a boyfriend, my salary is a joke, I’m on the plump side, my eyes aren’t blue and I don’t have long legs. What makes it even worse, though, is that I am still hoping that one day all this is going to change for the better. I linger on my illusions to avoid having to finally face the reality, which is that I’ve fallen for a man who will never be interested in me, who doesn’t really think much of me and who doesn’t want a woman like me to walk hand in hand with and lie on a rug in the park eating sandwiches with. He wants a very different kind of woman, in fact – one who likes dressing up and flying to Paris in a private jet in the middle of the night just to see Bizet’s Carmen from the front row before rolling around under silken sheets in some fancy hotel on the Seine where he rips off her negligee which is so tiny I wouldn’t fit in it even after plastic surgery.

I struggle to get back on my feet. My stomach is churning like a broken washing machine and I slump against the wall. I’m in pieces. Over the past three years I’ve done everything I could to make him notice me, but I wasn’t even able to get him to assign me a simple job reporting on a stupid pageant. Three years, and all I get for my troubles is seeing my prince charming hugging the wicked witch by her bustier. I’m being totally pathetic, I know, but I can’t take it any longer and I burst into tears.

Is my love life really that bad? Apparently so, and this has been one of the biggest blunders I can remember. Of all the men in the world, I decided to fall for the one who was furthest out of my league. And if that wasn’t enough, he also happens to be my boss. I’m a walking cliché. The worst part is that I can’t even avoid him, because I can’t afford to lose my job, so I just have to put up with being in his presence and pretend that everything is okay and that I don’t have any feelings for him. I have to hide the excitement I feel every time I see him and the drowning feeling that comes over me when he walks past me without even acknowledging my existence.

“Sam,” says Terry mockingly, as she knocks at the toilet door. “You want me to call an exorcist?”

“No, that won’t be necessary,” I try to reassure her while I do my best to get myself back together. “I’m already feeling better.”

Like hell I am. I obviously don’t feel any better at all, but I pretend it’s true, at least, until the taxi we take drops me off at the front door of my place. Or, to be more precise, the front door of my parents’ place, because I don’t even have my own apartment to fill with cats and frozen TV dinners. On the other hand, it does save me from the embarrassment of not having anyone to ask to come on up for one more drink. It’s not much of a consolation, but it’s something, I suppose.

“You gonna be able to get up tomorrow?” Terry asks me as the car pulls up at the kerb on a street in Western Addition. She even holds the car door open to help me get out.

“I’ll manage,” I mumble sleepily, handing some money to her for my part of the journey.

“Okay, but if you’re still not feeling great tomorrow, take a sick day. You can’t run the risk of getting ill because next week you have to interview Mr Murphy,” she reminds me, noticing my total absence of reaction. “You remember the interview with Mr Murphy, right?”

“Sure, I could I forget it?” I reply waving goodbye with little enthusiasm. She waves back, and that’ll have to do this evening as I don’t see any handsome prince waiting to kiss me goodnight. I open the front door and hope that I don’t fall down the stairs.

The good thing about living on your own is that you don’t have to give explanations to anyone when you come home late. You can slam the door, throw your shoes on the sofa, and sing out loud under the shower without anyone appearing in their slippers outside your door to remind you that it’s 2 a.m. I live at my parents’ though, so I open the door trying desperately not to make too much noise, then tiptoe up the stairs and open my bedroom door very slowly, praying that it won’t creak. Once it’s shut again, I can breathe normally. I sit on the chair by my desk for a moment with my hands in my hair.

Given how late it is, the best thing would be to just go straight to bed. Putting on my pyjamas – the ones covered with little blue teddy bears – is the only intelligent thing to do, but I decide to give myself the coup de grâce instead. I switch my laptop on and Google the name of the model I saw with Dave. “Madeleine Hunt…” I mumble, while scrolling through the numerous images that appear on the page. On impulse, I print out one of the pictures taken for an article on Ralph Lauren’s autumn and winter collection and spend the next ten minutes desperately looking for a defect in her, but she’s absolutely flawless. She’s a model, she’s a millionaire and she’s even thin; she has all the attributes a woman could dream of. The only qualities left over for me are clumsy, masochistic and overweight. I realise that it would take a miracle for me to become like her, so I give up. There’s no point to all of this, and I can’t go on tormenting myself. I’ve had enough – I should at least try and accept my defeat with dignity.

“Right, it’s late and I need to go to bed,” I scold myself while I crumple up the printout in my hands. I go over to the wastepaper basket to throw it away and right at that moment, in my dirty pullover, with puffy eyes and messy hair, I make a definitive decision. “That’s enough.” Enough dreams, enough pain, enough humiliation. And most of all, enough Dave. Because Dave isn’t just Dave – he’s a symbol of a thousand other stupid decisions I’ve made in my life which have prevented me from improving my situation. I want to grow, damn it, I really want to move on. I don’t care if I don’t reach my original goal, but I can’t waste any more time waiting and hoping that sooner or later someone – specifically him – will finally notice me. Tomorrow my new life starts, I’ve decided. A real life this time, with no false illusions and where I am just Sam: Sam ‘sorry but I’m busy at the moment’ Preston, and he’s just Dave, Dave ‘excuse me, what was your name again?’ Callaghan. I’ll pay him back with the same indifference he’s always shown me. I have to stop staring into the sunrise and start looking around me. And who knows? Maybe I’ll find that the sun has made me blind to other opportunities.

Let’s be constructive: there must be someone out there for me as well. Someone who might not put me at the centre of his universe, but someone I can at least share a two room apartment on the Milky Way with, right? Surely I’m entitled to a ground floor apartment near the Great Bear, aren’t I? I really want to try and believe in all this for once, and to imagine a different life for myself. I put my earplugs in and approach my bed clutching my mp3 player.

Finally, I throw the picture of Madeleine Hunt in the trash and a little piece of my heart goes with it.

From now on, my motto is going to be ‘no more Dave’.