Do You Want to Know a Secret? (9 page)

For once in her life, she doesn’t have a smart answer to hand.

‘Emm . . . oh . . . well, when you put it like that . . . jeez . . . can I think about it and get back to you? I just, well, I didn’t expect you to be this . . . emm . . .
organized
.’

They both look at me, dead impressed, and I glow a bit.

Then they give me a round of applause, and although I act mortified, I’m actually thrilled. Then . . . oh
shit
.

I remember that I’ve gone to all this time and trouble over ‘project Barbara’, and I have sweet bugger-all for Laura . . . apart from one really tiny thing I thought of, but a) I don’t know how she’ll react, and b) I’m terrified of insulting her.

I mean, at aged thirteen when the rest of us were all squabbling over
Jackie
magazine and stuffing our training bras with tissues, Laura was a fully paid-up member of Mensa. Honestly. I mean, she’s just so intelligent and brilliant, with first-class honours degrees hanging out of her, and what I’m about to propose is . . . well, it’s not a million miles from asking Thomas Edison if he’d mind changing a light bulb for you. Or Einstein to give a hand with your four-year-old’s sums.

Anyway, and I’m not just playing for time here, I get up, mix more margaritas and am just sitting back down again, when she says to me, ‘So, Glenda the good witch of the East, don’t suppose you’ve anything in your bag of tricks for this particular Dorothy?’ I look hopefully over to Barbara, but no joy. She’s just looking back at me with an expression that might as well say, ‘Go on then, you’re the prime organizer here, you’re the one with all the colouredy folders.’

Right, nothing for it, then.

‘Right then, Laura, here’s the thing. The way I see it is, of course you’re dying to get back to the Bar the minute the baby is in proper, big school . . .’

‘Which will be in approximately twenty-eight months’ time,’ she interrupts. ‘But who’s counting?’

‘But until that happy day dawns, you need a way to generate cash while working from home.’

‘You could become an escort,’ says Barbara, crunching an ice cube between her teeth. ‘You know, like in the film
Belle de Jour
. Pays in cash, too.’

A withering glare from Laura and it’s back to me. I fish around in my briefcase, and after a lot of rummaging produce a copy of this month’s glossy new
Tattle
magazine.

‘What, you’re suggesting I become a gossip columnist? Or an agony aunt?’

‘Hear me out, honey. Have a look at this.’ I hand over the magazine, with a page turned down. ‘Now remember, it’s only an amuse-bouche of a moneymaking idea, that’s all.’

I threw that in casually-on-purpose, hoping the posh word would hook her.

‘Amuse-bouche?’ She shrugs. ‘Fancy.’

‘Thanks so much, please use it in a sentence by Monday.’

‘“I was in love and then he dumped me like I was radioactive waste,”’ she reads aloud from where I marked.

‘No, not the problem page, beside it. There.’

‘Blah, blah, blah short story contest, blahdy blah blah,
theme
is a brand-new take on modern motherhood blah blah blah three thousand words, blah blah blah, open to anyone over the age of eighteen, blah blah, closing date for submissions . . .’

Barbara’s now stopped her ice-munching and is looking at me as if to say, ‘You’ve certainly wiped the amuse off my bouche.’

‘Take a look at the prize money,’ I say, sticking to my guns.

‘First prize, five thousand euro, second prize, two thousand, third prize, a grand . . . dearest, this is all very well and good, except for one minuscule detail you seem to have overlooked. I can’t write. Treatises, yes, legal reports, yes, fiction, are you kidding me?’

‘Laura, you are officially the funniest woman I know. Especially when it comes to stories about your kids.’

‘Agreed,’ says Barbara. ‘Certainly the most unintentionally funny. I mean, you telling the story of how Emily is refusing to eat until you get cable is worthy of a slot on
The Late Late Show
.’

‘Don’t remind me. The little madam said I should change my name to mean.’

‘You see? That’s the kind of razor-sharp wit and humour they’re looking for,’ I say.

‘And you honestly believe that anyone would want to read about my family life?’

‘Come on, sweetie, if I can go on two dates, me
the
man repeller, and if Barbara can turn into a producer . . .’

‘. . . And do bear in mind my last paid acting job was over a year ago, a stunning portrayal of a lump of cholesterol on a beach in the Benecol ad. Unforgettable, really. And the answer to your next question – “Why aren’t you playing Broadway as a direct result?” – is “Beats the hell out of me”.’

Laura’s cornered and she knows it.

‘Well, if nothing else, I’ve just thought of a title,’ she eventually says.

‘Tell us.’

‘It’s a sign I hung on the kids’ bedroom doors. “Checkout Time is at Eighteen Years”.’

Barbara cracks up, with her big he-man laugh, but this time Laura doesn’t join in.

‘You really think I can do this?’ she asks me, looking a bit pole-axed.

‘What’s the worst that can happen? All you can do is try.’

‘In my world, trying merely brings you one step closer to failure.’

‘Christ alive, you think what you have to do is a challenge? In the next month I have to try and get two guys to date me.’

But I know exactly how she feels.

Chapter Five

RIGHT THEN, MIGHT
as well get this over with. It’s Sunday morning, well, mid-morning would probably be a bit more accurate; myself and the girls having sat up till waaaaay late last night, giggling and messing and generally acting like three overgrown tequila tarts. Laura even got to stay out till well after 1 a.m., which for her is a new kind of record, but then she got so worried that her phone
hadn’t
rung with updates on whatever row was going on at home, that she panicked herself into thinking that the house was probably on fire and that she should therefore leg it home post-haste.

A silent phone tends to have that effect on her.

Anyway, Barbara and I stayed up till all hours talking shite, taking the world apart and putting it back together again, and now here I am, still in bed, physically unable to budge, I’m that hungover. I’m in no mad rush to get up though, mainly because my bed is probably
the
most comfortable place to be in the whole house/building site, so I stretch over to my bedside table, grab a pen and pad and get cracking on my homework from last night.

My dating cheat sheet, by Vicky Harper.

Oh for God’s sake, I think, crumpling up the list and flinging it on to the floor. Does such a man even exist?

Right, getting into dangerously negative territory here, I decide, so I hop out of bed, put on a pair of trainers that are lying on the floor, and head downstairs to get my law of attraction book, which I’m pretty sure I left lying on top of a pliers and wrench set strewn somewhere across the living-room floor.

As I’m racing downstairs, it strikes me that in this get-up I must look like that character from
Little Britain
that’s escaped from a mental home and spends her time running around in her nightie and trainers going ‘ah, ah AAAH’. Times like this, I’m almost glad I don’t have a
fella
to see the state of me . . .
NO
, scrap that negative thought immediately on the grounds that your word is your wand.

When I do have a lovely, suitable DSM in my life, I will of course never wear the horrendous, ankle-length pink fleecy thing I’m in now. (Purely for warmth, you understand, I’ve no heating YET.) No, it’ll be La Perla and fluffy slippers all the way, with spray tan done at
all
times, because everyone knows that makes your lumpy bumpy bits look a million times better and can take a full half stone off you, according to the beauty pages.

Anyway, I find the book lying beside some kind of wrench thing that almost looks like something they’d have used in medieval times to torture Catholics and get them to renounce their faith (don’t waste your breath even ASKING, is my motto with Useless Builder), and I hop back upstairs and into my snug, toasty warm bed. I randomly flip open a page from the book, which was dog-eared to start with, but is practically falling apart by now, I’ve been dipping in and out of it so many times this week. Honest to God, there’s whole chunks of it I almost know off-by-heart at this stage. Miracle I managed to get any actual work done.

Anyway, I come across an ancient quote from Robert Collier, dated 1925, which says,

See the things you want as already yours. Know in your heart of hearts that they will come to you, then simply let them come. Don’t fret and worry about them, just think of them as absolutely belonging to you, as already in your possession
.

Yes, love it, it’s the perfect affirmation for me. And amazing that, although written so long ago, somehow it’s still relevant today. Right then, time for a bit of unwavering faith. Belief in the unseen.

OK, fair enough.

Walk in the park really, I mean all I have to do is imagine my ideal life, or in my case, my
ideal
partner. The book says you’re supposed to spend about ten minutes a day, morning and evening, meditating or channelling or whatever it is you want to call it, but basically it all pretty much involves the same thing: me lying in bed, staring at the ceiling, really,
really, REALLY
focusing on what I want out of life.

OK then. One simple, clear image that to me encapsulates what would make me happy, or as it says in the book, what would be my ‘bliss’. There’s also a quote from Einstein, of all people, about imagination being the highest kite you can fly, so with that in mind, I close my eyes and off I drift . . .

Yes, there I am. Still in bed with my wonderful partner stretched out beside me, except just not this bed
as
it’s ancient and a bit creaky; no, what I’d love is one of those fabulous four-poster beds that really suit old houses, you know, you see them in posh hotels all the time. Oh, but then, how would it fit into the room? Oh I know, they’d have to dismantle it then reassemble it . . .

Shit, shit, shit, this is not exactly what you might call focused concentration, now is it?

I start again, bearing in mind that the point of the exercise is to visualize my perfect life; soft furnishings are a detail that I can worry about later. Although, while we’re on the subject, I definitely do want those stunning Frette sheets that cost a fortune, but that are just the sexiest thing against your skin, like satin only warm to the touch, and I’d nearly swear I saw that they were on sale in the House of Fraser . . .

Oh for f**k’s sake, even Laura’s seven-year-old has better concentration skills than me. Right, go again.

Yes, here I am all snuggled up in my yet-to-be-decided-what-it’ll-end-up-looking-like-bed as my boyfriend/life-partner/future husband spoons into me from behind.

I chose that particular image on purpose, so I could
hear
what he sounds like but not actually
see
his face, because otherwise, knowing me, I’ll only hold it in my mind’s eye like some kind of Identikit picture and then measure any subsequent, future DSMs against the
picture
of perfection I’m about to conjure up. And, let’s face it, how could any flesh and blood fella possibly compete? At this stage in my long and chequered dating career, the one thing I can say with absolute certainty is that it doesn’t matter a shite what he looks like.