One In A Billion (7 page)

'
Alicia', Janice said as she buzzed past me, clicking her bony fingers. 'Snapity snapity, there are glasses to collect.'

I took the two hundred and fifty quid tip, folded it over itself several times and stuffed it into my bra. The rest of the evening went past in a blur.

'
What's eating you?' Sophia said on the bus back to the house. 'You haven't done your usual scathing breakdown of the evening.'

'
Did you meet the owner of the company?' I asked her. 'Someone called Devizes?'

'
No', Sophia said and shook her head. 'Sounds like a douche, why?'

'
He gave me a two hundred and fifty quid tip for talking to him for five minutes, wants to take me out for a drink and have his publishing company look over my novel.'

'
Way to go girl', Sophia said, enthusiastically.

'
That doesn't sound even a little bit unlikely to you?'

'
Hell I just had sex with an ex marine, while someone called Harold watched us do it. This is London, anything's possible.'

I loved Sophia for that. She really did believe that anything was possible, and she was seriously happy for me. I'm not sure how many people I could have really said that about. I'm not sure how many people would have either disbelieved me straight off the bat, or if they really did believe me, been jealous instead of happy.

In the fuzziness of the London caught in raindrops outside the bus window, I wondered about the man who'd just come into my life. Was he going to be my knight in shining armour, my one and only true love? The problem was, I'd stopped believing those stories a long time ago.

Chapter 5

I couldn't think about anything else all week. I sat in front of a blank computer screen (not much of a change there anyway I suppose), I got told off at work for making countless silly mistakes, and Sophia half thought I'd been smoking her stash of weed, because she told me I was acting like a zombie.

'Just call him', she said, several times. 'Fuck it, I'll call him if you want.'

'I'm not ready for another douche', I said.

'I thought you said he was nice.'

'He is nice, that's the problem', I said. 'It doesn't make sense.'

'Alice, for Christ sake. You're your own worst enemy sometimes. Just call him, what's the worst that could happen? You get a free meal and get to sleep with a millionaire.'

'Billionaire', I said, 'I looked him up on the internet.'

'Holy fuck', Sophia said, even more excited than before.

'There isn't much info about him, but what I found gave a suggestion of his net worth in the billions. He was also telling the truth about his publishing company. I don't know Soph, it's a completely different world.'

'If you don't call him, I will', she said. 'We can't let him go to waste.'

That conversation happened on Wednesday. And again on Thursday morning. I knew I couldn't call him straight away anyway, but if I was going to do it at all, I didn't want to leave it for too long. On Friday morning I pushed his digits into my phone, hovered my thumb over the call button, and then deleted them all again, my heart beating wildly with adrenaline. I couldn't even remember the last time I called someone up to ask them out on a date, because everything I did now related to my love life was conducted at a comfortable distance on the internet. I'd email someone, or someone would email me, and in doing so, I had time to compose myself and give a response. I was always awkward on the phone, which was why I avoided it at all costs. Calling someone, especially someone I liked, was like my idea of a nightmare.

Sophia was drinking Tenants Super and watching wrestling videos on youtube. She'd decided to go through a phase of testing all of the super strength lagers available in English supermarkets, although I had no idea why she was doing so with wrestling videos as background entertainment. She'd never been interested in wrestling before, but I supposed she could have been inspired by her recent interaction with Gary. Nothing surprised me much anymore about that girl.

'I'm scared', I said.

'Of what?' Sophia said.

I took a sip of her beer and almost spat it out. It tasted like petrol.

'This is absolutely horrible Sophia' I said.

'I know right', Sophia said with a grin on her face. 'It's probably my favourite one so far.'

I slid into the couch next to her looking for some TLC.

'He gave you his number, didn't he?' she said.

I nodded.

'What do you think that means?'

'How many other girls do you think he gave it to that night? Maybe he's having a laugh to see if I'll call, and then when I do, he'll tick me off a list or something. Or maybe it was for a bet.'

'You've got a vivid imagination.'

'So people tell me.'

'Hows the book going by the way?'

'I've got a page that says 'I'm a  failure', followed by seven pages of exclamation marks', I said.

'Well that's a start I suppose', Sophia said.

I took the beer from Sophia again, and felt the liquid burn me all the way to my stomach.

'How can you drink this?'

'You can't feel it after a while. Look', she continued. 'You're not going to know until you call him. He could be waiting for your call, just as nervous as you are. So what if he's a billionaire. Everyone is the same when you strip them all down. We have very few basic human needs. Food, water, sex, and wrestling. And did I say he was a billionaire', Sophia said, giggling. 'Think of the possibilities! He might even commission you to write your next book.'

'Maybe', I said.

'Look, your problem is that you don't have a high enough opinion of yourself to think that someone like that would want to be with you.'

'Would they?'

'There you go again', Sophia said. 'Your a hot girl. I'd bone you if you'd let me. I've told you that before, right?'

'Yes you have', I said. 'Thank you Soph.'

I left her to her disgusting super strength lager and chair breaking wrestling, and went to my room. I had two new emails, both to my personal email account and both from Marth.

Hi Alice, let's do something tonight. I miss you. X
and
Not sure if you got my earlier message, I had a great time with you last week, and would love to do it again. Think this may be broken because I haven't heard back from you. Thought we could go on a weekend away somewhere special. You know, jump in your car, you said you had a car right? There's a computer conference over the weekend in Swindon. We could stay in the Travelodge there. Let me know. X.

PS, I found your email address online (took about three hours) - cool huh?!

I deleted them both straight away, and marked his address as spam. Afterwards, I rummaged around in my purse for Devizes's business card, just to see if having it out in the open would encourage me to use it. It was a simple design with his name, telephone number, a fancy border and curved edges. I ran my fingers over the raised letters of his name, turned it over a few times in my hand and then intentionally put it next to the computer, so I could let it slowly, subtly distract me, while I pretended to be in control enough to go back to writing.
This was enough
I thought,
First the card out in the open, then the confident call. Hello Devizes, yes it's me Alice, of course I'd like to go out with you. Pick me up at 7? It's a date. One step at a time
I thought.
One step at a time.

I told myself I would call him, but only when I was ready to do so, and that the reason I was procrastinating was because I was a busy woman, with a lot of things on my plate, and a short time to do them all in. He'd have to work around me. It definitely wasn't because I was scared . Having the card out there in the open was proof enough of that.

For the next two minutes, my eyes went back and forth from my blank screen to his name, like it was whispering me something I couldn't quite hear. Eventually I had to admit defeat, at least for now, and pushed the card underneath the computer to hide it, while I clicked open the Matchup dating service website, and began to search though other profiles, to see if there was anyone suitable I hadn't already found, slept with and subsequently discounted. This, I managed to convince myself for a while, was definitely not procrastination. It was merely extended research, and sensible action, to make sure Devizes was definitely the best available option.

Sometimes there would be new profiles added from time to time, or people would come back onto the service if they had a Matchup with someone that didn't end up working out, like stock coming back to supermarket shelves, so I scrolled through page after page of people, just to distract myself from both writing and Devizes, until I kind of lost myself in a trance, all of the faces turning into a blur, and me not really taking any of the information in anyway.

Finally, after about fifteen minutes, I had to just stop entirely.
What the fuck am I doing?
I thought to myself.
I've found a man already, or at least a man has found me, and the only reason I'm not calling him is because I'm petrified of the rejection. Stop being a pussy, man up and call him. 

It was Friday, I didn't have to work at all over the weekend, and it was Devizes who'd given me his number. He was the one flirting with me. He was the one that made the approach. He was the one that told me to give him my book.
Fuck it
, I thought. I pulled the business card back out from underneath the computer, and searched frantically for my phone. I knew if I didn't call him quickly, I wouldn't have the nerve to do it again.

It wasn't on my desk, under my bed or in any of my several different drawers or bags. I rushed quickly out to the living room in a mad panic, and got half way through saying, 'Sophia have you seen my phone?', when I saw that she was holding it up in the air, ready for me to collect it. I have no idea how long she had been doing so.

'Good luck', she said.

I went back to my room without delay, and with my heart pumping wildly, sat on my bed, pressed the numbers into the keypad and connected the call. A moment later it began to ring.
Oh fuck
. I stood up. I paced up and down, I sat back down on the bed again and the phone continued to ring.

'Please don't be the answer phone, please don't be the answer phone', I whispered to myself.

Five rings. Six rings.

'Fuck, it's going to answer phone', I said. 'Fuck, Sophia', I said louder, 'It's going to answer-phone.'

'So leave a message', Sophia shouted back.

The rings rang out. It clicked over to a voice. For a nerve-shredding moment, I had no idea whether it was going to be him answering it, or him on his answer-phone.

'Devizes Carter cannot come to the phone right now, please leave your message after the tone.'

My first instinct was to hang up.

'Don't hang up', Sophia shouted.

I hate leaving answer-phone messages. I hate telephones in general, but talking into a machine is like the worst possible thing for me, next to Chinese water torture.

'I'm going to hang up', I said, already running out of time to do so, but when it came to the moment to leave my message, I just couldn't do it.

'Hello, hi, Devizes? Hello, um, it's Alice. The waitress from the National Portrait Gallery from last weekend. The bunny. How are you? I hope you are ok. Oh god, I hate these things, sorry! Um, I just wanted to call to say that it would be lovely if you still want to meet up. I'm free this weekend so we could do something if you like? Anyway, my number is 07854 786 196, that's 07854 786 196. Hope to talk to you soon. Bye. See you later, bye.'

Sophia was already at the door. She'd been nodding at me encouragingly as I spoke.

'Oh god, that was terrible, wasn't it?'

'That was fine', Sophia said.

We both stared at the mobile phone which I'd thrown onto the bed in disgust.

'Do you think he'll call?'

'Sure', Sophia said.

I couldn't take my eyes off it.

'Give it time', Sophia said.

Just then the phone began to ring and it scared me so much I actually jumped away from the bed in fright.

'Fuck', I said.

'That was quick.'

I picked up the phone. 'It's mum', I said, when I saw the caller ID.

'He'll call', Sophia said heading back to the living room. 'Just don't sweat it. Billionaires must have busy lives, you know, shooting rare animals and burning ll that money.'

Mum phoned to tell me the good news about dad. His book launch had been scheduled and she wanted to make sure I could get the time off work. I didn't tell her about my mysterious billionaire, because I knew she'd never believe me anyway. I swear half of the shit I tell them they think I'm making up, because I spent a large portion of my childhood talking about imaginary people as though they were friends from school.