Remind Me Again Why I Need a Man (10 page)

The barman comes back with my spritzer and Greg orders a fresh pint of Guinness. ‘I'm really glad to see you, Amelia. We've so much to catch up on. Don't you have some high-flying TV job now?'

‘Ehh … well, I'm a producer.'

‘On
Celtic Tigers
, right?'

‘That's right, yeah.'

‘Wow, big job.'

‘It's not really,' I say, downplaying it. ‘It's more like seven hundred small jobs. I can't believe you watch it.'

‘Are you kidding? My ex-wife is your number one fan. She loves it. Last time I was leaving the kids over at her house, she had it on and I saw your name coming up on the credits. Fair play to you. Always knew you'd do well.'

‘You're divorced then?'

‘Separated.'

‘Sorry to hear that.'

He sighs deeply and I really do feel sympathy for him. ‘Yeah, well, these things happen.'

‘And you're working for your mum's company now?'

‘Got a family to support.'

‘Oh? How many kids do you have?'

‘Two, and one on the way.'

‘Your ex-wife is pregnant?'

‘No, my girlfriend is. Due in April.'

I take a sip of my drink, not really sure what to make of all this. He certainly hasn't been letting the grass grow under his feet, that's for sure.

‘So, how long were you married for?' I ask, hoping I don't sound come across like Larry King interviewing someone. I can't help it; I'm just dying to know.

‘Pretty much until my wife found out I had a girlfriend.'

He's sniggering now and I can't believe it. It's almost as if he thinks this is something to brag about, that he's some kind of super-stud. I'm saved from having to
answer by the barman who comes back with Greg's pint.

‘Good man, Tommy,' he says, taking the drink. The barman stands waiting to be paid as Greg turns to me. ‘Would you mind getting this one? Thanks, I'm just a bit short.'

Flabbergasted, I pay for both drinks and wonder how quickly I can get the hell out of there.

Wait up
, says my inner voice sternly,
you still haven't found out what you did wrong with him yet … Ten more minutes. You can do ten more minutes. That's all it'll take.

I take another sip of wine and we chit-chat for a bit. Small talk mostly. Greg hasn't kept in contact with anyone from college and is astonished to hear that Caroline, Rachel and Jamie are still my best friends.

‘And how are your parents?' he asks.

‘Great, thanks. Dad's retired and he and Mum are living most of the year in Spain now. Just outside Alicante. They love it down there.'

‘Well for you. At least when you go to visit them, you can get a suntan while you're at it.'

‘Well, I hadn't quite thought of it like that, but … emm, yeah, I suppose so.'

After another few minutes of catching up, I decide to seize the bull by the horns. I don't want him to think that I'm looking to rekindle any kind of friendship; I just want to leave – and the sooner the better. I don't
think I've ever felt so uncomfortable in my whole life and, God knows, that's really saying something.

‘So, Greg, please don't think I'm being nosey, but I have to ask. You really had a girlfriend while you were married?'

He doesn't even have the good grace to look hangdog about it. ‘For about two years, yeah.'

‘
Two years?
'

‘But – I know you'll understand, Amelia, because you've known me for so long – I think deep down I really wanted to be caught, you know what I mean?'

‘No, Greg, I honestly don't.'

‘I could handle having a wife; I could handle having a mistress at the same time. What I couldn't handle were the two dinners.'

I almost splurt out my drink. But there's worse to come. Before I've recovered myself, his hand is on my knee, all hot and clammy.
Oh dear God, is he making a move on me?

‘Really is great to see you again, Amelia. I was delighted you tracked me down. I've thought about you a lot over the years, you know. So, tell me, do you have a boyfriend?'

Shit! The dreaded question. OK, time for damage limitation
. ‘Emm, well, no, I'm not actually seeing anyone right now – at the moment, I mean. I just got out of something long-term and … you see …' I'm trying my best so make it sound like I'm single out of choice
and that there're loads of guys chasing after me and I'm failing miserably.

‘You're on your own, so. Interesting. Did I tell you how well you're looking?'

‘Greg,' I say, moving away and trying to sound cool, ‘I think you might have got the wrong idea here …'

‘Doesn't look like it to me,' he answers, grabbing my hand now. I try to pull away but he's having none of it. ‘But don't worry, Amelia. Just because I'm technically involved with someone else, that's not any kind of problem, is it?'

‘You don't understand …' I'm trying to keep the rising panic out of my voice.

‘Oh, come on. You contact me again after all these years, agree to meet me, then walk in here all alone and looking hot and sexy? Bet you're living in some fantastic penthouse apartment now, with big leather couches and satin sheets on the bed … Why don't we go back to your place and take this a bit further?'

It's hard to believe that a week has passed and yet here I am, sitting in the front row of tutorial room 201, in full flow, virtually
ranting
at poor Ira Vandergelder about my experiences of the previous night.

‘All I can say is, meeting my ex-boyfriend constituted one hour out of my life I'll never get back.'

The class titter.

‘So what exactly happened?' ‘OK, the nicest thing that happened all evening was that he covered his mouth when burping. This man has an ex-wife, a girlfriend – who by the way is pregnant, just for added entertainment value – and then he made a move on me. He had completely got the wrong idea as to why I'd contacted him and thought, in his own warped head, that because I was still single, therefore I was fair game. Can you believe the
arrogance
?'

‘You wanna feel sorry for yourself or do you wanna get married?' says Ira.

I'd almost forgotten about the New York,
take-no-prisoners directness. I can't answer her though; I'm too distracted by the rest of the class looking at me like I'm a few coupons short of a special offer.

‘How old were you when you started dating him?' Ira ploughs on with the interrogation.

‘Sixteen.'

‘So, tell the class what it's taken you the guts of twenty years to learn.'

I pause for a minute and take a deep, calming breath. There comes a point when you've been so humiliated in front of a room full of complete strangers that you don't care any more. It can hardly get worse. ‘My first boyfriend was a cheater when I knew him and he's still a cheater now. I suppose I've learned that people don't change.'

‘There's something even more obvious than that.'

‘What?' I'm genuinely stumped.

‘We need to work on your screening process. Sounds to me, Amelia, as if you do not choose good men for yourself. Look at you, so pretty. You seem like a lovely person too, so what you need to ask yourself is this: Why would any man
not
want to be married to me? May I ask why you broke up with your most recent boyfriend?'

‘The oldest story in the book. He said he loved me but couldn't commit to me.'

‘Bullshit,' says Ira, rolling her eyes to heaven, as if she's heard this a thousand times before. ‘When a
man uses that “I'm commitment-phobic” line, let me translate it for you. It means he just doesn't want to commit to
you
. You are gonna learn to select better potential husbands, Amelia. Remember, you are not looking for a boyfriend; you are auditioning for a marriage partner. OK. Next.'

She moves on to the woman next to me and I find myself smarting, as I always do, at the very mention of
He-whose-name-shall-forever-remain-unspoken
. When we broke up, or, more correctly, when he finally had the guts to dump me, he'd said that it wasn't me, it was him. It wasn't that he didn't want to be with me any more, he didn't want to be with
anyone
and blah, blah, blah.

What Ira is saying makes a lot of sense. Maybe there's nothing fundamentally wrong with me, maybe I just make appalling choices … and have been doing so for over twenty years. It's an empowering thought and it cheers me up no end.

As the class goes on and everyone is vying to tell their stories, I'm almost starting to feel like I got off easily last night. Some of the other women's experiences would turn milk sour.

Swotty, red-haired girl (who I've since discovered is called Mags) tracked down her first proper boyfriend, who had a nice, sensible job in the civil service, only to discover that he was now driving a taxi around North Dublin and was happily married to a mail-order Russian who he'd bought over the internet.

‘I was kind of half hoping it would be so romantic and that he'd tell me, after all these years, that he'd never stopped loving me,' she says, sniffing. ‘But the truth is, he never started loving me in the first place. He couldn't even remember my name.'

At this point, I start to feel really sorry for poor Mags. Compared with that, my story is like something from a Disney cartoon.

The woman beside her found out her first ex-boyfriend is now in prison, doing ten years for drug-trafficking. ‘And you know, it's funny,' she tells the stunned classroom, ‘but whenever I'd go out on a date with him, there was always money missing from my bag.'

But the Olympic gold medal goes to this lovely-looking woman at the back of the class who tearfully tells us she got in touch with her ex's family and asked how she could contact him. She said the hostility she met with was so forceful that she had to ask if she'd caused offence in any way just by looking for his contact number. It turned out he'd died in a car accident about five years ago, and no one had thought to tell her.

Ira patiently listens to each and every story and passes out good, rock-solid advice, mostly ending with her mantra: ‘Good work. Now learn and move on.' Eventually she takes her position at the front of the class. ‘OK, ladies, listen up,' she says, hands on hips.
‘You have two assignments for next week. One is, you will get in touch with your second ex-boyfriend and find out what the hell went wrong there. Secondly, you will contact all of your married friends and ask for fix-ups.'

‘Why married friends?' asks Mags.

‘Because I want each of you ladies to change your reference group to reflect your desired status. You all wanna be married, right?'

There's nodding and murmurs of assent.

‘And you're prepared to do
anything
to achieve that goal, right?'

More nodding and murmuring, although the way she emphasized the word ‘anything' sends an alarm bell ringing in my head.

‘Then you need to realize that your single friends, by and large, will want you to remain single. That way they'll have someone to talk to on the phone late at night and bitch about men while eating two-day-old cold pizza slices.'

I baulk a bit at this and have a brief mental picture of Rachel clocking her one, just for the cold-pizza remark alone.

But Ira ploughs on, ‘Whereas your married friends tend to want you to be married too. That way they can go out in foursomes and have another couple to talk to when they've run out of things to say to each other.'

Bit of an unfair generalization, I think … but could
she possibly be right about single people? Do they really want you to stay single?

‘So, ladies, contact as many of your married friends as you can and ask them straight out. Tell them this is your year to get married and that you wanna be fixed up. Be
brave
. Remember you have nothing to lose. Their husbands must have single work colleagues, golf partners, football team-mates, whatever, and all you're asking your friend is to set you up on a date with one of them.'

‘Ugh, I'd hate to go on a blind date,' says someone from the back.

‘Then leave my class,' says Ira coolly. ‘You are clearly not committed to finding a spouse. Of
course
it's a blind date. What is internet dating except blind dating with a fancy new name?'

Soon, too soon for my liking, it's nine o'clock and class is over.

‘Go get results!' Ira calls out as everyone packs up and files out past her. I'm almost at the door when she calls me back. ‘Amelia?'

‘Yes?'

‘A quick word. What I just said about getting your married friends to set you up with someone? That particularly applies to you.'

‘How do you mean?'

‘Seems to me like you make a lot of bad choices, honey. So, work the problem. See if one of your
good friends can pick a better man for you, on your behalf.'

‘Thanks.' I smile back at her. ‘I'll certainly give it a shot.'

‘Hope I wasn't too hard on you earlier.'

‘No, not at all. In fact, you really lifted my spirits. I think you're right. I am lousy at choosing men. And I've also had a lot of very bad luck.'

‘The thing to remember about bad luck,' Ira replies sagely, ‘is that it always runs out.'

I get a clear, unequivocal sign later that night. I'm tucked up in bed, wading through some scene breakdowns I need to be on top of for a story meeting I've scheduled for first thing the following morning, when tiredness eventually gets the better of me. I switch on the TV by my bed and snuggle down to sleep. (Ask any single person: we all have little, idiosyncratic things we have to do to fill the void; mine just happens to be that I can't go to sleep without the TV on.)