THE HUSBAND HUNTERS (19 page)

(We wanted a paragraph here to say how successful the club had already been, but as Tash had pointed out the previous week, we haven’t had much success so far: think charred duck testicles, Kaz’s failed gym skirt mission and me being stood up. We wanted to impress Jen, not put her off, Tash had added.)

So we are cordially inviting you - even though you are ten years older than any of us - to join our club for us to help you find a decent man. It doesn’t matter than you live thousands of miles from us. We can link you up by web cam and you can join in the meetings.

(Soph said wouldn’t Jen be pissed off if she could see us tucking into garlic bread and pasta during the meetings whilst she munched on a celery stick on the other side of the world. Kaz said we could arrange to link up with her after we’d finished eating.)

Membership is free. So Jen, you have nothing to lose. Let us have a go at sorting your love life out for you.

(I wanted to put in a paragraph about how sorry I felt for her and how much I would like to see her back with Brad. But Kaz said I would come across as a mad stalker and frighten her off. We didn’t want her to know how much time I devoted each week to dissecting her life through every celebrity magazine I could lay my hands on.)

We look forward to hearing from you.

Kind Regards

Bee, Tash, Kaz, Rach and Soph.

p.s. We can e-mail you all the minutes of previous meetings so far, so you can catch up to date. (I said these would have to be edited as I didn’t want Jen thinking of charred duck testicles every time she talked to me on the web cam)

Kaz sent the e-mail draft around to us all the following day with the minutes. It read well. I was confident that Jen would be really keen on joining.

PROGRESS REPORTS.

* Kaz and Soph have been to suss out Ben in the potted plants section of the local garden centre. We had all got very excited at this piece of news. Soph reported that he was actually very good looking, wearing a tight sleeveless white t-shirt. They had gone over to say hello to him. But then a few minutes later, a colleague called Trevor had walked up to him and asked him for his help repotting. ‘He had looked very deeply into his eyes,’ Kaz had told us. ‘And they both walked off, laughing together. He looked a bit gay to me.’

That was disappointing. ‘Aim for something bigger,’ Tash had urged Soph. ‘Try the climbing outdoor plants or better still, the water features department.’

Soph to go back to the garden centre and scout around other sections.

* Kaz reported that James and Caroline are completely loved up following their engagement. He went to cheer her on during the marathon last weekend. He had asked Kaz where the ‘cute’ doll had gone from her locker. ( I think it’s a good thing that he’s out the picture. If you ask me, James must be completely thick. How could anyone think that voodoo monstrosity was anything like cute.)

* Bee and Rach to try out the latex masks and stalk Paul on his return from the work conference. See if there is any sign of female movement around and outside the house - or any male movement. Kaz had added that last bit in, just in case Paul was gay. I quite liked that possible explanation as I couldn’t argue with Mother Nature (again!).

* Everyone to start thinking of a list of possible suitors for Jen. Soph asked could we include English actors or would it only have to be American ones. It was decided to make two lists, as Jen could always be encouraged to buy another home in London or the Home Counties.

* Soph’s wedding dress has been sold out of the charity shop window. Soph reported this, full of relief that she wouldn’t end up as Miss Havisham. She confessed that she had been having nightmares and had woke up screaming one night after having dreamt she was trapped in one of Miss Havisham’s massive cobwebs. I hadn’t the heart to tell her that I had persuaded my mum to go in and buy Soph’s wedding dress to put her out of her misery.

* Tash reported that she had been watching reruns of Casualty every night since Soph had rescued the little girl who was choking. She was quite confident that she could now perform a heart transplant, deliver a baby (Rach looked quite green at this one) and amputate a right leg.

I laughed at the last one, imagining Tash trying to deliver Rach’s baby. She is quite tactless, so I could picture her rummaging around in Rach’s insides, swearing at Rach for not being more helpful.

Rach told me after the meeting that she doesn’t plan to have Tash anywhere near her when she gives birth, and could I lock her in my bedroom when she goes into labour to keep her well away.

I downloaded the e-mail to Jen onto my desktop, located her fan club e-mail address in my notebook and carefully typed it in. I pressed ‘send’ and sat back, watching the little envelope fly across the screen.

I must check my e-mails every few minutes, I thought, in case Jen replied back straight away. I was confident we would hear from her almost immediately. She’d be mad to pass up an opportunity like this.

************************************

CHAPTER NINE

At the next meeting we decided we needed to produce a list of possible suitors for Jen. Kaz said Jen could e-mail back at any time and might expect us to have some suitable husbands already lined up for her.

We decided on the following initial list:

1. Colin Firth. Any female would definitely agree to Colin as a potential suitor. He is married, but one in three marriages end in divorce, so he could well be free in time. And Jen will definitely love the wet shirt look - she is female after all.

2. Our very own Darcy who runs the stable yard. Steve Clark still hasn’t got a girlfriend and Tash could do with some help mucking out all the horses at the yard.

3. David Schwimmer, who played Ross in Friends. Kaz said they would be a very popular tabloid couple and Ross was always really lovely to Rachel, Jen’s character in Friends.

4. Nick the photographer. Although Kaz said that she thought Jen was perhaps too old for Nick as he did go after schoolgirls. I also pointed out that Jen was pretty trendy and I didn’t think Nick’s 80’s leather jacket would look particularly good on the Hollywood red carpet.

5. Angelina Jolie. Tash insisted on this one as she said that Jen may in the future get fed up with men and want a lesbian relationship, and Angelina was very beautiful. I pointed out that Angelina may not be the best choice for Jen. It may cause some friction.

The next morning, I logged onto my e-mail, expecting to have an e-mail from Jen flashing up on my screen. I couldn’t believe it. There were no new messages. No blinking little envelope from thousands of miles across the Atlantic.

What was she playing at? I’d expected her to jump at the chance of joining the HHC. Mind you she could always be on holiday.

‘I’ll give her a few days,’ I said out loud, without thinking.

‘Who are you going to give a few days?’ asked Nick, who was sitting less than five yards away from me.

‘Jennifer Aniston,’ I said, swinging around in my chair. ‘I can’t believe it, we asked her to join the HHC and I haven’t heard back from her.’

‘Now let me get this straight,’ said Nick, slowly, leaning back in his chair and raking his hands through his hair. ‘You haven’t had an e-mail back from an ultra famous, mega rich, Hollywood film star - yeah I agree, that’s strange,’ he said, shaking his head in despair at me. ‘What have you emailed her about anyway? I didn’t realise you were that close,’ he added, sniggering into his coffee.

I could see Nick looking at me with that slightly pitying expression that he gave me quite often, as if he was talking to his mad old auntie. I don’t think he believed that I had emailed Jen. I could see it in his eyes. He was humouring me, in that totally unfunny way of his.

‘We’ve invited her to join the club,’ I said, crossly. ‘What else would I be e-mailing her about?’

Nick had just taken a mouthful of coffee, and in an instant it had shot out of his mouth and hit the wall near Maria’s office door.

‘Wow that was good,’ I said admiringly. ‘You’ve shot that at least ten feet.’

He ignored me and was still looking at me incredulously.

‘You’ve asked Jennifer Aniston to join the Has Beens, Hags and Crones,’ he asked. ‘Tell me you’re joking. Even you are not mad enough to do that.’

‘Yes we have, and why not? Because she’s a Hollywood star doesn’t mean that she couldn’t do with a little help sorting out her love life.’

‘She hasn’t emailed you back yet then?’ asked Nick, looking smug.

‘No, but I’m sure she will do,’ I said, indignantly. ‘She won’t want to pass up on an opportunity like this. It could be a chance for her to find true happiness.’

‘And you are proposing to either find her a husband, or give her advice on who she dates?’ laughed Nick.

‘Yes,’ I said, curtly. ‘And what is wrong with that?’

‘Well all I can say is don’t offer her any cooking advice, and don’t take her away on holiday with you,’ said Nick. ‘I don’t think Jen would take very kindly to being paraded around the whole of Italy in the Fanny Wagon. It may be a bit of a comedown from being chauffeured around Los Angeles in a limousine.’

I didn’t want to listen to Nick anymore. I knew it was a good idea to invite Jen into the HHC and when she did e-mail back, I was going to print her reply off and stuff it into his mouth and force him to eat every single word.

Angrily I picked up my handbag, but I only managed to get hold of one strap and the entire contents tipped out on the floor.

‘What on earth’s that?’ asked Nick, pointing to something that had rolled under my chair. I picked it up, and nearly dropped it again like a hot potato. It was Kazza’s blasted voodoo doll with all its pins still sticking out in all directions.

I took one look at Nick’s face. I think I had tipped the top of the ‘mad-o-meter’ and it was time for a swift exit. I wasn’t even going to bother explaining about the voodoo doll. He looked like he couldn’t cope with any more madness in one morning, so I shot him a stare that could kill, flung my handbag over my shoulder and walked out the door to meet Kazza for lunch.

‘
You probably did look a bit mad,’ agreed Kazza, ten minutes later as we queued up for our pasta. ‘ But then he’s a bloke, and men just don’t understand the complicated intricacies of women.’ I looked admiringly at her.

‘God, that was good Kaz,’ I said.

‘I know,’ she said smugly, setting her pasta down on the table. ‘But it’s true,’ she added. ‘We know and completely understand the reasons for e-mailing Jen, and for me having the voodoo doll, but a man would never appreciate that.

There is only one thing that they are useful for - and usually they aren’t that good at that either. I once had a boyfriend who thought my nipples were like two tuning knobs on a radio. It was horrendous. I kept telling him nicely that it wasn’t doing anything for me, but he wouldn’t listen. I dumped him shortly after that. My nipples just couldn’t cope with it.’

I laughed at the thought of Kaz dumping the Nipple Menace. But she was right. Most men were a dab hand at the remote control and when it comes to fine tuning a football match on telly, their fingers are amazingly nimble and deft. But show them a clitoris and suddenly their nimble fingers become as clumsy as five sausages stuck on a stick. Why did we want a husband anyway, when men are such losers? I thought, twirling a piece of pasta on my fork. Suddenly the thought of being in a remote hillside nunnery seemed quite appealing.

Luckily Nick had gone out on a photo shoot when I went back into the office. I was relieved. At least I didn’t have to explain to him about the voodoo doll. I could have a nice afternoon fantasising about Jen e-mailing us back, and the club setting her up with some fantastic billionaire who treated her like a princess and who didn’t have five fat sausages on a stick for fingers.

I could imagine us being interviewed on the top chat shows in New York as the heroic girls from across the ocean who had saved Jen from dating hell. How fantastic would that be, I thought, already mentally planning my outfit.

Rach always texted back immediately, even though she was working in a hospital. I always thought that even getting your mobile out of your handbag in a hospital caused a massive meltdown in all the lifesaving machinery. But it didn’t seem to bother Rach. She carried on texting all sorts of important messages about HHC business - probably leaving a trail of cardiac arrests in her wake that she didn’t even know about.

‘Don’t forget your mask,’ I texted.

‘It’s already in my handbag,’ she typed back.

Tonight was the night when we were going to stake out Paul’s house. It was two days earlier than I’d planned, and I hadn’t told the others that we were doing it tonight instead. I wanted to surprise them with all the gory details the next day, when I’d spotted that traitorous Paul Hardman in the arms of another woman.