Fourteen hours, one first-class flight and several glasses of champagne later,
Redhead Rachel was in Toronto and ticking ‘travel’ off her to-do list. I
leaned over the desk that ran the length of the room and stared out of the
window. I couldn’t quite believe it. Granted the view of another building
and a couple of garages wasn’t very grand, but it certainly wasn’t Islington
either. We weren’t in Islington. We were in bloody Canada. The hotel itself
was, as Matthew had promised (on the recommendation of international
jetsetter, Jeremy), absolutely gorgeous if terrifyingly trendy. It was a bit like
checking in to the set of Mad Men while being surrounded by the cast of
Gossip Girl. Once we were safely up in our room, Emelie threw herself
across the squishy mattress.
‘OK, I’ll see you two later,’ she said, closing her eyes. ‘You crazy kids
have fun, I’m knackered.’
‘Get off your arse.’ Matthew grabbed her leg and dragged her down to
the foot of the bed. ‘We’re going down to the bar; it’s only –’ he looked at
his watch, realized he hadn’t reset it and shrugged – ‘well, it’s early.’
Em looked to me for support but I was too busy sitting cross-legged in
the big square chair checking out the room service menu. ‘There’s a fourhundred-
dollar vibrator on here.’ I felt all the colour drain from my face.
‘Where have you brought us?’
‘I bet it’s not real. I bet no one has ever ordered it.’ Matthew waved away
my fear. ‘It’s just one of those trendy hotel things. I bet they wouldn’t have
one if you called down for it.’
‘Right,’ I wasn’t convinced. ‘Um, is it me or is that the shower? In the
middle of the room?’
Em and Matthew both looked up.
‘Why is there no shower curtain?’
Apparently international jetsetter Jeremy had failed to mention that the
rooms didn’t have bathrooms. They had shower cubicles in the bedroom. At
the end of the bed. Clear glass shower cubicles three feet from the edge of
the bed. Not even a trace of frosting to protect your modesty.
‘You are not getting naked in front of me,’ Matthew looked horrified.
‘I’ll wait outside.’
‘You’re really going to sit outside the room every time one of us wants a
shower?’ Em asked.
‘Well I’m not going to sit and watch, am I?’
Poor gay Matthew.
‘Better look away now then.’ She stood up and started stripping off. ‘I
always feel disgusting after flying.’
I launched myself into her spot on the bed and grabbed the remote
control. ‘Bagsy I go after you.’
‘Oh dear god,’ Matthew held his hands over his eyes and headed towards
the door. ‘I’ll be in the bar getting drunk enough for this not to bother me.
You might need to carry me back to bed.’
Post-shower, Emelie promptly lay down and passed out. Refusing to
listen to my anti-jetlag advice, she was already tucked up in the great big
bed before I got in the shower. By the time I stepped out, she was fast
asleep. Or at least pretending to be so she didn’t have to go down to the bar
and watch Matthew do his bit for international relations. Why did I always
have to be mother? I looked at my sparse wardrobe options. It was Sunday
evening. No need to go over the top but – given what I’d seen hanging
around reception when we walked in – a little effort might be required. At
least lipstick. Maybe eyeliner. Ensemble-wise, I went for cropped black
Capri pants and the longest stripy T-shirt in my collection, hoping I could
pass for continental chic and not a bit tired and lazy. There was a good
enough argument to support either if you could be bothered to look for it.
Slipping my room key into my big old bag, I locked a loudly snoring
Emelie in on her own. And tried not to be jealous.
Even though it was a Sunday, the Sky Yard was packed with people; even
after two loops, I couldn’t spot Matthew. Once I felt sufficiently awkward, I
shuffled towards an empty table in the back and played people-watching
while I waited for a waitress. Everyone in there was irritatingly cute and
hipster but there was not a single mountie or lumberjack in sight. My mum
would have been so disappointed. Matthew, however, would surely have
been delighted: my gaydar was going off in a big way. Hopefully he hadn’t
ditched me before I even got there. After a couple more minutes, I gave in
and took out my phone to text him. I’d been avoiding looking at it for fear
of a message from Simon or Dan, but there was nothing from either of
them. Rather than entertain the sick part of me that was disappointed, I
invested in the part that was excited to see a new message from Ethan. I’d
messaged from the airport to tell him about my last-minute job in
Vancouver, including two-day layover in Toronto to meet the stylist. It
seemed like a plausible excuse – or at least one that a male high school
teacher wouldn’t question.
The message loaded slowly but, at last, there it was, right next to that
adorable picture of Ethan and his dog.
‘Hey, you’re coming to Toronto? Actually, I guess by the time you read
this, you’ll be in the city. That’s amazing! Will you have time to hang out?
Crazy that you’re coming just when we got back in touch. Give me a call
when you get into town, my schedule is pretty clear.’
He wanted to hang out. He was only mildly suspicious. He’d actually
given me his mobile number. These were all good things. If he hadn’t been
suspicious at all, I’d have worried he was backwards or religious or
something. But I wasn’t quite ready to call him; instead I tapped out a text
saying I had the entire next day free and that I’d love to hang out. A tiny
electric thrill ran up my spine as I pressed send. This was very exciting.
‘Someone looks pleased with herself.’ A painfully pretty creature sat
herself in the empty seat opposite me. ‘Is this seat taken?’
‘Um, not right now?’ I watched as she sat herself down with complete
ease.
Was this the done thing in Canada? People just sat down with you in
bars? And I was really selling this girl short by referring to her as people;
she was clearly some sort of glamazon, sent by the gods of the to-do list to
make me question whether or not I was really trying. Glossy, coffeecoloured
curls, olive skin, perfect manicure and fresh, glowing make-up. I
immediately assumed pro. Make-up artist that was, not the other kind of pro
who hung out in hotel bars.
‘Cute shirt,’ she looked me up and down. ‘American Apparel?’
‘Topshop.’ I was too confused and English to come up with a return
compliment before the waitress appeared at our side, but her outfit was
effortlessly classy: black cigarette pants, dove grey T-shirt, tasteful
jewellery. Maybe she was a fashion editor.
‘Drinks, ladies?’ The waitress looked appropriately bored through her
layers of eyeliner.
‘Uh, wine?’ I peered at the menu in front of me. ‘White wine?’
‘We have a great chardonnay,’ she suggested.
‘No they don’t,’ my tablemate answered for me. ‘She’ll take the
sauvignon. Me too. In fact, we’ll take a bottle.’
‘On its way.’ The waitress turned on her high heel.
‘The chardonnay is that bad?’
‘Intervention bad,’ she nodded. ‘I’m Jenny, by the way.’
I hoped to God that Em didn’t decide to venture downstairs. If these two
were ever in the same place at once, the world might just implode or
something.
‘Rachel. Are you from Toronto?’ I asked.
‘Oh god no. Canada would never lay claim to me.’ She pushed her hair
back from her face. ‘I’m not nearly nice enough. I’m just here for work.’
I nodded, still not entirely sure what to say.
‘I’m not a hooker,’ she replied, no trace of a smile on her face, ‘if that’s
what you’re thinking.’
‘Oh, no, I didn’t think that. I didn’t. Really.’ I hadn’t thought it! I hadn’t!
‘Relax, I’m fucking with you.’ She placed a super-soft hand covered in
elaborate cocktail rings on my arm and tried not to laugh. ‘Brits, you’re all
so sensitive. No, I am here for work, I’m from New York. Way too much of
a bitch to pass for a Canadian.’
‘So what do you do?’ I asked, scanning the bar for Matthew or our wine.
I wasn’t bothered which came first as long as it came fast.
‘I’m a stylist.’
‘No way.’ I looked down at the Facebook exchange between myself and
Ethan. I loved it when fate worked out to make me not a liar.
‘Yeah,’ Jenny replied. ‘I know, it’s retarded. I dress people for a living.’
‘Not at all,’ I assured her. She was right, the sauvignon was good. ‘I’m a
make-up artist.’
‘Really? That’s awesome.’ She raised her glass. ‘You’re here on a job?’
My phone buzzed on the table between us. Ethan had replied already.
‘No, I’m just here with friends.’ I looked around for said friend but fate
was working against me this time. ‘And, maybe there’s a boy. Sort of.’
‘When isn’t there a boy?’ she asked. ‘But a sort of a boy in a foreign
country? That sounds like the kind of story you want to share with a
complete stranger in a hotel bar on a Sunday night.’
I smiled. Usually I wasn’t great at making small talk with new people. Or
even people in general, but it was impossible not to like this girl. Over one
and a half glasses of wine, I gave her the mid-length version of the Ethan
story, including the list, leaving in Simon, leaving out Dan, and then we
read the text message. He suggested brunch at my hotel.
‘So say yes already,’ Jenny gave me a killer grin. ‘Brunch can’t hurt,
right?’
‘Can’t it?’ I paused for a second before replying with a restrained ‘see
you then’, and stuck my phone back in my bag.
‘Depends what you think is gonna happen with this guy?’ Jenny pulled
her hair back into a ponytail-slash-semicontrolled explosion. ‘Is this just a
fun rebound hook up or are you thinking along the lines of a more lifechanging
fairy-tale happily ever after?’
‘Potential fun hook-up?’ Even I didn’t sound convinced. ‘Given that lifechanging
fairy-tale-type affairs are usually just that.’
‘OK, couple of things. One, don’t count out the fairy tales, especially
concerning Brit girls and foreign guys.’ She counted her points off on her
decorated fingers. ‘Two, don’t take this the wrong way, but you really don’t
seem like the random hook-up kind of gal and, three, any idea what his
expectations are?’
I carried on sipping my wine. She raised an excellent point. ‘I have no
idea what he’s thinking.’
‘So if he was thinking: awesome, here’s this cool chick I had a crush on
in high school and I’m recently single and she’s recently single and she’s
just in town for the night, so why not? How would you feel about that?’ She
templed her fingers on the table. ‘Good or bad?’
‘Maybe not great?’
‘Right?’ She raised both eyebrows. ‘And what happens if you meet, you
have some crazy connection and you realize he’s the one?’
‘The one?’ I tucked my hair behind my ears with a smile. ‘Is there such a
thing?’
‘There really is,’ Jenny assured me. ‘And not to sound like a complete
dick but, when you meet him, you’ll know.’
I gave her a disbelieving look.
‘Oh yeah,’ she went on. ‘Sweaty palms, nausea, racing heart and, for
most of us modern girls, an utter conviction that he is absolutely, positively,
not the one. It’s usually that guy.’
We sat in silence for a moment while I tried to convince myself there was
no way she talking about Dan.
‘So you ticked off everything on the list?’ Jenny asked.
‘I have two things left.’
‘Anything I can help with?’
I frowned, wondering how she’d feel about a lovely Saturday afternoon
at a church in Godalming. ‘I have to do a bungee jump or something similar
and I have to find a date to take to my dad’s wedding next Saturday so I can
turn up looking amazing with someone amazing. At this point, the bungee
jump is going to be easier. Says the girl who can’t climb a stepladder to
paint her ceiling without getting dizzy.’
‘It actually might be.’ She looked so happy. This girl really was a
problem-solver. ‘I’m pretty sure they’ve got one of those slingshot bungeeball
things at Niagara Falls and they start on the ground so you don’t even
have to climb up anything to do it. It’s not that far from here. Would that
count?’
If I knew what a bungee ball was, I would be calling them up and
booking myself in. This girl was amazing.
‘It might.’ I scribbled ‘Bungee ball – Niagara Falls’ in my notebook. I
hadn’t even thought about Niagara Falls being close by – we had to go. I’d
been obsessed with them ever since Dirty Dancing. Although the reference
to Acapulco in the same scene had been ruined for me by the Phil Collins
song. I had no interest in going loco down in Acapulco or anywhere else
with Phil. ‘I will be so happy when I’ve crossed everything off this list.
There’s a chance I also need to make an appointment to see someone about
my OCD. Not that I’m turning light switches off fourteen times or
anything.’
‘I love making lists. Objectives. Resolutions. Really, I totally get you,’
she said. ‘But now you’ve got to work out how to put what you’ve learned
into practice. No point writing a list, ticking it off and then forgetting about
it. You gotta start living it every day.’
‘Well, I wasn’t planning on getting a tattoo and crashing a charity ball
every week but, yeah, I think it’s encouraged me to branch out a bit,’ I
agreed. ‘I was blonde until a week ago.’
‘No way? See, you’re gonna be fine.’ She waved a hand to dismiss my
concerns. ‘Great job, great friends, totally cute. You’ve got it all figured
out.’
‘Really?’ I laughed. ‘Please tell my mother that. Are you single?’
Jenny took a deep breath, swirled her glass and then drank the rest of her
wine down in one.
‘I am single.’
‘Can I ask why?’
She smiled but it didn’t make it up into her eyes. ‘Guy I love doesn’t love
me. He just moved in with someone else actually.’
‘Do you think anyone actually chooses to be single?’
‘Yeah, sure,’ she said. ‘But choosing it and wanting it, two totally
different things. I think a heap of people sit down and think, hey, I need
some me time, but I don’t buy the idea that they go to bed alone every night
with a smile on their face. I’d rather be single than be with the wrong guy,
but I don’t think anyone wants to be alone. I don’t want to be alone.’
‘You remind me of one of my friends,’ I said, trying to commit her
wisdom to memory to repeat back to Em and Matthew.
‘You remind me of one of mine,’ Jenny replied. ‘So, what’s the real deal,
you want to get back with the ex? Is he the love of your life?’
‘No,’ I said without thinking. ‘He isn’t. He was just there. I was too busy
getting on with every day; I wasn’t paying a lot of attention to what was
going on at the time. Really it should have ended ages ago.’ Hearing myself
saying those words was so strange. Because they were so true. How had I
not realized before now?
Jenny leaned her head to one side and pulled a random strand of hair
straight out before letting it spring back into a coiled curl. ‘Happens to the
best of us, honey. Don’t beat yourself up over it. My trick is to worry so
much about what I don’t have, I don’t realize what I’ve got. And it’s only
when he gets up and leaves that I miss him. Now that sucks.’
‘I wish I had some sage advice for you.’ I took my third glass of wine.
‘I find “don’t be a dick” works in most situations,’ she replied. ‘I’m just
not good at following my own advice.’
‘Do you know what you want now?’ I asked.
‘Yeah, I just want to be with him but he’s moved on. I can’t do anything.’
I couldn’t imagine anyone not wanting this girl. She was sweet, she was
beautiful and she was so clever. What was wrong with this man?
‘I want to say never give up, if that’s what you want.’ It was rubbish
advice but it was all I had. ‘Just tell him how you feel.’
‘Maybe,’ Jenny focused her gaze back on me. ‘And what is it you want?
Now you know all this awesome new stuff about yourself?’
‘I want to be with someone who wants to be with me.’ I really didn’t
think before answering. ‘Someone who wants me to be happy. Who wants
the best for me.’
Like Dan? Asked the voice in my head.
‘So just a super-cute, good guy who loves you – and is exciting but
trustworthy, fun but dependable, and would be there for you no matter
what?’ Jenny suggested. ‘Yeah. The dream. I wish I could say he definitely
exists.’
Except maybe he does repeated that annoying little voice.
I pushed it away and raised my glass to hers. ‘Is that too much to ask?’
‘Yes,’ Jenny replied, checking her watch and sinking her drink. ‘This is
super-fun, honey, but I’ve got to run. I’m in room three-oh-seven. Give me
a call if you’re around tomorrow, OK? I feel like there’s more work to be
done here.’
‘I appreciated the therapy session. You have a fun evening.’ I couldn’t
help but feel a little sad that she was leaving.
‘The therapy session was my fun,’ she threw a beautiful, expensive
looking bag over her shoulder and leaned across the table to kiss me on
both cheeks. ‘And god knows, you British girls need it more than most.’
The crowd around the bar parted like magic as I watched her hair bounce
off towards the exit. Well, that was interesting. Even more interesting was
that it had now been near enough two hours since Matthew had left for the
bar and I was officially giving him up for dead. Bed was calling. Which I
imagine was sort of what had happened to Matthew, he probably just wasn’t
sleeping in it.
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