TWO
“And so now he’s a project manager!” I told Tola and Eric by the coffee machines in the communal kitchen at work the next morning. I lied that I’d met a friend in a bar, and as I was leaving, Jason had appeared. I didn’t want them to know about my solo dining exploits. They were the closest I had to real friends, even though our extracurricular activities only went as far as after-work drinks and the occasional drunk kebab. Even so, I didn’t want them to know my sad self-care ritual was gorging on handmade pasta and drinking an overpriced Rioja on my own once a month.
“Was this the one who was shit at the ukulele?” Eric asked.
I shook my head. “Guitar. And he wasn’t shit.”
“Must have been one of the other man-children you’ve dated.” Eric stuck out his tongue at me, and I raised an eyebrow, passing him his coffee.
“I have never dated a ukulele player. Greg used to build ocarinas, but that’s not the same thing.”
Tola burst out laughing. “I don’t remember this one. Oh, wait, was it the guy who didn’t speak at all?”
I shook my head. “Before your time. About five years ago.”
“And he thanked you for making him into a capitalist Ken doll?”
Eric jumped in, pointing at me. “She had her work cut out with Jason. He once spent fifteen minutes telling me the plot of a film that I’d told him about. And he thought surfing was a personality trait rather than a hobby.” Eric always had quite a lot to say once he got himself going. My terrible taste in boyfriends was one of his favorite topics. “Oh, and he always referred to the sea as a woman. I watched her bountiful waves caress the shore . . . douchebag. He had to be the worst one, right, Aly?”
I rolled my eyes and pretended it wasn’t bothering me. And that I hadn’t immediately gone home last night and looked up Jason on LinkedIn.
“But hey, they only last a few months, so if you didn’t like ’em, there’s no time wasted.” Tola brought me back to the conversation at hand, her fuchsia lipstick refocusing my attention. “I respect that.”
“Really? You respect Aly’s absolute failure to commit?” Eric rolled his eyes, and I pouted.
“It’s not like I do it on purpose!” I yelped. “I put myself out there, I try to be kind and loving and . . . it just falls apart. It’s not always me doing the dumping.”
Eric raised an eyebrow. “No one is choosing those men on purpose. Unless your type is hopeless baby. You’re not dating for keeps, sweetheart. Those are time wasters.”
“You’re mean today! Did you go on another Grindr date looking for romance and end up with meaningless sex again?” I sang, hoping to redirect the conversation.
Eric looked around the office to see if anyone had overheard, out of habit, and glared at me. “There is nothing wrong with wanting a real connection with someone.”
“No, but you can’t go looking for a comfortable knitted cardigan in a sex shop and then complain about it being a bit chilly around the nipples.” Tola looked at me. “Am I right?”
I snorted. “You are always right.”
Eric and I had known each other for quite a few years. When he’d started at the company, not long after me, I was intimidated by him. Here was someone my age with a fancy suit and a home and a beautiful fiancée. He had swishy hair and spicy cologne and always knew how to talk to people. He was always laughing. Everyone in the ads department loved him, hanging around his desk in the hopes of a good story and a bit of banter.
It wasn’t until he’d been there about six months that I left the office late, found my bus had been canceled, and bumped into him in the pub. He’d been a few drinks down and was worse for wear. He clearly wanted someone to talk to. That’s when I found out his beautiful perfect life was all a lie. Because Eric was gay, and he needed to tell his fiancée and move out of his flat and figure out how to start his life over. I happened to be the first person he told, and it’s hard not to be friends after something like that.
Tola only joined us a year ago, and we weren’t really sure why this bold, gorgeous twentysomething wanted to hang out with us. She was this absolute force of nature—she’d left school to go audition for Broadway in New York and became a costume designer. But when she came home, she ended up reinventing herself as a social media expert. I got the sense she thought me and Eric needed her, that we needed someone with that Gen Z energy to stop us being two bitter Millennials, constantly bitching about everything. And she was absolutely right. She also brought the triple-strength dose of tough love when we needed it, which can’t be underestimated.
“So, why is this annoying you?” she asked as we walked over to my desk.
“It’s not. I wish Jason all the best.”
“Aly, you are very good at lying to yourself, but I don’t go in for all that. Indulge me.” She leaned against my desk and gestured with a bright blue fingernail.
“Because he’s doing better than I am!” I whined, putting my head on the desk in frustration. “Five measly years, and he reinvented himself, got a new career, met the love of his life, got married, saved a deposit, and bought a house. What have I done in that time?”
“Earned the respect of your peers and clients? Terrified an entire office with your efficiency?” Tola offered.
“Drunk about eight bathtubs full of wine?” Eric added.
“Not helpful!” I threw a pencil at him, then sat back in my chair.
I looked at them. “Should I have held out longer with Jason? Did I quit too early? I thought he had no drive, but clearly he has it now. Maybe I’m throwing away perfectly good relationships just because people have flaws? Maybe I’m being too picky?”
Eric made a face. “There’s flaws and then there’s . . . whatever’s up with the guys you date. You’re not being too picky—you’re not being picky enough! Like that guy Nathan!”
“Nathan was really lovely!” I objected. “He had big dreams, he wanted to be an actor!”
“Yeah, and you ended up paying for his acting classes and booking his gigs for five months!” Eric threw his head back. “And you didn’t take a commission!”
Tola nodded. “Eric’s right, babe. You know what your problem is? You’re not dating men, you’re dating projects.”
I could see Eric doing a mental tally of the men I’d dated and watched as the smile on his face grew.
“Stop it! You look way too smug.”
“No, she’s right, Aly! You take on these little broken birds, put all your eggs in their basket, and then the omelet ends up rubbish.”
“Stop mixing metaphors!” I rolled my eyes. “What does that even mean?”
“It means you date men who aren’t fully formed grown-ups yet, put all your energy into making their lives better, and then you get exhausted and tap out before you get any of the rewards of your labor.”
“Ooh.” Tola wiggled her eyebrows. “Rewards of your labor. Sexy stuff. He’s got a point, though—Jason said it himself, he’s better off for dating you. New and improved.”
“He’s not improved, he’s just . . . different,” I argued.
“He’s more successful than when you dated him. And hopefully less of a pretentious knob, but hey, you’re not a miracle worker.” Eric snorted. “Face it, Aly, this is what you do. You date guys who aren’t worthy of you, and then you do everything for them. It’s a pattern.”
I threw up my hands. “What did I do for Jeremy?”
Tola laughed, holding up a hand. “Easy, you dog-sat his demon poodle for a week and toilet trained it. He didn’t even say thank you!”
“And you got him on the lineup at Belle’s to try and launch his music career, and he missed it because he got drunk with his mates.”
I winced. “Okay, we can stop this now.”
Eric’s eyes widened. “No, he’s the perfect example! I heard him on the radio last week! Untalented bastard could barely get himself out of bed and now he’s got an album out?”
Eric grinned at me, and I shook my head, unsure of what was coming next but certain it wouldn’t be good.
“As a man of data, I sense we’ve got a pattern here, and I want to investigate. I bet you fifty quid that if you give us a list of your boyfriends, we’ll find all of them have gone on to be successes.”
Tola was frowning, and I hoped she was about to defend me. But then she smiled, that full-beam, megawatt smile of hers, and it was clear she was about to make this worse. “We need a proper measurement system. Success is relative. We need a numerical assignment to each value. And it can’t be, like, all the boyfriends Aly’s ever had. Only the short-term, hopeless ones?” Tola turned to me, like she was asking my permission.
“Thanks,” I snorted. “What’s the point of this?”
“Confirming a theory I have.” Eric tapped the side of his nose and walked off to his desk.
I looked at Tola. “What’s in it for me, exactly?”
She shrugged. “Self-awareness? Giving your mates something to laugh at? Just send me a list of names, okay?”
My mobile started ringing, and I held up my hands, waving her away. “Okay, okay, whatever. We want to play make fun of Aly, that’s fine. I’ve got to get this.”
I took a deep breath and answered the phone. “Hi, Mama, I’m just about to go into a meeting, everything okay?”
“Of course, you’re busy, too busy for my nonsense.” My mother’s voice was soft and self-effacing, daring me to agree with her. I knew her game, though. You’re never too busy for family, Alyssa, don’t forget that.
“Mama!” I huffed, reaching for a pen. “I’m here, what’s up?”
“It’s your father.”
I let the silence hang there.
“What did he do?” This time.
She paused. “Maybe I was being oversensitive.”
“Mama—”
“No, you go, clever girl. Lots of people counting on you. You’ll come for dinner this week, yes?”
“Sure. Let’s go for Sunday lunch, my treat,” I said, and heard her squeak of delight. I could imagine her clapping her hands in celebration of a good idea. Of course, we’d spend more than half the time talking about my father and what he’d done most recently, but we’d have a good time the remaining twenty percent that was just for us.
“Sounds good. I love you, darling,” she said, making a kissing noise down the phone, and then she was gone.
For a while I’d thought loving and supporting her would be enough to help her get over him after he left, but it didn’t work. As my grandma used to say, some people have to keep making the same mistake over and over until it bites them in the arse hard enough.
My father had always been a bad husband, and I’d spent most of my childhood covering for him. I remembered being armed with his credit card, dropped off at the shopping center when I was twelve with instructions to find something nice for Mummy’s birthday and to write a card from Daddy. I still wonder if things would have been different if I’d simply refused.
Luckily, I didn’t have enough time to think about it. I had appointments and meetings, then meetings about the meetings, until the day was almost done. I did my usual eleven o’clock rounds, making sure to ask Matilda in finance about her holiday and compliment Martin in HR’s haircut (short back and sides, every two weeks, did I know it was only fourteen pounds?). I did a tea round for the far corner of the office, listened to Justine’s love life drama and told her she deserved the best. The tiny things that didn’t matter on their own but that added up, made people feel appreciated. And suddenly the weekend was almost upon me.
Almost.
Aw, crap.
Of course. There he was, on the dot, the same as every Friday afternoon when I was just about to think I’d made a lucky escape. I pretended not to see him approaching.
“Aly Pally!” Hunter boomed next to my desk, forcing me to look up fully and take my headphones off.
I smiled, trying to hold in a sigh. “Hunter! How are you today? Looking forward to the weekend? You’ll be out on the golf course, I’ll bet.”
Even with people I hated, like Hunter, I couldn’t help but remember those details. It was like a compulsion, and right now, I hated myself for it.
Hunter looked at me with pleasure, running a hand through his caramel hair. “I absolutely will be. You’re always so . . . attentive, Aly. You know how to make a man feel special.”
I clenched my teeth, though whether I was swallowing a sarcastic retort or actual vomit, I couldn’t be a hundred percent certain.
There were a lot of things I hated about Hunter. How he talked about playing the stock market for fun, how he still referred to his father as “Daddy”; and for some insane reason the fact that he liked to wear a cravat really pushed my buttons. Orange, spotty, pink striped. There was one for every outfit. Considering how many awful things there were about Hunter, it was shocking that was the one that got to me.
He’d joined the company two years after me, but was now a manager, like I was. Except he was incapable of following through, working to deadlines, or telling the client no. He walked impropriety like a tightrope and, as yet, the bastard hadn’t slipped and plunged to his death at the hands of HR. There was always a safety net. More’s the pity.
So, no, he wasn’t a great manager. Or a great team player. He was, however, rich, posh, and charming. And so full of hot air and bullshit he could have been a zeppelin powered by fertilizer.
He was my mortal enemy, and he had absolutely no idea. Which was just how I liked my enemies.
“How can I help today, Hunter?” Clearly you want something.
“Oh, well, Felix said you might be able to help with that report for BigScreen? I’m having a little trouble making it perfect. And obviously, we want it to be perfect for them. So I knew you were the person to perfect it, because you always present so perfectly.” Good God, give the man a thesaurus.
Hunter offered a wide smile like a gift, and I wondered how many women had fallen for this routine before. A charming man who leans into your space and convinces you that you’re so special and clever, that you deserve the honor of doing his work.
And yet, I knew I’d help. Not because I wanted Hunter’s approval, but because Felix had recommended he come to me. And, quite frankly, I didn’t want it to be done badly. Hunter knew that was my weakness. It wasn’t just that I was a people pleaser. I was also a control freak. Much better.
“I see . . . and how much have you done already?”
“Oh, I’ve outlined it, just needs a little shading, a little color. The i’s dotted and all that. Felix and I just need Aly to wave her magic wand!” He nudged me, and I stamped down on my rage and widened my smile.
“I’m always happy to help, Hunter, you know that. I can absolutely take a look. When do you need it by?”
“Well, we’ve got a meeting with their team on Monday morning, so . . .” He threw his hands up in a hopeful what are you gonna do sort of way. I looked at the clock. Four thirty on Friday.
“Do you . . . I mean . . .” I sighed. “It’s almost the end of the day, Hunter.”
“Oh, it won’t take long, babe! Not with your magic powers! I know you’ll do wonderfully.” He patted my shoulder. “Now I’ve got to run, some of the team are going for after-work drinkies, and it’s my round. Thank you!” He nearly ran away, and I put my head in my hands.
Why didn’t you say no? Why didn’t you tell him it was too late to hand this off now? Why didn’t you tell him this is the third time this has happened this month and you’re not his lackey? I growled a little to myself, tightened my ponytail, and got to work. If I was lucky, I wouldn’t be here until the evening.
“You could always fuck it up so badly the incompetent arse finally gets what’s coming to him,” Tola said, appearing at my side with two cans of beer. On Friday afternoons, the bar cart came round, to try to show we were a relaxed company with great culture. But the shine tended to wear off after so many Fridays working late.
“I did consider it. But it’d come back on me. Hunter is one of those golden boys—nothing ever sticks. It would be my fault for not supporting him appropriately.” I sighed, clicking my neck and opening the Word document. “And Felix sent him to me. For all we know, this could be a test for me to prove my worth. He’s always saying I’ve got to step up and take responsibility. I think they’re going to announce the head of branding role this month.”
Tola raised an eyebrow, unimpressed, and then put the can of beer on the table. “Didn’t they say that last month? Besides, if you take on much more responsibility, you’re going to be running the company. Go on, thirty minutes, I’ll time you. Then you can have your beer and I’ll proofread.”
“You don’t have to do that! I’m sure you’ve got big Friday plans.”
She stood up. “I don’t do things I don’t want to do. So don’t worry about it. Besides, no one goes clubbing until at least eleven p.m. . . . grandma.” Tola winked at me and started to head back over to the group congregating by the bar cart. “If you really want to thank me, start compiling that boyfriends list. I wanna see how many losers you’ve waved your magic wand over.”
I was lucky to have her. And Eric. Even if the two of them were insistent on pulling apart my dating life and discovering all my insecurities. What if all of those men were doing better than I was? What if five years had passed and my life was exactly the same, the only progress being my slightly increased savings account and my running personal bests? I’d told Jason to think about the life he wanted and make the decisions to move toward it. So why couldn’t I take my own advice?
I didn’t want to make that list. Because I had a sneaking suspicion they were right.
I ripped a sheet of paper out of my notebook and started scribbling their names, reverse order, working back in time . . . Michael, David, Timothy, Noah, Jason . . . until I reached age seventeen, and then I paused.
Dylan. The boy with the bluest eyes and the loudest laugh in the world. The first one I’d grown up alongside and been helpless for, even as he’d smiled at his girlfriends and I’d hung around on the sideline, the hapless best friend. I started to write his name, but stopped, and scratched it through. It didn’t count. It was history. Nothing more.
Okay, so that was twelve entanglements in fifteen years of dating. All that time, that energy, and I had twelve losers to show for it. Not even a canceled engagement or a horrific betrayal to spark an origin story. I had just . . . spent time, like it didn’t matter. And now I was here.
I turned back to my computer screen, relieved that at least one thing eternally made sense: posh boys would make me do their work for no credit, and I would sit at home drinking wine and stewing over it until Monday morning came.
Just as I always did.