THREE
“And the results are in, ladies and gentlemen,” Eric said in a TV announcer’s voice whilst we sat at lunch on Monday. We perched on a picnic bench in the park behind the office, most of our colleagues camped out at various points around us, lounging on their jackets on the grass or seated at the little round tables outside the café. It reminded me of school, sometimes, us all rushing outside to catch that spring sunshine the minute it hit, faces turned toward the sun as we ignored our phones and drank our overpriced coffee. Thirty minutes of bliss.
I picked at my sad little chicken salad sandwich, so carefully prepared the night before, and huffed. “Do you really have to take so much joy from this?”
“And do you have to be so miserable? It’s not a reflection on you,” he replied, stuffing a piece of sushi into his mouth whole.
“Um, that’s exactly what it is.”
“Well, it’s not a bad one,” he replied, chewing rapidly, and Tola jumped in to play referee.
“Don’t you want to know our method? There’s a whole data analysis element to this, it’s wicked. So firstly, we had to assess what the metrics for success were. But they had to be matched to what you believed was success. So we went for all the traditional stuff—marriage, kids, fancy job, homeownership, money, all that jazz.”
I didn’t quite like how that comment made me feel.
“What are your success metrics, then?” I frowned at Tola, and she shrugged.
“I dunno . . . being comfortable in your skin, having loads of adventures, living with purpose, being happy, having good people in your life, taking risks?”
“So I’m shallow?”
Tola frowned in confusion. “No, but if those aren’t your values, they wouldn’t have imprinted on these man-children. I could make an amazing case for how your life is much more accomplished than any of those morons, but those are my values, not yours. What matters here is what you think. So what do you think, did I get your views wrong?”
I took a breath, sighed into my sandwich. “No, continue.”
I felt Eric and Tola share a look.
“So then, thanks to my expert social media sleuthing skills—”
“And the fact that these guys were all egomaniacs,” Eric added.
“—we managed to assess their lives by those factors. We tried to bear in mind what they were like when you met them, to see if there was an improvement percentage. And there was. Drumroll, please . . .”
I rolled my eyes, and Eric tapped the table.
“The average improvement percentage was eighty-seven percent!” Tola announced, grinning at me. “We call it ‘the Aly Factor.’ ”
I blinked. “So eighty-seven percent of the guys are more successful now than they were when I knew them?”
Eric shook his head. “Oh, honey, no.”
I breathed a sigh of relief. “Right. Thought that sounded a bit insane.”
“All of them are,” he explained. “To be precise, every man on that list improved by eighty-seven percent.”
They were looking at me with expectation, and I couldn’t quite process it.
“You mean to tell me that every single man on that list is in a serious relationship, owns property, or is high up in a business now . . . all of them?”
They nodded.
“Don’t tell me Adrian finally had that book published that he kept sending me random unfinished chapters from?” Impossible. No one wanted flying werewolf fiction, even if it was set in an alternative steampunk Victorian England universe.
“No.” Tola held her hands up. “But he was accepted for an agency scholarship after entering a writing competition that—correct me if I’m wrong, here—you helped him to enter. Now he runs online classes for newbie writers whilst holding down a second job as an IT manager.”
My eyebrows were raised so high I thought I might give myself a migraine.
“Aly, we can track their improvement back to you. Your energy, your support, your . . . particular brand of affection,” Eric explained more gently, as if I wasn’t getting it. And I suppose I wasn’t.
“Eric, people are responsible for their own growth, their own decisions. Maybe I helped a little, but these guys clearly just . . . grew up somewhere along the way. Met different people, had experiences that changed them.”
“Or you have some kind of mysterious shagging power that makes men better,” Tola said, almost seriously, and then burst out laughing. “Your magic vagina! Seriously, though, you can’t think this is complete coincidence?”
I stared at her.
“Between a huge coincidence or me having magic genitals, I’d say coincidence makes more sense.” I rolled my eyes. “Besides, it’s, like, twelve guys. Hardly a huge sample size.”
“David gave a TED Talk three months ago,” Eric said, palms flat on the table. “David. The guy who never spoke. He credits his confidence to an ex-girlfriend who made him go to a seminar.”
“He didn’t even go,” I huffed. “He refused, said it was embarrassing. So I went and made notes and brought them back for him, and he watched some of the videos online.”
“See, you made things happen.” Eric handed me the list. “Just look.”
I scanned the list, seeing accolade after accolade. These men were grown-up, impressive, important people. The opposite of what they’d been when I knew them.
“This is just what happens when you date people in your twenties. They tell you they hate marriage and cold weather, and then eight years later you see they had their wedding under the Northern Lights.”
I looked back at the list again and raised an eyebrow. “Why is Matthew on here? We never dated.”
Tola and Eric shared a look, and then looked back at me.
“What?! We didn’t!”
“You spent months helping him with his career when he joined the company, you kissed him once after the Christmas party, and now he’s the same level as you despite only being here a year.”
“He was new to the industry! I was helping him out!”
“The man is the human equivalent of beige, and he’s still managed to move up the ranks. Because of the information you gave him,” Tola argued.
“Well, if we’re counting every person I’ve ever tried to help with their career, we’re going to need a longer list!” I growled. “He doesn’t count.”
“Fine.” Tola rolled her eyes at me. “Stats here can recalculate, right?”
Eric looked grouchy but got out a pen. “Sure, but I beg of you, go to therapy. And stop helping Matthew. He’s secretly a little weasel.”
“I thought he was beige.”
“You don’t hear the stuff he says around the guys. Beige is a front for evil. Always.” Eric tapped his pen. “Okay, so the Aly Factor changes to eighty-five percent. Our point still stands.”
I rolled my eyes and watched as Tola and Eric shared that look again. Like I was being unreasonable.
“What? What about my reaction here is so disappointing?”
“We just want you to admit that maybe you had an impact. That’s all,” Tola said softly. “Isn’t it a gift to be able to see how much you’ve influenced someone’s life?”
Not if suddenly they’re all ahead in the race, I thought, and I’ve been left behind. “I’m just . . . irritated, and I don’t know why. I’m not jealous of these men. I’d vomit if I had to give a TED Talk. And I definitely don’t want to work in investment banking or have my wedding announced in Tatler. I just . . . I dunno . . .” I sighed, and Tola tilted her head.
“Maybe you’re wondering where you’d be if you’d spent all that time and energy on yourself instead?”
Maybe I’m wondering why the hell I kept dating projects instead of people. And what that says about me.
All I’d ever wanted was what my grandparents had. That enduring kind of love, where they looked across the room at each other with a secret smile, like they had their own language. I didn’t need to be somebody’s everything, I just . . . no matter what I did, how much I gave, it never seemed to be enough.
I sighed and packed up my lunchbox. “Well, this has been incredibly fun, and well done on your researching rigor, but I’ve got to get back to a full in-box and a smug Hunter.”
They looked up in concern as I left, and I didn’t really know how to feel. So what if all these men I’d dated had turned from hopeless, self-indulgent man-children to grown-ups? So what if I’d put in all the hours listening to their childhood traumas and comforting them, and putting up with their bullshit, when they absolutely should have gone to therapy? So what if now their current girlfriends and wives were reaping the rewards of my hard work? I’d made the choice to support them, to play at being the perfect girlfriend for the short time I was with them. If that helped, I should be proud of myself. And it was nice that Jason credited me with believing in him, and that David remembered the workshop. Maybe I’d been like the fairy god-girlfriend these guys had needed just at that moment.
But where did that leave me?
Tola and Eric had always laughed when I said I found relationships exhausting. That I was just too tired to date. But now it made sense. I’d be better off getting a puppy; at least I’d get affection in return for dealing with shit. But, just once, it would be nice to have someone around to say Don’t worry, I’ve got this.
As I headed back to my desk, I could hear Becky, one of the women in accounts, talking to some of the others. She sat a few desks over from me, so that we almost always ended up accidentally making faces at each other when we were frustrated or thinking too hard. Catching an accidental eye roll from Becky, followed by an embarrassed smile, always made me feel better.
She also always seemed to be the wise sage the younger girls came to with their boyfriend drama, which was why their little friendship group seemed to huddle around her desk. But today, apparently, it was her own relationship that was the problem.
“He said he doesn’t believe in marriage and he doesn’t know why I’m so obsessed with it!” She sighed, and the other women made sympathetic noises. I thought of Jason’s likely excuse for his change of heart about marriage—a change of woman. But Becky didn’t need to hear that.
“He’s probably just putting you off the scent!” said Katherine, who’d watched entirely too many Hallmark movies. “So when he does ask, you’ll be surprised!”
Becky shook her head. “He said we’ve got a lovely family together, what does it matter? And I don’t really know how to explain it, because it does sound dumb, saying I want a big fancy party with a white dress. We’ve got our kids, and we’ve built a home together . . . he’s right, I should be satisfied.”
Something about the aggressive gratitude felt familiar. The feeling that it wasn’t okay to want more than what she had, and it wasn’t okay to want something other people thought was unimportant. I clenched my teeth together as I dropped into my chair and reached for my headphones, but, with a start, I found Tola and Eric standing behind me, eavesdropping just like I was.
“Hey, Aly.” Eric smiled at me. “You know what happens after you come up with a new theory?”
Tola grinned, crossing her arms and tilting her head toward Becky. “You test it.”
—
Tola insisted we had to start that evening, so we went to the Prince Regent, a pub around the corner from the office. It was cute enough, with framed portraits of random royal family members and that ever-so-charming spilled-beer smell. I had a weird affection for the place, where Tola and I had worked our way through the (limited, and pretty disgusting) cocktail list, and where Eric and I had started our friendship over two bottles of Pinot Grigio and a lot of crying. Sure, it had sticky floors and only served salt and vinegar crisps, but it held our history.
Eric and I sat on stools at a high table, watching Tola as she spoke to Becky at the bar. We couldn’t quite hear them, but I knew Tola was telling a glorious tale of how I had changed previous boyfriends’ minds about marriage, and how I could do the same for Becky’s commitment-phobic partner.
“I do not want to do this. I don’t even know this man,” I said.
“Well, you’ll get to know him. You did a psychology degree, right?” Eric nudged me with his elbow and smirked into his pint.
I snorted. “No, I did a summer course in counseling and an advanced course in marketing techniques. It’s messaging and manipulation, not therapy.”
“Is that what you did with them all?”
“No, I was dating them and was nice and tried to help! Besides, this is some random guy, so we’re gonna have to come up with a play, otherwise he’s going to think I’m chatting him up!”
I gritted my teeth as Becky swiveled on her barstool and gave me two thumbs up, a hopeful, grateful look on her face. Oh god.
Tola jumped off the stool and swaggered over to our table, pausing to check her hair in the mirror on the way. She held two glasses of Coke and put them down with a flourish. “We are all systems go, ladies and gents.”
I pointed at the drinks. “Did you forget one of us?”
Tola wiggled her eyebrows. “These were a gift from an admirer.”
Eric blinked. “We didn’t even see anyone approach you!”
Tola narrowed her eyes and grinned. “I test well with the bartending demographic. It’s rum and Coke. Take it.” She pushed one over to me.
“What’s it like to be universally adored wherever you go?” Eric asked, holding up his phone as a fake microphone.
“Well, I really want to say it gets old, but it doesn’t.” She raised an eyebrow at me. “Look at the face on you. Nervous? Drink your drink.”
I took a tentative sip and looked back at her, pleading. “Did I say I don’t want to do this?”
“Yes, and we told you being a coward isn’t in line with your personal brand as ass-kicker. You should be thanking us, babe. We’re giving you the opportunity to shine,” Tola teased. “So what’s the play?”
“You know the first rule of marketing?” I sucked on the straw, resigned.
“Make more money than you spend?” Eric offered.
I rolled my eyes. “Give people what they need. Tell them exactly what they want to hear.”
“How do we know what he wants to hear?”
I leaned in, so they could hear me over the rapidly increasing din of the pub, the regulars getting rowdier, the newly off-the-clock loosening their ties. Tola and Eric leaned in, too, as if they were intrigued.
“We don’t.” I grinned at Eric expectantly. “Which is why we send in someone to scope him out.”
“Why do I feel like by the end of the night you’re going to be Tony Soprano?” Tola asked, hand on hip. Eric snorted.
“Nice reference, bit vintage for you.”
“Look, Eric is going to go in first and get a few answers to some important questions. From that, we’ll know how to sway him.”
“And you really think some chance encounter with a random person in a pub is going to change this guy’s entire mindset?”
I shook my head. “No, of course not. It doesn’t have to change anything. It just needs to crack it a little. Let the light in, a little wiggle room in the dirt. The chance for something else to flower, that’s all.”
I looked at Becky, swirling her wine around her glass at the bar, chin resting on her hand, head tilted like she was waiting for something. She looked . . . sad. We might be able to help her. I was doing this.
“And it’s got to be me?” Eric asked, frowning. “You’re sure?”
“Um, who never stops telling us about how excellent he was in Hello, Dolly! at university?” I replied, and Tola joined in, grinning.
“Yeah, wasn’t your Teen Angel in Grease given a standing ovation? And you won some sort of award for West Side Story?”
Eric raised his chin and pursed his lips, as if suddenly recognizing an adversary. “Oh, hello, look who’s suddenly invested now.”
I shrugged. “If I have no other choice, I’d like to do it well. Besides, you’re excellent at the ‘banter with the lads’ bullshit. It comes naturally to you.”
Eric looked at me in surprise, waiting for me to apologize, but I just laughed. “Come on, be honest.”
Eric mimed offense. “Fine, I’ll turn up my ‘straight man likes sport’ impression, just for you, sweetcheeks.”
We watched as Becky’s boyfriend came in, and I gasped, nudging them all to be silent. But, of course, it was so needlessly dramatic that Tola and I got the giggles.
As much as this was absolutely ridiculous, it was fun. It was an excuse to be out on a Monday evening with my work friends, instead of going home to an empty flat and calling my mother to hear what stupid thing my father had done now. Instead of brainstorming ways to show I deserved that head of branding job. Instead of lying in bed wondering why time was passing so quickly and yet nothing seemed to change.
Becky’s boyfriend was wide and muscled like a construction worker, but he had a sweetness to him you could see in the way he looked at her, the gentle way he stroked her arm. Which meant we likely had someone who was just teasing his girlfriend, knowing how much she wanted to get married, or who didn’t believe in it as a concept at all. Either way, the man across from us looked like he’d do anything for her, and I could see a gentle nudge in the right direction wasn’t going to be particularly difficult.
“So you know what questions you need to ask?” I asked Eric again, and he nodded. “Okay, go forth. Use the Force well.”
We watched as Eric slicked his blond hair back, walked over, and greeted Becky with that million-watt smile he was so good at producing when he needed it. He made a deliberate movement, pulling at the blue tie around his neck before he introduced himself to her boyfriend. We watched Eric in “sell” mode, shoulders back, broad frame on display as he shook hands, clapping Becky’s boyfriend on the back, and then immediately gesturing to the bar. “My treat!” we heard him insist, throwing his hands up as if he wouldn’t hear of anything else, and grabbing the bartender’s attention.
“God, he’s so smooth,” Tola said by my side, watching it like daytime television. “We need to find him someone soon, or he’s just gonna stop trying to date and forget about love altogether.”
“Agreed. The shagging about is getting old, no matter what he says. Do you know anyone for him?” I saw her shake her head out of the corner of my eye.
“All my mates are too young and probably a bit too . . . out there for someone like Eric.” Tola considered. “He needs, like, some relaxed guy who wears cardigans but makes it look hot. And cooks, because Eric is terrible at that, and I want someone to throw a goddamn dinner party worth going to.”
I chuckled. “Excellent points. Very selfless.”
After about twenty minutes, Eric came back to our table, where he deflated from his macho persona and fed through what he’d learned. I kept an eye on Becky and her boyfriend at the bar. They didn’t look too traumatized.
“It’s the money, I think,” he said, taking a slug of my drink. “And I think he’s a little shy. He just doesn’t see the point of some big day for no reason when they’ve got kids to send to after-school clubs and stuff.”
I clasped my hands together, nodding, watching the couple’s body language. Okay, I knew how to handle this. “Don’t worry, guys, I’ve got this one. Hundred percent.”
—
When I returned to Tola and Eric afterward, it was like I was a goddess. A celebrated actress who bent people to her will. Rather than someone who had a skill for listening and providing solutions. Or manipulating, if you wanted to get technical.
“What did you do? His face went white! Are you trying to scare him into proposing?” Eric tried to hold in a laugh as they left, waving at us, Becky’s face clearly saying, well, thanks for trying, eyebrow wrinkled, right shoulder raised in half a shrug. This time, her boyfriend did look traumatized, and I tried not to giggle at how shell-shocked he had appeared, grasping his pint for dear life.
“I spun a story about leaving my boyfriend of fifteen years because he wouldn’t propose. Because he kept saying it didn’t matter, that I was desperate, but really all I wanted was to have him show he loved me, to have him pick me. That it was easy enough for him to stay when I cooked his meals and did his washing, but he’d never picked me. That I didn’t even want a big wedding, just something small to show him off to the world, to tell them all this was my man, and I was so proud of him.” I looked off into the distance, hands clasped at my chest. “So I was going, and now he could cook his own dinner because some guy I’d met at the gym who looked like Jason Momoa wanted to marry me instead.”
Their jaws dropped.
“You just . . . came up with all that?” Tola asked.
“More importantly, you fancy Jason Momoa?” Eric tilted his head like a dog who’d found an unexpected tidbit. “Interesting.”
“Becky does. And the point is that everything’s a narrative.” I shrugged. “It provided justification for her feelings and created just a hint of fear. If nothing else, it’ll spark a conversation on the journey home, and maybe she can make herself heard.”
Tola blinked at me, almost dazzled. I liked that expression. “Babe, there is something here. You can feel it, right? Like, how many women are in Becky’s position? How many women have been putting all this . . . emotional energy and money and time into being whatever their boyfriends needed? We could help them.”
“By forcing boyfriends to propose?” I wrinkled my nose. “Not exactly doing the Lord’s work, is it?”
Tola looked skyward, clenching her fists. “No, not the proposals. The emotional labor! The hours of extra housework and admin and childcare and being in control of everything all the time. And not getting anything back in return! We have a generation of exhausted women on our hands.”
“You want us to start a company hiring managers for people’s lives?” I asked, shrugging. “I mean, the rich already have personal assistants . . . maybe it could be an app?”
“You’re not listening. Think about the amount of time and effort Becky puts into their family life, right? Think about how many years she’s been talking about marriage. Then think about you, breezing in and finding the exact right thing to say and way to play it so the notion could penetrate. All that time, all the emotional energy, saved. We could literally give women the gift of time.”
“By . . . fixing their men for them?” I frowned.
“Emotional outsourcing!” Eric yelped, and I could already see our number cruncher trying to find an angle.
“We could really help women!” Tola said, like she was waiting for us to feel this earth-shattering realization and we just weren’t complying.
“Look, this is fun, and I’ve loved getting the chance to scheme with you guys,” I started, “really. But I want to be head of branding. That’s what I’ve always wanted. It’s why I went to uni, it’s why I did my master’s, it’s why I’ve worked here and put up with the Hunters of the world for all these years. And it’s so close now I can taste it. I spend enough time fixing everyone’s problems, I don’t need to do it as a side hustle.”
“But . . .” Tola looked at me in disappointment. “Think about the wives and girlfriends of your exes, how happy they must be that you sculpted these man-children into romantic heroes. We watch all these movies where dudes with abs know how to plan these hugely elaborate romantic surprises, and in reality women across the country are reminding their boyfriends to change their boxers on a daily basis. They deserve better, and we could give it to them. This could be something, Aly.”
“So what you’re saying is, we’ll help womankind by reprogramming their boyfriends, one underachiever at a time?” I let the sarcasm seep through my words, and Tola grinned.
“That’s exactly what I’m saying.” She put her arms around both of us. “Us three, having adventures. Effecting change. What could be better than that?”
“You’re such a hustler. Let’s . . . let’s see what happens. But in the meantime, the next round is on me, in honor of Eric, much-loved actor extraordinaire and severely wasted talent in the advertising department.”
Eric gave a little bow, and I got a round of espresso martinis in celebration. It was the most fun I’d had on a Monday evening in a long time. It couldn’t last, though, not when they realized this wasn’t a business plan or a workable scheme, no matter how much Tola wanted it to be. It wasn’t going to be a YouTube series or a podcast or whatever it was people used to turn their faults into fame these days.
Which was exactly what I told Tola when Becky found us in the break room the next morning and thanked me for trying, said they’d had a good chat, but he hadn’t changed his mind. I actually exhaled in relief, and then had to cover up by patting Becky on the shoulder and telling her it was nice to get the chance to chat with her, though. She smiled at that.
Life could go on as normal, no crazy ideas or plans. I wanted the head of branding role. When I had it, I’d have respect. No more Hunter coming to me to do his work, or the ads guys giving in their reports late, or having to chase every single colleague to give me their work in the right format. I’d finally prove the theory I had based my entire working career on: if you worked hard and stayed determined, you’d get what you deserved.
Which, of course, all went to hell when Becky turned up on Friday with a sapphire and diamond engagement ring glinting in the light.