it was because I was starting to feel like myself again, rather than a fear of ending up like Matthew and Lucy. Or worse, Cassandra and Richard. Either way, as I climbed into bed and snuggled up next to Nick, I felt something I hadn’t felt in months. I leaned over and kissed him. I could tell he’d been drinking again but this time it didn’t bother me. I kissed him again, and he kissed me back.
That night, making babies was the furthest thought from my mind.
First thing on Monday morning, I noticed a voicemail from Cassandra. I waited until I was in the office and had finished my coffee before unleashing the assault on my eardrums. I put it on loudspeaker so I could temper the impact, and also so I could type some emails while I listened.
Unlike the usual mega-volume, her words were slurred and hard to decipher because she was sobbing and then sometimes laughing between them.
‘I’m miserable, Ellie,’ she said and then paused. ‘It’s not the same.’ She sniffed. ‘I want my Dick back.’
When I looked up, I saw Dominic leaning over my desk, hair coiffed, eyebrows raised. ‘She wants her dick back?’ he whispered, laughing. ‘Just what we need: another “they matched me with a post-op” lawsuit.’
I rolled my eyes. ‘It’s not how it sounds,’ I said. ‘She’s just got divorced.’
He rolled his eyes. ‘And you want to counsel these freaks,’ he said, making an inverted comma gesture around the word ‘counsel’.
I shook my head, tempted to prod him with the biro in my other hand.
‘Cassandra isn’t a freak,’ I said, hand still firmly over the receiver. ‘She’s a client. And the Dick that she wants back is her ex-husband. Not male genitalia.’
Just as Dominic was processing what I had said, buttocks most likely twitching as he did, Mandi breezed over. She was wearing a patterned empire line smock, roomy enough to accommodate a sextuplet elephant gestation. I glanced down at her stomach and then back at her face. Despite the rumours circulating the office, I had yet to ask her the question formally. Dominic said it was a matter for HR and advised against it. Besides, once it was public knowledge, I feared Mandi might overload my inbox with a deluge of Pinterest nursery interiors.
Mandi leaned over my desk, eyes wide.
I decided it best to terminate the voicemail, before the entire office became involved.
Mandi leaned in further. ‘Was that Cassandra?’ she asked, holding her hands to her chest. ‘How is she?’ She looked to the floor. ‘That poor, poor woman. Divorce has to be the worst experience for anyone.’
Dominic, who was still leaning on my desk, smirked. ‘Worse than terminal cancer? Death of a child? Being decapitated by ISIS?’
Mandi ignored him. ‘And this is her second time. Simply awful. Is there anything I can do to help? And Richard, how is he? They were so in love, Ellie.’ She wiped a tear from her cheek. ‘So, so in love. How could we let this happen?’
Dominic interjected, with a dismissive flick of his wrist. ‘If it was her second marriage, then statistically, they only had a twenty-five per cent chance of making it work. There is nothing you could have done.’
Mandi narrowed her eyes and poked Dominic in the chest. ‘Would a doctor turn off a life support machine if a person had a twenty-five per cent chance of waking from a coma? No, they wouldn’t.’
Dominic sighed. ‘They turned it off. Not us.’
Mandi scowled. ‘This isn’t Dignitas. We’re a dating agency. We’re supposed to help people.’
Dominic laughed. ‘If only it was,’ he said. ‘There’s a far greater chance of preserving dignity in death than in dating.’
Mandi tutted then turned to me. ‘Ellie?’
I thought for a moment. ‘Cassandra wants him back.’
Mandi held her hands to her chest again and nodded.
Dominic sniggered. ‘Does she really though? Or is she just feeling sentimental after contracting pubic lice from a troop of strippers?’
I stared at him for a moment, wondering how he’d been privy to such classified information from the divorce party. Then I turned back to Mandi. ‘She says she still loves him,’ I said.
Dominic laughed. ‘I thought I still loved an ex when I found an old photo of her topless.’
It was hard to imagine Dominic on a date, let alone in a relationship. I was almost certain he was a sociopath who fantasised about mutilating female body parts in the manner of Patrick Bateman from American Psycho.
Mandi scowled at him, then continued. ‘They were so good together. Perfect for each other. You never saw them on the ski trip, Dominic. Or at their wedding. What would you know?’ Mandi’s chest was flushed now. She turned back to me. ‘I have to help them, Ellie. I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t.’
Dominic shook his head at Mandi. ‘Get one of your matchmakers to deal with it. You’re a manager now, you have more important things to do.’
‘Nothing’s more important than saving a marriage,’ she said. ‘And besides, Dominic, you should know by now, I’m a matchmaker first and a manager second.’ And with that she stomped off.
Dominic glared at her as she walked away, then turned to me and pointed at his watch to remind me, as he did every Monday, that it was time for our weekly meeting.
‘Another hour of my life I’ll never get back,’ I muttered, as I followed him into the meeting room.
‘Sorry, what was that, Eleanor?’ he asked, as he sat down in one of the executive orange leather seats he’d had commissioned for our meeting room.
I forced a smile. ‘Another intellectually stimulating chat,’ I said.
He looked at me and raised one eyebrow, then took a file from his briefcase.
‘So,’ he said, placing both hands on the table, ‘this dating therapy thing you want to do.’
I stared at him. ‘You mean the coaching programme, which has been formally approved by the investors?’
He nodded and smiled. ‘Well, I believe it could generate more profit than our introductions service.’
I went to smile but Dominic’s enthusiasm was concerning me.
He continued. ‘So the investors and I have spoken and it was unanimously agreed that you should manage this project.’
I stared at him some more, wondering what point he was trying to make.
‘In its entirety,’ he added.
‘I thought that had already been agreed.’
He leaned back and ran his hands through his hair. ‘We expect you to write and deliver the programme.’
