Andy snickers and covers it up with a cough.
Who cares? It’s only a stupid ad.
But copy is my job. I could have written the shit out of that. And they should have briefed me.
Ignore it.
Now a crap ad is going out. What if Cooper sees it? What if the client realises how crap it is?
It doesn’t matter. At times like this, I really miss Chris, the art director I worked with at the big agency. He was talented and nice. Which shouldn’t be as unusual a combination as it is.
I hide behind my monitor at my desk as our little room goes back to normal, and get an email from Kate. She can’t join us for drinkydinks tonight, so we’re catching up tomorrow night instead.
I don’t know why I just said drinkydinks. I’m sorry. I’m not quite myself today.
Andy leaves me alone for the rest of the day, talking instead to his art minions about Doom, or some other sociopathic computer killing game, and how good he is at it.
I try to work, but my mind keeps wandering. I’m sure that by now, you know what it’s wandering back to. Dumped again! Six times. Etc.
OK, let’s get it over and done with.
The man I caught shagging a Pink Lady.
Break-Up No.5: Rick. I didn’t even really fancy him at first, honestly. We met outside the Westbourne in Notting Hill one sunny Sunday afternoon in late summer two years ago. From that very first meeting, he pursued me with an intensity that was hard to resist. I mean, he really pursued me. Sarcastic texts, funny emails, more wordplay than you could shake your innuendo at, flirty flattery…As you can imagine, I was a bit of a skittish dater by this stage and tried hard to see the potential bastardo in any man. And I thought he was too slick, too arrogant, too charming, so I tried to stay away from him when I could, and was sarcastic and flip when I couldn’t. That seemed to interest him even more. His flatmate worked with Bloomie, and they were friendly and somehow we seemed to run into him a lot at bars and parties. Loads of women were always after him—I wouldn’t call Rick the most handsome man I’ve ever dated, but he had charisma. And he always made a beeline for me, which was flattering, obviously.
So, after about four or five months of Rick’s charm offensive, during the dark, endless depths of January when it’s really, really depressing to be cold and single, I said yes to dinner. We met up one Thursday at Notting Hill Brasserie, where the food and wine and ambience combine to make you feel important and happy and interesting, all at once. And we talked till they closed. It was the best first date I’d ever had. He bared his soul, and I bared mine, and I realised that what I’d thought was slick arrogance was just hard-earned confidence (he’d won several scholarships to school and university) and genuine charm. We found each other interesting, and funny, and smart—at least he kept telling me he thought that…I now think he was lying, of course. But I thought he was wonderful. We kissed, and sparks went off in my chest. At the end of the night he said, ‘I know what you’re thinking. You’re wondering if I’ll call tomorrow. I’ll do better than that.’ He called me the minute I got home and we talked till I fell asleep. I was smitten. (I mean smote. No, smitten.)
For the first three months, I was in dating heaven. Rick was sharp and witty and worldly and attentive and all those other attractive things that make a girl flexible at the knees. But then, almost overnight, he started to, well, be not quite so nice. He stopped emailing and texting first (an absolute must, and yes I am a feminist, dash it, but all the same), and didn’t suggest meeting up as much as he used to—in fact, he would wait for me to gingerly bring up the subject and then say ‘let’s play it by ear’ to see if something (someone?) more exciting came up. He never asked how I was, or what I had planned that week. He’d ignore my call on a Thursday and not return it all weekend while I tried to remain positive and think, ‘It’s cool! He doesn’t have to see me! I love me-time!’ and then on Sunday afternoon would text me to come round for, well, not-particularly-interesting hangover sex and a DVD. Which he chose. So it was something like Sin City. Or Death Proof.
A bastardo, in other words. A Class-A bastardo cockmonkey that I should have ditched the minute he turned sour, like milk. But I didn’t. I tried to pretend I was fine and happy, and made excuses to my friends and myself: he’s working, he’s stressed. I felt him pulling away, dimming the addictive, warming spotlight of his adoration and I couldn’t bear it. We’d been perfect! He knew me, I knew him! I spent days and nights racking my brain, thinking how to make him go back to adoring me like he had at the beginning. I analysed every text and email, and hoped and hoped and hoped that everything would go back to being good. Don’t look at me like that. You’ve probably done it too. Everyone has one person they really lost their head over. And he was mine.
Why, you ask? Because I thought he understood me? Because I thought I understood him? Because of my immature, impossibly hopeful disposition? Because all my previous relationships paled in comparison? Because each successive break-up had left my self-esteem in tatters? Or because all my previous disappointments made me determined to hang on to this one potentially perfect happiness if I could?
I don’t know. There are a thousand possible reasons. None are really good enough.
And you know what’s even worse? Even during those six torturous weeks of him acting like this, we’d meet up once a week or so—me, sick with nerves obviously—and it would be bliss again. He’d apologise, blame work for being too busy to see me, we’d have a bottle of wine and talk and laugh and sparkle and I’d adore him more than I ever had before, despite the days of confidence-eroding worry beforehand. I’d feel totally secure, blissfully happy, utterly content. And it was during one of those nights when I told him I loved him.
I know! Don’t look at me like that. Trust me, I know I shouldn’t have said it.
I hadn’t planned it, it just popped out. It’s not the kind of thing I’d ever, ever have said if I’d been in the least bit in control of myself. I’d never said it to anyone else. Maybe I felt so happy and relieved that the sparkly secure feeling was there after a particularly long week with almost no contact from him. Maybe—probably—I subconsciously thought I’d prompt him to say he loved me too, and we’d go back to being sparkly all of the time. Who knows? The female brain is an annoyingly mysterious thing. Even to us. At the time I thought I meant it, by the way, but I realised pretty soon it wasn’t love…it was more like addiction.
And no, of course he didn’t say it back. He just smiled, and kissed me. (We were in his kitchen cooking spaghetti bolognese, which I hate but every boyfriend I’ve ever had thinks he can cook better than anyone in the world.) In a split second I realised he wasn’t going to say it back, because he didn’t love me, and never had. I wanted to run away and cry, but instead I poured another glass of wine and kept smiling. It doesn’t matter. Everything will be fine. Just hang in there and be positive and show him what a good girlfriend you are.
And the next night was the ‘Come As Your Childhood Ambition’ party.
For weeks—months—afterwards, I kept getting hammered and crying. I honestly felt like I should look like a human raisin, I cried so much. I turned 28 just two weeks after he dumped me. That birthday was a real low point. Bloomie organised a dinner for me and I had to keep a tissue folded in my palm to mop up the tears that just burst from my face, even when I didn’t think I was crying. I then got as drunk as I could, threw up, and had to be taken home by 10 pm. God, that was a pathetic period of my life. I hate that me. I fucking hate her. After every other break-up I’d bounced back pretty fast, with the help of the magic trifecta of friends, clothes and
