Love @ First Site Read online

  At the table, she's flanked on either side by Richard and Lars, or Dick and Arse as I affectionately call them. Richard and I met when we were both TV researchers on Good Morning Britain. He worked in the showbiz department, whilst I was in "human interest." You know, those "I had one black twin and one white twin" kind of stories which are really just car crash viewing, but we have to pretend we're doing a public service by highlighting this problem and run a phone number saying "If you've had twins that are different colors and would like help, then call this number . . ." blah blah blah.

  Richard has stayed in light entertainment, though he's risen to the lofty heights of a senior producer on the Saturday night game show Till Divorce Do Us Part--catchphrase "The bounty after the mutiny"--where warring couples win the glittering prize of an all-expenses-paid decree absolute.

  His French boyfriend, Lars, a striking six-foot-three black man, is one of the dancers who high kick their way across the studio floor when the contestants win the chance to live happily ever apart. I met Madeleine through him.

  Oh, hang on. Something's happening. My sister Olivia is banging the table.

  "Here's to Jess. Happy thirty-fourth birthday. Cheers!" She raises her champagne glass and takes a swig, and everyone follows suit.

  "Cheers," I parrot, knocking back a mouthful myself. "This really is terribly nice of you all."

  Olivia is my older sister by two years and something of a heroine of mine. Unlike other siblings so close in age, she has never been a thorn in my side. For as long as I can remember, far from being a tormentor, she has always been supportive and caring. Most memorably, when I had nightmares as a child, she would sit and stroke my hair until I drifted back to sleep.

  When she left home to go to Bristol University, I was distraught for at least a week, sobbing into my pillow and refusing to be consoled by our mother. Then I met a boy in sixth form and became temporarily obsessed by him instead.

  The tinny sound of metal cutlery banging against glass drags me out of my nostalgic thoughts.

  "Shall we do presents?" It's Kara, the friend I have known the longest but like the least. We've all got one, haven't we? Inexplicably, we stay in touch with them, like moths to a flame, even though they drive us to distraction most of the time. Men are very emotionless in such situations, unashamedly severing ties with anyone they consider surplus to requirements. But we women hang on in there, making excuses for the excesses of a ghastly friend, loyal to the bitter, drawn-out end, ever hopeful that one day they'll justify our patience.

  I can't quite put my finger on what's wrong with my relationship with Kara, but there's definitely an undercurrent of jealousy on her part. It's as if she hangs around only to delight and luxuriate in the bad things that happen to me, and that any happy event in my life is a tangible disappointment.

  It wasn't always like that. When we met at sixth form college, she was a formidable ally and fantastic fun. But over the years, her loyalty became questionable and her face increasingly sour. These days, the best way to sum her up is that she's always there when she needs you.

  Tonight, she has dragged along her boyfriend, Dan. He's an amiable enough chap who wombles through life doing no one any harm, but for some reason he's been ensnared by Mrs. Danvers. Kara has already told me he will propose by Christmas, but I'm not sure she's told him that yet.

  Everyone places their presents in a huge pile in front of me and, rather self-consciously, I start to unwrap them with oohs, aahs, and you-shouldn't-haves in all the right places. A beautiful fawn-colored pashmina from Olivia, a Walkman from Richard and Lars, a popcorn maker from Tab and Will, and a suede-covered photo album from Madeleine, with pictures of our various excesses glued inside . . . finally, Kara hands me an envelope.

  "This is from all of us, but mostly me." She gives me a thin excuse for a smile.

  Oh puh-lease, a bloody gift voucher or book token. How original, I think mutinously. But when I open the envelope, there's a folded piece of paper inside and my brow furrows with curiosity. All eyes are on me as I pull it out and, worryingly, I notice that my sister looks particularly apprehensive.

  The first thing I clap eyes on is a photocopy of a rather indistinct head and shoulders photo of me, grinning vacantly like a halfwit. I remember it was taken at my birthday party last year, shortly before I vomited into the wine bar's ice bucket after drinking my own weight in sangria. Classy, huh?

  To one side, there's a printed paragraph and I start to read it out loud.

  "I am a thirty-four-year-old fun-loving woman interested in meeting someone similar. My friends are baffled that I'm single, so perhaps you're the one to clear up the mystery?" . . . I tail off, my blood freezing in my veins as it dawns what it is.

  "Please tell me you haven't already placed this?" I look directly at Kara, who is positively glowing at my discomfort.

  "Of course I have!" She smirks. "It's your birthday present!"

  I scan the table for signs that this is a joke, but absolutely no one is looking me in the eye except her.

  "Get it stopped." I throw the piece of paper across the table and point at her mobile. "Call them right now and pull it."

  "Can't. It's already on the Internet." She pouts, trying to look apologetic. But I can tell she's extremely pleased with herself.

  Taking a deep breath, I hold it for a few seconds. Knowing Olivia inside out, I glance at her quickly and realize that this whole ghastly business isn't a windup. It's 100 percent genuine.

  "Did you know about this?" I look at her beseechingly.

  "Yes." She nods slowly, wincing with discomfort. "But only when I got here this evening, so there was absolutely nothing I could do about it."

  The Exorcist's Linda Blair has nothing on the head swivel I use to turn back to Kara.

  "How fucking dare you!" I glare at her and it takes all my willpower not to lunge for her scrawny throat. "You had no right to do this, it's totally intrusive."

  Even she looks taken aback by my sudden outburst. "It's only a bit of fun," she pouts.

  Richard turns down the corners of his mouth and stares at the table.

  "It might be a bit of fun to you, but that's my name on there." I jab my finger at it. "Not yours. I can't believe you think I'd find that funny . . . I'm going to put a stop to it first thing in the morning."

  Having swallowed my meal in large, indigestible lumps of injustice, I knock back yet another glass of house white and close my eyes for a second. When I open them, Richard has sidled into the now empty chair beside me.

  "Hi," he smiles sheepishly.

  "Low," I reply, with my best disconsolate expression. "I'm at rock bottom and starting to dig."

  "Darling, just relax," he drawls.

  "Relax?" I scoff. "It's only the tension that's holding me together." The pair of us stare across the table for a few silent seconds, watching Olivia and her husband, Michael, totally engrossed in their conversation, his hand caressing the back of her neck.

  "On the one hand," I say, nodding in their direction, "they give me faith. On the other, I despair I'll ever meet anyone I could love that much."

  "Of course you will, darling," says Richard in the syrupy, patronizing tone my mother always used to assure me that, provided I did my best, I would pass all my exams. I took her advice but flunked most of them anyway. "But, of course, you won't meet him if you refuse to put yourself out there."

  I raise my eyes heavenward. "Dick," I say pointedly, a tactic I always use when he's doing or saying something ludicrous, "I'm hardly the hermit woman of Balham. I do go out, you know."

  "Yes, but only with me or Tabitha, and we're hardly ideal for attracting heterosexual men. I mean, bless her, but Tab easily hits the danger zone on the mooseometer."

  I feel terrible laughing, but do anyway. "Don't be rotten."

  "You need a more direct approach," he continues. "And by the way, you live in Tooting."

  I scowl for a moment, puzzled by his remark. Not the Tooting bit, he's always ticking
me off for pretending to live somewhere slightly posher than I do. No, I'm thrown by the direct approach bit. Then it clicks.

  "No. Absolutely not!" I slam my hand so hard on the table that a narrow vase containing a single yellow rose topples over and spills its water. "I flatly refuse to date some anorak-wearing cyberman from the Internet."

  Richard pulls a pooh-poohing face. "Why not? Everyone's doing it these days. It's the new sexual revolution, darling, but instead of Woodstock and flower power orgies, it's taking place through your fingertips." He mimics tapping a keyboard.

  "Not through my fingertips," I whisper, inexplicably checking the ends for any signs of cyberinterference. "I prefer the old-fashioned method of meeting a man."

  He places a hand over his mouth and feigns a yawn. "What, endless nights spent propping up a bar in the hope that one of the surrounding men might be single? If they've registered on the Internet, you know they're looking for a relationship, so it cuts out all the crap. It's the fast track to fun fun fun."

  I wrinkle my nose. "It's just not me."

  "Yeah, yeah, I know" . . . he waves his hand dismissively. "You're unique . . . just like everyone else."

  His remark may have punctured my ego somewhat, but inside I am reluctantly admitting that he has a point. My persistently single state indicates that maybe I have been going about dating in the wrong way, that maybe it is time for change.

  Possibly suspecting a slight thaw in my chill, he warms to the theme. "There are literally thousands and thousands of them online, just waiting to be plucked. Darling, even you stand a chance with those odds."

  "Cheers." I smile sarcastically. "I'm still not doing it."

  Richard pours me more wine, presumably in the hope it will help weaken my resolve. "Take a look, at least. That won't do any harm. You can log on and scroll through the potential dates. Just think--your very own hunk superstore, and they won't even know you're there."

  "Hmmm. The best I can offer is that I'll think about it." Put like that, I don't know what else to say.

  Madeleine hones into view, her eyes crossed with frustration. "God, how do you put up with her."

  "Ah, Kara," I smile, following her glance. "Yes, she's quite a girl, isn't she? Who's she been spitting bile about now?"

  Madeleine casts a furtive eye over her shoulder. "I was talking about dancing, and she said, 'Bit old for that, aren't you?' Fucking cheek! She barely knows me."

  "Oh that never stops her. Everyone is entitled to her opinion." I steal a crafty puff of Richard's cigarette while my censorious sister is looking the other way. "The only thing that cheats Kara out of the last word is an echo."

  "And she's got such an innocent, harmless look about her," continues Madeleine. "As if butter wouldn't melt."

  "Yes, the face of a saint." Richard nods. "Trouble is, it's a bloody Saint Bernard. I just feel sorry for that poor sod of a boyfriend. Talk about under the thumb."

  "Nah. Dan's easygoing, but he's no pushover," I say. "I'm sure he stands up to her, he's just too polite to do it in public."

  "Anyway." Madeleine looks at Richard but jerks her head towards me. "Have you persuaded her yet?"

  "Persuaded me to do what?" Then it sinks in and I let out a low groan. "Oh God, you're not on about that wretched Internet thing again?"

  "Go on, it'll be a laugh if nothing else," says Madeleine. "What have you got to lose?"

  "My dignity?" I retort. Then a thought strikes me. "I tell you what, I'll do it if you do."

  Of course, as a woman who makes Mae West look positively virginal, Madeleine is quite simply the worst person I could have thrown out this challenge to.

  She shrugs. "Absolutely fine by me. But I'm not the one looking for a serious relationship. I'm happy with the occasional fling with whoever life throws at me."

  "She's so discerning." Richard smiles sarcastically. "Anyway, she says she'll do it too, so that's it now, you have to go ahead with it."

  My heart doesn't just sink, it's got concrete boots on. "OK, three dates, no more," I say resignedly. "But if none of them turn out to be Mr. Right, then it's back to the old method of trawling wine bars and late-night bus stops."

  "Fantastic!" Richard slaps his thigh D'Artagnan style. "All for fun, and fun for all!"

  Three

  Oh God. I have just logged onto my computer, and I have thirty-seven e-mails from total and utter strangers. The jaw-dropping, knuckle-scraping, head-hanging shame of it.

  But also, deep down, I have to admit to feeling a slight thrill too. I don't know them, they don't know me, and best of all, they have absolutely no way of making contact other than through e-mail. Much better than standing by the bar, fending off the approaches of Mr. Never-in-a-Thousand-Years. Unless, of course, I reply and grant them the honor of knowing my phone number.

  Yet I can call up their dating ad, along with thousands of others, and pore over their photographs and personal details. Even more astonishingly, I can read the answers to the kind of gallingly intrusive questions it would usually take at least two or three traditional dates to even dare broach. Such as "How much do you earn, and do you want to have children?"

  There's something rather addictive about cutting through the crap so comprehensively and finding out if you're singing from the same song sheet before the band even strikes the first chord.

  It's 8:30 a.m. and I have deliberately come into the office early, leaving myself free to browse through the sex supermarket without fear of being ridiculed by any nosy work colleagues. I decide to leave the thirty-seven replies to my ad until later, and take a cyberstroll through the general site first.

  A form pops up asking my requirements, as if I were simply buying a car. I can tap in my preferred requirements, such as hair color, height, and religion, and up comes a list of all the men who fit my specifications. How very Third Reich.

  I decide to hedge my bets and keep it vague, asking for someone between the ages of thirty and forty-five who lives within twenty-five miles of London. The machine makes a faint grinding noise as it searches.

  "Shit!" I exclaim out loud as it tells me I have 3,456 matches. Each has a passport-sized photograph they have provided, alongside their brief description of themselves. It instructs you to click on their picture to get further information.

  "Bob764" catches my eye and I double click right on the bridge of his nose. The photograph enlarges and, although slightly blurred, I can see he has rather striking blue eyes and an attractive grin.

  I lean forwards slightly, scrutinizing him. Could he be the one? Could I really, in all seriousness, meet the man I might spend the rest of my life with by way of a computer? And even if I did, what would we say when someone asked how we met? I'd rather say our eyes met over the condom counter at the drugstore than fess up to the truth.

  Another, "Crespo," is very handsome but rather off-puttingly suggests he's a man who could fulfill a girl's greatest fantasy. I toy with the idea of asking him to fix my roof for nothing.

  "Hmmm, he's tasty."

  I jump out of my skin, rapidly hit the "close" button and swivel round in my chair. "Oh, thank fuck, it's you!" I press the palm of my hand against my chest, waiting for my raging pulse to subside. "What on earth are you doing in so early? Is the end of the world nigh?"

  "I was going to ask you the same," says Tabitha. "But now I know why. I have to call Australia to research that piece on Lizard Island, and I'm buggered if I'm using my home phone to do it."

  She plonks her handbag on the desk next to me and sits down. She nods towards my computer. "I hope you're going to put him on your list of potential dates. He looks just your type."

  "What do you mean, my type?" I scowl, mortally wounded by the thought that I might be predictable in some way.

  "Oh, you know. The romantic, penniless-poet type. The one who could be the next Dylan Thomas . . . if only someone would recognize his potential."

  She's absolutely spot on, of course, and my laughable relationship history backs this up. There have
been a succession of short-lived poetic ne'er-do-wells in my life and one giant, musical one to whom I gave the best years of my thighs.

  After five years of giving him endless emotional and financial support whilst he tried, unsuccessfully I might add, to get a recording deal, he left me just over a year ago for a twenty-something Trustafarian with a small brain and a large fortune.

  Nathan, he was called, or Satan as Richard refers to him. Even now, I can only just bring myself to say his name. But Tab's right. Unfortunately, being kicked in the teeth by Mr. Futon Potato hasn't dulled my appetite for airy-fairy "creative" types.

  "Sod Australia. I'll get them out of bed later," says Tab, pulling her chair closer to my screen. "Let's have a look at some more."

  We spend the next half an hour engrossed in what unfolds before us on the flickering screen, oohing and aahing in equal measures at some of the seemingly high-caliber men offering themselves up, laughing like drains at the low-caliber barrel-scrapers. All human life is here, from seventeen-year-old spotty youths right up to a couple of octogenarians.

  "Look at this one!" I shriek, double clicking on "Alf, 74." His ad reads: "I'm 5' 5'' but used to be 5' 7''. I can remember Mondays to Thursdays, so if you can remember Fridays to Sundays, then let's put our heads together for some action."

  "Well at least he's got a sense of humor," laughs Tab. "I might even give him a go myself."

  I pull a suck-a-lemon face. "What does 'action' mean? Do you think he's referring to sex? Look at him, poor love, he'd have to bring along an eighteen-year-old and a set of jumper cables."

  A door creaks open in the distance and footsteps come towards us. Seeing it's Janice, our executive producer, I hastily click the "sign out"option on the screen.

  "Bloody hell, are you two on a sponsored work-in for charity?" Sarcasm is just one of the services she offers. She looks at the clock. "I don't normally see either of you for at least another hour."