the empty packet and I put on five pounds. And it’s not even as if I can just say ‘to hell with it’ and sod the five pounds. I have a bridesmaid dress to squeeze into. Or will do, anyway, if we ever get Katie sorted out first.
“You’ve tried on five dresses,” Emma laughs. “I don’t think you need to panic just yet, hun.”
“Yes, but I hated them all. Hated,” she repeats, slopping a spoon of sweet and sour chicken onto her plate. “And so did you two. God I hope it’s easier finding you a bridesmaid dress Becks. Unless you just want to get a wedding dress and have a double wedding?” she asks hopefully, eager for someone to share her frustration.
I shake my head as I help myself to some chicken with cashew nuts.
“Sorry hun, you’re on your own. But don’t worry. You’ve got plenty of time, despite what any of these wedding shop witches tell you. They’re bound to tell you to hurry – they want you to buy one of their dresses. They don’t want you to take your time and look elsewhere.”
“Yeah, I guess you’re right. So, anyway, enough wedding talk. Tell us how it’s going with Jim, Emma.”
Jim is Emma’s current man. She met him at the chip shop after a drunken night out in Brighton and offered to let him dip his chips in her curry sauce. She’s a classy chick, our Em. And despite her inexcusable opening line, it appears to be going well. I think it’s been about two months now, which is something of a record for her.
“It’s going really well, actually,” she grins.
I think she really likes this one because she goes all mushy whenever you mention his name – a bit like a lovesick teenager.
“We’re going away in a few weeks - to this posh hotel in Hampshire. Jim won this spa weekend at his work’s Christmas do. Two nights’ bed and breakfast with spa treatments for two. Let’s just say I think we might be missing out on the breakfast – and the spa treatments!” She licks her lips and smiles sweetly – like butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth, when in actual fact she’s planning the dirty weekend to end all dirty weekends.
“So when are we going to meet him?” I ask. “You don’t want to let it go too far. You might have to dump him if Katie and I don’t approve.”
“Oh you’ll approve,” she assures us. “He’s gorgeous. And totally fabulous in bed!”
“Excellent,” Katie says, helping herself to more egg-fried rice. She’s got hollow legs, I’m sure.
“So?” I ask.
“So what?”
“So when are we going to meet him? It’s not often you go this gooey over someone. It’s time we met the guy.”
“I’ll sort something out soon, I promise. But you’ll definitely love him.
“You know what…” she says, biting into a prawn cracker – a pause for thought. “He might just be Mr Right.”
“You don’t believe in Mr Right,” I remind her.
“I know I don’t. But someone this good in bed has to be as close as I’m gonna get to him, damn it!”
A soul mate is someone who has locks that fit our keys, and keys that fit our locks.
Excerpt from ‘The Bridge Across Forever’, Richard Bach
I’ve thought more than once since that little ‘chat’ with my dad that I might have found Mr Right.
When I was nine I thought it might be Jonathan Jamieson because he gave me a bit of his Sherbet Dib Dab after I fell over in the school playground and grazed my knee.
When I was thirteen I thought it might be Andrew Bradley. We ‘went out’ for two whole weeks, which basically means we held hands on the school bus and passed love letters to each other during maths classes when we were supposed to be working out simultaneous equations.
And when I was sixteen I thought it might be Stephen Clarkson – my first proper boyfriend. But that didn’t mean anything because at sixteen I was also convinced that Brad Pitt, Tom Cruise and Johnny Depp could all be Mr Right.
I’m not sure I’ve ever thought Alex is Mr Right.
Alex is there to meet me when I arrive back in Leeds station on Sunday night. I have been instructed to warn him that weekends in London are the norm from now on. “We have a wedding to prepare for,” I keep being told. I’m not sure who this ‘we’ is she’s talking about. I was under the impression it was Matt she was marrying.
He takes it well, and rather than moaning about how we’ll hardly see each other, points out that it will mean more time for football and nights out with the lads without having to feel guilty. There’s nothing quite like feeling appreciated, is there? But Alex’s easy-going nature is one of the things I love about him – that and his lovely bum.
“I thought we’d pick up a bottle of wine and a DVD on the way home,” he says.
“Lovely,” I say, squeezing his thigh appreciatively as he changes gear.
All you really need to know about Alex is this – he’s lovely.
But to elaborate – he’s gorgeous, he’s funny, he’s incredibly generous, he can cook – and bake – which is a definite bonus since I can do neither. He makes the best banoffee pie I’ve ever tasted, which just happens to be my all-time favourite dessert. And he has the best bum in the world. No, really, he does. It’s perfect. Dead pert, but soft as a baby’s bum. I can’t keep my hands off it. Well, I didn’t use to be able to anyway. Alex used to joke that if we ever split up I’d want custody of his bum. He’s right, I would.
So why haven’t I ever thought Alex is Mr Right – especially after all those lovely things I’ve told you about him (did I mention his lovely bum)?
I wish I could tell you. I really do.
But I don’t know.
I love him, of course I do. I love him a lot. But if he was Mr Right I wouldn’t question it, would I? Just like you wouldn’t question whether a banana was a banana, or whether a bowl of cornflakes was a bowl of cornflakes. You know it’s a bowl of cornflakes, so you don’t need to ask.
So if Alex was Mr Right, I wouldn’t need to ask myself the question, right?
But I do need to ask.
I am asking.
I met Alex in my final year at university, at the Student Union Christmas ball. He was stood next to me at the bar, but despite looking particularly scrummy in his tuxedo and bow tie, he couldn’t get himself noticed by the male bar staff who were more interested in serving all the gorgeous girls in their skimpy dresses. I like to include myself among their number but I suspect my being served was more down to the fact that I was leaning so far over the bar I was practically poking one of the barmen in the eye with my reindeer antlers.
Out of pity I offered to get Alex’s drink for him and, well, to cut a short story even shorter, we basically spent the rest of the evening snogging in a corner. Admittedly, pity no longer played any role. I can only blame my actions on a combination of seven gin and tonics and Alex’s gorgeousness, which – by sheer luck rather than good judgement I’m sure – still existed the following night when I left my beer goggles at home for the evening and met him for a post-snog drink.
Fast forward six years and here we are, both still in Leeds, nothing much changed except for the fact that it’s now our jobs that are paying for the drinks and not our overdrafts/student loans/parents. That, and the fact that we now live together –