Alice Brown's Lessons in the Curious Art of Dating Read Online Free Page B

I’m thirty-five. Ideally there should be two years between them so they’re not too close together at school, so that takes me back to at least thirty-two. Obviously I should be married first; and I’ve always thought my husband and I should have at least a year together to just enjoy being a couple and to have some nice upmarket holidays before the kids come along and we have to go to theme parks . . .
So that’s thirty-one
. And we should have been together eighteen months before getting engaged – any longer and it looks like he’s keeping his options open in case someone better comes along . . .
twenty-nine and a half
. And everyone knows you need at least another eighteen months to organize a decent wedding . . .’
    ‘Christ almighty, am I dreaming this? Am I still asleep?’
    ‘. . . so you can see how far behind I am!’ Kate’s voice was getting louder and just a little bit shrill. ‘I should have met Mr Right when I was twenty-eight; I should be giving birth to baby number one now! I’m already five years late as it is, so it can’t take me another year to find the right man; it just
can’t
!’
    The line suddenly went silent.
    Lou exhaled in bewildered shock.
    ‘Kate, how come I never knew you were mental?’
    ‘There’s nothing mental about having a life plan,’ Kate replied obstinately.
    For a rare, brief moment Lou was at a complete loss as to what to say.
    ‘Lou, come on, please!’ Kate implored. ‘I need you to be positive about this. I’m doing a very brave thing.’
    There was a pause.
    ‘Don’t suppose there’s any chance you’d join with me?’
    ‘Fuck, no!’
    ‘Not even for a laugh?’
    ‘If I want a laugh I’ll look at myself naked. And if I want a man I’ll go to a cheap bar, like any other sane woman. I, for one, haven’t hit rock bottom.’
    ‘Well, I have!’ said Kate chirpily. ‘And I’m going to call Table For Two right now, get them to find me a fantastic man and live happily ever after,’ and she hung up before Lou could retaliate.
    Lou put the phone down on the side of the bath and gave herself a long, hard look in the mirror.
    ‘Unfuckingbelievable,’ she deadpanned to the empty bathroom.



ALICE

    Alice was having trouble concentrating on her paperwork. No matter how hard she tried, her mind kept wandering.
    She
loved
fifty per cent of her job. When it came to interviewing new clients and discovering their dreams, she was in her element. Each client felt like a brand-new adventure, a voyage with her as captain of the ship. It was her mission to navigate them through the choppy waters of dating and into the calm of a tropical paradise where their perfect partner was waiting, probably stretched out in a hula outfit on a sun-drenched rock. The morning after taking on a new client, Alice would rush into work early to scour the files and find their romantic match. She’d lose herself for hours, weighing up each prospective partner, imagining their conversations and chewing the top of her biro as she thought through all possible pairings.
    The post-date follow-up calls and the counselling for patience Alice also loved. It was all about keeping her clients positive. Positive people were attractive people, and so she saw it as her duty to keep everyone’s spirits up. She phoned her clients often, meeting for impromptu coffees if theirmorale was flagging. When they were crushed over a false start, she was crushed too. The match, after all, had been born in her imagination. Making successful matches was the stuff that filled her dreams at night. And the whiff of romance was what made her days magical.
    The paperwork, on the other hand, Alice hated. She’d never been great at knuckling down. All her life people had called her a dreamer. Alice agreed. Things were more exciting with the technicolour of a little daydreaming. It was real life, but airbrushed better.
    But today was Tuesday, which was paperwork day at Table For Two. Everyone was sitting at their