21. Wankerphobia

Of course, I knew it would be awkward—seeing my ex and the woman he left me for, out together for the first time, even after a year. But I hadn’t anticipated this. It’s as though the past year was kind of a weird dream, in which David and I broke up, but I didn’t have to actually accept that it was because he left me. And not only left me, but left me because he decided he preferred someone else. Those were just words. There was no actual meaning behind them. Not in my mind. Not in my anti-David-New-York-safe-space-escape.

But now, in this moment, it’s real. Abigail Bloom is real. She’s standing fifteen meters away from me, holding onto David’s arm, like a life-size Barbie doll with lips as red as the rose and skin as white as snow.

Just kidding, her skin is as dark as the level 6 Malibu spray tan and it’s her smile that’s white—as white as the fucking gallery. She’s wearing a floor length, snakeskin dress that hugs her body so tightly it could pass as her own skin, but she looks like a blonde Playboy centrefold, so instead of accentuating all of her bodily flaws, it accentuates the fact that she has none. And also, that she has boobs the size of footballs. On top of that, her hair is so big and fluffy like it always was—all those times I saw her while David and I were together and thought nothing of her. Because I was convinced that David had higher standards in women. Sure, she had sex appeal—in a Marilyn Monroe/Pamela Anderson sort of way. And it was certainly possible for a man to be distracted by her, enough to be unfaithful. But to actually leave someone for her? I can’t even. I JUST CAN’T WHITE GIRL EVEN RIGHT NOW. Or ever, really.

Seriously, what do they even talk about? I would compare the few times I spoke to her at David’s office as similar to pulling weeds, in 45 degree weather, that constantly grew back within seconds of being pulled, but I wouldn’t be allowed to leave until the garden was weed-less. I mean, there’s only so much one can say about the latest Vogue issue, or the latest fad diet, or nail varnish, or Angelina Jolie’s seventh baby. David used to sigh exasperatedly when I didn’t know things like who Nicolo Paganini was, or whether the Bahamas was its own country or not. And now he’s dating her? She probably doesn’t even know that Scotland and England are two different countries. Or that American isn’t actually a language—it’s all just English. Sort of.

Anyway.

I suppose being a marketing research assistant might work in her favour. Maybe they talk about marketing research. Like all the time. Or maybe they don’t talk at all. Maybe they do other stuff…

No.

They do not do other stuff. No other stuff of any kind.

I will not think about that. I need some champagne (vodka).

(everclear).

‘I need a drink,’ I tell Patrice.

He forcefully pins a nametag on my chest and then looks sulky. ‘You’re going to leave me at the door?’

I barely hear him because I can’t stop glancing over at David and Abigail. I know I really shouldn’t, but it’s just so fascinating. And gut-wrenching. And horrible. And I just can’t stop looking at it. You know when people who have a phobia of flying in an airplane can’t help but watch the plane crash episode of Lost over and over again? Or when Becca says her biggest fear is being framed for murder but then records all the episodes of Crime Watch: Framed and watches in horror, voluntarily feeding her sick, irrational fears. It’s kind of like that.

Patrice cranes his neck over my shoulder to see what I keep staring at and his eyes widen. ‘What is that?’ he gasps.

I look at them again. Abigail is now holding a martini glass containing a bright pink liquid and David’s got, what can only be, a scotch on the rocks. That’s his go-to drink whenever he’s in public. It’s so he can seem like a well-to-do, classic-gentleman-person that would be found in a mahogany library, smoking expensive Cuban cigars and listening to Chopin records on a vintage record player. And, of course, one that drinks forty-year-old scotch on the rocks, which he keeps in a crystal bottle surrounded by crystal glasses, in a mini bar that’s inside of a globe. Basically, he wants to be the Most Interesting Man in the World from the Dos Equis advert. But he’s just a wanker.

Especially because I know that most-interesting-man-in-the-world drinks are not actually what he drinks at home. There’s no scotch on the rocks inside of a globe. I know this because I stumbled across the Stella Artois boxes that he’d bought in bulk, and stored at the very back of his walk-in closet, along with the tiniest mini fridge in the history of fridges, in which he was able to squash about five cans at a time. Cans. Not even bottles. And not even Dos Equis bottles.

I remember being so fuming mad when I found them, simply because he would always give this condescending little chuckle whenever I ordered a Peroni at the pub, instead of wine like a classy broad, and then it turned out he had been hoarding Stella Artois the whole time. And then he had the nerve to try and make me feel crazy by calmly saying, ‘okay, let me get this straight. You’re angry with me right now over some Stella Artois?’ And so I had to tell him it wasn’t about the Stella Artois, but what the Stella Artois represents (which was that he is a double wanker), and then I felt like a child.  

I’m still looking over when Patrice says again, ‘But really, what is that?’ and waves his hand around to emphasize all that is Abigail.

‘That’s Abigail Bloom,’ I respond, ‘That’s what I was left for.’

‘That’s just...it’s so much. It’s just so, so much,’ he says, cringing backwards, ‘I’m so overwhelmed. It’s like pairing a patterned dress with a patterned jacket and all the accessories. I’m talking a statement necklace, dangly earrings, bracelets, rings, and a jewelled hairpiece. All at once.’ He takes a step backwards as if Abigail’s presence might physically harm him. ‘She’s too much. What is wrong with your David?’

‘He is not my David,’ I snap, more aggressively than I mean to.

‘Sorry, sorry,’ Patrice says, stepping back again, ‘fair enough. You wouldn’t want him to be anyway. Not if that’s what he’s into. She’s just...my word, she’s just too much.’ He places his hand over his chest in genuine distress.

‘I guess straight men like that,’ I say with a shrug.

‘Yes, well, most straight men haven’t evolved much from the Neanderthal. I think the rarest species of human is a male great.’

‘A great male?’

‘No, a graight male. G-R-A-I-G-H-T. A gay-straight.’

‘What the hell is a gay-straight?’ I ask, but I have to laugh.

Patrice is grinning back at me. ‘They’re the branch of straight males that have actually progressed in evolving beyond their Neanderthal ancestors. They haven’t quite developed the higher, more pristine attributes that make up most gay males, but they’re doing well enough to be considered on the more advanced side of human beings. Your dad, for example, is most certainly a graight, because he is most divine and cultured, and possesses a respectable temperament, and yet, he is straight.’

‘Hold on. Why were you so interested in Alistair then?’ I ask, ‘He’s hardly a graight.’

‘This is true,’ Patrice agrees, ‘He’s quite the Neanderthal-lad. And that is why they say love is blind.’

‘How philosophical you are,’ I reply and Patrice gives a wise nod, ‘I’m going to find a drink.’

‘Well the two main bars are on either side of the back wall over there,’ he says, pointing, ‘but, there’s a secret-sort of bar in that back corner behind those ice sculptures. I’ll meet you there at 8 when I’m finished at the door and we can load up without the queue.’

I scan the room for this so-called corner bar, and see a small bit of it sticking out from behind the giant sculpture of an elephant, rearing up on its hind legs. It looks pretty sad and abandoned, and there’s maybe two people standing around it.

‘Is that a staff bar or something?’ I ask

Patrice shrugs. ‘I don’t know, but I’m guessing it’s an open bar like the others.’

‘Well, I’ll wait until eight to go over there. I don’t want to be caught trying to drink from the staff bar or the exclusive, royal members only bar, by myself.’

‘It hardly looks like a royal-members-only bar,’ Patrice says with an eye roll and waves me away, ‘Be gone then, see you in an hour.’

I attempt to manoeuvre my way through the random suits and gowns, and dukes and duchesses that have begun to fill up the ballroom in order reach the nearest champagne waiter. I almost make it too.

But then my path is blocked.

And I have no choice but to look up into the face of—you guessed it—David Double-Wanker Phillips. 

©Natalie Cawthorne