10. We Meet Again, Batman

I have to get out of the gallery. In no way, shape, or form can I allow myself to be seen by David Phillips. Not right now.

I’ve gone over what our first meeting since the break up would be like so many times in my head. I’m always wearing an effortlessly but smolderingly sexy outfit and my hair is perfect and I have a handsome new boyfriend with a nicer car than his and a better job than him. Usually in my fantasy my new boyfriend is Sting. I guess I’m willing to compromise with that since in the real world I’m pretty sure Sting is married and in my fantasy I am NOT a mistress or a side girl.

But that’s my only compromise. Nothing else is up for negotiation. David left me heartbroken and humiliated for another woman. The next time he saw me I had to be better than her. I had to make him think, ‘Damn, I should have never left Natasha.’ I wanted to be breezy and nonchalant about how amazingly well I’m doing.

This is certainly not how it was supposed to happen.

I am not supposed to see him for the first time in a year coming back from my lunch break on my first day of work, a little tipsy on Chianti and with no 6-carat diamond ring on my finger or pretend Sting on my arm.

This cannot be happening.

‘Shit, you have to hide me,’ I whisper to Patrice, tripping over my own footing as I fling myself behind him.

‘Samson isn’t that scary.’

‘Not Samson,’ I hiss, ‘the one with the pie charts. That’s David.’

‘The David?’ Patrice gasps, his mouth dropping open.

I had told Patrice all about David and New York and my new fabulous life over lunch. He had loved it and told me my life was like a less glamorous version of Gossip Girl. And I can see the intrigue all over his face as he stares at David now.

‘He’s almost exactly like I pictured him,’ he whispers, mesmerized. This is most likely due to the fact that I’ve always thought David looks a bit like Rufus Sewell and despite David’s insistence that he didn’t see it (clearly a pretend attempt at humility), I knew I was right and told Patrice over lunch. So all he really had to do was picture Rufus Sewell and he’d be on the right track.

‘See, what did I tell you?’ I say, and for a minute allow myself to get side tract by inner gloating at having been right. Then I quickly remember the emergency situation at hand, and snap, ‘But I really need to get out of here.’

‘Oh right.’ Patrice walks next to me, attempting to block me from view should they happen to look our way.

We’re almost to the door of the offices when a posh voice calls out, ‘Patrick?’

I feel Patrice go rigid and turn slightly the other way. ‘Mr. Greene, hello,’ he calls back with a quick wave, ‘Good to see you again.’ Then he whispers quickly to me, ‘Go, go! Before it’s too late!’

He says it like we’re in some sort of James Bond thriller and I need to leave him in a burning car that’s about to explode if I’m ever going to save myself. I can tell he is just relishing the drama of the situation. Whatever the case, I really do want to get out of sight before it’s too late.

I reach for the door to the offices and I’m almost home-free when I hear Samson Greene say, ‘And who is with you there, Patrick? Come over here. Meet our new marketing team.’

The blood rushes to my face. How am I going to get myself out of this? I could just pretend I don’t hear him and make a dash through the door. But it’s my first day. And I really don’t want to piss off a gallery director on my first day.

But I really don’t want to face David Phillips either.

Patrice and I stand frozen for a moment.

‘Well? Come on,’ Samson says, his voice becoming irritated, ‘what’s wrong with you two?’

Slowly, I turn around, avoiding David’s eyes as we make our way over to them. Samson is tapping his foot impatiently but for some reason I like the look of him. Maybe it’s his balding, gray hair. Or perhaps his obnoxious Monet print tie.  I don’t know.

‘And who might this be?’ he asks, clasping his hands together.

I open my mouth to introduce myself but David’s husky voice beats me to it.

‘Natasha Bernier.’  

I’m really not sure why my life has suddenly become the strange and intense dialogue of an action film trailer, but he says it in this ‘we meet again’ tone like he’s Batman and I’m Catwoman and things are about to get interesting. He’s such a pig-headed ass.

‘She’s the new Gallery Attendant,’ Patrice adds.

I allow my eyes to linger over to David and immediately regret it. My hope was that over the course of the year he would have ended up looking more and more like Quasimodo. But unfortunately for me he looks like he’s just stepped out of GQ magazine in the newest Armani suit last worn by George Clooney.

Damn it.

On top of that, he’s looking at me intensely with his dark grey eyes. And despite all my attempts to avert my attention from him I eventually look back and he has the nerve to flash me a smile. I shoot him a look that I hope conveys the message of how dearly I want to castrate him right here in the middle of the gallery.

Samson is studying David who still hasn’t taken his eyes off me. I think there might have been a small awkward pause but I’m too focused on David and his shimmery black hair to even know what is happening.

‘…and you two already know each other?’ Samson eventually asks.

‘We do,’ David answers, breaking our gaze without hesitation.

The fact that this disappoints me for even a second makes me boil with rage. More at myself than David. But actually, also a lot at David.

‘We used to share a flat in Greenwich,’ he says, ‘Lovely place. You know, I even met the bloke who lives there now the other day at Costa. We just got to talking about cricket and he mentions that his place looks onto a cricket club and turns out, it’s the very same flat! Isn’t that a coincidence?’

I feel my fists clench. Is he fucking kidding me?

Samson and the other suits are nodding interestedly at this little tale but I can’t even bring myself to fake a smile. Is that really how he’s going to sum up our near two-year relationship? “We used to share a flat”. That’s it? Like I was merely a flatmate he’d picked up in the classifieds? And then to seem more concerned with talking about meeting the random guy who lives there now, as if that’s more important than explaining to these people that we were in a committed domestic relationship for two years and then one day you decided to run off with the Pamela Anderson of marketing research, who probably lacks a real brain but makes up for it with not-so-real breasts?

David turns to me. ‘So how have you been, Nat? I can’t believe it’s been so long since we’ve seen each other. How was New York?’

‘How do you know I went to New York?’ I snap defensively.

I had really hoped David wasn’t aware that I’d taken off to New York because I was so traumatized by our break up.

‘I bumped into Connor at…well, can’t quite remember where it was to be honest…but he told me you were spending your last year of uni abroad in some really renowned art program, run by one of Warhol’s protégé’s or something.’

I don’t think I’ve ever loved Connor so much in my entire life. That he would lie for me like that and not even mention it (not even to Becca, who would have told me) makes me want to propose marriage to him on Becca’s behalf. Never again will I make fun of his funny last name or his Tommy Bahamas shirts or his bifocal-spectacles-not-glasses.

‘Oh yeah,’ I say nonchalantly, ‘he may have mentioned that, not too sure. But yeah, that’s where I’ve been the last year. New York. The Big Apple. The concrete jungle…city…that never sleeps…’

Ok, I need to get a grip on life or shut up altogether. It has to sound like the most fabulous year of my life and not one spent moping over him. I think about where to begin.

Convent living? My pals Mao Tung and Mao Ling? Christmas spent in the dormitory common area with Becca, the floor prefect Gonzo, a fig pudding, and a CD of Christmas carols by Elvis? The time I mistakenly thought I saw Brooke Shields in a pastry shop and ended up having to listen to a woman (who actually looked nothing like Brooke Shields) give me a fifteen minute long sales pitch for Chanel makeup, only to tell her I couldn’t afford anything she had just mentioned? Or perhaps how none of my relatives bothered to visit me for the entire year? And how I was so angry at my parents for that, that I refused to accept any of their charity money and had to buy a winter coat with money from my university meal plan?

There’s a lot of riveting stuff there that I could mention. What I really want to do is say something super shocking and badass like, ‘You know what, David? I’m about to light this place up like it’s the fifth of fucking November.’ Except, you know, a version that’s actually appropriate within the context of our conversation.

I go with the standard response. ‘New York was wonderful,’ I say, ‘I felt just like one of the girls on Sex and the City. It was such a great experience and really changed my whole outlook on art and culture. I just got back a few days ago and was very disappointed to leave.’

Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

David watches me carefully, clearly trying to decide if I’m telling the truth or not. The nerve of this guy! Thinking he can still read me like a book after a year. Well, I’ve changed a lot and I am not going to allow him to get inside my head.

‘Glad to hear you enjoyed yourself,’ he says, still eyeing me, ‘and I’m sure I speak for everyone when I say we’re glad to have you back in England.’

‘It’s good to be home,’ I agree, ‘I have a great new flat and a great new job.’ I flash a sweet smile at Samson. ‘And I’m seeing someone.’

Fuck. That last part just slipped out. I really hadn’t planned for that.

‘Really? You are?’ David asks and the sound of genuine shock in his voice really rubs me the wrong way, ‘After three days?’

Damn, that’s right. I just got back from New York on Friday and it’s only Monday. Fuck again.

‘Yes, well, he was staying in New York for a few months so we started things up there, and now we’re both back in London so we’re just going to pick right back up,’ I say, using the only thing I can come up with in 0.2 seconds.

David nods. ‘Anyone I know?’

‘Probably not,’ I say quickly.

I really wish he would stop asking questions about my non-existent boyfriend because I’m not sure how quick on my toes I can be and still come up with a believable story. I’ve really dug myself a dirty ditch this time. Why am I such a moron?

‘Try me,’ says David, a smirk tugging at his lips, ‘Maybe it’ll be a coincidence, like me meeting the bloke in our old flat.’

I feel my palms get sweaty again. This couldn’t be any worse. Think, Natasha, think, think, think.

‘Thomas Davison,’ I blurt out, surprised by my own candid memory of his full name. Then I add, ‘he’s in fitness.’

So this is good. I am now dating a man I haven’t even met. And, from the looks of it, a man I will have to force to date me once I do meet him so I can keep up with my own pathological web of lies.

If it had been a personified version of my own life I had been speaking to, then it definitely would have been appropriate to say, ‘I’m about to light this place up like it’s the fifth of fucking November,’ thanks to my PE4 level of deceit. Sorry, Life, but I've lit the match. You may or may not exist anymore.