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‘How am I qualified to help them when I can’t even help myself?’ I asked.
‘Seriously? I haven’t even had my morning latte and you’re throwing that conundrum at me?’
‘I don’t know what to do. I don’t know where to start. I don’t—’
She interrupted me with a sharp sigh. ‘Take a deep breath and calm down.’
I breathed in obediently.
‘Now, what exactly are you worried about?’
‘How am I supposed to match them? Where do I start? Should I be using psychological profiling? Astrology? Cosmopolitan’s latest compatibility quiz?’
‘Or what? Adding up the letters in his name and hers like we did at school?’ She laughed. ‘Come on, we all know none of that rubbish works.’
I scratched my head. ‘Well, according to the most recent studies, psychological profiles are good indicators of compatibility.’
‘According to whom? Those who commissioned them, I assume. Look, I think you’re overcomplicating things. No need to reinvent the wheel. Why not stick with what’s worked for centuries?’
‘Which is what exactly?’ I asked.
‘I don’t know, rich men and pretty girls. That seems successful.’
I laughed. ‘Yeah, for the divorce lawyers.’
‘You have to give people what they want.’
I sighed. ‘What if what they want isn’t good for them?’
‘It rarely is.’
‘And what about the men who aren’t rich or the girls who aren’t so pretty?’
She laughed. ‘Leave that to Darwinism.’
I huffed. ‘That theory suits you.’
‘It suits mankind,’ she replied. ‘Anyway, I’ve got to go now. Some of us have proper jobs. But remember you’re selling a dream, not reality.’
Following a gentle reminder that the Dior shoe-buying department would never lead the world to peace, I hung up the phone and considered what she had said. If true love was a dream, then what was reality? Disillusioned brides and philandering grooms? Or if Cordelia was right and natural selection would favour the richest men and the prettiest girls, then what would happen to the rest of us? Would we fade to extinction? Nature, it appeared, was already trying to phase out asymmetrical nasal hair.
I knew my doubts shouldn’t dissuade me from taking action so I went on to email everyone whose card I’d collected with a light-hearted, ‘meet me for a drink, no obligation’ kind of invite. Matthew emerged from his room rubbing his eyes, hair upright on his head like he’d slept in a high voltage chamber.
‘What is that?’ he asked, looking down at the cards on the table. ‘Some kind of corporate snap? Is this what you’ve been doing all night?’
I peeled myself off the sofa. ‘Cuppa?’
He nodded and picked up a card.
When I walked into the kitchen, the morning rays sliced through the blind, as though desperate to shed some light on the situation.
‘Don’t match Teresa with Patrick Greene,’ he shouted after me.
I switched on the kettle wondering what he was on about.
‘Teresa Greene. Trees are green,’ he explained when I returned.
I rolled my eyes. ‘I hope to find them more than just a socially acceptable name,’ I said. I snatched the card from his hand and replaced it with his Dennis the Menace mug. I looked at Dennis then back at Matthew, then back at Dennis. Matthew patted down his hair, but as soon as he removed his hand, it sprang back up.
‘So what happens next?’ he asked.
‘They meet me for a drink and a chat about what they’re looking for. Then I match them.’
‘And then?’
‘Everyone lives happily ever after.’
He nodded his head from side to side as though he were weighing up his left and right brain. ‘How are you going to match them?’
‘They tell me what they want and I give it to them.’
He scrunched up his nose. ‘But most of us don’t actually know what we want. We just think we do.’
I sighed. ‘I’m not in the mood for one of your Marxist the-media-constructs-our-thoughts lectures.’
He continued. ‘Attraction is an entirely biochemical reaction set off by a combination of characteristics to which our genetic programming and social conditioning respond.’
‘And what’s wrong with that?’
‘It’s flawed. Look at the divorce rate.’
‘We don’t marry everyone we fancy.’
‘Thankfully.’
I glared at him. ‘There’s more to love than attraction. We aren’t robots driven by neurotransmitters and hormones. We have something called free will. We can think independently from our physical drives and conditioning.’
His full-body laugh caused him to spill tea all over the table. It quickly seeped onto the business cards. I dabbed them with my sleeve but, already, the corners had started to curl.
After Matthew had left for work, I looked back down at the cards and reshuffled them. Then I gazed out of the window at the sky, hoping to be the recipient of some kind of divine inspiration. But, instead, a bird dropping landed on the pane. I watched the greyish gloop slide down the glass, undigested berries lagging behind and I wondered if I too might have bitten off more than I could chew.
That evening, Cordelia had refused to come headhunting for clients again, complaining that her feet hurt, so I’d bribed my other friend Kat, to come instead. We’d settled the negotiation at five rose petal Martinis and a taxi ride home.
‘If we sieve through the hookers and the sugar daddies, I’m sure we’ll find some decent people here tonight,’ Kat observed, scanning the bar. We were at Zuma in Knights-bridge, a favourite with the ‘chilled-out jet-set crowd’, according to Harper’s magazine.
I took in the chic minimalist interior and smoothed down my dress, trying to act as though it had been thrown on nonchalantly, rather than the result of three hours of unsatisfactory pontification. Kat leant over the glass bar, her red Gucci dress nipped in at the waist and plunging at the neckline. Three barmen leapt towards her, their attention darting between her Bambi-brown eyes and her perfectly plumped cleavage.
‘We need some cocktails,’ she declared, pushing her sleek dark bob behind her ears.
Following a flamboyant display of glass juggling, and some kind of cocktail shaker courtship dance, eventually we were presented with two rose petal Martinis. The baby-faced barman grinned victoriously. He leant over the bar and kissed Kat on the lips.
I pulled her back. ‘Kat.’
‘What?’ she asked, grinning.
I shook my head. ‘I’d prefer us to focus on the men who’ve actually gone through puberty.’
She threw a glance over her shoulder and then strode towards a table of businessmen who appeared to be engaged in a serious takeover-bid-type conversation. When she reached the table, her presence diverted their concentration like a resistor in a circuit. Once she’d delivered her opening line, they all laughed and the best-looking one pulled up a chair for her to join them.
Watching from the bar, and sipping my Martini, I wondered where Kat’s self-assurance came from. Was it lots of cuddles as a child? Or perhaps, as once discussed during an especially interesting episode of Dr Phil, it was a pseudo-esteem masking a deeper insecurity and a need for external validation. Maybe it was simply that big boobs and a pretty face were so well received that the usual fears of rejection and public humiliation weren’t there.
Dragging myself away from my appallingly amateur psychoanalysis, I decided that confidence was something I would have to fake, at least until I’d figured out how to source it naturally. I took a gulp of the Martini and then sidestepped towards a group of girls.
They had long legs, dark hair and tanned skin and looked as though they were the result of some kind of accelerated breeding programme between Megan and Stephen whom I’d met the night before. I smiled at the one nearest to me. She sucked on a pink straw protruding from a fussy cocktail and eyed me up suspiciously.
‘Are you a journalist?’ she asked between sucks.
‘No.’ I laughed. ‘What makes you think that?’
‘You look like one.’
I glanced down at my black dress and then back at her. Once I’d worked my way up the seemingly endless legs protruding from tiny leather hot pants, my eyes lingered on her chest, braless and buoyant under a cream silk camisole.
She glared at me. ‘What do you want?’
Her features, enhanced to cartoonish proportions, reminded me of a creature from Avatar.
‘I’m headhunting,’ I said.
The rest of the girls’ necks swivelled towards me. ‘You’re a model scout?’ one of them asked.
I shook my head.
‘Party promoter?’
I shook my head again, suspecting the truth might be a tremendous disappointment. ‘I’m looking for single girls who want to meet eligible men.’
When I’d explained my plans to unite lonely hearts across the globe, the girl next to me flicked a mane of hair extensions over her shoulder.
‘We only date footballers,’ she said.
I stepped back. I’d read about girls like her in gossip magazines. There might have been one on Dr Phil too. I was intrigued.
‘Why?’ I asked.
She stared at me in disbelief, as though I’d just told her I’d never watched Big Brother.
‘Der, because they earn £150k per week and I’m on £7.99 an hour.’
She went on to proudly list the benefits of her past encounters with Premier League players, which included but was by no means exclusive to: designer clothing, cosmetic surgery, jewellery allowance, provision of luxury accommodation, sports car, private-clinic abortions and a six-figure pay-off at the end. It sounded more like a job than a relationship. I’d also noted that out of the men she’d named, most were married.
‘Why do you date the married ones?’ I asked, less to highlight the moral issue, which I suspected wasn’t a concern, but more to question the real purpose.
She laughed. ‘It’s not like we expect them to leave their wives.’
‘Well what’s the point, then?’
‘Once you’re in with the footballers, sometimes they pass you on to their teammates, the ones who aren’t married.’
‘They’re like matchmakers too,’ the only blonde in the group chipped in with a beaming smile.
‘Or pimps?’ I suggested.
‘Hey!’ Kat interrupted as she bounded up to me, and began theatrically fanning herself with a handful of business cards. ‘Check these out.’
She thrust them in my hand and then opened her bag to reveal dozens more.
‘Am I done now?’ she asked, glancing over her shoulder. I followed her gaze and saw the underage barman grinning widely, as though his expression had been fixed since Kat’s kiss. ‘His shift finishes soon. Can I?’
‘Okay. Go on then,’ I said, checking my watch. ‘I suppose I could do with an early night.’
The blonde girl looked at me, then back at the other girls and then back at me. ‘Want to come with us?’ she asked and the rest of the group nodded vaguely.
Once we were in the taxi, the girl in the hot pants, who I now knew was named Carmen, explained more about the party.
‘You only get invited if you’re in with the promoters,’ she said, checking her make-up in a compact mirror.
‘And they only invite girls from agencies,’ another girl added.
‘What agencies?’ I asked.
‘You know, for glamour models, promo girls, dancers,’ Carmen said.
The blonde girl, who I would later learn was Kerri, smiled. ‘They want pretty bubbly girls there.’
‘Bubbly?’ I asked.
‘You know: fun, social.’
I rolled my eyes. ‘I don’t suppose they invite the wives or girlfriends?’
They laughed.
‘So,’ I said, ‘if you win the hand of a Premier League prince, would you let him come to these parties?’
Suddenly their faces contorted as though I’d suggested one of them don a boiler suit.
When we arrived, I noticed there were no men in the queue, which snaked for a mile around the block, but the girls were huddled together in the line, shivering in the skimpy clothing that was required to gain entry. Boobs were hoisted up, squeezed together or spilling out. Skirts were sprayed on, tops were slashed at the sternum, and legs were elongated with six-inch heels. Every attribute was exploited to secure its maximum market value. Tonight, it was time to cash in their assets.
