Woman Walks into a Bar Read Free Page B

wheezy . . .”
    â€œWell, stop standing around gossiping and get on with it then, all right? This is not a holiday camp!” We watched her arse wobble as she marched off toward canned goods.
    â€œLook, just be there tonight, OK?” Joy said. “You’ll be glad that you did.” She was smiling again.
    I thought for a moment. If it wasn’t any of the people I didn’t want it to be, then there was a chance, a small chance, that it might be Brendan.
    Beth’s always telling me that if I start thinking good things will happen to me, then they will. She says, “There’s no point in moaning about not winning the lottery, Mum, when you don’t ever buy a ticket. You can’t expect the right bloke just to turn up right under your nose. You have to go out and find him. You have to take chances.”
    It probably wouldn’t be Brendan that I was going to meet as my blind date in the bar tonight. But there was a chance it might be. A chance worth taking.
    â€œAll right,” I said, finding myself smiling as the butterflies kicked off in my guts again. “Why not?”
    â€œHooray!” Marie cheered quietly, as she slotted her pen into the top of her clipboard. “And at least he’s got to be better than that twat you met at Roxy’s,” she said.
    â€œOh, yeah?” I asked. “Why?”
    â€œHe’s not married,” she said.
    The One Who Was No Good for Any Woman Including His Wife
    I walked into the bar.
    I hadn’t been to Roxy’s in years. And now I remembered why. The thump of the music made my ears ring and the flash of the lights made me squint. I don’t know why this Graham had picked a nightclub on a Thursday night for us to meet. It was only just eight and the place was more or less empty. The air-conditioning made me get goose bumps on my arms and the dry ice made me cough. I unfolded the email that Beth had printed out for me with instructions on where we were to meet.
    â€œUpstairs in the booths,” it read. I looked at his photo. Even in the pulsing strobe lights he was pretty good looking. Beth had written out a joke underneath the photo.
    What does Dracula say to his victims?
    It’s been nice gnawing you!
    I smiled. The joke wasn’t funny. But Beth going to the trouble to do something to make me smile when I was feeling nervous made me happy. Sometimes I wondered how, despite every­thing, I had ended up with such a great kid.
    When I walked up the stairs, the noise of the music went down a little bit. All of the booths seemed to be empty, but I walked along the row from one to another until I found him, sitting in the corner. He had been watching himself in the mirrored wall and turned round when he saw my reflection.
    â€œThere you are,” he said. I wondered if he was talking to me or my chest.
    â€œHere I am,” I said, feeling nervous. “Ha ha.”
    He patted the seat next to him for me to sit down. I did. He pushed a drink toward me across the table. It was tall with lots of ice in it, a curly straw and an umbrella stuck in the top.
    â€œI got you a cocktail,” he said. “Sex on the Beach.” He looked pretty pleased with himself so I took a sip. It tasted of Ribena.
    â€œCheers,” I said.
    He looked at my chest again, and I began to wish that I hadn’t let Beth talk me into buying a new top.
    â€œYou can’t wear that old-lady stuff to a nightclub, Mum,” she’d said in Topshop. “How about this one? It’s on sale.”
    I hadn’t liked it because it was too tight and you could see the little lumps of fat that bulged out under my bra. But Beth said it was “way cool,” so I bought it.
    â€œTell me about yourself, Sam,” Graham said. I didn’t know what to say. No one had said that to me in years. Or maybe even ever.
    â€œNot much to tell,” I said, sucking the cocktail through the curly straw.