A Brand New Me: The hilarious romantic comedy about one year of first dates. Shari Low
spray I bought you? And keep your mobile on. And remember to say what I told you right at the start. And remember, if you’re in a pub, don’t eat the peanuts–the bacteria will kill you. And…’
‘Have to go now, Stu. Bye-ee.’
‘Leni, LENI, LENI!!!!!’
I pressed the ‘end’ button on the phone and took a deep breath as I remembered my promise to Stu, extricated after he’d spent three hours lecturing me in person the night before.
‘Sorry, that was my big brother on the phone, he’s very protective. To be honest he’s been a bit unstable since they stripped him of his world kickboxing title after they discovered he was wanted for arms possession.’
I couldn’t believe the words were coming out of my mouth. My face was beaming and my left eye was doing the twitch thing that it always did when I was lying. I so, so wasn’t cut out for this.
I half-expected Harry to turn pale, hail a taxi and run while he still had his kneecaps. To his credit he didn’t seem too perturbed and breezed right over it.
‘Sorry I’m late,’ he apologised, ‘I had to wait in for the courier to bring the money and some forms to sign before I met you tonight, and he didn’t show up till after five. So…you said that I had to decide what we’d do?’
‘That’s right,’ I agreed. Okay, in that last sentence he’d apologised for something that wasn’t his fault and sought reassurance on the night ahead–didn’t that demonstrate a little insecurity? Perhaps I could tick serial killer off the list.
‘And it should be something that I’d normally do when I take a bird out?’
I nodded again. ‘Absolutely. Just be yourself.’ Tweet.
‘Are there, like, secret cameras following us or anything?’ he asked, looking around nervously.
‘No,’ I reassured him, ‘it’s just me. But I can’t be sure my brother isn’t hiding behind a lamppost.’
His eyebrows shot up and he scoured the street to the left and right.
‘Kidding!’ Awareness alert–save terrifying jokes until you have a better understanding of his personality.
Right, it was time to get this going–I’d stood on a pavement corner for long enough. I was cold, I was hungry, and although meeting Harry face-to-face had taken my anxiety levels down from ‘potentially fatal’ to a manageable ‘hating every minute of this’, I was still desperately in need of some Châteauneuf du Dutch Courage.
‘So, Harry, what’s the plan? Where are we going?’ Assertiveness, showing interest, encouraging personal expression: thanks to a stressful afternoon swotting over A One Way Ticket to Successful Dating, I knew I was displaying three of the ten essential skills for a successful night.
‘Well, if it’s honestly all down to me…’
‘It is,’ I reassured him (number four–reassurance).
‘Then I’m taking you somewhere that you’ll have an absolute blast!’
A blast.
At least he got that bit right.
Bang!
Everyone in the room cowered in mortal fear as the killer paused on his lethal mission. We’d already watched him shoot three unarmed men, and countless others lay dead as a result of the grenade that he’d used to announce his arrival. Now he’d run out of bullets and had stopped to reload. One desperate man tried to take the opportunity to escape, but he was too slow. The maniac took aim and fired, sending another victim to the morgue. Silence again while he watched. Waited. Poised and ready to continue his manic spree.
‘Can you pass me my Diet Coke, Leni–can’t take my eyes off this cos the SAS will storm in any minute now.’
I reached over for his can, sitting on a nearby ledge next to mine. There was a sudden thunderous noise–nope, not a crack team of special forces making their entrance, just my stomach rumbling, reminding me that it was 11 p.m. and I still hadn’t eaten. The Twix from the vending machine hadn’t quite filled the meal-sized hole.
Three hours after I’d met Harry and what had I learned? I now knew that there was a giant amusement arcade in London’s West End. I realised that standing for long periods of time in high-heeled boots led to the kind of discomfort that required painkillers and a foot spa. I had been educated in the fields of mass murder, unarmed combat, battle strategies and simulated cage fighting. And I had a sneaking suspicion that there was a very good reason as to why Harry was still single.
Still, at least I wasn’t alone. I was sharing this special night with around one hundred teenage boys, several security guards and a large party of Japanese tourists.
I vaguely remembered a similar night somewhere in my dating past–but then I had been fourteen and had to be home before my ten o’clock curfew or my dad would confiscate my Boyzone DVDs.
Apparently, Harry’s post-pubescent self was still alive and well and intent on rivalling the death toll of a Third World despot before the night was out.
I blamed myself for not objecting to Harry’s plans.
Actually, I didn’t–I blamed Zara bloody Delta for landing me in this in the first place.
On the plus side: all feelings of anxiety had now been squashed by the realisation that Harry wasn’t going to judge me, scare me or drag me into a candle-lit basement and mutilate me in some kind of Satanic ritual. On the downside: I’d just wasted a whole night of my life that I could have spent engaged in educational, humanitarian pursuits–like watching Horatio in CSI Miami catch bad guys by putting his sunglasses on and taking them off in a brooding manner.
I hadn’t sat down, I hadn’t eaten, I hadn’t laughed, I hadn’t flirted and I hadn’t had a single conversation of note with my prospective suitor. Instead, I’d stood beside him and watched as he played arcade games for approximately–I checked my watch–195 minutes. Harry, on the other hand, had run the full gamut of emotions–he’d been joyful, sad, ecstatic, furious, determined, triumphant and homicidal.
‘Shit!’ he exclaimed, throwing down the life-size AK-47 and taking the cola from my hand, ‘outnumbered–sixteen SAS–didn’t stand a chance.’
Oh, I hate it when that happens.
‘Want to go for a burger? I’ve still got twenty quid left.’
What does it say about my life that right there, right then, that felt like the best offer I’d had in weeks?
We went off to the nearest junk-food emporium and he treated me to a double bacon cheeseburger.
Harry dumped the tray on the table. ‘You know, I’ve had a really good time tonight–you’re really easy to talk to,’ said the man who had been responsible for eradicating several thousand people from the face of the earth while barely saying two words to me.
‘Er, thanks.’
‘And it’s great the way that you got into the whole arcade thing. Most chicks don’t even give it a chance. They don’t know what they’re missing.’
Torture. Death. Blood. Gore. Guts. Armageddon.
‘So what’s all this about, then, this dating experiment?’
I shrugged my shoulders. ‘Not sure. I just work for Zara, and all I know is that she’s writing some kind of relationship book and I’m helping out with research.’
‘So you’re not actually single and looking for someone then?’
‘I am. I mean, I’m