Loves Me, Loves Me Not. Romantic Association Novelist's
I suppose not.’ On the other hand, did I want to end up like Leonora?
‘Well, if you’re ever going to find someone suitable to settle down with, you’ll simply have to get men to take you more seriously.’
Men were a bit of a sore point. As Leonora pointed out, I’d never had anything approaching a long-term partner. My relationships, assuming they survived the first few dates, tended to degenerate, as she would put it, into friendship. I have a lot of really good friends who are men. They like the way I make them laugh and that they can talk to me as an impartial member of the female sex without feeling there’s any danger of things getting heavy between us.
‘And do you have someone in mind?’
‘I have, as a matter of fact. He’s called Patrick.’ There was an unexpected gleam in Leonora’s brown eyes which, in anyone else, might have been taken for lust. ‘He’s absolutely gorgeous, Gina! As soon as I saw him, I thought how perfect he’d be for you. I met him at Mike’s Christmas party.’
‘Oh. A lawyer, then.’
‘There’s nothing wrong with having a serious job.’ She frowned at my expression. ‘Mike says he’s very highly thought of by the firm. He’s well-spoken and intelligent, and really good-looking…’
‘And still unattached? He must be gay or have some weird personal habits.’
‘Of course he’s not gay!’ Leonora flushed at the idea of anything so unconventional. ‘As a matter of fact, he’s just come out of a relationship with a woman. Oh, well—’ she sighed, relieving me of my empty mug with a resigned air ‘—I had thought of inviting you both to dinner with some of Mike’s other colleagues but I suppose it wouldn’t work. You’re not serious-minded enough to attract someone like Patrick.’
‘Huh!’ Why should I be deprived of this paragon of manhood, just because I had a naturally light-hearted attitude to life? ‘I could be serious if I wanted.’
‘I don’t think so, Gina.’ Leonora considered me sadly. ‘You’re just not that sort of girl.’
I tried looking like that sort of girl. It meant screwing one’s mouth up into a line and sitting up straight in the chair with one’s feet neatly together.
‘Well, if you’re going to make silly faces…’
‘No, honestly! It just needs a bit of practice. Why don’t you ask Patrick round in, say, a month’s time? I’m sure I could become serious in a month.’
It turned out I had a week. After that the firm were sending Patrick to deal with a complicated case in York. Maybe it was the doubtful look she gave me that led me to assure Leonora that this wasn’t a problem.
It couldn’t be that difficult, surely? I had an expert coach and, under her strict supervision, I embarked on a regime of intensive training.
‘For heaven’s sake, don’t tell him where you used to work,’ she advised. ‘If anyone asks, you’re still with the building society. And you won’t mention that awful newspaper you take, will you?’
‘I only read it for the problem page,’ I protested. ‘That three-in-a-bed picture story last week raised a serious dilemma.’
Leonora’s derisive snort suggested she didn’t think so. ‘Make a note of some of the articles in this.’ She passed me their copy of the Guardian. ‘And try to remember your favourite programme is Panorama, not Celebrity Wife Swap.‘
‘Patrick had better be damn well worth it,’ I muttered under my breath.
‘He is, believe me.’
I turned up early, as instructed, on the Saturday evening, feeling like a boxer fully prepared for the big fight. Or perhaps I should say a racehorse ready for the National, because I fell at the first hurdle.
‘Good Lord, Gina, you’re not wearing that, are you?’ My trainer greeted me with a scowl.
‘They’re my best jeans.’
‘You can’t possibly wear jeans to a dinner party! Come upstairs. I’ll see if I can find you something of mine.’
My heart sank as I followed her. Keen though I was to look as serious and grown-up as Leonora, I simply could not see myself in her clothes. She opened the wardrobe and began to fling things on the bed.
‘Try this one.’
Unwillingly I took off my jeans and pulled on a long dark skirt. She handed me a long dark jumper to match.
To my surprise, it made me look slim and rather cultured. I turned this way and that to let the skirt swish and admired myself in the mirror.
‘And we must decide what to do about your hair.’
‘What’s wrong with my hair?’ I said defensively.
No one ever thinks they have a perfect body, do they? Even if I could have an inch or two miraculously removed from my hips and added to my bust, I’d probably still moan that my nose was too big. But I do like my hair. It’s a sort of dark gold, thick and wiry, and springs out of my head in a cheerful, unruly manner that used to drive the teachers mad at school.
‘It’s so…young-looking. You need to have it back from your face.’
‘Let me try one of your hairbands.’ This surely would be the transforming touch, the insignia that would turn me into Leonora.
It looked gross—a freaky Alice in Wonderland, high on something. I whipped it off again, deeply disappointed.
‘Let me have a go.’ Leonora started pulling my hair back, twisting it round her fingers and sticking grips in. She was doing it into a bun.
‘I hate it like that…’ But the words froze in my mouth. A complete stranger was beginning to face me. Ethereal, mysterious and very, very serious.
‘Take your make-up off,’ said Leonora.
With surprising skill she applied a touch of bronze to the outside of my lids and a hint of kohl underneath.
‘Pearls!’ I breathed. ‘I must have pearls.’
Leonora had pearls.
The effect was stunning. I opened my mouth and shut it again.
‘The kids want to kiss you goodnight…Bloody hell!’ Mike halted in the doorway, a child in each hand.
Jacyntha was the first to recover. ‘Gina looks like a mummy,’ she said uncertainly.
Tyrone’s face began to crumble. ‘I don’t like her!’ he wailed.
‘It’s her new serious image. Doesn’t she look lovely?’ Leonora glared at her husband and children. I stuck out my tongue at them as I glided through the door.
Patrick was the last guest to arrive and, although my heart beat faster when the bell rang, it was more the feeling of embarking on a driving test than the prospect of meeting someone Leonora described as gorgeous. Mike is a dear, but you wouldn’t exactly call him good-looking, and I’d no reason to think our tastes coincided in that any more than in everything else.
So I was absolutely floored when Leonora brought him into the room. ‘You all know Patrick, don’t you? Except Gina, I believe.’ And he turned out to be—well, gorgeous! He had dark curly hair, a curvy kissable mouth and what I might have sworn was a twinkle in those deep blue eyes, if I hadn’t known him to be a serious-minded lawyer.
He took my hand in a warm, enclosing grasp. ‘Pleased to meet you, Gina.’ And for one mad moment I wanted to make it the real me that Patrick was meeting. But then I remembered how a man like this was never going to be attracted to someone who greeted him with a silly joke about solicitors. He’d want an earnest, solemn sort of girl who took an interest in the important matters of the day.
‘How