The Accidental Honeymoon. Portia MacIntosh
I call back.
‘You said “come in”,’ he replies. ‘I…’
He falls silent the second he lays eyes on me.
‘I said “coming”,’ I say softly, attempting to bury my probably very red face in the desk.
‘What’s… er…’
The porter is clearly lost for words.
‘I’m stuck,’ I tell him simply.
He rushes over and pulls the desk out from in front of the wall. I free my hand before snatching the vibrator, turning it off and quickly grabbing the bed sheets to save me any further embarrassment – as though that might be possible.
‘“Come in”, “coming” – I guess it’s the accent,’ he says awkwardly. He glances around the room, taking stock of all the alcohol, junk food and sex aids scattered around. Having just seen me bent over the desk in my underwear, trying to retrieve a loudly buzzing vibrator, I can only imagine what he’s thinking. ‘Erm, anyway, I have some good news. I know you said everything with the room was fine. Anyway, I don’t know if that’s good old English manners or what, but I told the manager something wasn’t right and he asked me to give you this voucher for a fully comped three-course meal in our restaurant tonight, for you and your fiancé – and a bottle of champagne for now.’
He smiles widely and theatrically.
‘Thank you so much,’ I reply, touched by his gesture. I tighten the bed sheets around my body – lest he see me in my underwear again – before taking the vouchers in one hand and the champagne in the other. I place them down on the desk before wrapping my arms around my body self-consciously.
‘And here are some chips – on the house. We wish you and your fiancé the best of luck in our casino.’
I take the chips from him. As I glance down at the numbers, I realise I’m holding $1,000 worth of chips.
‘Thank you.’
‘Are you having your champagne now, or are you waiting until your fiancé gets here?’ he asks.
‘Oh, now,’ I reply, a little quicker and more keenly than I probably should have.
‘Would you like me to pour it for you?’ he asks, although I can tell he wants to get out of this room just as much as I want him to.
‘It’s fine, thank you. I can handle things from here,’ I reply.
‘I’m sure you can,’ he replies – probably sarcastically. ‘Well, I promise not to bother you again in another ten minutes.’ Bloody hell, is that all it was?! ‘Is there anything else I can help you with?’
‘No, thank you,’ I reply. ‘Actually, yes, wait…’ I call after him. ‘I blocked my toilet.’
Trust is a funny, fragile thing. You know what they say about trust? How it’s hard to gain, easy to lose and impossible to win back? There’s a lot of truth in this. We take our time getting to know potential partners, holding back from fully handing ourselves over to them until we feel as confident as we possibly can that they won’t break our hearts. And then, if they do… well good luck trying to have a healthy relationship after that because those things can never be mended – least of all by the people who broke them. Even when it comes to friends, we don’t trust them immediately. We wait until we’ve achieved expert-level BFF status before we share our deepest and darkest secrets with them.
Yes, trust is hard to earn… unless you’re a hairdresser. A hairdresser is basically a very cheap therapist who can somehow simultaneously solve your problems while telling you exactly what you want to hear to feel better, and they can give you a self-esteem boost not even the most talented, most qualified therapist could achieve.
The hotel salon is exactly like every other salon I’ve ever been in. The decor is modern, the lighting is kind, the music is whatever is in the charts – playing a little too loudly, but it’s being drowned out by the usual hairdresser chatter.
One of the girls who works here is telling the room she’s worried her boyfriend might leave her.
‘Have you tried talking to him?’ one customer with rollers in her hair asks.
‘A little, but you know what men are like,’ she replies. ‘He’s always been quiet, not really into sharing feelings.’
A heavily pregnant hairdresser chimes in: ‘You can’t just ask men questions and expect answers, everyone knows that.’
As she says this, she gesticulates a little too wildly for my liking, given she’s working with scissors so close to a lady’s eyes.
‘So, what do I do?’ the girl asks.
The pregnant lady is probably the oldest stylist here – probably only in her mid thirties, but she seems like the mother hen of the place. I scoot forwards on my seat a little, ready to listen to her advice.
‘I’ll tell you exactly what you do,’ she starts. ‘Go to the store, buy a pregnancy test, bring it here – I’ll pee on it for you – then take it to him and see what he says. If he’s a good man, he’ll stand by you. If not, you’re better off without him.’
I don’t know what I find more alarming – that this lady is willing to give her pee to anyone who wants it to manipulate their man, or that no one else seems to find this advice weird.
The girl with the problem nods thoughtfully.
‘You think you’ve got problems,’ the lady with the rollers starts, ready to one-up the girl with boy problems. ‘Eighteen years I’ve been with my lousy husband and he forgets our anniversary.’
Her strong New York accent commands the room, and suddenly her problems take precedence.
Pregnant hairdresser thinks thoughtfully, tapping her comb on her pursed lips.
‘No sex,’ she concludes. ‘It’s the only way to teach him a lesson.’
‘Honey, didn’t you hear me? I said we’d been married eighteen years. We don’t have sex!’ she replies with a cackle.
In the mirror in front of me, I see the lady behind me twirl around in her chair.
‘This is men for you,’ she shrugs, her French accent strong, but her English perfect. ‘My boyfriend, he just gambles all the time, he has no time for me. Right now he is in the casino and he thinks that he can just give me money, send me here, and it will be fine. It’s not fine.’
‘No, it’s not,’ Liv, the lady who is about to do my hair, agrees.
We all live thousands of miles apart, but we all have the same stupid man problems. That said, I think I can top all of them. In the age-old words of the internet: hold my beer – or my third glass of complimentary champagne, more accurately.
‘I caught my fiancé cheating on me,’ I say quietly. ‘Literally, like I walked in on him doing it. With his assistant.’
For the first time since I arrived, no one is saying anything. Nothing but the whirr of a hairdryer and the dulcet sound of Justin Bieber’s latest hit can be heard. Then the responses come all at once. Gasps, expletives and questions from all angles.
‘His assistant?’ Liv shrieks.
I nod.
No one ever really stops and thinks about what they’d do if their significant other cheated on them, do they? No one has a contingency plan in place, in case of adultery. Some might say cheating is cheating, whereas others might see the difference between a drunken one-nighter and full-blown affair. Not only was my fiancé stone-cold sober, but he was at it in my bed – probably still warm from my getting out of it.
‘What happened?’ Liv enquires