The Single Girl’s To-Do List

Bungee jumping. Really? I was beginning to doubt the legitimacy of the list.

‘I’m supposed to get over a lifelong fear of heights and do a bungee jump within two weeks?’ I dropped my head onto the table. Ew. Sticky. ‘This is hard.’

‘It’s not meant to be easy.’ Matthew pulled my head up by my ponytail. ‘It’s meant to teach you what you’re capable of.’

‘I thought it was meant to be fun?’

‘It will be fun,’ they chorused.

Me plus heights did not equal fun. It equalled the need for adult nappies and therapy. I couldn’t even go on the rides at Alton Towers without being drunk first. Which, incidentally, it turns out they frown upon. Nothing like throwing up on Oblivion to find out you’re not allowed to bring alcohol into an amusement park.

‘And you’ll be a billion times stronger for it afterwards,’ Em said. ‘Besides, you’re the one who said you wanted to get it all done by your dad’s wedding, not us.’

My dad’s fourth wedding was coming up in two weeks and I needed a date. There was no way I was going on my own so that my evil Aunt Beverley could ask me where my boyfriend was then go on to tell me all about my cousin’s three fabulous children. I was certain she was the one who had told my grandmother on her deathbed that I was a lesbian. But I’d applied that timeframe on the second draft of the list when it still included ‘wear high heels every day for a month’ and ‘learn to cook’, not when it involved me risking my life for my friends’ amusement. Maybe it would be easier just to rent a male prostitute for the wedding. Maybe we’d fall in love. Maybe it would be a wonderful story to tell our children. Maybe I’d catch something dreadful from him and I’d never be able to actually have children. Hmm. Might just stick with the list.

‘Whatever, number four?’

‘That’s a perfect one actually,’ Emelie said. ‘Find a date for your dad’s wedding. Let’s get you right back out there.’

I had sort of been planning on asking Photographer Dan to do the deed but I let her add it to the list. It had taken an entire packet of Kettle Chips to bargain her down from anonymous sex with a stranger to a date with no required physical contact, so I was just going to shut up. It would still count if it was Dan, wouldn’t it? It would still technically be a date to the wedding.

‘Number five. Do something he wouldn’t approve of,’ Em declared. ‘And you can’t double up on activities so the bungee jump can’t count as something he wouldn’t approve of. It has to be something totally different.’

‘I’m doubling the bungee jump up with number five, scare myself to death.’ I pouted for a moment. Simon wasn’t a big rules and restrictions kind of a boyfriend. If anything, he was too lazy to try to stop me doing anything, and there wasn’t anything I’d ever wanted to do so badly that I’d have tested that. Except …

‘I want to get a tattoo,’ I took the napkin and added it to the list. ‘Simon hated tattoos. I worked with this model once and she had this gorgeous cherry blossom thing up her back and ever since then I’d always wanted one but I never got one in case he didn’t like it.’

‘See? This is such a good idea.’ Matthew raised his glass with more success than Emelie before writing ‘tattoo’ on the napkin. ‘Congratulations, you’re getting a tattoo.

‘Six,’ he shouted. We were so embarrassingly drunk for the middle of the afternoon. Sod it: I’d had a very bad day. ‘Buy yourself something obscenely expensive and selfish.’

‘Like a Vespa scooter you drive once?’ I asked as innocently as possible. My hair felt heavy. I needed to stop drinking.

‘Exactly like a Vespa scooter you drive once. I don’t feel guilty. Think about all the money you’re saving in birthday and Christmas presents. And trips to see his shitty family. Wedding presents for his shitty friends. You’re completely entitled to buy something that benefits no one but you in the aftermath of a break-up.’

‘Can I buy myself something too?’ Em asked.

‘No,’ Matthew replied. ‘You’re already utterly selfish.’

‘Moving on,’ I said quickly. ‘What else?’

‘I still think you need to write the letter.’ Em was too drunk to care about Matthew’s insults at this point. Thank god. ‘I know we took it off the last draft but I think it’s a good idea. It’s closure.’

‘Fine,’ I waved my hands in defeat. ‘I’ll write the bloody letter.’ I really didn’t want to do this one. Why spend a perfectly good evening stirring up exactly what the rest of the list was trying to suppress? I was supposed to be getting over Simon, not sobbing into a piece of Basildon Bond over how he didn’t love me any more. But if it was on the list, it was happening. ‘But I get to pick the next one. I want to travel.’

‘You can have that.’ Em stood up suddenly and not at all steadily. ‘I need a wee.’

‘That’s nice,’ Matthew took back the pen as she climbed out from her spot at the back of the table with all the grace of a drunken giraffe and wandered off across to the bar. ‘You can have travel but you have to go somewhere you’ve never been before. Where do you want to go?’

‘Can we have this as one of the slightly vague ones?’ Names upon names of places tumbled through my mind. There were so many places. ‘I only have two weeks after all. And I’m guessing Milton Keynes won’t count.’

‘You’ve got to use your passport,’ he replied. ‘That’s the only stipulation. Got to get the stamp in your passport.’

Throwing myself out of a plane to my inevitable squishy death was one thing but travelling somewhere that required a passport inside two weeks? That was ridiculous. And sort of exciting …’ How am I supposed to manage that?’ I challenged, hoping he had a viable suggestion that didn’t involve us waking up drunk on a ferry to Norway.

‘I don’t know, can’t you get a job abroad or something?’ he shrugged. ‘Travelling isn’t hard.’

The truth was, I’d been passing up international jobs for so long that my long-suffering and foul-mouthed agent, Veronica, had stopped putting me forward for them. It wasn’t as if there was a lack of work or lack of demand for my talents (no point being modest, I was drunk), but I hated to be away from home when Simon was alone. Which seemed really quite stupid now. Maybe I could put in a call. Couldn’t hurt.

‘I thought of one while I was in the lav,’ Em yelled with delight, and threw herself across Matthew to get to her seat. ‘You need to buy a vibrator.’

Despite how red my cheeks already were from All The Booze, I felt myself colour up from head to toe. How did she know I didn’t have one already?

‘How do you know she doesn’t have one already?’ Matthew asked. Part of me was delighted that he’d read my mind, but part of me was just sort of shocked he hadn’t passed out with shame. He must be more drunk than I could tell.

‘Trust me,’ Em shook her head. ‘She doesn’t. You don’t, right?’

‘It’s not going on the list,’ I said. ‘It’s not. Going. On. The list.’

‘Then you pick one,’ she slumped back in her chair. ‘I’m out of ideas. Or drunk. Or drunk and out of ideas.’

I knew she was still sulking about not getting rebound shag on there, but there was no way I was writing that down. I wanted to show willing but I didn’t want to have to drop my knickers for some random. In fact, I was fairly certain that there was going to be no knicker-dropping for some time. God, this was getting depressing. Maybe I should reassess my need for a vibrator.

‘How about contact my first crush?’ I suggested. ‘That might be a fun one. There was this boy I was totally in love with when I was fifteen and then he moved away. That would be a learning experience, wouldn’t it?’

Em was still pouting but Matthew looked interested. ‘I like it,’ he declared after a couple of sips of wine. ‘Sort of like coming full circle. Show that there was life before knob-face and that there will be life after.’

‘I think it’s lame,’ Emelie said, but it was too late. It was on the list.

‘So,’ Matthew was counting on his fingers. ‘We have makeover, exercise, bungee jump – or similar, tattoo, date for the wedding, buy something obscene that isn’t a vibrator, write a letter to knob-face—’

‘Do we have to keep calling him that?’

‘Yes,’ they said simultaneously.

‘Buy something, travel somewhere you’ve never been before, hunt down your first crush—’

‘And give him one.’

I spat a mouthful of wine across the table.

‘Emelie, you’re not helping.’ Matthew looked appalled. ‘And that’s nine.’

‘It has to be ten,’ I said. ‘Can’t have nine.’

‘You are a mental OCD cow,’ he replied. ‘Fine. One more.’

We sat staring at each other around the table while my mind ticked over. Learn to play the guitar. Appear on a reality show. Swim with dolphins. Run the marathon. Date someone from each of the armed forces. Shag a boy in a band. Get a pet. Volunteer for a charity. Wow, I really was getting desperate. Before either Matthew or I could venture a suggestion, Emelie broke the silence.

‘Break the law,’ her eyes glittered. ‘You have to break the law.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous.’ I didn’t even look up from my lovely, lovely wine. ‘I’m not going to break the bloody law.’

‘Actually …’ Matthew said quietly.

‘Oh shut up,’ I gave him the look. ‘I’m not breaking the law. I have never broken the law. I don’t even go over the speed limit. You know this.’

‘Which is exactly why you’re going to do it,’ he said, adding it to the bottom of the napkin. ‘Amazing.’

‘I can’t believe you’re going along with this.’ I rubbed my eyes in disbelief. And to try and make them focus more clearly. ‘Seriously? Matthew?’

‘We’re on the verge of an all-new Rachel Summers,’ he replied, dramatically shaking the list to dry the not-even-slightly-wet ink. ‘Devil-may-care law breaker and international playgirl, Rachel Summers.’

‘Don’t forget the tattoos,’ I reminded him. ‘If I’m going to be crossing over to a life of crime, I’m going to need the prison tats.’

‘This is going to be so much fun.’ Emelie poked at the last surviving bag of crisps. ‘So. Much. Fun.’

I took the napkin from Matthew and studied it carefully before slipping it inside my bag. What was I signing up for?

‘For me or you?’

He looked at Em, who, with a little difficulty focusing, looked back.

‘Definitely us,’ he said, both of them nodding. ‘Definitely us.’

Once Emelie had finished drinking the last drops of wine directly out of the bottle, we agreed that was a sign it was time to leave. Helping each other out of our seats, I tried to stand as steadily as possible, walking in something akin to a straight line out of the pub, blinking into the late afternoon sunshine. I looked up at the sky, not quite understanding why it wasn’t dark. I’d been up for ages. It had been some time since I’d been this drunk in the day, but I had a horrible feeling that this was the beginning of something, rather than a one-off. I also had a horrible feeling that I was going to puke.

Against all odds, the three of us managed to stagger home in one piece and collapsed on the sofa. Within five minutes, Em and Matthew had passed out. I sat back in the middle of the sofa – Emelie snoring her head off on my shoulder, Matthew curled up against the arm, his feet in my lap – and stared into the mirror in front of me. Nothing had changed. The sofa was still red, my grandmother’s mirror still hung over the fireplace and the patch of damp in the corner of the room still needed taking care of. Nothing had changed but everything was different.

Easing myself out of the drunken BFF sandwich, I tiptoed into the kitchen to get some water. Glasses still in the cupboard, cold tap still not really cold enough. I drank one glass straight down, filled another and leaned against the kitchen counter. Everything had seemed OK in the pub. We had my list to think about, fish fingers to eat and, most importantly, wine to drink. But now I was home … now it was real. For some reason, I’d half expected Simon just to be lying on the sofa watching Final Score and eating Doritos like it was any other Saturday. But he wasn’t. The flat was empty. Just like it would be from now on. Almost as soon as the thought settled in my mind and the water had hit my stomach, I felt it coming right back up.

Thank god the flat was small enough for me to make it into the bathroom in time. There were very few things in life I disliked as much as throwing up, which was one of the reasons I really didn’t drink that much. Bracing myself against the sink, I washed my face and stared at my reflection in the mirror, trying to convince myself that the hot tears streaming down my face could be easily explained by the fact I’d just puked.

‘That’s it,’ I told myself quietly. I might be drunk at four on a Saturday afternoon but I didn’t really want anyone to hear me talking to myself. ‘No more tears.’

Granted, that was a statement that carried a lot more credibility on a bottle of Johnson & Johnson’s Baby Shampoo, but I had to make myself believe it. I was not going to waste any more tears on someone who had left me a note. I was not going to make myself sick over someone that thought five years could be written off in fewer than four sentences. I was not going to break my heart over someone who could break my heart and still think it was OK to take my toothpaste at the same time. I was done. Heading back into the living room, I curled up on the armchair and shook my head at Drunk and Drunker. It had been a hard day for the both, clearly. Trying not to wake them, I pulled the to-do list out of my bag and read it over again. I would never do any of these things. Never in twenty-nine years would I have considered any of them. I wasn’t the kind of girl who would do any of these things but I couldn’t help but wonder what kind of girl would.

And I couldn’t help but be a little bit excited to find out.

CHAPTER SIX

‘Morning.’

I rolled over to feel something soft on the other side of my bed.

‘I thought you said no same-sex experience on the list?’ Emelie mumbled.

‘If I went gay, it wouldn’t be with you,’ I replied.

Why was Emelie in my bed? Where was Simon? Why did my brain feel as if it had been taken out, tumble dried without so much as a sheet of Bounce and shoved back up my nose?

Oh.

Right.

‘It’s too early,’ I rolled back over and mumbled into my pillowcase. Maybe if I lay face down long enough, I’d smother myself into a coma. That would be a nice long nap, wouldn’t it? A lovely, lovely coma. Alternatively, I realized, opening my eyes, I should get up and be with other human beings as there was every chance I wasn’t terribly mentally stable. Wishing yourself into a coma isn’t usually A Good Thing. ‘I want a lie-in.’

‘It’s almost ten, that is a lie-in,’ Em said, bouncing up and off the bed like an Andrex puppy. ‘Today is the first day of your single life. That’s exciting. Get. Up.’

I felt the sunshine on my face and made a mental note to pick up some blackout curtains as soon as humanly possible. Silver lining number one.

‘I feel like shit.’ I pushed my legs over the side of the bed, hoping they would somehow catapult the rest of my body over there. ‘Is this part of being single?’

Em stretched and nodded. ‘We need to work on your alcohol tolerance. I’ll put the kettle on, see if he’s up.’

After passing out on the sofa, the rest of last night was a bit of a blur. I remembered waking up around seven, throwing up again, drinking tea, ordering a pizza and playing ‘guess who’s going to die?’ when Matthew turned on Casualty. Afternoon hangovers were the worst. Once it had been established that I wasn’t going to cry myself to sleep, Matthew and Em had allowed me to slope off to bed. Still, it made a change from my regular Saturday rituals of doing the washing, watching DVDs and going down to Pizza Express early enough to be home for Match of the Day.

Yawning, I combed my hair out of my face and tethered it behind my head. Was it weird that yesterday had probably been more fun than any other Saturday in years? Maybe fun wasn’t the right word. It was definitely the most interesting.

The hardwood floor in my bedroom was never warm, not even when the sun was streaming in, like it was this morning, but only one foot was cold as I forced myself to stand up. Glancing down, I saw that was because one foot was standing on something white. Something soft. I dropped back onto the bed, releasing the fabric. It was Simon’s T-shirt. It must have got thrown under the bed during our Friday night sexcapades. Closing my eyes, I held onto the worn cotton tightly and tried to breathe slowly. The main reason I hadn’t cried myself to sleep the night before was that I was just exhausted. My body’s first line of self-defence was to shut down and go to sleep, but that wasn’t an option today. I was going to have to do something.

‘Do you want shower or tea first?’ Em stuck her head round the door. ‘Matthew’s in there now but you can go next if you want?’

I shoved the T-shirt into my pillowcase and stood a bit too quickly. The afternoon hangover had definitely become a morning hangover, bleurgh.

‘Shower.’ I was desperate to get out of the room, to put some distance between me and that T-shirt. ‘Definitely shower.’

Sitting down and drinking tea would inevitably lead to conversation. Conversation would inevitably lead to talking about Simon. Talking about Simon would inevitably lead to my brain exploding. I needed a distraction. A six foot four gay man in a towel wasn’t quite what I was thinking about, but that was what I found in the living room. And I supposed it was technically a distraction. Just not as good a distraction as the other thing I found in the living room. My single girl’s to-do list.

‘Jesus, how much did we drink last night?’ Matthew pinched the bridge of his nose and leaned his wet hair back against the sofa. ‘Or, actually, all day? I haven’t felt this shit in ages.’

‘Apparently we need to build up our alcohol tolerance,’ I said, trying not to catch sight of myself in the mirror. The glimpse of the scarecrow-cum-crypt-keeper I’d got before I could avert my eyes was bad enough. ‘I don’t know how she does this.’

I picked up the knackered napkin and took a pit stop on the sofa beside Matthew. His skin was still hot from the shower and he smelled clean. I smelled like evil.

‘Planning your bungee jump?’ he asked, eyeing the list.

‘Maybe not today,’ I replied, considering each point. Hmm.

‘We really do have some bright ideas when we’ve had a drink, don’t we?’

Makeover. Exercise. Bungee jump. Tattoo. Date for the wedding.

‘Still, kept you from slitting your wrists – and, you know, avoiding that in the first twenty-four hours is pretty important.’

Buy something. Write a letter to your ex. Travel. Find your first crush. Break the law.

‘Are you safe in the shower this morning or do you need a buddy?’ Matthew was still talking. ‘I can see from here your legs need shaving and I don’t know if you’re safe with a blade.’

‘I’m safe,’ I promised, placing the list on the coffee table and heading purposefully into the shower. ‘Trust me.’

The mirror was still misty from Matthew’s shower – that boy was always in there for a lifetime, but one quick swipe with my hand revealed just how bad my situation was. Straw-like ponytail, dull skin, yesterday’s T-shirt. As a make-up artist, I was used to scrutinizing faces, looking at every different angle, settling for nothing less than perfection, but I never turned that same gaze on myself.

If I was being entirely objective, what did I see? My skin was grey and dull, my eyes red and swollen and the angles of my face were lost in the shadows of my hair. My hair … I would never let a model go on set looking this way. It was horrible. Awful. And Simon loved it. Suddenly I couldn’t bear the weight of it dragging me down for another second. Without one more look at the girl with the long blonde hair, I opened the bathroom cabinet, grabbed the scissors out of the first-aid kit and hacked away at the ponytail, right underneath the hair tie. When I looked back in the mirror, I had a pair of scissors in one hand and a two-foot-long ponytail in the other.

‘MATTHEW.’

‘What?’ He peeked through the door cautiously. ‘Are you naked? Is there a spider? Are you naked?’

I held up both hands as the ponytail holder slipped out of my newly bobbed hair and hit the floor. My new do fluttered defiantly above my shoulders. And not in a good way.

‘Oh sweet baby Jesus.’ Matthew slapped his hand over his mouth, eyes a mirror of mine. Wide, confused and slightly insane. ‘What have you done? EMELIE.’

I could feel my bottom lip starting to tremble but I couldn’t let go of the scissors or the hair. And now I’d turned away from the mirror, I didn’t dare look back.

‘I don’t know,’ I whispered. ‘Have I gone mad?’

‘It’s a bit Girl, Interrupted but it’s fine,’ he said, reaching out for the scissors. ‘Why don’t you give those to me, Angelina?’

‘Does it look awful?’ I already knew the answer to that.

‘Rachel,’ Emelie appeared behind Matthew. ‘Your hair.’

‘Looks great,’ Putting the scissors on the shelf, high out of my reach, Matthew took the poor ponytail out of my hand. ‘I’ll just, um, I’ll take this.’

‘I can’t go outside,’ I said in a tiny voice. I was too afraid to touch it, in case it fell out. ‘I look like a boy. Oh god, I look like Justin Bieber.’

‘He looks like a girl anyway,’ Em said, putting her arm around my shoulders in a gesture that was both supportive and, ingeniously, kept me away from the mirror. ‘It’s cute. Really. And you needed a change.’

‘I did need a change,’ I repeated. My head felt so light, as though it might float up off my shoulders and fly away. ‘It was on the list anyway.’

‘List?’ Em ran her fingers through the ends of my hair. ‘You did this because of the list?’

I nodded.

‘Riiiight,’ she tugged manically on Matthew’s sleeve.

‘Before you start bungee jumping off the roof, just shower, wash your hair and get dressed,’ Matthew commanded, patting Emelie’s arm. ‘It’s going to be OK.’

‘Yes, it’s going to be OK,’ Emelie agreed, poking the ends of my hair. ‘Actually, this will save us a lot of time on blow drying.’

Silver lining number two.

Once I’d showered, shampooed and stopped staring at myself in the mirror, I slipped into my fluffy towelling dressing gown and prepared myself for whatever intervention would be waiting for me in the living room. Matthew and Emelie were sitting silently on opposite ends of the sofa, the napkin from the night before in between them.

‘So,’ Matthew pointed towards the empty armchair. I sat obediently. ‘You’re taking this list thing seriously, then?’

‘Yes?’ I shrugged. ‘I didn’t realize it wasn’t serious.’

‘You’re really going to do a bungee jump? Even though you’re so scared of heights I have to come over and change your light bulbs when Simon’s out?’ Em asked. ‘And you’re actually going to break the law?’

‘Bungee jump or similar,’ I reminded them. ‘And I suppose so, yes. Somehow. I mean, I’m not going to plan an armed robbery but there must be something faintly criminal that I can get away with. If it’s on the list, I’m going to do it. And since you’re responsible for most of these, you’re going to help me.’

‘Rachel, I have to tell you something.’ Emelie leaned forward and took my hand in hers. ‘I have never in my entire life been so incredibly proud to know you.’

Matthew held his head in his hands. ‘As much as I of course second Ms Stevens’ support, are you sure this is a good idea? I mean, it’s not like I don’t know how hard break-ups can be, but throwing yourself into something dramatic might be a bit much.’

‘I think I need to throw myself into something a bit dramatic,’ I replied. ‘I haven’t thrown myself into anything even slightly dramatic in a very long time.’

‘As long as you don’t take such a drastic approach to breaking the law.’ He didn’t look convinced. ‘I don’t want to see the two of you on the news after a failed bank heist.’