The Ex Factor

EVA WOODS grew up in Ireland and now lives in London, where she writes and lectures on creative writing. She likes wine, pop music and holidays, and thinks online dating is like the worst board game ever invented.

To Diana Beaumont, who makes me a better writer

Table of Contents

Cover

About the Author

Title Page

Dedication

Prologue

Chapter 1: Interrupted Routines

Chapter 2: Pickled Eggs and Popcorn

Chapter 3: The Internet Wizard

Chapter 4: The Accidental Proposal

Chapter 5: A Decaf No-Syrup Low-Fat Soy Latte

Chapter 6: The Ex Factor

Chapter 7: How Everyone Met Everyone

Chapter 8: Four Dates and a Social Funeral

Chapter 9: The Madwoman in the Attic

Chapter 10: Broccoli in the Bathtub

Chapter 11: Drowning in a Vat of Rescue Remedy

Chapter 12: War and Piss

Chapter 13: Bumhead and Eggface

Chapter 14: Undercover Cheerleader

Chapter 15: The Dirtiest Martini

Chapter 16: Triple Word Scores

Chapter 17: The Love Algorithm

Chapter 18: The Leather Ceiling

Chapter 19: Bling the Merciless

Chapter 20: My Miniature Heart

Chapter 21: Jurassic Garden Centre

Chapter 22: Suggestive Topiary

Chapter 23: The Awkward Makeover

Chapter 24: The Final Showdown

Chapter 25: The Incident

Chapter 26: The Dating Dessert Buffet

Chapter 27: How Voldemort met Chewbacca

Chapter 28: Bean Counting

Epilogue

Copyright

Prologue

Marnie

‘Will all passengers please fasten their seat belts; the captain has now started our descent…’

She ignored the announcement for as long as possible. After all, when you were running away—when you had nowhere else to go—there was no hurry to arrive. Only when the air hostess came to tell her off did she grudgingly belt up, and take out her headphones and open her window blind. From above, London was grey. Like something shrivelled, shivering in the January air. She wasn’t sure why she was coming back. Not home—she didn’t know exactly where home was right now.

The plane banked lower through freezing winter fog. Around her people began to gather their possessions, crumple up their rubbish, stretch their legs and arms. Looking forward to a new city. Buckingham Palace. The Tower of London. Madame Tussauds.

Not her. She was terrified. But if her mother had taught her anything, it was this: always get your game face on. And so she put on her huge sunglasses, despite the gloom, and brushed in-flight food from her carefully put-together outfit, reapplied red lipstick. Was the cape-coat too much? The dress too bright? No time to change now. She took out her phone and composed a tweet. Hitting the tarmac! Can’t wait to see you all, London! xx.

She had a moment to think of what she’d left, and feel the tears push at her eyes for the tenth time that journey. Game face. She pasted on a smile. The tannoy dinged, and the grey ground came into sight. She was back.

Chapter 1 Interrupted Routines

Helen

How many texts do you get in an average day? How many emails, Facebook alerts, tweets? Most get instantly forgotten—your friend obsessing about their weight or if their boss spotted them on Facebook (ironically), that marketing newsletter you keep meaning to unsubscribe from, a celebrity’s breakfast on Instagram. But sometimes you get a message that’s more than this.

This message might not say anything special. At first you might even ignore it, roll over and go back to sleep, slip your phone into your bag, forget about it. But although you won’t know it at the time, the message is the start of something that means that your life will never be the same again.

Of course, at least 99.99999 per cent of them are total rubbish, but still. You can never quite be sure.

* * *

Helen was woken by the buzz of her phone, shooting upright in bed, groping on the bedside table among the TV remote, the control for the windows blinds, the tissues, the hand cream, and the framed photo of her cat—her flat was somewhere between NASA launch control and the Pinterest board of a forty-something spinster. She blinked at the phone. Read the message again. Emitted a small ‘huh’ to the empty space beside her in the bed, then checked the time: 7.45 a.m. Only a person of deep selfishness would text a freelancer at 7.45 a.m.

The message stayed on the screen, burned behind her eyes. Her first thought was: She’s back. Hello, Marnie, goodbye non-interrupted sleep. Her second thought was: Bloody hell! She’s back! A flicker of something came and went in her stomach—excitement. Nerves. Something else that she couldn’t quite identify. Then she sat up and started Googling bars, restaurants, and detox treatments.

* * *

There’s a saying that if knowing someone doesn’t change you as a person, then they’re not a true friend, just an acquaintance. Helen would have added to this. If knowing someone didn’t permanently make you feel like you were about to get on a roller coaster—excited, terrified, and with the slight possibility of serious injury—then they weren’t a true friend.

She got up on the dot of 8 a.m.—no need to vary the Routine yet—and commenced her morning. It was a Tuesday, so she washed her hair, flossed her teeth, and shaved her legs. She rubbed in a deep conditioning mask, setting her alarm for exactly four minutes, then spent that time looking into the mirror at her flushed face and chanting, ‘I am successful. I am happy. I am fine on my own.’

She wasn’t convinced by the affirmations—she didn’t feel all that successful or happy. But she was most definitely on her own.

She cleaned out the shower and sprayed shine mist, then gave the sink a quick rinse and gathered up the towels and sheets for the wash, as she did every week. Then she made coffee in her cafetière, gleaming beside the sink where she’d washed it last night, and boiled an egg for exactly five minutes, putting the toast in at the three-minute mark. During all this time she didn’t glance at her phone once.

Discipline. That was the key.

At 8.46 a.m., Helen judged it was a good time to text back. Hi! Great news. Shall I round up a fun posse? As her finger hovered over the send button, she debated asking where Marnie was staying, then didn’t. She probably had something sorted, a squat or a house-sitting job or a boyfriend she’d already picked up in Victoria Coach Station.

The answering text came straight back, which meant Marnie had just arrived, and wasn’t sure what she was doing. Yeah! 2nite if poss? Would love to c u all xx.

Helen opened up the Facebook Messenger group she used every day to chat with Rosa and Ani. Guess what! M’s back.

She imagined them picking the message up: Rosa at her desk in the newspaper office, Ani on her way to court maybe. Both dressed smartly, with lanyards and coffee and bright work faces. Ani came straight back. Whaaaat? Out of the blue like that? Any word on where she’s been all this time?

Dunno. I guess we’ll find out. Dinner tonight?

Tonight tonight? As in later on this same day?

Oh come on. Live a little. You can get out at eight surely?

Ani’s reply came back. I’m meant to go round to my parents. Crafting ornamental flowers for my cousin’s engagement party while answering 10,000 questions about when it’s going to be my turn.

Helen typed: Wouldn’t you rather come for a lovely dinner instead of that?

Ani: I would literally rather staple my eyes shut instead of that. So—count me in, I guess. What about you, Rosa?

Rosa answered. Am typing from under my desk, guys. Again. Have started keeping tissues down here.

In Rosa’s open-plan office, under her desk was one of the few places she could hide to cry. Which was what you needed to do a lot when you’d just split up with your husband, and said former husband worked on the other side of the room.

Would a drink cheer you up? Helen quickly typed. Totally understand if not.

Why not, said Rosa. Career and marriage in tatters, might as well work on social life. Newly single Rosa was prone to such pronouncements. G2G. Need to redo make-up before David comes past.

Take care, sweets, said Helen. Remember you’re amazing and we love you and you don’t need him.

G2G too, I’m due in court, Ani typed. Acrimonious divorce hearing. At least David didn’t sleep with your sister, Rosa.

Probably only because I don’t have a sister.

Helen signed off with expressions of sympathy and good luck. Miraculously, she’d managed to gather up all four of them on a weekday night, in London, in January, with just a few hours’ notice. That seemed enough of an achievement for one day, but work called.

She clicked on her inbox, taking a deep breath. She loved working from home, couldn’t imagine going back to an office, but you had to have rules. Getting dressed was one, even if it was in pyjamas. Another was not letting what she did affect her life—but this was easier said than done.

Her first email said: I think my husband has been meeting someone from your site. Can you give me his details? It’s disgusting. I don’t know how you can work on something like this.

Helen’s heart squeezed. Finding out that the man you loved was seeing someone else, kissing them, holding them, sending flirty messages: it wasn’t that she couldn’t imagine it. She could, and only too well. But this was her job. She typed out the standard response. We’re sorry but we can’t give out information about our members. We’d suggest you talk to your husband—it could just be curiosity, or a cry for help. Maybe you can spice things up a bit?

She took another deep breath and added the rest. She hated to, but her boss insisted. PS—you can always sign up with us yourself!

Helen pressed send. Some days, most days, she hated what she did, hated herself for doing it. It certainly wasn’t what she’d expected when she’d applied for the in-hindsight-too-good-to-be-true homeworking job two years ago, but by the time she’d found out it was already too late. And here she was, stuck. She glanced at the masthead of the website she ran. Bit on the Side. The UK’s top dating site for people in relationships.

Another day at the office. Everything was the same as usual, except that Marnie was back.

* * *

Ani.

Ani put her phone away as she approached court. Her client was waiting on the steps, smoking into the breeze. Ani tried not to wince as he leaned in to kiss her. She preferred a nice brisk handshake or better still, no physical contact at all. ‘Mark, hi. How are you feeling?’

‘Can’t wait to get it over, like, so I never have to see that bitch again.’

‘Well, you will have to see her if Taylor and Ashley end up living with you.’ (Which they were asking for. Which she’d advised against.) She kept on her smile.

‘Sure, sure. I mean—I just wanna make sure I get my rights, you know? They’re my kids too.’

Ani told herself it was not her job to pass judgement. It wasn’t her fault if Mark’s ex-wife started crying the minute they went into court, or if Mark tried to look down the blouse of their barrister, Louise, or if the opposing barrister was twenty minutes late, causing them all to sit in awkward silence, the judge leafing through the docket with increasing irritation and saying things like ‘What is PlayStation?’ or ‘Mr Smith allowed his daughter to watch Keeping Up with the Kardashians for four hours? What is a Kardashian?’

Eventually, Louise started to say, ‘Sir, perhaps we should…’ and just then someone swept in in a flurry of expensive wool coat.

‘So sorry, sir. We had to suspend a hearing, my client fainted.’

Yeah right, thought Ani, who was wise to such tricks. The barrister would be cramming as many cases as possible into the day, trying to bump up his income. She looked up and her irritation grew exponentially. He was about thirty-five, tanned even though it was January, and his green eyes stared out from under expensively cut black hair. Handsome, and entirely aware of it.

‘All right, Mr Robins, proceed,’ said the judge, mollified. Ani looked at her papers—Adam Robins. He cast her a glance as he glided into his seat, as if to say he could wipe the floor with them without even trying.

And he was right. Louise was good but Adam Robins annihilated her, listing all Mark’s transgressions—shagging Denise’s sister under the Christmas tree, blowing the kids’ present money on Call of Duty 4, telling Denise he’d get her a gift subscription to Weight Watchers because ‘that’s what you really need, love’.

Mark occasionally protested: ‘I never!’, ‘Well, she always said she were fat!’, or ‘It weren’t full sex, just oral’, but Ani was surprised when, at the end of it, he still got part-time access to the kids. He trailed out muttering in an unconvincing manner about men’s rights. ‘This is a disgrace, I’ll be getting onto Fathers for Justice.’

‘They disbanded,’ she said crisply, as they stood on the court steps. ‘Well, Mark, it wasn’t what you wanted, but it’s the best result possible, really.’

Undaunted, he said, ‘S’pose. Listen, you busy Saturday?’

She misunderstood at first. ‘I don’t work weekends, and anyway…’

‘Nah, I meant you and me. Curry, pint. You know some good places for a curry I bet. What’s it short for, by the way? Ani’s not an Indian name?’

She stared at him for a minute, speechless. A voice cut in. ‘Anisha. Sorry, Ms Singh, I mean. I just wanted to say: no hard feelings?’

It was the bloody barrister, Adam Robins, sweeping his dark hair off his face. Mark shook his outstretched hand, seemingly unperturbed by the character assassination Robins had just carried out on him in court. Ani glared at him. How dare he be so handsome and so confident. ‘Mr Robins, is it? Maybe you could try not to be late in future? My time is valuable too, you know.’

Adam Robins blinked. His eyes were the exact shade of green Fruit Pastilles. ‘I’m sure it is—I know your hourly rates, after all.’

Mark’s eyes widened. ‘You’re saying she…’

‘For law.’ Ani turned her back on the barrister. To Mark she said briskly, ‘I’m leaving now. I have other clients.’

‘Can I get your email then? Personal, like.’

‘Sure. It’s [e-mail]. Do contact me for the next divorce you will almost inevitably have.’

As she stomped off, she heard Adam Robins make a small noise that could have been a laugh, and Mark asking, ‘Is that all lower case, you reckon?’ It was unprofessional, but she didn’t care. And that was why she was, at thirty-two, more single than a single LP—no B-side—and why when she saw her parents at the weekend she’d have to once again tell them that, no, she wasn’t seeing anyone, and no, she still didn’t want them to find her a nice boy, thanks all the same. Because how could you believe in love when you spent all day sweeping up the smashed remnants of it?

At least she had dinner tonight to take her mind off things. After all, if there was one person who was more terminally single than Ani, then that was Marnie.

* * *

Rosa.

Rosa was sitting at her desk again, running through her mental checklist. Eye make-up smears? Check, she’d stopped wearing it two weeks ago, after she’d interviewed a mid-list actress without realising she had massive smudges all down her cheeks like Dick Van Dyke in Mary Poppins. Snot on face, dress, hair? Check, she’d taken to carrying around so many tissues that were she to fall out of an aeroplane she would probably survive without even minor bruising. Her floral dress, cardigan, and thick tights might have caused her fashion-forward boss to visibly wince that morning, but at least she looked respectable. Was she currently making loud gasping sob noises without even noticing? Check, unless she’d gone deaf at that frequency. All was fine, or at least as fine as it could be given her husband had left her two months before.

She looked at the copy on her screen. Star of TV cop drama ’Aving a Laugh Natasha Byrd lived up to her name at our brunch. Picking at a salad, she told me she eats only once a day and…

Crap. Like jungle drums, she knew when David was approaching. Rosa’s desk was right on the route to the main meeting room, and the editorial conference must have ended early—most days she hid in the loos at this time, waiting for him to get safely back to his desk. Only one thing for it. After grabbing her phone, she slid gently to her knees and ducked under the desk again. It was cosy down there, among the trailing leads and decades-old dust. It was fast becoming her new favourite place.

‘…So I think let’s go big on detox for Jan—more quinoa, more mung—what’s the newest grain, anyone?’

Ow! The castor of Rosa’s chair, pushed aside by unseen hands, rolled over her thumb. ‘Holy CRAP,’ she yelled, before she could stop herself.

Oh no. ‘Bloody hell, are you OK?’ She peered up to see Jason Connell, the new whizz-kid editor who’d been poached from clickbait site Listbuzz, along with her boss, Suzanne, who was in metal-look leggings and on a two-week Botox cycle.

‘What are you doing, Rosa?’ demanded Suzanne. ‘Aren’t you a bit old for hide-and-seek?’

But Rosa could only look at the third person in the group, in his skinny red jeans and clashing yellow T-shirt. The man she’d married five years ago, the man she’d intended to spend her life with. Who she’d never expected to see wearing red jeans, or packing up his collection of vinyl and moving out, or for that matter, sleeping with an intern. She’d advised him against the jeans, but he’d bought them anyway, and in retrospect that should have been a sign.

‘Rosa?’ David was staring down at her. ‘Are you all right?’

‘Fine!’ She tried to summon every ounce of journalistic nous that might be left to her. ‘Um, it’s a new trend I’m testing. It’s called—head-desk-space.’

‘Head-desk-space?’ Suzanne’s over-plucked brows nearly met in the middle of her Botoxed forehead. She had no facial expressions left, so she had to inspire sheer terror through slight flares of her nostrils. It was a closely guarded secret—which meant everyone from the cleaner to the board members knew—that Suzanne had once been caught in flagrante with Bill McGregor, the married MD, in the old print rooms of the newspaper, and consequently could never be fired, despite being the personification of pure evil—the impressions on the evening edition had apparently left little to the imagination.

‘Yep. It’s a new meditation trend,’ said Rosa desperately. ‘You know, research shows mindfulness can boost performance at work by up to…um…forty-seven per cent.’

‘I like it,’ said the new editor. He loomed over Rosa—he must have been over six foot tall, and was built like a surfer, his wavy blond hair slightly too long and his tie slightly too loose for London. On a better day, when she wasn’t hiding under a desk being watched by her boss, his boss, and her soon-to-be ex-husband, Rosa might have found his Australian accent sexy. ‘It’s a good angle. Ways to work smarter, not harder. Can we do a feature?’

‘Sure!’ said Suzanne gamely. ‘Whatever you like, Jason. We’ll get right on it.’ But her nostrils said—I will kill you, Rosa. I will crush you like I crush fresh lemon for my morning detox. Rosa, however, could still only look at David. He gave her a quick glance—was that pity?—then turned and walked away. She’d been right. Those jeans really did make him look like a Christmas turkey.

Jason Connell was still watching her curiously. She tried to communicate with a smile that she was a slick, totally professional, valued member of staff—not easy when you were hiding under a desk. He hunkered down to her, and gently flicked her long dark plait. She gaped.

‘You had dust in it.’ Then he smiled—was that a wink?—and went back to his office.

Rosa resumed her seat. Only four hours and twenty-three minutes before she could leave the office, have a drink and, with any luck, obliterate the bit of her brain that would remember this encounter. And Marnie was back! Marnie was sure to have some advice about how to cope with working in the same office as your ex. After all, there was no dating situation on earth she hadn’t experienced.

Chapter 2 Pickled Eggs and Popcorn

Helen

‘The reservation was like for seven?’ The waiter gave Helen a scowl as he took her to the table (not actually a table but an old school desk, this being a trendy London eatery).

‘I know, I’m just early.’ Twenty minutes early. Helen-time. She wanted to check it wasn’t too noisy or too busy, and that they had a good table, not too close to the door or loos. It had to be nice, since she was dragging Ani and Rosa out on a school night. And things with Marnie might be a little weird, after her disappearing act. She felt another flare of nerves in her stomach.

‘Because like I can’t hold the table?’

Helen looked around the empty place—it was a Tuesday night in January after all—and tacked on a conciliatory smile. ‘Of course. They won’t be long, I promise.’ The waiter sniffed. He had tattoos up both arms and one of a butterfly on his cheek.

She wondered who should sit where—if only it was acceptable to make out place cards for casual social occasions! But despite it all, Helen was excited. For months now she’d had a slight, a very very slight, third-wheel feeling. Rosa and Ani had met in uni, and even though they’d all been friends for years, Helen was always aware she was the newcomer. But Marnie—well, ever since day one of primary school, Marnie and Helen had come as something of a package deal. ‘Like those twins, where one is living inside the other and slowly eating it,’ as Marnie had once cheerfully put it. Before Marnie left, the four of them had been a tight-knit group, where no one ever got left out or felt alone. Maybe they could go back to that? Helen’s stomach dipped again. So many things had happened since then. It seemed unlikely.

Rosa was the second to arrive, unwinding her long scarf from her plait. ‘I couldn’t stay another second,’ she declared. ‘I swear, working with David, it’s like—’ She mimed a rope around her neck. ‘I’m going to have to change jobs. Go back to Puzzle Weekly or Knitting Times. Oh God. And today I actually had to fabricate a whole trend that helps you chill out at work.’