Dinner for Two (30 page)

A straw poll of female friends served only to further my confusion. My friend Stella once told me she adored Russell Crowe’s fingertips in
Gladiator
.
My friend Jenny informed me that the smell of her boyfriend’s unaftershaved neck has her pulse racing. My friend Fran confessed she’d fixated on a man simply because of the way the light caught his skin the first moment she saw him. The sheer range of celebrity-men women found sexy was astounding too. Among names such as George Clooney and Will Smith were Danny De Vito, Tony Blair and Bart Simpson. Such information is all very poetic and/or democratic, but not a lot of practical use to men who wish to make themselves sexier.

It’s Thursday the following week and I’m on my lunch-break, which means that I’m at my desk at
First Class
working on my next Love Doctor column. As I go through the letters I think about Stella, Lee, Trevor, Jenny and finally, of course, my own predicament with Izzy. All these people with all these problems – and I can’t do anything about any of them, least of all myself. The only people I feel I can help are my
Teen Scene
readership.

I’ve begun to feel protective towards them and I’m taking my role more seriously than I’d ever imagined I would. So, no matter how mad, deranged, or strange the letters I get, I do my best to read every single one and if I can’t reply to them all, I know they feel better for having written down their troubles, put them in an envelope and mailed them to me.

Dear Jennifer Aniston fan
,

I type the full stop after ‘bountiful’ and wonder whether that’s the right word for the
Teen Scene
readership. My phone rings.

‘
First Class
, Dave Harding speaking.’

‘Dave, it’s me.’

It’s Izzy.

‘How are you?’ she asks.

‘I’m fine. And you?’

‘I’m okay too. I’ve got some good news to tell you.’

‘You’ve got the job?’

Izzy lets out a huge scream down the phone. ‘You’re talking to the new editor of
Femme
! The MD and the editorial director told me less than half an hour ago.’

‘Are you sure? You know what warped minds those magazine people have.’

‘You’d better believe it’s no joke.’

‘I’m really pleased for you. You deserve it.’

‘Dave, I miss you. I know we’ve got a lot to sort out and I know it’s not going to be solved overnight but I just want you to know that I
do
miss you.’

‘I miss you too.’

‘Are you doing anything tonight? I’ve just booked a table for seven o’clock at Berwick’s in Berwick Street. Will you come?’

‘Of course I’ll come. Just the two of us?’

‘No, some of the girls from work will be there too . . . that’s okay, is it?’

‘Yeah, of course.’

‘Are you sure?’ she asks. ‘I just sensed some reticence.’

‘It’s nothing. It’s just that . . .’

‘It’s just what.’

‘Tonight’s the night we usually go out.’

‘We can do it tomorrow.’

‘Yeah, of course.’

‘I tell you what, why don’t you come round to the flat tomorrow evening and I’ll make you dinner? But for tonight, let’s forget everything that’s happened and just enjoy ourselves. Okay?’ She laughs. ‘I’m editor of a top-selling women’s magazine. And I’m going to turn it into the best magazine I possibly can. I have to celebrate!’

Her good humour is infectious. She’s right. Sorting out the mess we’ve made of our lives can wait one night.

It’s six thirty-five at the end of a working day and I’ve just emerged from the gents’ toilets having changed from a Hawaiian shirt, jeans and trainers into a black suit, black T-shirt and shoes. The
First Class
office is empty: we finished putting the first issue to bed somewhere around three o’clock this morning and everyone’s taking the brief respite in the schedules to enjoy themselves by slacking off early – apart from me and the magazine’s latest recruit, Fran Mitchell. Apparently she was head and shoulders above the six young male journalists the editor interviewed and he gave her the job on the spot. Fran is now the only thing preventing the
First Class
office ending up like
Louder
’s and I’m glad she’s around.

‘Will you look at you?’ says Fran, smiling mischievously. ‘Are you ready to rumble or what?’

‘What? This old thing? I just threw it on.’ I laugh. ‘It seems a bit strange, getting dressed up to have dinner with my wife and her mates but . . . you know.’

‘I think it’s sweet. I don’t think you know this, Dave, but you’re an easy man for a girl to fall in love with. You think you’re this big, hard, serious music journalist then you end up writing for a girls’ teen mag and writing cutesy bloke articles for a women’s magazine. You’re it – the perfect mix of manliness and sensitivity, the kind of guy who could make mad-passionate-caveman love to a woman and still be able to talk about “feelings” and all the rest of that crap we’re supposed to go wild for.’

‘Oh, come on, Fran,’ I protest. ‘You of all people must know that none of this is real. The stuff in the magazines isn’t me. It’s what Izzy tells me
Femme
readers want to read. It’s what
Teen Scene
readers want to read. It’s all fantasy.’

‘But it’s a fantasy I’d love to believe in and . . . well, better a fantasy than everyday reality.’ She stops and laughs. ‘And before you start getting all weird, I don’t fancy you at all – although I admit I might’ve had an incredibly small crush on you in the early days, but you’ve no need to worry about me jumping on top of you any time soon because I won’t. You love Izzy, don’t you? You think the world of her. She’s the one woman in the whole universe who makes you happy and you’re hers exclusively.’

‘And?’

‘That’s it. In a way I’d love to know what it feels like to be Izzy. I’d love to know how it feels to be loved like that. You worry about her, you talk about her all the time, you’re proud of all her achievements, and this thing with Nicola has shown you’re terrified of losing her. She means everything to you. Not just in a we-share-a-life-together way but in a deeper, more fundamental sense.’ She giggles. ‘Listen to me, I’m rambling like a right idiot now . . . but the fact remains that even though I love Linden with my whole heart – I know that he’ll never feel about me the way you feel about Izzy. Not because he’s malicious, or hateful but because I’m not even sure he knows what love is.’ Fran looks at her watch. ‘That’s about as much of a pep-talk as you’re going to get from me. You’d better be off if you’re not going to be late.’

‘Yeah,’ I say, ‘you’re right.’

We both say goodnight to the cleaner, head out of the office and wait for the lifts. When one arrives a couple of female writers from
Metrohome
and the editor of
Fashionista
are already in it, deep in conversation. As we descend to the ground floor Fran and I smile wryly at snatches of conversations about haircuts, boyfriends and the previous night’s episode of
Ally McBeal
.

As I walk along Oxford Street towards Berwick Street and the restaurant it starts to rain so I speed up and try to get myself into a positive frame of mind. This is Izzy’s night and I don’t want to spoil it by being miserable. I want her to have a good time. I want to celebrate her victory with her and I’m even prepared to don the Love Doctor hat for her workmates one more time, if that’s required of me. I just want her to be happy.

As I open the door into the restaurant my eyes immediately search for her and her friends but I can’t see them. The restaurant’s packed with couples chatting over candle-lit dinners. Izzy’s never late for anything and I begin to wonder if I’ve got the wrong date, time or, even worse, that something’s happened to her. I tell the waitress that I’m supposed to be meeting my wife and some of her friends and that the table’s booked for seven under the name of Harding. She runs a finger down a long list of names in the restaurant’s reservation book.

‘The Harding party has already arrived,’ she tells me. ‘But the table was booked for six not seven.’ I can’t believe I’ve got the wrong time. Izzy’s going to be livid. ‘Shall I show you to the table?’

I sigh resignedly, and follow the waitress through the restaurant to the table at the rear and finally realise why I hadn’t spotted her when I came in. I’d been looking for a large group of women, but she isn’t with a large group and she isn’t on her own. Sitting at the table with her is Nicola.

Izzy stands up, puts her arms around me and kisses me. Then Nicola stands up and kisses me too. ‘Izzy and I have got loads to tell you,’ she says.

‘I don’t understand,’ I reply.

‘I decided it was time,’ says Izzy, looking into my eyes, ‘for all this to stop. I was tired of feeling angry, tired of feeling sorry for myself, tired of missing you. And I wanted to meet Nicola. So I called her last week – I knew her mobile number was on the back of that photo you gave me – and I met up with her and her mum. And that went so well I asked her to join us for dinner tonight – and she said yes, and then we both kind of came up with the idea of meeting early without you so we could have another little chat on our own without you getting in the way. The whole come-and-celebrate-with-the-
Femme
-girls line was a fib.’

‘Izzy is
so
nice,’ says Nicola excitedly. ‘Do you know she can get free perfume just by ringing up perfume companies?’ She corrects herself hastily. ‘She’s not nice just because she can get free perfume. She’s nice because she’s, well, she
is
nice.’

‘Why, thank you, Nicola,’ says Izzy. ‘A free bottle of Gucci Envy will be winging its way to you in the post.’ She looks at me. ‘But she’s right, you know, we have been getting on like a house on fire. Nicola’s impossible – and I do mean
impossible
– not to like. You should be proud of her, Dave, really proud.’

‘I am,’ I tell her. ‘I’m very proud of both of you.’

Izzy kisses me again and then we sit down at our table, the waiter brings over the menus, opens a bottle of wine and together we begin our very first dinner for three.

Previously an Agony Uncle, Mike Gayle is a freelance journalist who has contributed to a variety of magazines including
FHM
,
Sunday Times Style
and
Cosmopolitan
.