The Importance of Being Married: A Novel Read online

  “Of course I do.” I nodded, leading him toward our table. Helen looked at him as we approached, a quizzical look on her face.

  “This is Frank,” I said. “Frank, this is Helen.”

  “Helen.” Immediately, Frank went red and held out his hand uncertainly before deciding it wasn’t such a good idea and retracting it. “Very nice to…Can I get you a drink?”

  “Love one.” Helen smiled graciously. “A white wine, please.”

  “White wine.” Frank nodded. “Yes, of course. Right away. You, too, Jess?”

  I nodded, smiling, watching as he pushed his way to the bar, his back suddenly a little straighter.

  “Well, you took your time,” Helen said, grinning. “But you got us both a drink so I think you passed the test.”

  Two hours later, and a little bit tipsy, I was amazed to find that it was already 11:30 PM. Not once had I looked at my watch, not once had I been tempted to make my usual excuses and leave early. I’d actually enjoyed myself. Frank was funny and interesting and although I wasn’t interested in him in the slightest (or him in me), the three of us were still laughing as we made our way out of the bar and out into the cold, crisp air outside.

  “Well, it was lovely to meet you,” Frank said as we paused briefly on the sidewalk.

  “Likewise,” Helen said.

  “Definitely,” I agreed. This meeting-people lark wasn’t as hard as I’d thought. It was almost kind of fun. Maybe Helen was right. Maybe I should enjoy myself more.

  We waved Frank good night, then made our way down the street. The bar was in Soho, which meant walking up to Oxford Street to attempt to find a cab. The road was full of drunk office workers shrieking, clusters of girls wearing next to nothing, and groups of lads taking up the whole pavement and leering at anything female that crossed their path, but tonight they didn’t worry me too much; tonight I almost felt like someone else, like I almost lived up to my name.

  “I just started talking to him,” I said to Helen, linking her arm in mine. “And he wasn’t a weirdo or anything. He was nice.”

  “Yes, he was,” Helen agreed. “Very nice.”

  “And he said I was a nine point five,” I continued. “I mean, I’m sure he didn’t mean it, but it was nice all the same.”

  Helen stopped and looked at me quizzically. “You are a nine point five, Jess,” she said seriously. “Honestly you are.”

  I grinned sheepishly. “I’m not,” I said firmly. “But thank you. And thanks for getting me out. It was…”

  “Fun?” Helen prompted.

  “Kind of.” I nodded.

  “And now you’re going to start flirting with Anthony Milton?”

  “Yes,” I said, nodding again. “Yes, I am. I’m going to do it, Hel. I’m just going to walk up to him, and I’m going to smile, and I’m going to—”

  I was interrupted by the rush of a car as it sped past me, making me lose my balance and fall onto the pavement.

  “Jess! Are you okay?” Helen jumped down, her face indignant. “What a maniac.”

  I nodded—my leg hurt a bit, but it was shock that I felt more than anything.

  “You stupid bastard,” Helen shouted, chasing after the car, which had screeched to a halt at the taffic lights just behind us. “You should look where you’re going.”

  “And you should walk on the sidewalk, not the road,” a woman’s voice shouted back. Evidently the driver’s friends were as rude and inconsiderate as he was. As Helen continued to argue with him, I pulled myself to my feet and hobbled over, taking Helen’s arm.

  “Leave it,” I told her. “It’s not important.”

  “Yes, it is,” Helen said crossly. “He nearly drove into you. He should be more careful.”

  I shrugged and tried to pull Helen away. But not before taking a curious peek into the car. There was a girl in the passenger’s seat with dark, sleek hair—her face was obscured by large sunglasses, which considering the time of night struck me as faintly ridiculous.

  I looked past her to the driver. And then I felt my mouth fall open.

  “Come on, Hel, let’s go,” I said quickly, my eyes widening as the driver clocked me.

  “Go?” she said defiantly. “Not until they say sorry. Not until—”

  “Now,” I insisted, dragging her away. “I want to go home.”

  I saw an empty cab and stuck my hand out; seconds later it drew to a halt and I pulled Helen in.

  “What was all that about?” she rounded on me crossly as we drove away. “You could have brought charges against that driver. He was obviously drunk.”

  “Yes,” I said uncertainly. “But I’m not sure if that would really fit with our game plan.”

  “Game plan?” Helen’s face twisted into an expression of incomprehension. “What are you talking about?”

  “Project Marriage,” I said quietly. “The driver, you see, was Anthony Milton.”

  Chapter 11

  THE NEXT MORNING, when I woke up and wandered into the kitchen, Helen was at the cooker, frying eggs.

  “What’s this for?” I asked curiously.

  “Fuel.” Helen grinned. “How’s your leg, by the way?”

  I shrugged. “It’s fine. I’ve got a bruise above my knee, that’s all. Fuel? What for?”

  “For today’s activities,” she said firmly. “So eat up, because you’re going to need your energy.”

  “Not more shopping?” I asked worriedly. “I’m broke, Hel. I can’t afford anything else.”

  “Not shopping. Anthony Milton owes you. He owes you big. And when he apologizes profusely for what he did to you yesterday, you need to be prepared. You need to be so great at flirting that you fell him in seconds.”

  I felt the hairs on the back of my neck stand up in trepidation. I had a bad feeling about whatever Helen was planning. “Hel, he’s not a tree, you know,” I said, attempting a smile.

  “Nevertheless, he is going to be felled. And I’ve got someone to teach you how.” Helen grinned. “So there’s no getting out of it now.”

  “Teach me?”

  Helen nodded excitedly. “The idea came to me last night, on the way home. She’s amazing. She was working in one of the bars we filmed in for that London Uncovered program I did last year. Remember? Anyway, her name’s Ivana, and what she doesn’t know about seducing men isn’t worth a thing. And she’ll teach you for free, too. Well, free for now. I said you’d bung her a thousand pounds when you inherited the money. I told her it was like an investment.”

  I looked at Helen closely. “Ivana? Are you talking about the Ivana you interviewed for the piece on lap dancing?”

  “Yes, but she wasn’t the lap-dancer. She was the escort. It’s different. These girls don’t dance, they just flirt and seduce and convince men to buy drinks for fifty pounds a pop just to spend more time with them.”

  “She’s a prostitute!” I exclaimed. “You’ve asked a prostitute to teach me? You’re mad. Forget it. There is no way on earth—”

  “She’s not a prostitute,” Helen interrupted crossly. “She’s an escort.”

  “Who has sex with her clients.”

  “Who sometimes might have sex, yes, but that’s not the job. The job is to seduce. God, Jessica, I’d thought you’d appreciate this. It wasn’t exactly easy to convince her, you know…”

  She looked really hurt. “I’m sorry,” I said quickly. “I didn’t mean to be so negative. But…I’m just not sure she’s…right. If you know what I mean?”

  Helen shook her head. “She’s right, Jess, believe me. If anyone can get Anthony to propose to you, Ivana can. Now eat up, because we’ve got to be at hers by eleven.”

  Ivana, it turned out, lived in a flat on Old Compton Street in Soho. Flat was probably an exaggeration—it was a room, on the second floor, with a large mattress, a cupboard that, when opened, revealed a teeny-tiny kitchen, and another cupboard that masqueraded as a bathroom.

  She was beautiful in a kind of sleazy-exotic way—full lips, soulful brown eye
s, silky brown hair, and a figure that was petite and curvaceous in one. Her eyes were green, her hair was cropped into an angular bob, and she was dressed in a tight black dress and wedges at least four inches high. On Helen’s insistence I had dressed up in my best seduction outfit—high black heels, tight pencil skirt, all bought after my makeover at Pedro’s—and I still felt like a frump.

  She and Helen exchanged kisses and held a quick, animated conversation about the program they’d worked on, and I found myself mesmerized by Ivana’s Eastern European tones (“I heff so much business after theees program. The police, they come to see me. I know! They don’t do nothing, though. They just come to see me, you know what I mean?”).

  And then she turned to me, looked me up and down, and folded her arms.

  “You not know how to be sexy?” she asked, and I blushed awkwardly. “You need seduce men and get him ask you to merry him?”

  I nodded, awkwardly, my face probably now an attractive puce color. Somehow, laid out like that, my predicament sounded utterly pathetic.

  “Then we need coffee,” she said, looking at Helen. “I will have a macchiato, which you will order in Café Boheme downstairs, and wait for me. I there in five minutes. Good?”

  Helen looked at me. “Good,” I confirmed. “Very good. We’ll…um…see you there.”

  We traipsed down the narrow stairway and out onto the street, stepping over two men sleeping in the doorway, and nipped across the road to Café Boheme, where we ordered coffee and waited. And waited. And then waited some more.

  An hour later Ivana finally emerged and took a seat next to us.

  “So,” she said, turning to me accusingly as though the intervening hour hadn’t happened. “How you seduce a man? What you do?”

  She looked with distaste at her cold macchiato, and Helen quickly ordered her a new one.

  “I don’t know,” I said awkwardly. “I mean, I guess I don’t. Not really.”

  “Your last boyfriend was when?”

  My face filled with humiliation. “Look, I’ve been kind of concentrating on my career lately.”

  “When?” Ivana demanded.

  “Two years ago, maybe,” I said quietly. Suddenly my usual defense—that I was focusing on my career, that I didn’t need a man in my life—seemed a little pathetic. Ivana was right—I didn’t know how to be sexy. I didn’t even know where to start.

  “Two year?”

  “Maybe three.” I cleared my throat.

  Ivana looked at Helen and rolled her eyes. “So, I have my work cut out, yes?”

  She was looking at me now, so I kind of half nodded and tried to smile, but then decided against it when I saw her eyes were smoldering and not in a come-hither way.

  Ivana’s coffee arrived and she downed it quickly, then turned back to me.

  “Okay,” she said, sighing loudly. “Tell me how you talk to men.”

  I frowned. “How I talk to them?”

  Ivana nodded.

  “Well, I guess, like I talk to anyone else. I mean, it depends on the context, but you know, I’d just…” I looked at her helplessly. “I don’t know. I really don’t know.”

  Ivana nodded again. “I think as much. Okay, so a few basics you must know. First, you no talk to men how you talk to woman. Men, they like to speak. End they like you to listen. Everything he do is fascinating, everything he do, you find sexy. Okay?”

  “But what about what I’ve got to say?” I asked. Ivana glowered at me and immediately I reddened. “Fascinating,” I said. “Fascinating and sexy.”

  Ivana looked at me uncertainly. “You disagree, he move away.”

  “But then he’ll think I’m facile,” I said, feeling myself get agitated. “And anyway, I’m not going to agree with someone just to make him fancy me. Have you not heard of feminism? Of female emancipation? I’m not prepared to look stupid.”

  “Men prefer stupid,” Ivana said flatly. “Anyway, agree with man, he think you’re clever.”

  “But…but…”

  “But nothing,” Ivana said firmly. “Trust me. So, next, you have to touch a little bit. Too much and is over; too little and he is looking away. Okay? Just on arm, on face when you lean in to say something. Little brush here, little touch there. You want him focus on you. Not anyone else. Okay? So, you hanging on every word, and then you lean. Like this.” She demonstrated by draping herself over Helen. “This I think biggest challenge for you, no?”

  I rolled my eyes. “What, and I’m going to do this where? Over the watercooler? Very professional.”

  The tone of my voice was distinctly sarcastic, and Ivana frowned. “You will find opportunity,” she said abruptly. “But is problem with your voice. You need to change.”

  “My voice? What’s wrong with my voice?”

  “It no sexy.”

  “Well, I can’t change it,” I said stoutly. “It’s my voice. I’m kind of stuck with it.”

  Ivana shook her head. “You can always change your voice. Listen.” She took another sip of coffee and began to talk in what I could only assume was her native language. Her voice was coarse, angry, spiky, and guttural. Then she pulled a different face and started whispering in English, her voice as silky as a siren.

  “You see? In Russia, I no heff to seduce. Here, I heff. Here, I heff better voice. Yes?”

  I nodded in admiration, then checked myself.

  “Now you try,” she demanded.

  “I can’t.” I squirmed.

  “Go on,” Helen urged me. “Give it a go.”

  I sighed. “Fine, but don’t laugh,” I said, then cleared my throat. “Hi,” I said, attempting to imitate Ivana’s sultry tones. “Hi, my name is Jessica Wild.”

  “Wild? Your name is Wild? For real?” Ivana was smiling now, revealing at least four gold teeth. “I kill for name like thet,” she said, shaking her head, and I found myself hoping that she only meant it as a figure of speech. “Your name Wild, you use that, no? Say W-i-l-d.”

  She purred my name so suggestively, I looked around to see if anyone else had heard.

  “Wild,” I repeated, achieving none of the sexiness.

  “Wiiild,” Ivana said again, looking me right in the eye.

  “Wiiild,” I said back, this time sounding slightly less like an English schoolgirl but still nowhere near sexy.

  Ivana frowned. “We need breathing exercise,” she said. “We go to park.”

  “Park?”

  “Park.”

  Twenty minutes later we were in Regent’s Park.

  “Now,” Ivana said firmly, “you run and scream at same time. We watch.”

  I stared at her. “I’m not running and screaming,” I protested. “There are people here.”

  “You want husband? You want money? Less my cut, of course.”

  I studied her face to see if she was joking, but apparently she wasn’t.

  “No,” I said. “I mean, this isn’t about money. It’s about…well, this friend of mine, Grace, who died. She thought I was married, but…”

  I trailed off as I caught a glimpse of Ivana’s stony stare. “You want merry, you run, and you scream ‘Wild,’ okay?” she said abruptly.

  “Helen?” I looked imploringly at my friend, but she stared at her feet. “You could at least try,” she suggested without meeting my eye. “I mean, what harm can it do?”

  “Harm? What, other than humiliating myself in a public place, upsetting the tourists, and potentially getting myself arrested?”

  Ivana looked at her watch. “Quickly,” she ordered. “Is getting late.”

  Her eyes were stony, and I realized with a jolt that I wasn’t going to get out of this, that one way or another I was going to be running around Regent’s Park screaming my name. Slowly, I took a deep breath and jogged away from Helen and Ivana—or, more to the point, away from the couple on a park bench and the man walking his dog nearby—then ran, and shouted “Wild.” Maybe shout was a slight exaggeration, but I definitely said it quite loudly.

  �
�Thet vos crap,” Ivana shouted after me. “I no hear you. You heff to scream.”

  Gritting my teeth, I started to run again. “Wild,” I snarled. “Wild,” I shouted.

  “Run faster. You no run fast enough.” Ivana jogged over to me and started running alongside, her spiky heels sinking into the grass until she stopped, whipped them off, and carried on barefoot. Wondering why I hadn’t thought of that, I immediately followed suit. Then, realizing that Ivana was about to overtake me, I upped my pace. It was almost fun, trying to stay ahead of her, feeling the wind fill my lungs.

  “Wild,” she shouted. “Come on, Jessicaaa. Is wiild.” As she ran, she opened up her arms and screamed with a guttural force that made birds fly away.

  “Wild,” I shouted, louder this time. “Wild.”

  “You’re wild, I’m wild,” Ivana shrieked.

  “We’re all wild,” I yelled, closing my eyes and breathing in deeply. I was, I realized with surprise, actually beginning to enjoy myself. Somehow I didn’t care if people were staring, or if my feet were killing me—it was liberating to be running around, screaming, in a sedate London park; exciting to be behaving so outrageously, like a child who hasn’t yet learned to be self-conscious.

  “Wild,” Ivana shouted at the top of her voice.

  “Wild,” I screamed back, flinging my arms open and tossing back my head. “Wiiiiiiild.”

  I carried on for another five minutes, and only realized as I ran back toward Helen that I’d been doing it on my own for most of that time; Ivana was now back in her shoes and standing next to Helen, smoking a cigarette.

  Immediately I felt stupid again and looked down at the ground.

  “That vos better,” Ivana said, throwing her cigarette to the floor and stamping it underneath her stiletto heel. “But you heff long way to go before you gonna seduce men into merry you.”

  “I thought you were really good,” Helen said, noticing my crestfallen expression. “You were totally wild. I mean, really.”

  “Okay,” Ivana said, walking off toward the park entrance. “I heff to go now. Your homework: to tell yourself in mirror that you are Jessica Wild, that you are sexy woman. You tell your friend, too.”