thought the best way to tackle this challenge was to wrap yourself in my duvet and watch an episode of Dawson for the eight trillionth time?’ I perch on the edge of the sofa.
‘I’ve given myself this sacred Sunday to pretend it’s not happening, then I’ll have the nervous breakdown tomorrow.’ She looks up at me from her array of blankets and taps a space next to her. ‘Joey’s about to slouch her way through a horrific rendition of “On My Own”, care to join?’
I do. I’ve seen the Beauty Pageant episode countless times before, but I flop down next to her, though not under the blankets. We wince our way through her cover of Eponine, Megan pausing it at random intervals to yell ‘ERGH DAWSON IS THE WORST!’
When it finishes, she’s up right away, digging through my shopping bag.
‘Megan! No!’
‘What did you get? You never buy books! Oh my God, April,’ she digs one out and holds it like it’s contaminated. ‘What the hell? Is this a joke?’
I grab the book off her. ‘No.’
Her mouth drops open, and she digs into my Waterstones bag to unearth worse books with even worse titles. I try to stop her but I can’t. Megan gets them all out, turning each one over and reading under her breath and then staring up at me. ‘Is this what Simon has done to you? I didn’t realise it was this bad.’
‘No! It’s fine. It’s nothing. I’m fine, honestly.’
‘Yeah, you’re clearly totally sane. All these books are signs of such high self-esteem.’ She jabs at them with her finger. On the floor lie six books with the following titles:
Why Men Love Horrible Women
How to Win Him
Calling in Your Soulmate
The Laws of Love
Make All Men Want You
How Not to Scare Off Your Soulmate
All of them have various grand claims on their covers. Things like ‘Find the love of your life within 30 days’, or ‘Use the law of attraction to pull in lasting love’. Even Oprah has endorsed one.
‘I’m just trying something out,’ I tell Megan. ‘I’m doing some research.’
‘For what?’ She picks up Calling in Your Soulmate and holds it upside down, like it’s a dead mouse. ‘Are you method acting in a play called The Importance of Being Basic?’
‘Ha. Something like that.’
‘Honestly, what’s going on?’
Do I tell her?
Because I know what I’m planning is mental. And mental in a way that’s so mental that even your best friend isn’t going to pretend it’s OK.
‘Nothing’s going on. I’m just interested, that’s all. In all this stuff you’re told about how to meet guys. I thought it might help the relationship advisor part of my job.’
‘So it’s nothing to do with getting dumped yesterday?’
‘No!’ It’s to do with getting dumped consistently throughout my entire life. ‘And it’s just for work.’
‘I don’t believe you and neither would the most gullible person in the whole of gullible land.’
I shrug and pluck the offending book out of her hand. ‘Please, just leave it?’
She must see the pleading in my face. ‘OK then,’ she relents. ‘As unhealthy coping strategies go, reading is better than doing smack. That stuff is all bullshit though, you know that, right?’
I nod my lie. ‘Total bullshit.’
She looks up at me with wide, kohl-lined eyes. ‘Are you OK though? Seriously? You’d tell me if you weren’t, wouldn’t you?’
‘I really am all right, I promise.’ And it’s the truth. I reach down and begin to pick up my shopping. ‘In fact, despite these books looking like evidence to the contrary, I actually feel the best I’ve felt in a very long time.’
As the sun steadily bakes the city hotter and stinkier, I stay indoors, flipping through the pages of the books that will help me. The hours smudge into one another, lost in a haze of sweating my way through the earnest pages, stopping here and there either to make notes, or to get ice cubes out of the freezer and squeeze them under my armpits.
‘Great idea,’ Megan says, spotting me in the kitchen and coming over to copy me. She gasps as the ice hits her. ‘You sure you don’t want to come back into the nest?’
‘I’m fine. I’m just chilling in my room.’
All of the advice in the books, I find, I kind of knew already. What with all the panic pre-date googling I’ve done over the years. Plus my 33 years living life as a woman. Since the moment I plopped out of my mother’s womb, I’ve absorbed through osmosis how a woman should behave