Alice Brown's Lessons in the Curious Art of Dating Page 0,7

right?”

“Nope, I’m deadly serious. Their one-to-one personal service.”

“Have you been drinking?”

“Of course not; it’s five to nine!”

Lou rubbed her eyes again. Some of last night’s makeup smeared across her face.

“So let me get this straight. You took a bang to the head after leaving the bar last night, and you’ve woken up thinking that handing over God knows how many of your hard-earned pounds to that ginger-haired matron with knockers down to her knees is going to make all the difference and you’re suddenly going to find a man and live happily ever after?”

“I’m not going to sign up with Audrey; I’m not completely mad!” Kate laughed. “If she picks up the phone I’m going to hang up. No, I’m going to call that nice Alice.”

“The frumpy librarian in the woolly socks? Smart move!”

“It doesn’t matter what she looks like. It’s about how she’s going to open me up to new people; widen my horizons.”

Lou sat up.

“You mean lower your standards and get you dating retards! Jesus, Kate. Remember how strange the men were last night? They were so far beneath your league, they’re . . . they’re . . .” Lou threw back her duvet in disgust and got out of bed. “This isn’t funny. You’ve got to be winding me up. What’s wrong with going to the pub or using the internet like everyone else?”

“The internet’s for shoe-shopping, not man-shopping.”

“Sounds like an excuse to me.”

“It’s not,” Kate replied tartly. “I just don’t want to do internet dating. It’s too public, putting your profile up for everyone to see; I don’t trust people’s motives; they don’t tell the truth. And as for going to pubs . . . hey, what happened with that barman last night?”

“What? Oh. Not my kind.”

“Since when was any man not your kind?”

Lou arched an eyebrow. “At least I have a kind. Anyway, I still don’t see why you have to join a dating agency. It’s a bit bloody old-school.”

“I don’t want to do it fashionably, I want to do it right. I’m sick and tired of working at finding a boyfriend. I work hard all day at the office. Finding a boyfriend shouldn’t feel like yet another job to be done. So I’m going to outsource. I want to pay my money, sit back and let the experts deliver some quality candidates to wine and dine me. I don’t want some internet shark who’s just after sex. I want someone who’s serious about settling down and having a family.”

Lou chewed her lip.

“Well, you certainly seem determined.”

“I am,” said Kate in her most determined tones.

There was a long silence. Lou heard Kate fend off a colleague.

“Well, go for it then,” she said lightly. “Good luck.”

“Do you really mean that?” Kate asked, her voice immediately vulnerable.

“Yes,” Lou replied as she groped for the bathroom light. “If you’re daft enough to shell out cash to meet balding, slopey-shouldered rejects who’ve probably never had a girlfriend in their lives, let alone a shag, then you’re going to need all the luck you can get. They’re all the same men, you know . . . on the internet or from a dating agency. They’re just the leftovers because the good ones our age have already been taken. You’re better off just going to a bar and pulling a twenty-four-year-old.”

Lou was suddenly struck by a flashback. What was it the barman had said last night? Thanks, but no offense, I don’t do older chicks. No offense? Immature little scumbag. Cheeky little fucker. She looked at herself in the mirror. Older chick my ass, she thought as she checked out her panda mascara eyes and shades-of-gray complexion. She could still swing it. She just needed a pair of straighteners and a layer of slap. It was all in the presentation and the lighting. Besides, nobody looks good in the morning.

“So, come on . . . How much is this privilege going to cost you, then?” she asked aggressively.

“Three hundred, and then a hundred a month.”

“Bloody hell, Kate! What if it takes you a year to find someone?”

“It won’t!” Kate replied confidently. “I’ll have professionals helping me; it’ll probably all be sorted in a couple of weeks. Besides, it can’t take that long; I haven’t got the time. I’m already behind schedule.”

“Behind schedule?”

Kate lowered her voice so she couldn’t be overheard.

“Well, I want to have two children, and I’ve always wanted them before I’m thirty-five. Ideally there should be two years between them so they’re not too close together at school, so