Behaving Like Adults by Anna Maxted Read Free Book Online Page A

discovered he was straight I felt cheated. All pizzazz, no action. Then it emerged he was an actor. Alright. Half forgiven. I worry though, that Nige thinks the phrase ‘no offence’ excuses him any slander. (Last week, I heard him on the phone, telling his bank manager he was, ‘A c* * *, no offence’.)
    Claudia looked Stuart up and down, then Nick. It was hard for my little sis. She and Nick got on brilliantly, untilI broke off our engagement. I knew she lost respect for him when he stayed and stayed, but while her support of my decision was hardline, bordering on virulent, I suspected that secretly she pitied his situation and felt rotten acting cool towards him. ‘Still hoping, Nicky?’ she said, not unkindly.
    It was verging on awkward, when a clatter on the stairs made us all turn. The door banged open and in clomped Rachel. She wore a red silky shawl flung around her shoulders and was unbothered at five people scrutinising its stains. Rachel isn’t beautiful but she’s very striking, with fine silky hair and large dramatic features that look clumsily put together. She reminds me of a Picasso. No offence.
    â€˜The usual suspects,’ she said to Nige and Claw, adding, ‘Mwa, mwa,’ rather than put lip to cheek. Pause. ‘Nick.’
    Nick moved his head.
    â€˜Rachel,’ I said hastily, ‘this is Stuart. Stuart, my friend Rachel.’
    â€˜Ah-hah. You must be the pilot. The man who scared Holly sick. Not that it matters, babes – that dress has been due a dry clean since Glyndebourne. How many hours have you flown, Stuart? You must be rather advanced to pull a stunt like that.’
    â€˜Oh, no,’ replied Stuart, grinning at his feet. ‘That’s kids’ stuff.’
    â€˜What?’ barked Rachel, who has no concept of false modesty. ‘So you’re
not
advanced?’
    Stuart looked annoyed.
    â€˜Who wants a drink?’ I said. ‘Anyone?’
    Nige summoned a barman. I wanted to be sober when my prodigies arrived, so I asked for an orange juice. The furore was such that you’d have thought I’d requested the fresh blood of a murdered child at room temperature, no lemon. ‘An orange juice,’ I restated, as everyone hissed. At least, their mindless communal urge to drive me to drink hacked into the awkwardness, and by the time the firstguests poked their heads round the door, everyone was well on their way to getting in the mood.
    Running a dating agency is like being a nursery school teacher. You can’t be friends with everyone but you have your favourites. Girl Meets Boy is supposed to be unashamedly elitist, catering for ‘those who are beautiful, inside and out’. That was our USP (excuse me for swearing). But it emerged with our first postbag that pretty much everyone thinks they’re beautiful inside and out, even people who – to quote Nige – ‘are very ugly’.
    It reminded me of those self-help books on confidence, briskly advising you to stare in the mirror every day and chant ‘I am amazing’. But what if you’re
not
amazing?
    I couldn’t bear it. I didn’t know how to reject non-beautiful people in a way that didn’t devastate. I kept sneaking them in. Nige had a fit and accused me of ‘diluting our appeal’. When I replied with a mutinous silence, he tried to make me swear I wouldn’t ‘cross-pollinate’. He wanted members to be divided into As, Bs and Cs. At first I thought he meant according to name. But his thinking was more along the lines of
Brave New World
. Trouble is – much as it pains me to admit it – Nige was right. Good-looking people are intolerant of being fixed up with less good-looking people. They’ll allow us a small margin of error which I push to its limit.
    Samantha, for example. She crept in to the party raw with ezcema, in her trademark dungarees. Claudia nudged me. ‘How the hell does