The Impossible Search for the Perfect Man by Debbie Howells/Susie Martyn Read Free Book Online Page A

veterinary and otherwise, no doubt.
     I’ve also, just recently,
discovered Emma’s guilty secret.  Don’t we all have one? Anyway, Emma’s,
it seems, is that she is addicted, quite seriously I’m finding out, to horoscopes.
‘Astrology’, she’ll tell you, because she thinks it sounds more intelligent.
Can you imagine?  She’s clever, educated, accomplished in her career, very
pretty, and yet relies on a twat like Jerome Castello, ‘astrologer to the
stars’, as he describes himself, to tell her how to live her life.  I ask
you.  Even with my three and a half GCSE’s , I’m
not as daft as that.
    Emma has updates regularly texted to her
mobile during the day, and pretends to whoever she’s
with, be it client or colleague, that it’s an urgent update on a patient. 
It must cost her a fortune.  She is unreservedly and worryingly hooked,
and I’ve decided it’s my mission to cure her.  Well, someone has to.
    Jerome Castello must be laughing all the
way to the bank.  There are probably millions of Emma’s who get sucked in
via his website, and before they know it, they can’t function without
subscribing to his super-duper overpriced premier service.  He’s a con
man. He must be.  I plan to do some research and find out more about
him.  I don’t like seeing my friends ripped off.
    Half way through the evening, there’s a
bleeping noise from Emma’s direction.  She leaps to attention and grabs
her phone.  It could be a call out from a client, or maybe it’s just
Jerome with an update.  She stands there, listening, uttering the
occasional ‘erm,’ or ‘I see’.  Then hangs up.    Definitely Jerome then.
    ‘Okay?’ I smile brightly at her, holding
her gaze just a little longer than necessary.
    ‘Fine.’  
Just like Beamish.  It must be catching.  But she’s looking guilty.
Ah ha.  She knows I know.
    Agnes looks quizzically from one of us
to the other.  This must be the first time in the history of the world
that I know something she doesn’t.
    Then Emma’s phone bleeps again, and I look
at her, annoyed actually, that she’s going to let some stupid astrologer
interrupt our evening for the second time.  But this time it’s a bona fide
client, and after taking some details in a highly professional manner, Emma’s
off to save someone’s precious horse.  She exits very speedily, knowing
full well that she’s only putting off the inevitable, and that I’ll be
addressing her problem at the next possible opportunity.
     
    It’s funny really. My new home isn’t far
from where Arian and I lived, but life has changed beyond recognition.
 But it’s crept up on me that it’s better, a
realisation that wasn’t entirely welcome at first – but it’s true.  
For starters, I have such great friends, I’ve realised, now I no longer take
them for granted.  And for the most part, I feel really good.  There
have been the occasional blips when I’ve forgotten myself and reverted to a
bawling, snot-nosed wreck, but I always hate myself so much afterwards, I’ve
tried to stop myself, because it’s a simple fact that my marriage is over, and
no amount of self-pity will change that.  Shit happens, and not just to
me, as I’m finding out.
     
    But tonight’s the first night I’ve been
unable to sleep in ages. I ditched those hideous 3am gremlins when I left Plum
Tree Cottage and have slept like a log ever since.  But tonight, for a
change, it’s not about me.  I can’t stop thinking about Leonie, and wonder
what’s going on with Pete.  They have always been so utterly devoted to
each other.  I can’t in all honesty believe they’re headed the same way as
me and Arian, but how can I be sure?  I didn’t see that coming, after
all. 
    Leonie adores Pete, loves him with every
fibre of her being. I admire that kind of love.  And I’m a little envious
if I’m honest.  I’m not at all sure I ever felt that way about Arian, nor did I invest the tireless, unselfish,