Cowboys & Englishmen

Chapter 3.

Well, to say Paula wasn't happy was a bit of an understatement. She bared her teeth like some angry dragon, as I recounted the drama of the night before. And then the disaster that was my dress, followed cruelly by my phone call with Scott. What irritated me most, was that this wasn't me. Granted I can be scatty, disorganised and dramatic come my time of the month, but I needed that job. Yes it was tedious, and disheartening and soul crushing, given that I'd been awarded a first at university, but it paid the bills.

I'd never let him get to me before, not because I didn't care about him,but probably because I always would. And I couldn't allow myself to venture down the whole self-pitying path. I like food. A lot. Without my exercise in shutting off the past, I'd be obese right now. Morbidly Obese with orange hair.

Scott and I were together for over seven years. That meant that I'd wasted the majority of my twenties on him. 'Child bearing years'. The years when you're supposed to be in your physical prime, traveling and working your way through the male population. As I drove away from the library, twenty seven minutes after setting foot in the door, I felt the anger I hadn't let myself feel before. I was nineteen when I met him, and in my second year of Uni. We met at a Halloween house party, I was dressed as Frankenstein's bride and Scott was Captain Jack Sparrow. I had my eye on a gorgeous blue eyed red head, with the body of an Adonis and the redhead made me so nervous that I downed far too many gory looking shots. And punch with eyeball ice cubes in it. Out on the steps to the house, I puked up all over a rose bush and someone held my hair. A geeky looking bloke with so much fake tan on his face that he put the Oompa Loompas to shame.

And lashings of eyeliner that even Johnny Depp would be proud of.

We got talking, his goofy humour sucking me in, and we spent hours out on the lawn, culminating in me scrawling my number with his eyeliner, across his hand. It was like they always say in those cheesy, corny rom com films, we were inseperable. And I don't mean like one of those irritating couples that block out the rest of the world, including their friends to hole up with one another. I mean in the sense that it was so natural. It just happened, I liked him, he liked me, and we wanted the same things.

At least that's the impression he gave me.

Somewhere along the line I ceased to be the happy ending he wanted. And the truth was, that I'd have gladly married him. And maybe admitting that was the best and worst thing that I could do. I pulled over beside a dry cleaners, instantly making me think of the neon dress and I cried so dramatically that snot streamed from my nose. It wasn't dignified, I'll give you that. But in less than forty eight hours I'd join my family, aunts, uncles, cousins, and endure the usual spiel.

'Doesnt your sister look like a princess, shame about you and Scott.'

'You poor thing, don't worry, Aunt Victoria was a very happy spinster.'

Aunt Victoria wore huge baggy bloomers under her skirts, talked to her porcelain dolls of which she had enough to fill a tennis court twice over, and had a fully grown grey mustache. I touched my upper lip, tracing the path of my impending hair growth, feeling about as sorry for myself as I ever had. And then I went right back to feeling angry again. I revved the engine, mirroring my angsty mood, and just as Alanis Morisette blared from the car speakers, I hightailed it to over to Donna's work.

....................

Casey's Cafe was the kind of place old people and builders were drawn to. A little shabby, with peeling paint on the walls and chipped crockery. Owned by Donna's uncle Pete, and passed down through the family, Donna worked there alongside a cleaning job at a local school. And I worked there on Monday and Tuesday evening, and all day Wednesday when the library was closed. As soon as Donna saw me, she threw down her apron and charged towards me, open armed.