Read Online Do You Want to Know a Secret? by Claudia Carroll - Free Book Online Page B

to scribble down the absolute basic, minimum qualities that your future life-partner absolutely must have. Come on, you’d do it if you were buying a house, so why not a husband?’
    ‘Well, maybe not this house,’ says Laura, blithely.
    ‘And I want you to be really specific, like, say, if you want him to have a hot body and do meals on wheels in his spare time, or . . . I dunno, be in Amnesty, whatever.’
    ‘So you’re saying it’s not enough for a guy to be Mr Right any more, he has to be Bono as well,’ I say.
    ‘Just hear me out, will you?’ says Barbara, referring back to the notes on the back of her gas bill. ‘Now one of the more unpleasant sides to being project manager is that I have to get you to face up to the ugly truth. Namely, that for as long as I can remember, Vicky, it’s like you’ve basically been dating any guy that’ll ask you. I can’t put my finger on it, but it’s almost as if you’re so bloody grateful that they’ve invited you out in the first place that you just say yes, regardless of whether you actually like them or not. Once they have a proper job and they don’t have two heads you just slap your DSM label on them and away you go.’
    Ouch.
    There’s a tiny, stunned silence from my corner while I’m thinking, could she actually be right?
    ‘I’m afraid I have to agree,’ says Laura, nodding like a Buddha. ‘You are in fact suffering from indiscriminate affirmative syndrome.’
    ‘Excuse me, I’m suffering from
what
?’
    ‘You always say yes. To men, at least.’
    ‘How
very
dare you,’ I say, in a Catherine Tate voice, hands on hips, as though I’m messing, but I’m actually not.
    That stung. And, as ever, when cornered, I get a bit defensive. That plus the fact that I’m beginning to feel a bit ganged-up-on by the two of them. God, this is starting to remind me a bit of school, when Laura was the one with all the brains and the great future ahead of her, and Barbara was the one who was never without a fella, and me . . .
    Well, I just wisecracked my way through things, really. I’d launch into a comedy routine to cover up my shortcomings/complete and utter failure with the male race.
    And here I am, all these years later,
STILL
doing it.
    ‘OK, so maybe I don’t exactly run a screening programme on guys,’ I say. ‘But come on, I mean, all the dating manuals out there say you have to give every single potential boyfriend a decent chance. Besides, at my age, shouldn’t I just gratefully take what I can get? The law of attraction book even says it: attitude is gratitude. So as long as he has a pulse, a job, can use a knife and fork and doesn’t steal from my handbag, then I’m prepared to give any guy a whirl.’
    Times like this, I wish I came with a canned laughter soundtrack, like they have on sitcoms, but the two of them are just looking at me in stony silence.
    ‘And now we’re over to the opposition,’ says Laura, as if she’s hosting a debate on
Prime Time
, using a celery stick as a microphone, which she’s now thrusting under Barbara’s nose. ‘I put it to you that Victoria feels her quest to find a life-partner is merely about having no standards at all, to which you reply . . .?’
    ‘Right then,’ says Barbara, topping up our glasses from what’s left in the cocktail shaker. ‘Sorry to be the one to dole out tough love, Vic, but you’ve no choice. The longest relationship you’ve had so far this year was with . . .’
    I sigh deeply. Christ alive, she already knows the answer to this one, but if she wants me to illustrate her point, then I may as well just get it over with.
    She is, after all, only trying to help me, I keep having to remind myself.
    ‘Lee Harrington. Architect. Met when he came to have a look at this place for me. Thanks so much for opening that particular box, Pandora.’
    Although, in hindsight, the only thing I’m grateful for here is that I never actually gave Lee the job. His ideas were just way too