Page 38 of The Late Bloomer’s Playlist

‘I only thought she was extraordinary after I started a proper conversation with her,’ he said, sounding every bit the petulant child.

‘So she’s extraordinary because you had a conversation with her?’

‘Patti.’ He set his fingertips on his forehead. ‘You’re tying me in knots.’

‘Oh, my darling.’ I cupped at David’s cheek. ‘Come on, point her out to me.’

We wandered arm in arm through the partygoers, looking for the woman David had since christened Eudora.

‘Extraordinary name,’ I said with a smirk.

‘It is, isn’t it, and…’ David caught my expression. ‘Piss off, Patricia. Look.’ He stopped short and my fourth gin – we’d made another bar stop on our travels – sloshed over the edge of my glass. ‘There she is now, talking to Anita and Joe.’

‘Perfect.’ I started to steer us in their direction but David held me back.

‘Are you utterly off your trolley, Patti?’

‘No, but I’d say with another drink I’ll be close. What’s wrong with talking to Anita and Joe?’

‘We’re only talking to them because she’s talking to them,’ David said in a low whisper.

I matched his tone. ‘But it’s their party, so shouldn’t we be talking to them anyway?’

‘Oh, well.’ His back straightened as it had done before. ‘Well, I suppose that… Oh, tits and arses she’s gone now. Okay, I need to find her, and I need to find occasion to talk to her again. I didn’t get much from what she said at the bar.’

‘Did you get anything besides her name?’

‘She owns a vintage clothing shop on the high street and–’

‘Hang on,’ I interrupted him. ‘This woman knocked back your advances–’

‘I wish you wouldn’t put it like that.’

‘This woman knocked back your advances, but you managed to determine where she works?’

David’s cheeks bloomed with a pale pink that could have been either alcohol or embarrassment. I wasn’t absolutely sure which, but I was willing to foot the bill for the next round that I could guess.

‘Tell me you didn’t…’ I pushed.

‘It’s not a common name.’

‘You searched for her on Facebook! When did you even have the time?’

‘While the bartender was mixing our drinks.’

‘David, you–’

‘I know, I know. I’m not proud of it.’

‘I suspect you are, actually.’

He laughed. ‘Well, I am a little. But would it be strange, do you think, if I happened to wander into the shop one day? Maybe even looking for something for my wife?’

‘How, Romeo, does that help your chances of pursuing this woman?’

‘I’m not a romancer of women if I’m out clothes shopping for my wife.’

I gasped. ‘You’re going to friend trap her!’

‘Patti, I asked you never to call it that ag–’

‘But you are!’

This was a tried and tested David move. In the years that I’d known him, his skills as a heartbreaker had become much more refined – along with his charisma and the fact that I would swear blind he was more attractive now than he had been through the entirety of our thirties. When we were younger, there were a few occasions – and admittedly, it was only ever a few – when David couldn’t quite get the car into the garage when it came to pursuing a woman. These few women – who I thought really deserved a club, with comfortable clothing and a logo – had rebuffed David’s efforts, marking him as a playboy type who wasn’t going to take them further than whatever number date involved them sleeping together. Which was a fair assumption on their parts. But to overcome that hurdle, David – husband of mine – had developed what I had early on coined the friend trap. He would get close to a woman, convince her that he had absolutely no romantic interest in her at all – which, in some ways, was true, depending on your definition of the term – and once they were “friends”, that’s when he’d strike. In his most famous execution of this move, he’d somehow managed to convince one woman that she was the one encouraging him into bed rather than the other way around. He hadn’t done it in a long time though, mostly because he hadn’t needed to.

‘And there must be something extraordinary about her for you to bring that move out of retirement,’ I added.

David pulled away and looked at me through the slits of his eyes. ‘Sometimes, Patricia, you can be quite cutting, and I truly don’t know why I put up with it.’

‘But I do make a good, cooked breakfast, and I know how you like your drinks made.’ The opening chords for The Supremes’ ‘Come See About Me’ juddered in through the speaker system and I searched out a spot where I could abandon my drink. ‘And I will always dance with you at parties,’ I said, holding out my hand.

David rolled his eyes and threw back the last of his drink. ‘Come on, you silly old cow, I only want to see what you move like in those jeans…’