Page 23 of Fake It 'til You Make It

I give my reflected self one curt nod.You’ve got this.I’vegot this. Then I apply the overpriced lipstick I was lured into buying at my beauty makeover and proverbially brush myself off.

Walking back through the restaurant, I hold my chin high – more metaphorically than physically – and twist my lips up just like I twisted my new lipstick.

I. Am. So. Ready. For. This. Dinner.

‘So, how did you and Sasha meet?’ Meredith asks, finishing her question with a sip of Viognier and beaming in the direction of Andrew, seemingly lacking any emotional intelligence whatsoever.

Thank God for the vast à la carte menu I choose to get lost in.

I. Am. So. Over. This. Dinner.

The whole point of this disastrous experience was for Dee to share her baby news with Nate. From the way her knuckles are gripping her leather-bound menu so hard I can practically see bone, I know she won’t bring it up now.

I make an immediate decision to order no starter, a salad main and skip dessert. Free or not, no meal is worth this. The sooner I can leave and spare my ears the current fairy tale of Andrew and Sasha both gunning for the same yellow cab, the better.

They couldn’t be any more cliché.

Stuff waiting for a member of staff. I reach into the wine bucket where the wine Nate chose is chilling. I pour my glass to full beyond etiquette.

9

ABBEY

The best thing about dinner with Nate is that it’s over.

It was awful. Beyond awful. The stuff of nightmares.

I was first to leave, making a lame excuse about a work interview tomorrow, before the others had received the desserts and coffees they’d ordered. Dee wanted to leave with me in solidarity but I told her to stay – I know how she loves desserts and she’s eating for two now.

I blubbered my way to the subway, thankful to have held it together for more than an hour. Now, I’m heading into a pizza place between Clark Street station and my apartment block.

‘I’ll take a chocolate calzone, please,’ I tell the server, and I cry some more whilst I wait on a bench in the window, passersby staring at this ostensibly neurotic woman.

By the time I get the food back to my apartment block, the smell is killing me. I would happily bury my face in the contents of the box and grunt-gobble it up like a pig from a trough. It may not be fitting of my new capsule wardrobe and these stupid heels I’m wearing – I finally understand what people mean when they saykillerheels – but it would be fitting of my current mood.

At the entrance to Blake House, I hold my fob to the door lock and back my butt into the main doors.

As I connect with the heavy glass door and start to push it open, a cab pulls up curbside.

For the second time tonight, I am left thinking,Come. Off. It!

The long legs of Andrew’s new woman are first to step out of the cab. Then, sure enough, Andrew gets out of the far-side of the cab and walks around to offer a hand to his date.

Meanwhile, my butt and I are rooted to the spot, holding open the entrance door.

Andrew looks up. Our eyes connect, both of us wearing expressions of confusion, and I really hope it’s not blatant that I’ve been crying.

‘Did you follow me?’ I ask.

‘Did you followme?’ he replies.

‘How funny,’ his date says. ‘Do you live here?’

‘Ah, yeah, I do.’

They’re approaching me. Andrew relieves me of the weight of the door and I back inside the building.

‘Do you live here?’ I ask.

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