She Said Yes!
by Patrick O’Connor
THERE, that’s it done, now all I have to do is wait.
Oh no, I’m coming out in a cold sweat, shouldn’t have done it, it’s all going to end in disaster, I can tell, it always does.
There was that time in the sixth form when I told Melanie Smith that we were soul mates, well actually I was so nervous that I told her we were ‘pole mates.’ We never went out, in fact she never spoke to me again after that.
And once, when I was on holiday with my parents and little sister in Ciutadella in Menorca, we met this English family from Surrey and they had a teenage daughter – Arabella was her name – and I fancied her like mad. She was posh and rode a horse and spoke very precisely.
But we had paella for dinner one night and it didn’t agree with me, especially after swigging half a jug of sangria whilst mum and dad weren’t looking.
So just as I was moving in for a kiss behind a beach hut covered with FC Barcelona graffiti, I threw up all over her new dress which she’d bought at a street market that every day.
Mum and dad weren’t too pleased when her parents shoved the cleaning bill under our hotel room door the next morning.
I wish I was a superhero like Plastic Man then I could dip my extra-long arms into the bowels of the post-box and retrieve the Valentine card I’d just dispatched.
What on earth possessed me to do it? I’m useless with girls, shy as a coconut. I’ve got specs, spots…lots of things that aren’t cool, like my comic book collection and my Yeovil Town season ticket.
But this girl at uni, man she’s gorgeous, bit like Keira Knightley but from Sheffield. Never actually spoken to her of course, wouldn’t know what to say but I’ve overheard her in the cafeteria. Okay, the accent’s a bit severe for my Somerset ears, but I’m in love, well I think I am.
Her name’s Sally (don’t know her surname) and she lives at Flat 3, Pointer Street. Found that out from my cousin Simon, who works in the student union. I think he fancies her as well but his girlfriend would kill him if he showed any interest. No, she really would. She’s very possessive and dominating is Claire, even insists on watching him playing all his computer games.
They live in the flat next to mine and you often can hear her scream: ‘Blast the bastard Simon, waste him!’
It took ages to find the right Valentine’s card. I couldn’t make my mind up and took so long that I was sure people were looking at me and giggling so I had to leave and go and find another shop.
Anyway after much deliberation I found the right one, all pink and fluffy it was, and I wrote that I thought she was the most beautiful, sensuous creature on God’s earth. Yes I know that sounds soppy and way over the top but I’m in love, well I think I am.
And then, this is the crazy bit, the bit that’s so unlike me, I wrote my name and mobile number (together with bags of kisses and little smiley faces) and asked if she’d like to meet me outside the uni bar tonight at 8pm.
My heart skips a beat as a text bounces in. Oh my God, it’s her and she said YES!
Outside the bar, my phone rings and it’s my best mate Tom. We went to the same school but he’s a year older which means he’s had a year to settle in at uni, get to know everybody and now he spends most of his time doing promo work for a club in town.
I tell him about my Valentine and all I can hear is him laughing. He’s really pissing himself so it must be funny.
Oh my God, oh my God. Tom knows Sally vaguely (he reckons he knows loads of girls and slept with most of them), trouble is, and this just about sums up my luck with the fairer sex, he knows THREE Sallys!
Yes you’ve got it, they ALL live at Flat 3, Pointer Street, and no, neither he nor I have any idea which one’s about to turn up.
Suddenly there’s a tap on my shoulder …
© Patrick O’Connor 2011