I felt my fingernails pressing down into the palms of my hands and gulped.
‘That’s an awfully serious look you’ve got on your face there,’ Drew said. ‘I’m sorry, didn’t mean to get so deep.’
‘Don’t apologize,’ I replied, brushing away the niggle that was fast becoming a nag. I couldn’t think about this now, I had something else to do, namely Drew. It was time to bring out the big guns. I shrugged my coat off my shoulders, revealing an obscenely tiny black dressManny had found in the bottom of my wardrobe. It was truly minuscule, skin-tight, the spaghetti straps straining against a chest that was apparently much bigger than it was when I was eighteen and thought wearing a sock with straps made for acceptable clubwear.
‘If he doesn’t go for this, he’s gay,’ Manny had declared when I finally pulled it down over my arse. I’d questioned the reductive nature of his statement out of a sense of social responsibility, but he made a solid case. Drew was single, new in town and so lonely, he had chosen to attend Dorothy’s Christmas party alone and of his own volition. It didn’t matter that I wasn’t a master seductress, it didn’t matter that I’d forgotten to toss my hair and laugh at his jokes, this dress would make my intentions perfectly clear. It screamed ‘take me to bed or lose me forever’ almost as loudly as it bellowed ‘do not go near a naked flame’ and from the look on Drew’s face, it was a language he spoke fluently.
‘That’s quite an outfit,’ he stammered before throwing back the rest of his drink. ‘Are you, um, going on somewhere after this?’
‘I don’t know,’ I cooed, leaning across the table to give him a better view. ‘Can you think of anywhere … fun?’
‘Oh no.’ Drew stood up, his chair clattering to the floor behind him. ‘I think, actually, I need to leave, right now.’
‘Don’t go!’ I leapt to my feet and my right boob made a break for it out the front of my dress. I caught it just in time. ‘Please, stay.’
‘It’s not you, you’re great, you’ve got the wrong end of the stick, is all,’ he said, looking away as I yanked my frock up, red-faced and dying inside. I was still trying to tether my breasts down when his phone pinged intolife on the table and a photo appeared on the screen. ‘Believe me, if things were different—’
‘Oh!’ I clapped a hand over my mouth as I realized it was a photo of a body part I did not possess.
‘Shit,’ Drew grabbed the phone and stuffed it into the back pocket of his jeans. ‘I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, it’s only that I’m …’
‘Gay?’ I suggested.
‘Gay,’ he confirmed, exhaling with relief. ‘I’m so sorry.’
‘Do not apologize,’ I said, shaking my head and wondering how many more dick pics I would have to see before this infernal Christmas was out. ‘You’ve done nothing wrong, there’s nothing to apologize for and you don’t have to leave. It’s me, it’s all on me. Mum wanted me to meet you, I didn’t know, shedefinitelydidn’t know. You’re great. You’re brilliant. You’re—’
‘Gay?’ he said again, this time with a booming laugh of relief. ‘Really, I am sorry. You look pure gorgeous. If I could stomach the thought of it, I’d definitely have a go.’
I held a hand to my heart, extremely flattered. ‘Really?’
‘On my great-grandma’s life,’ he replied, waving his now blank phone screen in the air. ‘I might call it an early night, go home and reply to my friend here.’
‘Go, go,’ I said, accepting a kiss on the cheek. ‘May you receive nothing but the best dick pics of all time.’
Right at that moment, Mum returned with two cups of punch, full to the brim. Drew gave her a friendly nod as he bolted out of the conservatory and I sank back into my chair, wondering if I could borrow a caftan from Dorothy.
‘What did you say to him?’ Mum asked, her scandalized eyebrows attempting to break free from her forehead. ‘And what are you wearing?’
‘I didn’t have to say anything. Drew is gay, Mum,’ I replied, gratefully accepting one of the cups and letting myself sink into its cheap, reliable embrace. ‘He is a gay man.’
She crumpled into his empty chair, her dreams shattered. And I didn’t mean the dreams of setting him up with her daughter. ‘Are you sure? He could be bisexual. Or pansexual! Kelvin, the head of maths, says he’s omnisexual now but he’s never been the same since he got hit in the head with a shotput on sports day.’
‘Maybe it knocked something into place.’ I pulled my trench coat over my apology of a dress as Bernard from down the road walked past our table, his eyes bulging out of his head. ‘And sorry but no, he’s good old-fashioned gay. You tried to set him up with the wrong child, I’m afraid.’
‘No point trying to sort him out with Manny,’ she sighed before helping herself to the drink she’d brought for my doomed date. ‘No one’s good enough for that boy, not even Drew. You’resurehe’s gay? He wasn’t trying to reject you politely?’
I glared at her, clutching my coat closer to my chest.
‘I was sure until you suggested otherwise.’
She pinched her shoulders together in a shrug as she sipped her drink. Just as I was thinking of making my excuses to go back to the house and get this day over with, Manny arrived, looking far too good for this party in close-fitting jeans and his new black hoodie, a hoodie I would be stealing to wear as a dress if he wasn’t careful.
‘What did I miss?’ he said, looking around the room. ‘Where’s your man?’
‘I’ll get myself back on booze duty,’ Mum offered, giving him her seat. ‘You’ll want a drink for this one.’
Manny looked back at me, confused as I pulled my beautifully blown-out hair back into the cack-handed ponytail of defeat.