Week 10 - The Double Date

The next two weeks went quite quickly and although I raced home from work each day in the hope that there might be a letter from Becky waiting for me I began to think about her less and less. Yes, there were times when my head would be full of thoughts like, are we still engaged, did my smelly feet put her off and should I have reacted differently when I received the text on that fateful night. The way I had reacted was of course so typical of me and the way I bury my head in the sand just hoping things will go away. Perhaps I should have taken the text message as a sign that things were not good and gone straight around to see Becky. To hell with it being bad luck to see the bride the night before the wedding. It is more unlucky not to see her on the wedding day. It also seems now that other people are beginning to forget about what happened and are starting to treat me without the cotton gloves. My mum will now even mention the ‘B’ word Becky when I am around.



I am driving with Pete back from seeing the Villa draw when he announces that we have a double date that night with a couple of crackers. This certainly takes me by surprise, but perhaps it is just what I need. Even Pete is taken aback by my cool response to this news. He explains that I would be doing him a favour because he has been trying to spend time with a girl called Lyn for a few weeks, but she always has her friend Denise in tow. Even though I expect that the term ‘cracker’ was perhaps more apt for Lyn than this Denise I was excited by the chance to have date on a Saturday night. Yes, it was good to be able to veg out on a Saturday night with the pink football papers and watch ‘Match of the Day’, but this Saturday night I was going to be out on a date. Pete dropped me off and informed me that we were meeting at the Craven Arms at eight o’clock. This gave me about ninety minutes to get ready. I decided to go the whole way and even had a bath using some bubble bath that Becky had left behind. It was a bit girly smelling, but I thought it would make me smell nice. Having not used bubble bath since the days of the blue sailor one called ‘Matey’, which promised clean kids and a clean bath, I was not exactly sure how much foam to put in. Perhaps if I use this flower scented pink one again I will use about a quarter of the amount because not only would the bubbles I had created not seem to want to disappear from my body but I smelt like an exhibit at the Chelsea Flower Show. It was too much and I was sure that Pete would make a comment so I tried to hide the smell with some aftershave. Unfortunately the only bottle that I had that was half decent was one that Becky’s mum gave me last Christmas. I had only tried it once and didn’t really care for the smell but I desperately needed something to hide the scent of flowers.


I tried on my favourite black button fly jeans which Becky always said showed my bottom off well. I only wore them on special occasions because I found the button fly very difficult if I had a few drinks and had to go for a wee. Standing by a urinal spending minutes trying to correctly fasten all the stiff buttons always made me worry that somebody would think I was dong something dodgy with my private bits. I was going to go for it tonight and hopefully avoid having to empty my bladder during the evening. The only problem was that over the last couple of months since joining the jilted club I hadn’t really been eating very much, mainly because I couldn’t be bothered to go shopping. So even for my usual skinny self I was looking very thin. The jeans almost fell right down with the lack of waist. Even with a belt with the buckle in the last hole they were still not secure. Time was running out so with the aid of a Phillips screwdriver I added an extra hole to my belt. Perhaps if I had taken the belt off first I wouldn’t have stabbed myself in the leg with the screwdriver, but it didn’t bleed too much and apart from having to change my white shirt no harm was done. I put my black shirt on instead and couldn’t really tell if I looked fashionable or as if I was going to a funeral. My hair was desperately in need of a visit to the hairdressers with a number of added curls appearing in unexpected places. Also I noticed an unwanted grey hair on the left-hand side which I am sure was not there when I was preparing for the wedding. Was it stress or the first real signs of aging? At 29 had I peaked? Would it be all downhill from now with hair going grey and then dropping out? Would I have to start taking a change of pants out with me to stop me smelling of wee because I dribble after I have been for a pee? There was no time to get depressed now though as I had to be ready for my date. With a quick yank I pulled out the offending grey hair. Maybe I could start dying my hair if it got any worse.


As always I was very punctual and reached the Craven Arms at five to eight. Normally I would arrive ten minutes early but decided I didn’t want to appear too keen. Pete wasn’t there yet, but Pete was often late so I looked around to see if I could see two ‘crackers’ inside. For some reason I hadn’t asked Pete anything about what Denise was like. Perhaps I didn’t really want to know so I didn’t have any preconceived ideas. I mean if Pete had said she had a great personality knowing Pete it would have meant ‘she is not much to look at’. I didn’t care what she was like it was just a relief to be out on a Saturday night. The Craven Arms was not one of our usual pubs so I assume Pete had chosen it because it would have the least number of his ex’s there. It wasn’t bad little pub though and I had taken Becky there once and we had had quite a romantic night at the table to the right of the log fire sharing a bag of dry-roasted peanuts and making one round of drinks last all night.


It is nearly ten past eight before Pete walks in with two girls. One of them was a quite stunning brunette with a tight silver top on and a short black skirt. She was maybe lacking a few pounds in the vital areas but oozed confidence in her designer mirror sunglasses even though it was pitch black outside. Behind Pete and this attractive lady was another girl who wasn’t really in the same league but had a cute look about her. She was quite short and dumpy with blonde highlights in her short brownish hair and a West Bromwich Albion scarf round her neck. This I thought must be the friend Denise. Apart from the scarf and the considerable height difference to me I was quite intrigued by this stranger. To my surprise Pete introduced the woman in the Albion scarf to me first as Lyn. It seemed that my date Denise was actually the more glamorous of the two girls with Pete. This was certainly a turn-up.

Next Week : Denise or Lyn?