Buch lesen: «Mr (Not Quite) Perfect»

ONE

Making Mr Perfect by Allegra Fielding

You’ve met a new guy. You’re hot, hot, hot for each other. He’s everything you ever wanted. But have you noticed that the infatuation phase never lasts? ’Fess up, ladies. How long before you’re out with the girls and you find yourself saying, ‘He’d be perfect if only he talked about his feelings/cooked occasionally/arranged a surprise mini-break/unfriended his ex on Facebook/insert peeve of your choice? He’s still hot, you still love him to bits, but he’s not quite as perfect as he seemed at first.

Are we asking too much of men nowadays? In a fairy tale, Prince Charming’s task is clear. He has to hack his way through a thicket, slay a dragon and rescue the princess. Easy. In real life, we want our men to do a whole lot more to deserve us. Here at Glitz we’ve been conducting our own super-scientific survey over a few cocktails (pomegranate martinis, anyone?) and it seems that we want it all. The perfect boyfriend, it turns out, can fix our cars and dance without looking like a total dork. He looks good and he’ll get rid of that spider in the shower. He’ll sit through a romcom without complaining and be strong enough to literally sweep us off our feet when required.

But does such a man exist? And if he doesn’t, is it possible to create him? Glitz gives one lucky guy the chance of the ultimate makeover. Read on and see how one unreconstructed male rose to the challenge of becoming the perfect man. Meet—

Allegra lifted her fingers from the keyboard and flexed them. Meet who?

Good question. Funny how the world was full of unreconstructed males until you actually needed one. But as soon as she had started asking around, it turned out that nobody wanted to admit that their boyfriends were anywhere near imperfect enough to take part in her experiment.

With a sigh, Allegra closed the document and shut down her computer. Had she been too ambitious? But Stella had liked the idea. The editor in chief had inclined her head by an infinitesimal degree, which signified enthusiasm. Now Allegra had a big break at last—and it would all fall apart if she couldn’t find a man in need of a major makeover. One measly man, that was all she needed. He had to be out there somewhere...but where?

* * *

‘Ouf!’ Allegra threw herself extravagantly into the armchair and toed off her mock-croc stilettos with a grimace of pain. The needle-thin metal heels were to die for, but she had been on them for over twelve hours and while they might be long on style, they were extremely short on comfort.

Max didn’t even look away from the television. He was stretched out on the sofa, flicking through channels, looking oddly at home in her sitting room. He had been tidying again, Allegra registered with a roll of her eyes. You would never catch the magazines being neatly lined up on the coffee table when it was just her and Libby. The radiators would be festooned with bras and thongs and the surfaces comfortingly cluttered with useful stuff like nail polish remover, empty shoe boxes, expired vouchers, cosmetic samples and screwed up receipts. She and Libby knew to check down the back of the sofa for chargers. They knew where they were with the mess.

There was no point in trying to tell Max that, though. Libby’s brother was an engineer. They said cosy sitting room, he said tip.

She massaged her sore toes. ‘My feet are killing me!’

‘Why do you wear those ridiculous shoes?’ Max demanded. ‘It’s like you put yourself through torture every day. Why don’t you wear trainers or something more comfortable?’

‘Because, Max, I work for Glitz,’ said Allegra with exaggerated patience. ‘That’s a fashion magazine and, while I realise that as Mr Hasn’t-got-a-clue you don’t know what fashion is, I can assure you that my editor would send me home if I turned up in trainers!’

‘They can’t sack you for what you wear,’ said Max, unimpressed.

‘Stella can do whatever she likes.’ Such was her editor’s power and personality that Allegra found herself glancing over her shoulder and speaking in hushed tones whenever her name was mentioned.

‘That woman’s a monster. You should tell her where to get off.’

‘And lose my job? Do you have any idea how hard it was to get a job at Glitz?’ Cautiously Allegra wiggled the blood back into her poor toes. ‘People kill for the chance to work with Stella. She’s like the high priestess of fashion. She’s totally awesome.’

‘You’re terrified of her.’

‘I’m not terrified,’ said Allegra, not quite honestly. ‘I respect her. Everyone respects her.’

Everyone except her mother, of course, but then it took a lot to impress Flick Fielding, as Allegra knew to her cost. She suppressed a little sigh at the thought. She had been so hoping that Flick would approve of the fact that Stella had given her a job in the face of such competition, but her mother had only raised perfectly groomed brows.

‘Glitz?’ she’d echoed as if Allegra had boasted of a first journalist job with Waste Collectors Weekly instead of a top-selling glossy magazine. ‘Well, if you’re pleased, then of course...well done, darling.’

Allegra would never have applied to Glitz in the first place if she had known that Stella had once mocked Flick’s choice of outfit for an awards ceremony. Flick, a formidably high-powered journalist, had not been amused.

Still, Allegra wouldn’t allow herself to be downcast. She just needed to make her mark at Glitz and a good reference from Stella would make her CV stand out anywhere, whatever her mother might say. And then she would get a job that would really make Flick proud of her. Sadly, that would probably mean boning up on politics and economics rather than shoes and handbags, but she would worry about that when the time came. For now the important thing was to impress Stella.

‘Well, I think you’re mad,’ said Max. ‘It’s bad enough having to wear a suit to work every day.’

Allegra eyed the striped polo shirt that Max changed into the moment he got home with disfavour. ‘Thank God they do make you wear a suit,’ she said. ‘Even you can’t go too far wrong with a suit and tie. The rest of the time, it’s like you’ve got an unerring sense of what will be least stylish.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Well, take that...that,’ she said, pointing at his top and Max looked down at his chest.

‘What’s wrong with it?’

‘It’s hideous!’

‘It’s comfortable,’ he said, unbothered. ‘I don’t care about style.’

‘You don’t say,’ said Allegra sarcastically.

It was quite incredible how lively Libby had ended up with such a stuffy brother! Max didn’t have a clue about music, or clothes, or anything other than engineering, as far as Allegra could tell. He didn’t look too bad in a conventional suit, but his taste in casual wear made her wince every time.

‘I wouldn’t even use that thing you’re wearing as a duster,’ she said.

‘You wouldn’t use anything as a duster,’ Max countered. ‘You never do any housework.’

‘I do!’

‘Where does the dustpan and brush live?’

There was a pause. ‘Under the sink?’

He made a bleeping noise. ‘In the cupboard under the stairs.’

‘There’s a cupboard under the stairs?’

‘I rest my case.’ Max shook his head and returned his attention to the television.

Gingerly, Allegra tested her feet and decided that she could manage a hobble to the kitchen to find something to eat. She was starving. Like the sitting room, the kitchen was so tidy nowadays she hardly recognized it.

Max had moved in a couple of weeks earlier. Libby’s three-month placement in Paris had coincided with the break-up of her brother’s engagement, and she had offered him her room while she was away.

‘Would you mind?’ she had asked Allegra. ‘It’s only for a couple of months before he’ll get a chance to go out to Shofrar, so it’s hard for him to find somewhere temporary. And I’m worried about him. You know what Max is like; he’s not exactly big on talking about feelings, but I think he must be really gutted about Emma.’

‘Why did she break it off, do you know?’ Allegra had been shocked when she heard. She’d only met Emma a couple of times, but she’d seemed perfect for Max. An engineer like him, Emma had been pretty, nice...the word boring shimmered in Allegra’s head but it was too unkind so she pushed it away...practical, she decided instead. Exactly the kind of sensible girl Max would choose and the last person Allegra would have expected to have broken it all off six months before the wedding.

‘He hasn’t told me.’ Libby shook her head. ‘Just says it’s all for the best. But I know he was planning for them to go out to Shofrar together and now that’s all off...well, I’d feel better if you were around to cheer him up. As long as you really don’t mind.’

‘Of course I don’t mind,’ said Allegra. She’d been at school with Libby and had spent many holidays with her friend’s family while Flick was working. Max was the brother she had never had, and over the years she had bickered with him and relied on him almost as much as Libby did.

‘At least I know he’s not a serial killer or anything,’ she’d said cheerfully. ‘I’ll stop him missing Emma too much.’

In fact, she didn’t see much of him. Max left for work early in the morning, and she was out most evenings. When they did coincide, like now, Max grumbled about her untidiness and Allegra criticised his clothes. They fought over the remote and shared the occasional takeaway. It was all perfectly comfortable.

And why wouldn’t it be? Allegra asked herself as she opened the fridge and studied its contents without enthusiasm. This was Max, after all. Libby’s brother. Allegra was fond of him, when she wasn’t being irritated by his wardrobe and that way he had of making her feel like an idiot a lot of the time. Max wasn’t ugly, but he wasn’t exactly a hunk either. Certainly not a man to set your heart pattering.

Apart from that one night, of course. Don’t forget that.

Allegra sighed as she picked out a low-fat yoghurt. Did everyone have an irritating voice in their head that would pop up at the least convenient times to remind them of precisely the things they most wanted to forget?

And it wasn’t a night, she felt compelled to argue with herself, rummaging for a teaspoon. It had been an odd little incident, that was all. Not even an incident, really. A moment. And so long ago, really she had almost forgotten it.

Or she would have done if that pesky voice would let her.

No, it was all very comfortable. It was fine. Allegra was glad Max wasn’t gorgeous or sexy. It made it easy to be relaxed with him. Which wasn’t to say he couldn’t make more of an effort on the clothes front. He didn’t seem to care what he looked like, Allegra thought critically. That shirt was appalling and he would fasten it almost to the neck, no matter how often she told him to undo another button. He had no idea at all. If he smartened himself up a bit...

And that was when it hit her. Allegra froze with the teaspoon in her mouth.

Max. He was perfect! Why on earth hadn’t she thought of him before?

She’d pitched the ‘create a perfect boyfriend’ idea to Stella at an editorial meeting the previous week. It was the first of her ideas that she’d been given the go-ahead to follow up, and Allegra had been fired with enthusiasm at first. But she had begun to wonder if she could make it work without the right man.

And now she had found him, lying in her own sitting room!

Already Allegra’s mind was leaping forward, all her excitement about the project refuelled. She would write the best article ever. It would be fun, it would be interesting, it would tap into every woman’s fantasy of making her man perfect. It would win awards, be syndicated worldwide. Stella would gasp with admiration.

At this point Allegra’s imagination, vivid as it was, faltered. Stella, gasping? But a little strategic tweaking and the fantasy still worked. All right, Stella would look as enigmatic as ever but her words would be sweet. Allegra, she would say, you’re our new star writer. Have a massive salary.

I’d love to, Stella, Allegra imagined herself saying in reply, super casual. But the Financial Times has made me an offer I can’t refuse.

Surely her mother would be impressed by the FT?

Sucking yoghurt thoughtfully from her spoon, Allegra went to the kitchen doorway from where she could study Max without being observed.

He was still on the sofa, still flicking through channels in search of the news or sport, which was all he ever watched. Definitely not the kind of guy you would check out in a bar. Brown hair, ordinary features, steady blue-grey eyes: there was nothing wrong with him, but nothing special either.

Yep, he was perfect.

Max played rugby so he was pretty fit, but he didn’t make anything of himself. Allegra mentally trimmed his hair and got rid of the polo shirt only to stop, unnerved, when she realised that the image of him lying on the sofa bare-chested was quite...startling.

Hastily, she put the shirt back on in her imagination. Whatever, the man was ripe for a makeover.

All she had to do was get Max to agree. Scraping out the yoghurt pot, Allegra tossed it in the bin with a clatter and squared her shoulders. Only last week she’d written an article on the benefits of thinking positive and getting what you wanted. It was time to put all that useful research into practice.

Back in the sitting room, she batted at Max’s knees until he shifted his legs and she could plonk herself down on the sofa next to him. ‘Max,’ she began carefully.

‘No.’ Max settled his legs back across her lap and crossed his ankles on the arm of the sofa, all without taking his eyes off the television.

‘What do you mean, no?’ Forgetting her determination to stay cool and focused, as per her own advice in the article, Allegra scowled at him. ‘You don’t know what I’m going to say yet!’

‘I know that wheedling tone of old,’ said Max. ‘You only use it when you want me to do something I’m not going to want to do.’

‘Like what?’ she said, affronted.

‘Like waste an entire hot bank holiday Monday sitting in traffic because you and Libby wanted to go to the sea.’

‘That was Libby’s idea, not mine.’

‘Same wheedle,’ said Max, still flicking channels. ‘And it was definitely your idea to have a New Year’s Eve party that time.’

‘It was a great party.’

‘And who had to help you clear up afterwards before my parents came home?’

‘You did, because you’re a really, really kind brother who likes to help his sister and his sister’s best mate out when they get into trouble.’

Max lowered the remote and looked at Allegra in alarm.

‘Uh-oh. You’re being nice. That’s a bad sign.’

‘How can you say that? I’m often nice to you. Didn’t I make you a delicious curry last weekend?’

‘Only because you wanted some and didn’t want to admit that you’d broken your diet.’

Sadly, too true.

‘And I said I’d go to that dinner and pretend to be your fiancée,’ she said. ‘How much nicer can I get?’

Max pulled himself up to look at Allegra with suddenly narrowed eyes. ‘You’re not going to back out, are you? Is that what this is about? Now that Emma’s not around, I really need you.’

‘Aw, Max, that’s sweet!’

‘I’m serious, Legs. My career depends on this.’

‘I do think the whole thing is mad.’ Allegra wriggled into a more comfortable position, not entirely sorry to let the conversation drift while she worked out exactly how to persuade Max to agree to take part. ‘I mean, who cares nowadays if you’re married or not?’

‘Bob Laskovski does,’ said Max gloomily.

At first he had welcomed the news that the specialist firm of consulting engineers he worked for was to be taken over by a large American company. An injection of capital, jobs secured, a new CEO with fantastic contacts with the Sultan of Shofrar and some major projects being developed there and elsewhere in the Middle East: it was all good news.

The bad news was that the new CEO in question was a nut. Bob Laskovski allegedly had a bee in his bonnet about the steadying influence of women, of all things. If ever there was going to be unsettling going on, there was bound to be a female involved, in Max’s opinion. But Bob liked his project managers to be in settled relationships and, given the strict laws of Shofrar, that effectively meant that, male or female, they had to be married.

‘God knows what he thinks we’ll do if we don’t have a wife to come home to every night,’ Max had grumbled to Allegra. ‘Run amok and seduce local girls and offend the local customs, I suppose.’

Allegra had just laughed. ‘I’d love to see you running amok,’ she’d said.

Max had ignored that and ploughed on with his explanation. ‘If I don’t turn up with a likely-looking fiancée, Bob’s going to start humming and hawing about whether I’m suitable for the job or not.’

It was ridiculous, he grumbled whenever given the opportunity. He had the skills, he had the experience, and he was unencumbered by ties. He should be the perfect candidate.

There hadn’t been a problem when Bob had first said that he was coming over to London and wanted to meet the prospective project managers. That was another of Bob’s ‘things’, apparently: he liked to vet them personally over individual dinners. God knew how the man had had the time to build up a vast construction company.

Max hadn’t thought about it too much when the invitation to dinner had arrived. He and Emma had been going to get married anyway, and she was bound to go down well with Bob. Max was all set for his big break.

And then Emma had changed her mind.

Max still couldn’t quite believe it. He might have lost his fiancée, but he was damned if he was going to lose the Shofrar job too. Still, at least Allegra had been quite willing to help when he broached the idea of her standing in for Emma. For all her silliness, she could be counted on when it mattered.

‘But just for an evening,’ she had warned. ‘I’m not going to marry you and go out to Shofrar just so you can be a project manager!’

‘Don’t worry, it won’t come to that,’ said Max, shuddering at the very thought of it.

‘There are plenty of examples of relationships busting up before and after engineers get out there, and once you’re actually doing the job and behaving yourself it’s not a problem. All I need to do is get Bob’s seal of approval. Everyone says it’s worth humouring him.

‘It’ll just be a dinner,’ he assured her. ‘All you need to do is smile and look pretty and pretend that you’re going to be the perfect engineer’s wife.’

Of course, that was going to be the problem. He’d eyed Allegra critically. She’d been dressed in a short stretchy skirt that showed off her long legs, made even longer by precarious heels. ‘Maybe you’d better wear something a bit more...practical,’ he’d said. ‘You don’t really look like an engineer’s wife.’

Allegra, of course, had taken that as a compliment.

‘I don’t mind going along to the dinner with you,’ she said now. ‘I may not be much of an actress, but I expect I can pretend to love you for an evening.’

‘Thanks, Legs,’ said Max. ‘It means a lot to me.’

‘But...’ she said, drawing out the word, and his eyes narrowed suspiciously; he never liked the sound of ‘but’. ‘...there is just one tiny thing you could do for me in return.’

She smiled innocently at him and his wary look deepened. ‘What?’

‘No, your line is, Of course, Allegra, I’ll do whatever you want. Would you like to try it again?’

‘What?’ he repeated.

Allegra sighed and squirmed round until she was facing him. She tucked her hair behind her ears, the way she did when she was trying to look serious, and fixed him with her big green eyes.

‘You know how hard it’s been for me to make my mark at Glitz?’

Max did. He knew more than he wanted, in fact, about Allegra’s precarious foothold on the very lowest rung of the glossy magazine, where as far as he could make out, emotions ran at fever-pitch every day and huge dramas erupted over shoes or handbags or misplaced emery boards. Or something equally pointless.

Allegra seemed to love it. She raced into the flat, all long legs and cheekbones and swingy, shiny hair, discarding scarves and shoes and earrings as she went, and whirled out again in an outfit that looked exactly the same, to Max’s untutored eye.

She was always complaining, though, that no one at the magazine noticed her. Max thought that was extremely unlikely. Allegra might not be classically beautiful but she had a vivid face with dark hair, striking green eyes and a mobile expression. She wasn’t the kind of girl people didn’t notice.

He’d known her since Libby had first brought her home for the holidays. Max, callous like most boys his age, had dismissed her at first as neurotic, clumsy and overweight. For a long time she’d just been Libby’s gawky friend, but she’d shed the weight one summer and, while it was too much to say that she’d emerged a butterfly from her chrysalis, she had certainly gained confidence. Now she was really quite attractive, Max thought, his gaze resting on her face and drifting, quite without him realising, to her mouth.

He jerked his eyes away. The last time he’d found himself looking at her mouth, it had nearly ended in disaster. It had been before he’d met Emma, a moment of madness one night when all at once things seemed to have changed. Max still didn’t know what had happened. One moment he and Allegra had been talking, and the next he’d been staring into her eyes, feeling as if he were teetering on the edge of a chasm. Scrabbling back, he’d dropped his gaze to her mouth instead, and that had been even worse.

He’d nearly kissed Allegra.

How weird would that have been? Luckily they’d both managed to look away at last, and they’d never referred to what had happened—or not happened—ever again. Max put it out of his mind. It was just one of those inexplicable moments that were best not analysed, and it was only occasionally, like now, when the memory hurtled back and caught him unawares, a sly punch under his ribs that interfered oddly with his breathing.

Max forced his mind back to Allegra’s question. ‘So what’s changed?’ he asked her, and she drew a deep breath.

‘I’ve got my big break! I’ve got my own assignment.’

‘Well, great...good for you, Legs. What’s it going to be? A hard-hitting exposé of corruption in the world of shoes? Earth-shattering revelations on where the hemline is going to be next year?’

‘Like I’d need your help if it was either of those!’ said Allegra tartly. ‘The man who wouldn’t know fashion if it tied him up and slapped him around the face with a wet fish.’

‘So what do you need me for?’

‘Promise you’ll hear me out before you say anything?’

Max swung his legs down and sat up as he eyed Allegra with foreboding. ‘Uh-oh, I’m starting to get a bad feeling about this!’

‘Please, Max! Just listen!’

‘Oh, all right,’ he grumbled, sitting back and folding his arms. ‘But this had better be good.’

‘Well...’ Allegra moistened her lips. ‘You know we have an editorial conference to plan features for the coming months?’

Max didn’t, but he nodded anyway. The less he had to hear about the workings of Glitz, the better.

‘So the other day we were talking about one of the girls whose relationship has just fallen apart.’

‘This is work? Gossiping about relationships?’ It didn’t sound like any conference Max had ever been in.

‘Our readers are interested in relationships.’ Allegra’s straight, shiny hair had swung forward again. She flicked it back over her shoulder and fixed him with a stern eye. ‘You’re supposed to be just listening,’ she reminded him.

‘So, yes, we were talking about that and how her problem was that she had totally unrealistic expectations,’ she went on when Max subsided with a sigh. ‘She wanted some kind of fairy tale prince.’

Princes. Fairy tales. Max shook his head. He thought about his own discussions at work: about environmental impact assessments and deliverables and bedrock depths. Sometimes it seemed to him that Allegra lived in a completely different world.

‘We had a long discussion about what women really want,’ she went on, ignoring him. ‘And we came to the conclusion that actually we want everything. We want a man who can fix a washing machine and plan the perfect date. Who’ll fight his way through a thicket if required but who can also dress well and talk intelligently at the theatre. Who can plan the perfect romantic date and sort out your tax and dance and communicate...’

Max had been listening with growing incredulity. ‘Good luck finding a bloke who can do all that!’

‘Exactly!’ Allegra leant forward eagerly. ‘Exactly! That was what we all said. There isn’t anyone like that out there. So I started thinking: what if we could make a man like that? What if we could create a boyfriend who was everything women wanted?’

‘How on earth would you go about that?’ asked Max, not sure whether to laugh or groan in disbelief.

‘By teaching him what to do,’ said Allegra. ‘That’s what I pitched to Stella: a piece on whether it’s possible to take an ordinary bloke and transform him into the perfect man.’

There was a silence. Max’s sense of foreboding was screaming a warning now.

‘Please tell me this isn’t the point where you say, And this is where you come in,’ he said in a hollow voice.

‘And this is where you come in, Max,’ said Allegra.

He stared at her incredulously. She was smiling, and he hoped to God it was because she was winding him up. ‘You’re not serious?’

‘Think about it: you’re the ideal candidate. You haven’t got a girlfriend at the moment...and frankly,’ she added, unable to resist, ‘unless you get rid of that polo shirt, you won’t get another one.’

Max scowled. ‘Stop going on about my shirt. Emma never minded it.’

‘Maybe she never said she minded it, but I bet she did.’ On a roll, Allegra pointed a finger at Max. ‘The thing is, Max, that shirt is symptomatic of a man who can’t be bothered to make an effort. I’m guessing Emma was just too nice to point that out.’

Max ground his teeth. ‘For God’s sake, Allegra! It’s comfortable. Since when has comfort been an indictable offence?’

‘There are plenty of other new comfortable shirts out there that aren’t striped or buttoned too high at the collar, but you won’t buy them because that would mean changing, and changing is hard work,’ said Allegra. ‘And it’s not just a question of clothes. You need to change how you communicate, how you are. How much effort you put into thinking about your girlfriend and what will make her happy.’