Anybody Out There - Marian Keyes by Anybody Out There Page B

hurry.

"If you turn out to be a weirdo," I said after she'd gone.

"I won't be. I'm not."

I didn't really think he would be. He was different from the speed-dating guys. But it doesn't do
to be too trusting.

"We have matching scahs," he said.

"Hmm?"

"Scahs. On our right eyebrows. One each. Isn't that kind of...special?"

He was smiling: I wasn't to take this too seriously.

"How'd you get yours?" he asked.
"Playing on the stairs in my mother's high heels."

"Age what? Six? Eight?"

"Twenty-seven. No. Five and a half. I was doing a big Hollywood-musical-style thing, and I fell
down the stairs and at the bottom hit my forehead on the corner of the convection heater."

"Convection heater?"

"Must be an Irish thing. Metal yoke. I needed three stitches. How did you get yours?"

"Day I was born. Accident with a midwife and a pair of scissors. I also got three stitches. Now
tell me what you do when you're not being a magician's assistant."

"You want the real me?"

"If that's okay. And if you could speak quickly, I'd appreciate it. Just in case you decide to
leave."

So I told him all about my life. About Jacqui, Rachel, Luke, the Real Men, Shake's air-guitar
prowess, Nell, my upstairs neighbor, Nell's strange friend. I told him about work, how I loved
my products, and how Lauryn had stolen my promo idea for the orange-and-arnica night cream
and passed it off as her own.

"I hate her already," he said. "Is your wine okay?"

"Fine."

"Just that you're drinking it kind of slowly."

"Not as slowly as you're drinking that beer of yours."

Three times the waitress asked, "You guys okay for drinks?" and three times she was sent away
with a flea in her ear.

After I'd brought Aidan up to speed on my life, he told me about his. About his upbringing in
Boston, how he and Leon had lived next door to each other, and how unusual it was in their
neighborhood for a Jewish boy and an Irish-American boy to be best friends. He told me about
his younger brother, Kevin, and how competitive they'd been as kids. "Only two years between
us, everything was a battle." He told me about his job, his roomie, Marty, and his lifelong love of
the Boston Red Sox, and at some stage in the story, I finished my glass of wine.

"Just hang on while I finish my beer," he said, and with admirable restraint, he made the last inch
last a full hour. Finally he couldn't avoid being done and he looked regretfully at his empty glass.
"Okay, that's the one drink you signed up for. How's the plumbing in your apartment?"
I thought about it for a moment. "Perfect."

W ell?" Jacqui asked, when I got in. "Nut job?"

"No. Normal."

"Vrizzzon?"

I thought about it. "Yes." There certainly had been a frisson.

"Snog?"

"Kind of."

"Tongues?"

"No." He had kissed me on the mouth. Just a brief impression of heat and firmness and then he
was gone, leaving me wanting more.

"Like him?"

"Yes."

"Oh, really?" Suddenly interested. "In that case, I'd better take a look at him."

I set my jaw and held her look. "He is not a Feathery Stroker."

"I'll be the judge of that."

Jacqui's Feathery Stroker test is a horribly cruel assessment that she brings to bear on all men. It
originated with some man she slept with years ago. All night long he'd run his hands up and
down her body in the lightest, feathery way, up her back, along her thighs, across her stomach,
and before they had sex he asked her gently if she was sure. Lots of women would have loved
this: he was gentle, attentive, and respectful. But for Jacqui it was the greatest turnoff of her life.
She would have much preferred it if he'd flung her across a hard table, torn her clothes, and
taken her without her explicit permission. "He kept stroking me," she said afterward, wincing
with revulsion. "In this awful feathery way, like he'd read a book about how to give women what
they want. Bloody Feathery Stroker, I wanted to rip my skin off."

And so the phrase came about. It suggested an effeminate quality that instantly stripped a man