The Girl Who's Never Had a Valentine by Elizabeth Player Page A

received a card from her dad! That was seriously wrong on so many levels. At school I was always the sensible one. Leader of the debating club, not afraid to speak up. At uni, I was the one solving other people’s problems. Did I put men off? I could never play the weak little woman, it just wasn’t in my DNA.
    Â Â Â Â Â Saturday held a fairly steady routine for me. Shopping, cleaning the flat, popping round to my mum’s for lunch. Friends round in the evening or going out to the theatre or clubbing. My best friend Lucy was now engaged to ‘steady Eddy’ – that’s what I called him (in secret). They were a great couple and I couldn’t be more delighted for my friend, but the inevitable had happened and we’d started to drift apart. Lucy was moving on.
    Â Â Â Â Â In buoyant mood I jumped into the shower, determined to put all negative thoughts out of my head. I needed to tell someone, otherwise what’s the point of having a card at all? If I’d been the recipient of great bundles of cards over the years then no, it wouldn’t matter. I could casually toss that hideous card to one side and not give a damn about the poor, tortured soul out there yearning for my attention and affection. I felt embarrassed and delighted. What a dilemma. Drying my hair, I stopped for a moment and stared at myself in the dressing-table mirror. Staring back was a tall woman with strong features, wide brown eyes, a good mouth and decent teeth. Definitely no raving beauty, but with a little care and attention I knew I could be attractive. My figure was athletic; well, that’s what my Mum always said. My last boyfriend, Ricky, was a snowboarder and skier and spent more time up one mountain or another than he did in my bed. He flitted in and out of my life and I knew he wasn’t ‘the one’. To actually admit to someone, let alone myself, that I was looking for a long-term relationship somehow didn’t seem cool though. My boyfriend throughout university, Andy, was the serious scientist type who left England to do research work in the Arctic or Antarctic, I couldn’t remember which and I didn’t really care, which said everything about our relationship. When he left, I was relieved. Initially, his brooding good looks bowled me over and lulled me into believing he’d do for me. Unfortunately, handsome doesn’t compensate for a deadly dull personality. Glancing at the card for the umpteenth time, I knew it wasn’t from my mum, the handwriting was genuine. I propped the card up in pride of place on the mantle, above the fireplace.
    Â Â Â Â Â Hearing raised voices in the compact car park outside my block of flats, I looked down from the lounge window. I saw the girl who lived in the flat directly beneath me and she appeared to be in the middle of a right humdinger of a row with a young man. They were standing beside the girl’s little pink Ka with daisies painted on the door. Cute! I quietly opened the window a tad and strained but couldn’t quite hear what they were saying. The girl was doing a good deal of arm flailing, head bobbing and chin thrusting. The young man had adopted a defensive stance, palms upwards, shoulders hunched … Looked like he was in the dog-house. I’d spoken to her, briefly, on a few occasions when we’d passed in the corridor and she’d introduced herself as Karen from number sixteen. Karen was beautiful, with white-blonde hair, long legs and a girly laugh. I bet Karen got more than one Valentine’s Day card this morning. Since she’d moved into our apartment block I’d seen her with a few different men. This one didn’t look any different to her usual. Tall, well-built, long brown hair, casually dressed and not bad-looking from where I was standing. It was difficult to know if they were just leaving or just arriving. Eventually the girl got into her car, a pinched, spiteful look