Happy Friday!
I am so happy to be part of the blog tour for My So Called (Love) Life by A.L. Michael's. I have just finished reading it and really, really enjoyed this story of love, friendship and enjoying life. It made me laugh and smile throughout and left me on a feel good high.
If you would like to read my review please click
here
I am pleased to be able to bring you an extract from the first chapter of the book....enjoy and I would love to hear what you think of the extract, and the book if you go on to read it.
Chapter Extract
Chapter One
I am really tired of being miserable, Tigerlily James thought as she marched out of
Kings Cross Station. It was the last Thursday of the month, which meant the
Misery Dinner at Entangled. She scanned the room for Dana and Ame, knowing that
the likelihood they were on time was minimal, and headed over to her usual
table.
‘Tigerlily!’ Ruby half
ran over to her as she entered, pulling her in for a bear hug, all patchouli
and cigarettes. Ruby was the owner of Entangled, but Tig had privately taken her
on as a role model and personal saviour. Ruby had her shit together. Today her
greying hair was tied back with a rockabilly red scarf, dangling ruby earrings
getting caught on Tig’s hair as she pulled back. ‘Early for the Young and
Bitter Club today, darling?’
‘It’s a Misery Dinner,
not a club,’ Tig corrected, walking over to her usual table.
She knew there was no
point arguing; the Misery Dinner was nothing if not a meeting of the Young and
Bitter brigade. It was her fault. She’d decided after Darren left that if her
love life sucked, her career had gone down the toilet and she was back to
living with her uni housemate, well, there should at least be an excuse for
monthly margaritas. The idea was to compartmentalise. Once a month they got
together to talk about how shit their lives were, to wallow and enjoy moaning
about it all. And then they got on with their lives. It made sense at the time,
Clint had cheated on Ame, and she was going through divorce proceedings,
fighting for the house and thanking whatever deity was responsible for her very
modern decision to sign a pre-nup. Tig had yet to remind her that it was she, not God, who’d advised her to be careful about
it all.
Which meant, a year down
the line, that Ame had a beautiful house in Hampstead, but was still working
for her ex-husband. And Dana had thrown herself into work ever since Elodie,
refusing to move forward and look for love again, instead settling for working
her way up and owning the PR company she worked for by thirty. She was twenty-eight,
and almost killing herself to get to the top. It seemed better than the
alternative, which involved the realisation that there might not just be one
perfect person for everyone, that loves could be multiple and varied. Dana
didn’t buy that.
‘You know, you girls will
be old before your time if you don’t stop focusing on the negative,’ Ruby said,
raising her eyebrows in what was probably meant to be a severe sort of
expression. Which was pretty impossible, as Ruby radiated goodness. She was
like Audrey Hepburn would have been if she’d run off with a biker and opened a
cafe/bar in London at sixty. Ruby was pretty much what Tig wanted to be when
she grew up.
‘We’re having dinner,
Ruby. We’re not sticking pins into voodoo dolls, or cackling over cauldrons.’
‘You’re wallowing. Two
months is pushing it. Seven is taking the piss. You could have almost grown a
person in this time!’ Ruby raised an eyebrow.
‘Well, the whole “not
growing a person” thing is definitely something to be thankful for. Can I have
a margarita now?’
Ruby shook her head,
clearly disappointed. ‘Madam, if you were my daughter I’d give you a boot up
the bum. But as it is, I’ll settle for sending you death glares across the room
until you give in and get over that idiot.’
‘I am over him,’ Tig challenged.
‘I’m just still ... in shock.’
‘Shock’s immediate,’ Ruby
said severely, looking over the rim of her glasses. ‘Comas can last a
lifetime.’
‘You know what this coma
patient could use to wake her up? A tequila-based cocktail,’ Tig said pointedly.
‘Lucky for you, the new
guy needs the practice,’ Ruby shrugged. ‘I’ll bring it over.’
‘New guy?’
Tig hated when the staff
at Entangled changed. She liked it to be her haven, knowing that she could walk
in and it would always be the same, only the art on the walls and the cakes on
display changing.
‘Short term, four months.
Really enthusiastic about bar work,’ Ruby winced as a crash sounded from behind
the bar, ‘despite not having worked in a bar for about two years, and being
excellent at breaking things.’
‘First days are tough
...’ Tig shrugged, trying for hopeful. Ruby looked past her to the door, seeing
Ame and Dana come rushing in.
‘I’ll make that three
margaritas for the moody madam brigade!’ Ruby chortled. ‘Oh, sweetheart, you
left some bits and bobs here last week – a notebook, some letters ...’
‘Oh, crap.’ So that’s
where her planner was, not under a pile of clothes at home.
‘Artistic people are
often awful at life stuff,’ Ruby patted her shoulder.
‘Well, thanks, I feel much better!’
‘I just meant you’re clearly
a creative genius!’ Ruby laughed. ‘Hi girls, drinks are on their way!’
Ame threw down her bag,
and started unwinding her Hermes scarf, honeyed brown hair falling perfectly at
her shoulders. ‘I’m sorry I’m late, I had the worst day, and you’ll never
believe what Clint did today –’
‘Hi Tig, how are you?
Well, I’m fine, Ame, thanks for asking before you launch into a diatribe about
your ex-husband. I really appreciate that I’m more than just an aural punching
bag,’ Tig sing-songed, honestly quite tired of hearing all the ways in which
Clint was an arsehole. Especially considering she’d spent the year they were
engaged and the six months they were married hearing about all the ways in
which Clint was the most fantastic of human beings. She kind of just hated him
for existing at this point.
‘Jeez, Tig, harsh.’ Ame
frowned briefly, and then Tig saw her physically smooth down her brow to avoid
getting wrinkles. Sometimes she wondered how they were friends at all. If she’d
never started working at the student bar, she and Ame would never have been
friends. At least then her friend was fun, silly and joyous. Now she seemed to
walk around with a perpetual pinched look, eyes raised to the sky like she was
waiting for a piano to fall on her head. Which would have been fine if it was
just the Misery Dinners, but Ame’s misery was bleeding into every other part of
her life, which, as her housemate, or lodger, was pretty damn difficult.
‘Well, Ame, you maybe
should greet people before hitting them over the head with your emotional
issues,’ Dana shrugged, then sighed as her phone flashed up. ‘Sorry, it’s a
client, I have to take this.’ She shuffled over to an empty corner, coat still
half on, long dark hair tied back in a bun. Dana was an Amazon of a woman, tall
and powerful, her pinstriped suit perfectly pressed even after a long day. But
she looked weary.
‘Well, Dana, maybe if you
weren’t so emotionally repressed you’d hear where I was coming from!’ Ame
hissed at her back.
‘This is getting off to a
great start,’ Tig sighed.
‘Even when she leaves
work she can’t leave work.’ Ame tried for a half smile and a shrug, looking at
Tig hopefully. ‘I’m sorry, hun. I’m working on not being such a bitch all the
time. How are you?’
Like an ant stuck in amber, Tig thought to herself, trying to smile back
because Ame was making an effort.
‘I’m okay,’ she replied.
‘Do any work today?’ Ame
prodded.
‘I worked with Petunia
and Theo,’ she said in a huff, knowing that wasn’t what Ame meant at all.
‘Are you planning on
getting back to photography any time soon? I know that teaching art to
privileged four-year-olds in Hampstead mansions is good money, but it’s not
really a career choice, is it?’
Ame had this way of
throwing out hurtful comments like they were facts. Sadly, most of the time
they were
facts, so you didn’t feel justified in getting upset. It was just one of the
many irritating traits Tig had noticed about her friend, living with her
post-university. Back then they’d never had a problem. But Ame had been more
fun then. They both had. Maybe it wasn’t just Tig, maybe they were all getting
more bitter by the moment.
‘Ame. Shut up. She’s
doing fine.’ Dana strode back over, phone tucked away, pulling her hair out of
the tight bun and massaging her scalp delicately, wincing slightly. ‘You are,
aren’t you?’
Tig nodded.
‘Then leave her the hell
alone,’ Dana demanded, picking up her menu to signify the conversation was
over. Dana was learning to become more demanding. She’d been reading a lot of
personal
development books, doing anything she could to get to the top. Tig
suspected it was more a way of filling her time and avoiding getting on with
her life than it was a result of particularly loving her job, but Dana was just
quietly getting on, so you couldn’t really call her on it.
‘I’m just trying to be
supportive!’ Ame was good at the outrage these days, too. ‘She’s a brilliant
photographer and there are other gigs out there. You don’t have to be a wedding
photographer anymore ...’
‘Ames,’ Tig held up her
hand, ‘I really appreciate what you’re saying. And I’ll get there. I’m making
enough money for rent and a gym membership and monthly margaritas, so unless
you’re about to kick me out, I should be fine. Tell us about your day.’
Ame rarely needed an
excuse to launch into the tales of woe in her office, centred around her
arsehole ex-husband.
‘He keeps shagging these
interns in his office, and then sending them to deliver files to me, still
smelling of sex,’ she raged, ‘and they look so embarrassed, because they know
who I am and what he’s doing. Though, I mean, they should know better than to
sleep with their boss –’
‘Ah!’ Dana pointed.
‘I heard myself say it!’
Ame said. ‘Okay, so we all make mistakes! Women are victims, men are evil! I’m
not blaming the sisterhood! Okay!’
‘Um,’ a male voice said into
the stilted silence, ‘three much-needed margaritas?’
Tig looked up to see the
new barman, standing awkwardly with a tray in his hand. Dirty blond hair,
stubbled jaw, blue eyes. He was wearing a smart white shirt, rolled up at the
sleeves to reveal old-school sailor tattoos on his forearms. Exactly the type
to bartend at Entangled. Friendly enough, but always with enough edge to remind
you they’re out of your league. Not that she was in anyone’s league, or looking
to play a ball game of any sort. Tig realised no one had answered him.
‘Hi, yes, thanks!
Desperately needed!’ She unnecessarily tried to clear some space on the table
for him to put the drinks down. He twitched a smile at her, which she twitched
back. Ame and Dana seemed to be having a huffing match about feminist
standpoints under their breath, so she turned back to the new guy. She might as
well be friendly, seeing as she was at Entangled more than her own home these
days. You always wanted the staff on your side.
‘How’s the first day
going?’
‘I’ve only broken three
glasses and spilled ice all over the floor so that Ruby tripped head over
arse,’ he shrugged. ‘Not at all mortifying.’
‘First time bartending?’
she asked. Am I prying? Why am I forcing this conversation when
he’s clearly hovering about like he needs to go? Shut up, Tig.
‘Nope, just out of
practice. And I’m going to blame jetlag, and first day nerves, and anything
else I can think of! Just yell when you want the next round of drinks. I can
almost guarantee I won’t screw them up,’ he winked and strode off.
Tig smiled, remembering
how awful her first day had been in the SU bar, where she’d dropped a pint of
snakebite down her front and the rugby team had made her swear so effusively
she was sure she’d get fired. Instead the manager had patted her on the
shoulder, given her a towel and said, as long as she kept that mouth on her,
she’d make it through alive.
Tig turned back to see if
her friends had stopped arguing. They had. In fact, they were both looking at
her like she’d morphed into some sort of terrible sea creature.
‘What?’
‘You ... him ...’ Ame
pointed at the bar, and Tig felt a violent irritation stir in her chest.
‘I had a conversation
with Ruby’s new barman, Ame. It’s called being polite. It doesn’t mean I’ve
suddenly solved all my problems, will get into a relationship, go back to work,
get married and have babies,’ she spat. ‘It means I was tired of you two
bitching at each other once again, and made conversation elsewhere.’
They looked at her, this
time like the terrible sea creature had revealed talons and a bad dye job.
‘Okay, Tig, calm down.’
Dana made soothing noises. ‘I think Ame was trying to point out, in a very
positive way, that it was nice to see you making an effort to welcome a new
person to Entangled. Especially a person who happens to have a penis, because
you’ve spent the last seven months wanting to chop off all the ones in the
immediate vicinity, regardless of who they’re attached to.’
Tig blinked. ‘And that’s
why you work in PR.’
She took a deep breath
and tried not to blush as she thought about her overreaction. ‘I swear I never
used to be so mean. Or angry. I mean, I’ve always had the ability to be a bitch
...’
‘No, you haven’t,’ Dana
smiled. ‘In fact, for the most part, you’ve always been a big hippie softie.
Think
you might have lost that somewhere along the way.’
‘Maybe Ruby’s right,
maybe the Misery Dinners are making things worse,’ Tig shrugged, sipping her
drink and sighing in relief.
‘They’re helping, Tig,
honestly,’ Ame said forcefully.
‘So you’re done moaning
about Clint? You’ve worked through that?’
‘He hurt me, Tig. That takes time ...’ Ame shook her
head. ‘You just don’t get it.’
Tig closed her eyes and
took a deep breath, tucking her red hair behind her ears. Living with Ame had
been a bad idea. When Darren had dumped her on Valentine’s Day, and Ame found
out Clint was cheating, it made sense for them to move in together. And whine
(with wine) together. Tig had given up the wedding photography business and Ame
let her stay in the Hampstead flat for minimal rent, which she’d really
appreciated. But Ame had started to become ... difficult. She lived in a
permanent state of outrage, and was getting more and more bitter. Which wasn’t
helping Tig to become the glass-half-full type girl she’d been before, either.
You get hurt, you wallow,
you move on. Those were the rules. Tig had spent the first few weeks after the
break-up almost catatonic, permanently drunk and stoned, slowly eating her way
through two hundred wedding cupcakes embossed with ‘Mr and Mrs’. The next
couple of months she graduated to quietly drinking neat vodka, curled up on the
sofa in front of romantic comedies, waiting until the final scene to shout,
‘Sure, it’s all great now, but wait until he leaves you because your tits got
too small!’
But she was past that
now. She was. She got dressed, she went to the gym. She could be trusted not to
warp the world views of young children, and as of today she had interacted with
a male without wincing. She was improving.
‘I know what it’s like to
be hurt,’ Tig said calmly, ‘and I know what it feels like to get so bitter and
twisted that you don’t really like yourself anymore. I want to be happy.’
Dana nodded, with that
quiet, approving presence that she had. ‘That’s great. So are you going to
start up the photography business again? Back to weddings?’
Tig’s stomach plummeted.
Okay, so ... maybe she wasn’t so ready. She could grow, and be happy, but being
around weddings again? She still couldn’t look at her portfolio without crying.
Her wedding dress was hanging in the back of her wardrobe almost a year later,
with the ‘five days to go!’ tag still tied around the hanger.
The problem was, she was
good at wedding photography. She’d
been planning her and Darren’s big day for almost three years, and during that time,
meeting other brides, retailers, she’d accidentally started a business. Become
an institution. The other brides liked her because she was in the same
situation as them; she knew what they wanted, because she wanted it too. She’d
paid for the wedding with their weddings. She was so happy those three years,
meeting all these people, making plans. Finally being able to pack in the
insurance job to take photos for a living, the dream she’d had since uni. It
was hard not to blame Darren for taking all that away. It was harder to stop
blaming herself for letting it stay that way.
‘I’m ... I’m going to
find a way to use my skills without doing the wedding thing just yet ... maybe,
at some point. Just, not yet.’
She tried not to let her
positive attitude be knocked down by lack of a plan. Or any plan. She couldn’t
deal with photographing babies, their pudgy little alien faces gumming at her
as she tried to get them to smile without puking everywhere. What did that
leave? Being a camera assistant at Harry Potter World, most likely. London was
teeming with unemployed artists, and every year she felt her chest constrict as
another wave of graduates flooded into the job pool.
Her friends shrugged, and
thankfully Dana started moaning about her client list, and her obsessive boss
who kept changing the brief every thirty seconds, and Ame went back to Clint
and the bitches at work, so Tig could sit and let it wash over her. She looked
at her two friends, taking in Ame’s perfect skin and flawless make-up, Dana’s
expensive suits and towering heels, and wondered what had happened. Surely it
was only weeks ago they were at uni, drinking pink Lambrini through jumbo
straws and wondering why everyone was into dubstep? Yet here they were,
prematurely middle-aged singletons, moaning about everything. At least Ame and
Dana looked like adults, Tig thought sadly, looking down at her clothes. She
couldn’t remember the last time she’d worn something that wasn’t tie-dye
coloured or some sort of elasticated fabric. She was sure she used to wear
clothes that weren’t yoga pants, once upon a time. When she’d first lost
weight, she’d experimented wearing all those skimpy little clothes she’d never
felt comfortable wearing, but the truth was, even a few stone lighter, she
still didn’t feel comfortable. It just wasn’t her. So she’d reverted to her
hippie clothing, and tried to ignore the fact that, more and more every day,
she seemed to be turning into her parents.
The rest of the meal seem
to pass easily enough, and Tig concentrated on focusing individually on their
problems, but had long since stopped trying to offer solutions. Ame simply
wanted to moan, and Dana seemed to offer up work problems because she didn’t
want to moan about anything important, but didn’t want to be left out.
‘You coming?’ Ame asked,
putting her coat on and leaving a tip on the table. Dana had already run for
the DLR to get to Greenwich. Ame and Tig always travelled home together after
the dinners, but tonight she just didn’t feel like it.
‘I’ve got to collect some
stuff from Ruby, and then I think I might go to the studio for a few hours. All
this talk about my photography has got me thinking,’ she lied, hoping Ame would
just let it go for once.
‘You’re going to go now?
How will you get home?’
‘Probably call Sergei for
a cab, don’t worry about me.’ Tig hugged her best friend, inhaling the
ever-present smell of Chanel No. 5 that had always defined her, even when they
met in the bar during Freshers’ Week.
‘I’m not worried about you!
What if I get attacked on the way
home?’ Ame said, appalled. It took a second for that glint to appear in her
eye, and for Tig to realise she was joking. It had been ages since she’d been
able to properly read her best friend.
The minute Ame was
through the door, Tig collapsed back into her chair, breathing a deep sigh of
relief. It was the first time she’d felt able to breathe all night.
‘Here you go.’ The new
barman reappeared with a large glass of red wine. ‘You look like you need it.’
‘I’ve been getting that a
lot today,’ she frowned. ‘Do I look like an alcoholic?’
‘You look like someone
sitting in a bar with a sad, wistful look. And when I bring women chocolate
cake to cheer them up, they look at me like I’m the devil.’
Tig raised an eyebrow.
‘You need to hang out with better women.’
‘I’m trying,’ he grinned.
She tensed, then decided
that maybe, yes, not every man needed the Wrath of Tig. Especially when they
had green eyes and toned arms and tattoos. Not that he wouldn’t turn out to be
a massive dick, and it wasn’t like it mattered, but ... well, he was quite nice
to look at. And he brought her wine. And there was the possibility that he
might bring her cake.
‘We didn’t do the name
thing,’ Tig gestured between them.
‘Right. I’m Ollie.’ He
reached out to shake her hand, whilst she stared at him before shaking back
briefly.
‘Formal. Okay.’
‘You’re Tig. Ruby said
you’re a regular,’ Ollie nodded. ‘What’s Tig short for?’
‘Tigerlily.’
‘Bullshit!’ He laughed,
and watched as she raised an eyebrow, crossing her arms.
‘Um, and by that I mean,
my name is Ollie and I’m new here and nervous and jetlagged and once again
going to use every excuse I can to undo what I just said. Tigerlily. I like
it.’ He made a face, wincing at her to see if her stern impression had
weakened. ‘How about if I give you free chocolate cake and back away slowly?
That sound good?’
She broke, smiling a
little to herself. Somehow he was even more appealing chewing at his lip,
nervously dragging a hand across his jaw. It was nice not to be the one saying
the wrong thing for once.
‘It’s okay. I get it a
lot. My parents are hippies.’ She paused. ‘Also, today is the first time in
months I’ve managed to talk to a man without wanting to throttle him for things
that my ex did, so, you know, congratulations on that. I’m afraid I don’t have
a prize for you.’
Ollie tilted his head to
the side like he was trying to tell if she was joking. ‘Okay, in which case,
definitely cake. Let’s try and keep this whole “not throttling me” business
going.’
He had a nice voice, she
decided, warm, with a slight American lilt behind the London sharpness. She
wondered what that was about, whether he was jetlagged from a trip back from
America. And then Tig realised it was none of her business. But she smiled
again, and shrugged, because you never turn down cake. A yell from behind the
bar broke the moment, and he grinned, saluting. ‘Lovely to meet you, Miss
Tigerlily, I’ll return with your bribe momentarily.’ He went to walk away. ‘Oh,
wait, Ruby said you’d left these papers here?’
He placed a collection of
letters and notes on the table, smiling as he rushed back to the bar.
Tig traced the mosaic
tabletop with her fingers, riffling through the papers absentmindedly as she
sipped her wine. Things were changing, she could tell. Everything was already
starting to get better. Her positive attitude had created a positive situation.
Maybe this rut was finally done.
There was an unopened
envelope in the pile, thick and cream, her name written in royal blue ink. It
looked official. Tamara was probably getting married, or Dahlia, or any of the
other nice enough posh birds from uni that she had never really been close to,
but who still insisted on calling her ‘bestie’ and crushing her ribcage
whenever she ran into them on Essex Road.
She opened it, noticing
the sweet lace edging, the soft feel of the textured paper. Expensive. She’d
spent ages looking at invitations. She’d gone with a more informal feel, more
shabby chic, laid-back. More like them ... like her.
She scanned through the
parents to the names of the happy couple. She thought she would fall off her
chair with the shock, and held tight to the table for fear the world was
turning on its axis. Darren was getting married. The bastard.
