The Men in her Life

me for not knowing the difference.’
    ‘You’re so judgemental.’
    ‘So what else is new?’
    Holly put down the phone. Colette’s attitude had definitely changed. She couldn’t work out whether it was just the obsessive blind-dating, or the fact that she was slightly jealous of Holly’s discovery of a sister. Colette and Holly had always been like sisters. They grew up in the same tower block, Colette and her five brothers in a flat on the fifth floor, and Holly on the eleventh; they went to the same schools; they had even performed an exchange of blood when they were twelve, although Holly had never thought that Colette’s pricking herself with a pin involved quite the same commitment as the gash she had sliced into her forearm with Mo’s Kitchen Devil.
    Perhaps Colette was getting serious about a man. She had always been a bit odd about men. As soon as she’d been to bed with someone, she’d lose the use of the first-person pronoun and start every sentence with we. You only had to think about her ex-husband to see that she had a few neurotransmitters missing in the relationship area of her brain. Yes, he was rich. Cosmetic surgeons usually were. Yes, it was comforting to know that you could have your bottom lifted for free, but to actually marry someone who spent the honeymoon measuring your breasts up for enlargement and insisted that you give up your job on your return?
    ‘We think I’ve got quite enough to do looking after the home,’ Colette had announced proudly on their return from a Caribbean cruise.
    Hadn’t she seen The Stepford Wives, for God’s sake?
    Holly opened her diary. The visit to the GP had taken so long it was almost time to leave the office for lunch with an independent producer called Charlie Prince, who was a friend of Robert’s.
    ‘What’s Charlie Prince like?’ Holly said, leaning on the door-frame to Robert’s office.
    ‘Clever, arrogant... very like you in some respects.’
    ‘Oh thanks...’
    ‘Very sexy too,’ Robert conceded, ‘but not my type.’
    When she had called him to make a lunch-date, he had had an extremely sexy telephone voice, she remembered. She had made it a rule never to mix business with pleasure, but sometimes she wondered whether she shouldn’t lapse just occasionally. It wasn’t that she couldn’t imagine going to bed with some of the men she dealt with, it was the thought of negotiating with someone whose penis had been inside her. At least there wouldn’t be that endless waiting for the phone to ring like after most one-night stands, but it might be worse. He would call and then feel obliged to say something, or not, she couldn’t decide which would be worse, and then there would be all the comments as people found out. They always did find out. He’s really screwed a good deal out of her. Who did you have to fuck to get this? Whatever happened she would regret it.
    Charlie Prince was as sexy as his voice. Sexier even. She liked men with dark curls, and there was mischief in his eyes. They spent the first course gossiping, the second discussing films they had loved, and even though he was slightly keener on Tarantino than she was, which was really a gender thing, she decided, they were almost perfectly compatible. They were drinking coffee and she found herself telling him about her current favourite property, which was the script her client Anji was working on entitled The One.
    The way to sell something for a lot of money, she had discovered after years experimenting, was to tell potential buyers that you weren’t going to sell it to them. Even better than that, tell them that you weren’t even going to let them see it.
    ‘I’ll read it this afternoon if you get it sent over...’ Charlie Prince was saying as their second double espressos arrived at the table.
    ‘She’s still working on it. I haven’t even read it yet.’
    ‘Can I have first look when it’s ready?’
    ‘Certainly not.’
    ‘Why?’ Charlie smiled at her. Very naughty smile. Holly almost forgot why not.
    ‘Because I’m sure it’s for Hollywood ,’ she told him.
    ‘But I’m fixing up a development deal at the moment. Can’t tell you who with, but I think you’ll like it... listen,’ he said, leaning across the table, ‘I know we’ve only just met, but are you free for dinner one Friday evening?’
    What was this man not prepared to do to get first look at the script? Did she care? Holly threw caution to the wind.
    ‘Friday, which