Other Woman

1Pulling a sickie is not something Iim prone to do. And, while Iid like to say I feel sick, I donit. Not unless prewedding nerves, last-minute jitters, and horrific amounts of stress count.But nevertheless this morning I decided I deserved a day offohell, possibly even twoo so I phoned in first thing, knowing that as bad a liar as I am, it would be far easier to lie to Penny, the receptionist, than to my boss. iOh, poor you.i Pennyis voice was full of sympathy. iBut itis not surprising, given the wedding. Must be all the stress. You should just go to bed in a darkened room.i iI will,i I said huskily, swiftly catching myself in the lieomigraine symptoms not including sore throats or fake sneezesoand getting off the phone as quickly as possible. I did think vaguely about doing something delicious for myself today, something Iid never normally do. Manicures, pedicures, facials, things like that. But of course guilt has managed to prevail, and even though I live nowhere near my office in trendy Soho, I still know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that should I venture outside on the one day Iim pretending to be sick, someone from work will just happen to be at the end of my street. So here I am. Watching dreadful daytime television on a cold January morning (although I did just manage to catch an item on iupdos for weddings,i which may turn out to be incredibly useful), eating my way through a packet of custard creams (my last chance before the wedding diet goes into full acceleration), and wondering whether there would be any chance of finding a masseuseoa proper oneoto come to the house at the last minute to soothe the knots of tension away. I manage to waste forty-five minutes flicking through the small ads in the local magazines, but somehow I donit think any of those masseuses are what Iim looking for: iguaranteed discretion,i isensual and intimate.i And then I reach the personal ads at the back. I smile to myself reading through. Of course Iim reading through. I may be about to get married but Iim still interested in seeing whatis out there, not that, I have to admit, Iive ever actually gone down the personal-ad route. But I know a friend who has. Honestly. And a wave of warmth, and yes, Iill admit it, smugness, comes over me. I donit ever have to tell anyone that I have a good sense of humor or that I look a bit like RenEe Zellwegerobut only if I pout and squint my eyes up very, very smalloor that I love the requisite walks in the country and curling up by a log fire. Not that any of thatis not true, but how lovely, how lucky am I, that I donit have to explain myself, or describe myself, or pretend to be someone other than myself ever again. Thank God for Dan. Thank you, God, for Dan. I slide my feet into huge fluffy slippers, scrape my hair back into a ponytail, and wrap Danis huge, voluminous toweling robe around me as I skate my way down the hallway to the kitchen. Dan and Ellie. Ellie and Dan. Mrs. Dan Cooper. Mrs. Ellie Cooper. Ellie Cooper. I trill the words out, thrilling at how unfamiliar they sound, how they will be true in just over a month, how I got to have a fairy-tale ending after all. And, despite the cloudy sky, the drizzle that seems to be omnipresent throughout this winter, I feel myself light up, as if the sun suddenly appeared at the living-room window specifically to shine its warmth upon me. The problem with feeling guilty about pulling sickies, as I now discover, is that you end up too terrified to leave the house, and therefore waste the entire day. And of course the less you do, the less you want to do, so by two oiclock Iim bored, listless, and sleepy. Rather than taking the easy option and going back to bed, I decide to wake myself up with strong coffee, have a shower, and finally get dressed. The cappuccino machineoan early wedding present from my chief executiveoshouts a shiny hello from its corner on the kitGreen, Jane is the author of 'Other Woman', published 2005 under ISBN 9780670034048 and ISBN 0670034045.