Free Confessions of a Serial Dater by Michelle Cunnah

At least I think I am. He still hasn’t returned my call…
    But I only escaped after promising my mother to come for lunch the next day as a thank-you for my insistence on paying the telephone and MasterCard bill (despite the fact that I nearly always go for lunch on Sundays), writing checks for both bills and mailing them on my way back to the Northern line.
    As the tube roars through the bowels of London, I worry about Mum. I mean, she’s always lived in her own little world, even before Dad died, but I think she’s getting worse.
    Also, I’m still completely stunned about Elaine. I can’t believe that holier-than-thou, cannot-put-a-step-wrong-in-everyone’s-eyes, Goody Two-shoes Elaine is pregnant. I climb off the Northern line tube and head through the deep passageways toward the Central line.
    And what’s more, she won’t say who the father is. Probably because she can’t remember, I think evilly.
    Elaine is tiny, petite, has small, narrow feet (of course) and looks like a China doll in a beautiful, fragile, butter-wouldn’t-melt-in-her-mouth kind of way. Unfortunately, she has the heart of Chucky and always wants what other people (i.e., me) have.
    When I was ten, I really, really wanted a pony for Christmas. I yearned for one with all my Barbie-and-My-Little-Pony-adoring soul. Yes, I know now that ponies are expensive and require (a) a stable, because they cannot live in the basement apartment of a Hampstead house, which was what I planned, and (b) plenty of space to run around in—not a small garden like ours. Although I promised to take Candy (yes, I’d already chosen a name for my perfect pony) for extensive walks on Hampstead Heath every day. As I said, I was ten, and the world was a wonderful, hopeful place.
    Elaine knew all about my pony longing, because she threatened to bite the head off my Princess Aurora Barbie if I didn’t show her my letter to Santa.
    Needless to say, she got her very own pony that same Christmas. And I tried to be happy for her, I truly did. And I was more than happy with the toy horse I got for Princess Barbie to ride. I was even happy to clean out Candy’s stall (yes, Elaine even stole the name) for months, because Elaine let me have a weekly ride on her. It was almost like having my very own Candy…
    Until I turned up one day to clean out Candy’s stall and she’d gone. Elaine took great delight in telling me that Candy had been sold because Candy loved me more than Elaine, and no one was allowed to love me more than Elaine.
    I should have kept my mouth shut and let the bitch bite off Princess Aurora’s head.
    Yes, I know it’s childish to hold a grudge for eighteen years, I think, as I exit the station at Holland Park and head toward home, but Candy wasn’t the last love Elaine stole from me.
    I’ll never forget the humiliating scene at my twenty-first birthday party. The scene where I go to my parents’ bedroom to find Auntie Lizzie’s coat and instead I find dearElaine showing Harry, my then boyfriend, her blow-job skills…
    At least Jonathan would never do anything like that.
    And as I push open my front door, the telephone is ringing, so I dash for it and pick up, because it’s probably Jonathan.
    Thank God for safe, dependable Jonathan.
    “Hello?”
    “Darling,” Elaine purrs down the telephone, and I’m confused, because she never calls me.
    “Elaine,” I say, a bit breathlessly on account of being breathless from dashing for the phone. “Lovely to hear from you,” I lie. “Lovely news about the, um, baby.”
    “I’m just so excited,” she squeaks in her little-girl voice. “Just imagine, I’m the first of us four cousins to bring a new life into this world.”
    “Isn’t it amazing,” I say, conjuring up a very unflattering image of Elaine, all fat and bloated and whalelike at nine months pregnant. And then, because I can’t help it, “I hope the, um, lucky dad is excited, too.”
    “Oh, but darling, things are a little tricky for him