Free It's Got to Be Perfect: the memoirs of a modern-day matchmaker by Haley Hill Page A

length of her stride impaired by the tightness of her pencil skirt. In repose, she looked like a Forties screen siren in her skintight black and white monochrome outfit, but when she walked, particularly at any speed, she assumed the gait of an elongated penguin.
    Caro jumped up and down on the spot, her dark bob lifting and falling like a jellyfish with somewhere to be.
    ‘Champagne cocktails,’ she declared on the final bounce, but our vacant expressions clearly signalled a need for further explanation. ‘In cocktail glasses?’ she peered over the bar. ‘Looks like you’ve got enough of those. We’ll need to name it something in theme, like …’ She paused and put her finger on her chin ‘… Cupid’s Crush or Sexy Slush.’
    Steve grinned. ‘Sexy Slush?’
    ‘I don’t think Cupid has a crush,’ I added, immediately aware that it was in no way constructive.
    ‘Have you got any rose petals?’ Caro continued. ‘Or lychees? I’ll call Mario at Zuma. He knows exactly what to do with a lychee.’
    Steve scrunched up his face. ‘One hundred and fifty cocktails in fifteen minutes – they’ll get what they get.’
    ‘Let me help.’ Caro jumped up onto the bar, flipped her legs over and landed, most impressively, on the other side. Marie popped up next to her as though she had been hiding there all along.
    ‘I weel elp Steve,’ Marie said, lunging towards him, boobs bursting out of a flimsy halter-necked top.
    When I suggested to Marie, that considering she was the receptionist, she might be best placed greeting the guests at reception, she span around, rising on her heels. Her green eyes narrowed to slits and she hissed something in French that Caro translated as, “stupid pouting horse”.
    By 8pm, aside from three hundred luminous pink cocktails lined up like a Texan beauty pageant, the bar was a vision of understated elegance. Cushions lay strewn across the sofas, while freshly plucked flowers leaned against crystal vases like models draped over yachts. To the haunting sounds of “Bar Grooves” as it echoed through the vaults, shadows moved across the walls like the ghosts of parties past.
    In the bronze gilt mirror suspended on the wall, a girl looked back at me, the implied optimism of her glittery dress almost enough to distract from the angst in her eyes.
    ‘You look gorgeous,’ Steve said after I’d caught him watching me.
    My shoes pinched, my bra was too tight and it was an effort to hold in my tummy. Funny how looking good means feeling bad , I thought as I picked up one of the overdressed cocktails. Only after I’d fought my way through the tacky paraphernalia, and mastered the curly straw, did I feel the warmth of the alcohol burn in my stomach and spread through my veins.
    By the time my breathing had slowed, excited voices began to trickle down the staircase and groups of girls flooded into the bar like schools of migrating salmon. Modelling this season’s Gucci and Dior, they strode into the room with the polish of a Miss World procession. Pilates-sculpted muscles were vacuum-packed in spa fresh skin, and finished with St Tropez tans. Hair shone the L’Oreal spectrum of shades from deep chestnut to champagne blonde. Nature’s flaws were concealed by MAC, nature’s blessings were enhanced by shimmer.
    A girl with a Heidi Klum body walked down the staircase and straight towards me.
    ‘Where are the men?’ she asked, scanning the room like an assassin.
    I checked my watch. It was 8.10pm. ‘They’ll be here soon,’ I said.
    She glared at me as though she expected me to produce one from my pocket, so I ushered her towards the cocktails.
    ‘Would you like one?’ I asked.
    She sneered and then grabbed a glass, holding it away from her as though it might explode at any moment.
    ‘It’s a cherry plucker,’ I said, trying to match the enthusiasm with which Caro and Steve had christened it.
    Using the umbrella as a probe, she examined the contents with the precision of a