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

pathologist, eventually retrieving a freakishly large cherry that she held aloft, as though she had located the tumour that had turned an otherwise good cocktail bad. She handed me the glass, but retained the cherry presumably to send it for further testing. With a glass in each hand, I took a large gulp from each and then smiled, feeling like a politician at a press conference, making a point out of eating a GM vegetable. As the sugary syrup lined my throat, I looked up to see two men strutting down the staircase side by side, all cheekbones and jawlines. It was Mike and Stephen who we’d met at the Champagne bar. Throwing the cherry to the ground, the Heidi Klum look-a-like, along with the rest of the Stepford-Wives-in-waiting, moved towards them like starved piranhas. I took another sip from each cocktail and wondered when it was that the hunters had become the hunted.
    Next down the staircase was a pair of pneumatic blondes, teetering and tottering with almost contrived instability. Their bottoms were lifted by five-inch heels and their pretty faces were eclipsed by giant yellow hair. Almond-shaped nipples poked through white vests, and mahogany-stained legs protruded from bottom skimming skirts. At a glance, they could have been twins. Like dogs and their owners , I thought as I walked towards them, it’s funny how friends grow to look the same .
    ‘Hiya. I’m Stacey.’ The prettiest one introduced herself. ‘And this is Lacey.’ She pointed at her friend.
    ‘Where are the men?’ Lacey asked, scouring the room, her pupils constricted like those of a lioness.
    ‘There are two in there,’ I said pointing to the crowd that I suspected contained Mike and Stephen. Stacey laughed, but Lacey just looked confused. I checked my watch again: it was 8.20pm ‘They’ll be here soon,’ I said before walking away.
    I found Caro at the bar, laughing and leaning towards Steve. His attentions were alternating between the cocktail production line and her cleavage, which had a cherry wedged in it.
    ‘Do they require a garnish now?’ I asked, pulling the cherry out.
    She laughed. ‘Lighten up, stresshead.’
    I pulled myself onto a bar stool. ‘Where are the men?’
    We both turned to Steve as though he were the spokesperson for the entire male species.
    ‘Men don’t arrive to parties on time,’ he said, pushing another cherry into Caro’s cleavage.
    ‘But the girls have made the effort to be here,’ I said, pulling the cherry out and lobbing it towards the bin. I missed.
    Steve frowned and then picked another one from the overfilled jar in front of him. ‘Desperate,’ he said, handing it to Caro.
    ‘It’s a singles party. There’s no need to play hard to get,’ she said before popping it in her mouth.
    ‘That’s the only way to play,’ he replied, screwing the lid on the jar.
    It was just before 10pm when the rest of the men arrived, all one hundred and forty-eight of them. The beat of the music quickened as Omega watches, Dunhill cufflinks, Church’s shoes and Dax-waxed hair piled into the bar. Musky cologne overpowered the fading vanilla notes and the air grew thick and heady.
    While the women had claimed the sofas, the men commandeered the bar, jostling for position and ordering rounds as though their spend were directly proportional to their self-worth. Once the pecking order had been established, the dominant males leaned back expansively while the girls eyed up the contents of the ice buckets like a binger might a cream puff.
    Last into the pit were two men wearing Diesel jeans and Paul Smith jackets, their long hair styled as though they’d arrived via a wind tunnel. Cordelia informed me they were entrepreneurs, the co-founders of a well-known online business, which had recently floated on the Stock Exchange. Stacey and Lacey tottered over at their fastest speed, but two brunettes got there first, targeting the men with what looked like a well-rehearsed pincer movement. Their smiles were demure, but