Free Getting Over Mr. Right by Chrissie Manby Page A

tell, since she was wearing a pair of comedy eyeglasses with those plastic eyes that boing out on springs. All I could see was her mouth. She had a very big smile.
    Using what IT skills I had, I lifted Giselle Kleinbeck’s picture from her profile and enlarged it to the maximum possible size. Then I printed out the picture and took it with me to the bathroom, where I pinned it on the wall next to the magnifying mirror and prepared to make a proper comparison. As I said, unfortunately her eyes were disguised, but I gave myself at least an equal score for eyebrows. Her hair looked good, but minecould look just as nice straight out of the hairdresser’s. I had a better jawline, I decided, and while my rival’s smile was cheerful, it was overly gummy. My teeth were a better shape, and when I smiled, you could see hardly any gum at all. I was a little comforted by the thought that my smile would age better, since her big gums would eventually recede and leave her looking like a horse.
    But big gums or not, this was almost certainly the woman that Michael had chosen over me.
    I got more information later that evening when Michael posted some photographs downloaded from his phone on his Facebook page. Among them was a group shot that included Giselle Kleinbeck without her comedy glasses.
    I pored over those grainy shots for hours. I guessed from the background that the photograph was taken in the Gaucho Grill. I recognized the cowhide fabric on the bench upon which she was sitting. It was a restaurant that Michael had taken me to often. I suppose you could say it was one of “our places.” I tortured myself with the thought of that woman taking my place at “our table.” Over the time that I had been with Michael, I had come to know what he would order in various places by heart. In the Gaucho, he always went for an eight-ounce steak and asked me to share a salad. Had he shared a salad with her?
    Finally that night came the last piece of the jigsaw. Michael responded to Kevin’s question about numbers for the barbecue. “Yes,” he said. “I will be plus one. I’m going to bring my new girlfriend, Giselle.”

Oh, the agony. Not only had I been replaced in Michael’s affections, I had lost my place in my social life, too. I couldn’t believe that Helen would have chosen to have Michael and his new girlfriend at her barbecue rather than invite me. I had known Helen for a decade. What kind of friend was she to drop me from her guest list and invite my evil ex instead? I was the one who had been dumped. Weren’t all my girlfriends supposed to rally to my side and refuse even to meet the new girl? It was what I would have done. Well, I thought, as I wiped away another flurry of tears, Helen had better hope that Kevin didn’t dump her when the pressure of raising a newborn got to be too much. She’d find out who her friends were then.
    Becky was unsympathetic. She reminded me that I had promised I would not try to find out who Michael was seeing. “And in such a dodgy way, Ash. You know that’s borderline stalking … Actually, forget borderline,” she added. “It is stalking full stop. And has it made you happy?”
    I admitted that it hadn’t.
    “You are nuts.”
    She made me promise that would be the end of it. “You know her name. You know what she looks like. Anything else is only going to torture you.”
    But it turned out I’d developed a taste for torture.

    Of course, knowing Giselle Kleinbeck’s name and having access to a picture of her with spinach between her big teeth on Michael’s Facebook page was not enough for me. I had to find out more. With her name, unusual as it was for London, my earlier investigations had made it very easy to find out where she worked. Well-Sprung Interiors, southeast-area representatives for Well-Sprung Upholstery, had their premises in Wimbledon, a mere two miles from my flat. I investigated their website further. It was very dull. It explained that they specialized in