Become the person you want to attract.
In other words, you get treated about as well as you expect. Or, teach people how to treat you.
About then, she realised she was absolutely ravenous, far too hungry to wait for a takeaway, so she attacked the fridge and pulled out a slice of Evelyn’s quiche Lorraine, which was on its last day. She hurled it into the microwave. Oh my God, it tasted heavenly. She reflected that possibly part of what had caused her mood to collapse into a sinkhole could’ve been low blood sugar. She sat against the sofa and forked her way through the quiche, opposite Harry and Sally, who were finishing up their own late-night supper.
‘I hereby declare,’ she announced to the fish, ‘that from now on I will respect and love myself, and treat myself the way I want to be treated.’ Harry and Sally blinked at her. It was all right for them; they were already perfect.
‘OK. It’s coming to the end of the year, so this is a New Me moment. What needs to change?’Let gowas what she decided. Give up, stop struggling and yearning and stressing. Just let Pete go and do what he has to, then focus on what you need to do.
Starting the following day, she was going to stop obsessing about the world outside (i.e. Pete, obviously) and start listening to her own inner voice. There were no guarantees, obviously, and in reality nobody knew shit, but at the same time, her onlyhope was to try her best to make different decisions and see if it made a difference. After that, she felt significantly perkier and reassured that somehow things would improve. And with that, she took herself off to bed, feeling like a whole new person.
Chapter 20
The next morning she opened her eyes at the usual time – 7.10 – because no one had reset her body clock. She lay there for a while before sliding out of bed and into the shower, where she let Shower Wisdom take over.
Shower Wisdom told her to:
Phone Mum before she heard about Hogget and Simpson from someone else – cripes!
Get a manicure for her chewed nails.
Get a blow-dry as a morale boost.
OK none of it was earth-shattering, but wasn’t that the whole point? It wasn’t the huge things but the little ones that made a big difference in how you felt. By making those small plans, she already felt better.
As far as being fired went, she was clearly the victim of an injustice, so that was some consolation. She felt a tiny surge of euphoria; Shower Wisdom had never let her down.
As if by magic, her phone pinged with a rather baffling text from William, who seemed to be getting started on his food prep.
Hope you’re not part of the 10% of thepopulation for whom coriander tastes like soap.
No, boringly average, in 90% ??
Oh well, it was sweet that he’d enquired.
Ally made a mug of tea in her second-favourite mug – of course, also given to her by Rosemarie – which readSorry, did I roll my eyes out loud?and decided that New Ally would look surprisingly well groomed but at the same time not give a hoot what Pete, or anyone else, thought. Fabulous. What could possibly go wrong?
* * *
She fired off a text to Mum, who she knew would be starting her anti-ageing Gua Sha for ten minutes, followed by ten minutes on her cross-country ski machine while wearing her LED mask, followed by a whizzed-up blue-green algae-infused smoothie, followed by a fag.
‘Hi, Mum, it’s me.’
‘Leggie?’ She sounded thrilled.
‘No, Mum – me, Ally, your daughter.’
