Page 3 of Who’s That Girl?

Twenty seconds.

Oh God, and now I’ve just remembered: it’s Dad’s birthday today.

My heart sinks. Mum left three messages on my machine last week to remind me and I still forgot. I haven’t even sent him a card. Dad will be so upset if he doesn’t get a card through the post. Last year I sent him an e-card as work was manic as usual, but when I called him, his voice was all small and Mum had to get on the phone and make cheery conversation about next-door’s new extension.

Fifteen seconds.

My stomach clenches. OK, Charlotte, don’t stress. You’ll end up with that funny bumpy rash on your chest and you’ll have to wear polo necks all week. I’ll call Interflora and get an express delivery. So what if he’s a man? Everyone likes flowers, right? I’ll just ask for manly colours or something.

Ten seconds.

Do they do flowers in navy blue?

Five seconds.

Right, that’s it. Time’s up.

I pull myself up on to my elbows and take out my mouthguards. According to my dentist, I grind. He says if I don’t wear them, I’m going to end up with teeth ground down to little stumps. I had to have them made and they cost over a thousand pounds. Vanessa, my best friend, thought I was crazy. She says I should have spent the money on a holiday as I just need to relax.

Honestly, I love Vanessa, but she’s the one who’s crazy. A holiday? Like I have time for a holiday. Besides, I do lots of things to relax. For example, I do Pilates. Actually, perhaps do is a little bit of an exaggeration – I did it once and fell asleep during the mat exercises – but I’ve every intention of doing it regularly. And I take baths with scented candles and lavender oil and a glass of chilled Sauvignon Blanc. Admittedly, I haven’t taken one recently – in fact these days it’s more a case of dashing in and out of the shower with a Bic razor – but still. Plus I even have a relaxation CD, which my mum sent me. Somewhere. Tucked away in a drawer probably.

But I’m definitely going to listen to it when I have a minute …

OK, so I wouldn’t go as far as to say I’m relaxed as such, but who is these days? I run a company. I have a mortgage, and responsibilities, and lines round my eyes to take care of. I mean, it’s not like I’m twenty-one any more.

And thank goodness.

Back then I was renting a room, working in a dead-end job and always broke. Now I have my own successful PR company, a lovely flat in a leafy part of West London and one of those new convertible Beetles. I eat out at restaurants and can afford to shop for designer clothes and take luxury holidays.

Not that I do of course, as I never have the time, but I’m just saying.

I even have my own personal trainer.

Speaking of … Dragging myself out of bed, I swap my warm, fleecy pyjamas for my gym kit and hurry across to the window. I open the blind and pull back the curtains. It’s still pitch black outside and for a moment I pause to stare into the silent, sleeping street.

I’m thirty-one years old and I’ve got the life I always dreamed of.

The doorbell rings, interrupting my thoughts, and I turn away from the window.

‘Coming,’ I yell loudly, and rubbing the sleep from my puffy eyes, I dash for the door.

Chapter Two

An hour later, after running around the park and doing about a million star jumps, Richard, my personal trainer, is jogging me back to my flat. Richard used to be in the Territorial Army and likes to push me really hard.

Unfortunately I don’t mean ‘push me’ as in I’m on a swing wearing a floaty dress and going, ‘Weeeee,’ but as in me face down on the tarmac gasping for breath while he barks at me to do another fifty press-ups.

‘OK, Charlotte, why don’t we sprint the last hundred metres, huh?’

Trust me, I have dozens of reasons why we shouldn’t, but Richard has already zoomed ahead of me, all six foot three of solid muscle in racer-back vest and tiny black shorts. I grip on to my hand-weights and lurch after his receding figure, which is springing buoyantly along the pavement on powerful calves.

‘C’mon, no slacking. Fill those lungs. Lift those knees. Hup, hup, hup, hup.’

I swear Richard has the biggest calf muscles I’ve ever seen. Apparently, when he was in the TA, he would run hundreds of miles with a backpack that weighed more than me. Which I always find a comforting thought – just in case I should collapse and need to be carried home one day, or something.

I finally catch him up outside my flat.

‘See you same time Wednesday.’ Still running on the spot, Richard slaps me heartily on the back and I nearly keel over.