This is the second instalment of Polly’s encounter with Dave Grohl. If you haven’t read the first part, you may want to read it first so you know what’s going on.
Just to reiterate, what you’re about to read is fictional…
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A Date With The Night – Part 2
By midday, the streets of Brixton were buzzing. It was another beautiful Saturday morning. Buses and cars clogged the narrow streets and the shops were full of people stocking up on groceries or looking for a new outfit to wear out that evening.
As the sun was out, friends sat outside cafes drinking coffee and chatting about what they’d got up to in the week, while others preferred to sit alone reading a newspaper and watching the world go by.
Polly was oblivious to it all; even the glorious sunshine pouring down on her from her bedroom window did nothing to rouse her from her sound slumber. She was still fully clothed after passing out on top of her bed in the foetal position clutching an empty bottle of vodka.
The phone started ringing and woke her with a start. As Polly tried to decipher what the noise was, she groaned loudly, her eyes adjusting to the bright sunshine in the room as she fumbled around trying to find the phone.
“Shit!” she snapped, as she knocked most of the contents off her bedside table. Hearing a smash, she looked down to see her small mirror broken in three pieces on the wooden floor, surrounded by white powder with her credit card and a rolled up twenty pound note beside it.
“Hello?” Polly said groggily as she finally retrieved the phone.
“Polly it’s George, I need you to work tonight. Raven called in sick.”
“What? Why? Tonight’s my night off! I’ve been working at the bank during the day and working at the club every night this week, I need a night off!”
“I don’t give a shit Polly,” her boss said coldly, “I heard what happened last night and I’m not amused. You fuck another punter on the premises again and you’re fired! Take ‘em to a hotel like everyone else.”
“Yes George.” Polly replied sheepishly, blushing as she hung up the phone.
She laid in bed groaning to herself about the telling off she’d received before rolling out of bed slowly, her whole body aching as she stumbled to the kitchen, still clutching the bottle of vodka.
Polly shuffled over to the bin and threw it away, knowing that she’d gone a step too far, in more ways than one, the night before. The cocaine helped her forget and the vodka helped her to sleep, but in the harsh light of day, all that was left was a hangover and an even more painful memory.
When it was time to get ready for work, she headed for the bathroom, reluctant to wash away Dave’s smell, frowning as she climbed into the shower, knowing that she was about to lose what little she had left of him.
The hot water soothed her aching muscles and she could finally feel her headache ease as she washed her hair. The soft bubbles glided easily over her olive skin and gathered at her feet, covering the baby pink nail varnish on her toes. When she got out, she towelled herself off and pulled on a pair of jeans and a t-shirt before heading for the door.
It was gone six by the time Polly wandered into work. It was a nice afternoon so she had walked instead of getting the Tube in an effort to clear her head. As she walked in, everyone stared at her and she could hear the bar staff whispering and pointing as she made her way to the dressing room.
She smiled at Blondie, one of the regular girls, as they passed each other in the corridor but she just looked down at Polly as if she were something she had stepped on in the street.
As she walked into her dressing room, everything that had happened the night before came crashing back, hitting her like a punch in the stomach. Luckily Amber was waiting for her, which meant that she didn’t have to be alone.
“God you look like shit!” She said as Polly walked in.
“Cheers!” Polly replied studying her reflection in the mirror only to discover her friend was right.
Her olive skin looked pale and sallow and there were dark circles under her blood shot eyes. Her long black hair looked like it hadn’t been washed at all and her crumpled clothes made her look like she had just crawled out of bed.
“I’m gonna have to put my make up on with a trowel!”
“Yeah if you can find it!” Amber joked, pointing at the lipsticks and broken eye shadows strewn all over the floor from when Dave had swept them off the dressing table the night before.
Polly slumped onto the black leather sofa with a sigh as she looked around the room, filled with regret. She had fantasised about sleeping with Dave so many times but now that it had actually happened, she felt numb.
This time yesterday Dave was her hero, someone she admired and fantasised about meeting some day. But now he was a real-life person whom she had shared something with, albeit very briefly, and now that she’d had that opportunity, she knew she couldn’t go back to the way things were before.
“Everyone’s talking about me. George told me off on the phone this morning and Blondie just looked at me like I was a piece of shit,” Polly said wistfully.
“Fuck ‘em! They’re just jealous. Blondie wishes she could fuck Dave Grohl but he wouldn’t want her ugly ass!”
“Maybe he would, if she’d behaved as sluttishly as I did…”
“Don’t tell me you regret fucking him?”
“I didn’t think it would be like
that
!” Polly admitted, remembering how they had fucked like animals.
“God Polly. You’re so naïve sometimes. You’re a fucking
stripper
! What did you expect? That he was gonna come back here and ask you to marry him after you just shoved your tits in his face? Your tits are great honey but not
that
great!”
Amber’s words cut into her like a knife. She was right.
“Maybe if we’d met under different circumstances…” Polly said.
“Maybe. Just remember what we said when you first started here and hated it: no regrets. It’s a means to an end.”
“But to what end?” Polly thought to herself as she nodded and smiled weakly at her friend, her brown eyes full of tears.
“Do you still work here or what?” George asked sticking his head into the room.
