Read The Dimple Strikes Back for Free Online

Lytton: I’m talking to the romantic comedy gods.
    Angle On: Samantha continues her slow walk, past the picturesque trees filtering a dappled sunlight, past the cafe where she buys a seriously large ice cream cone, past the garbage can she runs into accidentally while trying to take a bite of her ice cream, past the laughing group of twenty-somethings who capture her every move on their cell phones.
    Angle On: A wet, spreading chocolate stain on Samantha’s white T-shirt.
    Samantha Lytton: Oh, my tit! Fucking seriously?
    Twenty-Something: Keep filming! It’s Michelle Williams.
    Other Twenty-Something: Damn, she’s short.
    Samantha Lytton: I’m not Michelle Williams! Why does everyone say that?
    Twenty-Something: Beige American actresses all look the same, innit?
    That actually makes Samantha feel better, as she’s usually cast in a role labelled ‘ugly friend’ or ‘goofy sister’.
    Angle On: She ditches her disintegrating ice cream cone in favour of a drink at a nearby pub. It seems a more suitable spot in which to pause and consider her life choices. After knocking back a couple—FYI, when you ask a blunt-nosed English bartender for a dirty martini, he may give you the stink eye and just pour you a beer—she weaves into the street at three in the afternoon.
    Angle On: A police horse Samantha befriends, his magnificent brown hair the same colour as the deuce he leaves in the street.
    Samantha Lytton: If this were a movie, I’d clumsily step in a pile of horse shit. I’d probably be the pile of horse shit.
    Pile of Horse Shit: There are worse things, Samantha Lytton.
    Samantha Lytton: You can talk!
    Pile of Horse Shit: We of the horse shit have many secrets.
    Samantha Lytton: Tell me what to do, oh wise, yet stinky one.
    Angle On: Samantha lets out a very ladylike burp.
    Pile of Horse Shit: Perhaps that smell is the mess you’ve made of your romantic life. You must decide if you’re going to trust Sam. Trust or trust not, there is no try.
    Samantha Lytton: You’re cribbing advice from Yoda?
    Pile of Horse Shit: You’re the one talking to a pile of crap in the dirt.
    Samantha Lytton: Fair enough.
    Pile of Horse Shit: You’ve fought thus far for your one, true love. Await his call this evening tide and work things out together. Communication is the key.
    Samantha Lytton: Thanks, Mr, um, Shit.
    Angle On: A copper joining his horse.
    Police Officer: Do you require assistance, Miss?
    Samantha Lytton: Nope! I wasn’t talking to—I mean, I don’t like crap. I mean cops. I mean, have a nice day. I’m sure you’re very nice. Taxi!
    Angle On: Samantha takes a cab back to her apartment. She presses her face to the glass as the city rolls by, reflected in the window. The music swells. Samantha then considers that the window of a cab is probably filthy, and jerks away. Gross.
    It took a full minute after waking in my London flat to realise that I’d fallen asleep at seven p.m. the evening before, and that it was now six a.m. the next morning—and Sam had not called. I gripped my cell phone, heart tripping to and fro in my chest, and pressed button after button to check texts, emails and received calls. Nothing. I took a deep breath and hit my first speed dial. It went straight to his voice mail—do not pass go, do not collect the shattered pieces of your love life. Had the men who’d jumped us succeeded in tracking him? I tossed the phone on the bed and squeezed my eyes shut. He’d done this before. Not answered for days and days. “To hell with it.”
    I shoved every bad notion out of my head and lumbered to the shower. Today at ten a.m. I had my table read for What Could Go Wrong ? and I intended to look dazzling, perform majestically and be the star I was pretending to be. The star who definitely did not get depressed-drunk by herself and have imaginary conversations with faeces. No, that woman was gone, as was her impossibly stained shirt. It was time to woman up.
    Shit! Where was the plug converter for my