Worst. Person. Ever. Read Online Free PDF Page A

about this garden, I’d have changed my diet weeks back.”
    “Rosemary sprigs on your tinned cat food?”
    “Look!” said Neal. “Half a pack of uneaten Starbursts!”
    “Yes, Neal, that is correct: life is good.”

05
    I was in the hire car’s rear with Fiona en route to the airport, a generous gesture on her part, but a gesture made only because Billy let it slip during a phone call that she was jetting to France at roughly the same time as I was leaving for Los Angeles. In any event, we first had to pick up Neal a few blocks from my place, where he was getting a facial to tidy up his complexion, which hadn’t been exposed to sunlight since the Spice Girls ruled the pop charts.
    “So Raymond, I hear you managed to rustle up an assistant.”
    “Only fitting for a man in my position.”
    “Darling, how on earth did you find someone willing to put up with you?”
    “Well, his name is Neal and he has a long track record of living and working in the, um, outdoors.”
    “You’ve always wanted a slave, Raymond—and frankly, a slave would be a nice boost to your ego. You’re so insecure. No wonder you haven’t been properly laid by a non-whore in ages.”
    When did everyone become an evaluator of my private life?
    “By the way,” Fi added, “I Googled Kiribati—it’s lovely.”
    A chill came over me. “Fi, you won’t actually be physically coming to the Pacific, will you? Not that I wouldn’t love to see you and all.”
    “Darling, you know me better. I’ll just sit here and collect fifteen percent of what you make.” She paused to stare out the window. “Who is that … 
fascinating
man up ahead?”
    “Who?” The car stopped beside Neal, who sat on the curb staring into another discarded Caffè Nero paper cup as if it contained dancing pixies. His diseased Chewbacca locks gone, and some ghastly white shaved areas contrasting with a decade’s worth of windburn, he looked like the sort of relative everyone dreads showing up at a wedding: off his meds, without loyalties and perhaps possessing a bit more insight than is good for him. Some dishtowels repurposed as scarves gave Neal his preferred dash of eighties style.
    I was about to call for him, but Fiona shushed me and rolled down her window. Her overture to Neal was preempted just then by two scrumptious schoolgirls, who stopped to bend over him. “Sir,” one of them asked, “Are you all right?”
    “Me? Oh yes, why thank you, girls. Kind young women like you make my day.”
    The duo blushed. “Oh,
sir
, anything to help.”
    “You sweet, sweet girls. Thank you.”
    The charge in the air was almost pornographic. I swear, if the three of them could have orgied right there on top of the McDonald’s litter and a squished Coke Zero can, theywould have. A new chill came over me: Neal was one of nature’s born studs.
    Didn’t see that one coming.
    I evaluated this new piece of data: was it a plus or a minus for me? I decided to break the mood and yelled out the window, “Neal, load your bag into the boot, you crazed shitpig.”
    He looked up and smiled.
    Fiona said, “That’s your slave?”
    “It is.”
    “
He
is sitting next to
me.
”
    Oh fuck.
    I got out so Neal could slide into the middle beside my ex-wife, and we left for Heathrow.
    LHR to LAX = 10 h, 55 m

06
    So I’m standing at the business class check-in counter for the Los Angeles flight when I hear the words, “Mr. Gunt, I’m afraid there’s been a mix-up in ticketing.”
    Reduce the temperature of my blood by twenty degrees.
    “Oh?”
    “I’m afraid your seat has been deleted.”
    “
Deleted?
” Okay. I’m reasonable. Did I say that I like people? I like people who like people. “What do you mean by … 
deleted?
”
    “The physical seat itself, sir, has been removed from the plane for reconditioning.”
    “So there is simply no seat there at all?”
    “Oh, thank you, sir, I’m glad you understand.”
    I dropped my eyes to her name tag. JENELLE. “Jenelle, is