Excerpt from Bridget Jones - The Edge of Reason by Helen Fielding, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

"Oh honestly!" I laughed gaily trying to fight a lurch of insecurity in my own stomach. "That's just complete bollocks. No one thinks you're a re-tread. Think of all those merchant bankers who've been ringing you up. What about Stacey and Johnny?"

"Huh," said Jude, though she was starting to sound more cheerful. "I went out with Johnny and his friends from Credit Suisse last night. Someone told a joke about this guy who drank too much in an Indian restaurant and passed out in a korma and Johnny is so literal that he went, 'Christ! How bloody awful. I knew a bloke who ate a lot of Indian food once, and he ended up with a stomach ulcer!'"

She was laughing. The crisis ha.d clearly passed. You see there is nothing seriously wrong, she just gets a bit paranoid sometimes. Chatted a bit more and, once her confidence seemed firmly back in residence, I rejoined Mark at the table only to discover the pasta was not quite as had planned: slopping about wetly in white-coloured water.

"I like it," said Mark supportively, "I like string, I like milk. Mmmm."

"Do you think we'd better call out for a pizza?" I said, feeling a failure and a re-tread.

We ordered pizzas and ate them in front of the fire. Mark told me all about the Indonesians. I listened carefully and gave him my opinions and advice, which he said were very interesting and very "fresh", and I told him about horrid sacking meeting with Richard Finch. He gave me very good advice about working out what I wanted from the meeting and giving Richard plenty of places to go other than sacking me. As I explained to him, it was rather like the win-win mentality as advocated in The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People when the phone rang again.

"Leave it," said Mark.

"Bridget. Jude. Pick up. I think I've done the wrong thing. I just called Stacey and he hasn't called back."

I picked up. "Well, maybe he's out."

"Of his mind just like you," said Mark.

"Shut up," I hissed, while Jude ran through the scenario. "Look, I'm sure he'll ring tomorrow. But if he doesn't, just move back one of the Mars and Venus Stages of Dating. He's pulling away like a Martian rubber band and you have to let him feel his attraction and spring back."

When I got off the phone, Mark was watching the football.

"Rubber bands and win-win Martians," he said, smirking at me. "It's like war command in the land of gibberish here."

"Don't you talk to your friends about emotional matters?"

"Nope," he said, flicking the remote control from one football match to the other. I stared at him in fascination.

"Do you want to have sex with Shazzer?"

"I'm sorry?"

"Do you want to have sex with Shazzer and Jude?"

"I'd be delighted! Did you mean individually? Or both at the same time?"
Trying to ignore his superficial tone, I pressed on. "When you met Shazzer after Christmas did you want to sleep with her?"

"Well. The thing is, you see, I was sleeping with you."

"But has it crossed your mind ever?"

"Well, of course It's crossed my mind."

"What?" I exploded.

"She's a very attractive girl. It would have been odd, surely, if it hadn't?" He grinned wickedly.

"And Jude," I said indignantly. "Sleeping with Jude. Has that ever "crossed your mind"?"

"Well, from time to time, fleetingly, I suppose it has. It's just human nature, isn't it?"

"Human nature? I've never imagined sleeping with Giles or Nigel from your office."

"No," he murmured. "I'm not sure that anyone else has either. Tragically. Except possibly Jose in the post room."

Just as we'd cleared away the plates and started snogging on the rug, the phone rang again.

"Leave it," said Mark. "Please - in the name of God and all his cherubim, seraphim, saints, archangels, cloud attendants and beard trimmers - leave it."

Reprinted from Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason by Helen Fielding by permission of Viking Penguin, a member of Penguin Putnam Inc. Copyright (c) 2000 by Helen Fielding. All rights reserved. This excerpt, or any parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission.