Drop Dead Gorgeous

by Anna Cheska

  Although she was still naked, Marisa flung aside the net curtain and yanked open the sash window. The cold wind slapped at her skin, turning it to goose-flesh. She didn’t flinch. Down below, she saw Henry from next door bringing his rubbish out to the front. He turned to go back inside, saw her at the window, his jaw dropped open. Marisa only laughed, put her elbows on the sill and stretched forward so that even more of her breasts was visible, the nipples hardening in the chill winter breeze. Henry scurried inside as though he’d been burned, silly old sod.

  Marisa frowned. It had, after all, been going so well, with Alex hooked and being drawn in close …

  So who?

  She had seen the existence of someone else – lurking behind that goodbye look. Marisa selected soft velvet trousers in a shade of pale ecru, a flame coloured polo-neck, and a simple gold cross.

  If it were someone in Nottingham then she wouldn’t have known where to start. But would he have come back to Chichester so soon if so? No, she answered herself. He would have stayed there all the holiday. And if it were someone here … then it had to be her father’s wife! Imogen West. Impossible but true. Who else could it be? There had been no time. And she’d suspected as much when Imogen had first stumbled into the sitting-room at Chestnut Close. All that Auntie Imo and Santa stuff.

  And so she’d gone to the florist’s and now she was sure. Marisa clipped her strawberry-blonde hair back from her face. She was sure. And she was angry.

  * * *

  ‘So what are you going to do?’ Jude demanded.

  ‘Never mind me. What are you going to do?’ Resolutely, Imogen changed the subject – or was it the object? She had told all – almost all anyway. She’d left out some of her finer feelings. End of story.

  ‘Do you mean, how will I manage now I’m going to be a proper single parent with no resident child-minder? Or do you mean, how will I manage without advertising for a man?’

  ‘Both.’ Imogen watched Jude clear up the debris of her latest wedding makeover. What with Jude doing the makeup and Imo providing the flowers, the more weddings in Chichester, the better off they were. So why did she feel miserable at the sight of another happy bride-to-be tootling out of The Goddess Without and into Real Life?

  ‘I’ll manage the same way that every other single parent does,’ Jude said vaguely, slotting brushes into her brush cleaner. ‘On both counts.’ She flicked back long honey-blonde hair and shot Imo a fierce look from blue-as-the-Mediterranean eyes.

  ‘How’s that?’ Imogen didn’t know much about children but she knew they weren’t easy. She sat down in one of Jude’s squishy black chairs and stared dismally at her reflection.

  ‘After school club, tea with friends. And Daisy can hang around here for that matter, she’s no trouble.’

  ‘And in the holidays?’

  ‘Play schemes.’ Jude was consulting her appointments book. ‘Bikini line and half legs.’ She glanced at her watch. ‘Eleven o’clock but she’s always late.’ She went to retrieve a different trolley from the back of the salon, and began laying out more instruments than a dental surgeon.

  ‘Half legs?’ Imogen shuddered.

  ‘Up to and including the knee.’ Jude waved at her own black-stockinged calves under the short black shift. ‘Going somewhere nice and hot probably, lucky cow.’

  ‘Why do we bother?’ Imo thought of Alex.

  ‘Body hair is animal.’ Jude grimaced. ‘Hairlessness is angel. And whoever saw a model with hairy legs?’

  Imogen got to her feet. ‘You’ll miss her,’ she said. Though she might enjoy the space. Space … It was wonderful, Imo reflected, to stretch out in your room, in your bed, with no one to touch you, no one to turn away. It had become Imogen’s bed, not the bed she’d shared with Edward, and now she could choose to share it – chance would be a fine thing – or claim it as her own. Oh, Alex … She sniffed. No one to turn away, but equally no one to turn to.

  ‘Perhaps I’ll take in foreign students.’ Jude plucked a black towel from the pile on the shelf, laid it out carefully and selected a wax treatment. Imo blanched.

  ‘No pain, no gain,’ Jude said.

  Would that be hot wax, foreign students, or the thought for the day? Imo wondered. She peered into the window – she’d been too distracted to notice when she arrived. ‘Create the perfect pout? Oh, Jude, honestly.’

  ‘It’s an instant mood booster.’ Jude waved towards the make-up trolley. ‘Better than buying new clothes. You don’t have to get undressed to try them on.’

  Imo took a look. So many to choose from. ‘Lots of purples,’ she murmured. The beauty business, she concluded, was something she simply couldn’t get to grips with.

  ‘Not just purples, sweetie.’ Jude tidied and rearranged, picked up a tub of aloe vera moisturiser and dropped it into Imogen’s bag. ‘I despair of you, I really do. Deep Purple, Blackcurrant Bliss, Air of Aubergine, Blueberry Fool, Hot Heatherberry … you name it, I’ve got it. Once you find a colour you like you can never have too many shades.’ She surveyed Imogen critically. ‘Which one would you put on your lips?’

  Imogen selected a brown. ‘Coffee Bean?’

  Jude grabbed it from her and put it back. ‘And the worst possible reason for choosing a lipstick is because you like the colour.’

  ‘It is?’ Imo was more confused than ever.

  ‘You have to think skin tone, sweetie. Eyes, hair, clothes, the whole bit.’ She chose Dawn Mist and got to work with her lip brush. ‘Come to think of it, you must be the only female who comes in here without buying anything. Even a lipstick. You’re really rather weird…’

  ‘Arvegorloadsoflipstaready.’

  ‘Don’t talk.’ Jude began filling in the colour. ‘Most women can never have enough make-up. They’re always up for it if the packaging’s classy enough.’ She stood back. ‘That’s the lips, but we really have to do something to your eyes.’

  ‘No, Jude.’ Imo held up a warning hand. ‘Your eleven o’clock will be here, and—’

  ‘Just a touch of kohl. Stay still.’ She grabbed a grey eye pencil and treated it to a blast from the hairdryer fixed to the wall. ‘To soften it,’ she explained. ‘Open … close.’

  Imogen obeyed.

  ‘A little smudge and there you are. Now go and face the world, woman.’

  Imogen peered from the trolley to the mirror, sucked in her cheeks and tried to look nonchalant. The trouble was, she was unwilling to face the world. And she would be late opening – again. ‘But what’s the use?’ she wailed. If love was blind then how could people fall into it at first sight? And if beauty was in the eye of the beholder, then why bother with salons like The Goddess Without?

  ‘How d’you mean, use?’

  Too late Imogen realised this was rather like asking a fish why it needed water. Or was it? How necessary was makeup for survival? Even Jude’s survival? Come to that, how necessary were men?

  ‘Do you mean its use as a fashion accessory, or its use for attracting the male of the species?’ Now Jude was laughing at her. ‘Use as in vital ingredients in the pursuit of true lust?’ She narrowed her very blue eyes. ‘Or are we talking lurrve?’

  ‘Well, um…’

  But Jude was off on one. ‘Or do you mean its use in developing women’s self-respect, confidence, esteem?’

  It was hopeless. Imogen wasn’t sure she had any of those any longer. And the Dawn Mist lipstick and grey kohl made not a jot of difference.

  ‘So tell me, Imo.’

  ‘Mmm?’ At last Imogen made it to the door. She had to get out of here.

  ‘What are you going to do?’ Jude demanded.

  Imogen slipped out of the salon without replying. It was a good question. Just a shame she didn’t know the answer.

  * * *

  Marisa decided to ring Shelley Finn. They hadn’t spoken for a while. Shelley and her escort agency belonged to a part of her life that Marisa mostly kept hidden.

  ‘I want to give up work,’ she told her.

  �
�Completely?’

  ‘Yes.’ She wouldn’t be able to continue for long anyway. And it was too risky. There was always the chance she’d be recognised by someone when she was with Alex.

  ‘You’re not even going to do a bit part-time?’ Shelley cajoled.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Not even…’ She heard Marisa hesitate. ‘Not even Bertie?’

  It was tempting. Easy money too, for just talking. But: ‘No.’ She must be firm. It was in Shelley’s interest to persuade her to continue. It was in Marisa’s long-term interest to give up.

  ‘Win the lottery, did you?’ Marisa could imagine Shelley making notes, perhaps spinning round on that low chair of hers, and flicking through the filing system. Shelley wasn’t a computer person. She always said – with a throaty laugh – that she preferred hard copy, and that glamour could not easily be transferred to disk.

  ‘No.’ She knew that Shelley would guess what was coming next. In her line of business she must hear it pretty often and be sick of it, frankly. ‘I’ve met someone,’ Marisa said anyway.

  ‘A client?’ Shelley asked quickly, probably thinking of her percentage.

  ‘Oh, no.’ Marisa examined the nails of her right hand. It was time to pay The Goddess Without another visit, she decided. As for the clients, Shelley had to be joking. They were old and faceless.

  ‘Same old story, eh?’ Shelley sighed. ‘That’s how I always lose my best ones. And when it’s over? Will you want to come back then?’ For Shelley, love was finite. At some point it was always over.

  ‘I’m pregnant too.’ Marisa hadn’t intended to tell her this, but she had the urge to spread the news. And she’d always liked Shelley.

  There was a sharp intake of breath. Now she had surprised her. ‘Do you know it’s his?’

  ‘Of course.’ Was she worrying about insurance or something? Marisa drummed her one remaining acrylic nail on the coffee table.

  ‘Not like you to be careless,’ Shelley commented.

  ‘I wasn’t.’

  ‘Right.’ Another intake of breath.

  What was wrong, Marisa would like to know, with forward planning? A girl had to look after number one. Men could never be trusted. Men let you down – hadn’t she learned that the hard way? From her own mother?

  ‘You don’t do things by halves, do you?’ But Shelley chuckled. ‘So it’ll be a while before you’re back.’

  ‘I won’t be back.’ That was not part of the plan.

  Shelley continued as if she hadn’t spoken. ‘If you’re ever on your own again and saddled with a kid you’d find the money useful. I’ll keep you on file.’

  Marisa had to admire her practical streak. And Shelley was about the closest thing to a friend that Marisa had right now. She’d always been a loner, different from the girls at school – all settled in their happy families, thinking they were rebelling if they had a fag after school or let some boy finger them in the park. Marisa wasn’t interested in rebellion for the sake of it, rebellion that ended in conformity. She was only interested in change. And besides, she’d grown up years before those other girls. ‘I’d prefer that you didn’t,’ she told Shelley. She’d much rather slip anonymously away – it was so much safer.

  ‘Hmm.’ Would Shelley do as Marisa asked? she wondered. Probably not.

  ‘So what makes this one different?’ Shelley asked.

  Marisa pondered. Where to begin? ‘He’s an artist…’ That was where it had started. Perhaps because her art teacher at school had introduced her to sex. Similar to Alex in a way – bohemian life-style, scruffy jackets, hair always a little too long. Joss Browne had seen her potential as a woman when she was only fourteen, even while he was dismissing her as an artist. His scathing comments were branded on to her very soul, Why bother to do what’s been done before? Especially if you’re going to do it with such little imagination, my dear … Because an artist was what Marisa had most wanted to be.

  ‘An artist?’ Shelley didn’t sound too impressed. ‘No money, then, babe?’ She might have added that this was out of character for Marisa, but she didn’t.

  ‘Not yet – no.’ Marisa was clear on this point. ‘But he’s talented.’

  ‘Even talented artists often don’t make it till after they’re dead,’ Shelley put in.

  ‘This one will.’ She had seen how he’d drawn her. Somehow – and this was the amazing thing – he’d managed to see right through her and out the other side. In his sketches she was exposed – naked, vulnerable and hurting. He was the only man who’d ever had an inkling of the way she felt. Ergo, she would have him. More than that, she would make him.

  ‘Look at Lucien Freud,’ she told Shelley. ‘And David Hockney.’

  ‘He’s that good?’ Shelley sounded disbelieving.

  ‘As far as I can see they’re no better than scores of other artists,’ Marisa said scathingly. ‘You’re only as good as the critics say you are. Because these days galleries don’t want representations…’

  ‘You’ve lost me, babe.’ Shelley was beginning to sound bored.

  ‘… they want vision.’

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘And to make it…’ Marisa was determined to finish this ‘… to make it, you’ve just got to get the right image, be in the right place at the right time. You’ve got to make the right contacts, paint the right stuff. Artists can’t do all that.’

  ‘Why the hell not? Look, babe, I’m sorry to lose you, but I’ve gotta…’

  ‘Because they’re artists,’ Marisa said simply.

  Shelley made a noise somewhere between a snort of amusement and a grunt of contempt. ‘But you can do that, I suppose?’ she said.

  ‘Oh, yes. You bet your life I can.’ Marisa was smiling as she put down the phone. She could do that. That was her talent. And that was why she couldn’t let Alex say goodbye.

  Chapter 27

  Alex slumped further into the blue settee with the wavy pattern embossed on its fabric. Its cushions seemed to suck up his flesh, limb by limb, as if he were drowning. Rather apt, he thought. And as he sank, he listened – sort of – to the tune of Richie and Beth bickering.

  Bickering. It was a good word, Alex decided. Their conversation – about men and housework, or more precisely about Richie and housework; he didn’t do any – never developed into argument or full-scale in-your-face row. But neither was it discussion or debate since there wasn’t any listening to the other’s point of view. Rather it rose and fell with soft insinuation; it simmered with bad feeling and the suggestion of worse left unsaid. Alex closed his eyes.

  ‘This’ll happen to you one day, mate,’ Richie told him, reaching for the cashews and shooting Beth a knowing glance at the same time.

  What would? Bickering with a woman he’d once loved?

  ‘Yes, it will.’ Beth spoke this time. They were at last in accord so Alex must have done something right.

  He sank further into the sofa, wondering if Beth had fixed it so that it would take a full pound of flesh.

  ‘He’ll come over all domesticated.’ She looked triumphant. ‘Perhaps you’re already considering it, Alex? With what’s-she-called?’

  He had noticed that women always hesitated to use another woman’s name until they’d met her. But the main thing was that now Beth was smiling.

  ‘Marisa,’ he supplied.

  Alex glanced at Richie in time to see him waving his arms lunatic-like at Beth.

  ‘Oh, have I said the wrong thing?’ She giggled.

  ‘No.’ But Alex stifled a sigh.

  ‘You’re not exactly Mr Commitment. Was she getting too serious?’

  Pregnancy was pretty serious – as things go. Alex shrugged. ‘Not exactly.’

  He’d had plenty of time to think about it since Imo had blurted the information out over the phone, though admittedly a good portion of that time had been spent in states of inebriation and hangover respectively. What game was Marisa playing? And how was Imogen feeling about it all?

  His first reaction had
been to find Marisa and get the truth out of her. But on the way he’d slipped into the pub for a quick pint of Dutch courage and found Richie – looking for company, probably trying to escape the vacuuming. The idea of seeing Marisa – a necessity at first – had become less compelling as the evening progressed, in direct correlation to the amount of beer he’d consumed. Alex sighed again.

  ‘Can I use your phone?’ He struggled to his feet. The sofa resisted valiantly.

  ‘Sure.’ Richie was expansive. ‘Make yourself at home. You gonna call her?’

  How much had he told Richie last night? Alex wondered. Probably too much.

  He dialled the numbers, hoped he wouldn’t get Naomi. ‘Marisa?’

  ‘Alex, darling…’

  He repressed a groan. ‘I need to see you.’

  ‘Of course.’ She was all sweetness and light. ‘When?’

  ‘Tonight?’ Might as well get it over with, he decided. ‘I’ll come to your place,’ he said. ‘We can go for a drink.’ That was safer, he decided. ‘In half an hour?’

  * * *

  Imogen, Vanessa and Jude had excellent seats at the front of house. It wasn’t exactly the Festival Theatre, Imo thought to herself, but it was nice enough with its old-fashioned red velveteen tiered seating, Victorian-style wall lamps and plush drapes hiding the stage. It was warm and cosy, small but intimate.

  ‘What part’s Hazel playing?’ Imogen scanned the programme and tried not to think about Alex. What he was doing, how he was looking, even what he was thinking. Had he tried to see her today? When he found her – if he found her, if he was looking – what would she say to him?

  ‘They’re not playing parts as such,’ Jude explained, crossing her legs. ‘It’s Gershwin’s life story, but built around the songs.’

  ‘With a narrator.’ Vanessa tapped the programme. ‘And with Hazel’s Giorgio as Gorgeous Gershwin himself.’

  ‘Anyway,’ Jude snapped the programme shut, ‘let’s wait and see.’