Little Lady, Big Apple

by Hester Browne

  ‘I could say, “Hello, it’s Honey”?’ I suggested huskily.

  Jonathan spluttered something I didn’t catch, then said, in a very grown-up voice, ‘Listen, let’s not go there right now. I’m wondering if you’re free for some lunch?’

  ‘Absolutely!’ I said, my accent intensifying into cut-glass precision. ‘What time?’

  ‘I’ll meet you at one, at Boisdale on Ecclestone Street.’

  Oooh. Scottish steak.

  ‘That would be delightful,’ I said. ‘I’ll look forward to it!’

  ‘Mmm, just one more time? The delightful bit?’ he said, but fortunately his PA Patrice came in with some papers before we could get into trickier waters.

  I went back to work with a much lighter heart, and skimmed through a list I was making of suitable presents for all ages of children. It was one of those ironies that the more unmarried the bachelors on my client list were, the most suitable their friends seemed to deem them as godparents, despite their having no experience of children whatsoever. It was all to do with available cashflow, Nelson informed me: the more puking, howling babies they saw, the less likely they were to want any of their own and therefore the more cash they had to spend on the godchildren.

  As I was checking the Hamleys website for teddy bear prices, the phone rang again, and when I picked it up I knew it was Nelson’s mate Roger even before he spoke. He had a distinctive way of breathing.

  ‘Roger Trumpet!’ I said cheerily. ‘How’s tricks?’

  There was a surprised squelch, as Roger cleared his sizeable nose. ‘Shouldn’t I be asking you that? Eh? Eh?’

  That sounded like a dig. I ignored it.

  ‘If this is about Nelson’s trip, I’m afraid I can’t talk him out of it,’ I went on, sending my list to print. ‘Anchors aweigh, and all that.’

  ‘I wasn’t ringing about Nelson, actually,’ said Roger, though I could tell by the sulky tone that had entered his voice that I’d struck a nerve. ‘I need to book your services. Your professional services.’

  ‘Oh good!’ I said, pulling my appointments book nearer. I liked a challenge, and since Roger combined astonishing assets on paper, with some of the worst social graces I’d seen outside a monkey house, he was a big one. ‘What for?’

  ‘Well, you remember that party of my mother’s where you pretended to be my girlfriend?’ he began.

  ‘Mmm,’ I said sympathetically. It had been memorable, for many reasons, not least the unexpected rush of female attention Roger had enjoyed afterwards. ‘Is she still trying to set you up with your cousin Celia?’

  ‘Yeah.’ Another wrenching nose clearance. Honestly. I made a note to mention it tactfully at a later date. ‘Only this time it’s the Hunt Ball, and Celia’s running the show, and won’t take no for an answer. She’s taken up women’s rugby recently, and, you know, I don’t like to, er, let her down . . .’

  ‘Roger, have you considered telling your mother that we’re in the twenty-first century now, and that it isn’t compulsory to get married by the age of thirty any more?’

  ‘I have, but she’s making her will. I’m getting the grandchildren guilt trip thing. Who’s going to get the cider interests? What will happen after she’s gone? I keep telling her that she didn’t marry my dad until he was forty-three, but what can you do?’

  ‘I know. Parents can be a trial.’

  ‘Yeah, well, I knew you’d understand. So if you wouldn’t mind popping along in one of your nice tight dresses to the old Hunt Ball next month, that would be splendid. Third Saturday in September, Hereford. No funny business, obviously, but just let her know that it’s all back on with you and me. Wear the wig if it helps.’

  My pen hovered over the date, then sadly I clicked the cap back on.

  ‘I’m really sorry, Roger, but I can’t. I don’t do those girlfriend dates any more.’

  ‘What?’ The panic in his voice was audible. ‘But, Melissa, I need you to do it!’

  ‘Roger, I’m awfully sorry. Um, I can try to find you a nice girl to meet, though – maybe take her out for dinner beforehand, and ask her if—’

  ‘No, no, no,’ Roger interrupted impatiently. ‘No, that’s not the same thing! I need someone temporary or not at all. What do you take me for? Some kind of sleaze-bag?’

  ‘I’m sure we can work something out,’ I soothed. ‘Leave it with me.’

  Roger harrumphed and hung up.

  I looked at the clock. It was twenty-five past twelve. That seemed like as good a point as any to call it a morning and walk slowly to lunch with my real boyfriend before any of the other needy males in my life phoned the office.

  As Roger would have twigged, had he been sensitive in any way, the fact that Jonathan and I had met while I was pretending to be his girlfriend was a major reason why I’d discreetly removed it from my advertised services.

  The funny thing being, of course, that Jonathan was the only client I ever had who didn’t actually need my services at all – an irony that occurred to me yet again when I saw him sitting at our table in the elegant surroundings of the Boisdale’s courtyard garden. He was pretty much perfect as he was.

  Jonathan’s working wardrobe comprised lots of smart suits and sober ties, but today he was dressed down, and it made my heart skip. He was wearing a pair of navy trousers and a soft periwinkle shirt that brought out the silvery grey in his eyes. The sunlight bounced off his hair, making the waves gleam like licks of flame, and I noticed that his ears were turning pink where he’d forgotten to put sun cream on them.

  The casual effect was slightly undermined by the fact that he was busy making notes about something into his Dictaphone, but he always did that, even for grocery shopping, so I forgave him.

  I allowed myself a tingly moment to enjoy the novelty of ogling my own boyfriend, then made my way over, rather self-consciously.

  ‘Hello,’ I said, almost shyly, as he leaped to his feet with a smile.

  ‘Hello, yourself.’ Jonathan leaned over the table, put one hand lightly on my arm, and kissed my cheek. It was a warm day and I could smell the cologne rising off his skin, which sent a shiver running through me. He wore Creed, like Errol Flynn. Jonathan wasn’t a PDA type of man, which suited me fine, and I found the polite restraint he showed in public actually rather sexy. Knowing his private displays of affection as I did, if you know what I mean.

  ‘You look lovely,’ he said.

  I swatted away the compliment modestly, but I had put some effort into my outfit: a neat 1950s-style print sundress with a little vintage cardigan, pinned together with one of Granny’s old diamanté brooches. And some stiletto sandals that I’d slipped on outside the restaurant, while my flatties went into the enormous bag I toted everywhere.

  Looking lovely in London in the summer took some effort, especially since I wasn’t what you’d call a summer person.

  ‘Thank you,’ I said, examining the menu. ‘You’re looking rather fresh yourself.’

  ‘I can get fresher if you want.’

  I looked up. ‘No, honestly, there’s no need. You smell fine.’

  Jonathan let a little laughing breath out through his nose. ‘That wasn’t what I meant, but . . . OK.’

  The waiter approached to take our drinks order and Jonathan smiled at me, then looked up and said, ‘Two glasses of champagne, please. No, you know what? Bring us a bottle.’

  I beamed. ‘Are we celebrating?’

  ‘Yes, we are. On several counts.’

  ‘One, it’s a beautiful day?’ I suggested.

  ‘Two, I have beautiful company.’

  I beamed, inside and out.

  ‘Three,’ he went on, ‘I have good news.’

  ‘Oooh,’ I said. ‘What?’

  ‘All in good time,’ he said playfully. ‘Four . . .’

  My stomach lurched as he arched his eyebrow.

  ‘Four?’

  ‘Four, this morning, I brokered a deal on the most enormous house you’ve ever seen,’ he finished, as the frosty cha
mpagne flutes arrived. ‘It had a carport you could fit three Range Rovers in.’

  ‘Oh.’ I’d have preferred something more romantic, but that was Jonathan – very work-focused. Which wasn’t unattractive.

  ‘And how about you?’ he asked, letting the waiter pour the champagne, then raising his glass in a silent toast. ‘How was your weekend in the country?’

  ‘Awful,’ I said, chinking his glass. Jonathan had met my parents on more than one occasion now, so there was no point pretending they weren’t nightmarish. ‘And I had some bad news at home too. Home home, I mean.’

  ‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ said Jonathan. ‘Nothing too bad, I hope?’

  I sighed. ‘Well . . . It depends. Tell me your good news first.’

  ‘OK.’ He coughed, stroked his tie unconsciously, and said, ‘They’re restructuring at work and I found out this morning that I’ve been promoted to CEO in charge of International Sales and Relocation.’ He widened his eyes, as if this should mean something to me.

  ‘Oh, wow!’ I said. ‘Well done! That’s great news!’

  ‘Yeah. Yes, it is.’

  ‘You’re such an international man of mystery, Jonathan,’ I teased, only half joking. ‘I didn’t know you were going for a promotion?’

  ‘Well, I didn’t, really.’ He moved the salt and pepper around the table. ‘I had a few conversations . . . you know . . .’ He paused. ‘Thing is, it’s going to mean more travelling, and . . .’

  ‘What?’ My stomach was rumbling as I perused the menu. I fully intended to stick to steak and a salad, but I’d heard such good things about their haggis that it seemed bad business sense not to try it out for future recommendations. I was, after all, supposed to be an authority on date restaurants.

  ‘It’ll mean I’ll have to travel more,’ he repeated slowly. ‘And spend more time in New York. Starting from very soon.’

  I looked up, as I realised what he was saying. ‘Oh.’

  We were both silent for a moment. My appetite shrank.

  ‘So go on, what’s your bad news?’ he asked. ‘We can package it up with my having to travel more, and make one bad news bundle.’

  I bit my lip. Suddenly it was more of a stack than a bundle. ‘Oh, Nelson’s going on some sailing expedition, and he’s getting the builders in to overhaul the flat. I have to move out for a month while they pull the place to pieces.’

  ‘He’s getting someone reputable, right?’ queried Jonathan, looking concerned.

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘Because you know what some of these cowboys are like. You end up spending twice as much fixing the damage they do. Listen, I have a great contractor . . .’ He reached into his jacket pocket for his Dictaphone.

  ‘That’s kind of you,’ I said faintly. Priorities! ‘But I still have to move out.’

  Jonathan’s hand froze. ‘I know, honey. But I was just thinking, how can we make this as painless as possible?’ He reached over and took my hand. ‘So where are you going to go?’

  ‘Well, actually, I was wondering,’ I began hesitantly. Then I stopped as a new awful thought struck me. What if ‘I’ll have to travel’ really meant, ‘We should cool things down’?

  I stared, panic-stricken, into his grey eyes, and wished I could tell the difference between amusement and seriousness in Jonathan’s expression. Sometimes he played his cards a little too close to his chest.

  ‘Come on,’ he said, ‘where are you going? I need to know where I can get hold of you. You don’t get away that easily!’

  He stretched his other hand across the table and circled my wrist. ‘Not when you were so hard to get hold of in the first place,’ he added in a soft undertone.

  ‘I don’t know where I’m going,’ I admitted, trying to keep my voice level as Jonathan discreetly stroked the inside of my wrist with his thumb. ‘I really don’t want to go home – I mean, I couldn’t, it’s too far to commute into my office – Daddy won’t let me have the keys to his London flat because he reckons he needs it, Gabi doesn’t have enough space for all her shoes, let alone me.’ I looked up and met his eyes. ‘I don’t suppose you’ve got a room in your house you could sub-let?’

  I tried to sound jokey. But I wasn’t joking.

  ‘When’s Nelson kicking you out?’ asked Jonathan, getting his diary out of his jacket pocket.

  ‘In about a fortnight’s time.’

  Jonathan’s brow furrowed and he flicked back and forth between pages. They were all covered in his very small, neat American handwriting.

  The waiter, who’d been hovering patiently, pounced as soon as I raised my head. I plumped for the haggis, though I didn’t feel up to eating anything very demanding now, and without looking up from his diary Jonathan briskly ordered a steak and some fries and some salad and a bottle of mineral water.

  ‘A fortnight?’

  ‘Yes.’

  So, was this it?

  ‘Well, you can’t stay in my house,’ said Jonathan. ‘I have some old clients staying there as a favour while they look for property in London. I’m going to be flying out to New York pretty soon, settling some deals, meeting people, seeing how these changes will impact our basic company infrastructure. But there’s one very obvious solution.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  He gave me his tiniest smile, the one that hid genuine excitement. ‘You’ll have to come with me. Come and live with me in New York for a month.’

  I stared at him. ‘But I can’t!’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Well, I can’t leave the agency for a month!’ I stammered. ‘I’ve got appointments, and people booked in. I mean, I’m meant to be organising a stag night for Katie Torrebridge and—’

  Jonathan raised his hand to stop me. ‘Hold it right there. Back up. You’re organising a stag night for the bride?’

  ‘On behalf of the bride,’ I explained. ‘Old friend from prep school. She wanted to make sure the best man didn’t drag Giles off to Amsterdam and get him tattooed or infected with herpes or something, so I’m arranging it all. He thinks I’m a stripper.’

  ‘Tell me you haven’t added stripping to your client services,’ said Jonathan wearily.

  ‘Good heavens, no!’ I hooted. ‘I just told him that so he’d think it’d be salacious enough already, and not try to add on any, um, extras. No, the thing is, most British men hate the idea of stag weekends, and having to be all manly and get drunk and spend a fortune on strippers they’re secretly too embarrassed to fancy, so I’ve booked them into a nice hotel in the Lake District where they can go paintballing, and get muddy. Well away from any hooker types, and only four hours out of London on the train. In case they do tie him to a lamp post or something.’

  ‘You think of everything.’ Was that a note of terseness or admiration? Given Jonathan’s quest for ultimate office efficiency, and his slight antsiness about my more hands-on agency work, it could have been a bit of both.

  ‘So, you see, I can’t just up and leave. Much as I’d love to come to New York with you,’ I finished.

  Our food arrived and I gazed sadly at my plate. My appetite had vanished. One did need a certain amount of appetite to tackle a good haggis.

  ‘Melissa, I’m offering you a month’s vacation in New York.’ Jonathan sounded confused. ‘It’s a city you’ve never visited, something that surprises me actually, and I’d love to show you round my town, like you did for me. But, hey, if you’d rather stay here and work than be on holiday with me . . . ?’ This time, he made his voice jokey, but not quite enough.

  ‘That’s not fair!’ I protested. ‘It’s not a question of what I want.’

  ‘It is.’

  ‘But, Jonathan . . .’

  He attacked his steak methodically, slicing off the fat like a surgeon. ‘You reckon I’m a workaholic, but I’m not the one who carries two cell phones, both of which are permanently switched on. And don’t deny it,’ he added, as my jaw dropped. ‘I know you have your work phone on vibrate when we go out. Not even my gran
dmother needs to go to the bathroom so many times in one evening.’ He looked up at me from his steak autopsy. ‘I mean, don’t get me wrong – I love that you’re savvy and polite. Most businesswomen I deal with would just take the calls at the dinner table. I just wonder where I fit in to all this. Whether, ah, whether I had higher priority when I was a client?’

  ‘Is this about the wig?’ I asked. ‘Because—’

  ‘No!’ He laughed. ‘I don’t want to have the wig conversation again, Melissa. All I mean by that is that I’m really proud that you’re my girlfriend. And I want you to be my girlfriend when you’re at work, as well as at home. Not pretending to be someone else.’ He shook his head. ‘Besides, I can’t risk you running off with someone else, can I?’

  Such was Jonathan’s innate adultness that he was able to say all this without sounding whiney.

  But it really wasn’t fair of him to suggest I didn’t put him first. If he only knew how much effort I put into looking casual and effortlessly organised in my own time; at least when I was being Honey brisk sauciness seemed to spring forth naturally.

  Anyway, my business depended on me. It wasn’t like I could just get a temp in.

  ‘Jonathan, I can’t believe you think that! I mean, you are the first priority in my life.’ And that was true. ‘And I’d love to come with you, you know I would—’

  ‘Then come.’ Jonathan held my gaze, and I got the distinct impression that this was something that had been bubbling under the surface for a while. The huffs when I was late because of clients running over. The raised eyebrows about my more, um, fitted office wear.

  I wriggled in my seat. He couldn’t honestly think I’d run off with someone else, could he? Me?

  ‘You’re asking me to choose between the two things that mean the most to me,’ I said in my brave little soldier voice. ‘I can’t just—’

  ‘It’s not a choice. You need somewhere to live. You also need a holiday. And I need to have you around.’ He smiled, and as he said that, I felt something swell in my chest and my heartbeat quickened.

  He took my hand in his again, playing with my signet ring. Was that . . . meaningful fiddling? The blood rushed from my head.