‘How was Christmas?’ Nadia asks.
‘Uneventful,’ Chantal complains, biting viciously into her brownie. ‘Ted took me to a fabulous hotel, the mood was right, it should have been perfect. But it was still uneventful.’ She shakes her glossy hair. ‘I don’t know what I have to do to get that man to sleep with me. He says he wants me to have his baby, but he doesn’t want to perform the dastardly deed that procreation normally involves. What does he think he’s going to do? Send his sperm through the mail to me? Is that what he thinks Special Delivery is for?’ She huffs. ‘Perhaps my marriage is a lost cause.’
‘Don’t give up,’ Autumn says. ‘I’m sure there’ll be a breakthrough just around the corner.’
‘Chocolate is a great substitute for sex,’ I remind her.
Chantal looks at her half-eaten brownie with disdain. ‘Says who?’
‘Say people who can’t get any sex,’ I concede.
‘Was your Christmas with Addison perfect?’ Chantal asks Autumn.
‘My drug addict brother turned up unannounced, drunk and as high as a kite. Christmas lunch ended up on the floor and Addison narrowly avoided third-degree burns of the testicles. But, apart from that, it was wonderful.’
We all laugh. ‘That’s what being in love does for you,’ I tell her. ‘Just when you think it’s all going swimmingly, along comes the dreaded Family Christmas and messes it all up.’
‘Well, my Family Christmas was fabulous,’ Nadia says with a contented smile. ‘Lewis and I had a great time with Toby. He really tried hard and it was so nice being a family again. I’ve missed that so much.’
‘Will I be looking for a new lodger?’ Chantal asks, a little sadly.
‘I think we might get back together eventually, but I don’t want to rush into anything,’ Nadia tells us. ‘Toby promises me, faithfully, that his gambling is a thing of the past. But we still have our mountain of debt to tackle. Life isn’t a bed of roses just yet.’
Then Clive comes over with some more coffee and chocolate supplies for us. This man really knows how to look after a woman. Shame he’s gay. He perches on the arm of the sofa next to me and squeezes my shoulder. ‘Sorry I had to abandon you at the soup kitchen,’ he says brightly, while I wish that the ground would open up and swallow me whole. He kisses me warmly on the cheek. ‘You’re a wonderful woman. I’m so proud of you.’
‘Ha, ha,’ I say.
When he’s gone, the girls fix me with a collective stare. ‘Soup kitchen?’
I hug my legs to me and avoid their eyes. ‘That’s where I spent Christmas Day,’ I fess up. I feel bad because it sounds as if I would rather have spent the day with a pile of dossers than with my best friends. ‘Clive was there too. It was nice. It was fun.’ That might be stretching it too far. None of them look as if they believe me – except for Autumn, who seems to be viewing me with a new regard.
‘I think that was a lovely thing to do, Lucy,’ she tells me earnestly. ‘Very selfless.’
‘Thanks.’ They continue to stare at me and I don’t know if they all got X-ray vision as Christmas presents, but I can tell that they know that there’s more that I’m hiding. So I might as well fess up the rest as well. I give a shrug that’s intended to look casual. ‘Then I went home and shagged Marcus.’
Three jaws drop. Three mouths fall open. Three faces look at me, aghast.
‘I think that was an unwise thing to do, Lucy,’ Autumn tells me earnestly. ‘Very silly.’
‘I know.’ I put my head in my hands. ‘I was lonely. I was vulnerable. I was drunk.’ They’re still staring at me in amazement. ‘I was incredibly stupid,’ I add before anyone else does. None of my friends disagree. But they weren’t there and they don’t know how miserable I felt. ‘That was it. One night. Then I sent him on his way. Without breakfast.’
‘Boy,’ Chantal remarks. ‘You know how to treat your men mean.’
For one who comes from a nation who don’t understand irony, she makes a pretty good stab at it.
The excruciating rash on my back from my night of passion under the Christmas tree has very nearly gone and that’s the last trace of anything remotely connected to Marcus that I ever want to encounter. I try not to itch. I had no idea that I was allergic to pine needles – or perhaps it’s Marcus I’m having a severe reaction to.
‘Nothing from Crush, then?’ Autumn asks.
‘No.’ How can I tell them that he’s been calling me repeatedly but that I’ve been steadfastly ignoring my phone and the messages on my computer? I never want to go near that damn and blasted thing again.
Nadia says, ‘What was Clive doing at the soup kitchen?’
I lower my voice. ‘He and Tristan are having relationship difficulties too. I don’t know what the problem is.’ Which means that no matter how much I probed Clive, he wasn’t dishing the dirt.
‘Gay men have trouble with long-term commitment due to their voracious sexual appetites,’ Autumn pipes up in the manner of an expert on the dynamics of homosexual relationships.
‘Christ,’ Chantal says miserably. ‘Why couldn’t I have been born a gay man? It’s been so long since I’ve had any sex that I’m struggling to get into my own pants.’ She holds out the waistband of her trousers and, even though she’s joking, it does look as if Chantal’s impossibly slender waistline has thickened out slightly. I’m glad to see that I’m not the only one who’s pigged out over the holidays. Depressed, I reach out for another brownie. Then, because I decide it’s better for my midriff bulge, I switch to the mango and chocolate option. Mango has hardly any calories, right? And I’m thinking skinny, skinny, skinny thoughts.
‘I guess this is down to all the great Asian food that Nadia’s cooking for me,’ Chantal continues. ‘Plus we get to keep the fridge stacked with chocolate and blame it on Lewis.’
‘We must start the new year in a better, healthier and more wholesome frame of mind,’ I observe piously. ‘I have no boyfriend. No money. No room in my clothes. This year can only bring about an improvement.’
‘We have to do something,’ Autumn says. ‘Something positive.’ With Autumn, that normally involves doing a circle dance or something strange with runes or joss sticks.
‘We could go on a detox diet,’ Nadia suggests tentatively. ‘Give up chocolate and stuff.’
We all breathe in sharply.
‘Sorry, that was a very idiotic statement.’ She hangs her head in shame.
‘I started Carol Vorderman’s 28-Day Detox Diet,’ I admit. ‘Well, I watched the DVD, then I lasted twenty-eight minutes before I gave in to a Kit-Kat.’ I have no willpower. So sue me.
Perhaps I can get hold of a copy of Victoria Beckham’s book – she surely must have some tips on how I can sick-up to a size zero in six days. Not that I don’t have some experience in that area myself, but no self-respecting celebrity is without an eating disorder these days. Or so it seems. They set us ‘real’ women impossibly high standards that anyone with even a vague addiction to Cadbury’s Caramel couldn’t meet. What’s the attraction in a grown woman having the body of a seven-year-old girl? That’s so dodgy, it’s untrue. Even a modicum of slenderness would do for me.
Tristan comes into the café and leans on the counter. ‘How are our best customers today?’
‘Depressed,’ I answer for us all. ‘We’re fat. We’re broke. We’re not getting any action.’
‘Speak for yourself,’ Nadia corrects me with a wink.
‘We need to diet. We need to rejuvenate ourselves,’ I tell him. ‘Preferably without giving up chocolate. Or cheap wine. Any suggestions?’
Tristan mulls it over. ‘Isn’t there a spa somewhere that bases all its treatments on chocolate?’
There is much hyperventilating around the table. Could it be that our dreams have all come true?
‘Where?’ My voice holds a note of disbelief. If Tristan is joking then this is too, too cruel. I could withhold my custom for less than this. Well, not really.
He muses some more, rubbing h
is chin in a scholarly manner. ‘California, I think.’
It had to be.
‘I’ve heard of this place, I’m sure,’ Chantal says. ‘It’s supposed to be great. Why have we not thought of this before now?’
‘My goodness.’ Nadia has gone all glazed and vague. ‘We could spend all day being smothered in chocolate and still lose weight. That’s my dream come true.’
We all let out a blissful, ‘Ooohhh.’
This makes my tub of Body Shop Cocoa Body Scrub pale into measly insignificance.
‘You ladies are too sad,’ Tristan tells us with an indulgent shake of his head.
‘If this doesn’t sort out all our problems, then nothing will,’ Autumn says with a breathy voice. Even she can see that this would be better than anything to do with chakras or chanting.
‘We need to go there,’ Chantal states. ‘We need to go there now.’
‘Oh, we do,’ I agree. ‘We certainly do.’
I daren’t think about the pain that this will cause my credit card. I just have to think how good it will be for my body and soul.
Chapter Sixteen
I’m feeling wretched. Much chocolate has been consumed. I’m busy at work – which is very depressing in itself – and Marcus has already texted me ten times this morning to say that he loves me. Ten times, I’ve ignored him.
Burying the phone in the depths of my handbag, I gaze into middle distance. Marcus has been calling me every day since our supposed one-night stand to tell me that we should be together. I’m weary with arguing that we shouldn’t. What am I going to do about him? This is a decision too big to be made without excessive sugar intake and, besides, I have work to do. Too much of it. I rifle through my chocolate stash and choose a Toffee Crisp for my sugary succour. Even the vanilla vapour from it is making me feel better. I pull a pile of papers towards me. Things must be really bad if I’m using work as an avoidance technique.
Behind me, I hear whistling and cheering. I spin round, unable to imagine what has roused the employees of Targa from their usual lethargy. Ohmigod. My eyes can’t believe what they’re seeing. They go wider and wider and wider, but still the view is the same. Large as life, Crush is standing there.
The sales team are pumping his hand and patting him on the back, but his dreamy brown eyes lock directly on mine. He looks slightly crumpled, as if he’s just come straight from the airport. His face is tanned, the strong Antipodean sun has lightened his hair, and his body is taut and toned. Even though he’s only been gone for a short time, he’s every bit as handsome as I remember. Despite the fact that I’m wearing mascara that could well smudge, I rub my eyes in case I’m hallucinating due to sugar rush. But I’m not. Aiden Holby is really here.
He strides across the room to me in a very manly way and comes to a halt in front of my desk. ‘Hi, Gorgeous,’ he says with a big grin.
No one has called me gorgeous since Crush left.
‘W . . . w . . . w. . . w. . .’
‘What are you doing here?’ he guesses when it becomes clear that I’m incapable of coherent speech.
‘W . . . w . . . w. . . w. . .’
‘Welcome back?’ he tries. I don’t think he’s right, but then I’m not exactly sure what I’m trying to say myself.
‘W . . . w . . . w. . . w. . .’
‘Where have you been?’ He’s struggling now. ‘What about m . . . m . . . m . . . missed you?’
I nod vehemently.
His smile widens. ‘I’ve missed you too. You don’t know how much.’ Then, despite the office being busy, he curls his fingers round mine. ‘God,’ he says, ‘I can’t wait to get you alone. All I really want to do right now is take you in my arms and do extremely rude things to you on your desk.’
I can feel the heat rise to my face. That sounds like a very nice idea, even though it might get us both sacked. So what? There are other jobs. But then I think of Mr Aiden Holby cavorting on his bed with the woman in the slutty underwear and my head and my heart both start to ache.
‘Why didn’t you answer my calls?’ he continues. ‘I was getting frantic with worry – as you must have been about me.’ Crush gives me a wry smile. ‘So, what have you been up to while I’ve been away, you saucy minx?’ he teases.
Still, my brain and my vocal cords won’t hook up.
‘I like the strong, silent type,’ Crush says patiently, ‘and I know that this is something of a surprise, but do you think at some point you might regain the power of speech?’
More nodding.
Crush leans in towards me. ‘Look, I’m really sorry about what happened,’ he says quietly into my ear. ‘It was a complete nightmare. The least they could do was get me straight back on a flight for a bit of rest and recuperation for a couple of weeks.’
Recuperation?
‘I guess they’ve filled you in all about it here.’ Aiden inclines his head towards the Human Resources Department. Those bitches wouldn’t tell me the time.
‘I have no idea what you’re talking about,’ I finally manage to say.
‘Me.’ He gestures around him. ‘My Outback adventure.’
‘No,’ I say. ‘Still no idea.’
‘I was on a team-bonding exercise.’ There’s something new. Targa employees seem to spend more of their time on team-bonding exercises than they do actually working. Crush looks for some degree of recognition from me. There’s none. ‘I’ve been missing in the Outback for two weeks,’ he says. ‘Unintentional walkabout. Didn’t you realise something was wrong when I hadn’t called?’
‘I . . . I . . . I . . .’
‘Don’t start that again, Gorgeous,’ he begs.
‘I just thought you’d gone off me,’ I say weakly.
Crush laughs out loud. ‘I’ve been at death’s door, wandering around some bloody desert, living only on the enormous stash of chocolate I’d taken with me and you thought I’d gone off you?’ He laughs some more. ‘They dropped four of us out in the middle of nowhere for a total “wilderness and survival” experience. I told you we were going in one of my emails.’
Did he? Perhaps I skipped that bit to get to the rather more interesting steamy moments.
‘It was that, all right,’ Crush continues with a hearty laugh. ‘We were supposed to be gone for three days. Just a couple of overnighters in the middle of nowhere, that’s all.’ He chuckles again at the thought of it. ‘We got hopelessly lost – not my fault, of course – and failed to make the pick-up destination. Because some bright spark had decided we should truly embrace a “back-to-basics” approach and they’d taken our mobile phones off us, we couldn’t get in touch with anyone and they couldn’t find us. We walked for days and days, probably going round in circles, until we finally came to a road. One of those enormous road-train lorries stopped and took us back to civilisation.’
I’m obviously looking completely blank, because he says, ‘Surely someone told you what was going on?’
‘No,’ I say, and wonder why not.
‘Bloody hell.’ Crush sinks into the nearest chair. ‘It was only the thought of coming back to you that kept me going. We had some pretty hairy moments out there.’ He rakes his hands through his hair. ‘And no one told you?’
‘No,’ I repeat.
‘You must have wondered what on earth was going on.’
You could say that. ‘Can I just get this straight?’ I’m not sure how best to broach this, so I think the best way is just to blurt it out. Which is exactly what I do. ‘Does that mean that it wasn’t you that I saw on your webcam, naked and with another woman?’
Now Crush looks blank and perhaps he even recoils slightly. Maybe I should have couched this more sensitively.
Then he laughs and slaps his thigh as if I’ve told him a really great joke. ‘My brother and his girlfriend were staying at my apartment for a few days before Christmas. They’ve recently set off on a world tour.’
‘Lovely,’ I squeak.
‘I forgot to tell them about the webcam.’ Then his eye
s go round. ‘You didn’t see them getting down to it?’
My face, which was so flushed, has suddenly drained of all colour. ‘Sort of.’
Then Aiden freezes. ‘Wait,’ he says. ‘You didn’t think that was me, did you?’
I feel the guilt-ridden gulp travel down my throat. ‘Yes,’ I tell him. ‘I’m afraid I did.’
Chapter Seventeen
We each get a sandwich from the deli down the street and we sit on the low brick wall outside Targa’s offices to eat it. I get ham, which was a mistake as it tastes like plastic. Or perhaps it’s because my taste-buds feel as numb as the rest of me. The traffic roars past and scruffy streetwise pigeons pick at the crumbs by our feet. Opposite is a big branch of HMV and a Kentucky Fried Chicken place. It’s not quite the same view as afforded by the Sydney Harbour Bridge, I’m sure. Crush is quiet and I wonder if he’s regretting coming back – but then I remember that he’s recently spent a million hours on a plane and is probably just exhausted.
‘Sorry I can’t take you out to lunch,’ Crush says wearily. I feel as if he hasn’t stopped apologising to me since he’s returned when, quite frankly, it’s me who should be doing all the grovelling. ‘I have a meeting in fifteen minutes.’ He glances at his watch again. ‘They want to do a debriefing.’
I’d like to be doing my own kind of debriefing, but I guess that isn’t going to be on the cards until we’ve got things straightened out be tween us.
‘You liked Australia?’
‘Loved it. If only you’d have been able to come out with me.’
If only.
‘I wonder why no one in Human Resources kept you up to date with what was happening?’
I wonder. Not. Those Human Resources harridans wouldn’t cross the street to wee on me if I was on fire. But I will get my revenge. One day.
‘You didn’t return my calls either,’ Crush says, sounding wounded. ‘Or read my mails. That hurt. I couldn’t understand it. I thought you’d be delighted to hear from me after my unexpected walkabout. I almost wondered whether you’d gone walkabout too.’ He smiles at the thought. ‘But I know why that was now.’ His smile widens. ‘You silly chump.’
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