A Brand New Me

by Shari Low

  ‘How did you know that’s what I was wearing?’ This man was so special. He just inherently understood me, knew me, sometimes even better than I knew myself.

  ‘It’s the only dress you’ve got.’ Okay, so my new perception skills hadn’t quite kicked in yet.

  Stu fixed my hair, make-up and mood in the time it usually takes me to unclog my mascara brush, and then swept me downstairs into what could only be described as a vulva on wheels. It was truly, truly splendid. I’m sure the driver must have been used to the shrieks of delight and irrational reactions, because he didn’t even raise an eyebrow when I stuck my head out of the sun roof and screamed ‘Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee’ all the way down my street.

  To hell with Conn and Zara. I didn’t give a flying, bright pink, leopard-skin-upholstered fuck about them any more. In the last few months I’d experienced more drama, more upset and more terror than the collective disaster quota for the whole of my preceding twenty-seven years, and do you know what? I’d survived. I’d done it! I was still in one piece. I’d felt the fear and bloody done it anyway and I’d lived to tell the tale (probably at my imminent therapy sessions).

  Life was fine. I had my health, my friends, my house, and my very own Neighbourhood Watch officer. I had a lunch date tomorrow with a lovely young man, and sometime after that I’d decide whether to maintain a dignified silence and carry on with my job for the sake of my career, or deck Conn first thing on Monday morning with the hand that wasn’t clutching my resignation letter.

  In the meantime, I was going to have fun. For the next few hours the city and this bright pink limo were mine, and I intended to enjoy them.

  I retracted my upper body from the sun roof, plonked myself back down on the seat next to Stu and grabbed a Bacardi Breezer from the minibar. I took Stu’s hand and rested my head back on the leopard-skin seat, closing my eyes and letting all the strains of the last few months evaporate. This was bliss and nothing could spoil it.

  ‘Thanks, Stu, for doing this,’ I murmured softly.

  He squeezed my hand, conveying an unspoken understanding of just how much this meant to me.

  We sat like that for a few seconds, in perfect peace, just savouring the moment, then Stu’s hand squeezed mine again. And again. Then a little tighter.

  ‘Leni,’ he said, his voice strained, anxious. My eyes snapped open as my head spun towards him.

  ‘I think…I think…’ he began haltingly, obviously struggling to get the words out. ‘I think I’m having a heart attack.’

  For weeks, perhaps months, the swarms of people leaving Slough General Hospital would talk about the night they were wandering back to their cars after visiting time, only to see a huge pink limo screech up the long driveway and almost raise onto two wheels as it skidded around the last bend to the doors of Accident & Emergency. However, the rumour it was carrying a comatose Amy Winehouse would never be substantiated.

  A few seconds of barely coherent hysteria at the desk (me) was enough to motivate two nurses, a doctor and a porter to come rushing out pushing a trolley to the car, where the patient (Stu) was slouched down in the back seat, sweating profusely, struggling to breathe, his skin a stomach-turning shade of grey. Communicating almost silently while acting swiftly and efficiently, they deftly manoeuvred him onto the stretcher, slipped an oxygen mask over his head and then manually pumped on an inflatable bag thingy that I’d seen many times in the revered hands of Dr Luka in ER.

  I grabbed Stu’s fingers as the trolley crossed the pavement, and ran with it, through the doors once again, past rows of people waiting and straight into the bowels of the hospital, all the while struggling to take in the reality of the situation: my best friend was having a heart attack.

  A red light flashed above the doors as we barged through, and that’s when a large, stern-faced nurse stopped me, forcing Stu’s hand to slip from mine. ‘I’m sorry, we’ll need to work on him so you can’t come through.’

  ‘But I can’t leave him!’ My eyes swivelled frantically to Stu’s face, the look of sheer terror on it amplified by the terrifying rasps as he struggled to breathe. ‘Please, please, let me go with him, I beg you, please don’t make me leave…’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she replied, her hand out in front of me, making it clear that if I wanted to get past I’d have to wrestle her to the ground in a fight to the death. Mine, I suspected.

  Shit! I staggered back to the seating area, ignoring the rows of eyes that seemed to be focused directly on me, and sat down in between an old lady with a bandaged foot and a budgie in a cage next to her, and a teenage skinhead in a Kappa tracksuit, holding a white, blood-soaked pad to his forehead.

  The tears fell like rain. This couldn’t be happening. It couldn’t. Not to Stu. Stu was only twenty-eight, he was the fittest guy I knew, and, raging hypochondria aside, I didn’t think he’d had a day’s serious illness in his life. He ate well, he exercised, he avoided pollution. For fuck’s sake, he was the only person I knew who had a special machine that purified the air in his house on a two-hour cycle. Stu couldn’t be sick. Sure, he got stressed, but…The irony hit me. What if the stress of worrying about getting sick had actually made him ill? Oh, the controllers of the fates were some twisted fuckers if that’s what had happened here.

  Shaking, I pulled out my phone to call Trish. ‘No calls in here, dear,’ said the bird woman, gesturing to the sign on the wall featuring a phone with a big red cross through it. If there was such a thing as cosmic equality, a large poster with a crossed-out picture of a budgie would transpire any second.

  I raced over to the automatic doors, stepped outside and tried again. Answering machine. Fuck, fuck, fuck. I left a message in which I’m sure I said ‘Fuck’ several more times.

  Back inside, I found it easier to pace than sit. Come on. Come on. Why weren’t they telling me anything? What was wrong with him? Was he okay? Was he scared? Was he…He was not dead. He couldn’t be dead. Stu had better not fucking die on me or I’d kill him.

  We shouldn’t be here. It was a mistake. Last time I’d been here was after the high-heels crash-down on the first of those ludicrous bloody dates, and Stu had rushed to collect me, oozing panic, concern and antibacterial spray. And now…He had to be okay!

  Three hours later, bird lady was gone, the skinhead was gone, and almost everyone else who had been waiting when I’d arrived had been replaced by another broken or bloodied specimen. I was standing against the side of a vending machine, terror and panic now morphed into a zombielike state.

  ‘Leni Lomond?’

  It didn’t surprise me in the least that I recognised the voice. It had crossed my mind already that there was a fifty per cent chance that Nurse Dave would be on duty. That was those fuckers in the fate department again.

  ‘You can come through now.’

  Why? Why could I come through? Was he okay? Was he stabilised? Was he…

  I didn’t even meet Nurse Dave’s eyes, just stared straight ahead through the door he was holding open for me.

  ‘He’s in here.’

  He showed me to a curtained cubicle, and as I entered a gasping sob escaped from my lungs and my hand flew to my mouth. On a bed in the centre of the room lay Stu, his face white, eyes closed, absolutely still…absolutely dea—

  ‘You can wake him if you want, but I’d leave it for now and let him recharge his batteries. A fright like that can really take it out of you.’

  Nurse Dave had been replaced now by a female doctor with an Eastern European accent who looked like she should still be playing for her school netball team.

  ‘Doctor Gratz,’ she introduced herself.

  ‘Leni,’ I replied.

  ‘You’re his…?’

  ‘Friend. Is he going to be okay?’

  ‘He’s stable, but we want to keep him in overnight for observation and do more exploratory tests tomorrow. I can tell you that, going by his results so far, we don’t think it was a heart attack, but we need to investigate further. You can have
five minutes with him and then you can come back tomorrow after three p.m. We should know more by then.’

  Off she went, presumably to finish her homework, update her Bebo page and buy her first bra.

  He looked so vulnerable lying there that I wanted to climb in beside him and just be with him until they told us that he was definitely going to be okay. He had to be okay–because he was Stu and he was important and nothing could take him away from us. My throat tightened again, and my hand trembled as I ran a finger very gently across one of his perfect eyebrows and then the other, then softly, barely touching, ran the same finger down the side of his cheek. This was my Stu and he was going to be fine.

  He had to be.

  34

  The Big Bang

  In the taxi, I switched my mobile back on and the force of the vibrations almost made it jump out of my hand.

  I checked the answering machine: six new messages, and I was pretty sure they’d all be from Trish.

  I called her back straight away and her phone didn’t even ring before she yelled, ‘For fuck’s sake, WHAT’S GOING ON? Is Stu okay? And why the fuck didn’t you tell me where you were? I’ve phoned every fucking hospital in London and he’s not there.’

  ‘Didn’t I say where we were?’ Shit, no wonder she was frantic. ‘Sorry, I was seriously freaking out when I phoned you. We’re back in Slough General. We were barely out of my street when he got sick, and then he…’ A massive sob stuck in my throat again and it was a few seconds before I could speak, leaving Trish to scream, ‘What? What? WHAT? WHAT HAPPENED?’

  Speaking in two-word sentences, in between sobs, I started to fill her in on everything that had happened over the last four hours. I was up to our arrival at casualty when she pleaded, ‘Leni, honey, stop crying, I can’t understand a thing.’

  I pulled a large ream of hospital toilet roll out of my bag and blew my nose so violently that the taxi driver’s toupee fluttered in the resulting draught.

  Composed now, I continued, eliciting an impatient ‘and then what?’ at the end of every sentence. My house was in sight by the time I got to the bit where the prepubescent doctor told me to come back tomorrow afternoon.

  ‘Fuck.’ Trish sighed, emotionally drained. ‘Do you want me to come over and stay at your place tonight?’

  ‘Thanks, Trish, but you sound as exhausted as me. Come over tomorrow and we’ll go to the hospital together. I wish I knew Stu’s mum’s number. I feel we should let her know.’

  ‘We’ll ask him tomorrow, and in the meantime I’ll get a hold of Verity. I’ll nip into the office tomorrow; we’ll have her number on our database.’

  ‘Thanks, Trish.’ We were drawing up outside my flat now, and the thought of going into an empty house, the one that Stu and I had left only a few hours before, filled me with dread. Maybe I should tell Trish to come over after all. No, that was just being too selfish–it would take her at least an hour to get here, it would be crazy to drag her across the city at this time of night, and if she got car-jacked on the way here I’d never forgive myself. God, Stu had only been in hospital for a few hours and already I was taking over his mantle of irrational and morbid worry.

  I trudged up the stairs, my feet as heavy as my heart, but when I got to the landing outside my door I paused and stared straight into my neighbour’s peephole.

  ‘Mrs Naismith, are you there?’ I whispered.

  I barely had the last word out when the door swung open. ‘Leni, love, you look terrible. Are you okay?’

  I slowly shook my head from side to side. ‘Can I sleep on your couch tonight?’

  She didn’t even probe any further. ‘Course you can, love, on you come in. I’ll just put the kettle on.’

  The sleep part never came.

  It took an hour or so to bring Mrs N up to speed, and then–spotting that sleeping might be hard for me–she sweetly offered to slip on an Indiana Jones movie and stay up with me to watch it. I graciously refused and sent her off to bed.

  Illuminated only by the soft light radiating from her pink lava lamp, I stared at the ceiling until daybreak, four hours of utter silence and (apart from the rising and falling of large pink balls of wax) complete stillness.

  Only a few months ago, Trish, Stu and I had brought in the New Year with an optimism and enthusiasm for change. Now, Stu lay in the hospital, my career lay in tatters, and we’d yet to achieve the happiness that we’d been so determined to find. Except in each other, that was.

  As the sun came up, so did my spirits, fuelled by realisations that somehow had become clear in the dark. I knew what I had to do and it was time I stopped being the unfocused, inactive bystander in life and took the actions I needed to take to sort myself out. If I’d learned nothing else since I started working for Zara, it was that nothing should be left to destiny because that’s when it all goes ceremoniously tits up.

  Six a.m. I got up and, as noiselessly as possible, slipped back into my own flat, showered quickly, and threw on a pair of jeans, my cream chenille jumper (the one that was two sizes too big for me and came second only to the tartan pyjamas on the comfort scale) and my old Uggs and jumped in my car. I never took the car in to central London, but I figured on a Sunday morning at this time the chances of my slightly nervous driving causing a six-car pile-up on the M4 were minimal. In just over half an hour I was opening the office door with the keys Zara had given me to use only in the case of an emergency. Clearly, they didn’t trust me to open up and lock up on a daily basis, but if the building was on fire it would be fine for me to use them to charge in, ignoring the warnings of the emergency services, and rush up to Zara’s office with the sole purpose of saving her collection of African mongoose skulls.

  Ignoring the deep sensation that I was doing something illegal that would bring the police storming in at any moment, I sprinted upstairs to my office and flicked on my computer. I printed off a couple of files that I wanted to preserve, typed up a quick report, then set about writing the easiest letter of my life.

  Dear Zara,

  I regret to inform you that I have decided to end my employment with your company as I feel that recent events have made my position here untenable. I will not work the required notice period, however I feel that my commitment to the role warrants that my salary for this period be paid in full. If it is not, then I shall not hesitate to take this matter further.

  Yours sincerely,

  Leni Lomond.

  PS: My report regarding my Taurean date is attached. Job done. Bonus expected.

  A sarcastic ‘Ta-da!’ slipped out as I pulled the letter off the printer and strutted over to Zara’s desk, placing it front and centre where she couldn’t miss it.

  I was about to turn and leave for the last time when I noticed that the mail that I’d left in a neat pile on Friday night was now scattered all over the floor to the left of her desk. Bugger, it must have fallen off. The devil on one shoulder was on a major defiance strop. Leave it. Just leave it. What did I care? Let her ladyship hitch up her Celtic wedding frock and get down on her knees and pick it up herself.

  Unfortunately, the angel with conformist issues on the other shoulder had beaten her to it and was already on all fours, pulling the envelopes into an organised bundle.

  Only one more envelope, a large, thick manila one, and then I could walk out of there, head held high, and move on to the next stage of my life, one that would be smarter, happier and designed and controlled by me alone. God help me.

  But at least I wouldn’t have to spend another day on the highly volatile, highly corrupted, suffocating world of Planet Zara.

  Lessington Publishing.

  With everything bundled together, I heaved the pile up onto the desk and then clambered to my feet.

  Lessington Publishing.

  I tapped the resignation letter again for luck, and then…

  Lessington Publishing.

  Nope, no good, I couldn’t ignore it. Lessington was the publishing house that was releasing Zara’s new book.
I knew that contracts and financial stuff pertaining to the book got sent directly to Zara’s accountant, so if they were sending a large manila envelope then I was guessing it must be something to do with the book. The cover? The artwork? The very tidy and orderly angel didn’t want to know, but the wee devil decided that, sod it, I was leaving anyway, so it would be rude not to rip open the envelope.

  I pulled out the sheaf of papers inside. Too thick to be just the cover images, so it must be the artwork. I flipped it over so that it was face up, and there was the…

  Hang on. My eyebrows met in the middle as I tried to attain some level of understanding.

  The top page was an index listing of the star signs, with various sub-headings and titles such as ‘First Dates’, ‘Under the Covers’, ‘Rock His World’ and ‘Turn It Off’, but as I flicked through the pages I discovered four things:

  It only featured six of the star signs.

  This was an actual draft of the first half of the book.

  It featured case studies that were almost word-for-word identical to the reports I’d filed of the dates.

  The analytical content bore absolutely no resemblance to the stuff I’d read on Friday.

  In fact, as I read on I realised that this was on a whole different level, one that was miles away from the acutely perceptive, beautifully worded prose that I’d stumbled across just two days before and left right…My eyes darted around the desk. Nope, no sign of it. I fell to my knees and searched underneath and around the trees, careful not to catch my favourite jumper on a wayward branch. Still no sign of it. Perplexed, I came up empty-handed. I was sure I’d left it there. Definitely. The only explanation was that Zara or Conn must have come in and taken it. Perhaps Zara wanted to work on it some more over the weekend. And as for the variation between that version and this…

  It suddenly came to me. Maybe the stuff I was reading now was just a mocked-up version of the book, a combination of date reports and chapters dummied up by someone at the publishing house as a working example of how the book would look. That made sense, sort of. This was a rough draft, just to give everyone involved a feel for the layout and aesthetics of the final version, and the actual content would only be finalised after Zara had analysed my last report and used it to develop her Taurean chapter.