by Jane Green
“My food was shit,” he slurs. “It tasted like shit.”
“It didn’t really taste like shit,” says Sean. “It was . . . interesting. The anchovies were just a little . . .”
Tom groans. “I know anchovy brings out the taste in lamb. I didn’t know it was going to be so overpowering.”
“And it wasn’t your fault the wind picked up.”
“It was our fault for trying to have the lights,” Sean says. “If there had been no wind they definitely wouldn’t have smashed to the ground in a million pieces.”
Lizzy tries, and fails, to suppress a smile.
“Oh, fuck off,” says Tom. “You smug fuckers. Just because your food was good. I know, I know: everything that was wrong about this evening was my fault. I get it. You don’t have to rub it in. Jesus. I’m going.” He swigs back the refilled vodka and walks out.
“Were we mean?” says Lizzy, who has a few seconds of thinking she probably should go after Tom, but decides not to. His food was terrible. Dreadful. It was an instant, glaring reminder that watching hours of the Food Network does not a talented chef make.
“Are you kidding?” Sean snorts. “Neither of you have ever worked in a professional kitchen. I know Tom hasn’t. Not just because the food was shit, but the first thing you do is develop a skin as tough as leather. That lamb would have been thrown in the trash and he would have been fired. He’s lucky that people were polite enough to just move the food around the plate and not say anything.”
“Other than the people who demanded their money back?”
“The shit food combined with the wobbly poles and smashing lights was a bit too much for them. But it was a learning experience. Do you know what I learned tonight?”
Lizzy winces. “That working with amateurs is a really bad idea?”
“Only when they have no talent. But you, for one, are a great cook. That apple tart was fantastic. You saved the day. I think you and I should talk about doing this again. Properly. We’ll find a much better location than this. How about it?”
“What do I say to Tom?”
“I have no idea. But I’m not interested in Tom. I’m interested in you. And I think you and I could do something really cool together. What do you think?”
Lizzy sighs. She knows he’s right, but it feels like a betrayal already. Tom is sweet and loving, and he doesn’t deserve the humiliation of tonight. He definitely doesn’t deserve to be further humiliated by being pushed out of the trio. “I don’t know. Maybe. I see what you’re saying, but I have to think about it. I better go and find Tom.”
“Don’t wait too long.” Sean looks up at her. “Talented chefs are easy to find.”
Oh, fuck off, she thinks, giving him a tight smile and a brief hug before walking out the door to find Tom and apologize, and try to help him feel a little bit better.
fourteen
It has been a couple of weeks since Meredith first joined her classmates and teacher at the pub. Tonight she is with them again, starting to feel as if she belongs in this busy, noisy pub. The regulars crowd around the bar, shouting to each other, to their friends who arrive. The art class has a regular table in the corner. Nicholas is well-known to the bartenders, as he walks in and waves before gathering his favored students around the table.
He buys the first round. Meredith does not drink, but everyone is drinking, and a Diet Coke is so uncool. She will not order a Diet Coke. Sally orders a gin and tonic, so Meredith does the same.
By the beginning of the third round, Meredith is pleasantly, delightfully, tipsy. In fact, she may have crossed the line from tipsy to being ever so slightly drunk, but she is having a glorious time.
Nicholas is sitting opposite her, and although he is embroiled in a conversation with a couple of students on that side of the table, his eyes keep sliding back to Meredith.
Three gin and tonics make her daring. She catches his gaze and stares back, for just a second or two longer than is altogether comfortable. A small smile plays upon his lips as he looks away. Meredith blushes at her daring, at how his attention, or perhaps the alcohol, gives her a confidence she would never otherwise have.
Meredith is louder, funnier, brighter with his gaze on her. Come to my side of the table, she thinks. Come and sit next to me. If you like me you will come and sit next to me.
It is not until the end of the night, when they have rung the bell and announced last call, that Nicholas answers her silent call. He sits on the bench next to her, so close she can feel his leg squeezed up against hers, feel the heat of his body through his jeans. She thinks about moving her leg, but there is a tremor running through her body, a tremor so delicious, she just wants to freeze this moment and enjoy it forever.
He reaches forward to grab his pint. She looks at his arm. How old is he? she wonders. His skin is tanned, his arm slim, with pronounced veins, and hairs bleached by the sun. Now his hair is gray, but what must it have been when he was young? Light brown perhaps, or mouse brown.
She can’t look at him. Flirting across the tabletop was safe. She didn’t have to talk to him, didn’t have to look at him. She knows those brown eyes very well, has watched them from afar for two years now. She knows the deep creases around his eyes when he smiles, the teeth that are ever so slightly crooked. To her shame, she knows his bottom very well, has watched him stride across the room more times than she can count. She knows his boots in winter, and his Birkenstocks in summer. Meredith hated Birkenstocks for more years than she can remember, until Nicholas turned up in them. Overnight they became the height of cool, and now, every time she sees a pair, she thinks of him.
He looks like a rock star or a movie star, she has often thought. Like Keith Richards crossed with Sam Shepard or Bryan Adams. With the kind of lazy upper-class drawl she has always loved. She has no idea how old he is. Old. Older than her. In his forties, certainly, maybe fifty. No. Not fifty. But it doesn’t matter. He has a vibrance, an energy, a curiosity that allows you to see past the lines and crags on his face to his youthful core.
“Someone told me you are American.” Meredith hears his voice and turns with a start. He is talking to her, clearly, for there is no one else on their side of the table, but he is not looking at her.
“I am,” she says.
“You don’t sound American.”
“Ah. Well, I’m actually a hybrid. My mother is English and I came here for university.”
“What happened to your accent?”
“It seemed to fade once I was here. I lived with my grandparents and . . . I suppose I’m one of those people who picks up accents, wherever they are. I know when I go home I start to sound more American again.”
“I’m so glad you don’t have a mid-Atlantic drawl,” says Nicholas, draining his glass and turning to look at her. “Are you ready?”
“What for?”
“We’re leaving.”
“Oh.” She turns to see the three others who are still there, still sitting on the other side, deep in conversation, something about Klimt versus Schiele and who inspired them more. “We, as in . . . ?” She doesn’t finish the question, can’t quite believe two years of fantasies may be coming true tonight, in this way, quite so easily. Real life didn’t happen like this. Her life didn’t happen like this.
Nicholas stands, says good-bye to the others, then takes her elbow as he leads her out of the pub. Again, when he touches her, Meredith feels a deep tingling through her body, and she’s light-headed as she follows him.
“Where are we going?” she asks.
“A bar in Chalk Farm. We can carry on drinking there. And talking. You are enormously talented, Meredith. I have no idea why you have kept your light hidden under a bushel. Your work today was unutterably beautiful. I am now”—he stops and turns to her, with eyebrow raised—“officially intrigued. I want to know who you are. I want to know”—he leans toward her, his head no
w inches from hers as his voice drops—“your stories.” He gives a wolfish grin before hailing a black cab. He turns to her as he opens the door. “Tonight seems as good a night as any to start.”
Meredith flushes in pleasure, and a hint of fear. Her stories? Goodness! Her stories aren’t very interesting. Once a week she comes to an art class, which is probably the most interesting thing about her. Otherwise she works at a CPA firm, which is not something Nicholas would be interested in. Her stories? What the hell are her stories?
“So, Meredith,” he says as he turns to her in the cab. “Start at the beginning.” His teeth glint as they pass the neon-lit shops, as Meredith relaxes. She may not have stories, but look who she is! Look at her family! There are enough stories about that to last for weeks. Meredith never discusses her family. No one at work knows who her mother is. No one knows she was raised in Los Angeles, then Connecticut. They don’t know, because knowing would change everything. She wouldn’t be allowed to continue living under the radar. They would see her differently, as if her mother’s fame had somehow brushed off on her.
She could tell Nicholas, though. Perhaps he would find her more interesting if she did. She studies his face. Perhaps now.
“I was born at Cedars-Sinai Hospital and spent the first few years of my life in Los Angeles with an actress mother and a businessman father, both busy working, being raised mostly by nannies . . .” As she speaks, Nicholas reaches an arm back and rests it on the seat behind her, casually playing with the loose tendrils of her hair.
“What kind of nannies?” he asks, and Meredith smiles. What kind of an actress, is what she thought he would ask, leading to the inevitable.
“The nice kind,” she says. “Some were from England, very strict, and others were Mexican, very loving and kind. We just didn’t have a lot of discipline.” She pauses, catching her breath as his fingers start to lightly trace the back of her neck, up and down, his touch so faint as to be almost imperceptible, were it not for her body quivering so in response.
“Go on,” he says.
“I have two sisters. Nell is older, and Lizzy is the baby.”
“Are you close?” His fingers have moved to the front, lightly tracing her clavicle as she catches her breath.
“We were when we were young, although we have drifted apart. My mother is very dramatic, very self-absorbed, and we all dealt with it differently. My older sister, Nell, withdrew. She is very quiet and introverted and serious. She has detached from all of us. Lizzy is the baby. She’s twenty-six and wild, and working as a waitress in New York. She’s an incredibly talented chef, but she’s not very focused. She’s never had to work very hard for anything, and I’m not sure she knows how.”
“Does she want to be a chef?” His voice is as soft as his fingers tracing down her arm as if they are painting her in his mind.
“What I think she really wants is recognition. She wants to be seen. Like our mother. She was drinking and drugging as a teen, but I think she has cleaned up. Lizzy is definitely the one most likely to get what she wants.”
“What about you?” Now he traces the underside of a breast as she inhales sharply, her body on fire. “What is it that you want?” His voice is now a whisper as she turns to him in the back of the darkened cab.
She doesn’t say anything, just looks at him, watches as his face moves closer, this face she has dreamed of for so long, as his lips finally brush against hers, so soft. He takes her top lip in his, as her head tilts and her tongue meets his, and her body threatens to melt into the seat.
• • •
Meredith cannot wipe the disbelieving smile off her face. Nicholas has fallen into a deep sleep, snoring lightly, rolled over to the side of the bed. Meredith lies back, smiling, the covers pulled up to cover her breasts (just in case he wakes up; she may have lost weight, but she is still self-conscious).
She turns her head to look at Nicholas’s sleeping form in the dark, reaching out a hand and lightly brushing his hair. She gets to do this! She gets to touch him! To kiss him! To hold him!
She got to do it earlier tonight, when they kissed their way up the stairs to his flat, when he turned the light on to a tiny room with empty wine bottles on the coffee table and newspapers and sketch papers strewn everywhere. He kicked a path to the unmade bed, threw her down, and unbuttoned her shirt, her jeans, pulled them off, pausing only to take off his own clothes.
It wasn’t quite as romantic as Meredith’s dreams, nor quite as soft, teasing, anticipatory as the light tracing in the taxi. Nicholas was all business, grabbing her legs and thrusting them high in the air as he entered her, thrusting as he smiled through her legs, as if he ought to be congratulated for such prowess, for being able to thrust as well as he did, and for so long.
Meredith, still enthralled by being able to actually touch Nicholas, to have him interested in her, to be having sex with him, doesn’t stop to consider what she has just gotten out of their encounter. But really she just feels the fact of it is enough! Why should it matter that she didn’t orgasm, that he wasn’t concerned with whether she did or not, that as soon as he had come, he gave her a peck on the lips then rolled off and went to sleep?
She is lying in bed with Nicholas! She strokes his shoulder, his back, as he grunts and moves his arm to flick her off. Feeling sated, full, and completely happy, she snuggles down in the duvet, pushing it down only when she buries her nose in it and finds it doesn’t smell of lavender, like her own meticulously laundered sheets, but of unwashed bodies, and time. Still. Nicholas! She closes her eyes and drifts off to a happy, tipsy sleep.
• • •
“Darling? Darling!” Meredith is aware of a faraway voice. She opens her eyes to see Nicholas’s face inches from hers. Nicholas! Last night! It all comes flooding back as she sits up in shock.
“You have to go,” he says. “I’m leaving for work and I have to lock up.”
“Oh. Right. Of course.” Meredith clutches the duvet to her chest as she leans over the side of the bed to look for her underwear. No way in hell is she getting out from under these covers naked while he’s in the room.
“I’ll get you some coffee in the kitchen,” he says, walking out as a wave of disappointment hits her. Where was his morning kiss? Where was the affection of last night’s cab ride home? They made love!
Well, in the cold light of day, perhaps it’s fair to say it wasn’t quite making love, but they had sex, which is the most intimate thing you can do with someone. It’s certainly the most intimate thing Meredith can think of to do with someone, and not something she does on a regular basis. Nicholas is the fourth person she has slept with. At almost thirty years old. It’s not a fact of which she is particularly proud, but nor is she someone comfortable having sex unless it is meaningful. And serious. With someone with whom she is preferably in a committed relationship.
Obviously, she isn’t in a committed relationship with Nicholas, but this is just the beginning. He’s a man of the world, so much older, this is clearly how things are done with someone like him, getting the sex out of the way on the first date, getting to know each other afterward.
It wasn’t really a date, she thinks, as she scrambles into her underwear and yesterday’s clothes. More of a slightly drunken fuck after a night in the pub, but that’s okay. There is plenty of time for dates. He did want to take her to a bar last night, after all, before the kissing in the back of the cab got them so hot and heavy that when he suggested they go straight back to his place, it would have felt childish and churlish to refuse.
She gets dressed and walks into the kitchen, recoiling ever so slightly at the flat. In the morning light, sober, she sees just how messy, and grimy, it is. What she can see of the wooden coffee table is marked by rings and stains. As is the carpet.
Still. Nicholas! She walks into the kitchen, to find a mug of coffee there, Nicholas swigging his back.
“Great!” He i
s clearly relieved that she is dressed. She waits to see if he will kiss her, put his arms around her, give her some indication that this is the beginning of something special, that it wasn’t just—oh, please no—a one-night stand.
“Did you sleep well?” Meredith attempts small talk, hoping, still hoping, for a hand snaked around her waist, a nose buried in her hair, some affection, any kind of affection to help her push away the dawning realization that last night was a terrible mistake.
“Yup. Not bad. Little too much alcohol last night.” He barely looks at her while he talks. “Ready?”
“Sure.” Meredith puts the cup down and follows him out. She waits for him to lock the door, before clomping miserably down the stairs in front of him.
“Right.” He stops once they get back outside and finally looks at her, standing directly in front of her and holding her arms. “Thank you for a lovely night, Meredith. We both clearly had much too much to drink.”
He laughs and Meredith attempts a smile but finds her face merely twists into an odd kind of grimace.
“See you in class,” he says, leaning over and pecking her on the cheek while squeezing her arms, before releasing her and walking off down the street without a backward glance.
Meredith stands still as humiliation floods her. She has never had a one-night stand before, has never offered her body to anyone other than men with whom she felt completely safe, men who she knew loved her, or at least cared about her. A tear threatens to trickle out of her eye. Furiously blinking it away, she gets out her phone to check the time. Shit. On top of everything else she’s going to be late for work.
She gets through the day, escaping every now and then to the loo for a quiet cry. It isn’t that Nicholas is so fantastic. If she really stops to think about last night, his flat was filthy, and the sex was pretty awful. It felt like hours of thrusting, there was no foreplay, and indeed he showed no concern for her at all. The duvet stank. He made really awful instant coffee this morning.