Sugar Secrets…& Ambition

by Mel Sparke

  “So, is she here with Ollie and Kerry tonight?” asked Anna, peering through the crush of bodies in front of her, but still not managing to catch sight of the object of their conversation.

  “Yeah, and that’s the other problem…”

  “What is?” asked Anna, trying hard to keep up.

  “Natasha’s a bit of a sore subject between Kerry and Sonja. There was a time when Sonja got really into being Tasha’s best mate - y’know? Got stars in her eyes about hanging out with this glamorous model from London,” explained Joe. “There was a lot of bad feeling because Kerry felt elbowed out.”

  Anna nodded. She could see how Kerry, who didn’t have copious amounts of self-esteem, might struggle with that situation.

  “And then apart from all that,” continued Joe, “Sonja got pretty miffed when Natasha dropped her like a brick when she went back to work.”

  “So,” Anna grinned ruefully, “what’s she done to upset Maya?”

  “Oh, nothing,” Joe grinned back. “Maya’s too smart to let Natasha bother her.”

  “And you?”

  Joe shrugged awkwardly, shoving his hands deep in his pockets. “I might have been her brother’s best mate for years, but I don’t think I’m the kind of lad that girls like Natasha even know exist.”

  But Anna was only half listening to Joe’s self-deprecating remark.

  “Look,” she nudged him, her eyes glued to the right-hand side of the cavernous room.

  “Uh-oh…” breathed Joe.

  “She’s coming over! Can you believe the cheek of her?” Cat hissed to Sonja and Maya.

  “Try and be nice, Cat,” Maya hissed back, “for Ollie’s sake. Go on - you’ve done it before.”

  Natasha slunk towards them as if she was on a catwalk, watched closely by the crowd of lads that had been blocking Anna’s view earlier. On the far side of the room, Sonja could see Kerry heaving her shoulders up helplessly in her friends’ direction. Matt had stepped away from Gabrielle and her friends, and appeared to be having a frantic conversation with Ollie, from what Sonja could make out.

  Was Ollie trying to explain what he was doing bringing his sister - not exactly Matt’s biggest fan - along tonight? Sonja wondered.

  “Sonja!” smiled Natasha, greeting her like a long-lost buddy.

  Stunned into silence, Sonja gawped at the perfectly made-up face, the blunt-cut, silky hair and the open, guiltless expression.

  Doesn’t she remember that she just dumped on me? thought Sonja, thinking back with hurt pride how she’d once gone out of her way to befriend Natasha and hadn’t had so much as a postcard or a hello via Ollie for her trouble.

  “You look great!” Natasha gushed, kissing a startled Sonja on both cheeks in a very luvvie way.

  Wait a minute, Sonja realised in a flash. She doesn’t get it - she has no idea that I was upset!

  For a second, Sonja wanted to be angry with Natasha; to get her to see how tactless and thoughtless she’d been. But what was the point? Presumably in Natasha’s hectic, high-flying life, she didn’t have time to take friendships as seriously as Sonja did. The fact that Natasha was so busy didn’t make it right, but, Sonja reconciled herself, it did make her a little sad.

  “Hi, Tasha,” she managed to smile, pleased in spite of herself that the most attractive, special person in the room had made a beeline straight for her.

  Cat managed to bare her teeth in a sarcastically cheesy grin in response to Natasha’s half-hearted “Hello” in her direction (Tasha wasn’t any fonder of Cat than Cat was of her).

  “How are you, Tasha?” asked Maya, her good manners distracting Natasha from Cat’s lack of them. She hoped.

  “Fine thanks, Maya,” Natasha nodded. “Been busy. Doing the shows, y’know.”

  “Oh, dahling - what a drag, schweetie,” Cat muttered sarcastically under her breath. Natasha didn’t seem to hear, although Maya and Sonja most certainly did.

  “It’s good to see you,” Natasha smiled, turning her attention back to Sonja.

  “Yeah?” Sonja was flattered, though she couldn’t relax. Not when she could see Catrina pulling faces out of the corner of her eye.

  “I was hoping you’d be here,” Natasha smiled at her.

  “I doubt that Matt was hoping you’d be here,” Cat interrupted suddenly.

  “Sorry?” snapped Natasha, her eyes flashing a glare of disdain at Catrina and her pink Barbie doll get-up.

  “It’s a long story,” Maya tried to diffuse the situation. “What she means is that Matt’s got a new girlfriend and he—”

  “He doesn’t want his exes hanging around, ruining his night!” came Cat’s hissed interruption.

  “Me?” gasped Natasha, wide-eyed. “What about you! You went out with him too!”

  “Well, yes I did - until Miss ‘I’m a model’ Stanton decided to nick him off me!”

  “I decided to nick him off you? I don’t think so!” Natasha barked back. “That creep was two-timing you, more like. As far as I’m concerned, you two losers were perfect for each other! And the only reason I’m at sleazoid Matt Ryan’s party is that Ollie begged me to come.”

  “Cat, come and help me get everyone some more drinks,” suggested Maya, skilfully scooping her startled friend off the chest of drawers and dragging her away before she could protest.

  Sonja, reeling from the speed at which the Natasha/Cat collision had happened and marvelling at Maya’s diplomatic manoeuvrings, only now spotted who was standing directly behind Natasha - Kerry, Ollie, an ashen-faced Matt and a slightly startled-looking Gabrielle.

  Where did they spring from? worried Sonja. And just how much of that did Gabrielle catch?

  CHAPTER 3

  ALL IN THE BEST POSSIBLE TASTE

  “I’m 99 per cent sure that she didn’t hear anything.”

  “Really?” asked Ollie dubiously as he brushed past Matt carrying a full tray of Sunday morning breakfasts. The End-of-the-Line café where he worked was a favourite recovery joint for people who’d overdone it on Saturday nights.

  “Yeah,” nodded Matt, getting up from his counterside stool and traipsing after his friend. “She just caught the tail-end of Cat and Natasha sniping at each other, but she didn’t suss out why.”

  “Well,” sighed Ollie, plonking dishes in front of punters and pushing past Matt as he headed back towards the kitchen, “I did warn Natasha to keep schtum in front of Gabrielle. About you and her and everything.”

  “But I bet she’d have loved to blab, knowing what she thinks of me. Why is it girls can be so bitchy?” grumbled Matt, trailing after Ollie and flopping back down on his stool while Ollie disappeared into the kitchen to pick up more orders for the crowded café.

  “Listen,” said Ollie, emerging, laden, through the kitchen doorway again, “don’t bad-mouth my sister too much, Matt. I know you’re my mate, but she is my sister and you didn’t exactly play fair by her when you snogged her back at our birthday party. Remember - you knew you were going out with Cat; she didn’t!”

  Matt rose up from his perch and followed Ollie puppy dog-style across the crowded café again.

  “No, no, mate - I understand! But you have to realise, I don’t want anyone to mess up what I have with Gabrielle…”

  Ollie, who was busy trying to keep all of the customers happy, was fast losing patience with Matt. He didn’t have time for Matt’s self-pity right now.

  “Matt,” shrugged Ollie, clutching his now empty tray to his chest, “the only one likely to mess things up with Gabrielle is you, if you don’t play straight with her.”

  “But, Ol!” Matt protested, tagging behind him again. “Last night—”

  “Look, Natasha turned up out of the blue yesterday afternoon and seemed pretty down. Mum and Dad were working in the pub, so what was I supposed to do? Just leave her sitting at home all night?” Ollie practically barked. “I thought bringing her to your party would be fine; if I told her to be cool about it, you’d be cool about it. Sorry if I got that wrong!”
r />   “No, of course not!” Matt tried to pacify him, aware that he’d annoyed Ollie somehow, but unsure how it had swung around from himself being put out to Ollie suddenly getting uptight. “It’s OK; I know she’s your sister and all, and I know I should have come clean with Gaby—”

  “Matt, why don’t you go and sit down and tell Sonja all of this?” Ollie cut him off impatiently, his pencil poised as he tried to take yet another order.

  Matt looked over dubiously at Sonja, who was sitting at the booth by the window, skimming through a Sunday supplement magazine that had been left behind by a previous customer.

  “Nah, I’ll just wait at the counter till you’re a bit quieter,” he swallowed nervously.

  Ollie sighed and turned his attention back to his tableful of customers. He knew why Matt didn’t fancy sitting alone with Sonja. He’d heard her tell Matt sternly that she wanted to have a word with him as soon as she’d walked in. (“We’ve all had enough of this keeping secrets stuff - it’s got to stop!”) Sonja was obviously gearing up to giving him a lecture - and Matt was clearly not in the mood to hear it.

  Scribbling furiously on his little pad, Ollie didn’t pay any attention to the bell tinkling as the café door was pushed open, but he certainly took notice when a cool pair of hands slithered across his eyes.

  “Guess who?” said an instantly recognisable voice.

  “Tasha,” sighed Ollie, wrestling her hands from his face and gazing apologetically at the couple he’d been trying to serve. “Can’t you see I’m working?”

  “Ooh, spoilsport!” his sister sulked, pulling a face but still managing to look pretty. “I come to see my darling brother and all I get is a mouthful of abuse…”

  “You mean you got bored hanging out at home so you thought you’d come down and pester me,” he smiled, his eyes back on the pad as he finished writing the last of the order.

  With a final flourish of his pencil, he looked up at Natasha, then turned her around and pointed her in the direction of Sonja, who was still lost in what she was reading.

  “Go and keep Sonja company till I get a break. Unless you want to go and have a cosy chat with Matt instead, of course!”

  Natasha glanced over at Matt, who sat hunched over the counter - suddenly engrossed in the menu that he must have known off by heart - and snorted.

  “Ooh, I don’t think so,” she replied, making her way over towards the window booth.

  Sonja looked up in surprise when she heard Natasha say her name.

  “Hi!” she responded, as her fairweather friend slipped into the seat opposite her. “I didn’t notice you arrive!”

  “Mmm, busy, isn’t it?” said Natasha, casting her long-lashed eyes around the packed room. “So what are you doing sitting here all alone?”

  “Just hanging out,” Sonja shrugged. “Seeing who else turns up. We all tend to gravitate here if we’ve got nothing else on.”

  “Well, what’s your little chum Matt doing over there? Why isn’t he keeping you company?”

  “Oh, him,” said Sonja, glancing over her shoulder at a shifty-looking Matt. “He’s avoiding me, I think. Scared I’m going to give him a mouthful about all this secrecy rubbish.”

  “Serves him right if his girlfriend dumps him when she finds out he’s been lying to her,” said Natasha dryly. “He’s such a loser.”

  “Aw, he’s not that bad!” Sonja defended her mate against Natasha’s derogatory words, even though Matt’s behaviour was beginning to irritate her.

  “Mmm,” mumbled Natasha, unconvinced. Quickly, she changed the subject; she had no wish to fall out with the only friend she had in her home town. “Is my Uncle Nick in this morning? I haven’t seen him in ages.”

  “No, not yet - but I think he’s due in soon. So what’s brought you home? You never really said last night. No brilliant modelling jobs on at the moment?”

  Natasha’s friendly smile cooled a little; she shrugged a vague response and glanced out of the window with a bored expression that seemed to defy Sonja to ask any more. Sonja fidgeted for a second and wondered where to take the conversation from here. She felt stupidly nervous and a little bit inferior when it came to Ollie’s worldly and successful sister, even though they were the same age.

  “Ha!” she laughed, trying to shift the sudden downturn in the dialogue with a recollection of an old conversation. “Do you remember that you once told me I could be a model?”

  “Mmm,” murmured Natasha, pulling the Sunday magazine over the table towards her and not responding to Sonja’s eager smile. “Well, why not?”

  Sonja was stumped by her indifference.

  Natasha never shut up about modelling when we were hanging out before, she fretted to herself. So what’s up with her now?

  “Son - will the news-stand at the station be open?” Natasha glanced up from the shiny pages of the supplement.

  What - so you can go and buy a magazine to read and ignore me some more? thought Sonja, irritated by Natasha’s blanking technique. Nevertheless, she stretched out of her seat, leant towards the plate-glass window and squinted down the street towards the station.

  “Yep, it’s open,” she said flatly, having caught a glimpse of the bank of colourful magazine covers that were stacked against the stand within the station ticket hall.

  “Right,” said Natasha, standing up to her full, willowy height - the eyes of most of the café clientele being automatically drawn towards her as she did so. “I’ll be back in a minute. Ask Ol to get me a black coffee, will you?”

  Sonja watched Natasha stroll away, tossing her silken brown hair back from her face and apparently oblivious to the stares from the surrounding tables. No one in the End was used to that much natural glamour with their eggs and bacon on a Sunday morning.

  “I read somewhere that most models look pretty rough without the make-up and the lights,” said Matt, reluctantly slouching on to the banquette next to Sonja and forcing her to budge up. “Not true in her case, though, is it?”

  “Nope,” she agreed. Natasha seemed to look great all of the time.

  “So where’s Winstead’s own Kate Moss gone then?” he asked sarcastically, curiosity getting the better of his reluctance to sit with Sonja.

  “The news-stand at the station.”

  “Pity. I thought she was maybe getting a train…”

  Sonja couldn’t help grinning at Matt’s snide remark, but she slapped his forearm anyway.

  “Ow!” Matt rubbed his arm, exaggerating the pain.

  “You two are never going to kiss and make up, are you?” said Sonja unsympathetically.

  “No,” Matt responded, pulling up his sleeve as if he’d find an angry welt forming on his arm. “But she wouldn’t let me anyway - it would smudge her perfectly applied lipstick…”

  Ollie walked over to the table just as Sonja began to punish Matt’s sarcasm with death-by-tickling.

  “Where’s Tasha?” he asked, ignoring his friends’ antics and plonking a mug of black coffee on the table. “I brought this over for her.”

  Before Matt and Sonja could stop breathlessly giggling enough to answer him, the door tinkled open and Natasha breezed back in, flopping down on the banquette and dropping a thick, glossy style-mag on to the Formica-topped table.

  “Forgot that I did a shoot for this month’s issue,” she muttered, flicking through the fashion section pages, so engrossed that she didn’t appear to register the fact that Matt had joined Sonja or that her brother was hovering beside them.

  “There!” she said, slapping her hand on a double-page spread of arty black and white shots.

  Ollie shuffled round and stood behind her for a better look at his sister’s modelling moment. Matt and Sonja leant across, tilting their heads in unison to view the fashion photos. For a second no one said anything.

  “My agency’s going to love these,” said Natasha, matter-of-factly, flicking over the page to the next batch of poses. “This photographer’s worked with Christy Turlington, Eva Herzigova - th
e lot.”

  “Um…” Ollie bumbled finally, flicking his eyes across to check out Matt and Sonja’s stunned expressions, “Well, I guess I don’t know much about fashion, but—”

  Nick, who’d just wandered into the café for his shift and was curious as to what was distracting Ollie from his work, ambled unnoticed over to the table and peered over their shoulders.

  “Whay-hey!!” he bellowed inappropriately, before the terrible realisation dawned on him that the nearly naked girl he was leering at was none other than his own niece.

  CHAPTER 4

  REFLECTIONS

  “Son - hurry up in there!” bellowed Lottie’s voice from outside the bathroom door.

  “Use the loo downstairs!” Sonja bellowed back, annoyed at being disturbed in her tranquil magnolia-and-jasmine-scented bath.

  Not that she was feeling very tranquil. She kept thinking back to the events of the morning and giggling at the image of Nick turning fire-engine red when he caught sight of Natasha’s extremely artistic but terribly revealing photos.

  “I don’t need the loo - I want a shower! I’m going out tonight!” Lottie bellowed again.

  “OK, OK - give me five minutes!” yelled Sonja wearily.

  She knew that she wasn’t about to rush and that it’d take her a lot more than five minutes to get herself motivated and out of there. But that was something Lottie would understand: in the Harvey household, everyone knew the rules: five minutes translated as fifteen minutes; “I’ll do it now” meant “I’ll do it in a little while”; and any insults - particularly between the three girls - were always (well, usually) meant in fun and never (often) taken seriously.

  Sonja knew enough about her friends’ families to appreciate she had a lucky combination in her own home: her parents ran a relaxed, unpressurised set-up, in an atmosphere that none of their children (hardly ever) abused.

  Sonja twirled her toe absently around the cold metal tap and let her gaze rest on the uneven rows of moisturising body lotions, aromatherapy bath oils, hair serums, balms and hot wax treatments - all packed full of ceramides, keratins and pro-vitamins, whatever they were. The packaging on all these products made it seem like the bathroom had more nutrients on its shelves than the kitchen cupboard.