Luckily, there was someone in retail happy to hear about her product line: her best friend Rachel, assistant manager and buyer at one of East Dulwich’s most understatedly cool boutiques, Taupe. Taupe sold everything that was elegantly designed to the point of being plain – homewares, clothing, jewellery, toys. When Molly had her first batch of rather cute little cacti potted in bright polka-dot mini terracotta planters, she took a few to Rachel to pop in the window with an eye-catching notice about the business. All these months later, the cacti were gathering dust in the same spot, and if there was such a thing as cyber dust then Molly’s business inbox would definitely be covered in it. Molly caught sight of a measly little white flower blooming hopelessly on the top of one of the window cacti as she pushed into Taupe one morning. She was looking forward to telling Rachel all about her admittedly weird faux-date with Sam and the big plans she had for the next step of his coaching.
Rach had been Molly’s full-time confidant since Molly moved into her first London flatshare just off Lordship Lane and a refreshingly normal Rachel turned out to be the inhabitant of the box room next door. Molly had even adjusted to being friends with someone blonde, gorgeous and clever and withholding the urge to trip them or spike their lattes with arsenic. It had been the end of an era when Rachel had left the houseshare to move in with then-boyfriend Rick three years ago. Molly bought her flat with Sam as Rachel had found domestic bliss and both girls smugly considered themselves grown up. Well, until Molly quit her job and Rachel found Rick’s online dating profile on moralfreestrangers.com. Rick got a predictable nickname and his marching orders and the two friends became closer than ever.
Molly opened the door to Taupe and the tinkling bell chime caused Rachel’s pale golden blonde hair to flick round in Molly’s direction. Rachel was folding T-shirts with the mandatory T-shirt board, a job Molly knew Rachel loathed with the same passion she saved for strawberry creams and people who wore denim shirts with jeans.
Rachel smiled. ‘You always turn up just as I get stuck into my most challenging work.’ After a kiss on her friend’s rosy cheeks, Molly handed Rach a steaming hot chai latte. ‘Oooh, you really know how to make a girl feel special,’ Rachel winked as she took a sip.
‘I certainly hope so.’
* * *
As Molly fidgeted in a big antique brown leather chair that was strictly not for sitting in, according to Rachel’s boss, the grumpy Martin, she filled in her closest friend on Sam’s recent breakup and then his recent post-breakup malaise. What she raced on to explain, though, was her new plan to get him back on his romantic feet.
‘Hang on,’ Rachel said, holding up one hand in polite protest. ‘How does Sam feel about all this?’
‘What do you mean?’ Molly asked innocently, slurping her mocha.
‘I mean, how does he feel about his sister taking him on a frankly worrying-sounding “date”, and generally prying about in his personal life? If I ever tried to give my little sister relationship advice, I would get a whole lot of my past romantic failures thrown back in my face, and quite possibly some straightening irons.’ Rachel’s eyebrows knitted, momentarily ruining the simple but beautiful symmetry of her face. ‘Doesn’t he think it’s a bit …’
‘Come on, Rachy, don’t beat about the bush. Sock it to me. A bit …?’
‘Well, “none of your goddamn business”, I suppose, if you want me to go all Jeremy Kyle on your ass.’
Molly laughed and shrugged her shoulders. She swung her legs up and lay them over the left arm of the chair, almost knocking over a tree of hand-tooled organic leather belts in many shades of camel. ‘That is a fair point. But when he seals off the flat like a tomb and insists on his vintage misery rock blaring out at all hours, it falls into the “my business” category. Anyway, you wouldn’t have to give your sister advice – she’s a very smart, very capable woman who knows her own mind and how to dress for her body shape. I’m sure she’ll figure it all out before we will. Besides,’ she said, with another mouthful of mocha slipping down nicely, ‘because she’s a woman, she eats, sleeps and breathes relationship deconstruction and dating code. Poor Sam seems to think it’s just about two people meeting and hitting it off.’
‘Oh, I see.’ Rachel gave a deep nod of understanding. ‘He has got a long way to go. And you’re going to help him because you’re a relationships expert, is that it? Because of all the dating you’ve done recently, hmm?’
Molly crossed her arms. ‘I’ve been busy with work. You know that. And anyway, this is about Sam. This is me helping him in his hour of need. I could get a sainthood.’
‘Whatever you say, Saint Molly of the Interferers.’ Rachel moved back to her table of vests and began with a poorly concealed sigh to fold each one identically so they’d form super-cool, apparently artless piles. ‘And I am the Patron Saint of folding stuff. I’m so glad that my unique fashion sense is being put to such good use,’ she said with a wry smile sent in Molly’s direction. Molly had always marvelled that someone as sharp, personable and frankly gorgeous as Rachel was happy to work long, exhausting, poorly paid hours in retail. But when you saw customers immediately opening up and responding to Rachel’s easy-going charm and fresh-faced beauty, allowing her to pull luxury items from the rails and put together elegant and always flattering outfits for them, you knew she was born to do it. Rachel had studied fashion at a small polytechnic after college but gave up on the long-winded, scarily bitchy process of getting her own designs from drawing board to catwalk, in favour of more satisfying immediate results. She loved the glow she got when she put someone else’s designs together with another someone else’s body and made fashion chemistry. Besides, Rach had made it to assistant manager of the well-respected Taupe and was even allowed to consult on the buying of their clothing range, so she was on her way to becoming experienced enough to have a boutique of her own someday (though after an earful from her very high-maintenance boss about ‘those bloody cacti’, she resolved to be a bit more discerning in doing favours for friends in future).
‘Funny you should mention your amazing fashion know-how,’ Molly hopped up from the creaking leather chair, its four-figure price tag swaying in her wake, ‘I have a favour to ask you, my lovely friend.’
Rachel put her hands on her hips.
‘But I promise you: this time, you will actually make some tidy commission because of it.’
* * *
Sam stood in front of a floor-to-ceiling mirror, its gilt frame resting on scrubbed floor boards and its very top brushing a ceiling crowded by chandeliers. He wouldn’t usually dare enter Taupe, despite Molly’s pretty hot best mate always waving to him cheerfully through the big glass windows. It was altogether too expensive and too intense for him – you felt like you had to wash your hands before touching any of the four jumpers equally spaced along a chrome rail and that a breath just that bit too heavy would knock over delicate towers of coloured Turkish tea glasses. But Molly had made some very good points about his dating habits, and he was hardly beating women away with a stick at the moment, so he’d go along with her plans. For now.
‘There, now that is lovely.’ Rachel gently moved down the hem of a dove grey V-necked jumper and smoothed it with a light brush against Sam’s jeans to neaten the overall look. He was wearing a pale blue and black chequered shirt under the impressively soft jumper and a pair of jeans made by a label he couldn’t even pronounce, never mind whether he’d ever heard of them before. Usually Misters Marks and Spencer took care of his denim needs.
Molly nodded from her position as guard between the mirror and the door. Sam was being subjected to a deep wardrobe cleanse and it was far, far from his comfort zone. Couldn’t risk him bolting to the comfort of a fry-up in the Blue Mountain Cafe over the road, especially not in a dry-clean only outfit like that. ‘It’s perfect, Sam. You need this.’
‘But I prefer the blue jumper. I was just going to get that. I don’t think I can really aff—’
‘The midnight blue or the du
ck-egg blue, Sam? Because you tried on both.’ Rachel went over to a stool in the open dressing cubicle and gently walked her fingers through a stack of close weave lambs’ wool.
‘Um, the dark one? I’ll get that and then I’ll have a “classic V-neck” like you said, all done and dusted and no more abusing my credit card.’ Sam’s tone was starting to get that slightly riled, on-the-verge-of-stroppy tone that Molly recognised from trying to share a Mini Milk with him in 1987.
‘Sam, Sam, Sam. Sweet, idiotic Sam. First of all, don’t worry that these jumpers are on the … indulgent side of your budget,’ Molly stepped forward and brushed non-existent lint off Sam’s right shoulder. ‘They are investments. They will be your dating tools. Like that expensive folding table thing you bought at college to do your massages. It cost a lot, but you used it so much that it didn’t really matter.’
Sam rolled his eyes and failed to jam his hands into the tiny but pricey pockets of the indigo jeans he was wearing. ‘I won’t even start to explain again that my job is far more than massage, but anyway this is totally different. That was for helping people; these clothes are just for, I don’t know, keeping me warm.’
Rachel stepped back with a sharp intake of breath. ‘I will pretend I didn’t hear that and go and make us some tea.’ It was 5 p.m. on a Sunday, a whole hour after the last elegant customer had been decorously chivvied out of the boutique, so they had the place to themselves as Molly and Rachel did their best Gok Wan impressions. Much to Sam’s discomfort and annoyance. Especially when they grabbed his ‘baps’ in a moment of heightened hysteria.
In a low voice, Molly continued. ‘I wouldn’t be saying you needed these clothes unless I really meant it. Honest, Samwise. I can help you out a bit with the cost and Rach is going to put them through on her discount first thing on Monday morning, anyway. A classic V-neck is like a heat-seeking missile on a first date – in one blast it says, “I’m well dressed and attractive but not a self-obsessed tosser with highlights and ripped jeans.” If we got a copy of GQ right now, I bet I could open it at any page and find at least two V-neck jumpers per page. Fact. It’s your sartorial bread and butter.’
‘But can’t I just get one?’ Sam hissed back, a creeping panic about the state of his overdraft making a shiver bounce down his spine. ‘Besides, how can you help pay for all this? You’re hardly hitting the Sunday Times Rich List with all those cactuses making a weird little forest in Dan’s greenhouse.’
‘Cacti.’
‘Whatever.’ Sam made to pull his sleeves down as Rachel came back and passed a cup of tea to Molly, batting at his hands. ‘Hey! Careful, that pure wool stretches really easily. Right, I would say you need the black for more dressy nights out, the dove grey for a laid-back Sunday lunch look and the midnight blue to wear with blue jeans and grey jeans.’
‘Aha!’ Sam smiled in satisfaction. ‘I don’t even have grey jeans, so I can’t possibly need that one.’
‘You don’t have them yet,’ Rach replied in all seriousness, ‘because I haven’t unpacked the deliveries. We got new stock in yesterday. Really wearable and flexible. You’ll love them. RPatz has a pair,’ she finished triumphantly.
‘Maybe that’s why he’s always so miserable, if this is what they cost,’ Sam muttered as he examined the thick cardboard tag hanging off his belt loop. Molly gave him her well-practised Big Sister Evil Eye.
‘The whole point of this exercise, Sam, is that the next girl you meet is going to go on many more than just one date with you, so therefore you cannot just have one nice jumper.’ Molly’s Evil Eye was unblinking. Sam lost his nerve.
‘OK, Trinny and bloody Susannah, you win. Ring it all up and call me “fabulous”.’ With air quotes and a final huff Sam went back into the cubicle and drew the curtain behind him. Molly and Rachel sported matching wide grins. Molly’s said, ‘Thanks for the advice.’ Rachel’s replied, ‘Thanks for the sales bonus.’
Chapter Five
While Molly was ordering drinks at the bar in their local, Sam, standing beside her, folded and unfolded a receipt in his fidgeting fingers. He may have been kitted out in spanking new togs, but there was still a way to go in his dating makeover and he was weirdly quiet today. It was roughly a tradition now that the siblings met up with a handful of friends for an indulgently massive Sunday lunch on the last weekend of each month, but Sam wasn’t his usual chipper self.
Molly was loading pints of lager and a few G&Ts onto a tray. ‘No, no, Sam, you just stay there. I insist that you let me take all of these on my own. Just continue with that very important nothing you’re doing.’
‘Oh? What? Yes, sorry.’ Sam stepped forward to take the tray, sloshing some beer foam onto Molly’s favourite long slouchy cream cardigan.
Molly hooked her fingers through the handles of two giant lattes. Slurping some of the sweet fluffy white milk off the top, Molly got a dusting of cocoa on the tip of her nose as incriminating evidence. Following Sam back to the table where six of their friends sat round in various states of hangover, she took her stool between Rach and her brother. Sam put his folded receipt in front of him and kept one eye on it as conversation drifted around them – Rachel’s flatmate Bryan was vaguely interested in doing the marathon next year and everyone else was happy enough to talk him out of it. Until their overloaded Sunday lunch plates suddenly appeared, brought by one struggling waitress, and soon all noises turned to munches, slurps and knives against ceramic.
Molly’s old colleague Suze, from her plump pet food days, rolled in with her super-posh buggy just as they were mid-hoover of their roasts.
‘Move over, darling.’ She winked at Mols. ‘Bums, sorry I’m so late. Found some sick in my hair just as I had made it past the front door with all this.’ Suze nodded towards the chrome three-wheeled vehicle as Molly winced and sneaked a look at Suze’s dark red locks. ‘I washed it out! I’m a mother, not a monster, Molly. Oooh, do they still do those lentil burgers here?’ Scanning the menu, Suze smoothed her white shirt down.
Molly had always admired her friend for a variety of reasons: as production manager at No More Fat Cats she juggled a million different schedules and deadlines to get the light pet snacks to retailers on time, every time; her shirts were always pristinely ironed; she knew how to play the dating game. She and Molly had joined the company at roughly the same time and back then Suze had just met Stephen, a successful and damn hunky graphic designer whose only fault was that he wouldn’t commit. But Suze always got what she wanted and she wanted Stephen, a ring, a terraced house and the little man now gurgling in the bugaboo parked next to Molly. During their blossoming relationship, Suze had shared all her little dating secrets with Molly – how she rarely called Stephen and instead made him do the chasing; the strategic moments she implemented stockings and suspenders to full advantage; how she charmed his frosty mother with cupcakes and high necklines. Molly had learned a lot from Suze over the years and, now that they couldn’t prop up bars quite so often – what with the gorgeous little Maxwell making an appearance six months ago – they propped up park benches and bistro tables instead.
‘What’s new, Molly? Buying out Bill Gates yet?’
Molly laughed into her coffee mug as she took a big sip. ‘Hardly. More like borrowing a tenner off my brother, sadly. But, you know, I’ll make it work.’ Molly shrugged her shoulders.
Suze nodded slowly. ‘And what about your love life? Now I’m married and sprogged up I’m legally obliged to ask these sorts of awkward questions.’
‘All quiet on that front. But I’m not really looking. I’ve got my hands full with the business, you know.’
‘The business that isn’t making you any money?’ Suze looked her friend hard in the eye.
‘Um, yes.’
‘The “busy working” excuse isn’t going to last forever, lady. You were using it when I met you. You’re so funny and clever and energetic. I just don’t get why you aren’t out there, bagging a man who could spend the rest of his life trying to deserve you. W
hich is how I like to think Stephen lives his, day-to-day.’ As Molly opened her mouth to protest that she really was a happy singleton, Suze sprung up from her stool. ‘Off to order my food. You OK for drinks? Oh, Max is waking up – give him a cuddle will you, Mols?’
Determined not to be intimidated by a person who couldn’t yet stop themselves drooling, Molly tentatively tried to free Max from a veritable harness of buckles and straps. She liked babies, but from afar. A far afar, preferably. Actually picking them up was another matter. Like James Bond removing a stick of plutonium from a bomb casing, Molly somehow extracted Max and nervously sat him on her knee. He regarded her with deep grey eyes. She looked at him, with a sweaty brow.
Molly decided to carry on as if everything was normal and she wasn’t worrying about an overflowing nappy making a rather lasting impression on her jeans.
‘So,’ she said, looking at Rachel.
‘So,’ Rachel replied, looking at the plump little Max being jiggled on Molly’s knee. She wasn’t sure if the jiggle was supposed to entertain him or was just uncontrollable nerves.
Looking for a way to distract them all from the baby white elephant in the room, Rachel looked down at her plate and realised that Sam had failed to notice she’d left one Yorkshire pudding and two roast potatoes on her plate next to her neatly placed cutlery. In his normal mood, he’d have happily speared them with all the hungry ferocity of a hunter-gatherer but his face today had all the aggression and focus of a tranquilised deer.
‘Sam, everything OK?’ Rachel asked carefully.
‘Yup. Ahuh.’ Sam nodded slowly.
‘Really? Because you seem a bit … somewhere else.’
Molly looked up from her last bit of lamb. ‘Dude, spit it out. You look like Ant’s just found out that Dec’s leaving him. For Steve Jones. What’s going on?’ She looked over Sam’s shoulder to see the receipt he’d been mesmerised by, but Sam got there first and moved it close to his well-worn grey Bench T-shirt.
The Bad Boyfriends Bootcamp Page 3