‘A taxidermist, huh?’ Rob contemplated this in his own smooth time. He leant forward, his elbows on the table, with just a dusty purple lamp holding up the space between them. His hair looked almost golden in the half-light of the bar. Rob swallowed and then said in a low voice, ‘So that must mean you like a good stuffi—’
‘Hello! Sorry, I think it’s my turn. Jog on, mate.’
Through Molly’s dizzy haze, she was sure she could see Patrick looming over the table. Yes, it was Patrick, rocking back and forth on his big heels, hands in his pockets, crumpled shirt half tucked-in.
‘Off you trot.’
Rob looked up at him. ‘I don’t think so. Mate.’ His tone had gone from being so warm you could boil water with it to as cold as … well, as cold as the steely look in Patrick’s brown eyes at that precise moment.
‘Off. You. Trot.’ Patrick said again, with a deliberate lack of haste. He was standing his ground.
How have I gone from dirty talk to the Dirty Dozen? Molly wondered. She tallied up her alcohol units to make sure it wasn’t just her understanding of the situation. Nope, this was her first glass. Not even Granny Ethel lost it after one glass.
‘Um, Patrick. The bell hasn’t gone,’ Molly ventured, with some false chipperness. It was like throwing an electric blanket at an iceberg. Rob looked at Patrick and Patrick looked back with the same frosty air.
But then, as Patrick’s eyes met Molly’s, it was as if a hypnotist had just snapped his fingers. Instantly he was back in the room, the same funny Patrick she knew and could tolerate. Moody, verging on bad-ass Patrick had vanished.
‘Hasn’t it? I was sure I heard that clang. Chuh. What an arse I am!’ He laughed.
Rob didn’t.
Molly snuck a look over at the table next to her, where Patrick had been sitting. The lovely fashionista was looking up at him now, her cherry red lips parted in disbelief, her forearms held out as if mid-gesture. If Molly didn’t know better, she would have thought Patrick had left the table in the middle of a conversation. He was obviously much shyer with women than she’d first thought. Patrick clearly needed some bootcamp guidance, and soon.
‘You know what?’ Rob asked, his voice still steel-hard. ‘I would say, yes, you are an ar—’
Cut off again, but this time by the real, actual clang, Rob shut his eyes as if to collect himself, opened them, smiled at Molly and said, ‘I’ll catch you later, Mols. Maybe show me those puppies, hmm?’
Patrick’s bum hit the seat before Rob’s had fully vacated it, almost shoving him into Josie’s table. From the wide-eyed amusement at that little station, Molly guessed her American friend had caught most of that odd scene as it unfolded.
‘So, Patrick…’ Molly took in a deep breath, for the first time in a long time utterly baffled over what to say next.
‘Molly.’ Patrick’s shoulders relaxed and he drummed a little beat on the tablecloth with his long fingers.
‘Patrick.’
Things had literally gone from the sublime to the ridiculous.
‘Hmmm.’ Patrick shrugged and chewed on his bottom lip. ‘How’s the business going? The cacti, I mean.’
She wasn’t sure how, but Patrick always managed to say just about the most annoying things to Molly sometimes. In the middle of a big event she’d choreographed herself to great financial success, she didn’t need a reminder of her relatively recent business balls-ups. Grrr.
‘Hmm. Fine, fine.’ Molly looked around the room, desperate for conversational inspiration. She saw the leftover decorations from some sort of Hawaiian night.
‘So, have you heard from Sam recently? I just can’t seem to keep track of him at the moment, but I’m guessing he’s somewhere hot and tropical and amazing.’
‘Yeah, no, I’m not sure.’ Seeing Molly’s exasperated face, he rattled on. ‘I suppose anywhere is paradise when you’re with someone who … someone like Iris who you … who just makes it … right.’ Patrick finished lamely, looking down at the chintzy table covering and rubbing one hand across the back of his neck. Molly could just see where his dark, cropped hair went whispery at the nape and someone – probably Patrick – had missed those soft, curlier hairs with the clippers.
Molly surmised a few things from this little outburst: 1) Patrick wasn’t very good in a pressurised dating situation, 2) over-worn polyester shirts did not make for a swoony first impression and 3) he might have an inappropriate crush on Sam’s intended. But, most importantly, if any or all of those points were accurate, 4) he desperately needed help.
Poking him on the large hand still left flat on the table, Molly got Patrick’s attention up from his freakishly sized feet. ‘Patty Pat Pat, I think I know what’s going on here.’
‘You do?’ A light came on in his eyes again, as if that sneaky hypnotist had been busy a second time.
‘Yes, and it’s all going to be good, don’t worry.’
‘Really? You mean, it’s not weird that you’re Sam’s sister?’
‘We’ll sort it all out, but not here. Come to the flat, OK? I’ve got … work stuff on this week and next, but I’ll text you when I have a free night. Sound good?’ Molly really wasn’t going to jump into this emotional quagmire in a hurry – it could wait a while. She hoped.
‘Yes,’ Patrick replied emphatically. ‘That would be great. Brilliant. So we’ll talk then. Great.’
‘Great. So … I suppose there’s not much more to say. Ha ha. Um, hope you give me one. A tick, I mean!’ Molly tried to end on a bright note but Patrick only looked a touch concerned as the bell rang and he stood up and moved onto Josie’s table.
‘Couldn’t have been weirder,’ Molly muttered as Pavel’s weight tested the little wooden seat in front of her. Molly pulled herself together and wracked her brain for iguana anecdotes.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Valentine’s Day, in the pharmacology of official holidays, is like a very strong steroid. It either helps a romance grow and strengthen at a peak moment. Or it means things go too far too soon and it all fizzles into a droopy nothing pretty quickly. But it seemed that this particular Valentine’s Day had been the sort of steroid that turned everyone into robust, spot-free love machines, rather than the sort that got hairy ladies thrown out of the Olympics. Three weeks after the speed-dating night it seemed like everyone’s flirting muscles had quadrupled in size and lots of the bootcampers had, in the words of Queen, found someone to love. Well, someone to lust at least. So the tone of Molly’s training sessions moved from meeting the girl to keeping the girl. From the dating frying pan into the raging fire, in other words. As the bootcampers were fast realising, there was still a whole lot to learn.
Cupid’s aim hadn’t just been trained on the men in Molly’s humble operation: both Rach and Josie suddenly announced during one busy coffee catch-up that they had ‘sort-of, you know, well, it’s early days and I wouldn’t like to … but yeah, yeah it’s good. Uhuh, yup.’ Both privates had met someone and both wanted to keep their special someone private. Fair dos, thought Molly, I wouldn’t want to tell a superior about my love life. Not that I consider myself superior to them, but in the army metaphor-thingy, a colonel would be the one in charge. When she pressed Rach and Josie for at least names of their new fellas they had eventually conceded: ‘Greg,’ said Rachel, and ‘Kevin,’ came from Josie, as she winced a little. It wasn’t much, but it was a start. And as long as both Molly’s vital ladies turned up on time and had their head in the game – and still had time for a good saunter round the park, Cornetto in hand and all other gossip full-flowing – Molly was happy. But when it came to attending slightly mad and mostly hysterical wedding fairs with her mum, it was a whole other matter.
* * *
‘Fruit cake?’
‘I’m sorry,’ Molly held up a hand at the proffered chintzy side plate, ‘I’m sure you make the finest ever fruit cake at … Top Tier Cakes, is that it?’ Molly squinted at the bosomy lady’s name tag. ‘It would probably knock my socks off in both fru
itiness and cakiness, but if I put just one more piece of that stuff in my mouth today, I will … I will just … things will happen that …’
A grip of steel surrounded Molly’s upper arm and dragged her away from poor, sensitive Eleanor from Top Tier Cakes and her baffled face.
Cleo turn Molly to face her almost roughly, as if she’d just caught her fiddling her pick ‘n’ mix expenses as a child. ‘Pull it together, Mollypops! Slapping emotional people is all very well in movies but I will not raise a hand to you. Just mentally pinch yourself, OK? I haven’t even ticked off half of the list.’ Cleo looked down at her now slightly grubby printed to do list – going floppy and damp with handling by a slightly floppy and damp hand. Cleo’s usually perfect dead-straight bob was now hanging lop-sided and getting in the way of her glasses. She blew the errant strands away with an exhausted huff. Here was a woman who didn’t balk at multi-million-pound deals, who had learnt to hire and fire without so much as a twinge in her heart but who, unexpectedly, had found it impossible to keep her emotions out of today’s organisational mission. With every decision and judgement came the unbearably heavy weight of knowing that it was her only son’s wedding. It had to be perfect! All of a sudden, Cleo was crumbling over coral-pink versus blush-pink for the napkins and sailor-boy versus Victorian gentleman for the page boy’s outfit. It was too much. The strain was visible in her usually peachy, healthy skin: she had all the glow of a 10 watt lamp, in this bustling, noisy exhibition centre.
Molly felt just a bit better that she wasn’t the only one getting freaked out by this crazy organic matrimonial circus. She had been button holed for twenty minutes by an ex-hippie called Clive who had obviously made a smooth transition into being a capitalist swine, what with his all-natural yurts costing the equivalent of her monthly mortgage payment to rent for just one weekend. Molly feared for her sanity: everywhere she looked, there was hand-dyed cotton bunting, free-range devilled egg canapés and vintage wedding dresses draped over mirrors that reflected back Molly’s pale, sweaty face. If you were getting married and were deeply concerned about your carbon footprint, then this fair was probably some kind of heaven. But to Molly, it was reminder after reminder that she was single and penniless. Really really single. Not in a month of Sundays would she be able to afford bouquets of wild flowers handpicked in sustainable fields and wrapped in undyed raffia. And it would probably take a month of a month of Sundays anyway till she was in a position to need them.
Luckily, Molly spotted a familiar face and set of buggy wheels coming her way. ‘Suze!’
‘Hello, lovely! Gosh, this is fun. I thought I’d only be lucky enough to go to one wedding fair thing in my life, but here I am. Well, I suppose if David Tennant does turn up at my door to knock Stephen out with his elegant fists and steal me away, I’ll have a Doctor Who-themed wedding to plan and then I can go through the magazines all over again.’ Suze let out a wistful sigh that shook her red locks and brought a twinkle to her hazel-green eyes. ‘Thanks for inviting me, it’s going to be fun. Hey, is this your mum?’
Cleo had gone so quiet and feeble that Molly had almost forgotten she was standing right there. In any other circumstance, Cleo would have confidently slid her hand forward for a shake and a rapid-fire introduction of, ‘Cleo Cooper. Molly’s mother. I’m a CEO. What do you do?’ But after too many gluten-free cupcakes to count, she was a papery image of her former self and just nodded dumbly at the bright young Suzanne with a mumble of, ‘My son’s getting married.’
‘Yes, I know!’ Suze enthused. ‘Fantastic. Weddings are great. And ethical weddings are even better! Do you, er,’ Suze looked quickly into the watery eyes of the Cooper women and sensed extreme fatigue, ‘want to grab a coffee and let me run through the rest of the items on your list? I’ll get business cards of the good ones. You can trust me, I organised a wedding for 150 people on my own and got a double-page spread in Brides Today for my use of church candles in unusual ways. Go. Go!’ Suze leant forward to take the list from Cleo’s blotchy hand. After tugging gently, the zombie-like grip loosened and Suze tucked the folded bit of paper into the pocket of her crisp jeans. Her smile increased by a good fifty per cent, like zooming into a document on a computer screen.
In unison, the shoulders of Molly and her mum dropped in relief and they started to stumble towards the coffee shop, if not the nearest exit.
‘Uh! Excuse me!’ Suze’s voice cut through the crowd like a dog trainer. She may as well have whistled. ‘I’m afraid he’s coming with you.’ She directed one polished finger down at the sleeping little man under the buggy hood.
‘Great,’ croaked Molly, wondering how many espresso shots she could force down Cleo’s throat without being arrested for attempted matricide. She limped behind the helm of Max’s shiny vehicle and forced the last scrap of energy her Weetabix had given her this morning out through her lower arms. ‘Come on, Max,’ she trilled with a hollow voice. ‘Babychino for you, big triple latte with cream for aunty Mollypops. Just please don’t cry,’ she whispered, as desperate as a Blair Witch teen.
Max, Cleo and Molly wheeled their way to the cafe, like weary refugees from a world of white lace and promises.
‘I changed my mind,’ Cleo managed in a near-robotic monotone. ‘Don’t get married.’
Max grumpily woke up and started to wail, picking up on the hopeless vibe floating around.
‘And don’t have children,’ she groaned.
* * *
‘Honestly, you two,’ Suzanne chuckled as she blew on her green tea gently. ‘You’d think you needed to speak Latin and bench press your own body weight to sort out a wedding. This whole “perfect day” thing is just – excuse me,’ Suze leant forward and put a dainty finger over each of Max’s tiny little peachy ears as she jiggled him on her lap, ‘utter bollocks. The trick to getting it done and not going mad? Be decisive. I didn’t think you two would fall at that first hurdle. Here,’ Suze leant her weight on one buttock and secured Max with an arm while the other rooted in her back pocket for her booty. Wedding booty, that is. The other very fine booty was just there to stay.
She placed four business cards on the table in front of her stunned audience. They still hadn’t quite recovered their faculties after so much rolled royal icing and strapless satin gowns. Cleo was almost wishing she had got stuck in a board meeting for twelve hours straight. Molly definitely wished Cleo had been.
Sensing that carefree banter wasn’t quite forthcoming just yet, Suze plunged on, ‘It’s an impossible and unending task to find the very best supplier in any field, so pick three that look likely and just choose between them. Done! We’ve got chair covers of organic cotton by a nice Surrey lady; we’ve got a specialist brownie baker who’s located in Windsor, so the food miles angle isn’t even an issue—’
‘But Iris said cupcakes,’ Molly said, finding her close-to-normal voice again.
‘Well, I’m sure Iris is lovely, but she’s about eighteen months too late on her confectionary trends. Cupcakes are dead,’ Suze finished boldly.
Two sweet-looking grannies jumped in their seat at the next table.
‘But brownies are the new black – a classic staple. I was decisive, you see – Iris will thank me later. I mean, not,’ Suze started to flush, ‘that I’m inviting myself to the wedding. I didn’t mean, uh, I couldn’t even find a babysit—’
‘Suzanne, my dear,’ Cleo held up a manicured hand that had recovered its usual strength and boomed in a reassuringly loud Cleo tone, ‘you have made this wedding; you are most certainly coming.’
Suze opened her mouth to protest, still feeling borderline pushy.
‘And Max, and – what is the father’s name?’
‘Stephen,’ Suze and Molly chimed in together.
‘Yes, exactly. Come and stay in the house. I’ll get one of the local girls to babysit. Drink the champagne and tell everyone that you chose the brownies. It’s the very least I can do, the very least. Now pass me that charming man on your lap.’ Cleo held out expecta
nt arms.
‘That’s not what you said when you found Dennis Moorfield in my room,’ Molly spoke through a corner of her mouth, in Suze’s direction. Suze laughed and covered her mouth.
‘I heard that. But this man isn’t sixteen. Or spotty. Or handsy. But you’re not,’ Cleo switched to gooey baby talk, ‘you’re not handsy, you’re just perfect and you won’t have a girlfriend till you’re twenty-five, will you? Oh, Maxy Max.’ She lifted Max up and down in a frantic jiggle, showing off her enviably toned upper arms.
‘Well, I would be a fool to say no to an offer like that!’ Suze chirruped happily, her eyes lighting up with pride as Cleo elicited little giggles from her Max. She picked up the to do list from the table. ‘So, chair covers, tick; wedding cake in form of a tower of brownies, not cupcakes, tick; tasteful bridesmaid dress boutique found and appointment for fitting made, tick; two-thousand tea lights bought at bulk discount, tick … anything else?’
The caffeine kicked in and Molly’s brain finally caught up with her ears. ‘Hey, what bridesmaid? I thought Iris had said her sister would be too much of a diva and demand a Marc Jacobs couture gown?’ Molly picked at the flapjack crumbs on her plate. All that butter had been majorly restorative. She felt like a happy Molly again.
‘Iris did say that. But Sam didn’t. His sister is sometimes quite reasonable.’ Cleo nodded sharply as if to say the topic was closed.
Sad, weary Molly was back.
‘Oh noooooooooo,’ she groaned. ‘Nooooo. I can’t.’
‘You can. You will.’
Molly leant across the table and grabbed Suze’s hands in her own desperate mitts. ‘Help me, Suze. You’re my only hope.’
‘What’s so bad about being a bridesmaid?’ Suze blinked in confusion. ‘I was a bridesmaid seven times and loved each and every experience.’
‘Because you’re graceful, and elegant, and you look good in long, strapless dresses. I’m not any of those things and I always spill stuff on nice clothes. Plus, my bouquet will probably set off my hay fever.’
The Bad Boyfriends Bootcamp Page 18