‘I can’t talk you through how to “make your move” in any detail,’ a few stubbly jaws dropped, leaving mouths open in disappointment, ‘but instead I would advise you this: abandon your moves.’ There was a sharp intake of breath from Gary, at the back of the room. A few nervous laughs petered out. ‘Be honest, chaps, if your moves were so golden, would you really be here right now? Exactly. Women don’t want to feel like they’re on a production line, with a robotic arm repeating the same move on them as it did on the last willing victim. Just go with the flow, read the runes, don’t rush anything. An average DVD lasts two hours, if you play through the extras. And I would say two hours is plenty of time to find your mojo in your own way. Right?’
Molly received a handful of blank stares.
‘I said, “right”?’
‘Right,’ mumbled back half the assembled team.
‘I can’t hear you!’ Molly suddenly bellowed, making poor Kurt jump an inch off the footstool, from his place on the front row.
‘Right, Colonel!’
Molly held back a proud wince as the answer was bellowed back.
‘That’s more like it. Now, next seminar we’ll deal with the morning after and just when to call.’ As the manly crowd began to stand up, stretch its legs and discuss pints in various little groups, Molly cut in with one last warning, ‘I know I made this clear to all of you when you signed up, but I’m not training you to trap women. If I find that so much as one of you has knowingly seduced a woman that you don’t intend to date until at least the next month, I can promise you any “moves” you have will be rendered useless. Unless you can perform them with broken fingers, of course. At ease, gents.’
Molly picked up the notes in front of her on the dining table and happily marched off to flick on the kettle.
She nearly jumped out of her Gap jeans when she found John waiting there for her.
‘Dude! What are you doing lurking in here?’ Molly leant across him to fish out tea bags from the special blue tin labelled accordingly. Sam once contested throwing the tin away, as the tea bags were accessed so frequently, but Rachel countered that it was often the only exercise Molly’s arms got day-to-day.
‘I’m not lurking,’ John bristled as he spoke.
‘But you said you couldn’t come to the seminar.’
With a sigh, John corrected his flatmate, ‘No, I said I wouldn’t come. There’s a difference. Look, Mols, I’m really grateful for everything you’ve done for me, and to Rach and Josie for overhauling my image in a much-needed way, but this whole thing,’ – he gestured with his arm to the noisy stomping of men echoing down their stairwell as the bootcampers traipsed out – ‘does it really have to take place at the flat so much?’
‘Um, oh.’ Molly bit her lip. ‘Sorry, chap, I hadn’t considered that it might get a bit much for you. Was there an important match or duel or something sporty on TV that I’ve made you miss?’ Molly topped up her I Heart East Dulwich mug with hot water, the reassuring caramel colour of the tea seeping in immediately.
‘No, it’s not sport.’ John shoved his hands in his pockets and shifted his weight from foot to foot. ‘What if I want the flat for … myself?’
‘Yourself?’ Molly raised an eyebrow, just a fraction.
‘Myself. And maybe a friend.’ he finished, inspecting the ceiling tiles in great detail.
‘John, you dirty dog! You’re onto date four, aren’t you? Say no more, mum’s the word. So, you want the place free for a DVD and a meal, maybe?’
John said in a quiet voice and with just the hint of a smile, ‘Yes.’
‘OK. Well, I shouldn’t be monopolising the living room so much, you’re right. I suppose it was my first thought because it’s free and keeps my margins healthy. No worries, something else will crop up. Maybe we can nip into Taupe a bit more, or maybe Josie can put dibs on her living room for a night every now and then. So, when?’
‘Saturday night? If you could make yourself scarce, I’d really appreciate it.’
‘No worries.’ Molly sipped her tea, trying to distract her mouth from grinning suggestively. ‘I’ll see what the girls are up to. I won’t come back. All night. End of.’
* * *
‘Lucky old John,’ Suze said, as she held a thoughtful little Max up to inspect the antique chandelier hanging at head-height from Taupe’s ceiling. ‘That’s refraction, Maximus. The way the light is split through the prism of the crystals. You can see the whole colour spectrum, see? Spect-trum. Pris-m.’ Suze enunciated the last words carefully, as if expecting the plump little man in her arms to parrot them right back.
Rach laughed from her position behind the till, sorting through the stock list.
‘What?’ Suze asked, innocently. ‘It’s never too early to start learning. And can’t you just tell by his face that he’s going to be a genius?’ The proud mum turned Max to face her and peered closely into his grey, clear eyes. Max squinted back.
‘Absolutely!’ Josie cheered from her one-legged position by the mirror. She had one hand on the gilt mirror, the other pulling up her left leg behind her bottom, in a wobble-free stretch. It made Molly’s muscles ache just to look at her.
‘Mmm,’ agreed Molly, ‘he has something of the Einstein about him.’
Suze mirrored Max’s squint. ‘I’ll choose to take that as a compliment. So, where will you hold your seminars then?’
‘Dunno, hence this impromptu coffee and brainstorming session. And full body stretching,’ Molly added, nodding over at her very flexible American friend.
‘I think better when my muscles are taut,’ Josie explained to a more than bemused Suzanne.
‘Rach, could you come in—’ Martin poked his head around the door from the stockroom. ‘Ah, hello.’ He nodded to the assembled group of friends and rubbed his hand over the salt-and-pepper stubble scattered on his chin. The girls suddenly began to look very interested in green mohair cushions and onyx earrings. ‘At ease, ladies, I don’t mind that you’re not buying – making the shop look busy on a Tuesday afternoon is good enough for me. Rach, I just need to, er, speak to you.’ Martin nodded his head towards the back room.
‘Righty-ho.’ Rach put down her stock list and followed her boss back into the pokey stockroom/office. He was wearing one of last winter’s bestselling cardigans – grey and complete with elbow patches – but somehow he wasn’t coming across as sexy nerd so much as slouchy grandpa.
Suze, Jose and Molly quickly fell into an important conversation about how long Robbie really would stay with Take That, when a loud squeal pierced the air. Something was clearly going on in that back room.
The three women froze. Max looked from one to the other, shocked to be in the middle of five minutes’ worth of silence for once.
‘What should we do?’ Molly eventually whispered, when Rach still hadn’t surfaced. ‘This feels like the start of a Casualty episode.’
‘Or a Crimewatch reconstruction!’ Suze replied in a similar whisper, but with a pang of worry to her voice. ‘We should go back there to see if she’s OK. Josie, you go first.’
Josie set her shoulders and marched, albeit it silently, to the door. Just in time for Rachel to open it in her face.
‘Eureka!’ She beamed. ‘Oops, sorry, Jose. Thing is, I know where we can have our seminars. And how to give the bootcamp a nice healthy financial boost while we’re at it.’ All eyes were on the stylish blonde as she started to explain her cunning plan. ‘Martin has just given me the old good-news bad-news offer.’
‘What did you take first?’ Josie asked, rubbing some feeling back into her nose.
‘Bad news.’ Rachel toyed with her ponytail, causing the delicate silver bracelets on her arms to jangle. The tinkling noise made Max’s pudgy little neck turn in her direction.
‘Oh,’ Suze spotted the change in her little boy’s attention. ‘He likes that. You take him, before he gets bored and breaks your Georgian mirror.’ Max was swiftly deposited in Rach’s arms before she had much time to think
about it, let alone gently protest.
Max’s careful eyes regarded her calmly and his chubby little hand reached out for her bracelets. He was sure he could get them in his mouth, if the pretty lady would just oblige …
Rach continued with her reporting. ‘Anyway, so, the bad news: no pay rise for me this year. Sales are OK despite the recession’s after-effects, but the lease rental has been put up yet again so Martin’s a bit stretched.’ Molly came over and rubbed her friend’s back reassuringly. ‘It’s OK, I understand it. But Martin had the good sense to swoop in quickly with the good news: as I can’t afford a holiday this year, he offered me the use of his family’s holiday house in Devon for a week or two. Imagine that! I’d just have to make sure I left it as I found it, but otherwise the keys are temporarily mine. Hence the whoop of excitement just now.’
‘Thank God for that,’ Molly now rubbed the spot just above her heart. ‘We were all apoplectic that it was a shriek of horror. I can take myself down a notch from fight or flight to sit and stay.’
‘So, Mols, how do you feel about a Bootcamp Retreat? Jose, fancy doing a training sesh on the sand? Extra hard on the thighs, if I’m correct. I know I’m totally up for raiding all those sexy little surfer boutiques for cool summer clothes. Apparently the house is right on the beach in a gorgeous, quiet little cove near Salcombe. We could go over the Easter bank holiday, when everyone is off work but at a loss of what to do. This may best the best idea I’ve ever had.’ Rachel kissed the top of Max’s cute little fluffy head, getting a whiff of the yummy baby scent that sent most ovaries into a spin. Hers were no exception. She jiggled the quiet little chap about a bit, but he was still mesmerised by her Indian silver bangles.
‘Rachel.’ Molly turned to look at her best mate full in the face. ‘Rachel. I love you.’
‘As you should. I think I’ve reached my peak with this one.’
Josie chimed in perkily, ‘And I’ve never been to Devon, so it will further my English education. Is that where you get the pasties?’
‘No, love, that’s Cornwall. But you’re close. How many bedrooms in this place?’ Suze asked, solicitously.
‘Four bedrooms, but the four of us can bunk up in the twin rooms and the guys can all grab a shared double or truly rough it on the floor. It is a bootcamp, after all. Not a spa.’
‘So I can come?’ Eyes sparkling a little with tears, Suze clutched her hands together like an Austen heroine who’d just climbed a style and been given a piano forte, all on the same day.
‘Of course!’ Rachel laughed. ‘We need all hands on deck and your married hands are very experienced.’
‘That’s what he said!’ Molly hooted. ‘Sorry, when I’m happy I tend to go to overboard with the innuendo. Devon will be amazing! And maybe we’ll get a tiny spot of spring sunshine and build a few sandcastles while we build our big shiny empire. Hey, things are really coming up roses for us!’
Rachel looked at Molly. Molly looked at Rachel. Josie looked at Molly. Molly looked at Josie.
Before you could say ‘Don’t Stop Believing’, the three friends had leapt up from their various positions and were high-kicking their way through a Glee-inspired verse of ‘Everything’s coming up roses’ finishing with a drawn-out (but flat) ‘for ussssssssss!’
‘Keep it down, will you?’ Martin huffed out loud from the back room.
‘You know, Rach, we might just be strong enough to tackle that old grump together after our exclusive retreat!’ Molly trilled, catching her breath. ‘Probably by that time we’ll be so successful, he’ll be begging us to train him up. Ha!’
Chapter Twenty-Seven
‘OK, yes, I’ve got it. Next Thursday, three-fifteen p.m., Beautiful Brides. OK, OK, Blushing Beautiful brides. I’ll be there, Mum. Yes, I’ll wear nice underwear. Yes, I’ll take Suze with me. Anything else?’ Molly had her BlackBerry sandwiched between her ear and her shoulder as she shoved half the contents of her underwear drawer into a black duffel bag. She looked around her bedroom, mentally running through the places she may have squirreled her sunglasses away. Jewellery box, no. Make-up drawer, no. Bookcase, maybe. Laptop bag, seems likely. Molly distinctly remembered working on her laptop outside The Clockhouse pub the last time it was sunny. If only she could get Cleo off the phone she could finish her hasty packing. Rachel would be round bright and shiny and early on Good Friday morning and she needed to be three-coffees awake and ready to rumble at that point.
‘Um, work stuff is fine, thanks Mum. Yup, busy. So, have you heard from Sam recently? Really, on a volcano? Wow. I’d better hit the hay now, Mum, leaving at six a.m. tomorrow to get there in good time. OK, yup, bye!’
Molly pressed ‘end call’ and casually chucked her phone down on her bed. Next: shorts and shoes. Then sun cream, and anything else she might need beginning with S.
Mid-pack, Molly stopped her stuffing and sorting. There were scratching and shuffling noises coming from the living room. It was 1 a.m. John was in bed. Oh god: South London mice. The most terrifying beasts of all.
Molly crept out of her room, a wooden wedge heel in hand. The heaviest object she could lay her hands on in her bedroom.
She scanned the dim corners of the living room from the doorway. If there was a dark, furry little bugger there … well, she’d probably just run straight back to bed and stuff a towel under the door to stop it coming in and nibbling her to death. But maybe she could give it some evils first, to show it who was boss.
Molly crouched down, to more closely inspect the shady skirting boards. As she looked towards the sofa, she saw something big and black. And she screamed. Leaping into the air, Molly threw the wedge as hard as she could.
The South London mouse gave an oddly deep yelp, and came towards Molly, suddenly growing two long legs and a body. And a head. John’s head.
‘John! Bloody hell! Why are you pretending to be a mouse?’
John hopped on his left foot, folded his right leg up behind him and rubbed the damaged toes in his hand and grimacing in pain. ‘Why are you throwing shoes?’
‘I thought, your foot, it looked a bit … noises made me think – wait, what are you doing out here in the dark?’ Molly shook her head from side to side like a confused cartoon cat.
‘I only didn’t put the light on because I didn’t want to wake you. Ironically. I just had a thought about tidying under the sofa, just in case.’ John flapped his hands about the near-perfect room. He had been preening it all night, as if he was about to face a white glove test from a supermodel.
‘Just in case your girlfriend looks under the sofa?’ Incredulity crept into Molly’s tone.
John scratched at the back of his neck. ‘She’s not my girlfriend – yet. And I just want to make sure I’m not being a slob, like the old days. This weekend is a big deal to me, Mols, I want to make the best impression possible.’
Molly reached up to hook her arm around John’s shoulder and pulled him down into a leaning hug. ‘Ahhh, John Boy. You will make the perfect impression simply by being yourself. A few dust bunnies won’t kill the vibe. Girls aren’t nasty OCD monsters, you know.’
‘I know.’ John let out a long, slow breath. ‘You’re right, I need to chill and go to bed. Beauty sleep, huh.’ He shrugged. ‘So you’re not coming back till last thing Monday?’
‘That is correct.’ Molly patted John on the back and retracted her arm. He was just that bit too tall to hug comfortably. She could only imagine how anyone hugged Patrick. Step ladder? Stack heels? ‘Consider this your shag pad till then. You and your mystery lady will be all aloooone.’ Molly gave a cheeky little air hump as she strolled back to bed.
‘Thank you.’ With a half-hearted eye-roll, John gave up his obsessive dust-chasing and also called it a night.
* * *
The early-afternoon Devon air cleared Molly’s head in one deep, gutsy breath. She stood with her hands on her hips, looking out at the wind-whipped sea from a scrubby car park near the beach. The grey marl clouds stretched over the sky ma
y have been foreboding to a weather forecaster but something about the big blank open space just said ‘Adventure’ to Molly. The beach was deserted; it was theirs to play with.
This was going to be a great weekend. A new frontier for the bootcamp. And, after the excited take-up of the five spaces on the intense retreat at £250 a head, Molly was now within winking distance of her £8000 total. Just a few more months of running a steady stream of sessions and perhaps a new flood of cadets, Molly would have paid Cleo off completely and that dark financial cloud, shaped like a name tag or maybe a branded polo shirt with the Terracotta Barmy logo, would finally pass by and drift into the past. Then, Molly could start thinking about her slightly stormy credit cards and overdraft. But one thing at a time.
Molly had been pleased to see that it was her original and regular cadets who snapped up the places. Though, John had chosen to decline for obvious reasons.
Rach stretched her arms up over her head and stood up on her tiptoes to ease the ache out of every muscle. ‘Blasting down the motorway at the crack of dawn was a good idea, but – man – that was an early start. I haven’t woken up that early since I had to queue with my niece for the release of the last Twilight book.’ With a big yawn, Rachel added, ‘At least the car wasn’t jam-packed with emo kids.’
Molly turned to direct a crooked eyebrow at the lovely blonde Private Fabulous.
‘Oh, all right.’ Rach shoved Molly’s shoulder. ‘I was at the front of line for my own copy, and it just so happened that Alice wanted one, too. You know I’m Team Edward all the way. I’m, like, irrevocably in love with him.’ With a mock swoon, Rach moved round to the back of her little Clio and opened the trunk. Molly came over to help unload the bags.
‘Speaking of the big L.O.V.E. am I going to get a bit more disclosure about Greg this weekend? Between you, Josie and John, I’m not getting much in the way of vicarious pleasures. You’re all closed up tighter than a juicy big clam. Do not make me winkle you. You know how I love to winkle.’ Molly hefted her bag up onto her shoulder and hoiked a heavy carrier of groceries with her left hand, wobbling a little to get her balance.
The Bad Boyfriends Bootcamp Page 22