by Judy Jarvie
“Consider it a date.” Will reaches out and his hand touches mine again. Zip, zap and the chemistry’s back. “Catch you later.”
Crazy butterflies in my stomach are doing loop-the-loop, the whole ride home—I’m Will Darby’s new BFF. And Jack’s going to be so over the moon he won’t shut up for days on end. Sometimes life brings excellent and surprising opportunities. And the thought of Jack’s thrill provides me with an internal cozy hug of happiness.
Chapter Six
After a boring night of intensive turbo-charged marking on the sofa, I’ve surprises in store for me next day.
The first one is Fiona. She swings by my class before morning bell to warn me I’d better get my act in gear on my forfeit—book chapters or finding a man without delay.
“Which is it to be?”
“Not sure. Do I have to commit now?”
“Cutting it fine, aren’t you?”
I visually frisk her for signs of more canes or crops. I can’t see any but a lot can be hidden inside a biology lab coat so I stay wary.
“Look, I’ll try but stop hassling me. I promised to obey, didn’t I?”
“You need to take this seriously. We’re your friends and we’re trying to help you realize your dreams.”
Put like that, it sounds sympathetic.
Fiona widens her sparkly blue eyes behind their rimless frame specs. “Personally I’d go for the man—you can use him for research. I’m meeting one myself tonight.”
I’m agog with surprise. “Wow, so who’s the lucky fella?” I’m imagining someone like Sheldon from The Big Bang Theory or a brain surgeon. Maybe they met at Boffin Dating Dot Com?
“Alan Collier’s challenged me to a game of squash.”
I gulp. And force a smile.
“I said we could have a drink and a bite to eat after,” she says. “He’s suggested the new French restaurant that is supposed to be wonderful.”
“Alan. Right.” I’d never had Fiona down as a lover of cocker spaniels but I keep it zipped. “Didn’t realize you were into squash.”
“I play tolerably well. I’ve had my eye on Alan. I hear he has a talent with his lob.”
I keep smirks pinioned inside me. “Tell me all tomorrow.”
“I will.”
I push the forfeit and the thought of Fi and Al ‘squash dating’ well out of my mind. My brain’s so fried with her Alan revelation anyway I can’t take in much more.
On the back of Fi’s visit comes a text from Jack informing me to cancel the health center appointment. He tells me the receptionist got him an earlier time and he’s been already. He’s been given inhaler medication and told he’s okay. I call the surgery to cancel the other appointment I made only to find that Jack’s already phoned. I’m a little perturbed that Jack wants me out of the way. But I push away inclinations to mistrust him. If he wants privacy, I have to respect that.
Hot on the heels of this is my biggest surprise of the day. As the pupils herd in in dribs and drabs for morning class, Tarquin arrives in my classroom doorway—expectant efficiency follows him like his cloying cologne. The camera guy I now know as Andy Regis plus a sound man with him make something unwelcome unfurl in my belly. And it’s not just the letchy wink Andy gives me.
Tarquin’s cravat is back. The high-waisted trousers have gone. Today’s cravat is lilac with dots and his shirt has a pale lime stripe and a matching hanky. He holds up a fanned wad of slips as though he’s auditioning for The Mikado.
“Ms. Tennant. We’re filming your class. The necessary permissions have been obtained.”
“Not from me.”
“I have faith in you and I think you’ll perform best when you’re unrehearsed.”
“You did this to save yourself an ear-bashing more like.”
“Precisely. But I’m famed for my insight. Mr. Rogerson has sanctioned it.” He takes little heed of my stern face and pays even less attention to my reluctant thundercloud of woe.
“Second year English, isn’t it? Studying Pride and Prejudice?”
“It is. But…”
“No buts, Ms. Tennant. I have a show to film.” He holds up a hand before my face, in a style favored by drag artistes. “Consider this your screen test. Pride and Prejudice is always an audience pleaser—let’s get to it.”
I feel my stomach roll and wish I’d gone to Jack’s for toast and tea. Being filmed as you’re back-chatted, heckled and giggled at by thirty-odd thirteen year olds is something best faced on breakfast.
Shit, bollocks, fuck.
I feel like Anne Boleyn eyeing up the gallows.
“Your ensemble is fetching.” Tarquin gives me a wink. “Fantastic calves for a pencil skirt.”
“Come in.” I point them to the back of the room. I wish I’d planted a bomb there. Cleaning bits of cravat off the light fittings would be a small price to pay for Tarquin annihilation. Talk about missed opportunity.
* * * *
It wasn’t arduous. It was horrific. A car crash in teaching caught on film.
The class were silent, the best-behaved kids they’ve ever been. So I had to fill time teaching. If I’d had more time and notice to plan and rehearse, I’m sure I would’ve been fine… The question and answer session I included as an ad hoc brainwave was pure comedic awfulness.
My question about what lay beneath Darcy’s issues with Mr. Wickham resulted in an assertion from half the class that Darcy was gay or dealing with his bisexual identity crisis. Let’s say if this had been exam day, my teaching career would’ve been six feet under.
I suspect it’ll be total TV gold.
I emerge from my first experience of being reality filmed in a teaching capacity, a shaking wreck with a parched throat and a perma-blush that probably goes from waist to follicles. When they leave I sit back in the chair and draw in a major yoga breath fit to put an elephant in corpse pose.
“You okay?” It’s Janey. I feel like a crumpled wreck driven over at speed by a monster truck. She’s standing at my class door. Fresh as a daisy and looking like the modern world’s version of Doris Day—a-line skirt in a ditsy print, cute cardi and jumper twin set and a small crystal star clasp in her hair. She’s more fifties retro than the fifties were for real.
“Janey, I’ve had a bollocks of a day.”
“Oh, doll.” She comes to hug me.
“They ruddy came to film me. It was awful.”
“The bastards! Didn’t you know?”
It’s only then that my gaze plops straight onto a letter in the wonky pile on my desk. It’s marked with the word ‘Urgent’ in red ink and signed from Rogerson’s PA. Shite.
I must’ve pushed it aside and hidden it in my keenness to print out the best shots of the handbag touting footballer yesterday. Oh bugger!
“I swore three times. My bum itched half way through. I kept doing a weird walk to ease it, and must’ve looked like Quasimodo having a fit.”
“You’ll have done fine.”
“Won’t.”
Janey’s gorgeous, clear blue gaze holds me steady. “Nothing is ever as bad as we fear it is. Nobody’s died. It’ll turn out okay.”
“I feel a bit icky.” I place a hand to my rolling stomach. I can hear it doing a full cottons wash cycle.
“I have major things to tell you. Can we do lunch…? So much hot news to share!” She’s excited and multiple body parts shake with anticipation. She has a fresh glow and she’s wearing her secret smile.
“It’s about a man…”
Janey grins and nods. “I’ll tell all later.”
“Will we sneak to the deli? Get something nice?”
“Deffo. I’ll drive us. You’re going to be so amazed.”
Frankly, after the morning I’ve had, I need amazing and pepping up big time. So I forage in my desk drawer for my emergency cola, and chocolate bar, family sized. I snap off two lines and gobble them down. Sometimes, only the bad stuff will revive you.
* * * *
“My Pilates friend Rachel got t
ickets to a charity dance,” says Janey. We’re sitting in the window seat of Shelley’s Deli. “The Rotary Club and the kids’ hospital charity and the hospice were beneficiaries of the fundraising night. Rachel runs her own stationery business and she’d donated funds and prizes. She introduced us.”
I’m stuffing in my feta, avocado and pepper wrap. It’s delicious but the mayo spurts down my chin as I nod. The deli’s food is awesomeness on a tray. Janey’s falafel wrap sits untouched but I can tell she’s so engrossed in the story she doesn’t care about food.
“He was sitting beside me. We talked and talked and talked. We totally hit it off. He’s so nice. He was presenting an award and I watched him go up on the stage… Oh, Izzy. Can I say, I wanted to totally swoon… He’s already texted me today. Five times. He’s taking me out for dinner at Papillion!”
“Heck. You’ll see Fiona there with Alan Collier as that’s where they’re going!”
“Maybe I’ll send him a text now and get him to book somewhere else,” Janey says and in a matter of seconds she’s fulfilled the task. I gulp down bites of wrap as I watch her. My stomach isn’t placated so I take another bite and talk between crammed mouthfuls.
“Who, Janey, who? You still haven’t said.”
“Ben Lindhurst.”
My jaws cease chewing. It’s the kind of news that makes the world’s hubbub halt in an instant, that is, your best friend having spent a night falling head over heels for a grade A celebrity footballing icon in world football history.
“Effing hell! As in Ben 'Golden Boots’ Lindhurst, Chelsea legend?”
“I can’t remember which team, Iz. I was too busy drooling.”
“He was their lifeline goal scoring legend for years.”
Janey shrugs and takes a small, bird-sized bite of food. “I wasn’t listening. But I know he’s a famous player and he was top class.”
“Ben’s a beautiful player. Poetry in motion in his time. He runs a football academy now. Got quite a name.”
She covers her mouth with her fingers as she chews. “He’s invited me to go see it too.”
“Janey. It’s in California!”
She shrugs and nibbles some more, totally unfazed. “I know. He’s offered me tickets out there and a place to stay. I figure I could do it during the Easter break.”
I hold on to my tummy and decide to take the eating thing slower. It’s not going down as well as I’d hoped. Maybe it’s the camera in class shock thing? Or Janey’s sudden huge news?
Perhaps there’s too much going on and the side order of pickled onion crisps was a bridge too far? But somehow I have an inkling there’s something not right today.
My tummy cramps need calming somehow. I figure lack of food is the cause here. I take a sip of my fizzy water by way of respite. But the bobbing lemon slices don’t make me feel better, they turn me off too.
“So you met Ben and you got on like a blazing house of hormones,” I prompt.
“We’re going out tonight. And tomorrow. He says I can go and visit his house in Harpenden. It’s a small country estate.”
“Only a small one?”
“He has pot-bellied pigs there. He’s a specialist breeder.” She shrugs at me, undeterred.
“So what about Mr. Cycle Shorts you fancied from Pilates?”
“Compared to Ben, no contest. And I’ve always had a thing for adorable piglets,” Janey says. “In fact, I honestly think I could be in love. As in proper. Forevers, even.”
Janey shoves her phone at me. There’s selfie after selfie of the two of them smiling like love’s young dream. They do make a red carpet couple. There’s a pic of them dancing together, and others of them clinking champagne glasses. Ben’s a good-looking bloke and Janey’s a total peach of gorgeousness. It’s come as a bit of a shock, that’s all.
They look totally loved up. I scroll one pic further only to find them mid-enormous, mouth fluid-exchanging snog. She has her fingers in his hair and he’s going deeper than a tanzanite miner on a heavy shift.
Janey sees what I’ve seen and pulls the phone away, her cheeks blazing like she’d fallen asleep in the sun. “Oops. Will Darby must’ve taken that… He winds Ben up…”
“Darby?”
The wrap stalls in front of my lips. My stomach growls in an ominous way. I can feel waves of nausea that aren’t good.
“Ben went to the dance with Will Darby. Will does a lot of work for charity. They’re friends and they support Sports for City Kids. I think Ben was staying with Will.”
My mouth makes an ‘o’. But I can’t muster a word to reply. I’m too focused on my stomach and the way I am feeling clammy and hot and bothered. I don’t want to swallow what’s in my mouth.
“Was Will there with a woman?” I venture with my mouth still full.
“Yes. He had his sister there. She’s lovely too, Iz. I told you that before. He and Ben go way back. He joined Tottenham when Ben played there before Chelsea and they hung out. Spent years in France together too—Will has a place there.”
The jangly bells above the deli door tinkle and, talk of the devil, Will Darby walks in. He directs a dazzling smile straight at Jane. Then eyes me as if he wants to talk.
“Janey. Good to see you, last night was great.” He’s so warm in the way he speaks to Janey I’m both glad—because she’s my lovely bestie—and miffed that I get only formal fast-freeze hellos. What’s with that?
I stand. My legs are unsteady but I need to flee.
“Gotta go!”
My mouth is still full. But my stomach churns. There’s no way I can swallow and I don’t want to offend the customers. I have to get out into the fresh air. I leave my lunch and push back my chair. The door is still half open with Will in it and he looks at me oddly as I dive past, forcing my way out.
The threat of losing my lunch at rocket launcher speed doesn’t allow for small talk. I run to the flower beds beside the car park and I reach them not a moment too soon.
* * * *
I’m throwing my stomach contents up into a car park flower bed and Will Darby is gently rubbing my back, saying soothing things and being ultra-nice. Could things get worse or weirder?
Puking in public is never good.
But doing it beside somebody you make it your mission to hold the upper ground over is just the worst possible kind of karma on a bun with fries supersized. Especially when you’d made inroads at being friends.
Oh, Abject Humiliation, thy name is vomit bug.
“Get it out there,” says Will.
“Please. Go. I can do this solo,” I say between wretches.
“Get rid of it. You need to.”
Like I have a choice. I’ve been throwing up my insides in a projectile manner for the last ten minutes. If I could stop, believe me I would. My stomach is in the driving seat and I’m accepting the G-force spasms that go with the ride.
“I think she has some virus, she was looking peaky earlier,” says Janey.
“Was she out drinking last night?” Will asks.
I go to protest but throw up again.
“She doesn’t drink much. Think she was at home.”
“My handbag?” I say when I find sufficient breath.
“Got it safe!” says Janey.
“It’s okay. I won’t steal it. It’s not my color,” says Will.
“Want to check my hip flask is safe. Being a closet alcoholic,” I add. Then I’m sick again.
Gotta hand it to him, he’s owed me that crack about the handbag. He no doubt got the photo and what a time to deliver the return parry.
I chuck up again and this time I finally feel like I have enough upper hand to take a breather. I am on my knees but I feel like I want to try rising. I’m panting in Mother Nature’s divine clean oxygen, but my legs are wobbly. Will helps me up, then slides a hand around my waist to steady me.
“I wouldn’t come too close.” God, I am so embarrassed, says the voice in my head. So, so embarrassed.
“S’okay. I’m wea
ring my washable tracksuit.”
“There’s a chance you’ll be testing it on disinfect cycle.”
“Feeling better?”
I nod. My voice hurts, my throat is hoarse. I’d dearly love to drink a gallon of water but I’m scared it’ll come right back up. I suspect I looked like the cherry woman in The Witches of Eastwick. I will never win a wit battle with Will Darby ever again.
“You’re shaking like a leaf,” he observes and he’s right, I am. “Deffo a vomit bug, I think you should go home.”
“You’re right,” says Janey. “I can take her but I have a class in twenty minutes. I don’t want speeding points.”
“I’m on a free period. How about I take her home?” Will offers. “They won’t mind if I don’t go back. Only paperwork awaits.”
“Sure you don’t mind? I’ll notify the school.”
“Great,” Will replies.
“Are you two in league to make all the decisions?”
“Sick person gets vetoed,” says Janey.
“Whoa! I don’t want to mess up his posh car. I can’t afford Super Valet.”
“You won’t,” says Will. “Shelley in the Deli has lent us a bucket as a precaution.”
I have no answers. The nausea has abated. But exhaustion has come into the party and mugged me with a felling punch to the brain. I yawn and try to stay standing up. It takes a lot of effort.
“Let’s get you home,” says Will. “You need sleep and painkillers and water in due course.”
“Thanks, William Nightingale Darby.”
“Do you ever take help without comebacks?”
“Do you ever manage comebacks without help?”
Will narrows his eyes at me. Then I look down to notice that I’ve pebble-dashed my BOGOF shoes during my first sick bout in the flower bed. I never liked them anyway. I step out and plan to dispose of them in a bin somewhere.
Will observes, “It’s like a twist on Disney’s Cinderella. Don’t think I want to take those shoes around the kingdom, though. Not without a pressure washer.”