by Sue Margolis
“So,” Max said, “if you had to come back as an animal, what would you choose?”
She said a Siamese cat. “What about you?”
“Aardvark,” he announced.
“Why on earth would you want to come back as an aardvark?”
“Easy. I’d be first in the jungle telephone directory.”
There were two things they disagreed on. The first was global warming. Max said there was quite a lot of reputable scientific evidence to support the theory it was all rubbish. The second was how to eat a Kit Kat. Rebecca was a firm believer in splitting the foil carefully down the middle with the fingernail of her right thumb and then slowly and meticulously biting off the chocolate to reveal the wafer. Max simply ripped off the packaging and demolished the entire thing in a couple of mouthfuls. She said he was missing out on the “sensuality of the Kit Kat experience.” He accused her of being far too la-di-da. Of course the debate came to good-natured blows. He hit her with a cushion. She bashed him back, making him spill tea on the hearth. As she took a tissue out of her pocket to help wipe it up, he took hold of her arm and drew her toward him, holding her gaze in his the entire time. He stroked her face and pushed her gently down onto the rug. That kiss, as they lay stretched out in front of the fire, was the most sublime Rebecca had ever known.
He was trailing a finger over her cheek, when she felt a hard sharp object under her head. She reached back and picked it up. It was a CD cover. A moment later she was roaring with laughter.
“I may be too la-di-da by half,” she said, “but at least I have slightly more adult taste in music than you. Shaggy? Max, how old are you?”
“Very funny,” he said, taking it from her and tossing it onto the sofa. “It’s not mine, though. Belongs to Amy, my goddaughter. She was round at the weekend.”
“Oh, right—so you two are pretty close, then?”
“Yeah. Pretty close,” he said, planting a tiny kiss on the end of Rebecca’s nose. “Listen, you know what I fancy?”
“I think I can guess.”
He smiled. “OK, we could do that,” he said, “but what I feel like even more right now is some fresh air. I haven’t been out for days. How’s about we go for a walk in Highgate Woods before it gets dark?”
“Great,” she said. They were about to go and put their coats on when she noticed The Little Book of Hugs lying on the kitchen table.
“Not quite your style,” she said, picking it up.
“Lorna got it for me as a daft get-well present.”
“Regular Florence Nightingale,” she said, forcing a smile.
He was in the hall by now and didn’t see her casually slide The Little Book of Hugs along the counter. Nor did he see it fall off the counter and into the pedal bin, which she’d just happened to open.
It was bitter out. He put his arm round her. She snuggled up to his shoulder. As they headed off down the main road, Rebecca realized this was the most relaxed and at ease she’d felt in ages.
“So, how’s the French story going?” she asked.
He said it was tough, but moving ahead pretty well. She was squeezing his arm and telling him that with a story like that, he could easily win the Journalist of the Year award, when she noticed a tall loping figure in the distance, coming out of a coffee shop. She stopped.
“What?” Max said.
“I think there’s somebody I recognize.”
She carried on peering down the street. It was definitely him. Only he looked completely different. The wiry ginger hair had been cut into a fashionable crop and although he was still quite a way off she could see he was wearing a rather cool black leather jacket.
“Shit. Max, quick, cross the road.”
He looked at her, confused. “Why?”
“’Cause I don’t want him to see me.”
“Who?”
“Warren.” She tugged at his arm. “Come on.”
“Oh, what, the Starlight Express guy? Why don’t you just go up and say hi?”
“You know why,” she hissed. “I told you on the phone the other night. I’m meant to be in bloody Greenland with the Inuit.”
“Ah.”
She dragged him to the edge of the pavement. The traffic was fast flowing and heavy. Try as they might, they couldn’t get across the road.
“OK, hide behind this tree until he’s gone.”
Looking distinctly bemused, Max went along with it. They stood there, he shaking his head and telling her she should go and talk to him and come clean about her deception or say it was a joke, and she hissing, “Has he gone yet? Has he gone yet?”
Max poked his head out from round the tree and said he couldn’t see him. Rebecca decided he’d probably gone by.
“OK, let’s go,” she said.
As they crept out, Rebecca virtually collided with Warren.
“Hello, Rebecca,” he said. On closer inspection the jacket was Prada. They’d featured it in last week’s Vanguard mag. Overnight, he’d gone from geek geek to chic geek. “I thought it was you. So, how was Greenland?”
“Oh, you know. Cold.”
“And the Inuit?” She was picking up definite hostility.
“They’re fine. Send their regards.”
She saw him looking at Max.
“Oh, sorry, I should have introduced you. Warren, Max. Max, Warren.”
The two men exchanged nods.
Rebecca cleared her throat and turned back to Warren. “Max is my … er … my … chiropodist. Yep. Best chiropodist in London. Bunions, corns, verrucas, athlete’s foot—Max is your man. Do you get verrucas, Warren?”
“Actually, no.”
“Lucky you.”
Max nudged her. A woman had joined them and was looping her arm through Warren’s. She was tall, over six foot and beautiful. Correction. Lorna Findlay was beautiful. The creature standing in front of them was in a different class. She was utterly, gobsmackingly gorgeous. Rebecca stood there taking in her gazellelike legs, her waist-length blonde hair, her turquoise eyes, the wondrously applied Nefertiti liner.
“This is Fabergé,” Warren announced. “She models for Valentino.”
So she was clearly responsible for Warren’s makeover.
“Sorry to have been ages, babe,” she said, kissing his cheek, “the news agent didn’t have any change.” She popped a piece of gum into her mouth. Then she turned to Rebecca and Max.
“Hi,” she simpered, giving them a tiny wave. Rebecca couldn’t help noticing it was a few seconds before Max stopped gawping at Fabergé and returned the greeting.
“So,” Rebecca said, once she’d finally retrieved her jaw from the floor, “how did you guys meet?”
“Oh,” Fabergé began, between chews, “I went into the town hall planning department to complain about the bypass they were proposing and Warren just happened to be there. He came flying to my aid and sorted the whole thing out. Didn’t you, babe?”
Another kiss. Babe blushed.
“Come on, we have to go,” she said to him, “or we’ll be late for tea.” She turned to Rebecca. “I’m taking Warren home to meet my parents. They’re getting on a bit. Hate to be kept waiting.”
The four said their good-byes.
“OK,” Rebecca said when Warren and Fabergé were out of earshot. “Do you mind telling me how in the name of buggery he managed to pull her?”
Max shrugged. “Maybe she suffers from low self-esteem?”
“Yeah, right. Good one.”
“Then it has to be the Woody Allen thing. I guess some women just can’t resist those geeky Jewish blokes.”
“S’pose,” Rebecca said. “But can you believe the cheek of the man, messing around like that the moment my back’s turned?”
When they got back from the park, Max tried to get her into bed, but she said she had to go home and get changed for Ed’s surprise party.
“You sure you don’t want to pop in—just for an hour or two? Jess is dying to meet you.”
But his hand was already
back down inside his trousers.
“OK, perhaps not,” she said.
On the way home she phoned Jess, ostensibly to ask her if there was anything she’d forgotten for the party and wanted picking up. After Jess had thanked her and said everything was just about under control, she brought up the subject of Lorna. Jess said she didn’t have much time to talk because she was up to her eyes in canapés, but made it perfectly clear that if Rebecca got jealous of every beautiful woman Max Factor came into contact with, their relationship was destined for disaster.
“You know we’re far too hard on beautiful women—always assuming they’re preying on our men. Lorna’s probably lovely and perfectly harmless. I mean, look at Lipstick. I was right about her, wasn’t I?”
She got home just after five. When she went into the living room, Lipstick was standing at the window on a stepladder. Her bum was stuffed into crimson hipsters with gold studs running down the outside leg. Over these she was wearing a shiny mock snakeskin crop top. Bulging out between the two was her considerable midriff. She was hanging blinds. Austrian ones. In cream and olive-green Regency stripes. With a frill at the bottom.
“Ta-dah!” she proclaimed with a flourish.
Rebecca blinked.
“What do you think? Aren’t they brilliant? Ready-mades from Laura Ashley. You attach them with Velcro. So when you want to wash them, all you do is pull them off … like so. I thought they were just what you needed. They give the room a much softer, feminine feel, don’t you think? And look, I managed to find the cushions to match.”
Rebecca looked at the striped cushions sitting on her black leather sofa. Then she swallowed. By now the color had completely drained from her face. “Lipstick, this is very kind, but …”
“Oh, you don’t have to thank me,” she said, getting down from the ladder. “I just wanted to get you something to say how much I appreciate you taking me in like this. I don’t know what I’d have done without you.”
Just then the phone rang. Rebecca reached to pick it up, but Lipstick had gotten there first.
“Bound to be a client,” she said, pressing the green button. She nodded to indicate she’d been right.
Rebecca decided the only way she was going to calm down was with a glass of wine and a hot bath.
She went into the bedroom to get undressed. On the dressing table stood a huge turquoise silk flower arrangement thing. On the bed, Harrison, dressed in khaki cargo pants and a T-shirt that said “Doggy Style,” was chewing on a dried pig’s ear and drooling over the duvet.
“She has to go,” Rebecca said, knocking back her second Shiraz. “I know my dad loves her, but she just has to go. She’s completely taking over. When the phone goes it’s only ever for her. And you should see what she’s done to the place. She’s talking about getting somebody in to paint a mural in my bedroom. At the moment she’s thinking frolicking nymphs and satyrs. God, Jess, the place is getting so camp I feel like I’m flat-sharing with the entire cast of La Cage aux Folles.”
Jess laughed and told her to calm down. “Look, it’s only for another couple of weeks. As soon as she moves out, take the blinds down.”
“But what do I do when she and Dad come to visit? I can’t keep hanging them back up. And what if they drop in unannounced?”
“Then you say you got burgled by this bunch of gays who just went for the extra-virgin olive oil and your soft furnishings.”
Rebecca managed a smile. They were sitting at Shazzer’s, the wine bar round the corner from Jess’s, waiting for the rest of the party guests. The idea was they’d have a quick glass of bubbly there before heading back to Jess’s to wait for Ed to get home from work.
The people who’d arrived so far were hacks mainly, most of whom Rebecca knew. Then there were some couples Ed and Jess had met at their National Childbirth Trust prenatal classes, and four or five of Ed’s university mates.
“Oh, my God,” Rebecca said, noticing a familiar and distinctly unwelcome face, “I cannot believe you’ve invited that Guy Debonnaire creep. He’s always hitting on me. He actually tongued my ear at the Mer de Rêves do.”
Jess pulled a face. “I know, he hits on everybody. But I didn’t invite him. Somebody from the Sunday Trib must have brought him.”
Rebecca said she was going to disappear to the loo before he came over and started tweaking her nipples. She stood up and headed for the ladies’ room, past the members of the NCT brigade who were deep in conversation about the state of their postpartum perineums and loft conversions.
The moment she came out she walked straight into Guy, who was drunk as usual.
“Hi, Becks.”
“Hi, Guy,” she said wearily.
He started nuzzling her. He stank of booze. She pushed him off.
“Oh, don’t be like that. You wanna come back to my place? I’ve got an electric blanket.”
“Tell you what, Guy, how’s about you come back to mine. I’ve got an electric chair.”
He stood in front of her swaying and looking puzzled.
“Rebecca,” a voice boomed from behind them.
It belonged to Lady Axminster. She looked distinctly flushed. She’d clearly had a few gins. Rebecca greeted her with a double kiss and introduced Guy.
“Good God,” Lady Axminster gasped, “you’re not Johnny Debonnaire’s boy, are you?”
“The same, fair lady, the same.” He took her ladyship’s hand and slobbered over it. She looked as if she’d just been presented with a dog turd.
“Johnny courted me many moons ago, you know,” she said, wiping her hand with a lace handkerchief. “Hope you don’t take after him. Chap had the smallest winkle in Gloucestershire.”
His crest may have fallen, but only for a moment. A second later he’d spotted Jess.
“Hey, Jess,” he called out, “how’s about ditching that husband of yours and coming back to my place for a Bacardi and grope?”
Thirty of them, including Guy, trooped back to Jess’s house. By now Lady Axminster had sobered up (for which Jess was hugely grateful since her mother was due to pick Diggory up from Dolly’s in a couple of hours and take him home with her).
When they got to the house the curtains were drawn, but there were chinks of light coming from the living room.
“Oh, my God,” Jess wailed, “Ed’s home early. He’ll have seen all the food and drink laid out in the kitchen. And the balloons. And that huge ‘Happy 40th’ banner I got. This is a complete mess. Shit, what do we do?”
Rebecca told her not to panic. “Look, first, he may not have seen it. The front room’s his study. Maybe he came straight in and decided to get on with some work. I reckon if he’d seen it, he’d have phoned you by now. Let’s just go in as planned and surprise him.”
Jess wasn’t convinced, but agreed they had no option. She got out her key and silently turned the lock. The door squeaked open. Everybody flinched. Then, stifling giggles, people began piling in.
“Go on, then,” Lady Axminster whispered to Jess, “open the door.”
Jess hesitated for a second. Then she threw open the door that led to Ed’s study. Thirty voices yelled, “Surprise!”
Which it certainly seemed to be for Ed.
His head shot round to face them, his face etched in terror. Jess screamed and slapped her hand to her mouth. Without saying a word Ed leaped off the sofa, where until that second he had been lying facedown, his pants and trousers round his ankles, on top of a plastic inflatable woman. Beside her was a pile of porno mags. Rebecca put her arm round Jess. Guy Debonnaire, who somehow had made it to the front and was standing with Rebecca, Jess and Lady Axminster, yelled:
“Oi, give us a go after you, mate.”
There was a lot of nervous shuffling and coughing from the rest of the guests. A few people started giggling. Ed pulled up his pants and looked pleadingly at Jess. Then the people still standing in the hall, who hadn’t seen what was going on, suddenly broke into “Happy Birthday.” Rebecca yelled at them to stop.
&n
bsp; Calmly and without saying anything, Jess went to Ed’s desk, picked up his fountain pen and stabbed the doll with the nib. The air shot out in a loud hiss. The doll folded in on herself. Jess turned to look at Ed.
“How could you humiliate me like this?” she said softly, a single tear trailing down her cheek. “How could you?”
“Just come into the kitchen and talk. Let me explain. I didn’t mean to …”
“We’ve been talking for weeks and this is where it’s gotten us. I need to do some thinking. You can stay here for the time being. Diggory and I are moving in with Rebecca.”
She then pushed through the crowd of guests and ran upstairs with Ed right behind her, begging her to listen to him.
While Rebecca stood there, trying to absorb the enormity of Jess’s final statement, Guy Debonnaire was kneeling beside the shrinking inflatable woman, attempting to give her the kiss of life.
10
Hang on, where was I?” Lipstick, who was giving Jess a manicure, stopped filing for a moment and attempted to gather her thoughts.
“Your grandad’s funeral,” Rebecca chipped in, without taking her eyes off the TV screen.
“Oh, right,” Lipstick said. “So in the end it turned out to be really expensive. They had to bury him in a hired suit.”
Jess burst out laughing and once again she and Lipstick were cackling like a pair of off-duty hookers in a Dickensian knocking shop. Rebecca, who was sprawled on the sofa engrossed in one of her Seinfeld tapes, turned toward them. “What? What’s the joke?”
But they were laughing so hard neither of them could get the words out.
Rebecca smiled and went back to the TV. When Jess moved in five days ago she was tearful, angry and confused. The change in her was palpable and much of it was due to Lipstick. Although Rebecca had been there with hugs, late-night talks and encouragement, it was Lipstick who had seen the cheering up of Jess as some kind of mission. OK, maybe her campaign was a tad on the unrelenting side—what with her quoting endlessly from You Can’t Afford the Luxury of a Negative Thought, repeatedly showing her all-time favorite videos and telling rambling family anecdotes, her point usually hovering way off in the distance like a German verb—but there was no doubt it had worked, at least on a superficial level. Deep down Jess was still pretty miserable.