Unsticky

by Sarra Manning

  chapter fifteen

  Grace relished the journey home in the sleek car that smelled of expensive leather. It sure beat getting the train and being shunted on to sidings for half an hour because it was a Sunday afternoon.

  Grace wondered why she didn’t feel skanky or slutty or any of those other words that described how you were meant to feel when you were coming back from a dirty weekend with a rich, older man. What she did feel was hard to describe. She was glad, relieved even, to have survived the weekend. The sex had been as OK as it ever was, and once or twice had even headed towards phenomenal - and though Grace didn’t think that she’d ever get over being freaked out and intimidated by Vaughn, there had been times when she’d enjoyed herself; enjoyed being with him, enjoyed the moments when he seemed to be enjoying being with her too. Really, he wasn’t so bad in small doses - and it looked like small doses was all that she was going to get.

  Back in Archway, Grace had time to walk to the Co-op and buy stuff for packed lunches for work, because it would be another week before the next batch of crisp twenty-pound notes arrived. There were going to be no more Zac Posen dresses in future, she decided, if she wanted the clothing allowance to cover more than one outfit and to save the five grand for paying off her bills. Now that she’d paid off her TopShop card and the rent arrears, she needed to make a dent in her overdraft. She couldn’t be sure because she made a point of not opening the brown envelopes very often (or the white ones, come to that), but she had a sneaking suspicion that the bank were charging her daily interest. Then, once the overdraft was cleared, there were the credit cards, and the student loan, and the other loans . . . and really, it was just as well that the weekend had gone OK, because she needed Vaughn’s money, much more than Vaughn needed her.

  For a moment, when she got back to her flat, Grace felt fired up enough to maybe pull out one of the shoeboxes so she could do sums and make a plan of action, but just the mere sight of one pink box poking out from the side of the sofa made her stomach flip over. Housework was a more appealing option.

  Grace was on her knees, scrubbing the kitchen floor, when Lily rang. She knew it was Lily because her name popped up on the screen, although all she could hear was hiccuping.

  ‘Lily? You all right?’

  The hiccups morphed into snotty sniffs. ‘No, I’m not. You have to come round right now.’

  ‘Why? What’s up?’ If it was something to do with bridesmaids’ dresses or fricking centrepieces, then no, Grace really didn’t have to trudge over to Lily’s house, especially as there was a bonnet drama on BBC1 that evening and her video player was wonky. Maybe next month she could splash out on a DVD recorder or even a Sky+ box, once she’d paid off some of the overdraft . . .

  ‘Grace!’ It was an ear-perforating wail. ‘Please, please, please come over! I am freaking out so badly right now!’

  Grace dabbed at a mark on the lino that refused to budge. ‘Give me a clue at least. Bet it starts with a D.’

  ‘I’ll see you in ten minutes,’ Lily choked out, and hung up.

  Grace stopped at the convenience store that was exactly halfway between her flat and Lily’s Tufnell Park love nest, to buy ice cream and vodka. All of Lily’s problems could usually be soothed with Grey Goose and Häagen-Dazs.

  ‘Hey, cutie, turn that frown upside down,’ Grace drawled five minutes later, holding up the bottle of vodka when Lily opened the door.

  Lily burst into tears. She tried to say something, but it was impossible to understand with all the sobbing.

  ‘Hey, Lils. What’s up?’ Grace stepped over the threshold and gently nudged her arm. ‘What’s Dan done now?’

  It was a safe bet that Dan had done something heinous. Grace shut the door behind her and put an arm around Lily. ‘Come on, I’ll pour us a drink and you can tell me all about it.’

  Lily cried a little harder and resisted Grace’s efforts to lead her into the lounge. ‘No, bathroom,’ she choked.

  ‘OK, bathroom it is,’ Grace conceded, casting one covetous look around. Lily’s flat was gorgeous - a huge two-bedroom place that not even Lily’s bland décor by way of IKEA could ruin. Having a rich dad was wasted on Lily. If Grace’s father had bought her a flat, which was unlikely when he didn’t even send birthday cards, Grace would have painted the floorboards white, run up curtains from some vintage fabric she’d been hoarding for years, haunted car-boot sales and architectural salvage yards for exactly the right kind of pieces for each room and some wrought-iron furniture for the garden, which she’d carefully tend, rather than paving it over like Dan and Lily so they’d have somewhere to put their barbecue.

  ‘Grace! Why are you standing there like that?’

  Grace snapped to attention. ‘Sorry,’ she soothed, because Lily was still crying and this didn’t seem like a simple case of Dan staring at some random girl’s boobs for longer than ten seconds. ‘Will you please tell me what’s going on?’ she added, following Lily into the bathroom.

  ‘Look!’ Lily gestured wildly as Grace’s eyes swung this way and that. Dan had left a pair of boxers on the floor, which didn’t seem that terrible in the grand scheme of things, but on the sink surround . . .

  ‘Are those what I think they are?’ Grace enquired dubiously, staring at the little white sticks lined up in a row.

  Lily picked one of them up and waved it wildly, as Grace took a hasty step back. ‘I’m bloody pregnant, aren’t I?’ she spat. ‘Look!’

  ‘Don’t make me touch something you’ve peed on,’ Grace squeaked, peering at the stick and for what she guessed was a blue dot or a pink line or a picture of a baby. She was far too sperm-phobic to ever have had a pregnancy scare herself. ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Yes, I’m sure,’ Lily gritted, throwing the stick back down. ‘I knew I should have stayed on the pill.’ She had come off the pill because she was convinced it was making one of her breasts larger than the other.

  ‘But you were using condoms or a cap or something, right?’ Grace asked.

  ‘Usually, but sometimes we just got carried away and it would have killed the mood,’ Lily sniffed, sitting down on the edge of the tub. ‘You know what it’s like when you’re in the moment.’

  No, Grace didn’t, but she sat down next to Lily and put an arm round her. ‘Those home pregnancy kits can be totally suspect.’

  ‘I did twelve of them! And I’ve drunk about fifty litres of water! They can’t all be faulty. My period’s a week late. I’m never, ever late. It comes every twenty-nine days, except this month.’ Lily began to cry again. ‘And Dan was horrible about it, called me a stupid bitch and stormed out, like it was nothing to do with him.’

  At last Grace could empathise. ‘God, he really is a total wanker.’ She unscrewed the bottle of vodka and took a generous gulp, then offered it to Lily. ‘I think you need this more than me.’

  ‘I’m pregnant, Grace!’

  ‘Oh my God! You’re not going to keep it?’

  Lily almost vibrated off the bath in indignation. ‘It’s not an it, it’s a baby. Our baby.’ It sounded as if the tears were rallying for an encore performance.

  ‘Right now it’s just a few cells mushed together,’ Grace insisted, taking another swig of vodka. Lily should have called someone else, because this situation was stretching her limited people skills to breaking point. ‘Sorry, I don’t mean to sound so callous. This is just . . . Jesus, Lily. I don’t know what you want me to say. You’re pregnant!’

  ‘No, it’s all right,’ Lily said in a small voice. ‘Not like it’s going to stick around. I did some coke the night of the engagement party and I’ve been pissed at least five times since my last period. It will probably be born with foetal alcohol syndrome or something. I might have a crack baby!’

  ‘Don’t talk shit. When my gran was pregnant, the doctor told her to have a pint of Guinness every day.’ Which explained a hell of a lot. ‘And French women knock back the red wine when they’re pregnant.’

  ‘This was not part of the plan. Th
is is, like, skipping five pages of the plan. I’m not meant to be having a baby right now.’

  Grace hugged Lily a bit tighter. Her friend was so ethereal-looking and felt so fragile that it seemed impossible that she could be with child. ‘What plan?’

  ‘Y’know, the plan! Everyone has one and I don’t have a baby until I’m married and we’ve moved to an actual house in an area with good schools and I’ve been promoted twice at work so I’m a Beauty Editor and after I’ve had the baby, I can get freelance work or maybe even get a book deal to write one of those yummy mummy beauty books. I had it all worked out!’

  It was a plan. Maybe it was a little far-fetched in places, but still Lily, whom Grace’s grandmother had always described as ‘flighty’, had a plan.

  ‘Well, you might have to shift a few things around, but life never happens like you think it will,’ Grace said feelingly.

  ‘But this is not the right time,’ Lily wailed. ‘I can’t have a baby now. Dan and I kill plants, we forget to pick up our dry-cleaning and we’re always running out of milk. That’s why you have to stick to a plan.’

  ‘I don’t stick to a plan,’ Grace said. ‘Sometimes you have to kick it freestyle, Lils.’

  ‘But you must have, like, this timetable of stuff you want to do and when you want to do it by, like having kids and buying a flat.’

  ‘I’m never having kids,’ Grace said flatly. ‘And unless the property market keeps crashing so I can find a flat that costs five quid, I don’t really see flat-owning in my future. Honestly, Lily, I’m pretty much plan-free. I mean, I dream about finding the perfect black dress or being spotted by Marc Jacobs who asks me to style his ad campaigns, but that doesn’t really count, does it?’ Grace asked sheepishly. She’d been toying with the idea of coming clean to Lily, now that the weekend could be counted as a success, but Lily’s big life moments kept getting in the way. How could Grace tell Lily that her only plan was to be someone’s mistress for six months so she could pay off her creditors?

  Lily gave Grace a watery smile. ‘Thanks for trying to cheer me up.’

  ‘All part of the service,’ Grace assured her. ‘Oh God, why are you crying again?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Lily sobbed, and she even cried beautifully - tears clinging to her lashes before gently rolling down her cheeks. ‘I keep thinking all of these stupid thoughts, like what if I’m one of those women who can’t shift the baby weight, like ever?’

  Grace got up and held out her hand. ‘Let’s go and sit out in the garden. I have ice cream with Baileys in it. The alcohol content is pretty low so you should be OK.’

  Lily let herself be guided slowly through the kitchen as if she was just approaching the ninth month of a multiple pregnancy. Grace snagged a couple of spoons and they sat on Lily’s extremely naff but extremely comfortable canopied swing and gently rocked as they ate the rapidly melting ice cream.

  There wasn’t much Grace could say but she liked to think that just being there for Lily in a companionable silence was enough. Also, she was still trying to process the shock, because Lily didn’t ever fuck up. The fuck-up gene was missing from her DNA. And was it wrong to be gloating just a little bit that Lily had well and truly fucked up this time? Probably.

  ‘Is that top from Paul and Joe?’ Lily asked eventually.

  Grace looked down at her grey cotton smock. ‘Yeah, I got it at the sample sale last year.’ She chased a stubborn scoop of ice cream around with her spoon. ‘Too hot to wear anything clingy, isn’t it? God, this weather is so unBritish.’

  Lily nodded. ‘I called round for you last night but you weren’t in.’

  ‘Oh, I was working.’

  ‘Doing what?’

  ‘There was some wedding going on.’ Grace was just congratulating herself on not actually lying, technically speaking, when Lily gave an anguished sob.

  ‘I’m not going to get to have my special day now.’

  ‘You can move the wedding up, Lils.’

  ‘I’ve been planning my wedding since I was thirteen, and me waddling down the aisle wasn’t part of the picture.’

  ‘Look, it’s September now. You won’t be showing that much if you have the wedding in, like, November or December. That will still give you enough time to organise everything.’ Grace held up her hand to ward off the protests that Lily had good to go. ‘You might have to downsize a little, but it would be kinda cool to get to share your special day with it - the baby, I mean.’

  Lily nodded slowly. ‘I s’pose. I hadn’t thought about that.’

  Grace knew that she wasn’t a particularly good friend, that she never did the right things or said the right words or responded in the right ways. But just this once, she wanted to buck the trend. ‘Remember when we went to The Golden Age of Couture at the V and A and they had that gorgeous draped gown by Madame Grès? You get married in winter and we can find you something like that in a really heavy silk jersey and it will skim, not cling. You’ll look beautiful, Lily.’

  It worked. A proper smile was lighting up the other girl’s face for the first time that evening, chasing away the tear-tracks and the trembling bottom lip. ‘I do look good in white,’ she said. ‘Though maybe white would be pushing it. Do you think I could get away with ivory?’

  They sat in the garden until dusk started creeping in, bringing a slight chill with it. Grace made scrambled eggs on toast and they were broaching the ever-thorny topic of bridesmaids’ dresses when Dan stumbled through the door, full of apologies and mixed blooms from the garage.

  ‘I’m so sorry, babe,’ he blurted out, managing to look shamefaced, while simultaneously shooting death rays at Grace.

  ‘Let’s hope the baby gets Lily’s looks and her disposition,’ she hissed out of the side of her mouth, as she brushed past Dan.

  Life was happening all around her, Grace mused as she unlocked her front door. Lily would have the baby, her dad would buy them a bigger place, and no way would she come back to work. Grace’s visits with hand-knitted baby clothes would become less frequent and then Lily would disappear into the sunset with the other yummy mummies she’d met at her NCT classes. But for the first time, Grace didn’t feel like she was stuck where she was, being who she was, without any hope of ever changing.

  This thing with Vaughn wasn’t built to last, but while it did, Grace felt as if it was giving her the potential to change; to be the Grace she wanted to be or at least, more like the Grace she wanted to be. It wasn’t just the outside stuff, the spa-ing and the pretty clothes and the posh weekend breaks. It was being with a man like Vaughn, who’d obviously seen something in her that she still couldn’t see herself. If she took her cues from Vaughn, let him guide her, got used to being in his world, then it would all rub off on her. She’d have that glossy patina that the posh girls, the successful girls, the sophisticated girls had that was nothing to do with how shiny their hair was but came from walking in a world which was always good to them. Grace wanted the key to that magic kingdom and Vaughn could give it to her for the next six months - or until the next pretty girl caught his eye.

  Grace filled the kettle on auto-pilot, put a tea bag in a mug, got the milk out of the fridge and all the while she imagined the unspecified point of time in the future when Vaughn wouldn’t be able to recall her name or the shape of her breasts or what she’d been wearing the first time they met.

  The kettle boiled at the same time that the BlackBerry let out one impatient buzz. Grace picked it up and opened the email she’d just been sent.

  Please click on the link to view your travel itinerary for next weekend.

  Regards

  M Jones

  Grace clicked on the link and discovered that she was booked on a flight to New York at 7.30 p.m. the next Friday. She took a ruminative sip of her tea and winced as she burned her tongue.

  chapter sixteen

  Time seemed to speed up over the next few weeks so Grace felt as if she was always arriving, or leaving, but never staying still long enough to rememb
er to breathe in and out. Or get the eight hours’ sleep a night that she needed to resemble anything close to a human being the next day.

  Grace was so tired that she’d taken to napping at the spa when she was getting her hair and nails done. She’d even set up an alarm system with her two favourite interns so she could have a power snooze in the fashion cupboard first thing in the morning, as the rest of the fashion team rarely put in an appearance much before eleven. Kiki was still suspicious though, and didn’t have a good word to say about her hair. ‘I think I preferred the black,’ she’d sniped when she’d caught Grace fingering her newly restreaked hair in a meeting. ‘And I absolutely hated the black.’

  What with Kiki cranking the handle on the bitchometer, Lily overloading her with wedding prep and her contractually obligated dates with Vaughn, Grace was feeling a little ragged. But there were compensations. Not just the allowances, but the sleek black car that was always waiting to take her to work on the mornings after she’d been out with Vaughn. Or flying business class, not cattle class, on her three trips to New York, and staying in an Art Deco suite at the Plaza Athenée when they’d gone to Paris. It was all a blur really. When she tried to think back to the places she’d been, Grace could recall very few details, just the same things that kept cropping up over and over again. The delicate flutes of champagne, which now tasted as familiar to her as Diet Coke, the scent of expensive perfume as women she didn’t know leaned in to almost brush their lips against her cheek, the flat airless atmosphere of airport departure lounges.