Unsticky

by Sarra Manning

  It was impossible to remain tight-lipped when Kiki’s eyes had to say everything that her facial muscles couldn’t. Her eyes were currently saying, ‘Tell me, or I’ll have you filling in Customs forms until you’re ready for retirement.’

  ‘Five thousand for the allowance, two thousand for clothes and I have membership to this spa. It’s why I’ve been taking lunch-breaks - you wouldn’t believe how much personal grooming I need,’ Grace added rashly, because Kiki was giving her the oddest, most unnerving look. Like she was trying to circumnavigate the frozen face to show surprise. ‘I know it’s a lot of money. Like probably too much money, but—’

  ‘And I imagine that at least twice a month you have to go to a gala or a ball and you need the kind of dress that you’re not going to find in TopShop - formal, floor-length, ready-to-wear though you could get away with couture. And obviously you can’t wear the same dress twice. Then there’s cocktail dresses, day dresses, at least two pairs of designer jeans, bags, shoes, really good costume jewellery and a new coat every month. Coats are very important. They’re all about that first impression . . .’ It seemed as if Kiki was lost in her own private daydream, she’d even shut her eyes, but then she opened them again so she could fix them on Grace. ‘I bet you have to use all of that monthly allowance too. In fact, how the hell are you managing on just seven thousand a month? Even fifteen grand would be a stretch.’

  ‘Are you kidding?’ Grace asked incredulously. ‘It’s a huge amount of money! It’s like I was earning an extra eighty grand a year.’

  ‘So, you’ve got money left over to spend on wool and sweeties every month, have you?’

  ‘Well, no . . .’

  ‘And just how rich is he anyway?’

  ‘I don’t know. I mean, I guess he’s really rich,’ Grace said helplessly, because talking about Vaughn’s money and how much of it he had felt so tacky. The Business-Class travel, chauffeur-driven cars and fancy hotel suites were testament enough to Vaughn’s riches, but once when she was waiting for him to finish a call so they could go out to dinner, she’d heard him say, ‘Push him up to twenty-five if you can, but I won’t go under twenty-three.’

  Grace had thought he was talking thousands, until she’d glanced at the pad Vaughn was doodling on, counted up the noughts and realised he was talking millions. So even if his commission was only ten per cent, he’d cleared over two million just on one phone call. ‘Really, really rich,’ she amended.

  ‘Then he’s undercutting you,’ Kiki said flatly and God, she was loving this, Grace could tell.

  ‘He’s not. He’s been very generous.’

  ‘Oh, he’s been very generous and I bet he’s got a nice bridge he could sell you too,’ Kiki said, and this time she did cackle. ‘Please tell me you at least tried to negotiate with him, Gracie.’

  ‘Of course I didn’t! He’s giving me more money every month, in cash, than I’ve ever seen and he’s taken me to Paris and Miami and we’re going to Whistler for Christmas.’ And the thought of that made Grace remember why she was having this bizarre heart-to-heart with Kiki in the first place. ‘I get that Lily’s upset, but I don’t know how she could say all that stuff about me,’ she burst out.

  ‘She’s a lovely girl but rather stupid,’ Kiki announced. ‘But really, Grace, why didn’t you just tell people you’d bagged a rich boyfriend, instead of being so secretive?’

  It was another freaky aspect to an exceedingly freakish day: Kiki being nice and understanding and making complete sense.

  ‘Do you think Maggie will go to HR?’ Grace asked anxiously. ‘What did you say to her?’

  ‘That you and Lily were both silly, self-dramatising girls and we should leave you to sort it out between the two of you,’ Kiki recalled with relish. ‘You know, Grace, this is the first bit of initiative you’ve shown. Of course, we all noticed that your hair no longer looked as if it had fallen on your head from a great height and Courtney said you were spending a lot of time in the cupboard on a BlackBerry, but we all thought you were looking for another job.’

  Grace raised her eyebrows. She’d imagined that her day-to-day doings were not worthy of speculation. ‘I’m not,’ she assured Kiki. ‘I love Skirt, you know that, right?’

  ‘Don’t think for one moment that just because I approve of your expedient relationship, you can start angling for a raise. Or a promotion, for that matter,’ Kiki snapped - and it was almost comforting that she’d put her bitch back on.

  ‘I didn’t tell anyone because I thought they’d judge me,’ Grace explained, and her shoulders sagged a little. ‘Bit late for that now though.’

  ‘They can judge you all they like, but there aren’t many options for girls like us who are expected to maintain a certain lifestyle and don’t have huge trust funds,’ Kiki said bitterly. ‘When I met Charles I was living on spaghetti hoops and fashion party canapés. I’ve been poor and I’ve been rich, and rich wins out every time. So don’t you dare let any of those girls look down on you when they’re being bankrolled by their families.’

  Grace had never heard Kiki sound so passionate about anything that wasn’t fashion-related. She knew her real name was Kimberley and Kimberleys didn’t usually have huge, unearned incomes, so maybe Kiki did know where she was coming from because they came from exactly the same place.

  ‘It’s really hard sometimes when everyone runs out to get twenty-pound boxes of sushi and they think I shop at Primark as some kind of fashion statement,’ Grace said.

  Kiki leaned back in her chair and looked at Grace thoughtfully. ‘Your problem is that you have to overcomplicate everything. Your outfits, your copy, your styling, your faux relationships - you’re always adding too many embellishments, when you should just keep it simple. Simple is always better. As I just said, if you’d told people you’d bagged a filthy rich boyfriend from the start, then none of this would have happened.’

  It was the first piece of really constructive criticism that Grace had ever had from Kiki. ‘I suppose I should have,’ she agreed. ‘It would have made everything so much easier.’

  ‘Well, “rich boyfriend” has a more respectable ring than “sugar daddy”. I’m sure they’ll all get over the shock eventually.’ Kiki looked pointedly at Grace, then at the door. ‘Go on, shoo!’

  Grace got up, grabbed the boots, which Kiki was pointing at with an imperious finger and steeled herself for what lay behind the office door.

  It was obvious they’d all been talking about her because as Grace emerged, the chatter stopped and everyone appeared to be typing industriously. Which wasn’t something that happened very often in the Skirt office.

  Grace sat down at her desk, aware that the entire fashion department and most of features were half-expecting George, the security officer, to appear and escort her from the premises. She made an extravagant show of pulling out her BlackBerry and hit no 1.

  Vaughn answered on the third ring. ‘Grace, if you’re about to launch into another fit of hysterics about Christmas, I don’t want to hear it.’

  Grace gritted her teeth. ‘Yes, it’s me,’ she cooed, knowing that everybody was listening. ‘I just wanted to thank you again for taking me to Miami this weekend. It was wonderful.’

  ‘Are you on crack?’ It was a perfectly reasonable question, Grace thought as she racked her brains for something to say that would let the entire office know that she was dating a rich man and wasn’t a prostitute. Besides, it would mean she no longer had to hide her weekend case in the postroom or keep extolling the virtues of mineral make-up.

  ‘Yeah, I miss you too,’ she sighed loudly. ‘Now don’t forget you were going to email me with some Christmas gift suggestions for your mother ’cause I’m drawing a total blank.’

  ‘As she’s been dead for ten years that might be a little difficult,’

  Vaughn said dryly, but Grace could hear his voice softening slightly. Like he was amused and intrigued, against his better judgement. ‘I take it that all festive obstacles have been removed?’
>
  ‘All but one. I’m going to get on that now.’ She dropped her voice to a whisper so she could add: ‘But I’m still really, really mad at you. And I’ll wear whatever colour tights I bloody well want to.’

  Vaughn had something to say about that, but Grace didn’t care to hear it. Instead, she hung up and went to the cupboard to call her grandmother. The day couldn’t get any more horrific so it was as good a time as any to categorically state for the record that Worthing would have to manage without her over Christmas.

  chapter twenty-one

  When she woke up on 23 December, Grace was still tired and aching from the night before. She’d been to Vaughn’s Christmas party, held at the gallery and, thankfully, arranged by his staff rather than herself, as she’d already hosted two dinners in London and New York for favoured clients. They’d been formal affairs in trendy restaurants, but the gallery party had been a strange cross between a sophisticated art soirée and an office knees-up.

  Madeleine Jones’s teenage emo daughter had been a really amusing diversion and Piers had got pinker and gigglier the more he drank, and he’d even tried to foxtrot with Grace in the back office when they’d gone to get some more glasses. It had felt a lot like fun until an hour into the party, when Madeleine had been despatched to Grace’s side to tell her that Noah had arrived, already half-cut, and in dire need of a babysitter.

  Since the dinner-party, Grace had seen Noah and Lola across the room at a couple of crowded parties. She’d spoken to Lola both times but only waved at Noah, though they were Facebook friends. That might have been why he’d greeted her like they were buddies from way back when she’d hurried over to the bar where he was trying to persuade the server to let him take a bottle of whisky.

  ‘Gracie, I can’t get through this sober,’ he said, mournfully scratching what looked like three days’ worth of stubble on his chin. ‘Vaughn hasn’t stopped glaring at me, even though I put a suit on.’

  The suit consisted of a pair of paint-splattered jeans, an old Ramones T-shirt with a tie half-knotted round his neck and a blazer, complete with school logo stitched on the pocket. ‘Vaughn’s not glaring,’ Grace lied, though he was definitely scowling. ‘Why don’t you start with just a couple of shots of whisky and I’ll introduce you to some people.’

  Then Grace had wheeled Noah around the room, pausing to talk to a couple of Vaughn’s pet artists, then she’d snuck him on to the roof terrace so he could have a cigarette. He kept calling her sweetheart and teasing her about how her voice went up a couple of notches every time she talked to someone important, and Grace had let herself flirt back. Just a little, because for once it was nice to have some simple, uncomplicated boy do a little simple, uncomplicated flirting that wasn’t going to go anywhere. Not until Noah had tried to stick his hand down the front of Grace’s draped Derek Lam dress.

  Grace had gently intercepted his paw. ‘Dude, you’re completely pissed and tomorrow you’ll realise that trying to grope me was a bad move.’

  ‘You and him exclusive then?’ he asked, breathing whisky fumes in Grace’s face. ‘You just being sweet to me because you’re under orders?’

  ‘I’m a sweet girl,’ Grace had insisted. ‘And I’m Vaughn’s girl so nothing’s going to happen. Anyway, what about Lola?’

  Noah shrugged. ‘We have a communist relationship, you know?’

  Grace didn’t know, but she doubted it was anything to do with Marx or Lenin, and she didn’t want to ask Noah what he was talking about and have him think she was stupid. ‘Whatever. Let’s have one more cigarette than we have to go back downstairs.’

  Noah had backed off and they’d huddled against the wall as they’d shared Grace’s last Marlboro Light, Noah’s bulk shielding her from the bitter wind. He had the build of a boxer who was on the verge of going to seed, but apart from that, he was precisely the sort of cocky, toxic bad boy that Grace used to throw herself at. It wasn’t that her tastes now ran to richer, older and better groomed. It was more like she just didn’t dare.

  Especially when she’d seen Vaughn standing on the path a little distance away from them. It was too dark to see his face, but there was something very purposeful and still about the way he stood there which made Grace slide a few inches away from Noah.

  ‘Grace, I need you,’ he said mildly.

  He hadn’t moved as Grace hurried towards him, her breath crystallising in front of her. Vaughn followed her back on to the landing and, as they passed his office, he’d suddenly grabbed her wrist and pulled her inside. Didn’t say a word, but pushed her up against the wall and kissed her with more passion than he’d shown her for weeks.

  Now, hours later, as Grace hopped from foot to foot in the icy-cold bath in her icy-cold unheated bathroom, she saw that she had bruises on her hipbones from where she’d been pressed against the edge of his desk as Vaughn had fucked her. Not that she’d minded at the time. God, she’d moaned and whimpered until Vaughn had put his hand over her mouth because she was making so much noise and Noah was still out on the terrace. And when he’d done that, Grace had come faster and harder than she ever had before.

  Since the row in Miami their entente had been less than cordiale - in fact it was as chilly as the cold December nights - but Grace’s body had been so well trained, that just a firm stroke from Vaughn’s hand or a whispered suggestion in her ear and it knew it was in for a treat. Which was infuriating.

  Her life was definitely better since she’d met Vaughn but it was also a lot more complicated.

  Grace’s phone started ringing at the exact same moment that she had to leave if there was any hope of making it to Victoria to get the midday train to Worthing. She hoped it might be Lily finally getting over herself and calling to thank Grace for the £500 espresso machine she’d bought as a wedding gift with a loan she’d got from a finance company advertising on Facebook. December’s allowances had run out around the fifteenth, despite all her creative solutions to the problem of party dresses. There had also been Christmas presents to buy and that old gnawing ache in her stomach that didn’t go away even when she had brushed the dust off her credit cards, so she’d faxed the loan company her latest pay slip and they’d given her £2,000, most of which she’d blown on a Bottega Veneta bag she couldn’t even bear to look at now.

  Private number was flashing on Grace’s phone so it could be Lily, Grace thought as she answered with a tentative, ‘Hi?’

  ‘Hi! Is that Grace?’ asked a friendly voice, so obviously it couldn’t be Lily.

  ‘Yup, who’s this?’

  ‘Ms Reeves, I’m calling from North South Finance. We’ve sent you several final demands and left several messages for you about immediate repayment of—’

  Grace’s first instinct was to throw the phone at the wall. Hard. ‘I’ve never heard of you,’ she squeaked.

  ‘We took over your debt from two of your credit card—’

  ‘How can you do that? That can’t even be legal!’ Grace yelped as she shrugged into her Burberry Prorsum coat. ‘Anyway, I’ve started paying off my cards. So if you tell me which one it is, I’ll pay a thousand off next month. On the first, I promise.’

  ‘We tried to contact you by email and post but, Ms Reeves, you’ve accrued so much interest and penalty charges that I’ve been instructed to call in the entire amount. I need an immediate payment of just over four thousand pounds or we’ll have to use a collection agency to recover . . .’

  Grace went with her first instinct and hung up. Then she switched off the phone, got on her knees and shoved it as far under the sofa as she could.

  Vaughn had withdrawn his offer of a car to take her down to Worthing, but Grace wasn’t that bothered about having to take the train. It didn’t hurt to have a reminder that just as Vaughn gave, so Vaughn could take away as the mood suited him. Still, it was a mad scramble to make the train with two heavy suitcases, and it took most of the journey to Worthing before Grace stopped feeling as if she was about to hurl, though she didn’t know if it was her hangov
er, the phone call she’d just taken or terror at the ordeal that lay before her.

  Grace felt her skin grow clammy as she rehearsed The Speech. She’d been working on The Speech for fifteen years, like most people rehearsed their Oscar acceptance. The Speech would succinctly and scathingly reduce her mother to tears, before she admitted that she’d got back in contact, not for Grace’s benefit, but just to make herself feel better. Then she’d get on the plane back to Australia and that would be that. Over. Done. Never to be heard from again after Grace had delivered The Speech in all its awe-inspiring, terrible beauty.

  But when Grace was ushered into the front room, normally reserved for non-family guests, all she could manage was a wave limper than her own second-day hair and a muttered, ‘Hi.’

  Grace’s gaze rested on her mother for two seconds before she lost her nerve but it was long enough to take in a tanned blonde with a slightly anxious smile. She felt her body give a quick jerk of recognition even though her grandparents had taken down all the photos when Grace had first come to live with them. All she had were hazy mental pictures of a thin, pale woman with mousy hair and a harried face, so the woman kneeling in front of the fire was an anomaly and Grace’s memories and grudges shifted and rearranged themselves to account for this slightly plump woman who had eyes the same colour as her own. She was holding a wriggling child in a ballerina outfit on her lap. ‘Look, Kirsty, it’s your big sister, Grace.’