‘My God,’ I said, looking at her in awe. ‘I’ve never seen you working so hard.’
‘You’ve never seen me working, full stop.’
I really couldn’t be happier about the whole, wonderful way that ‘project Barbara’ is shaping up, and the only teeny fly in the ointment which is detracting from her coming top of the class is . . . you’ve guessed it: Evil Angie.
The stupid cow is cast as Helena directly opposite Barbara, so they’re kind of a Tweedledum and Tweedledee pairing as far as the show goes. Now I can’t be 100 per cent sure, as I’m only going on the few titbits Barbara has let slip, but it seems that there’s a lot of old ham-actor tricks going on behind the scenes here. Again, hard for me to gauge as I haven’t had nearly the amount of gossip-time I’d normally get with Barbara, but she did mention that Evil Angie has taken to coming home early after rehearsals, too. And ‘running lines’ with Barbara. And asking had she any ideas about how the scene should be played? And then going into rehearsals the following day and passing off Barbara’s brilliant ideas as her own. This on top of her slavishly copying any interesting new character quirks and traits that Barbara starts introducing.
I haven’t sat in on a full rehearsal yet mainly because, with everything else that’s going on, I barely even get a chance to fight with Useless Builder these days. Plus Serena was far too polite to discourage me, but did mention that she’d be far happier if I stayed away until the cast were in a position to do a full, off-book run-through, in a few weeks’ time. Barbara rowed in here, too, and said she’d never be able to concentrate if I was sitting on a stool watching her. Four hundred people in the Iveagh Gardens looking at her doesn’t faze her but me on my own, apparently, does.
Anyway, I haven’t time to argue, so for now at least, I agree.
My progress to date. Well, there’s always one sent to the back of the class with a ‘must do better’ report to bring home, and guess what? As usual, it’s me. Needless to say, I’ve heard nothing from Peter since the infamous night of the PR dinner; he skedaddled out of there as soon as he reasonably could, presumably back into the arms of Clare, where I’m taking a wild guess he still is. Running their bloody language school together like some kind of TEFL Brangelina, good luck to them. Nor could Barbara and I even get in a decent on-the-spot post-mortem after he’d gone, on account of Charlie/Baldie still hanging out of her. And I was bursting to talk to her about Daniel, too, but had to wait until I could get her alone at brunch the next morning to really pick things through with a fine toothcomb.
So she went home with a guy and, typically, Cinders here went home alone. To the brand-new sheets that I had such high hopes were going to see a bit of action. Feeling very down in the dumps and despondent about the whole Peter situation, I blew the dust off my bed (you should have seen it, even Miss Havisham would have been mortified at the general mankiness), and snuggled under, with a copy of Laura’s Tattle magazine for company. A very different ending to what I’d thought the night promised.
Anyway, I flicked the magazine open at random and there was a feature on the new dating craze that’s sweeping through the States like wildfire, wait for it: eye gazing dating. Apparently, it’s the same principle as speed dating except that you don’t actually speak to the guy opposite you. The rules are, you just gaze into each other’s eyes and see if there’s a ‘non-verbal chemistry’. The theory is that by eliminating boring small talk of the ‘seen-any-good-movies-lately’ variety, you’re far more likely to find a guy you genuinely connect with on a physical level. Then there’s ‘read dating’, which is the same thing all over again except you are allowed to talk, hurrah for that, and it all happens in a bookshop. Except knowing me, some cute guy would catch me in the self-help section reading books with titles like 10 Reasons Why Single Women in Their Thirties End up Going Completely Batty, Why Singletons Die Alone and Unloved or suchlike.
Then I found a quiz on the back page called ‘Are You a Hopeless Romantic?’ You know, questions along the lines of:
Q: Do you know the lines from Four Weddings and a Funeral off by heart?
(Check.)
Q: Do you believe in love at first sight?
(Check, absolutely. It just hasn’t happened to me yet, that’s all.)
Q: Do you and your partner have a ‘special’ song?
(Not really, unless you count ‘Black Betty’ by Ram Jam, which my teenage boyfriend used to love moshing to. Eughhhh . . . even all these years on, I still shudder.)
Q: Have you given thought to what your wedding day will be like, even though you’re single?
(Are you kidding me? I even know what caterers I’ll use. And it’ll be in a marquee in my mum’s back lawn. With a proper mariachi band. And orchids everywhere. The poor groom, you’d almost have to feel a bit sorry for him, there won’t be a single decision left for him to make.)
Q: Ditto, how he’ll propose to you, even though you’re more likely to get selected for a random VAT audit/jury service than get a marriage proposal any time soon?
(I’m ashamed to say the answer is yes. Barefoot on a beach in Cancun, which he’ll just have whisked me off to on a surprise trip, to mark it being exactly six months between our last anniversary and our next anniversary.)
Oh for f**k’s sake, I thought, tossing the magazine aside and slumping back on to the pillows. Who am I kidding? Eye gazing dating and bloody read dating. Or else trawling through match.com trying to find a guy that’s under ninety-five, straight and still has both his kidneys.
That’s what I have to look forward to.
Chapter Twenty
A FEW DAYS after the infamous PR dinner, and I’m in a taxi on my way to the Best agency to sit in on a casting session with Amanda. Not that there’s a huge amount of actual casting involved. As with all commercials, we’ve gone through an agency that screens the models, whittles the list from dozens down to maybe fifteen or twenty, and puts them all on tape for us. So, technically, all we have to do is sit in Best’s editing suite (no, really, they even have an editing suite), narrow the field down still further, make our own notes and comments on what we’ve seen, then wait for Sophie’s ultimate seal of approval when she joins us for an afternoon meeting. It may sound doddley enough on paper, but believe me, if we get the mix wrong and somehow match the wrong model to the product, we’re done for.
And all of this, presumably, has to be approved by Daniel, too. Now that he’s back in town, so to speak.
Anyhoo, over that snatched brunch the day after the PR do, I did, however, finally get to dissect the whole night over with Barbara. In between her running to the gym and rushing home to study the text of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, that is. Her thoughts on the subject can be summarized as follows.
Any single men I might have a vague flicker of interest in have to be cleared through her. Butterfly Club non-negotiable rules. On this point, she’s rock-solid and as immovable as ever. In response, I pointed out that so far, so rubbish. Of the two potentials who did pass the Barbara Fox stringent quality-control tests, one turned out to be a virtual stalker: yes, Eager Eddie himself, who, unbelievably, is still calling and texting me, wanting me to go to another pipe band festival, this time on some remote island somewhere. He has to be the only man in living history that’s taking my completely and utterly ignoring him as a sign of deep interest. Honestly, I’d change my phone number, only the sheer amount of hassle involved is too much for me.
Then of course, there’s her second attempt at matching me up: Peter. Ex-Files himself. The less said the better. Although when I do raise this point to her she just says: ‘Don’t sigh and don’t do the head shake. At least you’re making progress. Slow progress, yeah, but then you can’t put a time-frame on finding a life-partner, can you? Look, Eager Eddie may have turned out to be a bit of an oddball, but in my defence, technically, on paper he seemed OK.’
‘How do you mean, on paper?’
‘Say you’d met him in an internet chat room, you’d have rung me, all buzz
ed, going: ‘Oh, I met this guy and he has a proper job, is straight and single and ticks all the right boxes.’ Hindsight is twenty-twenty. So now we know that he likely has a kid’s room in his house for his non-existent children, and that his idea of seducing a woman is to love-bombard her into submission, but you can’t hold me responsible for not being able to read his mind, now, can you? Then, with Ex-Files, you would have ended up like Princess Di, claiming that there were three of you in this relationship so it was a bit crowded. At least now you know that’s not what you want. And you were saved all the bother of having to go on Panorama.’
She’s right, of course. I am getting a helluva lot clearer with the universe about what I don’t want, although I probably could have had a wild guess at the outset that a guy still obsessed with his ex was a non-starter. It certainly would have saved us all a lot of bother, and don’t get me started on the small fortune I forked out on hair, nails, dress, shoes, new underwear, waxing, Frette sheets, tickets for the do . . . etc., etc. I could have had a weekend in Paris for far, far less.
‘I know,’ I say dully, sipping a latte that’s stone cold by now. ‘And in the cold light of day, of course, I don’t want to end up just sharing a suite of rooms in someone’s heart. Last night was such a disappointment, that’s all . . .’
‘That’s the girl. Diana herself couldn’t have put it better,’ she says, gathering up her bag and, I get the impression, only half-listening to me. ‘Right then, gotta go. Me and Angie are doing line-runs for the rest of the afternoon and I want to do a voice warm-up first. Vicky, remember my words. Dating is nothing more than a numbers game and we’re going to pump up the volume a bit here.’
‘Oh, right, OK then,’ I say, figuring this is my cue to just shut up and look forward to our next night of trawling yet more watering holes. I’m reluctant to pin her to a date, as she’s so busy with the show, but she did promise me that we’d go a-hunting in the not-too-distant future.
‘So, emm . . . we’ll hit the town again, soon?’ I ask hopefully as we both head outside.
‘Oh yeah, about that. Could we leave it until a night when I don’t have an early rehearsal call the next morning? It’s just I’d hate to turn up for work minging of alcohol and hungover as a dog. It would just be soooo unprofessional. That OK with you, hon?’
‘Oh, eh . . . yeah. Sure, no problem.’
‘Thanks, babe. I knew you’d understand.’
I have to say, this new über-career-focused Barbara takes quite a bit of getting used to. Time was, nothing, absolutely nothing came between her and a bar stool. And on the subject of Daniel Best, she’s an awful lot less positive than I’d hoped for, which puts me, if possible, into even worse humour.
‘Yeah, cute. Ish. I mean, if he were a seventies footballer, he’d be Kevin Keegan.’
‘That’s it? That’s all you have to say?’
‘I spoke to the guy for all of eleven seconds. What am I now, his biographer?’
‘Well, what about him buying me the spa voucher? Don’t you think that was a lovely gesture?’
‘Yeah, but then isn’t his whole company ethos to treat anyone who works for him like gods and goddesses so they’ll work even harder?’
‘Well, yeah, I suppose . . .’
‘I’m no farmer, but I can smell manure a mile off. You’ve been working your arse off for him and he’s keeping you on-side. Get over it.’
It’s at this point I decide that I actually miss the old Barbara. She was far less bossy and pontificating.
‘Vicky,’ she goes on, persisting in torturing me with what I don’t want to hear. ‘He talked to you for a few minutes, then he buggered off home.’
‘I know, but then, he did say that he was jet-lagged, and he did see me out on a date with someone else, for the second time, too . . .’
‘So? In theory, that should make any guy keener. I’m sorry, hon, I’m sure Daniel Best is great fun and everything, and in a perfect world we’d all love to see a squillionaire sweep you off your feet and take you into the sunset. Believe me, I hate to be the one to give you an emotional colonic, but the hard cold fact is . . . I just don’t think he’s interested.’
Which is why, when I do bounce into the reception of Best’s a few days later, I’m not fazed when the receptionist (oh soooo cute in a young Brad Pitt way, blond-tipped hair and biceps you could grate cheese on) says to me, ‘Oh, Miss Harper? If you have a moment before your meeting, could you pop up to Daniel’s office on the top floor? He asked me to send you up as soon as you came in.’
Right then, this is OK, I think, as I make my way across the marble floor to the lift, very glad I’m wearing my good Carolina Herrera black suit, and doubly grateful it’s been safely at the cleaners for the past few weeks. In a million years it wouldn’t have survived being next or near Useless Builder wielding his sanding machine like a lethal weapon and covering every stitch of clothing I possess with a layer of dust about an inch thick.
As I lash on a bit of lip-gloss the minute the lift doors glide shut after me, my mind races. Daniel can only want to see me because of the commercial, that’s all, I decide as the lift zooms skyward. I mean, what else can it be? Chances are Amanda and probably Sophie are both up here already, and we’ll have our regular meeting, same as always, just in Daniel’s office instead of the conference room, where we’d normally sit, stuffing our faces with all the free chocolate that’s always lying around. He’s been out of town for ages and now wants to be fully in the loop of what we’ve been working on. Yeah, that is by far the most likely scenario. Course it is.
But there’s absolutely no sign of anyone else at all when I do get up to the penthouse level. There’s just me and yet another ludicrously good-looking receptionist with shoes to die for, who ushers me into Daniel’s office with a toothy smile and a bright ‘Hi Vicky, he’s expecting you.’ I knock a bit tentatively and in I go.
And am almost blown away by the sheer, overwhelming size and scale of the room I’m in. No kidding, you could comfortably hold a party for fifty people here and it wouldn’t even seem crowded. There’s a huge heavy oak table with what seems like a dozen chairs neatly dotted around it, and a giant floor-to-ceiling window directly behind, with a large desk – so big you could probably sleep on it. And standing behind it, phone in hand, is Daniel. As cute/scruffy as always, in a comfy, fleecy tracksuit and trainers, looking, well, totally out of context with the magnificent opulence of the rest of the room. In a million years, you’d never think this man owned not only the company but the entire building as well. I overhear him saying brusquely down the phone, ‘Hey! Those are details! You’re the details person, you handle it.’ And it’s only then that I get a sneaky glimpse at a whole other facet to his character. The alpha male side. The side of him that built up all of this and is now most likely on the verge of going global. Apart from that, based on appearances alone, if someone told you he’d come to do the windows you’d almost believe them.
He grins at me in that cheeky way he has, and mimes at me to take a seat while he wraps up his phone call. Then, in one athletic movement, he comes round the giant desk and slides down on it right beside where I’m sitting. At least, it looked like an athletic movement, but then that could just be the tracksuit throwing me off. He’s almost in my body space, but not quite.
‘Sorry about that, just had to do a bit of troubleshooting.’ He smiles, then waves all around him. ‘So, whaddya think?’
‘Wow,’ is all I can say. ‘In fact, I’ll see that wow and raise it to a wowee. Daniel, I’m not messing, it’s like Monty Burns’s office in The Simpsons.’
‘Excellent,’ he says, launching straight into a perfect Mr Burns impression. “Smithers, release the hounds.”’
I giggle, then remember I still haven’t the first clue why he wanted to see me.
‘So . . . emm . . . did you enjoy Saturday night?’ I ask tentatively. Half-wondering who he was with. A girlfriend, maybe?
‘Oh, yeah, I wanted to say sorry for ru
shing off so early, but there was a very good chance I’d have fallen over with the tiredness if I’d stayed any longer. The gang of lads who dragged me along keep telling me I was no crack at all.’
Not with a girlfriend, then.
At least not that night.
‘Then there was the small matter of that crappy wine they were serving. I wouldn’t shampoo a dog with it. So as soon as my mates started ordering more of it, I figured it was time to go. Besides I must have been punch drunk with tiredness, when I woke up the next morning I realized I’d only spent about ten grand on a romantic holiday in some posh hotel somewhere.’
Now that sounds like a single-man statement if ever I heard one, I think, getting more and more hopeful by the minute. I mean, if he had a GF, wouldn’t he just say something like: ‘Oh, Mary-Lou’s delighted with the fab, luxury mini-break I bought for her.’ He would, wouldn’t he?
Then he produces an envelope from the top of his desk and slides it over to me.
‘I left without giving you this, by the way,’ he smiles. ‘Enjoy every minute of it.’
Oh my God, it’s the spa voucher. Suddenly I remember my manners.
‘You know, I can’t thank you enough for buying this, Daniel. It was such a ridiculously expensive gift . . .’ I begin. But he cuts me off in the midst of all my ‘you shouldn’t have’s and ‘there was no need’s.
‘Hey, I’ve been in touch with Sophie Boyd and she’s really thrilled with you, and with everything you’re doing. And so’s everyone else here, too. So, just my small way of saying thank you, that’s all.’
Do You Want to Know a Secret? Page 24