'I don't suppose he called?' I asked hopefully.
Sophia shook her head. 'He will', she said.
'I'd probably leave it a while too', Tad said. 'You know, a day, maybe two. It's part of the game isn't it? To show that you're not overly keen.'
'He did give me his number, and I did leave it a week. Maybe I left it too long. I had to leave an answer-phone message.'
'I know', Tad said, 'Soph said.'
'Forget about it for now', Sophia said.
'You want to hang with us tonight?' Tad said. 'I think we're going to go and graffiti some shit on the road outside Tescos.'
'That's tempting', I said, 'but I think I'll pass, thanks though.'
'Sure', Tad said with a smile.
'I'm going to take a shower and chill out for a bit', I said. 'Put my life into order.'
What I meant by that really was panic a little bit about whether Devizes was going to call, and start to read through Fallen Away again, just in case he did, and I needed to adjust or change anything before presenting it to him.
I showered, scolding myself and freezing myself in equal measure, before I headed back to my room and dug a cardboard box out of the closet I hadn't revisited in over a year. It was a box filled with copies of my book I'd done absolutely nothing with, after ordering them proudly upon writing it.
My first novel. The cover showing a young boy and girl holding hands and walking through a park covered in a blanket of snow had cost me almost five hundred quid. I had to pay for a professional photographer to compose it, desperate to have something that perfectly represented the story, and a graphic designer to handle the layout. I must have thrown over a grand at the book in total, with hardly any success. A thousand pounds and maybe a thousand hours of writing. Ten times that to live it.
I didn't know how I felt about it now. It kind of felt like a burden, an embarrassment. A mark of shame in a career littered with other examples of failure, except I couldn't really call it a career, because I'd never been paid to do it. Maybe my parents were right, maybe I should give up and concentrate on something else.
I lay back in bed and opened it up. 'Fallen Away' by Alice Cartwright, dedicated to my mother and father, for whom love has always had a special meaning.
I smiled. I don't think either one of my parents really understood what I meant by that statement, intentionally masked as it was to be ambiguous. I folded back the spine, always a pleasure on a new book, even more so on one of your own, started at chapter 1, and began to read.
When the phone rang, it woke me up. I must have fallen asleep without realising it, but as soon as I heard the ring-tone, I leapt out of bed completely confused, wondering what the hell was going on. At first I thought it was an alarm for the morning, and then I realised it was someone calling me. The phone told me two things, it was just after ten o'clock, and the caller ID was protected.
'Hello', I said, as I answered it.
'Alice', Devizes said in a silky smooth voice that made him sound like a professional voice-over artist. 'Sorry to call you so late.'
'That's ok', I said. 'It's not late.'
'I've had a busy day, and couldn't get back to you earlier. Listen, how about dinner tomorrow night? Are you still free?'
'Dinner? Sure, I'm still free', I said. 'That sounds amazing.'
'Great. Shall we say eight o'clock?'
'Ok', I said.
'Excellent. Text me your address, and I'll send a car round to pick you up.'
'Erm, ok.' I said.
'Bring your book, and dress smart', he said. 'It's quite a fancy restaurant.'
'Smart', I said. 'How smart is smart?'
'Smart', Devizes said again. 'Think red carpet rather than playboy bunny.'
'Ok', I said, already panicking about what to wear. 'Got it.'
'Good', he said. 'See you tomorrow then. Don't forget to text me your address.'
'I won't forget', I said. 'See you tomorrow.'
Devizes clicked off, I took a deep breath and that was that. I had a date lined up for tomorrow with a gorgeous billionaire, and I couldn't wipe the smile off my face. Is this real? I allowed myself to think. I texted him my address immediately, and made sure I included specific instructions on how to arrive, which landmarks to watch out for, alternative transport options and emergency procedures, should he get lost at any point along the way, and clear details on the colour and location of my house. When I was done, the text message was almost five hundred characters long. It was the most I'd written for what seemed like months.
Chapter 6
I couldn't sleep well, and I didn't know what to do with myself all day. I guess I was far too excited to sleep, even though I told myself repeatedly, that there was no point in getting my hopes up, either for the man, or the possibility of getting my book published by a real, legitimate, recognisable publishing house. I was very careful to drill that message repeatedly into my brain.
Sophia slept until well into the afternoon - I heard her come back in the night with Tad and someone else, and then Tad and that someone else and Sophia going at it until early in the morning. Had I been able to sleep, it might have woken me up, but because I was already awake, it didn't make much difference to my night. In fact it made it much more entertaining than it would have been otherwise. Sophia treated sex in such an open minded way, I felt like a prude for not jamming my drawers with sex toys, and staying up all night myself, in some even more debauched recreation of the last days of Rome.
The someone else I saw in the morning, while I was getting my breakfast with tired eyes, and I had to do a double take because he looked a little like Marth. It wasn't him, thank god, but he had the same haircut and sloppy way of walking. Tad left a little later, shifty-eyed and obviously tired still from his efforts. I couldn't work out which of the two I'd heard barking at five o'clock in the morning like a whelped dog, but Tad certainly acted like he might have been embarrassed at letting himself go a little bit more than usual.
Sophia emerged from her bedroom a little later on, smiling mischievously, like a little cherub.
'I've got a date', I said, excitedly.
'No way', Sophia said.
She picked up a packet of cereal, brought it to the couch and began picking at the contents inside.
'Eight o'clock tonight, he's going to pick me up. I couldn't sleep', I said.
'I bet', Sophia said.
'What did you get up to last night?' I said, trying to divert the attention away from me, so I'd stop obsessing nervously about the date later on.
'Tad and I picked up a drifter', Sophia said, without any idea how weird that sentence was.
'A drifter?' I said. 'Sophia, are you kidding me?'
'Yeah well he wasn't a real drifter, not like a professional drifter or a bum or anything, but he was sort of drifting a little bit when we met him. I don't think he has much of a home.'
'And you brought him back here?' I said.
'Yeah', Sophia said with a smile.
'Eeoouuww', I said.
'He showered first', Sophia said, as if that made a difference.
'Have you got no morals?' I asked.
'I don't know. It seemed like a good idea at the time. He was hot. It was Tad's idea really anyway.'
'Tad's idea?'
'Yeah. Anyway. I'm excited for you! Where is he taking you?' Sophia said.
'I don't know. We're going for dinner. I have to wear something smart. Classy', I said.
'Have you got anything smart and classy?' Sophia said. 'You don't really do smart and classy.'
'I've got smart and classy', I protested.
'You mean you've got dresses?' Sophia said, confused.
'Yes.'
'I've never seen you wear a dress in my life, unless we're at work and they've provided it for you.'
'I love dressing up', I said. 'I don't do it much, but I still love it.'
'Cool', Sophia said. 'Have you decided what to wear then?'
'Yes, sort of. I was planning
to ask you actually. Would you be able to help me?' I said.
'Sure!' Sophia said.
Sophia wasn't the kind of girl that used to wear much of anything really, and I certainly hadn't seen her in anything classy or posh, but she had style, and I didn't have anyone else to help me anyway. Besides which, Sophia would tell me honestly whether I looked good or not - she wasn't the kind of person to blow smoke up my arse unnecessarily.
'Woah', Sophia said as she saw the mess I'd made in my room.
There were clothes everywhere. I'd emptied out my closet, every single drawer of the chest of drawers, and even gone through boxes and suitcases of old and rarely worn clothes, and every single one of those items sat in a heap on the bed.
'I'm having a bit of a problem', I said.
'I can see', Sophia said, tentatively lifting clothes from the pile.
She had in her hand a tie dyed mini skirt I'd purchased on a whim several years ago at a music festival and the look at her face told me everything I needed to know about what she thought about it. I snatched it away from her.
'That's not the kind of thing I had in mind', I said.
'What did you have in mind?' Sophia said.
'I don't know. Little black number? James Bond style jump suit? Mary Quant short skirt? Tartan?'
'You want to make sure you make the most of your best points. Both of them', Sophia said and held a dress from the pile against my chest.
'Sophia', I said, grabbing the dress from her and throwing it back to the bed. 'It's not all about tits.'
'You know I love your tits', Sophia said.
'Concentrate', I said. 'I'm in a real dilemma. I need to get this right. If I don't have anything here, I'll have to go and buy something.'
'What I mean', Sophia said, sorting through the clothes again. 'Is that you need something that shows off your figure. Your blue eyes and your blonde hair. How about this?'
She had a dress in her hand I hadn't worn for a long time. In fact, I had kind of forgotten I owned it.
'That's the kind of thing you need', Sophia said, putting it to the side for possible selection. 'Do you have anything more like that?'
'Possibly.'
Sophia looked at me.
'Probably', I said.
'We can forget about skirts, jeans or suits', Sophia said. 'Too cheap, too tacky or too formal.'
'Not classy enough?' I said.
'Not classy at all. What we need are dresses. Preferably 3/4 or full length. Open backed would be nice, off the shoulder even better. And something with a bit of colour, but we can do that with accessories.'
Sophia rooted through the clothes, dumping the ones she didn't think were suitable into a massive pile of nos, and the few that she thought were, into a tiny pile of yeses.
There were three dresses when she was finished. The one she'd found first, a light blue tightly fitting dress I'd worn to a friend's wedding years ago and worried was too tight now to fit, and my favourite, the one I had originally thought about wearing, a black figure hugging dress with an open back and split seam up the left leg. It was sexy, I knew it fit, and I knew I'd feel confident in it. The only thing was it didn't have any colour.
'Do you have shoes?' Sophia said, already looking for them.
I opened the trunk at the bottom of the bed for her.
'Which self respecting girl doesn't have shoes?' I said.
'I did wonder for a moment', Sophia said, and dived into the box.
I tried all three dresses on, several different shoe and accessories combinations, and each one with my hair up or down. It reminded me of the books I used to have as a child which had several pages of people all split into three sections so you could combine them any way you wanted. Sort of like the books they had at police stations in 80s detective films, for the victim to mock up the face of the attacker.
The overwhelming winner was the black dress, with a high heeled shoe (I didn't usually like wearing them because I had a tendency for clumsiness, but we both agreed that I wouldn't be walking much anyway so it was worth the risk), a subtle addition of colour through a silk throw borrowed from Sophia, eye-liner to bring out the blue in my eyes, a beautiful pendant my grandmother had left me in her will, and my hair up, tied off and styled by Sophia.
We had the practice run four hours before my lift was due to show up, so even though I was ready, and happy with the way I looked, I had to take it all off again and find something to do for the rest of the afternoon, to stop myself getting nervous. It didn't entirely work.
I hated not having anything to do but worry about how a date was going to go. I returned my room to its normal state, cleaned up the rest of the house, showered and then sat down in front of the TV, and it was still only 6 o'clock. Sophia had been watching me buzz about, full of nervous energy for most of the afternoon.
'Don't worry about it', she said. 'You weren't this nervous with Marth.'
'I know', I said.
'Is it the book thing?'
'I don't know', I said, trying to stop myself biting my nails. 'It could be that. It could be that he's hot as well, super hot.'
'And rich', Sophia added.
'Yeah', I said. 'And I'm super poor.'
'It works on TV', Sophia said encouragingly.
'And in books', I added.
'I suppose if it's meant to be, then nothing else matters does it?'
'I guess not', I said.
'So what if he has a million pounds in the bank.'
'A billion', I corrected her.
'An English billion or an American billion?'
'I don't know', I said. 'I can ask him that tonight for you.'
'What I mean', Sophia said, 'is that you don't need to feel inadequate. He obviously likes you, or he wouldn't be doing this. He doesn't know you haven't got any money.'
'He might do soon', I said.
'Yeah well, if that's the case, make sure you get as much out of him while you can!'
Sophia had such a different attitude to relationships. She could quite happily have a different man in her bed every day, fall in love with several different people all at once, and let those people quite happily carry on in open relationships with other woman, men too sometimes, while she just carried on with her life as normal. I wondered if the British in general were much more sexually repressed than the Americans, and we just couldn't take a risk to enjoy ourselves for fear of getting hurt. Sophia had told me she'd fallen in love several times before, but each one of those relationships had been open, and while supposedly in love with her boyfriend at the time, she'd slept with other people. I couldn't imagine a relationship of mine working that way.
'Do you want a drink before you go?' Sophia said. 'There's a Tesco own brand, super strength lager in the fridge if you want it.'
'I kind of do', I said, 'but I better not. Might ruin the look if I turn up smelling of petrol.'
'Fair enough', Sophia said.
'What are you doing tonight?'
'Tad knows some animal rights activists so I think we're going to join them on a raid somewhere. It sounds cool.'
'Sophia that's pretty serious.'
'I know, It's a subject I feel passionate about. You know how long I've been a vegetarian.'
'Yeah, two weeks.'
'I'd been thinking about it for a lot longer than that.'
'Just be careful', I said.
I had no idea where Sophia found these people. For some reason, they just sort of gravitated towards her.
'I'm going to get ready', I said.
'It's 6:15', Sophia reminded me.
'He might be early', I said. 'I'm going to run a bath and sit in it a while.'
'Don't play with yourself', Sophia said. 'Unless you want me to join you.'
'Do you ever stop thinking about sex?'
'Not often', Sophia said.
Finally, 8 o'clock rolled around. It rolled around and it rolled past, and I began to worry. At five past eight, I sat down, cursing myself for being so punctual. I c
ould already feel myself beginning to sweat, so I reapplied perfume and deodorant. I paced up and down and then I sat down. First at the kitchen table, then at the sofa, then on the arm chair by the window that looked out onto the street.
'Maybe he's caught in traffic', I said hopefully, my left leg jiggling uncontrollably.
'Maybe not everyone is as punctual as you are', Sophia reassured me.
At ten past eight I was beginning to think it had all been either a dream or a joke. I checked my watch, the time on my mobile, the time on Sophia's phone, and the time officially according to the internet. At what was 8:15 according to google, I considered phoning the talking clock. When the buzzer went, I nearly shit myself.
'Fuck, he's here', I said, going to the window. There was a black car parked downstairs, and a large looking man at the door.
'No shit', Sophia said.
The buzzer went again.
'Aren't you going to answer it?' Sophia said.
I picked up the intercom. 'Hello?' I said.
'Alice', came the voice from the other side.
'Yes', I said. 'On my way.'
I put down the intercom and turned to Sophia. I was so nervous, my hands were shaking.
'Do I look alright?' I said to her.
'You look great', Sophia said, 'don't worry about a thing, you'll be amazing.'
'I'm going', I said. 'Fuck it.'
'Your book?' Sophia reminded me.
I tapped my handbag and smiled. 'Already done.'
Sophia gave me a good luck hug, and a moment later I was on my own, descending the stairs to the front door extremely slowly, careful not to trip up, break my shoes or even worse, break my ankle on the way down.
The driver introduced himself as Jackson, opened the back door for me and held my hand as I climbed in. I didn't look up, but I knew Sophia would be watching me proudly from the living room window.
'Are we picking up Devizes too?' I asked. I'd kind of expected him to be picking me up himself, or at least be in the same car.
'He lives on the other side of London', Jackson said, 'so he's taking his own car, and he'll meet you at the restaurant.'
'Where is it we're going?' I said.
'Fuel, the restaurant's called', Jackson politely informed me.
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