by Mandy Baggot
‘Morning! I thought I was going to have to come up and wake you for a change. Come on, come and sit down - I’m making scrambled eggs,’ Cleo announced, pulling a chair out for her sister.
‘What d’you want?’ Samantha asked her.
‘Oh Sam, you don’t mean that. Does there have to be a reason for your big sister to cook you breakfast?’ Cleo enquired as she rapidly stirred the eggs.
‘Well, you’ve never done breakfast before and the last time you tried to poison me with an impromptu dinner you wanted me out of the house for a whole weekend,’ Samantha reminded her.
Cleo went quiet and turned her body towards the cooker, hiding her face behind her hair.
‘I could tell you were keeping something back last night. You listened to me telling you all about Darren and the concert, but there was something else on your mind wasn’t there? Well, just get it over with. What do you want? I have an office I can sleep in now if you need me away for a night,’ Samantha reminded her as she took a sip from the mug of tea that was on the table.
‘Jeremy and I had a talk last night, before you came home, about our relationship and other things,’ Cleo stated.
‘That’s nice. Was that before, after, or during the shagging? I didn’t realise you talked and had sex - this is something new for you,’ Samantha spoke sarcastically.
‘Sam! Stop it!’ Cleo exclaimed, plugging her ears with her fingers as Samantha mentioned the ‘S’ word.
‘Sorry, go on. What was this earth shattering pillow talk you need to share with me?’ Samantha asked her.
‘We want to live together,’ Cleo said hurriedly.
The tea she’d just put in her mouth caught in her throat before she had a chance to swallow it. She began to cough violently, leaning over the table and gasping for air.
‘Sam! Are you OK? Breathe! Here, have some more tea,’ Cleo ordered, hurrying over to the table, picking up the mug and offering it to her sister.
Samantha caught her breath and took hold of the mug, gulping down the tea as fast as she could. When she had recovered enough she took a deep breath and looked at her sister with a serious expression.
‘Did I really hear what I thought I heard or are my ears still ringing from the concert?’ Samantha asked her.
‘What did you think you heard?’ Cleo enquired sheepishly.
‘I thought you said you and Jeremy want to live together. But I couldn’t have heard that could I because you’ve known him like five minutes!’ Samantha spoke, her voice high pitched.
‘It’s two weeks actually and I know it seems fast, but he really is different from any other guy I’ve dated before,’ Cleo told her.
‘And do you know how many times I’ve heard you say that?’ Samantha exclaimed.
‘It’s different this time,’ Cleo replied.
‘Oh I see! OK, so where’s this living together going to take place? Has Jeremy got a pad? Or were you thinking of having him move in here?’ Samantha questioned frantically.
‘Well, I’m not sure. We need to talk about it and consider the options,’ Cleo stated.
‘Well I’ll make it easy for you. I’m not having a guy you’ve only known a week living here,’ Samantha told her firmly and she got to her feet.
‘It’s two weeks,’ Cleo reminded.
‘Whatever.’
‘But you wouldn’t be able to afford the bills here on your own,’ Cleo exclaimed concerned.
‘No, I wouldn’t. But don’t let me stand in the way of your plans. By the way, your eggs are burning,’ Samantha said as she turned away from her sister and left the room.
Cleo ran over to the cooker and hurriedly took the pan of blackened scrambled eggs off the heat.
At the hall Samantha couldn’t concentrate on her work. Everything in her life was just falling apart. For years her life had been settled, routine, comfortable and safe. Now in such a short space of time every area of it was breaking down. She might lose her job and her beloved Civic Hall and she might also lose her sister and her home to a brogue-wearing estate agent. And then there was Jimmy. An infatuation she just couldn’t seem to ignore. He was being so nice to her and helping her more than anyone had ever helped her, but it was turning into torture. She was starting to like him more and more and the longer she spent with him the worse it got. She held his hand and he touched her every night when they skated, but that was all it was - it was just skating. And that fact hurt, because she knew, even though she shouldn’t, she desperately wanted it to be more.
She had been devising the new menus all morning and she had called a staff meeting for the afternoon to let everyone know about the changes. Tyrone, the computer expert, had called earlier and he was coming back the following day to upload the website and implement the online booking. Now she was chewing her pen and looking at the piece of paper in front of her. It was a mixture of writing, starting off with Jimmy’s erratic scrawling and ending with her small, neat and ordered writing. It was supposed to be notes for her speech at the council meeting, except she hadn’t added to it in over an hour. She didn’t know what to say, her mind was full of stuff it shouldn’t be full of. She put pen to paper and wrote ‘menus’. Oh, who was she trying to kid? There was no way she was going to pull this off. Most of the ideas came from an ice skater. If she was capable, if she was destined to be the manager, she should be able to handle this on her own. But she couldn’t, she was useless.
There was a knock on the door of the office.
‘Come in,’ Samantha called with a heavy sigh.
The door opened and Jimmy appeared, shaking a brown bag at her. Great, that was all she needed, someone kind, considerate and fit to distract her.
‘I’ve brought some lunch. Have you got time? I thought we could go through the speech,’ he suggested, stepping into the room.
‘I haven’t really got time, I…’ Samantha began to protest.
‘I bought it all in the restaurant, I’ve got baguettes, tuna mayo, I’m told that’s your favourite. I’ve got diet Coke and I’ve got cheesecake,’ Jimmy told her and he got out all the food and lined it up on Samantha’s desk.
‘Is that chocolate cheesecake?’ Samantha queried, leaning forward to sniff the food.
‘The very same. Mabel tells me on one particularly bad day, involving a bust up with the conductor of a children’s choir and one of the judges of a dog show, you had three pieces of this stuff. On that recommendation I can’t wait to taste it,’ Jimmy spoke, opening the lid of the box and letting the aroma escape.
‘Goodness, let me have it. I missed breakfast,’ Samantha said, reaching for the pudding.
‘I take it you’re not having a good day,’ Jimmy remarked.
‘I’ve been busy. I’ve sorted out the new menus and ordered the stock, I’ve dealt with some of the backlog of administration that Dave left behind, Tyrone’s been on the phone and he’s almost finished the website and then I’ve been staring at this piece of paper. This is supposed to sum up everything the council needs to know to make them save the hall and all it represents is what desperate trouble I’m in,’ Samantha remarked as she spooned cheesecake into her mouth.
‘It’s still two days away,’ Jimmy spoke, sinking his teeth into a baguette.
‘Two days! Exactly! Only two days and look at it - look at me!’ Samantha exclaimed.
‘Relax, it’ll be fine,’ Jimmy stated.
‘Relax! Yes I have plenty of time to do that! I’m trying to run the hall, change the hall, save the hall and on top of the hall stuff, my sister wants a guy she’s only known a week to move in with us,’ Samantha told him, her breathing becoming erratic.
‘Whoa! Go Jeremy,’ Jimmy commented, putting down his food.
‘Yes, Jeremy. Jeremy she has known for five minutes. It isn’t about him being very irritating and leaving his shoes in the middle of the hallway, it’s about her and how she always jumps headlong into things without thinking about them,’ Samantha continued.
‘And what would be the al
ternative? That she moves out?’
‘Yes and she knows that I couldn’t afford all the bills and expenses on my own - even more so when I make a complete pig’s ear of this speech, the council close down the hall and I lose my job,’ Samantha informed him as she finished off the cheesecake.
‘Well, from what you’ve told me about Cleo, which is quite a lot, the whole idea will probably have been forgotten by next week. She’ll probably even be with a new guy,’ Jimmy suggested.
‘I don’t know why I’m telling you all this,’ Samantha said and she picked up Jimmy’s portion of cheesecake and began to eat it.
‘Because I’m a good listener. Come on, put the cake down. Let’s go and do some skating,’ Jimmy spoke and he took the pudding from one hand and grabbed the fork from the other.
‘I can’t, I have a tonne of things to do and besides won’t the other skaters be practicing on the rink?’ Samantha asked, checking her watch.
‘Rehearsal’s at three and I think you need to do something to take your mind off things. By the way, I’ve fed Gobby, he sniffed me out and came scratching at my dressing room door earlier. Mabel let me have cottage pie,’ Jimmy told her.
‘Oh no, not cottage pie. He doesn’t like cottage pie, he doesn’t like anything with mince in,’ Samantha exclaimed, standing up.
‘Really? Well he wolfed it down, licked the bowl clean and then had seconds,’ Jimmy informed.
‘He’ll probably be sick, and he’ll probably do it outside the front doors. He always does it there, and I’ll have to clean it up because Jane’s allergic to other people’s vomit and Felicity has a no vomit clause in her contract and then it will smell, probably for a week and…’ Samantha began.
‘He’ll be fine, Sam. Come on, take a break, come and skate,’ Jimmy urged.
Samantha let out a sigh, picked up the portion of cheesecake from the desk and spooned the remainder into her mouth.
Twenty minutes later the two of them were skating round the ice rink, practicing the routine Jimmy had taught her.
‘You really are a good skater you know and a real quick learner,’ Jimmy remarked as they moved around the ice.
‘I’m not good, not like Dana. She’s a wonderful skater, I never get bored of watching her in the show,’ Samantha remarked.
‘She could have been very successful. I mean we were successful as a partnership for a while, but after the world championships and the fall, she’s never really trusted me again, not one hundred percent,’ Jimmy answered.
‘What happened?’ Samantha wanted to know.
‘Well, we had a difficult move at the end of our routine and she just didn’t get her feet in the right position. I picked her up, her blade cut my chin open and she fell and hit her head on the ice. She had ten stitches, I had six,’ Jimmy explained, pointing to his scar.
‘Oh, dear,’ Samantha stated.
‘She refuses to do any lifts or spins with me where there’s an ankle hold now. Anyone else partnering her and she’ll do anything - she just doesn’t trust me,’ Jimmy spoke.
‘Then why does she skate with you at all?’ Samantha queried as they changed direction on the ice.
‘Because we were famous as a couple and that was where our success was. People expect to see us together. I know if it was down to her she’d never skate with me again,’ Jimmy explained.
Samantha span around on one leg and then came to a halt, slightly out of breath.
‘That was really good! But the way to really find out if you know the steps is to do it blindfolded,’ Jimmy informed her.
‘Yeah OK, very funny,’ Samantha replied.
‘I’m serious,’ Jimmy told her.
‘I can barely stay on my feet, I can’t skate with a blindfold on,’ Samantha told him.
‘Do you trust me?’ Jimmy asked her.
‘What sort of a question is that?’ Samantha responded a cough rising in her chest.
‘A straight one. Come on, I won’t let you injure yourself,’ Jimmy assured her and he took off his sweater, leaving his top half covered by a tight t-shirt.
It was blue! Oh goodness it was blue again! It was a nice, light blue colour which really complemented the lovely hair and clung to his body perfectly, emphasising its perfection.
‘I trust that you wouldn’t deliberately injure me, but you don’t have any control over me injuring myself,’ Samantha told him, trying not to stare at his chest through the very thin material.
‘I know you can do this,’ Jimmy told her and he put the sweatshirt over her eyes and tied it together at the back of her head.
‘I can’t do it. Are you crazy?! Where’ve you gone? Don’t leave me here like this,’ Samantha shrieked suddenly realising Jimmy was being serious when the sweatshirt was tied across her eyes.
She was back feeling five years old again, playing Blind Man’s Buff. She hated that game, once she had fallen over and stuck the pin in Cleo’s arm at Lucy Jackson’s party.
‘I’m just going to restart the music,’ Jimmy said as he skated over to the edge of the rink and skipped off of it towards the show’s mixing desk.
Samantha felt stupid. She was standing in the middle of an ice rink with a sweatshirt over her face, she had a hundred and one things she should be doing, a speech she had to deliver to the council in two days and the realistic prospect that she could lose both her job and her home. Not to mention the one thousand eight hundred Berry Fruits tubs in the freezer. She was hopeful of selling a good batch tonight though as there were a couple of coach parties in and coach parties never failed to have ice cream. Something to do with the effect of the throat drying air conditioning on the journey there.
Jimmy returned to her and took hold of her hands as the music began. Skating and not having a clue where you were in relation to your surroundings was the oddest sensation. Samantha was sure that at any moment she was going to collide with the hoarding around the edge of the rink. But she was concentrating so hard to remember the steps and how to position herself for the lifts and turns, she hardly had time to panic. Jimmy was true to his word. He held her firmly, and when they were apart she could sense he was still close and she knew he wouldn’t let her fall.
The routine seemed to be a lot longer than two and a half minutes when you couldn’t see. Her face was starting to feel hot as she breathed heavily onto the fleecy, sweatshirt material and she couldn’t tell at all whether she was in the middle or at the edge of the rink. She held Jimmy’s hand and they changed direction and then she held his arms as he lifted her up for a spin. She landed the move, turned around and stopped in her end position leaning back into Jimmy’s arms, thankful he really was there to catch her.
As he held her she began to laugh. It had been the most ridiculous, yet exhilarating thrill she had ever experienced. She was completely out of breath when she stood up straight, still laughing happily, amazed that she had done it without breaking any bones.
‘Take your blindfold off,’ Jimmy instructed her.
‘That was actually fun, very scary, but fun, I…’
Samantha stopped talking the second she removed the blindfold. Jimmy was stood beside her, bare-chested. The t-shirt he’d been wearing was covering his eyes. He had blindfolded himself.
‘Oh my goodness! No! You did not just do that? Are you totally mad? You picked me up and threw me in the air and you couldn’t see?!’ Samantha exclaimed, clamping her hands to her mouth as she watched him take the top from his eyes.
‘I told you you could do it,’ Jimmy spoke softly, smiling at her shock.
‘That must have been contravening every rule in the ice skating code of conduct,’ Samantha said to him.
‘You trusted me,’ Jimmy stated.
He reached out his hand and took hold of hers. A shiver ran through Samantha’s whole body as he touched her. What was he doing? He had taken her hand so many times when they skated, but this felt different. She couldn’t explain why. He was looking at her with the Minstrel eyes, unmoving.
; ‘Nice to see you practicing. You never want to when I suggest it.’
The loud comment from Dana, as she appeared on the ice, startled Samantha. She stepped backwards, forgot she was on skates and fell to the ice with a bump.
Jimmy hurriedly bent down to help her up, as one by one the show’s skaters came onto the rink for their rehearsal.
‘Are you OK?’ Jimmy queried as he helped her to her feet.
‘Yes, yes I’m fine. I’d better get back, I’ll see you,’ Samantha spoke hurriedly and she sped off across the ice as rapidly as she could, her heart hammering in her chest.
Seventeen
When Samantha opened up the front door that evening she immediately fell over Jeremy’s brogues.
‘Oh hello Sam. Sorry, I shouldn’t have left those there - I was just going,’ Jeremy spoke as he greeted her in the hallway and removed the shoes from the floor.
‘No sex on the table today, that’s good,’ Samantha retorted as she brushed past him and continued up the hall towards the kitchen.
She heard the front door close as Jeremy left and she went over to the kettle.
‘Jeremy’s gone,’ Cleo announced as she entered the kitchen from upstairs.
‘I know, I almost twisted my ankle again trying to avoid the shoes,’ Samantha responded as she filled the kettle with water.
‘He isn’t going to be moving in,’ Cleo stated rather somberly.
‘So you’re going to be moving in with him? Fine, you better tell him or one of your estate agent friends to put the house on the market,’ Samantha snapped.
‘No, I’m not moving in with him either,’ Cleo replied.
Samantha put down the kettle and turned to face her sister.
‘Is everything OK? You haven’t broken up have you?’ Samantha asked, changing her tone as she saw that Cleo was upset.
‘No, everything’s fine. You were right that’s all. You’re always right, it’s too soon,’ Cleo said, sitting down at the kitchen table.
‘Do you want a herbal tea?’ Samantha offered.