by Anna Bell
‘Right, well I’d better get out of bed and defrost the chicken in the microwave.’
‘Or we could go out for dinner?’
‘On a Monday?’
‘What’s wrong with going out on a Monday?’
‘Nothing.’ I’m scratching my head a little. There is nothing fundamentally wrong, I guess, with going out for dinner on a Monday. I’m sure people do it all the time, business people with an expense account, people celebrating a birthday on a Monday. But we’ve never eaten out on a Monday unless we’re on holiday.
‘So we’ll go out,’ says Mark.
‘How about we order takeaway and eat in bed?’
I should probably stress at this point I detest eating in bed. But there are some things you should know: a) it’s January, b) our little Victorian terrace does not have good central heating, and c) our bed is the most comfiest bed on the planet. Pretty much nothing could drag me from my bed at this point.
‘In bed? Are you feeling alright? No, I fancy going out. We haven’t been out in ages. And now I’m not revising for my exams I fancy being spontaneous. You know going out on a school night feels slightly naughty.’
‘I could think of other things to do to you if you want to feel naughty.’ I’ll do anything he wants at this point if I can stay in the bed. Well, almost anything – I’m no fan of Fifty Shades of Grey.
‘Penelope, get out of bed and put on a dress. We’re going out.’
Uh-oh. He’s played the Penelope card, I must be in trouble. Pulling the covers back slowly I dangle one leg out, and then another. Before I know it Mark is pulling me out of bed.
It is so cold. I can’t run back to the bed as Mark has deposited me at my wardrobe and he’s blocking my path back.
‘So what should I wear? Where are we going to go?’ I fancy pizza, maybe Pizza Express or Ask.
‘I’ve made us reservations at Chez Vivant.’
‘Chez Vivant? How an earth did you get us reservations there?’
My voice has gone up an octave. Chez Vivant, for those not in the know, is the restaurant around the district where I live. It is the kind of place that the fancy people, who fly in and out of Farnborough in their private jets, eat at before they jet off to their exotic destinations. It has a waiting list as long as your arm and they have a number of Michelin stars. Mark and I have never graced the place with our presence before.
It is the place I’d always imagined that Mark would take me to pop the question. Suddenly The Lemonheads’ song is playing up tempo in my head. I’ve started to have palpitations and I’m sure that I’m breaking out into a cold sweat. This is what I’ve been waiting for, Stage four. Stage four!
‘I’ve just been assigned their account and in return for sorting out their rather bungled tax return from their previous accountants they’ve offered you and me a complimentary meal there.’
The Lemonheads on loop comes to a dramatic halt. Suddenly it makes sense. Mark wasn’t about to shell out part of the mortgage on our house to pop the question. He was clearly treating me to a freebie from work.
‘Great,’ I say. I needed to keep the disappointment out of my voice. I was still getting to go to Chez Vivant. I could still make all my friends weep with jealousy. And a few months ago Posh and Becks were spotted there, so at the very least I could hope to see a z-list celebrity like someone from TOWIE.
‘Table’s booked for eight, so if you want to shower we should get a wriggle on.’
‘Ok,’ I say. Eight o’clock? We had an hour. An hour before we had to leave! Clearly Mark didn’t understand that a place like Chez Vivant was the sort of place you booked in to have your hair done before you went. An hour was an impossibility.
Exactly one hour later I am ready to go. It just showed that my teachers at school were right: I would be able to succeed in life if I actually put my mind to it.
For once my frizzy hair had allowed itself to be blow-dried straight within an inch of it’s life and so far, thanks to a whole can of hairspray, it was staying up in a chignon. The type of chignon that it hasn’t been in since I was a bridesmaid at my sister’s wedding four years ago.
My sister, by the way, had a massively fancy-pants wedding (hence the posh chignon) and as she had almost a billion bridesmaids, I got to watch the hairdresser contort lots hair into wonderful knots of elegance. Which I have almost managed to replicate.
I’m also dressed in a hideously expensive, I’ll-wear-it-one-day, I really will, Mark, dress. And here, look, I am wearing it. It has only taken three years, and I don’t know if you’d call that value for money, but it is amazing.
Looking in the mirror I look pretty damn good. Please don’t think I’m vain, it is just that it is a far cry from my everyday attire of jeans and cardigans. And I’m wearing a proper cheese-wire thong and a sexy lace strapless bra. Of course both are killing me, but the overall effect is worth it.
It’s just a shame that the shoes I’m slipping on are from Next and not Jimmy Choos that I could have owned if it weren’t for LuckyLes1. I close my eyes. I’m not allowing myself to think about that now. Besides, even if I had won, it wasn’t like there was a Jimmy Choo shop in Farnborough that I could have raced to tonight to get them.
‘You ready?’ asks Mark as he pokes his head around the bedroom door. ‘Wow, you scrub up good.’
‘Hey.’ I hit him playfully on the arm. Or at least I thought it was playfully, it might have been a little hard.
‘You look gorgeous. Now come on, or else I will be throwing you on the bed and we’ll not get out.’
Now he tells me. If I’d known all it would have taken was for me to put this dress on to get him to stay in bed, then I would have worn it an hour earlier. What am I saying? I keep forgetting we’re going to Chez Vivant. I’m sure their heating works.
I guess I have technically been to Chez Vivant once before, if being in their car park counts. I didn’t quite make it over the threshold. Me and Lou came down one night to have drinks before going into town, but we bottled it when we saw the wine list and the cheapest glass was a tenner.
Inside it was exactly like you’d imagine it to be. Huge glass chandeliers hanging from the ceiling. There were thick, red, heavy velvet curtains hanging around the outside of the room. There was even a projector playing a black-and-white movie on the ceiling. It just oozed expense.
‘We’ve got a reservation, under Robinson,’ Mark says to the maître d'.
I can’t believe how he sounds so grown up and confident in this place. There’s something about walking in here that has made me suddenly feel like I’m a child at an adult’s party. I’m hit with narcissistic thoughts that everyone in the whole restaurant is looking at me and they know we’re getting our food for free and that we can’t normally afford to eat here.
So much for my celebrity spotting whilst I’m here. I’m terrified to even look at anyone for fear they’ll be pricing up my outfit and thinking that my dress is far too many seasons ago to wear.
‘Here you are,’ says the maître d'. He points over to a curtain in the corner and I’m wondering just where he’s taking us. He pulls the curtains open to reveal a velvet covered booth. Maybe they keep the curtains closed when it’s not in use to make the restaurant seem fuller. I shimmy into the booth. It is almost as comfortable as my bed; maybe it was worth getting out of it after all. As Mark slides in opposite me, the maître d' shuts the curtains around the booth.
Oh my god, they really are embarrassed to have us here.
‘Are we like the poor relations?’ I ask. I thought it was best to make a joke out of it before Mark got embarrassed.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, he shut the curtains.’
‘Pen, that’s to give us privacy. These booths are for their guests who want their dining to be a bit more discrete.’
‘Oh, right,’ I say, nodding. ‘I knew that.’
I did not know that. We’re going to now spend the entire night starving as now we’ll never get the a
ttention of the waiter.
Mark presses what looks like a doorbell and seconds later a waiter appears behind our curtain.
‘Yes, sir?’
‘We’ll have a bottle of the Châteauneuf-du-Pape to start with,’ says Mark.
Having the wine list in front of me at that particular moment makes me gawp at the price. Thank God this is a freebie.
‘An excellent choice, sir. I’ll bring it straight away.’
Minutes later the waiter is as good as his word and he’s poured me the best wine I’d ever tasted. Oh, how the other half live.
‘Here’s to the start of an excellent night,’ says Mark, as he raises his glass.
I chink my glass, making sure we have strong eye contact, the more intense the eye contact the more intense the sex, or so my friend Lou always says. I could get used to this.
By the time my trio of desserts arrives I am full. But there’s no way I am going to leave here without three courses. Especially when someone other than me or Mark is paying. Why is it that food always tastes better when someone else picks up the bill?
Mark presses the little buzzer.
‘I can’t eat another thing, Mark,’ I say, groaning under the weight of my belly.
‘We’ll have a bottle of the Möet,’ says Mark to the waiter.
Möet? There is no way that they are going to give us Möet on a free meal. They’re not that bloody stupid, are they? Or else my boyfriend Mark is the best accountant in the whole world.
‘What did you do that for?’ I hiss over the table.
‘Because, Penelope, we are celebrating.’
‘We are?’ I ask. ‘What are we celebrating?’
Maybe we’re celebrating the fact that he has been crowned world’s best accountant.
‘This,’ says Mark.
Oh. My. God. There it is, in his hands. Stage four. Aka an engagement ring. A small, perfectly formed, princess-cut diamond that seems to tick all the four c’s (colour, cut, clarity and carat) and it is by far the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen.
‘So will you marry me, Penelope?’
Thank God for the curtains, is all I can say. As the next thing I know I’ve thrown myself at Mark like a desperate woman that thought this day would never come.
‘Of course I bloody will.’
‘Ahem.’
I stop snogging the face off Mark and wipe my mouth, embarrassed, as the waiter is standing next to us popping open our champagne.
‘Here’s to you, the future Mrs Robinson,’ says Mark, as he raises his glass.
I chink his glass, and this time there is no Lemonheads, only the wedding march ringing in my ears.
‘We’ll have to get out the bank statement for the wedding fund to see just how spectacular our wedding can be,’ says Mark.
Uh-oh. My cheeks suddenly feel heavy as I push every muscle I can to hold my fake smile in place. Mark can’t see the bank statement, as then he’d see all my bingo win payments going in.
‘How about I plan the wedding, honey? I can make it my present to you? Then all you have to do is turn up. It will be like that TV programme, Don’t Tell the Bride, only I won’t tell the groom.’
‘Sounds even better. To us.’
‘To us,’ I echo. Oh, bloody hell. There suddenly seems a lot already that I can’t tell the groom.
Don’t Tell the Groom – out now on Amazon Kindle www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00APO97IW
Also by the author - Millie and the American Wedding
Millie accidentally accepts an invitation to be a bridesmaid at an American Wedding in New York. It's Millie’s worst nightmare. Not only has she slept with the groom, but her ex boyfriend (the one that got away) is the best man and he’s married.
As her friend, Kristen, gets ready for the best day of her life, Millie gears up for the worst week of hers.
Available on Amazon Kindle www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00737RP7Y
About the Author
Anna Bell writes the weekly column, The Secret Dreamworld of an Aspiring Author on the website Novelicious, and reviews modern women’s fiction for the website the Chicklit Club. She is also a member of the Romantic Novelists’ Association’s New Writers’ Scheme.
Anna works as a museum curator, and lives on the south coast with her husband and Labrador.
Universally Challenged is her second novel. Her debut novel Millie and the American Wedding reached the top 200 on the Amazon Kindle Charts and in the top ten of both humour and women’s fiction Kindle Charts. Anna has just released her third novel Don’t Tell the Groom.
You can find out more about her on her website: www.annabellwrites.com or follow her on twitter @annabell_writes
Acknowledgements
As with any book, there is an endless list of people that need to be thanked for the part they’ve played.
I’d like to thank my brother Mark who does read the Financial Times and could steer me on investment banking and the idea of SinoDam right in the early days of the novel planning. A massive thank you goes to my test readers especially Jane and Jo for their excellent plot and character suggestions, Sarah Z for her New York expertise, Christie for being a hopeless romantic and Fay for her red pen of the first chapter. I’d also like to thank Jay for editing my book, your suggestions have been brilliant and your attention to detail amazing.
Any mistakes that I’ve made relating to the financial world and locations are my own.
I’d like to say a huge thank you to all my friends and family who bought my debut novel and have been so lovely and supportive with all book related talk. ‘How many books have you sold now?’ having become more of a common greeting than ‘hello’. My mother should get an especially big thank you for being such a proud mum and constantly monitoring my Amazon ranking.
Thanks lots also to the great writerly folk that I know from real life and virtually. Twitter maybe a writer’s worst nightmare in terms of procrastination, but a lot of the time it keeps you sane. The Novelicious ladies deserve a special thank you - Kirsty, Debs, Amanda, Kira, Cesca and Kirsty P - and the TOP SECRET communication that is an amazing tower of support. Thanks to all the readers who took the time to tweet with me too - it’s nice to know who reads my books!
Lastly, I want to thank my amazing husband Steve, who even as I type has deposited a glass of milk and chocolate buttons beside me (not to mention tidied the kitchen around me). His favourite phase of ‘get that bloody book written’ has been a great motivator. I honestly don’t think I could have written it without him, our dog Rex, and our walks by the sea. Thanks Steve - at least I didn’t almost burn the house down writing this one!
Universally Challenged
by Anna Bell
Copyright ©Anna Bell 2012. © 1st edition August 2012.
All characters and events in this novel are fictitious, any resemblance to persons living or dead are entirely coincidental.
For more information on the author go to www.annabellwrites.com
Cover design copyright ©Kirsty Greenwood (www.kirstygreenwood.com) 2012