‘A young up-and-coming designer called Chelsea Johnston,’ I said.
‘Chelsea… Wait, is that the kid you’re mentoring at work?’ Felicity said. ‘You never told me she was that talented.’
You never asked, I thought. But I said, ‘Yes, she shows a lot of promise.’
Pru said, ‘Promise? If you told me that was by Salvatore Ferragamo I’d have believed you. Stand up, Tansy. I’m Instagramming the fuck out of that.’
I stood and did a bit of a twirl while they both admired the dress, then sat back down again, this time on the end next to Josh, while Phillip ordered a round of cocktails and some edamame beans for Felicity, who’d announced that she was about to faint from hunger.
‘I texted Fidel,’ she said, ‘and I’m allowed edamame, as long as they’re not salted.’
Which pretty much defeated the whole point of them, I thought, trying not to make comparisons with the huge bowl of pasta I’d eaten before we left.
But before Felicity had the chance to eat her snack, she was interrupted by the buzzing of her phone.
‘Renzo’s on his way,’ she said eagerly. ‘He’s in a cab now. He came straight from the airport.’
‘Aw, that’s so sweet,’ Pru said. ‘He must have really missed you.’
‘And I’ve missed him.’ Felicity smiled a secret little smile. ‘I can’t wait to get reacquainted. I ordered a load of lingerie and other stuff online, which should be waiting at his apartment. It’s full of surprises for him, I can tell you.’
I tried to smile, but felt hollow and sick inside. The sex Renzo and I had had together had been amazing, but it had been pretty vanilla, too. Apart from wearing nice underwear and having a Hollywood wax (and oh my God, it was nothing like the regular minge maintenance I’d done before), I hadn’t done anything exotic for him at all. The attraction I’d felt for him – and I believed he had for me – had been so raw and powerful that introducing handcuffs or sex toys into the mix just never seemed necessary.
I remembered the first time we’d slept together, on the weekend away in Paris that had effectively been our fourth date. We’d both just stepped out of the shower (because, obviously, Renzo hadn’t just booked any old hotel room but a luxury suite with two bathrooms).
I was wrapped in a fluffy white bathrobe; he only had a towel round his waist. I felt a flutter of excitement and desire looking at his bare chest, ridged with muscle and dusted with dark hair. His naturally olive skin was deeply tanned and I could see a line of paler skin just above where the white towel began.
It was as if an invisible thread – or maybe a magnet too powerful to resist – pulled me towards him. I crossed the room and touched him with a fingertip, tentatively, as if his skin might burn me, tracing a line down from his collarbone over his chest and the smooth muscles of his abdomen, down to where his tan ended, looking at him all the time and smiling.
Then he kissed me, his mouth hot and hungry on mine. He pulled the robe off my shoulders and his hands found my breasts, his palms brushing over my nipples, which were already hard in anticipation of his touch. Seconds later, he’d pushed me back onto the bed and was kissing me all over, exploring my body with his mouth and his hands, his desire raw and consuming, overwhelming my own.
‘Amore a prima vista,’ he’d murmured, looking down at me. ‘That’s what it was, when I met you, love at first sight.’
I remembered his first, hard thrusts inside me – a brief stab of discomfort, then pleasure beginning to build and build. I remembered how fragile he’d made me feel, as if I might split in two with the force of his fucking. He’d finished before me, but I was too happy to care.
Maybe that was the problem, I thought morosely. Maybe if I’d been more adventurous, more exciting, spiced things up a bit more, he and I would still be together. But then I remembered Adam’s words: some ridiculous Madonna or whore dichotomy going on inside his head. And I wondered whether Renzo might not react as well to Felicity’s saucy purchases as she hoped.
‘Earth to Tansy.’ Josh topped up my glass of champagne, and I realised I’d been sitting in silence, lost in the memory.
‘Oh God, I’m so sorry. I was miles away.’
Literally. Miles away in a hotel in Paris, nine months in the past.
‘Come on, let’s go and dance.’
He took my hand and led me onto the dance floor, where couples and groups of women were swaying uncertainly to the music. It was too early in the evening for full-on partying – the DJ was getting things warmed up with ‘Girls’ by Rita Ora, and pink lights were washing over everything.
Josh didn’t sway uncertainly. He let his body move with the music, utterly uninhibited, grinning with pleasure like he didn’t care if people thought he looked stupid. Except he didn’t – he looked rhythmic, graceful, powerful. I tried to move my body in time with his, but I’ve always been a crap dancer and I wasn’t drunk enough to forget it.
The more I thought about leading with my hips and keeping my upper body still and moving my feet slightly but not too much, and letting my head follow my hips and my hands move the opposite way, which is what the ‘dancing for complete and utter numpties’ videos I watched on YouTube a few years back said one should do, the more confused and self-conscious I got.
‘Sorry,’ I said to Josh over the music. ‘I’ve got two left feet, no sense of rhythm and I’m tone deaf.’
He grinned and did a little sort of shimmy thing that should have looked ridiculous but didn’t. He seemed to have no problem at all moving his hips, I noticed. Then he put his hands on my waist and pulled me a bit closer to him. Not so close we were touching, and he didn’t do any of that fancy shite you see on Strictly Come Dancing, like trying to spin me around or lifting me over his head or anything (thank God, because I would have totally, literally died right there). He just kind of moved me nearer to him, so that I could feel what his body was doing and follow it.
I didn’t get it at first. Our knees bumped together. I stood on his toe. I wasn’t sure what to do with my own hands, so I kept them dangling foolishly by my side. But then I relaxed, let myself touch his back or his arm and connect with his movements, and suddenly something clicked. I won’t say I looked good – I’m pretty sure I didn’t – but I felt better, and I was concentrating too hard on what the music was telling me to do to feel awkward.
And then I saw Renzo.
He’d just walked in, and was glancing around. He was wearing black jeans, a silvery-grey shirt and trainers. He hadn’t shaved, and even across the room I could recognise the familiar signs of tiredness in his face – the slightly tight, drawn lines around his mouth, the way he was squinting a bit as he scanned the room. I had no problem at all believing that he’d come straight from a long-haul flight and a week-long business trip that had involved a hell of a lot of entertaining and not much sleep.
I wished I could smooth the tiredness from his face with my fingers, massage his tight shoulders the way he liked, run him a hot bath and maybe join him in it and, much later, lie next to him and gaze and gaze at him while he slept. Although I wouldn’t murder him, obviously, not like one of those psycho stalkers you read about who watch people sleep. I wouldn’t even murder Felicity, if she was sleeping there next to him, tempting as it would be.
‘Ouch,’ Josh said, and I realised I’d trodden on his toe again.
‘Sorry. I got distracted.’
Whatever power the music had had over me had melted away. My body felt stiff and awkward again and I wished, pointlessly, that I’d had time to dash to the loo and refresh my lipstick.
I saw Josh’s eyes flick over my shoulder and realised Renzo must have spotted the others and be making his way towards the table.
‘Hey, Tansy,’ Josh said, and my eyes snapped back to him.
And then he kissed me.
It came completely out of the blue. I literally couldn’t have been more surprised if he’d slapped me in the face. But he didn’t do that, of course. His hands still on my waist,
he gently pulled our bodies together. Then his hand slipped up my back – I could feel its warmth through the gaps between the lacing on my dress – to cradle the back of my head. Instinctively, I looked up at him, and he smiled. His hand moved around to caress my cheek and then – bam – he was snogging the hell out of me.
I mean, I don’t want to make it sound as if it was one of those awful, awkward kisses you had as a teenager, like wrestling with an octopus holding a Hoover filled with spit, because it wasn’t. It was a perfectly good kiss – even a great one. Josh’s lips were not too dry and not too wet. His jaw against my cheek felt hard, but smooth. There was tongue – mine as well as his, if I’m being entirely honest – but not too much. It was the Goldilocks of kisses.
But the intensity of it, as well as the unexpectedness, took my breath away.
When I was able to summon back the power of rational thought, I pulled my head away, and Josh made no attempt to keep it there. He just smiled down at me again, and there was something like triumph in his face.
I was raging. At him, for taking for granted that he could kiss me and that I’d enjoy it – and for being right about that. At myself, for letting him – and for getting so lost in the moment. But, I realised, he’d only done what I wanted him to do. Not just the kiss, but it being so public, with Felicity, Pru and most of all Renzo right there to see physical proof of the relationship I wanted them to believe there was between Josh and me.
‘There,’ he said. ‘Shall we go back to our table?’
I nodded in agreement, relieved not just because my legs suddenly felt all wobbly and my ankles were turning over in my high heels. I let him lead me back across the room, his hand now burning hot against my back.
‘Quite the shapes you two were throwing there,’ Pru laughed. ‘Renz, you know Tansy, of course, and this is Josh.’
‘Good to meet you, mate.’ Josh extended his hand and Renzo shook it, but the expression on his face was like he’d just grasped a bag of ice.
I forced a radiant smile onto my face and said how nice it was to see him again, and Renzo said, ‘Likewise,’ only without any smile at all, radiant or otherwise. Felicity took the vodka bottle from the ice bucket and splashed some into her glass and Renzo’s, missing slightly and slopping the icy liquid over the table. The bottle was more than a third gone, I noticed – she must have been giving it some while we were dancing. Her lippy had rubbed off, so I realised she hadn’t been able to resist the just-permitted snacks. There was a shiny patch on the side of her nose and smudged mascara under her eyes.
‘I’m desperate for a wee,’ I said to her. ‘Coming, babe?’
‘Sure,’ she said, the word sounding mushy and slurred.
I grabbed my bag in one hand and her arm in the other, and we made our way around the bar and down a flight of stairs to a ladies’ room so sumptuous I would have spent ages going, ‘Oooh!’ and Instagramming everything from the toiletries to the taps, if I hadn’t been so worried. Because now, her poise all stripped away, it felt like Felicity was my friend again, and she needed me.
‘Shit.’ Felicity stood in front of the mirror like she was looking at a ghost. ‘What a fucking mess.’
She swayed, and her reflection did, too.
Then she gripped the edges of the basin and vomited lumpy green vodka into it, retching and heaving like she was never going to stop.
Year Ten
I spent the next three days veering between excitement, doubt and panic. I put the number I’d memorised into my phone as soon as I could, and I kept looking at it, like it was a treasure I’d found and picked up, unsure whether it was okay for me to keep it. I thought about sending a text, just a casual one, telling Josh I was looking forward to seeing him, but I resisted. I was going to play it cool – well, as cool as I possibly could.
Inside, though, I was light years away from cool. I asked Debbie if I could leave work early that Saturday afternoon, and spent hours getting ready. I painted my toenails yellow. I put on the white broderie anglaise puffball skirt I’d found on a sale rail, and a pink T-shirt. I borrowed Perdita’s denim jacket, which was too small for me but suited the shrunken jacket trend. I wished I had a pair of wedge heels to wear, but then remembered that if I did, they’d make me taller than Josh, so I settled for flip-flops instead. I put on masses of pink lip gloss, which my hair kept sticking to. And at last I was ready.
I told Mum to expect me back by ten – if we did end up managing to get into the pub, I’d be home way later than that, but I’d cross that bridge if I came to it.
‘Have a good time, love,’ Mum said. ‘It’s lovely to—’
And then she stopped. I knew what she was going to say – it was lovely to see me going out with mates, like a normal teenager, not the friendless pariah I’d become. But she was too tactful to call attention to that.
‘It’s lovely to see you looking so pretty,’ she said instead.
I got the bus into town, opening my bag over and over again to check my face in my hand mirror and also to check the money in my purse, even though I knew exactly how much was there. I had enough for a cinema ticket and a small popcorn, and just two pounds spare after that. If we went for burgers afterwards, I’d have to say I wasn’t hungry and just have a Coke. And if we went to the pub after that – well, again, I’d have to cross that bridge if I came to it.
But in the event, I didn’t even have to buy the movie ticket.
I got to the cinema ten minutes early and there was no one I knew waiting there. I checked my phone, but there were no new text messages. I didn’t know Kylie, Anoushka or Danielle’s numbers – the only one I had was Josh’s. And I wasn’t going to text him – not yet, anyway. That would just be too tragic.
I walked round the block, but when I got back there was still no sign of anyone, so I walked round again. It was five past five now. I wished I smoked, so I could join the nonchalant-looking older teenagers who were leaning against the wall, puffing away. Five more minutes passed – the film had already started. Maybe they were late on purpose: too rebellious to sit through the ads and trailers. For me, going to see a movie was such a rare treat that I’d happily have done so, but maybe they were different.
At almost half past five, my resolve snapped and I texted Josh.
Hey, it’s Tansy. Not sure where you guys are? I’m waiting outside the Plaza.
Ten more minutes passed. No one came, and there was no reply. I tried to convince myself that there’d been some kind of mix-up: that I’d got the date wrong, or the plans had changed and no one had been able to contact me to tell me, and at school on Monday they’d be full of laughing apologies.
But in my gut I knew that wasn’t true.
So, when my phone eventually beeped with an incoming text, I was horrified but not exactly surprised.
You really think I’d go out with the town bike? Haha – you’re not just a slag, you’re stupid, too.
Eighteen
It was Tuesday, that horrible, slow hour between our morning meeting and the time when everyone could start thinking optimistically about lunch. Sally was in the kitchen making a round of coffees. Kris was filing his nails. Lisa was off site and incognito, checking out a hot new designer’s work in Brighton. I was staring mindlessly at the sales forecast document on my computer, willing my mind to focus on whether the additional cost of having pockets added to a line of work dresses would earn itself back in sales.
But my mind wasn’t on pockets, in spite of the conversation I’d had earlier with Customer Care, who’d reported a whole spate of emails from women saying that if we cared one jot for feminism, all our garments would have pockets, and when were we going to do something about it.
My mind was on other things: so many that I couldn’t narrow it down to one, resolve it and move on to the next.
After our team meeting earlier, Lisa had lightly touched my arm and said, ‘Barri’s asked you to drop into his office later for a chat. I thought you’d want to hear it from me first.’
More even than Barri, or pockets, or Chelsea and the doubts she’d expressed about her future and her brother’s present, what had happened on Saturday night was weighing on my mind.
A series of images, short bursts of them like an Instagram Story, kept playing over and over in my head. Except, unlike on Insta, they hadn’t conveniently deleted themselves after twenty-four hours: the memories were as fresh as they’d been when they happened.
I remembered Renzo’s face when Josh and I came back to our table, cold and immobile. I remembered Felicity crying after she’d been sick, saying over and over again, ‘What am I doing, Tansy?’ I’d helped her repair her face and guided her back to our seats, but by then Renzo had left, and Pru had taken her sister home in a taxi. Felicity wasn’t in the office that day, and she hadn’t been on Monday either. She’d called in sick, and she hadn’t responded to any of my texts.
And I remembered Josh. Josh had kissed me. I’d let him, and I’d liked it. I’d liked it a lot. In those few moments, while I was in his arms, it was like the past had never happened: like no one existed but me and him. Not even Renzo.
It had felt familiar, somehow, as if I’d always wanted to be kissed in that particular way and now it was happening. But it had been new and thrilling, too. I could still remember my heart hammering so hard it was as if it might burst right out through the silk of my dress. There on the dance floor, we’d held each other close and kissed and kissed, and part of me had been like, What the fuck do you think you’re doing? Whether that was meant as a question for myself, taking the crazy idea of pretending he was my boyfriend further than I’d ever intended, or for him, taking liberties that I hadn’t expected him to take and doing nothing to stop him, I couldn’t say for sure.
It's Not You It's Him: An absolutely hilarious and feel-good romantic comedy Page 20