One In A Billion (9 page)

'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 could 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. 

'I've never heard of it', I said.

'No, not many people have, it's pretty exclusive apparently. You're pretty lucky.'

I could see Jackson giving me the once over in the rear view mirror, checking out my credentials, and no doubt trying to work out what it was about me exactly that Devizes had considered appealing enough to invite to an exclusive restaurant.

We drove into central London, and I got lost for a while until we came out by Shaftesbury Avenue and carried on through into Soho. Jackson stopped the car at the bottom of what looked like a huge modern office tower in the heart of Soho, and I was still looking up at it when he opened the back door. Jackson took my hand and helped me out of the cab, even though I think I probably could have done it more gracefully without his help. He seemed insistent so I let him, not wanting to mess up his job.

'The restaurant is at the very top of this building', Jackson said.

I hadn't noticed it before, but the building had lifts on the outside, zooming up to the top like rockets.

'I'll accompany you inside', Jackson said, and began to walk to the entrance.

There was a red carpet and an illuminated arch, under which two people stood in suits ticking people off a checklist and inviting them inside. There were a few people in the queue in front of me, including a woman who turned around, looked me up and down and smiled sourly, as though she'd appreciated my effort but could see I wasn't part of her world. I felt immediately self-conscious and out of my comfort zone. This was like being on the other side for the first time in my life. I'd looked at it a number of times from the several award ceremonies and posh functions I'd worked at, but this was the first time I'd been on this side. The rich, consume as much as you can, fill your boots, don't worry about money side.

Suddenly we were at the entrance.

'Do you have a reservation?' a young Polish girl with perfect English asked us.

'Yes', I said. 'I think so.'

'This is Devizes Carter's date for the evening', Jackson informed her.

'Ahh', the girl said breaking into a smile. 'We've been expecting you.' She took me by the arm. 'We'll be fine from here', she said to Jackson.

'Enjoy your night', Jackson called, and he was already on his way back to the car before I could thank him.

'I'm Marta', the Polish girl told me. 'I'll accompany you to your table.'

'Ok', I said, unable to refuse, even if I had wanted to.

She informed her colleague she would be gone for a moment, buzzed the lift and helped me inside, as though I was unable to walk the short distance myself unaided. Perhaps Marta used to work in a hospital or was really good at helping old ladies across the road. I told myself to calm down and enjoy the attention. It wasn't often I was treated like this, and I knew it was the nerves making me sensitive.

The lift zoomed up so quickly, it made my stomach lurch. If I wasn't so nervous, I might have appreciated the views of London. We were much higher up here than a lot of other places I'd seen the city from.

The doors opened, and the buzz of a restaurant in full flow hit me immediately. I didn't have time to take it all in, before Marta, arm locked in mine, whisked me through the dining room and towards the table that had been reserved for us. The man already sat down was turned away, but he turned towards us before we got to him, perhaps sensing our arrival.

'Devizes', Marta said. 'I have Alice for you.'

'So you do', Devizes said. 'And doesn't she look incredible?'

Marta nodded, smiled, and disappeared back to the front desk, her brief requirement fulfilled.

Devizes looked even better than I had remembered. We kissed a greeting, and the feeling of his stubble on my cheek put the hairs up on the back of my neck.

'Hi', I said, clutching my handbag in front of me and feeling dumb.

'Please, Alice, sit down', Devizes said. 'I'm so glad you came. I must confess, ever since I saw you last week, I've been desperately wanting to see you again. I haven't been able to stop thinking about you. Silly I know.'

'That's not silly', I said. 'I'm flattered. I've also been feeling a little bit the same way.'

'I'm glad you called. I was worried you might not.'