The Nearly-Weds (3 page)

Well, if you’re reading this letter, it means you’ve gone through with it and are now on your way to America. You already know what I think about this, so we won’t rehearse the arguments again.

If this is what you feel you’ve got to do then, obviously, you’ve got to do it. Personally, I think you’d be sticking two fingers up to That Bloody Swine far more effectively if you stayed here. What better way to show him that life goes on without him?

Desy agrees with me, by the way. And his love life makes
Gone with the Wind
look short on drama, so he should know. This morning we went for a latte after step and he admitted Jason always reminded him of that bloke he brought home from his holiday in Sunny Beach in Bolivia a couple of years back (or was it Bulgaria?). You remember him, don’t you? Good-looking fellow with only one leg. He was talking about opening a bar with Desy, then buggered off with a newsagent from South Shields. Desy was devastated. And while it might not compare with what you’ve just been through, the point is, you’re not alone. There are plenty of us around you who know what it’s like.

Oh, there’s no point in me going over old ground.

The only thing I would ask is that you heed a few pieces of advice from someone who’s been around a lot longer than you have.

First, watch out for terrorists. If you see anyone acting suspiciously, then phone me immediately (or the police). Second, if you’re thinking of taking the opportunity of this travelling business to get a tattoo, then at least make sure it’s one of those tasteful Arabic type ones, like Angelina Jolie has. I mention this only after what happened to Mandy at work (the one in Accounts who went on
Who Wants to Be A Millionaire?,
not the one in Marketing who’s got alopecia). She’s still distraught after her Brian came back from his trip to Australia with a tattoo of a koala bear on his bottom. If you’re even slightly tempted by this, then please, Zoe, just close your eyes and imagine it on your backside when you’re ninety.

Also – and don’t take this the wrong way – you need to watch your weight. You used to have lovely legs. And I know dieting might be the last thing on your mind at the moment, but that was probably what Britney Spears once thought.

Anyway, I’ve said my piece now. Which means the only thing left to say – for one final time – is goodbye. Goodbye, my sweetheart, my little girl. I’ll miss you.

Love and kisses
,

Mum

XXX

As I finish reading it, I look up and realize we’re minutes away from Boston. I start to pack away my belongings, when something unexpected happens.

The train jolts. The lady next to me – the one with the bottle of moonshine – clearly isn’t the steadiest on her feet at the best of times and now shunts forward, nearly falling off her seat. I lean down to help her up, but the train jolts again and this time she flies backwards into the seat.

Unfortunately, it isn’t just she who flies backwards. The second jolt is enough to propel the bottle out of her hand and straight towards me, in a movement remarkably similar to something Tom Cruise did in
Cocktail.

As its contents spill over my hair, my face, my clothes, they seem to seep into my every pore. I’m stunned and unable to comprehend anything more than that I now smell as if I’ve been washing my armpits with Glenfiddich for most of my adult life.

‘I – uh, wha—’ I’m dumbfounded.

‘
BASTARD DRIVER!
’ she howls, ignoring me and shaking her fist in the air. She looks like a cross between Miss Marple and Linda Blair in
The Exorcist.

I fight my way past her with my luggage in tow and squeeze myself – and it – into the toilet at the end of the carriage. I have just minutes before the train draws into the station. The cubicle is desperately small, but I know that my only hope is to push my hand through the suitcase zip to get out a change of clothes.

As I force my hand in, though, almost drawing blood, to root around inside, I know that the only thing I’ll be able to get my hands on is whatever’s closest to the top. Panicking, I brush my alcohol-soaked hair out of my face and eventually pull out some things.

‘Oh, God,’ I mutter, as I examine them. ‘Oh, God, oh, God, oh, God.’

But the train is pulling into the station and I have two options. The first is to stay as I am: soaked, so that my top is now see-through and emitting the sort of stench that can only be described as
eau-de-bail-hostel.
The second is to change into the only outfit I’ve been able to reach, no matter how unsuited to the occasion.

It’s close. It’s bloody close. Even as I wrestle my way into my clean clothes, aware of the train emptying, I wonder whether the second option really was preferable. The only positive thought that runs through my mind is that at least Jason can’t see me. It would only confirm to him that leaving me had been the right thing to do.

Oh, God, Mrs R. Miller, I hope you’re an understanding woman, I really do.

Chapter 6

It is immediately obvious that the person holding a sign with my name on it isn’t Mrs R. Miller. It’s not that the sign doesn’t say ‘Zoe Moore’ in such huge black letters I suspect it’s probably visible from space. Or that this person is not waiting directly under the clock, which was where the agency told me to go. Or even that the two children leaping about in the background couldn’t feasibly fit the description of Ruby and Samuel. It’s something else. The person holding a sign with my name on it is
a man.

Clearly, I can’t let on that this has fazed me – first impressions and all that – so I stride across the concourse attempting to seem enthusiastic, confident and, above all, so utterly professional I’d intimidate Hillary Clinton.

He fixes his eyes on me. His expression is stern, but he’s not unattractive. Not by any means. In fact, he’s . . .
oh, God . . .
he’s stunning.
Scarily
handsome.

He has dark blond hair, penetrating blue eyes and, although he’s a few years older than I am, a physique that would make anyone go weak at the knees: tall and toned, broad-shouldered, with just the right amount of muscle. It’s a physique that’s far more obvious than Jason’s, far more in-your-face, but no less attractive.

On the other hand, this beautiful stranger isn’t exactly what my mother would refer to as ‘well turned-out’. He clearly hasn’t shaved in a week, and his T-shirt and Levi’s might have been laundered on the banks of the Ganges. But somehow he carries off the look spectacularly well. He’s very good-looking, but wild and dishevelled too. His brand of gorgeousness is rough and raw, dirty almost. Very different from . . . Oh, God, why do I compare every man I meet with Jason?

‘Hi!’ I find myself mouthing involuntarily as I approach.

But he doesn’t move and he doesn’t smile.

There is no doubt that the children belong to him. Both have the same striking eyes and distinctive hair, the little girl’s falling in wavy tresses down her back, her brother’s shorter, but overgrown and unruly.

I continue towards them. It’s only when I’m within a couple of feet that I realize their father’s expression reveals his alarm.

‘You must be . . . Zoe?’ he says, almost reluctantly.

‘
I am!
’ I reply, rather more loudly than I’d intended. I drop my suitcase and hold out my hand.
‘Really
pleased to meet you,’ I continue, shaking his vigorously. ‘How did you know I was Zoe? I guess you’d heard about the famous British sense of style, hey?’ I glance down at my clothes. It’s no wonder he’s unimpressed.

My trousers are the bottom half of a pair of pyjamas that Great Auntie Iris bought me as a going-away present. Aside from the obvious problem, they are not even
nice
pyjamas – although I feel terrible for saying it. I’m convinced they’re made of 140 per cent polyester and I know they were purchased from one of Iris’s favourite stalls at St John’s Market, the ones that specialize in bras the size of a decent two-man tent. Then there’s the pattern:
fluorescent
pink tartan.

I only wish I could say my top half made up for them. But while my silver boob tube was fabulous at Garlands nightclub when I was a size ten, right now I look as if I’ve dressed for my first day at work in a roll of Bacofoil.

I pull my denim jacket closed as my mind whirs with possible excuses for this attire: I’m experimenting with the new look
Vogue
have dubbed ‘lunatic chic’; in the UK everyone catches a train wearing fancy dress; I’ve lost my mind.

‘Follow me,’ he instructs, grabbing my suitcase and marching off, with the children galloping behind.

‘Oh, that’s – that’s really kind of you,’ I mutter, and try to keep up.

He beats me to the car, has the suitcase in the boot, both children strapped in and the engine running before I’ve disentangled myself from my rucksack and hauled myself into the passenger seat.

As we pull out of the car park, my heart is hammering with a combination of excitement and nerves – and, although I can barely believe it, because it’s been so long since it’s put in an appearance, a flicker of
lust.

Partly to take my mind off the contours of his arms, I decide now might be a good time to clear something up. ‘
Sooo
. . . where is Mrs Miller?’

His eyes narrow and for a second he looks very much like the Terminator considering whether or not to tear someone’s legs off. ‘Is that supposed to be funny?’ he says.

‘No.’ I frown. ‘I mean, I just had a conversation with the agency who told me I’d be working for Mrs R. Miller.’

‘Sorry, honey. I’m R. Miller.
Ryan
Miller. And, as you can see, I ain’t no
Mrs
.’

Chapter 7

Ryan Miller, I decide, is a bit of a puzzle. First, he has produced two of the politest, most adorable children I could ever have wished for. Samuel talks non-stop throughout the car journey, pointing out in the uniquely random way of three-year-olds every branch of McDonald’s (which he refers to as ‘Old McDonald’s’), and declaring five minutes into our relationship that I am his ‘bess friend’. I am gratified by the apparently instantaneous bonding I’ve achieved with one of my new charges, until he adds, ‘And Daddy is my bess friend and Ruby is my bess friend and Benjamin is my bess friend and Big Bear is my bess friend’, and so on, until he has named everyone from their neighbour to the dentist he visited last week.

As well as entertaining Samuel – whom she clearly adores and constantly fusses over – Ruby spends much of the journey telling me, in her soft American lilt, how wonderful her father is (‘Our daddy works in a big office’; ‘He used to play baseball for his school’; ‘Did I tell you our daddy once went to New Zealand?
And
he’s been to New Jersey’). In Ruby’s eyes, Ryan Miller is Superman, God and the Tooth Fairy rolled into one.

While the kids and I make friends easily, however, the same cannot be said for their dad and me.

Aside from Ryan’s undeniably impressive six-pack (which is so defined you could play ‘Chopsticks’ on it) I can’t say he’s charm personified. Throughout the journey, he has been barking orders through his earpiece to various unfortunate individuals who apparently work for him. Only now does he pause to make conversation with me, but he’s not in the mood for small-talk.

‘Occasionally I leave the car at the office so I’ll need you to drive me to catch the T,’ he tells me. Despite his brusqueness, the accent is deep and unbelievably exotic.

‘Right, no problem,’ I reply, hoping to appear familiar with ‘the T’ until I can get hold of a guidebook to translate.

‘The subway,’ he says, sensing my bewilderment.

‘Hmm?’

‘The T. That’s what we call it here.’

‘Oh, um, right. Of course.’

We’re thundering along a dual carriageway full of unfamiliar road signs and huge cars. The colour and sound of my surroundings are totally foreign, completely new. And yet for some reason I find my mind drifting as I breathe in Ryan’s smell and try to work out which aftershave he’s wearing, which is nothing I recognize from the counter at Boots. Intense, musky, masculine. And disturbingly sexy.

‘So you’ll need to get the kids dressed and ready to go out at seven fifteen a.m. and no later,’ he continues, interrupting my thoughts. ‘The train’s at seven twenty-eight, and if I miss it I’m screwed. Okay?’

‘You betcha,’ I reply, but regret it. It was a pathetic attempt to demonstrate how I’m getting into the spirit of my new surroundings, but his expression says he thinks I’m being sarcastic.

‘Give them dinner whenever you want, and don’t wait for me to get home before you put them to bed. I work late a lot so I can’t guarantee I’ll be back in time.’

I frown. The contract I signed with the agency said I was supposed to finish at five thirty, apart from on pre-agreed occasions.

‘You’re flexible on hours, right?’ he says, as if sensing my thoughts.

‘Um, of course.’ I assume he’s referring to the odd evening and I don’t want to make a fuss at this stage. ‘And bedtime is when?’

He pauses for so long I get the impression it’s not an issue he’s considered before. ‘Ten. Ten thirty?’ he says finally.

‘Really?’ I blurt.

‘Look, whenever you want,’ he shoots back.

‘Right, right.’

Okay, I’ll admit it. Alarm bells are already going off about the complete lack of warmth emanating from my new boss. Despite this, or perhaps because of it, I find myself trying even harder to come up with ways to impress him, to make him see how brilliant I’m going to be at the job.

‘
Sooo
. . . the agency passed you my CV, did they?’ I bring this up so that I can slip into the conversation that I was second in command in my last job, have recently passed my umpteenth early-years qualification at night school and have a reputation for potty-training children faster than you can say ‘magnetic sticker chart’.