The Personal Shopper (10 page)

‘It’s not growing, it’s just so . . . stumpy.’ Aaargh! Wasn’t there another word she could have used to describe a hedge that was failing to thrive? ‘So totally, well, you know, not . . . bushy,’ she managed.

‘Stunted?’ Lloyd offered, suppressing a smirk.

Annie had a sneaking suspicion that silent Will and Mousie Maisie were in fact smouldering with passion: they kept trying to take furtive glances at each other and blushing when they got caught. If only they could pluck up the courage to say slightly more than hello.

But just as she was wondering how to draw them into a conversation together, she heard Dominic tell Lucinda that he drove a mini-van. At this, she turned, caught Lloyd’s eye and heard him give a snort of laughter which he quickly suppressed by drinking a mouthful of wine.

She smiled at him knowingly, feeling pleased that they had this secret communication going.

Fortunately Dominic didn’t seem to notice . . . but it was talk of the midget gems that brought things to a head.

The conversation had moved on to favourite childhood sweets and out popped Annie’s revelation: ‘Midget gems.’

It wasn’t a lie. Along with Caramac bars, these were her top nostalgia trip treats.

‘Midget gems?’ Dominic asked a touch coldly and with obvious disbelief. ‘
Midget
gems? I’ve never heard of those.’

‘They were very tiny, multicoloured, iced biscuits,’ she stumbled.

He didn’t look convinced. Suddenly she wasn’t so sure either. Maybe there was no such thing. Maybe they
 
were ‘Iced gems’, but she was so busy trying not to
 
commit height gaffes that the word ‘midget’ had perversely sprung to mind.

‘Anyone else remember midget gems?’ She looked round at the other diners, hoping someone would prove she hadn’t lost her mind.

No. No-one could recall midget gems and put her out of her misery. Dominic glared at her and might have been about to say something but fortunately a little bell rang, which turned out to mean that the first course was finished and all the women had to stand up and move three places to their right. To Annie’s relief, this put her in Lucinda’s seat, right next to Lloyd. Unfortunately Dominic could still glare at her, but she’d try to ignore that.

Lloyd was a honey. He asked her about where she lived, he listened to her job description and property empire expansion plans with interest, he topped up her wine glass. He looked into her eyes and said in a low voice that he’d been coming to these dinners for over three months now and he’d met no-one as beautiful as her.

She asked where he’d got his tan and he muttered modestly about business in Argentina and how a trip to
 
the Caribbean made February so much more bearable.

Annie felt a warm wave of happiness wash over her. A warm, sun-kissed Caribbean wave of happiness. Her luck was so, so in. He was lovely. Perfect. Her hands were itching to pick up her handbag, whisk out her mobile and commit his numbers to speed-dial.

‘So you have children, do you?’ he asked, picking up his wine glass to take a sip.

‘A gorgeous fourteen
-year-old, Lana, and then Owen, who’s nine.’

‘Four
teen?!’ Lloyd was trying to restrain himself from a splutter.

‘Well, she’s my lovechild,’ Annie explained, always pleased with the ‘you look so much younger’ effect that mentioning her 15-year-old daughter had on people. ‘I had her when I was twenty.’

‘You’re thirty-five?!!’ Lloyd asked. ‘But you look so much younger!’ Unfortunately, this sounded almost angry, unlike the usual compliment that revealing her age brought her. (Annie suspected it was her bright blond hair, use of first-class moisturizer – past-expiry-date Sisley – and the fact she found sunbathing boring which
 
combined to give her a face that still looked late twenties, so long as she wasn’t laughing. In photographs taken mid-cackle, she looked about a hundred.)

‘Well, thank you,’ she smiled at Lloyd, but he didn’t look happy. ‘What’s the matter?’ She decided it would be best to know.

‘My cut-off point is thirty-three,’ he said coldly.

‘Thirty-three what?’ she asked, not sure what he meant.

‘Thirty-three years old,’ he retorted. ‘My ex-wife is thirty-four, so I’m going younger.
Much
younger.’

‘Oh!’ For a moment Annie was too taken aback to say anything. Then plenty of pithy responses came to mind like: ‘You sad old goat’, ‘When are you booking yourself in for a full facelift?’ or ‘Is dating a teenager so much fun?’

But she reined them in and settled on a dignified ‘Well, Lloyd, that’s your loss. Women get so much more
 
interesting in their thirties. Not to mention
expert
.’ Unfortunately, she followed this with a snarled ‘But why are you h
ere when there are so many
Thai agencies that could help you?’

There was nothing for it now. Having offended the man on her left and the man opposite, she had to concentrate on Will, the soup-slurping Mr Quiet.

‘I think Maisie really likes you,’ she told him, after a quick preliminary chat. ‘You should get her number . . . get in touch with her. I think you’d both get along like a house on fire.’

Unfortunately this just made Will blush deeply and clam up completely. So now Annie had no-one to talk to. Time to execute plan A and claim she had to leave early to get to her ‘other’ fictional party.

With a quick glance round at everyone within earshot, she announced that she would have to leave and so sorry, etc etc.

Exiting the table head high in what she hoped was a dignified manner, she couldn’t help taking a glance back to see if Lloyd had got up to follow her. Well, why not? Wasn’t he desperate to know more about her? The dwarf-baiter? Even if she was 35!?

No! He wasn’t even watching her go! His head was turned, he was deep in conversation with Lucinda, who – outrageously – had moved herself back into the chair Annie had just vacated.

But of course Hillary the hostess was chasing after her, catching up with her at the door.

‘How did it go? You’re looking so fabulous by the way,’ she gushed. ‘We will phone you tomorrow and ask if there’s anyone you met tonight that you want to contact.’

‘Thank you,’ Annie managed, although she’d have preferred a pithy, Pah, don’t bother. What a bunch of losers!

She buttoned her jacket up, fled to the first pub she
could find and gulped down a gin and tonic
while waiting for her minicab to turn up, more thoroughly humiliated than she could ever remember feeling after any school disco.

Chapter Five

Connor babysits:

Dark blue chunky cashmere rollneck (Armani)

Slouchy indigo jeans (Nudie)

White T-shirt (Paul Smith)

Pink and aqua socks (Paul Smith)

Tight boxers (Aussie Bum)

Suede bowling boots (Camper)

Total est. cost: £520

‘Why does no-one want me?’

‘Mizz Valentine, you been on a hot date?’ the taxi driver greeted her with a grin. It was the same driver who’d taken her home from Dinah’s house last Friday, Mr Abdul Nwocha and his not-so-trusty Nissan Bluebird. The week before she’d noticed an ominous rattle underneath the car, hinting at an exhaust close to exhaustion. It was still there.

But, like all the other drivers she knew at this cab firm,
 
he was cheap but polite, friendly and waited outside your home until you were safely inside.

‘How did it go?’ he asked Annie once she was buckled into her seat.

‘It was fine.’ She offered him a smile. She wasn’t even going to begin to describe the evening in its full glory. Yet another dating disaster, further proof, as if she needed it, that she was hopeless at this . . . that there was no-one good left out there . . . and that husbands were
 
completely underrated. She squeezed away the tears of frustration that were threatening, balled up her hands and tried to concentrate on Mr Nwocha and his chat.

‘Be seeing him again?’ he asked, his dark face and shiny leather jacket gleaming in the oncoming headlights, his tree-shaped air freshener swinging madly, sending blasts of throat-tightening fake pine as the car jolted on creaky suspension over the speed humps in the road. Each one threatened the exhaust with a death blow.

‘No, somehow I don’t think so.’ She managed a smile. ‘I don’t think he was really in my Dream Date Top Ten . . . Busy night?’ she asked, needing a change of subject.

‘It will be, my friend.’ He smiled and cranked up the tinny music coming from the radio.

Traffic, football and the weather filled the remaining minutes of the journey, then once Annie had paid and tipped him, despite his protests, and was getting out of the car, Mr Nwocha leaned over and patted her arm reassuringly: ‘If you’ve no date for next week you can always give me a call.’ A throaty giggle followed this, along with a wink.

‘Thank you,’ she smiled
, ‘I’m sure you’d be a very nice
date.’ She winked back. ‘Have a good night.’

‘I’m a great cook,’ he offered as she closed the cab door.

‘Then you won’t be alone for long,’ she told him.

As she walked to her front door, her phone beeped with a text from Dinah.

DID I WIN THE BET? it read.

Annie wondered if Mr Nwocha’s offer would count.

As she opened the door, she could hear the very, very welcome sound of Connor McCabe – the six-foot-three, dark-haired, devastatingly handsome actor that every woman deserved to have as a best friend – calling to her from the sitting room.

‘Hello, sex bomb!’ he greeted her as she stepped into the room. ‘How did it go?’

Connor was sprawled right across her sofa, effortlessly gorgeous as always: hair in a messy Elvis-ish quiff – that was new – wearing rumpled jeans and a cuddly rollneck. Two empty beer cans and a family pack of cheese and onion crisps were on the table beside him. He had the remote in one hand, a late night chat show on low volume on the telly.

‘Snog!’ he said, holding out his arms.

Annie leaned over and kissed him on the lips, feeling his arms hug her in tightly. He pulled her down onto the sofa on top of him.

‘With or without tongues?’ he joked, pecking at her lips again.

‘I think without . . . what with the cheese and onion, but thanks for the offer,’ Annie said, coming up for air. ‘Nice to see you.’

She tucked her head against his chest and smelled, beneath the pungent crisp breath, comforting manly scents of shaving cream, beer and well-worn jumper.

‘So, how did it go?’ he wanted to know. ‘Did you meet Mr Perfect?’

‘Yeah right.’ She rolled off and budged Connor over a bit so she was snugly sandwiched between the back of the sofa and his warm body. Ah, the comfort of a
gay man. You could use their body for all the huggy, snugly stuff without risking any misunderstanding.

Then she gave him the story of the evening, blow by
 
blow, leaving in as many stupid details and silly moments as she could.

When she’d finished, Connor wriggled a comforting arm around her.

‘I do need to find someone,’ she confided. ‘I’m in danger of getting dodgy. I’ve realized I’m paying men to touch me.’

‘What do you mean?!’

‘My hairdresser’s a man, my chiropractor, my dentist, my doctor . . . it’s when I realized I was really quite enjoying my breast examination, that’s when I suspected I’d turned into a dirty old woman.’