Who's That Girl (8 page)

'Totally.' He nods. 'Well, let's see…' He glances at his iPhone. 'I leave for the States next Wednesday, so how about Tuesday?'

I look at him in disbelief. '
A week today?''

'Is that a problem?' He throws me a look that leaves me in no doubt that if it is a problem, he'll find a PR company for whom it isn't.

'No, of course not,' I quickly reassure him, while thinking of all the work I'm going to have to do, all the extra hours I'm going to have to put in to get things ready. I can already feel the pressure piling on top of my shoulders.

'Excellent.' He smiles with the confidence of a man who doesn't have problems. He has shiny white teeth, a perfect tan and a prime-time show on American TV. And he plays golf with Jack Nicholson, according to one of his press cuttings. 'So you're up for the challenge?'

'Absolutely.' I sit more upright and throw back my shoulders. Honestly, what's wrong with me? I love challenges. And I want this contract. This is my big opportunity. 'As I said before, Merryweather PR might be a smaller agency, but that works in our favour because we can give you a lot more personal attention,' I say with renewed enthusiasm.

'I like the sound of that,' he replies, a smile playing on his lips.

'So have you secured a location for the clinic?' I say briskly, ignoring a feeling of discomfort and forging ahead through my list.

'Almost,' he replies, and leans back in his chair. 'I've had a location guy scouting for the right space for a while now and we're down to two. Usually I go with my gut on things.' He gestures towards me. 'But in this case I'm not really feeling it.'

'Maybe I could offer some input?' I suggest.

'That would be awesome,' he enthuses. 'I'm flying to Brussels tomorrow for an international conference on the latest breakthroughs in cosmetic dentistry, but I'm back the next day.'

'Great.' I nod, pulling out my BlackBerry and scrolling through my diary. 'What time were you thinking?'

'Well, I'm pretty busy all day with designers.' Suddenly I get a horrible feeling where this is going. 'How about in the evening? Dinner maybe?'

I was
so
hoping he wasn't going to say that.

'It will give us a chance to get to know each other a bit more.'

I'm nodding and smiling as he's talking, but I'm flashing back to a few moments ago. Did I imagine it?
Did I
?

'It's important to make sure we're on the same page. Don't you think?'

He is smiling smoothly at me and automatically I switch on my professional smile, but my mind's all over the place. I wanted this contract more than anything, but now…

Larry Goldstein is still looking at me expectantly, waiting for an answer.

'Absolutely. Thursday evening it is, then!' I suddenly hear myself saying. He breaks into a wide smile. 'Excellent!' Picking up his glass of water, he clinks it against mine.

'That's a date!'

I smile brightly. I've done it! The contract's mine.

Oh God.

Chapter Seven

I wave Larry Goldstein off in a cab and cross the street to where my car's parked. I check the time. Lunch went on for a lot longer than I expected and it's late. I need to get back to the office, tell Bea the good news and —

'Lottie!'

A familiar voice behind me interrupts my train of thought and I swing round. No one ever calls me that any more except… Squinting in the bright summer sunshine, I peer down the busy street, past cafes spilling out on to the pavement, people drinking cappuccinos and eating pastries, shoppers laden down with designer bags, a mother with a double buggy and an ageing cocker spaniel…

'
Nessy
!' I break into a grin. 'What are you doing here?'

'I live here, you idiot,' she counters jovially. 'What are you doing here?'

Vanessa is my oldest friend. I met her the day I went to London to interview for my first job on the puzzle magazine. She was sitting on a wall, outside the office, smoking a cigarette and looking utterly cool. To a nervous girl just off the National Express coach from Yorkshire and wearing her mother's suit, Vanessa epitomised everything about London. Six foot tall and a platinum blonde, she was twenty-five years old and shared a flat with some friends in Kensington. I was in awe of her.

I still am a bit. Happily married to Julian, her handsome lawyer husband, she's mum to two adorable children and lives in a big, rambling house in Notting Hill, with a fridge covered in finger paintings and thousands of family photographs cluttering the walls. We lead completely different lives and don't get to see each other as much as we'd like, but we're still incredibly close.

'I had a business lunch,' I say, gesturing to the restaurant. 'I was just going back to the office.'

'Bollocks to that.' She frowns, looping her arm through mine. 'Aunty Charlotte is coming back to ours for a cup of tea, isn't she?' She peers into the double buggy, where Ruby, aged three, and Sam, who's just turned one, giggle and gurgle respectively. 'See, that's a yes - in case you needed me to translate,' she says, and I can't help laughing.

'OK,' I surrender. I know better than to argue with Vanessa. 'But just one cup.'

'One cup,' she repeats innocently, and grasping the handle of the double buggy and the dog lead with one hand and me with the other, she propels us all down the high street.

'God, I wish someone would stick their hand up my skirt.'

I've just spent the last ten minutes telling her all about my weird 'incident' with Larry Goldstein, and to be honest, this wasn't the reaction I was expecting.

'Vanessa!' I gasp, horrified.

'Sorry, honey, only joking,' she apologises breezily. 'Well, sort of,' she mutters, furiously blitzing something unidentifiable in the blender until it resembles orange gloop. 'Though I must say, I've seen that Larry Goldstein being interviewed on
Oprah
and he's bloody handsome.'

'So what if he is? In a plastic sort of a way,' I can't help adding. 'That doesn't mean he can make a pass at me in a restaurant. It was a business meeting.'

She pauses from feeding Sam, a spoonful of orange gloop held suspended in the air. '
And
?' she teases. Distractedly she puts the spoon in her own mouth. There's a loud squawk. 'Oops, sorry, darling,' she coos, remembering herself. 'Silly Mummy is hungry too.' Hastily she shovels up another spoonful.

'
And
that's not acceptable!' I admonish. 'It's sexual harassment. Have you never heard of equality in the workplace?'

She screws up her forehead and pretends to think. 'Vaguely. I'm a stay-at-home mother who lives in a world of bathtimes, tantrums and dirty nappies. I gave up my job and my life to breed. Need I say more?' A spoon in each hand, she smiles wryly, then continues alternating orange gloop and pasta between two hungry mouths.

'Yeah, but you love being a mum,' I counter.

'True.' She smiles, turning to me, her face lit up. 'My kids are the best thing, I can't imagine life without them…' She breaks off uncomfortably as she catches my eye, and the smile slips from her face. For the briefest moment, a look passes between us. 'But I'm glad I waited until my thirties to have them,' she adds quickly.

She glances away and there's an awkward pause.

I fill it by changing the subject. 'Anyway, you hated your job,' I point out. Vanessa used to work in the solicitors' firm next to my office. That's how she met Julian, her husband. 'You said you couldn't wait to leave.'

'True.' She nods, breaking into a huge smile at Ruby, who's laughing hysterically as she smears orange gloop over her brother.

'You threw a resignation party,' I continue.

'And you couldn't come,' she remarks, shooting me a look.

'I was on a deadline.'

'When aren't you on a deadline?' she counters.

I open my mouth to protest, then close it again. Actually, come to think of it, I can't remember a life before deadlines.

'Gosh, that was a great party.'

I look back at Vanessa, who's gone all dreamy-eyed. 'We had over a hundred people squeezed into the old house. I was pregnant and couldn't drink and so Julian made me Virgin Marys and we played UB40 all night to celebrate my unemployment - you know, UB40: unemployed.' She smiles wistfully, her mind wandering back to that night over three years ago. 'Anyway, it's not as if you're certain this Goldstein chap even
made
a pass. It seems very unlikely. Like you said, you probably made a mistake.'

'True,' I admit. In fact, the more I think about it, I'm almost certain I made a mistake.

'And you got the contract, which is what you wanted, isn't it?'

'True.' I nod.

'So don't look so worried,' she reprimands.

'I'm not,' I reply, quickly uncreasing my forehead.

Well, OK, I am a bit, but I'm not going to admit it.

'Really?' Vanessa looks surprised. 'That's not like you. Usually you worry about everything.'

'I wouldn't say
everything
,' I say, a little miffed.

'You worry about being worried,' she points out, smiling.

'That's not true!' I say defensively.

'What about when we were celebrating your birthday and we bought all that champagne? And as we were about to open it, you got worried the cork was going to pop out and blind someone… ?'

'Well, it could have,' I protest. 'I was just being careful.'

'Yelling, "Duck!" and diving for cover?'

I blush. 'OK, so maybe I was a little overcautious, but those corks can be dangerous. They can take an eye out,' I argue, but I don't think Vanessa is listening.

'And what about the time we went to that spa hotel for my hen weekend and we are all having fun by the pool and you lay in the shade and refused to join in because you were worried you were going to slip and bang your head and be paralysed?'

'It happens a lot!' I admonish. 'Haven't you seen
The Sea Inside
?'

'We weren't diving off rocks into the sea, Charlotte. We were messing around on inflatable lilos.'

'Accidents can still happen,' I warn her.

'On a lilo?' she gasps incredulously.

The kettle boils and flicks off and she starts pulling out cups and looking for teabags.

'Do you have any chamomile?' I ask.

'Only Earl Grey,' she replies. 'Go on, live dangerously,' she teases, seeing my expression. 'I remember the days when you didn't even know what herbal-tea was, and you certainly wouldn't have drunk it. In fact, you wouldn't drink anything back then unless it was alcoholic'

I frown and ignore her.

'So how's Miles?' she asks, throwing me a look as she reaches for the kettle. Vanessa is not what you'd call Miles's biggest fan. She's never actually said anything, but she doesn't have to. Those looks say it all.

'Great,' I enthuse. 'We had dinner last night at this really nice new gastropub.'

'So when are you two going to
consolidate
?' she teases, reaching for the wet-wipes and cleaning Ruby and Sam's faces.

I told Vanessa the story. Now I so wish I hadn't. She's never stopped joking about it.

'We're waiting for the property market to… er…' Shit. I have no clue what we're supposed to be waiting for the property market to do. I think I probably zoned out at that bit. '… do something,' I finish vaguely.

'Right,' says Vanessa, raising an eyebrow. I fidget uncomfortably. 'And when will that be?' She passes me a cup of tea.

I wrack my brains for some recollection of what Miles and I have talked about. We've talked about this for hours. Hours and hours and hours in fact. Which is weird, as I'm sort of having difficulty remembering any of the key points.

'Well, it's impossible to predict,' I say finally, and feel a beat of pleasure at how wise this sounds.

'But we are going to look at a house this week. Apparently, it's just come on the market and it's amazing.' I'm quoting Beatrice, who quoted Miles, so that has to be right. Vanessa looks impressed. 'Where is it?'

'Um…' I pause. I remember looking at the Post-it note with the address, but for some reason I didn't take it in. 'London,' I reply brightly, then before she can fire any more questions at me, continue quickly, 'But we're not in any hurry to move in together. After all, this way we get to catch up on our sleep during the week, so at the weekends we can have lots of sex. It's the perfect arrangement really,' I add, though I'm not quite sure whether it's to convince Vanessa or myself.

'Sleep? Sex?' Vanessa wrinkles her brow as she passes Ruby and Sam a couple of strawberries.

'What are those again?'

I know she's joking, kind of, as she says this kind of stuff all the time, but I detect an edge to her voice that I've never heard before.

'Well, that's the
idea
,' I say, quickly backtracking.

There's a whole chapter in one of my self-help books about how a couple's sex life can suffer after the birth of a child. Apparently, you can become highly sensitive about the subject of sex, so I should probably be sensitive around Vanessa. Just in case.

'Though if you want to know the truth, usually one of us ends up falling asleep in front
of
Location, Location, Location
,' I admit. Well, I don't want her feeling bad or anything.

'Before Julian and I had the kids, we were at it like rabbits,' she replies matter-of-factly.

'You were?' I ask, my voice coming out all high-pitched. I look at her, feeling slightly shocked. Vanessa and I don't really talk about sex. We did a bit when we were younger and having flings, but not once we got into proper relationships.

'Oh, absolutely. We couldn't keep our hands off each other,' she sighs, sinking down on to a kitchen stool and looking wistful. 'We were always at it.'

I feel a stab of both alarm and curiosity. 'Like how often?' I ask casually.

'Ooh, I don't know…'

If she says three times a week, that's OK. Miles and I have been known to have sex three times a week.

Maybe once.

'… every day. Sometimes twice. We used to like to get in a quickie before work,' she confesses, and then blushes like a naughty schoolgirl.

Every day?
Sometimes twice
?