I was half awake and completely naked when I heard my phone buzzing in my bag from the living room a couple of hours later. Alex had slipped back into unconsciousness − I chose to believe that my supreme sexual prowess had knocked him out − and so, nosy old mare that I am, I rolled out of bed and into my pants, grabbed my phone and crawled into the kitchen to avoid flashing the neighbours.
Naturally the phone stopped ringing as soon as it was in my sweaty paws, but straightaway I saw a terrifying number of messages and missed calls from Louisa, my oldest, dearest friend in the UK. I swiped my phone screen to open them, refusing to entertain all the horrible thoughts that were running through my head. Of course someone had died while I was at home blowing out work for an afternoon quickie; what else could possibly have happened? Louisa’s texts didn’t really give me a lot of information, just repeated the demand that I call her as soon as I could, and that only worried me more. Louisa and I Skyped once a week as well as texted as often as her baby schedule would allow, and I knew I hadn’t missed a phone date. Since she had given birth to Grace a couple of months ago, we hadn’t been quite as chatty as normal, so seven ‘call me now’ texts at what had to be ten-ish in the evening UK-time couldn’t be good news. I fannied about with my iPhone contacts, trying to get it to call her back, but was cut off by an incoming call.
From my mother.
Someone was definitely dead.
Or someone was about to be.
With a very unpleasant feeling in my stomach, I reluctantly answered the phone.
‘Mum?’ I grabbed a tea towel from the kitchen counter and wrapped it around my chest. It just didn’t seem right to be topless while on the phone to my mother. Thank goodness I’d put on pants. ‘Is everything OK?’
The last time she’d put in an impromptu call was when my dad was in hospital after enjoying a recreational batch of space cakes at my auntie’s house. Ever since, I’d been waiting for the call to say he was leaving her for the milkman or that he had defaulted on the mortgage to fund his crack habit. It was impossible to say which was more likely.
‘Angela Clark, do you have something to tell me?’
The quiet fury in my mother’s voice suggested that my dad wasn’t in trouble but that I certainly was. And I was almost certain I knew why. Louisa’s texts suddenly made a terrifying kind of sense as I put two and two together to come up with a big fat shiny emerald-coloured four.
‘Um, I don’t think so?’ I answered sweetly. Because playing dumb had worked so well when I’d ‘borrowed’ her car in the middle of the night when I was eighteen, only to return it with three exciting new dents. I thought they added character. She thought they added to the insurance premium.
‘Are you or are you not −’ she paused and took a very deep, very dramatic breath − ‘engaged to that musician?’
Sodding bollocky bollocks.
It wasn’t like I’d planned on keeping my engagement a secret from my parents, but circumstances had conspired against me. And by circumstances, of course I meant stone cold terror. I’d called on Christmas Day to deliver the happy news, but my mum had been so mad that I hadn’t come home for dry turkey and seething resentment, and so mad that I was choosing to stay in ‘that country’ with ‘that musician’, that I couldn’t seem to find the right way to tell her I had just accepted a proposal from ‘that musician’ to stay in ‘that country’ for the foreseeable. Then, as the weeks passed by, the more I replayed the conversation over in my mind, the less I felt like casually mentioning my betrothal.
‘Am I engaged?’
‘Yes.’
‘To Alex?’
‘Yes Angela. To Alex. Or at least one hopes so.’
She used the special voice to pronounce my fiance’s name that she usually saved to refer to Sandra next door and Eamonn Holmes. And she hated Sandra next door and Eamonn Holmes.
‘Well, at least I’m not going to end up a barren spinster.’ Yes, dangling a grandchild-shaped carrot in front of her was a low blow, but needs must when the devil shits in your teapot. ‘Surely?’
‘Oh dear God, Angela, are you pregnant?’ she shrieked directly into the receiver before bellowing at the top of her voice in the other direction, ‘David! She’s pregnant!’
‘I’m not pregnant,’ I said, resting my head on my knees. I might be sitting half-naked on a dirty kitchen floor with a slightly grubby tea towel over my boobs, but I wasn’t pregnant. As far as I knew. ‘Seriously.’
‘Oh Lord, I should have known,’ she wittered on regardless. ‘Moving in with that musician, never calling, never visiting. How far gone are you?’
‘I’m not pregnant,’ I repeated with as much conviction as I could muster while simultaneously trying to remember if I had taken my pill that morning. ‘Mum, I’m not.’
‘How far gone is she?’ I heard my dad puffing his way down to the bottom of the stairs. ‘Is it that musician’s? Is that why she’s engaged?’
‘Oh, for God’s sake.’ Even though they couldn’t see me, I couldn’t resist an eye roll and emphatic wave of the hand. ‘I’m genuinely not pregnant. Alex did not propose because I’m up the stick. To the best of my knowledge, it’s because he actually wants to marry me.’
‘Right,’ she replied with a very subtle scoffing tone.
‘Thanks, Mum.’
‘Shall I book a flight? Do I need to go and get her?’ Dad was practically out the door already. ‘I’ll have to go to the post office and get some dollars.’
‘The post office,’ Mum seethed. Another of her arch enemies. ‘Go back upstairs. She says she’s not pregnant.’
‘She’d better bloody not be,’ he said, just loud enough for me to hear. ‘She’s not too old to go over my knee. That musician of hers as well.’
I fought the urge to remind him I’d only gone ‘over his knee’ once, when I was five and had purposely gone into his room, walked into the garden and thrown his best leather driving gloves into the pond so we wouldn’t have to go to my aunt Sheila’s. I was a petulant little madam. But he had apologized when I was twenty-five and told me I was right to have done it because my aunt Sheila was a − quote-unquote − right pain in the arse.
‘I can’t imagine why else you would think the best way for a mother to find out her daughter is engaged − to a musician, no less − that she has never met and who lives ten thousand miles away is to hear it from the village gossip on the Waitrose cheese aisle.’
I had to admit she had a point there.
The thing was, ever since my seasonal no-show, the subtle digs at Alex and his choice of profession had become out-and-out abuse. By the end of January she had written him off as Hitler and Mick Jagger’s love child. To most people, a musician was someone who played an instrument. To my mother, they had to be a lying, cheating drug addict whose only ambition in life was to knock up her poor, stupid daughter and then leave her destitute in a motel on the side of a highway with an arm full of track marks. It was a bit of a stretch. Alex didn’t even like to take Advil for a headache.
‘You told Louisa before your own family?’
Oh, Louisa, I thought to myself. Baby or no baby, you are dead.
‘Look, I wasn’t not telling you,’ I said, deciding to take a different tack. And to get off the kitchen floor because my bum was completely numb. ‘I just didn’t want to tell you over the phone. It didn’t seem right.’
Check me out − the dutiful daughter. For a spur-of-the-moment excuse, I thought it was pretty good. I tiptoed over to the sofa and replaced the tea towel with a blanket. Very chic.
‘Well, that’s probably because it isn’t right,’ she said, still sounding grumpy, but I had a feeling I wasn’t going to be disinherited. This time. ‘We haven’t even met this Alex character. It’s not right.’
‘He’s not a character, he’s a person.’ I took a deep breath, imagining the cold day in hell when Alex would sit down for afternoon tea with my mum and dad. ‘And you will meet him and you’ll love him.’
‘When?’
Oh cock.
‘Soon?’ I managed to make the word so high-pitched I swear the dogs next door started whining.
‘Bring him home for my birthday.’
And it wasn’t a question.
‘We’re having a bit of a do − nothing fancy, just something in the garden for the family,’ she went on. ‘And I want you there. And if he thinks he’s going to be part of this family, he’d better be there too.’
I put my mum on speakerphone and opened my calendar. Her birthday was in three weeks. Three very short, very unavoidable weeks. It wasn’t that I had forgotten, it’s just that until Facebook reminds me someone has been born, it just doesn’t register.
‘It’s a bit soon, Mum,’ I said slowly. ‘And the flights will be expensive …’
‘Your dad and I will pay.’
There was blood in the water, and Annette Clark never gave up until she got her kill.
‘For both of you. As an engagement present.’
‘Right.’ I felt very, very sick. Home. London. England. Mark. Everything I’d left behind.
‘And you’ll stay here.’ She was really enjoying herself now. ‘With your dad and me. Oh, Angela, you’ve made my birthday. David, get on Expedia, she’s coming home!’
And at that moment, I knew two things only. The first was that I was going to kill Louisa. The second was that I was going to have to go to London.
‘I didn’t tell her,’ Louisa whined into the phone as I hopped into a cab the next morning. The subway was down and I was already late for the office, having spent most of the previous evening drinking homemade margaritas while Alex stroked my hair and tried to talk me off the ledge. ‘It was Tim. It was a mistake.’
‘How did Tim manage to tell my mother I’m engaged?’ I fumbled in my satchel for a pair of sunglasses. The sun was too bright and my hangover was too sharp. ‘Is this because I broke his hand?’
Which I did. Almost accidentally. On their wedding day. I wasn’t sure if he’d forgiven me in the two years since I’d fled.
‘No.’ Louisa sounded tired. I had heard that was one of the side effects of having a baby, and according to my mother I’d know all about that. ‘He was in the supermarket and Mark’s mum was in there and going on about how Mark was going to New York for some conference—’
‘Mark?’ I suddenly felt very sweaty. And sick. And violent. ‘Mark Mark?’
‘Yes, Angela, Mark. You do recall? You were engaged to him for a million years?’
‘So Mark then?’ I said. ‘I just wanted to clarify that we were talking about the same scumbag.’
‘Yes, Mark.’ The word had lost all meaning. ‘So he was supposed to be going to New York for this conference because he’s just so important, and obviously Tim mentioned you were in New York, and obviously she couldn’t help having a dig, and so he casually dropped in that you were engaged. He didn’t mean to, honestly, and he had no idea she’d tell your mum. I mean, he didn’t know your mum was in there as well, did he?’
‘My mum is always in the supermarket,’ I replied, watching Williamsburg rush by, giving way to the Polish shop signs of Greenpoint and assorted acid-washed denim ensembles. ‘She lives and dies for Waitrose. I’m amazed they haven’t given her a job yet.’
‘Well, I just wanted you to know it wasn’t on purpose. Really, he was trying to do you a favour,’ Louisa bellowed over the Top Gear theme tune. ‘He’s totally Team Angela.’
‘But getting back to the important things, Mark is coming to New York?’ I didn’t need to see my reflection to know I had no colour left in my face. ‘When? Why?’
‘I don’t know,’ Louisa sighed. ‘He didn’t get the details. He is only a man, babe. And you know they don’t talk at all any more. It’s not like you’re going to bump into him, though, is it?’
‘No.’ I breathed out hard. My ex in my city. How dare he? Wasn’t there a law against cheating ex-boyfriends coming within five thousand miles of you? ‘It’s just sod’s law, isn’t it? I’ll be walking into work with my skirt tucked into my knickers and he’ll just appear.’
‘No he won’t, don’t be silly.’ Louisa had a fantastic telling-off voice already. She was going to be a great mother. ‘And even if he did, you’d just walk straight past him with your head held high.’
‘Or scream like a banshee and kick him in the bollocks?’ I suggested.
‘Sounds perfectly reasonable to me,’ she replied. ‘God knows, I’ve thought about it.’
‘It’s a good job he cheated on me before I discovered my violent side,’ I said, not even slightly meaning it. ‘Louisa, why on earth are you watching Top Gear on a Tuesday afternoon?’
Louisa’s voice strained as she hoisted up something heavy. I assumed it was the baby. ‘I’m sorry, it’s the only thing that stops her crying. I sometimes wonder what I’m raising.’
‘A tiny female Jeremy Clarkson?’ I shuddered. The idea of Louisa having a baby terrified me, let alone the idea of a baby that could only be placated by watching grown men with bad hair drive a Ford Mondeo into a caravan. ‘You should see someone about that.’
‘Top Gear and The Only Way Is Essex,’ she sighed. ‘Three months old and she’s already a fake-tanned boy racer with a vajazzle.’
‘I don’t understand at least half of what you just said,’ I remonstrated. The shop fronts slid into warehouses and the warehouses into the expressway before I finally saw the bridge and my beloved Manhattan in front of me. My blood pressure dropped just enough to make me sure I wasn’t going to die in the car. Good news − they charged fifty dollars if you puked; I had no idea how much a stroke would set me back. ‘And I don’t think I want to.’
Louisa laughed. Which made the baby cry. Which made Louisa sob.
‘Well, I know it’s selfish, but I can’t wait to see you,’ she said. ‘It’s time you met this little girl of mine. It’s been too long, Clark.’
‘I know, I want to see her face.’ I traced the Empire State Building against the window as we hurtled over the bridge. ‘I just feel so weird about coming back.’
‘That’s natural,’ she shouted. ‘It’s been a while, but, you know, you’ve got your visa now, you’ve got Alex − it’s not like they’re going to hold you at customs and never let you go.’
‘Yes, I have Alex now, but he hasn’t met my mum yet,’ I replied grimly. ‘And there’s every chance my dad is going to tie me up with a hosepipe and lock me in the shed.’
‘Yeah, he might do that,’ she admitted. ‘Or I might. I miss you so much.’
‘I miss you too,’ I said, feeling incredibly guilty for not meaning it nearly enough.
I did miss Louisa, I really did, but I missed the old Louisa. I missed our Friday-night wine dates and calling her during Downton Abbey to get a running commentary on the episodes that hadn’t aired in America yet. No one took apart a period drama like Louisa. But things had changed. She had an actual live baby, and the way life raced around me now, it was hard to find five minutes to really indulge in a good sulk about days gone by. Between work, not planning the wedding, trying to stop Jenny from drinking New York dry and attempting to dress like a grown-up every day, I struggled to find time to miss anything other than sleep.
And I definitely wasn’t in a baby place. I couldn’t even see the baby place from where I was. Now that Louisa had Grace, things felt a bit strained. Sometimes she was all we talked about. Of course I knew it was the most important thing that had ever happened to her, but I felt stupid complaining about being a bit hungover and the cost of handbags when Louisa now had to keep a tiny human being alive. I couldn’t even look after a handbag, I thought, stroking my beloved and nigh on destroyed Marc Jacobs satchel with every ounce of tenderness I would show my firstborn child. Which, as far as I was concerned, it was.
‘It’ll be fine, you know,’ Louisa promised. ‘Obviously your mum’s going to be an arse for the first couple of days, but your dad will be so happy to see you. And I want you to meet Grace. And I want to meet Alex. Honestly, Ange, it’ll be great.’
‘I suppose,’ I said, trying to adopt her positive attitude. ‘It’s just been so long, you know? I feel like it’ll be weird. Things are so different.’
‘No they aren’t,’ she argued. ‘Bruce is still doing Strictly, everyone’s still obsessed with Percy Pigs and the world still stops for X Factor. Things are, in fact, exactly the same.’
I smiled. She was trying. And it didn’t really make a lot of difference. I was going whether I liked it or not.
‘It’s not just that, though − there’s work as well,’ I said. Hopefully there was work. We still hadn’t heard back from Bob. ‘I’m working twelve hours a day. I don’t know how I’m just supposed to take a week off.’
‘People manage,’ Lou replied. ‘And you bloody should take some time off. It’s not healthy to work as hard as you have been.’
I didn’t like to say it might not be healthy but it was entirely necessary. When she had told me she was thinking about packing in work to be a full-time mum, I couldn’t speak to her for a week. Not because I didn’t agree with it as an option; it was just so far removed from the Louisa I knew. My career was important to me, but she was keen to tell me I couldn’t possibly understand anything ‘until I had a baby’. Grr.
‘Do you promise to make me lots and lots of tea?’ I asked solemnly.
‘I do,’ she replied with equal gravity.
‘And to be nice to Alex?’
‘You’ll be lucky if I don’t try to run off with him.’
‘And that you’ll be my alibi in case I accidentally murder my mother?’
‘I’ll do it for you,’ she swore. ‘Just get your arse home, Clark. There’s a chav-obsessed shit machine here that’s desperate for your influence.’
‘I’m pretty sure you should stick with Grace,’ I suggested. ‘It’s much more flattering.’
‘Just get on a plane and call me as soon as you land,’ Louisa replied. ‘I’ll pick you up from the airport.’
‘Yes, you bloody will,’ I said. ‘Yes, you bloody well will.’
Tuesday and Wednesday were no better than Monday. No word from Mr Spencer on Gloss. No word from Jenny from the dubious liaison that had led to last week’s meltdown. Lots of word from my mother on times and dates of flights back to the UK. Finally, after a very long day of spreadsheets and feature ideas and willing the phone to ring with good news from Bob, I fell through the door sometime after nine and noticed right away that all the lights were out. No Alex.
I buried my disappointment in a hastily downed glass of white and went to run a bath, shedding my Splendid T-shirt dress and French Sole flats as I went. While the bath filled with lovely lemon-and-sage-scented Bliss bubbles, I pulled my hair back from my face, scrubbed away the day and stared at myself in the mirror. It was two years since this face had been in England. Two years since I’d walked in on my fiancé shagging his mistress in the back of our car. Two years since I’d cried myself to sleep in a hotel room. Two years since I’d jumped on a flight away from it all and found myself here. Home. I frowned. Was I allowed to call New York home? I mean, I had grown up in England − my family was there, my GCSE certificates and Buffy DVDs were there. Come Dine with Me was there. Didn’t home mean family and familiarity and M&S?
I washed my face, hoping to uncover a happier expression, but just uncovered a couple of fine lines around my eyes and a hint of sunburn across my cheeks. Hmm. Running my fingers lightly over my skin, I stared myself out, looking for something new. Same blue eyes, same cheekbones, same hair, if a little longer and blonder. Same Angela. But still not a flicker. For the want of an answer that would settle the butterflies in my stomach, I got into the tub. There were so few things you could rely on in life, but bubble baths, kittens and a quick game of Buckaroo were three things that would never let you down. Sadly, we were kittenless and there was no one home to play Buckaroo with.
Deep in the warm, soapy water, I closed my eyes and rested my toes on the taps. Heaven. Nothing could go wrong when you were in the bath. Until the day they invented waterproof iPhones, anyway. I spun my engagement ring around my finger with my thumb, rhythmically clinking it against the side of the tub. The magazine was good. Yes, we needed to get Bob’s blessing, but like Delia said, there was no reason why we wouldn’t. OK, so Jenny had gone slightly mad, but who could blame her? She would be fine when she’d had some time and I’d be there for her. And I was engaged. I was engaged, for real, to someone I loved. Someone who loved me. That was a pretty good thing. And as for going back to England, well. Hmm. I screwed up my face and sighed, eyes tightly closed.
‘Man, what is that face for?’
I jumped a mile out of my skin, splashing white, frothy bubbles all over the bathroom floor and slipping back under the water in surprise.
‘Alex,’ I gasped, re-emerging with wet hair and a considerably shortened lifespan. ‘I didn’t hear you come in.’
‘I’m not surprised.’ My fiancé stretched in the doorway and peeled off his leather jacket, throwing it on the floor on top of my dress. We were a right pair of scruffy bastards. Thank God we had found each other. ‘You looked like you were trying to solve one of life’s great mysteries. Were you trying to work out what I Can’t Believe it’s Not Butter is made from again?’
‘That was only once,’ I grumbled, adjusting my bubble coverage. ‘And you admitted you didn’t know either.’
‘No, I admitted I didn’t care.’ He corrected me with a smile and folded himself into a sitting position beside the bath. ‘So what’s up? Tough day at the office?’
‘Actually no.’ I leaned my head over to accept my hello kiss and resisted the urge to splash him. It was a very strong urge. ‘Still just waiting to hear if Bob’s going to let Delia present at the advertisers’ thing. It’s next month, I think, so he’s going to have to make his mind up fairly quickly.’
‘He’s gonna say yes,’ Alex assured me with a gentle stroke of my hair. ‘You guys have put so much work in. He would be crazy to turn it down.’
‘I know,’ I purred. Stroking was nice. ‘I just want it confirmed, you know?’
‘I do know,’ he nodded. ‘So what was that face all about when I came in?’
Sometimes I hated our full disclosure agreement. Sometimes a girl wanted to sit in the bath and wallow like a mardy, hungry hippo. Now I was going to have to tell him all my ridiculous concerns and let him make me feel better. Stupid, clever, pretty boy.
‘Just thinking about this whole going back thing,’ I said, wiggling my toes at myself. ‘Just stressing myself out.’
‘Huh.’ He rested his chin on the side of the bath and looked at me with bright green eyes. ‘You know you don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to, but I feel like it’s getting to be a thing. What’s up with you and your mom? What’s with the big freak-out?’
Now there was a question. I thought about it for a moment, waiting for words to come out of my mouth. But they didn’t. For the first time in my entire life.
‘I mean, it’s not like I don’t have parental issues of my own,’ Alex went on, filling in the silence for me. ‘But you’re gonna have to help me out. You don’t want to go home or you just don’t want to see her?’
‘I don’t know,’ I replied. It didn’t help, but it was honest.
‘You guys don’t get along?’
‘We actually used to be all right,’ I said, remembering all the Sunday dinners in front of the EastEnders omnibus. ‘I mean, she’s my mum. She’s a pain in the arse, but I just − I just feel bad.’
Alex resumed the hair-stroking. ‘Because?’
‘Because I came here. I left her. And I know that, for all her moaning, she misses me, and I feel guilty. As much as she’s a pain in the arse, my mum’s always been there for me.’ I couldn’t help but think about Louisa’s wedding. Who else would put you to bed and tell you everything was going to be all right immediately after you’d split up a ten-year relationship, made something of a scene and broken the groom’s hand with a stiletto? Only your mother.
‘The day you don’t feel guilty about your parents will be the day the world stops turning,’ Alex said. ‘I think going back to visit is a good thing. Maybe it’ll remind her you’re still here. You’re not on the moon, you’re just a plane ride away. Maybe she’ll stop guilt-tripping you so much.’
‘Yeah, maybe.’ And maybe I’ll wake up to find a bacon sandwich winging its way past the window. Silly Alex. ‘It just feels so strange. Like, I won’t be welcome.’
‘Well, that’s dumb,’ he laughed, pulling on my ponytail. ‘I didn’t want to say anything, but I’ve already had two emails from Louisa and a Facebook friend request from your dad. They can’t wait to see you.’
‘Parents really shouldn’t be allowed on Facebook,’ I said, making a face and trying to smile. ‘Please feel free to ignore it. I know they’re excited to see me. And I’m excited to see them.’
‘But?’
I looked around the bathroom. At the towels on the heated rail, at all my products loaded on the windowsill, at my boyfriend on the floor, and imagined my life for a moment without any of it.
‘But I still don’t want to go,’ I said eventually.
‘Because?’
‘Because I left,’ I said with a deep breath. ‘And I’m scared that if I go back home to England, I’ll have to give up my home in New York.’
Alex breathed out with a whistle. ‘Wow.’
I turned my head to the side to face him properly and did not enjoy his expression.
‘You realize that’s the dumbest thing you’ve ever said?’ Alex asked. ‘And you know, between you and me, you’ve said some pretty dumb shit over the years. It’s not an either/or sitch.’
‘I know,’ I whined, dropping my toes back into the bath and flipping the bubbles around my feet. ‘But you don’t get it. When I came here, everything changed. I met Jenny, I started writing, I met you. I changed. I didn’t like myself before. Before, I would just sit in my pyjamas and watch Sex and the City and wait for something to happen.’
‘Angela, what did you do last night?’
‘I sat on the settee in my pyjamas and watched Sex and the City, but that’s not the point,’ I replied. ‘It’s different. I’m different.’
‘I do get what you’re saying,’ he started carefully, choosing his words, presumably to minimize the chances that I would pull him face first into the bath. He was treading a very fine line. ‘But just listen to what you’re saying. You are different now. Even if you get back and they’re all the same. I know things weren’t awesome for you before you moved here − people don’t usually get on a plane and move to another country without notice if they’re super-happy with life − but what you have here, what you’ve achieved, no one can take away from you.’
I bit my lip and nodded.
‘No one can take me away from you.’ He reached into the bath water and pulled out my left hand, holding my ring up to the light. ‘And no one is going to take you away from me.’
I felt myself blush from head to toe. Sometimes I still didn’t quite believe it.
‘We’re going to go to London, you’re gonna show everyone this ring, and I’m gonna knock your mom’s socks off. By the time I’m done, she’s going to love me so much, she’ll be pushing you back on that plane. Back to New York, back to the magazine, back to all your friends and, like it or not, I’m going to marry your ass.’
‘Yeah, whatever,’ I said, trying to maintain my grumpy face, but it was hard when he was sitting there making sense and being adorable.
‘So, list of reasons to be cheerful?’ He squeezed my hand tightly. ‘You’re gonna see your mom and stop beating yourself up. You get to see Louisa and the baby. You get to see me being adorable with a baby. Your magazine is gonna kick ass and we get to go on a trip to London. I think that’s pretty cool. I’m excited.’
There were a million good reasons to marry Alex Reid, but one of the best was his ability to talk sense and put a smile on my face when I couldn’t see the lovely wood for the shitty trees.
‘And if you don’t tell me you’re excited, I’m going to drag you out of that bath and throw you into the East River,’ he declared.
‘You’re all talk, Reid.’ I shuffled further into the bath, further under the bubbles.
‘Is that right?’ He leapt to his feet, all six-foot-something in skintight jeans and a battered old black T-shirt. ‘You’re asking for trouble now.’
‘Fuck off and put the kettle on,’ I yawned. ‘I’ll be out in a minute.’
‘That does it. Get your ass out the bath and put the kettle on yourself.’
Without warning, he leaned over into the bath and picked me up. I reached up and grabbed around his neck instinctively, half the bath water following me out.
‘Alex, put me down,’ I squealed, dripping wet and completely and utterly naked. ‘Put me back in the bath!’
‘No way.’ He held me tightly, so much stronger than he had any right to be, and ducked my flailing, sodden limbs. ‘That’s enough sulking in the bath for one day. It’s time you made my dinner, woman.’
I couldn’t argue for laughing, and, despite slipperiness, couldn’t seem to wriggle away, so I let him carry me out of the bathroom, water dripping behind us, and throw me down on the bed.
‘So we’re agreed?’ Alex asked, peeling off his piss-wet T-shirt and tossing it at me. ‘You’re going to stop being a dumbass?’
‘Only if you get that bloody kettle on and clean up the bathroom floor,’ I retaliated, finally getting my breath back.
‘I knew marrying you was going to be a mistake.’ He flipped me his middle finger and walked out of the bedroom. I sat on the bed, holding his T-shirt, then heard the kitchen tap followed by the click of the kettle. I smiled.
Things were probably going to be OK.
Over the next couple of days, due to Alex’s enthusiasm and in spite of my mother’s, I started to get excited about the idea of going home. In between frantic spreadsheet sessions in the office, I’d find myself fantasizing about sausage rolls or imagining a crazed rampage through the Marks & Spencer lingerie department. No one made knickers like M&S. And the more I thought about it, the more excited I was to take Alex with me. He was going to be my good-luck charm. After all, he was right − I had changed, and it wasn’t like I would regress in the space of a couple of days to the same old mousey, housebound Angela whose idea of an exciting night out was a turn round Asda. We would go to London, I would parade him around like the show pony that he was and then we would come home. With enough bags of Monster Munch to warrant the purchase of a new suitcase. Or two.
Pulsuz fraqment bitdi.