Me, You and Tiramisu. Charlotte Butterfield

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СКАЧАТЬ me sound really desperate? I mean I usually do have a really packed rock’n’roll schedule, but as luck would have it I’ve just had a cancellation,’ she grinned sheepishly. ‘And now I’m talking too much. You can retract your invitation at any time and I absolutely will not be offended.’

      He smiled and ducked his head so his lips brushed her cheek ‘Tonight sounds awesome. There’s a little wine bar in Richmond called Magnum’s, do you know it? How about we meet there at eight?’

      Will was barely out of earshot when Rachel spun round on the doorstep screaming. ‘O.M.G. He asked you out! You’re going on a date with him! This is beyond brilliant!’ Her eyes suddenly grew wide in horror, ‘Oh God. You have absolutely nothing to wear. If only we were the same size, that new DVF shirtdress I bought last week would be perfect. Right. I’m meant to be doing Zumba with Marco but I’ll tell him we’re spending the day finding you something gorgeous, he’ll understand.’ She started typing furiously on her phone, ‘I’ll tell him to meet us at Selfridges at ten.’

      ‘Ten? A.m.? On a Saturday? Seriously Rachel, I’ve got clothes, it’s not as though I walk around with nothing on all day every day, I’ll dig something out.’

      ‘Dig something out? Please tell me you didn’t just say that you would ‘dig something out’ for possibly the most important date you’ve ever had or ever likely to have? Jesus, Jayne, can you start taking this seriously?’

      It had always been the same. When they were little Rachel used to lay out Jayne’s clothes for her each morning to take away the risk of her making a huge sartorial error. Even Rachel’s school uniform had been customised to the point of bearing little resemblance to its original incarnation. Her skirt had given two fingers to the school regulation of knee-length and she’d even cut her tie in half all the way down before carefully hemming it. Jayne had commented at the time that she’d looked like a country-and-western singer, but like Rachel had swiftly retorted, ‘It’s called fashion, Jayne. You wouldn’t understand.’ Which was true. It wasn’t that she didn’t care how she looked, but she’d always placed function above form in life, and warmth and comfort received greater prioritisation than colour or shape.

      Jayne sighed. Resistance was futile. ‘Fine, if it’s so important to you to take me shopping and do a Gok, then okay, I will allow you and Marco to guide me through the maze of Selfridges, but if either of you make any attempt to manhandle me into dresses or make any reference to my ‘bangers’, I’m walking out and you can get another hobby.’

      ‘Deal.’ Her phone pinged. I’m there like a bear. Mxx

      Dear Lord, what had she let herself in for? Thankfully Jayne had had a lifetime of dealing with Rachel, and Marco was the exact replica of her, right down to their shared love of the naked male anatomy. They’d felt a gravitational pull towards each other during design college somewhere between the module on concealing air-conditioning vents and the importance of layering textures in your soft furnishings. Back then he was called Mark, before the run-of-the-mill ‘k’ was dropped in favour of the most exotic ‘co’.

      Learning the art of making friends at the age of nineteen was a new one for both of the sisters but Rachel, with her chemically straightened afro cut into an angular black bob, heavily rimmed kohl eyes and a scowl that said, ‘what the hell do you want?’ permanently inked on her face, found it harder.

      Jayne had tried to get her to smile encouragingly or even just tone down the stare that said: ‘I could kill you with one sarcastic put-down’. Rachel had howled with mirth when Jayne suggested that ‘a stranger was just a friend she hadn’t met yet’, which made her silently vow to stop reading the slogans on t-shirts and memorising them for future repetition. Rachel wasn’t being deliberately rude or obtuse, though, the truth was she was just fiercely independent. Their upbringing had turned Jayne into an apologetic people-pleaser and given Rachel an almost impenetrable body armour.

      Jayne had also spent most of her university life with her nose touching her textbooks, but for her it was borne partly out of love for her subject and more than she would ever admit because it was the first time she wasn’t in the same class as Rachel. They’d never had to experience that moment where you walk into a new classroom and have to do the dreaded scan to see where the empty places were and who looked the least-offensive person to sit by, because they’d always been greeted by the other one with one hand in the air waving and the other firmly planted on the seat next to them, mouthing ‘saved’ at anyone that dared to attempt to sit down.

      Everyone always assumed that being a twin meant that you had this invisible bubble sealed around you that repelled and reflected any outside interference, and this was sort of true, it does take a very special kind of person to see a crack and squeeze into it, and boy, was Mark/co persistent. When Rachel called her sister excitedly on her way home one day in her second term to say that she’d met this guy called Mark and they were going to see one of his friends play in a band that night at a random bar in Clapham, Jayne couldn’t have been more surprised. Nice surprised. Not a little bit jealous in the least. Nope, not her. Good on Rachel. And Mark. She had hoped they were very happy together.

      Thankfully this level of ‘nicely surprised’ soon gave way to ‘actually nicely surprised’ because Marco became the confidante that Rachel always wanted Jayne to be. It meant that she turned to him to discuss the guest editorship of the latest issue of Wallpaper and whether perspex platforms were going to make a comeback. Jayne had very little to contribute on either of these topics, so Marco being around actually worked in everyone’s favour.

      How Jayne escaped relatively unscathed from the morning’s shopping she had no idea – in fact she was pretty certain Rachel and Marco would still be standing outside the changing room suggesting that if she leant forward, she could squeeze into the bodycon dress a little easier, had she not called time on the whole charade at about three. Jayne had got so bored she’d even resorted to taking armfuls of clothes into the cubicle with her, locking the door and then sitting in the corner playing solitaire on her mobile pretending to change, while her personal shoppers shouted out encouraging comments and questions, such as ‘what does the teal one look like?’ To which she’d replied things like, ‘what’s teal?’ while putting a three of clubs on top of a four of hearts.

      They’d finally all decided that skinny jeans were not made for her – Jayne knew this after trying one pair on; why she had to try on a further three pairs was beyond her, ‘They’re different brands, so different cuts,’ was Marco’s reasoning, but she thought the clue was in the name. But the outfit that finally raised a smile from Rachel, jazz hands from Marco and an ‘Hallelujah’ from Jayne was a long maxi dress with a swirly paisley print in oranges and reds, which, according to Rachel, was very ‘retro-chic’ which was, apparently, a good thing.

      That evening she teamed her new purchase with her failsafe denim jacket that had been a faithful staple of her wardrobe for a decade, big hoop earrings and, miracles of miracles, hair that seemed to instinctively know that it had to behave itself, and she was ready to go.

      ‘You look lush, Jayne, really lush.’ Rachel stood to give her a hug and Marco gave her a big thumbs-up from the sofa, where he was lounging, throwing cashews into his open mouth. ‘If you’re not coming home tonight, text me.’

      ‘Shut up, like that’s going to happen. It’s not even a date date. Just two friends talking about old times. Together. In a friendly, platonic, keeping-clothes-on kind of way.’

      ‘Oh okay. I’ll come too then, shall I?’ Rachel said mischievously.

      ‘Don’t you bloody dare. See you later!’

      He was already sitting at the bar when Jayne walked in, and spotting her loitering СКАЧАТЬ