Elegance and Innocence: 2-Book Collection. Kathleen Tessaro

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СКАЧАТЬ so how did we leave it then?’ I try to gather my enthusiasm.

      ‘Jan was just about to reveal to Aaron why she’d left home.’

      ‘Oh, yeah. Good. And what did we decide about that?’

      Nicki checks through the notes we made at coffee.

      ‘You know, I don’t think we came to any firm conclusions about that one.’

      ‘Did we have any ideas?’

      She flicks through again. ‘I’m not really seeing anything that can be called a solid idea.’

      ‘Oh. OK. Never mind.’ I haul myself out of the sagging centre of the daybed. ‘Right. Let’s get brainstorming!’

      The room goes dead. A dog barks somewhere in the distance. Nicki gnaws at a hangnail.

      Suddenly, like the voice of God, the sound of Dionne Warwick singing ‘Walk On By’ floats down the stairs. Nicki’s on her feet in a flash.

      ‘My God, I can’t believe he’s doing that now! The bastard!’

      ‘Doing what?’ I ask.

      ‘He’s playing Dionne Warwick!’ she shrieks. Flinging the door open, she screams up the stairs. ‘I know what you’re doing, you bastard! I know what you’re doing!’

      ‘My God, Nicki, what’s he doing?’ I’m missing the point badly.

      ‘He’s exercising!’ she screams, rolling her eyes. ‘Don’t you understand? The bastard will be bouncing all over the treadmill next!’ She cradles her head in her beautifully manicured hands. ‘I’m getting a tension headache. I can feel it right here.’ She points to the top of her left temple. ‘I can’t work this way. I just can’t. Do you mind? I have to get out of here.’

      So we go shopping.

      Shopping with Nicki takes stamina. It takes patience. And it takes great fortitude.

      I’m fine as long as we stick to coffee shops and her house but as soon as we go shopping, real, proper clothes shopping, the enormous gulf between her life and mine is ruthlessly revealed. Suddenly all the cuddly Hello! glamour and intimacy we’ve shared evaporates and I’m keenly aware of a sharp, insurmountable shift in status.

      Firstly, she’s tall, incredibly slender, with long legs and a handsome bust. So it’s like, well, like shopping with a model.

      Secondly, she shops at Prada and Loewe, Harvey Nichols, and Jo Malone – stores well beyond my meagre budget. I’m used to doing my Columbo impression, shambling around the changing rooms of Harvey Nichols in my second-hand trench coat while she parades through the department in her knickers, grabbing piles of garments in all conceivable colours and styles. The shop assistants love her. They look upon me as a badly groomed pet.

      Occasionally, Nicki encourages me to try something on. There are awful moments, embedded in my memory, of standing in front of a changing-room mirror in a badly fitting dress, my legs unshaven, wearing a pair of worn out plimsolls, only to have Nicki emerge from the neighbouring cubical in exactly the same dress (but a size smaller), looking, yes, like a model.

      It’s the shop assistants I feel for most. They avert their eyes and smile and lie. The minutes stretch like years while they desperately try to make a sale to one of us, to both of us, and then neither of us.

      Nicki frowns, pouts and checks for non-existent panty lines while I crawl backwards into the cubical, desperate to hide again under my trench coat and brown beret. Later, I help her carry her bags from the shop. She smiles and pats me on the head and I listen to how hard it is to find clothes that fit when you’re really a size six and nearly five foot nine on the way back home in the car.

      If she shot me, it would be quicker and less painful.

      That’s our normal routine, only it’s about to change.

      Thanks to Madame Dariaux, the next time I meet her, I’m not wearing a brown beret or my second-hand trench. And I’ve already been shopping. By myself.

      I’ve been thinking about it for a while; building up to it. Normally, I don’t even allow myself to window shop; I tell myself I don’t have the money and therefore it’s torture even to look. Or I tell myself I’m too fat; I’ll shop when I’m taller (when I’m five foot nine and a size six). But ever since I wore the navy pinafore dress into work, Colin’s been hounding me, calling me ‘The Vixen’. And then on Saturday, the most extraordinary thing happened.

      Someone noticed me.

      A man.

      I was on my lunch break and famished. Not just hungry but ravenous. I’d run to Prêt à Manger and bought a tuna salad and a chocolate brownie. Then, back in the theatre, I hid inside the empty auditorium, tucked away in one of the ancient red velvet boxes to eat. Eating is, in fact, putting it politely. What I was actually doing was savaging my food, complete with little grunting noises; leaning in close to the plastic container for maximum intake in the minimum amount of time. It was the kind of eating a girl only does on her own, usually in front of the television, dressed in a pair of pyjamas she hasn’t been out of all day. Except, I wasn’t alone; there was someone watching me.

      I didn’t recognize him. Wearing jeans and a faded blue sweatshirt, he had dark, almost black hair and brown, heavy eyes.

      He just stood there, hands crammed into his pockets, staring at me. And when I caught sight of him, I nearly choked on a caper.

      ‘That’s a funny place to eat,’ he smiled.

      Oh God, a techy, I thought disparagingly. One of those guys who paint scenery while exposing their bum cracks. Piss off and leave me alone.

      ‘If I go upstairs, they’ll nick my brownie and I’m really hungry,’ I explained curtly. I turned my attention once again to the total annihilation of my feast but he continued to stand there, digging his hands ever deeper into his pockets and rocking back and forth on his heels.

      ‘Are you new here? I don’t recognize you,’ he continued amiably.

      ‘No. I work in the box office.’ I finished each sentence like I was finishing the conversation but he lingered on, enduring my silence and indifference. I picked lamely at my food. He was putting me off my stride – I felt self-conscious and all too aware of the fact I was eating my tuna salad with a spoon.

      He asked me some more questions, about the box office hours and what I thought of the company, but mostly he stared at me. I couldn’t figure out what he was doing but it made me nervous and uncomfortable. Eventually, I threw my salad away and made my excuses. Back in the box office, I ranted to Colin about my ruined lunch.

      ‘Well, my little Vixen, what do you expect?’ he laughed, pouring me a cup of sugary tea. ‘He likes you.’

      ‘Me?! Get real, Col.’

      ‘Face facts, Ouise. The man fancies you. And by the way, he isn’t just a techy: he’s our new hot-shot director and his name’s Oliver Wendt. Bit of a dish, if you ask me.’

      I felt odd – slightly ill, СКАЧАТЬ