Читать книгу The Little Shop of Hopes and Dreams - Фиона Харпер - Страница 16

When Nicole got back to the flat she shared with Peggy, she didn’t stop walking until she crashed the door to her bedroom open. There she stepped out of her skirt, heels and blouse, pulled a soft pair of tattered tracksuit bottoms from a drawer and topped them off with a well-loved and well-stretched grey T-shirt. Leaving her clothes in a heap on the floor, she marched to the kitchen, buried her head inside the freezer, then emerged again with a carton of clotted-cream vanilla ice cream in her hand.

She grabbed a spoon and headed for the living room, where she dropped onto the neutral-coloured sofa that she’d chosen, snuggled up against the bright, psychedelic cushions that Peggy had bought and aimed the remote at the TV with more than a hint of fierceness. Sometimes the clash of hers and Peggy’s very different decorating styles made their flat seem a little schizophrenic.

It was only as the opening credits to Pretty in Pink, her favourite 1980s high-school movie, filled the screen that she exhaled and let her shoulders sag.

Peggy wandered into the room in her polka-dotted bathrobe, rubbing her damp hair with a towel. ‘Uh-oh,’ she said, as she spotted Nicole on the sofa, feet stretched out on the coffee table that normally was only allowed drinks on top if a coaster was involved. ‘What happened?’

Nicole kept staring at the screen as the credits rolled. A young Molly Ringwald was getting dressed in an explosion of pink lace and floral prints. ‘The cowboy happened.’

‘Oh?’ Peggy murmured, pretending she knew what Nicole was talking about as she dropped down onto the sofa next to her.

‘From New Year’s Eve…?’

Peggy kept frowning and then her eyes widened. ‘Oh!’

Nicole nodded. ‘Yes, oh!’

Peggy’s forehead bunched again. ‘But that’s good, isn’t it?’

Good. That was an interesting word. Not one Nicole knew if she’d apply to Alex Black, either. He looked good if you meant want to eat him up with a spoon, but not the wings-and-halo type of good, far from it, with that shaggy dark hair, perma-stubble and that infuriating little dimple.

An image of Saffron flashed through Nicole’s memory from the meeting they’d had at Hopes & Dreams that afternoon. Saffron had hesitated, hadn’t she, when she’d answered the question about whether her intended fiancé was having the same thoughts of happy-ever-after? Maybe their relationship wasn’t as solid as she assumed?

Get real, Nicole. You’re grasping at straws. It’s serious. Serious enough for Saffron to propose to him, anyway. Unless there was a ring on a finger, things didn’t get much more serious than that, and even if it wasn’t serious, he was taken.

‘Not good, then…’ Peggy said, answering her own question as she inched closer to Nicole and laid her head on her shoulder. They both watched the movie in silence for at least five minutes. ‘I don’t know why you’re so obsessed with this film. She should end up with Duckie, not the rich jerk.’

Nicole sighed. Part of her knew that. But another part of her knew what it was like to be the girl from the wrong side of the tracks and yearn for the perfect boy who would always be out of her league. It was nice to see the underdog triumph for once. Instead of like real life.

Peggy sat up and turned to Nicole. She prised the ice-cream carton out of her hand and stole a spoonful. ‘So…it’s obvious you don’t want to talk about the cowboy, so tell me about the meet with Saffron’s man instead.’

Nicole swiped the carton back off her friend and indulged in another spoonful of ice cream before she answered. ‘One and the same.’

Peggy opened her mouth and shut it again. ‘You don’t mean…?’

Nicole nodded again. ‘Yup.’

‘Wow…’ Peggy shook her head. ‘Talk about complicated.’ She shifted position to face Nicole fully. ‘But don’t give up. It’ll work itself out.’

Nicole stopped watching Molly moon over Andrew McCarthy for a few seconds. ‘How?’

Peggy shrugged. ‘I was just thinking about Pillow Talk or Move Over, Darling. Those were really tricky romantic situations, but it all turned out right for Doris in the end.’ The smile she gave Nicole was so sweet, so genuine, that Nicole didn’t have the heart to tell her that Doris Day films weren’t real life, something Peggy needed reminding of on a more and more regular basis.

And she thought Nicole’s John Hughes addiction was weird.

She lifted one corner of her mouth in her best attempt at a smile. ‘It doesn’t matter anyway. It was just a physical thing. I could do without the complication.’

Peggy smiled and nodded. She took the ice-cream carton from Nicole and headed back towards the little kitchenette. ‘I think ice-cream hour is over and wine time has begun.’ Nicole would have chased her all the way back to the freezer if she’d had the energy. Instead she turned back to the screen, but as much as she stared at it, the images floating through her head weren’t colour, but black and white, and instead of love-struck teens, she could see wild moors and heather and billowing clouds that filled the sky. It made her feel like running out into the night to feel the icy November wind on her cheeks or climbing a tall building to see how far she could see. There weren’t many mountains in the N1 postcode, so that would be the best she could do to exorcise this feeling whirling inside her.

Peggy returned and handed her a rather full glass of wine. Nicole accepted it gratefully. Usually she didn’t partake on weekdays, but— Ugh. Who cared? She took a large gulp and exhaled. Hard.

‘Can I take the job over?’ Peggy asked. ‘I am a proposal planner in training, after all.’

Nicole shook her head. ‘It’s fine. I can handle it. I told Saffron I’d be dealing with her proposal personally, and I don’t want to do anything to spook her.’ She looked Peggy meaningfully in the eye. ‘We need this job to go well if Hopes & Dreams is going to grow. In fact, if we’re not doing better by the new year I might have to go back to regular event planning and do Hopes & Dream part-time, and I really don’t want to do that.’

She couldn’t bear the thought of having to take a backwards step.

‘And then there’s the money both you and Mia have put in…’

‘No pressure, then,’ Peggy said.

Nicole shrugged. It was what it was. ‘All it boils down to is that we need a “yes”. I can’t let anything interfere with that.’

Peggy nodded sadly. ‘Fate is cruel,’ she said melodramatically, and Nicole couldn’t help but burst out laughing.

‘What?’ Peggy asked, wrinkling her nose and looking a little offended.

‘No, you’re right. Fate is cruel. But you’ve gotta laugh or you’ll cry, right? What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger…’

Peggy nodded, instantly joining in the game they liked to play when either of them was down—coming up with inane-sounding platitudes in the hope one of them would make sense. ‘You forgot “There are plenty more fish in the sea.”‘

‘So I did.’ Nicole toasted the screen with her glass and snuggled down into the sofa cushions. ‘Now, shut up and let’s watch this movie.’

Peggy slurped her Chardonnay. ‘I mean…thank goodness it’s her asking him and not the other way round. At least you won’t have to spend much time with him. Just see him on the night, that’s all. And we can make it so you direct things from afar, if you like, and I can do the hands-on stuff…’ She trailed off as she saw the look on Nicole’s face. ‘Oh, no. What have you done?’

Nicole jabbed the pause button and scowled. Then she explained about the fake magazine article, about Alex’s offer. When she’d finished Peggy stared at her. ‘Holy crap on a cracker,’ she said. ‘You can’t go through with it!’

‘I have to,’ Nicole said glumly. ‘I didn’t get any info from Alex this evening—I was too shocked. I know I did the questionnaire with Saffron, but she’s got one of those butterfly minds that leaps all over the place. I hardly got anything useful, partly because I don’t think she knows what she wants. That means I have to see him again or we can’t possibly tailor her proposal to him properly. I need to find out what he thinks about love and marriage and romance…’ She gave Peggy a morbid little smile while her insides churned. Maybe ice cream and wine hadn’t been the best way to go. ‘And what better place to do that than at a wedding?’

Peggy stared at her. ‘You’re insane. And that’s a lot, coming from me.’

Nicole turned away and let the movie off pause. They were just about to get to the bit when Duckie slides into the record store and sings ‘Try a Little Tenderness’ and she needed a bit of cheering up.

‘I’m only going to do the one week,’ she said matter-of-factly, ‘and then I’ll find a reason to pull out—I’ll tell him my editor doesn’t like the angle or something, or that she wants it quicker and I need to investigate the other jobs instead. What else can I do?’

Peggy laid her head back on the sofa cushions and looked at the ceiling. ‘Nothing. You’re just going to have to go along to some horribly romantic winter wedding, spend all day up-close-and-personal with Mr Sex-on-a-Stick. What could possibly go wrong?’

Nicole jabbed her in the ribs, making her jump and slosh her wine on her favourite velvet cushion in a particularly violent shade of lime. ‘Hey!’ When she’d brushed the worst of it off, she looked Nicole in the eye. ‘Can you really do this? Can you resist temptation and control yourself?’

Nicole laughed softly. ‘Of course I can…I’m not you, Peg.’

Peggy knew her own weaknesses too well and just rolled her eyes instead of getting upset. Besides, if there was one thing Nicole excelled at, it was keeping in control.