Читать книгу Playing by the Rules: The feel-good heart-warming and uplifting romance perfect for Valentine’s Day - Rosa Temple - Страница 10

Chapter 4

A celebration was in order. I called my BFF, Anya Stankovic, and arranged to meet her at a fashionable restaurant and bar in town. Anya was back in London after a shoot in Milan and she was my girl when it came to getting slaughtered in the middle of the day. Anya and I had been friends since art school. I had gone to study fashion and Anya was a fine art painter. We’d met in the canteen one afternoon and, after discovering that we were both skiving from our respective lectures, became instant friends.

It was when my department put on a fashion show and I asked Anya to be my model, that a fashion industry executive told her she should take modelling seriously. Anya jumped at the chance of having a photo shoot and meeting an agent. Her career as a fine artist would never have worked out anyway. She spent most of her days in the Student Union Bar and very few hours with her easel and brushes.

Anya’s popularity as a model came at a time when the Eastern European look was all the rage. Her fine features, determined green eyes and slender body got her to the front page of Vogue in just two years of starting as a model. She’d arrived from Serbia as a skinny fifteen-year-old with a strong accent and perfect English. She still pronounced the W at the front of words as a V, which men found irresistible.

We looked like polar opposites of each other: Anya with her pale skin and mine sandy brown, she with the bone-straight, dark hair and mine wild and wavy. She was tall and fragile-looking. I was tall, too, but full in the bust and butt region. Anya rarely smiled and I could never stop grinning or laughing about something or other. But we’d clicked the first time we met and while Anya had gone on to be a raging success in her career, I, quite obviously, had failed. I didn’t finish my art degree and I didn’t understand the meaning of the word career as each of my sisters had pointed out to me in turn. Yes, Anya and I were complete opposites.

‘Vot is this job you have?’ Anya asked as she breezed into the restaurant, causing every head to turn as she approached the table. She kissed me on each cheek, rather systematically, and I pulled her in for a squeeze. I held out the drink I’d ordered for her and she held the stem between long, slim fingers as she sat opposite me.

‘I’m the PA for Anthony Shearman of A Shearman Leather Designs.’ I lifted my drink and we both took a sip.

‘Congratulations,’ said Anya. ‘I hope he isn’t some boob-grabbing boss like the last time.’

‘I don’t think so,’ I said. ‘Anthony is a sweetie. He’s Clark Kent in these super sexy glasses.’

‘Oh and I guess you’re dying to rip off his shirt and reveal the S on his chest.’

‘You could say that. But I can’t get involved. I need to keep my job for a year, not fall in love.’

Of course Anya had no idea about the conditions of the will so, after ordering a second cocktail, I told her everything. She barely raised an eyebrow during my tale of hardship and hard work.

‘So, you think you can do this, Madge?’ she asked. This was only going to be the greatest challenge of my life.

‘Look, I’m twenty-eight,’ I said. ‘I can’t go on living off my parents and eating out on your credit card for the rest of my life.’

‘Vye not?’ she asked. ‘I have a lot of money and I get so many gifts: dresses, bags, shoes, hotel rooms. I can share vith you.’

‘I haven’t done anything to earn it, Anya. You’ve worked hard since you were eighteen. You look after your body. You eat weird food and you lived like a pauper for a year in Paris. You made sacrifices and you made it to the top. I’ve got nothing to show for myself.’

‘Rubbish. You have your flat, your car.’

‘I could never have had those without my parents’ money. Besides, I had to give the car back – failure to pay the loan, remember? And I’m in rent arrears. Any second now I could be served with an eviction notice. I don’t actually own a thing. You’ve got three places to live. If I get flung out for non-payment of rent I have to move in with my mother – or worse, my father. You know he’ll never stop lecturing me. He’ll have me working for him and he’ll drive me completely nuts.’

‘You know you can alvays move in vith me if you needed to. Besides …’

‘What is it?’ I said.

‘Vorking for a year isn’t so bad if it means you can practically retire at tventy-nine ven you come into your inheritance.’

I stopped with my cocktail glass halfway to my lips.

‘But you know what, Anya?’ I’d had an epiphany. ‘That inheritance could be the making of me. I wouldn’t carry on as I have been. If I get hold of that money before I’m forty-five, I swear I’ll make something of myself. I’d use the money for something – something worthwhile.’

Anya smiled a thin smile.

‘Don’t you believe me?’ I asked her.

‘It’s not that I don’t believe you, darling. It’s just that you’ve had lots of schemes in the past that didn’t really take off. I mean, there vos the time you vonted to be a stylist. I introduced you to a number of celebrities. You turned up late for everything and you made Matt Damon look like Coco the Clown.’

‘Silk trousers were in that year.’

‘Not for a man vith his physique. And vot about the time you tried to be a singer?’

‘Oh, that. Look I know I’m no Beyoncé but you’d be amazed at what they can do in the studio. They can touch up your vocals and make you sound really good.’

‘But, Madge, no amount of touching up could save you. It vos awful.’

‘Okay, don’t go on about it.’ I sighed.

The catalogue of disasters that was my life wasn’t entirely my fault. Practically everything that happened to me since my brief but tempestuous relationship with Hugo seemed doomed to fail. Nothing had really gone right since him. I don’t suppose my family and friends accepted that Hugo was to blame for all the catastrophes that went to make up the Magenta Bright existence. And anyway, as it had been ten years since he left, they must all have assumed I’d moved on. In many ways I had, but memories of Hugo were never far from my mind.

I was eighteen when I met him. He was ten years older than me. I was about to start art college and had gone out for a drink with friends. Hugo was on the opposite side of a wide bar in a loud pub where live music was blaring from the stage. The bar itself was being propped up by fashionable, yet totally inebriated folk from neighbouring Notting Hill.

Hugo looked shiny and perfect in a sea of shabby chic and Gothic black. He wore a creased T-shirt and his skin was olive-coloured. His eyes were almond-shaped and I could tell they were blue, even from across the room. From the moment we glimpsed each other we never looked away. Hugo pushed through the crowd, still keeping eye contact, and joined me at the bar. I had a twenty-pound note in my hand and was about to buy a round of drinks.

‘Can I get that one?’ he’d asked me. His lips were close to my ear and I could feel my skin begin to burn with excitement. I desperately needed the loo but there was no way I was going to walk away from him.

‘Actually I was about to buy a round of drinks for my friends,’ I’d replied, looking straight into his eyes. They were blue.

‘I can dump my friends in a matter of seconds,’ he’d said, nodding over to the other side of the bar. ‘How quickly could you ditch yours so we can get out of here?’

Without a word, I put the money back into my purse, closed it, shoved the purse into my bag and left the pub with Hugo following close behind me, his hand on the small of my back. A million thoughts came into my head before we reached the door. Gorgeous. Spontaneous. Sexy. Tall. Gorgeous. Serial killer? But by the time we’d walked the entire length of Portobello Road, light rain falling and flattening his spiky hair to his temples and making mine look like an enormous 1980s’ afro, I was in love with Hugo.

‘I’m sorry,’ said Anya. ‘I was only making a joke.’ Anya looked at the waitress who’d been waiting patiently for us to order. ‘I’m hungry,’ she said turning to me. ‘I could eat. Could you eat?’

‘I suppose I should have something to soak up the booze,’ I said sipping my mojito.

The waitress was poised with a pen above her notepad. Anya, reaching for the girl’s writing arm, clasped hold of it.

‘Tell the chef I vont a rare steak, steamed rice and seasoned vegetables and please bring me an empty side plate vith it.’ Anya turned to me and raised an eyebrow. Anya always did this. She never ordered anything from the actual menu. She was such a diva she could order anything anywhere and the restaurant felt obliged to comply. They all knew Anya Stankovic: supermodel, once connected to Matthew McConaughey, dated the drummer from Maroon Five and poster girl for Clinique.

‘I’ll have the same,’ I said looking at the waitress who was close to tears. She was obviously as terrified of the head chef as she was of Anya. ‘But without the empty side plate.’

‘Er, yes, straight away,’ the poor girl said. Anya removed her long fingers from the girl’s arm and let her go.

‘So,’ said Anya, who knew that my faraway look from a second ago was all to do with Hugo and not my failed singing career. She made it her business never to mention Hugo because she knew it was raw, even ten years later. ‘Tell me about your Clark Kent boss. Are you sure there is no chance you and he might …?’

‘No, no way. I shouldn’t let myself fancy him because I have an agenda – I have to last a year and not ruin everything by falling in love with the boss. I’ll have to do my damnedest to make sure I suppress my libido where he’s concerned, though,’ I said. ‘Anyway, I’ve stayed out of love for ages so far; I’m sure I’ve got this.’

‘Vell,’ said Anya. ‘You might not be in love, but I am.’

I took a sharp intake of breath. Again, like the polar opposite to me, Anya never did love. While I’d had my heart broken big time, Anya would have her way with a man and ditch him at the nearest kerb, where he’d fall and graze not only his chin but his pride, too. Now that I was the one who wanted to avoid commitment here was Anya looking dreamy-eyed.

‘Who the hell is this man?’ I asked. ‘It is a man, right?’

‘Of course it’s a man. A very big man.’

‘Lucky you.’

‘Not big like that,’ she said batting her hand in the air. ‘Big as in important, accomplished, vell-to-do.’

‘Who is he? Come on, spill. Maybe I can live vicariously through you.’

‘No. I shouldn’t have said anything,’ Anya said, hurriedly, and for the first time in my life I thought I saw her blush.

‘Well you brought it up, Anya. You obviously want to talk about it. I mean, for goodness’ sake, you’ve never said you were in love, no matter how involved you were with someone.’

‘Look, it’s early days. I don’t vont to jinx it. Do you mind?’

Our food arrived at that very moment. The waitress was fussing around us. All the while my mind was working overtime, Anya just looked calmly at her plate. She usually told me everything and I wondered why she didn’t this time. In my head the only reason I could imagine Anya not wanting to say who this mystery man was, was because he must be married. What was she playing at? No matter who we dated, we never went for married men. It just wasn’t our thing.

Had Anya changed so much in this last year? A year when she’d been away from home for the most part for work. I’d missed her a lot but she’d kept me up to date with texts and long chats from her bath. While away, Anya had even been offered a part in a Hollywood film, which she was still considering. Anya had it all. Why would she want a married man? If he was married then it could only be love – the real thing. But I wished she could just tell me who it was and put me out of my misery.

She wasn’t budging and changed the subject as soon as the waitress left the table. She began telling me about the present she’d brought back from her travels for me. She never failed to buy me a souvenir, no matter how trivial or overly expensive. This time she kept insisting that my present was a surprise.

In the usual Anya way, she started cutting up her food and putting a small portion of everything onto the empty side plate. She pushed the larger plate away and began to eat the amount she’d set aside on the side plate.

‘Vot?’ she said to me with those staring, feline eyes of hers. ‘I’m twenty-eight and a model. How else can I keep my teenage vaistline if I don’t compromise?’ She put a tiny morsel of steak into her mouth and began to chew for about a minute before swallowing.

‘It’s not the food, Anya,’ I told her. ‘It’s the other thing. I’m dying to know who this man is.’

She waved me away with her fork.

‘Dying? Vye do you have to be so melodramatic, Madge?’ She cut the tip off an asparagus tip and chased it with her fork.

‘Look, before you go painting me as the drama queen around here,’ I said trying to suppress my annoyance. ‘Please just tell me you’re not breaking up a marriage.’

Anya gently put down her cutlery.

‘Madge, I am not anyone’s mistress. Now eat up and let’s go and see the present I brought back for you before I change my mind.’

We finished our meal in silence. Anya paid and we caught a taxi to her house in Hampstead. The taxi’s wheels crunched along the gravelled drive and dropped us in front of Anya’s impressively large, six-bedroom house and she led me towards her double garage. Anya’s house had been renovated by a top architect and the interior was designed by the same person who designed Gwyneth Paltrow’s UK residence.

I had no idea why she’d held on to such a large place in London. She’d originally bought it for her parents and they’d refused to live in it since a big falling out with their daughter several years ago. Anya had appeared semi-naked in what I thought was a very tasteful spread in a top Italian fashion publication. You could hardly make out her nipples but her mother, who came across as if she had dinner with the Pope once a week, practically disowned her daughter when Anya was nineteen. Anya’s mother refused to talk to her until she took up a respectable career. It broke my heart as it had Anya’s, though she never let it show. Since then Anya had become an honorary member of my family, and Mother adored her.

Anya clicked the remote on her key fob and the garage doors began to open. Inside was her sporty Audi something or other and beside it a new and shiny, red Ferrari 458 convertible.

‘You’ve got a new car,’ I exclaimed.

‘Correction. You have a new car. I had it shipped back for you.’

I rushed over and started stroking the paintwork.

‘This is too much, Anya. You can’t go on spending all this money on me. It’s ridiculous.’

‘I didn’t spend a penny. Vell, only shipping costs. I drove it in an advertisement and the company said I should keep it. Who am I to argue? Especially ven I have a best friend whose dying ambition is to drive a red flashy sports car.’

I clasped my hands together with glee and started hopping up and down. I wriggled my fingers at Anya to bring her in for a hug. Anya, never good at showing affection, stood like an ironing board as I wrapped my arms around her thin frame and tried to swing her around.

‘I have the key.’ Her voice was muffled through my hair as I continued to hug her to me. ‘But it’s inside.’

I pulled away and looked deeply into Anya’s eyes.

‘It’s a fantastic present, darling. But I am worried about you. I hope you can talk to me about this man one day. You know? If you need to. I’m happy you’re in love and I want it to work out. Honestly I do.’

Her green eyes looked as though they might start to become glassy so I turned towards the house and linked her arm because I knew she wouldn’t want me to see her getting emotional.

‘Let’s go in,’ I said. ‘These are my last few days of freedom until my job starts on Monday morning. I’m sure you’ve got lots to tell me about your trip.’

Anya’s thin smile returned. She patted my hand. That would have to do as her gesture of gratitude for not probing her any further about the mystery man.