Christmas at Tiffany's (5 page)

‘We will?’

‘Yup. Every morning. Central Park, seven a.m.’

‘
Seven!
Kell, I’m not even breathing at that time of night.’

Kelly chuckled as she pulled the foil off the bottle. ‘You always were a sleepyhead. Do you remember that time you slept through the alarm and you had to sit your Maths exam in your nightie?’

Cassie rolled her eyes. It was true. She’d never been a morning person.

Kelly walked over to the bookcase on the far wall and took a couple of plates from on top. Cassie noticed for the first time that there were a few bowls and a glass full of cutlery there too. So that was where they were hiding. The kitchen cabinets were clearly an extended dressing room, completely devoid of culinary purpose.

‘What are we having?’ Cassie asked, pouring them each a glass and handing one to Kelly, who was kneeling on the floor (no table or dining chairs either) and pulling tiny cardboard boxes out of the bags.

‘Japanese. You’ve had it before, right?’ Kelly asked, glancing up at her.

‘Not especially. Chopsticks become lethal weapons in my hands.’

‘They become hair accessories in Anouk’s,’ Kelly replied. ‘Did you ever see those antique jade ones she bought at Christie’s?’ She sighed. ‘Stunning.’

‘Let’s face it, she doesn’t know any other way to be,’ Cassie said, looking down at her squashed thighs encased in the flannel pyjamas. Not a look Anouk would understand – or want to. She oozed chic the way other people ooze blood. Privately, Cassie wondered what it was going to be like staying with her in Paris. It had been a long time since school, when they’d lived in each other’s pockets, arms permanently linked, heads thrown back in laughter as they roared at private jokes. She wondered whether Anouk would be able to tolerate her still-persisting need for sleep and food and bed-socks. Out of all of the girls, Anouk’s life seemed the most alien, most foreign, most removed from Cassie’s.

Kelly, on the other hand, for her all hyperactivity and brusque manner, was a kitten beneath it all, with a big heart that she endeavoured to keep hidden – protected – from all but her most trusted friends. For Cassie hadn’t been the only one to marry early. Not two years after Cassie’s marriage, Kelly had fallen hard for an insurance broker she’d met on holiday in St Lucia, and they’d married four weeks later, only for him to do a disappearing act with her bank savings when the IRS came calling for $2 million in back taxes. She never saw him again, and his lies – on top of his disappearance – had had a devastating effect on Kelly. He’d been the first man she’d ever loved and she’d given herself to him completely; and although she had long since moved on and had plenty of romances, none had ever endured beyond six months. Something in her had changed – the trust, the childish belief in One True Love, had gone. She changed her men with her handbags, often going on two, even three dates a night. In fact, she told Cassie now, as she opened the boxes, she was having cocktails with one guy later, at eleven, when Cassie would be tucked up in bed, sleeping off the jet lag and hangover.

The very notion of meeting a near-stranger for drinks in the middle of the night was as alien to Cassie as the unidentifiable parcels of seaweed wraps and raw fish that were passing for dinner in Kelly’s hands. But she knew she had to try to embrace it. This was what it was to be a New Yorker. She had to get with the programme.

Twelve hours and sixteen minutes later, she was already lagging behind, wishing she was in Paris instead. They were running round the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Reservoir, and all Cassie could think about was getting back into her warm, soft truckle bed and lying in the recovery position. The training watch, which was attached to the heart-rate band beneath her bra, was bleeping and flashing red numbers at her, practically screaming at her to stop – something Kelly’s trainer Raoul was clearly never going to do.

She did, and watched dismally as they began to pull away – again.

‘Guys! Guys!’ she panted, bending forwards so that her head was practically on her knees. ‘You go ahead!’ she gasped, waving them on.

Kelly rounded back, jogging on the spot, a vision of perpetual energy in her silver and blue running kit. ‘Don’t be ridiculous, we’ll wait,’ she smiled, looking over at Raoul, who apparently whipped all the top catwalk models into shape and was looking distinctly underwhelmed by Cassie’s geriatric attempts.

‘Kell, you’ve been running for quarter of an hour now and your body isn’t even aware it’s
moving
yet!’ Cassie wheezed, tottering over to the nearest park bench. She began greedily drinking her water like a bottle-fed calf. ‘You’re doing the marathon in two months, for heaven’s sake. You’re hardly going to keep to your training schedule if you have to keep waiting for me to catch up. Honestly, I’m fine. You go on.’

Kelly looked unconvinced. ‘But how will you get back?’

‘I won’t. I won’t move from here. You can collect me on your way back.’ She sighed feebly. ‘I might just have recovered by then.’

‘I’m not sure.’

‘Please . . . just go?’ Cassie pleaded, using her arms to lift her legs on to the bench and then turning so that she could lie out flat. ‘I’ll be fine . . . Oh God, that feels good!’

‘Tch! First morning in Manhattan and you’re already sleeping on a bench in Central Park.’

‘Just keeping it real,’ Cassie said, closing her eyes and dropping an arm languidly across her face. The sun was bright already in the cloudless sky, although the September air was cool and some of the leaves had just started to turn, the incipient yellow tint spreading through the tree canopies like a fever.

‘Well, I’ll be back for you. Don’t move from here,’ Kelly said, her voice beginning to fade as she jogged back to Raoul.

‘Wouldn’t dream of it,’ Cassie mumbled, mainly to herself. Her heart was still galloping like a Grand National winner, and she could already feel the telltale heaviness in her muscles. Tomorrow was going to suck.

All around her, she could hear New York waking up. The drone of traffic on the periphery of the park was becoming as constant as waves, and stalls selling bagels, hot dogs and pretzels were setting up. The smell of frying onions drifted over and Cassie sniffed like a Bisto kid, feeling her own hunger begin to awaken, though it would do her no good to get an appetite going – Kelly had decreed she should go without carbs whilst she was here and cut back on red meat. For someone who’d never dieted in her life and was used to eating what she liked whenever she was hungry (which admittedly wasn’t usually between meals), the very idea of restriction and prescription tasted bitter.

The Japanese food had been delicious last night – Kelly had laughingly found some cutlery for her when Cassie had ably demonstrated her tae kwan do skills with the chopsticks – but that was because it was freshly made with high-quality ingredients. She’d have said the same of spaghetti aglio e olio, or roast beef with Yorkshire puddings and hot horseradish sauce. Just buy quality, cook simply, eat in moderation. That had always been her mantra.

Then again, she thought, as her body wheezed and ached after the few paltry minutes of exercise, it wasn’t as if she was a paragon of physical beauty. Sure, she was slim, but she had no muscles, and what she did have was soft and untoned. She’d nearly fallen over when Kelly had padded round the apartment in her underwear, showing a stomach that was so defined Cassie would have been able to do brass rubbings on it. Absently, Cassie prodded her own tummy. It yielded without resistance. It wasn’t fat, just spongy. Neglected. Unloved. Unworked.

With a burst of resolve, she swung her legs round off the bench – and straight into a runner (he was going way too fast to be called a jogger). It was like sticking a spike into a spinning wheel – there was an almighty clatter as he flew through the air, landing badly on a bin before slumping to the ground.

‘Oh my God!!’ Cassie cried, running over to him. The man was lying face down, his chest pushed away from the ground slightly in a half push-up as he tried to catch his breath. There was an arrow of sweat between his shoulder blades and his dark blond hair was damp. She could see his knees were bleeding.

Cassie crouched down. ‘Oh-my-God-I’m-so-sorry,’ she gabbled. ‘I didn’t see you coming.’

‘No shit, Sherlock,’ he muttered, rolling himself over into a sitting position and pulling up his shirt. Cassie rocked back on her heels at the sudden sight of this stranger’s torso – so tanned and muscled compared with Gil’s anaemic, hairless chest, like chicken flesh, and every bit as soft as her own. Her eyes followed the wriggle of hair that stretched from his waistband up to his chest, and saw there a faint purple bruise – in the shape of a New York City bin – imprinting itself and gathering colour like a teenage blush.

‘That’s my fault,’ she gulped, pointing at it.

‘Yes, it is,’ the man said, dropping his shirt and looking at her for the first time with cold eyes. ‘What the hell were you think—
Cassie!
’

Cassie stepped back in surprise. ‘Henry!’

‘I don’t believe it!’ he bellowed, his grumpiness forgotten. ‘What are you doing here? Apart from taking out passing strangers.’

Cassie laughed and helped him stand up. ‘Oh, you know . . .’ she began, then suddenly faltered. It was the first time anyone had asked her that since the party. The first time anyone who knew her and Gil had asked her that . . . and she wasn’t prepared for it. To all the other nineteen million strangers in New York, she’d be able to say she had just moved here, that she was starting a new job, living with a friend. But Henry knew her. He knew Gil. He’d been there when she’d met him. He’d
kissed
her the night she’d met him . . .

‘I . . . I . . .’ She looked up at him helplessly, completely unable to shake off the paralysis that wouldn’t let her say the words.

Henry stared at her, concern mounting. She could see him reading her panic. ‘Is Gil here?’

Cassie shook her head, and she didn’t need to say anything else. As the tears started to fall, he enveloped her in his arms so that New York receded and she was back in a place of safety, back in her past – a past that preceded Gil. ‘I’m so sorry,’ she heard him say, the words rumbling and deep in her ear, which was pressed against his chest.

‘Sorry, sorry,’ she sniffed finally. ‘It’s all very fresh still.’ She pulled back to look up at him properly. The last time she’d seen him – Suzy’s little brother – he’d been eighteen with a bad haircut and at the end of some vicious growth spurts that had seen him grow twelve inches in two years. Knocking six foot four, he wasn’t so little now. There had been little indication back then of the imposing man standing before her now – athletic, with a shaggy haircut that stopped just above his lashes, and bright blue eyes so inquisitive and keen. She had always got the impression that he saw so much more than other people. If he’d been a superhero, his power would have been X-ray vision. Hers would have been invisibility.

‘Have you seen Kelly?’ he asked.

‘Yes. In fact, I’m staying with her for the next few months, just till I . . . you know, get back on my feet.’

‘Sure . . . She’s a good friend.’

‘I’m so lucky to have her. I don’t know what I’d do . . .’ Her voice cracked and she stopped, biting her lip hard. She had to get a grip. ‘I’m sorry . . . exercise unhinges me.’

He laughed.

‘So what are you doing here? Do you live in Manhattan now?’ she asked. Better to be the one asking the questions.

‘No. No. The city’s not my thing.’

‘I remember,’ she said, smiling, feeling safe as her thoughts were cast back to her past again. Her abiding memory of him was of shinning up and down trees. ‘Trees.’

He nodded. ‘And ice.’

‘Ice?’

‘And jungles.’

‘
Jungles?
’

‘And mountains.’

‘Mountains?’

‘And the bottom of the sea on occasion, too.’

‘Jesus! Exactly what is it that you
do
, Henry?’

‘Well, there’s not technically a job title for it, but I’m basically a freelance explorer. I guess you could say I’m a botanical bounty hunter.’

‘A what?!’ She’d been expecting banker or accountant or something.

‘I go looking for rare specimens in the most inaccessible places in the world – so the Amazon, the Arctic cap, up in the Andes . . . that kind of thing.’ He shrugged.

Cassie stared at him. ‘
Why?
’

‘Sometimes for rich collectors, but pioneering research mainly. All kinds of industries hire me – beauty, oil, car manufacturing. A lot of scientists believe that there are remedies in plants and flowers, not just for health benefits, but for other things as well.’

‘But cars?’

‘Sure. They’re looking for ways to run cars without tapping into the existing fuel supplies, so they’re investigating whether algae could be developed as a biofuel, for example. And now, with the Arctic cap melting, it’s not just shipping routes that are opening up. We’re discovering previously unknown plants that have been protected by the snow and ice and which were once inaccessible to man.’

‘How do you even become a . . . a . . . one of those?’

He gave a small shrug. ‘I’ve got BScs in Biology and Marine Biology, and a Master’s in Zoology.’