Could It Be I'm Falling in Love? (38 page)

Euan inched reluctantly into the hallway, as though imminently meeting his doom.

‘Go on,’ said Woody. ‘You heard her. It’s time you made yourself useful.’

And as Euan inched in a fraction further, Woody closed the door and left him to his fate.

It was no good. No matter how deep she dug, Roxy couldn’t summon the golden triangle – not even the tiniest yellowy corner. After yesterday’s shoot, even Mossy, it seemed, had disowned her – and everyone knew she had a soft spot for pariahs. Sighing, Roxy pulled her duvet even tighter around her and miserably contemplated her bedroom ceiling.

Was this what working in TV had come to?
Maybe Tish had been right, after all … Maybe she too should have got out before the new generation had got in. Yesterday had made her feel sixty years old and six centimetres tall.

And then her ceiling began to get fuzzy. Roxy panicked and blinked like the clappers. This wasn’t the way to go. Ladettes didn’t do tears (unless they were at
Glee
and ironic). Ladettes didn’t do wimpy, or self-pity, or Radiohead. Ladettes had a laugh, had a drink and got on with stuff. There was no point crying over spilt milk – or crap shoots. Yesterday was nobody’s fault but her own. Roxy was a firm believer that, in life, you captained your own ship. That way, nobody could nick the credit when things were good. And if the good shit was all
down to your brilliance, then the bad shit was down to you too. The trick was to avoid the bad shit in the first place. But after all this time, shouldn’t she have developed a bad-shit radar? After all, Hurley had had her fair share of career ups and downs. But when the chips were down, would Liz have agreed to
When D:Ream Ruled The Waves?
Would she have signed up for a show where you had to buy your own wardrobe, make your own sandwich and do your own hair with a set of mouldy rollers in the corridor by the loo? No, she bloody wouldn’t! Liz would
never
have contemplated a TV show based around a one-hit wonder, never have got out of bed without the guarantee of a hand-delivered Carluccio’s (no bread) sandwich and would
never
have deigned to anything less than luxury rollers administered by a hairdressing god. Hell, Liz would never have even
read
Mungo’s email – and Roxy never should have, either.

But …

Roxy couldn’t help thinking …

But
 …

Was it
really
her fault? Was she
really
to blame for not knowing what everyone from the spotty runner to the bespectacled director took for granted … that Mungo was a washed-up, over-amphetamined used-to-be and that any casting suggestion to come from his direction, on the one day a month he was sober enough to make it to the office, was to be treated like a poo-filled grenade? Was she really responsible for this bad-shit decision? After all, she’d been between jobs for so long, she didn’t have a clue that yesterday’s shoot would be so epicly, buttock-clenchingly bad.

Roxy got out of bed and pulled on her leopard-print dressing gown. Caffeine – that was what she needed. Caffeine and the immediate onslaught of amnesia. She stumbled down the stairs to the kitchen.

Roxy listened to the sounds of the kettle cranking into life as she absent-mindedly wiped off yesterday’s make-up with a washing-up sponge. It was no good, she decided. There was no point pretending
D:Ream
hadn’t happened. She didn’t need to wait for it to be broadcast for the world to know she was a pillock… Thanks to Twitter, she’d probably been a laughing stock from the moment the shoot wrapped. No, she was going to have to face this one out like a man. Or rather, a ladette.

She got out her phone and typed.

Bollocks. Think I might be the world’s biggest tit. Was I the only plonker on the planet who thought
WHEN D:REAM RULED
was a winner? Ouch!

And then she frowned for a moment before typing …

PS: To all the TV bookers I slandered as lily-livered + small of testicle – erm, sorry about that …

… is clear the only pecker in the pack is me. #ROXYSAYS: SOZ!

And then, her fingers already whirring, she couldn’t stop herself … She typed again. And then she put down her phone, drifted over to the larder and pulled out the ingredients to bake.

An hour later, the doorbell rang. Woody was standing on her doorstep.

‘Rox!’ He looked at her strangely. His grin was unusually absent. He was probably still cross about their fight. ‘I got your text.’

‘Great,’ she said flatly. ‘Come in.’

‘You’re not dressed.’

Roxy looked down in surprise. She brushed flour off the front of her dressing gown.

‘I’ve been baking.’

‘Right – OK. Well, I guess I’d better …’ He held up his bucket between them.

Roxy stepped aside and then followed him into the kitchen. And, despite the
D:Ream
depression and the cut-with-a-knife tension from their tiff, she couldn’t help but notice that, even from behind, Woody looked good: so fit, and firm, and strong. She suddenly realised she needed a cuddle so badly it had actually begun to hurt. Woody would give amazing cuddles. Not just warm and meltworthy and delicious, but strong and resolute too. He’d give the kind of cuddles that told you the world wasn’t such a bad place and that everything would work out in the end because
he
thought
you
were worth cuddling.

‘You missed our jog this morning,’ he said.

‘I had a late night,’ she mumbled. ‘I was working.’

He didn’t reply. He just inspected her kitchen window with a frown.

‘You know, I only cleaned your windows last week, and I’m pretty sure I didn’t miss one. Are you sure one’s dirty already?’

‘Rancid,’ she replied, too fast.

Woody fixed her with his infinite blue eyes. Roxy’s breath went funny and she completely forgot the script she’d concocted in her head. And, just when she was on the point of confessing, Woody mercifully turned back to the window. ‘Well, this one looks OK.’

‘It’s upstairs,’ she said in a hurry. ‘In my bedroom.’

He eyed the hallway warily.

‘Courgette biscuit?’ She held up a plate of warm baking. Despite the tension, Woody couldn’t resist.

‘Courgette?’

‘I’m experimenting,’ she brusquely replied, embarrassed at her display of domesticity. Showing him her biscuits felt as revealing as showing him her bottom (or worse: her birth certificate). ‘The courgettes bulk up the biscuits, with none of the fat of butter.’ She winced. It was the first rule of ladettedom; never discuss calories with a man (the second rule being to profess an unending love of beer).

But Woody didn’t notice her gaffe. He picked up a biscuit and took a bite.

‘Wow, Rox; these are
good
!’

‘They are?’

‘Are you kidding me? Are they seriously made from courgettes?’

‘I’d never kid about vegetables.’

The tension dissolved around them.

‘You know, this is pretty unique, Rox. I’ve never heard of courgette biscuits before and, trust me, in this job you get offered
a lot
of biscuits. But these are delicious!’

‘As one door closes …’ she mumbled.

‘What d’you mean?’ He looked at her intently. ‘Come on, Roxy! What’s wrong?’

She looked into his kind eyes and was paralysed. She’d wanted him here all along. She needed a friendly face … not just any friendly face –
his
friendly face. She’d thought about phoning her mum, but that would only have provoked a lecture on how she should have married someone nice before she’d blown all her chances by sitting in baked beans in a bikini and burping pop songs on national TV. And then she’d thought about calling Tish, but Tish would only have laughed, before telling her off for doing crappy jobs on crappy channels without stopping to think that maybe the non-crappy jobs on the non-crappy channels were totally out of her reach. Desperate, Roxy had even considered calling her brother, but had chickened out in case
she
answered the phone. Her sister-in-law still hadn’t forgiven her for borrowing her daughters on the promise of visiting a museum, but whizzing them past the paparazzi at a
Harry Potter
premiere instead. Roxy’s insistence that it had been educational had fallen on deaf ears and she’d been banished to sister-in-law Siberia. It hadn’t been worth it. She hadn’t even made it into the
Express
.

But as she stood in her kitchen, transfixed by the amazing aura of Woody’s Woodyness, even just being in his presence felt good; more than good –
it felt right
. If she could only open her mouth and tell him, everything would instantly be better. All she need do was move her lips and the words would come out and he’d know how sorry she was for their fight; how she’d cocked up and made a mistake; how awful the
D:Ream
shoot had been; how she’d only been hired to present the show to be the butt of its jokes; how it had been her first TV job in years and how, once everyone saw it, it would almost certainly be her last.

But she stopped.

How could she possibly admit failure to this gorgeous, sexy, wonderful man – the man she most wanted to impress in the world; the man who made a happy, smiling success of everything from conquering the music business to life up a ladder with a squeegee?

‘Nothing’s wrong,’ she stubbornly insisted.

There was a long moment of silence. And, for once, Roxy didn’t fill it.

‘Well – ’ Woody slowly rubbed his head, making Roxy’s knees feel as though they might buckle – ‘I’d better take a look at that window.’

She nodded and then stood for a moment after he’d gone, listening to him clanking his ladder. And then she walked up to the bedroom to dress.

Woody had been gone a long time. So long that Roxy could have made his tea several times over. As it was, she’d already
ransacked her wardrobe for an outfit, bundled herself into a cupboard and dressed. She’d even had time to throw her hair into a ponytail and whizz on a slash of lipgloss (nude, today, not red). And now she was standing in her kitchen, grasping the tea she’d made him in her favourite Chesney Hawkes mug.

‘Hey, Rox; come out here for a sec,’ she heard him yell from outside. She found him next to his ladder, which was propped up to her bedroom window.

‘Wanna help?’ he asked.

‘Help? Why would I want to do that?’

‘OK, I’ll rephrase …
You’re helping
.’

Roxy froze. Had Woody gone off his rocker?

‘Come on.’ He beckoned her over.

‘What? Up the ladder?’

‘I reckon you’ll have your work cut out, cleaning it from down here.’

Roxy stared, perplexed.

‘Isn’t the great Roxy Squires up for anything?’

‘Yes, but—’

‘Come on then.’ He rattled the ladder encouragingly.

‘I … I’m …’

‘Chicken?’

Roxy hesitated, trying to think of a lie. But her motormouth beat her to it. ‘I don’t like heights!’

‘A ballsy girl like you?’ Woody laughed.

‘Everyone has their Achilles heel,’ she said tightly. ‘Besides,
you’re
the window cleaner. Why can’t you do it?’

‘I’ll do it, if you do it.’ Woody shrugged.

‘But
why
do I need to do it
at all?
’

Woody raised an eyebrow. ‘Why do
you
need to clean ground coffee off your
own
window?’ he asked archly. ‘Ground coffee that I reckon’s only been there than an hour – and could only have got there at all if someone angled her hand out the bedroom window and splattered it over the pane.’

‘Ah …’

‘Rox, if you want to talk to me, you only have to ask.’

Roxy turned away in embarrassment. But there were only two directions to face: Woody or the ladder. The ladder won. She slipped her Ugg on to the first rung.

‘Bloody hell, Woody!’ she shrieked as the ladder buckled flimsily beneath her. She breathed deeply. ‘If this is a ruse just to see up my skirt …’ She tried to joke as she started moving upwards. ‘Because, I’ll have you know, these are leggings, not stockings, and they come with a crotch.’

‘You’re doing brilliantly, Rox.’ Woody laughed. ‘You’re halfway there already.’

Halfway?
Roxy closed her eyes and clung on. But then she heard the ladder creak below. Woody was climbing up behind her. And then somehow she’d miraculously made it, and she was nose to pane with her messy bedroom.

‘Oh my God, you can see right in!’

‘And that’s surprising because …?’

‘But, you can see
everything
!’ Roxy cried in horror as she peered through the coffee splatters. Her room was always a mess, but somehow, up a ladder, on the other side of the glass,
it looked as though her whole house had been turned upside down and shaken.

But then she was suddenly overwhelmed by Woody’s presence behind her. It seemed impossible! They were standing about a thousand feet above ground, perched on a creaky bit of aluminium in a force ten gale, and yet his body was right alongside hers, balancing in perfect equilibrium, the ladder suddenly as solid as a rock staircase. And he was touching her, but not touching her … His body pushed against hers, but was actually pushing her nowhere: separate but utterly with her at the same time. She could feel his heat up and down her back, feel his shelter as he cocooned her from the wind. She could sense his face close behind hers, his mouth, his lips … He was just centimetres away. It felt safe, protected,
exciting
. It was the most erotic experience she could remember (even hotter than that Meg Ryan/Marc Ruffalo DVD, where she was the lady rediscovering her libido and he was the moustachioed cop) and yet she and Woody weren’t actually touching and everyone’s clothes were still on. It was spooning, but up a ladder, in jumpers.