FATED (7 page)

Eight

I took
a long shower in the biggest shower I had ever seen, part of my en-suite bathroom. It had two large shower heads and a built in bench seat along the opposite wall. I spent a long time lathering up my body in my favourite body wash, orange blossom. After rinsing out my hair again and shaving everywhere, I was just beginning to feel human again, my muscles only aching slightly now. Stepping out from the shower, I dried myself off and covered my body in the matching moisturiser. I inhaled deeply, loving the fresh citrus smell.

I heard the familiar ping and vibration of my iPhone.

Chocolate drop

Alex has left on business. Unfortunately, as he is not here I need to go and sort out some shit at home. So I will have to take a rain check on my physio this morning. Can we make the appointment this afternoon instead? My latest x-rays have arrived back and I was hoping we could take a look together.

I should be back by 2pm, is that OK?

Nathan

That’s fine Nathan

Knock on my door when you return

Where is home?

Yep will do.

Home is anywhere I am racing, or here at the apartment. It’s only a figure of speech when I say home and am talking about my Mother’s house.

She lives out in The Hamptons.

See ya.

We were obviously very much the same then.

I hadn’t seen Bella much in the last few days and had yet to talk to her about going out on Saturday. Quickly I sent her a text asking if we could meet for an early lunch and take advantage of the situation. We arranged to meet in a little cafe just along from her place of work.

I dressed in a good pair of jeans, my brown, knee length boots and a cream, eyelash jumper. I dried my long hair and put it up in a messy twist. I never wore much make-up and just applied my usual mascara and lip gloss.

We had been like ships passing in the night for the last week and I was dying to see my best friend. Her work just seemed to be getting in the way.

‘Hey, gorgeous girl,’ came a shout from the back of the cafe, ‘over here.’

Waving back I started to make my way through the very busy snack bar. One hug later and I sat down beside her on the bench, instead of the empty chair opposite her.

‘Nosy, much?’

‘You know me; always want to face the world for a bit of people watching.’

The hustle and bustle of people, shouting and laughing and waiters spinning around in the space of a fifty pence piece was exhausting, but uplifting to watch. It made me feel alive.

‘Sorry I have been so busy with work, Frankie. It wasn’t what I intended for your first few weeks here, really it wasn’t.’

‘No problem, Bella.’ I said as I grasped her hand in mine, ‘I’m sure it can’t be helped, Nathan has been really good company. Yesterday we spent the afternoon on a horse drawn carriage, and as you know he is never far away when there’s a home cooked meal going.’

‘Ermm... OK what you having?’

My phone pinged.
Did she just change the subject?

Hi Frankie

How are you today?

How did the physio go this morning?

Did the x-rays look OK?

Sorry about the twenty questions.........

Yours Alex

Skilful question master

C E O Blackmore industries

Hi Alex (skilful question master)

I am fine, thanks for asking. I am sitting having an early lunch with Bella.

You know a girl’s gossip and catch up and of course a major people watch. I haven’t seen Nathan yet today, he said he had to go home to your Mum’s house, to sort out a problem. So we will meet this afternoon instead. That means I still haven’t seen the x-rays yet.

I was just about to tell Bella that we almost bumped into each other today, outside of the building.

Maybe we will have to try that one day, actually meeting up?

Hope your journey was OK?

Frankie (gossiping queen and people watcher)

Bella showed me the menu again, ‘Come on girl, I haven’t got all day, what are you going to order?’

‘I fancy a proper burger with all the trimmings and chips. Oh yeah, and a big glass of root beer.’ I couldn’t get enough of the stuff, and drank it almost daily. Bella assured me the novelty would wear off soon.

‘So who are you texting?’

I turned to her and gave her a look that invited her to guess.

‘Oh, got it… Mr. Nice Hand,’ she shook her head at me smiling.

I was quite surprised to not get a reply from Alex. I sort of looked forward to our banter. I felt a flush hit my cheeks, and worry started to rise up.

Perhaps he thought I was flirting with him asking to meet? Well I suppose I sort of was, wasn’t I?
I had to say he intrigued me and we always had a bit of fun texting. I needed to remember that I was the hired help.

‘Penny for them?’

I looked at Bella now passing over my burger that had been delivered to our table in double quick time. Pulling a grimace, ‘I have just flirted a bit by text with my employer and he hasn’t replied.’

‘What... Does he know what a delicious babe you are?... Don’t concern yourself, his loss,’ she shrugged her shoulders and proceeded to take a huge bite from the wonderful looking burger. I had to chuckle to myself, her smart Chanel suit and perfect hair and makeup didn’t go with noshing on a huge juicy burger.

‘Oh, on a different subject, Nathan wants us to go to a rugby match with him this weekend. Apparently Alex plays for a local side and he thought we might enjoy it. They have a few beers after and then sometimes go on to a club.’ I looked at her with my best puppy dog eyes. ‘Pretty please,’ I said, pulling out the slice of steak tomato from the top of the burger bun, sucking the juice and seeds out and then dropping it unceremoniously to the edge of my plate.

‘Oh go on then. You will need me as your wing woman for when you meet Alex, won’t you?’

Oh shit, she was right.
I hadn’t thought about that. Well not much anyway, as when I did my stomach sort of turned over like the drum in a washing machine.

We tucked into our food then, Bella because quite simply she was running out of lunch hour and me because I was contemplating meeting Alex, and couldn’t really hold a conversation. Strangely I couldn’t eat all my lunch as my stomach kept churning.

At approximately 2:30pm my door bell rang.

‘Just coming, Nathan,’ I put down my kindle and quickly moved to the front door. Outside there stood another bouquet of flowers. I looked around, but apart from the noise of the descending lift there was nothing and no card either. Strange, I picked them up and carried them inside. I placed them carefully in front of the fireplace, maybe they were for Bella. Maybe from one of the many dates she happened to be seeing at the moment. I smiled to myself and sat back down. Nathan was late coming back.

I hoped it wasn’t a huge problem back home?

I wasn’t to see Nathan for the next couple of days. I also received no text from Alex. Both of which made my days feel quite sad and empty.

On the up side Bella spent the first evening at home with me. We had an all round girls’ night and we drank too much Fireball, laughed too much, consumed far too much chocolate, not that I ever agreed there was such a thing as too much chocolate, and in between used every beauty product known to woman. Finally we sat in the lounge painting each other’s toe nails and trying not to laugh too much, in order not to crack the face masks we wore.

Pink was blaring through the iPod speakers from which my phone was connected. Bella was singing along to all the words.

‘Oh yes,’ she said, still butt dancing on the settee, ‘As we are off to the rugby match on Saturday, at your request,’ she lowered her eyes to mine. Looking quite alien in the green mask she wore, the cracks in it around her eyes only adding to the weird look, ‘We are going on a double date tomorrow night,’ she smiled her reassurance.

‘And I don’t get a say in this, I suppose?’

‘Absolutely correct, gorgeous girl, you would attempt to talk us out of it, and frankly I am pissed off with the fact you are here in New York and spend most evenings in. Like a woman twice your age.’

She was right of course.

‘So can I ask with whom you are intending we should spend the night with?’

‘You’re presuming a bit much there, aren’t you?’ she let out a laugh, ‘I only said a date. I don’t know, erotic dreams, texting a stranger, drooling over a beautiful hand and now expecting to sleep with a total stranger,’ her eyebrows waggled at me in teasing delight. ‘I say again, horny much?’

Sod the face pack and newly painted toenails, I set about her with a cushion from the settee. She was defenceless, laughing too much at her own jokes and lay back horizontally while I covered the nearly new cushion in green face pack.

Nine

The resta
urant was posh; Bella had been right to talk me into wearing one of my better dresses. It was an aubergine wrap, which apparently showed off my curvy figure.  Examining my surroundings and our company, I wondered why the hell I had let her talk me into this.

They were OK, as blokes went. The blond haired one who sat next to me was friendly and talked a lot about places he had travelled to and how much money he earnt in any given tax year. Unfortunately he was not party to the fact that money doesn’t really do much for me. Given that he was overly touchy as well, the whole dinner date was starting to wear very thin.

Trying hard to pull my face back together, as I knew it would be showing a pissed off/ bored expression, I heard a deep sigh escape my lips. My eyes shot up guiltily to meet the questioning gaze of Bella. My right hand clamped quickly to my mouth, whist I pretended to cough. I grinned at her, trying to placate the situation. She needn’t have concerned herself; blond bloke hadn’t noticed and was still animatedly talking about himself. I nodded and made all the listening noises he obviously wanted to hear.

My attention was on Bella now and how she had moved herself bodily against her date. God she was good; I didn’t think I could ever be like her. I knew she wasn’t really into him; in fact I had only ever witnessed that phenomenon the once. When she had been really hurt, so now she was in love ‘em and leave em’ mode. It didn’t worry me so much, as long as she was OK.

‘So what do you think?’ said blond guy who stared at me expectantly.

Oh shit
ran through my mind. Not having a clue as to what I was supposed to be thinking about.

‘Ermm...’

‘We would love to,’ I heard Bella say enthusiastically. She knew I hadn’t a bloody clue what was going on. She was going to milk it for all it was worth.

‘We would?’ I replied questioningly, smiling sweetly at all seated at the table.

‘Yes, we can go and watch the game at Will’s house, on Thanksgiving, can’t we,’ it was stated as a given, so I fought hard to control my face, which had lapsed into a ‘really’ expression and I nodded unreservedly.

‘Great, I will make arrangements and let you both know what time,’

‘I hate to tear myself away from you,’ I heard the curly haired guy, who was coupled almost to the point of being fused together with Bella, speak.

I really must pay more attention...I really must pay more attention...
became my mantra; I couldn’t for the life of me remember his name.

Christ, the reality, am I really this unsociable?

Ten minutes later and goodbyes were being said all round and I breathed a sigh of relief when I realised that the use of curly haired guy’s name was not going to be necessary.

We sat back down at the restaurant table and after ordering another bottle of wine for the two of us, I awaited the barrage of abuse to begin. Bella threw her head back and began to laugh cathartically. Relieved I joined in, starting with a thankful giggle to begin with and then joining in with her full blown roar. The tears ran down my face.

‘That has got to be the funniest thing I have witnessed with you, that poor man was completely smitten with you and you couldn’t have given a monkey’s arse about him. In fact at points you looked almost comatose.’

‘Comatose was not the look I was going for, I promise. He was just so, so not for me.’

‘I hear you,’ I watched her run her fingertip around the rim of the crystal wine glass.

‘So what about this football date you agreed to, eh? To what’s his name’s, house?’

Crying out loud, I can’t remember his name now!

‘What’s his name?’ she bellowed, shocking a few of the other customers with the velocity.

‘Frankie, have some more wine and loosen up,’ I watched her fill up my glass with some more of the pinot grigio we had, post disaster date, treated ourselves to. I finally started to relax now it was just us. Again my mind started to wander.

I still hadn’t heard from Alex. Nathan had sent a very short and to the point text this morning, explaining he was stuck at his mother’s house, dealing with a problem. We arranged to meet at his early in the morning for his overdue physio and then travel to watch Alex play rugby, which was apparently an after lunch kick-off. This I was very much looking forward to, maybe I was more homesick than I thought?

‘Come on, let’s finish this bottle and call it a night shall we?’

I nodded in agreement, and swallowed the very smooth wine down.

It was a pleasant surprise to be met outside the restaurant by Edwards. Really this man was worth his weight in gold. We jumped into the welcome warmth of the limo and sped home. I was sure I could smell Jabby’s cologne again, it must be Edwards. Maybe he happened to wear the same cologne? The thought didn’t please me, but there had to be some sort of logical explanation. I would have to get closer to him and give him a sniff, next time I felt it was appropriate. I stifled a giggle, as if it was ever going to be appropriate to sniff Edwards.
Sometimes I really am a stupid cow.