The Twelve Dates of Christmas (6 page)

A date with Nick.
Nick
. Was it a date? It kind of sounded like one, and these butterflies that had awoken in her stomach were flapping about like they were prepping for one. Hmm. Where had they come from?

And why the secrecy?

Anticipation glittered through her veins.

I’m going to be a ballerina. I’m going to be a bloody ballerina again, for the Royal Ballet.

Be quiet, brain.
Claudia moved with the tide of commuters onto the Piccadilly line. Shimmying into a spare gap between an armpit and a suitcase, she raised her hand to the pole, extending her arm gracefully and watching her fingers glide around the metal. Wow. She wondered if anyone else had noticed how lovely and graceful she was.
That’s right, I am a ballerina
, she told them silently.

Nick’s big secret had churned in her mind all night, which gave welcome relief to the broken heart that had been keeping her awake with its wails.

What’s the secret?

Why does it have to be revealed there, among the ballet company?

Why would it change my life?

The idea hit her just before dawn, and over a bowl of Penny’s cornflakes she’d tried to convince herself not to be so silly.

There was
no way
the big surprise was that they wanted her to join the Royal Ballet as a dancer. That was ridiculous.

But she
had
been a really good ballerina, and Nick and Penny had been with the company for a long time. They would have rooted for her to get the job …

Maybe they needed someone else for the tour – an understudy. Maybe someone was injured and she was to step in and be part of the ensemble.

But they wouldn’t pick her; she hadn’t done ballet properly for yeeeears.

But it
was
something life-changing, ballet-related and that Nick would think deserved a whopping thank you. Maybe they did want to give her a chance. Bloody hell, they really might be asking her to join the Royal Ballet.

Shush this nonsense.

Silly or not, potentially cracking the secret put a spring in her step, and since this might be her last day before handing in her notice she thought she should face work.

Claudia had just finished fitting a happy hip-hop dancer with split-soled shoes when her phone jingled.

‘Is that him again?’ grinned her manager, Laura. Nick had been texting her all morning, making arrangements for that night and teasing her with hints of what was to come.

‘Well it’s not Seth,
again
.’

It had been two days, eleven hours and sixteen minutes since she’d last spoken to Seth. Since he’d told her to ‘enjoy the Christmas festivities’. It was the longest they’d gone without communicating since they first got together. At least Nick, work and nervous excitement about tonight were filling the little lost spaces in her thoughts that searched for interaction with her boyfriend.

Claudia had told Laura and Beth, the other sales assistant, about the break-up as soon as she’d arrived at work, getting it over with. Laura and Beth had made the usual sympathetic noises and had brought her a lot of tea, and after the third text from Nick resulting in the third worried glance between the two of them, she came clean and confessed about her non-date date this evening.

But not the part about the secret. That was hers.

‘I
love
Nick,’ Beth swooned like some kind of Jane Austen character. ‘You two should get married and have beautiful brunette babies and then give me some pictures of Nick with his top off.’

‘That’s never going to happen. The marriage and babies thing. The photos I could probably arrange, for the price of a few Wispas.’

‘It could happen,’ Laura smiled.

‘It’s really not a date, it’s … a comfort blanket.’ A really comforting comfort blanket, which made her feel wanted and warm and a little less like a discarded old T-shirt.

‘Come on,’ begged Beth, ‘feed my fantasy. Nick is yummy – surely you’ve thought about him in a not-very-wholesome way.’

‘Beth, I’ve just come out of a long relationship.’

‘That does not answer my question.’

‘I didn’t think about anyone else while I was with Seth; no one else mattered.’ What a waste of feelings. ‘Nick’s always just been there as my best friend in the world. We’re really close, but since being with Seth it’s never been anything more than that.’ Not including the tiny sparks between them yesterday. Maybe she imagined that. Yes, she probably imagined it.

‘Wait,’ said Laura. ‘
Since
being with Seth?’

‘That’s not what I meant.’

‘Are you saying nothing has
ever
happened between the two of you?’ Beth probed, her eyes sparkling with victory.

‘Well …’ Claudia hesitated and blushed, to Beth’s squeals. ‘Okay, okay. We first became friends back in school – with Penny as well – and Nick and I were a little flirty but nothing happened. Then, at the sixth form leavers’ ball, I was feeling a bit of a loser: they were going off to their fancy dance and theatre production colleges and I was scared they’d forget me.

‘They were playing that Whitney song, “My Love is Your Love”, and I’d had a Malibu and Coke too many, and decided to make my move on Nick. I did the whole ‘making eye contact, softening my lips, saying his name quietly’ – all the things
Sugar
magazine had told me to do – and at the last second he realised what was going on and jumped back.’

‘Oh …’ Beth whimpered.

‘He made a run for it, and we never spoke about it again, bar me talking very loudly the next day about being “sooooo drunk” and “not remembering a thing”.’

‘So, in a way, you’ve
always
had a thing for Nick?’ Beth asked.

‘No, I really haven’t,’ Claudia answered honestly. That was so long ago, a completely different time. And it had only been a silly teenage thing anyway. It had been nothing like what she’d shared with Seth, which was real, grown-up and out of her hands now. ‘It’s way, way,
way
past all of that now. Seriously. Laura – you’re married, you don’t still harbour feelings for your teenage crush, do you?’

‘Totally!’ she exclaimed. ‘The one that got away. You know what I did on a Friday night with my teenage crush? Sip Hooch in the park as the sun went down, suck love bites out of each other that would put Robert Pattinson to shame, and he’d play the profound songs he’d written about me on his guitar. You know what I did last Friday night? Plucked my husband’s nose hair while our three-year-old kicked me in the shins for being too fat.’

‘Well, it’s not like that with us. We’re absolutely, one hundred per cent just friends now.’

Beth surrendered. ‘Well I hope you have an absolute ball with him tonight, you deserve it.’

Tonight! Her eyes danced around the shop, taking in the pointe shoes, the leg-warmers, the leotards.
Tomorrow I might be handing in my notice. Tomorrow I might be needing these things for
me
again
. Her heart pirouetted, a feeling she could only have imagined two days ago. Everything could change tonight: her job, her dreams, her life. Everything could be better.

‘All right, ladies?’ yelled the DHL man, sauntering into the shop later that morning. ‘I need a “Claudia” to sign for this one, please.’ He dumped a large rectangular sparkly silver box on the counter, the kind you buy flat-packed in Clinton Cards.

Claudia signed the electronic doodah and eyed the box. What could possibly be in there? An early Christmas present? Some elaborately wrapped samples from one of their ranges? Laura and Beth were bubbling over with anticipation.

Claudia lifted the lid.

What the …?

Inside lay a brown-paper Primark bag, a silver card balanced on top.

‘What is it? What does the card say?’ Beth asked, her neck stretching like a giraffe’s around the lid of the box.

Claudia was grinning. ‘It’s from Nick. It says,
I’m not made of money, you gold digger
.’

She drew out a black sequined micro-mini dress with spaghetti straps. It was so not her, and Nick knew that very well. He probably didn’t expect her to wear it, but he was reminding her to come out of her comfort zone. And that this
was
a date.

‘Erm, that’s … nice?’ said Laura.

‘No it’s not, and he knows it’s not. It’s just a joke.’

‘What
are
you going to wear tonight?’ Beth asked.

Claudia hadn’t bought a fancy new dress in a long time, and what could she wear that didn’t make her think of ‘that time when she and Seth’, or even ‘that time I bought that dress hoping’? She couldn’t wear some bobbly old out-of-fashion dress in front of all the popular girls. ‘I hadn’t thought about that,’ she panicked. ‘I don’t want to wear one of my old dresses. I don’t have time to go shopping.’ The three of them turned to the sequined dress. No, she couldn’t …

‘You could try it on?’ Beth suggested.

So Claudia found herself in the shop’s fitting room, standing in front of the mirror looking like a Vegas cocktail waitress. The dress was loose around the top, condom-tight at the bottom and barely skimmed her bum cheeks. It was very inappropriate for this cold weather.

And on that old-woman thought it was time to face her audience. She slunk out into the shop, thankful there were no customers.

‘Hope you’ve got time for a bikini wax!’ Beth yelped, and then threw her hand over her mouth. ‘Wait, I didn’t mean – I can’t see – it’s just quite short.’

Claudia laughed. ‘It’s true. Can you imagine me walking into the party in this?’ She jutted out her pelvis and strutted across the floor hips first. ‘
Hello darlings, I am Nick’s date, and this is my frouhaha
.’ She took an imaginary cocktail from a tray. ‘
Thank you. And I’ll just take one for her downstairs as well!
I can’t wear this; the top of my inner thighs won’t let me.’

The three girls stood with hands on hips.

‘You really don’t like it?’ Laura asked.

‘It really doesn’t like me.’ Claudia answered.

Taking a pair of scissors, Laura pushed Claudia back into the changing room and, with Claudia still in the dress, started chopping, snipping a good five inches off the bottom. It now fell to just below her stomach. Claudia nodded. ‘Well this is much better. Thank you, Laura.’

‘Wait there.’ Laura left the changing room for a moment. She returned with a gorgeous black wraparound skirt in floaty chiffon with a cascade hemline, which she tied around Claudia’s waist, tucking the half-dress inside then tugging it out just enough that it fell softly over her chest. Then, using a thick silver ribbon, she cinched in Claudia’s waist.

Claudia gazed at her reflection. She looked lovely; elegant and womanly. She dared a smile at herself.

‘The finishing touch,’ Laura said, plucking some ballroom sandals from the window and passing them to Claudia.

‘I can’t afford those; I have some shoes I could wear at home.’

‘No, they won’t be the same, you have to wear these. Consider them your Christmas bonus.’

Claudia took the shoes, along with the lovely gesture. She felt herself well up.

‘Stop that. Try them on.’

Claudia slipped her feet into the champagne-coloured heels. Ohhh, they were the most comfortable things since furry slippers. The sheen of the satin complemented her skin while the criss-cross straps were an eye-catching detail. The gem on the buckle of the ankle-strap sparkled and winked when she flexed her foot, like a big star in a night sky.

I feel ready for a date
. The realisation hit her. She knew it was all just fancy packaging, but it made her feel good. Confident. And not because it might make a boy like her, but because it was new, different, fresh. Out with the old.

Claudia stepped from the changing room to give Beth a twirl, just as the shop door opened and Penny stuck her head in, bundled up in ear muffs and woollen accessories.

‘Ready?’ she asked. She gave Claudia’s outfit the once-over. ‘Whoa – way overdressed for lunch at Pizza Express.’

Claudia quickly changed and carefully folded her outfit into the silver box. That Nick, he was a handful, but he was very good at taking her mind off things.

Okay
, Claudia thought.
Time to get into the Christmas spirit of things. Let’s call it a date.

Date three of December
. The butterflies awoke.

‘Before I forget, Laura brought in the leaflets I asked for.’ Claudia plonked a stack of pastel-coloured NHS leaflets on the table, which detailed the different options when it came to having a baby.

‘Yay, thanks Claud!’ Penny grabbed them and started leafing through.

‘I know you can find all this stuff on the internet, but doesn’t it seem more fun and real to actually have these?’ Claudia picked one of them up and studied the front. ‘Look at this one, with its eighties-style drawing of a lady and a test tube.’

‘I like that this one has huge red letters on the front – WE DO NOT PAY SPERM DONORS. I’m excited though, big decisions to come …’

‘The biggest. Let me know if you want me to crack out the Magic 8 ball.’

‘That would be perfect. So how have you been today?’ Penny asked, reaching for another slice of their shared Sloppy Giuseppe pizza.

Claudia chewed and thought. ‘I’ve been okay. I thought going to work would ruin me, but keeping busy might actually be helping.’

‘That’s brilliant! No crying?’

‘No crying, just a minor wobble. But I’ve had other things to cheer me up.’

‘Ah yes, you’re Nick’s big date tonight. He’s very excited. He thinks he’s in some golden-era movie and is obsessed with giving you a jaw-dropping evening.’

‘He is being such a sweetie pie. He sent a dress to the shop this morning.’

‘Awww.’ Penny melted like mozzarella. ‘He is such a good guy. I’m seeing our little Nick in a whole new light.’

‘He is. And he’s totally focusing on right now rather than on what’s happened over the past couple of days. It’s a refreshing break from my own thoughts.’ Claudia peered at Penny. ‘Do you know what the secret is tonight? Has he told you?’