Bridesmaids Page 3

  ‘Oh my God, cuteness overload.’

  See? ‘You sound so soppy.’ I look at all the ginger and white hairs on my black leggings. I so shouldn’t even consider keeping one.

  ‘I don’t care.’ He’s down on his hands and knees making baby noises, and the kitten is onto him in an instant. Literally. Marching over with a slightly sideways swagger like it thinks it’s a real big cat, with its spiky tail stuck in the air. All mixed up attitude and neediness in one small package.

  Freddie scoops it up and rolls over on his back and I swear I see the tiny creature fall in love. The other two kittens emerge from their hiding places wondering what they’re missing out on, then scramble up onto his chest and join in the purr-a-thon. ‘Aren’t you the handsomest guy in the world?’ Ginger purrs louder, then opens its little pink mouth in a soundless miaow. ‘Aww, baby.’ Freddie props himself up on his elbow and looks at me, head tilted slightly on one side. ‘This mean you’re ready for love again?’ He winks.

  ‘Oh, God, don’t you start! They are kittens, right?’

  ‘Right on,’ he holds one up in the air, ‘definitely kittens.’

  ‘I need help, Freddie.’

  ‘Don’t I know it.’ He raises an eyebrow and chuckles. ‘Though that is the first step to recovery, admitting—’

  ‘Sod off.’ I can’t help but grin back and nudge him in the ribs with my foot. ‘They’re a photoshoot not a therapy session.’

  ‘Shush. Don’t call them that.’ He covers the kitten’s ears with his hands. ‘Kitties have feelings too you know.’

  I ignore him. ‘And they won’t stay still. Why won’t kittens just sit?’

  ‘You’re confusing them with dogs, and men.’

  ‘I need to get a decent shot, and I need to get a photo of that flaming apple on a white plate with lipstick before Coral rings.’ He raises an eyebrow. ‘Don’t ask.’

  ‘Well, how about,’ he pulls himself up, so he’s got his back resting against the couch, ‘it just sits on my knee? I could hold it sneakily to make sure it doesn’t move. You know put a finger on its tail, out of sight? Like this?’ He demonstrates, and the kitten rolls over in indignation, wraps its whole body round his finger, kicks like crazy and bites him. I hope that this isn’t what Rachel means by the ‘so you’ bit.

  ‘Ooh, you’re a little tough nut, aren’t you?’ He tickles its tummy and it flops back, all languid and blissful. Feet in the air, and I’m a tiny bit jealous. ‘Aww, so gorgeous, are we keeping them?’

  ‘No, we’re not! I’m taking photo’s for Coral’s Instagram page, and said I’d do a few for promo for the rescue centre.’

  ‘We should rescue one! A house is not a home …’

  ‘Well, you can clean the litter tray!’

  ‘Really?’

  I groan. ‘You’re being serious, aren’t you? You want a kitten! Gawd, you’re as bad as Rach.’

  ‘Maybe.’ He tickles the kitten under its chin, and the purring starts up again. ‘Look, the perfect picture.’

  ‘Cute, but your finger is in the way, and I’m not sure the ripped jeans make the perfect backdrop.’

  Freddie’s jeans are not ripped in a designer way, they’re ripped in a ‘we’ve been through a lot together and I can’t bear to part with them and they’re very comfy’ way.

  It’s not Coral’s way. Coral doesn’t do comfy. Coral would sue me if I posted anything resembling un-touched-up reality on her Insta feed.

  And I’m not convinced it will help with re-homing the kittens.

  ‘I could put a blanket on my knee?’ He pulls the throw off the sofa.

  ‘It’s a bit up and down, they’re only tiny. You can’t see its legs now.’

  ‘We could put a board underneath?’ He improvises with a magazine. ‘Mag, blanket, kitten. Ta-dah!’ He throws his hands out and the kitten slides off his knee, faceplants between his ankles then rolls over and attacks his leg. ‘Maybe not.’

  I have to laugh. See what I mean about him being the best thing? What boyfriend would go to that kind of trouble? I’d be a total fool to ever think about him in any way other than just a mate, despite him being ever so slightly sexy when he pads through the place in the morning; bare-chested, with bare feet and his hair all tousled.

  And makes me coffee.

  Then goes away without a word.

  No conversation required.

  He is priceless.

  I bumped into Freddie a few days after my world imploded, and he more or less saved my life.

  There I was, at an all time low, my life all but over (I’d got a bit melodramatic, which I think I was entitled to). I’d been dumped mid hen-party, had a horribly demanding boss who just then was doing my head in, and had nowhere to live. Even though I love my mum, living with your happily married parents when you’ve just hit thirty, and it looks like you’re going to be a spinster for ever, and you’ve just woken up to the fact that there’s more chance of your eggs getting hard-boiled then producing babies, is not a recipe for happiness. One more day and one of us would have cracked. Nastily.

  So, I’d strolled confidently into an estate agents’ office. All naïve and excited about my new life as a single independent woman earning a wage.

  Okay, I wasn’t excited, I was exhausted from crying, full of self-doubt and needing to find a cave to hole up in. But I was naïve. That bit is true.

  ‘I’m looking for a flat to rent. Something like that.’ I’d said to the guy by the desk, pointing at what I thought was an unassuming but nice apartment.

  ‘Nice, isn’t it?’

  ‘It is.’ He wasn’t being very helpful. ‘Very. How, er, much are they charging?’

  ‘Haven’t got a clue.’ He grinned. Quite a nice grin. ‘A lot I’d imagine.’

  I smiled back, feeling slightly awkward, not quite sure what to say next.

  ‘I’m sorry, I can’t find much in your price range.’ A tall, slim, blonde, immaculate vision in killer heels and a tight skirt rudely interrupted our smile-a-thon. ‘Apart from this.’ She passed him the details with a dismissive sniff.

  Ahh, so that figured, he didn’t actually work here. I felt myself colour up but couldn’t resist a glance over his shoulder.

  It was the smallest hovel, next to a railway line, overlooking bin-alley and on the drug dealing route. Okay, I might be exaggerating the very tiniest bit. About the drug-dealing. But it was daylight hours, so who knows? The really terrifying part of it all though, was that the monthly rent was roughly the amount I’d had in mind as affordable.

  Turned out my type of salary didn’t stretch to a roof over my head and food. The two would appear to be mutually exclusive.

  Bummer.

  Anyhow, gloomy was not the word. I mean I’d thought I’d be able to at least afford something that was halfway decent. And I really, as in really, liked the flat that I’d spotted when I walked in. It said ‘home’ to me.

  Turns out I was delusional.

  ‘Were you interested in that one?’ She’d dismissed him and moved on to me. ‘It’s in an up-and-coming area. Very on-trend.’ She’d looked me up and down and made me not feel on-trend. ‘Well-maintained.’ She was doing it again. Cow. Bits of me might not be particularly well-maintained, but other bits are fine. I nodded mutely. ‘Very reasonable.’ She named a figure and I reckon I blanched. Reasonable it was not. Well, not for a normal person.

  I think I may have squeaked.

  Anyway, the smiley guy realised I’d been stuck dumbstruck. ‘I think she needs to think about it, we’ll come back later?’ His hands were on my shoulders and he’d spun me round and whisked me out of the office and before I knew it we were walking down the street together.

  ‘That’s shocking.’ I’d finally found my voice again.

  ‘Totally. Shit isn’t it trying to find a place round here?’

  ‘It is indeed shit.’

  ‘You don’t fancy a restorative coffee, do you? Just to get over the shock of that place?’ He pointed up, and I realised we
’d slowed to a halt outside a café.

  ‘Yes, er, well, I don’t normally have coffee with strange men, I don’t want you to think …’

  ‘I’m not strange. Trust me!’ He winked, and I wanted to. Trust him. I felt a kind of glimmer of recognition, like I’d known him for years. Comfortable is the word I suppose. Safe.

  ‘Well, I suppose you do look harmless.’

  ‘Now,’ he held a finger up, ‘I didn’t say that!’

  Anyway, just as I was wondering whether this was how you met ‘the One’, and if this was the moment to state clearly that I was never, ever going to get my knickers off for a man again in my whole life. That I was all about getting my career established and some money saved up for a house deposit. Though, ha, fat chance of me being able to ever do that solo. Unless I slept in a bin. Or trawled the streets for somebody who wanted to share a flat with me. Just as all that was whizzing through my brain, he interrupted me.

  ‘You don’t recognise me, do you Janey?’

  Turns out I was right. He was familiar.

  He wasn’t a random stranger, and my feelings weren’t those of kindred spirits destined to be together, but meeting at the wrong moment in their lives. It was much more down to earth than that.

  ‘It’s me, Freddie! I hung around with Matt at school?’

  ‘Oh, shit, you’re kidding? Freddie! Wow, sorry, I just didn’t recognise you, it’s the hair, the top, the …’ Body, I wanted to say, but stopped myself.

  Now he’d told me, I definitely did remember him. But he’d changed. Back then he’d been a bit of a geek; lanky, quiet. Sweet. Whereas his mate Matt was all front. A cocky bugger who was a bit of a dish and knew it.

  Freddie was the cheeky one, who played the fool some of the time (like when he nicked my yoghurt) but most of the time blended into the background. Into Matt’s shadow.

  I grin. ‘You said you weren’t strange!’

  ‘I’m not. Now.’ He grins back. ‘I was a teenager back then, we’re all strange.’

  ‘You can say that again!’

  ‘All we think about is getting off, footie, having it off, computer games, what a normal sex drive is, food and, well, sex.’

  ‘Most of those seem to be the same thing.’ I arch an eyebrow in what I hope is a sophisticated not a pervy way.

  ‘Exactly, being a ‘yoof’ is bloody hard work.’

  I laugh at the way he says yoof, it’s so completely not-Freddie.

  So, anyway, I did know him. Otherwise I wouldn’t have done what I did.

  Well, who knows, I might have done. I was bloody desperate. And he was laid back and friendly, not pervy at all.

  We got chatting over coffee, then ended up being practically swept out at closing time, and we moved onto the pub on the corner and realised we were in the same boat. Roughly.

  Well, he hadn’t been dumped, and he wasn’t currently living with his mum. But he was being chucked out of the flat he was currently sharing, because the other two flatmates had become a far too cosy couple. And he wasn’t really ready to settle for living in a dump but couldn’t afford somewhere up-and-coming on his own.

  After two drinks, Freddie waggled the card that the estate agent had given him. ‘Shall we call her? We could just about afford that flat you’d fancied, between us. Or is that a bit weird? You can ignore me if it’s too weird. I’m not usually this forward but it’s just I’m solvent, got an okay job, pretty well house-trained, you’re, er,’ I wait for him to say desperate, but he doesn’t, ‘keen on the same place as me, and we do kind of know each other, and, er, I think it could work.’

  When I’d spotted that flat I’d just felt deep down it was the One. Even though the rent had made me feel queasy, I’d been tempted with youthful optimism, to arrange a viewing anyway. Even if it was far, far more expensive than I could afford.

  I’m not quite sure what I thought would happen, even I knew that estate agents didn’t tend to come with soft hearts and big discounts.

  In my head while the agent had been talking to Freddie, I’d been fantasising, but all the while knowing that I couldn’t really afford to take it on, on my own.

  Freddie was peering over his pint at me. ‘You really liked it, didn’t you?’

  And with those few words there was some kind of unspoken agreement between us. We’d hit on the idea. We could take the place on together. So, we did.

  Without knowing it Freddie had turned into my knight in shining armour.

  That was well over a year ago, so we’ve been together longer than a lot of couples I know.

  We also bicker a lot less. Though he does take the mickey a bit sometimes. But he has supported me through the Andy years, and I’ve supported him through the revolving doors years. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not like he shags round, he just seems to pick the wrong girls. Which I am beginning to suspect he does on purpose.

  ‘Oh, sugar.’ My phone beeps with the alarm I set earlier and stops my musings about Freddie. ‘I’m going to have to ditch the kittens for now and do the apple. You couldn’t look after them for a bit could you?’ I give him a slightly beseeching look. ‘Please, I’m begging?’ I indicate the kittens, then do a go away flap with my hands, and try to do my own imitation of cute, which I’m not sure I pull off.

  ‘Boy, you’re demanding, if only I’d known what I was letting myself in for when I signed that flat share contract!’

  But I know he’s kidding.

  He gets to his feet and expertly scoops up all three little felines in his big capable hands. ‘Come on fellas.’

  ‘I think one of them might be a fellee.’

  ‘We’ll be in my room if you need us.’

  ‘You’re a star, I owe you one!’

  ‘Several I’d say.’ He winks and kicks open the lounge door. ‘I can take them back to Lora’s if you like, on my way to the pub?’

  I feel a totally irrational twinge in my stomach. Freddie likes Lora. He keeps saying he doesn’t, that they’re mates like we are, but he’s round there in an instant if he has an excuse. And I’ve seen the look in his eye.

  I want Freddie to be happy, but I’m ashamed to say I’m selfish enough to not want to lose him. Not yet. And anyway, Lora would be a disaster. She’s far too calculating for Freddie, and she’s had more men than hot dinners this year.

  Okay, I’m being bitchy. I confess. I don’t want to lose my best – well, only – male friend. Though Lora is a bit of a ‘rum ’un’ as my uncle used to say. Freddie deserves better.

  I’m also being daft. He’s offering to help me out, and I’m not so silly that I don’t realise what a good move it would be to say, yes.

  ‘Wow, would you? That would be so helpful. There’s a basket thing in the kitchen. I’ll pop in and see her later, tell her I’ll try again tomorrow if she likes. I’d do it myself, but Coral will be calling any sec to discuss last minute plans.’

  Freddie rolls his eyes. ‘We’re definitely out of here if Queen C is calling. See you later, and don’t take any shit from her ladyship.’ He blows me a kiss, then holds up a kitten and waves its little paw in the air. ‘Bye-bye Mummy! Love you! Don’t send me away, purry pleeeease!’

  I shake my head at him. ‘Shoo!’

  Chapter 4

  I have an apple, and I have a white plate. Oh, and a very red lipstick. And less than an hour to create an Instagram image that will leave Coral’s fans and sponsors wetting their knickers – with excitement not incontinence. She has a very youthful following.

  She wants to plug a lipstick she’s been sent (Oh, God, I love these cosmetics, I need them to send more, make it good or I’ll fucking kill you), and she also wants a nod towards her (or should I say our?) trip to New York. She suggested I took a bite out of it and left an artistic lip print. Have you ever tried to do that? This apple looks like it’s been ravaged by a vampire two seconds after a blood sucking session.

  I doodle a lipstick heart on the plate and reach for a fresh apple just as Darth Vader suddenly explodes into the
silence. Well, not actually Darth himself, it’s my ringtone. Which means it is her: Coral – you have to find fun where you can, don’t you?

  ‘Where are you?’

  No ‘Hello’ or other pleasantry. ‘Hi, Coral! I’m just doing this lipstick shot; I think the bite isn’t—’

  ‘Oh, forget that.’ I can picture her making a dismissive motion with one red-talon-tipped hand (she gets a free weekly manicure as well). ‘Take the day off.’

  ‘But I—’ I was about to point out that it is already five o’clock and the day is nearly done, and I was also going to say I needed the money so I wasn’t about to forget anything, but she interrupts me again.

  ‘What difference is one more day? You’ll be taking nearly three weeks, anyway.’

  ‘Three weeks? But, New York isn’t hol—’

  ‘Oh, didn’t I say? I don’t need you tagging along with me any more.’

  ‘What? Tagging? But—’

  ‘I’ve decided you’ll cramp my style – this is New York, darling, not some suburban—’

  ‘But, photos, you need photos taking.’

  ‘Crystal will help me.’

  ‘Who’s Crystal?’ I know I sound suspicious but I can’t help it.

  ‘She’s American.’ She says it like that means she is everything I am not. Stylish, for one. ‘She follows my blog and suggested this trip, she’s so dynamic, so savvy, so … with it, you know?’ I’m already sick of hearing about Crystal. ‘And it’s more of a holiday than anything. You can run off and do whatever you do, water plants or find a boyfriend, or something. You’re always saying you don’t get enough free time. When was the last time you had sex? Use it or lose it love.’ She makes a disgusting squelchy noise, which, luckily, I find easy to ignore.

  ‘But … but, I’ve got a ticket and everything. I’ve told everybody I’m jetting off with you in two days. Two days!’

  ‘Oh, I cancelled your ticket after …’ there is a long pause, then, ‘the incident with the dog.’

  The line goes silent. My bitch of a boss is letting her words sink in.

  ‘You cancelled it three days ago and you never told me!’ My hand clenches into a fist. If she was here now, I’d be having trouble resisting the urge to strangle her or shove the bloody lipstick-scarred apple down her throat.