There was nothing else to do but suck it up and get through tomorrow even if it killed her – she wouldn’t put it past those horrible girls to put something toxic in her hot wax. What did those scary LA publicists say to Max when he was requesting shoot time with their celebrity clients? It was one day out of her entire life.
Max looked over, caught her eye and waved. He said something to Bill and Jean, who both smiled, and there was nothing else to do but paste a grin on her face and walk towards them.
Chapter Twenty-seven
‘You have exactly the same look that Keith gets when I’m taking him to the vet,’ Max remarked when he pulled up in front of the Alderley Edge Country Club, which was an ugly Victorian building that looked like a very ornate gingerbread house. ‘I thought you liked working out.’
‘I do,’ Neve said, trying to mask the unease she felt as Max switched off the engine. She’d prayed that he’d crash the car somewhere along the A34; not badly enough that anybody got fatally injured, but she’d have been perfectly happy with a broken leg. ‘I’m fine. I’m just tired.’
‘Ah, so that’s what’s bothering you,’ Max said knowingly as he nudged her arm. ‘Make it up to you tonight, I promise.’
‘Make what up to me? It’s not that,’ she sighed, as light finally dawned. The night before, she’d left Max in the bar to have ‘one more for the road’. ‘I don’t expect that every night.’
It had been another two hours before he’d finally stumbled back to their room and woken her up by falling over his weekend bag. Then he’d staggered over to the bed and tried to start something, which he obviously had no intention of finishing because he was so drunk that he couldn’t even take his own clothes off. Neve had pulled him out of bed, undressed him, helped him to brush his teeth, then left him to do the rest himself. He’d ended up spending the night on the sofa, because he hadn’t been able to make it back to the bed.
‘What’s the matter then?’ Max asked, a hand on Neve’s chin to turn her face towards him. ‘What are you so scared about?’
‘I’m not scared of anything,’ she declared shakily.
‘You can’t pull that crap with me any more. I know you too well now,’ Max said, with just one squeeze of lemon juice in his voice. ‘I know that Mandy’s mates are, well, they’re a bit … you don’t have much in common with them, but after they’ve jawed on about designer handbags and fake tans for a couple of hours, you can keep them entertained by telling them what a great boyfriend I am.’
‘I think they’re already up to date on that topic,’ Neve said scathingly, and she hadn’t wanted to pick a fight with Max, but the good intentions from the night before were wearing thin. ‘I think your mutual friend, Shelly, hit the highlights for them.’
‘Is that what this is all about? I never went out with Shelly.’
‘So I heard.’ Condescension dripped from every syllable and it wasn’t just that picking a fight with Max was a great way to take her mind off the ordeal that lay ahead, it was also because of the amount of time Neve had spent last night thinking about the infamous Shelly. She only had a handful of facts to go on: she’d slept with Max as well as two Premier Division footballers, she was really gorgeous according to Kelly McIntyre, and she was a girl who had no problem with sharing details of her sex-life with the readers of the Sunday tabloids.
It was a pretty damning character assessment but Neve was already skipping ahead to fill in the blanks. Shelly obviously adhered to the WAG stereotype and was long of leg, large of breast, had shiny, blonde hair and orange skin best displayed in tiny dresses and Hoochie Mama heels.
In short, she was the polar opposite of Neve, which was humiliating enough, but not as humiliating as having to find out from those awful girls that Max had slept with Shelly.
‘If Shelly’s the kind of woman you’d prefer, then there’s really not much point in either of us continuing with this little charade,’ she told Max coldly. ‘I’d hate to think that all the time you were with me, you were wishing you were with some other girl who—’
‘You’ve got a fucking nerve!’ Neve had never heard Max sound so angry and she really didn’t like it. He turned to her. His face was pinched and tight, eyes blazing with sudden fury. ‘The whole point of “this little charade” is because you’re in love with some guy on the other side of the world, in case you’d forgotten. So, if I don’t bring up your future, then why the hell are you bringing up my past? Why?’
‘Well, because … you should have warned me that you’d slept with Mandy’s friends,’ Neve blustered, because when she’d decided to pick a fight, she’d imagined a one-sided fight, where she’d have an opportunity to vent all her frustration, while Max just sat there and took it. Though now that he was glaring at her and she could feel his anger stirring the air, she should have known that he wouldn’t meekly sit there and take anything. ‘It was mortifying.’
‘Yeah, about as mortifying as knowing that every single one of those little moves that you’ve picked up on the internet are being neatly rated and catalogued in your head so by the time you get to use them on Mr California, they’re perfect.’ Max leaned towards her. Neve shrank back in alarm, but he was just opening her door. ‘Get out.’
‘You’re not actually in a position to take the moral high ground here …’
‘I was going to tell you to call me when you wanted picking up, even if you decided you’d had enough after an hour, but you know what, sweetheart? You can call a bloody cab.’
Neve released her seat belt with shaking fingers and scrambled out of the car. ‘I wouldn’t have to bring up your past if you’d been a bit more selective about the people that you’ve had sex with,’ she hissed, before she slammed the door shut so hard that she could feel the reverberation all the way up her arm.
Max started the car and swung around in a fast, tight circle, gravel spraying up and hitting Neve in the face before she could step back. Crunching gears, he then took off at great speed down the sweeping driveway, lurching to the left to make room for a huge people-carrier coming the other way.
Picking a fight with Max hadn’t made Neve feel any better. She still felt insecure, resentful and terrified, and she half expected Max to come back, tell her to get in the car, drive her to the station and put her on the first train back to London.
But he wasn’t coming back and the people-carrier had now pulled up alongside her, the doors were sliding back and her companions for the day began to emerge, each one of them wearing a pink velour tracksuit. As Chelsy climbed out of the car, Neve saw Team McIntyre written on the back of her hoodie in diamanté and hoped that she wasn’t going to be forced into bloody Shelly’s bloody pink tracksuit.
Chelsy, Kelly, Lauren, Emma and Tasha all nodded coolly at Neve as they lined up, like a little reception committee for Mandy who was the last to disembark. Mandy at least looked pleased to see her as she jumped down from the car.
‘Neve! So glad you could make it!’ Mandy’s hair was in two bunches that bobbed as she spoke, which was very distracting. ‘Was that Max going the other way? He nearly ran us off the road – and the day before my wedding too.’
‘He’s late for an appointment in town,’ Neve lied, her voice shrill with anxiety.
‘Oh, you should have come with us,’ Mandy said, tucking her arm into Neve’s as they began to walk up the steps towards the entrance. ‘We had to pick up Chelsy and Tasha from Malmaison – didn’t anyone mention that last night?’
They hadn’t and it might have saved Neve from fighting with Max in favour of being cold-shouldered by the pink-tracksuited hordes. She couldn’t decide which would have been a lesser evil.
They dumped their bags in a cloakroom, then Neve watched as all six of them pulled out designer make-up bags from designer holdalls and began to retouch bronzer, mascara and lipgloss. Just how brutal was bridal boot camp if you could do it without smudging your make-up or your hair going frizzy Neve wondered, as she began her warm-up stretches. She always ended a worko
ut with her hair and skin soaked in perspiration.
‘How long do you work out for?’ she asked Mandy as they left the cloakroom and walked through a set of French doors out on to a green lawn, which looked as if it was more used to a gentle game of croquet than a boot camp.
‘We’ve got it up to three hours,’ Mandy said cheerfully. ‘But we take lots of rest breaks and the last hour is Pilates. Very gentle Pilates.’ She looked Neve up and down, though for once Neve knew no fear. She sometimes thought that she’d quite like to live in her workout gear; it was comfortable and had such a high Lycra content that she always felt pleasantly contained. Even her breasts behaved themselves when they were encased in a racer-back sports bra and a crop top under a thin, long-sleeved T-shirt. Her ensemble also met with Mandy’s approval because she was nodding happily. ‘You didn’t have to bring your own towel or water, Jacqui sorts that out.’
Neve was just about to ask who Jacqui was (just how many personal assistants did Mandy need?) when the French doors opened and a small, athletically built woman with a platinum blonde crew cut and a pugnacious face trotted out, followed by a trail of Country Club employees carrying crates of gym equipment and a huge coolbox.
‘OK, ladies, line up and let’s get stretching,’ she shouted.
The WAGs quickly got into line and Neve found herself next to Kelly, who was already bending from the waist eagerly.
Neve tried to do everything that everyone else did at roughly the same time, though the WAGs had moved on to ‘Step, touch, double arms,’ while she was still getting to grips with ‘step, touching’.
Jacqui jogged over and stared at Neve as she stepped and touched and windmilled her arms. ‘You’re not wearing pink,’ she said accusingly. ‘Who are you?’
‘Oh, this is Neve and on the inside she’s wearing pink,’ Mandy said helpfully from further down the line. ‘She’s standing in for Shelly and it’s OK, she works out all the time. Even her boyfriend says she does.’
Neve tried to smile but Jacqui was unmoved. ‘Try to keep up,’ she barked. ‘Last boot-camp session, can’t have any stragglers.’
‘Actually, um, you know, I probably will hold you back,’ Neve stammered. ‘I’ll go and run some laps while you do, er, what you do.’ Then without waiting for permission to leave, she took off down the manicured lawn as if the hounds of hell were snapping at her heels.
When she reached the end of the lawn, Neve followed a gravel path at a gentle jog so she could take in the rolling green fields around her and look at the little folly on a tiny island in the middle of the lake. The air was fresh and clean and for the first time that day, her stomach didn’t feel as if it was tied in huge, gnarly knots.
She gradually increased her speed and let her mind go blank so all she could feel were her lungs burning and the ache in her thighs so she had to push herself harder and harder. Each time Neve felt as if she couldn’t go any further because her legs would collapse, she’d summon up another spurt of energy and force herself to do another lap around the lake. It was heavenly not to think, just to feel.
‘Slow down, slow down,’ said a voice and Neve realised that Jacqui had fallen into step alongside her. ‘One more lap and I want you walking the last quarter.’
‘OK,’ Neve panted, and decreasing her speed felt as good as stopping. ‘Sorry … for running off … used to working out …’
‘A lot harder than that bunch of lazy arses,’ Jacqui said with a grin. ‘Mandy’s a good kid but they’re all bloody useless. Come on. Slow it down, girl.’
Neve came to a halt and bent over, hands on her knees as she got her breath back. Jacqui ran back to where the WAGs were sprawled in a pastel-pink heap, as Neve stretched her hamstrings, then rejoined them.
She was paired with Chelsy, which did not fill her heart with joy. From the unhappy look on Chelsy’s face, she felt the same way. Underneath her thick foundation, which was decidedly smeared by now, the other girl looked green as they stood opposite each other and began to pass a medicine ball.
Mostly Neve held the medicine ball because every time she tried to give it to Chelsy the other girl would shy away, her hands warding off any possible passing-type action. ‘Give me a minute,’ she kept gasping, until she bent over and began to dry heave.
‘Are you all right?’ Neve asked helplessly, because another human being was in pain and she couldn’t stand idly by, even if that other human being had been unwelcoming and hostile. Gingerly she rubbed Chelsy’s back.
‘I think I’m going to puke and I’ve got a terrible stitch.’
‘Left side or right?’ Neve asked.
‘Left.’
‘OK, you need to raise your left arm in the air and lean on me with your right arm, hard as you can,’ Neve ordered, as she helped Chelsy into an upright position. ‘Harder than that. I’m pretty solid, I can take it.’
Eventually Chelsy straightened up. ‘I think my hangover’s kicking in,’ she whispered conspiratorially with an anxious glance at Jacqui who was shouting at Emma for refusing to touch the medicine ball in case she broke her acrylic tips. ‘I got absolutely hammered last night.’
For a moment Neve thought she had a stitch too because she felt a sharp twinge in her gut as she wondered if Chelsy had been getting hammered with Max. Maybe doing other things too, as well as getting hammered. Chelsy was really, really pretty and really, really pretty seemed to be just Max’s type.
‘Mandy thought I went home at midnight, but I snuck out with Billy, my hairdresser, and I ended up drinking mojitos in a club on Canal Street until three in the morning.’ Chelsy bent over again. ‘Wish I hadn’t mentioned the mojitos.’
The stabbing pain disappeared as suddenly as it had arrived so Neve could trot over to the coolbox and grab a bottle of water for Chelsy. ‘Don’t gulp it, just little sips,’ she said, unscrewing the cap and handing the bottle to the other girl.
By the time Chelsy felt up to passing the medicine ball, the workout was almost over. There were five minutes of cooling-down stretches, then Neve was surprised to see the WAGs converge on Jacqui to hug her and thank her for ‘being an absolute mare’.
After that, they were led into a ballroom to do Pilates on a sprung floor that squeaked under Neve each time she shifted position. Usually she loved Pilates but she was finding it hard to concentrate on her core muscles and her breathing when her mind was on other things.
There was a collective sigh of relief when the class ended, and as the other girls gathered around the instructor, a softly spoken, serene woman who had nevertheless ruled the class with a steely grit that didn’t tolerate whinging and complaining, Neve dived for the doors. She hurried for the stairs, took a wrong turn down a rabbit-warren of corridors, but eventually found the cloakroom. Neve was still rooting through her gym bag for her phone, when the other girls trooped in.
Not a single one of them looked groomed any more. The make-up had been sweated off, the pink velour was looking decidedly grubby, and each shiny strand of hair had been tied back; the overall effect was less threatening than before. Chelsy even smiled at Neve and touched her lightly on the arm. ‘Thanks for looking out for me,’ she said, as she opened her own locker. ‘We’re going to have a steam now, before we shower. Sweat out all those toxins.’
‘Oh, I think I’ll just have a shower,’ Neve mumbled, averting her eyes as tracksuits began to get cast off. She never ever changed at the gym, or showered, or did anything that would mean that the other women in the changing room would see her body in all its stretchmarked, lumpy glory. There was absolutely no way she was going to strip off in front of six strangers who really didn’t like her that much.
She could shower while they steamed, then be back in jeans and tunic top before they’d finished soaping up and rinsing off. Neve sat down on one of the cushioned benches that lined the room and studied her phone intently, even though there were no messages or missed calls from Max.
‘Come on, Neve. We’re all girls together,’ Emma called out from the oth
er side of the changing room. ‘If a lardarse like me doesn’t mind stripping off, then you’ve got no worries.’
‘Yeah. My cellulite’s been on the front cover of heat,’ Mandy said happily, twisting round to look at the backs of her thighs in the mirrors. ‘Do you think I have less cellulite than I did last week?’
‘You call that cellulite? It looks like my arse is made out of orange peel!’
Neve stared at her trainers and let the body flaws one-upmanship float over her. She’d heard this talk countless times from countless other women with bodies that she’d kill for. It was just a bonding exercise, in the same way that men talked about football.
‘Neve! Lose the trackie bottoms and come and have a steam,’ Emma demanded. Neve could see her polished pink toenails heading in her direction and she swallowed hard.
‘Really, I’m OK,’ she bleated, as she saw two more pairs of naked feet coming over and she had three WAGs standing directly in front of her and a horrible flashback to the showers after PE lessons. They’d drag her into the steam room, while somebody else hid her clothes. She just knew it.
But Mandy wouldn’t let them do that, she realised, just as Mandy muttered something about her wedding planner, put on a robe and disappeared out of the door.
Which left her staring resolutely at the floor and surrounded on all sides.
‘Look, I know we’ve been giving you a hard time but we don’t know you from Adam,’ said Tasha, plonking herself down next to Neve. She, at least, was still fully clothed. ‘And the thing is that Mandy’s our friend.’
‘I know that,’ Neve said quietly, because what did they think? That she had some elaborate scheme in mind to steal Mandy away from them? ‘She’s been really nice to me, but—’
‘Mandy is really nice,’ Tasha agreed. ‘She could have turned into a stuck-up cow with all the stuff that’s happened to her in the last three years, but she’s still the same old Mands. And people try to take advantage of her and we’re her friends so we have to make sure that doesn’t happen.’