“Sure there’s no handsome farmer back home? No honest-faced country vet drinking tea with your parents and waiting for you to return?”
Jo read a lot of romantic fiction.
I nearly choked. “Definitely not. I wouldn’t take any boyfriend home until I’d got a ring on my finger—my dad makes the Spanish Inquisition look like a bunch of kindly aunts. No one’s good enough for his princess.”
“Dickon’s got a degree from the Royal College of Art.” Jo nodded significantly. “Stick that on your allotment.”
I allowed myself a tiny glow of pride at the thought of inspiring a real artist to paint, then remembered just how detailed the painting had been, particularly in the décolletage region. My head spun round to Jo. “Did you see where the freckles were on that angel?”
“That’s it,” said Jo grimly, scribbling on her clipboard. “If you refuse to let me find you a boyfriend, then I will devote tonight to finding Dickon a muse. A really foxy one who doesn’t mind taking her kit off.”
I’d seen the guest list. Four of Jo’s friends were burlesque dancers and most of the rest could easily be mistaken for one. “That shouldn’t be hard.”
“I like a party with a purpose.” She jangled my van keys at me. “Are you ready? Lots to do! We need to take Badger to his safe house and go to the supermarket for enough crisps to stuff a donkey, and then I’m going to throw open my wardrobe and transform you into something so gorgeous Mr. Right will gravitate into your orbit from hundreds of miles away, all of his own accord and with no reference to skiing or tennis or any other posh topic that activates your defensive chip.”
I opened my mouth to disagree, but Jo did her Pointy Finger of Silence and I shut up.
*
We’d said eight o’clock on the invites, and at quarter past, Jo and I were sitting in an empty, dust-sheeted flat surrounded by dishes of stuffed olives while Jo had her usual panic that everyone was having the best night of their lives round at some other friend’s flat.
“I bet it’s that cow Emma Harley-Wright!” She glared at her unusually silent phone. “She’s always throwing guerrilla pop-up parties, just to ruin other people’s nights!”
Secretly, a tiny part of me was hoping maybe we had chosen the wrong day. I wasn’t totally convinced about my costume, which was making me yearn for a DVD box set and a pizza, rather than a night’s carousing. After some heated discussion about turning me into Eve (Jo’s theater-school body stocking, loose hair, and an apple), we’d compromised on her pink silk pajamas and smudgy eye makeup. I was a heavenly long lie-in. I was worried I looked more like Satan’s unironed laundry basket.
Jo had opted for heaven too, but she did look heavenly: her neat curves were poured into a gold velvet evening dress, with her granny’s fake diamonds round her neck, gold foil in her hair, and a lavish amount of glittery body lotion on the rest of her. She was, obviously, a glass of champagne.
“No one’s going to come, and we’ve massively overcatered.” Jo paced up and down, trailing bits of body glitter as she went. “It looks like we’re hosting some sort of snack convention!”
That was my fault. Whereas Jo’s mum had drilled cocktail recipes into her from an early age, my mum had taught me that it was bad manners to let a guest leave a party without a small rucksack of food for tomorrow’s tea. I think when Mum met Princess Anne, she’d even tried to slip her an Eccles cake for later.
I eyed the décor. We’d put all the Christmas stars back up and tacked fairy lights round everything. Every spare sheet we owned was covered in gold stars, while the red lightbulbs in the hall and Jo’s bedroom were probably making the flat look highly dubious from the outside.
“Right.” Jo stopped pacing and fixed me with a look. “It’s time to break open the emergency bottle.”
Party rules were that if guests hadn’t arrived by half past, we could open the best bottle of wine to cheer ourselves up. Just as I was fiddling with the foil, the doorbell rang, at which point the cork exploded and prosecco gushed all over our makeshift confessional (the sofa).
“I’ll get it.” Jo dashed out and left me to mop up the wine as best I could with one of the “clouds” (cushion encased in bubble wrap). I wasn’t presenting the best view of myself when Jo reappeared, plus guests.
“Look who’s here!” she said, shepherding in our first partygoers while doing her “whoa, Nelly!” expression behind their backs. I had to struggle to keep a straight face.
It was hard to say what Mrs. Mainwaring and Dickon had come as. Her chartreuse evening blouse clashed violently with Dickon’s red velvet jacket. He was looming over her, his hair all wild and artisty. My mind went blank, but Jo was making vigorous “say something” gestures over their heads. Nothing we’d rehearsed had prepared me for this, though.
“Um … wow!” I blurted out. “Have you come as one of those spooky ventriloquist acts? Ha-ha! Dickon, are you working Mrs. Mainwaring from behind?”
“No!” they both said, equally horrified. Jo clapped a hand over her eyes. But it was too late; we were all embarrassed.
“I am His Satanic Majesty,” said Dickon, hurt.
“And I’m Liza Minnelli,” said Mrs. Mainwaring, as if it were completely obvious from the blouse.
“Of course! So clever! I should have known from the … false eyelashes? Not false. Okay. Now, listen, Amy has made the most marvelous punch,” said Jo, shoving me toward the kitchen. “Dickon, you must try some. Mrs. Mainwaring? Can we get you a sherry?”
I felt better once I was safely behind a plate of sausage rolls and Dickon immediately launched into a long story of how he’d been using egg-white paint mix in his quest for artistic authenticity and was, as a result, eating a lot of custard with the leftover yolks. I got about four words in over the course of twenty minutes, but while I was nodding sympathetically I put away about three cups of St. Peter’s Punch, a cocktail Jo had found in a vintage party guide (heavenly ingredient: Benedictine and brandy, plenty of it). I had a very effective Party Listening expression, honed over many years, and before long Dickon was confessing that he’d actually based all the tiny demons in his painting on everyone who’d ever made fun of his name over the years. (There were a lot.)
Meanwhile, the doorbell buzzed again and again, shrieks of delight heralded each fresh arrival, and gradually Dickon and I were forced farther into the kitchen by the wave of newcomers, all in the weirdest outfits. I’d assumed most guests would just wear normal clothes with horns or a halo, but Jo’s friends never wore normal clothes if they could wear sequined hot pants and a pig mask instead. There was a golfer, a butcher, a man dressed as a pole dancer (I think it was his idea of heaven, but coincidentally a little glimpse of hell for everyone else), three Britney Spearses at various ages, and a Bono.
At ten, Jo fought her way through the Three Ages of Britney Spears girls clogging the doorway, with a desperate look on her face and her mobile in her hand. I could barely hear her over the noise of pop music and theatrical flirting.
“I’ve got to nip out,” she yelled, pointing at the phone. “Maternal crisis. Marigold’s saying she thinks she might have left the gas on in the flat downstairs.”
“What? You’re kidding!” My mouth went dry. “Should we call the—?”
Jo shook her head. “Don’t panic—probably just one of her ploys to get me to go down there ASAP. You know Marigold. Such a drama farmer. Bet you anything that once I’m in there she’ll suddenly ‘remember’ some handbag she needs couriering to wherever she is this weekend. Listen, I won’t be long. Get out there and do some hosting. Ted’s just arrived. He’s come as a Mafia don or Don Draper from Mad Men, I can’t tell which.”
I wasn’t sure which was making me feel more panicky—Marigold “probably” turning the house into a giant bomb, or having to take charge of the heaving throng in our sitting room.
“Is everything okay in there? It sounds quite loud,” I said anxiously.
“That’s what a great party sounds like, you plank
.” Jo flapped her hand. “Get in there and mingle! See if Max’s here yet! That’ll make you look more confident.”
And she was gone.
Come on, Amy, I told myself sternly. You’ve met most of these people before. You’re the hostess. You’ve got to get out there, for the sausage rolls’ sake, if nothing else.
I nudged my way out between Schoolgirl Britney and Saucy Cabin Crew Britney, canapé platter ahead of me like a shield. I’d managed to get rid of three sausage rolls and had sighted Ted by the big window, being chatted up by a miniskirted nun, when there was a loud commotion by the door. My head spun to take it in and I nearly dropped the tray in shock.
A ridiculously handsome man was striking a magazine pose in the doorway, his hands braced against the doorframe and his head thrown back as if caught in a strong gust of wind, all the better for his mane of brown hair to fall away from his face. I say ridiculously handsome: his face was so tanned and symmetrical and model-perfect that he didn’t look quite real. He was wearing a striped shirt that reminded me of hard candies, and a pair of tight red jeans. Very tight red jeans. Too tight, actually.
Behind him were three tall blond girls in black bandage dresses who’d clearly come from at least one other party, because when he stopped to pose in the doorway, they carried on marching in their heels and collided into his back in a tipsy jumble of golden limbs.
“Steady on, ladies!” he drawled—if you can drawl at the top of your voice. “Let’s wait till we get into the party, at least!”
Everyone’s attention was now trained on the door, and the blood drained from my body.
A gate-crasher. My worst nightmare. And Jo wasn’t even here to see him off the premises. She was excellent with gate-crashers; she usually ended up going on to a different party with them.
“Who the hell invited him?” muttered Ted, who had made his way through the throng to my side. He was looking a bit mafioso, if any of them had played cricket for England.
“I don’t even know who he is,” I squeaked back. “I mean, what’s he come as?”
It was supposed to be a whisper, but because I’d been holding my breath it came out a bit louder than I’d meant, plus it coincided with an unfortunate break in the music, which one of the blond girls was now fiddling with.
Everyone turned to look at me and I shrank down behind Ted as far as I could.
The man didn’t seem to mind. In fact, he descended on me with both hands outstretched, his huge brown eyes fixed on my face as if there were no one else in the room—no small feat, given that the flat was absolutely crammed. The guests parted like the Red Sea as he approached.
The nearer he got, the more handsome he seemed. The intensity of his gaze beneath his long dark lashes was unsettling, but, I had to admit, also very attractive. I guessed this was how a rabbit felt, shortly before being swallowed whole by a boa constrictor, scared but oddly flattered at the same time.
“Hey,” he said in a rich, slightly accented voice like dark chocolate. He managed to wring a whole sentence-worth of meaning out of that one syllable.
My mouth dropped open but nothing emerged.
Ted nudged me hard in the back and the breath whistled out of me.
“Hello!” I managed.
“Good evening, gorgeous lady,” he said, grabbing my hands, and raised one to his lips to kiss it. “Do you need to get aboard the Rolf Express to Partyville? Because it’s heading into the station and I want you riding on it.”
I had no idea what to say to that. I wasn’t even sure what it meant. But I had to say something. Fast. Before Ted nudged me again or worse, intervened himself.
“Yes?” I hazarded.
Rolf—I assumed that was his name—threw back his mane of hair and laughed, and the girls behind him reassembled themselves. One snaked her fingers through his belt loop, and another rested her head on his shoulder, closing her eyes in the sort of pose that made her look like a model. If I’d posed like that, someone would have offered me a bucket and a sit down.
“I’m Rolf. What’s your name?” he went on, releasing my hand, but not my gaze. “Or can I just call you gorgeous?” He frowned. “No. In the morning. Can I just call you … in the morning? That’s the one.” He cocked an imaginary pistol and fired it at me.
“I’m Amy.” My throat had gone dry and several really stupid comments were fighting to escape from my mouth. Rolf’s extreme confidence had raised the stakes about a thousand times higher than they were at the best of times, plus everyone was looking at us.
Where was Jo? I needed her here.
“Amy! Sweet. And how do you know the lovely Josephine?”
“I live here?”
Clearly I was doing so badly Ted felt the need to step in. “Can I get you a drink?” he asked. His solid presence behind me was reassuring, even if he did smell of mothballs. I assumed that was the suit, rather than a new aftershave.
“Good call. What have you got?” Rolf temporarily turned his charm beam off my face, and I was surprised not to fall to the floor.
“Beer, wine, some blue cocktail Jo’s made. But”—Ted had done the health and safety course for our business—“I have to warn you that it’s been unsupervised for the last half hour and I can’t guarantee what she put in it to begin with.”
“Sounds promising.” Rolf’s full lips pouted in thought; then he turned his head, and addressed the nearest blonde. “Mirabelle, go down to the car and get the chiller, will you? Cheers, bambina.”
He turned back to me while Mirabelle was still processing the instructions; as she swayed off on her heels, he slung an arm around my shoulders and steered me toward the long window where there was a tiny bit of space.
I sensed Ted’s jaw drop, but something about Rolf seemed to be overriding my brain. It was like being on a hypnotist show. I hoped he wouldn’t ask me to quack like a duck or anything.
“While we’re waiting for Mirabelle to make with the Moët,” he drawled in my ear, “I want to hear all about you and why it is that you’ve come dressed for bed already.”
Well, Jo had been right about that. Fancy dress did get people talking with no effort!
“It’s fancy dress, and I’m not dressed for bed, I’m dressed for a lie-in,” I said. In the reflection of the window I could see girls lining up behind me to talk to Rolf, hovering impatiently. I felt an unexpected frisson of triumph that he was talking to me.
Rolf raised a well-groomed eyebrow. “Uh-huh. A lie-in. I like lie-ins too. Especially after a late night.”
“I’ve got bed socks on. Look, cashmere.” I shoved out a foot and nearly trod on a bowl of olives. My gormlessness didn’t seem to put him off though; he leaned back and gave me an appraising look.
“I like to keep my socks on too,” said Rolf. “Saves time getting dressed after. If you know what I mean. I think you and I could have a lot in common, Amy.”
He winked—but it was a wink too far, and without meaning to, I made a bleurgh! noise of horror, which I had to wrangle back into a hmm? face.
Suddenly Rolf placed his hands on my shoulders and gripped, fixing me with another smoldering gaze. He wasn’t that tall. We were roughly the same height. “You stay right there, gorgeous,” he said in the voice of a much taller man. “I need to use your bathroom. Where is it?”
I nodded across the hall, and he swaggered off, apparently unaware that he had a pair of oyster satin knickers dangling from his back pocket.
The music and flirting started up again, and I tried to gather myself together. This is okay, I thought, as the last hastily gulped glass of Jo’s punch started to take effect on my balance. I’m hosting, I’ve been chatted up, the gate-crashers seem to know Jo, no one has been sick or called the police. I just need … more food to soak up this booze.
I swayed off to the kitchen and grabbed two sausage rolls from the giant pile, and since I was there I poured myself another glass of punch. It tasted different from the first three cups I’d had, but after my short ride on the Rolf Expr
ess I was feeling reckless. When I tried to leave the packed kitchen, the three Britneys had gone into a tearful group hug, and as I tried to crowbar my way past, the music went off and mass yelling broke out.
This time it sounded serious.
My short-lived triumph shriveled. I dropped to my knees and crawled between the Britneys to the sitting room, just in time to see Rolf in the middle of the floor, waving an iPod in one hand and (oh, my God) a green bra in the other, while Ted and a tall blond bloke attempted to grab them off him.
“If you don’t let me put Abba on the stereo, I’m going to chuck this out of the window!” roared Rolf.
“You’re not chucking anything anywhere! Not on my watch!” Ted roared back, putting his head down to rugby-tackle him, but Rolf nipped out of his grasp, shimmied over to the long window, and somehow managed to open it.
Visions of the Christmas balcony drama danced before my eyes. That balcony wasn’t very big. Rolf was moving very fast. Where was Jo?
“Don’t let him get out there!” I yelled. “It’s not as deep as you’d think! It’s unsafe!”
The blond man in the white shirt turned to look at me, and my mind went blank, but not for the usual reasons. I couldn’t do anything but look back at him. He had the bluest eyes I’d ever seen—proper deep blue, like cornflowers, with dark lashes—and when our eyes met, I felt like everything had stopped in the room. Just like in a film.
He stared back at me, and his brow furrowed; then he started smiling in a “hey, it’s you!” way, even though we’d never met. Butterflies fluttered up in my stomach. I hadn’t got a clue who he was, but something about him felt instantly familiar, as if I’d known him for years. Did I know him?
But in the split second we were staring at each other, Rolf vanished from view; then a very unmanly squeal indicated that the Rolf Express was heading off the tracks very fast.
Ted leaped forward with more energy than I’d seen him expend at work all year, and grabbed Rolf’s legs just in time. There was a scraping crash, followed by the sound of falling pots. And then, far away, the yowl of a surprised cat.