Married By Christmas (21 page)

All that was happening now, with these unplanned urges towards a man that in any other situation she would find positively irritating, was that her hormones were finally catching up with her and she was having her first ever teenage crush. It didn’t mean she didn’t love Tom, that she didn’t still want to marry him and live the rest of her life with him, it was just her body having one last – or to be fair, first – fling with fantasy, before she settled down to married life. And somehow, New York City at Christmas, thousands of miles away from home, made it seem all the more reasonable. It wasn’t as if anything was going to happen between them. After all, the very reason Anna was sitting here, enduring nun angst by the poorly scripted bucketload, was to make the wedding – her perfect winter wedding – happen, not to ruin it with a rash sordid fling. And yes, as the lights came up on act two, she realised that not only had she still not spoken to Tom since she’d left England but she hadn’t even noticed that she’d left her phone in the hotel room until just before the play was due to start and she was about to turn it off. For a few hours she’d completely forgotten about the wedding, her list, her life plan and her husband-to-be. But now that exhilarating, temporary sense of freedom was about to come to an end, as Charisma Jones took to the stage and Anna found out what she was really up against.

It would be fair to say that the atmosphere in the small auditorium, which until that point had been flat and bored, changed the moment that Charisma/Erica walked onstage. There was something about her, even in her nun’s outfit (which featured a rather tight black poloneck sweater, an A-line calf-length skirt, some sensible shoes and the traditionally unflattering headgear) that simply outshone everyone around her. She had chosen her first stage name all too well – she clearly had charisma by the bucketload, enough charm to overcome even the clunky script and the awful acting of her colleagues. Glancing at Miles, Anna noticed that his eyes were riveted to Charisma every single second she was onstage, whether she had any lines or not. And it wasn’t just him. The men in the audience seemed to be following her every move, including one gentleman Anna noticed whose hands were suspiciously active underneath the raincoat that was neatly folded on his lap.

If she wasn’t exactly Dame Judi Dench, Charisma was still the best actor on the stage and evidently her costume and apparent lack of make-up couldn’t hide her beauty. Anna found herself dwelling on the other woman’s chocolate-brown eyes and her coppery-hued skin. In the world of show business, Charisma was no spring chicken – she had to be around Anna’s age – but her skin was flawless and glowing with a sort of internal heat. It was as if she’d just absorbed a whole lot of tropical sun, even in this snowbound city, and was returning it to the world through every pore. Anna tried to imagine her as the glamorous showgirl that Tom had met and fallen for, and was dismayed to discover it was all too easy to do. But that was years ago, Anna reminded herself unhappily, and Charisma had left Tom, and he had left Vegas. He’d forgotten her, so completely in fact that he’d all but forgotten he’d even married her, so really and truly there was nothing for Anna to worry about, not rationally. Except she couldn’t help but be relieved that it was she who was in New York, about to ask Charisma to sign the annulment papers, and not Tom. Who knew what feelings a glamorous actress in a nun’s habit might stir up in her fiancé, if the two were to ever meet in person again.

‘What do you think of her?’ Anna asked Miles, as the players took their final bow to a room of half-hearted applause.

‘She’s got something about her,’ Miles said, thoughtfully, turning to look at Anna. ‘Yes, she’s got something.’

The actors walked off stage, the house lights came up and the scant audience began to file out.

‘Right, this is my chance,’ Anna said, her eyes on the wings.

‘Let’s go for it,’ Miles said, half rising from his seat, but Anna put her hand on his shoulder.

‘This is something I need to do alone,’ she said, partly because that was how she really felt and partly because it felt like Charisma might be some kind of sultry Medusa, turning all men she met rock hard with one devastating look, and Anna found she wasn’t willing to see Miles be impressed in person by Charisma. Miles paused and nodded. ‘I’ll wait in the lobby.’

Taking a deep breath, Anna crossed the stage at a trot, conscious of her heels clicking on the black and white floor.

‘Excuse me, miss?’ A rather uncertain-looking young man, dressed all in black and wearing a set of headphones, stopped her. ‘Are you looking for the restroom?’

‘Anna Carter,’ Anna said, holding her hand out, with more confidence than she felt.‘Theatrical correspondent,
The Times
of London.’ She was surprised how easy the bluff came to her. ‘I’m doing a piece on rising stars of fringe theatre and I would very much like a few words with Char–Erica Barnes. I thought her performance was outstanding.’

‘Really?’ The young man took her hand and shook it warmly. ‘
The Times
of London, you say? And what about the writing? The script? Did you enjoy that?’

Sensing that this young man was more than just the lighting engineer, Anna nodded enthusiastically. ‘Oh yes,’ she said, fluttering her lashes. ‘It put me in mind of early Pinter.’

‘Really?’ He beamed at her, as he showed her backstage. ‘I’m Christopher Underwood, the writer, director, jack of all trades.’

‘How lovely to meet you, Christopher.’ Anna beamed at him. ‘Do you have a card? I’d love to talk to you before I file my article.’ Happily, Christopher handed her what looked like it might be his one and only card, and rather guiltily Anna tucked it into her bag. ‘And where might I find Miss Barnes?’

‘First on your left. We’re a collective so there are only two dressing rooms, one for guys and one for girls, although they don’t always stay that segregated. Nice to meet you Miss Carter of
The Times
.’

Much to Anna’s surprise, Christopher did an awkward little curtsy, and then his face flushed beetroot, as he turned on his Cuban heels and raced away at speed. Opening her bag, Anna took out the envelope with the papers in it and brandished them aloft like Van Helsing might wield a crucifix against a vampire. She knocked once on the dressing-room door before opening it. Fortunately, there were only two women in the dressing room. There was the sour-looking Mother Superior, now lounging in a bright yellow kaftan, smoking with industrious intent just underneath the no smoking sign, and Charisma, now dressed in a pair of low-rise jeans and a waisted pale-blue shirt over a white vest trimmed with lace. And now that her mane of glossy chestnut-brown hair had been freed from its wimple she looked even more beautiful, if positively demure compared to the first picture Anna had seen of her.

‘Hello,’ Anna said pleasantly. ‘Erica? My name’s Anna Carter, Christopher Underwood showed me back here. I wonder if I could have a word with you.’

‘There’s an accent,’ Charisma said pleasantly. ‘I
love
the English accent. How can I help you, Anna?’

Anna glanced at the other nun, who was sitting with one bare foot propped up on a stool, puffing away with relish, as she sipped what smelled like cheap brandy from a mug.

‘Do you think we could talk alone?’ Anna asked her, winsomely apologetic as if she was ever so sorry for the inconvenience.

‘Depends,’ Charisma said, suddenly guarded. ‘What’s it about?’

‘Tom Collins,’ Anna said, watching Charisma’s face closely, as her expression flared with … what? It was impossible to tell exactly how she’d reacted to the mention of her husband’s name, because she’d composed herself again within a fraction of a second, smiling blandly at Anna, as if she had never heard the name before in her life.

‘Fine, yes, of course. Leila, would you mind giving us a minute?’ Charisma asked the older woman who sighed, stubbed the butt of her cigarette out on the Formica tabletop and gave a very brandyish burp.

‘See you in the bar?’ she growled, her poor Irish accent replaced by a deep gravelly tone that John Wayne would have been proud of.

‘Sure, see you there,’ Charisma said, shutting the door on her colleague and turning the lock. ‘When hell freezes over.’

‘Who are you?’ she asked Anna, taking a couple of steps towards her, the intent in her eyes so fierce that Anna wondered if she wouldn’t have been safer with Leila.

‘Anna Carter,’ she repeated, holding out her hand as if it might somehow ward off Evil-Showgirls-cum-Actresses. ‘Pleased to meet you.’

Charisma looked at her hand, but didn’t take it. ‘What do you want to know about Tom for?’

‘I don’t,’ Anna said. ‘I already know Tom, very well. I’m engaged to be married to him.’

Charisma sat down suddenly on the ripped stool in front of the mirror. ‘Tom’s getting married?’ she said at last over her shoulder, as she stared at her reflection in the mirror, her pretty brown eyes widening as they took in the news.

‘Yes,’ Anna said. ‘Christmas Eve, in fact. Or at least, I hope we will be. There is one little technical hitch, however.’

‘Me,’ Charisma said simply, unzipping a bag of make-up and beginning to apply a little foundation to her already flawless complexion, perhaps because she’d been planning to, but more likely, Anna decided, because she was a warrior princess and this was her warpaint.

‘Yes,’ Anna said, unsure if Charisma really understood. ‘Because …’

‘Because we’re technically still married,’ Charisma said. Strangely, given her vivacity and the energy that had seemed to emit from her while she was onstage, she was suddenly flat and two-dimensional, her voice monotone, almost uninterested, as she began carefully to blend a palette of bronze and gold eye shadows on to her lids. ‘You know, I always hoped I’d hear from Tom again one day. I didn’t think he’d send his latest girlfriend to do his dirty work.’

‘Not his latest,’ Anna said quite firmly. ‘His last girlfriend, his current fiancée and the woman that he will marry in a church whilst sober in a few days’ time.’

Charisma sucked the air in through her teeth, turning on her stool to look at Anna, one eye heavily lined with liquid eyeliner drawn along the upper lid, finished with a catlike flourish.

‘You may speak like the Queen but you fight like a bitch, I like that about you,’ she said, before turning back to the mirror.

‘Look,’ Anna said carefully, drawing herself up to her full height, pushing her shoulders back, doing her best to be as beautiful as the original Charisma Vegas showgirl, who was gradually appearing in the mirror before her. ‘I haven’t come here to fight you over Tom. There is no fight to be had. You and he had a fling, years ago. Long before we ever met. You both made a foolish mistake. One, from what I can gather, that you both soon regretted.’

‘He said that?’ Charisma asked her, as she carefully inserted false lashes into her own, already fairly luscious set. ‘That we both regretted it?’

‘He said you went to look for your dream, and he wasn’t part of it,’ Anna said.

‘Interesting,’ Charisma said, fluttering her newly thickened lashes at her own reflection.

‘And he said that he was relieved you’d gone. That once you left him he got back to the life he was meant to have.’ It was, perhaps, a harsh way of putting things, but Anna was in no mood to be tactful with this strange, mercurial creature who had been Erica Barnes when she walked in, but who was fast transforming herself into exactly the exotic blast from the past that Anna had hoped to avoid.

‘I see,’ Charisma said, slicking on sticky red lipstick without bothering to blot, so that it shone on her full lips. Without warning, she stood up and turned around, unpopping the buttons on her shirt, and pulling her camisole over her head to reveal a sensible black soft cotton bra. Knowing what was coming next, Anna turned her back on Charisma as she unhooked the bra and slipped into some lingerie confection that Anna suspected was much less comfortable and much more Charisma.

‘So anyway,’ Anna continued to talk to the wall. ‘Tom had actually forgotten you two were married, which was why I only found out a couple of days ago. Now, my wedding, my dream wedding that I have been waiting for all my life is only a few days away. I have everything in place, every single little detail covered, but it can’t go ahead unless you sign these papers. Then a judge will annul your marriage. And that’s why I came to New York, to find you, to ask you to sign the papers and let Tom and me get married on Christmas Eve just like we planned.’

There was a moment of silence behind Anna’s head in which she imagined Charisma coming at her with something heavy and blunt. But instead of being moved to murder her, Charisma seemed positively blithe.

‘Impressive,’ she said, the sound of a zip being sharply pulled up punctuating her comment. ‘It takes some kind of broad to take a plane to another country to make sure she gets her man right where she wants him.’

‘Oh, he’s already where I want him,’ Anna said, turning around slowly to find Charisma in all her full-bodied glory, wearing a draped pewter metallic dress with a plunging neckline, teamed with a pair of suede knee-length high-heeled boots. Her mane of chestnut hair was spread luxuriously over her shoulders, and she was standing with her hands on her hips, one of which was cocked in an if-you-want-it-come-and-get-it-bitch stance. Channelling Joan Collins circa 1987 for all she was worth, Anna raised a determinedly unimpressed eyebrow back at her.

‘All this,’ she said gesturing at Charisma. ‘This is just admin.’

Anna braced herself, expecting Charisma to fly at her, grab her hair and pull her to the ground in a frenzy of female violence. And with very little idea about how to catfight, outside of the Regina Clarkson incident, which it was fair to say she didn’t exactly come out on top of, Anna wondered if she would come out of this alive. It wasn’t her life that flashed before her eyes, but images of her never-to-be-worn wedding dress languishing in a charity shop window. Though maybe she could be buried in it. Would there be time to tell someone she wanted to be buried in her wedding dress before Charisma gouged her eyes out with that French manicure? Steeling herself as Charisma took two swaggering steps towards her, Anna prepared to meet her fate. Which was when Charisma dissolved into a fit of girlish giggles, almost doubling up in laughter and leaning one hand on Anna’s shoulder to steady herself.