Our Little Secret (22 page)

And right here and now, I see what I haven’t wanted to believe, that
of course
Edward is innocent. He didn’t
intend
to give me an orgasm at all. It was all my own stupid fantasy again.

He has Marnie. Desirable, sexy, amazing Marnie. Why would he even look at me twice? Why would he even consider me, a lowly employee, in a sexual way at all? I’m a clotheshorse, at best, I remind myself. Someone who drunkenly threw herself at her boss.

He jolts out of reading, and almost subconsciously lifts his hand to stroke the side of Marnie’s head, a gesture so familiar it makes my heart ache.

‘Huh? What’s that?’ he asks.

‘Ed,’ Marnie chastises. ‘I’ve told you ten times . . .’ She stands back, puts her hands on her hips and then rolls her eyes at me, as I shut the cupboard and put the cereal box I’m holding on the counter. ‘The party. You remember. The party. My set . . . ?’

Edward sighs and rubs the bridge of his nose, then pulls an embarrassed face. ‘That’s tonight?’

‘Uh – yeah,’ Marnie says, not amused.

‘Shit, shit, shit!’ he swears. He’s genuinely annoyed with himself. ‘Sweetheart, I can’t,’ he implores her.

She cocks her head at him, exasperated and disappointed.

He makes a helpless noise. ‘Lloyd’s in town. We have dinner at the club with the investors. I totally . . .’ He puts his hands out. ‘My screw-up. I’m sorry. I’ll make it up to you.’

I can tell from the crestfallen look on Marnie’s face that it’s a big deal. He stands and takes her in his arms. They fit like a pair of lovebirds. He whispers something in her ear and I watch his hand ruffling the back of her hair, like he loves the feel of her neck. The same hand that massaged my inner thigh, just hours ago . . .

I turn away, my cheeks pink. I tip some cereal into a bowl, but my hand is shaking.

‘I know,’ I hear him say, his voice loud and bright. ‘Why don’t you take Miss Henshaw?’

I look up to see that Edward and Marnie are both staring at me, although Edward’s look is dark and unreadable. ‘You’d like to get out of here for a while, wouldn’t you?’ he asks me.

This is such a loaded question, I don’t know how to answer.

‘Yes, God, yes,’ Marnie says. ‘Of course. Of course you must come.’ She strides confidently towards me with a grin. ‘Poor Miss Henshaw. I feel like we’ve totally neglected you. Like you’re a little bird we haven’t fed. You come with me and let loose a while.’

A caged bird. Is that how she thinks of me?

‘Where?’ I ask.

‘Baby, you’re coming partying with me. We’ll leave Mr Boring behind.’ She playfully sticks her tongue out at Edward, then pushes the bowl away from me. ‘There’s no time to eat. You can grab something in town.’

She links arms with me and sweeps me out of the kitchen. I feel Edward watching us go.

44

I do need to get out of the house. The second we get through the gates, my sense of claustrophobia lifts and I realize that Marnie’s description of me as a caged bird was more accurate than I thought.

At the last minute Mrs Gundred comes with us and we both sit in silence as Marnie talks on her mobile. Gundred’s an odd fish. She rattles away on her laptop and entirely ignores me.

I focus instead on Marnie and, as I hear her talking to a friend on the phone about the party and how she’s been practising her set, I start to feel part of something cool and exciting. I’m so grateful she’s brought me with her. I’m so grateful that I have something to occupy my mind, other than my obsessive thoughts about Edward. As I look at Marnie laughing, watching her reflection in the window of the limo as she laughs, I feel such a huge sense of retrospective shame about my secret orgasm. What would Marnie think if she knew how desirable I find her husband?

I think about Edward at home alone in the house right now. Did he deliberately want me to go with Marnie today so that we wouldn’t be alone together? What would have happened if we were? Would we be able just to hang out together? Pretend nothing happened last night?

As we arrive in the city, I make a resolution. I’m going to stop my stupid, girlish crush on Edward and focus on the future and my role as the Parkers’ nanny. I will avoid any situation in which I’m alone with Edward and keep our relationship strictly formal.

I owe it to Marnie. Sweet, kind, attractive, bubbly, vivacious Marnie. I will not let her down. I won’t do anything to jeopardize her marriage or complicate her relationship with Edward. My crazy, abandoned moment in the sauna with him will remain a secret.

So. Decision time. My crush on Edward stops right here and right now. I’m so excited by my resolve, I almost blurt it out to Marnie.

We stop on a Manhattan street that seems vaguely familiar. And then I remember. This is where Marnie’s shop is. I look expectantly through the limo’s window for the shop front, my attention caught by the crowd of fashionable people on the street. I want to pinch myself. I’m in New York but, unlike the other night when I was meeting Edward, this feels much more real and tangible. I’m actually going to be able to get out and take a look around.

Mrs Gundred leaves the car, without a word to me or Marnie, and walks inside a dark doorway. Is that the lingerie and ‘intimate collection’ emporium? I would have thought someone as uptight as Gundred would be shocked, but she’s obviously something to do with Marnie’s business. I wonder if she’s ever had a go on one of Marnie’s vibrators. I sincerely doubt it.

‘OK, listen up,’ Marnie tells me, when she’s finally finished her phone call with a flurry of ciaos and air-kisses. She takes out a wallet from her handbag and grabs a bundle of notes. ‘Take this,’ she says, pressing it into my palm. ‘My treat. Although
don’t
tell Edward. Go to José’s boutique in the Meatpacking District. You’ll find it. Everyone knows José’s. Tell André, or JoJo, that I sent you and they’re to find something for you to wear tonight. They’ll understand.’

I stare at the money in my hand. ‘Really?’

Is this my pay cheque? Is this the money for the first week? I want to ask.

‘Take it, take it,’ Marnie implores, wrapping my fingers around the notes. Then she takes a leather pad from her handbag and rips out a cream page. In fountain pen she writes an address and a mobile number. She smiles at me. She looks like she feels sorry for me. ‘Listen. I want you to take the day. You don’t need to be back here till much later on. I’m going to be tied up all day. Take in the sights. Do the tourist thing, if you want.’ She grins at me.

‘But . . .’

‘Here’s my number and the address of the shop,’ she interrupts, handing me the piece of paper. ‘Call me if you get lost or need anything.’

I stare at the note and the money in my hand. She wants to get rid of me, I can tell, but she’s being so generous, I can’t help grinning.

‘Go go go, little bird.’ She shoes me away, opening the door. ‘Go explore the city. Go have fun.’

And right there and then I realize that I am like a little bird, and at last I’m free.

45

New York is simply dazzling, although I have to admit that it’s quite overwhelming on my own.

The day is so perfect, I hum that Lou Reed song I love on a loop. The sun is shining, the trees are in bloom, the city is breathtakingly beautiful and I can’t help but soak it all up – the street buskers, the pigeons, the yellow cabs, the subway signs. It’s all vaguely familiar from TV and films, but the vibrancy, the feeling that everyone is on the move here, everyone is living an interesting life, a million stories being played out all around me, takes my breath away.

I take a cab to Central Station, just to look inside, then go to the Empire State Building and queue up to ride in the elevator to the top and chat to an old couple from San Francisco who are here on their Golden Wedding anniversary trip. I write a postcard to Ryan and Dad when I’m at the top of the tower looking out over Manhattan, watching the cruise ships in the distance on the Hudson. The Statue of Liberty looks tiny. Like a piece on a board game.

It’s a sweltering day and I take a break in Central Park on a bench in the shade. I consider calling Tiff, even though I know it will cost a fortune. Being on my own, surrounded by tourists and regular New Yorkers going about their business, has made me feel more normal than I have done in days. It makes me remember that this is the holiday at the start of my new adventure, and she’ll be at home wondering what’s happening to me. I want to share New York with her, but I feel too overwhelmed to describe it.

I stare at the phone in my hand. I know what will happen if I call. She’ll fill me in on the fallout from the scandal of me dumping Scott. She’s bound to know, from the crowd down the pub, what’s going on. I bet he’s been slagging me off and I know she’ll be desperate to tell me if he has, but I don’t want to hear it.

What I want to tell her is about Edward and my orgasm in the sauna. If I manage to tell her what happened, it might stop being such a big deal, but even as I think about describing it to her, I realize how wrong I’ll sound. How deluded.

I buy a burrito from a stall and the Mexican lady chats to me. She asks if I have a boyfriend, as she loads up my burrito with pickles. When I tell her I’m newly single, she says that being alone in Central Park is a perfect way to start a romance with a total stranger, but even as she says it, I think she probably tells everyone that.

I take a horse-drawn carriage around the park with some Japanese tourists who have a spare seat, but all the while I feel entirely separate, like I’m watching a film montage of myself in New York and I’m not actually here at all.

In the afternoon I buy a guide and find my way to the Meatpacking District, asking directions in three cafes until I reach the brightly lit, open windows of José’s boutique.

It’s achingly cool inside. Even the shop assistants look like they’ve just stepped off a catwalk. Music thumps out, while the shoppers feign total disinterest as they browse the minimalist rails. Everything I look at has a chunky security tag on it.

I find JoJo at the back of the store. I thought I would be finding a woman, but JoJo is a man. He has a Mohawk dyed blue, and a shaved head and pierced nose, and he’s wearing three-quarter-length brown check trousers with DM boots. He should, in theory, look like a clown, but he looks totally hip.

He surveys me up and down in my white T-shirt that Edward gave me and the red shorts. I’m wearing my Primark pink pumps, as I knew the sandals would give me blisters. Just from one twitch of his eyebrow stud, I can tell it’s a huge fashion faux pas.

When I explain that Marnie Parker sent me, his eyebrows shoot up.

‘Is that so?’ He has long, languid, slurring speech. I get the impression that he is wondering what the hell he can do with me. ‘Come out back. I have some pieces to show you.’

Out of the glare and glamour of the shop, amongst the boxes and hangers in the storeroom, there’s a makeshift changing room with three outfits hanging up. Two I turn my nose up at immediately, as far too grungy. The third is a purple leatherette dress. I guess the style would be ‘prom queen meets cavewoman’ if you had to describe it. There’s a strapless bodice and tight-fitting skirt with slashes and kilt pins. There’s no way I can wear a bra with it, so I don’t think it will work, but JoJo forces me to try it on.

I shuffle out of the changing room in my bare feet and he looks at me, before bunching in the material under my armpit and putting a pin in it.

‘We can work with this,’ he says. ‘Definitely. The colour’s great with your hair.’

Working with the outfit means altering it to fit entirely to my shape. Half an hour later, I’m laden with purple platform shoes that perfectly match the dress, a kind of diamanté-studded neck choker and a leather wristband thing.

It costs nearly the whole amount Marnie gave me, but then I had a feeling it would.

I swagger down the street with my designer shopping bags, pretending that I’m in
Sex and the City
, relieved that my outfit for tonight’s party will work.

I’m so absorbed in mentally working out what I have to do in order to be ready for the party that it takes me a second or two to realize that someone is calling out to me from the other side of the street.

46

It’s him. It’s that guy from the party the other night with Edward. The reporter. Harry.

Fuck!

It looks like he’s been dining at the restaurant opposite José’s at a table outside. I look up to see him waving wildly, before wiping his face with a napkin, chucking some notes from his pocket on the table and running after me.

I hurry down the street, away from him, my head ducked down. I don’t want to talk to him. I have nothing to say to him.

Edward’s face looms in my mind. How he was at the party when he found me with Harry. How furious he was that I’d talked to him. And I remember Harry, too, and his crazy, inaccurate insinuations. The Parkers are lovely, kind and generous, artistic people. How dare he try and put poison in my mind.

‘Taxi!’ I yell, putting my hand up, and a yellow cab swerves across the lane of traffic to stop next to me. Relieved, I open the door and chuck in my bags. I’m about to close the door when Harry appears, panting next to me on the kerb. He holds the door.

‘I thought it was you,’ he says with a grin.

‘Please go away,’ I implore him.

I catch the cab driver’s eye in the mirror.

‘Don’t be like that, Princess,’ Harry says. He leans forward and claps the cab driver on the shoulder as he clambers into the back of the cab. ‘We’re all fine here,’ he assures him.

We’re not fine, but the cab driver is moving away from the kerb.

‘Where to, Ma’am?’ he asks.

I stare at Harry.

‘Tell him,’ he shrugs. ‘I’m going where you’re going.’

I dig out Marnie’s piece of paper, positioning my body away from Harry’s, so that he can’t see it. I mumble the street name on the piece of paper she gave me.

The cab driver squints at me in the rear-view mirror, concerned.

I sit back in the seat and bite my lip.

‘Well, this is nice,’ Harry says, grinning at me. He’s the kind of guy who likes to be deliberately annoying.