Painted Faces (3 page)

“
Fine I shall
refrain
Nora dear. I shall also
refrain
from cooking you dinner just so that you can impress the man candy next door.”

Nora had a fancier upbringing than I did. It never fails to amuse me when she comes out with these random posh words. A small smile tilts up the ends of her mouth. I can tell that she doesn't want to be smiling but can't help herself. “All right then, continue being a piss taker, but please just make the dinner, will you?”

I grin. “I will make the most fabulous dinner you have ever tasted. It's a rare dish, not many have heard of it,
sausage a la mash
.”

She throws the cushion at me again and dashes into her bedroom, slamming the door shut before I can return the favour. I roll up my sleeves and go to have a look at what there is to make for dinner. I don't actually intend to make sausage and mash, because we never have guests over and I kind of want to impress this Nicholas character. I bet when he was a teenager he was the one everybody wanted to have as their best friend. As I said, he's sort of magnetic. Or maybe I'm just being a romantic idiot.

But even if he's well out of my league boyfriend wise, I'd still like to be his friend. I mostly only have two proper friends, Nora and our gay pal, Harry. Yes, we have a gay friend. It makes me feel more normal when I can see that my life is full of stereotypes. If I didn't have such a bad attitude and a habit of swearing I could be a reject from a future chick lit novel written by Bertie Ahern's daughter. After all, I do have the hopeless love life and the low self-esteem.

Anyway
, Harry and I bonded over some apple strudel when we met at The Cake Shop about two years ago, and he's been a regular feature in my life ever since. Like me, Harry is a little on the chubby side, and we tend to get along due to our obsession with fine food.

As I pull out some ingredients, preparing to make my special spaghetti bolognaise recipe, my thoughts drift to Nicholas. I could become his cool gal pal who he comes to for advice about life and women. He'd talk to me of his current super model girlfriend and how they are having relationship problems. Then he'd rest his head on my lap and I'd brush his black hair for him and tell him how women are complicated creatures and that he needs to give her space and love. I'd come out with sappy little nuggets of wisdom such as,
Nicholas, true love is like a flower, it needs care and sustenance in order to grow.
It will be cheesy in the most wonderful way. How sad is it that the idea of playing that kind of a role in his life actually excites me?

I lose myself in the motions of cooking. Yes, not only do I bake, I'm also a dab hand at savoury dishes. In the world that exists inside my own head I am the perfect woman. About an hour later Nora emerges from her room, wearing a tight black dress and blue ballet flats. She also has her reading glasses on, so I can tell she's going for the whole sexy but intelligent look.

At this current moment in time I have on comfortable jeans and one of those oversized jumpers that are all the rage at the moment, with no plans to go and change. Nora's about an eight or a nine on the much touted scale of attractiveness, which you come across in films from the good old US of A. She's got a chance of becoming Nicholas' new squeeze.

I'm a comfortable six, and sometimes I like it that way. It means I don't have to bother trying. The art of laziness is something I perfected many years ago. Often it's nice to just sit back and be a spectator for other people's love lives. I might not have a boyfriend, but I have cupcakes, and those tasty bastards haven't let me down yet.

All right, so now you're probably wondering about my past loves. Let's just say that they have all gone down like lead balloons. Crashed and
burned
. No happy ever after endings for me, I'm afraid. I have had a grand total of two boyfriends in my vast twenty-five years. The first lasted six months and was fairly normal; we basically figured out that we just couldn't really stand each other in the end.

The second, well, he turned out to be quite the psycho kettle of fish. When I told him I wanted to break up with him he stalked me for a whole year. This is the main reason why I don't have any kind of online presence whatsoever. I don't need that piece of work finding me again. I won't go into any more details, because thinking about both of those short relationships tends to give me indigestion.

Nora says she's going to go and knock next door to see if Nicholas is ready to join us. I wave her off and stir the bolognaise concoction in the pot as it heats over the stove. Not two minutes later the both of them burst into the apartment, having a good old laugh about something. I'm still standing by the cooker, finishing up the spaghetti.

“
Look Fred, Nicholas brought a bottle of wine. Wasn't that nice of him?” says Nora. I glance over my shoulder as she waggles the bottle in her hand and places it on the dinner table.

“
What a treat,” I exclaim with mock excitement. “You're a real prize, Viv. How much did that cost you, 8.99 down in Londis?”

“
Don't be rude, Fred,” Nora scolds. “I need to pop to the loo, you two chat amongst yourselves,” she says, full of contained glee at having a male of the species in the apartment.

I hate it when people tell you to
chat amongst yourselves
, because whenever they do I can never think of anything to talk about. So I remain silent and turn back around, focusing intently on the food. A moment later I can feel the heat of Nicholas' body behind mine. He puts both his hands on my hips and rests his head on my shoulder, looking over it at the food.

“
Smells delicious Fred,” he comments, casual as you please. Like this is normal behaviour for us and we barely know each other.

I stand stock still, my body immobile. Okay, so either he's one of those weird overly familiar guys who touch on people they hardly know, he's gay, or he's actually coming on to me. I'm thinking it's one of the first two.

“
Yep,” I mutter.

“
The wine cost twenty Euros, and I got it from the off licence down the road,” he says.

“
Oh, very la di da Viv, you must be a big spender.”

He laughs and his breath tickles my neck. “You like calling me Viv, do you?”

“
What can I say, feminine blokes really do it for me,” I reply, trying to keep my cool at his proximity.

“
I can do that, if it's what you're into. In fact, I can be whatever you want me to be. I don't think it is though. I think you're the kind of woman who likes a man to take the lead.” He softly jerks my hips back and presses into me ever so slightly. My eyes go wide. What the fuck is this about?

I twist around, lifting the spoon I'd been using to stir the bolognaise and pointing it right at him. A speck of tomato sauce splats down onto the floor. “
Okay.
Listen here, back the hell up or I'll knee you in the balls.”

He takes a step back, putting his hands in the air in surrender, his face the picture of amusement. “Sorry Freda. I thought you were making all the passive aggressive comments because you were into me.”

“
Yeah well, you thought wrong. Now sit down at the table and make nice before Nora comes back out.” Perhaps we're not going to have such a normal neighbour after all. I'm thinking he might be a sex pest.

“
Yes sir,” he replies, grinning like a fool. He really is far too handsome for his own good. When he pressed into me I felt like I was on fire, in a good way. Although at the same time I wanted to squirm with discomfort. I've never been the “touchy feely” type.

He keeps on looking at me, holding my gaze. I want to look away but I can't seem to manage it. “What colour are your eyes anyway? They look gold in certain lights,” he says, his voice low and intense.

I shrug, all bashful. Jesus, one compliment and I've melted into a pool of sweat on the floor. “Hazel I guess.”

“
They're lovely,” he says. “You're lovely.”

My breathing catches. “Thank you for establishing my loveliness, Viv. Now, do you like garlic? Because there is a
lot
of garlic in this bolognaise.”

He smiles, showing me straight white teeth. The kind of teeth you only see on movie stars. “I love it.”

“
Good,” I reply, just as Nora emerges from the bathroom.

Deciding to take the piss to cover up my embarrassment at Nicholas' compliment, I say, “You might want to crack a window in there Nora, you were in for a while, number two was it?”

Her face goes bright red. I love embarrassing her. I take back what I said earlier about having a kind nature. I'm a cruel, cruel lady.

Nicholas' laughter fills the entire room. He looks to Nora. “She's just fabulous, isn't she?” Now
that
was the statement of a gay man if ever I heard one. It's in contention with the look he gives me, his icy blues eating me up. Good God, can somebody please loan me a burqa?

“
Unfortunately yes,” Nora replies, giving me a harsh look, a look that says
shut up and stop embarrassing me in front of my future husband!

I cut up some foccacia bread and place it in a bowl with little dishes of balsamic vinegar and olive oil, for dipping, because I'm fancy like that. When I put them on the table Nora immediately digs in. Oh no, don't wait for me or anything. After all, I'm only the lowly cook who's facilitating this dinner date for her.

As I dish up the spag-bol, Nora dives right in with the old predictable questioning. “So Nicholas, what do you do for a living?”

He takes a piece of bread, dips it in olive oil and shoves it in his mouth. I notice him savour it for just a second and feel proud because I baked the bread myself. I have this weird fascination with watching people derive pleasure from the food I've made.

“
I'm a cabaret performer,” he answers simply, taking both of us by surprise. I would have guessed he worked in business or banking, since he's such a snappy dresser.

“
Oh really,” says Nora. “How interesting, what exactly does that entail?”

“
It's a whole act, a bit of music, a bit of comedy, a bit of interaction with the audience.”

“
Do you sing?” she asks, intrigued.

“
I most certainly do,” he winks at her, just as I place the remainder of the food on the table and sit down. “Wine Fred?” he asks, lifting the bottle and glancing at me.

“
Of course, Viv,” I answer, twirling some spaghetti around my fork.

His gives me a brilliant smile and pours the liquid into my glass. I take a sip. It's nice, he has good taste.

“
And have you lived in Dublin long?” Nora continues with her interrogation.

“
Just arrived. I've visited a couple of times though, it's a great city. A friend of mine manages a new club here and offered me a regular gig performing, so I jumped at the chance. I've been travelling from country to country for years, going wherever the work took me. But I think I'm ready to settle down somewhere, for a while anyway.”

“
Nora's in the night club business herself,” I put in. “She bar tends, you two will be able to exchange stories about all the drunks.”

Nicholas looks to Nora. “Oh really, where do you work?”

“
Temple Bar,” she sips delicately on her wine. The delicate part is for Nicholas' benefit. If we were alone she'd be knocking it back like a good thing.

“
Ah. The club I'll be performing in is on Capel Street. For a moment there I thought it was fate and we'd be working in the same place,” he says charismatically. Nora goes all goofy eyed. He turns to face me. “So tell me about you Fred, what do you do?”