Sympathy for the Devil (4 page)

       Hung over to the back teeth, and despite it being the end of March and raining, I wore sunglasses. Had to. Everything was too bright, too sharp, and everything, even lifting a cup of triple-shot espresso to my lips, required an enormous effort. The coffee, as a serious drug, was all the more valuable when blocking out West and Toni’s re-enactment of love’s young dream. Why had I bothered turning up? Oh yes, I had received today’s lecture notes and a textbook from West’s roommate. I was also supposed to get another set of books from Waterstones, but right now, I couldn’t quite move.

       Toni glanced at her watch. “Cari probably only got up an hour ago.”

       I had a mild feeling she was addressing me. “So?”

       “So, that’s why we’re sitting here. She’s got a load of stuff she had to get, as her loan cheque has just cleared. Since she’ll be spending money anyway, we’ll go shopping after. Besides, you’ll like her.”

       As if I cared. “I doubt it,” I said with a flicked on/off smile.

       “Everyone likes Cari,” she said decisively.

       The doors of the café opened, and a blast of cold air slapped us in the face. Along with the cold came something else far too bright. I did notice that she was talking on her mobile and heading for our table. All the men turned and stared at her. Hearing her conversation, in addition to the way she looked at closer inspection, I wasn’t surprised.

       “You know what? Stop talking. Good. Now tell that whipped son of a bitch to call me. Yes, he has my number. That ring costs your rent ten times over, you silly bint. I said shut up. If he hasn’t called me by the end of today, I will call the police. Oh, fuck you, too.” She snapped a button on the phone then leaned down to kiss Toni on the cheek. “Hey hey.”

       West and I just gawped at her. I pushed the glasses to the top of my head. Cari was no taller than five three, but she was like sunlight on ice. With straight black hair twisted into a clip, the fringe swept over one large, slanted, dark brown eye, her petite figure framed by a creamy woollen coat longer than her black skirt and covering the tops of knee-high leather boots, she blazed in the middle of the café. The colour of the coat set off her mocha skin tone.

       Her plum-glossed mouth tilted into a smile when West said, “We really need to hear the beginning of that conversation.”

       “Let me get a hot chocolate and I’ll tell you,” she promised, kissing him on the cheek also. She turned those eyes on me and blinked slowly
.

       Christ,
I thought
. I hope she doesn’t do that on purpose.

      
“Hello.”

       “Oh,” Toni and West said together. “Pierce, this is Cari, Cari this is Pierce.”

       Cari looked me up and down and a knowing light sprang into her eyes. “You’re Pierce,” she said with another slow blink. My gut wished she’d bloody well stop doing that.

       “‘God’ works as well,” I dismissed with a shrug.

       The knowing glint spread over her face, so she went to the bar and collected a hot chocolate.

       West said to me in a low voice, “Yeah, I must have looked like that too when I first met her. Difference was, she was giving the come-on to a bloke. Was like live porn.”

       I declined to comment, thinking furiously how un-bloody-fair it was that the most gorgeous, sexy woman to have walked into my life had to be the day I looked like Ozzy Osborne.

       “You two should have lots in common,” Toni assured me. “Aren’t you on the same course?”

       “No,” West corrected. “Cari’s taking law with French. Pierce is doing law full stop.”

       Toni looked at me with a full-on smile that put her on par with Cari’s looks. Almost. “I’m worried for British Justice.”

       “Why?” I asked.

       “You as a lawyer? A good thing capital punishment has been abolished.”

       West grinned his agreement as Cari returned and took the seat next to mine. “God, I forgot I don’t like the chocolate at this place.
C’est la vie
. How are you all?”

       West pointed at her. “No way, you spill about that soap drama you had on your mobile.”

       Cari rolled her eyes. “It’s a long story.”

       “And I need those books,” I reminded him pointedly.

       “And why weren’t you at the lecture?” Cari demanded with a stilling look.

       “I was too busy recovering from the night before.”

       “Ah, for shame,” she lectured lightly. “You ought to by now have the skills.”

       “What skills?”

       “When thou goest out, thou shalt speed hungover to thine lecture and suffereth like all the other hungover bastards,” Toni dutifully recited, then glancing at Cari, they both giggled. “When thou feelest sick, thou shalt throw up last night’s cheap Chardonnay,” she reeled off another.

       “Last night’s cheap Chardonnay, and even cheaper cum,” Cari added with a dry laugh. Toni and West corpsed. I’d never met a girl with such a vulgar mouth. “The most important being, when thou hast too much to drink, thou shalt enjoy hair of the canine. Blessed be.” Cari glanced at me. “You look like you need it. I’d forget the coffee if I were you and get some Jack Daniels down you, sharpish.”

       “It’s eleven in the morning.”

       “So? Toni worked in her dad’s pub last year…”

       “Oh God, I wasn’t sober for months!” she wailed.

       “…and it was fabulous. I’m definitely going to live in one. Not to run but to convert into a house and have the most kick-ass parties.” Cari caught my expression. “Serious tangent. Drinking at eleven, my dear child, is an acquired and necessary taste. The only thing that will improve your eyes is a truckload of concealer.”

       I’d like to conceal her mouth. “I’ve never had any complaints,” I murmured.

       “I’m sure,” she replied just as softly, her eyes dark with irritation.

       Pretentious cow.

       “So what happened on the phone?” Toni prompted, to break the evident vibes of general dislike emanating from Cari and myself.

       Cari tutted. “That prick I spent six months of my life with is still causing me grief. God, it’s a wonder I didn’t fail my A-levels the weak, cheap soap-opera-set-type excuses he plagued me with. So look, I’ve been searching for my granddad’s ring. I’m off down to Brighton next weekend, and the last time I spoke to Pops he asked me if I was looking after it. I realise I haven’t seen it for ages, and when I think about it properly, I haven’t seen it since I broke up with the Prick. So he called me to get back his graphic novel. Admittedly, it’s the Batman v. Spiderman copy, but I found that for him on the internet as a birthday present, and even then it was the wrong one. So he wanted the novel, so I say, good, as long as I can get my ring back. He goes quiet, so I elaborate, telling him it’s the white gold one my Pops had made in the seventies so it was worth shitloads now. The Prick tells me he’s gone and given it to his new girlfriend as he thought he’d bought it for me and I’d returned it. Obviously I went ballistic. And it’s been a week now after he swore on his mother’s life to give it back straight away. Personally, I don’t care if the emasculated, racist bitch lives or dies but I do want that ring back.”

      
She’s mental,
I thought
. She is actually crazy.

      
“I called today, his bint new girlfriend picked up, so we had a minor bargee. I expect he’ll call in…Ah…” Her mobile tinkled and an aggressive look of triumph lit her face. “Rick,” she said smoothly, not getting up from the table as one would expect from polite young ladies. I supposed she was saving herself the bother of repeating the story. “How is Greta? Did she really?” She stuck two fingers down her throat and pretended to gag. “Threw the ring off, you say? Oh, you poor darling. No. I know. But it will be good for you to spend some time as a single man.” She grinned. “In half an hour? Well, that just isn’t convenient. Where are you? Oh, for God’s sake, Richard, I’m around the corner. Two minutes. Good.”

       She cut the call. “He’ll be here in a minute.” She sipped at her chocolate like a satisfied cat. “Weak-willed, thick, shadow of a man.” She glanced at me as she bit into her bottom lip. “Sex compensates for far too much. Wouldn’t you say, Pierce?”

       I looked at her blankly for a minute, then burst out laughing. West joined in because he knew it was true, and Cari kicked off as soon as I did. Toni stared at me in amused surprise. She’d never heard me laugh before. I’d spent most of the time in her company scowling, or attached to the face of some blonde.

       “Cari, sex doesn’t compensate for nearly enough,” I told her with a wry smile.

       She tilted her head to one side to look at me inquiringly, her hair shadowing all of the right eye and sweeping to her left. “Let me guess. Stupid, tall, blonde, Daddy’s money.”

       “Is there a sign on my head?” I fumed.

       West and Cari exchanged amused looks. “Your mate told me.”

       West shrugged at such disloyalty. “I said you had a type, and she didn’t believe me. She has this philosophy that no one has a type. I told her you have a very specific type.”

       Toni sent Cari a look. “She also said that men can have their minds changed.”

       “You’re going to change my mind?” I asked sceptically. She lifted a brow.

       “Nope,” she said evenly, then shivered as a blast of cold air indicated another customer. A man came over to our table and spoke Cari’s name quietly. I was expecting an older, almost arthritic, wobbly voiced, weak-kneed short arse. I was confronted with a GAP model.

       “Rick, don’t sit down,” Cari directed shortly. “You won’t be here long.”

      
Poor bloke
, I thought with a mental grin. How did he cope for months? She held out her palm, into which he tipped a ring. A sparkler like that would have any woman with taste killing men, women, and children for it. I’d seen women fight over a pair of Hermes gloves in Harvey Nichols. It was bloody, and at my mother’s insistence I was in therapy the next day.

       “Thanks.” She beamed, closing her fingers around it. Rick stood there looking bewildered. “Um…what about my graphic novel?”

       “That would be
my
graphic novel. You gave it back to me,” she reminded him.

       I wondered why Cari had wasted weeks of her life with such a watercolour of a prick. He must have had to crawl out from under her personality. She was far too strong for him.
Not too much for you though
, a voice taunted.
But she ain’t my type
, I replied just as smartly.

       “But you were saying…” Rick said hesitantly.

       “Richard, I never said anything of the sort,” she informed him, slipping the ring onto her right hand, third finger and examining it with a glowing face. “I seem to recall you telling me you didn’t want my gifts.”

       “Cari, now you’re just being…”

       Her face set in anger. It was like watching a soap opera, her features were so dramatically inclined. “Don’t you start on me. You threw it at me and said you didn’t want a fucking thing from me. You rarely lie, as you’re too stupid to know how to, so I’ve taken you at your word.”

       “Cari…”

       “Nuh uh. We’re done. I’ll erase your number, you erase mine. I’m sure you’ll find some simpering female on your level to buy you the right one. Now push off. We’re trying to have coffee.”