Unsticky (40 page)
Authors: Sarah Manning
Vaughn answered on the third ring. ‘Grace, if you’re about to launch into another fit of hysterics about Christmas, I don’t want to hear it.’
Grace gritted her teeth. ‘Yes, it’s me,’ she cooed, knowing that everybody was listening. ‘I just wanted to thank you again for taking me to Miami this weekend. It was wonderful.’
‘Are you on crack?’ It was a perfectly reasonable question, Grace thought as she racked her brains for something to say that would let the entire office know that she was dating a rich man and wasn’t a prostitute. Besides, it would mean she no longer had to hide her weekend case in the postroom or keep extolling the virtues of mineral make-up.
‘Yeah, I miss you too,’ she sighed loudly. ‘Now don’t forget you were going to email me with some Christmas gift suggestions for your mother ’cause I’m drawing a total blank.’
‘As she’s been dead for ten years that might be a little difficult,’
Vaughn said dryly, but Grace could hear his voice softening slightly. Like he was amused and intrigued, against his better judgement. ‘I take it that all festive obstacles have been removed?’
‘All but one. I’m going to get on that now.’ She dropped her voice to a whisper so she could add: ‘But I’m still really, really mad at you. And I’ll wear whatever colour tights I bloody well want to.’
Vaughn had something to say about that, but Grace didn’t care to hear it. Instead, she hung up and went to the cupboard to call her grandmother. The day couldn’t get any more horrific so it was as good a time as any to categorically state for the record that Worthing would have to manage without her over Christmas.
chapter twenty-one
When she woke up on 23 December, Grace was still tired and aching from the night before. She’d been to Vaughn’s Christmas party, held at the gallery and, thankfully, arranged by his staff rather than herself, as she’d already hosted two dinners in London and New York for favoured clients. They’d been formal affairs in trendy restaurants, but the gallery party had been a strange cross between a sophisticated art soirée and an office knees-up.
Madeleine Jones’s teenage emo daughter had been a really amusing diversion and Piers had got pinker and gigglier the more he drank, and he’d even tried to foxtrot with Grace in the back office when they’d gone to get some more glasses. It had felt a lot like fun until an hour into the party, when Madeleine had been despatched to Grace’s side to tell her that Noah had arrived, already half-cut, and in dire need of a babysitter.
Since the dinner-party, Grace had seen Noah and Lola across the room at a couple of crowded parties. She’d spoken to Lola both times but only waved at Noah, though they were Facebook friends. That might have been why he’d greeted her like they were buddies from way back when she’d hurried over to the bar where he was trying to persuade the server to let him take a bottle of whisky.
‘Gracie, I can’t get through this sober,’ he said, mournfully scratching what looked like three days’ worth of stubble on his chin. ‘Vaughn hasn’t stopped glaring at me, even though I put a suit on.’
The suit consisted of a pair of paint-splattered jeans, an old Ramones T-shirt with a tie half-knotted round his neck and a blazer, complete with school logo stitched on the pocket. ‘Vaughn’s not glaring,’ Grace lied, though he was definitely scowling. ‘Why don’t you start with just a couple of shots of whisky and I’ll introduce you to some people.’
Then Grace had wheeled Noah around the room, pausing to talk to a couple of Vaughn’s pet artists, then she’d snuck him on to the roof terrace so he could have a cigarette. He kept calling her sweetheart and teasing her about how her voice went up a couple of notches every time she talked to someone important, and Grace had let herself flirt back. Just a little, because for once it was nice to have some simple, uncomplicated boy do a little simple, uncomplicated flirting that wasn’t going to go anywhere. Not until Noah had tried to stick his hand down the front of Grace’s draped Derek Lam dress.
Grace had gently intercepted his paw. ‘Dude, you’re completely pissed and tomorrow you’ll realise that trying to grope me was a bad move.’
‘You and him exclusive then?’ he asked, breathing whisky fumes in Grace’s face. ‘You just being sweet to me because you’re under orders?’
‘I’m a sweet girl,’ Grace had insisted. ‘And I’m Vaughn’s girl so nothing’s going to happen. Anyway, what about Lola?’
Noah shrugged. ‘We have a communist relationship, you know?’
Grace didn’t know, but she doubted it was anything to do with Marx or Lenin, and she didn’t want to ask Noah what he was talking about and have him think she was stupid. ‘Whatever. Let’s have one more cigarette than we have to go back downstairs.’
Noah had backed off and they’d huddled against the wall as they’d shared Grace’s last Marlboro Light, Noah’s bulk shielding her from the bitter wind. He had the build of a boxer who was on the verge of going to seed, but apart from that, he was precisely the sort of cocky, toxic bad boy that Grace used to throw herself at. It wasn’t that her tastes now ran to richer, older and better groomed. It was more like she just didn’t dare.
Especially when she’d seen Vaughn standing on the path a little distance away from them. It was too dark to see his face, but there was something very purposeful and still about the way he stood there which made Grace slide a few inches away from Noah.
‘Grace, I need you,’ he said mildly.
He hadn’t moved as Grace hurried towards him, her breath crystallising in front of her. Vaughn followed her back on to the landing and, as they passed his office, he’d suddenly grabbed her wrist and pulled her inside. Didn’t say a word, but pushed her up against the wall and kissed her with more passion than he’d shown her for weeks.
Now, hours later, as Grace hopped from foot to foot in the icy-cold bath in her icy-cold unheated bathroom, she saw that she had bruises on her hipbones from where she’d been pressed against the edge of his desk as Vaughn had fucked her. Not that she’d minded at the time. God, she’d moaned and whimpered until Vaughn had put his hand over her mouth because she was making so much noise and Noah was still out on the terrace. And when he’d done that, Grace had come faster and harder than she ever had before.
Since the row in Miami their
entente
had been less than cordiale - in fact it was as chilly as the cold December nights - but Grace’s body had been so well trained, that just a firm stroke from Vaughn’s hand or a whispered suggestion in her ear and it knew it was in for a treat. Which was infuriating.
entente
had been less than cordiale - in fact it was as chilly as the cold December nights - but Grace’s body had been so well trained, that just a firm stroke from Vaughn’s hand or a whispered suggestion in her ear and it knew it was in for a treat. Which was infuriating.
Her life was definitely better since she’d met Vaughn but it was also a lot more complicated.
Grace’s phone started ringing at the exact same moment that she had to leave if there was any hope of making it to Victoria to get the midday train to Worthing. She hoped it might be Lily finally getting over herself and calling to thank Grace for the £500 espresso machine she’d bought as a wedding gift with a loan she’d got from a finance company advertising on Facebook. December’s allowances had run out around the fifteenth, despite all her creative solutions to the problem of party dresses. There had also been Christmas presents to buy and that old gnawing ache in her stomach that didn’t go away even when she had brushed the dust off her credit cards, so she’d faxed the loan company her latest pay slip and they’d given her £2,000, most of which she’d blown on a Bottega Veneta bag she couldn’t even bear to look at now.
Private number
was flashing on Grace’s phone so it could be Lily, Grace thought as she answered with a tentative, ‘Hi?’
was flashing on Grace’s phone so it could be Lily, Grace thought as she answered with a tentative, ‘Hi?’
‘Hi! Is that Grace?’ asked a friendly voice, so obviously it couldn’t be Lily.
‘Yup, who’s this?’
‘Ms Reeves, I’m calling from North South Finance. We’ve sent you several final demands and left several messages for you about immediate repayment of—’
Grace’s first instinct was to throw the phone at the wall. Hard. ‘I’ve never heard of you,’ she squeaked.
‘We took over your debt from two of your credit card—’
‘How can you do that? That can’t even be legal!’ Grace yelped as she shrugged into her Burberry Prorsum coat. ‘Anyway, I’ve started paying off my cards. So if you tell me which one it is, I’ll pay a thousand off next month. On the first, I promise.’
‘We tried to contact you by email and post but, Ms Reeves, you’ve accrued so much interest and penalty charges that I’ve been instructed to call in the entire amount. I need an immediate payment of just over four thousand pounds or we’ll have to use a collection agency to recover . . .’
Grace went with her first instinct and hung up. Then she switched off the phone, got on her knees and shoved it as far under the sofa as she could.
Vaughn had withdrawn his offer of a car to take her down to Worthing, but Grace wasn’t that bothered about having to take the train. It didn’t hurt to have a reminder that just as Vaughn gave, so Vaughn could take away as the mood suited him. Still, it was a mad scramble to make the train with two heavy suitcases, and it took most of the journey to Worthing before Grace stopped feeling as if she was about to hurl, though she didn’t know if it was her hangover, the phone call she’d just taken or terror at the ordeal that lay before her.
Grace felt her skin grow clammy as she rehearsed The Speech. She’d been working on The Speech for fifteen years, like most people rehearsed their Oscar acceptance. The Speech would succinctly and scathingly reduce her mother to tears, before she admitted that she’d got back in contact, not for Grace’s benefit, but just to make herself feel better. Then she’d get on the plane back to Australia and that would be that. Over. Done. Never to be heard from again after Grace had delivered The Speech in all its awe-inspiring, terrible beauty.
But when Grace was ushered into the front room, normally reserved for non-family guests, all she could manage was a wave limper than her own second-day hair and a muttered, ‘Hi.’
Grace’s gaze rested on her mother for two seconds before she lost her nerve but it was long enough to take in a tanned blonde with a slightly anxious smile. She felt her body give a quick jerk of recognition even though her grandparents had taken down all the photos when Grace had first come to live with them. All she had were hazy mental pictures of a thin, pale woman with mousy hair and a harried face, so the woman kneeling in front of the fire was an anomaly and Grace’s memories and grudges shifted and rearranged themselves to account for this slightly plump woman who had eyes the same colour as her own. She was holding a wriggling child in a ballerina outfit on her lap. ‘Look, Kirsty, it’s your big sister, Grace.’
Kirsty gazed at Grace in that mulish, ‘I’m a toddler and I’m going to stare at you for as long as I want’ way. Grace stared right back and waited for their shared DNA or irrevocable flesh and blood bond to kick in. It didn’t. Also, someone needed to wipe Kirsty’s nose.
‘I’m Gary,’ said a voice behind her. There were introductions to the second husband, and her grandmother wanted to know why she hadn’t called from the station and it was still awkward half an hour later when they were balancing cups of tea and plates of mince pies on their laps. Her grandmother wouldn’t stop harping on at Grace for her Christmas Day no-show while her grandfather grilled Gary and Caroline about the current state of the Australian economy. When that topic had been exhausted, Caroline kept asking Grace questions: how had her journey been? Had she been going to lots of Christmas parties? What part of London was she living in? Under her grandmother’s most steely glare, Grace was forced to answer politely. Monosyllabically, but politely, as Kirsty lay on the floor and kicked her legs in the air - Grace knew just how she felt. Then she remembered that she’d bought a bagful of pink, glittery tat from Claire’s Accessories, because her grandmother would have killed her if she’d turned up empty-handed and besides, none of this was Kirsty’s fault.
Three year olds were very easy to please. Kirsty put on everything in the bag from fairy wings to bangles, beads and bracelets, so she looked like a pre-school drag queen. After that, she climbed into Grace’s lap, though Grace tried to dissuade her, and launched into her entire repertoire of party tricks, which consisted of tuneless renditions of ‘Row, Row, Row the Boat’, and some knock-knock jokes, which were mostly gibberish. Actually it was a godsend because it meant that no one could really talk about anything significant, and when Kirsty moved on to ‘Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star’, her grandmother went for a lie-down.
Grace could finally excuse herself ‘for a bit of fresh air’, and scurried outside to sneak a crafty fag behind the shed in the back garden. She’d barely taken the first drag when she heard the kitchen door open and saw Caroline coming down the path. She steeled herself for a confrontation, or worse, platitudes, but Caroline merely smiled and gestured at Grace’s hand.
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