Angels (28 page)

“Werry bed.”

So bed that she had to sit down for a moment and heave a deep, heartfelt sigh. Then she rose to her feet and the challenge. “Ve fill do fot ve ken,” she said, painting some molten wax on my eye socket. Her accent was reminding me of someone, generating a maelstrom of hard-to-place nostalgia. Then I remembered: Valya and Vladimir. Garv and his shopping lists. It was as though a door to a drafty place had

ANGELS / 221

opened inside me; then mercifully Anoushka ripped off a strip of wax and the agony dissolved the memories.

The process was preposterously unpleasant. As Anoushka plucked, it was like being assailed with a thousand little darts; my eyes dribbled water and I hovered uncomfortably on the edge of a sneeze. All the while, she gave orders in her Valya accent.

“Tveezers,” she barked, like a surgeon in
ER
. “More wex.”

I pushed down an impulse to ask if she'd had menny, menny luffers. Anyway, I'd say she would have had—she was a fine-looking woman.

After what felt like ages, the plucking frenzy started on my other eye and it was, if anything, worse than the first. I prayed for it to be over.

Eventually everything went still—like the calm after all the popcorn has popped—so I opened my eyes and began to struggle to my feet. Only to be stopped by Anoushka insisting, “No!”

Obediently I lay back and shut my eyes again. But nothing happened and I cautiously squinched open one eye to find Anoushka studying me with great concentration.

“The hardest part is knowing when you're finished,” Lara said admiringly. “All the great artists say that.”

Over the next ten minutes, a single hair was plucked from my right eye and none from my left. Then Anoushka saw fit to declare,

“Finish!”

Sitting up and looking into the mirror, my nose was red and my eyes were rheumy, as though I'd been crying for a week. I reminded myself of someone. Who? Oh,
myself
. Last February. But my eyebrows were lovely, no doubt about it.

“Better than a face-lift,” Anoushka said. Now where had I heard that before? And once again, it was almost as expensive.

When we got back into Lara's pickup truck, a change occurred.

All of a sudden she was uncomfortable and the feel 222 / MARIAN KEYES

ing filled the small space. “There's something I've got to say to you,” she said, then picked up my hand. Alert, I stared into her blue eyes. Oh God, here it comes. Lezzer kiss! Senses instantly heightened, I noticed that she smelled of strawberries, that her legs were so long her car seat was as far back as it could go…She pulled my hand to her face. Was she going to kiss it? And then me?

“I feel bad saying this,” she sighed, “but you have the worst nails.

You have
got
to get to a nail bar.”

It took me a perplexed moment to realize she'd returned my hand to me. No lezzer kiss. Just another installment in Lara's mission to groom me to L.A. standards.

“Have you, like,
ever
had a manicure?”

“Of course I have.” I'd had one when I'd gotten married, hadn't I? And other times too, I'd say.

“But not in a while, right? Okay, there's a place in Santa Monica, on the corner of Arizona and Third. Nail Heaven, Taiwanese girls, they're the best! Tell them I sent you.” I waited for her to grab her Palm Pilot and book me, but she didn't.

“You're not”—I tried to sound normal—“getting me an appointment?”

“You don't need one, not for nails. This is a civilized country!

Hey, you don't hate me, do you?”

“No.”

“Phew! So what'll we do now? Go for a drink or get some dinner or…”

Before we could decide, her cell phone rang. “Yes.” Her eyes slid to me. “I've got her.”

It was Troy! Tracking me down! Mad for sex with me!

But it wasn't. It was Justin. Emily had called him and he was under instructions to take care of me that evening.

“Can I come too?” Lara asked.

“No Nadia tonight?”

“No.” Suddenly subdued, she switched on the ignition, and we drove over to Justin's house—a red-roofed mini hacienda, with lots of Spanish archways and wrought-iron

ANGELS / 223

window shutters. He wore a blue-and-green Hawaiian shirt that I hadn't seen before; he must have hundreds.

“Hi, how are you?” I asked.

“Pretty angry,” he answered, his voice even higher than usual.

“Why, sweetie?” Lara asked with concern.

“Some other guy keeps getting the parts I'm up for. Look at him!”

He hit the copy of
Daily Variety
with the back of his hand, then showed us a little photo of the other guy. It was uncanny, he was so similar to Justin, they could have been brothers, but this guy was just that little bit plumper and cuter and his face was even more open and uncomplicated than Justin's.

“All I can do is be fat and expendable,” Justin said, slumped in depression. “If I can't do that, I don't have a job. I'm a total loser.”

Lara and I pitched in, reminding him that he could give great foot massages and was an excellent cook (according to Lara), until eventually he perked up. “Aw, I'm sorry, guys. So what'll we do?

We could catch a movie?”

“Suits me.” Going to a film was always a great opportunity to eat loads of candy under cover of darkness.

“How about
Flying Pigs
?” Lara said.

“Nah, I hated his last one,” Justin said.

“Which?
Introspection
?”

“No,
Washday Blues
.”

“Did he do that?”

I tuned out as the pedigrees of the many, many films currently showing in the greater Los Angeles area underwent discussion—this is the one complaint I'd have about hanging around with people who work in the film industry, they know too much—and tuned back in only when they'd finally nominated a candidate. Something called
Seven Feet Under
.

“A black comedy,” Justin explained. “Directed by the guy who made…”

“Grand, whatever.” I was more interested in the bag of M&M's I'd be eating while I watched it.

224 / MARIAN KEYES

On our way out of the house I noticed the name on Justin's mailbox: “Thyme.”

“Justin Thyme? That's a great name. Is it—”

“No”—he beat me to it—“not my real surname. I made it up to try and stand out from the thousands of other expendable fat guys out there.”

On Sunday morning I was itching for Emily to come home.

And for Troy to call me.

When was he likely to? What were the rules? Perhaps it was way too soon—it had been less than a day. Then I checked my watch—okay, just over a day. Nothing, no length of time.

I could ring him, of course. That's what people did, normal people who I had to start behaving like. But I didn't have his number.

Aimlessly I opened a couple of cupboards, found nothing of interest, then sat staring at the floor, wishing Emily would come home from her sexathon with Lou. Sundayitis—the same wherever you are.

When the phone rang, the adrenaline rush felt like a heart attack.

Nerves a-jangle, I picked up on the second ring, but it wasn't Troy, it was my mother.

“Are you all right?” she asked.

I nodded assent, too disappointed to speak.

“Is it nice there?”

Quickly I got it together. “Lovely,
lovely
!” I so didn't want any pressure to go home. “Nice people, gorgeous weather—”

“Is it sunny?” she cut in.

“Sunny? You haven't seen
sun
till you've seen this place.”

“I'd love a bit of sun,” she said wistfully.

I got a strange little inkling and began backtracking. “Mind you, it can be smoggy too. Very overcast. And there's always the chance of an earthquake.”

“It hasn't stopped raining here since the day you left. I'd prefer an earthquake.”

ANGELS / 225

“Ahaha,” I laughed nervously, changed the subject, then said good-bye and resumed staring at the floor.

Emily got home around two o'clock. Lou had love-bombed her all weekend: taken her out for fabulous meals, practiced his shiatsu on her; then last night they'd driven up to Mulholland Drive to watch the lights of the city and he'd said that this was something they'd tell their grandchildren.

“Classic commitmentphobe,” she said gaily.

“What are they?”

“They do instant intimacy—just add water and stir, then you never hear from them again.”

“You almost sound happy about it.”

“It's nice to know there are some things you can depend on.

“Unless he actually
meant
all that stuff about telling our grandchildren,” she added scornfully. “That'd be even worse!”

No need to tell her that Mort Russell hadn't called; she'd checked her messages several times.

“So how are you?” she asked.

How was I? Troy still hadn't called, which had whipped up a ball of anxiety in my stomach. But hadn't I always been one for deferred gratification? When he finally came through, the wait would have been worth it.

“You look…different.”

Oh my God, was it that obvious?

She studied me thoughtfully. “Your eyebrows!”

“Oh, ah, right. Lara took me to Madame Anoushka.”

“Tell me about Cameron Myers's birthday party.”

“Weeelll,” I said, unable to keep my delight from spreading right across my face, “it was great.”

“How? Tell me everything.” Then her expression altered. “Oh shit.” She looked surprisingly shocked. “You slept with Troy.”

“What's wrong with that?”

“Nothing,” she insisted. “Nothing.

“Okay,” she admitted. “It's just a bit weird for me. Like, 226 / MARIAN KEYES

for nine years you've been Garv's wife; you've been here—how long?—less than two weeks and you're sleeping with other men.

And you were never one to leap into bed—not really—and, you know, it's a bit hard to get used to, that's all.”

“I've gotten used to it.”

“Great.” She made a very obvious attempt at being fine, and with a big smile asked, “Was it fun?”

“Fun isn't the word.”

“Good for you.” For a second it looked as if she was about to say something else; then she stopped.

ABOUT THREE YEARS
ago, two things that I never thought would happen, happened. My thirtieth birthday arrived and, after five years in Chicago, Garv was offered a promotion in the Dublin office and we decided to move back to Ireland. Garv settled into his new managerial position, I got a six-month contract at McDonnell Swindel, and suddenly it was babatime!

But, to my distress, I still didn't feel “ready.” It was great being back in Ireland, but I missed Chicago. In addition, adjusting to my new job was stressy; I hated the insecurity of a short-term contract, but that's all that anyone offered me.
And
we had nowhere to live.

We'd expected our return to the Emerald Isle to be the traditional one of an Irish person who goes to Amerikay; they make good, then come back and dispense largesse like it's going out of fashion.

So it came as a big shock to discover that while we'd been away, Ireland had had the temerity to go and get an economy for itself.

Dublin was boomtown and the price of property had gone through the roof. We arrived back at the very zenith, when shoe boxes were changing hands for several million pounds and if someone stood still long enough, someone else would apply for planning permission to build sixteen apartments on them. The upshot of all this was that instead of snapping up a city-center mansion with the proceeds of our Chicago apartment, it took us five months before we managed to buy

228 / MARIAN KEYES

a house in the suburb of Dean's Grange, several miles from the city.

Before us, it had been owned by an old lady, and the kitchen and bathroom were museum pieces and small, gloomy rooms were the order of the day. So we fashioned plans to modernize: new kitchen, new bathroom, knocking through walls, adding skylights, and all that. Lord Lucan Construction duly arrived, knocked down most of the house, then promptly disappeared. And every day that the pile of cement in the front “garden” stood unattended was another day that I didn't have to commence baby making.

But all the time, the net was tightening. Just before we'd left Chicago, nearly every couple we knew was having children, and we'd barely touched down in Ireland when I noticed they were at the same lark there. Only a week after our return, Garv's sister Shelley had a baby boy, Ronan. Garv and I went to visit her in the hospital, where we found that Shelley's partner, Peter, had conjoined with a bottle of champagne to celebrate the birth of his first child. “GARV!” he shouted when he saw us coming down the corridor. “Garv, Garv! C'mere and see the fruit of my loins!” He thrust his pelvis at us with such vigor that he almost fell over; then, bouncing between the shiny green walls, he got Garv in a headlock, dragged him into the infant's bassinet and berated him, “De murkil'f new life. 'Sa MURKIL!” I was mortified for him, especially when he was asked to leave, that he was upsetting the other fathers. But Garv seemed quite moved by it all.

I hadn't been able to avoid noticing that Garv was keen on kids.

He liked them and they liked him back. They were particularly fond of messing up his hair and pulling off his glasses and poking him in the eye. When they cried, he held them and spoke sweetly and they stopped crying and looked at him with a kind of wonder and everyone said (except not in my family), “He'll make a great dad.”

Sure enough, Garv started making noises about us reproducing, and I cursed my bad luck; in other relationships it seemed to be the women who wanted to have children while ANGELS / 229

the men would do anything to get out of it. In fact, according to popular folklore (and women's magazines), these child-shy men riddled the landscape like land mines.

Every time Garv brought up the subject, I always managed a legitimate reason why now wasn't the right time. But it dawned on him that my reluctance wasn't simply temporary one weekend when we were baby-sitting Ronan. (Well, I say weekend, but it was only Saturday night, all that Peter and Shelley dared leave him for. And they called to check in about eighty times in that twenty-four-hour period.)