Charlie Glass's Slippers (14 page)

“There may not be a queue,” I hear myself say, coldly, “but there’s certainly a . . . a string.”

Now his smile broadens. “A string?”

“Yes! A string! A string of . . . of suitors.”

He presses his lips together, clearly trying not to laugh.

“I’m sorry,” I snap, “if that seems so terribly amusing to you.”

“Charlie, I’m not amused. It’s just a funny expression, that’s all . . .”

“Because I’ll have you know, I’m practically beating them off with sticks, Ferdy, at the moment. Only the other day, I had men offering me glasses of pinot grigio in the pub, and buying me slices of cheesecake at Starbucks!”

“I hope the stick you were beating them off with wasn’t too big, then. Because that could have made a nasty mess of the cheesecake if you weren’t careful.”

I glare at him. “I said I was
practically
beating them off with sticks. Obviously I wasn’t actually . . .” I break off, because I can see that Honey is heading back our way. “I thought you were going to talk to Olly,” I say, as pleasantly as I can, when she reaches us.

“I did, for a bit, but I wanted to ask him all about you, and he’s kind of stuck in this really boring conversation with those tall guys. I think they’re talking about the differences between Swedish and Norwegian. Your friend Lucy seemed really interested, though, so I left her to it!” Honey dimples at me. “But you two seem to have been having a good old catch-up! Lots to talk about, I can see!”

“Oh, not much,” I say, at the exact time same that Ferdy speaks.

“We were just chatting about work and stuff.”

No we weren’t.

Unless I’ve been hallucinating for the past five minutes, we weren’t talking about work at all.

I give Ferdy a bit of a Look, trying to understand why he’s suddenly got that constipated expression back on his face again, but he isn’t quite meeting my eye.

“Oooh, yes. Lucy just told me you’d inherited your dad’s whole business!” Honey’s blue eyes are wide. “So are you the boss now?”

“God, no. That’s still my stepmother.”

“But you must be doing
something
!”

“I’m just trying to set up a very small new range, that’s all.
It probably won’t even get off the ground.” I don’t quite know why, but I feel the need to make everything sound slightly silly. Maybe Honey’s techniques are rubbing off on me. “There’s loads of ways it can go wrong. I have to find a designer, and get the King’s Road store refurbished, and—”

“King’s Road? The one next door to Ferdy’s new ice-cream parlor, you mean?”

“It’s next door but one,” Ferdy says. He says it quickly and firmly, as if he’s worried I’m going to be popping in for cups of coffee every five minutes. “Not next door.”

“Even so, you’ll practically be neighbors! Gosh, how nice for you both!”

“Well, we’d better let Charlie go and spend at least some of the evening with her . . . with Olly,” Ferdy says, rather abruptly. “And we can’t stay much longer anyway.”

“We have to be at Ferdy’s parents early tomorrow morning,” Honey informs me. “We’re all getting the train to the coast for a beach picnic to celebrate his dad’s birthday.”

So things are already that serious between them, then?

“That reminds me,” I blurt, in an attempt to cover any hint that I’m a bit disconcerted. “I haven’t seen your dad for ages, Ferdy. Not since Dad’s funeral. I really must give him a call to wish him a happy birthday!”

“So you
know
Martin and Maria?” Honey looks disconcerted herself for a moment.

“Well, I know Martin.”

“Oh, my goodness, then you should come along with us tomorrow!” She grabs Ferdy’s hand. “Wouldn’t that be nice, sweetie?”

“Charlie’s very busy. With work and everything,” Ferdy says. He doesn’t look at me. “Aren’t you, Charlie?”

“But it’s a Sunday,” Honey says. “She can’t be working on a Sunday.”

“Ferdy’s right. I am very busy. Work, and . . . and Olly . . .”
I catch Olly’s eye across the room, which is harder than I’d like, seeing as he’s engaged in what looks like a fairly intense discussion (about Norwegian and Swedish?
Still?
) with Lucy and Neckerchief Man. “I should really go and rescue him! And let you two be on your way!”

We all troop over to Lucy, so that Ferdy and Honey can say good-bye and apologize for their appearance being so brief, and so that I can inveigle Olly away before Ferdy asks him any pointed questions about being in the friend zone or anything.

I lure Olly back to the drinks table on the promise of a refill of white wine, and I’ve just started to ask him if he’s having as awful a time as I suspect he is when we’re rejoined by Pal and three assorted Scandinavians, all looking for wine refills themselves, and all eager to discuss the scintillating, party-appropriate topic of the looming British pensions crisis, and how this upcoming disaster has been avoided in the Swedish and Norwegian economies.

chapter ten

G
aby doesn’t send the
nanny over with the keys to the store until Monday evening, so it’s already Tuesday morning when I head to King’s Road to take a proper look. I’m a few minutes away when my mobile starts ringing. You’ll understand my shock (because it’s only just gone half past nine in the morning) when I see that it’s Robyn calling.

“Robyn!” I answer the phone. “Are you
up
?”

“Are you
skinny
?” she snaps back at me.

“Sorry?”

“I’ve literally just got back from a long weekend in Miami with Yevgeny, and Mummy has left a message on my landline telling me you’re back from your travels and you’re skinny!” She sounds distraught. “
How
skinny, Charlie? Are you, like,
model
skinny? Are you skinnier than Gaby?
Are you skinnier than me?
”

“Robyn, calm down. I’m not skinny at all.”

“But Mummy said—”

“I’ve lost a bit of weight.” I shove to the side, for the time being, the interesting fact that Diana has been leaving messages for Robyn about my new appearance. Especially since she seemed so ironclad in her determination not to mention
it to my face when I turned up for the meeting last week. “I promise you, Robyn, I’m not skinny.”

“Well, what size are you? Are you a six? A four?”

I have to stop myself from laughing out loud. “Yes, Robyn, I’m a size four.”

“
Oh my God!
”

“I was joking!” I kick myself for such a stupid, rookie mistake. “I’m nothing like a size four, Robyn. Or even a six.”

“Just tell me the truth, Charlie.” There’s a loud, sorrowful sniff. “I can handle it.”

“Look, I’m a size ten, okay?” Which is a pretty neat way of being able to average out the fact that I’m an eight on the top and closer to a twelve on the bottom. “Boring, average ten.”

“And you’ve had to work really, really hard at it? The weight didn’t just, like, fall off?”

Now she’s actually sounding rather tearful—I think with relief as much as anything, though I also remember that Robyn’s biggest pet peeve is her friends turning up for a night out looking thinner than when she last saw them, and then, to add insult to injury, claiming that the weight has “just fallen off.”

“No, Robyn, it did not just fall off. I had to exercise, and eat very little, and I’m going to have to carry on exercising and eating very little if I want to stay this size.”

“Oh. Okay.” There’s another loud sniff, but she sounds calmer already. “Well, I’m really happy for you, Cha-Cha. I bet you feel amazing. Which I’m glad
someone
does, by the way, because I feel like shit. I just had the worst weekend of my entire life, in case you’re interested.”

“A bad weekend on the beach in Miami?”

“Yes.”

“With your billionaire boyfriend?”

“He’s not a billionaire. He’s only got, like, a few hundred million or something.”

“Jesus. It’s worse than I thought.”

She’s not listening. “And he’s not my boyfriend, as it happens. Do you know why?”

“Because he won’t leave his wife?” I joke.

“Oh, no, I already knew he wasn’t going to leave his wife.”

“Robyn! I had no idea he was really married . . .”

“What he actually told me—right after he’d just bought me half the fucking Tiffany store—was that he isn’t going to leave Sophia.”

“Sorry—who’s Sophia?”

“His other girlfriend!” she spits. “He said he was going to break up with her and spend more time with me, and now he’s decided there’s . . . what did he say? . . . room in his life for both of us
.
Can you fucking believe it?”

No. I really, really can’t believe it.

“And how dare he try to soften the blow with a load of Tiffany jewelry? I mean, is that what he thinks of me? That I’m nothing more than some shallow gold-digger who can be bought off with a handful of fucking diamonds?
God
,
Charlie,” she says, impassioned now, as if she’s standing up in the United Nations to give a rallying call against world hunger, “I’m so sick and tired of people thinking I’m only interested in men for their money. I mean, all right,
some
of my boyfriends have been well off. But that’s only because I think it’s nice when they can buy me nice things, and take me to nice hotels and stuff. It’s not because I actually love
money
, or anything. Like, fifty-pound notes and stuff. It’s just little bits of
paper
, isn’t it?”

“Well, when you put it like that . . .”

“I mean, so fucking
what
if Yevvie wants to buy me a Porsche for my birthday—or rather,
wanted
to buy me a Porsche for my birthday,” she adds, dramatically. “Because it’s all over now. I told him where he could stuff his yellow-diamond charm bracelet.
And
the matching earrings.”

“That’s great, Robyn. I’m really proud of you.” And I am, in a strange kind of way. “But look, I have to go right now. I’m on my way to the King’s Road store.”

“King’s Road?”

“Yes. I’m . . . well, I’m thinking of doing it up a bit. I’ll tell you about it next time I see you . . .”

“Oh, well, I might jump in a cab and head over there a bit later this morning. If I’m still too upset to go to sleep, that is.”

“You do that,” I say, suspecting that she probably won’t be too upset to go to sleep. (Though her desperation to make absolutely 100 percent sure I’m definitely
not
thinner than her might be enough, on its own, to propel her towards the nearest taxi.) “Good to talk to you, Robyn. And . . . well, don’t be too upset about Yevgeny, will you? You can honestly do better than a man like him.”

I’m at the store by now, so I rifle in my bag for the keys, slide the right one in the lock, push the door wide open, and step inside.

Those fashionistas who turned up for Dad’s memorial service might not have been the friendliest bunch, but they certainly brightened this old place up a bit. Now that it’s empty of that glamorous, twittering crowd . . . well, it’s just empty, full stop. The walls still smell faintly of fresh paint, the blown-up photos of Dad are stacked up, in painfully casual fashion, on an Ikea-type table at the back, and where the occasional ray of sunlight peeks through the whitewashed windows it only serves to highlight the amount of swirling dust particles that are filling the stuffy air.

It takes me totally by surprise when I feel the sharp prickle of a sob at the back of my throat.

“Excuse me?”

The voice behind me takes me even more by surprise. I let out an actual shriek as I spin around to come face-to-face with . . .

Oh, my God
. It’s Jay Broderick.

“I’m so sorry!” He holds up both hands, making a calming gesture. “I shouldn’t have snuck up on you like that. I
wasn’t
sneaking up on you, actually. At least, not deliberately! I saw the door was open, and I just thought . . .” He stops. He puts his hands back down. A smile spreads across his face. “Hi,” he finishes.

I catch my breath for a moment. Which is easier said than done, because he looks incredible. He’s wearing gray jeans, battered leather trainers, and a dark blue hooded top, half-unzipped to show a V-necked T-shirt and a tantalizing hint of light brown, muscular chest beneath. He’s got a day’s worth of stubble, and his hair is slightly damp, and his sooty eyes are fixed on me now, in a penetrating fashion, presumably because he recognizes me from somewhere but can’t quite put a name to the face.

“Hi,” I repeat, when I can find a voice that isn’t a squeak.

“This isn’t an antiquarian bookshop,” he observes.

“This . . . isn’t an antiquarian bookshop,” I repeat.

“Why isn’t it an antiquarian bookshop?” he asks.

“Why isn’t it an antiquarian bookshop?” I repeat exactly what he’s just said, for the third time in a row. “Er . . . because we don’t sell books. Antiquarian or otherwise. I think you must be looking for the book dealership that used to lease the premises.”

“Ah. I think I must be.” He looks around at the empty space in front of him before looking back at me, more keenly than ever. I suspect he’s just about to put two and two together and work out where he’s seen me before. “So, I won’t be able to purchase a first edition of
Silas Marner
for my father, then?”

“I’m afraid not. Well, not here.”

“Though it doesn’t look like I’d be able to purchase anything at all here, to be honest with you. Are you a front for some kind of drug business?”

“No, I’m a front for a shoe business. I mean, I’m an
actual
shoe business. What I mean is . . .”

“I’m Jay,” he suddenly says, taking a step forward. His face lights up with a grin and he extends a hand to shake mine. “By the way.”

“I’m Charlie.”

“Charlie.” His eyes are fixed more intently on me than ever. “A pleasure to meet you.”

Hang on: so he
doesn’t
recognize me?

I mean, I know it’s possible, but if he doesn’t recognize me, I don’t understand why he’s looking at me in this kind of . . .
probing
manner.

“Charlie,” he repeats after a moment, as if trying the word on for size. His voice is suddenly soft, and slightly lower than before. “Is that short for anything?”

“Charlotte.” I’m assuming that this will be the point at which he puts two and two together, and works out that I’m the same Charlotte who came for a job interview and subsequently dislocated his shoulder a couple of months back. But when he doesn’t—when, in fact, he just carries on staring at me—I feel the need to fill the silence with, “It’d be a bit weird if I was actually christened Charlie, after all! People would think I was a boy or something.”

“I very much doubt,” he says, still not taking his eyes off me, “that anyone could possibly think that.”

There’s a brief silence. Jay leans one shoulder against the door and folds his arms. In doing so, he pushes the sleeves of his hoodie upward, displaying forearms that are smooth and strong and capable-looking, and make me think, instantly, of what it would feel like to run my hands along them, up over his biceps and towards his shoulders . . .

“So. Charlie,” he says, interrupting my fantasy. “An empty store, jumpiness when approached by strangers . . . Are you
sure
you’re not a drug dealer?”

“I’m positive.”

“Then are you running some kind of covert surveillance mission? For MI6, perhaps? If I make one wrong move, are you going to inject me with something from a syringe concealed in the heel of your shoe, then finish me off by garroting me with my own shoelaces?”

“I . . . don’t work for MI6.”

“To be fair, Charlie, that’s exactly what an MI6 operative
would
say.”

“Yes, but . . .”

“Hey.” He stops leaning against the door, reaches over, and touches me, lightly, on the shoulder. It’s just for a moment, but my skin feels like it’s sunburned where he touched me, even if it was through the fabric of my T-shirt. “I’m joking. I don’t really think you work for MI6.”

I send up a hasty, desperate prayer to the Gods of Witty Banter, asking them to bless me with the ability to say something pert and perky. Not forever: I don’t want miracles. I’d just like to be able to return Jay’s banter for the next couple of minutes, until he calls an end to this little rendezvous and heads off to find that first edition of
Silas Marner
elsewhere.

“Well, if I
did
tell you,” I say, all in a rush, “I’m afraid I’d have to kill you.”

He laughs. It’s not a smile, or a fleeting grin, it’s an actual
laugh
.

Yes! The Gods of Witty Banter have heard my prayers after all!

“Probably safest,” he says, “if I stop asking so many questions, then.”

“Probably.”

“Pity. Because I did have just one more question, as it happens.” He tilts his chin up, his sooty eyes fixed on me. “This job of yours—running a shoe shop, gathering top-secret counter-intelligence data for the secret service, what
ever it is you actually do—does it keep you busy on Friday nights?”

“Friday nights?”

“Yeah. Specifically, will it be keeping you busy this coming Friday night? And if not, how would you feel about using this coming Friday night to attend my birthday party?”

“That’s . . . more than one question,” I say. I’ve been abandoned, again, by the Gods of Witty Banter. More than that: it appears that I’m so shocked by what’s just happened (correct me if I’m wrong, but has Jay Broderick just invited me to his birthday party?) that I’ve even been abandoned by my basic good manners.

Jay blinks. “That’s true.”

“I mean . . . sorry, that sounded really rude . . .”

“Look.” He holds up both hands, in a surrendering gesture. “If you’ve got a boyfriend or something . . .”

“I don’t!” I yelp.

“Oh. Well, I was about to say that you should bring him along to my party, too.” Jay grins. This time there’s more than a hint of devilishness in it. It’s the same devilishness I saw when he smiled at Annabel that day of the terrible elevator incident. “But you know what, Charlie? I liked what you said better.”

Okay. Let’s just take a deep breath here. Before I go getting totally swept away in this moment, and all its many marvels, let’s just keep a clear head and try to take a calm, rational view of what’s just happened.

1) Jay Broderick has just asked me to come to his birthday party;

2) Jay Broderick has just asked me if I have a boyfriend; and

3) Jay Broderick has just appeared to express satisfaction that I don’t have a boyfriend.

I’m really, really trying not to put two and two together and make five or anything. But when you set out the facts like that . . .

It’s literally the worst time in the entire world for what happens next to happen. Which is that the shop door suddenly opens and Robyn walks through it.

“Hi, Cha-Cha, I thought I’d just pop . . . Oh, my
God
!
Jay
!”

Right, well, even if I was putting two and two together correctly, and Jay Broderick
was
implying he might, just might, fancy me a tiny little bit, that moment is over. Because Robyn is here, and because Robyn is wearing minuscule denim shorts and a sexy, sloppy sweatshirt with a big set of red lips printed on it, and because Robyn could take an Olympic gold medal in flirting, if flirting were an Olympic sport, and—most of all—because Robyn evidently knows Jay, and because Jay evidently knows her.