Original Cyn
Table of Contents
This book is dedicated to the Scottish midwife who said to me, less than twelve hours after I had delivered a ten-pound baby boy:
“Och, Mrs. McGoolis, you have an enormous amount of stretch marks and flab to get rid of.”
My only reply was stunned silence and a weak, apologetic smile. Twenty years later I still fantasize about how I might have handled the situation differently . . .
PRAISE FOR
SUE MARGOLIS’S NOVELS
BREAKFAST AT STEPHANIE’S
“With Stephanie, Margolis has produced yet another jazzy cousin to Bridget Jones.”
—Publishers Weekly
“A heartwarming, character-driven tale . . . a hilariously funny story.”
—Romance Reviews Today
“A comic, breezy winner.”
—Booklist
“Rife with female frivolity, punchy one-liners, and sex.”
—Kirkus Reviews
APOCALIPSTICK
“Sexy British romp . . . Margolis’s characters have a candor and self-deprecation that lead to furiously funny moments. . . . A riotous, ribald escapade sure to leave readers chuckling to the very end of this saucy adventure.”
—USA Today
“Quick in pace and often very funny.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“Margolis combines lighthearted suspense with sharp English wit . . . entertaining read.”
—Booklist
“A joyously funny British comedy . . . a well-written read that has its share of poignant moments . . . There are always great characters in Ms. Margolis’s novels. With plenty of romance and passion,
Apocalipstick
is just the ticket for those of us who like the rambunctious, witty humor this comedy provides.”
—Romance Reviews Today
“Rather funny . . . compelling . . . brilliant send-ups of high fashion.”
—East Bay Express
“[An] irreverent, sharp-witted look at love and dating.”
—Houston Chronicle
SPIN CYCLE
“This delightful novel is filled with more than a few big laughs.”
—Booklist
“A funny, sexy British romp . . . Margolis is able to keep the witty one-liners spraying like bullets. Light, fun.”
—Library Journal
“Warm-hearted relationship farce . . . a nourishing delight.”
—Publishers Weekly
“Margolis does a good job of keeping several balls in the air at once.”
—Southern Pines (NC) Pilot
“Satisfying . . . a wonderful diversion on an airplane, poolside, or beach.”
—Baton Rouge Magazine
NEUROTICA
“Screamingly funny sex comedy . . . the perfect novel to take on holiday.”
—USA Today
“Cheeky comic novel—a kind of
Bridget Jones’s Diary
for the matrimonial set . . . Wickedly funny.”
—People
(Beach Book of the Week)
“Scenes that literally will make your chin drop with shock before you erupt with laughter . . . A fast and furiously funny read.”
—Cleveland Plain Dealer
“Taking up where
Bridget Jones’s Diary
took off, this saucy British adventure redefines the lusty woman’s search for erotic satisfaction. . . . Witty and sure . . . A taut and rambunctious tale exploring the perils and raptures of the pursuit of passion.”
—Publishers Weekly
“Splashy romp . . . giggles guaranteed.”
—New York Daily News
“A good book to take to the beach,
Neurotica
is fast paced and at times hilarious.”
—Boston’s Weekly Digest Magazine
“This raunchy and racy British novel is great fun, and will delight fans of the television show
Absolutely Fabulous.
”
—Booklist
Chapter 1
“Elizabeth Taylor died? Ah. Still, the old girl was getting a bit past it.” As Cyn switched her mobile to the other ear she felt the taxi slow down and turn left. “Are you sure you’re OK?” her mother asked tenderly. “I know how much she meant to you.”
“I’m fine,” Cyn said, rubbing at the condensation on the rain-speckled window and peering out. “I mean, it wasn’t entirely unexpected.”
“The vet did all he could,” her mother was saying. Cyn’s mind immediately conjured up a frantic scene in pet
ER
. She could hear the vet instructing everybody to “Stand clear” as he turns poor Elizabeth onto her shell and shocks her scaly chest with two tiny tortoise-sized resuscitation paddles. Half a dozen attempts later he wipes his brow and announces, “OK, I’m calling it. Time of death, ten after four.” His face etched with failure, he snaps off his rubber gloves and throws them into the bin. Meanwhile, a tearful nurse sniffs and covers Elizabeth with a tiny white sheet.
“I remember the day I found her,” Cyn’s mother went on. “It was February 1981. The Canadian cousins were over and I’d gone to the garage to get some vol-au-vent cases out of the freezer. And there she was, hibernating inside a pile of sunlounger covers.”
Elizabeth Taylor was by no means the only animal her mother, Barbara, had “rescued.” In the years before and since the tortoise joined the Fishbein household, there were assorted stray cats, lost budgies and the odd hamster. There had even been an actual lame duck, which, having been attacked—probably by a fox—had somehow managed to waddle the half mile from the park pond to find sanctuary in the Fishbein kitchen. Barbara found homes for all the other animals. Even the duck was nursed back to health and eventually, with much ceremony, released “back into the wild” of the local park. She wasn’t so lucky with the tortoise. Despite “tortoise found” notices stuck on virtually every lamppost in the neighborhood, nobody came to claim her. In the end the Fishbeins adopted her, but it was Cyn who loved her. It was Cyn who spoiled her with slices of tomato and painted ET Fishbein on her shell in Wite-Out, and it was Cyn who worried obsessively every winter about her not waking up from hibernation.
Back then it wasn’t just tortoises and lame ducks Barbara had taken in. She also rescued people: best friends going through messy divorces came to stay for weeks on end—usually with several badly behaved, bed-wetting children. For a few years she did emergency short-term fostering for the local council. This meant that every couple of months an “at-risk” baby or toddler would be delivered by social workers and stay a few days. Barbara loved the babies as if they were her own, but they were never around long enough for Cyn or her brother, Jonny, to get jealous.
Not long after Elizabeth Taylor’s arrival, the miners went on strike. Straightaway, thousands of them headed down to London for rallies and marches. Being on strike they couldn’t afford accommodation. Barbara, whose father, Sid, had been a union shop steward all his working life and had raised her in the old-fashioned Labour Party tradition, which regarded the working man as nothing less than a hero, immediately phoned the Miners’ Union HQ and offered to take in half a dozen. To her everlasting dismay, all the Hampstead and Highgate middle-class liberals had gotten there first and there weren’t any to be had for love or money.
Sometimes when the crying babies or sleeping bags all over the living room floor got too much for Cyn’s father, Mal, he would escape to his shed. Cyn would find him with his feet up on the workbench playing his John Lennon LPs or listening to the cricket on his old Roberts radio, muttering about how the house was turning into “the blinkin’
Inn of the Sixth Happiness
.” But he never asked Barbara to put a stop to her rescue missions. Cyn knew that deep down he loved and admired her far too much.
Barbara’s mother, Grandma Faye, had accused her of having a Mother Teresa complex. Barbara just shrugged and said, “Call it what you like. I’m just doing my small bit to make the world a better place.”
Barbara was in her sixties now, and although she still took in the odd stray cat and wrote the occasional outraged letter to the
Guardian
about cuts in education and the health service, there hadn’t been any friends, babies or oppressed workers needing a bed for years.
“You and your brother named her Shelley,” Barbara said about the tortoise. “Then she kept getting ill. The vet brought her back from the brink so many times that Grandma Faye started calling her Elizabeth Taylor.” The name stuck, despite the vet having informed Barbara on at least five occasions that Elizabeth Taylor was a boy.
Cyn carried on looking out the window, vaguely aware of her mother chortling to herself. She was pretty sure the car showroom was about half a mile farther down on the right. Her heart rate started to pick up. Her very own shiny, freshly minted, brand-spanking-new Smart Car was sitting there, waiting for her to claim it. What’s more—and this was the truly amazingly fabulous bit—she was getting it for free.
Cyn was a junior copywriter at a cutting-edge and very much on the up advertising agency, Price Chandler Witty. Occasionally, companies whose accounts they handled would, after a particularly successful campaign, express additional gratitude and appreciation by offering the agency a car for an employee to have on long-term loan. The “long-term” bit was fairly ambiguous, but it pretty much meant that unless the recipient left the agency, nobody would ask for it back. The deal was that the car would carry advertising for whatever it was the donor company manufactured. Of course nobody at the agency minded, since it was generally thought that driving around advertising a sleek PalmPilot, digital camera or laptop was a pretty fair exchange for a new car.
Whenever a car came up—usually once or twice a year—the names of all the agency staff, from the directors to the cleaners, were put into a hat. The draw always took place in the function room at the Bishop’s Finger across the road and afterward there would be a bit of a party. Last week there had been a couple of cars up for grabs. Although they were from different companies, both happened to be Smart Cars.
Cyn took no more than a passing interest in cars. It was partly that like many women she found the subject less than fascinating and partly that taking a proper interest would have led to yearnings, and yearnings ended up costing money. She had just bought her first flat. What with the mortgage payments and the loan on her new Ikea kitchen, she couldn’t even contemplate replacing her old Peugeot. Nevertheless she adored the Smart Car. Its tiny, almost cartoonishly cute wedge shape made her laugh. She liked the way its straight back gave the impression that it was in fact the front end of a much larger, longer vehicle from which it had somehow been severed. Even though it looked like the transport of choice of a circus clown, there was no doubt that the Smart Car had style. She was aware, of course, since it was the coolest, most must-have two seater on the market, that everybody who drove one looked like a fashion victim; but that night, as she’d sat in the pub drinking with her little gang from the office, Cyn had decided that if she were ever lucky enough to own one, she would find a way to live with the shame.
Until last Friday Cyn had never won anything in her life, apart from the Yardley lavender bath soap selection box, which didn’t count because she’d secured it in the school fete raffle when she was nine.
The first name out of the hat was Chelsea Roggenfelder. Chelsea was from New York and another junior copywriter at PCW. Since she had only been with the agency six months, it was spectacularly good luck. Chelsea managed to look utterly bowled over. A few meaningful looks were exchanged among PCW employees. Everybody knew she was loaded and that deep down she probably wasn’t feeling much more than mild amusement. The truth was that had she the inclination, Chelsea could have afforded to go out and buy a dozen Smart Cars. Chelsea’s father was Sargent Roggenfelder, the Madison Avenue tycoon who had been behind the advertising for a successful presidential campaign and several gubernatorial contests. Although she never said as much, it was perfectly clear that he paid the rent on her Sloane Street flat and had bought her the BMW Z4, the perfect zipping-down-to-the-country accessory.
Her face on full beam, Chelsea stood up and pulled at the cuffs of her exquisitely tailored black jacket. With a flick of her Nicky Clarke highlights, she sashayed over to the tiny podium where Graham Chandler, one of the CEOs, was standing at the mike waiting to present her with her car key. On her way she stopped for a few seconds to smile and wave at everybody. One of the blokes sitting next to Cyn mumbled something about Chelsea’s performance reminding him of Catherine Zeta-Jones dispensing largesse at the Oscars.
The applause was trailing off when Cyn heard her mobile ringing. She rushed outside where she could hear, only to discover it was somebody flogging plastic window frames. As she walked back into the pub she was met by loud cheering. It was a few seconds before she realized it was being directed at her. She frowned and looked questioningly at one of the temps from the office, who happened to be standing next to her. “It’s you! You’ve won the other car!”
“Geddout.”
“No, really.” Then she saw Graham Chandler nodding and laughing.
After Graham had kissed her on both cheeks and handed her the car key, and Natalie, one of the PAs, had come rushing up to her, thrown her arms around her and made her do that jumpy up-and-down thing like kids in the playground, she went back to her table and just sat there with a daft grin on her face, completely overwhelmed. She was suddenly aware of how good news can be as much of a shock as bad news. Chelsea, on the other hand, was swanning around doing her best to convince people how stunned and delighted she was and that she simply couldn’t believe her luck. “This is just too perfect,” she simpered to Cyn, at one point. “Now I can keep the Z4 for driving to the country on the weekend and use the Smart Car in the city.”
“Lucky old you,” Cyn said, with just a hint of sarcasm.
“Yes. Lucky old you.” The slurred Welsh accent belonged to Keith Geary, another copywriter. Keith, who was lanky and awkward, with jutting-out hips and shoulder blades, had been brought up in a small mining town. He liked to think of himself as a Marxist and was forever taking the piss out of what he described as Chelsea’s Saks and the City lifestyle, particularly after he’d had a few, like now. Chelsea always gave as good as she got, though. “You know, Keith,” she said, making use of her elegant nose, which had been perfectly engineered for looking down, “in you, I really do see a face unclouded by thought.” Her tone made Camille Paglia sound affectionate.
“And on you, Chelsea,” he said, “I see a head so big that your ears have separate zip codes.”
Ouch, Cyn thought, suppressing a giggle. For once Chelsea was lost for words. Her mouth opened and closed a few times, goldfish-style. Then she turned on her long, spiky-toed Kurt Geiger heels and walked away.
“That showed her,” Keith snorted, digging Cyn in the ribs. Then he staggered off, back to the bar.
Chelsea had come to advertising relatively late in life. She never talked much about herself, but a couple of people had found out that after university, she’d spent ten years in L.A., trying and failing to make it as a screenwriter. Finally, she decided to make a fresh start in London. There was no doubt that she had found her niche at Price Chandler Witty. Even though this was her first job in advertising, she was creating a considerable reputation for herself among PCW’s clients. When it came to thinking up advertising slogans or designing campaigns, witty, razor-sharp ideas seemed to spill out of her like jackpots from a slot machine. It was quite obvious that she had inherited her father’s talent.
Chelsea refused to be intimidated by the fact that nearly all the bosses at PCW, all the people she had to pitch ideas to, were men. From the off, she had never been scared to go into meetings and argue her corner. She was highly competitive and absolutely refused to be cowed. Fear simply wasn’t part of her vocabulary. “You know, Graham,” she would say, insisting on pronouncing Graham like most Americans do, as Grahm, to rhyme with ham, “I think we really need to start thinking outside the box here. I mean, it seems to me that you guys just haven’t considered the click-through rate on this thing. And have you calculated the cost per click? . . . I figured not. Well, I have some preliminary data here which I’ve printed out and would like to pass round.” The way it usually worked was that everybody would sit there examining her figures and come to the conclusion that she had a point.
While she wasn’t exactly easy to warm to, women forgave her because they were in awe of her New York hey-mister-don’t-bullshit-me feistiness. A few women—Cyn included—made no secret of wishing they had her balls. Some of the men felt the same. Mostly though, with the exception of Messrs. Price, Chandler and Witty, from whom she commanded considerable respect, the blokes referred to Chelsea behind her back as “the Terminator.”
Cyn’s relationship with Chelsea hadn’t gotten off to a good start. Before she was taken on by PCW, Chelsea had three interviews over a four-week period. During that time the coffee machine kept going on the blink and Cyn, along with everybody else, took her turn at doing a coffee run to the sandwich bar over the road. By pure chance, each time Chelsea arrived for an interview, Cyn was handing out cups of coffee. On the day she started work, Graham Chandler took Chelsea round the office and introduced her to everybody. “And this is Cyn, another of our junior copywriters.”
“Ah, yes, I’ve seen you getting the coffee. Be a sweetie, would you, and fetch me a skinny cappuccino, hold the chocolate.” Had Graham not introduced Cyn as another copywriter it might just have been reasonable for Chelsea to assume she was one of the office juniors, but even then, her puffed-up, snooty manner was inexcusable. What made the whole thing worse was Graham standing there and saying, “I know it’s not really your job, Cyn, but maybe you wouldn’t mind.”
“Of course not.” Cyn smiled thinly, realizing she had no option but to go and get Chelsea her coffee.