Original Cyn (21 page)

“Well, I’m planning to get my outfit at My Daughter’s Wedding in Mill Hill,” Barbara said. “They have wonderful wedding and bridesmaids’ dresses. Why don’t we all go together?”

“Mill Hill?” Hugh said in a voice that suggested he had been thinking more Notting Hill.

“Yes.” She explained to Hugh that it was run by a woman named Bernice Greenspan whom she knew from the synagogue Ladies’ Guild. “I got my dress for Jonny’s bar mitzvah there.”

“In 1989,” Cyn added, not altogether helpfully.

“And I’m sure we bought you several bridesmaids’ dresses there,” Barbara added.

“We did,” Cyn said, remembering all four polyester pastel creations.

“Anyway, I know for a fact that Bernice still carries a wonderful collection of dresses and wedding outfits.” She suggested that they all—and by that she meant herself, Flick, Cyn, Grandma Faye and Hugh—meet up at My Daughter’s Wedding on Saturday morning.

“Ooh, this is going to be so exciting,” Flick squealed, clapping her hands. She turned to Jonny. “You hear that, Pooh Bear? I’m going to get my wedding dress. And I’m sure there’ll be something utterly perfect for Cyn.”

“Excellent,” Jonny said with a thin smile. He didn’t look so much tired and frazzled as bored.

Cyn reached under the table and squeezed Hugh’s thigh as if to say “Please, please don’t let me down on this one.” Hugh turned to her and gave a quick wink. “OK,” he went on, addressing the whole group now, “that just leaves the catering to sort out.” He turned to Barbara. “We’ve had menus and sampled food from at least a dozen caterers. It really is make-your-mind-up time.”

The problem was that Flick still wanted something “a bit out of the ordinary and ethnic-y” and Barbara was standing her ground, insisting that ethnic didn’t work at big mixed-age-group parties. “We need to go for something undemanding that everybody will eat. I still think we should go for salmon. Or possibly halibut.”

Everybody was putting in their two penn’orth when Laurent appeared. He was wearing battered old trainers and shorts. Judging by his red face and damp hair, he had just been for a run. He eased his way into the room, raising a hand in apology, picked up a book from the coffee table and started to make his way out. He was just going out of the door when he turned back.

“Excuse me,” he said tentatively, “but I couldn’t help overhearing. I know eet ees none of my business, but I do not understand why you cannot have ze ethneec and ze undemanding.” Nobody remotely minded him interrupting, but they all agreed combining the two would be ridiculously complicated.

“Not necessarily,” Laurent said.

“Really?” Barbara said, indicating the spare chair next to her and inviting him to sit down.

“Absolutely. I could do eet. My mother—she was a wonderful cook and she taught me all she knew. Back in Tagine I often ’elp ’er to cook for beeg parties. Why don’t I prepare some traditional African food along wiz some more traditional dishes and we can ’ave a buffet,
non
?”

Silence fell. The words
bush
and
meat
suddenly hung in the air. It was only Cyn who noticed the expression on Laurent’s face and realized he had decided to play up to their fears.

“I can do wonderful theengs wiz leopard and,
comment ça veut dire,
monkey brains.”

Faces winced. Buttocks were clenched. Grandma Faye looked like she was about to keel over. The only people not participating in the wincing and clenching were Cyn, because she knew Laurent was only teasing, and Hugh—who was always up for a bizarre new taste sensation. His latest passions were Heston Blumenthal’s sardine ice cream and leather-flavored chocolates.

“Laurent,” Barbara said, clearing her throat and going in search of her most diplomatic tone of voice. “I’m sure you can do wonderful things with that kind of meat. The thing is it’s not actually kosher.”

“Or legal,” Jonny muttered.

“What about locusts? Zey are kosher,
non
?”

“Er,
non
.”

“Maybe you like caterpillars. Or white ants?”

“Good grief, no,” Flick cried out. “Definitely not.”

“So no grasshoppers, zen?”

“I don’t think so,” Barbara said, shooting Hugh a for-God’s-sake-help-me-out-here expression. Hugh was about to say something, but Laurent got in first. “Eet ees OK,” he said, his face breaking into a broad smile. “I just make joke wiz you.”

“Oh, thank the Lord,” Barbara said, slapping her hand to her chest.

“But I meant it when I said I am magnifique cook. ’Ow about I prepare some beef wiz pineapple and coconut wiz a vegetable rice? Zen we could ’ave chicken in peanut sauce, fried plantains, sweet potatoes. And maybe I do some poached salmon and salads for ze less adventurous guests.”

Cyn looked at Laurent’s chiseled face, the thick, muscular neck and biceps, the six-pack bulging under his T-shirt. These days so many men were great cooks, but she could no more imagine Laurent in the kitchen than she could imagine Rambo doing needlepoint.

“Please let me do zees,” Laurent went on. “It would be my way of sanking you.”

Barbara told him he had done so much already. “You help around the house. You’re working out with my mother.”

“But I would like to do zees, too.”

Barbara was trying desperately not to show it, but Cyn could tell she still wasn’t convinced that Laurent was up to it. Sensing this, he suggested cooking them a special dinner the following week, to prove he really could cook.

“Why not?” Hugh said. He looked round the group and everybody seemed to be in agreement.

Grandma Faye turned to Laurent. “If you end up doing the catering, can we still have the chocolate fountain and fish balls?”

Laurent’s brow furrowed. “Fish balls. I see. Tell me, Faye, do your people eat any other part of ze fish?”

Only Cyn was able to stay for dinner. Flick and Jonny couldn’t because they were eating out with friends—although Jonny made time to sit down with Laurent and explain that Mal had asked him to take over Laurent’s asylum case. Hugh said he was meeting people, too, but confessed to Cyn that he wasn’t really. “The truth is, I’m starting to wilt under the pressure of this wedding. If I don’t spend the next three hours soaking in a Jo Malone lime-basil and mandarin bath, I think I shall probably die.” Cyn suspected there was another reason he wanted to get going—although he was far too polite to say anything. Hugh was the only one of her family and friends who hadn’t had mumps and she was pretty sure he didn’t want to hang around chez Fishbein more than was strictly necessary.

He had said good-bye to Barbara and was putting on his coat in the hall, when Cyn came running out of the living room. “God, I nearly forgot,” she said excitedly. “Joe’s taken your screenplay away to read. He loved the outline and the first few pages. He’s talking about showing it to one of his movie contacts.”

“You’re kidding.”

“Would I kid about something like that?”

“Bloody hell.”

“Fantastic, isn’t it?”

“So have you heard from him? Has he said what he thinks? Does he like it? I mean, what did he say?”

“Huge, calm down. He only took it on Saturday.”

“God, I don’t know what to say. Maybe I should phone him—you know, to explain some of the more complicated metaphors and talk him through my philosophical thrust. On the other hand maybe I shouldn’t hassle him. He might think I’m insulting his intelligence. What do you think?” He was gabbling and running his hand over his head. Cyn had seen Hugh miserable and depressed a thousand times, but the twitchy neurotic artiste was a whole new look.

“What I think is that now that he seems to like your screenplay . . .” She lowered her voice in case Barbara was within earshot and might hear what she was about to say, “you have suddenly changed your mind about the madman I am going out with and had the most fantastic sex ever with on Saturday night.”

“OK, you win. Maybe I did misjudge him. So, should I phone him or what?”

“Look,” Cyn said evenly, “I’m sure Joe wouldn’t mind you ringing, but he’s not the type to mess you around. As soon as he’s read it, he’ll be in touch.”

“OK, and you’re sure he’s got my phone number.”

“Absolutely.”

“And my mobile.”

“Yes.”

“What about my e-mail?”

“I gave him that, too. Look, Hugh, try not to get carried away. Joe is reading the screenplay, that’s all. He can’t commission it. He might possibly pass it on to somebody who might possibly know somebody who might, that’s all.”

“I know, but at least it’s something.” He was staring off into space. “God, Cyn, have you ever felt like your life is about to change—that it’s your time?” Grandma Faye, who happened to be walking past, stopped and said, “Yes, it happens to every woman when she hits fifty.”

Hugh laughed, waved good-bye to Faye and turned back to Cyn. “It’s going to work out, gorgeous,” he said, gripping her hand. “I just know it.”

Cyn was starting to panic and wish desperately that she hadn’t said anything.

Faye and Laurent weren’t staying for dinner either. Faye was playing bridge and Laurent had another date with Harmony.

“I like your brozzer,” Laurent said to Cyn as they sat alone in the kitchen waiting for Harmony to arrive. “ ’E ’as a generous spirit, like your parents.”

She felt flattered on Jonny’s behalf. “And what about Harmony? Do you like her?”

“Of course. ’Armony ees a very special person.”

“She is. Harms and Hugh are my best friends.”

He nodded. “She told me ’ow much she loves you.”

“I love her, too,” Cyn smiled.

“She ees complicated, though,
non
?”

“How do you mean?”

“She pretend to be tough, but I can see she ees vulnerable. She make ze jokes all ze time to try and ’ide eet, but I can see srough her.” The man was truly multiskilled—sort of Rambo meets Jamie Oliver meets Frasier.

“She had a hard childhood,” Cyn said. “There was no choice, she had to be tough.”

“I know.”

“She told you?”

He nodded. “We talk all ze time. Zere ees a chemistry between us. I have a feeling of coming ’ome when I am wiz her. Do you know zat feeling, Ceen?”

Cyn began stabbing a teaspoon into the bowl of sugar. “Oh, yes. I know it. I know it very well.” She was thinking about Joe.

“Zen you understand,
non
?”

She carried on stabbing the sugar. “Laurent, please don’t hurt her. Her last relationship just ended and she’s very fragile at the moment.”

“I know. Zees Justin. He was a fool, an
idiot, non
? I could never ’urt ’Armony. Never. You ’ave my word.”

She believed him. Of course in the end it might not work out between them. But Cyn had high hopes. There was no doubt that Laurent possessed a heart as big as he was and that unlike Justin, he didn’t seem to have a fear of commitment. In fact it was the very opposite. He desperately wanted to look after Harmony. She had managed to work her way out of poverty with only herself to rely on. Now she deserved a soft place to fall: a place that all the money in the world couldn’t buy.

Harmony arrived looking like Sandy from
Grease
in a flared acid-yellow skirt with black polka dots. On top she wore a black button-through blouse with a turned-up collar and three-quarter-length sleeves. It suddenly occurred to Cyn that her best friends seemed to be forever at her parents’ house. For a few seconds she felt about nine again.

Harmony could barely contain her excitement. “I just got the results of my blood test,” she whispered. “I’m fine. Not remotely menopausal.”

Cyn threw her arms round her friend. “Oh, hon,” she said, squeezing her, “that’s wonderful news.”

“You were right. The doctor says my periods have been messing around because I’m stressed. He reckons working too many hours, doing up the house and the whole Justin thing just got too much. He says I just need to slow down and have more fun.”

“But you’ve never slowed down in your life.”

“I agree I might have to work on that, but in the meantime I’m going to start on the fun part. I’m taking Laurent back to my hotel where I have a bottle of Cristal on ice. This will be our third date. Time to move to the next level, I think.” She gave Cyn a wink and turned to Laurent, who was coming down the stairs. “Come on,
chéri, allons-y
.”

Laurent’s face lit up when he saw her. He wrapped her in his arms, kissed her and told her how
magnifique
she looked. He was wearing old, indifferently fitting jeans and an ancient leather bomber jacket, which had never been trendy, even when it was new. But Harmony didn’t seem to notice. As he scooped her up, she was all girlie giggles and fake swoon. When he finally let her go, she turned to Cyn. “Isn’t this man just gorgeous?”

Cyn agreed he was.

“Oh, by the way, don’t forget,” Harmony went on. “Thursday night—party at the salon.” Cyn had completely forgotten. Harmony had mentioned the party weeks ago and it had gone straight out of her head. She had poached some hotshot stylist from John Frieda and was having a drinks do to welcome him. “I’ve got a stack of celebs coming. It’ll be a laugh.”

“OK if I bring Joe?”

“Of course. I think it’s about time I checked him out.” She turned to Laurent. “Cyn’s going out with some guy she met in her therapy group. Me and ’Ewge are worried he might be bonkers.” Laurent clearly had little understanding of what she meant by
therapy group
or
bonkers.
Harmony said she would explain later.

“Oh, God, you’re not going to start giving Joe the third degree, are you?” Cyn said, “just because he’s in therapy . . .”

“It’s not just because he’s in therapy. The man is thirty-six and has never had a proper relationship—remember?”

Laurent shrugged. “Eet can ’appen. Maybe he has not met ze right woman yet.”

“Thank you,” Cyn said to Laurent. “At last, somebody who understands.” She turned back to Harmony. “Look, I know you mean well, but Joe and I are getting serious. You know how Gran’s always going on about there being a lid for every pot. Well, I think I’ve found my lid. I really want you to be pleased for me.”

Harmony looked sheepish. “Oh, Cyn, I’m sorry. Of course I’m pleased you’ve found your lid.” But there was no mistaking the concern on her face.