by Becky Wicks
She’d been wandering through the dressing rooms lost, trying to find the loos, and had run into Carlos – quite literally. He’d been coming out of his dressing room wearing only a towel slung around his slim, irrestistably impeccable waist. She swallowed as she remembered the sheen of sweat glistening across his abs and the smooth, tan expanse of his chest. She’d almost lost the ability to speak when she’d looked up and met his eyes – liquid brown and almost as mesmerizing as his six-pack.
‘It wasn’t just for Carlos,’ Lara lied quickly. In truth she remembered very well how she’d ditched her psychology degree a week later and taken the low-paying job as Derek’s assistant, just so she’d get to see Carlos every day.
The job had been fun at first, obviously; way more fun at least than studying Jung. There was free travel for a start. And then there were the wild parties, semi-naked men glistening in sweat, and an entire costume department to ransack in anticipation of illicit weekends with Carlos. It was the ride of her life. Until he dumped her for Amy the contortionist.
Lara was still trying desperately hard to convince herself that this unceremonious dumping had nothing to do with the rumours she’d heard about Amy being able to perform all manner of sexual acts while bent backwards in a crab position with her head poking between her arse-cheeks. They’d had something special once, for a long time, she and Carlos. There had to be more to it, surely?
Lucy clicked her fingers in Lara’s face. ‘Don’t think about it. You dumped him for a reason and you’re right, you definitely had to do it. He was crap in bed, even after all that time. And he didn’t deserve you.’ She took a sip of wine and put her bare feet up on the sofa next to her. ‘Maybe you should go back and finish your degree?’
Lara frowned. She didn’t know how to tell her friend that she hadn’t exactly done the dumping. It was way too humiliating. She also didn’t quite know how to tell Lucy that she hadn’t really been enjoying psychology as much as she’d made out. She’d done it because her parents had suggested it and she didn’t really have any other plans at the time. But roughly three weeks into the course she’d shuffled past the hair and beauty department with an armful of books on scientific psychology and cognitive approach in the nineteenth century and was momentarily dazzled.
Lara knew as soon as she took in the stacks of free Vogue magazines, the rows and rows of make up, glitter, gels, lotions and potions, and the students all laughing while discussing lipstick shades and movies, that she’d made the wrong decision. Sebastian, the gay Jamaican hair-braider, further cemented this when he shimmied up to her and told her in no uncertain terms that her fabulous skin tone was wasted on Sigmund Freud.
‘I honestly don’t know what to do next,’ Lara sighed. Lucy shrugged her shoulders and smiled sympathetically.
Lara suspected Lucy was secretly glad that she’d been fired; not just because she thought that Lara deserved more than a life in the circus, but because Lucy had, since graduating three years ago with a Media degree, spent every day working in the council tax office at Lewisham Town Hall. There were no hot, semi-naked dancers doing back flips over the photocopier, no expenses-paid jaunts to Paris and definitely no sequins. Just bailiff hearings and late payment notices and little old grannies to evict. It wasn't anywhere near as glamorous.
‘Well, it’s not all bad. You’ve still got your room here,’ Lucy offered.
Lara knew Lucy was only trying to say the right thing, but as she glanced around at their cramped living room, all she noticed was the tacky furniture she’d ordered on a weekend shopping spree with Carlos. They’d even fed each other Swedish meatballs on their lunch break, oblivious to all the rowdy families yelling at each other to ‘fetch another corner lamp!’ and the kids making irritating, pointless tents out of boredom and giant yellow baskets.
Lara remembered how they’d shown such mature restraint over not christening the bed while it was still in the showroom. They’d spent one hour and forty-five minutes christening the cooker once it had been installed, however. There were definite benefits to dating someone so lithe and flexible. It was really quite a miracle how many positions they’d managed around the sink and taps, and how Carlos had incorporated the use of that sieve…
‘I could always see if there are any temp jobs in my department,’ Lucy suggested, interrupting her romp down memory lane.
Lara made a non-committal grunting sound. She couldn’t think of anything worse.
‘Well, let’s not think about that now,’ Lucy chirped, finishing her wine and setting the glass down on the side. ‘Let’s go shopping instead. You can get something new to wear for your date with Jamie.’
‘Oh God!’ Lara gasped, sitting bolt upright. ‘I’d forgotten all about that.’
She had promised her mother she would go, if only because at twenty-seven years old, she still felt bad for dropping out of Uni and running away with the circus. Her mum was always trying to set her up with men she deemed more suitable for her only daughter than an acrobat, and Lara had lately grown to realise that resistance was futile. She didn’t think her date with Jamie would be any different.
Jamie was the son of her mother’s old school friend, and as far as Lara could remember he was a total computer nerd - a fact only confirmed when her mother informed her he was doing something ‘frightfully important in IT’.
According to her mum - who’d conveniently bumped into his in Sainsbury’s - Jamie still held a torch for Lara. Unfortunately, the only memories she could dredge up of Jamie were of when they were four years old, playing with Smurfs together in her back garden, and another from when they were fifteen or so at some awful wedding, which Lara couldn’t remember much about.
She wasn’t completely sure how a torch could have been lit at such a young age. Plus, her mother had been known to embellish. She’d said that Jamie Winter was a very handsome young man these days, but then she also thought that David Cameron was ‘sinfully attractive’ and that Simon Cowell was ‘the most stylish man on the telly.’
Lara had absolutely no doubt that a date with Jamie would mean an evening spent discussing Wordpress themes and World of Warcraft. She knew with total certainty that he would never be her type. Lara needed excitement in her life now; romance, daring, adventure, travel, maybe the odd trapeze. She did not need talk about html coding and checking in on Foursquare.
‘Ugh,’ Lara grimaced again, wondering whether she could get out of it and stay home and watch Britain’s Got Talent on the telly instead. She was quite sure that as long as Carlos was swinging through her memory bank like a thief in the night he’d be robbing her of any future satisfaction with another man. Jamie didn’t stand a chance.
Chapter Two
Lara squirmed in the tight-fitting dress, knowing now how one of Fidel the ballerina’s thighs must have felt in his shiny, Lycra leggings. Do not think about the circus, she told herself as she walked into the bar. Not tonight. Give the poor bloke a chance.
Lucy, who’d finally talked her into not cancelling, had called on the way to the tube and told her to have a good time, which Lara knew translated as ‘shag his brains out and you’ll finally get over Carlos.’ But even as she’d dressed herself in one of the new dresses she’d bought in Zara (using the only store card that would still let her buy anything), she pictured Amy swinging from her rightful place on the trapeze, bent backwards in a crab position, smiling a sneaky man-stealing smile…
Do not think about it, she ordered herself again.
The bar Jamie had chosen was dark, with red-varnished walls and ornate crystal chandeliers hanging from the ceilings. The clink of billiard balls from a back room overlaid the roar of people yelling to make themselves heard over a blaring sound system.
The place was packed. She wasn’t sure how on earth she was going to find Jamie in a crowd this size; she guessed she’d better look for the geekiest guy around. With a sigh she scanned the room and caught sight of someone over in the corner, sitting by himself, munching on pork scratchings a
nd drinking a half pint of Guinness. He was wearing a pair of horn-rimmed glasses, though Lara couldn’t tell if he was shortsighted, or merely being ironic. You never could tell the hipsters from the true geeks these days.
He looked up at her then, a hopeful, desperate expression on his face and smiled. Lara froze. Please, dear God, she thought, don’t let it be him. He had a chin you could dig potatoes with as her grandmother used to say, and even from a safe distance she could see his five-yard overbite.
As she pondered her exit routes in a panic, a decidedly better-looking guy at the bar turned around and started edging his way through the mass of schmoozers and boozers, carrying two glasses of white wine. He looked a bit like the sexy guy from The Hunger Games, crossed with the lead singer of The Wanted, she mused.
Lara caught his eye, wishing that Jamie would look half as hot and sighing inwardly as some high-heeled girl elbowed into her, tipping some chilli peanuts down her cleavage. She wrinkled her nose and picked them out, wondering if it wasn’t an omen for the rest of the evening, when suddenly she heard someone say her name.
‘Lara?’
The hot guy had stopped right in front of her. She wracked her brains, trying to figure out who he was, because her mind was refusing point blank to accept that this could be Jamie, the computer nerd. It was inconceivable. He was gorgeous, with his dark jeans, scuffed up Converse and blue T-shirt, which revealed just the right amount of lean-bodied grace and inviting lines of muscle. Lara swallowed audibly.
‘It is Lara, right?’ he asked. ‘It’s me, Jamie.’
She could only nod, amazed that he had recognised her, because she wouldn’t have recognised him if it had been just the two of them in the bar and they’d both been wearing nametags.
‘Wow, you’ve grown up,’ Jamie smiled, taking her in from head to toe with a long, sweeping glance. Lara fidgeted under his scrutiny, suddenly excrutiatingly aware that she hadn’t bothered shaving her legs. She noticed his gaze slip momentarily to her boobs, which she knew looked extra good thanks to her push-up bra and a fine, ever so subtle coating of dazzle dust (those Russian dancers at the circus had taught her a thing or two). Then she remembered it was now mixed with chilli peanuts and dusted herself down again, flushing pink.
‘I was half on the look out for a four year old with bunches and red wellies,’ Jamie added with an amused twinkle in his eye.
Lara laughed as a memory blasted her completely unexpectedly. Her red wellies! She’d worn nothing else for almost two years - sometimes quite literally.
‘I remember you wearing those in your paddling pool and trying to make me re-enact The Little Mermaid with you. You wanted me to play Sebastian but I wanted to play the Prince.’
Lara’s jaw dropped. ‘Oh my God! I remember that!’ Wow. She hadn’t thought of that, well, since she was about five.
‘Here,’ Jamie said, offering her one of the glasses in his hand. ‘The queue at the bar was horrendous so I took the liberty of ordering you a wine. Hope white is OK.’
‘Oh, thanks!’ Lara said, taking it from him. He’d just scored even more points. ‘White is just fine.’
‘Here, I’ve bagged us a table at the back.’
Jamie led the way over to a corner booth where the noise was more muted and it was possible to be heard without shouting. She studied him as he walked ahead of her. He was about six foot one, with broad shoulders, narrow hips and a butt that wouldn’t look bad in a pair of Speedos. She wondered idly what the front of him would look like in some James Bond-style swimming trunks and shushed her wild imagination as it took them on holiday together in her head, somewhere tropical and sunny; somewhere better than Centre Parcs, which unfortunately, had been all Carlos could afford.
Jamie ushered her into a booth, his hand falling to her lower back.
‘Thanks,’ Lara said, sitting down.
‘It’s been a while,’ Jamie said as he sat down opposite her. He had gorgeous brown eyes, as appealing as Cadbury’s Dairy Milk, and short brown hair that he kept pushing back from his forehead. ‘What’s it been? Ten years? Twelve?’
‘Yes, about that,’ Lara replied, crossing her legs and realising her dress was way too tight and a bit too short for sitting down in.
‘I think we were about fourteen or fifteen,’ he added. ‘It was that wedding. My parents were friends with your uncle. You were a bridesmaid, remember?’
‘Oh, God.’ Lara reached for her glass again and took a huge gulp of wine in order to try and obliterate the embarrassment of the memory as it catapulted back into her brain. She’d been forced to wear a salmon pink Little Bo Peep number and consequently had scowled her way through the entire ceremony. Then, at the reception, she’d snuck a bottle of champagne into a cupboard and hidden among the mops and buckets for the duration of the speeches.
‘I found you in the cleaning cupboard!’ Jamie said, grinning at her. ‘When the time came for the bride to toss the bouquet, no one knew where you’d gone. I noticed you wander off, though.’
Lara felt the blush running all the way down her neck. ‘I… I don’t remember actually. I was rather paraletic by then.’
‘I know. I held your hair for you while you puked.’
Lara’s mouth fell open. ‘That was you?’ She vaguely recalled someone sitting behind her in a freezing cold toilet cubicle, murmuring softly and stroking her back, but she’d always thought it had been one of the other bridesmaids. That had been Jamie? She covered her face with her hands and slumped forwards on the table. And then, realising she should probably be exhibiting better behaviour at age twenty-seven, she sat up straight.
‘It was the dress,’ she said, as though it could possibly excuse her actions. ‘I was so annoyed at having to wear it.’
Jamie shook his head. ‘Don’t mention it. I thought you were adorable.’
Lara smiled, thinking he was being very gentlemanly indeed. She’d never been called adorable when drunk before. Many other things, yes…
‘And I’d probably have done the same if someone had made me wear that thing. Do you remember the bride? She looked like… ‘
‘A marshmallow wearing a doily!’ Lara interrupted.
‘I was going to say Katie Price if you’d put her in a blender with a sack of glitter.’
Lara burst out laughing.
‘Listen, do you want to finish these and grab a bite to eat?’ Jamie asked, indicating the wine glasses.
Lara noted the way he bit down on his bottom lip, as though nervous about her reply and she felt a swarm of butterflies take flight in her stomach unexpectedly. She wondered if she’d been too dismissive about computer nerds in general. They seemed like very nice people.
‘Yes, that would be great,’ she said with a small smile.
Jamie took her to a tiny Indian restaurant down a back street in Whitechapel, close to where Jack the Ripper had dumped the mutilated body of his last victim. When Jamie had pointed out the spot on the pavement, Lara had for a very brief moment frozen solid in her heels, thinking that perhaps Jamie was some kind of copy cat killer, who’d charmed her with stories of a shared childhood, only to drag her down a dark, deserted alley and gut her like a fish. But thankfully, seeing her hesitation, he’d taken her hand and laughed, then pulled her inside the curry house.
‘So you work in IT then?’ Lara asked, once they’d been shown to a table and had placed their orders. She realised she’d better take an interest in his job, as well as the way his arms were flexing in his blue T-shirt every time he fiddled with the poppadom dish.
‘Er, yeah, kind of,’ Jamie answered. ‘But it’s really boring, let’s not talk about that.’
Lara sighed with relief.
‘So, you recently left your job, is that right?’ Jamie asked, as he swigged from a bottle of Kingfisher.
The waiter arrived with their dishes. Lara paused to stare down at her prawn biryani, hoping that there wasn’t too much garlic in it. Not that she planned on kissing Jamie, but still, the night was young. And the m
ore Jamie talked (and the less he talked about IT), the more she found herself enjoying his company.
‘What was it you were doing?’ he pressed when he got no response, ‘Something to do with the circus?’
An image of Amy orally attached to Carlos flashed into Lara’s mind. She felt sick again. She took hold of her glass of wine and downed it in one.
‘I worked for the Cirque du Feteesh-Folie,’ she told him eventually, trying to maintain an air of cool.
‘Oh awesome, I saw them at the London Palladium last year,’ Jamie said, popping a chunk of tandoori chicken into his mouth. ‘What were you doing?’
Please don’t ask if I rode an elephant like Reese Witherspoon, Lara thought to herself. ‘I was just backstage, doing admin and stuff like that,’ she said. Her cheeks flared red. ‘But I just got fired.’
Jamie sat back in his seat, a half-smile playing on his lips. She squirmed slightly.
‘I got fired once,’ he admitted. ‘Evening shift at Burger King while I was at Uni. I deep-fried a guy’s baseball cap when he threw beer over the counter.’
Lara laughed in spite of herself.
‘So I guess you’re on the lookout for a new job?’ he asked.
Lara nodded, thinking of her empty bank account. ‘I think we can safely say I’m looking for a job, though God knows what. I’m not qualified for anything, really.’
She tried to sound dignified as she spoke, wondering again why Jamie could possibly be interested in her. He was a successful compu… (she forced herself not to think computer nerd)… IT professional, and she was an unemployed misery guts. Even though her boobs did look fabulous.
