Big Sexy Love: The laugh out loud romantic comedy that everyone's raving about!

by Kirsty Greenwood

  ‘Just a water will do, thanks,’ I say, smacking my nervous, dry mouth together.

  Chuck throws me a look of disgust. ‘Water? How dreary.’

  Ignoring me, he saunters over to a mahogany side table topped with crystal bottles full of amber liquids. He pours out two small glasses and hands one to me.

  Frowning, I give it a sniff. ‘Whisky?’

  ‘That’s a thousand-dollar bottle of bourbon,’ he declares, as if he’s bestowing me with the Holy Grail.

  ‘Oh, a water will be fine.’ I smile, handing him back the glass.

  He takes it from me and pours the liquid into his own tumbler, but still doesn’t get me a water.

  He clears his throat. ‘What’s your name?’ He stares at me, eyes icy and clear, not a wrinkle on his beautiful face. Does… does Chuck Allen Botox? The lack of movement in his expression is a bit eerie. I squint, trying my best to understand what Birdie saw in this guy. But I can’t. He’s much prettier than she would ordinarily go for.

  ‘My name is Olive,’ I tell him again. Digging into my bumbag, I pull out Birdie’s letter.

  ‘Olive is not a name, it’s a snack food,’ Chuck says, giving me that weird blank stare.

  I laugh a little, because logic tells me that he’s joking. But he doesn’t even crack a smile. I’m not sure he can crack a smile. Birdie, what the hell were you thinking?

  ‘You have delightful hair,’ Chuck says, narrowing his pale blue eyes. ‘Thick. At first glance it looks wild, but…’ he steps forward, his hand reaching out, almost touching my head. ‘On closer inspection, one can see that there’s a certain beautiful uniformity in each of the curls.’

  A shudder runs down my back, beads of sweat form on the back of my neck.

  I’m officially creeped out.

  He gently touches my head. Argh!

  I dive off the chair and start to back away from him.

  ‘Yeah, thanks,’ I mumble. I need to get out of here. ‘I, um, just came to deliver this letter from Birdie.’ I throw the letter in his general direction. He catches it with one hand, his reflexes faster than lightning. Even that is unsettling. ‘I have lots to do,’ I continue. ‘Lots of sightseeing, et cetera.’

  ‘Who is Birdie?’ Chuck says, tilting his head to the side so that a strand of blonde hair falls over his face.

  ‘Um, your teenage sweetheart? You left her to go to Princeton?’ I remind him, feeling less and less sure that I’m in the right place. ‘You… you are Chuck Allen right?’

  He gives a delicate shake of his head. ‘My name is Anders,’ he says. ‘Anders von Preen.’

  ‘What?’ I yell. ‘Anders von Preen? Why did you let me in? Who even are you?’

  He shrugs elegantly. Like all of this is completely normal. Anders von Preen sounds like a made-up name. Who is this guy? I instinctively hold my hands up into a sort of karate chop position, just in case I need to defend myself in any way.

  ‘I invited you in because I am bored today.’ His thin voice drawls, as if he can barely be bothered to speak. ‘I am bored so much of the day.’ His accent is slightly British-sounding. Like Madonna. ‘But here you come knocking at my door so unexpectedly.’ He sighs dramatically, his red lips turning down into a sulk, his pointy shoulders sagging. ‘And it’s not like I have anything else fun to do today.’

  ‘Are you going to murder me?’ I blurt in a panicked voice, looking around for the way out. ‘I mean… um… do you know Chuck Allen? Do you know his parents?’

  ‘Maybe… maybe not.’

  ‘Maybe, maybe not you will murder me?! Or maybe, maybe not you know Chuck Allen?!’

  Shit! This is not good.

  Anders von Preen sits down on a plush armchair and takes a sip of his drink, holding the glass with only his thumb and forefinger. ‘Don’t fret,’ he says quietly. ‘You seem like a rather fretful person. Are you sure you won’t have a drink?’

  I have been in New York for less than twenty-four hours and I have managed to stumble upon what appears to be a bona fide psychopath who won’t even tell me if he plans to murder me or not!

  ‘Chuck?’ I find myself calling out into the air. ‘Chuck Allen? Are you here? Are you here, please? Are there any other humans nearby?’

  ‘Shouting won’t help,’ Anders says calmly, placing his drink onto a small glass table beside him.

  Shouting won’t help? That’s exactly what a psychopath says to a screaming victim before he bops them on the head with a blunt object.

  I make a tiny little frightened groan. I don’t intend to. It just pops out. I put my hand into my bumbag and fumble around for something I could potentially use as a weapon. The only reasonably heavy thing is my bottle of Rescue Remedy, the irony of which does not pass me by.

  ‘Sorry, that sounded rather threatening didn’t it?’ Anders says.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’ve been told I come across as quite sinister. Do you think that’s true!’

  ‘Yes!’ I nod fervently. ‘Very true!’

  His face drops a little. ‘I must work on that. I just meant that calling for Chuck Allen won’t help because Chuck Allen isn’t here. He hasn’t been here for years. That’s all.’

  My heart leaps. ‘So you do know him?’

  ‘Of course I do, darling.’ Anders smiles this time, and his face looks ever so slightly less creepy. Ever so slightly.

  ‘Well, can you tell me where he is so I can give him this letter? It’s really very important. And time-sensitive.’

  Anders stands up from the chair and takes a step towards me. I take two steps backwards.

  ‘I will tell you what I know.’

  ‘Great. Yes, thank you. And then I will escape… I mean… leave you to your day.’

  ‘I want something in exchange for the information.’

  I pull a face. I have a very strong feeling he is going to ask if he can drink my blood.

  ‘W-what is it?’ I ask, my voice trembling.

  ‘Darling, I want to do your hair.’

  What the actual fuck?

  Once you know the backstory of a psychopath they become a teensy bit less terrifying. Half an hour later and I’ve learned that while Anders is definitely bizarre, he doesn’t seem to be a threat. In fact, I think he’s a bit sad and a bit lonely. Still, that doesn’t mean that having him do my hair feels any less excruciatingly awkward. But if this is the only way to find out where Chuck is, then a girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do.

  As I sit, stiff-shouldered, in a fancy Queen Anne chair, Anders pulls and twists at my hair. In his thin, raspy voice, he tells me all about his tragic life as a privileged, wealthy white man who can never become the hairdresser that he has always longed to be because his parents would ‘financially abandon’ him if he did.

  ‘I’m a von Preen,’ He explains imperiously from behind me. ‘We don’t have jobs. It’s just not the done thing. We are members of the board at Lincoln Centre and MOMA. We volunteer our time to styling charity balls for New York’s elite, we eat at Manhattan’s finest restaurants and make sure that we’re seen doing it… but we don’t have jobs. I mean… that’s just vulgar.’

  ‘Jobs aren’t that bad,’ I say, as if this entire conversation isn’t completely bonkers. ‘I have a job. I’m a fishmonger!’

  ‘Good God, you poor thing,’ Anders says with a gasp, patting my shoulder. ‘How awful for you.’

  I shrug. ‘It’s not that bad,’ I protest. ‘My boss is nice and—’

  ‘Anyway,’ he interrupts. ‘I realised I had a deep interest in hair styling during my first year at college. Hair was all I could think about. After graduation I planned on standing up to my parents. Telling them that I would train as a stylist, be the first in three generations of von Preens to have a job.’ His voice turns wistful. ‘My roommate Warner had such beautiful hair. Fiery Titian red, long and silky. He had problematic ends, but I knew in my heart that we could fix those.’

  ‘And did you? Fix his split ends?’ I ask, begrudgingly interested.<
br />
  ‘I tried… We had been out for dinner with other members of our secret society, drank a little too much vintage, indulged in a little too much cocaine. I…I was feeling bold. When we got back to our room I told him I could fix his split ends. He thought I was joking, told me to fire up the PlayStation. But… I persisted.’ His voice turns dark. ‘I got out the seven-inch molybdenum stainless steel professional scissors I had bought the week before and approached him.’

  My eyes widen.

  Anders continues. ‘I was about to take the first snip when Warner… he… jumped in shock and I sliced his chin.’

  ‘Shit.’

  ‘Yes. He thought I was trying to attack him. And I… I was too ashamed to tell him I was just trying to cut his hair! And so I left Harvard in shame. Known only as the man who had tried to disfigure his lovely red-headed roommate.’

  ‘Wow.’

  Do not laugh. This is a tragic tale. It is not funny, Olive.

  Anders sighs heavily. ‘And now I spend my days hanging around here, bored out of my mind. Watching old episodes of Shear Genius and wondering what might have been.’

  I shake my head sympathetically, feeling a little bit sad for this strange creepy man.

  ‘Don’t shake your head!’ he barks, his thin voice scratchy with the volume.

  I stop immediately, I do not want to incur the same fate as his old college roommate.

  I peek at my watch. I’ve been here for forty minutes already! What on earth is he doing to my hair? Surely it must be nearly done? I need to get out of here, I need to get on with finding Chuck. It’s not like I have unlimited time!

  ‘Why don’t you tell me where Chuck is?’ I ask. ‘You may as well, while I’m sitting here.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know where he is!’ Anders says casually. ‘I haven’t seen him, gosh, it must be six or seven years now.’

  ‘What? You told me that if I let you do my hair, that you would tell me where Chuck was?’

  I get up from the chair and furiously spin around to face this liar, to look him in his lying eyes.

  Anders puts a hand on his tiny hip and shakes a platinum strand of hair away from his forehead.

  ‘I said no such thing.’

  I gasp. I have been conned! Donna warned me this would happen, and it’s happened on my first day here. I’ve been conned by a creepy rich guy whose door I literally knocked at of my own volition.

  ‘You did!!’ I hiss, my head feeling heavy because whatever he’s done to my hair seems to be weighing it down.

  ‘Actually, I said I’ll tell you what I know about Chuck. And that does not include his current whereabouts.’

  I screw my eyes up, thinking back to our earlier deal. Maybe he did say that…

  ‘Fine,’ I huff. ‘Tell me what you know. I really need to find Chuck and, frankly, you are not being very helpful at all!’

  ‘I haven’t finished your hair yet!’ Anders points to the chair.

  I plonk myself back down into it with a grumble of protest. What choice do I have?

  ‘I can’t stay much longer,’ I tell him. ‘I have things to do. Urgent things.’

  ‘You’re so tense. Are you sure you don’t want a real drink?’

  I kind of do now, but I feel like Anders might drug me in order to spend more time doing my hair. Or maybe steal my hair and store it in a precious jewellery box under his antique bed. And then use it to weave into wigs for some life-sized dolls that he happens to collect…

  ‘No thanks,’ I say firmly, thinking back to the last time I drank and the ensuing humiliation.

  ‘What is so urgent?’ he asks. ‘Why are you in such a rush?’

  I think about Birdie. Her lovely open face, with skin and lips pale because of organs that don’t work properly.

  I shake my head out of it. It’s best to think of Birdie’s condition in an abstract way. Otherwise I worry I’ll just start crying and never stop.

  I swallow hard. ‘I just do. It’s important.’

  Anders must sense the desperation in my voice.

  ‘Okay,’ he says kindly. ‘I will tell you what I know of Chuck while I finish your hair. It will take me another hour to complete my work.’

  ‘Fifteen minutes,’ I counter-offer.

  ‘Thirty.’

  ‘Deal.’

  As Anders continues doing whatever the hell he’s doing to my head, he tells me how Chuck was a friend of his in college at Princeton. How they were in the same classes and that he was renting this place from Chuck’s parents.

  ‘So you know where his parents are?’

  ‘They live in Belize now. I still keep in touch with them – they’re my landlords – but they had a terrible falling out with Chuck over something mysterious and they don’t talk to each other anymore.’

  I sigh, my stomach sinking. This isn’t exactly helpful. I can hardly pop along to Belize to track down his parents and ask them about Chuck’s where-abouts, can I? ‘There’s nothing about him online either,’ I say in frustration.

  Anders sniffs. ‘The last I heard, he was working on Wall Street.’

  ‘I thought rich people didn’t have jobs?’ I point out.

  Anders laughs. ‘Chuck Allen’s family are mere millionaires, darling.’

  My eyes almost pop out of my head. Anders is a billionaire? Wowee. Does he dive onto a bed of money at night like Scrooge McDuck? Does he wear all his underwear once before throwing it away in favour of a brand new pair? So many questions…

  Focus, Olive.

  ‘Which bank was Chuck at?’

  ‘Chimes Investment on Wall Street, I believe.’

  ‘Does he still work there?’

  ‘Who knows. I stopped caring about Chuck Allen the moment he dropped me after the Princeton scissor scandal. He was Team Warner. They were always very close to each other. Always leaving me out…’

  I sigh. Chimes Investment. It’s a lead, I guess. Even if Chuck isn’t still working there, someone will know something, surely? They have to!

  Anders clears his throat. ‘Oh, I do have a picture of him, if that helps?’

  ‘A recent one?’

  ‘Well, from about six years ago.’

  That’s better than nothing. Birdie didn’t have any photos of him, on account of burning them all on the demise of their relationship.

  ‘Yes! That would be great. Thank you!’

  Anders wanders off out of the room, I’m assuming, to get the photo. I get up from my chair and search the room for a mirror so I can see what he’s done to my hair. But there are no mirrors anywhere! I spot a gigantic metallic vase holding an extravagant array of cream and pale pink flowers. I dash over it, but just as I crouch to see my reflection, Anders glides back in.

  ‘I said no peeking,’ he barks again. ‘I want it to be a wonderful surprise. Sit!’

  ‘Jeez.’

  With a tut, I traipse back over to my chair. Anders hands me a photograph. It’s an image of three young men with their arms around each other, grinning widely into the camera. One is clearly a young Anders, though he looks much more bro-like than he does now; beefier, and with his platinum blonde hair spiky like a Backstreet Boy. The middle guy is a redhead with the most beautiful long hair. That must be Warner before Anders attacked him with professional scissors. And the last man in the group must be Chuck. I look closely. He’s gorgeous. Exactly Birdie’s type. I can totally see what she saw in him. His hair is short and dark, and he’s clean-cut and preppy with startlingly green eyes. He’s smiling freely into the camera, completely confident with his picture being taken.

  ‘Chuck Allen,’ I whisper to myself.

  For the hundredth time since Birdie gave it to me, I think of the letter, now safely back in my bumbag, and wonder what it says. I get a vision of Chuck flying back to England with me, him running into Birdie’s arms, turning out not to be a douchebag at all. Maybe having the solution to a cure. Or knowing something, anything to save her.

  Tears sting my throat and I immediately disregard th
is scenario. Birdie has already told me a million and one times that there’s nothing that can be done. No transplant, no magic medicine, no holistic cure. They’ve done everything they can. It’s happening. It’s happening and I need to accept it, like she has.

  Once again I force the thoughts about Birdie’s illness off, like a light going out, and try to focus on the situation at hand.

  ‘Thanks, Anders,’ I say, moving my thumb over the corner of the photograph. ‘I think this will really help.’ I glance at my watch. ‘I really do need to get going. How long until this is finished?’

  Anders leans into me and as he gets close I notice his cologne is a gorgeous boyish aquatic at odds with his stiff demeanour.

  He puts a hand onto my head, fiddles with a strand or two and steps back.

  ‘It’s done! It’s complete!’

  Thank jeebus for that.

  ‘Come and see!’ Anders says, leading me out of the living room and into the grand hallway.

  I follow him into a large marble downstairs bathroom and peer into the mirror expectantly.

  Holy. Shit.

  No.

  Oh my goodness, no.

  You know in those hairdressing competitions, where the contestants have to make – not a normal hairstyle – but a kind of sculpture out of hair. The more outlandish the better?

  Yeah, well that is what Anders has done to me.

  ‘You like it?’ I hear him say through the mist of hairspray he’s currently applying all over to secure the disaster into place.

  I blink gormlessly at my reflection. It’s not even a beehive, or a bun. It’s a ginormous twist.

  Right at the front of my head.

  Like a unicorn. It looks like I have a unicorn horn.

  ‘It’s… it’s…’

  I can’t come up with an appropriate word.

  ‘Do you love it? You love it, don’t you?’

  It’s a fucking unicorn horn. I look batshit crazy.

  I peer closer in the mirror and notice that he’s twisted in strands of blue hair. When did he do that? Where did he get blue hair from? Does he have a collection of different-coloured hair? Not only do I look like a complete crazy person, I look like a crazy person who’s stuck in a Christina Aguilera music video from 2002. I wonder if Anders knows that strands of blue hair have been frowned upon for many years now…