Champagne Kisses

by Amanda Brunker

  About the Book

  Like any great diva, Eva Valentine is a flawed character. Spoilt, stubborn and sassy, she exudes lioness confidence when in the company of her fellow bitches Maddie and Parker, and hungers for sex like others desire chocolate.

  Eva is a woman who would kiss your girlfriend as quick as she’d steal your husband, but underneath this hard-nosed façade she’s just a regular girl who craves normality, and a love that she can call her own.

  After CCTV images of a clumsy clinch with her very married boss make headlines in the Sunday papers, her whole world begins to crumble. Eva must come to terms with the harsh consequences of her reckless actions, but don’t think for a second that this would ever stop her fun. In Europe’s most expensive capital, beautiful people can always find rich friends to fly them to fabulous parties in London or glamorous holidays in Marbella.

  Contents

  Cover

  About the Book

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Copyright

  For my family. Without you all I am nothing.

  1

  WHY DID I have a full-Irish for breakfast? It’s as if I am mechanically programmed to make the wrong decision at every available opportunity.

  Why is it that I always seem to order a dirty big greasy fry-up with extra beans the morning before a Hollywood wax? Yes, Saturdays are meant to be my pamper me day, starting with a long brekkie reading the papers, while eyeing up the far-too-young but oh so cute and very do-able waiters at Coffee Cups. OK, so I don’t necessarily educate myself with the day’s politics and the like; the only current affairs I’m interested in are those of pop stars and reality heads.

  Ask me who’s shagging who and I’m a grade A student, but ask me who’s in charge of the country’s finances and I couldn’t pick them out of a line-up.

  Enough about my shallow pleasures though: I’m stripped and dipped, and as anyone who’s had hot wax around their middly bits will know, it’s never a safe place to be near once you’ve consumed a large quantity of gastro fuel.

  ‘Sorry, you can turn over now,’ indicates my super-slim, horribly pretty waxer.

  My regular girl Ashley, who is just such a gorgeous bitch, is away on holiday with her rugby star boyfriend in the South of France. I secretly hate her for her God-given flawless beauty and her beefy and considerably wealthy boyfriend; then again, I suppose there have to be some perks to life if you’re a heterosexual woman who has to stare at other women’s naked crotches all day. Yuck! And double yuck!

  Over the last year I have become more comfortable in Ashley’s hands. Let’s be honest – stripping off your jeans and pants to lie on a bed with a bright light shining above you, no matter what soothing music is playing in the background, is traumatic. Especially without a couple of drinks involved.

  But today I don’t feel comfortable. ‘Trish-aaah’, obviously named for her gentle touch, is just too squeaky clean looking. To say her appearance is immaculate is an understatement. Her skin is to die for and I can see her frowning at my bruised and painfully white stubbly legs and, worse still, my chipped toenail polish.

  ‘I’m getting them done later,’ I lie, feeling the pressure to explain. When I’m the one paying through the nose for the privilege here, I shouldn’t really need to.

  But, before I get the chance to sound convincing she blurts ‘That’s nice’, in a sickly, patronizing tone that says: spare me the details, love, I’ve seen it all before.

  As Trish-aaah changes the pan pipes CD to whale tones, I quickly flip over under the facecloth of a towel on to my belly, while trying to hide my dignity. As if.

  Now my new pal directs me to get on all fours and pull back my left butt cheek with my hand. Cringe.

  Despite the fact that I know this is coming, I never seem to be able to mentally prepare for the moment. While I keep telling myself that I’m looking for something under the bed – because that’s the position you assume – the fact that someone is smoothing hot wax around your asshole quickly jolts you into reality. As I crouch in mortification, puce in the face, I make the ultimate faux pas – I fart.

  Oh, God. World open up and swallow me whole.

  As I knelt there face down and gormless, with my mouth open praying that some words of sense, or even humour, would come to rescue me, I was given a lucky escape when the CD suddenly jammed. Maybe I had a guardian angel looking over me.

  Thank you, thank you, thank you, whoever you are!

  Trisha with the tender touch made her apologies (if only I could have uttered mine) and left the room no doubt to get some air and officially change ‘the stupid CD’.

  It’s January, time for new resolutions. Hell, we’re Europeans now, it’s continental breakfasts for me from now on in. The thought of warm chocolate croissants is making me feel better already.

  Or it was until Trish strides back into our fragrant room, grinning like she’s the most popular girl at school. Obviously her story of Miss Eva – or should that be Scarlett O’Valentine – in Room 5 has amused the rest of the team.

  I slowly count to ten as I visualize leaping off the table and smacking her smug face. Funny how my Saturday stars never warned me of any pending violence today. Damn Mystic Meg for not forecasting this fiasco. Who knew that an exciting brief first acquaintance with a tall, dark stranger was really a debriefing nightmare with tango Trish?

  Thankfully the ordeal soon ended. Drained and somewhat wounded, I gathered my belongings and braced myself for the most distressing bit – the escape.

  It wasn’t over until this fat lady passed all the snooty bitches at the till. And just as I had feared, there were four smiley, happy, giggly women camped out at the counter.

  Feeling like I had every staff member’s eyes burrowing into the side of my brain, I handed over €140 for my full leg and Brazilian smooth-finish and fled the building. Cursing Trisha, Tina, Julie and Sam and their sad little identical and clinical smocks.

  My new pal called out, ‘Eva, your change.’ But I had to get out.

  In a fleeting moment of remorse I shrugged back, ‘It’s only ten euros, keep the money.’

  Let’s be honest, she earned it.

  As I strutted down Grafton Street my confidence returned as the Saturday afternoon prize peacocks started to catch my gaze. I may feel like a plucked chicken, but male adoration, whether from low-lifes or desirable hunks, is always a tonic for the soul.

  It’s one thing to catch your own reflection in the window of Warehouse, while pretending to look at the mannequins and think: Go girl, you ain’t lookin’ half bad. But as we all know, appreciation from the opposite sex, even someone you wouldn’t even sit beside on a bus, is morale-boosting.

  When I say prize peacocks I am of course talking about those greasy gobshites who parade themselves around town just so they can eye up unsuspecting girlies – the younger the better – with hopes of pulling a cracker.

  Generally speaking, they come in three genres. First we have the older, pot-bellied gentlemen, most likely with leathery skin and gaudy gold jewellery. I call them Daddy Sleaze.

  Spot their thinning hair smothered with hair gel in an attempt to keep it all together and coiffed back in an Elvis tribute. You’ll find these creeps hanging around cafés, mostly outside smoking even in the cold months like today. Thankfully I don’t smoke so I’ll never slip into that spider’s web of ‘Have you got a light?’

  Even
eye contact is to be avoided at all costs.

  Secondly, you have the slimy Type 2 boyfriends: peacocks who don’t mind spending the day in town shopping with their girlfriends, just so they can stand around female changing cubicles in the hope of spotting other half-naked girlies.

  Ahhh! These guys really irk me. It’s because those fools remind me of my ex-boyfriend, Trevor. What a bastard.

  He was your quintessential gentleman, oh so witty and flirty with my mother. Would talk endless drivel with my dad and, generously enough I thought, buy all of my friends drinks. Yes, temporarily Trev was the real deal in my eyes. Although he was not as spectacular in the bedroom as I would have hoped; hey, you can’t have it all. But he was a fairly enviable beau to have on my arm when mixing around town.

  It wasn’t until three months into the relationship that I found him snogging my so-called mate – at one of my house parties, the cheeky pup – and I realized what a slimeball he really was. Apparently Deirdre wasn’t the first to fall for his charms and open wallet during our short union.

  According to Reuters (that’s my friend Anna who knows everything about everybody), there had been a Louise, a brunette beautician-type from Galway. And a blonde one who always seems to worm her way into parties, but nobody can work out who brought her or where she’s from.

  Anyway, before I start to get myself worked up again, I’ll think of all the positives. He gave me that fabulous Gucci watch, that trip to Madrid, and there was the €1,300 he gave me to pay off my Visa bill. Jaysus, maybe he wasn’t that bad after all.

  Speaking of plastic, that brings me nicely on to the pretty-boy peacocks. Or the Southside €300-a-week gang. They’re the spoilt brats who refuse to grow up and pretend to themselves and everyone else that they’re Alan Sugar’s next apprentice. Most of these little cuties live at home, have meagre jobs, and spend all their cash on their designer labels and boy band haircuts.

  In my eyes they’re all gay but don’t know it – or possibly do, and refuse to admit it. And after spending all day Saturday (every Saturday) trailing Grafton Street with oversized branded shopping bags, not forgetting the hour or two spent outside the city centre pubs proudly displaying their purchases while knocking back a couple of pints of Heino, their Saturday nights are also ritual.

  This normally constitutes scoring a blonde dolly bird complete with miniskirt and loose morals. And she always brings with her at least three or four not so good-looking mates, also in miniskirts, who pray that some day they’ll get noticed and get the chance to be just as big a slag as their good-looking mate.

  While these guys will pretend to be big men about town, they probably won’t even get a table or booth in either of Dublin’s top nightclubs, Sophie’s Choice or Val’s, on a quiet night, but that still won’t stop them flashing their credit cards and buying everyone tequila shots.

  As the saying goes, champagne lifestyles on lemonade salaries. Sadly, that’s probably why half of these kids end up dealing drugs. Reality is a bitch when you can’t pay your bills, or when Mummy and Daddy decide to cut you off.

  Either way they’re not the kind of boys you like to play with; well, not any more.

  Sure I’ve kissed a few of them. I’m only human. But from now on I’m going for gold. I’ll be shooting for the stars – literally.

  And hopefully somewhere along the road much travelled I might just reach the moon. Though, with my luck, I’ll discover a bloke called Alfie, who has a penchant for dropping his trousers and flashing his rear, while screaming loudly ‘Olé, Olé, Olé, Olé!’

  At this stage of the game, most of the faces around town have become all too familiar to me; Dublin is a small enough city, after all. Still, bizarrely enough, I remain optimistic. Hey, if I keep telling myself that, I might just believe it.

  When my mother suspects I’m about to take a long walk off a short pier she tries to comfort me. ‘You need to concentrate on you, dear. Mr Right will turn up when you least expect it,’ she tells me. I say I need to wear a T-shirt stating ‘Unsuspecting Singleton Comin’ Round The Corner’. Who knows? It might just help speed things up.

  * * *

  After reaching the milestone age of twenty-nine I’ve heard that inner clock that the glossy magazines threaten will start ticking loudly when our fertile years start to run out.

  My older sister Ruth drives me mad with nasty comments like, ‘Eva. I love you, but if you want a man to love you, you better grab one quick.’

  ‘Women over thirty stink of desperation – and you’re already starting to whiff. But you’ll only end up with the dregs if you don’t hurry up.’

  And I kind of believe her. But what really annoys me is that she has been with her hubby since she was sixteen and hasn’t the slightest clue what it’s like trying to meet a man in the big bad world.

  In a way I envy how she fell in love, literally with the boy next door. But the idea of just being with one bloke for the rest of my life is a tad scary in my book.

  I mean, OK, like a pair of shoes she tried him on, and he fitted. But what if there was a better fit? What if her perfect fit lived down the road and around the corner? Was Joe just a pair of comfy slippers? Or could it be my sis got it right first time?

  I’m glad for her ’cause she’s a born mammy. She’d have topped herself if she was still looking for a man to impregnate her. But I’m the stronger of the two. And worryingly, it seems, too bloody fussy.

  Thankfully I’m not alone on the road to spinsterhood. I’ve got a few desperado pals to accompany me along the way.

  First, there’s my model mate Maddie, my most beloved sister in crime. Her full name is Maddie Lord, and the boys cry ‘Oh my Lord’ ’cause she’s so bloody beautiful. Needless to say she’s the better-looking version of me. She’s even wittier – which kills me, but I never let her know that, and strangely enough she hasn’t figured it out.

  At thirty-three (though her Hollywood age is twenty-nine) she’s had her fair share of lovers and heartache; in fact she’s a bit of a slapper. Whoever said models were easy spoke the truth.

  For example her phone reads Tony 1, Tony 2, Tony Mechanic, Tony Big Foot! Previously there had been a Tony Tiddler, but understandably he got deleted from her memory. She’s had some close calls down through the years when she’s arranged bootie calls with a Brian P instead of Brian B, but if there’s one thing our Maddie can do well, it’s juggle men.

  Saying ‘Hello Tasty’ to everyone usually saves embarrassing mistakes. Except for that time when we had a ridiculously hilarious encounter with a priest in Wicklow.

  Father Eugene, I think was his name. Sadly for us he wandered into our path while we were celebrating pulling a sickie from work. Maddie did her usual ‘Hello Tasty’, and a rather frisky Father Eugene thought he was on to a winner.

  With several glasses of Sex on the Beach in our bloodstream we thought a lecherous man of the cloth highly entertaining.

  Maddie teased him: ‘I’ve always had a thing for men in uniform’ and he scared the pants off us by removing his collar and declaring, ‘I don’t think we’ll be needing this now’, while eyeing up our cleavage. It was when he uttered, ‘God can’t watch me all the time’ and ‘I’ve dreamt of worshipping girls like you’ that we sobered up and decided we definitely didn’t want sex on the beach with him.

  Being my best bud I can call her the ‘Tart with a Heart’, but that privilege is reserved for me, and me alone. If anyone else dared to slander her slightly tarnished name they’d be nursing a burst lip and fifty stitches. Thankfully it’s never come to that, but it’s been handbags at dawn on many an occasion.

  We’ve been mates since I moved out of home at 18 and broke my mother’s heart. As I was the baby of the family she never wanted me to grow up. Of course I did the opposite: I grew up to be an adult far too fast.

  There was never much money; Mother didn’t believe in spoiling us. Her money was much better spent on new curtains or carpets, which seemed to be changed as often as Angelina Jolie’s
lovers. But just like Brad, my mum’s last makeover curtains have hung in for a lot longer than everyone thought, and she’s now turned her attention to collecting ceramic pigs.

  Anyway, back to Maddie. She lived in the digs next door to mine in dingy Rathmines flat-land, and we became firm friends after she lost her key one night and ended up knocking into me with a bottle of vodka and three DJs she’d picked up on the night bus.

  Our motto is, when the lovin’ is this good, it’d be a waste not to spread it around. No wonder really the Southside Fannies of Southside suburbia look down their perfectly straight noses at us.

  Still, I’m not doing too bad myself in the figure department, I’m five foot five, got a Katie Holmes brunette bob crop, though I’m a tad big bummed – or should I say bootylicious – compared to Maddie. Effortlessly she fits into a size 10 Diesel jean, and bounces on top with a luscious 34D bust.

  To this minute I’m still stunned she hasn’t been whisked off her dainty fake Manolos by some hunky Brad Pitt type. On drunken nights we tell each other that if we don’t find our knights in white Porsches by the time we’re forty, we’ll become lesbians and adopt Chinese babies. A notion that is secretly starting to scare Maddie big time, as she’s convinced herself that she’s running out of fresh playmates.

  Third in command – after Maddie and me – is Parker. As I’m a girl who loves to accessorize he’s my must-have pink pal. Although he’ll declare, ‘The HOMO’s in the house’, he thinks he’s straight. Though still fancies men. Go figure?

  Disillusioned with the gay scene, he prefers to trawl the straight bars with me as it’s ‘more of a challenge’. Yes, we often fancy the same guys, though I tend to lose interest when Parker pipes up, ‘He’s definitely gay. I could so have him!’ Although he doesn’t like to admit it, he’s a total star-fucker, and if ever there was a man who wanted to use his gaydar to discover big Hollywood name stars, it’s him. He’s forever in waiting for the right moment to pounce. Bless. And yes, occasionally he does get lucky. It’s just as well Ireland has a thriving film industry.