Unsticky

by Sarah Manning

  ‘It’s not your birthday, is it? No, that’s July.’ Vaughn sounded intrigued and not that bothered that Grace was interrupting his wheeler dealer-ing. ‘Am I allowed a clue?’

  ‘Patience, grasshopper,’ Grace said, almost gurgling with glee. ‘I’ll see you at home at seven and don’t be late.’

  ‘I wouldn’t dream of it,’ Vaughn purred. ‘Right, OK, I’ll see you then,’ he added, back in business mode, and Grace rang off so she could call her grandmother, who decided that the occasion merited turning off Woman’s Hour so she could properly express her congratulations.

  Grace was the kind of girl who often got told by complete strangers to ‘Cheer up, love, it might never happen,’ but by the end of the day her cheeks were actually sore from all the grinning and beaming. Even Lily had told Grace to, ‘Stop smiling so much. It’s freaking me out,’ like she had the sole copyright on being the office sunbeam.

  But what the hell. Life wasn’t just good. It was fucking good. As soon as she thought that, as ever Grace tried to unthink it before she ruined it. ‘Be more emo,’ she told herself sternly as she opened the front door and called out, ‘Anyone home?’

  For a moment, she thought Vaughn might still be at the gallery, but he suddenly appeared in a doorway. ‘Grace!’ he exclaimed. ‘I wasn’t expecting you for at least another half-hour.’

  ‘Kiki said I could go early because I was getting on her nerves.’ Grace stretched her arms and by the time she’d worked out all her tube travel-related kinks, Vaughn was standing in front of her so she could wind them around his neck. ‘Guess what?’

  ‘What?’ he asked suspiciously. ‘You said something about a celebration. Has Coco Chanel come back from the grave with a new collection?’

  Grace squeezed him tight until Vaughn actually whimpered as if she was hurting him. ‘No, it’s even better than that. I’ve been promoted. I’m Skirt’s new senior stylist!’

  This feeling happy thing must be contagious because Vaughn looked like everything in his world was sunshine and frolicking puppies and ice cream. ‘That’s wonderful,’ he said, taking her hands and kissing them. ‘Tell me what happened and don’t skip anything.’

  They stood in the hall as Grace gave Vaughn a verbatim account, which consisted of a lot of, ‘Well, then I said . . . and then she said . . . so I said . . .’ but when Grace got to her favourite part where she’d renegotiated her salary and job title, Vaughn picked her up and spun her around as she shrieked in delighted surprise.

  ‘I’m so proud of you,’ he said, putting her down again but keeping his arms round her waist. ‘And you’re not taking me out to celebrate. This is my treat.’

  ‘No, let me take you out,’ Grace protested. ‘Hey, I would never have argued my way to a better deal if I hadn’t learned how to do it from you.’

  Vaughn shook his head. ‘Absolutely not. Where do you want to go? Shall I see if I can get us a table at The Wolseley? What are you in the mood for?’ Then his hands slid down until they were cupping her arse and actually that was what she was in the mood for.

  ‘I’d rather go to bed,’ Grace said simply as she brushed against Vaughn slowly and deliberately, and felt him hardening, but when she glanced up to make sure that they were on the same page, he was giving her a quizzical look that wasn’t at all convincing.

  ‘Are you tired?’ He stepped back and held Grace at arm’s length, when she tried to follow. ‘You should have said.’

  Grace shrugged out of her jacket and let it fall to the floor. Then she started unbuttoning her blouse, Vaughn’s eyes voraciously following the steady movement of her fingers. It wasn’t until she slipped the blouse off her shoulders and threw it aside, that he took her hand.

  ‘Maybe we both need a power nap,’ he decided, his eyes darkening as he bent his head to kiss her.

  Grace never understood how the mood could shift from teasing to a desperate frenzied need to get closer in the time it took for Vaughn to initiate that first kiss. That she’d be pulling at him and sliding her hand between the buttons of his shirt to curve her hand over the thrum of his heart, while her other hand stroked his cock and felt it quicken beneath her fingers. Vaughn would tug her the few short steps to the nearest sofa or bed, while drawing circles and glyphs on her skin with the tips of his fingers.

  This time, both of them ended up in a tangle of limbs on the hall floor.

  ‘I’ll take you out tomorrow night,’ Vaughn promised, when they were cuddled up on the couch in the lounge and both rooting around in the same Chinese takeout container for the last of the moo shu pork. He let Grace prise the last piece of meat out with her chopsticks and watched as she popped it into her mouth. ‘Has it been like this before for you?’

  Grace held up her hand as she chewed and swallowed. ‘Has what?’

  ‘The sex.’

  She didn’t blush any more when they talked about sex. Besides, the only light was coming from a lamp on each of the end-tables and she was still damp from the shower and her skin, hidden by one of Vaughn’s shirts, was covered in red marks and not-quite bruises from his biting kisses. It was a post-sex intimacy that would last until morning when Grace woke up to find the other side of the bed empty because Vaughn was doing a complete circuit of Hampstead Heath as he worked off the noodles.

  ‘No, but you know that,’ Grace said. ‘It didn’t even come halfway as close.’ She wasn’t going to throw the question back at him because she always tried really hard not to think about the other women. Grace knew that Vaughn didn’t have any complaints. He certainly gave her rave reviews during, anyway.

  ‘We got off to a rather rocky start, but it always feels special with you,’ Vaughn said quietly, placing the empty container on the coffee-table so he could lift Grace’s legs on to his lap. ‘Not just the sex.’

  Now a definite blush crept into Grace’s cheeks. ‘Well, right back at you.’ She scooched over so she was in his lap and tugged Vaughn’s arms round her. ‘I never thought I’d meet someone who’d find out about my heavy emotional baggage and still want to stick around.’

  She rested her head against Vaughn’s shoulder, feeling sleepy now that her tummy was full, and she was almost drifting into a doze and thought he was too from the steady rise and fall of his chest, when he cleared his throat. ‘I just want you to know that I’m very glad that we found each other.’

  Grace liked how he’d phrased it. Because they had both been alone and a little bit broken. Then they’d bumped into each other and something had finally stuck.

  ‘Me too,’ she said, and her eyelids were drooping now and she was fighting not to fall asleep because she had one last thing she wanted to say. ‘Don’t know about you, but I was so sick of feeling lost.’

  chapter thirty-five

  A couple of days later, Vaughn had to fly to New York. Grace hated it when he went overseas midweek, not just because she couldn’t join him, but because yeah, she missed him when he wasn’t there. It was a big house for just one person and it was hard to come home to all those empty rooms and no Vaughn to use as a body-sized pillow while she watched TV. They hadn’t been going out so much lately, but Grace didn’t mind. There was something very cosy about camping out in the den on the second floor while the April rain lashed against the huge windows.

  Grace was cursing that same April rain the next afternoon as she stood on a beach in Dungeness and cast a baleful eye at the grey skies, which were bulging with the threat of an imminent downpour. It was her first solo shoot as a newly minted senior stylist; just Grace, Celia the intern and the photographer, Michael, who’d assisted on the New York shoot back in August. It was meant to be a jolly day out to shoot still-life beach accessories in a slightly gothic setting and possibly get in a couple of rounds of mini-golf if they finished early. However, finishing early wasn’t on the agenda any more. They’d been there since eight that morning and hadn’t managed to get a single shot in the poor light, which seemed to be fading by the minute.

  After checking the weather f
orecast on her BlackBerry, Grace made her first executive decision - that they’d find a cheap B&B, then get up hideously early to try again tomorrow, when the BBC promised clear skies and good visibility. There was nothing else to do but drive into Littlestone, hole up in a pub and sample the local scrumpy.

  Several hours later, Grace was lying under a candlewick bedspread listening to Celia snoring in the bed next to her and wishing that the room would stop spinning, when her BlackBerry rang.

  She answered the phone with a sleepy, ‘Hey. What time is it in New York?’

  ‘It’s nearly seven,’ Vaughn answered, and there was something about the way he said it, so even the transatlantic static couldn’t mask the lifeless quality to his words, that had Grace wide awake and gripping the sheet in terror.

  ‘What’s wrong? Why do you sound like that? Shit, has someone died?’

  ‘Nobody’s died,’ Vaughn snapped and it was his annoyed voice, which by now was like an old, familiar friend. ‘I’m just in the middle of back-to-back meetings.’

  Grace settled back down with a relieved sigh. ‘Sucks to be you. You’ll never guess where I am . . .’ She waited for Vaughn to play along but there was silence, which was unnerving and needed to be filled. ‘In this crappy little B and B. Celia’s asleep in the next bed so I have to whisper. Anyway, it’s been pissing down with rain so we’re going to try and shoot tomorrow morning. What’s the weather like in New York?’

  ‘Warm.’ Vaughn cleared his throat. ‘Grace, I know this may come as a shock, but I’ve decided we should bring our arrangement to an end.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Grace asked tremulously, because she really wasn’t sure. Did he want the arrangement to become a relationship? Which it kind of already was, so what was the point of having to label it?

  ‘I think it’s best to quit while we’re ahead, so I’m giving you a month’s notice.’

  ‘A month’s notice of what? What the hell are you talking about?’ Grace demanded, sitting up. She couldn’t believe what Vaughn was saying. Not now. Not like this. Not when—

  But all she heard was Vaughn mutter, ‘How many more times do you want me to repeat it?’

  ‘Why? What have I done wrong? Why are you doing this, because the other night you said you were glad that we’d found—’

  ‘Grace.’ Sometimes Vaughn could make the sound of her name last for hours. ‘I haven’t got the time to get into this now. I’m couriering over a letter; you’ll have it tomorrow when you get back to my house.’

  He hadn’t said, ‘When you get back home,’ and it was all beginning to sink in with a horrible clarity. ‘You can’t just hit me with something like this. We need to talk—’

  ‘I think in the circumstances, it’s best if you don’t fly out to join me this weekend,’ Vaughn said in the same flat, unemotional voice. ‘I really do have to go.’

  ‘Stop interrupting me so you don’t have to listen to what I’m saying,’ Grace exclaimed in a fierce whisper because Celia was still snoring lightly and completely unaware that Grace’s world was coming to an abrupt end. ‘You can’t just—’

  ‘I have to go into my next meeting. Read the letter and we’ll talk when I get back to London on Monday evening.’

  Vaughn cut the connection before Grace could start screaming or crying or call him every swearword she knew. She had to settle for hurling her BlackBerry so hard across the room that she shattered the casing and woke Celia up with a startled cry.

  There was a new BlackBerry waiting for Grace when she got back to London, along with a letter that had been propped against the kettle. That hurt the most, actually: Vaughn knew her so well that he’d told Madeleine or the housekeeper or one of his minions from the gallery to leave it there because the first thing Grace would do when she got home was make a cup of tea.

  The letter told her even less than Vaughn’s call.

  Dear Grace

  I regret to inform you that I have no choice but to formally dissolve our partnership. As per the contract between us dated 5 September 2008, your notice period is for 30 days from the date of this letter.

  We’ll discuss the finer details in due course.

  Kind regards

  Vaughn

  It was so cold that Grace found herself shivering. Vaughn had held her when she cried and laughed at her lame jokes and always let her have the last spoonful of the puddings they’d shared - and he didn’t care about any of it. He was ending everything they’d had and everything they still could have had, with three terse sentences. He was dumping her. Vaughn was no different from any of the other men who’d dumped her. In fact, he was just the same: a spineless wanker who couldn’t even come up with a good reason for kicking Grace’s sorry arse to the kerb.

  Now she remembered that last evening they’d spent together and put a new spin on words that, at the time, had made her feel cherished, wanted. ‘I just want you to know that I’m very glad that we found each other.’ I just want you to know that it was good while it lasted, but actually I’m done with you.

  As Grace dunked her tea bag eleven times because she needed strong tea even more than she needed a stiff drink, she tried to quiet the angry questions that were ricocheting around her head and find some perspective. Because really, she’d always known that their arrangement was a temporary thing, but ever since she’d got her feet underneath Vaughn’s Corbusier dining table, Grace had let herself get too comfortable. She had thought that changing her hair, wearing a few designer dresses and learning some key facts about Abstract Expressionism made a difference. But she was still the same Grace, and actually finding some perspective sucked and just made her feel even worse. Her time could be put to much better use, she decided. She could cry later.

  Starting at the top of the house, Grace methodically worked her way down, looking for clues that would explain why Vaughn was ending things. After all, he was stuck in New York and not answering any of her increasingly abusive voice messages, so what other choice did she have than to hunt for traces of his other women? It was surprisingly easy because Vaughn didn’t lock drawers or cabinets because he had nothing to hide, apart from a few bars of Green & Black’s chocolate that she bet Gustav didn’t know about.

  Or was it just that Vaughn didn’t do sentimentality? He bought art and sold it. Bought property, then gutted its insides and period details in favour of sleek lines and stark minimalism. He had arrangements with women and didn’t keep photographs or keepsakes at the end of each affair. Because nothing and no one mattered to him.

  As Grace refolded the freshly laundered pile of towels she’d dismantled in the basement gym, she knew she was acting like a certifiable crazy woman but felt powerless to stop. She needed a sign that all those nights spent in each other’s arms, all the times they’d shared a glass of brandy or a bowl of chips or ruffled each other’s hair hadn’t just been empty gestures. She had to mean something to him, in the same way that Vaughn had stopped being simply an arrogant bastard who kept her in a style to which she’d very quickly become accustomed, and had become someone whom she was glad to have placed right in the very centre of her life.

  When her snooping failed to turn up anything, even a receipt for the tomato-red Marc Jacobs bag that he’d bought her all those months ago, Grace did what anyone else would do in the same situation.

  She called Alex.

  chapter thirty-six

  Alex wanted to have lunch at Cecconi’s and he wanted Grace to book the table.

  He was already there when Grace arrived, shamelessly rubber-necking a B-list actor on the next table and drinking a Bloody Mary. Grace noticed his red-rimmed eyes and wondered if he ever slept for more than four hours at a time. In a couple of years all the late nights and the morning afters would have eaten the pretty right off his face.

  Grace kissed Alex’s proffered cheek, handed over her jacket to the waiter and sat down. ‘So, how have you been?’ she asked, and she guessed that her question lacked sincerity because Alex wriggled in his chair. />
  ‘Just so you know, I was completely misquoted in the Mail,’ he said quickly. ‘I would never say anything like that about you.’

  ‘I’d forgotten all about that,’ Grace assured him, though she hadn’t at all. But she wanted to establish a mood here - that she was in control of the situation and she could shut Alex down in a heartbeat if she needed to, so she opened her menu. ‘Do you know what you want? The tuna salad is amazing but the gnocchi are really good too.’

  They ordered lunch and a vodka martini each and swapped gossip about people they both knew, until they’d exhausted that topic of conversation because there was only so much you could say about people you’d only ever spoken to for five minutes at a time. Alex was fiddling with his cutlery when Grace folded her arms and said, ‘I want to know about his other women.’