‘Jesus! Are you setting me up on a blind date?’ she squeals excitedly. ‘For real?’
‘Well yeah, if you want to call it that. You don’t mind, do you?’
‘Are you kidding me? Once he’s straight, single and not recently paroled, then he passes the Jules test.’
‘How come you’re single anyway? Surely you must have boyfriends back home in…what’s the name of that place you’re from again…Stickens, isn’t it?’
She sips on her champagne, starts playing with one of her jet black, springy curls, then launches off on her favourite rant – the complete and utter lack of eligible guys aged between eighteen and thirty in the greater Waterford area. Sparing time to elaborate on her pet theory that local girls like her are a bit like the women left behind during World War One, when a whole generation of young men were wiped out in the trenches and so there was no one left for them to marry.
I can see Jack smiling at all her youthful high spirits and harmlessly insane chatter and he roars laughing when he offers her the plate of olives again and she waves them away saying, ‘Are you kidding me? If I’m being matched up on a date tonight, then that’s the last thing I’m eating.’
The drive takes the guts of two hours, so it’s close to eight in the evening by the time we finally do arrive. Already twilight and beautifully cool…perfect weather for a barbeque. Truth be told, I’m a bit tipsy from all the champagne and I think Jules must be too because when we do finally arrive at the beach house, she starts guffawing and asks Jack which friend of his exactly owns the place? Simon Cowell, perhaps?
As we stagger out of the limo, the sheer size of the place takes my breath away. Because this is not just a beach house, this is the Elton John of beach houses; neo-colonial, with white Doric columns dotted all around it and a flight of granite stairs that lead up to a deluxe-sized front door. Honest to God, it’s as though the owner saw Gone with the Wind once too often and decided to just copy the architectural design for Tara, lock, stock and barrel.
The house has seven bedrooms; ‘cosy’ according to Jack, who’s stayed here many times before and who gives us a quick guided tour of the place. Then he finds his way to a giant double fridge in the kitchen and produces yet another bottle of champagne. ‘A little something to get us into the party mood,’ as he says.
Meanwhile Jules and I gape around the place with me thinking…you call this a kitchen? Yeah, right. Kitchen-cum-ballroom, more like. I’m not messing, there are actual chandeliers hanging over the breakfast bar. Chandeliers. In a shagging beach house.
With an expert crack, Jack opens the bottle, pours us yet more glasses of fizz, then tells us that the barbeque at his friend’s house is probably in full swing by now and we really should get changed and make a move. So we bring our drinks upstairs with us as he guides us to our bedrooms.
My room, by the way, would comfortably sleep about seventeen, no problem. The ensuite bathroom alone is larger than my entire little blonde apartment back in Manhattan. It’s breathtaking though, with long French windows and a tiny little balcony that overlooks the sea and the velvety blue sky. And it’s been so long since I’ve heard the sound of waves, that it instantly relaxes and soothes me, half-drunk and all as I am.
I have a lightning quick shower in the mistaken belief that it’ll sober me up a bit, then change into a little red and black summer dress and a matching pair of pumps that I got on sale in Filene’s Basement, guided there by who else but Blythe, the Discount Queen. The usual half can of serum I need to get my hair to behave itself won’t work, so I just tie it up and lash on a bit of lipstick, thinking, ah sure I’ll fecking well do. In low light, I’ll pass. Who’s looking at me anyway? And who cares?
I bump into Jack on the staircase, looking as elegantly cool as he always does, in jeans and a long white linen shirt and he kisses me lightly on the forehead. An intimate gesture but I’m drunk enough to let it pass. Then he grabs me by both hands and twirls me round, checking out the red and black strappy sundress.
‘Love it,’ he grins, ‘like I always say, red really is your colour.’
‘You don’t think I look a bit like a blood clot?’
Shit. I think I’m starting to slur my words a bit now. And him twirling me around just gave me a dose of the helicopters.
‘You’re beautiful,’ is all he says, still holding onto both my hands, not letting go.
‘Truly beautiful. And so blissfully unaware of it.’
And still his cold hand is gripping mine.
Oh bollocks, I think, pulling away from him. I wonder if Jules could be right after all.
And if I’m in real trouble here.
Anyroadup, Jules finally emerges from her bedroom all set for her blind date and I have to say, looking gorgeous in a little baby-doll yellow spotty dress that she bought in Gap; very sexy and so short that only a nineteen-year-old could properly carry it off. On me, it would look like I’d left the house in my nightie.
And so the three of us stroll across the beach to the barbeque, which is about ten houses down from us, but you’d know the party house a mile off from the dozens of coloured lanterns that are blazing away on the porch and the thumpy music that’s pumping away. It’s a complete throng when we get there and there’s even an impromptu dance floor right on the beach in front of the house.
Next thing, I feel Jack gripping my bare arm with his ice cold hand and steering me inside the house, in the general direction of the bar. Jules is in tow, giving him instructions on what he’s to say and more importantly, what he’s not to say when he introduces her to her blind date. More champagne arrives, and I’m seriously starting to feel light-headed and woozy now; I’m unconsciously swaying to the music and only dying to kick off my shoes and dance out on the beach, where it seems like the real party is in full swing.
Jules’s blind date appears, one Freddy Masterson, who seems like a perfect gentleman, says all the right things, makes all the right moves, but there’s just one tiny hitch. At a rough estimate, he’s probably pushing mid-forties, but not in a sexy older guy with salt-and-pepper-hair like Richard Gere way. No, I think drunkenly to myself, Freddy would be more in the Ed Harris, sweaty, baldy mould…and even he lets it slip that he’s got a teenage daughter barely two years younger than Jules. A half hint of a bored eye-roll from her tells me all I need to know about where this is about to go.
Anyway, after a bit of polite chit-chat about how she’s been enjoying Manhattan, I can actually see her eyes beginning to glaze over a bit, so I suggest we go outside into the cool air to dance. She jumps at the chance to escape and as we wend our way through the mill and back outside to the beach she hisses in my ear, ‘I just had a great idea for my first book. A non-fiction called The Official Jules Ferguson Guide to Non-Age Compatible Couples. Whaddya think?’
‘You didn’t think he looked…I dunno…distinguished?’
‘Oh please. Everyone knows distinguished just means ugly with money.’
It’s loud and noisy out here and everyone’s dancing with wild abandonment, barefoot on the beach. We join in and it’s only magical; I can’t remember the last time I actually danced. The music runs through me, my hips, arms, legs waist, my whole body without bothering to consult my brain and I’m just at that wonderful membrane between drunkenness and right before the hangover hits you…and it’s only aaaaa-mazing.
Poor sweaty Freddy comes out to check up on Jules, dabbing his forehead with a hanky and all arms and legs as he dances with her, like a vaguely embarrassing uncle at a family wedding trying to act twenty-five years younger than he is. And I’m running my fingers through my hair and moving and swaying to the beat, having the time of my life, when next thing, I feel an ice cold arm slip around my waist.
I know it’s Jack without even turning round. I know by the coldness of his touch. There couldn’t possibly be two people on earth that bloody freezing.
‘Let’s go for a stroll,’ he has to mouth at me above the thumpy music. ‘There’s something I wa
nt to show you.’
I’m not sober enough to argue so I do as he says and he steers me a good distance further down the beach, where it’s far quieter…and before I know where I am, it’s just the two of us, alone. It’s much darker here too and the further along the beach we walk, the more I begin to stumble drunkenly; the only light now is the dim red dot of the cigarette he’s smoking, exactly parallel to his lips.
He slips an obliging arm around me, steadying me and on we stroll towards a jetty where there’s a yacht moored. I have to squint a bit through the inky blackness to see it up close and that’s when I spot its name painted on the side: The Idle Rich. I laugh at its appropriateness and next thing, Jack’s taken my hand, lacing his thin, bony fingers through mine.
‘I’ve chartered it to take you out sailing tomorrow,’ he grins, ‘if you trust me to behave like a gentleman with you, that is, all alone out in the middle of the Atlantic.’
‘Won’t Jules be with us?’
‘Aren’t you tired of being chaperoned all the time, my dear? I’m desperately fond of the girl, but teenage high spirits can be a tad wearisome after a time. Besides, Freddy wants to take her off to the Lobster Bar for lunch tomorrow, so I’ve effectively commandeered you for myself. For a full afternoon. What luck, I hope you’ll agree?’
Suddenly it’s as though all the champagne finally hits me in one big whoosh, and I know I have to sit down or else I’ll pass out.
‘Here,’ he says, quickly stubbing out his cigarette, grabbing me by the waist and in one expert movement, stretching me down onto the sand. ‘Just sit here for a bit, you’ll be fine. You haven’t eaten anything all evening, that’s all that’s wrong with you.’
He sits down right beside me as my head begins to swim. The whole beach tilts, then rights itself and I want to lie back till the dizziness passes but next thing Jack’s leaning over me, gently laying me down flat on the sand. And he’s close now, so close that I can feel his ice cold breath in my ear, a strange mixture of mints and fags.
‘Annie,’ he murmurs slowly, over and over, ‘Are you OK? Annie…?’
I want to say I’m fine really but before I know what’s going on, before I’ve even got time to react, he’s lying down beside me and suddenly his whispers in my ear have turned into gentle caresses, light as air. He expertly kisses my ears, cheeks and neck over and over, his skin so soft and tender and now his lean, cold body is stretching out on top of mine…stop, I want to say, stop this now, I’m married, I can’t…then a wave of guilt comes crashing down on me when I even invoke Dan’s memory…but what I haven’t accounted for, what’s completely knocked me for six is the huge swell of desire that’s sweeping over me. Next thing, I can feel his bony ribcage taut against me, as his hands run through my hair, down my neck, and then slowly, teasingly onto my breasts, as he cups them in his icy cold, rock hard grip.
It’s as though he’s tantalising me like a maestro now and without wanting to, without even meaning to, I find myself responding, craving for nothing more than his lips on mine, wanting him to press me even closer to him. He’s playing with my hair now, lightly flicking my earlobe with his tongue and beginning to moan softly.
‘You know I want you, Annie…’ he murmurs and I swear his voice is like toffee. ‘And fuck knows I’ve waited long enough for you…’
The tiny part of my brain that’s remotely sober wants to yell at him to let go, but somehow I’ve lost all control over myself. I can barely remember the last time I was touched like this, it was so, so long ago…now it’s like every fibre of my nerve endings are thrilling to his light, delicate, cool touch…and I’m completely powerless.
He must hear the sound of my heart walloping off my ribcage, I think, he must.
His smooth cheek is rubbing against mine now; his long, thin, wiry body stretched out on top of mine and before I know it, my arms are slowly slipping around his neck, locking him to me, my hands running through his fine, silky hair, and I’m moaning with the pure pleasure of it all.
Then a moment later, just when I feel like I’m starting to burn up, his lips are on mine, lightly at first, almost teasingly, then slowly growing sexier and more and more intense, his tongue in my mouth and mine in his, hungrily, greedily kissing each other, neither of us wanting it to stop.
I never saw this coming, never guessed for a second that he could turn me on like this, making me blank out everything except his long, lean body hardening against mine. That sheer chemistry could do this to me. That the attraction between us could be so combustibly dangerous.
Christ, I didn’t even realise I found him this sexy in the first place…I’ve never even kissed anyone except Dan before in my whole life…but all I can think about now is the warm, hot mouth roughly biting my neck, whispering my name over and the cool hands that are expertly unzipping the back of my dress, unhooking my bra as he slowly, tantalisingly moves down to kiss my boobs.
‘You want this too, don’t you?’ he groans thickly and before I know it, he’s spun me over so that now I’m lying on top of him. His hands are rougher now, more urgent, gripping me all over my bare back, my bum, my legs, feeling their way up my thighs, thrilling me with the coolness of his touch. I can’t stop myself from moaning and so is he and it’s hot and getting hotter and heavier and I know I should stop this and yet I can’t and then out of all this madness I hear someone calling out my name.
Clear as a bell.
We break off and look up.
It’s Jules, standing about ten feet away from us, having taken in the whole scene.
On her face is the exact same fight-or-flight expression that you see on startled deer on the Nature Channel.
Jack sits up, for once in his life completely nonplussed. I look over at him, as one of those bizarre, disconnected thoughts strike me: I wish I had a camera.
Jules turns her back on us, strides up the beach and is gone.
Oh Christ, what have I done?
Chapter Thirteen
It’s late the following afternoon when Jules and I get to talk. Really talk, that is. Back home in my apartment, having understandably cut the Hamptons trip short. We’re both unpacking and I’m in the middle of loading the washing machine when she turns to me with eyes that seem to see right through to the back of my brain.
‘I know it’s none of my business, Annie,’ is her opener. ‘You’re on your marriage sabbatical so technically there was no cheating involved. And I don’t even blame you; no one knows better than me that Dan didn’t exactly behave like husband of the year when you were home. But that’s not what’s worrying me.’
‘Hon, I’ve told you over and over how mortified I am about what happened,’ I say, still riddled with guilt and hating every miserable bloody second of it.
Jesus, if Dan ever did that to me…I don’t know what I’d think. Hard to believe that not so long ago, there I was eaten up with worry over the Countess Dracula making moves on him…and look what I went and got up to myself two bottles of champagne later? Worse still is the conversation I know I’m going to have to have with Dan at some point during one of our ‘meet me at the moon’ chats. Because if it’s one thing I know about myself it’s this: the awful, crucifying remorse won’t go away until I brace myself and come clean to him.
Simple as that.
‘I was tipsy and it shouldn’t have happened and I’m sorry that it did. But I can tell you one thing: it most definitely will not happen again.’
‘Oh yes it will,’ she shakes her dark curls gravely.
‘I already told you, hon, I had way too much to drink and…’
‘You only ever do things you want to do when you’re drunk.’
‘Jules, please…’
‘No, you have to listen to me. If I know the Jack Gordons of this world, and I think I’ve seen a fair few in my time…’
‘You have?’
‘Oh shut up, you’re in no position to get smart-alecky with me. Men like Jack are the type who’ll basically drill through concrete to get w
hat they want. And he wants you, no two ways about that. Which is what’s making me sick with worry. All weekend, I could see clear as day this whole other parallel life that you could be leading here, with him. Instead of back home with us. And it’s not just frightening me, Annie, it’s bloody terrifying me. You’re like my sister and I love you and suppose, just suppose that by the end of this year, you decide that you don’t want to come home? No one could blame you for making that decision either, because what’s waiting for you at home? The Mothership whinging at you? The Countess Dracula bitching at you? And then Dan, gone, gone all the time, making you one promise after another and always letting you down. Supposing you say to hell with that, you want to stay here and lead a whole new life with someone else? Then what? You’d be gone out of our lives and I’d never see you again and as for Dan…’
I take my head out of the laundry basket and am about to tell Jules that she’s taken up the tiniest germ of an idea and run wild with it, as per usual.
It’s only when I turn to look up at her, that I realise she’s got tears in her eyes.
Jules’s last weekend in New York and after the disaster of our aborted trip to the Hamptons, this promises to be a good ’un. It’s the Tony awards, broadcast live from Radio City Music Hall and the whole lot of us are like basket cases with the nerves. Barring Liz, that is, who apart from occasionally grunting at me in work, has yet to pass as much as a civil sentence to any one of us.
Because the awards are held on a Sunday night, we’re all in a mad rush after our matinee show to get home and shoehorn ourselves into evening dresses suitable for the poshest black-tie bash any of us have ever been to in our entire lives. And knowing right well that she’d refuse point blank to spend money on herself, we all clubbed together and hired a professional make-up artist to call to Blythe’s apartment, to help get her all dolled up for her big night. But when I say ‘we all’ I mean myself, Alex and Chris. I offered Liz the chance to have her make-up done professionally for the night too, stressing that this was a treat from the rest of us but all I got in return was a) a filthy glare and b) the dressing room door slammed in my face.
Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow Page 26
