Sweet Temptation

by Lucy Diamond

  It was then that it really hit me, what I’d done. I thought of Matt, who’d been expecting to see me earlier, who’d always made a point of asking for me specifically at the salon, one of my most loyal and lovely customers. Now I’d let him down. I remembered how I’d promised Lauren that I’d sort out her agency’s pampering session, as if I was some kind of big-shot. I’d let her down as well.

  And worst of all, I wasn’t going to get my wedding this year either …

  Oh God. It had all gone so wrong so quickly. I had ruined everything.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Sauce

  Lauren

  ‘Come on, then,’ I said to Jess as she, Maddie and I sat down in our usual corner of the pub. ‘Tell your Aunty Lauren all about it.’

  It was FatBusters night and Jess had spent the entire session with a face like a slapped arse. I’d been looking forward to seeing her again after our ace night salsa dancing together, but I’d hardly recognized her when I walked into the room. Gone was the shy smile and eager-to-please attitude. She just sat there, looking at her lap, shoulders bowed over as if she was carrying the world and his fat wife on them.

  I’d parked my bum next to hers. ‘Everything all right?’ I’d asked.

  She’d shaken her head and, to my horror, I could see tears brimming in her eyes. ‘Terrible,’ she’d said in a croaky voice.

  ‘Are you ill?’ I’d asked. Her face certainly had a deathly pallor and her eyes were red and sore-looking.

  She’d shaken her head again, the tears threatening to spill with the movement. ‘No,’ she’d said. ‘Just … having a crap time.’

  That wretched bloke of hers, I’d guessed. He’d sounded a bit of a prat whenever she’d spoken about him, and I really didn’t like the way she jumped to attention each time he phoned, as if she was some kind of minion at his beck and call. I’d hesitated, unsure of what to say (better not slag him off, Lauren) and wishing Maddie would show up. She would know what to do.

  In the absence of Maddie, though, I’d had to say something, so I’d taken Jess’s hand and squeezed it. ‘Let’s go to the pub after this, yeah?’ I said. ‘You can tell me all about it then.’ As long as you don’t cry, I’d added nervously in my head. I wasn’t very good with tears; I never managed to say the right sort of thing when people started blubbing on me.

  And so here we were in the pub, the three of us, and I’d barely got the question out when those tears started rolling down Jess’s cheeks. ‘Everything’s gone wrong,’ she sobbed. ‘I don’t know what to do-o-o-o.’

  ‘Oh, love!’ Maddie said in surprise, putting an arm around her immediately. ‘What’s happened?’

  Jess didn’t speak for a few moments, just let herself be hugged into Maddie’s huge squashy bosoms and cried. Then she wiped her eyes, looking awkward. ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘I’m all right. Just …’ She sighed.

  He’s left her, I thought. The rotten bastard.

  ‘Take your time,’ Maddie soothed. ‘Get your breath back.’

  Jess sniffed. ‘Sorry,’ she said again. ‘Everything’s happened at once. I’ve lost my job, Charlie’s postponed the wedding, I’ve gone off the wagon with my diet …’

  ‘Whoa, whoa!’ I cried. ‘One at a time. You’ve lost your job? Since when?’

  ‘Friday morning,’ she said, looking shame-faced. ‘And Lauren, I’m really sorry, I’ve let you down, I never got to … to …’ She started crying again. ‘I never got to speak to my boss about your agency, and …’

  ‘Hey, don’t worry about that,’ I said. Bless her. I dug a tissue out of my pocket and handed it to her. ‘You haven’t let me down at all – it was only an idea, don’t worry. So what happened?’

  She told the story haltingly, about her friend turning up, and the bitchy manager putting her oar in, and then how she’d finally lost her rag and stormed out of the place.

  ‘And Charlie’s really mad with me, and says we can’t afford to get married now,’ she finished with a sob. ‘I’m starting to think we’ll never get married.’

  ‘Oh, darling, I’m sure you will,’ Maddie said sympathetically, rubbing Jess’s heaving back. ‘That does sound like a shitty few days, though,’ she added. ‘How easy will it be for you to get another job, do you think?’

  Jess pulled a face. ‘I dunno,’ she said. ‘There’s nothing going at the moment. I’ve been looking at all the job websites and haven’t seen a single beautician vacancy there. And I’m not going to get a reference from the salon now, either. Not after I walked out.’ She blew her nose and sighed heavily. ‘I’ll be cleaning the streets at this rate. I’m such an idiot.’

  ‘No you’re not,’ Maddie said at once. ‘You’re not at all. Something will come up, I’m certain. A lovely girl like you, you’re bound to get another job really quickly, Jess.’ She thought. ‘Have you got any secretarial skills? We’re often looking for temps at the station. I could pull a few strings.’

  But Jess was shaking her head dolefully. ‘Nope,’ she said. ‘I can’t type, I can’t add up, I wouldn’t have a clue where to start with office work.’ She sighed again. ‘Painting nails and gluing on false eyelashes, that’s all I’m good for.’

  My brain began whirring as an idea came to me. ‘Hang on a sec,’ I said slowly, thinking it through. ‘You know, I’d still be interested in some pampering sessions for my clients. Makeovers, too, for the ones who need a bit of help.’

  She blanched. ‘Well … Louisa hates my guts, even more now that I’ve left her short-handed, I bet, so you’re probably better off not telling her that you know me,’ she said, looking apologetic.

  ‘I don’t mean with that old bag,’ I told her. ‘I mean, with you, you nana! How about it? I’m sure I can get you lots of clients, Jess.’ The ideas were coming thick and fast now. ‘We could offer people a pre-date package – they could come into the office and get their nails done by you, or a tension-busting massage or something … Or you could visit them at home, or …’

  She had stopped crying, but looked nervous. Suspicious, even, as if it were too good to be true. I could almost see her wondering what the catch was. ‘I don’t know …’ she said, biting her lip.

  ‘Well, I do,’ I told her firmly. ‘I think it’s a brilliant idea. You might as well give it a try while you’re looking for another job – keep some money coming in. And you never know, you might decide you really like being your own boss …’

  She was still chewing away on that bottom lip of hers, but a hopeful light had come back into her eyes, at least. ‘Do you really think it would work?’ she asked.

  ‘Definitely!’ I told her. I wasn’t just stringing her along, either; I felt quite excited about the whole scheme. ‘I think we could be onto a winner here, Jess. I’ve got more clients than you could shake a … a mascara wand at right now. And everyone needs a bit of pampering before their hot date, don’t they?’ I held out a hand. ‘Do we have a deal? Are we looking at a Lauren-and-Jess production here?’

  She smiled, her cheeks pink, and shook my hand. ‘We have a deal,’ she said. ‘Oh, Lauren, that’s brilliant. I’ll work out some charges, put together a list of what I can do …’

  ‘And I can help too,’ Maddie put in enthusiastically. ‘I’m sure I can get you some free publicity on the show, if we come up with a good angle for a story.’

  Jess’s eyes were sparkling and she was sitting up straighter now, looking more excited than I’d ever seen her.

  ‘Oh my goodness,’ she said. ‘I could really do this, couldn’t I? I’ve been giving out freebies for years to mates, and …’

  ‘Well, start charging them,’ I told her firmly. ‘Immediately.’

  She sipped her drink. ‘Actually … Shelley, my friend, the one who was pretending to be Daisy, she’s been phoning up, apologizing and saying that she and the girls want to book in for some treatments with me, paid treatments, I mean. I’ve never ever charged them before, but—’

  ‘Do it,’ I interrupted. ‘And make sure you charge
this Shelley double for getting you in the poo in the first place.’

  Jess smiled. ‘Well, that’s what she said, actually. She’s really, really sorry for mucking things up and says she blames herself for me quitting my job, although, to be honest, I was wound up so tight by Louisa by then that it was just the final straw. It would have happened another day, if not then.’ She shrugged, and the sadness came back into her eyes for a moment. ‘But yeah, Shelley said that she and two other mates will pay for the most expensive treatments I can give them, seeing as they’ve had so many free manicures and facials from me before.’

  ‘There you go, then,’ Maddie said. ‘Your first customers. And come to think of it, I could really do with a facial myself …’

  ‘And I’d love a back massage,’ I put in, whipping out my diary. ‘So when can you fit us in?’

  She blinked. ‘What, seriously?’

  ‘Too right,’ Maddie said, and grinned at her. ‘Better start drawing up your price list, girl. You’re in demand already!’

  ‘And don’t forget to print up some business cards,’ I reminded her. ‘We can both dish them out next time we go salsa dancing, right?’

  She laughed, looking rather dazed, as if she still couldn’t quite believe what we were saying.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘Both of you. You’re amazing. What would I do without you?’

  The next few months flew by. Every time Maddie, Jess and I had our Monday drink in the Feathers, we all seemed to be saying the same thing: I’m so busy! Jess’s business was really taking off since Maddie’s radio show had featured her in a slot called ‘Born in the Storm’ – a piece about new companies starting up during the recession. She was getting heaps of work through me, too, and the punters loved her and kept going back for more. I could see why. I’d had a massage, a facial and a manicure with her by now, and she’d done a bloody good job each time. It wasn’t just that she was skilled on the old techniques, it was her manner as well – she had such a gentle kindness about her, it made the treatment feel that bit more luxurious. As well as all of that, she’d been thrilled when a mate and ex-colleague of hers, Phoebe, had started sneakily passing Jess’s phone number to lots of her former clients from the salon. They’d missed her light touch, and were now loyally defecting to her new one-woman beauty business. So she seemed to be doing brilliantly and was really happy – well, apart from the wedding thing, that was. The wedding that was still postponed indefinitely due to ‘lack of funds’, despite all the cash that Jess had rolling in. The more I heard about this Charlie bloke, the more I wished Jess would ditch him. He sounded a total waste of space.

  Maddie too seemed to be slowly getting back on her feet after the awful summer she’d had. The weight continued to drop off her, and she had a huge following on the radio who tuned in every week to hear how she was doing with her fitness plan. She’d even started getting a few fan letters, she confessed to us with a giggle. There was still this air of tired sadness about her, though, a wistfulness in her eyes, and I knew she missed her mum badly. You could see it in the way she carried herself when she thought nobody was looking, a sort of beaten-down mournfulness as if her grief was almost too much for her to bear. I really felt for her, but never quite knew what to say. I’d never gone through a bereavement; I could only compare it to when I’d lost Brendan, and that was bad enough.

  As for me, I was working my butt off. I’d arranged a salsa event with Francesca which went down an absolute bomb with my clients – a sex-bomb in fact. I’d never seen so much passionate snogging at the end of the hot and steamy dance session, and was seriously thinking of asking Francesca if we could organize a monthly ‘singles salsa night’ between us. I was also holding regular speed-dating nights with a ‘Beauty Bar’ run by Jess, which were going down a storm. The irony, of course, was that while I was sorting out all these people’s love lives, my own was as dismal as ever, despite Patrick’s prediction.

  Then, at the beginning of December, on a day so cold I had thermal underwear on and a granny shawl over my knees, I got a call.

  ‘Lauren?’

  I gulped. I’d know that voice anywhere. Obviously, though, so as not to come across as a mad stalker type, I pretended I didn’t.

  ‘Yes, this is Lauren speaking. How may I help you?’ I said brightly, hoping my voice wasn’t trembling.

  ‘I don’t know if you remember me …’ He had to be kidding. Like I could have forgotten? ‘… but it’s Joe Smith here. I was one of your clients back in the summer and then met someone … but it hasn’t worked out. So I was wondering …’ He cleared his throat nervously.

  ‘Ah. You’d like to go back on our books? Of course,’ I said, feeling so hot with excitement that I half expected my thermal knickers to spontaneously combust. ‘Why don’t you come in for a chat and I can show you some of the ladies’ profiles we’ve got currently.’

  ‘Great,’ he said. ‘I’d love to.’

  ‘YES !’ I shouted, leaping up and punching the air after I’d put down the receiver, having arranged a time for him to come in the very next day. It would mean three back-to-back appointments, which I didn’t really like to do, but the sooner I got Joe Smith back in my sights, the better. Serena the dolly-bird was history – what a result. Now I just had to pick photographs of my least beautiful clients to show him, and with a bit of luck he’d turn that liquid gaze upon me and say, ‘Actually, Lauren …’

  Oh yes.

  I barely slept that night, trying to decide what on earth I should wear. Definitely not big thermal pants and a granny shawl, for starters. The problem was, half my clothes were too big for me these days, and I’d been so mad-busy with work that I hadn’t had a lot of time to buy replacements. There were my pre-fat clothes, sure, that I’d worn back when I was with Brendan, but … surely I couldn’t get into those yet?

  At two in the morning, when I still couldn’t get to sleep for images of a buff, naked Sexy Joe Smith sliding insistently through my mind, I ended up throwing off the covers, switching on the bedside lamp and whipping through the contents of my wardrobe to find all my size twelve to fourteen stuff at the back. Probably won’t fit, Lauren. Don’t get carried away, I told myself.

  All the same, my heart was leaping like an overexcited salmon as I plucked the hangers from the rack and laid them on the bed. Ahhh … that gorgeous dark green White Stuff dress I’d worn on my first date with Brendan – a lovely winter dress with its long sleeves and thick jersey material decorated with a pale flower print. I hadn’t worn that for a long, long time; hadn’t been able to squeeze my fat ass into it for donkey’s years, you could say. But now …

  I held it up against my body, draping it over my flannel pyjamas (hey, you can wear what you want when you sleep alone every night), and looked at my reflection in the mirror. Oooh, I’d forgotten just how pretty it was, how confident I’d felt wearing it as I stepped out to meet Brendan for the first time. It gave great cleavage too, this dress. Brendan had barely been able to look me in the eye the whole evening.

  Oh, sod it, I was going to try it on – I couldn’t stop myself. Even though it was Baltic cold and the middle of the night. I just needed to know.

  I yanked off my pyjama top, shivering as the freezing air hit my bare chest, and pulled the dress over my head, hardly daring to breathe as the material slithered down my body. I turned to look at myself in the mirror … and gasped.

  Wow. It fitted again. It actually bloody fitted me again. Okay, so it looked a bit kooky worn with pyjama bottoms – I kicked them off hurriedly, barely noticing the goose pimples that were springing up all over my bare legs – but … Wow.

  I turned to look at myself from the side and tried to get a back view over my shoulder. ‘Look at me,’ I whispered to Eddie, who was curled up at the end of the bed. His ears were pricked into cross furry points at all this unexpected midnight activity, and he was doing his fiercest not-happy cat scowl. I didn’t care. ‘Really, Eddie, look,’ I urged him excitedly.

  Last t
ime I’d tried to put this dress on, I’d almost bust the seams at the waist and along my arms, and my flab had bulged through the material in unsightly lumps. I’d pulled it off in horror, but the disgusting image had seared itself onto my retinas. What a blob you look, Lauren! I’d thought, hanging the dress up again and shoving it miserably to the back of the wardrobe.

  That had all changed now. The blob was no more. Thanks to all my salsa dancing, my arms looked toned and lean in their jade-green covering, and the rolls of flab that had strained the stitching around the waist had vanished. With a pair of high heels, a big chunky necklace and a few blasts of Chanel No. 5, I was going to look a million dollars tomorrow.

  I blew my reflection a kiss. The old Lauren was back in business, and it felt bloody marvellous. ‘Nice to see you again,’ I said to myself.

  Then I carefully hung up the dress and went back to bed, falling asleep almost straight away, with a big Cheshire cat smile on my face.

  ‘Hello there, Joe. How are things?’

  He kissed me on the cheek, his hand lingering on my back for a few seconds. It felt fabulous, as if that was where his hand belonged. For a wild moment I wished I’d squirted some superglue there so he could never take it away again. He looked particularly handsome, in an olive-green collared shirt under his black Harrington jacket (I’ve always loved those) and dark jeans that clung to his perfect bum. Not that I was perving at it or anything.

  ‘Good, thanks,’ he said. ‘Well, you know, hectic at work as usual, but …’ He was staring at me, as if seeing me properly for the first time. ‘You look different, Lauren,’ he said. ‘Have you lost weight?’

  Oh! Ten points to Joe for observation.

  ‘Yeah, I think I’ve lost a few pounds,’ I said casually as I led him to one of our interview rooms. I brushed an imaginary crumb off my dress, my heart pounding as we walked in there together. I’d really made an effort. I’d blow-dried my hair so that it fell in shiny copper waves around my shoulders, and I was wearing a glam jet necklace that looked great with my green dress and black skyscraper heels.