Mates, Dates and Pulling Power

by Hopkins, Cathy

  ‘But what will happen if he drops you every week? You’ll never make it.’

  ‘It was just last week. My car was being serviced, but I’ve got it back now and can drive myself.’

  Hhmm. Is gorgeous and has own car, I thought. Not that I am influenced by things like that at all. Not at all. I am deep and beyond material trappings. But . . . hhmm . . . I wonder what kind of car?

  ‘But . . . what are you going to do at the end of the course when you haven’t learned anything about figures?’

  Luke laughed. ‘I shall act dumb. By then, I should have the skills.’ Then he shrugged. ‘Dunno. I’ll think of something.’

  After that, we chatted for a while about acting and films and which he liked and which he hated. As we talked I realised that he knew a lot about them. He mentioned films I’d never heard of and he seemed to know who had directed them and who had produced them. As I listened to him, I began to feel out of my depth, because I watch films just for fun. That awful feeling that I might be shallow and boring came creeping back and I resolved to swot up on who was who and what was what in the film industry. Hhhmm, how can I impress you without revealing that I don’t know half as much about films as you do, I wondered as I stared at his bottom lip and tried to commit it to memory.

  Suddenly what to say was obvious.

  ‘My dad’s a director,’ I blurted out.

  ‘Really? Wow!’ said Luke. ‘Lucky you. Films, TV or documentary?’

  ‘TV mostly. Dramas. But I think he’d like to do a film, you know, for the big screen.’

  Luke nodded. ‘Must be amazing. And there was me rabbiting on about films when you’re the real expert with your dad in the biz.’

  Yeah, right. Me the expert, I thought as I gave him my lips-closed smile.

  ‘I wish my father did something interesting,’ continued Luke. ‘I can’t tell you how much I don’t want to be involved in his restaurant business.’

  ‘But involved how? What does he want you to be? Chef? Manager?’

  ‘Bit of both. That’s how it is in a family business.’

  I couldn’t resist. I stuffed two big bits of bread in front of my teeth in my lower cheeks then attempted my impersonation of Marlon Brando as he was in The Godfather. ‘So, Luca, de family needs you,’ I drawled in an Italian accent.

  He laughed. ‘Excellent,’ he said. ‘Marlon Brando. The Godfather?’

  I nodded and desperately tried to swallow the bread, praying that it hadn’t got caught in my brace. How attractive would that be? Not. I put my hand back over my mouth just in case.

  ‘Can you cook?’ I asked.

  ‘I’m Italian. Course I can.’

  ‘I’m half Italian,’ I said. ‘I can half cook.’ Actually that’s a lie, I can’t cook to save my life, but it made him laugh.

  ‘So you know what it’s like then. Life revolves round the kitchen.’

  ‘Er, yeah. Round the kitchen. Curries, pasta, you name it,’ I said. ‘I can produce a great meal at the drop of a hat.’ Not a complete lie, I thought. All it takes is a quick phone call to the takeaway place and hey presto, voilà, il supperoni.

  Just at that moment, Tony came in so I introduced them along with my quick explanation as to why we look so different. ‘Same dad, different mothers,’ I said. ‘Dad’s where we get the Italian genes from.’

  ‘And she doesn’t mean Armani jeans,’ smiled Tony, then started laughing at his own joke.

  Luke slid out of his seat to let him sit down. ‘And the gift of cooking, I hear,’ he said.

  Tony looked at me quizzically.

  ‘Well, no. Mum can cook as well,’ I said. ‘She’s from Jamaica and does a mean curry.’

  ‘Sounds good,’ said Luke turning to Tony. ‘Your sister was just telling me what a great cook she is.’

  Tony looked surprised. ‘She was?’ I could see that he was about to laugh, but I kicked him under the table and he straightened his face. ‘I mean. Yeah. She is. Always cooking stuff up is our Nesta.’

  Another customer caught Luke’s eye. ‘Won’t be a mo,’ he said as he went to take the man’s order.

  ‘So what do you think?’ asked Tony looking round after he’d gone. ‘Romantic or what? Do you think Lucy will like it?’

  ‘She’ll feel very at home here. It’s kind of a cosy mess, just like the kitchen at her house.’ I looked over at Luke and sighed. ‘And it is possibly the most romantic place I’ve ever been in my whole life . . .’

  Tony glanced over at Luke. ‘Ah. The waiter. That was quick.’

  ‘Luca De Biasi,’ I said. ‘His dad owns the restaurant. He’s doing the acting course I’m doing . . .’

  Tony nodded. ‘Ah, he’s the guy you fell in love with on Wednesday . . .’

  I nodded back. ‘Fate has given me a second chance.’

  ‘And maybe she’ll even give you a third.’ Tony smiled mischievously as Luke came back and handed us menus.

  ‘The lasagne is good tonight,’ said Luke.

  Tony glanced at the menu. ‘Hey, Nesta,’ he said. ‘Why don’t you invite Luke to come and try your unbelievable cookery skills.’

  Whadtt!! I thought, no way. But Luke was looking at me to see my reaction and I didn’t want him to feel that I didn’t want to see him again. Arrghhh. What to do? Um. I know! Agree to it but don’t give a date. Be vague and hopefully he’ll forget about it.

  ‘Yeah sure,’ I said. ‘I’d love to cook for you sometime, Luke.’

  ‘Mum and Dad are out tomorrow night,’ Tony said with a grin. ‘If you’re not busy, would you like to come over then?’

  ‘Yeah. Cool,’ said Luke. ‘I look forward to it.’

  Tony sniggered. ‘Yeah. And I can assure you that it will be an experience you’ll never forget.’

  Tony Costello, you are dead, I thought as I kicked him again under the table.

  Tony’s Top Romantic Places

  • Anywhere candlelit.

  • Biasi’s Italian restaurant.

  • Kenwood on Hampstead Heath on a hot summer’s night when there’s a concert on.

  • Back seat of the movies (still a good one, particularly if it’s a horror movie as the girl will need to hold your hand).

  • Any funky café with big old sofas to sink into.

  • Tony’s bedroom.

  Note from Nesta: this last one only works for Tony . . .

  Chapter 8

  Move over Nigella, there’s a new domestic goddess in town I thought as I lay in a jasmine-scented bath the following evening. Everything was sorted. The table was laid. My chicken curry was cooking nicely in the oven. Mum and Dad were out of the way until after their movie finished. My guests would be arriving in half an hour. (I’d phoned Lucy and begged her to come and join us, so that it wasn’t Luke and me with Tony sitting in the middle having a right laugh.) All I had left to do was light the candles. This entertaining lark is easy peasy, I thought as I lathered my legs with Mum’s Guerlain bath gel.

  ‘Keep it simple,’ Mum’d advised earlier. ‘You don’t want to be in a panic when your guests arrive, so do something you can prepare beforehand and just warm it up when people arrive.’

  She’d been fab and offered to help when I told her of my dilemma. Between the two of us, we’d made a Jamaican curry, my grandmother’s recipe. I thought Luke’d like something different from the Italian meals he must get every night.

  ‘All you have to do is turn on the oven,’ said Mum before she’d left. ‘A hundred and eighty degrees centigrade for an hour and twenty minutes.’

  After my bath, I got changed into my black halter-neck top and black jeans, put on my make-up then lit the candles.

  By the time Luke arrived, the flat looked warm and inviting.

  ‘Wow, this is nice,’ he said as I gave him a quick guided tour. I have to hand it to Mum, I thought, as we went from room to room, she really does know how to create a comfortable atmosphere with her use of warm colours, Moroccan rugs and Eastern artefacts. Luke particularly liked looking a
t Dad’s black and white photos that lined the hall walls. And he spent ages looking at Dad’s film books on the bookshelf in the sitting room. I made a mental note to have a look at some of them myself as the doorbell rang and I went to let Lucy in.

  I felt so grown-up. Like I was playing the part of a hostess at an adult dinner party in a movie. Lucy was a bit shy when she first arrived, as she’s not used to having proper dinner here with candles and the big table in the sitting room set and everything. Usually it’s a slice of pizza on the knees in front of the telly. She soon relaxed though and I could tell she liked Luke because, when he went to look at our CDs, she did a fake swoon with her hand on her heart then gave me the thumbs up.

  I looked at my watch as Luke put my new chill out CD on. ‘Supper should be ready,’ I said as I showed everyone where to sit at the table.

  When I went into the kitchen to get the curry out of the oven, something didn’t feel right. Or should I say, smell right. Whenever Mum cooked it, you could smell the spices and garlic wafting out of the oven long before it was ready. I couldn’t smell anything. I lifted the dish from the oven. Oh noooooo. Cold. It was stone cold. Uncooked. Raw.

  ‘Need a hand?’ asked Tony coming up behind me.

  ‘More than a hand. Blooming oven’s not working.’

  Tony bent over, looked at the oven then laughed. ‘It’s not broken Nesta. You turned the grill on but not the oven.’

  I looked at the switches. The grill symbol was just above the oven symbol. ‘Oh no! Oh no.’ I hated things like this happening. Mum had got this posh new oven last year and using it was really complicated. It could do all sorts of things if you knew how to work it. It probably even turned into a private plane if you knew what knobs to turn, but I hadn’t got the hang of it. I hate reading all those techno manuals that assume that the reader is fluent in domestic appliance speak. Why couldn’t it just have an on/off button then simpletons like me could use it.

  Tony laughed again and pointed at the dials. ‘You have to turn it on. To oven, not grill, and then you have to put it to the temperature you want.’

  ‘Oh don’t laugh. What are we going to do?’

  ‘What do you want to do?’

  ‘Dunno. Crawl away and hide. I mean, how’s it going to look? I’ll be a laughing stock. He’ll think, Nesta. Cook? Why she can’t even turn the cooker on. Pathetic. He’ll think I’m soooo pathetic.’

  ‘We could heat it up now,’ suggested Tony.

  ‘Takes an hour and a half,’ I said. ‘They’ll be starving.’ I felt like crying. I wanted it all to be so perfect and now it was ruined.

  ‘Can I take anything through?’ asked Luke appearing at the kitchen door.

  I was about to blurt out that I was a complete idiot and he may as well go home and give up on me right there and then, when Tony pulled on my arm.

  ‘Um, bit of a problem, mate,’ he said. ‘Fuse has blown on the cooker I think. No heat.’

  Oh, bless him, I thought. He can be a real pal when he wants. I made a mental note to back him up in some way when he needed my support in the future.

  ‘Want me to take a look?’ asked Luke. ‘I’m fixing stuff all the time at the restaurant.’

  ‘Noooooo,’ said Tony. ‘Best not mess with it. It can be a bit dodgy sometimes. No. We thought we’d . . .’

  ‘Get take-out,’ I interrupted, then I remembered Tony and I didn’t have much money between us. Oh God, what to do now? It would be rude to ask our guests to pay for their own meals after we’d invited them.

  Tony had obviously realised the same thing. He squeezed my arm again. ‘No. We don’t need to do takeaway. We’re Italian,’ he said. ‘So . . . We’ve er . . . got the microwave. I’m sure we can knock something up.’

  He started opening cupboards and pulling out pots and jars. Our evening is turning into a disaster, I thought. Tony’s like me and he can’t even boil an egg without ruining it.

  ‘Does the top part of the cooker still work?’ asked Luke.

  Tony switched one of the switches. ‘Yeah. The hob is gas, it’s only the oven that’s electric.’

  ‘Got any pasta?’ asked Luke.

  Tony nodded.

  ‘Parmesan cheese?’

  Tony nodded again.

  ‘Nesta. You’ve done your bit for the night. You go and join Lucy and I’ll knock us something up,’ said Luke. ‘Give us a hand, Tony?’

  Tony nodded, so I went into the sitting room to join Lucy.

  ‘Oh, poor you,’ she said, after I’d told her what had happened. ‘But hey, a boy who can cook, looks like a Roman god and seems genuinely nice.’

  ‘I know. I think he may be out of my league,’ I said.

  Lucy’s jaw fell open. ‘Out of your league? In all the time I’ve known you, I have never heard you say anything so ridiculous.’

  I was feeling miserable. ‘I think he is. Like, he is gorgeous, but more than that, he seems to be good at everything. Bright. He’s soon going to find out that I’m a total airhead. In fact that’s what he must be thinking now. I bet he’s worked out what happened and that I can’t even work the cooker. God, I’m soooo stupid.’

  ‘Rubbish,’ said Lucy. ‘I don’t know what’s got into you lately. You’re not stupid and he wouldn’t be here if he didn’t like you. I bet he’s grilling Tony about you right now and trying to find out all he can about you.’ Then she laughed. ‘Geddit? Grilling Tony. Luke’s a chef. Grilling Tony? Hope not. Cannibalism isn’t my thing.’

  I gave her my Queen Victoria, ‘We are not amused’ look.

  ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘Couldn’t resist. But I bet he is trying to find out more about you.’

  ‘Do you think? Let’s go and listen.’

  We sneaked into the hall and eavesdropped on the boys. They seemed to be getting on brilliantly. Chatting away about cars. Tony was telling Luke about Dad refusing to let him have driving lessons.

  I had to laugh at them when I poked my head round the door. They looked so domesticated. Luke in Mum’s Marge Simpson apron and Tony chopping tomatoes.

  ‘You should have your own TV show,’ I said. ‘Move over Jamie Oliver, Luke and Tony have come to town.’

  Half an hour later, Luke brought in a big bowl of pasta. It was absolutely perfect and tasted amazing. Lucy even helped herself to an extra bowlful. Tony chatted away happily, but I didn’t say very much as I was still feeling like an idiot because of the cooker.

  After the pasta, we cleared away the dishes and it was time for dessert. Well, at least nothing can go wrong with this, I thought as I took a tub of ice cream from the freezer then found chocolate sauce and maple syrup to pour over it.

  I found bowls, put everything on a tray and took it all through and put it on the table.

  ‘Help yourself,’ I said to Luke. ‘It’s vanilla. Homemade by Mum.’

  ‘Fantastic,’ said Luke digging in with a large spoon. ‘You can’t beat that homemade flavour.’

  ‘What do you think?’ I asked as he took a mouthful.

  ‘Erum . . .’ I could see he was struggling to be polite, but it was clear that he didn’t like it.

  Then Tony took a spoonful. ‘Eyuuck!’ He spat it back into his bowl. ‘Nesta! This isn’t ice cream.’ He picked up the tub and looked at the label, then he burst out laughing. ‘This is the creamed cod that Mum made last Friday night. No one was very hungry remember? She freezed the leftovers.’

  By this time I was purple with shame. Luke was going to think I was Queen of Stupid. Reigning bimbo champion. ‘Oh, so sorry, sorry,’ I blustered. ‘I’ll get the right tub.’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ said Tony getting up. ‘I’ll get it. You stay.’

  ‘I’ll give you a hand,’ said Lucy getting up to go with him.

  I gave Luke a weak smile and tried to gauge what was going on his head. Not sure, I thought. He does look amused. But is this a good thing? Or a bad thing?

  And that’s when I did my pièce de résistance for the night. I leaned over to relight one of the cand
les while at the same time giving Luke my best seductive look. I was so busy gazing at him that I didn’t notice that as I lit the match and leaned over, the candle flared and next thing I knew, I’d singed the front of my hair.

  ‘Aghh,’ I cried as I frantically blew the candle out then poured a glass of apple juice over my forehead.

  Lucy came back in with the ice cream. ‘What’s that strange smell, like something’s burning?’

  ‘And why is Nesta trying to drink her juice through the top of her head?’ asked Tony. ‘Mm. Great party trick, Nesta. Sorry about my sister, Luke, she has these strange turns. It’s probably time for her medication.’

  ‘She just singed her hair,’ said Luke as I lifted my head. Juice dripped down my forehead into my eyes causing my mascara to run. I couldn’t bear it another moment. They were all looking at me as though I was a clown and they were waiting for the next trick.

  ‘Excuse me a second,’ I said, then ran to my bedroom and dived on to my bed. A second later, Lucy came after me.

  ‘You OK?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes. Nooooo. I mean, can the evening get any worse?’

  ‘No,’ said Lucy sitting on the end of the bed and shaking her head solemnly. ‘I don’t think it can. But don’t worry, everything happens in threes. You’ve had the three. The supper was raw. The ice cream was actually creamed cod. And you set fire to your hair. So that’s one, two, three.’ She tried to look concerned, but I could see it coming. Her shoulders were starting to shake. Then she bent over laughing. ‘Snnnckkkk,’ she giggled. ‘Set . . . fire . . . to . . . your . . . hair.’

  I began to see the funny side of it as well. ‘Well Tony did tell Luke that my cooking would be an experience he’d never forget.’

  ‘Oh you can be sure of that,’ Lucy said, laughing. ‘And I just knew there was something fishy about that ice cream.’

  ‘Yeah, like, oh my cod,’ I said and started laughing as well.

  Soon the two of us had rolled off the bed and were on the floor howling, tears pouring down our cheeks. It wasn’t long before Tony and Luke came to find out where we were.