Fairytale of New York (6 page)

‘I love it here,’ said Marnie as we perused the hand-drawn menu. ‘My art class used to come here all the time last semester.’

‘I like it,’ I smiled. ‘I wonder how Ed’s getting on.’

Marnie surveyed me quizzically. ‘Now why in the world would you say that?’

Something about her expression unnerved me a little. ‘No reason. I was just wondering, that’s all.’

Marnie leaned forward and lowered her voice, as if the other customers may suddenly take an unwelcome interest in her next comment. ‘Do you like him, Rosie?’

‘Of course I like him, mate. He’s one of my best friends.’

Marnie gave my hand a playful tap. ‘I don’t mean it like that. You
know
what I mean.’

‘Don’t be silly. I was just wondering how he was going to cope with so many dates with the same woman. You have to admit, it would be a first for him.’

Marnie nodded. ‘That guy has almost more dates than
me.
I don’t know where he meets them all.’

‘Wherever he goes, apparently. He even got a date when he called an emergency plumber last year.’

‘He dated the plumber?’

‘No, the plumber’s sister, who was along for the ride.’

‘I don’t know why he spends so long chasing women he’s no intention of settling down with,’ Marnie said, turning the menu card over.

‘He likes the chase, I think.’

‘Hmm. I reckon you and he should get together.’

‘Excuse me?’

‘Seriously, Rosie, I mean it! Think about it: you spend loads of time together already, you like the same places in New York, you’re both crazy about old movies and eating out—’

‘Stop right there, please. You’re scaring me.’

‘Oh, come on, you mean to tell me that you don’t find Ed in the least bit attractive?’

‘Well, I…’

‘Exactly!
He’s
gorgeous,
Rosie! That guy could charm pollen from a bee. I tell you, if I wasn’t his friend and he didn’t bug the hell out of me like some annoying older brother, I
would
—’

‘Marnie!’

‘OK, right, so when he comes into the store the morning after a rough night, and he’s all ruffled and unshaven, you haven’t
once
considered…?’

Just as this conversation was veering wildly towards the point of no return, a waiter appeared by our table to spare my blushes.

‘Hi, ladies, welcome to Ellen’s. Our special tonight is Pancetta Mac Cheese and…
wow
—uh—hi, Marnie.’

Marnie looked slightly flushed but pleased. ‘Hey, Todd.’

Todd’s eyes appeared transfixed by the vision in orange and purple sitting before him. ‘It’s really good to see you.’

‘You too. Oh, this is my boss, Rosie.’

Todd wrenched his gaze away from Marnie long enough to shake my hand. ‘The florist, right? Hey.’

‘Nice to meet you,’ I replied, noting the chemistry between them.

‘So—we’ll have the specials, please, if that’s OK with you, Rosie?’

I nodded. ‘I’ll go with your recommendation.’

‘Great,’ Todd replied, scribbling the order on his pad. Tearing off a strip, he placed it carefully in front of Marnie. ‘Call me,’ he smiled shyly before disappearing into the dimly lit depths of the restaurant.

‘Well,
he
was nice,’ I said, full of curiosity.

Marnie shrugged and played with a napkin. ‘He’s OK, I guess. We dated a little last year.’

‘Looks like he’s keen to see you again,’ I smiled, indicating the strip of paper laid lovingly on the table. ‘He’s a nice-looking guy too.’

‘Too restrained for me,’ Marnie replied coolly. I couldn’t help but think this probably could apply to most of Manhattan’s single male population when compared to Marnie’s vivid personality and appearance. She beamed cheekily. ‘Not as fine as Ed though, hey?’

Although I would never dream of admitting it to Marnie, I had to privately concede that Ed did have an alarming skill for looking great when most men would just have looked rough. Of course, I could understand how he managed to find so many women eager to go out with him; it was that legendary Steinmann twinkle that rescued him from so many otherwise tricky situations with devastating effect. Even when we have had the biggest rows at Kowalski’s, I’ve never managed to stay angry at him for long. Which is frustrating in the extreme, but then, that’s Ed: like that brown leather jacket of his—a little beaten up by life but so warm and engaging that you forgive the lack of polish immediately. I suppose all those women found themselves torn between admiring the Steinmann twinkle and wanting to take care of him. Unfortunately for them, Ed’s idea of a perfect woman seemed to be, ‘spend time with me when it’s fun and then don’t bother calling’. Not that he was ever cruel: from the little he told us of his dates it appeared that most of the ladies shared his ethos.

Halfway through our Pancetta Mac Cheese, I couldn’t wait any longer to hand Marnie the turquoise Victoria’s Vintage bag I’d been masquerading as my mythical Biba blouse. Flinging aside the vivid magenta tissue paper, Marnie let out a squeak
that momentarily made the whole clientele of Ellen’s stop and look at us.

‘It’s the one I was looking at! Oh, Rosie, you
shouldn’t
have!’

I smiled. ‘You deserve it.’

What many people who see Marnie today don’t realise about her is that her confidence was hard-won. A painfully shy child, her formative years were spent hiding from the other kids in her New Jersey neighbourhood who had noticed early on that both she and her family were different. They taunted her for the colourful handmade clothes her artist mother lovingly dressed her in; for her smiling, bearded art teacher father, whose style remained firmly locked in the sixties; and for the orange VW camper van parked outside their home, standing out like an alien spacecraft amid the sea of sedans that lined the street. While her parents always encouraged her to assert her individuality, it took an incident at Marnie’s ‘Sweet Sixteen’ school prom to change how she viewed herself.

Without a date for the night, she had joined the ranks of the singletons sitting around the periphery of the dancefloor, watching and waiting for someone to notice them. To the surprise of everyone, one of the most popular guys in her year left his date to walk over to ‘no date land’ and ask Marnie if she wanted to dance. Struggling to combat her embarrassment, Marnie shyly accepted and walked with him to the centre of the floor, all eyes following her. As she was about to take his hand, however, a cruel smile broke across her partner’s face as he flipped her skirt over her head and yelled, ‘Freak on the dancefloor!’ to the utter delight of those watching.

It was then that Marnie experienced what she describes as ‘my epiphany’. In the centre of the hall, battling the urge to run away, all the years of pent-up frustration and hurt finally found a vent and, like a multicoloured volcano, Marnie erupted.
Popular Guy didn’t stand a chance as Marnie’s left fist slammed into his jaw, laying him out cold in the middle of the high school gym, encircled by sparkles from the revolving mirrorball overhead.

‘I’d rather be different than a jerk like you!’ she yelled, as the ‘no date land’ inhabitants broke into spontaneous applause. The event brought about a deep change in Marnie—not least for the rest of that evening, where boys who had never acknowledged her existence before suddenly stood in line to dance with her. From that moment to this, Marnie’s love life has always been well populated, if limited in terms of success. Nevertheless, the confident, kooky young woman who bounces into Kowalski’s every morning is a breath of fresh air and I wouldn’t be without her for the world.

If Marnie and I had entertained any ideas that Ed might finally have found a longer-term prospect in Carly, we were to be quickly proved wrong. By Monday, he had already agreed to see three other ladies and Carly’s name was never mentioned again. When Marnie pressed him for more information a week later, all she got in return was a disinterested shrug and a mumbled excuse about them ‘wanting different things’—which, translated, meant she was probably keener than he. In an odd way, knowing that the Great Steinmann Dating Express was still on its non-committed tracks was strangely comforting. It confirmed that Kowalski’s was still the same: Ed was still dating, Marnie was as colourful as ever, Celia continued to fly in and out and the shop was as much as a neighbourhood hub as it had always been. It felt
safe
—and nobody knows the value of that feeling like I do.

Little did I know then that seemingly innocuous events just around the corner were going to change
everything.

There is nothing quite like returning home after a long day. Don’t get me wrong: I love my shop. But I get a kick from turning the key in the lock to reveal the welcoming sight of my apartment. It has this unique smell—wood polish, old coffee and lavender. It signifies just one thing to me: I’m home.

The first thing I do is crank Old F’s sister, Hissy (after the noise it makes and the fits it occasionally throws in the process) into action. Slightly younger than my workmate, but equally as unprepossessing, my home coffee maker gurgles happily into life and infuses the whole place with its fragrance. Then, mug in hand, I check my answer machine.

This particular late summer’s day there were three—the first two were from Mum, reminding me about my brother’s birthday and informing me that James would be in the States on business next week. It’s possible to have a conversation with Mum’s answer machine messages because she leaves gaps where you would normally say ‘Mmm’, ‘I see’, or, ‘Oh dear’ in a phone call.

‘It would be lovely if James could visit you, but he says he’ll be tied up in Washington the whole time…’

‘That’s a shame…’

‘It’s a shame, I know.’

‘Hmm…’

‘I’d like to say he’ll call you, but you know what he’s like, dear.’

‘Yes, so wrapped up in his own universe that no one else matters…’

‘He’s so wrapped up in his work commitments that he never has time to do the things he wants. Anyhow, darling, I must go…’

‘I expect this call’s expensive…’

‘It’s
so
expensive to call you at this time of night.’

I smiled. ‘Love-you-miss-you-bye!’

‘Love-you-miss-you-bye!’ The message ended. I shook my head and smiled before taking a long sip of coffee. For the tiniest second, I wished myself home with Mum in England again.

The last message was from Celia. There are normally several messages from Celia, their length, volume and coherence depending on how near a total breakdown she is at the time.

‘Rosie, it’s me. It’s six forty-five. Where
are
you? Call me
the second
you get this.’

‘OK, OK, wait one second while I get changed,’ I muttered, walking into my bedroom.

True to form, Celia wasn’t listening. No sooner had I kicked off my shoes, the phone rang.

‘All right,
fine,
seeing as you insist, I’ll talk to you first then,’ I sighed.

‘Rosie—thank goodness, honey. I was thinking something
awful
must have happened to you.’

I smiled despite myself. ‘I caught a bus to the deli and then walked home. It’s actually light this time of day in August, you know. What could possibly have happened to me?’

‘Anything,
Rosie! My colleague has been working on a piece
about how many single young women meet supposedly wonderful young men in bars after work, only to have their apartments
ransacked
once they’ve slept with them…’

‘Celia, listen to yourself! I’m fine. I haven’t slept with any supposedly wonderful young men today and everything in my apartment is just as I left it this morning.’

‘Well, I only worry because I care about you,’ Celia said, with more than a hint of offence in her tone.

‘I know—and I really appreciate it. Now, what can I do for you?’

‘I need you to come by the office tomorrow, if you can.’

‘Why?’ I asked carefully, picturing Ed and Marnie’s stern faces.

‘I want to feature you in our “West Siders” column. So many guests who met you at the Authors’ Meet have been asking about you.’

I frowned. This was the second time I’d heard that today and it seemed weird. All I’d done was have one conversation about lavender and take part in a lot of polite smalltalk. ‘Mimi Sutton said the same thing when I rang her today, Celia. Just who has been asking about me?’

‘Everyone,
sweetie! Angelika, Henrik, Jane, Brent—in fact I spoke with Brent this evening and he said he’d seen you briefly at Mimi’s office. He’s
very
taken with you, y’know. He said you’re like an English Sandra Bullock.’

‘I look nothing like Sandra Bullock,’ I commented.

‘Oh, you
do,
Rosie!
Everyone
says it! Mimi said it at the party and I’ve heard that Ed from your store say it too.’

‘Ed said it?’ I repeated, making a mental note to challenge him on that tomorrow. ‘Well, I have dark hair and dark eyes, but there the similarity ends,’ I replied, ‘I mean, if Sandra Bullock put on a stone then maybe we’d be more alike.’

Celia was obviously getting tired of this subject. ‘Well, whatever, Rosie, you’re officially a
hit
! Just like I said you would be. Look, my editor asked me today to find interesting, upcoming West Side individuals for the new column and I thought what a great opportunity it would be to get the word out on you! Come by at one tomorrow and we’ll discuss it all. Love you, must go.’

And with that, she was gone and blessed peace was restored.

Slowly, I put the receiver down and reached for my diary, as my mind clicked into hyperdrive. Why had there been so much interest in me from the party? I couldn’t understand it. The question remained at the forefront of my mind as I grilled chicken and made a large salad. As I ate my evening meal, my eye kept returning to the open diary page for tomorrow. While I found myself quite excited at the prospect, an undeniable underlying note of caution sounded too.

Publicity can, I have discovered, work one of two ways. Either it can be incredibly successful, or it can backfire on you Big Time. Like the time my mum paid to place an advert in the local paper, informing readers that, ‘Eadern Blooms are taking 50% off prices for the first week of May’, yet somewhere between Mum faxing the details and the newspaper being printed, Eadern Blooms had become ‘Eadern Bloomers’ and for a week she was inundated with irate OAPs demanding cutprice underwear. Or, like the time my brother, James, was in the paper for one of his early business ventures. He was pictured with a girlfriend, who, the interview stated, had been going steady with him for three years and was looking forward to becoming Mrs James Duncan in the not-too-distant future. Problem was, four girls who he was
also
seeing at the time read that article too. They turned up at our house
en masse
and all hell broke loose. Still, James had always said he wanted
to travel in an ambulance with its siren blaring and lights flashing…

With this in mind, I decided that I would go to see Celia as planned, and politely but firmly refuse her offer. We were doing fine at Kowalski’s: the neighbourhood business was as good as ever and now, with Mimi Sutton’s commission for the Grand Winter Ball, things were looking decidedly healthy on the event front. The publicity we could gain from me being in the ‘West Siders’ column might only serve to swamp us with work we were unprepared for—and the last thing I wanted was to run before we could walk. Right now the balance between day-to-day sales and special events was just about right. I wasn’t about to sell out and ruin what, in my opinion, set Kowalski’s apart from other, larger florists in New York. Decision made, I went to bed content and fell asleep almost straight away.

That night, my dreams were incredibly vivid. Images flashed through my mind at supersonic speed—Ed smiling, Mimi Sutton in her magnificent office, Brent’s wide grin, bumping into Nate Amie and Mum’s phone message about James. Then, suddenly, I could feel a man’s heartbeat, the warmth of his arms around me, his breath in my hair. It was wonderful. I felt…
safe.
I raised my head from his chest to look in his eyes…At first, I couldn’t make out his features. Then, I recognised him. The feeling of safety dissolved, replaced with a vice-grip of nausea. Suddenly, the scene changed. I was now standing in a garden, facing a group of familiar faces. They were smiling at me. I heard myself speak—voice full of emotion, fighting back tears:
‘I’m sorry. I’m so sorry…’

I woke with a start. Shafts of moonlight pooled in through the bedroom window. Breathing hard, face wet with tears and perspiration, I sat bolt upright and looked around to regain my bearings. Reaching across to the bedside table, I snapped
the light on. A warm golden glow bathed the features of my room—the antique whitewashed chair by my bed with its flea-market-find patchwork quilt throw, the painting of Bridgnorth that Mum had brought on her last visit, the dark wood chest of drawers Celia had donated when I first moved here—familiar décor soothing my burning eyes. I wiped my brow and forced myself to breathe deeply. Slowly, the hammering of my heart eased. But the nausea sat defiant in my stomach.

‘Get a grip, girl,’ I chastised myself. ‘It’s just a dream. It’s gone now—it isn’t real.’

Well, it isn’t real now,
said a voice inside my head.
But it was once.