One Way or Another(42)

She was lying amid the tangled sheets of her bed, which truth to tell could have used a wash, only her flat had no washing machine and she was too broke to buy a second set of sheets and too lazy to rush over to her sister’s place and ask to use her washer, so for now she just avoided thinking about them. “Buggie-wuggie,” she whispered to herself, which was her code for the curse word “bugger,” which she tried never to say. Martha would have hated it and Lucy respected Martha, who anyhow she guessed was right. Curse words coming out of the mouth of a young woman were even less attractive than her grubby sheets. So? What was she going to do? Call Martha, of course, and ask about the job and how much she would be paid, when she could start, what would she do, where to even think about beginning. You had only to look at her scruffy bedsit to know interior design had never so much as entered her thoughts. The futon, saved from her schooldays, had an old kelim rug flung across it, that was actually quite good and had come from the family home where it had once graced the drawing room. The scuffed dark wood floors had claw marks from some previous owner’s dog, with a blue and cream dhurrie rug donated by her sister to cover the worst and stop her feet from freezing when she stepped out of bed—well, off the futon—in the morning. And plenty of afternoons and evenings too. Not that she was the kind of girl—“woman” as she liked to think of herself now—that went to bed with every guy she met. Truth be told again, not with any of them, really. Sometimes, she’d been tempted in the heat of the moment, when she was in the latest boy/man’s arms and that flushed feeling ran through her, heating her blood, tingling in her veins and other places she had rarely previously even thought about, but she’d been too busy playing lacrosse and winning the spelling bee and trying on other girls’ clothes to think much about “the end result,” which is what all the girls at school called it. “It” being sex, of course.

Martha had tackled her about “it” some time ago.

“I think we should have a talk, Lucy,” she’d said with a meaningful look in her eyes so Lucy knew immediately what she was up to.

“Ohh,” she’d dismissed her loftily. “If you’re talking about sex, I know all about that.”

She’d never forget Martha’s stunned look; her round pale blue eyes had grown even rounder with shock, making Lucy laugh.

“Well, not firsthand experience,” she’d added, for which Martha said thank God and began to breathe again. Lucy was only fifteen at the time, and completely inexperienced. The fact was you didn’t get much of a shot at boys when you went to an all-girl boarding school, as Lucy had for what seemed forever. And all those years, all she had wanted was to get out; she’d felt she was wasting her time, missing out on life. And then, when she graduated and was free at seventeen, she’d immediately wanted back in the safety of knowing where she belonged, somebody to tell her what she was doing every day, where to go, her friends, her support system. Now, the school friends were scattered far and wide, taking a year out in Australia; crewing a yacht in the Bahamas; helping with starving children in Africa; or like Lucy, attempting to be actresses.

The annoying thing about Ahmet was he’d mentioned a movie script that might just be perfect for her, but since then she had heard nothing. Not a word about it after that night at the Italian restaurant; not about the possible movie; not about another date; not even until now about helping Martha do over his house, which was, ridiculously in Lucy’s eyes, called Marshmallows. I mean, didn’t you have to be some kind of jerk to name your house that, simply because it was built on marshland, which anyhow seemed like a dumb place to her. Creepy, in fact.

Her phone gave its little tune and she sat up against her in-need-of-a-wash pillows and checked it. Martha. Hah!

“I was just thinking about you,” she said.

“And I you, which is why I called. And which, I have to say, Lucy, is more than you have done recently.”

“Sorry.” Lucy heaved a sigh that ricocheted off the dank bedroom walls. How she hated this flat. She must get her act together, find somewhere better.

“I need to live somewhere more suitable,” she said to Martha.

“If you mean more suited to your circumstances then I think you’re in the right place.”

Martha could be tart when she wanted.

Lucy sighed again.

“What the f*ck—”

“Lucy!”

“Aw, I mean, what the hell, oh buggie-wuggie!”

Lucy really, normally, was not into cursing. She respected the English language and knew perfectly well how to use it. Even the bad words.

“Lucy, what are we going to do with you?” Martha was picturing her, accurately, amid her scruffy chaos. “At least open the window, get some air into that filthy den of yours.”

“It is not filthy, merely in need of a cleaning lady, which since you know I am not working and have no money, I cannot afford.”

“And I suppose it’s beneath your elevated status in the world as an out-of-work actress to pick up a vacuum and a mop, give the place a good going over.”

“I don’t have a vacuum, something else I can’t afford, and truth is, Marthie, I don’t really give a shit about ‘clean.’ I’d really rather eat.”

Martha was silent, thinking about that. “It is possible to do both, as you will find now you are coming to work for me.”