One Way or Another(43)

“Oh, yeah? And when is that event to take place?” It seemed to Lucy at least a month must have gone by since she’d heard about Ahmet’s house makeover, though in fact it was only a week.

“Tomorrow. I’ll come by and get you. Be ready nine fifteen latest.”

Lucy sat up, perked up, became interested. She twirled a blond lock round a finger. “I’m not sure I have anything to wear.”

Martha groaned. “It’s not a cocktail party. We are going to work. Put on jeans, sweatpants, a wooly jumper; it’s bound to be cold. And sneakers, it’ll be damp too, around there, marshy.”

Lucy shuddered. “I don’t like the sound of it.”

In fact, neither did Martha, but a job was a job and this was a big one. Important.

“I’m calling Pizza Express,” she said. “They’ll deliver a sausage and pepper thin crust along with a salad and a Coke, in half an hour. At least eat something. Then take a shower, for God’s sake, and I’m calling Peter Jones and buying you some sheets. Jesus, Lucy! What would Mum say if she could see the state you’re in?”

Lucy fell silent as she thought about her mum. “I’m just hoping she doesn’t know,” she said quietly. Then, “I’ll be ready. Thanks, Marthie.”





30

Of course, it was that very same night that Lucy fell in love.

She’d fiddled with the TV channels while awaiting the pizza delivery, finding nothing but the usual grim news and game shows; she’d cleaned up the flat, something she was to be thankful for later when she asked “him” home. Well, by home she meant “the flat”; obviously her real home was Patrons, though she rarely went there anymore, not since Mum had gone.

A short while later, she found herself eyeing the gorgeous blond young man on her doorstep. Parked behind him was a small car with a pizza delivery sign on top. Despite his good looks and his smile Lucy couldn’t help wondering who would go out with a guy with a pizza sign atop his car for everybody to see. She wondered what the parking valet might think, or her friends. Except he was so good-looking her heart was making little jumps in her chest, and not her stomach, because she had suddenly lost all hunger.

“Are you really a pizza delivery guy?” she asked as he held out the flat box, still smiling that white smile. “I mean, like in ‘real life’?”

“This is ‘real life,’ baby,” he said, sounding like an American movie star, which he certainly looked.

“You mean you can’t get a better job than this? With your looks, and all?”

“And all is where it’s at. I need two more college credits before I can graduate.”

“Where from?” She took the box, still looking into his eyes.

“Oxford.”

“Ohh.” Lucy thought quickly of her own shamefully misused education. “How wonderful,” she said brightly. “Would you like to come in, have a Coke or something?”

“Well…” He hovered uncertainly on the top step, faded jeans propped on his hipbones, ancient T-shirt clinging to his abs. “I really should get back.”

“Just a Coke,” she persuaded. “It’s diet, so it’s okay, like, y’know what I mean?”

“I guess I do.”

Lucy knew for certain she was getting into uncharted waters and was absolutely loving it. This, she thought as he finally stepped over the threshold and she closed the door behind him, was what true love felt like.

Standing close, he made her shabby basement room look even smaller, with his wide shoulders, his over-six-foot height, his shock of blond hair falling so sexily over eyes that might be blue but she hadn’t had time to check before he put his arms round her and kissed her with a kind of hunger she had never felt before, tongue and all, then he licked her face, her eyebrows, kissed her closed eyes.

“You are beautiful,” he said, and for the first time Lucy thought it might even be true.

Tempted though she was, after ten minutes of passionate kissing and fondling she sent him on his way, knees atremble, heart thumping, with a promise to call the next day since he was working late that night, but maybe he could call her later.…

He did not call later, and then the next morning Lucy had to go with Martha and so she didn’t know what had happened. She tried to put him out of her mind, temporarily at least, so she could become a proper working girl, Martha’s helper, helping Ahmet Ghulbian change his bloody awful house, which could only be for the better. She would call him tomorrow.

You know what? she told herself, shocked. You don’t even have his number. You don’t even know his name. And that was the truth.

She wished her mum were here to ask what to do.

Lucy often wondered exactly where her mum and her dad had “gone.” Death baffled her and she’d even gone to church to contemplate it, something she had not done since attending school chapel every morning for all those years, when the girls’ straw boaters with the striped-school-colors hatbands fell off with a clatter every time they bent their heads to pray. But, oh God, how she missed her. Why oh why, Mum and Dad, she asked herself as she had so many times since the accident, did you have to take that road, on that day, at that hour, at that moment? Martha had done her best to console her, though she herself was distraught, taking emotional responsibility for her young sister, promising she would never leave her, never be in an accident, never get killed or something awful like that, like what had just happened to their parents.