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I’d answered all the emails over the last few days in between searching and securing magazines for my customers. Callum came and went, but he still hadn’t moved in. He made me dinner each evening, I was getting used to his home cooking, it tasted so much better than the food I had been eating. I worked at my laptop while he pottered in my kitchen. My mornings were spent searching bookstores and second-hand shops around the city. I did a circuit for four hours on my bike, the same route every day. All the stores’ staff knew me well. Any new stock they put to one side so I could have the first refusal. If there was an item of interest, like an editorial I found in a charity shop, I paid more than they asked. I taught a few of the staff what to look for and how to price correctly. There were a dozen other people I knew who went around the charity shops looking for antiquities and other expensive stuff that people discarded.
While I roamed Brighton, Callum and Scottie worked on the flat. It was starting to look like a habitable home. Callum said he would move in, in the next few days. The furniture would arrive tomorrow. The thought of Callum living next door was terrifying and thrilling. We laughed like we were old friends, swapping stories and telling tales of our childhood. Although I didn’t give him any details about my parents. We’d progressed to where we stayed up for hours talking, letting the noises of Brighton waft over the rooftops as we chatted.
Tonight, instead of Callum lingering at my flat door waiting outside the shop door until he heard the bolt click into place, he would walk half a dozen steps to his side of the veranda and head to his brand new bed. Last night he had hesitated as he left, glancing to my mouth and then my cheek. I waited to see if he would kiss me but he stepped away. I wanted to feel if his lips were as soft as they appeared. To see how he would hold me as he kissed me. After five days getting to know him, I’d wanted him in my bed.
Adaline
I’d made decent relationships with all the suppliers for the charity ball, except one. She wasn’t a supplier, but the chairwoman of the charity. I had looked up her picture on their official website to know who I was shouting at when I typed out replies to her direct messages.
I had to delete many responses to the one she said she hoped I was an improvement on the last organiser. My predecessor labelled a waste of space. The chairwoman, Darlene, had bombarded me with umpteen questions surrounding the ball. It was three months away, and she was already getting stressed about minor details. She had no faith it would go off without a hitch. To be fair, she hadn’t met me and going on my predecessor’s efforts she had cause for concern. For Steph’s sake, I would pull it off to perfection.
A part of me wanted to make it perfect for Callum too. He’d done so much for their school out in Nairobi, I wanted to make him proud too. I’d got to the bottom of why he had a shaved head. He kept it short for health. Lice and ringworm were rife in the schools, keeping his hair cut short meant it was easier to spot. He’d told me he would grow it back now he was home. I wondered what his usual hair style would be.
I knew what I wanted to do for the ball, but it was hard convincing the hotel to do it. It was a shame I couldn’t do all of this by email, but the Event Manager insisted that I come and visit. The traffic was busy as ever in Brighton. Avoiding any collisions, I cycled there and found a place to park my bike against the nearest lamppost. I grabbed the notebook out of the bag at the back of my bike and hoped it would be there when I got back. I took my helmet with me in case. Taking the steps, two at a time, I went up the marble steps, and the doorman, suited with this his top hat opened the door, so I could glide through.
Except I didn't. I tripped and fell flat on my face silencing the entire reception area which had a group of fifty young girls checking in. My helmet skidded off, hitting against the skirting board off to the right, and my notebook and pen went in different directions. I congratulated myself on such a feat, rather proud of my clumsiness. The doorman, with the top hat helped me to stand and brushed the dirt off my arm. I was handed back my notebook and pen by one girl checking in. I went to retrieve my helmet that was still slowly spinning from its journey. Now I had made a complete idiot of myself, I felt incapable of having this important meeting. The temptation to run back to my bike disappeared when I reminded myself why I was doing to this and a sense of duty kicked in. I didn’t want to let Steph down, she never asked for anything and organising this ball was the least I could do after all the help she has given me. Especially sending Callum my way.
Striding over to the porter’s desk with newfound confidence, I approached the young man sitting behind the desk. The noise levels in the marble reception area were too loud to pick out any words. The louder the noise, the more difficult it was for me to concentrate. I prayed that the concierge porter pronounced his words clearly and didn’t mumble.
People who hardly moved their lips irritated me no end. It wasn’t their fault, but in loud situations, I had no chance in hearing. I leant towards them, tilting my ear to their mouth. The effort to understand what they said took all of my concentration. Two people speaking at once had me internally wanting to cry with frustration.
I resisted the urge to pinch his flawless chubby cheek and instead asked him to locate Adrian Summers, my event manager. The boy smiled warmly and pointed over to the far corner. I looked over my shoulder to where the boy was pointing to see a rather large formidable man with a 50s greased back quiff. His suit was a little ill-fitting, but he pulled off suave well. With brilliant blue eyes and raven black hair, he was striking.
He looked me up and down, assessing me within three seconds. He tried to hide the smirk, having witnessed my entrance. His disapproval was palpable. Looking back at the porter, I smiled weakly and pulled my shoulders back.
Adrian waited for me to approach him, rather than coming to greet me. I wanted to know who had pissed him off. It wasn’t me, but I wasn’t in the mood for aloof divas. Adrian had a clipboard in his hand and a pair of VR goggles hanging over his right arm. A little strange but I didn't question it. As I neared, I lifted my hand and introduced myself using my happy, gracious voice. He reciprocated minus the happy, gracious voice. He spoke quietly and hardly moved his lips. This was my kind of hell. His look of reproach covered his face as he once again checked out my casual clothing.
My heart thumped erratically, and I eyed the door, wondering if I could escape and tell Steph I’d come down with the plague and it would take six months to clear up. I didn't have a great feeling about this meeting, but I was going to go with it, anyway. My business depended on my ability to organise anything. I knew what I wanted, and that was what mattered whether he approved of me or not. His sour faced scorn couldn’t only be that I turned up into his beautiful five-star hotel in trainers. I wasn’t about to ask him why he looked like he was chewing on a lemon.
“Follow me,” he said. I caught what he said before he stalked off, striding towards the double staircase at the far end of the lobby. The girls had checked in, and all was quiet. The black railings were topped with a gold balustrade. I fingered the bannister detail as I walked up the staircase following behind him. When I look back down into the lobby, the chandelier was at eye level. When I turned back to follow Adrian, he had disappeared from sight. I had to jog down the corridor to catch him up.
Turning left, then right, I came to a long carpeted corridor. Adrian opened one door of the entrance to the function room, waiting for me to approach. He waved me through with a sigh. I couldn’t believe this guy wanted to host our gala ball for the charity. It seemed the most tiresome prospect, and I wanted to walk away. But, I couldn’t because a deposit had already been paid.
“Is this the function room we would use?” I asked his back, he kept striding away. While I could hear he was talking, I couldn’t make out what he was saying. He sounded like he said they put sugar in all of the flower pots.
“I have finished telling you all about this room and what we can do in here, weren’t you listening?” he said and gritted his teeth after he spoke, Adrian gave me the opportunity to read his lips because he talked to me like a child. Slow, deliberate words. It was a shame he was an arsehole, because I wanted to make sure that the event would be perfect. This guy wasn’t giving me an inch of leniency.
I wanted to cry. Then, I wanted to slap Adrian hard across the face but resisted. It wasn’t his fault I couldn’t hear what he said. It wasn’t Adrian’s fault I was too ashamed to tell him I couldn’t hear. I circled around him, so he had to face me head on.
“I was listening, I couldn’t hear what you were saying. Tell me again but stay still so I can concentrate.”
He gave me a disgruntled look and raised an eyebrow. He rattled off at a ridiculously quick speed the dimensions of the room.
“Can you speak more slowly please?” I asked him.
“I’m in a hurry, and you were late. Why don’t we make another appointment? Is the other woman coming back, she listened and paid attention.”
He looked me over once more, perplexed that I was there to discuss the event. Not only did I have to pick up the pieces of the half done event, field dozens of emails from Darlene, but I also have to deal with him too.
“Let’s leave it, maybe I can send someone else next time. I’ll email you to meet another time.” I said and left him in the room, I never got to ask what the goggles were for.
I hurried along the corridor and ran down the carpeted steps passing the chandelier. Walking a slalom route around the customers checking in, I didn’t wait for the doorman in the top hat to open the door. I used the side entrance and ran down the path that was meant for wheelchair access. The low white gate wouldn’t open. In my distress to leave the hotel, I didn’t see the large square metal plate that saidpush me. The gate was low enough to step over. Leaving the hotel premises, I jogged to my bike, thrust my helmet on, and peddled home. I’d think of another way to see the function room for the gala ball.
Adaline
I made it home in record time, my calves burned with the exertion of cycling up the hill. Opening the back door, I pushed the bike in and rested it against the wall not caring if it stayed in one place. The exhaustion of pretending to be normal reared its head as irritation and I needed to avoid any human interaction. I hoped Callum and his fine thighs would be nowhere in sight, and I could slip into my flat unnoticed. It was past lunchtime, and I needed food. Scottie and Callum had usually left by now.
Dashing down the side alley to the front door, I pushed the key into the lock and twisted. The problem became apparent when I couldn’t open the door. I wished I’d got the door fixed before I repaired the windows. My fury sped up to the point I had to use brute force to budge open the door. My next move was once again to make an idiot of myself and fling my body into Callum’s waiting arms. He wasn’t expecting to catch me, but he did. Once I had the door open, it gave way, and I tripped over the threshold. Callum was just the other side of the door, with a metal measuring tape in his hand. The measuring tape wrapped around me as he clutched onto my body. His aftershave surrounded me. I dropped my head onto his chest, and mock cried.
