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Chapter Twenty-Seven
I’m impressed. I leant forward to scrutinise my skin in my bathroom mirror for probably the fiftieth time. It was smoother than a baby’s bottom, and theglow. Anoushka had magic hands. The luxury beauty press were going to love this.
On the way home, as well as reflecting on my appointment, I couldn’t stop thinking about Charlie.
He was so kind and thoughtful. And I was a complete stranger. Why? He could have been a total arse about the situation, but he wasn’t. He had gone above and beyond the call of duty. He really seemed to care. And he was cute. Did I mention that?
Okay. Not my normal definition of cute. I mean, we’ve established that I had developed a penchant for Italian men. Just something I loved about that gorgeous olive skin, deep eyes and abundance of facial and body hair. Mmmm.
In short, tall, dark and handsome was definitely my cup of tea, whereas Charlie, on the other hand, was fairly pale and clean-shaven, with floppy blond hair and blue eyes. He looked like he’d just walked off an episode ofMade in Chelsea. His dad was probably an earl or the Count of Sussex or something, and his mum is likely to be one of those ladies who permanently lunches and sits on the board of a gazillion charities.
Something about him screamed ‘money’. You know, he looked like the type that are so rich that they didn’t have Andrex in their bathroom, or even black toilet paper à la Simon Cowell. They probably wipe their bottoms with fifty-pound notes instead.
But his personality and aura seemed very warm and relaxed—not at all la-di-dah. I was intrigued. In fact, I was borderline excited about the fact that he would be calling me tomorrow.
Here comes the voice of reason again…
Don’t get carried away, Sophia. Remember, he’s calling you to discuss fixing your car and boring insurance claims. Not to whisk you off to his hundred-foot yacht in St Tropez.
And anyway, weren’t you just infatuated with Lorenzo like five minutes ago? So fickle! It’s as if any guy so much as speaks to you, you start planning the rest of your lives together. Calm the fuck down!
Noted, Reasanna.
He was sweet, though…
As I walked into the living room, I saw the answering machine on the house phone flashing (I swear I forgot I had one half the time). Mum had left about ten messages. Why she’d assumed that, as I’d left my mobile charging at home, it would be better to reach me on the landline, which was also at home, I had no idea. I listened to message one:
‘Darling, it’s your mother. Are you okay? What happened with this accident? Are you sure you’re okay? Please call me and let me know.’
Message two:
‘Mother again.You haven’t called back and I’m starting to worry. Please call.’
Message three (even more rattled than message two):
‘Are you at home? Let me know you’re safe. Should I call Harrison? Please ring.’
Message four (concern levels on a scale of one to ten? A hundred. Bless her):
‘Where are you? It’s been over three hours since we spoke. Call me.’
Message five:
‘Andwhois Charlie?’she asked slyly. Well, that concern was short-lived, wasn’t it?‘I haven’t heard you speak of him before. Was he with you when the accident happened? I assume it’s a guy Charlie as I heard a male’s voice in the background. Should I get excited about a new man in your life? Please call me.’
I was just about to listen to message six (why, I don’t know, as the message was likely to be exactly the same as messages one to five) when the phone rang again.
‘Hello, Mother. I’m okay.’ I knew it was her without even looking as she’s the only person I knew in the universe that would still call this number.
‘Oh, thank goodness!’ she shouted. ‘Why didn’t you call?’
‘Long story, but I’m fine. Sorry to have worried you. Can I call you back later? I’m starving and need to get something to eat, then when I’m more relaxed I can ring you.’
‘Okay, darling. Let’s speak later.’
I just didn’t have the energy for the Spanish Inquisition. Especially now that she knew I was okay, she would turn her focus to the ‘Who’s Charlie?’ campaign, where she’d grill me like a pack of bacon about what he looked like, what he did for a living, whether he was married, if he wanted to marry me, blah, blah, blah. My imagination running wild when it came to men hadnothingon my mother’s.
Ever since I’d announced my split with Rich, she was constantly trying to pair me up with every single man she encountered. There was Doug, son of Jean who lived across the road from my parents, who was so dreary it was a struggle not to fall asleep when he spoke. Zero get up and go, and physically it was a no. Not even my grandad wore jumpers like that.
