In the last instalment Annie had her first date with a celebrity and got a big surprise the following day.
Now read on . . .
‘Noé, this is Annie and Annie I’d like you to meet Noé.’
Noé looks up at me with the same almond eyes his mother has only his are larger, jet black and his eyelashes curl upwards and remind me of the chocolate shavings on a fudge sundae. Reef tries to angle him through the door I’m holding open but still hiding behind. Noé won’t budge because he spies the knitters huddled in the kitchen doorway. Reef would have told him he was coming for a visit, I don’t suppose he was expecting three women wedged through a door, one of whom is holding half a croissant. Rhiannon steps up.
‘Hey, my lovely.’ She leans towards Noé. ‘Any chance you’d like to help me with some chocolate covered cookies sitting on the table in the kitchen? I don’t think we can manage any more and we don’t want them to go stale do we now?’
Noé looks at his dad who gives him an encouraging nod. He releases Reefs hand and moves tentatively through the narrow corridor to join the women in the kitchen.
‘Any allergies we need to know about?’ Judith says putting up a hand, stopping the boy in his tracks.
‘He can eat or drink anything,’ Reef says. ‘And he does.’
I close the front door slowly and look down at the bouquet.
‘Your knitting group?’ Although I’d told Reef about The Monday Afternoon Knitting Circle, I hadn’t let on that the women were my only friendship group. I didn’t think it did much in the way of impressing him and Bea had told me that I should be aiming to impress him. I nod and quickly change the subject.
‘I thought you were on your way to London this week and you wouldn’t be seeing Noé until next weekend.’
‘That was the plan.’ Reef looks upset now. So far I’ve only experienced the friendly, happy, sexy Reef but a shadow has clouded his face and he shakes the bouquet which I’m not sure I should take as he hasn’t actually said it’s for me.
‘Eight o’clock this morning, Natalia turns up at the hotel with Noé and these flowers. The poor kid looked exhausted.’ He lowers his voice. ‘I don’t suppose you know this but she got voted off I’m A Celebrity Farmer and her agent quickly landed her a spot in Dancing On Ice Down Under – Celebrity Special so she wants to take off to Paris with her trainer for a month of intense body sculpting before the show is recorded.’
‘Oh,’ I say pulling my T-shirt down to my hips, hoping to hide the resulting bulge of a huge brunch. I’ve not heard of the shows Reef mentions but it doesn’t mean they don’t exist, no matter how ridiculous they sound.
Natalia was a top model in her twenties. She married an actor I had heard of and her career went into decline because she lived constantly in his shadow. I read that she was always being hounded by the press who talked non-stop about her weight gain, hair loss and their subsequent divorce. She’d appeared in a episode of Oprah in which she bared all to the eponymous host about how terrible it is to give up your career and ambition for love. She became sick and tired of seeing unappealing shots of herself in national press and one day she raged at a group of photographers who had not allowed her any space to breathe. ‘Honestly,’ she had told Oprah. ‘What right do they have to judge me when all I do is eat three meals a day, just like everyone else?’ Since then Natalia has written an autobiography, lost two stones in weight and continued to date celebrities which in itself gave her all the celebrity she needed to start her own diet and nutrition range and to write a cookery book.
Noé was the result of the affair she’d had with the a French celebrity dance choreographer, originally from Martinique, a good ten years younger than her. He’d been an absent father which had led to a very public falling out with Natalia whom he’d accused of trying to burn his New York apartment to the ground. She claimed she’d forgotten to take a vegetarian lasagne out of the oven. Reef had adopted Noé after meeting and falling in love with him and Natalia. She declared to the world, well to Hello magazine, that at last she had found the love of her life. She appeared at most of his international matches, was approached to be the face for a cosmetic range and reportedly snubbed Victoria Beckham.
Reef won’t know I know this. Since not recognising him I haven’t revealed that I’d spent a whole weekend ploughing through all their posts on social media and all the footage I could find on YouTube. It had been the longest, most revelatory weekend of my life.
‘So now she’s more than happy for me to have full time custody of Noé. She didn’t even pack a bag for him, just handed me these flowers, said I was her hero and walked away. I have no idea when she’ll be back for him and when she does she’ll moan non stop about something I’ve done wrong and that I don’t know how to look after him properly. Anyway, I called my agent, Jack, as soon as she left. He got me out of next week’s recording and they found someone to take my place. Rio Ferdinand is always up for some TV work especially as he’s got a book coming out for Christmas. So … we were driving home and all I’m thinking about is you since last night. I had your address from booking the taxi so I hope it’s all right that we just showed up here. Is it okay? I mean, please don’t be angry. I thought you might like to meet the kid.’
Finally he hands the bouquet to me. I can’t help but contemplate the implications of this. Was Reef so taken with me that he decided to introduce his son to me after just one date? I’m not sure I’m ready to be stepmother. I’ve never even baby sat for anyone, not a real child anyway. Only the class gerbil for a week in half term and that was hard work because gerbils move fast and are deft at breaking out of cages. Reef stands and waits for my answer with a large knot in his handsome brow. How can I tell him that it would have been more sensible to wait until he had got to know me better himself? What if I was a dangerous criminal? I look down at my attire and decide that’s the least of his concerns.
‘Are you sure you want me to meet him?’ I whisper and look down the corridor. There’s laughter coming from behind the closed door of the kitchen. ‘I mean, so early in our relationship. That is, assuming we’re there yet. You know? Are you saying we’re at relationship status?’
‘I know it’s early days but I didn’t tell him we were together or anything, just that you were a friend. Besides, if we keep seeing each other you’d have meet him at some stage. Don’t worry, he’s a sweet kid. Down to earth and really, really smart.’
‘Oh.’
‘Look, I’m sorry to just spring it on you but I know what I want. I want you, Annie, and if you want me you have to know that I come as part of a package with that gorgeous little boy in there. For all I know Natalia might decide to give him over to me full time one day.’ He tuts and lowers his voice even more. ‘She’s never there for him. He’s with nannies on the weeks she has custody and who knows, she might run off with an ex-ice skating pro from down under and never come back. Maybe it’s time I stop making the shaving gel ads. Stop all the rest of it and just be his dad. Noé needs security. And anyway, you’re the closest I’ve got to normal so you could be a good influence on him.’
I’m normal to him. Just normal. Nothing more than that.
Reef makes his way to the kitchen where Rhiannon has Noé standing on a chair by the sink holding his chocolate covered fingers under running water while Judith is rubbing his smudged face with a damp, paisley napkin.
Bea is clearing the table but perks up immediately Reef and I walk through the door.
‘So, has Annie mentioned the party, Reef?’ she asks and winks heartily at me. I widen my eyes at her from behind Reef and dare her to say another word.
‘Party?’ Reef turns around to me and I do a quick expression change. I shrug as if Bea is someone I hardly know and has probably lost her mind. I know not of what party she speaks.
‘Yes,’ Bea pipes up. ‘Her best friend is having an engagement party.’ Becs Sprigg is not my best friend any more. ‘It’s in a stately home that does catered events. It’s actually not too far from the grounds of your mansion.’
‘It’s hardly a mansion.’ Reef shakes his head.
‘Don’t be so modest. I Googled it when I heard you were moving here. It’s huge. How many bedrooms?’
‘Just six and then there’s the master suite.’
Bea pulls a face not unlike a bawdy madam from a Carry On film and I turn crimson with shame. Luckily for me Judith reaches out a hand to Reef and stops Bea from saying something I will later regret.
‘I’m Judith, this is Bea and that is Rhiannon. We’re about to leave now. Aren’t we, Bea?’
‘Oh yes,’ Rhiannon chips in. ‘Time to go. I’ll pop by another time for these bit and bobs.’
Bea is all set to quiz Reef but Judith and Rhiannon take an arm each and with gentle determination, persuade her to leave the house without another word.
I’m left alone with Reef and his good looking son who stopped smiling the second the women left the kitchen. I can tell he has doubts about me so I quickly think to ask if he wants to help me find a vase for the flowers. Presumably, at some stage he would have seen Reef with other women and his mother has had three other boyfriends since splitting up with Reef. I can’t blame him for being wary. I wish to goodness, Reef hadn’t sprung this on me and I wish even more that I can find a vase now that I’ve suggested some flower arranging.
‘There,’ says, Noé pointing to the large ceramic vase on the top of a shelving unit.
‘Oh yes,’ I say. ‘It’s not very pretty but it’ll at least be big enough.’
Reef gets the vase down and helps himself to some coffee which he warms up in the microwave. Noé and I set about clearing a space on the table and laying the colourful tropical flowers out. Then I fill the vase with water and Noé follows me back and forth from the sink to the table, looking up at me with soft, friendly eyes. How Natalia managed to find such exotic flowers in early November I have no idea but she must have planned to buy them in advance of her surprise visit to Reef’s hotel. A pity she didn’t remember to pack anything for her son. His leather flight jacket is hardly a winter coat and expensive trainers won’t do him much good in all this rain and countryside mud.
I help Noé up to a chair so that he can reach the table. He leans against it and lays a small hand on mine as I cut the stems down significantly to fit the vase. He keeps his hand on mine as I carefully arrange each flower.
‘You do one yourself, Noé. You don’t have to leave it all to me. You look like you could do a much better job.’
He shrugs and continues to allow me to lead the way. Reef grins broadly but leaves us to it. He walks around the kitchen, taking in its flaws. I hope he can look beyond them and I wish I’d employed a builder sooner. None of this is fair. I’m here wearing unflattering nightwear, my hair is all over the place and my house is a wreck. I have a small child closely regarding my every move and looking suspiciously from his father and back to me as if we’re up to something and he is about to be dumped here with me.
As Reef walks by the fridge he stops to look at the invitation. He reads it with his head at a slant because it has now slipped further down the door and has a jam finger print on it.
‘Is this the engagement party, your friend was talking about?’
‘Don’t pay any attention to Bea. She loves to stir trouble and I don’t think I’m going.’
‘Then why did you keep it?’ Reef has the invitation in his hand and Noé’s eyes bore into the skin on my face.
‘I don’t know.’
Flowers are entering the vase at a greater rate than before and Noé has given up helping the stems into what is an already full vase.
‘It’s in three weeks,’ Reef says, as if I didn’t already have this information. The 3rd of December, the 3rd of December. The date has taunted me. You don’t have anything nice to wear, you don’t have a date, you shouldn’t bother. ‘I make a very good plus one. I’m always polite and I’ll only speak if I’m spoken to.’
We’re smirking at each other across the small divide of my kitchen diner. I can’t help but picture the looks I’ll get from Zarina and Becs if I arrive with Reef Mayer. It pains me to admit that I’m more intrigued by what people would say about my plus one than I am the party. I’d need a new dress, shoes, accessories, everything. The idea of new clothes and finally having someone I can ask to come with me sparks anticipation in my tummy. So it was worth holding onto that damned invite after all. And now I’m so excited about going to the party, I don’t notice that water is seeping from the vase and onto the pink paisley table cloth.
‘Spills,’ says Noé and looks at the line of water on his tiny designer jeans where he’s been leaning against the table.
‘Oops,’ I say and lift him down. ‘Good thing I’ve got you here to stop me making such a mess of things.’
He grins up at me with tenderness as I set him down on dry land and an unexplained feeling expands my chest. All I want to do is swoop down and hug the little boy I’ve only just met. He looked so sad and scared when he arrived and now I feel as if I’ve known him forever and I no longer feel awkward about trying to communicate with a small child. How Natalia could live without him for a whole month I have no idea.
‘Well, think about it,’ says Reef. I’d forgotten he was there. ‘If you do decide to go, I’m free that evening. But for now, me and this little guy here.’ He stoops to both cuddle and tickle his son. ‘We should go and let you have your afternoon back. We’ve got shopping to do. I’m not organised enough at the house. We need clothes, toys, a football and net in the garden. Don’t we Noé?’
He shouts, ‘Yay,’ and holds Reef’s hand again as they walk towards the front door. I bend down to give Noé a hug and he squeezes my neck very tight.
‘This is amazing,’ says Reef at the open door. ‘Noé never reacts to new people like this. He must really like you but it’s easy to see why. You’re very likeable Annie Lambert.’
He leaves a gentle kiss on my cheek before they both depart. I hear a crash in the kitchen and return to find the vase on its side and exotic flowers all over the floor.
The next instalment is on Monday!