Nadia Knows Best, page 4
“Imagine! The Oscars! At the Oscars with a girl like that! Bet she didn’t get that dress in Top Shop. And they describe him as a model-turned-actor. Nadia, I’m trying to show you and you’re not even looking.”
Nadia had briefly been tempted to batter her sister to death with the iron in her hand. But Clare wasn’t being deliberately cruel, she just possessed all the natural sensitivity of a velociraptor. It wouldn’t occur to her that Nadia might not want to see her ex-boyfriend pictured in a magazine with some sensational-looking new girl.
Some Oscar nominee, at that.
Oh yes, Laurie was living a whole new charmed life now. Thanks to his hectic schedule, he hadn’t been home for months. He had even fallen into acting as flukishly as he’d got involved with modeling, when his agency had sent him to appear in a pop video. At a party several weeks later, he’d met a director who recognized him from the video and promptly declared that he was casting Laurie in his new movie. Hollywood parties are stuffed to the gills with aspiring actors desperate for their big break. Laurie, who didn’t even want one, got his. The movie part had been small, but Laurie’s English charm and gift for comic timing meant he acquitted himself with honors. People had instantly sat up and begun to take notice. Knowing his luck, Nadia thought drily, by this time next year he’d be the one nominated for an Oscar.
“She used to go out with Johnny Depp.” Clare was drooling over the accompanying article. “Hey, how cool is that? You’ve slept with someone who slept with someone who slept with Johnny Depp.”
“I could always singe your ears,” Nadia offered, holding up the iron.
“Ooh, touchy.” Clare turned her attention to Harpo in his cage. “You’d think she’d be flattered, wouldn’t you, Harpo? What’s Nadia got, eh? What’s Nadia got?”
It had taken her hours to teach him this one.
“Brrrkkk,” Harpo squawked manically in return. “Nadia’s got a fat arse.”
***
Leaving the supermarket, Nadia made her way along Princess Victoria Street past the jewelers, the art gallery, and the scarily expensive shoe shop whose gleaming windows she didn’t even dare to look in. Charlotte’s Patisserie loomed ahead, their white chocolate éclairs whispering to her, luring her toward them. Of course they were expensive too, but compared with Italian sandals they were a complete bargain.
“Nadia!”
So wrapped up in the heavenly prospect of biting into a squishy, silky-smooth éclair that she barely registered her name being called behind her, Nadia yelped in alarm as a hand came to rest on her shoulder.
Oh God, had she accidentally shoplifted something from the supermarket? Had a burly store detective chased her down the street to inform her that she was about to be frog-marched back to the shop, arrested, and charged with—
“Oh, it’s you!” Relief broke over her like a wave. Not that she’d ever actually shoplifted in her life (candy didn’t count) but all it took was one moment of carelessness. And when you were as absentminded as she was, it was always a worry.
Jay Tiernan was shaking his head with amusement. “I saw you walking past the art gallery. Well, I was almost sure it was you. This is amazing, I was just thinking about you the other day.”
“Really? Why?” Flattered, Nadia pulled her stomach muscles in.
“My sister-in-law pranged her car. Smashed the front wing, just like you did. She was putting her lipstick on, looking in the mirror, when some wall spitefully jumped out and ran into her. Your face,” he went on cheerfully, “when I put my hand on your shoulder. You jumped a mile.”
“Yes, well. I thought you were a store detective.” Apologetically, she held up her supermarket carrier.
Jay raised his eyebrows. “You’ve been stealing?”
“No! I just—”
“Something decent, I hope. Lobster and caviar at the very least, not economy baked beans and a couple of tins of cat food. If you’re going to shoplift you might as well go for the good stuff—oh.” Having whisked the carrier from her grasp and briskly surveyed the less than glamorous contents, he shook his head sorrowfully at Nadia. “You really don’t have any idea how to shoplift, do you? This is hopeless, hopeless. Why would you even want to steal stuff like this?”
“Very funny.” Taking the bag back from him—oh well, could’ve been worse, she could have bought hemorrhoid cream—Nadia said, “What are you doing here anyway?”
“Here in Bristol, or here right-at-this-minute in Clifton?”
“Both.”
“OK. Living in Bristol now. Moved down from Oxford a few months ago. And right at this minute—well, up until thirty seconds ago, I was standing in front of two paintings like this”—he struck a pose of chin-rubbing indecision—“trying to choose which one to buy.”
“In the Harrington Gallery?” Nadia realized that this was where he must have been when he’d spotted her going past the window. “Couldn’t you just have paid for the cheaper one and slipped the other one out under your jacket?”
His light brown eyes sparkled with approval. “Nice idea. You’re a fast learner. Sadly, the owner of the gallery was this far away from me, making sure I wasn’t about to try anything rash. Then again, if I had an accomplice we might stand a chance. You could divert his attention, go into labor or something, and all I’d have to do is grab both paintings, stuff them under my jacket, and leg it.”
“Both paintings. Now you’re getting greedy. Besides,” Nadia smugly patted her flat—well, flattish—stomach, “I’m not nearly pregnant enough to be going into labor.”
The expression on Jay’s face altered by just a fraction. “How pregnant are you?”
“Not at all.” She grinned. “Got you.”
Did he look relieved? Actually, it was hard to tell.
Jay took her arm. “Come on. I’ve bumped into you now, this has to be fate. It’s your job to help me decide.” He paused. “Unless you’re in a desperate hurry to get home.”
All of a sudden he was sounding concerned. Nadia shrugged and shook her head in a free and easy manner.
“No hurry.”
“Quite sure about that? Promise me you’re not growing werewolf legs as we speak?” Raising his eyebrows, Jay glanced at the shopping bag containing the offending tube of depilatory cream.
Nadia shot him a sunny smile. “Oh, that’s not for me. Whenever I meet a man who thinks he’s really hilarious, I like to sneak into his house at night and squeeze depilatory cream into his bottle of shampoo.”
She could have told Jay just how well she knew the Harrington Gallery. Not well as in sleeping-with-the-owner, but she’d been dragged along to a fair few preview nights in her time.
Nadia chose not to mention this as he pulled her inside. Werewolf legs indeed.
“This one,” Jay announced, stepping in front of the first painting. Moments later she found herself being swiveled by the elbows to her left and planted before a second canvas. “Or this one?”
Nadia opened her mouth to speak, then shut it again.
It just had to be, didn’t it?
The painting on the right was the larger of the two, a towering dramatic mountainscape featuring a lot of grape-colored sky with the occasional shaft of sunlight breaking through the clouds. Very moody. Almost biblical. That is, until your gaze was gradually drawn to the bottom left-hand corner of the picture, where a couple were kissing in an old-fashioned red telephone box.
Nadia smiled to herself. Nice touch. The painting, on sale for seven hundred and fifty pounds, was by an artist she hadn’t heard of.
The second one, priced at five hundred and twenty pounds, had been painted by Clare, her sister.
If these were the two Jay had been tempted by, he clearly had a sense of humor. Clare’s style was quirky, offbeat, and character-led, like Beryl Cook without the acres of fat. This particular work, executed in bold watercolors overlaid with ink, depicted a wedding reception complete with naughty pageboys, lecherous bridegroom, gossiping guests, and the bride’s mother passed out with one hand clutching a bottle of Pomagne and her head on the table. The bride, meanwhile, was at the door legging it with one of the waiters.
The painting was titled “Happy Ever After.”
Typical Clare.
Not that Clare was especially cynical. She simply delighted in depicting the misfortunes of others.
“Well?” said Jay, at her side.
“Hmm.” Thoughtfully, Nadia studied her sister’s painting from all angles. Behind his desk at the far end of the gallery, Thomas Harrington put down the phone and spotted her. Catching his eye, Nadia indicated with a faint shake of her head that she’d prefer him not to come over and greet her like an old friend. Or, for that matter, like the sister of one of his exhibiting artists.
Clare had spent her years at art college in typically riotous fashion; it had seemed almost unfair when she had emerged at the end of the course in the upper division, when other students had worked far more diligently and come away with so much less. When Clare had begun selling her paintings—not many, but enough—it had seemed even more unfair. How many graduates from art school, after all, managed to attain such dizzy heights? Ten percent, thought Nadia, if that. This was Clare all over; she had never done a proper day’s work in her life.
Still, mustn’t be bitter.
“Which one?” Jay prompted in her ear.
“Honestly?”
“Honestly.”
Nadia, who was great at being honest, said, “If I had that much money to spend, I’d be in the shoe shop three doors down, buying Italian leather shoes with four-inch diamond-encrusted heels.”
Gravely Jay said, “But I’d look stupid in four-inch heels.”
“And they can be tricky if you’re not used to them.” Nadia glanced sympathetically at his feet. “Maybe you’re best sticking to paintings.”
“I think so too.” He paused. “And?”
“It’s your money. You should be the one to decide.” She recalled Clare’s remarks earlier as she’d ogled the photos of Laurie in the magazine. “But since you ask, I prefer the one with the phone box.”
“Really?”
“It’s unexpected. You don’t see it at first. The other one’s more all-over funny, a bit slapstick.” As guilt belatedly kicked in, Nadia amended, “Then again, it’s still good. And cheaper.”
“Oh well, that’s it then. If I choose it now I’d look like a lousy cheapskate.” Turning to Thomas Harrington, Jay said cheerfully, “I’ll just have to take the one with the phone box.”
Leaving Nadia to wonder if he would have bought Clare’s painting if it had carried a price tag of nine hundred pounds.
Chapter 6
When Jay had done the credit card thing and Thomas Harrington had murmured in her ear, “It’s no skin off my nose, but your sister’s going to beat you to a pulp if she gets to hear about this,” Nadia allowed herself to be led away to a pavement café for a drink to celebrate.
To celebrate the fact that she was still whole and unpulped, probably.
Oh well, it was as good a reason as any.
“So tell me what you’ve been doing with yourself. Are we safe out here, by the way?” Clearly amused, Jay indicated the magazine rack standing outside the newsagents across the narrow street. “Your boyfriend’s not likely to leap from the pages of GQ and lay one on me?”
Inwardly Nadia squirmed. Oh God, how she had boasted about her wonderful relationship, about the deep love and trust she and Laurie had had for each other.
“That was ages ago. We broke up. And if you say I told you so, I’ll pour salt in your coffee. Or if you smirk,” she added as the corners of Jay’s mouth—predictably—began to twitch. “Smirking’s not allowed either. We just aren’t together anymore and I’m absolutely fine about it. How about you?”
“I’m fine about it too.” Hastily he covered his coffee with his hand. “And I’m not smirking. It’s just really nice to see you again.”
The next time Nadia looked at her watch, a whole hour, incredibly, had gone by. She had learned that Jay was now living here in Clifton, just around the corner in fact, in Canynge Road. Still in property development, he was buying up and renovating neglected houses in the area—well, employing a team of people to do the actual dirty work for him—then selling them on at a hopefully spectacular profit.
Although if he could afford to impulse-buy paintings like the one currently swathed in bubble-wrap and propped up against their table, he had to be doing something right.
“And how’s your job going? Weren’t you working in a nursery or—no, hang on”—Jay snapped his fingers—“a garden center, wasn’t it?”
Faintly miffed that he’d had to struggle to recall her line of work, after she’d asked him if he was still in the property business, Nadia nodded and tried not to feel less memorable to him than he’d clearly been to her.
“Out at Almondsbury. Yes, I’m still there. It’s great, I love it.”
This was a massive exaggeration. Her job was OK, verging on the tedious. The plants and flowers themselves were fine, but when customers came back complaining that the pot of fuchsias they’d bought three years earlier had just died—as if she’d personally doused them with cyanide—well, it was enough to make you wonder if some people should be allowed to buy plants in the first place. And as for the gnomes…
“You love it,” Jay echoed thoughtfully. He paused. “That’s a shame.”
“Why? Why is it a shame?” Nadia sat up a bit straighter, attempting to gauge the meaning of that regretful shake of his head. “I don’t love it that much.”
“OK. On a scale of one to ten. How much do you love your job?”
“Two,” Nadia promptly replied.
Jay let out a low whistle. “Two. You’re right, you don’t love it that much.”
“It’s the gnomes. We sell gnomes.” Nadia pulled a face, willing him to understand. “Anyway, I didn’t want to sound like one of those people who whine on about their boring job but can’t be bothered to get off their fat backside and find something better.”
Even though, basically, this described her situation to a T.
“But you know a lot about gardening?” said Jay.
“I know everything.” Nadia experienced a flicker of hope. “I’m Charlie Dimmock in a bra.” How that woman ever managed to work without one was a mystery to her. “Why?”
“Ever designed one yourself?”
“A bra or a garden? Come on,” Nadia pleaded, “tell me. What’s this all about?”
Jay shrugged. “Maybe nothing. I need a gardener, that’s all.”
He needed a gardener? Hey, say no more.
“But that’s great, I can fit that in, no problem. In my spare time,” Nadia explained eagerly. “I mean, how long would you want me for, a couple of hours a week?”
Jay shook his head. “Much more than that.”
Blimey, he must have a huge garden. Without thinking, Nadia said, “How big is it?”
Oops. As the actress said to the bishop.
Looking as if he were trying not to smile, Jay leaned back in his chair. “When I buy a wreck of a house and do it up, it generally has a wreck of a garden to go with it. I need someone to start from scratch, transform it into something superb. This isn’t just a matter of mowing the lawn and digging out a few weeds. I’m talking clearance, relandscaping, planting, the lot.”
“I could do that!” Nadia sat up, her skin beginning to tingle. “I did landscaping at college. I’m a hard worker and I’m stronger than I look.”
Crikey, Jay had talked about fate earlier. This really was fate.
“I was using a firm from Winterbourne, but they weren’t that reliable. Let me down a couple of times.”
“I wouldn’t let you down.” She was dimly aware of not playing it cool, of sounding disgustingly eager. Oh, well… “I’d never let you down, I promise!”
Jay hesitated, evidently reluctant to hand her the job on the spot. “I put an ad in the local paper last week. I’ve had quite a few responses.”
“Maybe,” Nadia said promptly, “but none of them have slept with you and I have. That has to count for something.”
Damn, damn, she knew she should have had sex with him.
From the look of amusement in Jay’s brown eyes she could tell he was thinking the same thing.
Nadia held her breath and silently cursed her faithfulness. If she didn’t get this job it would all be Laurie’s fault. Him and his lousy promises that they’d be together forever. God, she wished she could hate him as ferociously as he deserved.
“Please,” said Nadia. “I’m a great gardener.”
Jay thought for a moment. “Do you have one you could show me?”
His third cup of coffee, half drunk, had grown cold in front of him. He clearly didn’t have any pressing appointments for the afternoon, and it wouldn’t take long anyway. Feeling quite masterful, Nadia gathered up her plastic carrier, rose to her feet, and said, “Let’s go.”
Well, this was fate after all. May as well make the most of it.
***
It would have been nice if the house could have been empty, but Nadia’s home seldom was. Doing her best to sound businesslike, rather than like a girl bringing her boyfriend back for the first time and shyly introducing him to her family, she led Jay into the kitchen and announced, “Gran, this is Jay Tiernan, he needs a gardener so I’ve brought him here to show him what I can do. Jay, this is Miriam Kinsella, my grandmother. And Edward Welch, our neighbor.”
Miriam and Edward were watching horse racing on TV while finishing a late lunch of garlic bread, Milano salami, and a bottle of Barolo. Betting on the horses was Miriam’s latest passion and her language when she failed to win was spectacular. Since Miriam insisted on betting only on horses ridden by jockeys whose colors matched whatever she happened to be wearing that day, her language was frequently spectacular.
Today she was wearing an emerald-green shirt and white trousers. Swiveling round on her chair, Miriam waggled her fingers at Jay.
