Chapter 11
11
Highbridge Leisure Centre was only five years old, built between the Princess Diana, Queen of Hearts memorial garden and the BMX ramps. It had a leisure pool, a twenty-five metre pool, a large sports hall and, as Kate was finding out, it had state of the art gym facilities with giant flatscreen TVs all across the walls, some showing European football matches, others blaring out the latest hits on MTV.
Getting a message to Joel through Elite Escorts had proved to be a fruitless task. The receptionist insisted that she couldn’t give out any personal information and in fact, the only thing she could do was book an appointment, which required immediate payment. So here Kate was, in her lunch hour, in the middle of a gym, somewhere she hadn’t ever set foot in, feeling awkward and out of place amongst the fit individuals around her.
It was so noisy, she could hardly hear herself think and she couldn’t see Joel anywhere. This was definitely where he worked; he’d told her. She couldn’t find anyone else to ask; they were all busy running or stepping or cycling ridiculously fast, especially the twenty or so people pedalling and being yelled at by a psychotic woman wearing a headset. She was just about to give up when she saw him at the side of the room, doing sit-ups with a pretty, dark-haired girl .
She took a deep breath, trying to run over in her mind what she was going to say to convince him to help her. But as she moved closer, seeing how fantastic he looked in a very tight top and shorts, all her carefully thought-out plans went out of the window. He was never going to agree to this – why would he? It was a mad plan.
Before she got too close, she turned abruptly and found herself walking into a luckily unoccupied rowing machine. She banged her shin; the pull bar unfastened and made a loud clank as it hit the metal frame.
Joel and the woman he was working out with both sat up and Joel quickly came to her assistance.
‘Are you OK?’ he asked, arriving at her side.
‘Fine, thank you. Hello, again,’ she greeted, her cheeks reddening as she turned to face him.
‘Kate,’ he replied, surprised to see her.
‘Don’t worry, I haven’t come to join the gym or to stalk you or anything. I just wondered if I could talk to you, for a minute, in private. I have – a proposition for you – it’s nothing illegal or dirty or anything like you think, I don’t think. But if I could just ask you, I…’ Kate began.
‘Sure, I’m intrigued to know what it is. Susie, do another twenty and I’ll be back with you in a minute,’ Joel called to his training companion.
He led the way to the end of the room where the water cooler was positioned. The electrical hum of the equipment lessened. He filled a plastic cup with water and offered it to Kate. She shook her head and Joel took a sip.
‘I should have remembered, all but allergic to water, aren’t you?’ he spoke with a smile.
‘Hmm, look, about Friday night – first of all, I want to apologise for whatever happened then. I don’t really remember all of it – well, the getting home part mostly; that’s very blurry – and I want to say sorry if I did anything or said anything that was insulting or rude or in any way inappropriate,’ Kate began, sweeping her hair behind her ears and trying to avoid Joel’s huge eyes .
‘I think it’s the taxi driver that needs the apology, not me,’ Joel responded with a smile.
‘God, really? I don’t want to know any more. Anyway, I’m sure he’s had much worse on a Friday night. At least I wasn’t sick in his cab. I wasn’t, was I?’
‘Well…’
‘Stop! Enough! OK, right, the thing is, I have a bit of a financial problem at the moment and things with my husband – my ex-husband – are a little bit difficult. Basically, I really need to find a whole lot of money so that I don’t have to rely on him any more,’ Kate started, shifting from foot to foot as she tried to say what she wanted to say. This was so difficult!
‘I see,’ Joel replied.
‘OK, good. Right, well, I know Friday night was a disaster and I know I wasn’t the easiest of dates, but when I thought about how to get a lot of money easily and quickly without robbing a bank, I thought about Knowing Me Knowing You . I know, it’s crazy, it was the most terrible thing I’ve had to endure but I just thought I, that is, we , shouldn’t throw away the chance of winning that money,’ Kate blurted out as best as she was able.
‘I’m sensing there’s a “but” coming on,’ Joel spoke, drinking more of his water.
‘No, well, yes, maybe. The thing is, I can’t do it without you, can I? I mean, it was us who got through to the next round, Kate and Joel – I can’t really do it alone. I’m sure they don’t allow for break-ups in the rules and answering questions on your own wouldn’t really work with the format, would it?’
‘No.’
‘Look, I’ll just say it. I can’t do it without you but I can’t afford to pay you for your time – you know – like dates and stuff. So I thought maybe we could strike a deal with the winnings. If we win, which we probably won’t and then neither of us will have got anything out of it, but I thought an eighty/twenty split in my favour – seeing as it was my connections with Frank Peterson that got us into the game show in the first place.’
Joel didn’t reply.
‘Look, I know you don’t really know me at all and I know that there’s absolutely no reason why you should give your services free of charge to someone you barely know, but I’m not asking for me – I’m asking for my daughter. This is all for her and I’m just being a mum and trying to do all I can to give her the best I can,’ Kate spoke, her eyes welling up with tears.
‘Sixty/forty in your favour and I’ll do it,’ Joel replied.
‘You’ll do it?! Sixty/forty? Well – how about seventy/thirty in my favour. I mean…’ Kate began, trying not to sound too elated as she bargained.
‘Sixty/forty is my only offer; there’s no guarantee we’ll win and remember, you can’t do it without me,’ Joel reminded.
Kate hesitated, mulling the idea over in her mind. She hadn’t expected him to agree to do it; sixty thousand pounds would go a long way to lightening her current financial burden and Joel could end up not getting anything out of it at all. There was only one answer she could give.
‘OK,’ Kate agreed and she put out her hand to him.
Joel leaned forward and kissed her on the cheek, which immediately made Kate blush. She still had her coat on and the gym suddenly felt very warm.
‘We’re supposed to be dating. If this is really going to work, you’re going to have to stop trying to shake hands with me,’ Joel told her with a smile.
‘Sorry, it just feels a bit strange – but I can work on it,’ Kate insisted with a determined nod.
‘Good. I’d better get back to Susie or she’ll be completely crunched out,’ Joel said, reminding her he had a client waiting .
‘Oh OK, yes. Um, do you want to come round for dinner or something? I’ll cook – well, I’ll try to cook – and we can talk about a strategy,’ Kate suggested awkwardly.
‘Sure. When?’
‘Um, I don’t know. Are you free tomorrow night?’ Kate asked.
‘Tomorrow’s fine,’ Joel said, heading away from her.
‘Good, right, well, about eight? Wait! Don’t you need my address? It’s—’ Kate began, trying not to shout too loudly.
‘Thirty-one Waverley Road. You really don’t remember the taxi ride home, do you?’ Joel commented, smiling at her.
‘Apparently not,’ Kate answered.
‘I’ll be there, eight o’clock,’ Joel replied. He joined Susie and encouraged her off the floor and onto a treadmill.
‘OK, good,’ Kate said to herself.
She watched him as he spoke to his client and got onto the treadmill next to her. And then she turned away and headed for the door, smiling gleefully to herself. He had agreed to her plan – things were looking up.