Chapter Eighteen
Dorian’s art class is totally different to Tana’s.
It’s smaller for a start, more intimate, with only the four of us plus a couple of old ladies who keep nudging each other and giving Rhys the eye, and the course will be taking place in the artist’s studio above a vintage clothes shop.
Plus, there are no naked men to sketch, so unless Dorian chucks a bucket of paint over my head, I should be safe from any meet-cutes this evening.
The space is small, with exposed brick walls and a paint-stained wooden floor. There are two rows of three tables and chairs, with paper and pencils set out on each. Jonah, Thea and I nab the tables at the front, leaving Rhys on the back row with Olive and Audrey.
‘Come and sit next to me, young man.’ Olive leans across to tap the table next to hers. ‘I don’t bite.’
Audrey grins at Rhys. ‘I do, but only if you ask very nicely.’ She leans in towards her friend, who grasps her hands as they giggle. Rhys shoots me a pleading look, but I ignore it because a) it’s funnier if I do and b) I’m dissecting my date with Junaid with Jonah.
‘I just don’t think he’s The One. We’re too different. He loves chess and I’d rather play Hungry Hungry Hippos.’
‘Not Pop-Up Pirate?’
‘Don’t.’ I push away the image of Morgan’s gleeful face as he sat opposite me at Pizz-Ahoy.
This meet-cute-The-One thing isn’t going well at all.
‘It isn’t really that he likes chess and I don’t – it’s more that I didn’t even get a say in what we played.
He never asked and I was quite clearly hating every single minute of the game.
And it isn’t just the chess thing.’ Though that, to me, is reason enough, even if Jonah doesn’t think it’s a big deal and I should give Junaid another chance.
‘The kiss. It was… ugh.’ I grimace as I remember the way his lips had suction-cupped onto my face.
It feels as though my cheek should still be raised with a welt.
‘You can’t get past a bad kiss, my love.’ Audrey, one of the older ladies, has leaned forward to join in our conversation.
‘Thank you!’ The way Jonah has been going on, you’d think I was a she-devil for letting Junaid down gently when he suggested we meet up again. ‘It was literally the kiss of death for any relationship we might have.’
Olive nods sagely. ‘If he’s a bad kisser, he’s definitely bad in the sack. Imagine those lips… elsewhere.’
I really, really don’t want to imagine that.
‘You don’t seem to be having much luck with men lately.’ The corners of Thea’s lips have turned down in sympathy. ‘Have they really been that bad or are you being a bit… picky?’
My eyes widen in indignation. ‘There is no pickiness involved. The men have been childish or dripping with misogyny or pass-out drunk. The only one worth bothering with was Kit. We chatted about everything. It was like a lifetime of chatter condensed into ten minutes.’ And that kiss, though chaste, promised so much more.
‘But you’re not going to see him again?’ Audrey is invested in my pitiful love life now; she’s completely turned away from Rhys, focusing entirely on me. He can thank me later.
‘I can’t.’ I start to pick at my nails. ‘I lost his business card.’
‘Business card?’ Audrey flicks a look at her friend. ‘How very… retro.’
‘Never mind that.’ Olive wafts her hand at her friend before turning to me. ‘What did the business card say?’
I give Olive a look that suggests she’s a sandwich or two short of a picnic. ‘His name?’
‘Exactly.’ Olive claps her hands together. ‘You can look him up on the internet. Everyone’s on social media these days. Even old farts like us.’ She looks at Audrey, who confirms this with a nod.
‘Like a stalker?’
Olive rolls her eyes and sighs. ‘Like someone who is interested in seeing a very charming man. He is charming, right? And handsome? Please tell me he’s handsome.’
I think back to that Friday night, to standing outside the piano bar. Kit was tall, over six feet, easily, with a short blond shaggy rocker haircut that fell over his long-lashed blue eyes, and his lips were full and very, very kissable. ‘He’s handsome.’
Olive claps her hands together. ‘I knew it! I do enjoy a handsome man. Go on.’ She wafts a hand at me. ‘Look him up. Let us see this handsome chap.’
I cringe as I slide further down into my seat. ‘I can’t remember his last name. I’d been drinking.’ Not as much as Conrad, obviously, who didn’t know my first name, never mind my last, but still.
‘Oh my goat.’ Thea shakes her head at me, disappointment written all over her face. I look away, shamed at my drink-fuelled forgetfulness. It’s a proper ‘mum’ look, the kind that makes you want to shrivel to dust. I’m not angry, I’m just disappointed.
‘Right. I have to know.’ Rhys leans forward across his desk at the back of the studio. ‘What is this goat thing? You all say it.’ He moves a finger across the front row of desks to encompass me, Thea and Jonah. ‘What’s it all about?’
‘It’s a thing we made up as kids, to annoy Mum.’ Thea looks at her brother and sniggers. ‘She hated us saying “oh my god”, so we’d say “oh my goat” instead, like when you tease someone in a race by saying ready… steady… go bananas! I guess it stuck, and Christina must have picked it up from Jo-Jo.’
‘Never mind all that.’ Audrey tuts at Rhys before turning to me. ‘Tell us more about this boy so we can track him down.’
But Dorian takes his place at the front of the class before I can tell her anything else about Kit. Not that there’s much more to tell: I met him, lost his number, and now I’m probably never going to see him again.
The class begins with an introduction from Dorian before we start our first module of the course.
We look at the different grades of the pencils in front of us, experimenting to see the effects each one achieves, and we play around for a while with practice pieces before we stop for a cup of tea and a chat in the small seating area to the side of the studio space.
There’s an old sofa spilling its stuffing, which Olive and Audrey commandeer, and a mismatched wingback armchair that Thea bags.
Jonah, Rhys and I drag our chairs across from the studio and squeeze them into the space.
‘So, Thea?’ Rhys inches his chair right up to her armchair. ‘You’re called Dorothea? Like a little old lady? No offence, ladies.’ He winks at Olive and Audrey, who titter and shrug. No offence taken.
Thea groans. ‘Don’t. I’ve always hated my name. That’s why everybody calls me Thea, apart from Mum and Dad.’
‘There was that one time it accidentally slipped out of Dad’s mouth.’ Jonah is already giggling at the memory, even though the story isn’t finished yet. ‘And Mum hit the roof. Her name is Dor-o-thea, Keith. I thought she was going to make him write it down a hundred times as punishment.’
‘Funny, she can’t get my child’s name right.’ Thea shakes her head. ‘I swear, if she calls her Francesca one more time…’
‘At least that’s the only thing she disagrees with you over.’
‘I know.’ Thea reaches out her foot to nudge her brother’s calf in solidarity. ‘Anyway, we’ve somehow turned this into a Jackson family therapy session. Sorry.’ She gives the rest of us an apologetic look, mainly aimed at Olive and Audrey.
‘Don’t worry about it, my love.’ Audrey leans forward. ‘It’s nice to hear other people’s drama. Makes me feel normal for having my own fair share.’
Olive rolls her eyes. ‘You’re not going to tell them about Gerry, are you?’
Audrey tuts. ‘Of course I am.’ She wriggles in her seat, getting comfy.
‘My husband has been dead for twenty-seven years, Satan unrest his soul, and he was a real rotter. He lied, cheated, gambled the housekeeping money away. He spent the first few hours of our honeymoon in a police cell because he couldn’t resist the lure of an old lady’s handbag hanging off the back of a deckchair on Blackpool beach.
I should have taken that as a sign of things to come, but love is blind, as they say.
’ Audrey slaps her hands down on her thighs.
‘Still, he’s dead now and I’m loving life with my bestie. Making up for lost time.’
‘We try to do something new every week. Starting this art course this week.’ Olive sticks up her thumb and starts to count the activities off on her fingers.
‘We joined a book group last week – still haven’t started the book for next month, to be honest – and we went roller skating the week before.
Wouldn’t recommend.’ She catches Audrey’s eye, who wrinkles her nose and shakes her head.
‘We’ve been bike riding, done a bit of pottery, we’ve been a music festival and skinny-dipped in Lake Windemere. ’
Audrey nudges her friend. ‘We might do that last one again. Very liberating.’
‘Cold as fuck though.’ Olive shudders and rubs her arms while Thea almost chokes on her tea. ‘So, that’s why we’re here. What about you lot?’
‘It’s down to me, I guess.’ I look at my friends, who shrug in concurrence.
‘I’ve always loved to draw but I’d never taken any classes or anything until a couple of weeks ago.
’ I tell the ladies about Ally, and they giggle and fan themselves at the naked modelling bit and tut at the dismissive message he sent after mistaking me for Asher and Frankie-Rose’s mum.
‘And then Jonah talked me into taking this course and said he’d tag along for moral support. ’
Olive leans forward and pats Jonah on the knee. ‘You’re a good friend, young man.’
He’s the best, I think, and I’m about to say as much when Dorian joins us in the seating area and tells us that the class is resuming.
We spend the next couple of hours working on our final piece of the module.
Under Dorian’s guidance and using the techniques we learned earlier, we’re free to draw whatever inspires us, and I focus on the view from the window, sketching and shading to replicate the image of the bars and shops across the road.
‘Very nice.’ Dorian nods as he appraises my work.
‘Perhaps you could reproduce this image when we move onto oils? Watercolours too? Make a miniseries? But of course, it is completely up to you. This is your time. Your art. Your outlet to express yourself.’ He smiles at me before moving onto Jonah, his steps careful and almost silent so as not to disturb our hard work.
I’m proud of my piece and I’m looking forward to returning next week and pushing myself further.
If nothing else comes from the meet-cute thing, at least I’ll have my reignited passion for art.
‘We’re popping across the road for a little drink if you fancy joining us?’ Audrey leads the way down the narrow staircase, her steps slow and cautious on the bare boards.
‘That sounds lovely, but I have to get to work.’ It may be a Sunday afternoon but weekends don’t exist with bar work and my shift starts in forty-five minutes.
‘Me too.’ Rhys twists to look up the stairs and widens his eyes at me.
I know what that startled look means: I do not trust these women with a drink inside them.
And I get it. They have been pretty flirty with Rhys during the class and that was when they were stone-cold sober.
Rhys and I have witnessed many ladies like Olive and Audrey during our years working at Rollerz and he’d be lucky to escape the bar with his shirt on once they’ve had a tipple.
‘And Christina’s our ride.’ Jonah shrugs in a what-are-you-gonna-do? kind of way.
‘Shame.’ Audrey has reached the tiny lobby at the bottom of the stairs, and she pushes the door open, letting a blast of sunlight into the dim staircase. ‘Maybe next week?’
‘Maybe.’ Rhys shoots me a look that says no way before he darts forward and holds the door open for everyone else to file out onto the pavement.
The door clicks shut behind him, and we splinter off into two groups – Olive and Audrey head for the bar opposite and the rest of us shuffle up the road towards my car.
A startled yelp makes me turn, just in time to see an e-scooter hurtling towards me, having swerved to avoid the ladies as they wait to cross the road.
I hold my arms out in front of me, as though they can protect me from the impact, but the scooter veers to the right, missing me by a whisker and sending the rider into the wall of the vintage shop below Dorian’s studio.
Thea dashes off to check on Olive and Audrey, who are startled after the near miss, while Jonah and I help the rider up onto his feet and Rhys rights the upended scooter.
‘Are you okay?’ My eyes flick up and down the rider’s body, checking for any obvious signs of injury.
‘Yeah, I’m fine.’ He dusts himself down and grimaces. ‘Sorry about that. I’m such an idiot.’
‘Yeah, you are.’ I look back to check on the ladies, who seem fine as they wave Thea off and make their way across the road.
‘Ouch.’ The rider laughs as he rubs his arm. ‘I just slammed into the wall but that hurt.’
I shrug, not one bit of me wanting to back down from my assessment. ‘You did nearly mow down two eighty-odd-year-old ladies.’
He scrunches up his face and nods. ‘Yeah. I did. You’re right. Are they…’ He looks for Olive and Audrey and spots them giggling about something as they duck into the bar. ‘They seem all right.’
‘They’ll probably need something for the shock. Maybe you should go and buy them a drink?’
‘Good idea.’ The rider tilts his head to one side. ‘Are you in shock too? Could I buy you a drink?’
Oh, for goat’s sake.
The e-scooter rider isn’t the only idiot.
I’m an even bigger one.
Because of course this is a meet-cute. Barely a day goes by that I don’t have one. When they say be careful what you wish for, they mean it, because someone could get seriously injured in my quest to find The One.
‘I’m fine, honestly, and I’m also on my way to work.’ I step away from the scooter and its rider. ‘Be careful on that thing.’
‘I will.’ The rider pushes the scooter into the middle of the pavement and steps onto it, and then he’s gone, zooming up the street and disappearing from view.
‘These meet-cutes aren’t stopping, are they?’ Rhys slings his arm around my shoulders, and we resume our short walk up the road to my car.
‘Nope. It’s starting to feel ridiculous.’
‘And you don’t think they’re going to stop until you find your special One?’
I shake my head. ‘It sounds mad, but it seems that way.’
‘Then why didn’t you go for a drink with him?’
‘I need to get to work.’ I aim my fob at my car and unlock it. ‘And I don’t date men who ride e-scooters on the pavement and nearly take down pensioners.’
‘You know.’ Rhys tightens his grip on my shoulder, pulling me in close. ‘You could forget this whole meet-cute thing and live happily ever after with me.’
I nudge Rhys’s arm off my shoulder and open the car door. ‘Let’s call that Plan B.’ And pray it never comes to that.