Chapter Six
I reach for my orange wicker basket on the top shelf and remove some yellow-topped pins to tack the train up to the back of Belinda’s bodice. I wish I could be more like Belinda, I think, with a half-smile creeping across my lips.
Although she is veering towards bridezilla behaviour, I’m completely mad about her.
She’s the type of friend every woman wants – no filter, brutal honesty and hilariously funny – that cutting, dry wit.
She’s a woman’s woman. As we near her wedding, her and her sisters are spending more time in my flat, and it’s wonderful.
They are real, a breath of fresh air. But Belinda keeps changing the height of her shoes – dramatically, from ballerina flats to towering stilettos – and it’s driving me crazy.
I’m a perfectionist when it comes to hemming.
But she’s also my only client right now, and because her three sisters want to wear individual styles not ‘generic Monsoon muck’, I have to shut up, suck it up and obey the Almighty.
I also finished attaching the most delicate crystals onto the bodice this evening and the tips of my fingers are still burning from it.
I desperately need to book some clients off the back of these four stunning gowns, so I’m putting my heart and soul into creating each one.
Stepping back, I admire my work as my stomach rumbles.
I head over to my tiny freezer, pull the handle and see nothing but a heavy frost inside.
A noticeable cloud of cold air escapes and it’s welcome.
The ferocious sounds of drum and bass rise with a crescendo, up through the creaky floorboards from the arcade below.
I jump like a scalded cat as the slot machine hits the jackpot.
I’ve lived above MacMan’s Arcade for six years now, but that sound never ceases to make me jump.
When Logan lived with me, we’d both jump then high-five each other and scream:
‘We did it! We hit the jackpot.’
Then we’d kiss. It was a silly, childish nod to how we each felt about the other. We couldn’t get enough of each other. It was thrilling, visceral, physical, all brand-new emotions – and I thought I’d died and gone to boyfriend heaven.
With my hand on my growling stomach, I pick up my phone, press speed dial.
‘Can I order a seventy-three, with egg fried rice and a portion of curry sauce, please?’ I ask the girl on the other end taking my order.
She asks for my address. ‘Top Floor, eighteen, Old Camden Street.’ It’s too late to go out and get something, and while I can’t really afford this, I’m starving.
I was sure I had at least fishfingers in the freezer.
She tells me it’ll be twenty minutes, so I take myself off for a cool shower.
Turning my body under the slow jets, all I can think about is the moment Logan and I are going to stand face-to-face again. What am I going to say? What am I going to wear? What am I going to feel?
‘Oh, hey Logan,’ I say, trying out my tone in the noisy shower as the jets hit my face.
‘Hi! How are you? Long time, no see.’ I manage a high-pitched laugh as I lather the coconut-scented body wash over me.
‘What’s the story? How’s things?’ Bright and breezy.
I’m not angry anymore – I know the part I played in his running away. Like I said, I pushed him for the ring, I forced him into a marriage proposal when I knew that wasn’t what he wanted.
But he walked out on you on your wedding day.
And there she is. That little voice that never really leaves my head. I’ve been waiting for her all day, since Mia told me Logan was coming home. He dumped you by text.
I scrub my hair now with shampoo. Ignore her. I could try breezily sarcastic.
He hasn’t tried to see you since.
‘You’re late, Logan.’ A curl of my lip, a jut of my hip.
‘Oh there you are!’ A playful wink as my fingers knead my scalp and I ignore that voice of hers in my head.
My shower is very unreliable and the water turns suddenly ice-cold.
I add conditioner and quickly rinse. I just need to focus on looking my best on the day – and that idea of bringing a date.
After that, it’s up to Logan. For all I know he has a girlfriend and she might be with him.
I shiver all over and I’m not sure if it’s the cold water or the thought.
I turn off the shower, step out and dry quickly.
Feeling revitalised, I slip back on my denim shorts, pull on a sports bra and back out to the kitchenette.
I pour a small glass of wine to go with my takeaway and head out to the welcome warmth of the rooftop.
The night is positively balmy, and although it’s almost nine o’ clock, it’s still fully bright.
With my hair dripping wet, I sit on my deckchair and look out over the comings and goings on Old Camden Street.
A gentle breeze floats across the night sky as mouth-watering smells drift up on this temperate night, the rows of restaurants along Camden Street below me delivering fragrant spices, all that garlic, ginger, soy and caramelised sugar.
Once a rundown, unloved street of derelict tenement houses, it’s now one of the trendiest and hippest streets Dublin has to offer.
Young people sit outside bars and on the roadside kerbs under the glowing streetlamps, drinking craft beers, in clouds of rising vapour, making merry.
Camden Street has an agreeable, relaxed vibe. The locals welcomed me with open arms.
Lifting my weary legs up onto an old crate, I cross one bare foot over the other and settle in to people-watch.
That’s when I see him.
‘There’s no way . . .’ I blink rapidly, unexpected goosebumps rising in a wave.
His gait is unmistakeable. His hair hangs down over his shoulders in uneven strings, then sways in a jaunty bounce as he moves.
The wild beard. I haven’t consciously realised this, but he hasn’t been far from my mind all day.
He was just so nice. I whip my feet down and lean forward.
He’s wearing a grey T-shirt now, with knee-length khaki shorts and, I squint, those oxblood-red Docs.
He’s carrying a brown paper bag and what looks like that black iron bike lock.
I jump up and peer cautiously over the edge.
He’s sauntering towards my flat. I wonder where he’s going?
Is his date over already? He meanders across the road like a car could never hit him.
Then he stops outside MacMan’s Arcade. He’s not a gamer, is he?
He checks his phone. Then he lifts the bag to read something on a long, flapping, white piece of paper stuck to it and I do a double take.
Suddenly realising it’s my food. Donal is delivering my Chinese order!
I leap back and stuff my feet into my flip-flops.
I run my fingers through my bushy wet hair and locate a bobbin halfway up my wrist, fling my head upside down and catch it up in a top knot just as my buzzer sounds.
I take the rickety stairs two at a time, and as I reach the last one, the buzzer sounds again.
I expend a quick breath and for some reason, I do what they all do in the old black-and-white movies, I pinch my cheeks.
‘G-Gr-Grace!’ Donal stutters, eyes wide as soon as I pull back the old door. Like always, it catches on the edge of the torn brown patterned carpet.
‘Donal? This is mental!’ I say, tugging harder, wearing the same surprise as him, as our eyes meet again. He really has the warmest expression; those green eyes dip down and quickly back up. They open slightly wider, and I cop I’m still in a bra top.
His heads moves from side to side. ‘How the hell?’ He makes his claw with his hand and scoops his hair back.
‘Bizarre,’ is all I have as I wrap my arms around me.
He clears his throat, but his body language becomes withdrawn, slightly awkward, as he steps back then forwards again, clears his throat repeatedly.
‘Well, good evening, Grace . . .’ He flicks the white receipt.
‘Algar . . . your prawn crackers, beef and black bean with mushroom, and egg fried rice, I believe – and an extra portion of curry sauce.’ He pulls himself together, holding the bag up, still reading the flapping, white label receipt.
The aroma of the food is intoxicating and I’m praying my stomach behaves.
That must have been a very quick date he had this evening, is all I’m thinking.
As though he reads my mind, he says, ‘She was a quick-show.’ He lifts his left foot a few inches off the ground, then his right as I narrow my eyes in confusion.
‘She saw me, sat down, excused herself to the bathroom, came back, minutes later her phone rang and her granny’s cat was stuck up a tree, so she had to run.
’ It’s like some kind of embarrassed tribal dance move he’s doing with his feet.
‘Ah, no way, that’s terrible.’ I expend a sharp breath and my mouth drops open as a rowdy bunch of lads make their way into the arcade.
For a second, we’re smothered in the overpowering scent of Lynx, weed and raw testosterone.
I glance down and see up-close that they aren’t Doc Martens he’s wearing, but dusty, well-worn, unlaced workmen’s boots.
‘I was hungry. I ate anyway. Surprisingly good food for such teeny portions. The burgers were so small I ordered five but I got some work done on my phone. It’s all good. Small problems, ya know.’ He shrugs, smiles and I want to reach out and pull him into a tight hug.
He reaches his long arm out to full stretch, holds the bag for me to take with a steady hand.
‘Oh. Right.’ I take the bag from him and hold it underneath as the heat seeps through to my palms. The brown paper is moist beneath my fingers.
I get the potent smell of honeysuckle soap and see his hands are red raw from being scrubbed clean.
My stomach decides to take this very moment to rumble again, even louder this time.
A continuous growl like an angry Alsatian dog guarding a premises.