Chapter Fifteen
Mia softly places her palms on both of my flushing cheeks now. The coolness is still refreshing. ‘Where are my manners, you must be hungry. I have nibbles ready for us, let me just add my garnish and I’ll bring them in here.’
Mia knows me well enough to give me a hot minute. My brain goes into Logan-overdrive. I still love him, it’s just a fact. I miss his face and his body. I miss his creativity, his ambition and his drive. I need that to rub off on me right now so I can find a way to keep my business afloat.
But Logan humiliated me. I know Donal thinks I deserve better, and he barely knows me.
I try to focus on Charlie’s snuffled snores.
The smell of lavender floats in from the garden.
I shut my eyes to do some deep, controlled breathing as once more my memory spins back to the cheating suspicions I’ve always had.
*
‘What’s the hell is wrong with you, Gracie?’ A stark-naked Logan padded into our kitchen at midday to find me shaking like a leaf at the kitchen table, head in hands.
‘I slept through twelve phone calls from Ferguson Brophy, ten voicemails asking where I was and more importantly where was dress seventeen, the Zibeline. I snuck it home last night to finish the beading. It’s strictly against the rules.’
‘Well that wasn’t very clever.’ Sleepily, he scratched his nether regions, yawned loudly.
‘Well, I’d no time to do it yesterday, did I?
What with your dress rehearsal and that stupid dinner you organised!
Marian and Patricia had a dress rehearsal too, today, ten o’clock this morning in the RDS.
The Brazilian model Elita Elfantia was booked – she costs an absolute fortune and there was no dress for her because it was hanging on my fucking folding rail where I left it at five o’clock this morning!
’ I furiously spat the words in a rare seething temper at this utter disaster, because I knew Emma Stark was at the RDS and because I was raging about Logan’s co-star, Julianne, Lady Macbeth herself, and the ‘hands-under-the-table’ incident at dinner last night.
Logan had been oblivious to me as he’d held court all through the dinner discussing the play, dissecting the plot.
Then, over dessert, an animated discussion erupted about whether someone other than Shakespeare wrote all the works attributed to him.
Excluded completely, I’d excused myself to make a phone call outside, and through the window I was sure I saw them holding hands under the table.
I’d stood staring in shock for a moment until a waiter blocked my view.
When I’d returned I’d said nothing and there had been no proof for me to challenge him.
When we got home I’d flopped straight at my sewing machine to finish the costumes and Logan had fallen straight into bed, asleep before his head hit the pillow.
I’d set my alarm for two hours’ sleep to wake me at seven to get to the RDS. I hadn’t heard a peep.
‘Shite.’ I didn’t look up as I heard him tug open the fridge. ‘Gracie? Gracie, look at me?’
Slowly, I took my hands away from my face as I watched Logan pull out the carton of orange juice, take a long drink from the spout, shut the fridge and plonk the juice down on the counter.
‘Take a minute. Go over there now? The 16A goes past the RDS.’ He lifted the kettle, shook it, unsure how to be around me when I wasn’t his ‘happy Gracie’. Logan didn’t like when things weren’t all about him.
‘I can’t. They’re furious with me.’ My breath came in rasps.
‘Come on? Shit happens. It’s not like it was the actual show.’ Logan leant against the counter, his two arms stretched out behind him, resting on the edge, propping him forward.
‘Logan, I listened to the voicemails. Marian told me to drop my set of keys through the letterbox on Suffolk Street. They are sending Emma Stark here in a taxi for the dress. Emma! I’m mortified!
You’ll have to give it to her. I can’t face her.
I’m out the door. There are no second chances with them.
’ My voice broke as I battled to hold back the aching tears, my stomach tied up in knots.
‘It’s the heat of the moment, they’ll see sense. You’re too talented. People forgive talented people a lot!’ Logan tried again, his eyes heavy from too many glasses of red wine.
‘You don’t know these women. They’re true perfectionists.
We were warned never to take a piece of the collection home and to treat the dress rehearsal like the real show.
I let them down. I can’t actually believe my own stupidity.
They are right to fire my ass. Emma will have my internship now, I’ve no doubt about that.
’ I tried hard to swallow the lump lodged in my throat.
‘This is my fault.’ Logan propelled himself off the counter, grabbed an old grey towel from our clothes horse, wrapped it around his taut stomach. ‘You looked so tired at dinner last night and you barely spoke, I should never have asked you to come with us. I wasn’t thinking straight.’
Then, at the mention of that bloody dinner again, the tears came and fell quickly down my hot cheeks as I recalled how intimidated I felt, scared, underappreciated, out of the clique and just not cool. And I was still sure they had held hands when I left the table.
‘Ahh, Gracie, don’t cry. I’m so sorry, I blame myself for this mess!’ Logan dropped to his knees beside me, wrapped his arms around my waist. His just-woken-musky-man smell lingering on his skin.
‘I’m such an idiot. I’ve worked too hard to have messed up the biggest opportunity of my career in this way. Idiot, Algar!’ I sobbed in huge gulps. I was devastated.
Logan stood up, wrapped his arms around my neck now, held me so close. So tight, the tufts of his soft arm hair itched my face.
‘You’re no idiot. It was a simple mistake, you slept through your alarm, we’ve all done it.’
I wanted to scream that I was exhausted and over-worked and had been pushed too far, and now I was paranoid! Was he cheating on me with Julianne? I’d seen the way he’d looked at her, hung on her every word over dinner.
But I didn’t.
I wanted to pound my fist against my thighs.
But I didn’t.
Tears had slipped from my eyes. Logan kissed me.
‘I love you, Gracie.’ He’d tousled his hair, sat on the couch.
I twisted him out of the grey towel, flung it across the room and straddled him.
*
‘Top up?’ Mia stands over me, the bottle of gin in one hand and diet tonic in the other. I raise my glass up high.
‘Small drop and . . . I’m sorry.’ I exhale that memory of sex with Logan and curl my toes into Mia’s mushy beige carpet.
It feels nice, and releases more tension.
The sex hadn’t been good that morning I suddenly recall.
He had been selfish, even more distant, and I’d felt it immediately.
Funny, I haven’t thought about that before now.
Haven’t admitted that to myself more like it.
‘Don’t be, let’s just drop it,’ she says, pouring a small drop from each bottle into my upheld glass, puts them down and pads back out to the kitchen.
She returns with a smorgasbord of fabulous mouth-watering nibbles.
Her homemade soda bread with her home-baked, thinly sliced, honey-glazed ham, sea-salt crackers, long, crunchy bread sticks, pesto, hummus, a selection of cheeses, tortilla chips and jalapenos for us to enjoy. Always a wonderful hostess.
‘You’ll stay the night? I’ve freshly laundered sheets on the spare bed and an open bottle of red for the soft cheeses? Let’s just watch a comedy and chillax?’
‘I can think of nothing I’d like more, sounds perfect, thank you.
I do have the Kearney sisters coming for final checks and collections day after tomorrow, so I’ve a busy day tomorrow getting ready for them, can’t be up too late.
’ I give her a two-fingered salute as Charlie starts barking, his little paws flailing as he plod-plods to the open window, stands up on his back legs, his front paws perched on the thin ledge.
‘Let me just let him out to wee.’ She takes him by the collar.
I exhale a breath. One way or another, I’m going to find out if my and Logan’s relationship is still viable. After all this time waiting, I’m going to finally have my answer.
Mia returns, scoops up a generous helping of hummus on a dipped breadstick, takes a bite, flops down next to me. I’m happy to see her enjoying food.
‘Now you can finish telling me all about this Donal fella.’
‘Sure,’ I say.
‘Mmm.’ She shuts her eyes for a second. ‘Homemade hummus is so much nicer. I think it’s all the extra fresh lemon juice I use.’
‘Everything you make is delicious. You’re delicious!’ I press my fingers to my lips and blow her a kiss. She blows one back. Her one is high, it flutters and I raise my hand to catch it.
I lift a tortilla chip, dip it deep into the green pesto and balance a misshapen jalapeno on top. Then I settle back against the feather-filled cushions.
‘Well?’ She eyeballs me.
‘Well . . . Donal is confusingly lovely,’ I finally admit to both Mia and myself with a wide grin.