Miranda's Big Mistake - Jill Mansell [133]
(a) Ask him out?
(b) Ask your secretary to arrange it?
(c) Smile a lot and hope he'll take the hint?
(d) Engage him in a conversation about the weather then suddenly say, `Oops, I've just remembered I'm not wearing any knickers?'
Any of the above would do nicely, thought Johnnie. Sadly, none of them had ever happened to him. Well, maybe the smiling option had cropped up in the past but more often than not the girl doing the smiling had followed it up with: `You're Miles Harper's friend, aren't you? If you could introduce me to him, that'd be fab!'
This time Johnnie was the one caught out. Without even realising it, he had been gazing at Bev. When she looked up and their eyes met, a jolt of something he couldn't begin to describe shot down his spine.
Johnnie coughed loudly to cover his confusion, hurriedly turned over another page in the magazine and stared hard at a Tampax ad.
Oh yes, very brave, very macho behaviour for a grown man. Come on, Tabitha, come on, how long can it take for one sex-crazed ex-movie star to have her hair blow-dried?
Finally Tabitha was done. Fenn brought her out to the reception area and she struck a pose.
`Darling, how do I look?'
`Like an old drag queen.' As her beloved godson, Johnnie was the only person on the planet allowed to tease her. Grinning, he helped Tabitha back into her fake-fur coat. As he did so, he became aware that, once again, Bev was eyeing him discreetly from behind the desk.
`I do not, I look wonderful,' cried Tabitha. Pouting, she turned to Bev. `Don't I, darling?'
`Of course you do. Just ignore him,' Bev said sweetly. Under her breath she added, `Everyone else does.'
The phone rang as Tabitha and Johnnie were leaving, giving Bev the opportunity to sound incredibly busy and pretend she hadn't noticed they were off.
`Shall I tell you a funny thing?' said Miranda afterwards, when Bev had hung up. `Every time I looked over, either you were secretly looking at Johnnie or Johnnie was secretly looking at you.'
`Oh, don't be so stupid.'
`I'm not! Neither of you said a word, but there was all this… this stuff going on.'
`Stuff,' Bev echoed in disbelief.
`You know.' Miranda made mystical movements with her hands. `Stuff you can't describe.' She speeded up her fingers, wiggling them like worms.
`You can't describe it, that's for sure. Anyway, you're talking rubbish as usual.' Badly in need of cosmetic reassurance, Bev reached beneath the desk for her lipstick. Always kept within easy reach, it was Chanel, it was glossy and it was pillar-box red. Since she reapplied it at least a dozen times a day - more, in times of stress - it was also her security blanket. A quick glance in the mirror behind her and a swift one-two was all it tookto restore Bev's faith in herself and a sense of Zen-like inner calm.
`Rubbish, is it?' said Miranda gleefully. `Well, don't look now, but he's coming back.'
As the salon door swung purposefully open, Bev's hand jerked and scarlet lipstick slid up in a line from her mouth to the outer corner of her right nostril. Horrified, clamping both hands over her face, she ducked out of sight behind the desk.
No tissues down there.
Nothing to wipe her mouth on, except the carpet. `Hello?' said Johnnie, above her. `It's no good, I know you're down there.'
The carpet was looking tempting, but it was pearl grey and Fenn would kill her.
There was nothing else for it. Crouching on her heels, curled up like a snail, Bev bent forward and wiped the lipstick off on the hem of her skirt. The white Nicole Farhi skirt she had saved up for months to buy.
`Hello, hello?'
Finally, in slow motion, she rose to her feet. Johnnie was leaning over the desk, watching with interest.
`What?' Bev snapped defiantly, hating him more than ever now that he'd ruined her very best skirt. And although the worst of the lipstick was off, she still had to keep one hand cupped, toothache-style, over the right side of her face.
`Okay, here goes. I think you fancy me.' Johnnie clasped his hands tightly together to stop them shaking. `And God only knows why,