Miranda's Big Mistake - Jill Mansell [27]
`No.' Bev fiddled for a moment with one of her bracelets. `Well, I gave it to him.'
`Oh.'
`Just to be on the safe side.' Bev sounded defensive. `He might have meant to ask, but forgotten. Or he could have been too shy.'
`Right.'
`The thing is, I really liked him.' Miserably, Bev began picking at a snag on one of her stockings. Within seconds the snag had become a hole. `I know Adrian was a prize pillock, but Greg was really nice.'
`Well, he might phone. You never know,' Miranda said feebly. The harder she tried not to think about scribbling her own number across Greg's naked chest, the more ashamed of herself she felt.
`He won't, he won't.' Bev shook her head, waving her hand in a `give-me-that-tissue' kind of way. `Who am I trying to kid? I've blown it, I'm never going to hear from him again.'
Over his shoulder, the taxi driver said, `Come on, love, cheer up. Chances are he's not worth it anyway. He's probably married with five kids.'
Oh golly, thought Miranda, I hope not.
`He isn't married.' Bev blew her nose with an unromantic trumpeting noise like a mating elephant. `I checked.'
`You mean you frisked him for peck-marks?' The taxi driver chuckled at his own wit.
But Bev was no longer listening. Instead she was gazing with revulsion at the tissue in her hands.
`When I asked you to pass me a tissue,' she told Miranda disgustedly, `I meant a dry one.'
Gluey white baby lotion was sliding down both cheeks and dripping off her chin. The taxi driver, pulling up at traffic lights, swivelled round and said, `Blimey, I saw a Hammer Horror film once just like that.'
`Sorry,' said Miranda, who had squirted a Mr Whippysized dollop out of the bottle, `I thought you wanted to take your make-up off too.'
`Swampwoman,' cackled the driver, `that's who you look like.'
`Taxi driver without a tip, that's what you look like,' Bev muttered. Honestly, were there any men left on the planet who weren't complete pigs?
Miranda knew as soon as the phone rang in her flat two days later that it was Greg. She felt her heart do a quick exultant tarantella at the sound of his voice on the other end of the line.
Which, at seven thirty in the morning, was no mean feat.
`The reason I didn't ring yesterday,' Greg announced, `was because I was playing it cool.'
`Me too,' Miranda said joyfully. `So it's just as well you didn't, because I wouldn't have answered the phone.'
He was smiling, she could tell.
`That's got that out of the way, then. We've done the being-cool bit. Now we're allowed to move on to stage two.' Greg paused. `So, how are you?'
`Great. How's your chest?'
`Still covered in your phone number.' He sounded rueful. `That was indelible ink, you know. I had four showers yesterday.'
`What you need is a Brillo pad,' said Miranda. `That'll do the trick. Or you could use one of those sanding discs,' she added brightly. `You just fit them on the end of your Black and Decker and off you go…'
Whoops, unintentional double-entendre. Miranda held her breath, praying Greg wouldn't let her down. If he said anything remotely building-sitey, she'd go off him in a flash.
Just because she'd ripped open his shirt and scribbled across his bare chest didn't mean he was allowed to be crude.
She almost jumped up and down and cheered when Greg passed the unspoken test.
`I may have to do that.' He sounded amused. `Adrian's already wondering why I've taken to wearing a dressing gown around the house.'
`Tell him you're a born-again virgin and that nudity is a sin,' said Miranda. `Has he tried ringing me yet?' `Yesterday. He got through to a Mrs Finkelstein.' `Was he okay about it?'
`Put it this way,' said Greg, `he was on the phone for twenty minutes, begging at first, then getting madder and madder. When she finally hung up on him he yelled, "Can
you believe it? Miranda's mother won't even let me speak to her, just because I'm not Jewish."'
Miranda, who had plucked the number out of thin air, sent a mental apology