Sushi for Beginners - Marian Keyes [171]
As Lisa made her pretty speech, her glance alighted on Jack – or to use her own secret name for him, The Icing on Tonight’s Cake. He was leaning against the wall, his arms folded, his slight smile wrapping her in great warmth and appreciation.
The high she was on lifted even further. Tonight was the night. Since he’d come back from New Orleans they’d all been too busy for enjoyment, she’d barely had time to flirt with him. But they could rest on their laurels after tonight and she fully intended to have him resting alongside her. She scanned her audience with a transcendental smile. Where the fuck was Ashling? Ah, there she was. Lisa gave the nod – time for the bouquet.
After the speeches, the partying moved up several gears. Calvin looked quite alarmed – they didn’t drink like this in New York. And where had Jack disappeared to?
Jack, worn out from glad-handing, had found a quiet seat in a corner and fallen gratefully into it. On the table there were some abandoned pieces of sushi – which someone had clearly been too perplexed by to eat.
Then, shattering his calm, the nearby swing doors burst violently open and, completely in time to the music, in danced Ashling, holding a glass and a fag. She was a surprisingly good dancer, every part of her body moving like a rhythmic sackful of puppies. Possibly because she was very, very drunk, he realized.
She made her way over to Jack, flung down her bag with drunken force, then noticed something on her knee. ‘Ladder alert!’ she announced. ‘Pass me my bag.’ Her fag thrust in her mouth, her eyes narrowed against the smoke, she fished out a can of hair-spray and briskly and efficiently ran it from mid-shin to thigh.
Jack watched, mesmerized. ‘What’s with the hairspray?’
‘Should stop the ladder.’ Her mouth did a kind of peristalsis, holding her fag steady in a corner, while she spoke and exhaled further along it. He was strangely in awe.
As he watched her put the canister back in her bag, he fixed upon the certain notion that he could trust her with his life.
She gave a sharp exclamation, as if she’d just thought of something great, then dived back into her bag and, seized by a spasm of laughter, emerged with a little glass bottle. In the grip of great mirth, she sprayed it on her wrist, which she then extended to Jack. ‘Guess what? I smell of wee.’
The way she gave at the middle indicated that she thought this was hysterical and he found himself laughing also, though he didn’t get the joke.
She demonstrated the bottle of Oui. ‘Oui, wee, geddit? Tonight’s free gift. Pity it’s not being given out until the end, else we could go round saying to everyone “You smell of wee”… Hey look,’ she’d noticed something. ‘You bite your nails.’ She picked up his hand and examined it.
‘Um, yeah,’ he admitted.
‘Why?’
‘Dunno.’ He wanted to come up with a reason but couldn’t seem to.
‘You worry too much.’ With fuzzy compassion, she patted the tender quick of his ragged fingers. ‘Here,’ she looked at him with sudden urgency. ‘Have you any cigarettes? Jasper Ffrench stole mine.’
‘I thought you’d have a spare pack.’ He was striving for a jokey tone, but his mouth felt mumbly-numb, as though he’d been at the dentist.
‘I had, but he stole them too.’
Across the room Jack noticed Lisa raising her glass to him. Everything about her body-language was an invitation. As he fumbled for his cigarettes, his head felt full of cotton-wool and he couldn’t think straight. Lisa was beautiful. She was smart and sassy and he was full of admiration for her vision and energy. More than that, he genuinely liked her. He must do – hadn’t he kissed her? Even if he still wasn’t sure exactly how it had happened.
Lisa had plans for him tonight, but with a sudden cold certainty he knew he didn’t want to fall in with them. Why not? Was it because Lisa was married? Because they worked together? Because he wasn’t over Mai? Or could it be because he wasn’t over Dee? But