Sushi for Beginners
Page 61

But Jack was studying the sexy photo, then he began flicking from the woman to Ashling, his dark eyes bold and suggestive. Ashling was hot and uncomfortable from his scrutiny.
‘Well, well.’ His lips curled up at the corners, as though he was stuffing back a huge grin. ‘So, Ashling, this is what you get up to in your spare time? Dirty dancing?’
‘It’s not…’ She wanted to hit him.
‘Seriously, it’s a superb piece. You’ve done very well,’ Jack said, dropping all innuendo. ‘Hasn’t she, Lisa?’
Lisa’s mouth attempted many different shapes, but there was no escape. ‘Yes,’ she was forced to say. ‘She has.’
Lisa booked a table at Halo for herself and Jack. Best to assume control because she had a feeling if she left it to him they’d end up at Pizza Hut.
Half an hour before the off she took herself to the ladies’ to ensure she looked her very, very best. What a stroke of luck she’d worn her lavender Press and Bastyan suit today. Although if it hadn’t been that suit it would have been something equally glam. As a magazine editor, you never knew when you might be called upon to be fabulous. Always Prepared, that was her motto.
There was no way her flimsy grosgrain-ribbon sandals would survive the short walk along the quays – they barely held it together as she strolled around the office. Not that Lisa resented their being so impractical – some shoes exist just to display a fierce, short-lived burst of beauty. Why else did God invent taxis?
Assessing herself in the mirror, she was grudgingly pleased. Her eyes were bright and wide (thanks to white eye-liner on her inner rim), her complexion dewy (courtesy of Aveda Masque) and her forehead smooth and wrinkle-free (all down to the Botox injection she’d had just before she’d left London). She brushed her hair until it gleamed – this took no time at all. It always gleamed, thanks to leave-in conditioner, anti-frizz hairspray and being blow-dried by a professional.
At ten to one their taxi arrived and she and Jack left together, watched beadily by the entire office. Lisa was thrilled to get him all to herself, in such close proximity, and planned to use the confined space in the car to ‘accidently’ jostle her slim, bare legs against his. But as soon as they got in, Jack’s mobile rang and he spent the journey arguing with the radio station’s legal advisor about an injunction that had been slapped on them, regarding a controversial interview with a bishop who’d had an affair. The opportunity to jostle simply didn’t arise.
‘I can’t see what the problem is,’ Jack complained into the mouthpiece. ‘It’s a novelty these days to find a bishop who hasn’t had an affair. In fact, why do we even want to interview the guy?’
‘How are you, Lisa?’ the taxi-driver asked. ‘Have you found a flat yet?’
Lisa leant forward. Who was this strange man who had such intimate knowledge of her life? Then she saw that he was the same taxi-driver who’d taken her around to view flats during her first week in Dublin.
‘Oh yes, I’ve got a little house off the South Circular,’ she said politely.
‘The South Circular?’ He nodded approvingly. ‘One of the few remaining parts of Dublin that hasn’t been yuppified out of all existence.’
‘Oh, but it’s still very nice,’ Lisa defended it.
Then she remembered something she’d wanted the answer to. ‘So what happened after you confronted the gang of girls who were bullying your fourteen-year-old daughter? You didn’t have time to finish telling me the last time.’
‘They haven’t touched her since,’ he smiled. ‘She’s a changed girl’
When Lisa got out of the car he said, ‘The name’s Liam. You can ask for me in future if you want.’
Jack was still on the phone when they were shown to their centre-floor table in the beautiful, bustling restaurant. This pleased Lisa. Jack might look like he’d found his suit in a skip, but he was speaking authoritatively on a mobile. It went a long way to redress the balance. Some nearby diners anxiously reached for their phones when they saw Jack on his, and made a couple of entirely unnecessary calls.
After promising that he’d come up with a solution by five o’clock. Jack snapped his phone away. ‘Sorry about that, Lisa.’
‘No problem,’ she smiled prettily, demonstrating her new Source lipstick to its best advantage.
But the phone call had put paid to Jack’s earlier rush of levity. He was once again turbulent and serious and couldn’t be persuaded to flirt. Though there was nothing to say that she couldn’t.
‘To us,’ Lisa smiled meaningfully, touching her wine glass against Jack’s. Then she added, just to confuse him and keep him on his toes, ‘Long may Colleen prosper.’
‘I’ll drink to that.’ He raised his glass and managed a smile, but was clearly preoccupied. All he wanted to talk about was work. Readership profiles, printing costs, the value of having a book page. Nor did he seem very at home in the cutting-edge chic of Halo. Laboriously he wrestled with his starter of unwieldy frisée lettuce, trying to persuade the curls of it on to a fork and then to stay in his mouth. ‘Christ,’ he suddenly exclaimed, when another mouthful made a springy bid for freedom, ‘I feel like a giraffe!’
Lisa went with the mood. She saw no point in trying to re-create the relaxed banter of the night in her kitchen, he just wasn’t interested. He was too busy, too stressed, and she was flattered that he’d agreed to come for lunch at all. And if he wanted to talk work, she could talk work. With her admirable ability to turn most things to her advantage, she decided that now was as good a time as any to ask Jack about the possibility of syndicating a possible column from Marcus Valentine to some of their other publications.
‘Has he actually said he’ll do a column for us?’ Jack asked, almost enthusiastically.
‘Not exactly… not yet.’ She smiled confidently across the table. ‘But he will’
‘I’ll make enquiries about syndication. You’re full of bright ideas,’ he acknowledged.
It wasn’t until they were leaving the restaurant that Jack became human again. ‘So how’s the boiler timer working out for you?’ he asked, with an agreeable sparkle in his eyes.
‘Top,’ Lisa twinkled. ‘I can have long, hot showers any time I like.’ She said ‘long’ and ‘hot’ in a long, hot way. Slow, languid, sensuous.