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  Lucy-Anne Holmes is an actress living in London. She is the author of two previous novels, 50 Ways to Find a Lover and The (Im)perfect Girlfriend, which have been published in ten countries. To find out more about Lucy, follow her on Twitter, read her blog or chat to her on Facebook.

  Also by Lucy-Anne Holmes

  50 Ways to Find a Lover

  The (Im)perfect Girlfriend

  COPYRIGHT

  Published by Hachette Digital

  ISBN: 978 0 748 12770 2

  All characters and events in this publication, other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2011 Lucy-Anne Holmes

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.

  Hachette Digital

  Little, Brown Book Group

  100 Victoria Embankment

  London, EC4Y 0DY

  www.hachette.co.uk

  Contents

  Also by Lucy-Anne Holmes

  Copyright

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Chapter 66

  Chapter 67

  Chapter 68

  Chapter 69

  Chapter 70

  Chapter 71

  Chapter 72

  Chapter 73

  Chapter 74

  Chapter 75

  Chapter 76

  Chapter 77

  Chapter 78

  Chapter 79

  Chapter 80

  Chapter 81

  Chapter 82

  Chapter 83

  Chapter 84

  Acknowledgements

  For my beautiful sister.

  Chapter 1

  My name is Gracie Flowers and I’m an estate agent. But before you say, ‘Oh, bloody hell, you’re not, are you?’ let me defend myself by saying that I’m not like all the others. For starters, I’m nice. For seconds, I can’t lie. Like, really can’t lie. When a client asks other estate agents if a four foot by five foot kitchen is small, they’ll say something like ‘Oh, no! It’s far from small. It’s compact and demonstrates a remarkable use of space. You’ll get all the mod cons in there.’ If a client asks me whether the five foot by seven foot kitchen is small, I’ll choke and say, ‘Yep, tiny. Try to swing a gerbil in there and you’ll dislocate your arm. You’ll be keeping your microwave in the living room.’ You’d think these qualities would be a hindrance when selling houses, but they’re not. They’re really not. I’m an astonishingly good estate agent, and no one was more surprised about that than me. Well, maybe my mum.

  Ken Bradbury, my boss, the owner of the London chain of estate agents, Make A Move, says that I’m the best female estate agent in London. And although I always say, ‘Ken, you sexist toad, lose the word female,’ I’m as chuffed as a pub patio ashtray to be respected for what I do. What’s even weirder than the fact that I seem to be peculiarly brilliant at selling houses is this: I absolutely love being an estate agent. Choosing a home is a massive decision in people’s lives and it’s me, Gracie Flowers, who’s there making sure they don’t mess it all up. I match the person to the house, so that they can create a home full of love, dreams and happy memories. And I also get to nose around other people’s homes, which can be very enlightening. It’s the best job in the world. Why we’re as popular as bankers I don’t know.

  There is a bummer, though, and it’s a big old builder’s bummer. I have to work on Saturdays. So when normal people are lying in bed all snugly and drooly, dozing and deciding where to go for breakfast, I’m wondering if I can get away with just one more eight-minute snooze and whether I have any clean pants for the day.

  I wake up in the same way, at the same time, every Saturday. It’s not by an alarm clock. I don’t need an alarm clock. This isn’t because I’m a perky early riser. Far from it. It’s because I live in the noisiest flat in London. My Saturday wake-up call is as follows:

  7.42 a.m. – The freight train from Portsmouth to King’s Cross thunders, no roars, no lacerates my eardrums, as it travels along the railway line a few feet from my bedroom window.

  7.54 a.m. – Another freight train; the longest of the week. It lasts for nearly two minutes and sounds like the Red Arrows are doing a flying routine inside my pillow.

  8.03 a.m. – The third alarm call comes when the men in the glass shop below me arrive and turn Capital FM on. Very loud.

  8.14 a.m. – Another freight train.

  8.15 a.m. – The men in the glass shop below me start smashing sheets of glass.

  For some reason the combination of smashing glass, the freight train and the crackling of Capital at around the eight fifteen mark arouses my boyfriend, Danny. It tends to be at about this time that I feel his erection on my bottom.

  When Danny makes love to me later in the day he can be quite adventurous. However, when he makes love to me in the morning he seems to think that flapping his penis onto my bottom constitutes foreplay. Erotic. Now I like sex, but if I have to be honest, at eight fifteen on a Saturday morning I prefer to snooze. I normally lie still and hope that he’ll stop, which is what I’m doing now. It’s not proving very effective, though. He’s just shifted his weight and moved his penis onto the other bottom cheek. Damn!

  I lie still and let him do it anyway. He doesn’t normally take very long in the morning.

  ‘Danny, baby, be careful, I’m not taking the pill at the moment,’ I mumble into the pillow. I forgot I needed to go to the doctors and get another prescription for my contraceptive pill. That was stupid, Gracie. Stupid.

  I’ve been going out with Danny Saunders for ten years. He asked me out two days before my GCSEs started. Actually, technically they’d already started as I’d completed my French oral the day before. This means I should be able to say, ‘Excuse me, where is the nearest bank?’ in French, but I can’t. I haven’t the foggiest. Anyway the bulk of the exams, the two a day for about a fortnight, were still
looming at this point.

  I didn’t know much about Danny when he stopped me in the corridor and proceeded to cough and look at his feet for a few minutes before eventually saying, ‘You know this shit prom thing, do you want to go with me?’

  I knew his name, though, Danny Saunders. I thought it was a nice name: friendly, blokey, approachable and pronounceable. I knew he was clever – he was in all the top sets – I was aware that he was pale and into computers, and I was definitely familiar with his height. ‘Bloody tall,’ I called it. It turned out to be six foot three. But that was about all I knew.

  I kept myself to myself at school. At that time my mum and dad were the Torvill and Dean of the ballroom dancing world. They’d won the World Ballroom Dancing Championships for seven consecutive years, but all this was before Strictly Come Dancing and ballroom dancing’s subsequent rebirth of cool. And this was Kensal Rise Community College, where you were only cool if your dad was a DJ or in prison. ‘Your dad’s a gay lord,’ people would say to me, if they bothered to say anything at all. Hence the keeping myself to myself.

  I was therefore surprised to be asked out to the ‘shit prom thing’. I looked at Danny Saunders with the nice name closely and noticed that he was at least a foot taller than me, lean and broad-shouldered. I was also pleased to see that he was wearing a Ramones T-shirt. My dad had a Ramones T-shirt, and at the time my dad was my hero. I looked into his deep-set brown eyes and nonchalantly said, ‘Yeah, OK, why not?’ But inside I was thinking, Phwoar, Danny Saunders is fit.

  I’m not thinking that this morning, though. I’m thinking something else entirely. The eight seventeen passenger train hasn’t even gone past and Danny is grunting and lolloping off me like a roll of old carpet. But that’s not the worst of it: I can feel something gooey down there.

  ‘Danny Saunders, you arse!’ I screech, punching him in his annoyingly concave belly.

  ‘Aw, Grace, babe. I totally forgot,’ he pants.

  ‘Plonker!’ I hit him again.

  ‘Can’t you get that morning-after pill thing?’

  I sigh, sit up and wipe my eyes like a tired child. I’ll have to get the morning-after pill thing. Thank you, Danny, for pointing out the bleeding obvious. A baby definitely isn’t in my plans for the foreseeable future. But the busiest weekend in the modern world is facing me and God knows when I’ll find the time to fit in a trip to the pharmacy.

  But I mustn’t worry about that for the moment, I think, smiling to myself as I get out of bed. I have a big – no, very big – morning ahead.

  Chapter 2

  I have a feeling that my bathroom routine is different to most people’s. I can’t be certain, but I’ve never met anyone who showers as quickly as I do. Danny tells everyone I shower as though an armed militia is beating down the door. I don’t have the heart to point out that it’s a ridiculous analogy, if it even is an analogy. I never did get my English GCSE.

  If an armed militia were banging down my door I would hardly be in the blinking shower. I would either be trying to squeeze my bottom out of the small bathroom window or I’d be standing in the middle of the bathroom in a formidable Lara Croft stance, armed with a plunger and an aerosol, ready to punish the swines for hurting one of my precious doors. I own my flat. Not that I call it my ‘flat’. Because it’s not a flat. It’s a maisonette. I stripped and sanded all the doors myself and spent hours in Homebase gazing at shades of white before painting them all purple. I love my doors.

  The reason I shower quickly is because I like to have time to talk to myself in the morning. I don’t know what I’d do without my morning pep talks. I got them from my dad. My mum likes to start the day with fifteen minutes of yoga, and when I was little I would get in her way and interrupt her karma, so Dad used to lock me in the bathroom with him and entertain me. He would set me down carefully on the toilet lid and I’d look up at him and listen as he shaved and talked to himself.

  ‘Good morning, Camille, looking very fine, may I say,’ he would start, smiling at his reflection. I would giggle. ‘Now then, you handsome devil, what have we got in store today? Oh, the Clydesdale Cup. And are we going to win it? Oh, we are. Good, good. We’re going to keep the control in the cha cha cha, aren’t we? Not like the last time when we nearly catapulted Rosemary into the judge’s lap. Although he would probably have enjoyed that, wouldn’t he, the filthy toad?’ Then he’d wiggle a few cha cha cha steps. ‘Camille, don’t dance and shave, I have warned you. It can get bloody. So, winning the Clydesdale Cup, what else? Oh I know! I’m going to sing a song with my beautiful birthday daughter, Gracie. What shall we sing?’

  Now, as the bulk of these mornings happened when I was between the ages of three and eight, one might expect us to be singing ‘Twinkle Twinkle Little Star’ or ‘Old MacDonald Had A Farm’ together. But no, by the age of four I knew all the words to ‘Wichita Lineman’ by Glen Campbell. At five my favourite song was ‘No Woman No Cry’ by Bob Marley. My sixth year was quite prolific because we covered a lot of Bob Dylan and the Beatles; and I was singing most of the major Motown hits by the time I was eight.

  ‘Up tight. Everything’s all right!’ I shouted. It was the morning of my eighth birthday and I was in a massive Stevie Wonder phase.

  ‘Gracie,’ my dad said, clocking my enthusiasm with a smile, ‘the time has come. Today is a very important day because I’m going to introduce you to someone very special. Someone very special indeed. A woman with a huge talent. A beautiful, deep, rich voice like you, Amazing Grace.’ He called me that a lot. ‘A woman with the courage of her convictions. A woman who worked tirelessly for the rights of black people. A Goddess. Gracie Flowers, may I introduce you to … the one, the only … Nina Simone.’ And he walked over to the cassette recorder on the bathroom windowsill and pressed play. That was the first time I heard the song ‘Feeling Good’. ‘It’s a new dawn, it’s a new day. It’s a new life for me and I’m feeling good.’

  I was eight and watching my dad who loved me mouth the words to this wonderful song. He mimed being a fish and a butterfly and I laughed in delight – quietly though, as I didn’t want to miss a word – and I remember feeling good.

  That Nina Simone day was exactly eighteen years ago. And I’m feeling pretty good this morning, too, despite the semen situation.

  ‘Happy birthday, Gracie Flowers, how you doing?’ I say to my reflection. ‘Whoa, not pretty. That’ll be last night’s tequilas. Concealer, where are you?’ I say, delving into the cosmetic detritus by the sink. I do completely love my flat, however, its standard of cleanliness may not always attest to this fact. It’s generally a complete tip on Saturday because, if I tidy at all, it will only ever be a rushed, haphazard attempt on a Sunday.

  ‘So, Gracie Flowers, let’s get down to business,’ I say after I’ve smudged away my tequila shadows. ‘You’ve got a lot to get through today. You could get giddy after the announcement, and there may be champagne, so practise what you want to say.’

  I stand back from the sink slightly and take a deep breath. I imagine Ken Bradbury saying, ‘It is with great pleasure that I give the job to Gracie Flowers.’ Then I start to perform.

  ‘Oh my goodness,’ I gasp, putting my hands over my mouth in mock surprise.

  I have to giggle. I’m so rubbish at acting.

  ‘Oh. My. God,’ I try in a higher register. It’s better, but not much.

  ‘Argh! No way!’ I screech, which is dreadful.

  I have a problem. It’s fairly obvious to everyone that I’m going to get the job of Head of London Sales. I’ve been the company’s top negotiator ever since I became a negotiator, and Ken Bradbury himself pretty much told me the job was mine. ‘My decision works very well in your favour, Gracie,’ he said and then he winked. It couldn’t have been clearer. So this is all really just a formality because Ken likes to have a big Saturday-morning announcement whenever there’s a new appointment at Make A Move. He thinks it encourages a healthy rivalry amongst the team. I’ve been to loads of them and it’s
very important to act surprised. I saw one bloke simply nod and go up and shake Ken’s hand. No gasp, no tears, no witty but not vulgar expletive. We had one word for him: smug.

  At Make A Move there is only myself and my good friend Friendly Wendy in the entire company who are of the fair and delicate sex. The rest of the employees belong to the sex that read the Daily Star and like to throw office equipment at each other’s heads. ‘Men’ is the technical term for them, although Friendly Wendy and I prefer to lump them under the more appropriate term, ‘dickheads’.

  The bloke who nodded when he got his promotion eventually became known as Smeg. It started out with the odd quip: ‘Is this ssssmug yours?’ And, ‘Would you like a ssssmug of tea?’ But substituting the word mug with smug offered limited comic value, so in the end he became known simply as Smug which in turn became Smeg – and Smeg stuck. Ken Bradbury’s nickname originated in a similarly organic manner. At first he was known by his initials KB, then these got changed to KY, and now he’s simply known as Lube.

  I mustn’t look smug when they announce me. Smeg’s left now and it’s his job I’ll be taking over. I really don’t want to be called Smeg 2. Or Lady Smeg. Or Little Lube. If I’m given a nickname at all I want it to be Lady Boss.

  I clear my throat and try again. This time I opt for soft and gracious.

  ‘Oh my goodness, Ken, thank you,’ I say, in a way I hope will sound quietly overawed. ‘I won’t let you down, I promise. I love Make A Move. I started here over five years ago, answering the phones on Saturday mornings. And here I am now being given this amazing opportunity. What an honour! I owe so much to you, Ken, for your support and guidance. I’m going to ensure that Make A Move is the only estate agent in London that people want to use.’ Ken will love that bit. ‘And I’m going to whip your arses, boys,’ I add, with a scowl at all the blokes.

  When I finish my little speech, my heart is pounding. I stop and look at my reflection in the mirror. I look like the same Gracie Flowers: a five-foot short arse with long blonde hair that never stays in its ponytail. I’m still chubbier than I want to be, but I feel amazing.