“Five, four, three, two, one! Happy New Year!” We all jumped around as the London night sky literally exploded into a brilliant firework display. It was ninety sixty nine. Jack picked me up out of nowhere, twirling me around before planting a hundred kisses all over my face.
“You look just as beautiful this year as you did the last!” He complimented with an ear to ear grin.
Rolling my eyes I playfully slapped his arm then pulled him toward the dance floor so we could have some kind of excuse to put our hands all over each other.
The very next day I woke up with a horrendous headache and blearily watched as Jack hobbled around the dimly lit bedroom. I let out a grumbled complaint before pulling the covers over my head and trying to go back to sleep. Then something clicked and I threw the covers away from me. “What’re you doing?” I demanded, pushing myself up into a sitting position, running a hand through my long dark hair.
“I’ve got to go,” he replied, snatching up a bag and putting it on the end of the bed, throwing whatever pieces of clothes he could find into it.
Snorting I battled with the hangover, “Where?”
“Tour.” He mumbled purposefully turning his back to me.
“Tour!” I exploded, why hadn’t the bastard said anything? “You’re kidding me? Jack, why didn’t you tell me?”
“Hey,” he held his hands up in surrender, “Take it easy baby. It’s just three weeks and then I’ll be all yours-”
“What makes you so sure that I’ll hang around waiting for you?” I crossed my arms tersely across my chest. I couldn’t believe he was springing this on me.
This time Jack got angry, he slammed clothes into his bag with vehemence. “You knew exactly what you were getting into when we first got together. If you can’t hack it then you know where the door is.”
I threw the covers off of me, too angry to care about anything anymore. Snatching up a pair of sandals I rammed them on my feet and on my way to the door my coat as well.
“What’re you doing?” He shouted from the bedroom.
“You’re right, I can’t hack it Jack. So fuck you and you’re fucking tours you fucking fuck!” I turned on my heel to scream at him, he was hanging in the bedroom doorway utterly astonished. I don’t think he was particularly used to someone calling the shots in the relationship.
I opened the door and stomped down the stairs, flinging the front door open. “No,” I heard him barrel down the stairs after me. “No, you’re not walking away from me. Shut the door, shut it!” He reached forward but I closed it before he could, Jack spun me so we were facing one another, “I’m sorry,” he whispered.
“Jack,” I placed my hands on either side of his face, “I love you.”
“I love you too babe,” he met my lips with his passionately.
“I’m sorry,” I mumbled under his mouth. “I’m so sorry. I really love you.” He laughed, wrapping his arms around me, holding me tightly to him as if he never wanted to let go.
“You’re my constant, Rubes, always,” he gave me a little squeeze before cackling mischievously and picked me up, slinging my over his shoulder in a fireman’s lift. I giggled as he raced up the stairs and chucked me on the bed. He buried his face into my neck as his hands tugged at my nightie. “I need you baby that’s no lie. Without your love I’d surely die.”
I held his face in my hands so I could gaze into his eyes, the smiles freezing on our faces, “Good because without your love I’d die as well.” And then I brought his mouth to meet mine hungrily.
I stood in the doorway watching him close the boot after a morning of making love and having him serenade me. He was pretty late. I squinted against the bright light of the day. “Jack,” I called as he strode to the driver’s side, he glanced at me. “Keep fidelity in your head. When you’re done you should go to bed.”
He winked and put a hand to his heart as he feigned being hurt by my warning, “You mean don’t say hi like a spider to a fly?”
I nodded slowly, raising my eyebrows I said, “Jump right ahead and you’re dead.”
“I already miss you baby,” he blew me a kiss and got into the car. I waved him off as his car zoomed loudly down the road.
While he was away I went around with the other girlfriends shopping, spending Jack’s money and just generally having the time of my life. Obviously not completely because my lovely boyfriend wasn’t around, he was somewhere else getting other women’s knickers thrown at him. It made me nervous; I was ready to admit that. It made me extremely nervous when I thought about all the other better looking girls batting their eyelashes at him and he might just be stupid enough to fall for it. I just had to trust him…as hard as that was sometimes but there was nothing to strive for if there was no trust.
I was at the modelling studio with Angie while the final touches were applied to her makeup. She seemed to love it. I watched as she was positioned at an awkward angle on a seat and then told how to look at the camera as it flashed away. “They call me an icon Ruby!” She gushed in between the bulb flashes. “I got a call from this French magazine the other day and they want to do a photo shoot with me in. You know who they had on the front page last month?”
I shook my head slowly, “No, who?”
“Bridgette Bardot!” She gave me a hilarious look which made me snort. “I’m not joking.”
My mouth fell open and Angie nodded, eyes wide and mouth stretched open in an ear to ear grin. We both squealed at the same time, “I can’t believe this is happening! I can’t believe this is actually happening!” I threw my arms around her and Angie being the tall one picked me up and spun me around where we fell into a clothing rack. It fell over with a clatter and going bright red Angie dropped me where I fell on the floor laughing my head off.
She struck a pose, “How does it feel to be best friends with a world famous model?”
Giggling I held my hands up so she could haul me back to my feet as an assistant muttered under his breath, picking the clothes back up. “Pretty good, you’re stunning Ange, I always knew that.”
The photographer grabbed her arm and hauled her back in front of the camera again; Angie winked and then wiped the grin off her face as she posed. After the photo shoot Angie took me out shopping where she bought us two beautiful cocktail dresses and then we went out for the evening. She looked drop dead gorgeous but there was nothing particularly new about that. I felt good if a little bloated, standing sideways in the mirror when I had tried the dress on.
“I think I’m gaining weight,” I mumbled wondering if I cared or not. Angie stared as well and opened her mouth to say something before shrugging it off and grabbed my shoulder telling me loudly that the dress was perfect.
First we went out for a meal and then she took us to a bar, a fancy bar where everyone dressed up and drank cocktails and we sat sipping ours pretending that we were fancy well-to-do people rather than the rural peasants we really were. You would not have believed how many men came up to us asking Angie if she wanted to go and dance with them. The live band was pretty good. She would simper and shake her head which surprised me. She loved the attention though.
I watched as man after man came up and tried to win her hand in one dance before growing jealous I lent in and whispered, “I think you should dance. They’re not going to stop bothering you until you do.”
“They can bother away,” she shrugged as she adjusted her boobs in her dress making even more people glance our way. “I’m not in the mood for all that tonight.” My eyebrows shot upward but I bit my tongue. Now that Angie had some sense of direction and purpose with her life she seemed to be mellowing out and maturing pretty quickly, sometimes she was unrecognisable. I’d never have thought that she would turn away such attention; she was always in the mood for that.
The singer on stage was swaying from side to side as if he was on a ship, clicking his fingers in time to the snare as he smiled a cheesy smile and sung sweet melodies from the fifties. “Hey,” Angie giggled having the mischievous look in her eye which told me that she wasn’t a completely changed woman. “Why don’t you go dance with one of them?”
“I’m taken,” I said stiffly, straightening up and pulling my shoulders back as if good posture would only illustrate my point further.
She pulled a face and shrugged, “I’m not saying get married to one of them. A dance is innocent enough.”
“A dance is never innocent where you’re concerned,” I retaliated lightly and she let out a deep cackle that made me burst out into a fit of laughter. We had to hold our conversation as we were interrupted by yet another desperate dancer looking for a fabulous blonde to hold in his arms. Angie batted her eyelids up at him as she sweetly declined, feigning to be all embarrassed and shy. She may not have been interested but she was still expert at playing people.
When he left she turned back to me, flicking her hair over her shoulder so it presumably tumbled down her back, “Do you-do you have a thing for Brian, Ruby?” She asked unsure.
I stared, my reaction was delayed but when it finally kicked in I snorted and spluttered over my words quickly. “What-no-no! No of course-why would you-what-no! No I don’t.” Feeling my ears burn red I tried to calm myself down. “I love Jack.”
“I know you do,” she nodded, tilting her head to the side, “I’m pretty sure everyone knows it.”
“So,” I changed the subject very quickly after that, “I was thinking that I need a job. I can’t just spend the rest of my life hanging around waiting for Jack. I need some kind of purpose.”
Angie mused, rubbing her lips with her index finger as she thought it through. “You could become my P.A. You’re trained as a secretary and plus it would mean that we get to work with each other. We’d travel and hang out all the time,” she daydreamed at her idea.
“Work for you?” I cocked an eyebrow, “I think not.”
“What would be so wrong with that?”
I opened my mouth then stopped, frowned and then shrugged, “Good point. There isn’t anything wrong with that.” A slow smile spread across my lips. “So I’ll be your P.A?”
She held a hand across the table and I placed mine in it, “It’s a done deal sister.” I felt excited as well as having a foreboding feeling in my chest, I didn’t know what I planned to do with my life, I guessed I’d always assumed I’d stay on at the funeral directories and travelling around with Angie would create a load of hilarious memories. I sighed and flopped backwards in the wooden chair as another man came to try and persuade her to dance, things would be alright. They’d be more than alright even if I was a little rattled by her assumption toward my feelings on Brian; I mean they were only plutonic.
Angie got to her feet and shimmed in her dress to make sure it sat in all the right places and winked down at me, “I’m gust gunna have a quick dance and then I’ll be back I swear.” I laughed and told her to go ahead; I guess I was wrong there as well. She really was the same old Angie just with new levels.
The next day I phoned dad and then mum to tell them of my plans to work for Angie. Dad chuckled, “You two will always be inseparable.”
“To death do us part,” I had joked back feeling happy at the sound of his voice. It made me sad that I didn’t see him anywhere near as much as I would have liked. I guess that was a downside to moving from the countryside to the heart of a city.
I phoned up Jack in the early hours of the morning, just after midnight really and he sounded wide awake and buzzed. There was a lot of noise in the background including girls giggling and squealing. It made my stomach knot uncomfortably and I wanted to reach through the phone, grab his hand and yank him back here with me. “How’s the tour going?” I asked loudly, frowning in concentration so I could hear him over the excited background noise.
“Yeah, yeah it’s great. It’s more than great.” He did sound happy and he pulled the phone away so he could yell something to someone else before he returned his attention back to me. “I miss you though.”
I sighed a lover’s sigh and twisted a lock of hair around my finger, “I miss you too.”
“You know you read about how popular you are and get fan letters and all that but nothing really compares to the feeling of being out there on the stage performing for them,” he breathed and I could practically hear the childlike burning intensely inside of him. “Interacting with them you know? That’s really the best feeling in the world, it’s a whole new kind of living babe I tell ya.”
“It does sound spectacular,” I nodded along. He continued to jabber away seemingly without pausing for breath until he was called away by someone his side and he began rounding off the conversation. “I’ll see you soon enough Rubes, I sing Ruby Tuesday and think of you.”
It warmed my heart to hear that and I let out a small laugh that turned into a sob. I just wanted him back beside me. “I love you.”
“I love you too.” He slowed his voice down and if it wasn’t for all the background noise I would have wondered if he had ended the call, “I’ll be back soon enough.”
“Yeah,” I agreed. “Enjoy yourself.”
“And you.” He made kissing sounds making me laugh and then he hung up. I glanced around the empty flat and blew out a load of air from my cheeks. Jack was a keeper; there was no way that I was going to let him get away from me. No matter what.