Jez was just paying the bill when a ripple of excitement went through the room. “It’s him,” Jools heard the woman at the table beside them say. “Marcus Russo. He’s here. He’s just come in the restaurant with his girlfriend!”
Jools’s heart sank. Before she could react or duck into the ladies’ loo to hide, her mother and Marcus came in, looking relaxed and smiling widely, and took seats at a nearby table. They hadn’t seen her, thank God.
“Oh, shit,” she muttered, and lowered her head.
“What’s wrong?” Jez asked, and paused to glance at her as he reached for his keys.
“It’s my mum. She’s here with her boyfriend, Marcus.”
“Marcus?” he said. “Not…Marcus Russo? The chef?”
“Yes.”
“Oh shit.”
She was about to ask Jez why he should be bothered if Marcus were here when a teenaged girl joined her mother and the chef at their table. She was about the same age as Jools, and the moment she sat down she took out her mobile phone and began texting, her thumbs flying over the keypad as she ignored everyone around her.
As if she sensed Jools staring at her, the girl looked up and met her eyes, and assessed her coolly. Then she glanced over at Jez…and froze.
“Don’t look,” Jools said, her words low and tense, “but a girl just sat down with Marcus and my mum, and she’s staring at you. And it isn’t a very friendly stare, either.”
Jez turned slightly and glanced over his shoulder. “I said don’t look!” Jools hissed.
“Oh crap,” he muttered, and turned back to face her.
“What’s wrong? Do you know him? Do you know Marcus?”
“I…yes. No. I know of him, that’s all.” He looked, suddenly, uncomfortable. “We need to leave – which means we’ll have to stop and say hello.”
Jools groaned. “I really don’t want to do a restaurant hang with my mum and her wank of a celebrity boyfriend.”
“We won’t stay,” Jez assured her, and stood up. “We can’t avoid saying hello, at any rate. Come on, let’s go and get it over with.”
She stood as well, and skirted around the tables with Jez just behind her.
Her mother spotted them first. “Jools! What a nice surprise!” she exclaimed as they paused by the table. Smiling, her gaze went to Jez, hovering behind her daughter. “And who is this?”
“Hi, Mum, Marcus,” Jools mumbled, all too aware of the avid faces of the patrons sitting nearby. “This is—”
“We already know who this is,” the teenage girl sitting with them said, and laid her mobile aside, “don’t we, Dad?” She met Jez’s eyes, and there was a glint of challenge in her gaze. “Hello, Jeremy.”
“Poppy,” he muttered, and thrust his hands in his pockets.
Jools looked from Jez to Poppy in confusion. “You two know each other?”
“Yeah,” the girl said. “You could say that. We were very close – in fact, until recently, we were going out together – but then Jez decided to dump me.” She glared at him. “Didn’t waste any time finding a new girlfriend, did you?”
“Poppy,” he began, reddening, “I’m sorry—”
“Well, you’re telling the truth there,” she retorted. “You are sorry.” She flicked a glance at Jools. “As you’ll find out, soon enough.”
“That’s enough, Poppy.” Marcus’s words were low but firm. “This isn’t the time or place.” He gave Jools a brief nod. “Nice to see you again, Julia.”
She mumbled something back, and with the pressure of Jez’s hand on the small of her back and his ‘nice-to-meet-you-but-we- have-to-go’ assurances mercifully out of the way, they said their goodbyes and left the restaurant.
“What the hell was that all about?” Jools demanded as they returned to Jez’s car and got in. “Would you like to tell me?”
He sighed and turned the key in the ignition. “Poppy and I dated for a while. For a year or so,” he added before she could ask him. “It was never really serious. At least, not to me.”
“Well, obviously, it was serious to her.”
He shrugged. “My family were moving house, so we couldn’t carry on seeing each other into the summer. She knew that. And besides, our…thing had run its course.”
“Your ‘thing’?” Jools echoed. “What ‘thing’ was that? The thing that lasted for ‘a year or so’? And why didn’t you tell me you were seeing my –” she laughed incredulously “– my mum’s boyfriend’s daughter?”
“I didn’t know Marcus was your mother’s boyfriend! So I never mentioned it. And it doesn’t matter – we’re not together any more, anyway.”
“No, you’re not, because you ‘dumped’ her. Her words.”
“Jools, you’re blowing this out of proportion, honestly—”
“Never mind,” she said, and turned away to stare out of the window. “Just take me home, please.”
When Jez dropped her off twenty minutes later, Jools thanked him stiffly for the pizza and the ride and shut the car door with a bit more force than necessary; she’d barely got out when he took off with a revving of the engine and a squeal of tyres.
“Ooh, that’s mature!” she shouted after him.
As she came in the front door she found her father waiting in the hallway, a grim look on his face.
“What was that all about? And where’ve you been?” he demanded. “It’s nearly six. You said you’d be home by four at the latest. We’ve been waiting.”
“I know, sorry. Jez asked me to have pizza afterwards, and I said yes.” Which she seriously wished she hadn’t done, now.
“So I suppose you’re not hungry,” Oliver said, “and I suppose you don’t want to go out to dinner with us now.”
“Not really, no.” What she wanted was to go upstairs, slam her bedroom door, throw herself on the bed and have a good cry. “Maybe next time.”
“Honestly, Jools, this pisses me off! We made plans to have dinner, just the three of us, and you said you’d go.”
“I’ve said I’m sorry. What more do you want?” she snapped.
“I want you to honour your word. And I want you to show a bit more consideration to others. Particularly to Felicity.”
“It’s all right, Oliver, really,” Felicity said now as she joined them in the hallway. She smiled at Jools in understanding. “If I were her I’d much rather have pizza with my boyfriend than dinner with us.”
“He’s not my boyfriend,” Jools said, and turned away towards the stairs. “And you’re not me. So don’t think you know how I feel or what I think – because you don’t. And you never will.”
“Jools!” her father shouted as she went upstairs. “Come back down here this instant and apologize to Felicity.”
But she didn’t listen. As she arrived at the top of the stairs, she heard Felicity murmur, “Let her go, Oliver. No, please, don’t go after her. It’s all right. These things take time.”
Jools went into her room and slammed the door as hard as she could, then fell onto the bed with her thoughts in an ugly jumble and stared up at the ceiling, roiling with resentment at the unfairness of it all.
Her wished she could pick up her mobile to call Jez and tell him about everything – her loneliness, her confusion, the weirdness of dealing with parents who each lived with someone else. But she couldn’t. She hardly knew him, after all.
Why hadn’t he told her about Poppy? Why had he said nothing, and subjected her to such a mortifying scene in the restaurant?
She sighed. Perhaps Desh was right. Maybe the whole arranged marriage thing wasn’t such a bad idea, after all. Maybe he and Chara would get married and live happily ever after.
But his parents weren’t hers. How could she trust her mum and dad to pick out a boy for her when they couldn’t even make their own relationship work?
She needed to talk to Desh. He always made her feel better. But the recent memory of their phone conversation, and how she’d ended it so abruptly, changed her mind, and Jools tossed her mobile away and cried into her pillow instead.