Serve Cool by Lauren Davies Read Free Book Online Page B

screamed one voluptuous guest at a member of the audience, ‘I love my body and I ain’t gonna have no jumped-up stick like you tellin’ me I ain’t no good, ya hear! I am the
bomb
!’
    ‘Girlfriend’ screamed back and the audience erupted. An army of 20-stone ‘ladies’ (to use the term very lightly) decked out in neon cycling shorts, crop tops and knee-high boots stormed around the stage, shouting obscenities at the audience. I was surprised there wasn’t an earthquake warning with the amount of weight shifting around in a concentrated area.
    Momentarily I forgot about my own worries as I watched the run of chat shows. ‘I am an alien from outer space’ followed ‘Make this slob a real man’ and ‘My boyfriend slept with my sister’. I couldn’t quite believe the things people were willing to admit on national television. The guests screamed at each other, the crowds went wild and the presenters totally lost control.
    By the end of the afternoon I could almost understand Maz’s obsession with these programmes. Before I knew it, I had been glued to the screen for three hours in sheer amazement.I almost felt cheered up until
Ricki Lake
ended and I realised all that lay ahead of me was a meal for one and yet more television.
    ‘Right, Summer,’ I shouted at myself, ‘get off your fat backside and do something.’ I looked at my watch. Four forty-five p.m. Probably an appropriate time to get out of my thermal pyjamas and get dressed.
    Just as I was about to embark on my makeover, the buzzer sounded for the main front door to the block.
    ‘Afternoon missus. British Telecom. I gotta check yer phone line, a’ reet?’ I buzzed him up and opened the door to a six-foot, black-haired, rough-and-ready-looking phone engineer. ‘Sorry to bother you like, but we’re checkin’ the lines. I hope ya dinny mind the intrusion, pet.’
    You can intrude as much as you like, pet,
my mind gushed, as all thoughts of Jack faded in the twinkle of a BT identification card.
    ‘Ooh no, come in please do,’ I drooled sexily. One day at home on a weekday and I had already metamorphosed into the bored, sex-starved housewife from number 20.
    I showed ‘Kyle’ to the phone. I briefly considered leading him to the bedroom extension but stopped myself in time. Play hard to get, I told myself. I ruffled my hair and reclined against the wall as Kyle bent down and took out his toolbox. He looked up at me and smiled, revealing a set of perfectly white teeth.
    ‘Cup of tea?’ I purred.
    ‘Na, I don’t wanna put ya to any trouble in yer condition, pet.’ He smiled and turned back to the phone socket.
    ‘Excuse me?’
    ‘When yer ill, pet, I dinny wanna tire you oot.’
    I stared at Kyle, puzzled. My sex kitten image was slowly beginning to fade.
    ‘Flu, is it?’ he continued. ‘It must be a bad one, you look canny
awful
.’
    Sex kitten became fat, stray tabby. ‘I’m not … I don’t ha … Oh, piss off!’ I yelled. I turned on my heel and stomped dramatically out of the flat, still in my teddy bear thermals, muttering as many obscenities about men as I could muster.
    I passed the payphone in the main hallway and realised I hadn’t called my mother to apologise for missing dinner the previous night. Although I didn’t relish the thought, when compared with a trip to the shops in my PJs or an awkward conversation with my phone engineer, mother’s undoubted lecture seemed strangely appealing.
    ‘Oh Jennifer, you
finally
decided to call. To what do we owe the honour?’
    Damn. She was in. I would actually have to talk to her now.
    ‘Reversed charges, too. How sweet of you.’
    As I’d thought, this idea had been a momentary lapse of sanity. Without waiting for me to speak, mother launched into a description of her heartbreak when I had failed to show up for her lamb casserole.
    ‘I made your
favourite
dinner, Jennifer.’
    ‘I hate lamb, Mother.’
    ‘Don’t be so ridiculous child. Of course you