Be Careful What You Wish For

  CONTENTS

  Be Careful What you wish for

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-one

  Chapter Thirty-two

  Chapter Thirty-three

  Chapter Thirty-four

  Chapter Thirty-five

  Chapter Thirty-six

  Chapter Thirty-seven

  Chapter Thirty-eight

  Chapter Thirty-nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-one

  Chapter Forty-two

  Chapter Forty-three

  Chapter Forty-four

  Chapter Forty-five

  Chapter Forty-six

  Chapter Forty-seven

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  BE CAREFUL WHAT

  YOU WISH FOR

  Alexandra Potter

  www.hodder.co.uk

  Copyright © 2006 by Alexandra Potter

  First published in Great Britain in 2006 by Hodder and Stoughton

  An Hachette Livre UK company

  The right of Alexandra Potter to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  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 written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library

  Epub ISBN 978 1 84894 164 9

  Book ISBN 978 0 340 84112 9

  Hodder & Stoughton Ltd

  An Hachette Livre UK company

  338 Euston Road

  London NW1 3BH

  www.hodder.co.uk

  For Saar

  Who proved to me that wishes really can come true

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  First of all I’d like to say a big thank you to my editor Sara Kinsella for believing in both me and this book and for all her enthusiasm and hard work, and my agent Stephanie Cabot and everyone at William Morris for their continued support.

  This book came about at a huge turning point in my life and I’m lucky to have fantastic friends around the world who helped me along the way – thanks guys I couldn’t have done it without you! I’d especially like to thank Lynnette for all our transatlantic phone calls and happy times at her flat in Fulham; Dana, whose kindness, encouragement and love of trash mags has gone a long way to making Venice feel like home from home; and then of course there’s Barney, my feline friend, who kept me company on those long nights at my laptop (the Fancy Feast are on me).

  As always, I’m forever grateful to my parents for all their love and support – they are quite simply the best mum and dad a girl can ask for – and to Kelly, for being a wonderful big sister and looking after me when I first came to LA.

  And, finally, to Saar. What can I say without taking up the rest of this page? So I’ll keep it simple and just say thanks luv – for everything and a whole lot more.

  There are only two tragedies in life: one is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it.

  Oscar Wilde

  Chapter One

  What do you wish for?

  World peace?

  A cure for Aids?

  Gisele’s bottom?

  Wincing with pain from my new diamanté thong sandals that have rubbed two blisters the size of jellyfish on my big toes, I press the button for the pedestrian crossing and wait on the kerbside. I mean, whatever it is, we all wish for something, don’t we? Every single one of us. Unwrapping the yoghurt-coated flapjack that’s my breakfast I stare down at my throbbing feet. And I’m no different from anyone else. Except whereas everyone else is busy benefiting mankind, changing the world and looking fabulous in a G-string bikini, I’m standing here looking at my blisters – and do you know what I’m wishing for?

  ‘Ouch.’

  As if on cue, a blister pops and fluid trickles between my toes.

  Flip-flops.

  It’s near the middle of July and the UK’s in the grip of a heatwave. For most of the sunshine-starved population this means a blissful merry-go-round of sunshine and ice-cream, picnics in the park and deck-chairs in the back garden. For us Londoners it’s hell. The city is sweating like an athlete. Stuffy offices, stinking traffic fumes and tube trains without air-conditioning make life miserable. Tempers are fraying. Noses are peeling.

  And my feet are killing me. Cursing silently, I unearth a grotty piece of tissue and squat down on the pavement.

  Chic, very chic, I muse, wiping a moustache of melted foundation from my top lip with my finger and stuffing the raggedy tissue between my toes. Sometimes I wonder why I even bother buying Instyle every month when I can put together such a stylish look myself.

  Feeling a shove in my back I notice the lights have changed and standing up I begin hobbling across the road. Immediately I’m engulfed by a crowd of commuters, yakking on mobiles, smoking cigarettes, slurping lattes. Everyone pushing, rushing, jostling, bumping. A briefcase bashes me in the calf and I yelp. Not for the first time do I find myself wishing I lived by the sea. Instead of in the polluted inner-city hell-hole I’ve called home for the last six years.

  Managing to make it to the pavement before the little green man disappears, I limp along Marylebone Road. To tell the truth, sometimes I feel as if I spend my whole life wishing for things. Not great big life-changing wishes – like discovering Brad Pitt’s shooting his latest blockbuster in my neighbourhood and, guess what?, wants me, Heather Hamilton, to be his leading lady.

  Yeh, right, I’m not talking about those kind of wishes. The close-your-eyes-and-make-a-wish-type wishes that involve throwing coins into fountains, watching for shooting stars or rubbing Aladdin’s lamp. I’m talking about all the ordinary, inadvertent and, quite frankly, boring wishes I make a dozen times a day without thinking about them. For me, wishes have nothing to do with magic: they’re just a part of everyday life.

  Like I wish I hadn’t just eaten that great big flapjack.

  Suddenly aware that I’m holding an empty wrapper, I feel a stab of guilt. OK, so I bought it from a health-food store, and it was on the shelf next to the dried apricots and brown rice, but who am I trying to kid? I mean, I know it’s not really healthy. I squint at the nutritional information. Oh, my God, healthy? This stuff should carry a health warning. Have you any idea how many grams of fat there are
in flapjack?

  Scrunching up the wrapper I stuff it hastily into my bag, which as usual is full of all the crap I carry around with me: leaky biros, stray Tampax, a lip gloss that’s lost its top and is covered with bits of fluff. Oh, and a couple of those little tickets from the electronic weighing machines at Boots.

  Which reminds me of another one of my wishes. I was only supposed to be buying some Tampax, but when I popped into Boots at lunchtime I couldn’t resist stepping on to the scales and wishing the little digital display was going to say I was a couple of pounds under nine stone – and not, as it turned out, a couple of pounds over.

  Well, all right – make that five pounds. But I’m sure my clothes weigh that much anyway.

  Sucking in my stomach, I continue hurrying along the main road. In fact, now I’m thinking about it, I make so many wishes I’m not even sure I can remember them all. Take the last twenty-four hours for example. If I had to write them all down I’d end up with a whole wish list . . .

  I Wish

  • I’d stayed in last night instead of going to a karaoke evening with my best friend Jess.

  • I hadn’t started doing tequila slammers.

  • the ground had opened up and swallowed me when I’d started yodelling Barbra Streisand’s ‘Woman In Love’. In B flat. With my eyes closed.

  • that when I got home at two a.m. I hadn’t texted the-bastard-ex-boyfriend.

  I’m mortified at the memory. Sending a text message is one thing. But remembering what I put is quite another.

  • I hadn’t squeezed that spot on my chin in the loos at work.

  But I did and now it’s brought along a couple of friends for moral support.

  • that when I overheard a woman on the tube reading out that article about multiple orgasms in Cosmo, I hadn’t snorted, ‘Huh, what are they?’ just as the whole carriage fell silent.

  • someone had warned me that on my thirtieth birthday I wouldn’t automatically be given this amazing career along with all the other presents to unwrap. [You mean that’s not how it works?]

  • men suffered from PMT.

  • there was always an empty seat on the tube. No queue at Starbucks. And a parking space for my car outside my flat.

  You know that joke about how women can’t park because men tell them seven inches is this big? (It’s that joke where you have to pinch your fingers together.) Well, last week I told it to the man who lives at number forty-two. Just after I’d tried squeezing my car into that space behind his new BMW. And reversed right into it. Unsurprisingly he didn’t laugh.

  • I’d win the lottery.

  Admittedly a tricky one, having never actually bought a ticket. But that’s one of the things I love about wishes. They don’t have to be realistic.

  • there was no such thing as ‘a bad hair-day’.

  • that yesterday when the yoga instructor was helping me do a handstand I hadn’t chosen that exact moment to do a fanny fart.

  • I could actually manage to drink eight glasses of water a day.

  Eight whole glasses! I mean, it’s just so boring, it doesn’t taste of anything.

  • I could meet a man whose hobbies include washing-up, monogamy and foreplay.

  Instead of making a mess, cheating, and tweaking my left nipple backwards and forwards as if it’s the dial on their car stereo and they’re trying to tune into Capital Radio. Not that I’m referring to Daniel, my ex, or anything.

  • I never have to fake another orgasm.

  (See what I mean about them not having to be realistic?)

  • anti-wrinkle creams actually did what they say on the jar.

  • there are no calories in Haagen Dazs double chocolate chip.

  • I hadn’t believed the sales assistant when she said it was easy to do a St Tropez tan at home and that the secret was bodypolishing.

  I glance down at my legs. Think orange stripes. Like a deck-chair.

  • Dad wasn’t married to the bitch from hell.

  Whose real name is Rosemary, and who I refer to as proof that wicked stepmothers aren’t just the stuff of fairytales.

  • I hadn’t borrowed my brother Ed’s iPod to go rollerblading.

  Or tried to look cool by skating backwards and falling flat on my backside. Correction: flat on the iPod. Which is now broken.

  • My Visa card hadn’t been refused at the checkout at Sainsbury’s.

  Embarrassing enough without being ushered into a little room by a sour-faced supervisor who’d called my bank, picked up a pair of scissors and cut my shiny, flexible friend in half ‘on orders from your bank manager’.

  • I’d realised the assistant at the local video store was being ironic by recommending Swept Away with Madonna as a ‘classic’.

  Phew-wheeh. I hear a wolf whistle and zone back in. Only to see a gang of workmen staring at my chest. Which brings me swiftly to the next wish on my list:

  • that I was wearing a bra.

  Putting my head down I attempt to stride past nonchalantly. OK, just ignore them, Heather. Don’t make eye-contact. Just keep walking and pretend you can’t see them. Just a few more steps and you’ll have got past them . . . Easy-peasy. See, workmen aren’t so bad.

  ‘Oy, show us your tits.’

  • I wish all workmen had small penises.

  Blushing hotly, I hurry past, pretending to look at my watch to avoid their gaze. Which is when I see what time it is. Oh, fuck.

  • and I wish I wasn’t late to meet Brian at the register office at ten.

  Because it’s already twenty past. And he’s going to kill me.

  On the front steps of Marylebone register office, a slim, attractive, grey-haired man in a charcoal flannel suit, who could pass for his mid-fifties but is a decade older, is rocking backwards and forwards on the heels of his highly polished shoes. He checks his watch, looks up and down the road, then sighs and turns his attention to his button-hole. The pink carnation is wilting in the heat and he fiddles with it agitatedly.

  That’s Brian, and although he can’t see me hurrying towards him because of all the pavement traffic, I can see him. He cuts an awkward figure, standing alone and conspicuous in his smartly tailored suit, with someone else’s confetti scattered at his feet. A few passers-by glance at him pityingly. Not that he notices. He’s too busy checking his watch again and digging out his mobile from his breast pocket. He flips open the mouthpiece, taps in a number, forefinger stabbing the buttons awkwardly like someone who can’t type, then presses it to his ear.

  A hundred yards away, I hear a familiar tune. Sticking my hand into my bag I wiggle my fingers around until finally I locate my Nokia. Just as it stops ringing. Damn.

  I yank it out, along with the hands-free earpiece which is all tangled up as usual, and stare at the screen. One missed call. Hurriedly I dial voicemail. ‘You have one new message.’

  As I wait to hear it I wave frantically at Brian but he’s got his back to me and all I can see is the hunch of his shoulders as he lights a cigarette.

  ‘It’s me, Brian. I’m outside the register office and I’m getting a little nervous. And, well, not to put too fine a point on it, Heather, where the bleedin’ ’ell are you?’

  Oh dear.

  As his voice hisses at me I realise I’m in big trouble. I hit reply and he picks up immediately. ‘Heather?’

  ‘Right here,’ I gasp, sneaking up behind him and tapping his shoulder.

  It’s an attempt to defuse the situation with humour. Instead it nearly causes a heart-attack. Brian swings round clutching his chest, the lit Benson & Hedges wedged between his fingers. He glares at me accusingly. ‘You’re late,’ he snaps into his mobile. Then, realising what he’s doing, he curses, flips the mouthpiece shut and shoves the phone into his pocket.

  ‘I know and I’m so sorry,’ I apologise, then try to explain. ‘My alarm didn’t go off and the tube took for ever and I’d bought these stupid new sandals—’

  ‘Well, at least you’re here now,’ he interru
pts, grinding out his cigarette under his shoe and buttoning his jacket. Everything Brian does is rushed and twitchy. He reminds me of a bird, all ruffled feathers and darting eyes. ‘But we’d better hurry up,’ he’s saying, smoothing down his lapels and picking off an invisible thread with the meticulous attention of someone who irons his underpants.

  ‘Where is everyone?’ I hurry after him up the front steps.

  ‘Inside. Waiting for us.’ He pulls open the front door and holds it for me. ‘I’ve been here ages. When you didn’t show up I came outside to look for you.’

  ‘I’m really sorry,’ I apologise again and duck my head under his arm. I’m a lot taller than Brian, especially in my new sandals, and I have to stoop as I step into the cool darkness of the lobby, where I pause to check my reflection in the gilt-edged mirror.

  I’m your typical redhead, pale skin and freckles, lots of wavy scarlet hair, and painful childhood memories of being called Gingernut, Duracell, and something unrepeatable that involves pubic hair and rhyming slang. Honestly, I’m surprised I’m not in therapy for the rest of my life. Not just at the hairdresser’s having blonde highlights put in every six weeks to turn me into a strawberry blonde. Usually I blow-dry it straight, but today it’s gone all puffy in the heat. I try to smooth it down. Which is when I notice Brian. In the mirror I can see him standing behind me, staring at the floor. ‘What happened to your feet?’ he demands.

  Remembering, I look down. ‘Fashion,’ I quip, bending down and trying to hide the toilet paper that’s sticking out from between my toes.

  Usually he’d laugh, make some wisecrack, or quiz me about my latest shopping spree. Unlike most men of his age Brian makes sure he keeps abreast of new trends – he’s always nicking my copy of Vogue even though he insists it’s only to look at the photography – and is fastidious about fashion. But this time he huffs dismissively.

  ‘Shall we?’ he monotones, clenching his teeth. The muscles in his jaw twitch and he glares at me with flashing grey eyes. Despite his mood he’s incredibly handsome for an older man.

  ‘Yeah . . . I mean, yes . . . of course . . .’ I gabble, feeling like a child who’s misbehaved.