Authors: S L Lewis
Luckily, I had removed the large umbrella which had been drying off in the tray next to the door, as I would have been a bit nervous that the builder may have been wearing it. ‘Obviously, I can’t speak to tweedle dumb and dumber so I’ll speak to the council instead,’ she announced as she slammed the door in their now less confident expressions.
Two hours later there was a knock at the door.
Fearing it might be the two builders from earlier, I ran to the door, ‘darling, I’m so sorry for all the problems with the noise and dirt,’ said an Italian accent from behind a large bunch of expensive looking flowers.
I opened the door wider to see who the face behind the flowers was and there stood a willowy, dark blonde woman with the biggest sunglasses I’ve seen since Posh Spice on the pages of Hello magazine.
She was dressed in a fitted, sleeveless, navy blue, bodycon dress which looked like it was straight from a boutique in
Milan
. Long, loosely curled, ash blonde hair ending just at her elbows, gold high heeled sandals encasing perfect pedicures, a luxurious tinted gold pearl choker with a matching bracelet and a gold and navy blue handbag which pulled the whole outfit together and gave her the sexy but elegant, power business woman look with the perfect amount of feminine chic to add warmth to her personality.
As I stood there admiring this immaculate woman in front of the dirt and rubble, Amelia came to see who was at the door and saved me from the embarrassing gawping I was doing as I admired her attire. ‘Hello, can we help you?’ Amelia enquired as she wasn’t immediately impressed by this lady’s apparel.
The lady pushed the mammoth bouquet into her left hand and held out her right hand to which Amelia accepted and shook. ‘My name is
Tiziana
and it is unfortunately me who is causing all this commotion upstairs,’ she purred as though she was rehearsing a play for Broadway. ‘You’ve bought the two flats upstairs?’ I butted in without hesitation. ‘Guilty, darling,’ she continued as she presented Amelia with the posh looking flowers and reached down to the side of the door and handed me a bottle of
Perrier Jouet's Belle Epoque and a shiny black box wrapped in gold lace. ‘This is just a small gift to apologise. I hope we’ll be good neighbours?’ she asked as I ushered her inside to the front room and sat her down on the sofa as though I was now an official groupie.
Amelia was less impressed but was able to maintain a smile, although I could see her immediate reservation about Tiziana. ‘So what do you do for a living?’ Amelia investigated as she got bored with the small talk.
Tiziana’s smile seemed to faulter slightly as she replied, ‘I’m a PA, darling’. Amelia gave me a curious stare as I knew what would be coming next. ‘Are you a PA to the Queen? It’s just it must be quite expensive to buy the two flats and knock them into one,’ she continued as if she was a detective interrogating her key witness in an American crime drama. I looked away as though I didn’t want to see the look on Tiziana’s face. ‘Ahhh, it’s all just money darling. I save and I spend wisely. You can’t take it with you, isn’t that what they say?’ Tiziana joked as she took another sip of the champagne I quickly bought into the front room to distract Amelia from her questionning.
Amelia wasn’t satisfied with Tiziana’s response but before she could press the topic any further I made a toast, ‘to new neighbours,’ and we all clinked glasses and started to tell Tiziana about the other neighbours and general gossip from the area.
Half an hour later and still gossiping, but now about Tiziana’s experiences with fashion faux pas’, London life and men, Gabrielle came home and joined me with my new found admiration, with Amelia just observing from the sideline. ‘I absolutely love your dress, Tiziana. Can I ask where you bought it from?’ admired Gabrielle, as she got herself a glass from the kitchen. ‘Darling, I do not get my clothes from the high street,’ protested Tiziana, as though slightly insulted by the insinuation.
Gabrielle flashed red with embarrassment as Tiziana continued, ‘all my clothes are made especially for me. I’m a one off darling,’ she boasted as Amelia nudged me and gave me a suspicious look.
I ignored her as I was overwhelmed by our new neighbours stories and intoxicating personality and allowed her to continue with her stories of coming to London in the 90s, her shabby first studio flat and where she is now.
The stories gushed from her mouth and held her captive audience for another hour before she was interrupted by a call and had to leave. ‘Darlings, we must do this again very soon?’ she posed as both Gabrielle and I did our best impressions of the nodding dog you see in the back of cars.
When she departed, we all started to speculate what Tiziana did for a career as we all wanted to join her and start reaping some of her wealth. ‘I think she works with celebrities,’ Gabrielle guessed.
Amelia shook her head, just as Anya came in, so we told her about our new fascinating neighbour. ‘What did she look like?’ Anya asked whilst getting cutlery for her Harrods chicken salad takeaway.
We took it in turns to give our opinions on Tiziana’s appearance as Anya raised her hand to inform us that she’d heard enough of mine and Gabrielle’s gushing. ‘I know who she is,’ Anya announced as we all focused on her intently.
‘And she doesn’t work as a PA unless I can also call my job a PA position,’ she continued sarcastically.
We all stared at her in disbelief.
‘She’s an escort?’ Amelia grinned as I looked at her with a frown as she is always right.
Anya nodded and continued to eat her salad as though she hadn’t just told us some surprising news.
Not content with the summary she gave us, we grilled Anya for more details and we found out; Tiziana was a 35 year old escort, who (like her men) has expensive taste and will stop at nothing to get what she wants.
Anya encountered Tiziana a few years ago when the ladies were sitting in a famous hotel lounge and approached the same man. The man was very happy to have the two ladies attention and suggested they both continue the conversation in his room, to which Anya declined and Tiziana accepted, along with another lady sat at the other side of him and they went their separate ways. ‘I work alone,’ protested Anya as the story seemed to bring back infuriating memories and she seemed to get more agitated before the narrative came to an end.
No one dared to press Anya with more questions and we all hurried to change the subject to the proposed engagement party until I decided to head to bed to get a fresh start at the gym.
**********
Surp
risingly, there were quite a few people building up a sweat on the machines, as I stared around the room checking out the equipment to see which one would cause me minimal pain;
‘the running machine’
I thought as I headed towards the huge windows they stood in front of. ‘Have you been here before?’ a middle-aged muscular man asked dressed in a vest and tracksuit top. ‘I’ve just signed up today,’ I replied as I started walking on the machine hoping he would go away.
Although he was muscular and seemed to look like he came here every day, he had a neon orange tan, jet black hair, which looked badly dyed and an odour which suggested he had been working out for the past few hours without getting a shower.
As I mastered the, ‘breathing through my mouth’ routine, he didn’t get the message and continued, ‘you don’t look like you need the gym.’ The compliment was not greatly received and as I had a flash of him trying this line on every new lady, I retorted, ‘yeah, thanks’.
After a few silent moments, he got the message and went to bother two blondes in Lycra who just walked through the doors.
After
10
minutes constantly increasing the speed, I managed to get to a fast jog, with a militant sweat on, so I decided it was time to get off and have a break.
However, I forgot to push the emergency stop button and kept pressing the slow down button.
I tried to jump off but I didn’t jump far enough, lost my balance whilst one foot remained on the machine, one foot went to the left, one foot was on the machine and I did the splits.
The only problem was I couldn’t do the splits, until now and the scream that came out proved it.
The receptionist and a personal trainer came running over to me to see what all the commotion was about. ‘Are you ok?’ the female receptionist asked as she helped me up.
I could hear a few sniggers after I confirmed I was fine but my ego was bruised, especially when I saw the sleazy man who tried to chat me up earlier laughing at my misfortune with the two blondes.
‘
U
uuurrgh, well if you
’
r
e
that desperate
,
’
I thought as I ignored the quiet mocking and attempted a less strenuous contraption by sitting on the exercise bike.
I decided that after needing ice on my private regions, I would only attempt 30 more minutes on the exercise bike before retreating for a much needed ego massaging chocolate bar from the corner shop down the road.
I slowly made my way to the changing rooms and tried to negotiate getting into jeans before realising the pain was still very much there, so I put back on my jogging bottoms and my tight t-shirt to show I’m still feminine even in my grey and slightly dusty bottoms.
The sunglasses went on, the bag was thrown over my shoulder and I was ready to get my luxuries from Mr Khan and his chocolate counter.
Trying to forget what just happened at the gym, I turned the corner and saw Renesh stood on the opposite side of the street.
He didn’t see me as he was further down the road, so I thought I’d get closer to him before I surprised him in my gym attire.
I got closer, and started to think of what lies to tell him about how long I was at the gym for and how many crunches I did.
I was just about to cross the road when I saw a lady come out of the shop, give him a kiss and hold his hand as they walked away.
‘WTF
!
’
I thought. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.
This lady was not Shilpa and the kiss was not a peck on the cheek! It was a full, open mouthed smooch, which he was not fighting off!
The lady looked similar to Shilpa. She was Asian, looked in her mid twenties, slim frame, maybe 5ft 4, long and highlighted red hair. She was wearing a fitted white shirt, skinny blue jeans, brown wedge heeled sandals and a big brown clutch bag.
If I didn’t know better, I would have assumed this was his wife by the way they were acting.
I was flabbergasted at the obvious display of public affection and decided to follow them.
I felt like a Private Investigator but I wanted to be proven wrong, so I convinced myself I was only following them to prove they were just friends.
Unfortunately, this didn’t happen as I watched them continue to hold hands whilst walking down the street, stop for a kiss and cuddle and turn into a small hotel at the end of the road and not come back out.
I sat in the café across the road from the hotel for half an hour before I saw them emerge looking even happier than when they went in.
‘
O
k, this is Renesh here. He would never cheat on Shilpa, especially with everything going on with mum and dad
.
’
I tried to convince myself as I decided to phone him to see if he lied about his whereabouts. ‘Hey bro, how’s it going?’ I asked as I saw him look flustered as he answered his phone. ‘Hey Neets, I’m good, is everything ok?’ he asked nervously, ‘Yeah I just wondered if you were around? I thought me, you and Shilpa could go for lunch?’ I replied.
He started to walk away from the hotel so I decided to continue my investigation. ‘I’m a little busy at the moment. Can I come round later?’ he posed. ‘Sure, how about 7?’ I requested as I could see her kiss him again and he moved the phone away from his ear. ‘Yep that’s fine. I’ll see you then,’ he ended as he continued the kiss.
I decided enough was enough and was grateful when I was close enough to take a clear picture on my phone. I went into the florist, which was on the other side of the road, hid behind a huge bunch of exotic flowers, ignored the suspicious looks from the owner and took a close up picture of the pair kissing.