Chapter 23
Cheryl bent down and started fiddling with her ipod and plugged it into the speaker system, scrolling down to choose some music.
Kimberley sat down on the sofa and kicked off her shoes, looking over at Cheryl. “No hip hop, yeah?”
Cheryl laughed, without turning around. “Why not? Haha. Nah, I’m looking for a nice bit of r & b, or soul. Oooh,” and she turned around to face Kimberley and signalled for her to listen. “Alicia Keys – there, that’ll do nicely”.
Kimberley smiled. “She’ll do nicely. Now come here”, and she patted the sofa next to her.
As Cheryl moved towards the sofa the door bell chimed. “Food!” she said, beaming at Kimberley who groaned as Cheryl moved in the opposite direction.
Kimberley stood up and moved to the kitchen to get some plates and cutlery, and when she went back to the living room, Cheryl was already opening the individual containers and getting the food out.
“They’ve given us chop sticks for the noodles, babe” said Cheryl, starting to dish the food onto the plates Kimberley had brought in from the kitchen.
“Oh no!” laughed Kimberley. “Are you gonna be serious or are you gonna poke them up your nose again?!”
Cheryl pouted as she put a plate down for Kimberley. “That was an accident. I’d had a lot of wine that night, I missed my mouth”.
“It was hilarious – the waiter didn’t know whether to laugh or frown at you!” giggled Kimberley.
Cheryl smiled as she remembered. “It was a bit like Pretty Woman wasn’t it? But he wasn’t in the slightest bit amused when Sarah put them in her hair”.
“Well no,” agreed Kimberley. “I think he saw that you were embarrassed, but Sarah just sat there with them in her hair like she’d brought them with her as an accessory!”
Cheryl laughed as she poured some wine into their empty glasses. “To be fair to Sarah, that was also down to alcohol!”
Kimberley smiled as Cheryl sat down. “I wish they were here”.
Cheryl stopped and looked at Kimberley, concerned. “The girls? Why?”
“They’d rally round – get us drunk, remove all magazines and papers from the house. It’s what we do isn’t it? One goes through sh!t, the others help sort it out”. Kimberley took a drink from her wine glass.
Cheryl leaned over and took Kimberley’s hand in hers. “Babe, they’re still rallying round. On the phone to us, talking to Hilary. God, Nicola was even looking up where Ashley was. Lucky for him he’s playing in Europe or I think she’d have gone round!” Cheryl sighed. “Do you want me to ring Nadine, ask her to come round?”
Kimberley shook her head. “No – it’s fine. I just feel a bit vulnerable, being so far away from everyone. Yet at the same time I’m glad we’re not at home cos the paparazzi would be everywhere. At least it’s not that bad here”.
Cheryl nodded. “Open up,” she said, picking up some noodles with her chop sticks.
Kimberley frowned, “what?”
Cheryl smiled. “Food’s getting cold,” and she moved some noodles closer to Kimberley’s mouth. “Do I have to pretend it’s an aeroplane?”
Kimberley laughed and opened her mouth, allowing Cheryl to feed her some noodles. “No, but if them chop sticks go up my nose we’re gonna have words!”
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