Build a Man (27 page)

Okay. I take a
deep breath and try to focus. I have his contact information and I
know where he lives. A ray of hope flashes through me as I dig out
my phone and call his number, waiting for his easy, relaxed tones
on the voicemail. I’ll leave a message explaining things. He’ll
have to pick up voicemail sometime.

But instead of
ringing, the number just disconnects. I try again – same thing. And
again. Why won’t my calls go through? Has he blocked my number?

Unable to think
what else to do, I rush down commuter-clogged Marylebone toward
Jeremy’s. Maybe someone’s there – he could have hired his own
nurse. He’s rich enough to, right? And if he has been moved to
another facility, maybe someone’s come round to gather up his
things.

When I reach
his house, the familiar geraniums bob over the black iron railings,
and my heart lifts just seeing them. I pound on the door, willing
it to open, but it remains resolutely closed. Leaning back against
the white facade of the house, I try to think of what to do
next.

If I can’t
reach Jeremy by voicemail, then I’ll do it the old-fashioned way:
by letter. I get out my notebook, cringing as I spot the opening
paragraph I scrawled down last night. I can’t believe I wrote that
– it feels like another person did. Well, I guess in a way I
was
someone else: Serenity v2. Funny, now that my tabloid
dream is over, I realise how far from being Serenity v2 I actually
am – and how I’m sure now I don’t ever want to be.

Flipping to a
fresh page, I hunker down on the steps, tapping the pen against my
teeth as I think about what to write.

Hi
Jeremy!
No, that sounds wrong – too upbeat and casual. I
scratch it out then turn to a new page. God, if only the mistakes
of my past were as easy to fix.

Dear
Jeremy,

I hope
you’re feeling better. I went to see you today, but you’d been
transferred and they wouldn’t tell me where. I know you’ve heard
about
Beauty Bits
.

I pause for a
second, unsure what to say next. How can I ask him to forgive me
for such a massive lie? My cheeks colour with shame as I recall
everything I spewed, from wine therapy to how to dress for the
person you want to be.
God.

Jeremy, I’m so
sorry I wasn’t honest with you. But I’ve stopped writing that
column now – I just couldn’t carry on after your operation. Please
get in touch and let me know where you are. I’ll explain
everything.

Tapping my pen
again, I ponder how to close the letter. Yours? No, that’s way too
formal. Best wishes, from your fraudulent life advisor? I shake my
head.

Love,

Serenity

There. My eyes
tear up as I rip out the page, and I realise not everything between
us was pretend. There was something there; we
do
have a
connection – something like friendship – that goes beyond
reporter-subject, and I think Jeremy felt it, too. Hopefully it’s
made enough of an impact for him to give me a chance whenever he
does get this letter. And in the meantime, I still have his number
to try. I call it again, and again it clicks off before going
through.

My mobile rings
and I almost drop it with surprise. Maybe it’s him!

“Hello?” I say,
almost gasping with nerves.

“Where the hell
are you? It’s almost eight-thirty.” Peter’s angry tones buzz
through the handset and my heart plunges. Oh. It was ridiculous to
think it would be Jeremy, anyway. The poor man could barely even
speak yesterday.

“Sorry, um, I
just went out for fresh air,” I say lamely, tucking Jeremy’s letter
halfway through the slot in the door, so that if anyone does come
by to get his things, they’ll be sure to see it. “I’ll meet you at
work.”

I hang up, then
trudge the five-minute walk to the clinic. After Peter’s response
last night, I’m in no hurry to see him. And after what I witnessed
in the operating room, I’m definitely not in a rush to watch others
treat cosmetic surgery like it’s the same as going to the hair
salon. I cringe at the memory of Jeremy comparing his operation to
visiting the dentist.

Turning into
the mews, I can see Peter at the clinic door, impatiently fiddling
with the keys. His eyes widen as he takes in my dishevelled
state.

“What are you
wearing?” he asks as I approach. “Jesus Christ, Serenity.”
Unlocking the door, he ushers me inside. From the straight set of
his shoulders as he marches past me to his office, I can tell he’s
anything but impressed.

Well, so what?
I’m not exactly impressed with him, either. And for the first time
since our relationship started, I don’t care. I head to the
bathroom and stare into the mirror, taking in my pale cheeks, the
dark circles under my eyes, and my tousled, greasy hair. This is me
– the real me, and I’m not going to try to pretty myself up, today
of all days. I go back out behind the desk and perch on my
stool.

Slowly, with a
growing sense of dread, I turn on the computer and type in the
Beauty Bits
website address. Since Jeremy has disappeared
and I only gave the barest of information to Leza about his
condition, I hope they won’t be able to dredge up anything too
horrible.

The familiar
road sign appears.

Fingers
shaking, I scroll down.

BUILD A MAN
REVEALED!

Disastrous
Operation Leaves Property Millionaire Jeremy Ritchie in Coma

Oh my God.

No. No way.

I stare at the
headline, praying it’s a figment of my imagination. That’s
not
Jeremy’s real name on the screen. It’s not. I jam my
eyes closed to wipe the slate clean. But when I force my lids open
again, there it is.

I press a fist
against my mouth to stop the rising fury and panic from spewing
out. If the thought of Jeremy’s story splashed all over the web
under a false identity was bad, this is just . . . beyond
words.

The Daily Planet
can now reveal our Build a Man is
none other than property multi-millionaire Jeremy Ritchie. Dumped
by his ex-girlfriend in favour of his better-looking business
partner, it’s easy to understand why Jeremy (or ‘James’ as we’ve
been calling him) fancied a fresh new look. Sadly, his surgery
yesterday didn’t turn out as planned.

I tear my eyes
away from the car-crash text and look over at the sidebar. The blue
cut-out paper doll is now all warped, as if someone’s run their
hand across it and pushed it out of whack. Underneath it is the
same photo of Jeremy and his business partner I’d seen on Google,
and under that, the photo of Julia and David when they got
married.

I force myself
to read the rest of the text on the screen.

Instead, he
emerged a groaning, moaning one-eyed wonder after a bad reaction to
anaesthetic during surgery nearly left him dead on the table.
Although Jeremy survived, the brain damage he suffered – resulting
in left-side paralysis – means he’s more Lurch than luscious.

Jeremy’s a new
man all right – a man better suited to a care home than the vigours
of dating. After all, what woman wants a life with a man who needs
his nappy changed?

Oh,
Jesus
! I drop my head into my hands, pushing my palms
against my eyes as if I can erase the words.

I thought I was
protecting Jeremy by warning the hospital. But by cutting off
Leza’s source of future stories, I’d given her the green light to
reveal his identity. Why would she care about keeping it a secret
if her subject had disappeared, anyway?

Off to the side
of the column is a poll:

RETURN TO
SENDER?

What would you
do if a man you were dating suffered brain damage? Would you:

A. Make like
Florence Nightingale and happily nurse him back to health.

B. Check him
into a rehabilitation centre and hope for the best.

C. Kick him to
the kerb and find a man who can take care of you, too.

I glance at the
results, split between B and C, and my eyes nearly pop out of my
head. Over seven thousand people have voted already, on a Monday
morning. Leza was right: people
do
love this kind of thing.
An image of vultures circling over Jeremy, pecking away at him,
flashes into my mind, and I shudder. As much as I don’t want to
lump myself in with Leza and Mia, I know I played a part in serving
him up. A big part. If it wasn’t for me, Jeremy wouldn’t be on that
hospital bed. My gut clenches and guilt floods through me again. I
hope he gets my letter soon. Even if he doesn’t contact me, at
least he’ll know I wasn’t involved in this post.

I scroll down,
marvelling at all the content they’ve managed to squeeze out of the
incident. There are fact boxes, links to other stories of cosmetic
surgeries gone wrong . . . and nine hundred and seventy-nine
comments. I skim through them, mainly of the ‘get well soon’
variety. But some berate Jeremy for having cosmetic surgery in the
first place, and one even calls him ‘a weak male specimen who
deserves what he got’. Those people have obviously never heard of a
little thing called
sympathy
.

Come back
tomorrow to discover if our Build a Man can put himself back
together again, it says at the very bottom. Is he destined to drool
forever? Or can he fight back and find love despite the damage? We
talk to the experts to find out. Jeez, they’re going to milk this
for all it’s worth, even if they don’t have direct access to
Jeremy.

There’s a noise
behind me and I look up from the screen, quickly clicking the
window closed.

“Cancel
everything for the rest of the day,” Peter says tersely, shrugging
on his suit jacket. Lines are etched into his face and his brows
are knit together.

“What’s
happened?” I’m almost afraid to ask.

“The hospital
board has called me in. Apparently, some sort of column is being
written on Jeremy Ritchie without his consent. The reporter gained
inside access to the hospital, and the whole board is on a witch
hunt. Look, I’ve got to run.” He throws the keys at me and they
clatter onto the desk. “Lock up when you’ve rung the clients. I’ll
see you back home.”

I nod, my
already buzzing head trying to comprehend his words as I watch him
go. It’s like a second punch to the gut, just when I was struggling
to catch my breath from the previous blow. What have I done? I was
so busy trying to protect Jeremy that I never even thought the
hospital might question Peter.

It’s just
routine, I tell myself. Of course the hospital would want to talk
to Peter – he was Jeremy’s doctor, after all, and they’d need to
examine every angle. Thank goodness Peter knows nothing about what
I’ve been up to. There’s no way they can implicate him in anything
. . . I hope. But what if Jeremy’s told the hospital I was
involved, or reported the clinic somehow? I hope to God my letter
has made its way to him and he knows I wasn’t involved in his big
reveal.

I dial the
clients then shut down the computer, my skin prickling with
tension. Writing about the clinic seemed like such a benign thing,
back when I was certain everything would stay confidential – and
that even if there
was
a breach, Jeremy would look like a
million bucks, the perfect advertisement for Peter’s skills. Never
in my wildest nightmares could I have imagined things turning out
like this.

Before heading
back to the flat, I swing by Jeremy’s, anxious to see if the note I
tucked through the slot in the door is still there. As I approach
the now familiar building, my heart picks up pace. I squint at the
door, looking for a scrap of white paper.

Bingo! My heart
lifts as I realise the letter is nowhere to be seen. Someone’s been
by, thank goodness. Now, I can only pray that my words have had
some effect – or, at least, have stopped Jeremy from turning me
in.

Back at the
flat, I try in vain to find something to fill the time, even
resorting to a book on customer service Peter bought me for
‘professional development’. A couple hours of fruitless
page-flipping later, I stick our fillet in the oven for supper and
hunt down Smitty for his brushing session, trying not to think
about what’s taking Peter so long. For the millionth time, I glance
at the grandfather clock. It’s almost six – Peter’s been gone now
for hours. Smitty yelps and I realise I’ve just brushed his face by
mistake.

I let him go
and pad over to the kitchen, absently taking down the packet of
Jaffa Cakes and shoving one after another in my mouth. Even the
tangy orange doesn’t calm the small knot of tension grinding in my
gut.

The flat door
swings open and I hastily swallow a mangled hunk of cookie. “You’re
home! Is everything okay?” My heart is beating so fast that my
pulse whooshes in my ears.

Peter places
his briefcase neatly by the door in its usual spot, hangs up his
coat, then eases himself down on the sofa. “God. What a day.”

I settle into a
chair across from him. “What happened?” My voice is clogged with
fear and worry, but he doesn’t seem to notice.

“Well, of
course the board wanted to make sure I knew nothing about those
columns. Patient confidentiality is critical to the reputation of
cosmetic surgery facilities. No celeb will set foot in a place if
they think their procedures might end up in a sordid rag like
The Daily Planet
. If anyone at the hospital was involved, it
could cause serious damage.”

I swallow hard.
I hadn’t realised the consequences could be so severe – or rather,
I’d been so gung-ho to get things going that I hadn’t stopped to
think about it. Has Jeremy said anything? It feels like someone’s
sitting on my chest, and I struggle to take in air.