Breaking the Ice by Mandy Baggot Page A

your mind, I’ll be here,’ Jimmy repeated.
    ‘ Goodnight,’ Samantha answered briefly and she practically ran along the front of the seats, trailing the three full bin bags behind her.

 
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    Six
     
    Samantha heard Cleo scream out loud at just after 7.30am. Cleo didn’t have an alarm clock. Ordinarily, Samantha was up as soon as it was light outside. She usually showered, went downstairs, made a drink and had some breakfast. Then she made the packed lunches. At just after 7.00am she always took a cup of herbal tea to Cleo, unless the crystals on the door handle told her not to. But today was different, today Samantha hadn’t woken up at dawn because she hadn’t actually been to sleep. She was led on her bed, still dressed in her Civic Hall uniform. Her eyes felt gritty from lack of sleep and she still had a horrendous headache.
    She’d got home at 12.45am, feeling like her head was going to burst. She’d hurried up to her room and started rifling through the pile of Star Life magazines she kept on the bottom of her bookcase. She was looking for evidence of her insanity. She was looking for any articles she could find on Jimmy to prove his complete unsuitability as an object of her affection. She found three.
    One was an article about him attending a film premiere a year ago. In the picture he was dressed in a tuxedo, accompanied by well known actress and complete floozy, Hilary Polar. She was barely wearing anything in the photo and seemed to have a vice like clamp on Jimmy’s arm. They were both smiling, their matching perfect, white teeth gleaming like ice caps. The article attached listed almost fifteen women that Jimmy had been ‘connected’ with over the last two years. Reason one for unsuitability - he was nothing but a gigolo.
    The second report she’d found was nine months old. It was a montage of photos of Jimmy falling out of various nightclubs and bars in the US. The article with the pictures commented on his excessive drinking and general bad behaviour . Reason two for unsuitability - nothing more than a drunken thug.
    The third report, only six months old, stated that he had spent two months in a rehab clinic for alcohol addiction. The picture tagged to the article was of Jimmy leaving the Freedom Vale Rehabilitation Centre, looking how he looked now. Toned in body, fresh faced, handsome and chocolate eyed. Reason three for unsuitability - good enough to eat, makes your heart leap when he touches you, no that wasn’t right that was a pro not a con. Well, unless you didn’t like your heart leaping. She was undecided.
    She didn’t know why she didn’t remember seeing the articles the first time she looked at Cleo’s magazines. Except that she never would have considered that someone in Star Life magazine would appear at the Civic Hall or that their character would matter to her as much as it seemed to matter now. But the articles were exactly what she needed to see, all in all he was unsuitable, completely not her type. He was the archetypal celebrity indulging in all the excesses that life offered him. He had slept with more people than Cleo and he was an alcoholic. So why did she feel warm all over the minute she saw him?
    Cleo burst into Samantha’s room, her hair tied up in a dotty scarf, and last night’s mascara heavy round her eyes.
    ‘ Have you seen the time?! Why aren’t you up? Where’s my tea?’ Cleo shrieked at her sister.
    ‘ Sorry,’ Samantha responded, hurriedly sitting up and pushing the magazines under the bed with her foot.
    Cleo marched into the room and peered at Samantha suspiciously, putting her face right up close to her sister’s.
    ‘ Are you ill?’ Cleo wanted to know.
    ‘ Yes, maybe, I’m not sure. Sorry about your tea, I…’ Samantha started, not wanting Cleo to ask her too many questions.
    ‘ Something’s happened. I can tell when you’re keeping things from me. Something’s happened hasn’t it?’ Cleo said with a nod,