‘Last night.’
Last night. Frankie’s mind whirled into freefall. Last night he’d wrapped his arms around her on the dance floor . . . Last night he’d looked at her and said he had the most gorgeous woman in his arms . . . Last night . . . She caught hold of herself. Hang on a minute. What had happened last night didn’t mean anything to her, so why should it have meant anything to Reilly? And so what if he wasn’t interested in her. Why should she care? She wasn’t interested in him either. Fastening her top, she sat up cross-legged, feeling the sun hot on her skin, idly watching the waves and listening to them break on the sand, smelling the surf and tasting the salt from the spray. It brought her back to her senses.
Rita lit a cigarette and glanced at her. ‘Are you all right? I shouldn’t have opened my big gob, should I?’
‘Don’t be silly, I’m fine. I’m glad Reilly doesn’t fancy me.’ She fiddled with her watchstrap, unfastening and fastening it. ‘Don’t get me wrong, it would be flattering if he did. After all, being dumped doesn’t exactly do wonders for your confidence . . .’
‘Oh, shit, I knew I shouldn’t have said anything.’
Frankie continued, ‘But I don’t want him to fancy me. It would just complicate things, wouldn’t it? Like you and Dorian.’
Rita rolled her eyes. ‘Christ, we’re not complicated. Dorian wants a shag and I won’t give him one. It’s pretty simple really.’
Frankie laughed. Her mood lifted. ‘You know what I mean. Reilly and I are just friends.’ She stopped fiddling with her watch and looked down, running her hands through the sand, watching it trickle between her fingers. ‘The only man I want to be interested in me is Hugh.’
‘Frankie.’
‘I know.’ Smiling, she held up her hands in surrender. ‘Shoot me.’
24
‘This is LA County Beach Patrol.’
Frankie must have dozed off, because the next thing she was aware of was a booming voice jolting her awake.
‘You are breaking the law.’
The voice again. Where the hell was it coming from? Prising her face off her towel, she looked up, squinting in the glare of the sun – and had the fright of her life. Less than two yards away from her discarded flip-flops was a canary-yellow four-wheel-drive, a life-size Tonka Toy, out of which was leaning a man clutching a megaphone. Seeing her stir, he began climbing down from his seat and strode purposefully across the sand towards her. Frankie recoiled. He had the word ‘Coastguard’ in two-inch letters emblazoned across his zip-up, elasticated bomber jacket. Not that he bore any resemblance to how she imagined a coastguard on Malibu beach would look. With his tobacco-stained sunglasses and suspicious thatch of aubergine-coloured hair, he stood, legs astride, in front of her and breathed in, trying to hitch up his Boy Scout shorts, which were jammed underneath his middle-age spread, and cleared his throat. Twice. ‘Excuse me, ma’am, but nude sunbathing is not allowed in the state of California.’ He jangled his sprawling bunch of keys, a symbol of both his importance and, no doubt, his big dangly manhood. Not.
‘What are you talking about? We’re not nude.’ Twisting her arms around her back, Frankie grappled with her bikini top, trying to refasten it. Why was it the bloody things were so easy to take off but incredibly fiddly to put back on?
‘I’m afraid your . . .’ He paused momentarily as he looked across at Rita, who was lolled on her back wearing her goggles, snoring with her mouth open, her naked chest, like two white meringues, on full display. ‘Er . . . your friend . . . is breaking the law.’
‘You mean topless?’ The penny dropped. Is that what all this was about? Surely he wasn’t serious. Leaning over, she nudged Rita, who woke, dazed and snuffling.
‘Jesus, what’s a girl got to do around here to get some shut-eye?’ She caught sight of the coastguard, who was scribbling something on his ring-binder notepad, while surreptitiously looking at her chest. ‘What the . . .’ She sat up, her breasts swinging jauntily in defiance.
Ripping off a piece of paper, he passed it to Rita, who stared at it, trying to focus.
‘You’re giving me a ticket?’
He nodded. ‘You’re indecent,’ he sounded disapproving, while at the same time having a thorough inspection of her chest.
‘Why, thanks.’ She smiled, flirtatiously, trying to charm him. He wasn’t to be charmed.
Jamming his notepad and pen into the rather snug pocket of his shorts, he cleared his throat – again – and with a podgy, nail-bitten finger shoved his sunglasses on to the sunken bridge of his nose. ‘Either replace your top or vacate the beach.’ And without waiting for an answer he strutted – as best he could on sand – back to his truck and, winching himself behind the wheel, set off across the beach.
Rita’s face fell as she watched him go. ‘I can’t fucking believe it.’ She stared at the ticket in her hand. ‘The bastard’s given me a sixty-dollar ticket for showing a bit of cleavage.’ Grabbing her top, she huffily tied it around her neck. ‘Which is a bit rich considering this is where they used to film Baywatch.’ Screwing it up with disgust, she threw it in her bag. ‘C’mon, let’s go and get something to eat. I’m ravenous.’ Suddenly desperate to feed her hangover, Rita scooped up her towel and threw her bag over her shoulder.
‘Are you going to pay it?’ Frankie followed her across the beach.
‘I’ve got no choice, have I? I don’t want to end up in court.’ Pausing at the bottom of the stairs leading up to the road, she turned to Frankie. ‘I’d feel like a right tit.’
They looked at each other, her words taking a nanosecond to register, before both cracking up with laughter.
They drove to the Hook, Line and Sinker Inn, a cheap’n’cheerful seafood restaurant along the Pacific Coast Highway that was a favourite with the surfer crowd and the groovier, less glitzy of the Malibu residents. Unlike the other restaurants specialising in seafood, which had white uniformed waiters, a choice of freshly baked rolls and individual pots of butter, a tinkling piano and plenty of hush, this was strictly self-service, with plastic sachets of ketchup and mayo, two-dollar side-orders of onion rings and plenty of noise – from the brawling kitchen staff, as well as the diners.
‘They do great fish and chips,’ chirped Rita, as they turned into the car park. ‘I mean, I know you’re a vegetarian and everything, but you can still eat the chips.’ Her mouth watered. ‘It’s a shame you can’t taste the king prawns, they’re delicious . . . I just wish they’d fry them in breadcrumbs . . .’ She sounded wistful. ‘There’s nothing better than a nice plate of scampi.’
Lazily resting her head on her forearm, which had absorbed all the heat from the sun and was belting it out like a fleshy radiator, Frankie leaned out of the window. Obviously Rita was on the classic seafood diet today. See food and eat it. She smiled at the pun, until she caught sight of something that wiped it from her face and made her stomach take a nosedive. ‘Oh, shit.’
‘What?’ Rita hit the brakes, causing the car to skid on the gravel, coughing up a veil of dust.
‘Straight ahead . . .’ Frankie pointed to the mud-splattered truck at the end of the car park, half hidden by some kind of bush. ‘It’s Reilly’s.’
‘Are you sure?’ Rita squinted, trying to see through the dust.
‘Of course I’m sure, I recognise the dent.’
‘Crikey, there’s no keeping you two apart, is there?’ Rita reversed deftly into a space and turned the key in the ignition. The engine died. So did Frankie.
‘We’re not staying, are we?’
‘Yeah, of course we are.’ Adjusting her rear-view mirror, Rita applied a coat of fire-engine red lipstick over her zinc-whitened lips. ‘Why, don’t you want to?’ She rubbed them together until they resembled the colour and texture of blancmange.
Frankie didn’t say anything. She was too busy battling with herself. What was the big deal about seeing Reilly again? Nothing had happened between them last night. She didn’t fancy him, and he’d made it quite clear he didn’t fancy
her. But if there wasn’t a problem, why was she suddenly feeling sick?
‘It’s because Reilly’s here, isn’t it?’
Her silence screamed yes.
Rita gasped impatiently. ‘What are you bothered about him for? I know he’s a bit of a jerk, but it’s not as if we have to have lunch with him. Just play it cool. We’ll say a few quick “Hi-how-are-you”s and then we’ll bugger off and grab some food.’ Her stomach rumbled in agreement as she clambered out of the car. ‘Anyway, I thought you said you two were friends.’
‘We are.’
Frankie forced a smile. She was making a big fuss over nothing. Rita was right, she and Reilly were friends and she just needed to relax and play it cool. Play it cool? She’d never been cool in her life. Well, perhaps once at seventeen, when she’d passed her driving test and given Johnny Evans, the most fanciable bloke in the sixth form, a lift home in her mum’s Fiat Panda. With her iridescent lilac lipstick, Bros-style ripped jeans and Johnny Evans in her passenger seat, she’d cruised past the other students standing at the bus stop, feeling as if she’d died and gone to heaven. That was about the extent of her coolness.
Flicking down the sun visor, she glanced at her reflection in the hairspray-glazed mirror. Normally it was a very flattering mirror, eradicating bags and shadows, rather like Vaseline over the lens, but not this time. This time, when she needed it the most, it was sharp, in focus and unforgiving. Her reflection blinked back: sandy, sweaty and red-faced, with dry, frazzled hair. Miserably snapping the mirror back against the windscreen, she got out of the car and looked down at what she was wearing – a washed-out, faded bikini, a tie-dye sarong and a pair of blue and white striped flip-flops that had seen better days – i.e. Camden market, summer of ’94. It wasn’t the kind of outfit she’d have chosen to try and look cool in – a flattering bias-cut dress, a pair of designer jeans, even eyeliner and a bit of mascara would have been nice. She rubbed her face with her towel, trying to remove the last traces of the beach. Right now she would have sold her soul for her make-up bag, nestling where she left it on the bathroom shelf. She didn’t like the ‘nude look’. She’d leave that to Rita.
‘Hi there!’ They were barely through the front door when Rita, grinning as if she’d won the lottery, locked on to Reilly like a heat-seeking missile and charged straight over to his table.
Frankie could have killed her. What happened to playing it cool? He looked surprised. Shocked even. He was sat with three other people. Opposite him was a man with short blond dreadlocks and a trendy, ‘socially aware’ type of female with an Annie Lennox haircut and tortoiseshell glasses with spearmint-green lenses. But Frankie’s attention honed in on the girl sitting at his elbow.
Blonde, early twenties and pretty, in that rock-chicky dishevelled ‘just got out of bed’ way – an ironic description for a look that could only be achieved by getting out of bed hideously early in order to do all that time-consuming tousling and smudging – she was wearing a candyfloss-pink vest with a picture of Charlie’s Angels on the front, ideal for showing off the kind of arms that can only ever be achieved by thrice-weekly tricep curls and a personal trainer. Leaning over Reilly’s plate, she was busy stealing his leftover fries in the way women do when they first meet someone and they’re pretending that they actually don’t eat fries.
Watching her, it began to dawn on Frankie that there were in fact two men and two women at the table. Which made two couples. Oh-oh, she felt herself wanting to disappear into a hole. Reilly was on a date. A double date. Not knowing where to look, she avoided his eyes, pretending to be suddenly very interested in the contents of her beach bag – i.e. a screwed-up towel and Give Up Men and Get a Life. A book that only a couple of hours earlier had seemed as boring as hell, was now suddenly riveting. So riveting, in fact, that she had to reread the back cover ten times.
But as if the situation wasn’t bad enough, Rita, being her usual perceptive self, hadn’t cottoned on to the dating situation and was superglued to the end of their table, twirling strands of hair around her finger and giggling at some invisible joke. She pushed Reilly playfully. ‘I can’t believe we’ve bumped into you again. Are you following us?’
No, please, no. It was getting worse. Seeking a better prop, Frankie pretended to rummage for some unseen object in the bottom of her bag, wishing that she had a mobile, that it would ring, that she could talk to someone. Anyone. Directory Enquiries. 911. 69. She didn’t care as long as she didn’t have to talk to him.
Reilly glanced at Frankie. All he wanted to do was talk to her, but instead he was stuck chatting to her manic friend, Rita. He laughed at something Rita said, but didn’t know what. He couldn’t concentrate. He was still taken aback from seeing Frankie walk in. She was the last person he’d expected to see at his local hang-out. And she looked gorgeous. Trust him to look like total shit. Even worse, he was with Jed and Sophie, two old friends who, since the divorce, had kept trying to fix him up with their friends. Today it was some blonde chick called Chrissy, a wannabe pop star from Studio City. He watched Frankie. What the hell was she trying to find in that bag? He wished she’d look up and speak to him, talk about last night. But she didn’t. Rita was still giggling manically in his ear. He couldn’t wait any longer.
‘Hi, Frankie.’
His voice. Low. Easy. Friendly. It was like a dart hitting the bull’s-eye. She froze and looked up.
‘Oh, hi.’
Her voice. High (a bit too high, even squeaky). Surprised (as in, my goodness, fancy seeing you here, I didn’t see you there because I was just looking for something terribly important in my bag). Friendly (in a matey, we’re such good friends our relationship is like one of brother and sister).
‘How are you feeling after last night?’ Pushing a strand of wayward hair from his eyes, he leaned back in his chair and away from Chrissy. He didn’t want Frankie getting the wrong idea.
Frankie’s mind went into overdrive. How should she be feeling after last night? Loved up? Throwing up? Was he referring to his effect on her, or the effect of all those margaritas and champagne cocktails? She wasn’t sure, but she wanted to get things straight. Seeing as he’d obviously been going around telling Dorian, and anyone who would listen, that he wasn’t interested in her, it would be highly embarrassing if he got the wrong idea and thought she was interested in him. Which he probably did, considering she’d spent most of the night wrapped around his neck like a pashmina.
‘Hungover.’ After all that mental activity, only one word sprang to mind. Being pissed was the mother of all excuses.
‘Me too.’ He smiled. It had a been good night. Well worth the hangover.
Frankie stalled. Was he playing the same game? Or maybe he wasn’t getting the message? She decided to make it more obvious. ‘God, I was so drunk.’ She laughed oh-so-casually. ‘What do they put in those margaritas? I was so out of my head, I can hardly remember being at the Cowboy Palace.’ Surely he couldn’t misunderstand that message, it was loud and clear. She was totally unaccountable for her actions and everything she’d done or said was a result of being sloshed. Plastered. Pissed as a fart. Even all that hugging wasn’t anything to do with lust, or sex, or raging hormones, she’d only been clinging on to him because she was legless and liable to fall down drunk.
Reilly’s mouth went dry. What was she trying to say? That she didn’t remember? Surely she must remember. She had to remember.
‘You don’t remember dancing?’
‘Did we dance?’ As if she had to ask. She hadn’t been able to stop thinking about it all bloody day.
He felt as if he’d been kicked in the guts. She didn’t remember. How could she forget? Something had happened between them on that dance floor. Something had changed between them. He didn’t know why, or how, or what the hell it was, but he did know that it had made him feel fantastic. And he hadn’t felt like that in a long time. But maybe he’d got it wrong. Maybe it was one-sided and she hadn’t felt anything. That last night had meant nothing. He mean
t nothing. Picking up his beer from the table, he took a swig. It tasted bitter.
‘Yeah, we danced.’ He spoke quietly.
They both looked at each other. And the expression on Reilly’s face made Frankie suddenly regret her bravado. It wasn’t one of cocky confidence and self-assurance. But of hurt and disappointment.
‘Hey, aren’t you going to introduce us?’ Her thoughts were interrupted by the guy with the dreads.
‘Oh, yeah, sure.’ Snapping out of his daze, Reilly did his social bit. ‘This is Jed, Sophie and Chrissy.’
Jed and Sophie exuberantly cheered, ‘Hi there, great to meet you,’ leaning across each other to shake hands, smiling.
Rock-chick Chrissy didn’t seem as chuffed to make their acquaintance. Leaning against Reilly, she smiled without interest and managed a feeble ‘hi’ while continuing to dip fries in mayonnaise.
And then, for a moment, it felt awkward. Having entered the zone between being introduced and saying hello, and wanting to move on and say goodbye, Frankie didn’t know what to do next. She wanted to get the hell out of there, but it was tricky. She didn’t want to look rude, but then she didn’t want to hang about like a groupie either. Luckily, Rita’s stomach took control of the situation by omitting a long, low-bellied rumble.
‘God, I’m starving. We haven’t eaten.’ She giggled.
‘We should order.’ Frankie motioned to the menu written on huge chalkboards around the restaurant and turned to the table. ‘Well, it was nice to meet you.’
‘Yeah, you too,’ they chorused.
She looked at Reilly. ‘Well, see you around.’ She made an attempt at sounding cheerful and friendly, but her smile was small and uncomfortable. It gave her away.
‘Yeah, sure.’ So this was it. The brush-off.
Turning, she followed Rita, who was charging across to the other side of the restaurant. Reilly watched her go.