“Yeah, but neither was I, and I know what it’s like.”
“Have you told her that you used to be like her?”
“I tried, but she didn’t want to know.”
“It’s tough isn’t it? Looking at you now, I have a problem believing you used to be fat.”
I sigh and run my fingers through my hair. “Me too,” I say with an uncomfortable laugh. “But I was, and I know how unhappy it makes you, and I can see so much of me in Jenny.”
“What if you tried to help her?”
“I don’t think she’d accept it.”
“Maybe she’s one of those people who’s happy the size she is.”
“Next you’ll be telling me she’s got a gland problem.”
“Maybe she has.”
“Bollocks. The only reason anyone’s that size is because they eat too much. Trust me. I know.”
“Look,” says Lauren. “Why are you getting so worked up about her? She’s only Brad’s bloody PA isn’t she?”
I nod.
“Exactly. She doesn’t have anything to do with your life, and, while I admit that it’s always a good idea to get their secretaries or PAs or whatever on your side, she seems perfectly fine now, so just relax about it.”
“Maybe you’re right.” And I should relax and I should forget about it, but during lunch, even as I’m laughing with Lauren, and Lauren whoops with joy, I can’t quite get Jenny out of my head, and I can’t quite figure out why.
“So come over to me at seven tonight, okay?” I scribble down my address.
“Bloody hell,” says Lauren, simultaneously taking the piece of paper and looking at her watch. “It’s four o’clock! Where on earth did the afternoon go?”
“Who cares,” I laugh and kiss her on the cheek. “At least it went. See you later,” and I wave as we walk off in opposite directions.
When I get home there’s a message from Brad on the answerphone. I call him back, miraculously he’s not in a meeting, and he apologizes profusely for not being around in the evening. “What will you do?” he asks.
“I think I’ll just pop out for a quick drink with Lauren. What time will you be home?”
“Not late,” he says. “Around nine?” It’s a question, and I say that’s fine.
“I love you, baby,” he says, his voice as smooth as honey. “I’ll make it up to you.”
“That’s okay,” I say.
“I love you too,” I add. As an afterthought.
So I glue myself to the television set for the rest of the afternoon, and finally at six o’clock, I start getting ready to go out, and I know this must sound crazy but I feel more excited than I’ve felt in ages. I shower, dry my hair, take an incredible amount of time putting on my makeup, and choose a little black number for tonight. “What the hell,” I say out loud, modeling in front of the mirror. “Why not?”
At seven on the dot the doorbell rings, and there, on the doorstep, is Lauren, equally done up, and we both laugh.
“Thank God,” says Lauren. “I thought I’d gone a bit over the top, but you obviously had the same idea. Now we can go clacking off to take this town by storm.”
“Do you think everyone can tell we’re English?” We’re standing side by side in front of the mirror in the hall.
“Dunno really,” says Lauren. “I’d say from the neck up we look like two Californian babes, but from the neck down, tarted up like this, we’re as English as tea and scones, which can only be a good thing.”
“What do you mean?”
“The Americans love our quaint accent. How posh can you be?”
I put on my best Queen’s English accent. “The rain in Spain stays mainly on the plain.”
“In Hertford, Hereford, and Hampshire, hurricanes hardly ever happen,” says Lauren, and we both give each other high fives in the classic American style.
“Before we go you’ve got to show me round,” says Lauren, already peering round doorways, so I naturally give her the full guided tour.
“I’m not surprised you’re staying,” says Lauren, when she’s inspected every room, every gadget, every appliance. “It’s bloody gorgeous.”
“You’re right,” I smile. “It is bloody gorgeous. And I’m bloody lucky.”
“That you are,” says Lauren, and linking arms we leave the house.
The restaurant’s so well hidden from the paparazzi we almost miss the bloody place. Eventually, after trooping up and down the road, Lauren spies a lone doorman standing outside a huge pair of cast-iron doors.
“Maybe that’s it?” she says doubtfully, because there are no signs, no windows, nothing.
“Let’s go and ask.” Where did this new-found confidence come from? We troop up to the doorman, but before we can even open our mouths he has said good evening to us, and swung open the door.
“Are we in the right place?” I whisper, as Lauren strides down the hallway through to the double doors at the end.
“I bloody well hope so,” she whispers back. “I haven’t got the nerve to ask, it sounds so naff. We’ll soon find out,” she says, pushing open the next set of doors, and, sure enough, we step into the restaurant. At least I hope it’s the restaurant. It could be any restaurant, except when we look at the other side of the room we see a huge, stainless-steel bar running along the whole length of one wall, and we know this must be it. Even this early in the evening there are scores of people crowded around, all busy talking to one another and scouring the room at the same time, just to check that someone more interesting hasn’t arrived.
“Thank God,” says Lauren with a sigh. “This, finally, feels like home. In fact, if I close my eyes I could almost pretend I’m in Saint.”
“Saint?”
“You must know Saint. The bar?”
“Oh of course,” I lie. “Saint,”
“Please allow me to buy you a drink,” says a smooth, swarthy man with chiseled cheekbones and come-to-bed eyes.
“No, thank you.” I drag Lauren away before she gets the chance to completely melt away. “We’re fine,” and I pull her to the other end of the bar.
“What did you do that for?” pouts Lauren. “He was delicious.”
“He was disgusting! Lauren, for God’s sake, talk about being in love with himself.”
“With those cheekbones I’d be in love with myself too,” she says, looking over my shoulder and trying to find the guy, trying to give him meaningful eye signals.
“You can do much better than that,” I say purposefully, leaning over the bar and trying to catch the bartender’s attention, which doesn’t take long at all because he’s staring at Lauren like it’s his birthday, Christmas, and Thanksgiving all rolled into one. “Ladies,” he says, with a well-practiced smile. “What can I get you?”
“Phwooargh,” whispers Lauren, eyes glued to his well-muscled torso as he pours us cocktails, and, I have to say, she has a point. “Now he’s much more my type.”
“You are incorrigible!” I laugh, but if I didn’t have my gorgeous Brad I’d be thinking the same thing.
“It’s all right for you,” says Lauren, reading my mind. “You’ve got a man. And he’s divine. I’ve only had the crap-in-bed Charlie, and I’m still on the lookout.”
“Can you just try and make it a bit less obvious?” I whisper. “Nothing puts a man off more than a woman who’s desperate.” I’m interrupted by the bartender, who places the drinks in front of us and holds Lauren’s eye for about twenty seconds longer than is altogether necessary.
“What were you saying about men being put off?” smirks Lauren, sipping from her cocktail and checking out the bartender’s bottom.
“Oh shut up! Cheers.”
“Here’s to men!” says Lauren, clinking her glass to mine.
“Here’s to friendship!” I say.
“Here’s to both!” And we take a good, long swig.
The cocktails are a lot stronger than Jemima and Lauren realized, and two hours later they’re both rip-roaringly drunk. Men su
rround them all evening, and Jemima, despite despairing of Lauren’s hunting earlier on, is having the time of her life. Never has she felt more beautiful, more desirable, and she’s flirting and laughing as if she’s looked this way, had this much attention, all her life.
“I’ve gotta have a piss,” says Lauren, half falling off her stool and stumbling off into the distance. Funny, she thinks, as she holds the door open for a girl who looks very familiar as she scuttles off with her head down. “Isn’t that girl that Jenny?” But no, she thinks. It can’t be. What would someone like that be doing among all these beautiful people here?
At 10:30 Jemima looks at her watch. “Shit!” she shouts. “I’m supposed to be home.”
“Don’t worry about it,” giggles Lauren. “Play the Rules! Be hard to get for a little while!”
“I’ve got to go,” says Jemima, who’s slightly more sober than Lauren, “and you’d better go too.”
“No!” says Lauren, banging her fist on the table to emphasize her point, except she misses the table and ends up banging her thigh. “We’re staying,” except it comes out “shtaying.”
“Nope.” Jemima gets up and pulls Lauren to her feet. “I’m putting you in a taxi.”
“Just give me one sec. Oh shit. Shit.” She turns to Jemima. “What’s my phone number?”
“I don’t know,” says Jemima. “Can we just go?”
“Not until you’ve looked up my phone number.”
Jemima digs out her address book and shows Lauren her phone number, and as Lauren tries to focus on it she shouts the number out to the bartender, who’s hovering nearby with pen and paper in hand.
“Got it,” he mouths. “I’ll call you.”
“All right,” says Lauren, as the pair stagger out. “Well would you bloody believe it? Now that’s what I call a result.”
Amazing how quickly you can sober up when there’s a crisis. Not that Jemima’s having a crisis exactly, it’s just that she expected Brad to be home waiting for her. She didn’t expect to come home to an empty house.
“Brad?” she calls, after fumbling at the door with the key for what feels like hours. She manages to get in, dumps her bag, and slowly climbs up the stairs. “Sweetie?” she says softly, pushing open the bedroom door. “Oh,” she says, seeing the bed’s empty. She checks every room in the house, but he’s not there, and she’s not feeling good about this. Not feeling good at all.
Why does everyone else seem to have a hangover the next day, whereas I get the headache, the nausea, later on that very same evening? There’s only one thing for it, coffee, and, trying very hard to focus on everything in the kitchen, I make myself a strong black coffee, which, fifteen minutes after drinking, seems to have the desired effect and I feel a lot more sober than when I first walked in.
But where the hell is Brad? Didn’t he say he’d be home around nine? Why isn’t he here? The more I think about it, the more I start worrying that something terrible’s happened, because for all his busyness, he’s not unreliable, he wouldn’t just turn up late, not when he knows I’m waiting. Surely.
Car crash? Accident? What? Where is Brad and why isn’t he home? I check my watch again. It’s 11 P.M., two hours after he said he’d be home. Maybe he came home, realized I wasn’t here and went out again. He’ll be home any minute. I’ll wait up for him.
But by midnight there’s still no sign of him and now I’m starting to feel sick with worry. If I were at home I’d know what to do, but here I don’t even know what the hospitals are called, and anyway I’m probably being silly, maybe something came up.
I get into bed and watch television to try and take my mind off things, but every time I hear something, some little noise, my ears prick up and I expect to hear his key in the lock. Except I don’t. So I keep flicking, and suddenly I find myself watching a travel program, the featured destination today being London, and this huge wave of homesickness washes over me as the camera pans over Big Ben, the Thames, the Houses of Parliament.
Ben works near there, near the Thames, near the South Bank. I wonder what Ben’s doing now? And that’s my very last thought before falling fast asleep.
Chapter 25
I thought my hangover would be over by this morning, I thought the headache and nausea of last night was it. Jesus, was I wrong. It takes me a few seconds to orient myself, to remember where I am, why my head’s pounding, and then, when I roll over and see the other half of the bed hasn’t been slept in, I start to feel even more sick and I remember that Brad didn’t come home last night, and by the looks of things he hasn’t been home at all.
My heart starts to pound, and a wave of nausea washes over me as I shake my head, trying to clear it, to work out what is going on. And then I hear noises from the kitchen, plates clashing together, the scrape of cutlery.
I pull on a dressing gown, and, with hand to my head to protect my hangover from any more of the brutal noise from the other end of the house, I slowly make my way to the kitchen and stand quietly in the doorway, watching Brad, wondering what to do next, what to say.
He’s humming to himself as he stirs scrambled eggs on the stove, and on the counter next to him is a wooden breakfast tray, immaculately laid for breakfast for one. There’s a basket of muffins, a glass of orange juice, coffee, and a vase filled with huge, dewy red roses.
What is all this about? I don’t say anything for a while. Just lean against the door frame watching him, and after a few seconds Brad turns round and jumps as he sees me.
“Hi, baby,” he says, coming over to kiss me on the lips, and I can’t do this, I can’t pretend that everything’s okay when it quite obviously isn’t. I feel as if he’s broken my trust so I turn my head away, leaving Brad to skim my cheek.
“I’m sorry,” he says. “I am so sorry about last night.”
“What happened?” Even I’m surprised at how cold my voice is. How stern. “Where were you?”
“The meeting just went on and on, and it was so late I ended up sleeping at the office.”
“Where in the office?”
“I swear,” says Brad, seeing that I don’t believe him. “I slept on the couch in the lobby. The maids couldn’t believe it when they walked in this morning.”
“Why didn’t you phone, at least let me know where you were?” It comes out like a whine and I have to remember to be more angry, less pleading.
“I knew you were going out, and by the time the meeting finished it was so late I didn’t want to worry you.”
“So you just let me think you’d been in a car crash or something?”
“Oh I’m sorry, baby, I didn’t think for a moment you’d be that worried. I figured you’d be fast asleep and by the time you woke up in the morning I’d be home.”
“I can’t believe you’ve been this selfish.” Careful, careful. I don’t really want to be angry, because this is the first time I’ve ever had a proper boyfriend, and look how gorgeous he is, and if I really do lose my temper I might scare him away, and if that happened what would happen to me?
“JJ, I’m sorry. You’re right, I was selfish, but it won’t happen again, I promise you.” Brad looks sorry, he looks like he means it, and with his head hung low he looks so contrite, so like a little boy, so completely vulnerable and gorgeous, I have to forgive him. What else can I do?
I know you probably think I shouldn’t forgive him, I should make him feel guilty a bit longer, but the story is plausible enough as long as you don’t look too deeply, and I don’t want to look too deeply, I want to believe him. Despite the fact that more and more problems with this relationship seem to be emerging every day, I want to at least pretend that everything’s rosy, because look at us. We look so good together. We’re the perfect couple.
“Okay,” I say, shrugging.
“Okay?” His face lights up. “Does that mean I’m forgiven?”
“I suppose so.”
“God, I love you, JJ,” he says, putting his arms around me and kissing me on the nape of the neck, the
one place he knows is guaranteed to send shivers shooting down my spine.
I lean into him, smelling his smell, feeling the light stubble on his face with my cheek, and slowly I allow myself to feel better. Brad circles my back lightly, moving his hand slowly down until it’s sliding in between my legs, and I can’t help the small gasp that comes out of my mouth, and then the pair of us are sliding down the wall to the kitchen floor, and soon the breakfast has been forgotten, and the only sounds emerging from the kitchen are our soft whispers and groans of pleasure.
“I do love you,” I say to him afterwards, after possibly the best sex we’ve ever had, when I’m feeling guilty at making him feel guilty, when he obviously loves me so much. “And I’m sorry for being a bitch.”
Oh Jemima, stop being such a wimp, you weren’t a bitch in the slightest. Perhaps you should have been, but more importantly you offered Brad the information that you love him, and you said it first, it wasn’t a reply to him. Do you really, Jemima? Do you really love him?
Lying on that floor, feeling the muscles in his back, for the first time Jemima starts to believe that she might love him, that everything may well work out after all.
“I’m taking the day off today,” says Brad, as he goes in to take his shower. “I want to spend the whole day with you, with no interruptions.” He kisses my shoulder blade as I walk past him, naked, to the bedroom, with, and you’ll be very glad to hear this, no inhibitions whatsoever.
“Really? The whole day?”
“Really,” he says, turning away. “I thought we could have lunch, maybe go blading later. Whatever you’d like.”
“I’d love that. I don’t mind where we go, as long as I’m with you. The only thing I have to do is get started on the column I was telling you about. Maybe we could go star-spotting? I’ve got to work out exactly what I’m going to write about.”
“Celebrity gossip is the last thing you should be worrying about in this town,” Brad says with a smile. “All you have to do is pick up a copy of Daily Variety and the Hollywood Reporter and you’ve got everything you need.”