Christmas on Primrose Hill (5 page)

‘Because of you!’ Nettie half laughed, half wailed. ‘It was your stupid idea to upload the damn thing.’

Jules slumped into yet more laughter. In spite of her own hangover, she was still able to function like a normal human being, moving easily, eating heartily and laughing lustily; in fact, she had laughed so hard when she’d taken Nettie’s call earlier that she’d given herself the hiccups. ‘But we had to! Oh, Nets, it had to be done. It was just too funny to leave malingering in some poky conference room, never to be seen again. And just look how many people agree with me,’ Jules grinned, before taking a slurp of her drink and unwittingly sitting back with a chocolate moustache. Her hot breath fogged the cold air, her curly bobbed hair escaping like springs beneath her beret. ‘Besides, you were well up for it last night. You thought it was a great idea.’

‘Yes. And I probably thought jumping out of a plane with an umbrella for a parachute was a good idea last night too.’

‘It was a great night. Remember that bloke . . . ?’ Jules said distractedly, her eyes falling to a tall man striding across the grass, throwing a tennis ball for his dog as he spoke into his phone. She lapsed into silence.

‘Jules?’

‘Huh?’ Jules couldn’t wrench her eyes off the dog-walker as he leaned back, one leg counterbalanced in the air, and launched into a particularly impressive throw.

‘A bloke?’

‘I know – lasers are locked,’ she murmured, watching as the ball flew through the air, the dog below it running at full stretch, ears streaming in the wind, a smile firmly fixed on its black lips. ‘Damn, he’s fit,’ she murmured.

‘The dog?’

‘The bloke.’

‘Tch.’ Nettie sighed and, after a quick scan of the next crowd of people coming up the hill towards them, went back to looking at her YouTube page. Seventy-seven thousand, six hundred and thirteen.

Two hundred and sixty-eight people had given it a ‘thumbs-down’. She felt surprisingly crushed by this. Was her exploit not daring or funny enough for these people, or were they sympathy votes, protesting against cruelty to bunnies, or at least girls in bunny suits?

She tabbed back to her Twitter page. She couldn’t believe she had a ‘k’ after the number of her followers. As Jules had told her with great solemnity, she had now entered the social media stratosphere. If anyone had said to her yesterday afternoon – particularly as Mike laid into her – that she would become a member of the social-media elite within twenty-four hours, she’d have called them a loony.

But here she was, wrapped up in her beanie and wannabe-Moncler puffa, sitting on her bench overlooking London, with a fanbase to her name. The idea of it was so preposterous and yet . . . it made her sparkle inside. These people liked her. She’d made them laugh. They thought she was cool. Or brave. Or mad. Or all of the above.

‘Where was I?’ Jules asked, coming to. The dog-walker was almost out of sight now.

‘No idea.’

Jules rested her chin on Nettie’s shoulder and watched what she was doing. ‘What you doing?’

‘Reading my fan letters,’ Nettie quipped.

There were a lot of emojis on the page as she scrolled down through the comments. Some of them were in foreign languages she couldn’t even read, much less understand; some were seemingly following her for all the wrong reasons, leaving messages that bordered on the obscene – it would appear that finding bunnies attractive was a ‘thing’ – and instantly had her worrying about stalkers. But the vast majority were harmless – highly amused, in awe, sympathetic, asking for more . . .

‘So weird,’ she murmured, unable to process the sheer volume of people who’d sought her out and made contact. She would never be able to read them all, and there was no question of responding to—

‘Wait! Go back!’ Jules ordered her suddenly.

‘What? Where?’

Jules jabbed the ‘up’ arrow, her eyes widening with unfettered delight at what she saw there. ‘Holy
shit
! I don’t freaking believe it!’

Nor did Nettie. Her mouth had gone dry, and it had nothing to do with the hangover.

‘Wait, wait. Has it got the blue tick?’ Jules demanded. ‘It’s only, like, official if it’s got the blue tick. You get all sorts of nutjobs setting up accounts pretending to be the— Shit, it
does
!’ Jules almost screamed with excitement. ‘You jammy cow! Oh my GOD!’

Nettie stared back at her in stunned shock. Jamie Westlake was following her. The gorgeous singer-songwriter and truly one of the sexiest men in the world – as voted by the readers of
People
magazine and named
GQ
‘Man of the Year’ too, so that meant it was official and true – was following her.
Her.

‘Nettie!’ Jules shrieked, laughing and shaking her by the shoulders as though to rouse her from her stupor. ‘Do you even know what this means?’

‘What does it mean?’ Nettie felt like she’d been zapped with a stun gun.

‘You’ve got, like . . . a hotline to him now! You’re one step away from getting his mobile number.’

Nettie laughed, roused from her stupor by the stupidity of the idea. ‘I don’t think so.’

‘Yeah! God’s truth. Why not? You can just reach him whenever you want now. You put something out there and
he’ll see it.
And he obviously likes what he sees,’ Jules cackled wickedly.

‘Before you start planning the flowers, please try to remember that what he saw was me dressed as a seven-foot blue bunny. I hardly think this is some sort of calling card.’

‘No, but it could be!’ Jules breathed.

‘Oh God,’ Nettie groaned as the full impact of her own words boomeranged back and hit her. She slid a little down the bench. ‘Jamie Westlake saw me dressed up as a seven-foot blue bunny. This is my worst nightmare ever. This is like dreaming you’re on the Tube naked, only to wake up and find you actually are on the Tube naked.’

Jules frowned. ‘Strange dreams you have, babe.’ She shook her head, shifting position so that she was facing Nettie square on. ‘Listen to me. This is not a nightmare. This is actually your Cinderella moment.’

‘My what?’

Jules rolled her eyes. ‘You shall go to the ball, dummy. Jeez, keep up.’

‘Oh.’

‘Listen, yes, the most gorgeous man in the world has seen you dressed as a mutant rabbit. However, this is not a disaster.
Au contraire
, it’s an opportunity.’

‘How? I’m a national laughing stock.’

‘
Inter
national,’ Jules corrected her, seemingly offended by Nettie’s limited horizons. ‘No, what I’m trying to say is, you’ve got his attention. Now you’ve got to keep it.’

The two friends stared at each other, as excited as teenagers.

‘How?’ Nettie asked after a moment. ‘How do you keep the attention of a man like him?’

‘Hey, how hard can it be? You’ve done it once already.’

Nettie’s expression changed. ‘I am not wearing that bloody costume again.’

‘No, I—’

‘And I am not throwing myself down any more ice walls either.’

‘Of course not! But that man is following you. You’ve got to do something to keep him interested, something that keeps him coming back for more.’ Jules looked pensive, which was always worrying. ‘Oh, but what, though? How to keep the attention of the most gorgeous man on the planet in a way that doesn’t involve dressing as a numpty or almost killing yourself?’

‘Short of winning an Oscar or . . . or streaking at Wimbledon, there probably isn’t a way,’ Nettie said, as her eyes resumed their familiar scan of the crowds walking by. ‘Let’s just count our blessings and rejoice in the knowledge that for a moment
I
amused Jamie Westlake.’

‘No! Have some ambition, Nets!’ Jules said, slapping her on the arm so that Nettie almost spilt her drink over her coat.

‘You sound like Mike,’ Nettie groaned, sipping her hot chocolate before there was an accident.

‘Well, he wasn’t completely wrong, then. Look, there is something we can do – I can feel it. I’m not sure what it is yet, but I will, I promise you. One way or another, we are going to get that man to more than just “like” you.’

It came to her in the shower. Or rather, Nettie was in the shower when Jules came to her with the idea.

She plonked herself down on the loo seat and called out over the torrent of steaming-hot water. ‘So I’ve got it!’ Jules shouted.

‘Jules, bog off! Let me have my shower in peace,’ Nettie shouted back, grateful for the frosted-glass shower door. She didn’t share Jules’s lack of inhibitions, even though their job meant they had been in many unorthodox situations together.

‘I can’t! It’s brilliant, my plan. I’ve totally worked out how we’re going to get Jamie Westlake to fall for you.’

It was a joke, but the kernel of truth nestled inside them hit her all over again: one of the most famous men in the world was following her.
Her.

She put on a second application of conditioner, just in case.

A thought struck her as she rinsed – what if . . . what if he
un
followed her? What if she bored him? What if he had already realized she was too boring? Should she have given him some sort of reply to his ‘follow’? She’d already been following him anyway, of course – most of the world did – but what if he wanted an acknowledgement of his attentions?

She stuck her head round the shower door, eyes wide with horror at the myriad potential faux pas she now had to negotiate.

‘What are you looking like that for?’ Jules asked in alarm. ‘I haven’t even told you what it is yet!’

‘What if he
un
follows me?’

Jules relaxed, one arm slung over the cistern and knocking a loo roll to the floor, where it rolled and unwound like a gymnast’s ribbon. ‘Not gonna happen, hon. I just told you – I got it. The big idea.’ Jules’s arms had spread wide, like a circus showman addressing the crowd.

Nettie sighed as she reached for the towel on the hook, and wrapping it round her tightly, stepped out. She knew Jules wasn’t going to give up – or go away – until she’d shared her grand plan. ‘Fine. Go on, then. Sock it to me.’

Jules winced at the sight of her bruises from the racetrack, still livid, across her upper arms.

Nettie – having forgotten about them – looked down, before giving a shrug. It was called Ice Crush for a reason. ‘Yes, well, maybe “sock it to me” is the wrong phrase.’

‘We’re going to do a challenge a day.’

There was a long pause as Nettie dared to exhale. There were many, many things wrong with that statement. Where to start? ‘We?’ she asked finally.

‘Well, you. You’re the Blue Bunny Girl. You’re the one with the hashtag.’

Another pause. ‘A challenge?’

‘Yep. Attention-grabbing stuff. Crazy stuff.’ Jules held her hands up quickly. ‘But safe, I promise. Totally safe. Some of it can be just funny stuff, others the best internet memes.’

There was a long pause as Nettie tried to work out what a ‘meme’ was.

‘Ugh, word-of-mouth crazes,’ Jules said, translating her baffled silence. ‘Anything that’s trended.’

‘Oh. You said “a day”? How many days are we talking?’

Jules winked. ‘However long it takes to reel him in.’

‘You make him sound like a trout,’ Nettie said, grabbing another towel from the rail and bending forward to wrap her hair in it.

‘Well, I’d pout for him,’ Jules winked, picking up a bottle of Chanel No.5 body cream. She unscrewed the lid, sniffing the shell-pink mixture inside.

‘Put that down – it’s Mum’s,’ Nettie said, leaping forward and snatching it from her.

Jules shrank back and Nettie instantly felt guilty for her overreaction. ‘Sorry, it’s just . . . expensive, that’s all.’

Jules watched as Nettie replaced the cream on the glass shelf and secured her towel into a turban. Nettie stepped on the scales, her hands on her hips. No change, which was annoying. She had wanted to shift three pounds this past week in time for Christmas – five would have been a bonus – but the juicing hadn’t worked out, and by Tuesday she’d switched to paleo, which had clearly been equally as unsuccessful. She blamed the custard creams.

Jules sagged dejectedly as Nettie chewed her lip and tried standing on one leg to make the dial move left. ‘Is that
it
? You doing your best flamingo impression? It took me bloody ages to draw up this list.’ She waggled the torn piece of jotter paper in her hand.

Nettie looked up. ‘What’s that?’

‘The list of things you’re going to do.’

‘I’m not a lab rat, you know. I know what you’re like, and I’m not going to do just
anything
to keep his attention.’

There was a stunned silence.

‘You have remembered we’re talking about Jamie Westlake?’ Jules asked incredulously, leaning forward so that her elbows were on her knees. ‘I mean, don’t tell me you’ve gone all blasé about it because he’s been following you for all of twelve hours now.’

Nettie rolled her eyes and stepped off the scales. She’d eat nothing but fruit today, she decided. ‘No, but—’

‘The man is six foot of pure, liquid sex appeal.’ She closed her eyes, her hands wafting in front of her face. ‘I mean, just consider the hair.’ She opened her eyes and scowled to see that Nettie hadn’t closed hers. ‘Go on. Consider it.’

Nettie sighed and closed her eyes.

‘Imagine running that silky brown hair through your fingers, those soft curls tickling your face—’

‘He’s had a haircut now, hasn’t he?’

‘Has he?’ Jules opened her eyes, looking stern that she hadn’t been notified of it before now.

Nettie peered at her through one open eye. ‘Yeah. He’s got it short again. Not many curls left.’

‘Huh . . .’ She closed her eyes again. ‘Well, anyway, your kids might have curly hair – that’s what I’m saying.’ She slapped her hands above her heart. ‘Imagine how
cute
they’d be.’

Nettie arched an eyebrow.

‘And his eyes. Oh my God, the colour. No one has eyes like that. What would you call them?’

‘Green?’

‘Khaki, Nets! He has khaki eyes. So cool.’

‘He has cool eyes?’

‘Everything about that man is cool – in a red-hot way,’ Jules sighed. ‘I mean, just imagine it, Nets, those eyes staring at you – you might dive in and never get out again, like one of those flooded quarry pits.’