From Notting Hill to New York . . . Actually (22 page)

‘We need to get some footage of someone stealing towels for a story we’re doing about New York hotels that are tagging towels and bathrobes to prevent them being stolen.’

I take a large sip of my coffee as I try and take this on board. ‘You’re kidding me – right?’

‘No, deadly serious.’

‘And you want to come to my hotel to do it?’

‘Yes, and if possible film you stealing them.’

‘You’re gonna make me look like a thief?’ I explode into my phone, causing my fellow coffee-drinkers to look up from their laptops, smartphones and newspapers.

‘No, of course not. We’ll probably just film you from behind.’

And this is supposed to make me feel better, being asked to provide shots of my bum to fill people’s TV screens over their Coco Pops and toast?

‘You’d be doing us a huge favour, Scarlett. Pleeease …’

‘Oh, all right then,’ I sigh. ‘When do you want to come and film?’

‘This afternoon, if possible.’

I think
about the state I’ve left my room in. ‘Can you give me a while?’

‘Sure, we’re just doing some editing at the studio right now. It needn’t be until later.’

‘Great, my hotel’s on Park Avenue on the corner of—’

‘It’s OK, I know where your hotel is,’ Jamie interrupts. ‘After all, how do you think you got back there last night? Look, got to go or we’ll never get this edit done. Meet us outside at, say, five? We can’t just roll up with all our equipment, or the hotel might get suspicious. We’ll need to find a way to get inside unnoticed. Catch you later.’

‘Wait, all
what
equipment?’ I ask, but he’s gone.

Right then, I think, as I hastily finish my coffee and doughnut. What’s my biggest worry right now: how quickly I can turn my hotel room from a pigsty into a palace? Or what, exactly, happened within those four walls last night?

I tidy up my room as best I can and then, at just before five o’clock, I head downstairs to the hotel foyer.

It’s Sam on the door. That’s good, I think, that could come in handy …

‘Hi, Sam,’ I call. ‘How are you today?’

‘Good, miss, thank you. And yourself?’

‘Very well.’ I hover by the door.

‘Off out, are we?’

‘Er no, not just now. I’m waiting … for some friends.’

‘That’s good, miss.’ He smiles
at me expectantly, waiting to see what my next move will be.

I look out towards the sidewalk. ‘I … think I’ll just wait for them outside. It seems like a nice evening.’

‘It is, miss. Warm, but pleasant all the same.’ He holds the door open for me, and I escape outside.

How was I going to sneak two grown men and their ‘equipment’ in past Sam? Even saying that sounded dodgy. And what was all this equipment, anyway? Jamie hadn’t really explained too much over the phone. Then, as a taxi pulls up a little way down from the hotel, I see just what I’ve let myself in for as Jamie, Max and what looks like half a TV studio begin to pile out.

‘What is all this stuff?’ I ask, as I find myself surrounded on the sidewalk by a camera, a big furry thing I recognise to be the top of one of those boom mics, some poles and a large spotlight.

‘Our equipment,’ Jamie says. ‘I did warn you.’

‘I know, but do you really need all this stuff?’

‘We might do,’ Max explains. ‘It depends on what the conditions are like in your room. I might just get
away with the camera, but to be on the safe side, and since we were coming by taxi, we decided to bring the lot.’

‘And how are we supposed to get all that through the foyer without anyone noticing?’ I ask, looking back towards the hotel doors. Luckily, at the moment Sam is caught up with some new arrivals, who are just checking in to the hotel with all their cases.

‘Could you create a diversion?’ Max suggests.

‘Such as?’

‘Strip all your clothes off and run around naked in the foyer. I’m sure we could creep past then.’

I give him a disapproving look. ‘You’d be too busy gawping to creep past,
and
you’d probably trip over your equipment, if not your own tongue, in the process. No, I am not stripping my clothes off in public so you two can sneak into the hotel.’

‘Well, what then?’ Max says. ‘I’d do it, obviously, but you’d never lift this camera.’

‘Is it that heavy?’

Max hands me the camera. ‘Whoa,’ I say as my arm is nearly pulled out of its socket. ‘That’s even heavier than my shopping after a day at the January sales.’

‘You gotta be strong to be a cameraman,’ Max says, proudly flexing his muscles. ‘Not like these namby-pamby reporters.’ He regards Jamie’s biceps with derision. ‘Only thing they’re capable of holding up is
a microphone, and then not for too long.’

Jamie opens his mouth to respond but I hold up my hands. ‘Boys, boys, now is not the time for bickering. We need to find a way of getting you inside, remember?’

The three of us stand on the pavement for a few seconds thinking, then as I watch Sam in his doorman’s uniform ushering people in and out of the building, I have an idea.

‘How are you at tipping doormen?’ I ask Jamie.

‘Not bad,’ he replies, looking at me suspiciously. ‘Why?’

‘How about maids?’

‘Quick,’ I call out of the back door. ‘Hurry up, we don’t have long.’

Jamie and Max appear from around the side of a huge rubbish cart carrying their equipment. They stare at me as they see me standing at the back door.

‘Suits you,’ Jamie winks.

Max looks me up and down. ‘The dress is nice and short and I’d have preferred some heels, but you don’t do too bad as a French maid.’

‘I’m not a French maid!’ I insist as I pull at the hem of my dress. It’s just my luck that the only maid to be coming off duty at the hotel right now is four foot eleven and a size eight. This
dress is practically indecent.

We’d tipped, OK
bribed
Sam on the front door to find a maid who was likely to take another ‘tip’ to let us borrow her uniform and a dirty laundry trolley for a few minutes. This would allow the boys to stash their equipment under the cover of some of the hotel’s sheets and towels, so that I could push them up to the hotel room in disguise.

This had all worked well until the maid Sam had produced was Adriana, a tiny Portuguese girl. She hardly spoke a word of English, but was grateful to earn a few extra dollars. I barely fitted into her doll-sized dress, but I was only going to be wearing it for a few minutes, I reminded myself, and Jamie had been very good at helping me with my brooch. This was the least I could do to help him get his towel story.

‘Just stick your equipment in there and let’s get going!’ I say, shoving the trolley at them.

‘My God, she even talks dirty as well!’ Max grins as he places his camera carefully in the trolley, while Jamie lifts in the lighting and sound bits.

‘Max, I’m warning you!’ I growl.

‘Sorry! I’ll be good, gorgeous. Just be careful with my camera.’

‘Right, I’ll meet you guys upstairs in a few minutes,’ I say, pulling the trolley
back towards me. God, this thing was awkward to control, probably because it was carrying a fair bit more weight than it was used to with just dirty laundry inside.

‘OK,’ Jamie says. ‘What room number?’

‘Five-one-O.’

‘See you in a bit then. Oh, Scarlett,’ he calls to me just as I’m pushing the errant trolley off into the distance. ‘Jennifer Lopez has got nothing on you, you know.’

‘What?’ I ask turning back.

‘
Maid in Manhattan
,’ Jamie grins. ‘I thought you’d like the movie reference.’

‘Of course, yes, thanks.’ But living my life like a movie didn’t really matter right now, and controlling this damn trolley and getting up to room 510 without anyone seeing me did.

I manage to – I can only call it wobble – the trolley towards the lift and wait while the lift seems to take an absolute age to descend to the ground floor. When it finally arrives, I’m overjoyed to see that it’s empty, so I push my trolley inside and select the fifth floor.

I wonder while the lift ascends and I watch the numbers tick by whether I should have tried to find a service lift instead of using the public one? But it seems pretty quiet; it looks like I’ve got away with it. One, two, three, uh-
oh
, it’s stopping on three. The
doors slide open and a young couple get in. They barely glance at me as I stand with my head bent in the corner, having eyes only for each other. Hopefully that’s it, I think, as we begin to move again, but no: the lift stops on the fourth floor as well.

‘Going down?’ a refined English voice enquires as an elderly gentleman peers into our lift.

The young couple, who are now playing tonsil hockey in the corner, are too obsessed with each other to answer. I’m forced to reply. ‘No, going up.’ I hope this will prevent him climbing in, but it doesn’t.

‘Well, it has to go down eventually. The more the merrier!’

He eyes me as the doors close. ‘Which rooms do
you
clean?’ he asks, lowering his gold spectacles so he can check out my dress more clearly. ‘I haven’t noticed you on
my
floor. I’ll have to put in a special request with the management.’

‘Staff only!’ I insist as I hurriedly push my trolley out of the doors at floor five, yanking on the hem of my dress as I leave.

I’m pleased to see that Jamie and Max are already waiting for me in my room. I’d given Jamie a key so he could let himself in.

‘How’d it go?’ he asks, as he helps me through the door with the trolley. ‘Did anyone try and stop you?’

‘No; I just had
to put up with being perved at by some grandad, but apart from that it all went smoothly.’

‘Great stuff. You’re a star for doing this, Scarlett. We owe you.’

‘It’s the least I could do; you did help me with my brooch, after all.’

Jamie smiles. ‘Ah, that was nothing, and I didn’t have to dress up like a stripper to do it.’

I wince. ‘Do I really look that bad?’

‘I think you look great,’ Max calls from where he’s setting up his camera on a tripod.

Jamie shakes his head reassuringly. ‘Ignore him. You look fine. We were wondering if you had a robe you could wear for the filming. We thought it might make it look more realistic if you were actually wearing hotel property.’

‘Sure.’ I go over to my wardrobe and pull out the leopard-print robe.

‘Wow!’ Max exclaims. ‘That’s different.’

‘I know, no plain white here. Apparently you can buy them in zebra print at Reception, if you want.’

‘Right, if you could slip the robe on over your maid’s outfit,’ Jamie suggests. ‘We won’t be able to see it underneath. Then we can get on with some filming. You don’t mind if I help myself to some towels from your bathroom?’

‘No, go ahead,’ I say, slipping
on the robe. ‘They’re clean.’

We spend the next twenty minutes or so with me pretending to steal the towels from my hotel room while Max shoots me from different angles. I have to do lots of takes – and I actually quite enjoy the whole process of being the ‘star’, even if all I am doing is packing the towels into my own suitcase then zipping it up with an evil look in my eye. (I add that extra bit just in case my face gets in shot, even though Max assures me they’re only filming my back view and my hands doing the packing.)

Just as we’re finishing up there’s a knock at the door, and we all freeze.

‘Who’s that?’ Jamie hisses.

‘I don’t know. Probably Oscar, coming to see where I am.’

‘Make sure it is before you open the door – we can’t have anyone else seeing the equipment or we’ll be in trouble for filming in here without permission.’

I go over and take a look through the peephole, but I can’t see anyone.

Odd.

I ease open the door just a tiny bit in case it’s someone from the hotel staff who’s seen something suspicious and has come to check up on us. But I still can’t see anyone outside. So I open the door even further and poke
my head out.

‘Surprise!’ calls a voice that makes my heart leap so far up into my chest with shock that I nearly decapitate myself on the half-opened door. ‘I bet you weren’t expecting to see
me
tonight!’

‘Sean …’

‘What are
you
doing here?’ I ask him
as I stand in the doorway, open-mouthed with shock.

‘I missed you, so I thought I’d fly over and surprise you.’ He comes over and kisses my wide-open mouth.

OK, that doesn’t sound like Sean to begin with.

‘B-but you never do things like that. Why?’

‘Maybe it’s time I started. Aren’t you going to invite me in?’

‘What? Oh, right, yes, of course.’ Then I think about what’s going on in the room. ‘Actually, Sean, I should just explain—’

But Sean is already carrying his suitcase through and into the room. ‘What the … who are you?’ He stares at Jamie and Max standing in the corner. ‘And why have you got a camera?’ He looks between
the three of us, and then back at me in my robe. ‘And why are you dressed like that, Scarlett? What the hell is going on here?’

‘Sean, it’s fine, really, calm down. These are my friends Jamie and Max from breakfast TV. I told you about them, remember? I’m helping them out with some filming. And it’s not like I’m naked or anything, I’ve got this on.’ As I say these words and open up the robe, I realise I’ve made a mistake, but it’s too late to tie it up again as Sean’s eyes are open as wide as my mouth was a few moments ago.

‘Just what sort of film is it you’re making?’ he demands.

‘Scarlett, maybe we’d better go,’ Jamie suggests quietly. ‘I think we’ve got everything we need here now, and you obviously have things you need to sort out.’

‘It’s fine, Jamie. You don’t have to,’ I say, glaring at Sean.

‘No, really,’ Max joins in. ‘I’ve got all the shots I need. We’ll quickly pack up our stuff and be out of your way.’

While Max and Jamie hastily gather all their stuff together, Sean and I stand in silence, watching them. I’m pretty sure this isn’t quite what Sean had in mind when he imagined jetting over here to surprise me.

‘I’ll let you know when I’ve edited the piece together,’ Jamie says
as he leaves. ‘And you can pop over to the studio to have a look if you like.’