I Heart Hollywood (23 page)

‘Angela, I’m really sorry.’

I stared at the back of the seat in front of me.

‘It’s just…it’s complicated.’

Absolute silence.

‘I didn’t mean to lead you on or anything. Not really.’

I turned to face him.

‘You didn’t mean to lead me on?’

‘No.’

‘So you didn’t mean to kiss me when we were dancing?’

‘Well…’

‘And you didn’t mean to flirt with me all week?’

‘No, that’s not what I meant.’

‘So you haven’t been flirting with me all week?’

‘This isn’t what was supposed to happen.’

I turned back to stare at the seat. ‘I didn’t realize there was a plan.’

James’s phone chirped into life.

‘Blake?’ I asked, trying to make out something familiar beyond the darkened windows. I had no idea where we were.

‘Blake,’ James sighed.

‘He must be pissing himself laughing at me.’ I ran my fingers through the ends of my hair. The sun was really drying it out; I’d need to get the split ends sorted out when I got home. Shocker; another shitty thing about LA. ‘So what was supposed to happen?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘If this wasn’t supposed to happen, what was?’ I asked, looking at my reflection in the tinted glass. The girl looking back looked so pathetic, I didn’t recognize her.

‘Angela, I didn’t mean to embarrass you,’ James said quietly.

I just couldn’t get over how tragic I’d been. Jenny was right, what was wrong with me? I’d lost my grip on myself so easily.

‘James, did I ever tell you what happened with my ex?’ I asked, finally.

‘Alex?’ James asked.

‘No, I don’t think he’s technically my ex yet.’ The Angela in the window looked back at me. I wiped away the lip gloss that was smudged around her mouth and fluffed her hair. She was starting to look a little bit more familiar. Familiar and really, really pissed off. ‘My ex-boyfriend in London. He was cheating on me with this girl from his tennis club. I found him having sex with her in the back seat of our car at my best friend’s wedding.’

‘Oh,’ James sounded more than a little bit confused. ‘Sorry.’

‘Mmm. It was the most embarrassing moment of my entire life.’ I traced my reflection’s features in the steamed-up glass of the window. ‘It was awful…horrible. Being embarrassed like that in front of all my friends, my family. Being betrayed by someone I trusted. Honestly, I thought I’d never get over it.’

‘I can imagine,’ he said cautiously.

‘But once I’d pissed in his shaving bag and vanished halfway around the world, I felt a lot better.’ I reached across the seat and took James’s hand.

‘Really?’ he breathed out.

‘Yeah. Oh, and I might have broken the groom’s hand during his first dance.’ I gave James’s impossibly clammy hand a quick squeeze. ‘He knew about the affair and didn’t tell me. Don’t you think that was a really shitty thing to do?’

‘Yes?’ James’s tan had faded to a slightly sickly green colour.

‘I can’t begin to imagine what I would do to someone if they embarrassed me in front of—oh, I don’t know—the entire celebrity-obsessed Western hemisphere?’

‘Angela, seriously—’

I squeezed his hand tighter. ‘God, I don’t know. I’d have to pay some tramps to shit in his car or something.’

‘Really, I’ll sort it all out,’ James squeaked.

‘Or I could go back, have a chat with the paps about his secret gay lover?’ I shrugged.

For a moment, James fell silent. ‘They wouldn’t believe you.’

‘I reckon there’re two schools of thought there, James.’ I dug my fingernails into his palm before throwing his hand back in his lap. ‘The first one, which I was really clinging to until tonight, is that yeah, no one really believes what they read on celebrity websites. But the other one is the one that has really stood the test of time.’

His gorgeous blue eyes were completely blank. It was quite depressing.

‘You know how they say there’s no smoke without fire,’ I pursed my lips. ‘It would be excellent gossip, wouldn’t it? Even if no one believed it. Definitely worth printing.’

‘No one would print it,’ James shook his head. ‘It’s too dangerous. They’d think I’d sue. And you wouldn’t do that.’

The car suddenly pulled to a stop. I opened the door to see a row of stars stretching out along the pavement. We were in front of The Hollywood. Thank God.

‘Angela, please. We have to talk.’ James reached out to pull me back into the car.

‘Do you really want to piss me off any more this evening?’ I asked, shaking off his hand. ‘I was serious about the tramps.’

He let go of my hand, launching me out onto the pavement. I stumbled forward, catching my balance between Greta Garbo and Julie Andrews. Great, a nun and a recluse. Also known as my future.

Chapter Eleven

‘Pick up the phone, pick up the phone,’ I chanted, pacing up and down my room waiting for Alex to answer. My laptop lay open on the bedroom table, pictures of me and James kissing, him throwing me in the car, the look of shock and anger on my face already mistaken all over the internet for impatience and passion. Of course he wasn’t picking up the phone.

It was probably for the best, I thought, throwing my phone across the room. For a shocking change, I really hadn’t worked out what I was going to say to him. ‘Alex, the world-famous movie star that the entire world knows has done it with dozens of gorgeous women, is actually super gay. Only it’s a secret so please don’t tell anyone.’ Nope, it just didn’t have a ring of truth to it. I had to think about how I was going to explain before he called back.

Unless he called back right away.

‘Alex?’

‘Angela.’

‘Alex,’ I took a deep breath, ‘I had to speak to you before you saw the pictures.’

‘Angela, I already saw the pictures, remember?’ Alex said slowly. ‘And we were going to talk about it when you get back.’

‘Well, yes, but,’ I looked back at the computer, ‘they were the ones from yesterday.’

‘Meaning?’

‘There might be some more?’

I sat down on the bed and stared at my toenails. Given that I was only a couple of floors above Hollywood Boulevard at midnight, the room was very quiet. They really should mention that on their website. Total selling point.

‘From the same night?’

‘No, but I can explain.’

‘What site are they on?’ Alex asked, his voice completely flat. ‘Or is it just all of them again?’

‘Alex, please don’t look, just let me explain.’ I winced at the sound of clicking keys down the line. Of course he was by his computer.

‘Gotta say, you look good,’ he said eventually. ‘And how many guys actually get to see their girlfriends cheat on them in real time? God bless the internet.’

‘Alex, just stop.’ I stood up; drama always felt more manageable when I was vertical. The carpet was also very soft. Maybe I could get a job as The Hollywood’s copywriter after Mary fired me. ‘It’s not like it looks. James is—’

‘Totally out of your league? Yeah, you’ve done really well there, Angela.’ He didn’t even sound like my Alex.

‘Please stop it and just let me explain.’ I tried to find the right words but my head was totally empty.

‘What do you want me to say?’ At least he was starting to sound a little bit angry now. But it turned out that wasn’t as much consolation as I had hoped.

‘First there are all these photos of you practically dryhumping the first celebrity you ever meet, then you’re not answering your phone, then you’re calling me at four in the morning and saying, well, whatever. What am I supposed to think? What do you want me to say?’

‘Don’t make out like I’m the one who’s been ignoring you! I’ve been trying to talk to you since I got here,’ I protested. ‘You were the one who didn’t want to talk to me. You were the one who wasn’t answering his phone.’

‘And the fact that I actually have things to do here without you holding my hand means you get to fuck around behind my back?’ he yelled.

I almost dropped my phone. ‘What?’

‘What do you mean what?’ he asked. ‘One day you’re holding hands on the beach, leaving his hotel room in the middle of the night, and the next you’re kissing him outside a club? You’re gonna tell me there’s nothing happening there at all?’

There weren’t many times in my life I’d been stunned into silence but they were racking up tonight.

‘Tell me you haven’t slept with him.’ Alex’s voice was rough and low. ‘Say it. Now.’

‘I-I haven’t slept with him,’ I stuttered. He hadn’t asked if I’d thought about it; he’d asked if I’d actually done it. I heard a sigh and more keystrokes. ‘Please stop looking at the pictures. I haven’t done anything, Alex, I would never. Please just believe me.’

‘And that’s where we have a problem,’ he said quietly. ‘I don’t think I do believe you.’

My phone was burning hot against my ear but I couldn’t put it down. Long after Alex had hung up, I was still standing in the middle of the hotel room, clutching the tiny piece of plastic as it cooled slowly. Did he really just say that? After what seemed like a lifetime, my brain flicked back on and I redialled. There was no way I was leaving it like that. But Alex’s phone didn’t even ring; instead I got a ‘cannot be connected message’ right away. I tried again from my room phone just to make sure but it wasn’t happening. He must have taken the battery out or something.

I sat down at the desk and flicked through the pictures online. I scrolled through the galleries that had already sprung up across the gossip sites, dedicated to me and James. It was so weird. And not just because most of them were slaughtering my outfits and the size of my arse, although they were all taken from extraordinarily bad angles. Honest. The strangest thing was that to hundreds—if not thousands—of girls around the world, it must look like a dream come true. Ordinary girl is sent to interview hot movie star, hot movie star falls for ordinary girl and whirlwind romance ensues.

It certainly was far more romantic than the truth: ordinary girl is sent to interview hot movie star, falls for hot movie star’s clichéd fake flirting, lets hot movie star kiss her then discovers he’s gay but is plastered all over the internet, gets dumped by actual love of her life and ends up with no one. Yeah, who was going to pay to read that? Flipping down the lid of my laptop, I wondered if anyone was going to pay to read anything I wrote ever again. Surely this was going to push Mary over the edge. If ever I needed Jenny Lopez, it was now, but she was nowhere to be found. Again. Probably still pissed off after our face-off in Bar Marmont. I stared at my mobile, frustrated. And then almost crapped myself when it started to ring. It was Louisa.

‘Hello?’ I answered cautiously. A lecture was absolutely guaranteed. Louisa loved to make a drama out of a crisis.

‘Hey, Angela!’ she chirped. ‘I just had to call you. We had the most amazing meal ever last night. We went to that Alta place you told us about, oh my God. I had to call you. There were these prawns, God, honestly.’

I listened to her rapturous restaurant review, silently confused. She wasn’t going to even ask about the photos?

‘And then we had this cheese thing for dessert. Honestly. Wow. I don’t think I can ever eat again. Are you having fun in LA, babe?’

I really didn’t know what to say. She didn’t know. Louisa had never been much of a one for celebrity gossip, but then before I moved to New York, neither had I. It was hard to avoid it in America.

‘Ah, not really,’ I said slowly. It was actually very nice not to be shouted at for two minutes. ‘I’m having a bit of trouble with the interview. And Alex and I are having a row.’

‘Oh honey,’ Louisa said down the crackly line. ‘What about?’

‘He thinks I’ve cheated on him.’ With James Jacobs, I added silently.

‘But of course you haven’t! You would never do that. Why on earth would he think it?’ It was reassuring that, after everything, Louisa would automatically believe I was the wronged party without even getting half the story. But then, she hadn’t seen the photos. Or the video on TMZ. Or the E! News bulletin.

‘No, I haven’t,’ I agreed. ‘But he’s seen a photo that sort of makes it look like I did. And he just doesn’t want to listen to me.’

‘Oh babe, just let him calm down and then talk to him,’ she reasoned. ‘I’m sure it will blow over once you’re back in New York. Just concentrate on getting your job sorted out.’

‘You’re probably right,’ I said, wishing the issues weren’t quite so interwoven. ‘Anyway, you didn’t call to listen to my problems. I’m really glad you liked Alta.’

‘Loved Alta,’ she corrected. ‘We should definitely go when I come back to visit you.’

‘Definitely,’ I agreed. Unless I lost my job and my visa and then we’d be going for dinner in Nandos in Wimbledon.

‘Call me if you need me, babe, got to run. Love you.’ She blew me a kiss down the phone.

‘I will, love you too.’ I hung up. Well that was weird. But just as weirdly, what she said made sense. I had to concentrate on getting things back on track.

Tomorrow wasn’t going to be fun and even less so with the hangover I’d just guaranteed. Flicking on the TV (was
Friends
ever off television?), I pulled my worse-for-wear-but-still-the-best-thing-I’d-ever-owned bag up onto the bed. When everything else was going wrong, at least a girl could still rely on Marc Jacobs to make her smile. Dredging through the crap in the bottom, I eventually found a pen and notepad, scowling at my BlackBerry as it blinked at me.

‘Sometimes I just want to write things down, OK?’ I told it. Before looking around to check that no one had just seen me go completely insane and talk to a phone. Just Ross and Rachel, thank goodness.

1. Call Mary

2. Call Alex or Alex’s friends

That would prove trickier, since the only phone number of any of Alex’s friends I had ever had was Jenny’s ex, Jeff, and Jenny had made me delete it after a healthy night in our apartment of Ben & Jerry’s, red wine, and burning everything he had ever come into contact with, including an old brush they had used to tease their hair for a hilarious Eighties fancy dress party. The brush nearly took the entire apartment block with it when Jenny tossed it in the burning bin. It turned out to be not only disgusting but also a very dangerous fire hazard. But there was a chance I’d written it in the back of my diary—I was just too drunk to work that out at that exact moment.