Lindsey Kelk 5-Book 'I Heart...' Collection (49 page)

‘So I get that you didn’t love The Beverly Center,’ Jenny said, adjusting her sunglasses and spinning out of The Hollywood’s valet parking lot. ‘And I’m guessing that you’re gonna be freaking out about those photos for pretty much the whole day, right?’

‘Probably,’ I agreed sombrely. I was still so numb from my conversation with Alex, I didn’t even have the energy to be scared of Jenny’s driving.

‘So what can we do to get you out of your funk?’

‘Mmm-hmm.’ I traced a finger along the edge of the car door. At least since we were in the convertible my hair would look like crap whether I’d done anything with it or not. Which I hadn’t. And, joy, the sun was out. If I was really lucky, I could get burnt again.

‘God, you’re going to make this hard work, aren’t you?’ Jenny slapped the steering wheel. ‘I know, Angela, if someone said “LA” to you, what would you think of?’

‘What?’

‘What would you think of? What would you associate with Hollywood?’ she pressed on.

Paparazzi. Blonde hair. Breast implants. ‘Sunshine?’

‘Anything else?’ she asked.

Feeling completely out of place. Missing Alex. Worrying about James. ‘Movies?’

‘Which movies?’

‘Jenny,’ I really wanted to just go back to bed. ‘Are you getting at something?’

‘Honey, I’m just trying to distract you. This is all gonna be over by tomorrow. Sometimes life throws you a curveball and you’ve just got to run with it.’ Jenny pulled up outside a row of shops. Sparkly, shiny, lovely looking shops.’ Or shop for it.’

‘Where are we?’ I asked, blinking up at the prettiness. Everything was so white. And big. ‘What are we doing?’

‘We’re about to spend an obscene amount of money,’ Jenny grinned.

Once the car had been safely handed over to the valet parking assistant (I would never get used to that), Jenny pulled me along the wide, sunny street past designer store after designer store.

‘Never before in my life have I wanted to be a hooker so badly,’ I clutched at Jenny’s hand, my mouth wide open. ‘But oh, would you look at that bag?’

‘I know, hello Pretty Woman,’ Jenny squeezed my hand back. ‘Even I would sleep with Richard Gere for that dress and, hello, so old now?’

‘So this is Rodeo Drive?’ I marvelled. ‘Why on earth did you take me to a mall yesterday?’

‘Because we can’t actually afford anything here.’ She pulled me away from the Louis Vuitton window, leaving my sticky paw prints all over it. ‘But I thought it might distract you for a while.’

‘We can’t afford anything?’ I fought the urge to go into the closest shop and buy a giant hat. And gloves. ‘Really?’

‘Angie, when we go shopping in New York, where do we go?’ Jenny asked.

‘Bloomingdale’s? Bergdorf’s?’ I couldn’t stop staring at the pretty things. Things I’d seen in magazines, in The Look, but that were now right here in front of me! In a shop! To buy!

‘Not where do we go to try things on but never buy them unless they’re in the sales. Where do we actually go shopping?’

‘Um, Century 21 and Filene’s,’ I admitted. ‘When you’re not there to stop me, Gap.’

‘Exactly. And I killed my credit card at The Beverly Center yesterday, so no, we really can’t afford anything.’ Jenny fished around in her handbag for some lip gloss, slicked a completely unnecessary layer on top of her already shiny lips and then added a desperately needed pop of colour to mine. ‘But no one needs to know that, right? There’s nothing like trying on thousands of dollars’ worth of couture to take your mind off your problems.’

If my only issue with LA was still that it wasn’t nearly as glossy and glamorous as I’d been expecting, then Rodeo Drive would have solved all my problems. From the dramatic white marble store fronts, the palm trees sprouting up out of the glossy pavement, right through to the serious-looking doormen that stood sentry outside each designer destination, this was everything I’d been expecting.

Yes, the Ugg boot girls were still everywhere, but they had been watered down by a new breed of LA woman. I couldn’t help but stare. They were tiny, just like the platinum blondes, but they seemed so much glossier, so much more expensive, and I could not tell you how old a single one of them was. You couldn’t actually see any discernible designer labels on anything they wore, unless you checked out the shop assistant carrying the stiff paper bags out behind them, but they reeked of money. One of them stepped right out in front of us without looking, making me jump back. She paused, looking at me and Jenny in the same way I sometimes looked at the puppies in the window of the pet store near Bloomingdale’s, as if we were cute but she really didn’t want to get too close in case we slobbered on her. Or worse.

‘So what do you want to try first?’ Jenny asked, completely oblivious. ‘Dior? D&G?’

‘Oh, there.’ I pointed across the road to a gorgeous window display, full of beautiful ballerina-style dresses in pretty petal colours. ‘Miu Miu me up.’

After my second glass of champagne, I was more than ready to accept that Hollywood had its charms after all. Jenny was head to toe in couture, a gorgeous bronze dirndl skirt cinching in her tiny waist and five-inch platforms forcing her onto her tippy-toes.

‘How do they feel?’ The inordinately attractive salesman cupped my foot in his hand and slipped the ankle strap of a beautiful, sequin-covered sandal through the little tiny silver buckle.

‘They feel lovely.’ I was almost too afraid to stand on the delicate little heels. When would I feel more like Kylie and less like Lily Savage when I tried on a girlie outfit?

‘You know, I think we just got one of the matching purses in today. It’s in the back,’ he whispered. ‘I have to see how it looks with the shoes.’

‘Me too,’ I agreed, staring at my feet. Why would anyone ever put their foot inside an Ugg in LA? In New York, it snowed, it was cold, you needed their sheepskin-lined goodness; but here, you could feasibly walk around in nothing but fairy-spun Miu Miu creations all year round. In fact, you didn’t even have to walk; this was the perfect place for Limo Shoes. Maybe that was why everyone drove everywhere.

I flicked around my BlackBerry, while my New Best Friend, the shoe salesman, was bag hunting. The BlackBerry was still a bit of a mystery to me. I’d got into enough trouble with just a mobile, without being able to respond to work emails whilst out and about. Out and about meaning drunk. Before I could cast it back into the bottom of my (very jealous to be surrounded by all these younger Miu Mius) handbag, it started to buzz in my hand.

‘Hello?’ I answered automatically.

‘Angela, it’s James.’

Oh, James. Bugger. I’d been so distracted by the prettiness, for fifteen minutes I’d managed to forget all about everything.

‘Angela, are you there?’

‘I am.’ I waved manically at Jenny. I couldn’t do this alone. Even in eight-hundred-dollar sandals. Especially in eight-hundred-dollar sandals.

‘I wanted to say I’m so sorry about the photos. Blake is trying to get them taken down right now.’ He sounded genuinely worried. But then he was an actor. ‘Are you OK? And we’ve spoken to the magazine. It’ll all be fine.’

‘Well, it was a bit of a shock—’ But before I could finish, Jenny snatched the phone out of my hand and sprinted down the shop.

‘James? Jenny,’ I heard her begin before she vanished out of hearing range. I fumbled with the teeny tiny buckles on my sandals but apparently they had been crafted by elves and my lumbering sausage fingers (swollen from the LA heat, surely?) couldn’t unfasten them quickly enough.

‘I don’t know, she’s kind of messed up,’ she said, slinking back up the store. ‘But I’m trying to take care of her. We’re shopping.’

‘Jenny,’ I hissed, ‘give me the bloody phone.’

‘We’re in Miu Miu,’ she winked, holding me at arm’s length. ‘Yes, I think she’d love that. OK, I’ll put you on to someone.’

By the time I’d found my way out of the shoes, my BlackBerry was in the hands of my lovely sales assistant who had returned holding something long and disarmingly sparkly. ‘But of course Mr Jacobs,’ he gushed, hanging up and giving me the phone. And the pretty sparkly thing. I felt like a kitten with a ping-pong ball. BlackBerry or shiny bag. BlackBerry or shiny bag.

‘What was that all about?’ I asked Jenny, unable to take my eyes off the bag. It was long and slender and round, like a pencil case I’d had in Year Eight. But, unlike the pencil case I’d had in Year Eight, it had a tiny five-hundred-dollar price tag, hidden discreetly inside the beautiful lining, and was covered in glittering, golden iridescent sparkles. Oh, and a little leather strap to slip around my wrist so that I would never, ever, ever lose it. Even in my sleep. ‘Jenny?’

‘We’ll take the bag and the shoes, thanks,’ she said, snatching the bag out of my hands and passing it back to the assistant. His eyes were shining almost as much as the sequins. ‘And ring up these bad boys.’ She pointed at the yellow and black Mary Janes on her feet and dropped onto the padded bench beside me.

‘You should get your photo taken with some more famous people.’ She slung her arm around my shoulders. ‘James wants to pay for your shoes. Actually, our shoes. But if he asks, both pairs are yours. He said to charge them to his account and he’ll see you tomorrow.’

‘Are you kidding me?’ I asked, watching the bag and the shoes being whisked away behind the counter while the staff whispered intensely amongst themselves. ‘He can’t do that. We can’t let him do that.’

I pouted, wondering just for a second what Mary would have to say about me accepting handbags and shoes from James. And right up until the assistant replaced my empty champagne glass with two huge, ribbon-tied cardboard carrier bags, I really thought about refusing to accept them. Sort of.

‘Oh Angie, Angie, Angie.’ Jenny ruffled my hair and gave me a huge grin. ‘He can and we can. And I could not be happier. Where next?’

Jenny’s talent for shopping was matched only by her talent for eating, so after Miu Miu, after Dolce & Gabbana, Cavalli and Gucci, she finally gave in. I couldn’t enjoy even La Perla on an empty stomach.

‘Tiffany’s shouldn’t be part of a shopping centre,’ I said, spearing the omnipresent lettuce leaf on my plate. ‘I don’t care how posh a shopping centre. It’s just not right.’

‘Yeah, whatever …’ Jenny leaned back, smiling up at the sunshine with her eyes closed. ‘Eat your crab cakes and stop bagging on LA.’

‘I’ll leave LA alone if you’ll tell me about the last time you were here,’ I gambled. ‘I want to here all about your dancing. And how on earth the Pussycat Dolls managed to let you slip through their fingers.’

‘Shut up,’ Jenny carried on staring upwards. ‘Is that a humming bird?’

‘It is and even though that might be the coolest thing I’ve ever seen,’ I replied, watching the tiny bird as it darted by our table and hovered by a floral display beside us, ‘you’re not going to distract me. Did you really dance?’

‘Yes.’

‘Did you strip?’

‘It wasn’t stripping, it was burlesque.’

‘So you did strip?’

She sighed and looked back at me. ‘There was no nudity in my routine.’

‘So how come you came back to New York so quickly,’ I stirred my Diet Coke with my straw, ‘if you and Daphne were so amazing? Couldn’t the dancing have led to other stuff?’

‘Probably,’ she laughed quietly. ‘It led to Daphne doing other stuff. Other stuff for guys who came to see us dance. Other stuff for money.’

‘Daphne did it for money?’ I asked. According to the people at the next table who dropped their cutlery, altogether too loudly. ‘Daphne was a prostitute?’ I added quietly.

‘I don’t think she would say that,’ Jenny said diplomatically. ‘Maybe a private call girl. She seemed to think it was pretty glamorous at the time.’

‘But you didn’t?’ I asked. ‘Think it was glamorous, I mean? I know you would never do that. Would you?’

‘Trust me, there was nothing glamorous about those guys,’ she said.

‘So you didn’t, right?’ A dozen humming birds doing a synchronized dance routine couldn’t have got my attention at that moment.

‘Of course I didn’t,’ Jenny said, ‘but it was tempting. Suddenly Daphne had all this money, she stopped doing auditions, started missing gigs. Eventually, she stopped dancing altogether and I felt weird doing it alone. Especially since Daphne had kind of gotten us a reputation. I guess it would have been easier to just do it, but I couldn’t.’

‘So you came home?’ I wasn’t used to watching Jenny squirm. It wasn’t nearly as much fun as I’d thought it might be.

‘I went back to New York, yeah.’ She looked up and gave me her brightest smile. ‘And thank God I did, or you would have been screwed.’

‘She’s not still doing it, is she?’ I couldn’t help myself, even if Jenny was clearly trying to change the subject. ‘Not still, you know …’

‘Angie, it scares me that you can’t even say the words at your age. And no, she isn’t. She quit, like, right after I left. She started seeing some rich old guy and I guess she didn’t need the cash any more. And she’s making good money as a stylist now so …’ She trailed off.

‘Do you miss living here?’ I asked, even though I didn’t want to. She was my Jenny, my ‘I’m walkin’ here’ New Yorker Jenny, not Daphne’s LA private dancer.

‘It’s different now; it was so long ago. I’m not twenty-two any more; everything is so different.’ She gave me a little smile. ‘It is nice to be out in the sunshine again, though. I don’t know, I don’t want the same things I wanted the last time I was here. I don’t know what I want.’

‘You’ll work it out,’ I said, watching her pretend not to be bothered. ‘You always do.’

‘Yeah.’ Jenny pulled out her bright yellow Miu Miu shoe. It was all sorts of beautiful. ‘I always do, don’t I?’

‘I can’t believe you had this big crazy life.’ I was always amazed by Jenny. I’d never ever known anyone like her in my life. It didn’t matter how long we spent together or how long we talked, one way or another, she surprised me every single day. Some days it was with a packet of peanut butter M&Ms, others it was with the fact that she used to be a burlesque dancer while her friend was a high-class hooker. ‘How do you stand behind that concierge desk every day without going mad?’