Lindsey Kelk 5-Book 'I Heart...' Collection (63 page)

‘Hey, things ok with Alex? U didn’t tell him about Joe? Am with Tessa, let me no if u need me xoxo’

I looked up, watching Alex devour his burger as though someone was going to take it off him. I didn’t know whether to smile or cry. I knew that Joe could appear at any second and completely mess this up.

‘Haven’t said anything, ok at mo. Have fun, cu tomorrow? A x x x’

I pushed my chicken sandwich away, suddenly not quite so hungry as I was desperate to get back in the hotel room with a ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign on the door.

‘Not hungry?’ Alex asked, eyeing my leftovers.

I shook my head. ‘Full of M&Ms.’ I sipped my Diet Coke while Alex made short work of the McChicken Sandwich. ‘How’s your jet lag?’

‘Hmm,’ Alex replied, holding his hand up to hide a mouthful of fast food. ‘I don’t even know what time it is. It’s getting dark though.’ He nodded towards the street outside. The sun had almost completely set and all of Hollywood Boulevard’s tourists, costume characters and general crazies were lit up. I tried not to stare as Spider Man and Jack Sparrow wandered in off the street and ordered up a couple of Happy Meals. ‘Are you sure you don’t have anything you have to do today? Isn’t this interview thing going to be really difficult?’

‘Yes and no.’ I pulled my hair back into a tight ponytail and then let it go. ‘I’m assuming the magazine is going to rewrite whatever I do but, you know, I don’t want to turn in some rubbish. My plan is to get as much information as possible, pull it into the best shape I can and then at least there’s material for the editors to work with. I’ve got tonnes of background stuff from the last week, so tomorrow I need the “We Love Each Other” stuff to add to that. Which is what’s going to be difficult. I can’t imagine they’re actually going to be overly sharey even now, to be honest. Blake hates me.’

‘Cool, I guess I should be looking into flights home. You know what you and Jenny are doing yet?’ He started on the fries.

‘Nope,’ I said, fiddling with the bendy straw in my Coke. Couldn’t he just hurry up and finish already? ‘It’ll be some time on Sunday though. Cici is supposed to be booking them tomorrow. Shall I see if she can get you on the same flight?’

Alex nodded. ‘My grand romantic gesture wasn’t well planned.’

‘I don’t think they’re supposed to be.’ I reached across the table and squeezed his hand. Which was stupid because it slowed down his eating even more.

‘So what’s going on with Jenny?’ Alex finally flattened out the empty fries box. And started on his Coke. ‘Did she hook up with that waiter guy?’

I felt myself turn a little bit green. ‘Turns out she wasn’t ready to be hooking up with anyone.’ I moved the subject on from Joe as quickly as possible. ‘She’s just so burned out over Jeff, I really don’t know what it’s going to take to shake her out of this mood she’s in. I mean, it’s not like she’s been short of men throwing themselves at her and she’s still going out and everything.’ I willed Alex to neck his drink so we could get back to the safety of my room. ‘I don’t know, maybe the break will do her good. She’s been hanging around with one of her old friends who does some styling stuff. They’ve been sort of playing at that while I’ve been working. Jenny’s pretty good at it.’

‘Jenny good at telling people what to do?’ Alex shook his paper cup and took one last slurp. ‘I don’t believe it for a second.’

I didn’t sleep a wink Friday night and it had nothing (or at least not as much as you might think) to do with Alex being naked beside me. As relieved as I was to find the hotel room restored to its former pre-worst-night-of-my-life glory, I was still uneasy. How could I lie here with Alex and pretend everything was OK when I had cheated on him in this very bed? I almost put my ex’s face through the windscreen when I busted him cheating on me.

The next morning, I was up, showered and dressed before Alex had even flickered an eyelid. My new plan was simple: get the interview with James out of the way, get Alex out of the hotel, and get everyone out of LA. I was certain Jenny was right: it was better not to tell Alex anything and, had I been able to leave my regrettable/forgettable one-night stand behind me in another city, a very, very long way away, that might have been easier. Now he was here, at the scene of the crime, I just felt like an absolute skank.

I grabbed my lovely, trustworthy handbag and made for the door, leaving a note for Alex. I wasn’t due at James’s hotel for hours, but Jenny had left me the car keys and there was no way I could hang about in the room, driving myself mad. After awkwardly navigating the valet parking system, I prepared myself for the fabled LA traffic as best I could (putting on sunscreen, lipstick and sunglasses) and flicked on the convertible’s sat-nav. I’d never driven an automatic before – well, I hadn’t actually driven a car since I’d been in America – but it was just like riding a bike. Apparently. Unfortunately, even at six-thirty on a Saturday morning, LA’s roads were neither bike-nor international-driver-friendly. I got the hang of driving on the wrong side of the road fairly quickly, but turning right on red just wouldn’t sink in. Luckily, there were lots of straight roads for me to pootle along until I could steel myself to pull into an open Starbucks, grab a coffee and a muffin and set the sat-nav for Griffith Park.

The park was beautiful: so different to everything I’d seen of LA so far, wilder than Central Park and a million miles away from London’s carefully tended open spaces. Parking up by a huge open-air theatre, I picked up my coffee, plugged in my iPod and wandered out into the park, following the runners and dog walkers. After twenty minutes of drowning out my thoughts with the loudest music I could find, I found myself outside the Griffith Observatory. Sipping my cooled coffee, I sat down on the grass and stared down at the city as the sun came up slowly. Well, wasn’t I a long way from home?

LA looked very different from up here; for the first time I felt as though I was Away. New York was so tight and tall, a thin sliver of an island, breathing in and stretching up high, as if it was holding its hand up to the world for attention. New York made me walk fast, made me want to be as tall and glossy as its skyscrapers, twenty-four seven. For all its glamour and celebrity, up here in the hills, LA looked more like a city that had just breathed out, kicked off its heels and opened a window. The buildings were a little lower, a little sun-bleached and more spread apart, not pressed up against each other, racing up into the clouds. It was a city so sure of itself that it just didn’t need to fight for attention. And besides, it was so sunny and warm, why not relax a little?

But of course I’d spoken too soon. Inside my bag, my phone chirped into life. Who could be missing me at this time? The screen flashed over and over with Mum Home.

‘Hello?’

‘Angela?’

‘Mum?’

‘Hello, love! I was just talking about you. Are you with your movie star?’

‘Mum, why are you using your posh voice?’ I asked, instantly regretting answering the call.

‘I don’t know what you mean, dear.’ Mum went on in the same voice she had used for my teachers and the engineer who came round to install Sky+. ‘Anyway, Sheila’s been round, you remember Sheila from the library? Well, she says that your boyfriend used to go out with that girl from that film you like … you know, the one about that man out of Ghostbusters, when he goes to China and she’s ever so pretty, Angela.’

I survive my first drive in LA and this was how I rewarded myself? When did I become a masochist? ‘Mum, he’s not my boyfriend. Alex is my boyfriend. We have been through this.’

‘I know it’s all the rage going out with two people at once these days but, honestly Angela, it’ll end in tears,’ she rattled on. ‘Don’t think I don’t know. I was seeing another man when I met your father and yes, I admit there might have even been a bit of an overlap but—’

‘Mum!’ I shouted, attracting the attention of several labradors and a chihuahua. ‘There’s nothing going on with me and James at all. I’m just going out with Alex.’

‘Oh.’ She sounded ridiculously disappointed given that she had never met either man. ‘Well, that’s a shame. He seemed lovely.’

‘Well, I’m very sorry.’

‘Are you trying to tell me you’re not going to marry that actor or was there something else? I’m just about to do your dad a sandwich.’

I breathed in and out slowly, watching the sun spread across the city. See how different it could be? If I hadn’t salvaged my job at The Look, I would most likely be having a sandwich with Dad as well.

‘I just wanted to give you a ring,’ I said, trying to be patient. ‘‘Let you know I was all right. That I wasn’t shacked up with James Jacobs.’

‘Don’t feel bad, that blonde girl is ever so pretty. Not that you’re not, Angela love, but you know. So, how long are you in Los Angeles for? Have you booked your flights home?’

I tried not to be offended that my mother didn’t think I was as pretty as Scarlett Johansson. I mean, surely your mum was the only person in the world that might think that about you? Unless you were Scarlett Johansson’s mum and then I suppose you’d have to think her sister was fairly pretty too. If she has a sister.

‘Do you have to ask me that every time I call you?’ I asked, draining my freezing cold coffee. Ick. ‘I don’t know, Mum. I suppose I might come home for Christmas this year if you’re not on a cruise again.’

‘I didn’t mean here,’ she tutted, as if I was the stupid one. Which, given the last week of my life, was probably fair. ‘I meant when are you going back to New York?’

‘Oh.’ I smiled at my flip-flops. Home. ‘Sunday.’

‘Don’t worry, Angela,’ Mum sighed dramatically. ‘We’ve quite got used to the idea that you’ve abandoned us. You’ve got your new life now with your boyfriends and your friends. How is Jenny? Now she’s a beautiful girl.’

‘She’s fine.’ I don’t know what I was expecting, really. ‘Mum, can I ask you something?’

‘What a silly question, of course you can.’

‘Have you ever kept a secret from Dad?’

She was silent for a moment.

‘A secret as in, what he doesn’t know won’t hurt him, or a secret as in, he still thinks I make my own Yorkshire puddings and don’t buy in Aunt Bessie’s?’

‘The first one.’ I was disgusted. Fancy buying in frozen Yorkshire puddings.

‘Then yes, of course I have,’ she said. ‘All relationships have their little secrets.’

‘Really?’ I had to admit to being a little bit curious about my mother’s secrets. As long as they weren’t dirty. Ew. ‘Like what?’

‘Well, obviously there’re the little white lies, like the Yorkshire puddings. And the roast potatoes. And once I used that powdered mashed potato for Sunday dinner because I’d been on the Blue Nun with your Auntie Les and he was none the wiser,’ she said. ‘But, well, there have been a few things that I’m fairly sure he’d rather not know about. You have to use your judgement, Angela – it’s part of making a relationship work.’

‘But don’t you think he deserves to know?’ I asked. ‘Shouldn’t you be honest about everything?’

‘Would you rather know?’ She was still speaking slowly, as if she was choosing every single word very carefully. Which was extremely weird for my mother. ‘Imagine if that fella of yours had – I don’t know – got a bit tipsy and kissed the girl from the bakery under the mistletoe at a Christmas party and maybe she’d thought it was a proper kiss and he hadn’t but maybe she’d kissed him on the lips instead of the cheek and—’

‘Mum, did you kiss Mr Owens from the bakery?’ I shouted down the phone.

‘And that reaction is why your dad doesn’t know about it,’ Mum said primly. ‘And so, whatever you’ve done, I suggest you don’t go telling that boyfriend of yours unless you want to peel him off the ceiling. Calm down, Angela.’

She was right. I hated when that happened.

‘I’m going to go, Mum. I’ve got some work to do before I go back to New York. We fly tomorrow; yes, I’ll call when we’ve landed,’ I promised, knowing full well I wouldn’t and that she’d have forgotten I’d even said that I would before she got back to Dad’s sandwich.

‘All right love.’ At least she was using her own voice again. ‘And just think about what I said. And don’t ever tell your dad about the Yorkshire puddings. I think he’d be more likely to forgive a kiss than using frozen Yorkshires.’

Hoovering down my muffin, I took one long last look at LA as the morning sunshine tickled it awake, stroking the rooftops of the city from Los Feliz below me, shining down on Hollywood, skipping over Beverly Hills and bouncing off the waves and the beaches of Venice and Santa Monica. I heaved myself up, dusted off my jeans and wandered off back to the car with something of a smile starting on my face. Surely if Mum could keep her frozen Yorkshires to herself, then there was no reason why I couldn’t just forget the Joe incident ever happened.

Forty hairy minutes later, I was pulling in at a Coffee Bean to pick up more coffees and muffins as a goodwill gesture for James and Blake and to break up the terrifying drive through LA. Once I’d prised my fingers off the steering wheel, I spotted my phone flashing in the bottom of my bag. Unlike everyone else on the roads of LA, I couldn’t drive and talk at the same time. I could barely even drive and think. There were two texts. One from James.

‘Couldn’t remember what we were doing so we’re coming to you. See you @ pool bar 9?’

Shit. What time was it?

8.40.

Shit.

And another from Alex.

‘Can’t believe you snuck out, I feel so used. Will hang out here till you’re back, got my swimsuit somewhere …’

Shit shit shit.

I threw my bag and phone into the back seat and turned on the engine. Never again would I take issue with Blake’s anal-retentive management of James’s schedule. And never again would I make arrangements with the monkey instead of the organ-grinder. I took a quick moment to think about how inappropriate that thought was and then rolled out into traffic.

I couldn’t get to the roof of the hotel soon enough. Jabbing the roof terrace button in the lift, I felt my newly acquired sense of calm slip away, picturing James confronting Joe. Alex confronting James. Blake confronting Alex. Joe telling Alex everything.