Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow? (27 page)

‘Right then, this time, I promise,’ I eventually sighed. ‘On condition that it never happens again. You have got to stop doing coke, Liz, or it’s going to kill you.’

‘It’ll never happen again. Never. I give you my word.’

And I desperately wanted to believe her, so of course, I did.

But now, every time my phone rings, my heart stops in my mouth just in case it’s her, lost somewhere, beaten up maybe, needing help. Worse still; she’s not hanging around with the rest of us nearly as much as she used to. Instead she seems to have fallen in with a shadowy new group of friends, who we’re never introduced to or even invited to meet. She just disappears off after each show saying she’s ‘got people to see’ and that’s as much as you’ll get out of her. Like this is a whole side of her life she wants to keep separate from us.

And every night when I walk to the theatre, I don’t really relax until she saunters into the dressing room. Even if she’s not in great shape, I feel nothing but deep relief. Because
at least if she’s showed up for work, then that’s something, isn’t it?

In fact, the only bright light on the horizon for me on these long, hot, sultry days are the little touristy excursions I’ve been having with Jack. Nothing extravagant, nothing flashy, but by now, we’ve covered a fair amount of the city and I’m amazed at how familiar it’s all becoming to me. Funny, but under his guiding hand, I’m slowly turning into a real-live native New Yorker.

Ever since Easter we’ve been meeting up in the afternoons, maybe a couple of times a week, to see the sights. He’s become like a kind of indispensable Sherpa to me, filling my head full of facts and tales about the city I never knew. We take turns, so one day he’ll pick a particular excursion for us to do and the next time I’ll decide where to go. Whenever it’s Jack’s call though, he’ll invariably go for an art gallery and I swear to God, at this stage, I don’t think there’s a single square foot of the Guggenheim or The Met that we haven’t nearly worn the floor down on.

His knowledge of art is exhaustive and his frame of reference is unlimited; he knows everything there is to know whereas I know feck all, so effectively he’s been coaching me. I’ve come to enjoy these lazy, cool afternoons strolling through room after room in MOMA and The Met as he explains to me the intricacies of neo-classicism and how after the First World War, there was a move away from Cubism and Expressionism and more towards the work of modern classical artists like Jean Cocteau and de Chirico.

Strange to think that I was terrified of Jack when I first met him: now that I’ve really got to know him, I look back on that petrified girl who first stumbled out onto the National theatre stage to audition for him, ooohh, what
feels like about a hundred years ago…and I smile. Because now, not only am I’m starting to look forward to our little touristy jaunts together, I’m actually having a laugh with him. Yes, he can be tough and work-obsessed and a total perfectionist, but at least now I understand why. There’s a deep passion behind his drive, an overwhelming need for excellence and flawlessness in everything he does. But behind that, he’s smart, sharp, terrific company, always attentive and witty and best of all…he’s the only person in my life who never asks me questions about my private life.

Nothing. Nada. And nor do I quiz him about his personal stuff either. Like a kind of unspoken pact between us.

Which right now, is something I’m deeply appreciative of.

Anyroadup, one baking hot, clammy afternoon, he asks me to meet him at Barneys on Madison and Sixtieth Street, an uber-posh designer store, where unless you sweep into it looking rich, rich, rich, then the doorman looks at you a bit like a head butler showing in a chimney sweep. Which is why I’ve avoided it till now. But Jack insists we go there and as ever, point blank refuses to take no for an answer.

‘I’ve got a bachelor party to go to tonight and I need to get a tuxedo for it,’ he explains, flashing his toothy smile at me as we head through the revolving doors and into the ultra-chic surroundings. ‘Mind helping me pick one out?’

‘Of course not,’ I smile, actually delighted to be in out of the heat and wafting around a crisp, cool air-conditioned store. ‘Just don’t expect me to buy anything, that’s all.’

Jack looks so at home here, I think, strolling beside him towards the elevators, so elegant and cool in his chinos and
a loose white linen shirt. In fact you’d nearly swear he’d just been styled by
GQ
magazine for a photoshoot.

‘Oh now come on, who knows?’ he teases, glancing at me suggestively as we wait for the elevator, ‘you might just see something for yourself here that you have to have. You know, I think you’d look absolutely fantastic in a Diane von Furstenberg wraparound dress…’

‘At the prices they charge in here, are you kidding me?’

‘Just try one on. It’ll be fun. Trust me.’

And so I do and I have to admit, this is the best fun I’ve had in I don’t know how long. I don’t have any shopping buddies here in New York: barring Blythe, none of the others have the slightest interest in clothes and Blythe herself limits her shopping to all the midtown bargain basement discount stores. And of course back home Dan’s such a man’s man, he’d have to either be chloroformed or else be physically dragged, kicking and screaming, to even get him within a ten foot radius of the nearest department store. But here in Barneys, it’s like I’m really seeing Jack in his natural element – when he’s surrounded by exclusive, expensive goodies, all with designer labels hanging off them.

Most fellas would be bored stupid and stand yawning or else looking at their watches in a women’s fashion department, but not Jack. He spends ages wandering around the Diane von Furstenberg section, holding dress after dress up against me, eventually settling on a scarlet wraparound one. He insists I try it on and patiently waits for me outside the changing room, stretching his long legs out on a pale mink sofa, the picture of laid-back cool. When I do emerge, he gives me one of his keen, appraising up-and-down-looks, then wolf-whistles.

‘Stunning! You’re an absolute knockout in that dress. Why don’t you wear red more often? It really is your colour, you know. And you should put your hair up too. Suits you off your face.’

‘Spoken like Gok Wan himself.’

‘Guilty as charged,’ he laughs playfully, ‘I’ll freely admit it – there’s nothing I enjoy more than being surrounded by beauty. And you, my dear, happen to be a very beautiful woman. Trouble is that no one’s ever really told you. You’re completely starved of personal compliments. You’re a bit like parched earth in need of watering.’

‘Come off it, will you?’

I’m blushing like a forest fire now and it’s embarrassing me.

‘Only the truth.’

‘I am a married woman, I’ll have you know.’

But he says nothing more, just raises one of his eyebrows and gives me a half-smile.

I head back to the sanctuary of the fitting room, brushing all this mildly flirtatious carry-on aside, but the truth is that every now and then I remember what Liz flung at me that night back in Don’t Tell Mama. About Jack wanting some woman he couldn’t get because she was married. And just as quickly, I dismiss it out of hand. Besides, I remind myself, unwrapping the dress off me and nearly passing out when I see the price tag (seven
hundred
dollars? Are they kidding me?), Jack tells me all the time, day and night, that he doesn’t do relationships – ever.

Which is absolutely fine by me. In fact, thank Christ for that, because frankly if any guy hit on me right now, chances are I’d just look at them blankly, not having the first clue what to do.

Like that part of my life has just irretrievably shut down.

Not long after, one hot, sunny morning – the kind that hits eighty degrees even though it’s barely eleven am – out of the blue, Jack calls me at the flat. We’ve arranged to go sightseeing today, except last time, at my behest, we did the Empire State, so this time it’s his turn to choose. There’s an art gallery he really wants to check out called the Ronald Feldman on Mercer Street in SoHo, he tells me, so he suggests meeting there in about half an hour. Great, I tell him, see you there. Then I fling on the coolest, most summery dress I own – a long, floaty white number I bought in Anthropologie in the Rockefeller Center and I’m just on my way out the door when my phone rings.

Liz, in a blind temper.

‘What’s wrong, hon?’ I ask, my heart already beginning to palpitate.

‘I need to talk to you,’ she practically spits down the phone. ‘Now. And no, before you ask, it won’t wait.’

‘Liz, deep breaths, calm down. Where are you now?’

‘Upstairs, in my apartment.’

‘Stay right there, I’m on my way.’

Two minutes later, I’m at her door and she’s already standing there waiting for me, looking like death on a plate. I never see her without make-up and now that I do, it’s actually a massive shock. Her face is drawn, ghostly white, with black bags you could put luggage in and cheekbones you could grate cheese on. But not in good RPattz way, more in a concentration camp victim way.

‘What’s the matter, hon?’ I ask, my stomach cramping with anxiety.

‘That insidious, nosy, bossy bitch Chris is inside my
apartment right now, making all kinds of ludicrous allegations against me and I swear to God, if she doesn’t apologise to me, I’m not working with her tonight. Do I need to spell it out any further? I refuse to walk out on stage tonight unless I get a full apology. OK? You with me? No apology, no show tonight!’

She’s talking nineteen to the dozen, really spitting fire, repeating herself over and over and it’s only now that I notice the wildly dilated pupils, the trembling hands, the extreme agitation. All the signs, present and correct.

She’s off her head on coke again, I know it. Just know it.

I grip her firmly by her rail-thin little arm and steer her back into the tiny hallway of her apartment, where Chris is still in her dressing gown, standing tall and firm, swishing back her long, Indian straight black hair, maybe not gunning for a fight, but still, fully prepared for one. The place is a complete mess too, I can’t help noticing: empty bottles and overflowing ashtrays are lying all over the place and it stinks like Satan’s gym bag in here.

‘Morning, Annie,’ Chris says evenly, on seeing me come in. ‘I’m so sorry that you’ve been dragged into all this unpleasantness, but Liz insisted.’

‘Fucking right I insisted!’ Liz practically screeches into her face. ‘I want a witness for this!’

‘Can someone please tell me what’s going on?’ I ask, completely at a loss.

Chris, in fairness to her, remains utterly resolute and fully in control.

‘To bring you up to speed, Annie, money has mysteriously been disappearing from our dressing rooms during the show. Between myself, Blythe and Alex, there’s over fifteen hundred dollars gone to date.’

Suddenly, I feel a sharp shock to my gut like I’ve just been electrocuted. No. Not possible. Is it? Would Liz really have…? My head spins and my mind starts to race.

She’s borrowed money from me before, worryingly large amounts of money, well over five hundred bucks, but when I asked her why, seeing as how we’re all so well paid in the show, she just floundered around and never gave me a straight answer. Needed to pay off some dealer, I figured, so then I just cut her off and stopped lending it to her. And lately, whenever she touches me for cash, I don’t even bother making stupid, transparent excuses about not having any on me, I just tell her straight out. If this is for coke, then no, you’re not getting a red cent from me. Caused untold tension between us, but I’ve managed to stay firm.

And now this?

‘The problem,’ Chris continues crisply, ‘is that, as we all know, the cast are the only ones who have access to the dressing rooms during the show, and out of the cast…’

‘You devious bloody cow!’ Liz practically spits into her face and for a split second I really do think I’ll have to physically restrain her from punching Chris smack in the face. ‘So you’ve got it all worked out, do you?’ she fumes, pacing up and down now. ‘I’m the only one offstage for long enough to sneak around the place stealing cash from other people’s handbags, is what you’re trying to say, isn’t it? So why don’t you just have the guts to come right out and say it?’

My mind is up to fifth gear now. Because that much is actually true – of the whole lot of us, Liz is the only one with a good twenty minutes offstage on her own while the
rest of us are still out there. By a process of elimination, she’s the only one who has the time to do it.

And, though it kills me to say it, but the motive too.

Somehow, Chris manages to keep her head in the face of a spewing Liz which, given that the girl is fit to be tied, is a lot easier said than done.

‘I’m not here to make idle accusations,’ Chris says crisply, totally in command of the situation. ‘Money going missing is regrettable, but it happens once and you learn from it and make bloody sure not to bring cash into work with you again. The most you’ll find in any of our dressing rooms from here on in is loose change and nothing more. What I’ve come here about is something far, far more serious…’

‘Chris, what is it?’ I ask, feeling my heart twist and almost dreading the answer.

‘Last night, when I came offstage, my engagement ring was missing. I can’t wear it onstage as you know, so I always leave it in a drawer in my dressing table. You went home early last night, Annie,’ she nods to me, then slowly she pivots round to face Liz, who’s red-faced and sweating now, actually sweating.

‘…whereas you’d scarpered off with God knows who.’

‘Oh, so now I’ve suddenly morphed into a jewel thief, have I?’ Liz screams at her so loudly that I think the superintendent might be up in a minute with complaints from the neighbours about the din.

‘How dare you?’ she yells, right into Chris’s face. ‘How bloody dare you burst in here and start flinging all these ridiculous accusations at me?
You
lose your engagement ring, suddenly put two and two together and now you have me marked down as the Artful fecking Dodger?’

‘You would be well advised to just cool the head and listen to me,’ says Chris curtly, arms folded, eyes slitted. ‘I couldn’t particularly give a shite about what you choose to shove up your nose in your spare time, it’s absolutely no concern of mine and believe me, I’m extremely grateful for that. But we all know that you’ve been on the scab for money lately; you’ve already asked Blythe and myself as well as Alex, not to mention some of the box office staff too. Word has gone round.’