‘Yeah, but I won’t have to pay for that stuff; this is pricey frozen yoghurt.’
‘You have forgotten where you’ve come from, Jim Jacobs,’ I tutted.
It turned out that Pinkberry frozen yoghurt was ever so slightly magical. As James loaded his with pineapple and strawberries, I packed mine with Coco Pebbles cereal and chocolate chips. And I got change out of ten dollars. Just.
‘This is amazing,’ I raved through a mouthful of yoghurty goodness. ‘Shouldn’t this be all tasteless and healthy?’
‘It is healthy, or it was until you shovelled all that crap on to it,’ James teased. The street outside was packed with tanned, good-looking men in workout gear and more of the ever-present Ugg girls.
‘So I thought we’d crack on with your tour of my favourite bits of LA,’ James carried on, striding down the road, past all the girls that stared and all the men that pretended not to. The only difference today was they were staring at me as much as him. ‘So how about The Grove, do some more shopping? What do you think? That should cheer you up.’
‘Sorry, James,’ I hugged myself tightly. Why was everywhere in LA so open? What I wouldn’t give for a shadowy side street or a subway station. ‘I know you don’t want to do the usual sit-down thing, but could we maybe go somewhere slightly less, I don’t know, somewhere less open?’
‘Maybe The Beverly Center?’ James finished up his yogurt and dropped it in the rubbish bin. ‘Or Melrose? There will probably be paps on Melrose though.’
‘Are there going to be photographers everywhere you go?’ I asked, actively ignoring two girls clutching tiny dogs and huge coffees, staring at us from across the road.
‘Maybe,’ James shrugged. ‘Seriously, I told you, it’s not a problem.’
‘It is a problem,’ I said, spotting a group of pre-teens, head to toe in Juicy Couture, blatantly comparing the real-life James Jacobs and ‘mystery girl’ to the images on their Sidekicks. ‘I’m sorry, but it’s going to be a problem for me.’
‘Not at all.’ James threw his arm around my shoulders. I could practically hear everyone in the street breathe in. ‘If it’s a problem for you then it’s a problem for me. If you could go anywhere in the world right now, where would you go?’
‘New York?’
James smiled. ‘Well, I can’t get you across the country in half and hour but I can do the next best thing.’
Back in the limo, we drove out of Beverly Hills, through Hollywood, and kept going until James tapped on the glass partition to stop Jack, his driver. As soon as we stepped outside, I felt as though I was home. Gone were the tans, the big boots and the teeny-tiny shorts and in their place were beards, battered Converses and vintage plaid shirts. Starbucks were replaced by corner cafes run by slacker hipsters, Urban Outfitters taken over by vintage stores and the huge cineplexes swapped for a tiny art-house cinema. And while I couldn’t see the ocean, the beautiful blue sky was framed by the hills and mountains that surrounded us.
‘You like?’ James asked, leaning against the ridiculously conspicuous limo. I couldn’t believe we were only ten minutes out of Hollywood.
‘I like,’ I nodded, slipping my (beloved) bag over my head and across my body. ‘Where are we?’
‘Los Feliz,’ he said. ‘It’s as close as I can get you to home without using the jet.’
‘I bet the pizza isn’t as good as in Brooklyn,’ I said, looking around. Not one single person was looking at us. ‘So let’s get down to business. Where are we doing the interview?’
‘In here,’ he pointed to a small dark doorway behind me. ‘After you.’
James opened the door from the sunny street into a small, dark bar. I passed through a beaded curtain, blinking. Like Teddy’s the night before, it was lined with red booths, but they were cracked vinyl instead of velvet. The high-gloss sheen of bought-in Old Hollywood glamour, accessorized by Jessica Simpson, was completely blown out of the water by actual, genuine old-school class, accessorized by the slightly stale smell of a couple of decades of debauched nights. The tiny stage in the centre of the room was set up with a drum kit, several guitars and an upright piano.
‘Hey, James,’ came a voice from behind the bar that lined the back wall, lit by vintage-looking lampshades. Except I had a feeling they weren’t vintage-looking so much as so genuinely old that they might fall apart if I touched them. The girl talking to James had gorgeous flame-red hair and winged black eyeliner. ‘Just get whatever you need, I’ll be out back.’
‘Thanks, Marina,’ James sat down behind the piano. ‘Welcome to The Dresden. It’s my favourite club in all of LA. No paps.’
‘You play?’ I asked, sitting down beside him.
‘I do.’ James lifted the lid and played a few soft chords. In the darkened room, watching James play the piano, I felt a million miles away from all of it. From the pictures on the website, from Alex, from Mary. I placed my fingers on the cool piano keys and stared at the keyboard.
‘You play?’
‘No,’ I said. ‘I can’t even play the recorder.’
‘You sing?’ he asked.
I looked up into his dark blue eyes and laughed out loud. ‘No, I can’t sing,’ I spluttered. ‘Oh my God, stop it. Didn’t we come here to do an interview?’
‘Yes.’ He closed the piano lid. ‘I just feel a bit of a fraud doing the whole “ac-tor” interview thing with you. It’s the journos that create the persona, you know. It’s their questions that bring on the whole “I love the smell of the ocean at midnight” bollocks.’
‘Can I quote you on that?’ I asked. ‘Because I don’t have any questions about the smell of the ocean at any time and that sounded pretty good to me.’
‘OK, let’s do it this way,’ James said. ‘You ask me a question and then I’ll ask you a question. That should take the pressure off?’
‘And give me some ideas for more questions,’ I agreed, rummaging in the bottom of my (full of rubbish but never a pen when you needed it) bag. ‘Since you threw my Dictaphone in the Pacific Ocean, I have been reduced to shorthand, so go slow.’
‘I’ll go however fast or slow you want me to go.’
I refused to blush. Refused.
‘So, old Jim Jacobs,’ I cleared my throat and put on my most professional face. ‘Desert Island Discs time. Your three favourite albums?’
‘Easy and, I’m sorry to say it, not that original.’ James gave me a mock yawn. ‘The Smiths, The Smiths, Nirvana, Nevermind and Pulp, Different Class. Because I know you’re going to make a big deal of me being from Sheffield.’
‘You could have gone for Def Leppard,’ I replied, scribbling down his answers and wondering whether or not they would actually be on his ‘most played’ list if I checked out his iPod. Like they would be on mine.
‘My
