that asshole doesn’t call you in the next ten seconds to say anything other than “I know everything I read online is bullshit and I’m so lucky to have a girlfriend like you”, I’m on the next flight back to New York to kick his ass.’ She stared me down.
‘Jenny, look at it from his point of view,’ I said, taking back the menu. If only because there was a tiramisu on there I desperately wanted to get involved with. ‘I’m away in Hollywood, interviewing this actor with a horrible reputation, and after two days there are pictures all over the internet of him carrying me into a limo and me hanging around his hotel room in a dressing gown.’
‘There weren’t any pictures of you in a dressing gown,’ Daphne raised a perfectly pencilled eyebrow, ‘were there?’
‘He’s just been so perfect since we got back together.’ I changed the subject quickly. ‘And then I get here and it all goes tits up. It’ll be fine when I get home.’
‘Out of sight, out of mind.’ Daphne offered a saccharine smile, which did not help matters.
‘Or maybe he’s missing you so much, he can’t bear even to speak to you.’ Jenny clasped her hands to her heart. ‘Oh, Angie, it’s all too romantic. And bullshit. He’s being a dick. His boy genes have kicked in again.’
‘Thanks for making me feel so much better, both of you.’ I frowned. ‘It doesn’t really matter now, does it? Whatever the problem was before I was branded an international super-slag by Perez Hilton, as far as he’s concerned, he’s got a solid-gold reason to be pissed off with me. And you know his ex cheated on him; he’s not the world’s most instantly trusting man. Once I’m back in New York, he’ll be fine. I’m sure.’
‘So what, you can’t leave the city without him freaking out that you’re cheating on him? Sounds like a dream relationship,’ Daphne said into her wine glass. ‘And if he’s going to give you shit for something you didn’t do, you may as well do it, is all I’m saying.’
‘You’re not being fair,’ I said, sinking half a glass of red wine. ‘And, God, I’m not entirely innocent, am I? I suppose I have sort of been…well, James has been…I can hardly say it…maybe we’ve been flirting a bit. And I haven’t done anything but I have to admit, I’ve seriously thought about it.’
‘Angela, first of all, I don’t care if you blew the entire cast of Gossip Girl. If you told Alex you didn’t, and he didn’t believe you, he’s getting his ass kicked when we get back.’ Jenny took my hand. ‘And second of all, you need to elaborate on “flirting”.’
‘Oh, it’s nothing.’ I tried to backtrack, quickly. ‘It’s just brushing my hair away from my face, holding my hand, saying stuff.’ Daphne was staring with wide-open eyes while Jenny toyed with her dessert spoon. ‘And after that thing at Teddy’s, he sort of suggested I stay at the hotel.’
‘And you didn’t?’ Daphne looked impressed. ‘Angela, you deserve some sort of award, not some asshole boyfriend who believes everything he reads.’
‘He probably just meant because of the paparazzi,’ I said, knowing full well that wasn’t what he’d meant at all. ‘I’m just reading too much into everything because the Alex thing is messing with my head. I’m completely rubbish at boys, I never know what they’re thinking.’
‘Not one girl on this planet does.’ Jenny shook her head at me. ‘But I still cannot believe you came home on Monday night. You had James Jacobs, People magazine’s fifth sexiest person in the world, and my personal third, throwing himself at you and you said no. Angela Clark, you are stronger than strong.’
‘Who’s first and second?’ I asked, filling up my glass from the bottle of red in the centre of the table.
‘Christian Bale at one, Jake Gyllenhaal at two. The ranking is fluid depending on whichever’s doing the tough guy movie at the time.’ Jenny opened up the menu. ‘You’re the one that likes guys skinnier than you. Which I’m guessing is the only reason you passed up James Jacobs. God, even after that whole scene in Teddy’s I would struggle to pass that up. And don’t try and change the subject on me again.’
I finished the wine by topping up Jenny’s glass. ‘What’s it going to take to shut you up?’
‘Come out after dinner,’ Jenny bargained. ‘Out out. Dancing, drinking out. And enjoy it.’
‘I refuse to commit to enjoying it,’ I shrugged. ‘But a drink wouldn’t hurt right now.’
‘Score.’ Jenny and Daphne high-fived. If people weren’t looking at us before, they certainly were now.
One hour, two desserts and three martinis later, our car was still sitting in the valet parking lot at Dominick’s and we were in a cab on our way to Bar Marmont. Everything in me (aside from the martinis) said it was a bad idea, but I was having so much fun with Jenny and Daphne, it was starting to seem silly to go back to the hotel just because some photographers might be out and they might recognize me. Besides, I was just about drunk enough to feel a dance coming on.
‘So, Jenny,’ I clung to the hanging strap in the back of the cab as we motored around an uneven corner, ‘where’s Joe this evening?’
‘Working.’ She gave me a stern look. ‘Obviously, he would be here with me if he weren’t.’
‘But you haven’t…?’ Surely I would have had every nasty detail if she’d finally done the deed.
‘No, we haven’t,’ she pouted and reapplied her lip gloss. ‘I think maybe he’s sick. But we will. He must be sick, right?”
‘You’ve only got four more days,’ I reminded her. ‘Better work fast, Lopez.’
‘Unless you stay longer,’ Daphne said quietly as we stopped suddenly.
‘Not now,’ Jenny said, pushing her out of the door.
I looked from Daphne to Jenny. What was that supposed to mean?
‘You’ve only got four more days,’ Daphne sang as we started up the stairs to the door of the bar. I wasn’t sure what to be more concerned about, the weird tension that had just shot up all around Jenny, the photographers lining the street below or the huge man with the clipboard staring at us. And, quite frankly, if I didn’t get to a toilet very soon, we were about to have a very embarrassing incident at the door. Just not the one that the man with the clipboard was expecting.
‘Good evening ladies.’ He looked us up and down and blocked the door. ‘We’re real busy tonight. You staying at the hotel?’
I panicked, the velvet rope was not my friend. Daphne, however, seemed very well acquainted with it.
‘We’re with James Jacobs,’ she said smoothly. ‘He’s staying here.’
‘You’re with James Jacobs?’ He didn’t even bother to raise an eyebrow.
‘Well, I’m not “with him”,’ Daphne said, stepping to one side. ‘But she is.’
The doorman looked at me, presumably not having noticed me hiding behind Jenny’s enormous hair, and a slight flicker of recognition passed over his face. But not in a particularly good way. I gave him my biggest please-let-me-in-so-I-can-pee
