OK Cupid was going to have anyone who matched these criteria.
Oh. Oh my God. Sweet baby Jesus in the manger.
Suddenly, my dream man appeared on screen. Just one look into his baby blues and I was lost in a fantasy of Hamptons summer houses, candy-striped pinafores and two cute kids, gambolling around the garden. Did kids gambol or was that just lambs? Whatever, it was instant. I was in love.
I had met my future husband. And his name was AJJ78. A brief perusal of his profile suggested he wasn’t a psycho, he had a healthy distaste for the whole online dating thing and he didn’t have any douche-bag flags flying, i.e. he didn’t at any point suggest that Ayn Rand had changed his life. This guy had to be worth a message. Or a wink. Just because the idea of someone winking at me in the street would make me run and hide didn’t mean I couldn’t bust one out here, right? I mean, if it was a valid option? And so, with one very fast, before I regretted it, click of a mouse, it was done. I, Jenny Lopez, had virtually winked at a man.
There was no going back.
A few hours, a short nap and two tacos later, my phone trilled on the kitchen counter.
‘Hey, Erin,’ I tried to keep the sleep out of my voice. ‘What’s up?’
‘I’m calling about tomorrow,’ Erin did not sound even faintly fatigued. Erin sounded all business. ‘I’ve emailed over the call sheet for the event and the number of your driver?’
‘I have a driver?’ This whole gig was sounding better and better.
‘Sadie Nixon has a driver,’ she replied. ‘And you have Sadie Nixon.’
Oh yeah. The demonic supermodel spawn of Satan. Allegedly.
‘And I’m to do what? Pick her up, get her to the show, get her out of the show and ditch her again?’
‘Precisely.’
I really couldn’t see what the big deal was.
‘And just invoice me your day rate when you’re done,’ she said. ‘And any expenses. Sadie doesn’t usually carry cash.’
‘Who does she think she is? The queen?’
‘Pretty much,’ Erin confirmed. ‘Listen, Jenny, I know you can do this, I know you’re not dumb but I cannot, cannot emphasize enough how important it is to me to have this walking clothes hanger in the right place at the right time, do you hear me?’
Jesus, she was more on edge than she’d been at her first wedding. Way more chilled out than at the third, though.
‘I hear ya, chief.’
Yeah, I might have saluted into the mirror.
‘It’s a new client for me and it’s a client I need to keep. They’re not going to stick with me if I lose their top attraction, are they?’
‘Erin, relax,’ I wanted to reassure her, but she was past it. ‘This is important to you, I get it. I won’t fuck it up.’
‘She’s just … ’ Erin searched for the right words. ‘I’ve worked with her before and Jenny, I can’t tell you. She was such a difficult bitch. And that was pre-supermodel Sadie. There’s no way fame and money have made her a better person.’
So, this wasn’t looking quite so appealing all of a sudden. But still, a driver.
‘I worked with tons of tough clients in LA,’ I lied. ‘Honestly, honey, you think it’s easy being a stylist in the carb-free land of the size zero? We’re gonna be just fine. I’ll pick her up, I’ll tell her how great she looks, we’ll do wheatgrass shots, I’ll keep her off the coke and deliver her in one piece.’
‘Don’t joke about the coke.’
‘Keeping her off it or making sure she’s got it?’ I wasn’t sure what the protocol was with supermodels right now. Personally, I didn’t need to pay a hundred bucks for an inflated sense of self-esteem and crashing misery the next day. I could just knock back a couple of dirty martinis and then check Jeff’s Facebook page for the exact same effect, but the models? Sometimes, they expect you to look the other way. And I’d lived with a hooker. I was an expert at looking the other way, even if I didn’t like it.
‘If she even alludes to taking anything stronger than a Red Bull, you stop her,’ Erin ordered. ‘In fact, I don’t even want her on a Red Bull. I don’t want her on anything harder than green tea. You hear me?’
‘Green tea, got it.’
‘On your head be it, Jennifer Lopez.’ Erin resigned herself to her fate. And not a minute too soon, my ‘call waiting’ buzzed in my ear. ‘I’ll see you at the venue tomorrow.’
‘Y’ello,’ I flicked from Erin’s call to the call waiting. ‘Jenny speaking.’
‘Hey, it’s me,’ Angela replied. ‘Are you OK?’
‘Oh, the kitchen’s on fire and my leg is hanging off but apart from that? Sure.’
‘JENNY.’
‘Fine, I burned some toast and cut my leg shaving. But you keep freaking asking.’
‘Whatever.’ Angela sounded just as resigned to her fate as Erin. ‘What are you doing tonight?’
‘It’s three p.m. and I’m about to eat a grilled cheese.’ I looked over at the slightly dubious two-week-old loaf of Wonder Bread on the counter. ‘And I already ate two tacos. I’m going to be a heifer.’
‘Step away from the sandwich, we’re going out.’ Angie didn’t sound nearly as excited as she should. ‘Alex got you a date.’
‘And it’s you?’ I was understandably confused by the ‘we’ part of her last sentence. ‘And he’s OK with that?’
‘It’s not me, you arse. It’s a boy.’
‘What boy?’
‘What happened to you not being picky?’
‘Touché.’
That statement was of course made before I met my online prince charming.
‘Just be at Hotel Delmano at eight.’
Ooh, nice. I liked Hotel Delmano.
‘And don’t wear stupidly high heels, we probably won’t stay there.’
Oh.
‘It’s like fifteen dollars for a cocktail,’ Angela defended herself against my silence. ‘I’m unemployed and dating an impoverished musician.’
‘You’re freelance and he’s loaded,’ I argued. ‘Fine, whatever. I’ll meet you there. This guy’d better be awesome.’
‘He’s a music producer.’ She sounded quite proud of herself. ‘Alex met him while he was doing that soundtrack stuff
