what can we do to get you out of your funk?’
‘Mmm-hmm.’ I traced a finger along the edge of the car door. At least since we were in the convertible my hair would look like crap whether I’d done anything with it or not. Which I hadn’t. And, joy, the sun was out. If I was really lucky, I could get burnt again.
‘God, you’re going to make this hard work, aren’t you?’ Jenny slapped the steering wheel. ‘I know, Angela, if someone said “LA” to you, what would you think of?’
‘What?’
‘What would you think of? What would you associate with Hollywood?’ she pressed on.
Paparazzi. Blonde hair. Breast implants. ‘Sunshine?’
‘Anything else?’ she asked.
Feeling completely out of place. Missing Alex. Worrying about James. ‘Movies?’
‘Which movies?’
‘Jenny,’ I really wanted to just go back to bed. ‘Are you getting at something?’
‘Honey, I’m just trying to distract you. This is all gonna be over by tomorrow. Sometimes life throws you a curveball and you’ve just got to run with it.’ Jenny pulled up outside a row of shops. Sparkly, shiny, lovely looking shops.’ Or shop for it.’
‘Where are we?’ I asked, blinking up at the prettiness. Everything was so white. And big. ‘What are we doing?’
‘We’re about to spend an obscene amount of money,’ Jenny grinned.
Once the car had been safely handed over to the valet parking assistant (I would never get used to that), Jenny pulled me along the wide, sunny street past designer store after designer store.
‘Never before in my life have I wanted to be a hooker so badly,’ I clutched at Jenny’s hand, my mouth wide open. ‘But oh, would you look at that bag?’
‘I know, hello Pretty Woman,’ Jenny squeezed my hand back. ‘Even I would sleep with Richard Gere for that dress and, hello, so old now?’
‘So this is Rodeo Drive?’ I marvelled. ‘Why on earth did you take me to a mall yesterday?’
‘Because we can’t actually afford anything here.’ She pulled me away from the Louis Vuitton window, leaving my sticky paw prints all over it. ‘But I thought it might distract you for a while.’
‘We can’t afford anything?’ I fought the urge to go into the closest shop and buy a giant hat. And gloves. ‘Really?’
‘Angie, when we go shopping in New York, where do we go?’ Jenny asked.
‘Bloomingdale’s? Bergdorf’s?’ I couldn’t stop staring at the pretty things. Things I’d seen in magazines, in The Look, but that were now right here in front of me! In a shop! To buy!
‘Not where do we go to try things on but never buy them unless they’re in the sales. Where do we actually go shopping?’
‘Um, Century 21 and Filene’s,’ I admitted. ‘When you’re not there to stop me, Gap.’
‘Exactly. And I killed my credit card at The Beverly Center yesterday, so no, we really can’t afford anything.’ Jenny fished around in her handbag for some lip gloss, slicked a completely unnecessary layer on top of her already shiny lips and then added a desperately needed pop of colour to mine. ‘But no one needs to know that, right? There’s nothing like trying on thousands of dollars’ worth of couture to take your mind off your problems.’
If my only issue with LA was still that it wasn’t nearly as glossy and glamorous as I’d been expecting, then Rodeo Drive would have solved all my problems. From the dramatic white marble store fronts, the palm trees sprouting up out of the glossy pavement, right through to the serious-looking doormen that stood sentry outside each designer destination, this was everything I’d been expecting.
Yes, the Ugg boot girls were still everywhere, but they had been watered down by a new breed of LA woman. I couldn’t help but stare. They were tiny, just like the platinum blondes, but they seemed so much glossier, so much more expensive, and I could not tell you how old a single one of them was. You couldn’t actually see any discernible designer labels on anything they wore, unless you checked out the shop assistant carrying the stiff paper bags out behind them, but they reeked of money. One of them stepped right out in front of us without looking, making me jump back. She paused, looking at me and Jenny in the same way I sometimes looked at the puppies in the window of the pet store near Bloomingdale’s, as if we were cute but she really didn’t want to get too close in case we slobbered on her. Or worse.
‘So what do you want to try first?’ Jenny asked, completely oblivious. ‘Dior? D&G?’
‘Oh, there.’ I pointed across the road to a gorgeous window display, full of beautiful ballerina-style dresses in pretty petal colours. ‘Miu Miu me up.’
After my second glass of champagne, I was more than ready to accept that Hollywood had its charms after all. Jenny was head to toe in couture, a gorgeous bronze dirndl skirt cinching in her tiny waist and five-inch platforms forcing her onto her tippy-toes.
‘How do they feel?’ The inordinately attractive salesman cupped my foot in his hand and slipped the ankle strap of a beautiful, sequin-covered sandal through the little tiny silver buckle.
‘They feel lovely.’ I was almost too afraid to stand on the delicate little heels. When would I feel more like Kylie and less like Lily Savage when I tried on a girlie outfit?
‘You know, I think we just got one of the matching purses in today. It’s in the back,’ he whispered. ‘I have to see how it looks with the shoes.’
‘Me too,’ I agreed, staring at my feet. Why would anyone ever put their foot inside an Ugg in LA? In New York, it snowed, it was cold, you needed their sheepskin-lined goodness; but here, you could feasibly walk around in nothing but fairy-spun Miu Miu creations all year round. In fact, you didn’t even have to walk; this was the perfect place for Limo Shoes. Maybe that was why everyone drove everywhere.
I flicked around my BlackBerry, while my New Best Friend, the shoe salesman, was bag hunting. The BlackBerry was still a bit of a mystery to me. I’d got into enough trouble with just a mobile, without being able to respond to work emails whilst out and about. Out and about meaning drunk. Before I could cast it back into the bottom of my (very jealous to be surrounded by all these younger Miu Mius) handbag, it started to buzz in my hand.
‘Hello?’ I answered automatically.
‘Angela, it’s James.’
Oh, James. Bugger. I’d been so distracted by the prettiness, for fifteen minutes I’d managed to forget all about everything.
‘Angela, are you there?’
‘I am.’ I waved manically at Jenny. I couldn’t do this alone. Even in eight-hundred-dollar sandals. Especially in eight-hundred-dollar sandals.
‘I wanted to say I’m so sorry about the photos. Blake is trying to get them taken down right now.’ He sounded genuinely worried. But then he was an actor. ‘Are you OK? And we’ve
