Yeah, you’ve done really well there, Angela.’ He didn’t even sound like my Alex.
‘Please stop it and just let me explain.’ I tried to find the right words but my head was totally empty.
‘What do you want me to say?’ At least he was starting to sound a little bit angry now. But it turned out that wasn’t as much consolation as I had hoped.
‘First there are all these photos of you practically dry-humping the first celebrity you ever meet, then you’re not answering your phone, then you’re calling me at four in the morning and saying, well, whatever. What am I supposed to think? What do you want me to say?’
‘Don’t make out like I’m the one who’s been ignoring you! I’ve been trying to talk to you since I got here,’ I protested. ‘You were the one who didn’t want to talk to me. You were the one who wasn’t answering his phone.’
‘And the fact that I actually have things to do here without you holding my hand means you get to fuck around behind my back?’ he yelled.
I almost dropped my phone. ‘What?’
‘What do you mean what?’ he asked. ‘One day you’re holding hands on the beach, leaving his hotel room in the middle of the night, and the next you’re kissing him outside a club? You’re gonna tell me there’s nothing happening there at all?’
There weren’t many times in my life I’d been stunned into silence but they were racking up tonight.
‘Tell me you haven’t slept with him.’ Alex’s voice was rough and low. ‘Say it. Now.’
‘I–I haven’t slept with him,’ I stuttered. He hadn’t asked if I’d thought about it; he’d asked if I’d actually done it. I heard a sigh and more keystrokes. ‘Please stop looking at the pictures. I haven’t done anything, Alex, I would never. Please just believe me.’
‘And that’s where we have a problem,’ he said quietly. ‘I don’t think I do believe you.’
My phone was burning hot against my ear but I couldn’t put it down. Long after Alex had hung up, I was still standing in the middle of the hotel room, clutching the tiny piece of plastic as it cooled slowly. Did he really just say that? After what seemed like a lifetime, my brain flicked back on and I redialled. There was no way I was leaving it like that. But Alex’s phone didn’t even ring; instead I got a ‘cannot be connected message’ right away. I tried again from my room phone just to make sure but it wasn’t happening. He must have taken the battery out or something.
I sat down at the desk and flicked through the pictures online. I scrolled through the galleries that had already sprung up across the gossip sites, dedicated to me and James. It was so weird. And not just because most of them were slaughtering my outfits and the size of my arse, although they were all taken from extraordinarily bad angles. Honest. The strangest thing was that to hundreds – if not thousands – of girls around the world, it must look like a dream come true. Ordinary girl is sent to interview hot movie star, hot movie star falls for ordinary girl and whirlwind romance ensues.
It certainly was far more romantic than the truth: ordinary girl is sent to interview hot movie star, falls for hot movie star’s clichéd fake flirting, lets hot movie star kiss her then discovers he’s gay but is plastered all over the internet, gets dumped by actual love of her life and ends up with no one. Yeah, who was going to pay to read that? Flipping down the lid of my laptop, I wondered if anyone was going to pay to read anything I wrote ever again. Surely this was going to push Mary over the edge. If ever I needed Jenny Lopez, it was now, but she was nowhere to be found. Again. Probably still pissed off after our face-off in Bar Marmont. I stared at my mobile, frustrated. And then almost crapped myself when it started to ring. It was Louisa.
‘Hello?’ I answered cautiously. A lecture was absolutely guaranteed. Louisa loved to make a drama out of a crisis.
‘Hey, Angela!’ she chirped. ‘I just had to call you. We had the most amazing meal ever last night. We went to that Alta place you told us about, oh my God. I had to call you. There were these prawns, God, honestly.’
I listened to her rapturous restaurant review, silently confused. She wasn’t going to even ask about the photos?
‘And then we had this cheese thing for dessert. Honestly. Wow. I don’t think I can ever eat again. Are you having fun in LA, babe?’
I really didn’t know what to say. She didn’t know. Louisa had never been much of a one for celebrity gossip, but then before I moved to New York, neither had I. It was hard to avoid it in America.
‘Ah, not really,’ I said slowly. It was actually very nice not to be shouted at for two minutes. ‘I’m having a bit of trouble with the interview. And Alex and I are having a row.’
‘Oh honey,’ Louisa said down the crackly line. ‘What about?’
‘He thinks I’ve cheated on him.’ With James Jacobs, I added silently.
‘But of course you haven’t! You would never do that. Why on earth would he think it?’ It was reassuring that, after everything, Louisa would automatically believe I was the wronged party without even getting half the story. But then, she hadn’t seen the photos. Or the video on TMZ. Or the E! News bulletin.
‘No, I haven’t,’ I agreed. ‘But he’s seen a photo that sort of makes it look like I did. And he just doesn’t want to listen to me.’
‘Oh babe, just let him calm down and then talk to him,’ she reasoned. ‘I’m sure it will blow over once you’re back in New York. Just concentrate on getting your job sorted out.’
‘You’re probably right,’ I said, wishing the issues weren’t quite so interwoven. ‘Anyway, you didn’t call to listen to my problems. I’m really glad you liked Alta.’
‘Loved Alta,’ she corrected. ‘We should definitely go when I come back to visit you.’
‘Definitely,’ I agreed. Unless I lost my job and my visa and then we’d be going for dinner in Nandos in Wimbledon.
‘Call me if you need me, babe, got to run. Love you.’ She blew me a kiss down the phone.
‘I will, love you too.’ I hung up. Well that was weird. But just as weirdly, what she said made sense. I had to concentrate on getting things back on track.
Tomorrow wasn’t going to be fun and even less so with the hangover I’d just guaranteed. Flicking on the TV (was Friends ever off television?), I pulled my worse-for-wear-but-still-the-best-thing-I’d-ever-owned bag up onto the bed. When everything else was going wrong, at least a girl could still rely on Marc Jacobs to make her smile. Dredging through the crap in the bottom, I eventually found a pen and notepad, scowling at my BlackBerry as it blinked at me.
‘Sometimes I just want to write things down, OK?’ I told it. Before looking around to check that no one had just seen me go completely insane and talk to a phone. Just Ross and Rachel, thank goodness.
1.?Call Mary
2.?Call Alex or Alex’s friends
That would prove trickier, since the only phone number of any of Alex’s friends I had ever had was Jenny’s ex, Jeff, and Jenny had made me delete it after a healthy night in our apartment of Ben &
