turning right on red just wouldn’t sink in. Luckily, there were lots of straight roads for me to pootle along until I could steel myself to pull into an open Starbucks, grab a coffee and a muffin and set the sat-nav for Griffith Park.
The park was beautiful: so different to everything I’d seen of LA so far, wilder than Central Park and a million miles away from London’s carefully tended open spaces. Parking up by a huge open-air theatre, I picked up my coffee, plugged in my iPod and wandered out into the park, following the runners and dog walkers. After twenty minutes of drowning out my thoughts with the loudest music I could find, I found myself outside the Griffith Observatory. Sipping my cooled coffee, I sat down on the grass and stared down at the city as the sun came up slowly. Well, wasn’t I a long way from home?
LA looked very different from up here; for the first time I felt as though I was Away. New York was so tight and tall, a thin sliver of an island, breathing in and stretching up high, as if it was holding its hand up to the world for attention. New York made me walk fast, made me want to be as tall and glossy as its skyscrapers, twenty-four seven. For all its glamour and celebrity, up here in the hills, LA looked more like a city that had just breathed out, kicked off its heels and opened a window. The buildings were a little lower, a little sun-bleached and more spread apart, not pressed up against each other, racing up into the clouds. It was a city so sure of itself that it just didn’t need to fight for attention. And besides, it was so sunny and warm, why not relax a little?
But of course I’d spoken too soon. Inside my bag, my phone chirped into life. Who could be missing me at this time? The screen flashed over and over with Mum Home.
‘Hello?’
‘Angela?’
‘Mum?’
‘Hello, love! I was just talking about you. Are you with your movie star?’
‘Mum, why are you using your posh voice?’ I asked, instantly regretting answering the call.
‘I don’t know what you mean, dear.’ Mum went on in the same voice she had used for my teachers and the engineer who came round to install Sky+. ‘Anyway, Sheila’s been round, you remember Sheila from the library? Well, she says that your boyfriend used to go out with that girl from that film you like … you know, the one about that man out of Ghostbusters, when he goes to China and she’s ever so pretty, Angela.’
I survive my first drive in LA and this was how I rewarded myself? When did I become a masochist? ‘Mum, he’s not my boyfriend. Alex is my boyfriend. We have been through this.’
‘I know it’s all the rage going out with two people at once these days but, honestly Angela, it’ll end in tears,’ she rattled on. ‘Don’t think I don’t know. I was seeing another man when I met your father and yes, I admit there might have even been a bit of an overlap but—’
‘Mum!’ I shouted, attracting the attention of several labradors and a chihuahua. ‘There’s nothing going on with me and James at all. I’m just going out with Alex.’
‘Oh.’ She sounded ridiculously disappointed given that she had never met either man. ‘Well, that’s a shame. He seemed lovely.’
‘Well, I’m very sorry.’
‘Are you trying to tell me you’re not going to marry that actor or was there something else? I’m just about to do your dad a sandwich.’
I breathed in and out slowly, watching the sun spread across the city. See how different it could be? If I hadn’t salvaged my job at The Look, I would most likely be having a sandwich with Dad as well.
‘I just wanted to give you a ring,’ I said, trying to be patient. ‘‘Let you know I was all right. That I wasn’t shacked up with James Jacobs.’
‘Don’t feel bad, that blonde girl is ever so pretty. Not that you’re not, Angela love, but you know. So, how long are you in Los Angeles for? Have you booked your flights home?’
I tried not to be offended that my mother didn’t think I was as pretty as Scarlett Johansson. I mean, surely your mum was the only person in the world that might think that about you? Unless you were Scarlett Johansson’s mum and then I suppose you’d have to think her sister was fairly pretty too. If she has a sister.
‘Do you have to ask me that every time I call you?’ I asked, draining my freezing cold coffee. Ick. ‘I don’t know, Mum. I suppose I might come home for Christmas this year if you’re not on a cruise again.’
‘I didn’t mean here,’ she tutted, as if I was the stupid one. Which, given the last week of my life, was probably fair. ‘I meant when are you going back to New York?’
‘Oh.’ I smiled at my flip-flops. Home. ‘Sunday.’
‘Don’t worry, Angela,’ Mum sighed dramatically. ‘We’ve quite got used to the idea that you’ve abandoned us. You’ve got your new life now with your boyfriends and your friends. How is Jenny? Now she’s a beautiful girl.’
‘She’s fine.’ I don’t know what I was expecting, really. ‘Mum, can I ask you something?’
‘What a silly question, of course you can.’
‘Have you ever kept a secret from Dad?’
She was silent for a moment.
‘A secret as in, what he doesn’t know won’t hurt him, or a secret as in, he still thinks I make my own Yorkshire puddings and don’t buy in Aunt Bessie’s?’
‘The first one.’ I was disgusted. Fancy buying in frozen Yorkshire puddings.
‘Then yes, of course I have,’ she said. ‘All relationships have their little secrets.’
‘Really?’ I had to admit to being a little bit curious about my mother’s secrets. As long as they weren’t dirty. Ew. ‘Like what?’
‘Well, obviously there’re the little white lies, like the Yorkshire puddings. And the roast potatoes. And once I used that powdered mashed potato for Sunday dinner because I’d been on the Blue Nun with your Auntie Les and he was none the wiser,’ she said. ‘But, well, there have been a few things that I’m fairly sure he’d rather not know about. You have to use your judgement, Angela – it’s part of making a relationship work.’
‘But don’t you think he deserves to know?’ I asked. ‘Shouldn’t you be honest about everything?’
‘Would you rather know?’ She was still speaking slowly, as if she was choosing every single word very carefully. Which was extremely weird for my mother. ‘Imagine if that fella of yours had – I don’t know – got a bit tipsy and kissed the girl from the bakery under the mistletoe at a Christmas party and maybe she’d thought it was a proper kiss and he hadn’t but maybe she’d kissed him on the lips instead of the cheek and—’
‘Mum, did you kiss Mr Owens from the bakery?’ I shouted down the phone.
‘And that reaction is why your dad doesn’t know about it,’ Mum said primly. ‘And so, whatever you’ve done, I suggest you don’t go telling that boyfriend of yours unless you want to peel him off the ceiling. Calm down, Angela.’
She was right. I hated when that happened.
