James Jacobs. There was a chance I’d been taking the whole ‘go in with no preconceptions’ approach too far. What if he was a total diva and refused to talk to me because I hadn’t even seen one of his movies? Couldn’t hurt to watch one film, could it? I grabbed a ten-dollar bag of M&Ms and mixed a twenty-three-dollar vodka and Coke. Couldn’t hurt to have one more drink, could it?
‘Super-hot and super-talented James Jacobs …’ I said to my reflection in the giant mirror, launching backwards onto the ridiculously comfortable pillow-top bed with the same deliciously soft bed linen I enjoyed, only ever so slightly illegally, every night. Flicking through the movies-on-demand menu, I eventually found the casino movie Jenny had mentioned. At least, if I fell asleep halfway through, she would be able to fill me in on the bits I’d missed.
But I didn’t fall asleep. I sat up, staring at the screen, one hand clutching the comforter around me, the other systematically popping M&Ms into my mouth for two whole hours. I wasn’t sure if it was that last vodka, Alex not answering his phone, or all the flesh on display at the pool, but by the end of the film I had a very serious, very unhealthy crush on James Jacobs.
Leaning on the triple pillars of journalistic integrity – IMDb, E! online and Perez Hilton, I learned everything there was to know, drama school, RADA, bit parts in various soaps and then the big Hollywood break. And then there were the hobbies: talented painter, keen hiker and, oh yes, he liked the ladies. Lots of them. A Google image search provided dozens upon dozens of pictures of a ridiculously beautiful young man in various states of drunkenness or undress from the last three years. Falling out of a club with Lindsay, lunching with Scarlett, frolicking on the beach with Paris and even attending the opera with Natalie. I clicked on a red carpet pic and enlarged it. Wow, he certainly knew how to work a tux. And a bra strap from the look of it.
‘Angie?’
A dramatically loud hiss through the adjoining door made me jump.
‘Angie, are you awake?’
‘Yes, Jenny,’ I said, dragging myself off the bed and over to the door that separated our rooms. I opened it up and watched Jenny fall through onto my feet. ‘Fun evening?’
‘I forgot to leave the air-con on in my room, can I sleep in with you?’ she asked, crawling over to the bed and clambering in.
‘Yes?’ I rubbed my face and sighed, smiling. ‘Just get off my side.’ I pushed her bikini-clad body over to the other side of the bed but she was already asleep. ‘So much for my good night’s sleep.’
I’d had every intention of waking up for an early swim and a spot of tiny-dog watching before setting out to meet Mr Jacobs, but that was before Jenny decided to crash in my room and take up my entire bed. After rolling her back across to her side of the bed seventeen times in two hours, I’d climbed out of bed and made a den on the chaise longue and watched clips of James Jacobs on YouTube, transfixed by his pretty, pretty face. And after falling asleep at around three a.m., I woke up with the pillow glued to my face at ten. One hour before I was supposed to meet James Jacobs. The James Jacobs. Crap.
After a second’s panic, I shook Jenny awake to enlist her services as my personal stylist. I scrambled around in the bathroom while she rolled out of bed, irritatingly hangover free, and disappeared into her wardrobe. Somehow I managed to be out of the hotel inside thirty minutes, wearing Jenny’s jade green Velvet T-shirt dress, some pretty brown leather sandals and a matching wide leather belt. Three squirts of dry shampoo into my roots and approval for me to do my make-up in the cab; truly I had come a long way from when she wouldn’t let me walk out of our apartment without a full makeover.
‘Good luck, honey,’ Jenny said, opening the cab door and kissing my cheek. ‘I’m gonna pick up the rental car so call me when you’re through. And yes, I promise I’ll get a nice safe car. I thought maybe we could meet my friend Daphne for dinner?’
‘Yes, that would be lovely,’ I said, raking through my handbag. Did I have everything? Did I have anything? ‘And really, I’m not kidding. Don’t come back with something ridiculous. We don’t need a Mustang. And I wanted to ask last night, what happened with Joe?’
‘He’s making me work for it,’ Jenny pulled a face. ‘Did I get fat?’
‘I don’t even have time to answer that ridiculous question,’ I yelled out of the car as we pulled away. ‘You’re gorgeous.’
‘Tell that to James Jacobs,’ she shouted back, causing everyone and their mother on the sidewalk to turn and look. But I didn’t mind. Safe and sound in the back of the taxi, I was on my way to meet James Jacobs.
Without my Dictaphone.
I was so going to be late.
After the fantastically professional start to my morning, I made it to Toast with some dubiously applied blusher, a smudge of mascara and about three minutes to spare. According to my itinerary from the delightful Cici, Toast was a ‘very LA brunch spot full of very cool people.’ The implication of course being that I was very much not one of those people. And she was right. Fragile-looking waif girls dressed in skinny jeans, Ugg boots and The World’s Biggest Sunglasses were stacked seven deep around a relatively ordinary looking café at the side of a relatively ordinary looking road. Maybe even slightly skanky road. It certainly wasn’t the glamorous LA I was expecting. For the want of an approved outfit and a size zero figure, I stuck on my sunglasses and strode past the tables full of girls pushing food around their plates.
‘Hi there, welcome to Toast. Do you have a reservation?’
There was a girl on the door with a clipboard. Of a café. On a Sunday morning.
‘Hi, erm, yes, I do.’ I scrabbled around in my beautiful handbag (at least that looked as if it belonged, even if I didn’t) for the bit of paper that I’d rammed back in there during my scramble out of the cab. ‘I’m a little bit early …’
‘We’re very busy, if you don’t have a reservation …’ Door Girl looked me up and down in a not particularly flattering fashion.
‘No, I do, it’s under someone else’s name – James Jacobs, maybe? I’m meeting James Jacobs. It might be under The Look, as in the magazine?’ I tried my most charming smile. It did not help.
‘Sure, honey. James Jacobs,’ she said. I really didn’t like the extra-long pause between the words ‘James’ and ‘Jacobs’. I waited until she took a grudging look at her list, then raised one perfectly plucked eyebrow so high that it was practically lost in her highlights. ‘Oh. You’re Angela Clark?’
I nodded and smiled again, trying not to look like a smug cow. Bwah ha ha ha.
‘OK then, if you’d like to follow me? We’ve saved James’s favourite table. He’s not here yet but can I get you some coffee?’ Scary Door Girl transformed into Lovely-Door-Girl-slash-helpful-waitress and I wondered if I hadn’t just been a little bit paranoid. Maybe, just maybe, she was human after all.
‘That would be great. Cream and sugar please,’ I said, sitting down at James’s favourite table, which was thankfully hidden away in a corner at the back of the café, inside and away from the crowds.
Door Girl frowned. ‘Cream and sugar? Sure …’
Maybe I wasn’t imagining it. Surely as the only person there that couldn’t possibly be a relation of the Olsen twins, they ought to be welcoming me and my ability to ‘do dairy’ with open
