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EPILOGUE
It had been snowing solidly for three days, and New York was tucked in under a beautiful sheet of thick white snow. Each day, the city turned out and turned the snow into slush. And each evening, a new blanket was laid out. Criss-crossing the streets and avenues, drifting up the park, icing the skyscrapers. To a new New Yorker, it was breathtaking. But as pretty as the snow might be, it was a shock. After a mild Christmas full of strappy dresses and parties, January was terrifying. And they said it was cold up north.
I sat at my desk tapping away, in jeans, a hoodie, fingerless gloves and Ugg boots.
Inside.
With the heating on full.
It hardly made it easy to write an article about feeling frisky in spring time. Luckily, the DHL man was in cahoots with my procrastination and rang the doorbell as I apple-A, apple-Z’d the whole thing.
‘Wouldn’t fit in the box,’ he said, handing over a wide flat package in a yellow plastic bag, ‘but it says urgent on it.’
‘Thank you,’ I smiled, snatching up the package and ripping it open. There it was, the first ever UK edition of The Look. I gazed at the front cover for a moment. With shaky (and not just from the cold) hands, I turned to the staff page.
There I was.
My name, my picture and my title.
Angela Clark, editor-at-large, New York
‘Is it here?’ Jenny wailed from the bathroom. She came running out, toothbrush in her hand, wearing only a towel. ‘Is that the magazine?’
‘It is,’ I held it back at a safe distance, ‘and you’re not touching it until you’re dry.’
‘What, you’ve got like twenty copies,’ she gestured to the other three magazines in the plastic bag. ‘Shit, look at you! You’re so my hero, doll.’
‘Come on,’ I said, taking the spare copies and stashing them on a shelf next to the US edition of The Look in which my columns had already featured. ‘You’re going to be late for work.’
‘And you’re never going to get that spring fling piece to that psycho Brit bitch if you don’t do it today,’ she reminded me needlessly. ‘Did your mom see it yet?’
‘They’re still on the Christmas cruise.’ I closed up my laptop and slipped it into my (slightly battered but still amazing) Marc Jacobs bag. ‘They won’t be back for a couple of weeks.’
‘She’s gonna freak when she sees you in a magazine!’ Jenny danced around the living room in her towel. ‘Last time we talked, she was so excited for you.’
‘I can’t even begin to tell you how uncomfortable I am with the fact that you two have weekly chats,’ I smiled, taking off my hoodie, layering up several T-shirts and finishing up with my coat. ‘How is the life coaching going?’
‘She’s my best client since you. Seriously, if you would talk to your parents without my having to start the call every week, I wouldn’t have to know about Avon’s special offers and Anne-next-door’s curry night, would I?’
‘We talk.’ I sighed, throwing underwear at Jenny. Our weekly Sunday evening phone calls home had become a ritual for Jenny and I, whether I liked it or not. ‘I just don’t think I need to talk to my mother every time you speak to yours. It’s not a requirement of my visa. Now get your knickers on, Lopez. We’re leaving.’
We walked arm-in-arm, trying not to slip in the snow, all the way down to The Union, where I hugged Jenny goodbye and left her at the door. Union Square Park looked picture perfect in the snow, but it was too cold to go and sit right now. Every time I went outside at the moment I remembered Alex’s promise to take me back up the Empire State Building to see the city in the snow.
No, bad Angela, I wasn’t supposed to be thinking about him. I turned left and tiptoed down to the music shop on the corner, hoping some new CDs might inspire me to go home and get it on with my laptop. God knows I hadn’t got it on with anyone else in months. As I passed through the security gates, I beeped loudly, attracting the attention of the guard, but I smiled, holding up my mobile phone.
‘Just a text message,’ I said. He smiled back, but he also followed me into the store.
Just got my copy of The Look. I’m so proud of you! Louisa
x x x
I re-read the message a few times until I had burned it onto my retinas, then I stashed my phone back in my pocket overly dramatically for the security guard’s benefit.
I browsed contentedly for a few moments. I’d been sort of out of the music loop since the summer, all part of my Alex Reid cold turkey programme prescribed by Dr Jenny Lopez. I hadn’t called Alex and he hadn’t called me. As much as I knew he was right, that it was all too much too soon, I really didn’t think I could face bumping into him at a gig, with some skinny hipster girl on his arm and I knew that I wouldn’t be able to do the ‘let’s just be friends’ nonsense. What I hadn’t reckoned on was bumping into him right there and then. I froze, my heart lodged in my throat. There he was, staring back at me, slight smile on his face, hair perfectly dishevelled, his green, green eyes staring right into mine. It was a great photo. I picked up the magazine and flicked to the interview without thinking. Quickly, I paid at the counter and abandoned my CD mission, heading for Starbucks. Before I could cross the road, thinking I would go and say hello to Johnny, I realized I was opposite Max Brenner’s. I looked down at the picture of Alex on the magazine and across to the hot chocolate Mecca.
Running across the road and dashing into the wonderfully warm restaurant, I flipped through the pages. For half a second, I looked around, wondering if he would be there. Of course he wasn’t, why would he be? It was eleven-thirty on a Monday morning in January. He would still be in bed or in the studio or … I shook my head and smiled at the hostess, yes, table for one. Thinking about Alex wasn’t getting me anywhere. Not thinking about him had been getting me along quite nicely, and it had taken a good month of cold turkey (Jenny had confiscated my iPod and CDs and deleted my Stills albums from my iTunes) before I could even get through a day without wondering what he might be up to. Once my hot chocolate arrived, I grasped my mug gratefully and sipped the thick chocolaty soup, opening up the interview. I skipped through their art school beginnings, the first two albums achieving critical acclaim. Like every other underappreciated New York band, they had a huge UK following. Slight exaggeration, I thought, but I’ll let it go. But now they were releasing their third album. I put down my drink and read on. It was a more deconstructed sound, the sound of a band that had stripped themselves apart and put themselves back together again.
‘“If it sounds that way, it’s because that’s what it’s about,” says lead singer, Alex Reid.’ I whispered out loud to myself. ‘“The album was written really quickly and recorded in a couple of weeks. It’s just what we were going through as a band, some stuff I was going through personally. It’s about what happens when you have your whole life pulled out from underneath you and how you go about working out your place in the world again. I think pretty much everyone can relate to that.”’
I pushed the magazine across the table, closing it and turning it over. He hadn’t called me and I hadn’t called him. I’d thought about it, a million times. I even thought I’d seen him at a welcome back party we threw for Gina at some hip club on the Lower East Side before she upped and left for Paris permanently. I tucked the magazine into my bag, knowing I should just throw it away. But I was so proud of him. His face peered out of my bag, next to my copy of The Look UK. He would be so proud of me.
I took a deep breath and rustled my phone out of my pocket. Before I had a chance to talk myself out of five months of aversion therapy, I dialled.
‘Hello?’ he answered on the first ring.
‘Hey,’ I said softly, thrown by his voice. ‘Alex?’
‘Angela?’ he asked. He sounded sleepy.
‘Yep,’ I smiled. When was I going to learn to think about what I was going to say on the phone before I called people? ‘I was just thinking about what you said? About seeing the city when it snowed. And I saw the interview. About the new album.’
‘Interview? Snow?’ he yawned. ‘Angela, are you in New York?’
‘Yes,’ I said, hopefully. ‘Actually, I’m in Max Brenner’s. I was thinking about – about, well, you.’
‘You were?’ he asked. I hoped I could hear a smile in his voice.
‘I wondered if you fancied a hot chocolate?’ I asked, crossing as many of my fingers as gripping my phone would allow.
‘Uhh,’ he paused for half a moment. ‘Angela?’
‘Yes?’ I said. Please don’t hang up, I prayed silently.
‘You took a really long time to call me,’ he said. ‘But I’m really glad you did.’
‘Me too,’ I said happily. ‘Now get your arse out of bed and come meet me.’
I hung up and put my phone in my bag, taking out The Look. I opened it on my page and looked at the intro.
The Adventures of Angela. Twenty-something ex-Londoner, Angela Clark, guides us through life and love, finding friends and finding her way in the Big Apple.
It wasn’t a very complete description, I thought, but at least it was somewhere to start.
I HEART HOLLYWOOD
CHAPTER ONE
The wedding was perfect.
Just ten people at City Hall, no hymns, no readings, no fuss; and then over to Alta in the West Village for the reception. Tiny candles flickered in the faces of my favourite people: Jenny, Vanessa, Erin. And Alex. God, he looked pretty in a suit. I made a mental note to get that boy a three-piece more often. Like maybe at our wedding … no, bad Angela, too soon to even think it. Dum-dum-dee-dum …
‘So you don’t think I’m making a ridiculous mistake?’ Erin whispered over my shoulder, bringing me back with a bump. ‘I mean, it can’t be six months since I was telling you I would never get married again.’
I shook my head. ‘Not at all.’ I glanced over at the new Mr Erin, or Thomas as he was known to his friends. Or ‘that mad hot piece of ass’ as he was known to Jenny. ‘You wouldn’t be doing this if it wasn’t absolutely the right thing to do.’
‘Uh, which it totally is. Hello?’ Jenny Lopez swung in and planted a great big kiss on the bride, smudging Mac Ruby Woo lipstick all over her face. ‘He’s a super-hot, super-rich lawyer and super in love with you. I’m pretty sure they are the main three factors to take into consideration before you hitch your wagon. Plus, wow, classiest wagon ever. Even better than your last wedding. And way better than the one before that.’
‘My God, you are so rude,’ Erin playfully slapped Jenny’s mass of chocolate brown curls. ‘But you’re right. I couldn’t not marry him. He’s so sweet.’
‘Yeah, sweet. I’m totally only getting married when the guy can rent out my favourite restaurant for an entire Saturday evening.’ Jenny sighed and sank a full flute of champagne. ‘Doesn’t Thomas have any single friends? And I do mean, single, rich lawyer friends?’
I couldn’t stop smiling. The last wedding I’d been to hadn’t been such a roaring success. I had started the day as a blushing bridesmaid with a devoted fiancé and ended up a high-heel-wielding hand-breaker, whose devoted fiancé was at it with some tart in the back of their Range Rover.
After leaving everyone in the wedding party in tears and/or hospital, I had hotfooted it over to New York only to be taken in by Jenny: an entire family, best friend and therapist all in one. It hadn’t been a walk in Central Park but I’d found my way eventually. A job blogging for The Look magazine, great friends, an actual life, all the things that had been missing for so long. As a hand slid around my waist and pulled me close, I was reminded of the other thing I’d found in New York: Alex Reid.
‘So this is the nicest wedding I think I’ve ever been to,’ he gently pressed his lips against my skin. ‘And I have the hottest date here.’
‘Firstly, there are only eight girls in the entire wedding and secondly, it’s still not even true,’ I said, turning to brush Alex’s long black fringe out of his eyes. ‘Erin looks stunning, Jenny is ridiculously pretty in that dress and Vanessa—’
‘Will you please just take the compliment?’ Alex shook his head. ‘And I don’t care what you say, there’s not a girl in the whole city that could compare with you right now.’
I wrinkled my nose and accepted a kiss, silently thanking my lucky stars. We’d met just after I had arrived in New York and got far too serious, far too quickly. He had put the brakes on and I had spent six months cooling my heels, pretending I wasn’t ready to start dating but really wondering when it would be OK to call him. Eventually, I’d picked up the phone, cashed in all my karma chips and, thank God, Buddha and Marc Jacobs, he’d answered. Now I was just trying to have fun and ignore the constant burning feeling in my stomach, that this was it, that Alex was the one. There was no way I wanted a repeat performance of last time. I’d spent ten years with my ex and not once, not for a moment, had I felt so scared to lose him as I did when I lay wide awake at night, watching Alex sleep.
For the last two months, he had been the most attentive, thoughtful, heartbreakingly wonderful boyfriend I could ever have imagined. He bought me little gifts, like the beautiful sunflower, my favourite flower, he’d brought to pin to my olive green Cynthia Rowley shift for the wedding. He surprised me with indoor picnics when I was on deadline, ran out to pick up breakfast before I woke up and even trekked all the way over from Brooklyn to Manhattan with the handbag and keys I’d left at his apartment as well as a huge hangover-friendly pizza when Jenny and I had both managed to lock ourselves out of our place at three a.m. We never did find out where Jenny had left the keys … But, most impressively, when I’d drunk far too much at a wine tasting I was supposed to review for The Look, he’d held my hair back while I threw up. Outside a very fancy restaurant. While everyone was watching. On his shoes.
And it wasn’t just that Alex was competing for the title of World’s Best Boyfriend, there was also the little fact that he was also a total rock god to take into consideration. His band had released their third album while we were on our ‘break’ and, despite a little commercial and a lot of critical success, he was still being a complete angel. While Jenny was loudly insisting that he should be out snorting coke out of groupies’ belly buttons, Alex was lying watching America’s Next Top Model, eating Chinese takeout on our sofa.
I peered up and down the table as we sat down for dinner and couldn’t remember a time I’d felt so happy or so at peace with myself. So what if these weren’t the people I’d grown up with, or the people that had taught me to ride a bike? They were the people that had taught me to ride the subway and to stand on my own two feet. Or at least how to get back on them after I fell on my arse, drunk.
‘Hey, how much does she make you want to puke?’ Jenny nudged me. ‘How come she’s been married, like, seven times and I can’t even get laid.’
‘I was just having a lovely quiet moment, thinking how lucky I am to have found such amazing friends,’ I tapped Jenny’s hand. ‘And then you go and ruin it.’
‘Aww, you love me,’ Jenny leaned her head on my shoulder and chucked me under the chin. ‘And you know I love you too. But seriously, I’m going to cry. If you and Brooklyn over there think you’re getting married before me you’re so wrong.’
‘Jenny!’ I looked over at Alex but he was giving one of Thomas’s investment banker friends his very best listening face. ‘Shut it. We’ve been together for about two minutes. You’ll jinx it.’
‘Not possible honey.’ Jenny swept her hand over the candle in front of her. ‘How many nights have you spent apart since you got back together? Three? Four tops. He is totally into you. And I know you’ve got the wedding march on replay in your head. I will bet you anything that you have a ring on your finger inside the year. You want me to direct him to some of the more tasteful options? I know he’s all, like, ‘creative’ but you have to get something you can wear for the rest of your life.’
I combed down my long light brown fringe nervously. ‘Seriously, stop it. We’re taking things slowly and you know it.’
Jenny smiled. ‘I know but it’s totally obvious. And you know that I’m really pleased for you, it’s awesome. But Angie, we have to get me laid. It’s been like six months, for crying out loud. Oh, thank God, food.’
‘Yes, because I really feel like eating right now,’ I muttered.
Dinner passed by altogether too quickly, the food amazing but not soaking up the champagne as quickly as I would have liked. A sausage roll and chicken drumstick would really have helped, but this was a classy New York function, not a Clark family knees-up. As dinner turned into speeches and speeches turned into drinks, I excused myself from a fascinating research analyst who almost passed out when I told him I didn’t have a pension, and went to look for people I actually wanted to talk to. Erin and Vanessa were busy fulfilling bride and bridesmaid duties at the door, Jenny was giving several of Thomas’s friends her best nodding and smiling while Alex was presumably hiding from the same people in the bathroom. He could dress up in a suit and comb down his messy black hair but he couldn’t hide the look in his eyes when Thomas and his friends started discussing stocks and shares. Without anyone to protect me from the same death by conversation, I vanished up to the balcony to hide.
‘You planning on spying on people too?’ Alex asked as I rounded the top of the stairs. He was leaning over the banister, nursing a champagne flute, his tie and collar loosened.
‘So this is where you’ve been hiding,’ I took a sip from his glass. Well, one more couldn’t hurt. ‘I thought maybe you’d left with your new boyfriend from dinner.’
‘Yeah, I think we’ve hit it off. You know I’ve always been fascinated by high-yield bonds.’
‘I knew the band was a front. So who are we spying on?’
He pointed down towards the makeshift bar at the back of the restaurant. ‘Well, it was you but then you vanished, so mostly Jenny. Just trying to work out who her target is this evening.’
I spotted her immediately, leaning against the bar, all glossy curls and red pout. She sipped on a clear cocktail and checked her nails, ignoring the guy standing next to her, who was awkwardly trying to attract her attention with a weak cough and terrified smile.
‘Looks like she’s over Jeff at last,’ Alex nodded.
‘Looks like,’ I frowned. ‘But I don’t really know. One minute she’s all “I want to get laid, I want to get laid”, but then she’s sat at home every night watching Nanny 911. See? It’s like he isn’t even there.’
‘Maybe she’s just choosy?’ Alex suggested as the hapless banker gave up and moved on to Vanessa. ‘Or maybe she just really likes Nanny 911?’
‘Well, yes she does and she ought to be choosy, she’s gorgeous, but it’s more than that,’ I said. ‘I don’t know. She goes out, she meets men, they give her their numbers and she never calls. And then at the same time she’s rattling on all the time about how she’s not getting any. I just don’t know what to do for the best. I know she’s hung up on Jeff still but it’s the one thing she absolutely will not talk about. Sober.’
‘Does she still think they’ll get back together?’ Alex leaned his head against mine.
I shrugged and pouted. The official line was that she was totally over her ex, but the unofficial, drunk-at-two-a.m. line was, ‘I’ll never get over him as long as I live, he’s my soul mate.’ But I had a feeling that wasn’t something she wanted to share with Alex.
‘So I don’t tell her that some blonde moved in with him yesterday?’ he asked. ‘Sorry I didn’t say anything earlier. I totally forgot.’
‘Seriously?’
Alex nodded.
The fact that he had refused to sell his apartment just because it was in the same building as Jenny’s ex was usually reason enough for her to decide she wasn’t talking to him for days at a time, so it seemed to make sense to keep this little bit of information to myself. ‘No, she cannot find out about that. She’d probably take to her bed for a month.’
‘Sounds fun,’ he smiled, one hand sliding up my back, the other holding fast to the balcony. ‘Can we do that now please?’
I looked up into Alex’s ridiculously green eyes, his fringe catching in my eyelashes as he dropped his face to mine for a long kiss. His body was warm against the thin silk of my dress and the balcony pressed into the small of my back. I felt my clutch slip out of my fingers and drop, not sure if it had fallen over the balcony, not sure if I cared.
‘I should probably leave soon,’ I said, my voice catching as Alex ran his hand down the back of my neck, curling the hair at the nape around his long fingers. ‘I have a meeting with Mary at nine.’
‘So my place is closer by subway, yours by cab.’ Alex’s eyes were dark and dilated, his breath quick. ‘And I don’t think people on the subway would be OK with what I have planned.’
‘Cab then,’ I smoothed down my dress and scooped up the bag. Thank God it hadn’t actually gone over the edge and bashed anyone. I’d assaulted enough people at weddings in my time. ‘Have to say, didn’t think you’d be the sort of bloke to get turned on by weddings.’
‘What sort of “bloke” did you think I was?’ Alex smiled. ‘And it’s not so much weddings as you. Now get your ass in a cab.’
