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‘Mirror, mirror on the wall,’ I tutted at myself, scooping the T-shirt up off the floor and slipping it safely back over my head. I had never really been one that considered ‘mirror time’ time well spent, and I had a nagging feeling that LA wasn’t the place or moment to change that if I didn’t want to develop an eating disorder.

I pulled a tub chair, identical to the one that Jenny had hauled twenty blocks home from The Union, over to the floor-to-ceiling window, and collapsed into a warm and slightly tipsy heap. Hollywood Boulevard literally buzzed beneath me, dozens of tourists wandering up and down the star-lined pavement. I reached out to press my bare toes against the glass and stared out. I might only be able to see the tops of their baseball caps but I would have bet anything that they were all smiling. Why wouldn’t they be, they were on holiday in Hollywood. And above them, past the world’s biggest Gap ad on the opposite corner, were the famous Hollywood Hills. I wondered how many celebs were sitting in their own homes looking back out at me at that exact second. Which superstars were practically within touching distance? How many MTV reality shows could I feasibly get in the background of in the next seven years?

New York and London were both full of actors, musicians and writers, but it wasn’t the same. For some reason, the idea of A-list celebrity was strictly Hollywood.

My phone vibrated quietly, snapping me out of a quickly developing bumping-into-Brad-Pitt fantasy. It was Louisa.

‘Hey,’ I said, and utched the chair right up to the glass to get better reception. ‘Are you in New York? Are you OK?’

‘Yes and yes,’ she laughed down the line. ‘We got in a couple of hours ago. Tim just went out to meet some people at the bar.’

‘Some people? Right,’ I smiled. Bless her for not mentioning my scumbag ex’s name. It actually pained me that he dared step foot in my New York. ‘Where are you going now then?’

‘I made Tim book that Balthazar place you were raving about for dinner,’ she crackled down the line. ‘And then I think I’m just going to have an early night. What are you up to? Met Tom Cruise yet?’

‘Yeah, I’m having cocktails with him and Katie,’ I said, happy that we were back on good terms. I hated falling out with anyone, dickhead ex-boyfriends aside. I couldn’t help it, I was a Libra. And a wimp. ‘We haven’t been here very long, I’m actually in a bikini.’

‘No way,’ I could hear her laughing all the way across the country. ‘I haven’t seen you in a bikini since we were about six.’

‘And you won’t see it again. There will be no photographic evidence, believe me.’

‘I’d give anything to be in a bikini,’ Louisa moaned. ‘It’s bloody freezing here.’

‘I did tell you,’ I replied, thankful for the sun still shining through the window. The unseasonal warmth made me feel slightly less shitty for not being in New York with Louisa. I was not going to win World’s Best Friend this year. ‘But you’ll be fine. Just stay in the shops and get lots of cabs. Seriously, cane Tim’s expense account as much as humanly possible.’

‘What expenses? He can’t spend a penny these days. We’re staying in a Hilton, for God’s sake,’ she sighed. ‘I suppose I should be relieved he still has a job. Anyway, I’ve got to have a shower, I’m disgusting.’

‘Never.’ Louisa was never anything other than perfect, eight-hour plane journey or otherwise. ‘But I do need to get some work done. Call me later.’

I ended the call, relieved at the lack of Mark-talk. There’s no way I would have avoided it in person. It was the first law of break-ups – the first time you saw someone, post-dumping, no matter how long ago it was or what had happened in the meantime, they wanted to rehash the whole event all over again. If I didn’t ask about him, I would know they were thinking that I really wanted to but was still too upset about the whole thing. And if they didn’t ask me about the break-up, I would know they were dying to tell me something, some fact or titbit to make me feel ‘a bit better’ and I really didn’t want to know. But I would have to ask, complete girl that I was. And for ‘girl’, read ‘masochist’.

I picked up my phone to dial Alex. It rang a few times before clicking off to his answer phone suggesting you not even bother to leave a message because he was pretty crappy at checking his voicemail but that he hoped you’d call back soon. I hung up and stared at the phone for a moment. So he wasn’t answering, I’d call back later. Just had to keep myself busy for an hour or so. Busy and awake. Glancing over at my laptop, I resigned myself to actually doing some work, crazy idea that it was. It wouldn’t hurt to show Mary how serious I was about this, given how ridiculously ungrateful I’d been when she first told me about the interview. Logging on to my TheLook.com account, my fingers hovered above the keyboard for just a second.

The Adventures of Angela: Hooray for Hollywood

So here I am in LA. Can you believe it? I’m such a jet-setter.

Albeit a jet-setter hiding in her hotel room full of two mojitos and no dinner. Not a good idea, just in case you were wondering. But, happier news, I’m staying in a gorgeous hotel, full of gorgeous people with gorgeous sunshine beaming down on me for the first time in what feels like for ever and I can’t recommend it enough. I’m not recommending putting on a bikini for the first time in what feels like for ever, though – what a cruel and unusual punishment. It does seem to be curbing my appetite though …

Well, I hope you’re having a fun weekend. I just wanted to check in and let you know that I have a super-exciting project while I’m out here in LA. Obviously I would never just hotfoot it to Hollywood to enjoy myself; everything thing I do is a massive sacrifice, as you know, but I’ll tell you more about that tomorrow. For now I’ll just turn up the A/C, roll into my giant hotel bed and get an early night before my big day.

Me? Smug? Never …

I pressed send and then rolled onto the bed. Even hinting at the interview made it feel all the more real. Picking up the remote, I decided to do a little research on 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 arms? Jesus, no one else sitting in that place had eaten in a month.

Everything on the menu looked delicious but my appetite had vanished. In just minutes, I’d be meeting James Jacobs. The James Jacobs. Who needed cinnamon pancakes and sliced bananas when you had six foot four of sex god coming to see you for breakfast? That was if he turned up. I had been three minutes early; he was now seven minutes late. I took out my newly acquired BlackBerry, playing the ‘I’m waiting for someone’ game for everyone to see. Scrolling through the messages, I looked for something from Alex. He hadn’t called me back. And what was it, two in the afternoon in New York? That was so not on. Shouldn’t he be pining for me by now? I tapped out a text message, deleted it, tapped out another, deleted it before settling on the perfect breezy ‘missing you’ message.

‘Hey you, having brunch at Toast, yummy. Miss you A x’

I frowned at the sent message icon. Truly, I was a writer for a reason. Words were my tools. Tools that I wouldn’t need to be using if my celeb didn’t arrive soon. Nibbling on a piece of bread that the increasingly suspicious-looking Door Girl had set down in front of me, I weathered another forty minutes of sympathetic glances, not-so-subtle whispering and three cups of coffee before my phone rang.

‘Hello?’ I answered the unfamiliar mobile number in a heartbeat.

‘Hello, Angela? This is Blake, James Jacobs’s assistant?’

‘Oh hi, I’m at Toast, am I in the wrong—’ I started.

‘Yeah, James isn’t coming? His flight was delayed and he can’t make it?’ Blake continued.

‘I – are you asking me or telling me?’ I was a little confused by the way all of Blake’s sentences ended in a question.

‘He’s totally sorry and we’ll call you later with a new meet-up address? Bye.’ And he hung up.

Door Girl was on me like a hawk. ‘James isn’t coming?’

‘Ah, he can’t make it.’ I waved my hand airily, as though I was stood up by movie stars so often that it barely registered on my radar.

‘So just the check?’ The piece of paper was already in her hand and I could see she was itching to slap it down and fill my table with some Lauren Conrad-alike lettuce nibbler.

‘Just the check,’ I nodded. Bloody movie stars. I should have had the pancakes.

CHAPTER FOUR

‘I can’t believe that asshole didn’t show,’ Jenny said as we tore down West Third Street in the ridiculous red Mustang convertible that I had told her not to rent but now sort of secretly loved. What I most definitely did not love was Jenny’s driving. She had chosen to confess that she hadn’t been behind the wheel of a car since her last LA excursion years ago, and it showed. As if driving in LA wasn’t scary enough.

‘I called Mary and apparently it’s not a big deal,’ I said, clutching my seatbelt tightly. ‘Apparently celebrity schedules are “fluid”. I’ll catch up with him later.’

‘I can’t believe James Jacobs is so unprofessional. I’m kind of heartbroken.’ Jenny whirled around a corner and through a red light. No matter how many times she told me you could legally turn on a red signal, I still closed my eyes. ‘I think you’re in need of retail therapy, honey, and I am the Dr Laura of retail therapy. I’m taking you to the best shopping in LA.’

‘I’m sure he had his reasons, but since you’re offering,’ I said, envisioning a Pretty Woman-style storm of Rodeo Drive, laden with stiff cardboard bags. ‘Let’s do some shopping. Show me some swank, Jenny Lopez.’

‘OK, here we are,’ she whooped, pulling into an underground car park.

‘But we just left the café.’ I was puzzled. We couldn’t have been driving for more than two minutes.

‘So?’

‘Well, where are we?’ I pushed up my sunglasses to take a look around in the dark. Rows and rows and rows of cars. I suppose it was Sunday, it made sense for people to be at their church. ‘Wouldn’t it have been faster to walk?’

‘Jesus Christ, they ought to throw you out of the city.’ Jenny squinted in the low light and swung the car recklessly across two empty spaces. ‘What did I tell you about people never walking in LA?’

‘And this is it? A shopping centre?’ I just could not believe it.

‘The Beverly Center, honey.’ She scrabbled around in the glove compartment. ‘This is the mall in LA.’

We could have been in Milton Keynes. ‘A shopping centre?’

‘Hey, did I rock up to LA with like, two T-shirts and a ski suit?’ she asked me. ‘No. But you did, so you need to do some shopping. So hush up and get your ass into Bloomingdale’s.’

Once I’d got over the disappointment that was ‘the mall’ and had drunk my body weight in Jamba Juice, I started to focus on the task at hand.

‘So tell me everything that happened with Joe,’ I mumbled through the silk BCBG paisley maxi-dress that Jenny was trying to pull over my head in the Bloomingdale’s changing rooms. I already had an olive green Roberto Rodriguez number, a yellow Phillip Lim 5.1 shift, black Kerrigan silk dress and half a dozen T-shirt dresses from Ella Moss, Splendid and James Perse hanging from the wall that Jenny had decreed were ‘keepers’. So far I’d managed to distract her from the swimwear section.

‘Nothing to tell,’ she said, standing back, head cocked to one side, trying to work out what was wrong with the dress. ‘Nothing happened.’

‘The dress is about a foot too long, Jenny,’ I explained, hoping to get that look off her face. She looked so disappointed in me. But that could be because she had already clocked my non-matching underwear, something Jenny and my mother felt very strongly about. ‘And what do you mean “nothing”? He didn’t make any sort of move?’

‘Nothing, nada, zip,’ Jenny pouted. ‘I don’t know, he just wasn’t taking the hint. And the dress isn’t too long, it’s BCBG – you’re too short. Try this. How’s the phone sex going? I bet Brooklyn is really good at the dirty talk, right?’

‘Shut up.’ I blushed inside the column of silk that was being yanked up over my head. ‘I actually haven’t heard from him yet.’

‘Really?’ Jenny didn’t even try to cover up the surprise in her voice as she zipped me into a very tight, very blue French Connection strapless mini-dress. ‘But didn’t you call him last night? You know, when you ditched me.’

‘I didn’t ditch you,’ I squeaked – the dress was tight around the old rack. ‘And no, I couldn’t get through to him. It’s fine, we’ve only been here for –?what – a day? And he’s working all hours on the new record. The record company are pushing them to get it out at the end of the year or something.’

‘Yeah, I guess,’ she replied, slipping on the BCBG dress and looking like a goddess. Bitch. ‘I just wish he wasn’t so keen to talk to you every single time you’re out and I’m in the tub.’

‘Hmm,’ I was officially not thinking about it. So far, my star-studded Hollywood adventure had been nothing but a disappointment, and wondering what Alex was doing two and a half thousand miles away was not going to help me have any more fun.

‘Jenny, if I wanted to go somewhere really glam, where would you take me?’

‘Seriously, would you get over it? I know this is a mall but it has the most stores, it’s where everyone shops,’ she said distractedly, holding out a Nanette Lepore petal pink number and a navy Theory shift. ‘I mean, we’ll totally hit Melrose, maybe The Grove before we go, but The Beverly Center has everything … I saw Britney here once. Before the whole head-shaving thing, when she was allowed out alone. And you can’t afford Rodeo Drive, I know what you make.’

‘No, I mean something really Hollywood?’ I tried not to pull a face at the pink dress. ‘A real, genuine LA experience.’

‘Uh, maybe lunch at The Ivy? Drinks at La Deux?’ she held up the pink for my approval. ‘I guess maybe LAX or Hyde or somewhere if you wanted a club. I’m kinda out of the loop on where’s hot.’

‘Lunch actually sounds really good.’ I held up a deep red Elizabeth & James number, Jenny nodded in agreement and stuck the pink dress back on the end of a random rail. If we had to discuss every shopping decision out loud, we would have no time to cover the other, almost equally important subjects in life. ‘Is The Ivy nice?’

‘Uh, I guess?’ Jenny draped the red silk across herself, slipping her head between the hanger and the dress before heaving a pile of dresses into my arms. ‘You should get these. Joe could probably get us a reservation. I’ll get Daphne to meet us there.’

I clapped happily as Jenny wandered off to get better reception on her mobile, the red silk still swishing around her neck. So what if I’d been stood up by my movie star? What man could compare with Jenny Lopez, shopping and a super-swank restaurant for lunch?

‘Can I set up a changing room for you?’

A helpful shop assistant appeared at my elbow and held her arms out to take the masses of silk and jersey that I was cradling. I paused for a second and thought of my feeble wardrobe back at the hotel. And then of my credit card limit. And then of my feeble wardrobe back at the hotel.

‘Actually, could you just take them to the counter?’ I asked. She nodded gleefully and literally ran across the shop floor. Sneaking a peek in my bag, I checked my mobile. Well, certainly not Alex, still nothing. I sighed and swung my bag around my back. I was going to need dessert.

It turned out that my interpretation of the real Hollywood and Jenny’s interpretation of the real Hollywood were very different. I couldn’t argue with the fact that The Ivy was exclusive and swanky, but unlike genuine A-list haunts in New York, there was no quiet dark entrance, designed to keep the undesirables away through sheer intimidation. Instead, it was slap-bang in the middle of a main road, nestled in between a row of shops and smothered by tourists and star-spotters. McDonald’s on Oxford Street was less conspicuous.

Flashbulbs clicked and buzzed all around us as we pushed our way up the little footpath leading from the street into a pretty little country cottage. I paused on the patio and turned back towards the sidewalk – paparazzi waving, shouting and screaming. Blinking back towards the restaurant, I followed Jenny through the calm, quiet and unwaveringly beautiful diners, none of whom appeared to actually be eating; instead they were concentrating very hard on pretending that they weren’t a living breathing version of the ‘Spotted’ page in Heat magazine. Trying to navigate a safe route through the wrought-iron tables and chairs and dozens of stiff cardboard carrier bags, I saw a hand shoot up at the back of the patio and wave us over.

‘Jesus, why on earth did you want to meet here, J doll?’ The hand belonged to Jenny’s friend Daphne, who introduced herself and greeted us both with extravagant kisses. ‘It’s such a circus.’

‘Angie wanted a real LA experience.’ Jenny peered over the top of her sunglasses at me. ‘And she got it.’

‘This isn’t really what I was expecting,’ I said, switching my attention from the heaving crowds back on the pavement to Daphne. ‘I was thinking, well, I don’t know. Glamorous? Swanky? LA is weird.’

‘Yeah, get used to it,’ she said. ‘I hope you don’t mind, I ordered. I’m fucking starving.’

Given that the majority of The Ivy’s clientele appeared to be the exact same group of blondes I’d seen at Toast that morning, who had just about had time to go home and get changed into little sundresses and rich old men instead of Ugg boots and gym boys, Daphne stood out a mile. Just like everyone else here, she was undeniably beautiful but, unlike anyone else, she was a vision of retro beauty. Her black shiny hair was coiffed into a Betty Paige bob and her porcelain skin made my English-rose-slash-pasty-Brit complexion look as though I’d been in the Bahamas for six weeks. Teamed with the most precise eyeliner and perfect ruby red lips I’d ever had the privilege to behold, Daphne was an arresting sight. Jenny had told me she was an artist and a stylist, but I hadn’t figured that her talent with a paintbrush would run to her eyeliner. Next to her polished perfection, I felt as if I’d turned up in my decorating clothes.

But weirdly, no one was giving Daphne so much as a second glance. Instead, every single person in the restaurant was pretending not to look at a tiny little brunette, skulking in the corner and wearing a ridiculous number of layers for such a sunny day, who was sitting with an incredibly average-looking man in a business suit.

‘Who is that?’ I asked quietly, joining in the pretending-not-to-notice game. ‘I feel like I should know her.’

‘You should,’ Jenny said, sipping one of the gimlets Daphne had ordered for us. ‘It’s Tessa DiArmo, the singer? She stayed at The Union just before Christmas. Pain in my ass.’

‘Everyone’s a pain in your arse,’ I said, giving in to curiosity and turning around for a good look. The girl was genuinely minuscule, with masses of wavy light brown hair and glowing tanned skin. Whatever ‘it’ was that celebs had, Tessa apparently bathed in it every morning. Without batting so much as an eyelash, she had the attention of every single person in the restaurant. ‘I never saw her in The Union. She’s so pretty.’

‘Wouldn’t cut it with us, huh J?’ Daphne said, sipping the fresh cocktail that had been silently replaced. ‘You can’t shake what ain’t there.’

‘Shake?’ I tried to register the looks that were exchanging between the two girls, Jenny seeming slightly startled and Daphne smiling innocently into her drink.

‘Jenny told you how we met, right?’ she asked.

‘No,’ I turned to look at Jenny. ‘She actually didn’t.’

‘Daphne,’ Jenny let out a warning shot. I had a sneaking suspicion that Daphne wasn’t going to be hushed by a stern tone of voice.

‘Chill, J, it’s so not a big deal.’ She pressed her lips together, refreshing her pout. ‘We used to work together. When J lived here last time?’

‘When she was acting?’ I asked.

‘When she was dancing.’

I bit my lip and looked back at Jenny. Impossible. She was blushing.

‘Dancing? You danced?’ I really, really wanted Jenny to nod, smile and possibly demonstrate some tap moves.

‘Oh baby doll, I do not believe Miss J never told you about our act?’ Daphne pouted.

‘You had an act?’ This was too much.

‘Sure,’ Daphne said, as a waiter appeared with three giant salads. ‘A burlesque act.’

Jenny’s blush faded until her clear caramel skin paled to a sallow sea green. Even behind her giant sunglasses, I could see her eyes were as big as the huge salad plates in front of us. Simultaneously, we both reached for our gimlets and drained the glasses.

‘Well,’ I finally managed, ‘Jenny Lopez, you dark horse. I should have known.’

‘Excuse me?’ Jenny reached across the table and finished Daphne’s cocktail. ‘What is that supposed to mean?’

‘I just meant, you know, you carry yourself like a dancer,’ I protested. Just one cocktail in and I’d already had too much to drink to lie convincingly. Daphne sat cackling across the table and making ‘more drinks’ signs at our waiter.

‘And you’ve got good rhythm?’ There was no way to dig my way out of this. ‘No, I’m sorry, you’re going to have to fess up about this one. Burlesque dancing, Jenny Lopez?’

‘I’m going to the bathroom.’ She pushed her chair backwards, straight into the person behind her. ‘And when I get back, I really don’t want to talk about it.’

‘Of course,’ I called as Jenny stormed across the patio, her massive tote bag bashing diners in the back of the head as she went. Waiting until she vanished inside the restaurant, I turned back to Daphne. ‘I reckon we’ve got about three minutes: go.’

‘OK.’ She cleared her throat dramatically. ‘Jenny and I met about seven years ago. She was out here waitressing, trying out at all these open auditions and shit, basically not getting anywhere. I was working in this vintage store on Melrose and, well, kind of stripping. But classy stripping, you know, not like “drunken bachelor parties” stripping.’

‘Oh, of course,’ I nodded, trying to think of an example of classy stripping. And failing.

‘So we were both at this club one night,’ Daphne went on, ‘and we got to talking, got to dancing, got to some serious fucking drinking, and so I tell her that there’s an open call for dancers on a new music show the next day. I kind of didn’t think she would show, but I turn up and there she is. The full Flashdance, seriously: legwarmers, one-shoulder sweater, the whole outfit.