The Sex Was Great But... (13 page)

T
he plan was to open preliminary discussions about the show based on my makeover with Jack Harris, the big-shot head of the network, at the charity dinner tonight. The idea was that he would mistake me for a player and then Nancy would do her stuff. I had a bad feeling about the whole thing. I think even Holly was having second thoughts.

Yesterday she interviewed me on camera about my makeover and what I feel I've got out of it. She didn't laugh when I raised one eyebrow suggestively. I did laugh, though, when she asked how I thought I looked. I laughed so hard they stopped filming so I could have a glass of water and they could reapply my makeup. Yes, I had to wear makeup.

Auntie Lucy used to say that my dad Mike hated interviews. He said interviews were like thumbprints on your windpipe, and in the grip of Holly's clinically professional interest I knew exactly what he meant.

Nancy was certain that Jack would go for it
big-time.
Whenever Jack's name came up the girls started talking in italics. Holly and Nancy and their various agents and managers wanted a new time slot, so that
MakeMeOver
wouldn't be competing with Holly's mum's show. They also wanted to air their first season a week earlier than scheduled.

I was key to achieving all this.

Apart from a good vibe on the dance floor, I had never been anyone's key to achieving anything before, and while I did kind of enjoy the feeling needed part, I couldn't quell the fear that I was an experiment that could go wrong at any moment.

I was going to let everyone down. That was the only thing I knew for sure.

The big unveiling—as Nancy and Holly referred to my last night—was to take place at this charity do at the Sky Bar at the Mondrian Hotel tonight—where I was to be officially presented to “the people who matter.”

If I passed muster, it was game on. The show would air, hopefully a triumph. But even though one part of me wanted to do anything I could to help Holly (the part of me that held her in my arms at night and would do anything for her), another part of me wanted to destroy any chance she might have of making the show. Maybe it was the part of me that was being made to wear those tasseled shoes.

All in all I was becoming less and less convinced that this show was a good idea.

I could smell her hair as she pressed the keys to the Porsche into my hand. “Sorry I can't come with you to pick up the tux, Leo, but I've got this meeting with Larry to prepare our pitch with Jack and the network, and after that I'm seeing Wilhelm to get psyched. You know how it is.”

I didn't know, and she knew I didn't know. “It's fine,” I told her.

“Oh, and Leo?” she added. I stopped. Was she about to kiss me? Was this the moment she told me I meant more to her than a roll in the hay? “Thanks for picking up my book.”

“Not a problem.” I climbed into the driver's seat and stuck the key into the ignition.

“Only, please don't take too long picking up the tux. You've got that last session with Nile, remember?”

“I really don't want to see that tosser again,” I told her.

“I know—same. But remember Leo, it's just one more time, and if we pull it off tonight
then
we'll go public!” She made going public sound like it was something we both lived for.

I stuck the gears into reverse and skidded down the driveway. None of this would sound good on a postcard, but I was going to write to my mum anyway. I was going to buy a postcard and do it today. It would give her a laugh. Especially if I got home before the postcard and she accused me of not sending one. “What?” I'd say, all innocence, “Course I sent one, didn't I? I can't help it if the postal service is stuffed?” But she wouldn't believe me, and then when it arrived a few days later, she'd go all guilty and start cooking my favorite foods and doing my washing.

After I picked up the suit on Rodeo I headed to the Bev
erly Hills Mall. As I was parking the Porsche in the multi-story park it dawned on me what this night at the Sky Bar was really going to mean for me. If things
did
go well, and we
did
go public, there would be no more “we.” Tonight was in effect my last night. After tonight I would be superfluous to Holly's needs.

I pressed the central locking and walked toward the lifts.

Have you ever noticed how, when your car is a Porsche, you never say, I parked the car—it's always, I parked the Porsche? Whenever I'd heard people refer to their cars or their clothes by their brand-names in the past I'd always thought, Creep. And now I was one of those creeps. Just like as a kid, when I used to parrot my mum declaring, “All men are bastards.” Now I was one of those bastards.

I was soon at the bookshop on the top floor of the Beverly Center to collect the book Holly had ordered. It was an autobiography of some Hollywood big shot, supposedly giving up his Hollywood secrets before he died.

I scrutinized the cover while standing at the checkout.
You're No One in Hollywood Unless Someone Wants You Dead
the title declared. Holly was always saying stuff like that. The flyleaf had a picture of the author, wearing a you-can't-put-one-over-on-me expression. I stuck a postcard of Sid Vicious on the bill.

“Cash or card?”

I handed over my card—Holly's card, actually. “Card,” I said, as hands wrapped around my eyes.

“Guess who?”

I spun around. “Tifanie?”

“Sign here, please sir.”

“Sign here, please sir?” she mimicked. “Well, look at you, Mr. Fancy Pants,” she teased, eyeing me up from my new hair to my tasseled shoes.

I hugged her so hard that I lifted her off the ground. I've never been called Mr. Fancy Pants before, and it gave me an unreasonable thrill. I can imagine my mum or auntie Lucy calling me something like that if they saw me now—either that or Posh Git.

After I'd handed the guy my Visa slip and wished him a nice day (not really), I asked Tifanie if she wanted to go for a coffee. She said she'd love to, but that she really shouldn't.

“Come on, Tif, just ten minutes,” I begged.

“No can do, my friend. I'm temping at the Larry Flynt offices down the road. You know—the porn guy they did that film on?”

I must have looked blank.

“Courtney Love was in it?” She looked at me like I was from another planet so I nodded, even though I still had no idea what she was talking about. People in Hollywood always use films as their reference point for things.

“One coffee—just to catch up! Please?”

“Besides, I'm already late back from lunch and my boss is a real jerk. Seriously, a total jerk, but I
so
need this job, Leo. I've got this really cool new acting coach, see, and, like, he charges
huge
sums of money! I mean, killer amounts of moolah. Okay, okay, I'll pick up a coffee with you, but it will have to be to go.” She did a little twirl and kissed my nose.

Tifanie was one of the most animated people I knew. It was a good thing she didn't do drugs, really, because she was
already a walking-talking example of what will happen to you if you do too much ecstasy or whiz. Thinking of which, I patted the foil of charlie in my pocket, which Nancy had given me yesterday.

Tifanie continued to ramble on about her “jerk-off boss” and her “new, amazingly cool acting coach” as we wandered out of the store.

“I almost didn't recognize you, man,” she declared, punching me hard but affectionately in the solar plexus as we arrived at Starbucks. “What happened to ‘Mix Master Monroe is in da house!' hey?”

I used to joke around about my DJ-ing dreams with Tifanie when we lived together. She was the only person I could trust not to laugh.

I looked down at my tasseled feet as I ordered her decaf skinny latte and my full-caf/full-fat latte and wondered the same thing. I thought of my decks, back at my mum's house. I thought of mixing it at the L.A. 2, or one of the other clubs in London where I'd occasionally be given a fifteen-minute slot.

“You didn't tell me your old man lived in L.A.,” she announced, and then punched me again, only this time even harder. Tifanie was always punching guys in the solar plexus on account of how she'd always dated jocks—the type of guys who say, “Go on, Tif, hit me as hard as you can!”

Those jocks had given her the impression that punching guys in the solar plexus was a valid way of expressing a whole range of emotions, from affection to irritation.

I hadn't ever told her about my dad, but I figured Kev had; either way, it didn't matter now. I'd be leaving L.A.
soon. “Well I wouldn't give you classified information like that would I?” I told her. “If you knew my dad lived in L.A. you might have made me kip on his sofa, and I wouldn't have had the pleasure of Kev's company.”

“Always with the jokes still, I see.” She gave me a playful punch—on the arm this time. “You know something, Leo? I miss having you around. I mean that, too. We haven't found anyone to take your place,” she lamented as we waited for our coffees. “You're not thinking of coming back, I suppose? Not the same without you.”

“I'm touched.”

Her bottom lip curled down and she stuck her hand up my T-shirt—rubbing my stomach. “Mmm, I thought that felt harder when I punched you earlier. You've been working out those stomach muscles, Mr. Fancy Pants.”

“Maybe a bit.” I could tell she was flirting with me and, being brought up to be polite, I flirted back. She was wearing a low-cut dress with cutouts around the midriff. Yeah, she was looking good. I told her so. Tifanie and I had had that one-nighter once, but I wasn't tempted to repeat it. Sex with Tifanie held less than zero appeal, even before Holly.

“And tanned, too.”

I didn't comment. I didn't really want to talk about my makeover with Tifanie. The whole thing was just too embarrassing.

“Oh, shoot, I just know there's something I'm meant to tell you.” She slapped herself on the forehead.

I ruffled her hair. “Your undying love for me, perhaps?”

She grabbed my wrist and pushed me away in mock disgust. “Men and their egos.”

“Kev's doing okay, though?” I asked, suddenly worried.

“Kev's
exactly
the same.” They called out our order. “He hasn't changed his socks since you left!” She curled up her little nose job. “You should go see him, you know. He really misses you—not that he'd say anything. You Brits are just soooo anal about expressing that sort of thing. But I can tell.”

I admitted that, while the prospect of changing Kev's socks for him was tempting, I had other plans for my day.

“Yeah, course you do Mr. Fancy Pants. You're a big-shot toy-boy now, aren't you? You're probably off to some glamorous party at the Mondrian.” She was joking, of course.

We said our goodbyes, making all the usual false promises people make about keeping in touch. Tif repeated that there was something she was meant to tell me, but couldn't remember. I hadn't got around to memorizing my cell-phone number, so I wrote down Holly's home number on the till receipt from the bookshop.

“I know I'll remember what I'm meant to tell you the moment I get back to work,” she called across the mall, slapping her hand against her forehead again.

I took my coffee to a seat under the glass roof, overlooking a giant palm tree, and tried to make myself decide whether the tree was real or plastic. But then I started to wonder about what it was that Tif was meant to tell me. As you've probably worked out, I'm not the sort of guy that people have to get messages to urgently.

Sipping my coffee, I leafed through the book I'd picked up for Holly. The first chapter was titled
“If You've Never Walked Through the Kitchen to Get Backstage at a Nightclub, You Don't Know Showbusiness.”
I couldn't remember ever seeing a kitchen in a nightclub, even though I've been
backstage plenty of times. Maybe that was my problem—I'd been going to the wrong sort of clubs.

Another chapter was titled
“It Was Fun While It Lasted.”
The last chapter was called
“I've Got to Stop Doing This Before I Go Blind.”
By the time I'd read all the chapter headings it was almost time for my method acting class with Nile. But I couldn't seem to move.

It had been Nancy's idea for me to take some acting classes. She said that it would help me play the part of a successful English actor. I suggested that I could pretend to be a successful London DJ, but the girls weren't having it.

Walking through the Beverly Hills Mall on the way to the car park, I noticed that the people I passed didn't look twice at me. I've never come here with Kev, but I know that if I did, people would look twice—or even three times. If you knew me back in London and you saw me now you wouldn't recognize the same guy; porcelain teeth, logo on my T-shirt, tassels on my shoes. Tifanie's right—I'm Mr. Fancy Pants.

It felt weird to pass people on the street—people who looked like I used to look—and see them looking at me, thinking, There goes an arsehole—thinks he's someone special.

I guess I hadn't been aware of the changes in me before because I hadn't been out on my own since I met Holly.

Everything is arranged for me and free time isn't on my program. I live a designer life. That is to say, I live a life designed for me by others. By Nancy and Holly and their team of doer-uppers.

Inconspicuously rich, that's how I've been told to look. The most uttered words in my life these days: been told.

As in, You've been told about that, Leo. And I have been told how to walk, how to talk, how to act, what to wear and where to go. I've been told. Most of all I've been told to conform. Admittedly, I've mostly been told by Nancy, but then I figure Nancy is just the mouthpiece of the girl I care about most in the world.