Babyville (8 page)

“Never mind the men. I think I could fall in love with New York. This place is amazing.”

The work was hard. They weren't filming, not yet, just doing the recce and ensuring they had found the right subjects. Most of their days were spent on the phone, or shadowing private investigators to have a real taste of what the job involved.

The first Saturday they walked to Central Park, hired skates, and stumbled their way around Wolman Rink. A carriage ride round the park was a necessity, as was a hot chocolate in the lobby of the Plaza Hotel.

Over the course of the following week they managed the Empire State Building, the Guggenheim, the Museum of Modern Art, and the Statue of Liberty.

Evenings they went downtown. Wandered around SoHo, sitting on benches in Greene Street and Prince Street, people-watching before going into bars and reveling in the warmth, the friendliness of it all.

Or down to the Village, to bohemian coffeehouses where they'd sip cappuccinos late into the night, start talking to neighboring tables, ending up in bars, clubs, with people they'd never met before but who felt like lifelong friends.

They went to the cinema as often as they could, just so they could go back home and nonchalantly claim to have seen everything already. “Oh,
The Silence of the Lambs
? Haven't you seen it? God, I saw it months ago. You mean it isn't even out for another four months? It's worth the wait. Terrifying.”

They managed to fit in
City Slickers, Fried Green Tomatoes, Thelma and Louise, Madonna: Truth or Dare
and, obviously,
The Silence of the Lambs.

Of course the pair of them had flings. Not sex, not Julia at any rate, the recent HIV and AIDS adverts still positively ringing in her ears, under the misapprehension that she was safe in England and very much in danger in America, but she had delicious snogs with broad-shouldered hunks with thick necks and thicker wallets.

Julia was overwhelmed by Manhattan, and she'd only seen a tiny slice of it. She'd stayed there for two weeks as a tourist, had done all the touristy things, and had had the time of her life. And now she was going back to stay with Bella! In an apartment! On the Upper East Side! Here was her chance to sample New York as a native, and you know what? She couldn't wait.

Why
the hell didn't I come back before now? she thought, a wide smile on her face as they pulled into the short-stay car park at Heathrow. Why the hell have I waited so long?

8

Julia opens her eyes
and fumbles for her watch. It's eerily quiet in Bella's living room, and she's not surprised to see it's 3:02
A.M.
Eight o'clock in England. Exactly the time she would normally be getting up.

Four hours' sleep is definitely not enough for her, and she snuggles back down under the covers to try to go back to sleep. Forty minutes later, forty minutes of her mind whirling with the excitement of where she is, she throws back the covers and pads into the tiny kitchen.

Bella wasn't joking when she said she lived in a shoebox. Her apartment is basically two tiny rooms, with an open-plan kitchen at one end of the living room and an L-shaped bedroom, the missing chunk having become a tiny bathroom.

“But look at the view,” Bella had said, leading Julia to the window last night. “Isn't it extraordinary?” Julia agreed, looking down over Manhattan from the thirty-fifth floor, not fully understanding the currency of having a view in Manhattan. “I know people who've taken leases on apartments half the size of this one for twice the price,” Bella said. “They just had a great view.”

Julia opens Bella's cupboard doors, looking for something to eat, some coffee to make, and is astonished by the sparseness of the shelves. There is, quite simply, nothing there. And Julia is used to Mark keeping the kitchen fully stocked, prepared for any eventuality.

Moroccan chicken with pine nuts and cracked cardamom pods? You'll find the pine kernels in the second cupboard on the right, the cardamom pods with the rest of the spices in the larder. The pestle and mortar is on the counter next to the toaster.

Homemade sushi? Nishiki rice in the larder (underneath the saffron, cumin, and coriander seeds), nori in the third cupboard on the right, crabsticks in the freezer, and wasabi in the door of the fridge. Bamboo mat lurking somewhere in the bottom drawer, and always, always, avocados in the vegetable drawer.

Not only does Bella not appear to know what a pestle and mortar is, she doesn't appear to have even the basics. No tinned tomatoes just in case. No five-year-old jar of mixed herbs. No cereal. Eventually Julia finds a stray tin of tuna that expired four months ago, and behind the tuna—thank God—a tin of coffee.

But no kettle.

By this time Julia is becoming desperate, and finds a saucepan that she fills with water and puts on the stove. She finds a cup, no saucer, lurking under the sink, and almost starts to cry when she realizes the coffee isn't instant.

Starting all over again and looking in every cupboard again, she sees that this is a no-win situation, and perhaps she will manage to fish most of the coffee grains out of the cup before she drinks it. She has, after all, found a teaspoon.

The coffee is revolting. Gray (the milk in the fridge was definitely suspect, but by that time Julia didn't really care), with black coffee grounds floating up to the surface, in any other circumstances it would be undrinkable. She drinks it through a grimace and walks over to the huge picture window, smiling as she pinpoints the Chrysler Building, the Empire State.

God. The memories.

She considers making the bed and curling up on the sofa to watch television, but instead climbs back under the covers with her revolting cup of coffee, and switches the volume down low to channel surf.

“What are you doing?” Bella stumbles blearily into the living room, a short lilac kimono wrapped around her, and Julia smiles at how immaculate she looks, even at four in the morning.

“Can't sleep. Too excited. Did I wake you? I'm so sorry, did I make too much noise?”

“Nah. Don't worry, it's not your fault. I think they made these walls out of paper.” She yawns and stretches, then stops still. “Julia, what the fuck are you drinking?”

“Coffee.”

Bella steps cautiously toward the coffee cup, leans her head down and sniffs. “That's not coffee. That's dog pee.”

“I know.” Julia looks miserably at her now lukewarm cup. “It tastes as disgusting as it looks.”

“Darling, it can't possibly taste as disgusting as it looks or there's no way in hell you'd be drinking it. Why didn't you use the percolator, for God's sake? I've even got filters.”

“I haven't even heard the word ‘percolator' since nineteen seventy-six,” laughs Julia, feeling rather stupid as Bella points out a large percolator complete with glass coffee jug sitting slap bang in the middle of her kitchen worktop.

“What did you think that was, then?” Bella shakes her head as she reaches for the filters and starts filling a jug with water. “Chopped liver?”

Julia laughs. “Sorry. But more to the point, what the hell do you eat when you're home? Your kitchen cupboards are disgraceful. Mark would have a heart attack.”

“Despite liking Mark very much, he can basically go screw himself.” Bella turns on the machine and leans against the counter. “And as for food, nobody in this city eats at home.”

“What, never?”

“Never. Look.” She reaches down and opens the oven door to reveal what looks suspiciously like a stack of sweaters. “The perfect place for cashmere,” she laughs, as Julia shakes her head in amazement.

“So the only thing you ever have at home is coffee?”

Bella shakes her head. “Basically, and usually I don't even have that. I grab a skinny latte from the Starbucks on Second on my way to work every morning. I haven't used this bloody thing for years.”

“Great.” Julia picks up the tin. “Then I suppose it should be no surprise that this expired last February?”

“What do you care?” Bella swishes Julia's cup under the tap to prepare it for the new coffee. “You were willing to drink it, grains, sour milk, and all. This, my darling”—she hands Julia a full cup of steaming coffee—“is going to feel like you've died and gone to coffee heaven. Right. I'm off to bed.”

“Don't go to bed,” Julia pleads, but Bella shakes her head as she disappears into her bedroom.

“Early to bed, early to rise, gives a girl energy and skinny thighs. See you in the morning.” She blows Julia a kiss and she's gone.

 “What
the hell?” Julia squeezes open her eyes to see Bella bouncing round the living room in purple bootleg exercise pants and a black crop-top, noisily opening all the blinds.

“Rise and shine, rise and shine. Remember what I said about skinny thighs? You and I, my darling, are off to the gym.”

“You must be joking,” Julia groans, turning her face into the pillow to block out the shafts of sunlight now streaming through the room. “Jesus. What time is it?”

“Six-thirty. Just the right time for an hour's workout.”

“Six-thirty? I only went back to sleep half an hour ago.”

“Why? What have you been doing?”

“Watching TV.”

“Find anything interesting?”

“Yeah. The E! channel. I watched a fascinating program about a child star I've never heard of, and his descent into drink and drugs.”

“Gary Carlucci?”

“How did you know?”

“He's done every talk show in town.”

“Including yours?”

“Naturally.”

“Anyway. I'm exhausted and the only place I'm going right now is back to bed.” Julia pulls the pillow over her head and rolls over to face the window. “Have a good time. See you later.”

“Nope. Absolutely not.” Bella rips the bedclothes off Julia and physically pushes her until Julia has no choice but to climb out of bed. “When in New York act like a New Yorker. And anyway, you need to do some exercise.”

“Oh, thanks a lot.”

“Not because you're getting fat, but because you need to release some of those endorphins to make you feel better. I swear on my life that if you honestly feel terrible after you go, I won't make you go again.”

“You swear it's just this once?”

“Only if you feel terrible.” Bella looks at her watch. “Shit! We have ten minutes. I've left gym clothes and my spare sneakers in the bedroom for you. I'll be in the bathroom.”

Ten minutes later Bella emerges with a full face of artfully applied makeup. She looks stunning. Head up, she looks as if she's off to a premiere; head down, she's either stuck in a fashion time-warp of 1982 or she's off to the gym.

“Bella! I can't believe you've put on makeup for the gym.”

“Darling, you ought to do the same. I'm telling you, it's a real scene.”

“No way.” Julia scrapes her hair back into her old black scrunchie. “I'd feel ridiculous. Are you ready?”

The pair of them walk out the door and wait thirty seconds for the lift, which then takes eleven minutes and twenty-four seconds to make it back down to ground, as it stops to collect more gym-bound bodies on almost every floor.

“How do you stand it?” Julia says through gritted teeth, ready to kill the next time the lift stops.

Bella shrugs. “This is New York. The price you pay for the thirty-fifth floor.”

“Show-off,” growls a tiny and skinny old woman with a helmet hairdo and a miniature dachshund tucked under her arm. And then she smiles, as does Julia.

“Could be worse,” Bella says to the woman. “We could have said the penthouse.”

 “Coffee?”
Julia says hopefully, bundling her coat around her as they head down Third to the gym.

“Coffee before a workout? Are you mad?” Bella ushers her along, and finally they come to the gym.

And Bella is astonished.

Amazed.

It's barely seven o'clock in the morning and this joint is positively humming. Everywhere she looks there are people lining up for the machines, all chatting to one another noisily, pumping, and puffing, and toning up their already perfect bodies.

Not that Julia's ever seriously gone to a gym in London, but she's certainly joined a few over the years. Never before has she experienced a buzz in the sleepy gyms at home. In London people have whispered to one another, not daring to speak to their fellow exercisers, and certainly not striking up raucous conversations while waiting in line.

Here Sisqo is blaring out of the speakers, and Julia suddenly feels an energy she hasn't felt in months. Years. She positively bounces behind Bella and queues for the StairMaster, itching to get on and get moving.

“Hey, Bella, how are ya?” Tall, dark, and definitely dangerous walks up and plants a kiss on Bella's cheek.

“Great, Joe. You?”

“Can't complain.”

“This is my friend Julia from London.”

Joe takes Julia's hand and flashes her a perfect smile. “Good to meet you. Have a good workout, ladies,” and he's gone.

“Phwoargh,” Julia sighs. “He was delicious.”

“Been there, done that,” Bella groans. “And trust me, he's not.”

“Really? What's wrong with him?”

“On paper he's divine. Handsome, charming, fantabulous job on Wall Street, but darling, he has the personality of a wall.”

“Of a what?”

“He's just completely blank. Still. Plenty more fish in the sea, all you have to do is throw out some bait.” At which point she sticks her hip out and pouts at a sweaty man walking past.

“Great thighs,” he says, and Bella turns back to Julia with a smile. “See?”

One
workout and two skinny lattes later, Bella and Julia stride up Fifth on their way to Bella's work.

“You know, I really had forgotten how much New York energizes you.” Julia takes deep breaths as they power-walk alongside Central Park. “I feel alive again. God, I'd forgotten what it was like to feel this alive.”

“Great, isn't it?” Bella laughs. “That's why I'd never go home.”

“You're really out here for good?”

“Look at my life. I love it. I love the independence and the buzz that New York gives me. I love that I'm never lonely here, that I can get pretty much whatever I want twenty-four hours a day. I couldn't go back to London. Not now.”

Julia sighs. “Last week I would have said you were crazy, that London has so much to offer, but somehow I don't think it will be long before I come around to your way of thinking.”

Bella stops and raises an eyebrow. “One day and you've already decided to stay?”

“I didn't say that. Just that I understand why you're staying.”

“You know what you really need? You need to start dating.”

Shock crosses Julia's face. “Bella, Mark and . . . I. We're not over, you know. This is just a break. And I couldn't . . . I wouldn't be able to . . . it's just not right. Not fair to him.”

“I didn't say have an affair. I mean just let men take you out for dinner and treat you nicely. When was the last time you were treated like a princess?”

“Years.”

“Exactly. I'm not saying you have to do anything with them, I'm just saying go out and have a good time.”

“Maybe you're right.”

“I'm always right,” Bella laughs. “And speaking of Mark, are you planning on speaking to him or just playing phone tag with your answer phone when you know he'll be out?”

“I left that message, but right now I think we need serious space from one another, and that means not talking for now. I want to leave my life behind while I'm here, not think about any of that depressing stuff.”

“Okay. Point taken.” Bella sweeps a perfectly manicured finger across her mouth. “Zip the lip. No more talk of home. So what are your plans for today?” They stop outside the TV studios and stamp their feet to keep them warm as they say good-bye.

“I thought I might do a bit of window shopping.”

“Window shopping? You're in New York. You have to spend, spend, spend!”

Julia looks Bella up and down, and shakes her head while laughing. She takes in Bella's Ferragamo shoes, her Prada coat, her J.P. Tod bag. “If I could spend, trust me, I would, but today I'm just going to check out the shops.”

“So how about lunch? The restaurant in Saks, Fiftieth and Fifth, eighth floor, twelve
P.M.
Have a good morning.” They kiss good-bye and Julia sticks her hands deep in the pockets of her coat and walks off, and it doesn't occur to her until five blocks away that she hasn't stopped smiling.

 “I don't
believe it.” Bella starts to laugh as Julia stumbles over to the table laden down with so many shopping bags she can hardly move. “I see you've had a successful morning window shopping.”