Divas (19 page)

‘Sure!’ he said enthusiastically.

‘Oh, and Madison forgot to give me her keys as well, ’ Lola said. ‘If you wouldn’t mind letting me in . . .’

‘Sure, Miss Lola, ’ Mirko said, with just a shade less enthusiasm.

Lola kept up a friendly flow of chat as they went up in the elevator. The weather, Miss Madison’s time in London, and Mirko’s wife Rosalka, kept them busy until they were inside
Madison’s adorable corner apartment. Mirko lugged in her cases and stood waiting for Lola’s tip.

She cleared her throat.

‘Mirko, ’ she started. ‘I need to ask you a little favour . . .’

Mirko’s stolid Slovakian face immediately settled into a mask of impassivity, his eyes darting down to avoid meeting Lola’s.

‘It’s about Miss Madison not giving me the keys, ’ Lola said. ‘It’s, um, a little bit more than that. Miss Madison doesn’t actually know I’m
here.’

Mirko’s fingers flexed as if he were about to pick up Lola’s cases and take them back down to the lobby.

‘I just haven’t been able to get hold of her, ’ Lola lied. ‘She’s travelling and her phone keeps cutting out. But she’s always said if I needed to crash here
for a little while, that’d be fine.’

Mirko didn’t say anything. He just raised his head and looked directly at her, his eyes flat and expressionless.

‘So are we cool?’ Lola babbled. ‘I mean, I wouldn’t want Madison to know I stayed here without, you know, actually asking her first . . . so . . . I mean, you won’t
mention this to Madison?’

Madison was still in London, of course. Lola had rung her a few hours ago, saying that she had to leave 60 Thompson because she needed to draw in her horns a bit financially, and waited for
Madison to offer her place in New York, sure that she would.

But she hadn’t.

Mirko was still not saying a word, but his stare was making her distinctly nervous. She fidgeted until, eventually, she realised what was going on.

‘I’m really short of cash at the moment, Mirko, ’ she said, tilting her head and giving him her best smile. ‘That’s why I need to crash here. You’ve probably
seen stuff in the papers . . .’

Mirko nodded slowly.

‘Yeah, I read some stuff.’ He paused, thinking it over.‘We’ll make a deal, you and me. You got no money?’ he said. ‘Then you gotta give me something
else.’

And he nodded towards her, winking.

Oh my God!
Lola thought.
No! I won’t! I can’t!
. . .
I mean, he’s not the worst-looking man in the world, but still,
no!
And then I’d have to walk
past him every day
. . .
or would he want to do it every day? How do these things work? God,
no!
I can’t! I just
can’t!
I can’t believe I’m even
thinking
about this!

Mirko must have taken her silence as assent. He walked towards her. Lola couldn’t move a muscle, paralysed by shock at what was happening, what her life had suddenly become. She had sunk
so low so suddenly she simply couldn’t believe it. She had made herself so vulnerable that a doorman thought that he could blackmail her into having sex with him – put his
hands
on her—

Because Mirko’s hands were on her shoulders, caressing them. Lola squeezed her eyes shut. Could she actually let this happen? He was pulling at her fur wrap, taking it off –
Oh
God no, she couldn’t bear it, she just couldn’t!

‘Mirko—’ she said, her eyes snapping open, her voice high and panicky. ‘I don’t think – I
can’t
—’

He was stepping back, beaming at her.

‘For my wife, ’ he said, stroking the beautiful pale-yellow fur as gently as if it were still the live animal from which it had come. ‘For Rosalka. It’s her birthday next
month. She always wanted a fur. A good one.’

Lola had been holding her breath. Now, full of relief, she let it all out in one go and then choked trying to inhale again, coughing so hard that Mirko had to pound her on the back.

‘You OK, Miss Lola?’ he asked, looking concerned.

‘Yes, fine, thank you!’ Lola said, overwhelmed with relief that she didn’t have to sleep with him.

‘I still need two hundred bucks, ’ Mirko said, looking apologetic. ‘For the guys on the door. A hundred a pop so they don’t say nothing to Miss Madison when she gets
back. Oh, and fifty to get you a set of keys cut.’

Lola fished in her purse. This was almost going to clean her out of cash completely.

‘Miss Madison, she always calls me when she’s coming back, so I can get Rosalka in to clean and do fresh flowers, ’ Mirko informed Lola. ‘So you’ll get a
day’s notice, OK? But then you clear out and it’s gotta be like you were never here.’

Lola nodded, putting the $250 in Mirko’s hand.

‘Thanks, Mirko, ’ she said gratefully – more gratefully than Mirko would ever realise.

‘You kidding me?’ He looked at the fur wrap again. ‘Rosalka’s gonna cry for days when she sees this! How much did it cost?’

Lola blushed. ‘I don’t know, ’ she admitted.

‘Five grand at least, ’ Mirko said confidently. ‘Wow. This is going to be the best birthday of her life.’ He nodded at Lola. ‘I’ll send Luis out to get you a
set of keys. They’ll be at the desk when you wanna go out.’

As he went out, folding up the fur wrap reverently, Lola walked across the room and stared out of the window. She wasn’t seeing the stunning view, the spectacular buildings, the traffic
far below, the sliver of the Hudson River with the Pacific Palisades on the far bank. She might as well have had her eyes closed. All she could see was a truth about life that her father had always
known, and had done his best to protect her from finding out.

But here it was, staring her in the face, blinding her to anything but how powerful it was.

It all came down to money in the end.

E
vie came out of the subway and stepped back, getting her bearings, figuring out which way traffic on the avenue ran – up or downtown. It was
just a couple of blocks to her destination. She patted her hair down, checking it out in the window of the French restaurant next to the subway exit. A guy laying tables inside saw the movement and
looked up, catching her eye, giving her a big smile once he saw how young and pretty she was.

Jesus,
Evie thought, starting to walk the two blocks uptown to her destination.
Men. They’ll do anything for a little attention.

And then she told herself:
So work it while you’ve got it! You won’t be young forever – what have you got, five good years left? Six?
She sighed.
Benny always said
he’d put you in his will, but that was a load of bullshit. No way he’d have done that, not with a wife like that bitch. He’d never have wanted her to find out.

Uff. Her heart sank to the soles of her grey suede shoes. This train of thought was a big, big mistake. She should never have let herself think of Benny’s wife.

Lola hadn’t considered the ramifications of visiting her father at all. She’d just walked up the stairs to the front door of his town house and rung the bell.
She’d left this long enough; now she was determined to make seeing her father her top priority.

The door was opened by a young, extremely handsome man in a black two-piece uniform. Lola’s eyes widened at the sight of him, so young and sleek and groomed, so designer-looking in her
father’s much more traditional house. And then she peered round his black-clad shoulder, and saw that the house wasn’t traditional any more. The gilded French furniture, the tapestry
hanging, the two huge, priceless chinoiserie vases on pedestals, flanking the red-carpeted staircase, had all vanished.

Instead it looked as if some minimalist, Scandinavian-Japanese interior designer had waved a magic wand and stripped the place bare of anything it didn’t strictly need. A huge Japanese
screen hung where the tapestry had been, two big white panels decorated merely with three huge swooping black brush-strokes. A glass vase on a dark-wood table held a single white lily. The
black-and-white tiled floor was bare and highly polished, the staircase carpet white and new-looking.

It was very beautiful: but it wasn’t her father’s taste. Lola knew exactly whose eye was behind this makeover.

And it would never have been possible if her father wasn’t in a coma.

‘Lola Fitzgerald, ’ she said, rather curtly, to the man in the black outfit, stepping past him and into the hall. ‘I’m here to see my father.’

‘Panio? Who is it?’ called a woman’s voice impatiently.

Footsteps came quickly along the upstairs hallway and began to descend the stairs. Carin’s feet appeared first, naturally, strapped into bronze gladiator-style stilettos whose complicated
buckles reached halfway up her calves. Only someone over five foot ten could wear those shoes and not look ridiculous. On Carin, nearly six foot in stockinged feet, they looked perfectly
proportioned. But the height of the heels was another red flag for Lola.
She’d never have worn those if Daddy were well,
Lola thought. Ben Fitzgerald hadn’t liked Carin towering
over him.

The rest of Carin’s legs, topped by a white miniskirt, eventually came into view; it took some time, as they were so long. Then her torso, sheathed in a black polo-neck top, long and slim.
And finally, her head, the pale blue eyes like two triangular pieces of platinum, the white-blonde hair cut short and slicked back. She looked like a pop singer from the 1980s, fierce and
monochromatic.

She’s done over the entire house to match her style,
Lola realised.
Now it’s nothing but a frame for her. Like Devon did with their London place.
But Devon had made a
pretty bower of golds and blues, soft and welcoming. Carin’s hostile takeover of Lola’s father’s town house was as sharp and angular as her own cheekbones. She had probably
installed a torture room in the basement.

‘What the
hell
are you doing here?’ Carin demanded on sight of Lola. She stormed across the hall, her eyes flashing with rage. ‘Get out! Get out this
moment!
’ She flung one arm out, pointing at the door. ‘Get the
fuck
out of my house!’

‘It’s not your house yet!’ Lola retorted furiously. ‘But you didn’t lose any time redecorating, did you?’

‘Get out!’ Carin yelled. ‘
Rico!
Get up here right now!’

There was no way Lola was going to see her father, that was clear: but now her blood was up. Even after everything that had happened, she couldn’t believe how aggressively Carin was
behaving. Heavy feet came running up the kitchen staircase, and a man emerged, big, dark, intimidating and much too brutish to ever have been permitted in this house before Ben Fitzgerald fell into
a coma.

‘Rico!’ Carin screamed, pointing at Lola. ‘That’s my husband’s daughter, and she’s
banned
from this house, do you understand?
Banned!
’

The man called Rico started towards Lola.

‘Shall I throw her out, Mrs Fitzgerald?’ he asked, and the look in his black beady eyes was so nakedly menacing that Lola narrowed her eyes and hissed back at Carin:

‘You tell your thug that if he lays a
finger
on me he’ll be sorry!’

She met Carin’s eyes full-on. There was such anger in her stare that it was probably the first time Carin had ever taken her stepdaughter seriously. Carin paused for a moment and then
said, ‘Don’t touch her, Rico. Just make sure she leaves.’

‘Awww . . .’ Rico whined, grinning at Lola. He stood, folding his arms across his big chest, staring at her as if he could see through her clothes, not just to her skin but to her
bones. Terrified, but determined not to show it, Lola turned her back on him and grabbed the door handle. And as she was pulling it open, the doorbell rang.

Standing on the doorstep, Lola found herself looking into a mirror. It was as if a twin sister she’d never known about had suddenly appeared in front of her.

Carin burst out laughing.

And staring at the girl, Lola exclaimed, ‘Who on earth are
you?
’

‘M
e?
’ the girl said right back at Lola. ‘Who the hell are
you?
Don’t tell me he had another one!’

Lola’s forehead crinkled as best it could.

‘
Another
one?’ she said. ‘What are you talking about? I’m the only one!’

This was so weird it felt as if she’d been suddenly plunged into a parallel dimension, like those films where you opened a door and found yourself in another world where there was already
a you in existence. This girl was the same height as Lola, more or less. Her blonde hair was delicately streaked – not quite as well as Lola’s, now she looked more closely, but
Lola’s hairdresser was the best in London, so what could you expect? The girl’s eyes were brown, and almond-shaped, like Lola’s, and her features were small and pretty, her nose
exquisitely straight. The blonde hair was swept back in a style Lola sometimes wore when she wanted to look classic, and Lola had the disconcerting feeling that she had actually tried on that
pale-pink Chanel suit last season. She couldn’t remember, actually, why she hadn’t bought it.

The girl was gaping at her.

‘You thought you were the only one too? Jeez, Benny really had us both going!’ She clicked her tongue. ‘Well, I guess that makes us both morons.’ She paused. ‘Look,
I just came to see if I could visit him, ’ she said quietly. ‘I know he isn’t sitting up and talking or anything, but I’d really like to see him, just once, say my goodbyes.
Did you just see him? Was that OK with his wife?’

Lola realised she had put a hand to her head, like an actress in a bad 1950s film feigning confusion.

‘There’s no
way
he had another daughter, ’ she said, grasping at the most basic truth of the situation. ‘Everyone would know. Wouldn’t they?’

She almost turned to Carin, to see if she knew anything about her husband having an illegitimate daughter of Lola’s age.

‘Another
daughter?
’ The girl stared at her in horror. ‘You’re kidding, right?’

She looked Lola up and down, her eyes widening.