Going La La (11 page)

‘Frankie?’ One word. Two syllables. From that she had to try and work out if he was pleased, pissed off, excited, concerned, sad,
missing her
. He didn’t wait for her to answer. ‘Where are you?’

‘Los Angeles.’

‘
What?
’

She could hear him scrabbling about, and the radio providing the background music was switched off. ‘What did you say?’

‘I said I’m in LA.’ She tried to steady her quivering voice.

‘
LA?
’ His voice rose an octave. ‘What the hell are you doing there?’ (Was that concern, annoyance or jealousy? She wasn’t sure.)

‘I’m staying with Rita.’ Damn. Why hadn’t she said something witty, clever, funny? Why hadn’t she breezed, ‘
I’m having the time of my life
.’ Her eyes started to well up with tears. Probably because she was having the shittiest time of her life. ‘I miss you.’ Shit, shit, shit.
What was she doing?
She had to be strong – cool – collected. ‘I miss you so much.’ The words tumbled out as she started to cave in. And now she was crying. She could almost hear any points she might have gained by flouncing off to LA being scrubbed off, one by one, with each sniffle.

Hugh didn’t say anything. There was an awkward pause. She heard more fumbling in the background, the sound of a door closing. ‘Look, this isn’t a good time to talk. I’m getting ready for work and I’m running late.’

Frankie looked at her watch. Five past eight UK time. Normally he’d be doing the stomach thing in the bathroom mirror.

‘I’ll call you back.’ He sounded so official. As if he was arranging a business meeting.

‘When?’ she stabbed, the alarm ringing loudly in her voice. By this point she was past trying to remain cool and aloof. She white-knuckled the handset.

‘Soon.’

She wanted to shriek, ‘
What day? What time?
’ so she could stay in the apartment glued to the phone. But of course she didn’t. Instead she gave him her number. Twice.

Then he said goodbye and put the phone down. Just like that.

Puffy-eyed, she stared dismally at the receiver. She knew Hugh was never going to ring back. Deep down she’d known that even when she was giving him her number, but she’d so desperately wanted to believe him. As desperately as she’d wanted him to say that he’d made a terrible mistake, that he loved her, wanted to marry her and spend the rest of his life with her. But Hugh hadn’t said any of those things. And she knew he wasn’t going to. This wasn’t one of those movies she used to watch with her mum, with their soft-focus, saccharine-sweet, girl-gets-boy happy endings. This was real life. Her life. No life.

Clutching the phone tightly to her chest, she curled into a ball, burrowed her head into the sofa and sobbed her bloody heart out.

12

‘Who was that?’

‘Oh, just a friend.’

Walking back into the bedroom, Hugh put the phone down and leaned across the crumpled duvet, brushing his hand across the pair of 34A breasts belonging to the young skinny blonde he’d met last night at Adam and Jessica’s engagement party. She was lying naked in his bed, her St Tropez tan smeared over his pillowcases and the twin peaks of her Wonderbra lying, like two black lacy yoghurt pots, on the carpet.

‘Why are they ringing so early?’ The blonde opened one smudged-mascara eye and peered at Hugh, who was engrossed with playing with her nipples, twiddling them backwards and forwards between finger and thumb as if he was trying to tune in a radio. Why did men always think that turned women on? She stifled a yawn. She had such a stinker of a hangover. All she wanted to do was go back to sleep.

‘Ummm, who knows?’ replied Hugh, putting one of her nipples in his mouth and sucking determinedly as if it was a boiled sweet.

Talk about bad timing. He’d woken up feeling horny and had just been in the middle of groping the blonde when the phone rang. At first he wasn’t going to answer it, but he’d had second thoughts. It could be work-related. It wasn’t. It was Frankie, crying down the phone and telling him how much she missed him. Which was the last thing he wanted to hear when he was trying to shag some girl he’d picked up at a party.

Not that the phone call had come as a surprise. He’d been expecting it ever since he’d come home to the flat and discovered she’d packed her bags and disappeared with those bloody cats. To be honest, that had been a surprise. He’d assumed she’d be waiting for him when he got home, wanting to talk for hours, trying to persuade him to change his mind. He never thought she’d just move out without saying a word. And not only that, but move to Los Angeles. He’d thought she’d stay at her parents’, or on somebody’s sofa, but never
Los Angeles
.

He couldn’t believe it. Frankie was normally so sensible. She never made a rash decision, was always so cautious about everything. This was totally so unlike her – and LA of all places, it just wasn’t her style, she’d hate it. In fact she’d probably be home in no time. She was obviously really upset, but what could he do? Like Adam said, he shouldn’t feel guilty about what had happened. OK, the timing could have been better, what with her losing her job and all that, but what else could he have done? They’d been going out for nearly two years and they’d had some really good times, but at the end of the day he was only thirty-two. He wasn’t ready to settle down and get married, and that’s what Frankie wanted. Apart from Adam, most of his mates were single and always going out on the piss, having a laugh, pulling women. He’d been missing out.

He squeezed the blonde’s breasts, as if they were a couple of ripe plums. Here he was, about to get his end away, and he was thinking about Frankie. What the hell was he doing? He shoved all thoughts of her and the phone call to the back of his mind. He’d think about it some other time. Right now he had more important matters to hand.

With the resurrection of his hard-on, his boxer shorts began to strain uncomfortably. He tried to casually wriggle out of them. It wasn’t easy. He managed to get them past his hips but then the elastic waistband wedged around his knees.

‘Are you sure it wasn’t your girlfriend?’

The blonde was suspicious. The flat was very tidy for a bachelor, and she had found a pair of eyebrow tweezers on the shelf in the bathroom.

Hugh was starting to feel frustrated. He’d now been single for over forty-eight hours and he was desperate to celebrate his new-found freedom. Last night the blonde had seemed up for it, flirting with him at the bar, letting him have a bit of a grope in the taxi, agreeing to come in for coffee. And then of course, when they’d got off with each other, he’d thought it was in the bag, right up until just before the grand finale, when she’d suddenly played the modesty card, saying they hardly knew each other, and he’d had to make do with a hand job. Now she wanted to lie in his bed and talk about Frankie. He hadn’t invited her back to
talk
, for God’s sake.

‘No, it was a friend, OK?’ he snapped impatiently.

Disgruntled, the blonde tutted sulkily and pulled the duvet tightly around her.

Realising that he wasn’t going to be celebrating anything if he wasn’t careful, Hugh quickly changed tack and kissed the end of her nose. ‘Come on, Carol. Don’t you like me?’ he whispered in his best baby-talk whine, kissing the side of her face, her neck, along her collarbone, nibbling at her ear lobe.

‘It’s Cheryl,’ pouted the blonde moodily, hanging resolutely on to the duvet.

‘I meant Cheryl,’ cooed Hugh between gritted teeth, edging himself further on top of her.

The blonde lay stiffly beneath him. Christ, this was hard work, thought Hugh, remembering the warm, easy, comfortable sex he’d enjoyed with Frankie. He stepped up his efforts. ‘Mmm, you’re just so gorgeous,’ he continued, kissing her neck, throwing in a few moans for good measure. ‘Mmmm . . . mmmm.’ Tireless in his pursuit of a shag, he was determined to hang on in there – he glanced at his watch – well, at least for another five minutes. After all, he didn’t want to be late for the office.

Luckily it didn’t take that long. Like a doctor trying to find signs of life, he suddenly felt her move ever so slightly beneath him, as if she was starting to respond to his valiant attempts at resuscitation. Feeling success at his fingertips, he increased the moans.

‘Aren’t you getting a little hot under there?’ he whispered, tugging at the duvet. She loosened her grip and, with a quick jerk as if he was a magician pulling away the tablecloth, he finally freed both the duvet and his boxer shorts and squashed his naked body triumphantly against hers.

‘I really like you, Cheryl,’ he murmured, moving in for the kill. ‘You’re just so different from other girls.’

‘I bet you say that to all the girls,’ she protested, but it was somewhat half-hearted.

‘No, it’s true, honestly. I think you’re amazing. And I’m not just saying that because I want to make love to you –’ that sounded so much better than shag – ‘because if you don’t want to make love, that’s OK.’ Just as long as you tell me now, so I can cut the crap and get ready for work.

‘Hmm, that’s what all blokes say,’ gasped the blonde as Hugh stealthily edged his fingers up her inner thighs. She was beginning to sound doubtful.

‘No, seriously, I’ve never felt like this before. It’s not as if I sleep around, you know. I’m the kind of guy that wants to be in a relationship.’

Christ, if Frankie could hear him now. There was a pause. The blonde was definitely weakening. It must have been the relationship bit that did it.

‘And I’d really like it if you and me could get to know each other better . . . a lot better.’ Lay it on with a trowel – thickly – quickly.

‘You do?’

He could almost hear the key in the lock turning. He was getting closer . . . and closer . . . Her legs were being eased apart.

‘In fact I think you’re the kind of girl I could fall in love with.’ It was his final, last-ditch effort. It worked.

‘Ooohhh.’

Like a champagne cork popping out of a bottle, the blonde let out an explosive shriek and grabbed firmly hold of his buttocks . . .

Bull’s-eye.

Hugh grinned triumphantly. She’d fallen for it. He’d cracked it. He was in.

13

‘I don’t know how to tell you this, but I’m three months pregnant,’ blurted Rita. She looked at Frankie, her bottom lip quivering.

‘
Pregnant?
’

Rita nodded tearfully. ‘And it’s twins.’

‘My God,’ whispered Frankie.

‘But there’s something else.’ Rita paused to wipe a tear that had rolled down her cheek. ‘The doctors have told me I’ve only six months to live.’

Silence. ‘Well, what do you think?’ asked Rita, flinging the script for
Malibu Motel
on top of the restaurant’s menu.

‘I think the part’s yours.’ Frankie smiled. ‘After tomorrow’s audition it’s going to be Goodbye, unemployed actress and Hello, soap star. You were great, honestly.’

‘I was?’ Rita grinned happily, feeling very pleased with herself. ‘So you think I was believable?’

‘No,’ smirked Frankie, ‘but isn’t that the whole point? You’re auditioning for an American daytime soap. And, from the ones I’ve seen back home on Channel 5, they’re not exactly what you’d call realistic, are they?’ Picking up the script, she flicked through the first few pages, running her eyes across the blurb at the top of each page. ‘I mean, your character, Kimberley Kartier, is supposed to be pregnant with twins and dying of a mystery illness, yet she’s still got time to murder her husband, have an affair with her best friend’s fiancé and run a successful fashion empire. Talk about busy. What’s she going to do next? Run for president?’

‘I dunno,’ shrugged Rita, topping up the water in their glasses. ‘Probably wake up in the shower and realise it was all a dream.’

There was a moment’s pause before they both burst out laughing, sending mouthfuls of water spraying all over the table.

They were sitting outside Hankerings Restaurant on Sunset Plaza, a pocket of desirable restaurants, trendy cafés and chic boutiques full of shoppers, diners and – unusual for LA – pedestrians that provided a bustling oasis in the middle of the traffic-laden, deserted-pavement, concrete wilderness of Sunset Boulevard. By sheer luck – and without knowing anyone in ‘the industry’ – they’d managed to bag one of the more desirable tables outside, where you could see and be seen.

And there was plenty to see. Hankerings was heaving with LA’s glamorama: directors and producers were talking big-budget movies across colossal Caesar salads; Beverly Hills wives, who’d been sliced more times than a Tesco’s loaf, were swapping surgeons’ cards over glasses of Pellegrino and peering into their gold Chanel compacts to check on last month’s facelift scars; young, gym-honed execs were sitting by themselves eating bowls of penne arrabbiata and cutting deals into their cellphone earpiece; while, in the far corner, trying to hide under a giant parasol and a baseball cap, one of Hollywood’s most famous actresses was picking at a plate of no-oil, no-salt, no-flavour fish and steamed vegetables. Desperate to shift that last seven pounds for her next million-dollar movie role, she was on the third week of her protein zone diet, which explained why she was staring jealously at the overflowing bowl of fries, glowing in all its unhealthy greasiness, which wafted past her to one of the other tables. The other table being, of course, Rita and Frankie’s. After all, who else would order fried food in LA?