I Heart London (35 page)

There were only about seven or so slides left when the auditorium doors opened and I spotted Jenny, Louisa, Mum, Sadie and Delia all sneaking in and taking seats off to the side. I paused for a second, somewhat flummoxed, but Jenny motioned for me to keep rolling and Delia gave me a little triumphant wave. Did she think this was a good idea? Everyone knew parents and presentations didn’t mix. It was like oil and vinegar. Or two things that didn’t make a lovely salad dressing.

‘Um, but what Spencer US is proposing is that we stage a simultaneous transatlantic launch and use our international leverage at Fashion Week to pull in as much support as we can − really make a splash.’

I looked over at my cheerleaders. Sadie looked like she was carrying around her own lighting as per usual, but she did look engaged and interested. I knew she wanted to be involved in the magazine so it wasn’t so bad if she was here. Jenny was mouthing the presentation along with me and Louisa looked impressed. It was a step up from my Year Ten report on
Lord of the Flies
. The hardest person to make eye contact with was my mum. We’d never really talked about what I did for a living. When I was in London ghostwriting storybooks about Batman she had a vague grasp on it, but since the books didn’t have my name on them, I was never quite convinced she believed me. In all honesty, freelance ghostwriter would be a great cover for a high-class hooker. Or middle-class hooker. I wouldn’t have been able to charge Belle de Jour prices. Not back then anyway. But this was tangible. She could actually see me doing something, something where I more or less knew exactly what I was talking about. And she looked proud. It was almost too much.

And so it was easy to understand why I didn’t notice the great big image of a giant cock appear on the screen behind me nearly as quickly as everyone in the audience. My first cue that something had gone wrong was when the clicking of BlackBerry keys stopped. And then I saw the faces. And then I saw the screen. Wow. If anyone ever wanted to start the debate as to why women don’t like looking at naked men as much as men like looking at naked women, they should try standing spitting distance away from a photograph of a six-foot erect penis. It was not attractive. I turned back to the audience with wide eyes and no words. Up at the back of the room, I saw Delia slip out of her seat and head for the door. Just before she vanished, she looked over her shoulder and gave me a very un-Delia-like sly grin and a wave.

Mother. Fucker.

The text. The manicure. The last-minute changes. It was Cici.

The audience began to mutter quietly, an unnerving hum that got louder and higher-pitched. And then there were the clicks of the camera phones.

‘Great, so you’re paying attention.’ Jenny bounced out of her seat, sending my mum, Louisa and Sadie out of the door after ‘Delia’ and joining me at the front of the auditorium. The rows of fashionistas buzzed with confusion and probably post-traumatic stress disorder as I froze, my brain stuck like a scratched record, putting two and two together, coming up with a very ugly four.

‘Sorry, guys − I can’t think how that got there.’ Jenny snatched the clicker and removed the offensive image from the screen. ‘I keep telling Ryan Gosling not to text me shots of his junk because it’s totally distracting. See? I was so distracted I put them in the presentation. I’m Jenny Lopez. Not that one. I’m working with
Gloss
as their fashion consultant, so any questions regarding the designers we’re going to be working with, please direct them this way. I will also have some questions for you guys with regards to where you got all of your clothes. And shoes. And purses.’

While Jenny got the crowd back on side, I gave myself a big mental slap. I could either chase Cici out into the streets and give her the thumping she so clearly needed or I could stay here, finish my presentation and really stick it to the cow by being the mature, smart, successful human being she had no hope of ever becoming. It was genuinely one of the most difficult decisions I’d ever had to make.

I found my voice and took back the mic. ‘So, to date we have the following designers in bed with us, so to speak,’ Jenny squeezed my arm behind the lectern and took a step back. Still behind me, as always. ‘Sadly, I do not have any pictures of their nether regions, so you’re just going to have to use your imagination.’

When I got out of prison for killing Cici Spencer, I owed Jenny Lopez a drink.

Spencer Media UK was a big fan of open-plan offices. There was a lot of space, a lot of glass and a lot of light. They even had glass lift shafts which (a) made me feel a bit sick as we hurtled down twenty-seven floors and (b) meant that once I’d finished the presentation, answered all the relevant questions and even shaken hands with a couple of women I recognized from their editor’s letters, I was able to see the fate of Cici Spencer from high in the sky above the atrium. Jenny had hung back to grill some of the girls about their fashion cred, but I still had business to take care of.

Much to the consternation of a lone security guard who was being kept at a distance by a very persuasive Sadie, Cici was splayed on the floor, face down, her arm twisted up her back, while Louisa straddled her waist, making sure she stayed that way. And preventing her from kicking herself out of Lou’s excellent submission hold was my mother, knees together, handbag in her lap, sitting right over her ankles. They made quite the tag team. I raced across the foyer, pushing through the small group that had begun to gather around them, and tried not to wish I’d said ‘screw it’ to my career so I could have watched this go down in real time.

‘Alright, Cici?’ I asked, kneeling down in front of her. ‘You’re looking a bit flustered.’

‘Get off me, you psycho,’ she screamed, her hair coming undone as she tried to shake Louisa off. No amount of Pilates could prepare her for a full-on scrap; all she could do was shake and squeal. It was sad. ‘You’re insane.’

‘I must be,’ I replied, checking my own manicure. ‘For not putting you down before now. You’re so dead.’

‘Get her off me!’ Cici managed to squirm her arm free as she tried to claw her way out from the torrent of tiny pummelling blows from Louisa. ‘Someone?’

But no one was in a rush. This wasn’t New York; there weren’t nearly so many security guards to rush to her rescue, and everyone loved a girl fight.

‘Angela!’ Mum called. ‘What exactly are we doing to do with her?’

‘You’re going to get the fuck off me before I have you fucking arrested,’ Cici screamed.

‘Oh, I say.’ Mum shook her head. ‘You’ll never get anywhere with language like that. Your mother must be mortified.’

I loved my mum so much. So. Much.

‘I suppose we’d better get her up.’ I hated being rational. ‘Before she has an aneurysm.’

‘But she’s such a cow,’ Louisa wailed. ‘And she went down so easily it was embarrassing.’

I pulled Louisa up and off my prey and gave her a little hug. ‘I wish I’d seen it.’

Cici lay on the floor, whimpering softly with a lip fatter than Lana del Rey. Mum still had one foot on the skirt of her dress, keeping her where I could see her. ‘If you wanted to give her a slap, I’m very happy to look the other way,’ she said, still clutching her handbag. ‘Although you know I never condone violence.’

‘I think I’m all slapped out.’ I let my arms drop to my sides. ‘And besides, she’s only made herself look stupid, thanks to you. And everything’s fine with the magazine, thanks to Jenny. They seemed to think it was a big joke.’

‘I hope they think the same thing in Paris,’ Cici chimed in, gingerly touching her busted lip. ‘I don’t feel like Pops will find it so funny.’

‘What?’

‘It’s in Dee-Dee’s presentation too.’

Cici was short for Cecelia. Dee-Dee was short for Delia. But surely she wouldn’t?

I looked down at Cici, who cowered. As she should. ‘You put that in your own sister’s presentation? What’s wrong with you?’

She shrugged and sat up, still annoyingly attractive, just a little bruised. ‘I don’t like you?’

‘I don’t like Angelina Jolie, but I don’t go around Photoshopping great big cocks into her films, do I?
’
I shouted. ‘And what about Delia? She’s your sister, for Christ’s sake.’

‘Oh, we always pull pranks on each other,’ she said. She didn’t even look that bothered. ‘I’m just better at it.’

‘Do you think that’s what this is?’ I asked, holding out a hand and dragging her to her feet. Then keeping hold of that hand. ‘Do you think this is a joke? A prank?’

‘Well, yeah, it’s, like, a big one,’ she acknowledged. ‘But whatever. I didn’t kill anyone.’

‘No, but you might have destroyed my career,’ I pointed out. ‘And your sister’s career. Something she’s worked on for months. Something she cares about. Doesn’t that bother you at all?’

Like a petulant child, she shrugged and looked at her nails.

‘Wow, you’re properly evil,’ Louisa marvelled. ‘You’re worse than Madonna.’

‘No one is worse than Madonna,’ Cici scoffed. ‘Are we done now? Can I leave, please?’

‘Not until you tell me why you’re such a mental.’ I pulled on her arm hard to make sure she was paying attention. ‘And what you did to Delia’s presentation.’

‘She shouldn’t make it so easy to hack into her account. I mean, who still uses the name of her childhood pet as her password? Gag.’ She stuck her fingers down her throat and then snatched her arm out of my grip. ‘I put the same version of the presentation you gave on her laptop. But, you know, it’s Paris. Europeans have a much more laissez-faire attitude to sex.’

‘
Your grandfather is going to be in that room
,’ I shouted, just to make sure she was listening. It was all I could do not to knock on her skull to see if there was a brain rattling around in there at all. ‘Your grandfather. And you know he won’t just cover this up for her. If she gives that presentation, he will kill
Gloss
.’

‘Prolly.’ She bent down to pick up her shoes. ‘Maybe you should try to stop her.’

‘If you even attempted to put your talents for being a massive bitch to good use, you could achieve anything.’ Now I really, really wanted to hit her. ‘As it is, you’ll probably just end up being the president.’

She gave me a whatever face and turned to walk away.

‘Um, Cici?’ Louisa called.

She turned round, clutching her shoes in her hand. Big mistake. Huge. Louisa pulled her arm back and gave Cici a slap across the face so hard it echoed round the atrium. Lou grabbed her hand back and squeezed it tightly with the other, mouth wide open in shock.

‘Jesus Christ that hurt,’ she said, pressing her hand between her knees. ‘But I do see why you’ve taken to doing it so often. Sorry, Cici.’

We ran out onto the street, leaving Cici in a state of shock, pushed through the crowds that had gathered to watch the show and hailed a cab.

‘Right then,’ I pushed my hair behind my ears and gritted my teeth. ‘Next stop Paris.’

‘You’re not serious?’ Louisa asked, handing me my handbag and shoes. Clever girl had brought them down in case I needed to make a speedy exit. Of course she’d been thinking I’d be running from the police, not legging it to France. ‘But this is not my first rodeo. Don’t worry.’

‘Not if I can get hold of her before the presentation.’ I pulled out my phone and started to dial. ‘But just tell Jenny I’ll call when I know what I’m doing.’

She nodded and shut the door behind me while I directed the cab driver to St Pancras. Of course Delia wasn’t answering her phone, so I sent a text, an email, a Facebook message and every other kind of communication my iPhone allowed before pulling out my hand mirror to check the damage Cici had done. My mascara had smudged and my concealer had slipped, giving me a touch of the Rocky Balboas, but it wasn’t too bad. My hair never looked great after a fight, but then, my hair never looked that great by midday anyway. If only I hadn’t been wearing a bright bloody orange dress. Nothing said ‘Look at me, I’ve been in a scrap’ like a nearly neon.

By the time we got across town, it was past one-thirty. I was ignoring calls from Jenny and only responding to her texts with very short replies including ‘fuck my manicure’ and ‘this is more important’. I did send a thank-you for saving the presentation, but she didn’t seem to care about that one. I tried to half walk, half run to the ticket counter and ignored the sense of déjà vu that hit as the delightful gentleman behind the desk smiled and asked how he could help.

‘When’s the next train to Paris?’ I asked as sweetly as possible, my blood pumping hard. ‘Whatever class, it’s fine.’

‘If you can do any class,’ he hummed to himself for a moment, looking at the screen and rapping his fingers on the desk, ‘there’s a train leaving in fifteen minutes. You could get through security before then.’

‘Great.’ I pushed my credit card through the tiny slot and eyed the departure door. ‘Thank you.’

I keyed in my PIN and tapped my foot, impatiently waiting for my travel documents.

‘Right, you’re all set,’ said the man behind the counter. ‘If you just go through the gate to your—’

‘Got it,’ I called back with as much of a smile as I could muster as I dashed away. ‘Thank you!’

Nothing about the Eurostar had changed in the last year, except that this time I didn’t have any delicious snacks and the people sitting across from me on the train were two incredibly humourless-looking businessmen. Made me miss my old train pals. I tilted my face up to catch some sunshine through the window and told myself over and over that Paris wasn’t cursed for me. Paris was a place of romance and charm and quirky dark haired actresses and musicals about bloody revolutions. Just because the last time I’d been there, Cici cocking Spencer had almost ruined my relationship and career, didn’t mean it would happen again. Lightning didn’t strike twice. Except in all those studies where they had proven that it did. Quite often.

Just as we pulled away, my phone rang and I answered quickly, ignoring the dirty looks from all around me. Yes, guys, I wanted to shout, I’m
that
girl. I’m going to be on the phone for the whole trip, so suck it. It was Delia.

‘Angela, what’s wrong?’ She sounded as worried as I felt. ‘I got, well, all of your messages. What’s going on? Did something happen at the presentation?’