Jemima J. (26 page)

_p. 191
They always say that you’re supposed to feel tired after a long-haul flight. I don’t feel tired, I feel excited, and happy, and nervous. It’s almost as if up until now it’s been a big game. There I was, playing around on the Internet, having this make-believe romance with someone I’d never met, and it was fun, it gave me something to look forward to, but now, now that I’m actually here, I’m so frightened.

Not because he could be
anyone,
he could be an axe murderer, a pedophile, a rapist, although that had crossed my mind, but more because I’ve come all this way and what if he doesn’t like me. I know what Geraldine would say, what if I don’t like him, but that’s kind of irrelevant, I mean, I’ve never been in a situation where I’ve had a choice. And I know things are different now, I know I don’t look like I used to, but it still seems ridiculous that I might not like someone who likes me.

What if I’m not what he expected? What if he sees through the illusion and sees the fat unhappy girl lurking beneath? After all, it wasn’t that long ago that I was a laughingstock. It hurts me to even say that, but I know it’s true. I know that
_p. 192
despite the few people who saw through, who were kind to me anyway
‌
—people like Geraldine and Ben
‌
—most of the people I knew simply felt sorry for me.

And although I look in the mirror and I don’t recognize myself, in a weird sort of way this feels like a game too. It feels like it can’t be real, that I’m playing at being thin, and that at some point I will be fat again. I know I’m thin because I’m buying size 8 clothes (even they are slightly big on me) but I still feel the same, and I’m so scared that Brad will see that. And, more to the point, where the hell is he anyway?

I’ve got my suitcases, I’ve walked through customs, and I can’t see Brad, or even anyone who looks remotely like him, anywhere. I thought he’d be standing right at the front, I suppose, if I’m honest, I had stupid daydreams about this gorgeous hunk running over to me and scooping me up in his arms, but although there are many, many people here, none of them looks like Brad.

What if he doesn’t turn up? What if he’s not in? Where will I go? What will I do? As the panic starts to set in I realize that now I really do want a cigarette more than I’ve ever wanted one before in my life, but even as the thought crosses my mind I notice that all around are signs saying that it is a no-smoking airport, implying that anyone caught smoking will be hanged, drawn, and quartered, so I just sigh deeply and try to look like a woman who knows what she’s doing.

“Excuse me?” I turn, breath catching in my throat as I see a short, fat, balding man standing in front of me.

“Brad?” Sorry, sorry, sorry, but I haven’t got a hope in hell of hiding the disappointment in my voice. Oh my God, I’m thinking. You lied to me, you lied about your picture. I conveniently forget that I also lied about mine because that is hardly relevant now. Shit, I think next, I’ve got to spend two whole weeks with this revolting man, and then I think no! I’m not going to judge him, he might be really nice, but even as I stand here
_p. 193
thinking that, I’m looking at him and wishing I hadn’t come. Wishing I’d left it as a game.

“No.” He shakes his head as I exhale loudly in a sigh of relief. “I’m Paul Springer. I’m a film producer.”

“Oh?” I say uninterestedly, wondering what on earth he wants.

“I hope you don’t mind me asking, but you’re very beautiful, I assumed you had to be an actress.”

“Thank you,” I say, with a genuine smile this time, because when compliments have always been things that other people get, you do feel ridiculously thrilled when you start getting your own. “But I’m not,” I add, and I start to turn away, because at first I thought he might have been Brad’s driver, or someone he sent to pick me up, but he quite obviously doesn’t know him, or me either.

“A model then?” He grabs my arm.

“No. Afraid not.” I try and shake off his arm.

“Well you should be. Are you new in town?”

“Yes.” I’m now wondering how to get away from this man without seeming rude but I’m not entirely sure how to do it because his hand appears to be stuck to my arm.

“I’d be very happy to show you the sights.”

“Thank you, but I’m here staying with a friend.”

“Here’s my card.” He stands there holding out a business card with a chubby hand, and as I reluctantly take it he comes up with what is obviously his number one pick-up line. “I know you don’t act, but I have a part in my next movie that I think you’d be perfect for.” I’m amazed that Geraldine was so right, I’m actually speechless, and I look at him open-mouthed because it is so obviously a line, but what is most bizarre is that this line must work, but not, obviously, on me.

“Thank you,” I say uncertainly. “I’ll be in touch,” and with that he licks his lips slowly and repeats, “Perfect, just perfect,” and this time I forget my British reserve and politeness, pick up my bags, and move to the other end of the hall.

I’m looking at my watch when a voice says in my ear, “JJ?”
_p. 194
and this time my heart starts pounding as I turn around and look into the eyes of the most beautiful man I’ve ever seen.

Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God! His picture didn’t do him justice, nothing could do this man justice. Can a man be beautiful? Can anyone be as perfect as this man standing before me, looking at me hopefully, doubtfully, for I still haven’t said anything.

“Brad?” I say eventually, when I’ve got my breath back, and he doesn’t say anything, just nods before sweeping me up in his arms and giving me a hug, a huge, enveloping hug, and, in those few seconds that I’m in his arms, I feel like this is the moment I’ve been waiting for all my life.

“I can’t believe you’re here!” he says finally, when he releases me, and we stand there trying to take one another in, remembering our pictures, trying to work out whether we are the respective people we thought we were. I look at him and think, you could not like me, you could not be with me, you are far too beautiful to be with me, but he hasn’t backed away as I thought he might, there is nothing on his face that is showing disappointment, and I am the first one to tell him he is not what I expected.

“Your picture doesn’t do you justice,” I say nervously, so scared he’ll see through me to the fat girl I’ve fought so hard to hide.

He smiles, perfect white teeth which I look at with amazement, because I have never seen teeth more perfect, nor lips more sculpted, nor eyes so blue. “Neither does yours,” he says, and I feel a familiar heat rise up my face, the blush that Jemima Jones so hated, the blush that JJ is supposed to have banished forever. I stand and I blush, and all the while I cannot take my eyes from his face, and I cannot believe my luck.

Brad laughs and pushes his hair, his sun-streaked blond hair, out of his eyes and he shakes his head. “You are so much better than I expected. You’re gorgeous, JJ, you really are.” He reaches down with a suntanned arm, an arm covered in fine blond hair, and my stomach twists in an unfamiliar feeling, a feeling which,
_p. 195
it slowly dawns on me, must be lust, pure and simple lust, and he stands tall, taller than me, and says, “C’mon, let’s get out of here.”

And as we walk out of the airport to his car, I allow myself to exhale with relief, because I am good enough, and as I lower myself into the tan leather seats of his sleek black convertible Porsche, I cannot wipe the smile off my face and I surreptitiously pinch myself, just to confirm this isn’t all a dream.

He turns the ignition on and looks over at me with a grin, and I still cannot wipe the smile off my face, and I still cannot quite believe this is reality. Thank you, God, I pray silently, closing my eyes for a brief second. Thank you for making me slim. Thank you for delivering me this perfect man.

What a couple they make, Brad and JJ. Even before they’ve hit the highway everyone is staring at them, drinking in their beauty, this vision of the Californian dream. Two beautiful people, in a beautiful car, on a beautiful day. They drive on to the Santa Monica Freeway, the wind whipping their hair back, sunglasses protecting their eyes, and Jemima Jones tips her head back in her seat and gazes at the sky, at the tips of the palm trees that rush past her, and she thinks that for the first time she understands about being happy. She keeps sneaking a peek at the vision sitting next to her, still unable to believe that she will be spending the next two weeks with him. They don’t talk, the noise of the engine and the cars rushing past make it too difficult to hear each other speak, so the music is turned up, and every now and then these two beautiful people look at one another and smile. When something looks this good, how could it possibly go wrong?

“This is Santa Monica Boulevard,” says Brad, pulling off the freeway. We stop at a traffic light and a sports car I don’t recognize pulls up next to us. I turn to look at the driver and it’s a young, good-looking guy, who, much to my astonishment, gives me an appreciative glance before shouting to Brad, “Nice car, man. Nice babe.”

_p. 196
Brad smiles and puts his foot down as we drive down this huge, wide road lined by huge shops that are far bigger, far brighter than any at home. Right at the end I can see palm trees, and beyond a hazy blue, and just as I’m about to ask him where this leads, he turns to me and says, “This road takes us all the way down to the ocean. We’ll drive down there, then take Ocean Boulevard to my place. I think you’ll like it a lot, it overlooks the water.”

Like it a lot? I’m already in love with the air here, the sunshine, the beautiful people, although to be perfectly honest I haven’t seen that many yet, but this is, after all, the mecca of the rich and famous, and I’m already trying to celebrity spot as we drive along this road that seems to have no pedestrians whatsoever.

“How are you feeling?” Brad turns to me, raising perfect eyebrows.

“Fine, great, this is fantastic.”

“Are you tired?”

“Not really, although I’m waiting for it to hit me.”

“How about stopping for some coffee?”

“That would be great.”

We turn right past more shops, but this time there are hundreds of people milling around, then left into a picture-perfect road, palm trees on either side
and
down the middle. I sit there marveling at how clean everything is, how wide the roads, how perfectly pastel the tiny boutiques, how different from Santa Monica Boulevard, because this is obviously where the smart people live. Brad pulls up outside a Starbucks, and as he’s parking I sneak another look at him, still unable to believe how incredibly blond, and gorgeous, and perfect this man is.

He jumps out the door, and runs over to my side to let me out.

Being a weekday the place is quiet, the green iron tables and chairs scattered on the street outside are almost all empty; at the one exception sits a lone blond man in a baseball cap and sunglasses sipping a cup of what looks like coffee and read
_p. 197
ing a copy of
Variety.
His dog lies disconsolately under his chair, nose on paws, eyes closed, doubtless dreaming of dogfood commercials.

We walk in and up to the counter. “Hi,” says the man behind the counter, “what can I get you?”

“JJ?” Brad turns to me.

“Um. I’ll have a cappuccino.” Both Brad and the man behind the counter look at me strangely.

“Would that be decaf or regular?”

“Um, regular, please.”

“How many shots?”

“I’m sorry?”

“How many shots?” The man looks pleadingly at Brad, who evidently decides to take the matter in hand. “Don’t worry,” he says to him, “she just got here from England. We’ll have two tall skinny lattes with a shot of almond.”

“We will?” I look at Brad with a raised eyebrow. “Skinny?”

“Don’t worry about it,” he says with a laugh. “It means fat-free with a shot of almond syrup. You’ll like it.”

Our coffee comes in paper cups which we take outside, and we sit down at one of the tables and Brad smiles at me. “You’re really here,” he says, while I think, yes, I’m really here, and yes, you’ve already said that. On several occasions, but that thought doesn’t last very long, it’s pushed aside almost instantly by the thought that Brad is most definitely the best-looking man I have ever had the pleasure of being with.

“This is so weird,” he says. “Meeting someone like you on the Internet, then actually meeting, and most of all seeing that you absolutely fulfill my expectations. More than fulfill. For a minute there”
‌
—he laughs at whatever he’s about to say
‌
—“for a minute there I was worried that you’d cut the picture out of a magazine and you’d turn out to be really fat or something.”

I laugh politely with him, thanking God I lost the weight, that I didn’t have to put up with the humiliation of turning up looking like the Jemima of old, but a part of me wishes he hadn’t said that, wishes he hadn’t sounded so superficial, so
_p. 198
like a person I would have hated had we met six months before. But I manage to push the feelings aside and I merely smile and say, “I know.

“I thought the same thing about you,” I continue, “and this guy started talking to me at the airport and I thought it was you.” I tell Brad the story and he listens attentively before saying, “That’s what everyone in LA is like, trust me, you’ll get used to it.”

“You mean everyone just hands out business cards to complete strangers?”

“Well yes, there is that, but more that men have no problem approaching women they find beautiful.”

“But he was revolting!” I counter.

“That doesn’t matter,” says Brad. “Some of the most beautiful women in Los Angeles are with some of the ugliest men.”

“But why?”

“You have to understand that nobody actually comes from Los Angeles. Everybody flocks here hoping to fulfill a dream. The men all want to be film producers, and the women all want to marry film producers. It’s not like New York, where the women are successful in their own right. Here the women want to marry success, and for the men, the ultimate status symbol is having a beautiful, hardbodied woman on their arm.”