Jemima J. (34 page)

She has discovered that people don’t dress up in Los Angeles, that anyone wearing a suit with anything other than sneakers on their feet is regarded as somehow strange, an outsider, someone not to be trusted. So she is living in her jeans, and if she and Brad go out in the evening, she teams the jeans with a cream bodysuit, a brown crocodile belt, and a jacket.

She has sat by herself at a long wooden trestle table in Marmalade, and flicked through the
Outlook
‌
—the local Santa Monica paper
‌
—while eating a selection of three salads, and trying not to look as if she is desperate to talk to someone.

She has been to every Starbucks that she can find, and she has perfected the art of ordering coffee, American style, be it latte, mocha, or frappuccino.

She has walked up and down Main Street, past the New Age bookstore, which she is sorely tempted to try, but hasn’t, as yet, had the nerve to go into. She has, however, been into the designer aerobic shops and has finally succumbed to outfitting herself in the very latest exercise wear. Now Jemima looks more like an Angeleno than most Angelenos.

She is constantly meeting people, or should we say, people, men, are constantly meeting
her.
Wherever she goes she is accosted by someone offering to buy her coffee, take her out, show her around, and although there have been times when
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she has been tempted, she has never said yes, because that, as far as she’s concerned, would be tantamount to infidelity. So she smiles sweetly and tells them she has a boyfriend, before wishing them a nice day and walking off.

She has discovered American television, and, although she feels slightly guilty, a large part of her afternoon, when not Rollerblading by herself with Brad’s Walkman attached to her waist, is spent watching shows that she’s never heard of. She thinks she has just about got the plot of
The Bold and the Beautiful.
She is addicted to
Days of Our Lives.
She adores
Rosie O’Donnell,
and the
Seinfeld
reruns, as far as Jemima Jones is concerned, are a positive gift from heaven.

Yesterday she found that the best place to have lunch, on those occasions when Brad could not make it out of the office, is a large, bustling restaurant called the Broadway Deli. She hit upon the deli by accident, and, while she was standing there, scouring the restaurant area, wondering if she had the nerve actually to sit at a table by herself when everyone around her was in couples, threesomes, foursomes, and moresomes, she noticed a lunch bar on the right.

And not only that, there was a spare stool, and she squeezed in next to a man who was just leaving, and picked up the paper he’d left behind.

“Coffee?” said the man behind the bar, as I nodded vigorously. As he placed a huge white cup and saucer in front of me and poured the coffee, I smelled a smell I hadn’t smelled in what felt like years, a smell that instantly propelled me back to London, back to Geraldine, back to Ben, back to the
Kilburn Herald.

Bizarre as it may be, I suddenly realized that the Broadway Deli was the first restaurant I had been into that allowed smoking, albeit only at the bar, and as I sat there sniffing I have never wanted a cigarette more badly in my life.

And as if the gods were listening, there, just in front of me, a little to my right, was a pack of cigarettes, calling me, tempting
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me. Nothing strange about that, I know, but they weren’t just any old cigarettes, they were Silk Cut. King Size. Ultra Low. My brand.

“Excuse me,” I said to the girl sitting next to me, “but are those your cigarettes?”

“Yes, help yourself.” The girl watched as I greedily pulled a cigarette out of the pack and gratefully bent my head as she held out a light. I closed my eyes and inhaled deeply, feeling the smoke hit my lungs, and, partly because it was so forbidden, so naughty, the acrid taste was at that moment in time possibly one of the greatest tastes of my life.

“You look like you really needed that,” said the girl in amusement.

“God, yes. You’d never believe this is now my only vice would you?”

“Sounds boring.”

“I have a horrible feeling you might be right.” I stuck out my hand. “I’m JJ.”

“I’m Lauren. You’re English too aren’t you?”

I nodded. “Where are you from?”

“London.”

“Me too. Whereabouts?”

“Kilburn.”

“You’re joking! What road?”

“Mapesbury. Do you know it?”

“Know it? That’s unbelievable, I’m in the Avenue.”

“God, what a small world.”

“Wouldn’t want to paint it.”

“What?”

“Nothing,” I mumbled, feeling a bit stupid. “Just something I heard someone say once, but I can’t believe we’re from the same place.”

“I know,” echoed Lauren. “Bloody incredible.”

As we sit there smiling I suddenly breathe a sigh of relief because for the first time in Los Angeles I think that I may have found a friend. You know how sometimes you just know
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that you’re going to be friends, sometimes within seconds of meeting someone? That’s kind of what it was like with Lauren. She was just so natural that she put me at ease instantly.

We ordered our food, a plain salad, no dressing, for me, and Lauren ordered the Chinese chicken salad, and as soon as the waiter behind the bar disappeared we turned to one another in amazement.

“So what are
you
doing here?” I asked, assuming Lauren must live in Los Angeles because she looked so tanned, so fit, so healthy, so LA. But then I took a closer look and saw
‌
—this is Geraldine’s influence on me
‌
—that her trousers and belted cardigan were, if I’m not mistaken, definitely designer, that her shoes were definitely expensive, and that her bag was definitely a Prada. Just how much more stylish can you get?

“I came out here about a month ago to be with this man, and now it’s all gone horribly wrong and I can’t face going home again because I told everyone this time I’d met The One, so I’m stuck here in this grotty little apartment, and every night I dream of curling up in one of the sofas at the Groucho, or drinks at the Westbourne, or dinner at the Cobden, and I miss home but I just have to sit it out. What about you?”

“This is more and more weird,” I laughed, shaking my head. “I mean, I came out here to meet a man too, but I’ve only been here just over a week, and so far it’s going fine. I think. He is gorgeous, and he’s being lovely to me, but . . .” I tailed off and shrugged my shoulders. Do I want to reveal my doubts to this stranger? Not just yet, I have to see whether I can trust her.

“So where is he now?” asked Lauren.

“At work.”

“Didn’t he take time off to show you the sights?”

“He wanted to, he just has too much going on at the moment.”

“What does he do?”

“He owns a gym. B-Fit Gym, I don’t know whether you know it?”

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“Oh my God!” Lauren’s eyes opened wide, filled with admiration. “You’re the one who came out to meet the hunk. I know exactly who you are. I can’t remember his name. Damn,” she said, almost to herself.

“Brad?” I was feeling slightly nervous, did she really know all about me, and if she did know, how did she know?

“Yes! Exactly. The most perfect specimen of manhood I’d ever seen. Bloody hell. Congratulations!”

“I don’t understand how you know all this.” Still feeling a bit bemused.

“Oh don’t worry,” said Lauren breezily. “Nothing sinister. I go to the B-Fit Gym, I’ve been going every day since I got here, and you get to know the people. Not that I know your gorgeous Brad, he’s never even looked at me, but I overheard someone saying he was flying out an English girl that he met on the Internet or something.”

“That’s me, I’m afraid.” I cringe as I admit it.

“Why sound so embarrassed about it?”

“It’s just it sounds so naff, meeting on the Internet.”

“Nah, not at all. Us single girls have to go wherever the opportunities are. So what’s he like then? I’ve got to be honest with you, I really am impressed. He’s just so perfect.”

Do you know what’s weird? If Lauren wasn’t so open, so friendly, so natural, I probably would have been intimidated by her and I would almost certainly have taken offense at this candidness, but just then I was so relieved to have found an ally. To have found someone who, despite the long dark hair and slight cockney lilt, was somehow reminding me more and more of Geraldine with every word she spoke.

“He
is
gorgeous isn’t he,” I said, smiling like the cat that got the cream at the thought of his gleaming white teeth, the softness of his hair, the hardness of his muscles.

“Phwooargh, is he ever.”

And then I couldn’t stop this sigh escaping. “I know, I know. I just think that everything should be perfect, and I suppose I
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had this vision of us spending all this time together and doing all these things together, and although I see him in the evenings I’m starting to feel a little bit lonely.”

You might think it strange that I’m being so open with a girl who’s practically a stranger, but then isn’t it sometimes easier to pour out your heart to someone you hardly know, who doesn’t matter, who won’t judge you?

“Don’t worry about that,” said Lauren, giving me a friendly shove. “You’ve got me now. I’ll be your friend. God knows I could do with a reminder of home right now.” She looked dreamily into space. “Keep talking. I’ll close my eyes and pretend we’re at the K bar.”

I laughed.

“So,” she carried on. “Friends? How about it?”

For a moment there I was so happy I could have hugged her.

“Tell me about your man then,” I asked. “How did it all go wrong?”

Lauren sighed and handed me another cigarette before lighting one for herself. “Okay. Here goes. Are you sure you want to hear the full story?”

I nodded. “Sure as I’ll ever be.”

“Okay. I met Charlie in London about six months ago. Actually I wasn’t supposed to be meeting him, I was supposed to be meeting one of his associates to try and set up an interview with some woman they look after.”

“Hang on.” I put a hand on Lauren’s arm, trying not to start laughing. “Sorry to interrupt but what do you do for a living?”

“I’m a journalist. Anyway, so there I was
‌
—”

“No!” I said. “You’re not going to believe this.”

Lauren looked at me and her mouth dropped open. “Don’t even think about telling me
‌
—”

“I bloody am!” I laughed out loud.

“No fucking way. Who do you work for?”

“Don’t ask,” I groaned. “The
Kilburn Herald
”

“Hey, it’s a starting point,” she said. “I used to work for the
Solent Advertiser.
”

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And then I started laughing even harder.

“What’s so funny about that?” said Lauren.

“Don’t worry. It would take too long to explain. So where do you work anyway?”

Lauren named one of the top glossy magazines, a magazine I would have killed to work for, a magazine of which several cut-out pages, even as we speak, are nestling in the top drawer of my bedside table at home.

“Now it’s my turn to be impressed. Don’t tell me you’re something really important like editor,” I said.

“I bloody wish!” said Lauren. “But actually I am the style editor.”

“So how come they let you come here?”

“I’ve taken a three-month sabbatical. The plan was to come here, realize that this was true love, get married so I can get American citizenship and then move husband and myself, and naturally by that time at least three babies, back home to Blighty.”

“But I take it your plans have changed?”

“Too bloody right. So where was I? Ah, yes. Charlie. So Charlie turned up instead of this guy I was supposed to be meeting, and sat in on the interview.”

“Was this in London?” I interrupted, trying to get the full picture.

“Yup. They’d flown over for a ten-day publicity tour, and this was right at the beginning. So Charlie walked in, and I thought he was nice. Nothing spectacular, but nice, you could tell he was a good person, and he is attractive. He wears these little round tortoiseshell glasses which I completely adore, and he was really sweet after the interview. Anyway, the interview was fine, and the next day he phoned me to check everything was okay, and he asked me out.

“We went out that night, and he was so nice to me I suppose I started to fall for him, and we spent pretty much every night together.”

I raised an eyebrow.

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“Not like that,” Lauren grinned, before grimacing. “Although now I wish we bloody had, I wouldn’t be sitting here if we had.”

“Uh oh, is that the problem?”

“It sounds so shallow doesn’t it? I mean, here’s this wonderful man whom I did find attractive, and he was convinced he’d met the woman he was going to marry.”

“So why on earth didn’t you sleep with him?”

“I was reading this book about how to play hard to get . . .”

I shook my head and sighed. “Not
The Rules
by any chance?”

“Yes! You’ve read it?”

“No,” I laugh, “but a friend of mine is doing it at home.”

“Well, all I can tell you is it bloody well works. On the day he left Charlie told me he’d never felt this way about anyone before, and he wanted me to come out to California. So basically we spent the next few months with him phoning me every day, and I suppose I convinced myself that this time it really was going to work, and I completely fell in love with the idea of being in love.” She paused to take a bite of salad.

“And?” I prompted, dying to hear the end.

“And, I finally got the time off work, came out here, he picked me up at the airport, he was exactly as I remembered him, and we spent all afternoon kissing and cuddling and it was fantastic.

“And then,” she exhaled loudly, “and then, we went to bed.”

“Do I want to hear this?”

“No. You don’t. It was a bloody nightmare.”

“Just no chemistry or was he just awful?”

“Well this is the weird thing. Up until then I had this theory that there was no such thing as being bad in bed. I always thought that it was just a question of having the right chemistry, and if the chemistry wasn’t there then it would be awful.”