one-hit wonder

by Lisa Jewell

  “Where on earth did you find him?” continued Di, obviously using the fact that she’d only just met Ana as ample excuse to be as rude as she liked. Ana felt her hackles rising.

  “I met him at college,” she said, “he’s highly intelligent.”

  “Yeah,” said Di, “and so’s Mr. Spock. But that doesn’t necessarily make him good boyfriend material.”

  “Hugh’s a good person,” said Ana lamely, “he’s done a lot for me. He’s a good friend and‌—”

  “Sorry,” said Gill, wiping vol-au-vent crumbs from her fingertips into a piece of paper towel, “we’re not meaning to be mean, you know. But it’s just that you’re such a beautiful girl, you know, and you’re so sweet and everything. I just kind of expected anyone you’ve been out with to be a‌—I don’t know. A nice guy, I guess. A cute guy. Someone kind and gentle. Like you . . .”

  Ana’s tummy fizzed pleasurably. Kind and gentle? Beautiful? “But I’m not‌—”

  “Yes ye’ are. You’re gorgeous. Isn’t she gorgeous, Di?”

  Di nodded enthusiastically. “You could be a model,” she gushed.

  Ana looked at them suspiciously. “You’re both kidding me, aren’t you? You’re winding me up.”

  “No way,” said Di. “I mean‌—you are one hundred percent gorgeous. Really. And I bet with a bit of makeup and some funky clothes . . .”

  “Done that already. Lol got me all tarted up last week when I first arrived.”

  “And?”

  Ana shrugged.

  “I bet you looked stunning, didn’t you?” said Di excitedly. “Didn’t you?”

  Ana let a smile seep slowly across her face. “Well,” she said, “I wouldn’t say gorgeous exactly. But I looked, you know‌—all right.”

  “Ooh,” said Di, peering through the window, “talking of gorgeous. The beautiful Flint returns.” She stood on tiptoe to view the return of Flint, who was parking his car across the street.

  “Sit down, you old slapper,” said Gill, dragging her down by the bottom of her sweatshirt. “He’s too good for the likes of you.”

  Ana stiffened as she heard Flint’s footsteps heading up the garden path. She was still reeling from Gill’s drunken revelations about him and his sexual behavior last night, about his failure to mention at any point during all the incessant talking about her past the fact that he and Bee had had a sexual relationship. And she was also reeling from the faint stirrings of jealousy churning around inside her stomach. What was all that about? What exactly was this nagging, insistent little voice inside her saying, “Why Gill? Why Lol? Why Bee? Why every woman in southeast England and not me?” When she’d first met Flint he’d given off “unattainable” vibes, the kind of man who would look at a woman only if she were actually Christy Turlington’s identical twin sister. Discovering that he’d sleep with a warthog if he could get it to stand still for long enough was really very disappointing.

  But then he’d walked into the house that afternoon clutching a little box of cakes, with his big shorts on and his tufty hair, and those negative thoughts had melted away immediately. And then when he’d touched her‌—physically and emotionally‌—she’d had to resist the temptation to bury her head into his enormous chest and squeeze him half to death. And then Hugh had turned up, and at one point she’d walked into the living room and looked at the two of them side by side and, oh God‌—Hugh had looked so little and inconsequential and kind of . . . sad. She’d almost burst into tears seeing a man she’d loved unquestioningly and depended on so completely for so many years shrunken to such inadequate proportions in front of her very eyes. And not just shrunken but somehow tainted‌—almost, she imagined, like it might be to meet an idol in the flesh who you’ve only ever seen in airbrushed photographs before.

  But Hugh’s presence had done something else‌—formed a bond of complicity between her and Flint. For the first time, she felt like she and Flint were equals. Up until Hugh’s arrival she hadn’t been able to shake the feeling that Flint was just humoring her‌—that she was cramping his style in some way. Even after he invited her back to Turnpike Lane to go drinking, even after he introduced her to all his mates in the pub, even after he phoned her that morning, even after he asked her to go out with him tonight in his car, she still thought he was just being nice. Today she had suddenly realized that he wasn’t just being nice, that he actually wanted it to be her and him, together.

  Flint walked in and his eyes went immediately to Ana’s. He looked at his watch. “Ten minutes,” he said, grinning.

  “Ten minutes for what?”

  “To get your glad rags on and get going. Come on. I’ve got to be in Chepstow Road in half an hour.”

  “What for?”

  “A job. Now, get going.”

  “But why do I have to get changed?”

  “No reason,” he said, unzipping a suit carrier and heading toward the downstairs toilet, “you’ll just have more fun if you’re glammed up. Trust me.”

  “OK,” said Ana, blushing at Gill and Di’s winks and heading up the stairs.

  She unzipped her tartan suitcase and tipped the contents all over her bed. What kind of choice was this, she thought, picking up ludicrously, almost comically ill-matched garments and discarding them? She had two pairs of Bee’s Indian harem trousers, a spare T-shirt, her khaki Lycra top, which she threw to the floor when she realized that it actually smelled, a load of diamond jewelry, the black sequined jacket, three brightly colored cotton Indian tops, and her pajamas. Bollocks, she thought, thinking of all those beautiful dresses and gowns she’d packed away at Bee’s and sent back to Devon. But then she looked down at her legs and realized she couldn’t have worn a frock anyway‌—nearly a week’s worth of stubble‌—not just a hint of mousy growth but proper lesbian-rambler, boots-and-shorts stubble. So. Trousers. It had to be. She pulled off her cotton vest and slipped on an Indian top. Pretty, she thought, eyeing up her reflection, but not glam. She took it off. Then she took off her jeans and pulled on the harem trousers. As she looked at her reflection she suddenly remembered that harem trousers were just stupid. The sort of thing that probably seemed like a good idea when you were wandering around India with a bindi on your forehead eating lentils with your fingers, but get them home and you soon realize that they’re an incredibly unflattering garment that makes you look like you’ve done a huge poop in your crotch.

  And then she remembered Lol. Lol wore jeans all the time but she always looked glamorous. She pulled her jeans back on. And then she spied the black sequined jacket. She pulled it on over her bare chest and buttoned it up. She arranged herself into all sorts of unlikely positions in the mirror, checking that her boobs didn’t fall out, and then she put on Bee’s diamond necklace and Lol’s snakeskin stilettos. Jesus, she thought, checking herself again, this either looks great or I look like a complete idiot. How were you supposed to know the difference? she wondered. Could she? she wondered. Could she really go out like this? With no bra on? No top? Well‌—she’d have to‌—she didn’t have any choice.

  She was about to let down her hair and comb it out, when she suddenly remembered what Flint had said earlier on about it suiting her up, so she smoothed it down with her fingertips, put on a pair of diamond drop earrings, got halfway through her door, remembered she’d forgotten deodorant, slicked some on, put some spit on her eyelashes, and then went clattering down the stairs.

  “Ready,” she cried, grabbing her knapsack from the coat stand and piling into the living room.

  “Oh. My. God,” said Gill, getting slowly to her feet, a copy of Hello! magazine falling to the floor. “You look amazing.”

  Di’s jaw was on the floor. “I told you. Didn’t I tell you? Fantastic, absolutely fantastic.”

  And then Flint emerged from the kitchen, gulping down a glass of water, and Ana nearly fainted. He was wearing a black suit, a white shirt, and a thin black tie. He looked like Michael Madsen in Reservoir Dogs. He looked like the handsomest thing she’d ever seen
in her life.

  “Wow,” he said, seeming genuinely taken aback, “Ana‌—you look‌—wow.”

  The two of them stood and stared at each other in wonder for a while, like a paused video, before someone hit play and Flint looked at his watch and Ana said, “Come on, we’re going to be late,” and in a state of embarrassment and among wolf whistles and silly comments from Gill and Di, they both bundled themselves out of the door and toward his car, desperately trying not to look at each other as much as they both desperately wanted to.

  thirty-two

  Flint’s client was a model called Liberty Taylor. With her was her boyfriend, a weasely, pasty-faced boy with strange combed-forward hair who was “no one,” according to Flint. How weird, thought Ana, to be “no one” just because your girlfriend was skinny and pretty and got paid to have her photograph taken. Ana watched in wonder as the two of them emerged from a large white house with wrought-iron balconies, all unsmiling cool and tatty vintage clothes. She had it, she thought, peering curiously at Liberty, whatever it was that it took to be famous, she had it. Her hair was jet black and gelled into marcel waves across her forehead, and she was wearing a flimsy, chiffony dress and shoes so strappy that they barely existed. She was unbelievably pale and had a pink blob in the middle of each cheek. Her boyfriend looked like a recalcitrant teenage brother who’d been made to dress up for the night. They didn’t talk to each other as they left the house, just sort of wafted silently out and lowered themselves professionally into the back of the car as Flint held the door open for them. She heard the “no one” boyfriend muttering “Cheers, mate” as the door was closed behind him.

  “Where are we taking them?” Ana whispered to Flint as they pulled away.

  “You don’t need to whisper,” whispered Flint, turning toward her and smiling. “They can’t hear us.”

  “Oh. Right.” She grinned at him, thinking, “You are a juicy-rare-burger-and-thick-cut-chips of a man and I want to eat you.”

  “We’re going to a film premiere,” he said, “some cockney-caper thing. Sunny Moore’s in it.”

  “Who’s Sunny Moore?”

  “Another model‌—I think they used to be flatmates or something.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “I told you,” he smirked, “I know absolutely everything about celebrities.”

  “What‌—even stuff like flatmates?”

  “Yup. Even stuff like flatmates. It scares me sometimes how much room in my tiny little brain is taken up by things like the name of Liz Hurley’s new boyfriend.”

  “Oh,” said Ana smugly, “even I know that one‌—it’s Hugh Grant, isn’t it?”

  Flint threw her a pitying look. “You poor, poor little thing,” he said, “you really don’t know a thing, do you?”

  “What,” Ana objected. “But it is, isn’t it? Liz Hurley does go out with Hugh Grant, doesn’t she?”

  “No, my child. Liz and Hugh split up a few months ago and Liz is now going out with a guy called Steve Bing, who is some hotshot Hollywood film producer. A big fella, a bit like me. He’s also in line for about fourteen billion or something when his dad pops off. They were first photographed together, in much the same way as Jennifer Aniston and Brad Pitt, on a balcony at a charity rock concert.”

  “Oh my God, Flint‌—that’s sick‌—knowing that much about a pair of strangers is sick.”

  “I know,” he said, “I agree. But what’s frightening is how easy my brain finds it to absorb that sort of information and how hard it finds it to absorb important stuff.”

  “You mean your studying?”

  “Uh-huh. They say that your powers of memory are at their peak when you’re twenty-six, and it’s all downhill after that. Which in many respects is true. But if that really is the case, how come I remember so much trivia? It’s all information, isn’t it? It uses the same part of the brain. And I retain it perfectly. Yet give me an important fact and it’s gone in seconds.” He clicked his fingers. “It’s a mystery to me, it really is. Oh. Hold it. Her ladyship is calling.” He looked down at the dashboard, where a little light was flashing.

  “Yes,” he said solemnly into a tiny microphone.

  “Oh,” said a breathy, preppy voice, “yeah. Hi. Driver. Could we, like, er, stop, please. At a drugstore. I just have to . . . yeah . . .”

  “No problem, Miss Taylor,” said Flint before pulling over at a big glitzy-looking place called Bliss that looked more like a nightclub than a drugstore.

  Liberty emerged from the back of the car like a frightened little bird. Rush hour traffic whizzed by noisily, and homeward-bound commuters surged past her. She looked frail and lost, like the Little Match Girl in a posh frock, and Ana suddenly felt inexplicably sorry for her. Before she’d even thought about it, she’d opened her door and was standing next to Liberty. “Hi,” she said, “I’m a friend of the driver’s. Would you like me to go in there for you? I’m probably a little more suitably dressed for a drugstore run.”

  She grinned, and the waiflike Liberty smiled wanly at her. “Would you?” she said. “Really?” Except she said “Rarly?”

  “Yeah,” said Ana, “sure. Tell me what you want and I’ll get it for you.”

  “Good‌—that’s rarly sweet of you,” said Liberty, ferreting around in a tiny satin pouch for an even tinier satin purse with a minute zipper that she could barely get a grip on. She opened it and pulled out a tiny crumpled five-pound note and passed it to Ana. “My fucking period’s just started and I didn’t bring any tampons. It’s just sooooo fucking annoying. And Mr. ‘I’m, like, a guy I can’t buy things like tampons’ in there”‌—she indicated the back of the car‌—“refused to go in for me. Would you mind? SuperPlus? Non-applicator? Thank you. You’re a complete star.” And then she stalked back into the car and pulled the door closed behind her.

  Ana bought the tampons, thinking what a funny old world it was‌—one minute you’re buying organic barley for your agoraphobic mother in Devon, the next you’re buying jumbo tampons for a supermodel in Marble Arch.

  Liberty opened the car door as Ana knocked on it. “Oh, you star,” she said again, grabbing the plastic bag and the change from Ana’s hand. “God, I just can’t thank you enough.” Her boyfriend was sitting at the other side of the car, staring into the middle distance, sniffing loudly and sucking his teeth, his legs apart, one leg bouncing up and down to the music playing in the back. “That’s a fantastic jacket, by the way‌—where’s it from?”

  “Vivienne Westwood,” said Ana, feeling happy to be wearing a famous designer label and then feeling really annoyed with herself for being so shallow. “It’s my sister’s. Was. My sister’s.”

  “Well‌—you should keep it‌—it rarly suits you. You look fabulous.”

  For a second, the two girls stared at each other. Ana looked into Liberty’s eyes and wondered what it would be like to be her, to be Liberty Taylor. And as she looked, she noticed with shock that Liberty was staring at her, possibly doing exactly the same thing. Ana reddened and smiled and closed the door gently behind her before climbing back into the passenger seat, feeling strangely substantial.

  “Do you know,” said Flint, turning to smile at her, “that a supermodel, a girl who has been on the cover of Elle and Vogue, a girl who is widely held to be one of the most beautiful girls on the planet, has just told you that you look fabulous?”

  “Yeah,” she replied.

  “Do you believe it now?” he said.

  “Believe what?”

  “That you’re beautiful?”

  “Oh,” she scoffed, “fabulous is one thing. Beautiful is another. And anyway‌—she was talking about the jacket. Not me.” But even as she said it, she knew it wasn’t strictly true. Because suddenly, and for the very first time in her life, she actually felt like she might be beautiful. She really might be. Well, maybe not beautiful exactly, but, you know‌—not bad-looking. She smiled and turned her head to the window, watching the hordes of early evening commuters s
cuttling around grayly, and felt positively serene.

  They parked in a side street around the back of Leicester Square, picked up some KFC and devoured it in the front seat of the car, watching the world go by. After the premiere they drove Liberty, her “no one,” and a few other beautiful, sad-looking people to a club in Soho for the post-premiere party. As Liberty emerged from the back of the car, she knocked on Ana’s window.

  “Hi,” she beamed, “take this.” She handed Ana a sliver of white card. “My friend Rosa’s a scout for Models One. Give her a ring. I think she’d really like to see you. Yah?”

  “Me?” said Ana, touching her chest with her palm. “But I’m not . . . I mean . . . I’m . . . my nose,” she blustered.

  “Yah. That’s cool. They’re looking for, you know, what’s the word, er . . . edgy‌—that’s it‌—edgy girls. You know. Unusual. You’ve got a great look. She’ll love you. Phone her. Yah?”

  “Oh. God. Yeah. Well. Yeah. Thank you.” She took the card and stared at it for a while. When she looked up again, Liberty and her friends were all halfway up the steps to the club, where a red velvet rope was instantly unclipped for them to pass through.

  “Yeah,” said Flint, one elbow resting against the window ledge, eyeing Ana skeptically, “it wasn’t you. It was the jacket. Right.” He rubbed the top of Ana’s head with the palm of his hand. “Well, well, well,” he laughed hoarsely before steering the car deftly away from the front of the club and pulling out toward Piccadilly. “Well, well, well.”

  “So,” said Ana, feeling suffused with some ridiculous feeling of complete and perfect joy, “where are we going now?”

  It was eleven-thirty.

  “D’you fancy getting in the back?”

  “I beg your pardon?” teased Ana.

  “Get in the back,” said Flint, “I’ll drive you around for a while. It’s the best way to see London.”

  “OK,” Ana grinned.

  She sat smack in the middle of the black leather seat and spread herself out a bit, running her hands over the leather pleasurably.