And… he seems fine with that.
Well I am fine with it too. This is a fling. Last night we ‘flung’. I dipped my toe in as intended!
And that’s all! Great!
‘I should probably go!’ I say brightly, sitting up and pulling the soft blanket around me. ‘Anders has tried calling loads and I’m hoping it’s good news about Chuck!’
‘I hope it is! That would be awesome.’ Seth stretches his tanned arms above his head. ‘I have to be at work in half an hour.’
I nod.
He nods.
‘Okay. Well…’
‘Do you want to come and see the show on Sunday night?’ he blurts out. ‘It would be cool to have you there on my first night as a cast member.’
‘Yeah,’ I say immediately. ‘Yes. I’d love to.’
‘Great!’
‘Great!’ I parrot again.
Wrapping the blanket around me, I wander out into the hallway to retrieve my clothes.
Once dressed and at the front door, I open my mouth to ask Seth if he wants to hang out tonight again. To do more ‘flinging’. But before I do, Seth leans in to give me a kiss on the cheek.
‘Hey, um, listen… I’m gonna be pretty busy at work so… I probably won’t see you until Sunday. I’ll email you the tickets, um…’
He trails off, his cheeks turning a little red.
Awkward.
‘Yeah. Yeah, no probs,’ I reply, my voice a tad too high. ‘Okay. Bye! See you then!’
‘Goodbye, Olive.’
As I walk back from the subway station to Anders’ house, the sun shines brightly, illuminating the buildings prettily. I try my best to not feel gutted about the fact that Seth seemingly couldn’t wait to get rid of me. I have no right to feel gutted. I told him it was just a one-time thing. It was just a one-time thing. I should enjoy it for what it was: a toe well and truly dipped in. I stride purposefully through Gramercy Park, feeling proud of myself as I navigate most of the journey without my Citymapper app.
Before I turn onto Anders’ street I hold up my phone and take a picture of myself squinting in the sun. Then I send it to Birdie, along with a text that says:
Sex is nice, isn’t it? Why didn’t you tell me ;)
I chuckle to myself as the text wings its way to her, but my laugh is cut short when I realise that there’s a crowd of around thirty people outside of Anders’ house. They’re all jostling to get the front, elbowing each other out of the way.
What the heck is going on?
I push my way through the throng to Anders’ front door.
I knock on, but there’s no answer. I knock again as hard as I can.
‘I said to form an orderly queue!’ Anders yells from inside. ‘No knocking. We will see to you all in good time! Dear me!’
I open the letter box and push my face up against it. ‘It’s Olive! Anders! Let me in! What the bloody hell is going on here? Let me in!’
After a few seconds the door swings open and Anders stands there dressed in shades of cream and grey. His usually pale face is glowing red.
A young man walks past him and out of the house, disappearing into the crowd outside.
‘Goodbye,’ Anders yells after him. ‘We’ll be in touch!’
‘Who was that? Who are these strangers outside your house?’ I ask, closing the door behind me. ‘Why are you so pink of cheek?’
‘Come through, come through,’ Anders says, taking my hand and dragging me into his kitchen. ‘It is all happening at Chez von Preen this AM.’
What is going on?
In the kitchen, things look very hectic indeed. I blink. Mrs Ramirez is sticking polaroid photos up on the window, on the kitchen table there are tall stacks of papers, empty mugs of coffee and three burner mobile phones buzzing away!
‘We have been very busy, sweet guapa. I hope you had good sex last night? You have the look of a woman well tended to.’
My cheeks warm and I avoid her question while wondering how on earth a well-tended woman looks and how this is so clearly visible to an ageing Spanish woman.
‘Who are those pictures of?’ I say, distracting Mrs Ramirez by pointing at the polaroids on the window. I turn to Anders. ‘And will someone tell me who the people are outside!’
Anders gives me a look that’s somewhere between guilty and excited.
‘They are here regarding Chuck Allen,’ he explains, one hand on his skinny hip.
‘What?’ My heart leaps. ‘Wow. This is incredible news! The leaflets worked?’
‘They did not,’ Mrs Ramirez says, bustling over to the kitchen counter and pouring me a coffee from what I think is a crystal cafetière.
‘Huh?’
‘Ask him.’ Mrs Ramirez thumbs in Anders’ direction.
I turn to Anders, a quizzical look on my face.
‘I might have put a little something up on Craigslist,’ Anders says breezily. ‘And it got a great response!’
‘Anders, you are a genius! So what have you found out? Have you heard from Chuck himself? Does anyone know where he is?’
Yes! The search is finally coming together.
‘We are not having great luck,’ Mrs Ramirez says, sitting down at the kitchen table.
Oh.
‘Not yet!’ Anders interjects. ‘But we will.’
‘Mr von Preen here offered a reward on the internets. So the people outside are not, how shall I say… trustworthy.’
Anders tuts lightly. ‘It’s only five thousand dollars for goodness sake.’
‘Five thousand dollars!’ I goggle. ‘Oh Anders. What are you like?’
‘Ay! All that money!’
‘It worked in Annie, darling. They put up a reward for information leading to the discovery of Annie’s biological parents.’
‘It didn’t work in Annie! Tim Curry and Bernadette Peters used the whole thing as a ruse to con Daddy Warbucks. Remember? Mrs Hannigan was involved and everything.’
‘It didn’t work in Annie?’ Anders puts a hand to his face, crestfallen. ‘I thought… It’s so long since I saw it. Oh dear. I was so hopeful last night. I’d had some cognac and thought that this would be a great help.’
‘It could still work, I suppose,’ I say brightly, touched that this unusual man has put up so much of his own money to help me and Birdie. ‘Thanks for trying, Anders.’
Anders gives an elegant shrug. ‘Besties help besties,’ he says.
I guess now isn’t the right time to tell him we’re not besties.
‘So, the pictures on the window are the people you’ve already met this morning?’ I ask, heading over to the big kitchen window to have a look at the five polaroids stuck up there with Blu-Tack. ‘Why are they on the window? And how on earth did you get strangers to pose for pictures? Did they not think it was odd?’
‘Mrs Ramirez said we should.’ Anders pulls a face, speaking in a petulant voice, almost as if he wants to get back at Mrs Ramirez for shading his Annie reward idea.
‘It is how Olivia Pope would do it,’ Mrs Ramirez explains.
‘Olivia Pope?’
‘From Scandal. She is magnificent. She and all her gladiators in suits put photographs for their investigations on the window. Everyone we have seen was very happy to have their picture taken!’
‘Oh. Cool. I think.’
I peer at the polaroids. Three are headshots of men and two are headshots of women. Written underneath in tiny writing are their phone numbers, email addresses, how they know Chuck and the condition of their hair. One says ‘dry’, one says ‘oily roots’, another says ‘stressed follicles’ and one says ‘soft as feathers – follow up’.
‘Why are there notes on here about these folks’s hair?’
Anders rolls his eyes as if I am an idiot for even asking. ‘Because one can tell everything one needs to know about a person based on their hair.’
‘Of course! Right! And these people say they know Chuck?’ I ask. ‘Do you have any information we can use?’
‘Nothing co
ncrete… not yet, at least,’ Anders tells me. ‘But there are plenty more people waiting outside.’
It takes us six hours of interviewing randomers until we decide to send the rest of the people outside away, asking them to contact us via a specially set up email address if they have any verifiable information. Of the many people we spoke to, only three of them actually knew Chuck. One was friends with Chuck at college but hadn’t seen him in years. And then he scarpered as soon as he recognised Anders and called him ‘the dude who cut that other dude’s face with the scissors’. Which made Anders lock himself in one of his three bathrooms for a whole thirty minutes. The second person was a pretty young woman who fancied Chuck when they’d both worked at Chimes Investments. She didn’t have any info to offer but wanted to be kept in the loop if we found him and he was still, by some miracle, single. The third guy said he had a friend who had been to an incredible party that Chuck had held at mansion in Brooklyn but that he’d never actually met him and he didn’t know anyone who had.
‘This Chuck Allen is like the Great Gatsby!’ Mrs Ramirez pointed out, after she had done scolding Anders for hiding out in the bathroom, telling him that ‘grown men do not tantrum’.
Everyone else we saw was a liar, a rubbernecker, or just wanted to get a look inside the beautiful Gramercy Park house they had admired for years and never been able to get into.
At the end of the day, Anders, Mrs Ramirez and I slump on Anders’ living room sofas. Well, as much as we can slump on stiff, Chesterfield antique settees. I sigh, determined not to be downbeat, despite this feeling like a wasted day. Making an effort to try to see things in a more positive light, to try to relax when I can has made life feel so much brighter. And the search isn’t over yet. There’s still time! Not a lot of it… but still.
‘All we can do is try again tomorrow,’ Mrs Ramirez says with a sleepy sigh.
I nod. She’s right. If there’s one thing I’ve realised this past week, it’s that you can’t force things to happen, no matter how much you want them to. But it doesn’t mean you can’t try your best.
‘Anyone care for a tipple?’ Anders asks, slinking over to his living room bar cart. ‘The cognac I had last night was divine. I would highly recommend it for taking the edge off.’
‘Yes please,’ Mrs Ramirez says. ‘With ice please.’
‘I’ll just have…’ I’m about to say I’ll just have water, but hell. If I can’t enjoy a glass of fancy-ass cognac when the opportunity arises, then what am I even doing? And it’s not like I’ve got any other plans tonight. Seth palmed me off this morning and my inbox is still, sadly, all quiet on the Chuck front.
‘I’ll have one,’ I say. ‘Thank you.’
I stand up to help Anders make them, but he hisses that I should sit back down immediately because besties bring drinks to besties. I do as I’m told and recline back into my seat. After he’s handed myself and Mrs Ramirez our drinks, Anders lights a small fire and a warmth settles over the grand room making us feel snug and cosy. I think of Birdie, hoping that at least one of the leads we got today comes to something solid. I’ve not got long left to find Chuck and I desperately don’t want to let Birdie down.
Ramirez gives a happy sigh as Anders turns on his record player and the rich baritone notes of Frank Sinatra glide into the air.
‘Well, if this isn’t a lovely time then I don’t know what is.’
I smile dozily, watching the flames of the fire crackle and fizz.
I completely agree.
I wish Birdie were here.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Text from Olive to Birdie: Did you get my text, Bird? Where you at?!
Three glasses of old cognac later and I am quite tipsy. It’s only early evening, though, so I can drink plenty of water and get the early night I had planned.
I text Birdie again and am a little surprised when she doesn’t text back immediately as she usually does. I realise that she didn’t respond this morning either. My stomach kerplunks as I consider how this morning’s text might have seemed to her. She’s stuck in hospital feeling downright rotten and here I am gloating about amazing oyster dinners, sneaking dances in beautiful parks and having the kind of sex that can make a person feel brand new.
Way to rub it in, Olive. I mentally slap myself around the face and try calling Birdie’s phone but it rings out. Looking at my watch, I realise that it’s about midnight in England and she’s probably tucked up in bed. I’ll let her get a good night’s rest and call her in the morning to apologise for being a self-absorbed goon.
As Anders and Mrs Ramirez chatter away about all the far-flung places they’ve visited in the world, I scroll through my recent texts and see Seth’s name there.
He was so weird this morning. He seemed super into me last night. We got on so well. And got it on so well! But this morning he looked really uncomfortable as we said goodbye. Like he just wanted me out of there.
Before I can stop myself, I text him. All I put is, HI!!! I immediately regret it. The capital letters and the exclamation marks make it look like I’m being passive-aggressive. HI!!! is a text Donna would send. Hell, HI!!! is a text Donna has sent to me in the past when I haven’t replied speedily enough!
Well, there’s nothing I can do about it now.
I take a sip of my drink and ten minutes later, when there is zero response from Seth, something horrifying occurs to me. What if I was the only one who had a good time last night? Oh shit. What… what if Seth didn’t enjoy our sexy times as much as I did. He seemed to, but… he’s amazing at improv. What if he was… improvising his enjoyment? What if he thought I was lacklustre or freaky or selfish in bed? I’ve not had any real experience, so I can’t exactly compare.
Shit, what if, when I was rocking away on top of him having such a lovely time, I leaned back too much in my rapture and hurt his penis? Maybe bruised it a little? And he felt too embarrassed to tell me? Or he did try to tell me but I was so caught up in getting off that I didn’t hear him! The terrible possibilities are endless!
Oh god. Maybe Seth was trying to let me down gently this morning. Maybe those Sunday Night Live tickets were a pity gift. A ‘thanks but no thanks’ payoff. I’m not even sure how I would find out the answer to these questions. I can’t exactly text him again. HI!!! Hope all well. Did I bruise your dick last night? Sorry if so! Best wishes!
Argh.
My brain starts to go off into one of its overthinking spirals and with great effort I use Phyllis’s belly breathing technique to bring me back to the present moment where I am cosy and warm and mellow in Anders’ house.
At the sound of my phone ringing, my heart lifts. I hope it’s Birdie. It’s rubbish going a whole day without speaking to her! I pick up my phone from where it’s resting on the arm of my chair.
Oh! It’s a New York number.
Maybe it’s Seth? Calling to tell me that he is at the hospital with a peen bruise.
I hope not. I really really hope not.
With a deep breath, I answer the phone.
‘Hi, is this Olive Brewster?’ asks a forthright female voice.
‘Yes?’
‘Hello! This is Terri Wyatt from Perry Media. I got your details from Sharon at Sunday Night Live?’
‘Oh!’ I say excitedly, immediately putting the mobile on speakerphone so that Anders and Mrs Ramirez can listen in. ‘Yes! Hello!’
‘Hi! So, I was planning on emailing you to let you know that we weren’t gonna be able to fit you in within the next week, but as it happens we’ve just had a guest cancel and we need a fill in.’
‘Yes, YES!’ I yell, standing up from the chair while Anders starts excitedly pacing the large room and Mrs Ramirez does a shoulder jig. ‘We haven’t had much of a response from anyone else, so this is great news! When—’
I trail off as Mrs Ramirez and Anders immediately start frowning and shaking their heads ‘no’.
‘One moment, please,’ I say, interrupting myself and pressing the ‘mute’ button. ‘W
hat is it?’
‘Never let them know that no one else is interested!’ Mrs Ramirez admonishes, wagging her finger at me.
‘You need to act like they are getting a scoop,’ Anders adds, sipping from his glass of cognac. ‘That’s all the media wants. Scoops.’
‘Scoops?’
‘Scoops,’ Anders nods.
‘Scooooops,’ Mrs Ramirez grumbles. ‘Speak to her now! Don’t keep her waiting. The media do not like to wait.’
I unmute the phone, rolling my eyes at the two sudden founts of all media-related knowledge here.
‘Ahem. Terri. Sorry about that,’ I say. ‘I, um. I meant to say we haven’t had much of a response… from people we’d be happy to speak to…’
‘Right…?’
‘I mean… like… this is a very important story. Only for very important… media.’
Anders and Mrs Ramirez nod approvingly at my improvisation skills. I give them a thumbs up.
‘Riiiight,’ Terri Wyatt repeats, clearly not quite as impressed. ‘Look, can you come in or not? It’s a ten-minute slot, presenter asks you about the search for this Chuck character, you tell them why you’re doing it, we give the contact details out on air, everybody’s happy.’
‘Okay, yes. I will do it,’ I say, sensing that Terri is not the kind of woman you act timid around. ‘May I ask what date and time you would like me to be there and where I should go?’
‘Now. It’s tonight,’ Terri says, sounding slightly exasperated. ‘We need someone here in forty minutes to go on the air at ten.’
‘Now?’ I squeak.
But it’s night. It’s 8.30 p.m. I’ve had three cognacs.
‘Yes,’ Terri says. ‘It’s at Anchorage Studios on 6th Avenue. Look, we wouldn’t be calling you if we could get someone else at such short notice… Damn Ricky Martin for cancelling at the last minute.’
Ricky Martin. The Ricky Martin. This must be a really amazing radio station for them to have Ricky Martin on! But, oh god, I’m hardly Ricky Martin. Those are some big shoes to fill!
Big Sexy Love: The laugh out loud romantic comedy that everyone's raving about! Page 24