I wanted a man.
I needed a man.
Tonight, I was gonna fall in love.
He’ll be rich.
He’ll be famous.
I’ll walk into this party and he’ll instantly fall for me. I’ll be the most fascinating and captivating person he’s ever met. And we’ll live happily ever after in a mansion in Chelsea, with weekend apartments in Dublin and New York and a getaway summer retreat in the South of France.
Ahhh! I felt better already. There’s nothing like a mini pep talk with myself while sipping on a Bellini at the Four Seasons, surrounded by beautiful people, to give you a boost of confidence.
Looking good and feeling sexy was always half the battle. Today I was going to be militant in my approach to finding my hero. By next week I would be standing on a beach in Cancún wearing nothing but a white bikini like Pamela Anderson. I’d be sipping cocktails once again, while my Tommy Lee says ‘I do’ in a sexy, gravelly voice.
As I started to drift off into daydream land about the beautiful children we’d make, Anna and Maddie strutted through the door looking like extras from The Rocky Horror Picture Show pulling their little trolley-dolly cases.
Parker had text-demanded ‘B on 4 seasons 4 court @ 2 on sat EXACTLY.’ So of course we arranged to meet at one o’clock to discuss wardrobes and to generally snoop around the hotel to see what stars were hiding out.
‘Well, are we hot or wot?’ demanded Maddie.
‘I think we’re FAB-U-LOUS,’ declared Anna, before giving me a chance to comment. ‘I’d wanna get with us … Tonight, Eva, we’re going to be every girl’s nightmare. Tonight is our night.’
Laughing at their dogmatic self-belief, and their brazen ability to wear Madonna-inspired corsets and miniskirts at lunchtime – in February! – I called over one of the cute barmen and flirted. ‘Can I have two of your best Bellinis for my shy and retiring friends please, Colin. They need something to elevate their mood.’
When their drinks arrived Maddie proposed a toast. ‘OK ladies, cheers to London. Here’s to flying in some fella’s private jet, fair play to him. Cheers to the Pink Panther for organizing it. And most of all here’s to getting the spirits down to get the spirits up, first class all the way, baby.’
‘Cheers.’
‘Cheers.’
‘Cheers. Let the games begin!’
By 1.45 I had started to get worried about Lisa’s whereabouts. She wasn’t normally late, and strangely her phone was switched off.
I was just leaving my fourth message for her when I lost the power of speech. David Barron’s wife, Annette, had entered the bar, and she was charging in my direction.
She was immediately eye-catching because of her trademark blonde bob, but was unusually dressed in a casual tracksuit.
She looked emotional.
She was looking for me.
Despite quickly turning my face and sheltering behind Maddie, I knew that she had spotted me.
‘Shit. Shit. Shit.’
Oblivious to the situation a giddy Maddie screamed, ‘What’s wrong with you?’ In such sterile marble surroundings, her voice could be heard by every patron as it pinballed around the room.
With that, a somewhat dishevelled Mrs Barron came storming over to us, put her hand on Maddie’s shoulder and pulled her out of the way. Maddie let out a ‘Hey?’ before she realized who had butted in.
In complete shock the three of us just stared at her, frozen.
Afraid to take a breath we waited for her to speak, but instead she just stood there looking frazzled. Momentarily it felt as if the entire bar had come to a standstill. Everyone was silent. Everyone was fully aware of the situation. But most of all, everyone was waiting for the best gossip to happen in front of their eyes.
Who would triumph? Would it be the spouse or the temptress?
Could the scorned wife kick the muddied journo’s ass? Or would the tart take a stand and tell the wife she obviously wasn’t taking care of matters at home?
Then a lonely tear rolled down Annette’s Botoxed and collagen-enhanced face. The three of us, immobilized, watched as this solitary tear slowly etched its way down her reddened face. Making its way across her high cheekbone, it meandered over her trembling lip and then clung to the bottom of her chin, before dropping off and landing on her baby pink Juicy Couture top.
God knows why Barron cheated on this woman. She still looked stunning even in her most desperate hour.
I couldn’t help but feel guilt for causing her pain so I stretched out my hand to her, and with a quiver in my voice said, ‘I’m so, so sorry.’
Retaining her composure, Annette took a deep breath, brushed the tear from her face, and with one look at my outstretched hand she shook her head slowly. Almost muttering she whispered the words, ‘No way’, then turned as if to walk away.
Just as I began to release the stress from my shoulders, Annette quickly swooped back round to face me and WHAM smacked me square across the cheek, leaving me literally gobsmacked.
Physically and emotionally wounded, I grabbed my face in bewilderment. It really hurt, but almost too much to feel it.
I looked to Maddie and Anna for support but they just looked back at me in this vacuous way which said: don’t look at us, you were the one who scored her husband.
Paralysed at first, Annette then started screaming at me, ‘You bitch. I hate you! You’re a slapper. You’re nothing but a slapper! ’
It was possibly the most surreal experience I had ever had. No one had ever hit me before. My mother used to chase me around the kitchen with a wooden spoon, but this was a first. I was caught up in one of my nightmares again.
Before I knew it, several members of suited staff had rushed over to intervene, along with some friend of Annette’s who grabbed her and ushered her away.
‘Come this way, please, Mrs Barron,’ ordered the manager.
‘She’s just trash,’ I could hear her friend say before she looked back and grimaced at me. ‘Nobody will touch her ever again.’
Quickly returning, the dutiful manager asked, ‘Are you OK, Eva? Can I get anything for you?’
To which I could only reply, ‘Thank you. No. We’re leaving now anyway.’
Scanning the room I could see that every pair of eyes was fixed on me. I’d catch their stare and they’d tilt their heads down and put their hands over their mouths to continue delighting.
I felt like being a total fishwife and screaming, ‘What are you all looking at?’ Thankfully, I thought better of it.
I probably would have ordered another stiff drink if it hadn’t been for Annette crying in the corner. Her very disturbing sobs made me feel as if I’d killed her husband, not snogged him.
Then again, a most heinous crime had been committed. Not only had I nationally humiliated her through the papers, I had massacred her marriage in the process. I deserved nothing but to go straight to hell. But as my mother would have said, I deserved nothing.
Feeling it was improper to hang around, Maddie slung her arm around me, giving me a reassuring firm squeeze, and chaperoned me out towards the car park.
‘C’mon girl,’ she encouraged, but I felt worthless to my very core. I had destroyed that woman’s world, and through no fault but my own, torn my own down around me too.
Just before I stepped out through the swinging doors I took one final glance back at Annette, but was obstructed by a ferocious-looking woman, mid-forties, screaming at me: ‘Just leave. You’re not wanted here!’
Noticing Annette and her cronies huddled in a tight circle in the background I gave the interfering stranger a fake smile and turned on my Gina heels. The woman looked oddly familiar, but I still feared a repeat attack. Knowing damn well I was the afternoon’s hate figure, I admitted defeat and left, repressing a retort.
* * *
Without a moment to catch my breath, Parker was the first image I saw. Garishly hanging out the back of a stretch white limousine Hummer, he was waving, frantically shouting, ‘
Excuse me? Where’s my welcoming committee?’
Mortified, we ran across the cobbled car park, pushed Parker aside and clambered in the back of the Hummer.
‘Get in, Parker, quick!’ I screamed, but with a look of total disgust he just peered back at me through the doorway, and with the lungs of a sixteen-year-old girl squealed, ‘Excuse me?’
As Maddie tried to coax his nibs inside – to complaints of, ‘Not everyone has seen us yet. I only got this bloody thing so everyone could be jealous’ – I noticed I had ripped yet another heel on the stones. That was the second pair ruined in one week. My karma was screwed. And as I sat surrounded in opulence, glamorized by mood-changing Christmas lights and buckets of ice stuffed with snipes of Moët, I wept. It was only when Maddie managed to find the volume button to turn the stereo down that she realized what a state I was in.
As my mascara stained a road map down my face, Maddie did her best to mop up the mess with a napkin that read ‘Get Happy – Get A Hummer!’
Doing a better job of lifting the moment than the purple, to pink, to yellow strip-lighting, Maddie joked, ‘Well, I always thought it best to be miserable in comfort, sweetie.’ And the two of us laughed. Well, laughed until I started to cry again.
By the time Anna had dragged Parker away from flirting with the doormen and stuffed our luggage up the aisle of our big bus, I had started to catch my breath.
In hyper form, Parker slammed the door and declared, ‘The Princess can’t make it, girls, as she’s having her arse injected into her crows’ feet today.’ With that he took one look at me and teased, ‘It’s not worth getting upset about, hon. Her arse isn’t big enough to fill all of her lines. You’ll still be considered one of the prettiest.’
All I could manage by way of retaliation was, ‘You’re so sweet …’ before Anna stepped in to inform him of the confrontation.
I’m sure his screams of ‘Fuck off! Fuck off! Fuck right off!’ echoed in the ears of every guest in the hotel.
With that Parker ordered, ‘Driver, take us to Lucan, good man, away from all this riff-raff. Our private plane is waiting for us.’ Anna, who was practically salivating with excitement, handed out the snipes of Moët to lubricate the discussion. Always thinking ahead where gossip was concerned, she came close to being booted out of the car several times with stupid tactless comments like, ‘I wonder is it too late to make the papers tomorrow?’ And, ‘She must really hate you, Eva.’
Trying desperately hard not to channel all my anger towards my pretty, but single-minded gossiper friend, I turned up the volume on the TV which was set on MTV2 and screeched, ‘Enough already. Let’s get this party started.’
With that the four of us sat kneeling up on the leather seats shaking our champagne bottles in the air and head-banging to Kellis’s ‘Milkshake’.
Although I was still at a pushing myself to feel happy stage, it felt good to be back to normal. Well, my kind of normality.
I might only have €100, and £28.50 which I found in an old jar in my purse in case of emergencies, but I somehow always managed to surround myself with expensive pleasures.
I was an unemployed celebrity journo; sorry, I was apparently an unemployable celebrity journalist. Yet I was surrounded by champagne, while being driven in a stretch limo to take a private jet to London, to party with some famous celebrities. On the up-side, life wasn’t too bad – yet!
Born lucky instead of rich, the good life found me, and it scared me to think I could be ousted from my comfort zone.
So I chose not to be.
It was easier to sing, dance, laugh and forget about the real world. Other people lived there.
And just as the energy in the Hummer had started to lull, Britney Spears came on the TV. With her first words ‘Baby One More Time’ we all jumped to our knees again, shrieking with excitement, singing along. Like sycophants we eyeballed each other as we religiously and meticulously sang her song, taking a line each at a time – until the driver hit the brakes abruptly and the four of us tumbled to the back and then the front of the Hummer like rag dolls.
As our shoes and our drinks flew around, we fell in a heap, screaming with laughter.
It turned out the driver had pulled off the motorway into a petrol station at the last minute to buy cigarettes. Happy to go with the flow, we girls made a run for the smelly toilet around the side of the garage, while Parker rang his date about the exact location of the private airport.
Fifteen minutes later, we were all back safely in the limo, readying ourselves for meeting Parker’s rich builder boy.
After hair and make-up had been fixed we managed to gather our belongings and the spare snipes of champagne as we pulled up at Weston Airport.
Like an excitable teenager, Parker was almost pinging off the walls, but like a true pro he reeled it back in as he stepped out of the limo to meet his hairy-handed man.
As butch as you like, he marched over to his new boyfriend, patted him on the back and said, ‘Howsigoin’, Jeff? Not a bad day for flying, eh?’
Trying desperately hard not to crack up laughing, we lined up like the hired help to greet our new host. In a complete Walter Mitty moment Parker delved for the deepest voice he could find and said, ‘Jeff, these are the ladies I was telling you about. Aren’t they gorgeous?’
Our new friend Jeff played the charmer, and even gave Maddie a playful wink. Happy to go along with the game, we gushed and cooed as Jeff flirted with each of us individually.
He was a man with manners. And for us to even hint that he wasn’t batting for our team would have been improper protocol.
What a waste for us girls, though. Like Parker he was tall, about six foot two, and quite broad. He looked extremely sporty. You could tell he was the kinda guy who would go skiing in the winter and surfing in the summer, and had a subtle mahogany tan as a result. Hairy hands aside, he was a buff puff, who came with a serious reservoir of cash and assets to impress us with.
Laughing, Jeff teased us as he gave us the tour of the airport, joking, ‘I hope none of you girls are afraid of flying?’
All pulling startled faces, Maddie shot back, ‘No, but we’re all afraid of crashing!’
She may have been joking, but it was true. This might have been executive travel, but all of the aircraft looked extremely flimsy.
‘Where are you hiding the Boeing?’ I asked. ‘Or are we flying by Lear Jet today?’
Jeff had clearly heard it all before. ‘Oh, it’s good to see everyone is in high spirits. Now let’s see how you all get on with the weigh-in,’ he said with great amusement.
Automatically the four of us looked at each other, clutched our chests and cried in camp horror, ‘Weighin?’
‘I thought that might wipe the smiles off your faces. I can’t let anyone on the plane without weighing you first. I couldn’t take the chance that any of you ladies might shave off a few pounds here and there.’
While Maddie, Anna and myself all hated the scales as much as Marmite, Parker looked the most worried of the lot of us. ‘Emm, what’s the relevance of knowing our exact weight?’ he asked. He looked almost pale with the news.
‘It’s just a formality, really.’ Jeff chuckled. ‘We just need to know where to put the heavy people.’
As if claiming a mini-victory Maddie piped up, ‘Is there a skinny model VIP section to this plane?’ Jeff thought for a moment, then said, ‘Yes, skinny models to the back of the plane, fabulously healthy people front and middle.’
Relishing her status Maddie asked in her best precocious voice, ‘So, why is it the fat people have to sit up the front?’ doing her best to wind up Parker and Anna.
‘Well,’ said Jeff, ‘the plane would never get off the ground if we got the weight wrong. And that goes for your baggage too.’
Looking at the size of Maddie’s bulging case I did my best to put a smile back on Parker’s face. ‘Eh, it looks like you’re carrying a few extra pounds yourself there, missus. You might have to leave some of your non-essential
s behind.’
‘Non-essentials!’ screamed Maddie. ‘The only thing non-essential about this trip is your bad karma. I wouldn’t be worrying about my baggage, hon, but trying to shed some of your own.’
Without giving me time to answer Jeff had ceremoniously ushered us and our luggage on to scales at a nearby Portakabin, throwing his eyes up to heaven at the sight of our bags.
‘You’re allowed 34 pounds excess weight per person,’ he explained.
Still feeling super-skinny, Maddie joked, ‘So where are we going to squeeze Parker’s ego?’
‘Probably on a roof-rack alongside yours, dear,’ squealed Parker. Realizing he had let his butch image slip, he straightened his shoulders and declared, ‘If any of the girls are over I don’t mind leaving some of my stuff behind. I don’t mind travelling light.’
The luggage safely on board, we girls peeked our heads back out of the Portakabin to see if we could spot a plane that looked safe enough to travel in.
When the other pair joined us they were happily laughing; no doubt Parker had made some crude comment along the lines that the only package Jeff needed to take was the package between his trousers!
Resuming his headmaster role Jeff led us like sheep to the slaughter, steering us in the direction of the small runway and a tiny plane. Indicating the toy-like trinket, he said, ‘OK guys, this is us. Meet Florence.’
In unison we went, ‘Huh?’
‘This is my plane,’ he explained, ‘I call her Florence after my grandmother. She was an exceptional woman. And this is just a beautiful plane.’
Parker leaned into me and whispered, ‘You see. I bring out the homo in him.’ But I didn’t see the humour. I was staring at the smallest plane I’d ever seen. And fear had gripped my body.
Wanting to yell out, ‘I want my mammy’, I hesitantly pulled Jeff on the arm and asked, ‘Are you serious?’
‘Of course,’ he replied, oblivious to my anxiety. ‘OK, everyone, all aboard,’ Jeff instructed us. ‘We’ve got a fifteen-minute window. Maddie and Eva in the back, Anna in the middle with Parker.’
With that Maddie rudely blurted out, ‘I can’t get in that. It’s a tin can with propellers.’
Champagne Kisses Page 5