“This is nuts. Cilla is single. I would’ve thought you’d pounce,” I had said.
“Naw, after that smarmy tosser Tony, any old git looks good. I don’t want to be Cilla’s any-old-git,” Gaz said firmly. “She needs to realize I’m her destiny.”
“Or, you need to man up and show her,” I said. “She basically once told me to stop wasting time and lock down Nick before somebody else did. She was right. You should try it.”
I’d been anxious about the first real prospect of seeing Nick since the breakup, but Joss texted to say Nick had RSVP’d no. And so, emboldened, I dutifully opened the box containing the other source of my dread: the complimentary clothes Joss wanted her higher-profile guests to wear on the red carpet. Mine were a silky top that read blouse around the neck in silver-sequined letters, and white skinny jeans with a foot airbrushed on the ass like graffiti.
“It’s symbolic,” Joss had explained. “You’ve been kicked around, but you’re still standing.”
“It’s heinous,” Lacey had yelped when I walked out of my bedroom modeling the ensemble. “I assumed you were joking about wearing that. You just can’t. You cannot.”
“Joss is counting on me,” I said. “Think of it this way. She gets my loyalty, and you get to look a hundred times better than I do. I’m helping two people.”
Lacey downgraded her yelp to a whimper and fiddled with the sequins on my top, as if hoping to make them look less like letters. I did envy her chevron minidress, which she claimed was a sample she’d gotten from work, but which looked more like it came from Harvey Nichols. I suspected a lecture from Dad was coming about abusing her so-called emergency Amex.
“These past few months have been entertaining, and all, but real talk: At some point you need to dress like a rational adult who wants to attract a rational boyfriend,” Lacey finally said.
“But I don’t want that,” I said stubbornly. “I just had a boyfriend. Now I want to have irrational fun.”
“Okay, but if Nick starts dating someone first, you’ll wish you’d tried harder to replace him with someone real,” she said.
“Nick’s dating life isn’t my concern.”
Lacey actually laughed in my face, although not unkindly. “Every ex-girlfriend says that, and no ex-girlfriend ever means it.”
“You don’t care about Freddie and Petunia,” I pointed out.
“Persimmon,” Lacey corrected me. “And that’s different. I’ve technically never been his girlfriend.” She smiled. “The clock’s about run out on her, though, and the guy I’m seeing is dullsville, so the timing finally might be right pretty soon.”
She stopped. “Oh, shit. I hope you know I’m not—”
“I know,” I said. And I did. It was awkward that my brutal breakup was a romantic opportunity for my twin, but she’d stepped back when I’d asked, and now it was my turn.
Lacey hugged me. “Let’s just try and enjoy having the Ivy League back on the prowl. You and me again. The package deal.”
Soj turned out to be a retro-punky black-and-neon space that felt like Betsey Johnson crossed with old-school Madonna in a way that confirmed Joss once again had absorbed whatever her boyfriend was into—in this case, Tom Huntington-Jones’s lost youth. I sensed the Ivy League headlines writing themselves as Lacey and I posed for pictures outside Soj, which I wished were not obligatory, because Lacey had been right about my pants. I should never have worn them, because no one else in the press line bothered: not the soap stars, the socialites, nor Special Sauce, the girl group whose hit “Dip It” was blaring both inside and outside the store. Not even Penelope Six-Names, a woman who’d willingly dressed as a llama last week on national television.
Inside, we rescued Cilla from a conversation with Six-Names and her new boyfriend, and made our way to Clive and Gaz, near a display of bikinis with the Universal No symbol stamped someplace scandalous. Gaz had his arm around a petite, bobbed brunette in a prim shirtdress.
“You all remember Philippa,” Gaz said.
“Brilliant. It’s the Ivy League,” Philippa said, but she was glaring at me. “Daddy said your beach holidays singlehandedly made this happen.” This sounded like an accusation.
“Oh, I’d say his hands had a lot to do with it, too,” Lacey said sweetly, tucking her arm protectively through mine. We all glanced over to where Tom was peacocking with Joss. They were in matching snug leather trousers and identical platinum bouffants, like they were members of a Duran Duran tribute band rather than business partners. Philippa let out a guttural yawp; a tattoo artist set up between the jumpsuits and the tube tops was sketching the word guns on her father’s right bicep, as he and Joss nuzzled.
“I am going to stab that bitch,” Philippa said, stomping across the room.
“Bit crackers, that one,” Gaz said. “Always on at me about my family landholdings.”
“I did warn you,” Clive said.
“There’s no future in it, anyway,” Gaz said. “She said curry makes her teeth hurt.”
“Blasphemy,” Cilla said heartily. “You are a magician with curry.”
Gaz looked delighted, unlike Joss, who was currently getting the business end of Philippa’s rage.
“Poor Joss,” I said.
“Poor nothing,” Clive said. “She got Sexy Bexy in her clothes again. Mission accomplished.”
I groaned. “But I regret these jeans.”
“You need a drink,” Lacey advised, scanning the room for the bar and then charging off in that direction.
“This party has a very unusual guest list,” Clive said, raising an eyebrow at two girls with half-shaved heads loitering near the handbags, whom I suspected were former fashion school classmates of Joss.
“Yes, that’s right, only poncey society to-dos for you now,” Gaz said. “No one with fewer than three surnames allowed.”
“Can’t complain. It’s been ripping for my career,” Clive said, drawing himself to his full height. “I’ve managed to use my connections without severing any of them. I’m hoping the Recorder won’t be able to resist giving me a Man About Town column, if the Mail doesn’t jump on me first.”
“I bet they will,” I said. “I told you things would turn around for you.”
“I really should do an anonymous one with all the dirt I wish I could print, if it wouldn’t get me ostracized,” he said. “For example, from the rumors I’ve heard, there’s a certain pug—”
Clive was interrupted by a flurry of flashbulbs outside the store, and then my shell-shocked sister pawing through the crowd.
“He’s here,” she hissed. “Hide your pants.”
The whole room slowed down the instant I saw Nick. He was exactly as I remembered—kind face, piercing blue eyes, hair slightly tousled. As if he’d just rolled out of my bed.
“Oh, aces,” Joss said, coming up behind us. “I suppose he did actually say maybe, but that usually means no.”
Lacey and Cilla appeared to be wrestling with which of them would sock Joss first. I opened my mouth to say it was fine—it had to be, I had no choice—but then a blonde walked in beside Nick and took his hand. Ceres Whitehall de Villency looked like a gleaming golden angel in a leather pencil skirt and a sexy white top. I looked like a hobo, and I felt like a fool.
“I can’t,” I heard myself whisper.
Clive heard, too, and roared with laughter as if I’d just said something amazing. “Come with me,” he leaned down to whisper. “We can be on a flight to Paris in thirty minutes.”
“Yes,” I whispered back. “Take me.”
Bad choice of words.
* * *
My head pounded so hard that my vision blurred. I crawled out from under Clive and into the bathroom, all indigo and white tile and gold-trimmed fixings (it was, at least, the prettiest place in which I had ever felt like refried death). My makeup had relocated to all the wrong spots on my face, my breath smelled like my downward spiral, and my hair stood up as if I’d been dragged through a hedge. I heard footsteps an
d lurched to lock the door, then curled up on the cool floor to try to pull myself together. I recalled a bottle of bubbly on Davinia’s father’s jet, and some limoncello, among other liquid sins, at a nightclub in Montmartre—which unearthed a memory of meeting that random couple, whom Clive then invited for a nightcap at the Hotel Unpronounceable Frenchy Thing. I saw hazy images of strip blackjack, and being goaded into betting a kiss when I lost my last euros, and the other two whooping as Clive collected on that bet. That’s where the reel in my head snapped and stopped. But what more did I need to see? I had been telling myself so vehemently that pretending to enjoy the wild life would somehow magically turn me back into the Old Bex, who only ever had vigorously noncommittal fun and never gave anyone her heart to break. But sprawled there naked on the floor with a mottled memory of the night before, I had to accept that this was the opposite of fun. It was dangerous, and it was exhausting.
So I threw up. Four times. I hurled with the might of someone hoping to purge everything, not just her stomach, and then did a swish of the complimentary mouthwash and put on the hotel robe. With a shaky hand and a deep breath—but not too deep; even my lungs were pissed at me—I steeled myself and opened the door. Clive had put on his boxers and was lying on the bed, clutching the last intact thing from the minibar to his forehead: an aluminum can of lemonade that had to be, at best, lukewarm. Our guests were nowhere to be seen.
“Why did we drink so much?” he whispered.
“Did we have sex last night?”
Clive lifted up the can, a picture of surprise. “You don’t remember?” He plonked the can back into his forehead. “Well. That is not flattering.”
“I know we kissed.” I closed my eyes. I had a flash of myself removing his pants, of us lying on the bed, of me laughing wildly. “Oh, man. Maybe I do remember.”
“It was not,” Clive said with a wince, “our finest hour.”
I kicked debris off the other double bed and crawled between its cool sheets, where I should have been all along.
“What is wrong with us? You have a girlfriend! And I have…” My voice trailed off. “Issues,” I finished. “I got spooked and totally lost control. I’m so sorry.”
Clive slowly righted himself. “We both did it, not just you,” he said. “Two old friends got too drunk, emotions ran high, we blew off some steam. It doesn’t mean anything.”
He paused to pick a long brown strand of hair off his chest. “So, no need to tell Davinia. And without doubt I won’t tell Nick,” he added.
“He has Ceres. He wouldn’t care.” I sighed at my bruised tone. “It turns out I’m not dealing with this very well.”
“Bex,” Clive said patiently, “no one thought you were dealing with this very well.”
I put my hands over my face. “I need to go home.”
“It’s five thirty in the morning,” Clive said.
“Then I need to call Lacey.”
“And I need grease,” Clive said. “Let’s order breakfast. What do you want?”
“Nothing,” I said. “Pancakes. Eggs. Sausages. Everything.”
I angled myself sideways and scrabbled at the mess on the floor. I found my underwear, a hair band, ten pounds, a torn condom wrapper that was a huge relief, and my passport, and then finally my cell jammed into the rear pocket of my foot pants. Lacey’s phone barely rang.
“Why are you calling at this hour?” Freddie’s voice asked.
“Why are you answering my sister’s cell?”
Across the room, Clive looked up from the room service menu.
“It’s not what you think,” Freddie said. “Actually it’s—what? No, Lacey, I’m not going to lie. We’re all safe, Bex, but we’re awake, because…well, there’s been an incident with Nick.”
Chapter Three
Given the choice, I would’ve liked my first post-breakup conversation with Nick to have included really good hair—a little Shakespeare in Love, a little Gisele—and a preternatural amount of self-possession. Instead, I’d scraped my unwashed locks into a bun, scrubbed off as much makeup as the hotel washcloth would take, and picked up discount mascara and lip gloss at the Chunnel terminal. It wasn’t a bad patch job, but I was still green around the edges, on the whole more Zombie Apocalypse Survivor than the beguiling heroine of my own movie.
Freddie had shared only the barest details: Nick had almost decked a paparazzo outside a club, Gaz stepped in front of his fist, and then he popped Nick in the face in return.
“What the hell is the matter with them?” I had squawked.
“Well, we only talked for a second, but…stop it, Lacey, she’s going to find out eventually,” Freddie said irritably. “Er, so it sounds like the photographer said something rather offensive about you.”
I clapped a hand over my mouth. “Nick, you idiot,” I whispered. “Where is he, Fred?”
“This might not be the best time,” he warned.
I rubbed my temples. “Yeah, I’m done hearing that phrase from your family,” I said. “I’ll find him, but it’d be a lot faster if you just told me.”
In the end, it was also faster to take the Eurostar than wait for a Luxe Airlines flight. Clive had been a prince himself, of a sort, dashing down to the hotel gift shop and getting me a cotton shift that might have been intended as a nightgown, but which passed faintly for a casual dress. (Nothing would scream walk of shame to Nick louder than the same pair of foot pants I’d been wearing when I ran away from him.) It wasn’t until our taxi dropped me at the Gare du Nord that I even looked Clive in the eye again. My hangover was hitting me in waves, as was a deep embarrassment.
“Clive,” I said softly.
“Don’t mention it,” he said.
“I’m serious, I never meant—”
Clive held up a hand. “I’m serious. Don’t mention it.”
The two-hour Chunnel trip sped by as I scrolled through the reports already flooding the Internet, like ROYAL RUMBLE; NICK TUMBLES, and GINGER ‘DAVID’ FELLS PRINCE GOLIATH, accompanied by photo after photo of Nick falling, then landing hard as his PPOs swarmed him and Gaz. My brain ricocheted between raking myself over the coals for backsliding into bed with Clive, and trying to figure out why I thought I should see Nick in my current state given that I had indirectly caused his current state. I’d reached no helpful conclusions by the time my cab pulled up to Joss’s place in an unremarkable part of Fulham. Every slender maisonette in the row had a different hint-of-color paint job that failed to hide the crookedness of the windowsills and mouldings. And when I pressed the bell, it sounded like a duck stuck in an air vent. No one would look for Nick here.
The curtains twitched, then Joss ushered me inside, her hair matted on the left as if she’d been woken from a deep, motionless slumber. We shambled into her microscopic white-and-yellow kitchen, where we came upon a very pale Cilla in a snug red tank dress, her heels in a heap near the sink as she blotted Gaz’s split lip with a wet cloth.
“God, Gaz. Look at you. What happened?” I said.
“You should see the other bloke,” Gaz quipped through one side of his mouth.
“I don’t know how you caught that punch,” Cilla said. “I barely knew myself what was happening until it was over.”
“Piece o’ doddle. Catlike reflexes, and all,” Gaz said, but fatigue and worry blocked his grin from reaching his eyes. “That photographer bastard leant right in at us and said…the thing, and I somehow just knew Nick was going to have a go at him. So I sort of swung ’round at the right moment, and bam, Bob’s your uncle.”
“Didn’t even fall down,” Cilla said. “He was bloody brilliant.”
“Or a bloody idiot, because then I shouted that Nick was a horse-fearing geezer and socked him back,” Gaz said. “I just felt like it had to look real, like we’d been quarreling rather than anything to do with that mustachioed slug.”
“Bowled Nick clean over,” Joss said, leaning against the doorjamb. “It was almost hot.”
“It was extremely hot,�
�� Cilla corrected.
Gaz looked proud, but just for a second. “I assumed I’d miss,” he admitted.
I snorted and then covered my mouth and nose with both hands. “Shit, sorry. It’s not funny,” I said. “I just can’t believe you were faster than Stout and Popeye. You are seriously impressive, Gaz.”
“I’m a disaster,” he said morosely. “I’m finally a sensational hunk of manhood, and it’s going to get me chucked in the Tower.”
“No,” I said firmly. “It’s going to get you a medal. You know as well as anyone how hard that guy would’ve sued the Royal Family. You totally stepped up.”
“Too right,” Cilla agreed.
Gaz flushed to the tips of his hair. “Cor,” he said. “I just did what any mate would do.”
Cilla threw the rag aside and took his face in her hands. “Garamond Bates, you did what only an exceptional mate would do,” she said. And then she pulled him toward her, practically by the ears, and kissed him so hard he’d have seen stars if he weren’t already. Gaz’s obvious astonishment eventually faded as he wrapped his arms around Cilla and responded in kind.
Joss and I hadn’t been sure our conversation was finished, but after a full minute passed in a fumbling blur of plummy auburn locks and vibrant carrot-colored ones, we backed away into her dining room.
“I had fifty quid on this happening right after we graduated,” Joss said. “Could’ve used the cash back then. Christ, they’re loud.”
“I should go talk to Nick,” I said. “I assume he’s upstairs?”
“Is that moaning? Can I come with you?”
I just looked at her.
“Oh, all right.” Joss grunted. “I suppose the good news is that now Cilla won’t need to crash here when she’s in the city. I should sublet and move in with Hunty. Maybe I’ll go tell him the news.”
The Royal We Page 26