“People Search!”
The toast was deafening, such was the relief amongst the crowd that the waffling was finally over. I noticed heartfelt smiles directed at me, as if I had pulled these people’s children out of quicksand or something.
Rick put his hand on the small of my back, and pushed me in the direction of the sweeping staircase and up the steps. I resented the familiarity of his touch, but was slightly too concerned that he might push me over the side of the staircase to object to mere inappropriate contact.
“I can see you’re pretty grateful for the opportunity I’ve given you,” Rick said when we’d settled ourselves in two of the luscious velvet seats that lined the upper tier. His face was impassive, but his steely stare more than made up for any lack of expression.
I decided that the only way I could handle this was with honesty. “All of this is news to me, Rick. I didn’t even know I was in the running to be the Face of People Search. If I appear less than enthusiastic, it’s because this has come as a shock.”
Rick frowned. “Hang on. I’m confused. Lindy told me that there was nothing in the world you wanted more than to become a household name in America. You fit the bill for what I was looking for, so I thought we could do each other a favour. You get more publicity for your cause, and I get a beautiful model to publicise my website. But you’re telling me you knew nothing about this?”
“Not a thing – and for the record, I gave up modelling years ago. Did Lindy tell you I was still a model? If you think for one minute that you’re going to have me out in bikinis branded with People Search logos, you’re so mistaken!”
He raised an eyebrow. “How about just bikinis in the colour of the People Search logo, then?”
I got up to leave. He leapt up and stood up in front of me.
“Please don’t go, Andie. We seem to have some wires crossed here, and we’re not going to uncross them if you go storming off. Correct?”
Another pet hate – people saying “Correct?” when they’re trying to win an argument with you. It was so patronising. But I could hardly retort with “Incorrect!” when Rick was indeed right. If I walked away now, I was walking away from what could be an amazing opportunity to gain more publicity for my cause. I took a deep breath and nodded, hoping the effort it took to concede that he was right wouldn’t snap my neck. If this brought me closer to finding Leon, I’d be a fool to mess it up.
“Okay, so we’ve established that you knew nothing about potentially being the Face of People Search,” Rick said. “But you know now that you’ve been chosen as the winner, so here’s the big question. Are you saying that you don’t want to be the Face of People Search?”
I thought about this. Well, there was only one answer, really – of course I did. Once I got over my fit of pique at Lindy not having mentioned the whole thing before, I knew I’d appreciate being involved in something like this. But before I could answer Rick, Lindy appeared, clunking up towards us in her high heels, brazen as you like. I suspected she was on a damage-limitation mission.
She smiled flirtatiously at Rick, but he was having none of it.
“Andie says she knew nothing about all of this,” he said. “What’s the deal? You said she wanted this more than anything in the world!”
“Oh, she does. She just needs a bit of a push.”
“She’s here, you know. Don’t talk about her as if she’s not even in the room. You’ve just put her in a terrible position – and even worse, you made me put her in a terrible position too. Whatever sort of a relationship you two have is your business, but don’t drag me into things and make me look like a fool.”
Mortification flooded Lindy’s face. “Rick, I’m so sorry . . .”
“Andie, could you leave Lindy and me to talk alone, please?”
“Erm, okay.” I hesitated, feeling slightly bad about leaving Lindy to the jaws of this particular shark. But then I said to myself, fuck it, she needs to learn her lesson.
As I walked down the staircase and noticed everyone gawping at me, my irritation at Lindy returned. She obviously had no respect for me, not to even give me a warning about what was going to happen. And it wasn’t as if I would have said no – but some part of her that wanted to make sure everything went her way was too afraid to take that chance. But what could I do about it now? In fairness to her, she’d just orchestrated a brilliant move in our bid to find Leon – I just wished she could have handled it all differently. I wound around the bottom of the staircase feeling heartily sorry for myself. It wasn’t just Lindy – the whole search was mentally tiring me out. The more it went on, the more I was starting to be tormented by thoughts that maybe Leon didn’t want me to find him. It was getting harder to ignore the fact that despite the ease with which he could contact me through LVTV if he wanted to, there had been absolutely no word from him.
Colm ambled towards me as I was leaving the room.
“Listen, I’m going to walk back to the hotel, okay?” I said. “I’ll see you later.”
“In those shoes?”
He had a point – and so did they, four inches of a point to be precise. I took them off and hurled them into a champagne bucket that was sitting on a drinks table.
“I was always good at basketball,” I said as I rummaged for a pair of soft black pumps that permanently resided somewhere in the depths of my handbag. I ignored the look of disgust that was coming my way from a waiter. Once I’d removed all of the random receipts that were sitting inside my pumps, I slipped them on.
“I’ll see you later, Colm,” I said as I walked away.
Colm followed me. “Are you sure about walking? This hotel must be at least four miles from ours –”
“Yes, I’m fine.” I walked away even faster, needing to get out of this place.
“Okay, but before you go –”
“Sorry, Colm. I have to go now. We’ll talk later, yeah?”
Colm continued to follow me. “But . . .” he said.
I spun around to him. “Seriously, Colm, can you just leave me alone?”
I turned and marched towards the front door, almost running towards it in my need for freedom from my search, my thoughts and most probably, from myself. Once I got outside, I instantly felt bad and looked back through the revolving glass door to see Colm still standing inside the reception area, staring at me and looking like I’d just kicked him. We held eye contact for a few seconds before he turned and walked out of my view, leaving me feeling like I’d just taken the prize for World’s Biggest Bitch instead of the Face of People Search.
Chapter Fifteen
A few hours later as I lay on the bed and sulked between bouts of rubbing my sore feet, I decided to turn my phone on to play Pacman. I’d turned it off as soon as I’d left the hotel because I had a feeling Lindy was going to ring about the Rick situation, and it was probably best that we didn’t have that conversation until I’d cajoled myself out of the bad mood I’d fallen into. As soon as the phone started up, a message came through from Colm that had been sent shortly after I had left him.
‘I was only going to ask you if you wanted to go for a drink tonight, that was all. You looked like you needed someone to talk to.’
Oh, great. Why hadn’t he called me a grumpy bitch or something? My conscience had been getting the better of me on the long walk home for snapping at him, and now I felt a million times worse after reading his text.
If I thought too much about what to do, I’d drive myself crazy, so I picked up the phone and dialled his extension straight away.
“Hello?”
“Colm, it’s Andie. I’m sorry for being a grouch earlier. Do you fancy going for that drink after all?”
There was no answer for a good five seconds.
“I actually don’t – I’m not feeling too good now.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah. I feel like I’m coming down with something.”
“But you were fine earlier!”
“I started feeling bad while I was editin
g the footage of the People Search launch for the second episode of the documentary a while ago. I just sent episode two back to Éire TV, by the way.”
“Great – all the more reason to go out and celebrate!”
“No. I’m really not in the form for it now.”
I took the hint. “Okay. I won’t keep you, so. Get some rest, and I hope you feel better soon. Bye.”
I slammed down the phone, furious at myself. How many more errors of judgement could I possibly make before the day was out? Colm was sulking, and I’d given him the chance to throw my apology back at me. I should have just kept my mouth shut.
My phone started to ring before I had a chance to berate myself any further. No number was displayed. I answered it out of sheer curiosity and boredom.
“Andie, don’t hang up.”
Surprise, surprise. I decided to make her suffer in the hope that she mightn’t leave me out of the loop next time. “You have three seconds, Lindy. If you can’t say something in three seconds that’ll make up for what you put me through earlier, then it’s goodbye.”
“Okay.” She sounded confident. “George Clooney.”
“What?”
“You’re going to meet him! How’s that for three seconds?”
“What are you rabbiting on about?”
“Rick’s got a lot of friends. Some of them are friends in high places. Which is another reason why you shouldn’t get on his bad side, but it looks like you got away with your silly behaviour this time . . . anyway, it turns out that Rick’s best friend is one of George’s younger cousins, and George is going to be at the bash Rick has invited us to tomorrow night. I’ve managed to persuade Rick to wangle an introduction to George for us.”
“What? Oh my God!”
“I’m as close to God as you’re going to meet in this city, lady.”
I bit my tongue, annoyed with myself for showing so much enthusiasm. The note of triumph in Lindy’s voice was unmistakable. “You are not off the hook for what you did today. It was way out of line –”
“No, it wasn’t. I’m trying to create a profile for you, and you’re doing your best to sabotage it. So if anything, you’re out of line. However, I’ll allow you this transgression, but don’t let it happen again.”
“You what?”
“Oh, look, we’re not going into the whole thing again. All I’ll say is this – go shopping tomorrow. When our picture with George is plastered all over the newspapers, you’ll want to be looking your best, won’t you?”
“Who said it will be?”
“I said, of course. You hardly think I’d let an opportunity like this pass, do you?”
“But how did you talk Rick into doing that? He was as mad as hell with you when I left.”
“I just have a winning way with men.” When I said nothing in reply, she continued, “Oh, okay. I’ll tell you, but don’t go weird on me about this. Rick is willing to do this because he’s into you. I think he was hamming up the anger at me to try to impress you.”
“Rick fancies me?”
“It would appear so.” She didn’t sound too pleased about it. “How do you think you got this People Search gig so easily? Apparently, he saw you on the news and thought you were both mad and gorgeous – exactly what he looks for in a woman, according to him. You’d think he’s Mister Square, but he has an eccentric streak, and madwomen are part of it. That rules me out, of course, but it leaves the door wide open for you.”
“But if he fancies me, why is he setting up a meeting for me with George Clooney? Surely he knows that I wouldn’t spare him a look when George is in the room!”
“Because he knows that George wouldn’t spare you a look, of course, so he’s no threat.”
Fair point. “Have you ever thought about becoming a counsellor?”
“If you spent less time trying to think up of smart comments and more on dolling yourself up, you’d be a much happier and more fulfilled person.”
Scarily, I think she actually meant that.
“Oh, and Rick said I should check to make sure you still want to be the Face of People Search. I said you would, of course, but he said to ask anyway.”
“Oh, I suppose so . . .”
“See, I knew I didn’t need to even ask. Okay, I’m off. I need to ring Colm and organise a way of getting what he filmed today from him so that we can broadcast it tomorrow, and you need to start thinking about what you’re going to wear to the party. Make sure you get a magnificent dress so that you don’t show me up.” She hung up.
I was too thrilled to even be bothered by Lindy, for once. This was so exciting that I might even take up on Lindy’s suggestion and go shopping for the first time since I got back to Vegas. I had the perfect dress but I needed to splash out on matching bag and shoes. I was going to meet George!
“Yeah . . . yeah . . . uh huh . . . mmmm . . . yeah . . .”
“Twenty-three,” I mouthed to Colm. He threw a pen at me in response.
He’d been on the phone for only about four minutes, but he’d already managed to rack up an impressive number of yeahs. It didn’t seem to matter how bored he sounded – and, in fairness, each subsequent yeah was even flatter than the previous in an attempt to get the hint across – the person on the other end just wouldn’t shut up. I’d long since run out of fingers to count on, and was now marking each new yeah on a foolscap notepad with a stroke of my pen.
“Yeah . . . yeah . . . listen, I have to go soon, so let’s get back to what I rang about. . . yeah . . . send that through to me as soon as you can, will you? . . . yeah . . . yeah . . . look, what you need to do is to talk to Valerie – there’s no point is saying all of this to me instead of her . . . yeah . . . yeah, I know it’s good to get a male perspective, but my advice is to speak to her . . . yeah . . . yeah . . . look, I really have to go, Martin . . . yeah . . . take care . . . yeah . . . alright, bye . . . yeah, yeah, yeah . . . bye.” He hung up.
“Thirty-seven!” I said with a flourish. “That’s an average of a little over nine yeahs a minute. Impressive.”
“Give me my pen back.” He coughed, then held his hand out for the pen he’d thrown at me.
“Not until you dish the dirt. What are Martin and Valerie fighting about?”
“None of your business.”
“If he’s messing around with my boss, then it becomes my business.”
“You and I both know that nobody messes around with Isolde. The pen, please.”
“What does he need to talk to Valerie about?”
“Buying a cheaper brand of teabags. The pen, for Christ’s sake!”
“I presume you’re talking about the pen that’s going to be sticking out of your ass very soon if you don’t tell me what the hell is going on between Martin and Valerie. She’s found out he’s having an affair, hasn’t she?” I made the pen hover ominously over the partition that separated us.
“It’s nothing to do with an affair. They’re having other issues.”
“Ah, but maybe she knows about the affair, and is biding her time so that she can lay traps for him to fall into! In the meantime, they’re having rows about silly little things because she’s so hurt by what he’s done.” I nodded knowledgably. “Martin is toast. She knows.”
“No, she bloody well doesn’t!”
“Oh, so you admit there’s something to know about?”
He shook his head. “Give it up, Andie. It’s not working.”
“Well, if there’s nothing going on, then it’s no harm to tell me what Martin was complaining about on the phone there. Go on! I’m your only friend out here.”
“Oh, thanks a lot.” He coughed again. “Make a sick man feel worse, why don’t you?”
“I’m no better – I don’t have any friends out here either. Which means I can’t tell anyone whatever it is that you’re about to tell me.”
“Philippe is your friend.”
“Yes, but he doesn’t know Martin.”
“You know, it wouldn’t surprise me if
he did.”
“It doesn’t matter even if he does know him, because I’m not going to tell Philippe anything. Go on. You know you want to.”
“What about your colleagues? I’m sure you’ll be on email to them later.”
“Oh, they hate me.” Jason’s ugly head flashed through my thoughts. “I wouldn’t tell them anything.”
Colm looked at me doubtfully, the doubt stemming from the latter part of my sentence, I would imagine, and not the former.
“Look, it’s no big deal. He was just saying that Valerie has been moaning about them not spending enough time together lately, that’s all.”
I seized upon this piece of information like a hungry wolf. “There you go! He hasn’t been spending time with Valerie because he’s had his head buried in Isolde’s curtains!”
“Curtains? What are you talking about?”
I decided not to clarify my statement. “The man’s marriage is obviously falling apart. If you’re his friend at all, you should let him know that the word is out about his antics.”
“I can’t just go making accusations without proof!”
“Fine. Let’s get proof, so.”
He gave me a dubious look. When he said nothing, I continued as if he’d asked me how.
“It’s simple. All we have to do is pool our resources. You keep your ears open for any information from Martin, and I do the same for Isolde. We compare the stories we’re hearing from each of them and assess them for any irregularities. Sooner or later, one of them is going to trip themselves up. My money’s on Martin. So, really, you have the easy deal here. I’m the one taking one for the team. So, are you in?”
He was spared from having to give an answer by Lindy storming into the room in a cocoon of musky perfume and thunderous looks – until she saw Colm, of course. She waggled her fingers at him and said a breathy hi, ignoring me completely. Colm grunted a hi, then instantly concentrated on his computer screen. Lindy dumped her handbag on her desk, before stomping off to the canteen with a sulky puss for her morning espresso.
[2014] Looking for Leon Page 15