by Ally O'Brien
“Yes, it is, darling,” I told her. “Have fun tonight,” Emma said. “I told Jane to look for you.”
“Tonight?”
Emma giggled. “Remember? Darcy?”
Tonight. The Hilton. I had almost forgotten.
The queen is not a fan of the Hilton on Park Lane. In a city of low buildings, the Hilton is notoriously tall; and on those rare days when the fog clears, guests on the higher floors have a southern view of the private gardens behind Buckingham Palace. I suppose this means that Liz can’t take a morning stroll in her curlers and bathrobe anymore, sipping coffee from her I LOST MY HEAD AT THE TOWER OF LONDON ceramic mug.
Just kidding.
However, I am not the queen, and I love the Hilton. When clients stay there, I make a point of meeting them for breakfast in the executive lounge, where we can sit by the window and watch the traffic on Park Lane and the joggers in Hyde Park. The Hilton is the most American of the London hotels, but, to be honest, it means the service is better than at almost any other hotel in the city.
A town car picked me up in front of my flat at nine thirty. There was no way I was getting into an ordinary cab in my Julien Macdonald. I wanted a leather backseat caressing my bottom, with no chewing gum, no cigarette ash, and no crumby remnants of chips and crisps. Besides, if you are wearing a full-length mink, you want to make an entrance like a star.
I couldn’t bring myself to go naked, but I didn’t wear much. My sexy, knee-length red dress. Killer heels. Pearl earrings. Armani sunglasses, even at night, because that’s what you do. Under the dress, I went for a white lace thong, so you know I was feeling horny, because I don’t really like the idea of a shoelace wedged up my arse.
Over all that, the fur. Wrapped around me like an Eskimo blanket. The London temperature had turned cold again, but it could have been the hottest day in July, and I still would have worn the fur. It’s so elegant I didn’t know if I even had the courage to show it off in public. If you wear something like that, you have to walk the walk. Pretend to be someone you’re not. When I got out of the elevator at my building, Samur didn’t even recognize me at first, and when he picked up on the streaky colored hair, his mouth fell open.
“Ms. Drake,” he told me, “you are looking gorgeous.”
And I was.
On the drive through the city, I was jittery. Embarrassed. Aroused. You can’t help feel like Cinderella going to the ball, wondering if everyone’s going to realize you’re just a char girl. I am not exactly short on confidence, but confidence is as much an act as anything else, and sometimes you wonder if people will see through your costume.
The Hilton parking lot was crowded. I mean jammed. Taxis, limousines, top-hatted bellmen, photographers, ridiculously handsome men, unbelievably young and gorgeous women. Furs aplenty, but nothing like mine, I have to say. The hotel was hosting a party to celebrate the seventy-fifth anniversary of the British Film Institute. Hundreds of rising stars, falling stars, and comets flaming out. All of it live on BBC One.
The truth is that real stars hate televised galas, because they’re more work than fun, and the unwashed media is there to excoriate every flaw in your makeup and outfit. You smile and parade for the judges like a sheepdog at the Westminster show.
Woof, woof.
I had to wait fifteen minutes for my town car to make it to the entrance. In the meantime, I peered through the smoked windows. I saw a kilt-clad Sean Connery. Gwyneth Paltrow, looking more and more like Blythe Danner every day. I mean that as a compliment. Daniel Craig in a tux. It was practically a James Bond convention. Jane Seymour, she of the long, long hair. Cate Blanchett. I wondered if Tom Cruise was here. He’d think I was stalking him.
And then it was my turn. As the town car slid smoothly in front of the entrance, an efficient bellman swung open the rear door.
“Good evening, ma’am,” he told me with a big smile. He was young and fit. Moroccan maybe. I could forgive him for the “ma’am” comment. His hand was soft as he helped me out of the rear seat. His eyes took in the fur and my legs, even though I’m sure they train him not to look. I was happy that he couldn’t resist a quick glance.
I slipped off my sunglasses. Took a breath. This is the moment when you expect to trip and spill forward, which I surely would have done if I had skipped the dress under the fur. Wind up on my face and show the world my arse. But no. I sashayed into the hotel lobby as if I owned the place. Behind me, I heard people murmuring about me, about the fur, about who I was. I thought about going back to tell them. I’m Tess Drake of the Drake Media Agency.
The lobby was chockablock with jewels, breasts, fur wraps, Gucci purses, and bubbling flutes of Dom Pérignon. Movie soundtrack music played above the burble of the crowd. Something from a Hitchcock film, I think. I had my eyes on the bank of elevators, but getting there was no small feat. I excused myself through clouds of Dior perfume. Smiled at stars, who smiled back, assuming they knew me from somewhere. I told Connery he looked fabulous. He did.
I was about to slip into the privacy of the nearest elevator and head for the twelfth floor when I felt a hand on my shoulder.
“You’re Tess, aren’t you?”
I stopped and turned to find a Sienna Miller look-alike flashing a big fake smile at me.
“That’s right,” I said.
“I’m Jane. Jane Parmenter.”
“Oh, yes, of course. Emma raves about you, darling.”
“Emma’s sweet,” Jane said, in the way that you say a West Highland terrier is sweet as it licks your face.
I didn’t like her. Not that I would ever tell Emma that. But some women exude insincerity like body odor. I am all too familiar with young, ambitious actresses like Jane, who are C-listers scraping their nails against a sheer rock face to climb to the B-list. God help anyone who gets in their way. They will smile at you and pander to you and lie to you, and as soon as they don’t need you, they will step over you like a used tissue on a sidewalk. It’s not like I can entirely blame them. Beautiful girls like Jane get used all the time for their bodies in this business, so why not use everyone else? You learn the behavior that works in this industry.
Yes, she was stunning. Even more so in person than in the one photo I saw in Emma’s copy of Hello! Makeup expertly applied, hydrangea lipstick so glossy I could see myself, capped teeth as white as Himalayan snow. Hollywood blue eyes with a razor sharpness to them. She was about my height, jagged short blond hair in the kind of cut that cost three hundred pounds to make it look like you did it yourself. Some skilled surgeon somewhere had done wonders with her breasts, packing them with gel like a stuff-it-yourself bear at a gift shop.
She wore a flaunt-it turquoise and white dress, with wild silk covering one leg and the other leg bare to her upper thigh. Two straps the width of dental floss struggled to keep her breasts inside the swollen cups of the bodice. A diamond-and-aquamarine necklace dangled into her cleavage like a spelunker exploring a dark cave. Every few seconds, one of the feckless straps slid down her arm, and she had to tug it back into position on her shoulder.
“What a party,” Jane said.
“Yes.”
“That’s an amazing coat,” she added.
“Thank you.”
It was small talk, and that was all. We both knew the score. We weren’t going to be friends.
“Emma tells me you called Godfrey Kahn,” Jane said. She looked annoyed rather than grateful.
“I did, but don’t count on me. I only know a couple of his execs.”
“I’m sure a referral from you can only help,” she said in a way that told me she was sure I could do her no good whatsoever. Which was probably true. I didn’t tell her that the only way for her to get the part was to get on her knees in front of Kahn and do what good little actresses do.
“Good luck,” I said.
“Any advice for me?” she asked, which was a polite question and nothing more.
“Just keep doing what you’re doing.”
Jane’s ey
es wandered. She was looking around carefully to see if anyone was watching us. It’s a political calculation for hangers-on. Did I have enough clout to make it worth being seen with me?
“Lots of popzees tonight,” Jane said. “I keep throwing myself at them. Maybe one of the pictures will hit the tabloids. That can’t hurt, right?”
“Absolutely.”
Except she wasn’t going to see herself in the tabloids unless she stood behind Jessica Alba again. The popzees are smart. They know who sells. They’re happy to take your picture, but don’t expect a C-list face in the Star Tracks of People. It doesn’t matter if you’re DDG. In this room, everyone was gorgeous.
“I’d kill for that coat,” Jane said.
I’d kill you first, girlie.
“Yes, it’s stunning, isn’t it?”
“It’s a Julien Macdonald, right?”
“That’s right.”
Jane nodded. “I think I saw Paris in that coat in LA last fall.”
What a smarmy bitch. I didn’t know what I was going to say to Emma. It’s hard to tell someone that you think her girlfriend is a shallow poseur, but I knew Emma was going to ask. The fact is, I had a hard time imagining Jane with Emma. Emma’s body beautiful, but she doesn’t have the glamour face, and I didn’t think Jane would be satisfied with anyone less perfect than herself. Which made me wonder what game she was playing with Emma and why she was wasting her time.
“Are you staying for dinner?” Jane asked.
“I’m not here for the party.”
“No?”
“No, I’m meeting a friend.”
“Ah,” she said, lips folding into a smile. She studied my mink again and recognized it for what it was. Sex candy.
I really wanted to get away from this girl.
“Well, I’m afraid I have to go,” I told her. “I understand,” she said, giving me a wink.
Jane extended a limp hand for me to shake, but her Fendi clutch was in the way, and as she shifted it, the purse spilled to the floor. She bent over in the nimble way that girls do, stretching to retrieve it, and when she popped back up, more popped than she was expecting. It was the classic wardrobe malfunction. The starlet nipple slip. Jane’s strap took a journey halfway down her arm, and the loose cup of her dress followed it, sagging into ripples of silk that exposed her left breast completely. It was inflated and round, powdered and pink, all perfectly manufactured by Dr. Doubledee with a puckered brown bull’s-eye in the middle.
Jane appeared unaware of her girl’s grab for the limelight, but all hell was breaking loose around us. Popzees can spot a bare breast like a sniffer dog finds drugs. Dozens of cameras clicked into action, capturing six images a second and blinding me with explosions of light. Any actress who spies a camera knows what to do, and Jane turned on the smile, put her arm around my waist, and swung to offer the cameramen an unobstructed view of the left slope of the twin peaks.
“Jane!” I said.
Smile. Flash. Click, click, click, click, click. Jane even waved.
I tried to reach over to correct the malfunction, but Jane didn’t know what I was doing and seemed to believe I was groping her in front of the world’s cameras. Which I was. I reached, she flinched, and my hand, which were aiming for her dress, wound up squarely over her breast, as if I were giving it a tender caress.
The cameras, already busy, went crazy.
The feel of my fingers on her nipple must have finally alerted Jane that something was wrong, because she looked down, screamed, and yanked up her dress, only to scoop up my hand with it and leave me with my fingers still clutched around her breast, which was now back inside the marginal protection of the silk cup.
I tried to withdraw my hand, got it tangled up in her spaghetti strap, and spilled Mt. Jane into view again.
“Oh, shit,” we said in unison.
By now, the entire lobby was watching the show. At least two television cameras had the whole thing on video. Sean Connery was laughing so hard I thought he was going to lose his kilt. I shoved my hands into my pockets, felt my face glowing bright red, and watched helplessly as Jane repositioned her breast one more time. There was a collective moan of disappointment when she was decent again.
“What’s your name, honey?” one of the popzees shouted.
Jane was no fool. “Jane Parmenter,” she replied immediately. “P-a-r-m-e-n-t-e-r.”
“Are you an actress?”
“Yes!”
“How about you, ma’am?” the same photographer called to me.
Ma’am again?
“Sod off. S-o-d-o-f-f.”
Behind me, the bell for the elevator dinged, and the doors swung open. I dashed inside, eager to escape.
The last thing I saw as the doors closed was Jane grinning at me. She was happy, and she had reason to be, because she was about to get her wish. In a matter of minutes, she was going to be a tabloid star.
34
I WAS NOT EXACTLY IN THE RIGHT FRAME of mind to meet Darcy, but I hoped that my distractions would fade as the elevator hummed upward and the noise and glitter of the lobby vanished. I tried to forget about Jane Parmenter and think about the man who was waiting for me. I sighed, closed my eyes, and chanted the sort of mantra that Buddhists use to relax. Ommmm. Or in my case, I suppose it should have been Wiiiiiine. Alcohol please, lots of it, and fast.
I got off in the quiet hallway and took a moment to compose myself. My mouth was dry, my nerves rattled. Even in the luscious coat, I felt a chill. I was glad no one was here to see me.
It shouldn’t be this way, because I’ve met Darcy dozens of time, here or in the Mayfair flat. One big difference, though. We had now admitted we were in love. Normally I never confuse emotion with sex, but here I was. Room 1216. On the other side of the door was the man who made my heart race. I didn’t know if I should knock or turn tail and run like a furry white rabbit until I was back in Putney.
I knocked.
He answered immediately, all tall and handsome, silver strands in his mane of dark hair, his white dress shirt untucked and half unbuttoned, his hands holding two glasses of red wine. Like he could read my mind.
We stared at each other. Neither spoke. I wasn’t sure what I expected to see in his eyes, but it wasn’t there. No hopeless passion. No schoolboy crush. We were adults, and I realized that he was as frightened as I was of what was happening.
Standing in the doorway, I didn’t know what to do.
That was when I began laughing. Uproariously. Snorting, coughing, falling-against-the-wall laughing.
Darcy had no idea why. “Tess? What is it?”
I tried to speak. It wasn’t easy. “If you must know, I’ve just been feeling up another girl’s tit in front of half the fucking British film industry.”
I laughed until half the bottle of red wine was gone. It was a good thing, because it broke the ice and let me relax. When I nestled into his shoulder, everything felt natural again.
“Do you like the coat?” he asked.
“That’s like asking if I like chocolate. Or orgasms. Or you. I love the coat.”
He bit his lip and looked uncomfortable. “Good.”
That was as close as I came to saying it again. He didn’t say it at all. The clock ticktocked past that awkward moment, and I understood the game we were playing. We were going to pretend it had never happened. I had never said the words. He had never written them down. We were simply going to go back to the way things were. Past imperfect.
I wondered if we could pull it off. It sounds like the smoothest, easiest option when you’re in the moment. But tomorrow has a way of making you miss what you thought you had.
Was I disappointed? Right then and there, no. It sounds selfish, but I had other things on my mind. Having Darcy in my life, the way we had been a few days ago, was just fine. I didn’t have it in me to love any more than that right now, and obviously, neither did he.
I guess you can turn the clock back for the cost of a fur coat.
“A
re you naked under it?” he asked, teasing me. The old Darcy.
“Give me five seconds,” I said.
“Go ahead.”
Like a magician, I turned my back and extracted myself from my dress, leaving behind the heels and pearls. I twirled. Played the coquette and gave him a peek. He liked what he saw. His hands snaked inside.
Soon the coat was extraneous, a soft, expensive pile at our feet.
As we entwined on the sofa, I realized I was lying to myself. I loved him. It hurt my soul how much I loved him. But I didn’t say it this time. Not when we were sated. Not when we finished the bottle of wine. Not when we made love again in the hotel bed. Not when we spooned in the aftermath and began drifting to sleep. I wanted to say it, because I wanted to see if he would say it back. But I didn’t ruin the moment. You don’t have to talk to me about making the same mistake twice. I kept my mouth shut.
That was okay. We had time. Time to work our way back to where we had already been. Time for me to dive past the craziness of the past few weeks and of the weeks to come. Time to see where our hearts would lead us, although for me, I already knew.
Something felt different inside me for the first time in a very, very long time. I was serene. Confident. Happy. I stared through bleary eyes at the clock by the bedside and saw that it was a minute past midnight. My life had changed. No more worries about Lowell. No more worries about David Milton. Nothing but the future.
There are days when your world comes together like the pieces in a puzzle, your sins vanish, your opportunities flourish, your enemies drop away, and you put the bad things in your life behind yourself as if you were turning the page in a book.
There are days like that.
Unfortunately, as I was about to discover, this was not one of those days.
IV
35
MY TÊTE-À-TIT WITH JANE PARMENTER landed the two of us on the home page of TMZ .com by morning. They chose a particularly unflattering photo of yours truly, with my furry white arm groping Jane’s breast and my mouth wide open as if I meant to bend over and suckle on her discreetly pixilated nipple. The headline read, “Brit Film Gala Reveals ‘Breast of Show’.”