‘Oh holy heck, stay well away from her, sweet, sexy Bastian,’ I mutter to myself, rubbing my already sore eyes because, weirdly, the words on the page keep blurring in front of me.
My stomach gives an almighty rumble and I realise that it’s three o’clock and I’ve had no lunch because my great cheese toastie plan was thwarted by Nicolas Cage. I get a vision of Nicolas Cage flipping me the bird as I flipped him the bird and at the thought of how fucking weird it was I burst into laughter. I picture his face and the fact that I told him that Gary liked his chicken extra fresh. Then I think of seeing Gary, just five metres away, and how my heart ached for him. How close I was to actually speaking to him before that stoopid John Alan fella ruined it all. And then I laugh even more because I’m suddenly feeling incredibly, oddly giddy.
And hungry.
I really am hungry. So hungry. I don’t think I’ve ever been this hungry before. I reach into my tote and grab one of the blocks of cheese, which has softened grossly in the heat of the sun. I try to find the knife, but it’s nowhere in my bag, so instead I tear the wax paper open and take two gigantic bites, leaving behind little teeth marks.
‘Ew, take a breath, girl,’ says a sleek man walking by with a sleek greyhound on a sleek silver chain lead.
Which just makes me laugh more. ‘You are!’ I shout back at him, which is a terrible comeback, but right now I simply do not care. That ice cream really did make me feel better about all of the things!
The sleek man hurriedly drags his sleek dog away as if I plan to take a bite out of both of them too.
I shrug and pick up my book again and am just sinking into the next chapter when I hear a blood-curdling scream. I jump up in shock and look down the beach to see a tall woman wearing a baseball cap a few metres away yelling at Winklepuff, who, oh my god, is humping a very large golden retriever? Oh shit. How did this even happen? How did he even get up there? That dog is massive! Did Winklepuff climb up the other dog? I don’t understand the logistics.
‘Stop that!’ the woman yells at the dogs, frantically flapping her hands in their general direction.
I scramble up and quickly jog over to the fracas, wobbling a little to the left as I do.
‘Winklepuff get down, right now! Get off that golden retriever!’
The blonde woman squeals again. ‘Ewwww! Is this your dog?’
‘No, I’m dog-sitting him!’ I explain. ‘Winklepuff! Down! Ham! Ham! Deli ham!’ My stern calls do nothing. I pull some ham out of my bag and wave it around in the air. ‘Come get it,’ I say.
Winklepuff fully ignores me. He is having the time of his life and the golden retriever seems psyched about the whole thing too.
‘Get him off of her!’ the blonde woman yells again. ‘This is horrible.’
I reach forward to grab Winklepuff, but both he and the golden retriever growl and snarl at me.
‘Argh!’ I jump back in fright. ‘I can’t do it. They’re snarling. They seem to want their privacy!’
‘Crap. They’re fucking now,’ the woman says. ‘They’re going to be stuck together for at least twenty minutes. Great. My boyfriend is gonna go nuts. His precious Janet, deflowered!’
‘Your boyfriend’s dog is called Janet?’ I giggle, looking at the woman for the first time. She removes her baseball cap, revealing a shock of short white blonde hair.
My heart lurches because I recognise her perfect sharp-featured face and large long-lashed doe eyes. Oh my goodness. This woman is Tori Gould. Gary Montgomery’s fiancée! How is this happening? Why am I meeting her? Is this… is this fate telling me not to give up on my mission? Or fate telling me to stay the hell away from this woman’s boyfriend? Winklepuff’s new beau must be Gary’s dog. Called Janet. Arguably the finest name I ever heard for a dog in my life.
I try not to let on that I recognise Tori because, while she’s a well-known make-up artist on Instagram, she’s not regular-person famous. It would be odd for me to know who she was, especially as I am very clearly not the kind of person who understands anything about hair and make-up and fashion.
‘He’s had her for years,’ Tori says, her voice the sort of mid-Atlantic/vocal fry heavy drawl that all the fancy kids had on Gossip Girl. ‘He’s gonna go nuts. I mean, at least she consented, but what if she gets pregnant? We don’t have time to deal with puppies! Plus she’s a pure-breed. She’s only meant to “be” with other golden retrievers.’
‘Dog eugenics,’ I mutter under my breath.
‘Excuse me?’ Tori frowns, slightly.
‘Oh nothing.’ I pull myself together because I am both feeling and acting very weird and this woman has done nothing wrong apart from fall in love with the man I strongly suspect I’m supposed to grow old with. ‘Well, I really hope Janet doesn’t get up the duff.’
‘Up the what?’ Tori gives me a horrified glance.
‘Pregnant.’
‘Oh. Yes. Me too. I couldn’t bear having to deal with a whole litter of stinky Janets loping around and making a mess. Yuck.’
‘Right. Of course.’
I wait for her to say something else, but she doesn’t. And I don’t because I’m not good at small talk most of the time and especially so when said small talk is with a woman whose boyfriend I, just this morning, was fantasising about having sex with.
I avert my eyes while the two dogs continue to enjoy themselves. Tori sits herself down delicately onto the sand, brushing errant grains off her perfect ankles. With a sigh, she takes her phone out, lifts up the screen at an angle and snaps a selfie, before tapping something out onto the screen. I bet she’s instagramming.
I sneak open my phone and take a look at her profile which I have bookmarked on my home screen. There’s the selfie she’s just taken right this minute! You can see a little bit of the dress I’m wearing in the background. I read the caption: ‘An idyllic LA Beach moment, walking my beloved dog and catching some rays. Covered in SPF of course!! #LAMoments #sunshinefordayzzzz #LaMerTheSPF #doglover #dogownersofinstagram’
Idyllic LA Beach Moment? Hardly. But, then again, I suppose that is the point of an influencer: to present a perfect life even when your dog is getting screwed by another dog and the whole thing is truly gross. And actually pretty funny. I give a little giggle. I’m feeling very giggly in general right now. Much more than usual.
Tori looks up at me with pursed lips, before her eyes run slowly over Kennedy’s dress, which, yes, is a more than a little tight around the boobs. She takes in my red face and gammy eye and raises her eyebrow just the tiniest bit, but enough for me to notice.
She goes back to her phone, ignoring me, and although all signs point to Tori Gould not being the kind of person I would want to hang out with, I mentally tell myself off for jumping to that conclusion so quickly. It would be much too easy to cast her as a villain. The truth is that I am the villain in this whole scenario. I am the one hoping that her boyfriend will be my boyfriend, my husband, the fella who will grow crispy and wrinkly with me before we eventually die at exactly the same moment, holding bony hands and staring lovingly into each other’s rheumy eyes.
Winklepuff and Janet don’t look to be ending their affair any time soon so I go and grab my unattended bag from further down the beach, wobbling again and wondering why I feel so light-headed – I must be dehydrated from the heat. I return and sit down beside Tori, taking a big gulp of water from my bottle while we wait for the dogs to finish. She’s busy on her phone, so I grab my book again and, before I flip to find the page where I left off, Tori glances over and frowns.
‘Oh, my boyfriend has that book. I’m trying to read one of them at the moment, but it’s ridiculous, no offence.’
My mouth drops open and I take in a sharp breath.
‘Harcourt Royals?’ I stutter. ‘Your boyfriend reads the Harcourt Royals series?’
‘Yeah,’ she shrugs and rolls her eyes slightly, continuing to tap out on her phone while she’s talking. ‘He’s always got his nose buried in them. I’m more of a Vogue gir
l myself.’
I force a straight expression onto my face. ‘Cool. Cool,’ I say as casually as I can manage, which is hard, considering that my heart has started beating very very quickly. Oh my god. Gary Montgomery is a Harcourt Royals fan? Fuuuuuuuck. What are the chances? Such a small number of people have even heard of the series. And he is one of them? If this isn’t a massive freaking sign that I am doing the right thing being here, that I should pursue this, that fate loves the fearless, then I don’t know what is.
Shit, I mean, what are even the chances that I would bump into Tori Gould today? That Winklepuff would choose Gary’s dog, out of all the dogs on the beach, to make public love to? It’s insane. Actually insane.
Oh my god, I wonder if Gary’s on the Harcourt Royals forum under a fake name? I wonder which bits of the book make him laugh and I hope it’s the same bits that make me laugh. This information almost completely eliminates my embarrassment from this morning. Even if John Alan told Gary about me, even if I did almost get arrested, even if I am losing my mind, I have to keep going. This is an undeniable sign! Wow. I can’t wait to get back and tell Kennedy about my discovery! As I’m picturing her face when I tell her that Gary Montgomery is a fan of the little indie book series we are also fans of, Tori makes a little squeal of relief.
‘Thank fuck for that,’ she drawls.
I follow her gaze to find that the dogs have separated.
‘Finally,’ I agree, calling Winklepuff over as his tongue lolls shamelessly out of his mouth.
He flops towards me, while Tori ties a rose gold lead around Janet’s chunky neck.
‘You, um, should probably give me your boyfriend’s number,’ I say breezily.
Too far.
Tori frowns as a happy and tired Janet pants beside her. ‘Um, why would I do that?’
‘Uh, you know, in case Janet gets knocked up. Winklepuff would deserve to know. It would be his, um, paternal right. Right?’
‘I don’t think that’s a thing,’ Tori replies as if I am a moron, which I absolutely am.
‘I think it is… legally,’ I try.
Why am I pushing this? Shut up, Nora.
Tori pauses for a moment and gives me an enquiring look. ‘Do you know who I am?’ she asks eventually, her eyes squinting before she quickly slips on a pair of sunglasses to hide them. ‘Who my boyfriend is?’
I affect a blank face. ‘You are Janet’s mum and your boyfriend is Janet’s dad?’
‘Hmmmm. We’ll just take your number,’ she says.
That’s something, I guess.
I type my name and number into Tori’s shiny gold phone. When I’m done, she pulls at Janet’s lead.
‘This was… weird,’ she declares, returning her baseball cap to her head and heading off down the beach.
‘Yep, it very much was,’ I say. ‘Bye, then!’
She throws her hand up in a dismissive wave without looking back at me.
I clip on Winklepuff’s lead. His eyes are sparkling as we trot back down the beach. ‘That was extremely gross, Winklepuff, but, I’ve got to say, I appreciate it. If it wasn’t for you, I’d never had discovered that Gary actually reads my beloved Harcourt Royals. I’m doing the right thing being here. I have to be!’ Winklepuff looks up at me blankly. ‘You don’t care, I get it. All you care about is Janet. But, either way, thanks for being such a filthy git. It has really helped me. You’re definitely growing on me, buddy.’
As I walk past the ice cream man, he holds two fingers up in the peace sign. ‘You’re looking a lot more chilled now, dude,’ he says happily. ‘That’s dope! Ha ha, do you get it? That’s dope!’
‘Ha ha,’ I say, nodding as if I do get it. ‘Yes, definitely. Take care!’
What an odd guy.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Nora
By the time I’ve relayed the events of the day and my disaster at the movie set, Kennedy is wriggling with disbelief, her jaw hanging open.
‘I’ve got to be honest,’ she says, ‘I’m kind of surprised you even got past security…’
‘But you told me to act like I belonged! That everyone would be distracted.’
‘And I was right, I guess. Wow.’
She makes me a chamomile tea and I tell her all about Nicolas Cage and how he ratted me out AND flipped the bird at me (to which she shrieks with laughter), about seeing Gary and feeling the same pull that I felt when I first saw him at the pictures. She covers her mouth with her hands when I relay the experience of John Alan kicking me off the lot and threatening to get the LAPD on me. When I tell her about meeting Tori Gould, her eyes widen in astonishment and when I reveal that Gary Montgomery reads the Harcourt Royals books she jumps up from the sofa.
‘He reads Harcourt Royals?’ Kennedy shrieks, which is exactly the reaction I was unable to express myself at the time. ‘For real? For real real? Holy shit! That’s crazy!’ She does an air punch, which looks weird considering the stiff blue work suit she’s still wearing. Ha ha. This is an even better reaction than I had expected. She is properly psyched for me.
‘It’s a clear sign, right?’ I say. ‘Fate.’
Kennedy nods quickly. ‘Hmmm. And you met Tori Gould too! Wow. What is she like? I actually love her Instagram. She always seems so authentic.’
‘Yeah, I wouldn’t bank on that transferring over into real life.’
‘Really?’
‘Yep.’
Kennedy plops back down onto the sofa and strokes Winklepuff on her lap. I was so afraid of telling her what he had gotten up to with Janet, but when I did, she seemed pretty non-plussed. ‘Oh, he does it all the time.’ She shrugged. ‘He has, as they say, hoes in every area code.’
I kind of wish she had told me before. But then I suppose if she had, I might never have met Tori and been reassured that this weird crazy thing I’m doing is the right thing. I feel much less wobbly than I did at the beach – maybe I was getting a little too much sun – but I still feel more than a little giddy about what I’ve discovered.
‘I’m going to spend the rest of the night making another plan to get to Gary,’ I tell Kennedy. ‘I’ve got so much to do. Do you mind if I use your printer some more? I have things to add to the Creepy As Fuck Soulmate Procurement Wall.
Kennedy bites her lip. ‘Or… Instead, you could let me take you out, show you this immoral lil’ town. I could do with a break myself, to be honest. Work has been real heavy, what with the fight for anchor position and then, of course, there’s the whole…’
‘Whole what?’
Kennedy’s mouth clamps shut. ‘Nothing.’
I shake my head. ‘I shouldn’t, really. I might have learned more about Gary, but this morning went so terribly that I should probably stay here and figure out the next step. Plus, I got really light-headed at the beach. I feel much more steady now, but what if I have a spot of sunstroke? And anyway, I’m not really the “going out” type.’
‘What does that even mean? Of course you’re the going out type!’
I shrug my shoulders. ‘I just like staying in. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I’m not the most outgoing person.’
Kennedy gives me a disapproving glance. ‘You’re a little shy, yes, but still! Where is your joy, girl?’
Joy sort of stops meaning as much when your beloved parents die and it’s all your fault. That’s the thing with grief, it feels like you can’t fully experience happiness the way other people do. It’s like, no matter how much you think you’re healing, you’ve constantly got a griping stomach ache, a painful itch, a fractured bone that makes everything good you experience feel a little less good than it might otherwise have been.
I don’t say that out loud because I only met Kennedy for the first time in real life a few days ago and, well, the only person I’ve ever talked to about Mum and Dad is Imogene and even those conversations make me feel like I’m going to throw up.
‘Being with my one true love would bring me joy!’ I say eventually, my heart panging as I think abo
ut how truly happy Mum and Dad were with each other. How happy I could be if these crazy feelings and instincts I’m experiencing are correct. How glad they would be if they knew I had managed to have what they had… ‘That’s why I need to stay in and plan. Plus, my eye is all scratchy and red from Santa Ana wind dust. Plus, I have Virtual Assistants 4U work to catch up on. PLUS, I need to get up early to call my sister while she’s on her afternoon break at work.’
I think of Imogene’s messages and how every time she mentions Dan it’s because he’s being a dick in some small way. I want to check she’s okay.
Kennedy pouts a little and blows her soft blonde fringe out of her eyes. ‘Listen. You’re here for a couple weeks, right? If you’re going to think properly and come up with a good next move, then surely you need to give your brain a little rest, especially after a day like today. All the best ideas come to an open, relaxed mind and that’s a fact.’
‘But I—’
‘You can’t come to LA and not experience the debauchery.’ Kennedy folds her arms sternly. ‘Come on, let’s go get drinks, dance, meet new people. All of those good things. I said I would help you to have a joyful time here!’
‘Meet more new people?’ I can’t help the look of horror that contorts my features.
Kennedy laughs at my expression. ‘Come on. Staying in is cool, but it’s also great to let off some steam, right? This mission of yours is so… intense. It’s not healthy for it to be the only thing you do, the only thing you think about. Get this – if you come out with me, I promise to help you with your Gary Montgomery sleuthing tomorrow, okay? I have some work to do on my audition in the morning, but after that you will have all of my journalistic tools at your disposal. I’ll even go through every member of the Harcourt Royals forum and see if any of the Crown Kissers might be Gary under a secret name. You know I’m one of the moderators, right? I have privileges! It’s pretty dicey legally, but technically I could get access to everyone’s real name and address…’
He Will Be Mine: The brand new laugh out loud page turner! Page 12
