by Marian Keyes
The arrival of Kirsty put paid to my sudden introspection, and actually she did look quite like Nicole Kidman, all tendrilly strawberry-blonde hair and alabaster skin. (Also, she was as thin as a rail, but you could have guessed that, I’m sure. How do they all manage it? These women are in their thirties, traditionally not the age to be as insubstantial as a sixteen-year-old. It’s a mystery to me.) Kirsty was sparkily vivacious and I couldn’t understand Emily’s antipathy – until the waiter came and she made him list every mineral water they carried.
Then I offered her a Japanese cracker and she all but shuddered.
‘They’ve only four calories each,’ Emily said. ‘The waiter said.’
Kirsty quirked a know-all eyebrow around the table. ‘They’ve been sitting there for the longest time, with everyone’s hands in and out of them. You wanna eat other people’s germs? Go right ahead!’
Instantly the mood became subdued, even shamefaced. No one went near them after that, and when the waiter finally took them away, relief loosened us.
A girl with a tiny pink T-shirt stretched to the limit over a HUMUNGOUS pair of boobs strolled through the bar. Out and proud, it was like the breasts were taking her for a walk. Everyone knows LA is Plastic Surgery Central, but when you see these human Barbie dolls with your own eyes, it defies belief…
Emily grinned meaningfully at Lara, who regretfully shook her head. ‘Too phoney. The fake ones don’t feel as good.’ She looked down at her own golden cleavage. ‘And I should know.’
‘Too much information!’ Kirsty chided. ‘We so do NOT want to know.’
There she was wrong, actually. Was Lara saying she’d had a boob job? I was fascinated, but too embarrassed to push it. Was it true that sometimes they burst on planes? That if you shine a light underneath them they turn green? That in a swimming pool they float like armbands and you can’t get them beneath the surface for love nor money?
‘Tell Kirsty your news,’ Lara prompted Emily.
Emily succinctly told the story of the forthcoming pitch, and in all fairness to her, Kirsty seemed delighted.
‘Heeeyyy!’ she said. “Bout time. We’ve been worried about you, stuck in your little house, becoming a total loser.’
‘Excuse me?’
‘I love your sandals! Where did you buy them?’ Lara hastily said to Kirsty.
‘You know what? I bought them last summer and, on purpose, I never wore them,’ Kirsty said happily. ‘Now everyone wants to get a pair and they can’t! Anyway, guys, I gotta take off. Troy is coming over tonight to hang out with me.’
Emily looked like she’d got a crack on the skull from a frying pan.
‘Like, really?’ Lara interjected. ‘Are you and Troy…?’
‘Like I’m going to tell you!’ Kirsty replied, in high good humour.
Lara walked Kirsty to the valet stand and Emily fumed at me, ‘Troy is my friend. She only met him through Lara. What the hell does Lara see in her? And what does Troy see in her? Stingy bitch, didn’t even pay for her drink. And that stuff with the sandals. Hiding them in a drawer for a year – what was that all about?’
‘Lara’s coming back,’ I warned.
But instead of that shutting Emily up, she said ‘Good!’ then laid into Lara, who was very grown-up about it all. Emily didn’t own Troy, she said. Troy could hang out with whoever he wanted. Yeah, the thing about the sandals was a bit weird, but Kirsty’s job as a gym receptionist didn’t pay much…
‘Let’s get another drink,’ she suggested.
After another Complicated Martini, Kirsty’s traces had been washed away.
‘You coming to Dan Gonzalez’s party on Monday night?’ Emily asked Lara.
‘I thought you weren’t going to go!’
‘Yeah, well, it’s different now. I can hold my head up. I’m a player. So, you coming?’
Lara shook her head. ‘Nuh-uh. I’m going on a date.’
At this point, Emily got all screechy. ‘Tell us!’ she ordered. ‘You never said! Where did you meet her?’
‘At a club.’
To be honest, I was sort of embarrassed. I just didn’t know what to say. If it was a girl going out with a man I’d have been all agog for details, but…
‘She’s way cute,’ Lara said. ‘She used to be a dancer.’
‘A dancer, wow! Hot body?’ Emily asked.
‘Hot.’
Lara went on to describe the girl, the way men usually get described. How good-looking she was, how sweet she’d acted, how she’d really seemed to like Lara…
I pushed away my embarrassment and matched Emily screechy noise for screechy noise. I am a woman of the world, I thought.
11
Slowly I shifted the sole of my foot along the fluffy bathmat. The squashy clumps of wool were balm to my aching feet. I shifted the other foot and felt the touch of every fibre against my over-sensitized skin… so soft, so kind… Then back to the first foot again.
How long had I been standing here? Too long. Maybe I should finish drying myself. Someone else might want to use the bathroom.
As I stumbled to my bedroom to get dressed, I knew one thing for sure. I’m never drinking Complicated Martinis again. Clearly, Emily was a bad influence. I wasn’t what you might call a party animal, but I’d been drunk twice in two days. And I’d never before had a shower while wearing sunglasses – what did that tell me about the company I was keeping?
I wouldn’t mind, but I was the only one who was in shreds. I’d woken at eight, feeling like I was coming round from a coma, my habitual terror on waking even more pronounced, and I’d found Lara and Emily sitting in the kitchen, drinking smoothies and chattering, just like normal people. Hardy creatures.
‘Y’OK?’ Emily had sounded concerned.
‘Fine,’ I said. ‘It’s just… I can’t actually open my eyes. The pain is too bad.’
Emily gave me sunglasses and some painkillers, and suggested I take a shower. Which hadn’t really helped, although the bathmat had, at least while I’d been standing on it.
As I got dressed the sunglasses fell off, but when I bent to retrieve them from the floor, black patches scudded before my eyes so I had to leave them. Then I emerged into the living-room, where the sound of my feet slapping on the wooden floor was too much. I was half-looking for a pillow or blanket on the couch, signs that Lara had slept there, but when I peeped into Emily’s room, Lara’s clothes were flung on the floor. She must’ve slept with Emily.
Not slept slept. Just slept, slept. Oh, you know what I mean…
I got the land of my life to see that while I’d been in the shower Troy had arrived on the premises. I squinched a look at him from my aching eyes. Still strangely beautiful, in a slab-of-granite kind of way.
‘Hey, Maggie,’ he nodded.
‘Howya,’ I said, too shattered to be bothered with this ‘hey’ business. I had to lie down. Carefully I lowered myself on to the couch, flattening my back against the cushions, but even when I’d stopped moving, I still felt as though I was sinking, sinking…
Emily and Lara and Troy were discussing the pitch. From far away I could hear their murmuring voices. I found that if I softly moved strands of my hair along my cheek, the pain in my face-bones lessened briefly. Again and again I stroked the feathery strands from my nose to my ear and back again.
‘Y’OK, Irish?’ Troy was standing over me. ‘What’s the deal with your hair?’
Too out-of-it to be embarrassed, I told him. Then I told him about the rug in the bathroom.
‘What you need is a massage,’ he concluded. ‘Work those pressure points.’
‘From you?’
‘No,’ he laughed softly. ‘From the master. You wait.’
Minutes later the front door opened, bringing a great big bright dazzling morning into the room.
‘Close it,’ I begged.
It was Justin, beaming and wearing a yellow and red Hawaiian shirt. I actually thought I might vomit.
A clicky skiddy noise on the fl
oorboards alerted me to a second presence. A little white Scotty dog chasing dust motes and generally being cute. Desiree, I supposed.
‘Right on time, buddy,’ Troy said to Justin. ‘Lady here needs help.’
‘Oh yeah?’ Justin asked in his highish voice. ‘What appears to be the problem?’ He knelt by the couch and theatrically took my pulse at the wrist.
‘Hangover,’ I said, flinching at his shirt.
‘My fault,’ Emily apologized.
Justin laced his fingers together and flexed his hands back and forth, like he meant business.
‘OK, where does it hurt?’
‘Everywhere.’
‘Everywhere. OK, let’s fix everywhere.’
I was afraid I might have to take some clothes off, but it turned out it was only my feet he was interested in: reflexology. I’m not proud of my feet. Whenever I’d had reflexology before, shame of my hard skin and my second toe being longer than my big toe had interfered with my enjoyment. But the great thing about feeling like I wanted to die was that the state of my feet didn’t seem to matter.
And Troy was right. Truly, Justin was the master.
As he pushed and kneaded with pleasurable firmness, my pain gradually receded further and further until, to my great surprise, I was restored to myself.
I sat up. The birds were singing, the world was shiny and bright and bearable. The sun was no longer a malign yellow goblin, but once again a dearly loved friend. I could even look at Justin s shirt.
‘You,’ I said in awe, ‘are a miracle worker. You could do that for a living. Is that what you did before you became an actor?’
‘Nah, it’s just a hobby. I learnt how to do it to try to get a girlfriend.’
‘Did it work?’
‘No.’
‘Not yet, you mean.’
‘Nah, I’ve given up. I’m not just the expendable fat guy at work, I’m the expendable fat guy, period. Now I live just for Desiree. Although,’ he added cheerfully, ‘I only got her so as I could meet women. I thought I could hang around the dog parks and look for a girlfriend, but that didn’t work either.’
‘It’s IMPOSSIBLE to find love in this town,’ Emily interjected. ‘Everyone is so into their work. And there’s no place to meet anyone.’
‘What about bars? Or clubs?’ I was sure I’d heard my sisters and friends in Ireland telling millions of stories about going out to a club and waking up the next morning with a strange man in the bed. It seemed to be worthy of comment on the rare occasions that it didn’t happen and used to make me wistful for the single life.
‘Friends of friends is how you usually meet people in LA.’ Emily gave Troy a meaningful look. But if she was hoping he’d spill the beans about how he’d got on the night before with Kirsty, she was disappointed.
He loped over to me. ‘OK, feeling better now?’
Flat on my back again, I nodded up at him. ‘Great. Ready for my ten-mile run.’
‘I wouldn’t joke about that kind of thing round here,’ Emily’s disembodied voice said. ‘Come on, are we going to work, or what?’
They gathered around the kitchen table like a council of war. Even Desiree was sitting on a chair, paying rapt attention. I later discovered she’d been in a couple of movies.
The doors and windows were all open, bringing the smiley day into the house. At midday Emily rang for brunch from a nearby restaurant and half an hour later enough food to feed an army arrived.
‘D’you want any?’ she called to me. ‘Or would you boke?’
‘I suppose I could manage a couple of mouthfuls.’ My head pains were gone but I still had the vestiges of hangover nausea.
Troy brought me a plate and when I tried to sit up, he said, ‘No need to,’ and carefully tried to balance it on my chest. But on account of having breasts and on account of them being, by their nature, wobbly, the plate wouldn’t come to rest.
‘Maybe you’d better hold it,’ he decided, with an embarrassed half-smile. ‘Got it?’ Then he flashed a direct hit with those greeny eyes and, all at once, he didn’t seem a bit embarrassed –and suddenly I was.
When he’d gone, I tried a few cautious mouthfuls and marvelled as they stayed down.
Some time later, Troy reappeared.
‘You done?’
I don’t know why, but I waited a beat, looking into his face, before saying, ‘Yeah.’
Then he lifted the plate from my chest, somehow managing to glance the edge of it off one of my nipples. Instantly both of them contracted and hardened, leaping 3-D-like under my T-shirt towards him.
He looked at them, then looked at me. I knew I should laugh but couldn’t. Then I was watching his retreating back, as he returned to the others.
I stayed on the couch, half-flicking through what I thought must be Daily Variety but actually turned out to be the LA Times. All the news seemed to be about the movie world. Nothing about wars or massacres or natural disasters – only innocuous articles about opening weekends and weekly grosses… My eyes closed.
Emily was improvising her pitch, and now and again a remark floated over to me.
‘…Emily,’ went Troy’s gentle sing-song, ‘you’re not convincing me…’
‘…Don’t compare it to Drop Dead Gorgeous
At some stage the phone rang, and then Emily was looming over me.
‘Are you awake?’ she asked. ‘Phone call from home.’
Something in the way she said it immediately alerted me and, too quickly, I sat up. It was Garv, right?
Except it wasn’t, it was my dad. I’d been about to attempt getting to my feet and walking to another room for privacy, then decided to spare myself the trouble. It was only Dad. But I should have realized something was wrong. Dad hated the phone, he normally behaved as if it gave off noxious gases, so why was he ringing me?
He had something to tell me, he said, halting and mortified. ‘Though it mightn’t be news to you at all.’
‘Go on.’ My heart was still pounding from the expectation of talking to Garv.
‘Tonight we were coming home in the car…’
‘Tonight?’ Oh yes, Ireland was eight hours ahead. ‘Go on.’
‘… and I saw Paul… er… Garv. He was with a young woman and the pair of them, they looked…’ Dad stopped. I was holding my breath and I wished I’d taken the phone into the bedroom. Too late now – dread had paralysed me.
‘They looked, um, fond of each other,’ Dad went on. ‘Your mother said it wouldn’t achieve anything by telling you, but I thought you’d prefer to know.’
He was right. In a way. The idea of being made a fool of isn’t one that appeals to me. And I’d known anyway, hadn’t I? But suspecting very strongly wasn’t the same as knowing for sure.
‘Are you all right?’ he asked awkwardly.
I said I was, but actually I had no idea how I felt.
‘Did you recognize the girl?’ My heart rate increased dramatically.
‘No, no, I didn’t.’
I blew out a stream of air. So at least it wasn’t one of my friends.
‘I’m fierce sorry about this, pet,’ he said miserably.
You fucker, Garv, I thought. Doing this not just to me, but to my poor dad.
‘Don’t worry, Dad, it was probably his cousin.’
‘Do you think?’ he asked eagerly.
‘No,’ I sighed. ‘But it doesn’t matter anyway, it really doesn’t.’
Punch-drunk I hung up. What the hell did ‘fond’ mean? What were they doing? Snogging in the street?
I turned to see a frozen tableau of stares. Even Desiree’s head was to one side in compassionate enquiry.
‘What’s happened?’ Emily asked.
I was too shocked to dissemble, and the response from all of them was immediate and steeped in kindness. Lara poured me a drink, Emily lit me a cigarette, Justin rubbed the pressure points on my temples, Troy recommended deep breathing and Desiree gave me a consolatory lick.
‘You had already split up?’ L
ara asked.
‘Yeah, but…’
‘I know. Yeah, but…’ she repeated, with understanding. ‘We’ve all been there.’
In the middle of the fuss, the phone rang again and Emily answered it. Her face was a picture of reluctance. ‘It’s your mum.’
I took the phone and made for my bedroom.
‘Margaret?’
‘Hi, Mum.’ I closed the door behind me.
‘It’s Mum.’
‘I know.’ And I know why you’re ringing.
‘How are you getting on? Is it still sunny?’
‘Yes. And I still haven’t fallen into the San Andreas fault.’
‘I’ve something to tell you and I’m going to give it to you straight. No point beating round the bush. If someone’s got something to say, they might as well say it…’
‘Mum…’
‘It’s that Paul you were married to,’ she blurted. ‘We passed him tonight in town. He was walking along Dame Street and he was with a… a… girl. They looked quite enamoured with each other.’
So it’s enamoured now. Fond was bad enough. I swallowed with effort. The bastard, I thought. The bastarding bastard.
‘Your father was all for keeping it from you, but you’re like me, you’ve your pride, you’d rather know.’
True perhaps, yet it still made me angry.
