by Marian Keyes
Anticipation began to stack up inside me. I felt my shoulders tense and my whole body move forward…
‘So how about it, Emily? You might get to meet some people. Sorry, Irish,’ he lifted his arms helplessly, ‘I only get to bring one person.’
The sensation of defeat was acute, but in an unexpected reversal of fortune Emily was shaking her head. ‘I can’t come. Got me a date.’
‘A date?’ Troy stared at her, then revealed his perfect teeth in an amazed laugh. ‘Who is this guy, that you’re turning down Cameron Myers’ birthday party for?’
‘No one special, but I’m burnt out from all this movie stuff.’
Troy gave her an enquiring look and Emily turned her mouth down apologetically. ‘Maybe I’m just not tough enough for this town.’
A few seconds of silence, then Troy concluded, ‘Or maybe you just need a day off.’
‘Thanks,’ she said, with weary relief. ‘Why don’t you bring Maggie tonight?’
‘Would you come with me?’ He sounded surprised, even humble – which in turn surprised, then touched me.
‘Yes.’
‘You mean you’d come out with me alone?’
If you’ll do that thing on my leg again. Except, of course, I didn’t say it.
‘Emily hasn’t warned you about me?’ Now he was joking. And flirting. ‘I am baaaaaad news.’
‘I’ll risk it,’ I said, wishing I didn’t sound so prim.
‘Great.’
‘What’s Cameron Myers like?’ I asked.
‘Mmmm,’ Troy said thoughtfully. His eyes roamed across the ceiling while he contemplated. ‘Let’s see. What’s Cameron like?’ The searching silence endured a good time longer, then finally Troy decided. ‘Short! I’ll pick you up at eight.’
As soon as the door had closed behind him, all my hope and fear was distilled to one sentence. ‘I’ve got to get my hair blow-dried.’
But I didn’t know Dino’s address. Besides, I couldn’t afford him.
‘Go down to the corner to Reza,’ Emily said. ‘She’s as mad as a brick, but she’ll do in an emergency.’
I hurried to the end of the street, where a small hairdresser’s was sandwiched between the Starbucks and the surveillance-equipment shop. The salon was empty save for a magnificent, exotic-looking woman of indeterminate age. Brick-mad Reza? Very dyed black hair bouffed to her shoulderblades and many gold chains nestled in her wrinkled but full décolletage. She glared, as if mortally insulted, when I asked if she had a free appointment, then surprised me by saying, ‘Now!’
‘No?’ Had I misheard?
‘No! Now!’
‘Um… great.’
‘I am Reza,’ she declared.
‘Maggie.’
I explained that I wanted my hair to be smooth, full and shiny. Reza bunched her blackberry lips and said, in an interesting accent, ‘You have this bad hair. Fat…?’ With expanding hand gestures she sought the right word.
‘Thick?’ I offered.
‘Coarse!’ she concluded triumphantly. ‘Very bad. The worst kind. Is very hard work to get this bad hair shiny. But I am strong!’
Excellent.
The wash she gave me was so thorough I’m surprised that she didn’t draw blood with her nails. ‘Strong hands,’ she grinned grimly, then proceeded to give me whiplash as she vigorously towel-dried.
As she revved up the dryer – for some reason making me think of a logger about to cut down a tree with a chainsaw – she asked from which godforsaken place did I hail, to end up with such dreadful hair.
‘Ireland.’
‘Iowa?’
‘No, Ireland. A country in Europe.’
‘Europe,’ she said dismissively. She might as well have said, ‘Pah!’
‘And where are you from?’
‘Persia, but we are not bullsheet Persian. We are Bahai. We don’t mess with the bullsheet politics, we love everyone. NO!’ She turned to yell at a girl who had appeared at the door. ‘No appointment today! We are FULL UP!’
Crushed, the girl disappeared, and without missing a beat, Reza turned back to me. ‘We give all peoples their respect. Rich, poor, black, white. Hold your stupid head! You have this BAD hair!’
More than once in the next half-hour my ear lay flat against my shoulder, as she tugged and pulled the coarseness from my hair. Finally, my neck feeling as though it had been pummelled by a baseball bat, Reza switched off the dryer and turned me to the mirror. ‘You see.’ She couldn’t hide her pride. ‘Is good. I am strong!’
And my hair was nice. Except for my fringe. However she’d managed it, it was almost circular, as if it had been wrapped around a sausage roll. But I saw no point in mentioning it, she would have just laid the blame at the feet of my bad, fat hair.
Then came the delicate matter of payment and she was surprisingly expensive. Perhaps it was extra for hair as terrible as mine.
‘OK,’ I sighed, proffering my Visa card – which she energetically spurned. ‘Bullsheet credit cards,’ she muttered. ‘Only cash.’
Then came more muttering about ‘Bullsheet IRS,’ and I passed her some notes and left.
I made my way home pressing my fringe against my forehead, and had the bad luck to be spotted by Ethan, who opened a window and yelled, ‘Hey, Maggie! Your bangs look kinda weird.’
Within seconds all three of the boys were on the street, examining me.
‘You look like Joan Crawford,’ Curtis concluded.
‘And your goatee looks like candy floss, only I’m too polite to say it,’ I replied. Before I even had time to be appalled at my crassness, they all ROARED laughing, and already Luis had a plan to help me.
‘You gotta flatten the hair and keep it flat. Come inside.’
One of the features of this strange post-Garv time was that I seemed to have no power to resist doing things I didn’t want to do. I found myself accompanying them into their dim, smelly house and letting Luis ease a pair of tights on to my head, the waistband snug around my fringe. The only saving grace was that they were new tights, straight out of the packet. Ethan told me they kept such stuff on the premises in case any of them got lucky with a girl.
‘Keep them on until you have to go out tonight,’ Luis advised.
I thanked the three of them – I mean, what else could I do? – and carried on home, the legs of the tights dangling down my back. When I let myself in, Emily looked up from her laptop and remarked, ‘Jesus, Reza has lost it altogether.’
And still no word from Mort Russell. Emily abandoned her writing and, humming calmly to herself, pottered around the house, polishing the mirrors, doing her nails. Now and then she rounded on the phone and shrieked, ‘Ring, you fucker! Ring, RING, RING!!!!!’ Then it was back to the humming. –
Meanwhile, I was fretting about what to wear to the party and wondering if I should race down to Santa Monica to try and find something, but I was all too aware of the first law of shopping and knew I hadn’t a hope.
‘How about that new embroidered denim skirt?’ Emily suggested.
‘I can’t, it makes my knees look funny’
‘No, it doesn’t.’
‘Yes, it does.’
‘Try it on and show me.’
‘Come into my room.’
Twenty-nine seconds later, a perplexed Emily was forced to admit, ‘Christ, it does. I don’t know how. Normally your knees look fine.’
She began rootling through the suitcase on the floor, looking at my clothes and commenting, ‘That’s a lovely skirt… I’ve that T-shirt in pink.’ Then she paused and groaned, ‘God, these are gorgeous.’ I looked. She’d found my turquoise sandals and was pulling them out from under a pile of socks. ‘Gorgeous. And they’re new. Look, the price-sticker is still on them. How come you’ve never worn them?’
‘Just waiting for the right occasion.’
‘Which I believe might be this evening.’
‘Ah, no,’ I swallowed. ‘Not tonight.’ At her sharp look, I explained, ‘They’re h
igh and uncomfortable. I want to be relaxed this evening.’
I wasn’t sure she really believed me, but she let it go.
In a mutation of the laws of physics, the day was interminable, but it also went far too fast. Each individual second endured for quite some time, yet all of a sudden it was five-thirty – too late to get news. Emily spoke to David, who said that Hothouse were obviously taking the script seriously, that the time-lag indicated that Mort was discussing it with his bosses. But Emily wasn’t reassured.
‘He didn’t get enough of a buzz going,’ she said sadly. ‘I’ve seen what happens when the hype works. The agent rings the executive in the morning and fires him up so much that he’s shelled out two million dollars by lunch-time. Often without having even seen the script.’
‘I don’t believe you.’
‘Honest to God. I can give you four separate instances where a studio paid shedloads without having read a single word. The agent offered them a one-hour window to make a pre-emptive bid. They all came through – too terrified of someone else getting the chance.’
‘But what if it’s a bad script?’
‘It often is, but by the time the studio discover they’ve paid two million dollars for a dog, it’s too late. The writer’s sunning himself in the Caribbean and is already on his next project.’
‘That’s insane.’
‘It’s an insane kind of town. Anyway, might as well try and enjoy my weekend,’ she said sensibly. Then she put her face in her hands and screeched, ‘I can’t fucking BEAR this.’ She emerged with a shaky smile. ‘Just taking a moment. Right, where’s my make-up bag? C’m’ere till I do your face.’
‘But you’ve to get ready for your date.’
‘Ah, it’s as easy to do two people as it is to do one. And it’s not every night you go to a movie star’s birthday party in the penthouse of LA’s most fabulous hotel’
When she put it like that… ‘Look, are you sure you don’t want to go?’
‘Quite. There’s a good chance I’ll get laid tonight. A bird in the hand and all that. Are you sure you want to go? You don’t seem very thrilled.’
She was right. Going to Cameron Myers’ birthday party was dream-come-true stuff and I wasn’t as fizzy as I should be. As I once would have been. I felt ashamed of myself. The only time I’d come close to feeling any real excitement lately had been at Emily’s pitch – and I was starting to wonder if I’d been mistaken about it.
‘I just don’t seem to be great at enjoying myself at the moment. Everything, even the brilliant stuff, is a bit flat.’
‘You’re depressed. This whole thing has really taken its toll on you. Naturally enough.’
‘The part I’m most looking forward to is going out with Troy,’ I admitted.
‘It’s great you’re his date,’ she agreed. ‘He might have asked Kirsty otherwise.’
‘That bitch!’ I exclaimed. ‘I never told you what she said to me at the party…’
I related the story, while Emily did her usual stunt with the make-up and hair slides and stuff. I ended up wearing the same black dress I’d worn to Dan Gonzalez’s bash – I’d nothing else – but Emily did something to me with a chiffon neck-scarf and said my look was ‘very Halston’. Then came the moment of truth: we finally removed the tights from my head – and my fringe was as flat as Holland. I owed those boys.
At half-seven, as Emily clacked out the door, a fragrant, glittery vision, she paused and turned back to me. ‘Just in case you were thinking… about Troy. A word of advice. Human Teflon.’
‘That’s two words.’
‘Wonderful to have around, but… he’s non-stick. Enjoy yourself, but don’t expect anything. Promise?’
I promised, then promptly forgot about it. I had to take my enjoyment where I could find it.
22
The Freeman was new, the most glamorous hotel in a town crammed with glamorous hotels. We could hardly get into the noisy lobby, so jammers was it with people meeting for drinks, waiting for dinner and tripping over sculptures. Everyone was astonishingly good-looking – and most of them were staff. It took a long time to get anyone’s attention – like Troy muttered, they hadn’t been hired for their ability – but eventually we were directed to a special elevator, which was policed by two bouncers who frisked us for cameras and tape-recorders.
The elevator shot us straight to the top floor, playing havoc with my already swoopy stomach. And when the lift doors opened, straight into the penthouse, I nearly got snowblindness. It was all white. White walls, white carpet, white tables and huge, white-leather sofas. I got a fright to see a disembodied blonde head floating in mid-air above one of the couches –then I realized it was just a girl whose white-leather catsuit had merged in with the white leather of the couch.
Troy and I stepped reticently from the lift and exchanged a nervous smile. ‘Where’s Cameron?’ he murmured.
I looked around: there were only about a dozen people there, but never had I seen such a condensed distillation of gorgeousness. It was like walking into an episode of Beverly Hills 90210 – girls displaying lots of bare, tanned, toned flesh and boys with square teeth and noticeably well-cut hair, all laughing and holding Martini glasses. What on earth am I doing here?
This impression intensified when my sweep across the room landed on Cameron Myers. And I have to say that, despite my excitement-facility not operating at full capacity, I did go a bit dizzy and starstruck, as though a plane had flown just two inches over my head. He was on his knees in front of a plain white hole in the wall, a very modern fireplace.
‘Hey!’ He scrambled to his feet when he saw Troy – and I must admit he did look much shorter and dinkier than he does on screen. ‘You came!’
‘Happy birthday, man. Thanks for inviting us. This is Maggie.’
‘Hello.’
I was almost on a level with Cameron Myers’ perfect symmetrical face, with the white-blond hair, the blue, blue eyes, and the tight, evenly tanned skin. He was nearly as familiar to me as one of my family, and yet…
Wait till I tell them back home. They’ll never believe me.
I realized I was staring, so I shoved four orange orchids at him. ‘These are for you.’
He seemed genuinely touched. ‘You brought me flowers!’
‘But it’s your birthday.’ I gestured at the room. ‘I’m sorry they’re not white.’
He laughed a sweet laugh and I had the urge to pick him up under my arm, start sprinting and not stop until I had him safely locked in a cage. He was so cute, like a puppy.
‘There’s frosty drinks in the kitchen. Help yourselves.’
‘I’ll get them,’ Troy said, and headed off across the room, leaving me alone with Cameron Myers.
‘Hey, do you know how to do this?’ He gestured helplessly at the instant-fire packets at his feet.
‘Er… yes, it’s easy.’
‘I love a real fire. It’s kinda homey. Will you help me?’
What could I say? It was July. It was Los Angeles. It was eighty degrees out there. But he was Cameron Myers and he wanted a fire.
‘OK.’
Once the fire was crackling brightly and Cameron had rung down for marshmallows, Troy handed me a Martini, murmured, ‘How about this place,’ and took me on a walkabout. It was huge. The ‘reception room’ (as they say) must have been sixty foot long, and there were three enormous bedrooms, so full of dazzling white cotton it hurt to look at them. There was a kitchen, an office, countless bathrooms – even, would you believe, a screening room. All around were dotted soft, white, cashmere throws, white, suede cushions, white porcelain vases. Maybe it was good Emily hadn’t come. She might have been tempted to start nicking stuff.
‘Who are all the other people here?’ I whispered. ‘Any of them famous?’
‘Don’t think so. Wannabes, Maws –’
‘Maws?’
‘Model-actress-whatevers. Another word is “mattresses” –models-actors-waitresses. Now, get a load of this!
’ He opened a door on to a roof garden. ‘Wow.’
We stepped out into the sultry night – far hotter than in the air-conditioned rooms – the air dense and musky with the smell of flowers. There was a hot-tub, steaming into the night. But most impressive was the astonishing view.
‘No smog tonight,’ Troy observed, as we leaned over the balcony, staring, awestruck. Far below us were pristine Spanish-style homes, neatly parked cars, the springy tops of palm trees and the jewel-bright turquoise of underlit swimming pools. The pools were like stars – at first I only noticed one, then another, then suddenly, popping up out of nowhere, there were too many to count. They dotted away randomly into the distance, until they became too small to see. Beyond the nearby streets, the megalopolis of Los Angeles was laid out like a grid of Christmas lights, a city of the future which stretched for miles until it blurred into a horizon of electric colour.
The odd thing was that I couldn’t see a single human being. But they were out there – countless hopefuls caught on the grid, like so many flies in an endless spiderweb. Infinitesimally, I felt the collective weight of all the dreams on that net of light: the beautiful girls waiting tables, while waiting for their one big break; the would-be actors, writers and directors who’d poured into this reclaimed desert from the four corners of the globe; hundreds of thousands of individuals hoping that they’d be one of the pitifully few who made it. Such longing, such dogged determination: I imagined I could nearly see it, rising into the night sky like steam.
‘Awesome?’ Troy quirked his straight mouth.
‘Scary.’
‘Yeah. Want to sit down?’
There was a wide choice of wicker chairs and top-of-the-range sunbeds (with about twenty different inclines), but ‘This is the one for us.’ Troy seemed amused by a squashy, swinging sofa suspended by ropes from an overhead beam.
After a twinge of fear that the ropes wouldn’t hold our weight (my weight, really. Could you imagine the shame if I clambered aboard, only to yank the hooks out of the beam and send the whole thing crashing to the floor?), I got totally into it. We took an end each, and curled on the cushions, our feet almost touching.
