by Lindsey Kelk
‘Fuck!’ I squeaked, planting my face on the corner of the bedspread. Heat started to spread through my left cheekbone and I pressed my hand on to my face until the sharp pain dulled to a slow throb.
‘Fuck, fuck, fuck,’ I said through gritted teeth, kicking whatever it was I’d tripped over. As my only open eye adjusted to the half-light, I realized that it was a pair of Converse. Alex’s Converse.
‘Angela?’ Alex’s voice asked from a dark corner of the room.
‘Alex?’ I mumbled from the floor.
A lamp clicked on showing the whole sorry scene. Alex was all curled up in an armchair in the far corner of the bedroom, still wearing his jeans and T-shirt, while I was stretched out on the carpet in my bra and knickers, a pair of trainers wrapped around my ankle and a small pool of blood collecting next to my hand. Fortunately it wasn’t on the carpet. Unfortunately, it was on my brand new, über expensive, grey silk dress.
‘What are you doing over there?’ My voice sounded weird and nasal and nothing was really making sense. Why was Alex in the chair? And why was I on the floor again? ‘What happened?’
‘Can we start by cleaning up your bloody nose?’ He unfolded his legs and scrambled out of the chair, at my side before I could unravel his shoes from around my ankles. ‘Jesus, Angela, I’m gonna have to put a bell on you. What are you doing?’
‘Peeing?’ I winced as he lifted my chin and took my hand away from my cheek. ‘Why were you in the chair? Where were you?’
‘Let’s get you fixed up first.’ He pulled me up to my feet, one arm wrapped around me, the other sweeping my hair out of my face.
I perched on the edge of the bath, staring at my bloody hands while Alex ran the cold water and gently dabbed at my face with a damp flannel. ‘You are definitely going to have a black eye tomorrow,’ he said, squatting in front of me. ‘I don’t think your nose is broken though.’
‘Are you sure?’ I asked, trying not to pull away. ‘It feels broken.’
‘You ever break it before?’
‘No.’
‘Then how would you know? It’s hurt, it’s not broken.’
‘Feels broken,’ I muttered, trying not to think about any incidents in the past where I may or may not have broken someone’s hand.
‘When you’ve toured with Craig for six months straight, you’ll know when a nose is broken.’ Alex swapped the bloody flannel for some clean tissue. ‘I fixed that boy up more times than I want to remember. Come on, let’s get you in bed.’
I stood up on wobbly legs and let Alex lead me back to the bed. He took out a button-up shirt and slipped it on me, fastening the front few buttons and then popping out two Advil and placing them in my palm. ‘Let me get you some water,’ he pushed me carefully on to the bed and disappeared back into the bathroom.
Through my not-quite-with-it haze, I spotted the glowing clock on the bedside table. It was just after two a.m.
‘Alex?’ I called as loudly as I could with the shooting pain that ran all the way across my cheekbone and up into my forehead. Ouch.
‘Yeah?’ he replied, back at my bedside, glass of water in hand.
I swallowed the Advil with a swig from the glass that Alex held out. Clearly he didn’t trust me to hold it. Which was, I supposed, perfectly understandable.
‘It’s after midnight. Happy birthday.’
‘Thanks,’ he said quietly. ‘Try and get to sleep.’
‘OK,’ I whispered back, feeling a bit weird. And not entirely because of the bed frame to the face incident. Alex turned off the light and I heard him unfasten his jeans.
‘You’re coming to bed?’ I asked, blind as a bat.
‘Yeah,’ he said as his weight hit the other side of the bed.
Relieved, I tried to roll over, but the pain on the right side of my face wouldn’t let me. I waited a second for Alex to cuddle up, but he didn’t. Reaching out, I traced down his forearm until I found his hand, curled my fingers around his and squeezed. He wrapped my hand up in his, but didn’t squeeze back. instead, I heard a quiet sigh and felt his body pull away slightly, rolling towards the window. I stared up at the dark ceiling with my good eye and tried to breathe evenly. What a great start to his birthday.
CHAPTER TEN
‘Oh my God, what happened to my face?’ I moaned as sunlight poured into the room. I prised open my right eye, unable to open the left. Alex stood by the window in his boxers and a T-shirt with his back to me. ‘Did I try and take a drink off Lindsay Lohan or something?’
‘You don’t remember?’ he said, turning to face me with something like a smile. I noticed there was a big rusty streak of blood down the front of his shirt. ‘Jesus Christ, I leave you on your own, you get in trouble. I bring you with me, you get in trouble. You tripped in the middle of the night.’
My brain still hadn’t quite processed everything that had happened in the previous twenty-four hours, but I knew I was relieved to see that smile.
‘I did?’ I shuffled upwards into a sitting position. Alex came over and sat on the edge of the bed with a glass of water.
‘You did,’ he confirmed, taking a bottle of Advil from the bedside table and shaking a couple of tablets out into his palm. ‘You really don’t remember?’
Looking around the room, the memory flooded back. I took the tablets, swallowed and nodded. ‘I’m such a clumsy cow.’
‘It was my fault, I shouldn’t have left my shoes in the middle of the room, I’m sorry.’ He took my hand in his, turning it over and running his forefinger over the bloody trail that marked the back. ‘Does it still hurt?’
‘My hand?’ I was confused. Not for the first time.
‘Your cheek,’ he said, lifting his hand to trace tenderly along my cheekbone. I pulled back slightly, it was so sore. ‘Aw, man, you’re not going to like it.’
‘It looks bad?’
‘Looks painful,’ he offered diplomatically. ‘Maybe you should just stay in bed. I’ll get some ice or something.’
‘I’ll be fine,’ I said, trying to convince myself more than anything. I’d never actually had a black eye before. I couldn’t believe how much this hurt. ‘It’s your birthday, we’re going to go out and do Paris.’
‘Yeah, uh, about that,’ Alex pulled a face and ruffled the back of his hair so that it stood up in soft, spiky peaks, ‘I kinda have to go and do some band stuff today.’
‘But I thought we were going to spend the day together?’ I was confused again. Wasn’t spending his birthday together the whole point of my coming out to Paris? ‘It’s your birthday, Alex.’
‘I know,’ he stood up and picked his jeans up off the floor. ‘I wish I could get out of it, but the record company said we’d do some more interviews, meet with some of the European execs. It sucks, I know. I would have told you last night, but—’
‘But?’
‘You weren’t here.’
Ouch. I wasn’t sure what hurt the most, my face or Alex’s low blow. I bit my lip and chose to ignore it. An early birthday present. To go with my moving in announcement and the lovely vintage watch that had been blown up. It had been lovely.
‘I suppose if you don’t have any choice,’ I said. I really wanted to pull a face, but my aching left cheek wouldn’t let me. ‘Can we still have dinner together?’
‘Absolutely.’ Alex folded up the jeans and placed them on the foot of the bed. ‘Look, why don’t you go back to sleep, I don’t know, maybe do some shopping or something this afternoon, and then we’ll do dinner tonight. It’s totally my fault that I ruined our day so, take my credit card, go crazy.’
If I hadn’t been suspicious before, I was now. ‘You want me to go shopping with your credit card?’
‘Yeah.’ Alex shrugged. ‘It’s my fault you’re on your own with nothing to do, it’s my fault you have a smashed-up face, and I want to make it up to you.’
‘You can’t do that with a credit card,’ I said, narrowing my eyes. This wasn’t Alex talking and I was over playing dumb. ‘What�
�s going on, Alex? Where were you last night?’
‘I was here,’ he said, his head inside the wardrobe, ‘waiting for you.’
‘You weren’t here when I got in.’ I kicked off the covers, hot and bothered all of a sudden. ‘And you weren’t answering your phone.’
‘Uh, no? You were the one not answering your phone,’ Alex said, closing the door and turning to stare me down. ‘And you were the one who went to a party at my ex-girlfriend’s place instead of coming out to dinner with me. Sure, I took a walk after I’d been sitting here waiting for you for two hours, and then I get back and you’re passed out on the bed. I don’t think you’re in a position to be pissy with me right now, Angela.’
‘I’m not being pissy,’ I protested, pissily. ‘I told you I was going to stop in for two minutes and then I was coming back. And I left you a voicemail to say I was on my way back at like, eight-fifteen or something.’
‘Well, I didn’t get it.’ He pulled a faded black T-shirt roughly from its hanger and threw it at the bed. ‘Can we please not argue today?’
‘I’m not arguing,’ I said, throwing myself back down on the bed. And immediately regretting it when a sharp shooting pain coursed all the way down my cheekbone and into my eye socket. Ow ow ow ow ow.
‘Good.’ He threw a pair of socks and clean boxers on top of the T-shirt and then vanished into the bathroom, slamming the door.
I folded my arms and pouted. Maybe I wanted to argue. Maybe I wanted to know why he thought it was perfectly acceptable to give me the silent treatment and not be where he said he would be, and then wake up the next morning and pretend that everything was rosy. And maybe I wanted to know why he thought he could buy me off with his credit card. That was so weird. I lay on the bed, listening to the shower running and tried not to think about Alex being all soapy and naked. It was difficult to be mad at a naked soapy man you were in love with. Especially on his birthday. Well, any time really.
He emerged from the bathroom with a towel wrapped around his waist, wet, black hair dripping down his face. I folded my arms and stared. It wasn’t any easier, naked man in a towel was equally as difficult to be mad at. He stopped in the middle of the room and held out his arms.
‘What?’
‘Nothing,’ I replied, turning over and flicking on the TV.
‘Good.’
I burrowed back under the covers. It didn’t matter whether or not I was far too hot, it was the principle. And the principle was that I was being stroppy.
Alex dressed in silence while I sulked in bed. I tried to think of something to say that would be funny, alluring and yet show that I was mature enough to put this squabble to one side in honour of his birthday.
‘So, do you feel old?’
Alex stopped dead, one leg in his jeans. ‘I feel great, thanks for asking.’
Probably not quite the reaction I’d been hoping for. Or the question I should have asked.
‘What time do you want to meet for dinner?’ I asked, flicking my toes out from under the sheets. It really was warm in there. ‘Are you coming back here?’
‘Sure,’ he said, rubbing at his hair with a towel. How come he could treat his hair so incredibly badly and still have it be so very soft and shiny, while I could condition myself stupid and treat my hair as delicately as a newborn kitten and it still looked like crap?
‘Uh, eight?’
‘Eight?’ I repeated, except in a really rather high-pitched voice. ‘You won’t be back until eight?’
‘Angela, it’s almost twelve now.’ He pointed at the alarm clock beside the bed. What did you know, he was right. ‘I have to meet these record company guys for lunch and then do a bunch of interviews and meetings. I’ll be back at eight.’
He sighed, leaned over and kissed me on top of the head. ‘Get some rest, feel better and I’ll send room service up with some ice for your eye.’
For the want of a better idea, I lay in bed for another ten minutes, waiting for my eye to stop hurting. When it didn’t, I frisked the bedside table for my BlackBerry, unable to tear my good eye away from the quite terrible French soap opera on TV. I was making up my own storyline since I couldn’t translate, but I wasn’t very good at it.
Although it was fully charged, my BlackBerry still wasn’t showing any emails or phone service at all. Frowning, I tried to open the web browser, but it just wasn’t happening. Tossing the tiny black box to the foot of the bed, I gave a huge dramatic sigh. Flicking the TV over to MTV, I decided that sitting in bed, feeling sorry for my Alex-and-his-hot-ex situation and ignoring the nagging panic that I was never, ever going to get this article finished wasn’t going to help me in any way, so I stood up, stripped off and headed into the bathroom singing along to classic Britney as loud as humanly possible. At the exact same time Alain arrived with my bucket of ice.
‘Pardon, Madame, ah, Mademoiselle,’ he stuttered, pulling the door closed as I scrambled for a towel. ‘Monsieur Reid asked me to bring up some ice. You did not answer when I knocked.’
I flailed around for a moment, trying to wrap the towel around myself, but only succeeding in flashing him a couple more times. I settled for holding the towel in front of me like a slutty matador, and backed up towards the wardrobe.
‘I had the TV on loud,’ I tried to explain, brushing over the part where I was singing along like a tuneless goat. Who had lost its hearing in a particularly nasty farmyard brawl. ‘You brought it up yourself?’
‘Yes, you left this on the desk last night.’ Alain handed over my map to the Apple store. ‘I think you might need it.’
‘Oh, I will, absolutely,’ I replied, taking it and setting it safely inside my handbag. I didn’t really have any pockets in my towel. ‘Thank you so much.’
‘My pleasure,’ he said, looking away quickly while a very impressive blush spread from his neck all the way up to his pale blonde hairline. He really was cute. ‘If there is anything else, please call the front desk.’
‘I will,’ I promised, automatically edging forward to see him out before I realized my backside had been on full display in the mirror the whole time.
Thankfully, Alain was in almost as big a rush to get out as I was to get rid of him and the door slammed shut in record time. Hovering by the bathroom mirror while the shower ran, I couldn’t help but sympathize with the poor man. My hip was turning a fetching shade of yellowish-green from where I had fallen through the bed, and my face was a giant purple mess. And that’s without getting into what had happened to my beautiful tousled curls overnight. I looked like an extra from 28 Days Later. Except, twenty-eight days after that. What a picture-perfect couple Alex and I would make on his birthday. The hot hipster and his zombie love.
After a good twenty minutes of delicately dabbing my entire limited cosmetics stash over my eye and a good five minutes sniffling over my ruined Paul & Joe cat dress, I pulled on my skinny jeans, borrowed another of Alex’s shirts and thanked the Gods of Man Fashion that my boyfriend did not travel light.
Thankfully, Paris was insanely bright and sunny and so I was able to camouflage my eye Olson style, carefully perching my sunglasses on the bridge of my battered nose as I trip-trapped out into the cobbled street in the new flip-flops I’d picked up the day before. According to Alain’s map, the Apple store was only a few streets away. I crossed the wide main road and practically skipped into the narrow, windy streets of the Marais. I had decided I was in love with this part of Paris, it was just too lovely. Everything was charming and quaint and elegant and all those other lovely words that I wished would one day be attached to someone’s description of me even though I knew they never, ever would.
I stopped to stare into the windows, scribble down the names of the cutest stores and generally dash from one side of the street to the other, oohing, aahing and sighing at the general beauty of the pretty Parisian things. There were just so many beautiful boutiques, and even the chain stores seemed to have more of an individual charm about them. I stalled for just a moment long
er than was healthy outside a ridiculously expensive bridal salon, staring at the dresses in the windows. One was a long, slender column of elegant silk, a high neckline that draped down low in the back with delicate, floating angel sleeves. In the other window was a more structured, crisp white dress, almost a straight replica of the dress Audrey Hepburn wore at the end of Funny Face. A low, wide neck, three-quarter length sleeves and a fitted bodice with a full-knee length skirt. It was beautiful. I realized I’d been staring for far too long when the owner of the shop came to the door and smiled glowingly at me. Then glanced at my ring finger, tipped her head to one side, turned around and closed the door. What a bitch.
‘Maybe I don’t want to get married anyway,’ I said under my breath, turning and marching off down the street, redfaced. Patting my trusty, but knackered satchel, I tried to work out how many Marc Jacobs bags I could buy for the cost of an average wedding. It was surprisingly and upsettingly few. I tried to clear my mind by taking another look at Alain’s map. According to his scribbles, I was in the right place and, come to think of it, the road was looking slightly more familiar. Had I doubled back on myself?
‘I’m so going to get lost,’ I muttered, glancing back at the map. Every street looked the same to me and I had absolutely no internal compass to direct me. Stupid BlackBerry, where was GPS when I needed it?
I paused on a corner for a moment, took off my sunglasses and, ignoring the horrified stares my face was receiving, looked around. And then I realized why the street was so familiar. The store that made handbags out of leather jackets, Virginie’s top-secret Parisian find, was directly opposite me. I frowned, turning the map around a couple of times. It definitely told me to pass that store. Following the street down and enforcing the discipline not to go into the chocolate shop opposite, I reached the end of the road. And found the Apple store. Turning back, I could still see the handbag place, it was crazy, we had been so close. Relieved to be one step closer to an internet connection, I almost ran into the shop, narrowly avoiding being run down by a man on a scooter. It was disgusting how quickly I’d got used to looking only one way when I crossed the street. God, I was New York dependent already.
