by Lindsey Kelk
‘You said to call,’ I replied hesitantly. ‘Is this a bad time?’
‘Noooooo.’ The length of her single-word reply cost James about three quid. I quietly assumed he never actually checked his phone bills.
‘Is everything all right?’ It clearly wasn’t.
‘It’s just …’ Sara coughed, cleared her throat and sighed. ‘I know we don’t know each other that well, but I just wanted to check in on you. We had an email at the office, from the US.’
‘Right.’
‘And it said you were, um, working. As a, well. Escort?’
Just when you thought things really couldn’t get any worse, life always managed to find that one extra kick in the bollocks.
‘Sara –’ I almost couldn’t bring myself to ask – ‘did that email come from Cici Spencer?’
‘Yes?’
‘OK, well, I’m not an escort.’ Which of course is exactly what an escort would say. Cunning plan, Cici. ‘Really, I was waitressing.’
‘Angela, I’m not having a go or anything, I was just worried about you. I know how hard life can be out there in New York, but it just seemed a bit extreme.’ Sara’s very British sense of acute embarrassment was in full flow. ‘Sometimes it starts as waitressing in these places, but then you hear stories from the other girls, and the money is good, I know, but you’re a good writer, really good.’
‘Sara, let me stop you there.’ A strange sense of calm settled over me. ‘I’m not an escort. I’m not waitressing in a strip club. I was a cocktail waitress at a friend’s event for one night only as a favour and she had all the waitresses wear these stupid outfits. I’m not shagging for money. I’m not serving overpriced drinks somewhere they do shag for money. I’m absolutely, positively not an escort.’
Although, now I had said it out loud, I wondered how much you could make as a waitress down at the Gentlemen’s Club. All those cabs running around with blatantly illegal photos of Jordan on them, they must be constantly hiring.
‘Oh. Really?’
Apparently I had not been emphatic enough.
‘Really. Cici’s a psycho. And I would be the worst escort ever.’
‘True,’ she laughed, relieved. I tried not to be offended. But, ooh, if they had only cancelled me because they thought I was selling it, maybe they wouldn’t cancel me! ‘It’s a bit of a shame, though. I was going to wait for the drama to die down and then ask you to do a Belle de Jour-type thing for me.’
‘So you are actually finishing me?’ I asked. Bye-bye, tiny flicker of hope.
‘Yeah.’ She sounded sorry, even if she wasn’t. ‘I mean, this email thing didn’t help, but it has been running for a year. The team want to freshen things up.’
‘With a column written by an escort?’
‘It was just an idea.’
Couldn’t blame me for being a bit put-out.
‘There will be something,’ she promised. ‘I just don’t know what it is yet.’
‘Sounds about right.’ I nodded to James as he emerged from the bathroom looking very upset. ‘Talk to you later.’
‘Merry Christmas,’ Sara replied. ‘And if I don’t talk to you before, happy new year.’
‘Yeah.’ My Christmas spirit was starting to jingle all the way away. ‘You too.’
‘Well, that was an incredibly unpleasant experience.’ James couldn’t seem to stop rubbing his hands together. Out, out damned spot. ‘Can we just get out of here?’
And so a very hungover Santa and his worse-for-wear elf checked out of the dodgy motel at nine a.m. and squinted into the sunlight. We were clearly several miles away from the Strip, the Excalibur and Luxor winking in the distance. Still, the desert was pretty, so that was nice. James patted himself down, pausing over his chest pocket. He pulled out a key attached to a key ring from Enterprise car rental and held it up for an explanation. Being the only one in their right mind, I took it from him and pressed the unlock button. Across the car park, I heard a friendly beep and raised an eyebrow at James.
‘You genius.’ He gave me an appreciative slap on the arse and set off across the dusty car park. It was only in the full glare of the Nevada sun that I noticed the seams in James’s Santa suit were made of Velcro. Stay classy, Las Vegas.
‘I’m going to hazard a guess that you dropped me off at the motel and then went back out again?’ I crossed my arms and stared at the car.
‘Oh, fuck.’ James stopped dead and winced with the weight of the memories flooding back. ‘I didn’t.’
In the back seat of the convertible were eight boxes of Cheez-Its and three adorable puppies sleeping happily inside their pet carriers. Tags on the fronts of their cages declared their names to be Jim, Sadie and Angela.
‘Remember, Jim –’ I declared after a moment’s consideration, walking around to the passenger seat and getting in. Puppy Jim gave a small whimper. Santa Jim followed suit – ‘a dog is for life, not just for Christmas.’
It took me a few minutes to convince the concierge at the De Lujo to give me a new key for my hotel room. I didn’t blame her. I wouldn’t have wanted to give a key to their most opulent suite to someone who looked like a homeless elf either, but after successfully answering her security questions, she didn’t have a lot of choice.
‘Are there any messages?’ I asked.
She shook her head. She looked scared.
‘Of course not.’ I waved my key successfully. ‘Never mind. Thank you, I’ll see that Santa puts you on the nice list.’
The concierge laughed nervously and started pressing buttons at an unseen console. Before she could have me escorted from the premises, I ducked through the thankfully quiet casino and into the lift, jabbing the PH button with a busted manicure.
Opening the door to our suite I expected to see all manner of apocalyptic destruction, but I had underestimated the power of a Las Vegas hotel cleaning crew. The place was empty. No people, no patron, no problem. The suite looked exactly as it had the day we checked in. White, shiny and full of flowers. And, just like last time, my heart sank at the sight of Sadie.
‘Holy shit.’ She lifted her head up from one of the couches. ‘What the hell happened to you?’
She was still in her white bandage dress, but now she looked considerably more supermarket than supermodel. Her hair was tucked behind her ears, matted with who knew what, and her face was pale and drawn. I wouldn’t have given her ten thousand dollars to get out of bed, but I would have offered her a twenty to get back in and stay there.
‘I’m an elf.’ I looked down at the outfit and back up at Sadie. It was actually a nice shade of green. Very similar to the colour of her face. ‘What happened here?’
‘I don’t know. I passed out hours ago.’ She let her head drop back onto the sofa. ‘I woke up and housekeeping were cleaning around me.’
‘Who got rid of all the people?’ My filthy feet left a train of elf prints across the carpet, but I was too exhausted to give a shit. My mother would have been mortified. Good job I wasn’t planning on telling her.
‘I did.’
Standing tall, all big hair and bright smiles, Jenny stood in the corridor that led off to the bedrooms, bathed in golden early morning light. She was sparkly and shiny and clean. I was dank and dirty and grim. A Tim Burton elf to her Disney princess. The cow.
‘Angela, why are you dressed as Robin Hood?’ she asked, descending the steps into the sunken lounge, all cream cashmere sweater and skinny jeans as though nothing was wrong.
‘I’m an elf,’ I repeated. ‘Jenny, why are you dressed like you’re about to star in an advert for settees?’
‘These are my clothes?’ She curled her legs underneath herself on the sofa and unscrewed a bottle of Vitamin Water. ‘Really, honey, you need to go and take a shower. You would scare children. You’re scaring my ovaries. Looking at you is stopping me from ovulating.’
For a moment I did think I might have gone mad, but one quick look at Sadie’s expression reassured me that I had not. Her jaw was
practically on the floor.
‘Jenny, you do remember what you were doing the last time we saw you, yes?’ I put my hands on my felt-covered hips. It was quite snug, actually.
She tilted the bottle to her lips and nodded. The sun glinted off the diamond ring she was still wearing on her wedding finger.
‘You left your shoes and your handbag in the chapel,’ she replied. ‘They’re in my room.’
Not for the first time in my life, Jenny Lopez left me speechless.
‘OK, I’ll say it.’ Sadie sat upright on the sofa. ‘Have you gone fucking crazy?’
Jenny set the bottle down on the coffee table and twisted the ring around her finger but said nothing.
‘That thing isn’t going to answer for you,’ I said. ‘Unless it’s a magic ring and I saw the Green Lantern, and that is not the ring from the Green Lantern.’
‘You saw that?’ Sadie asked. ‘No one saw that.’
‘Not now, Sadie.’ I was shouting now. ‘Seriously? You’re just going to sit there in your lovely clean jumper and pretend everything is absolutely fine?’
‘What is your issue with this sweater?’ she yelled back. ‘And yes, I am going to pretend everything is fine because I’m not pretending. Everything is fine.’
‘And where is your lovely husband?’ I held my arms out and looked around the suite. ‘Popped out to get the The New York Timesand a fucking clue?’
‘Oh, snap,’ Sadie said, smirking on the sofa.
‘You can shut your mouth,’ Jenny spat at her roommate before turning on me. ‘He’s not here. He’s at his hotel, where we spent the night. Packing. And then we’re going back to New York, where we’re getting everything made legal and you’re going to wish you had shut the fuck up when you had the chance.’
It was too much. I was too wired from last night’s Pro Plus binge to have this conversation without saying something I was going to regret, and Jenny was clearly certifiably insane. I was never coming back to Las Vegas as long as I lived.
‘I’m going to have a shower and pretend none of this has happened,’ I announced, turning my back on the entire scene. ‘I can’t deal with this. I’m not talking to you until you stop being a moron.’
‘Yeah, that fits perfectly with your “I will never judge you” bullshit speech.’ Jenny’s voice was high and she was on the verge of tears. I didn’t need to see her face to know. ‘Thanks, Angela. Thanks for being the best friend ever.’
Cockingtons. This wasn’t the first time my mouth had got me into trouble, but it was the first time I felt like it could really cost me my best friend.
‘Fine.’ I didn’t know what else to say. Too much caffeine eats away at sugar coating so I wasn’t able to sweeten my words. ‘You’re right. I am judging you. But not for the stupid Vegas wedding. I’m pissed off that you’re lying to yourself about how this is all going to be OK, that it’s going to make you happy.’
‘You wanted me to make a decision, I made a decision.’ She kicked the coffee table hard, sending her water up into the air.
‘Zomg,’ Sadie commented quietly as the table hit her sofa.
‘You didn’t make a decision,’ I rallied. ‘You got shit-faced and made a mistake. There’s no way this was your idea. What happened? You threatened to break it off, am I right?’
She answered me with silence and a glance at the floor. Ah-ha. Now it was my turn to play psychic.
‘So you told him it was over and he proposed?’ I was on a roll. ‘And you thought, brilliant! Now I don’t have to make any more decisions! I’ll just shackle myself to this twat!’
‘Because your decisions are so much better than mine?’ Her voice was lower but still furious. ‘Ooh, I want to stay in New York but I’m too scared to ask my boyfriend for help because he’s actually an asshole who will probably say no and then I’m totally screwed because I suck at everything and I can’t get a job.’
‘Woah.’ Sadie’s head flicked from left to right as though she were at the world’s bitchiest tennis match. ‘She didn’t mean that, Angela.’
That was it. I plucked a cushion from the sofa and hurled it across the room at miss self-righteous. And missed by a mile. But the point was made. ‘Actually, I did take your advice –’ even if she wasn’t, I was still shouting – ‘and he said yes. But it was a huge mistake. Like your face.’
It seemed like the right thing to say at the time, but once it was out of my mouth, I had to admit it didn’t really have the impact I was hoping for.
‘So, you got married too?’ Sadie asked from the sofa. ‘Is that why you were in the chapel? Why didn’t you tell me?’
‘No, we didn’t.’ I knew the waterworks were gearing up and I didn’t know how to stop them. ‘And now it’s all fucked up.’
‘Well, that sucks,’ Jenny feigned sympathy and wiped non-existent tears from her eyes. ‘We could have shared a wedding anniversary.’
‘You’re being a complete twat.’ I had never been so frustrated with another human in all my days. ‘Why can’t you see this is not real? This is not going to last. He has a fiancée at home. You have a boyfriend and you are going to get your heart broken.’
‘How do you know?’ Now she was crying for real. ‘What makes you the expert?’
‘ I know because you know.’ I was shouting so loud, it didn’t even sound like me. ‘ And you’re my best friend.’
Silence.
Sadie peeped up over the back of the couch. ‘Aww, you guys.’
Jenny was quiet. The defiant arch of her back faltered; her straight shoulders started to slouch. Her eyes were still locked on mine, but the anger was burning out fast, just leaving the tears.
‘He loves me,’ she said thickly.
‘I know.’ I pressed my lips together hard and swiped my own tears away. ‘But I don’t think he loves you enough.’
‘Maybe this time will be different.’ She twisted the ring around and around on her finger, trying to screw it into place permanently. ‘Maybe I can change things.’
Wiping my hands on my elvish uniform, I shook my head. ‘You shouldn’t have to.’
Everyone shut up for a moment; the air was full of nothing but sniffs and sighs – Jenny on one side, the sleeve of her sweater darkened with tears, me on the other, green of dress, red of face. At least it was a seasonal combo.
‘I don’t want to be a dick,’ I mumbled. ‘But I really do need to go and have a shower.’
Jenny was across the room in less than four strides and her hug knocked me onto the floor in less than four seconds.
‘I’m totally getting in on this. You two are insane,’ Sadie yelped, vaulting over the sofa and piling on top of the girl-hug. ‘It’s awesome.’
‘Do they have security cameras in here?’ I asked from the bottom of the hot-girl pile-up. ‘Because we could make some money from this.’
‘Two girls, one elf?’ Jenny suggested. ‘I’d watch it.’ She disengaged herself from the collection of limbs on the floor. ‘And if you get her into the shower pronto, we might still make our flight home.’
Staggering to my feet, I gave Jenny a quick, tight hug as Sadie crawled back to her spot on the couch, glowing with girl love. ‘I’m sorry,’ I said quietly, squeezing out my last couple of tears. ‘Really.’
‘No way.’ She wiped the tears off my cheeks. ‘I’m sorry. I just can’t deal with the fact that you’re probably right. Do you want to talk about the Alex stuff? What happened?’
‘After a shower?’ I was almost certain the itching was all in my head, but there was always a chance the costume had bed bugs. I wanted it off.
‘OK, I’ll get you some tea.’ The ultimate peace offering. ‘I really am sorry. Jesus, I say some shit to you. You must be a total masochist to hang out with me.’
I patted her hand and gave her my most understanding smile.
‘Just English,’ I said. ‘Just English.’
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
The huge free-standing mirror was angled right at me when I got i
nto my room. I was sure housekeeping had set it up on purpose. Staring back at me was Bizarro Angela. Wire-wool hair, black eyes rimmed with red and a nose that would put Rudolph to shame. I wished I had my phone; Louisa needed a picture of this. A warning to my future god-daughter of the dangers of, well, being me. This it what it looked like when your life went to shit. When people were sad in films, they got a bit dewy-eyed, wore slightly baggy jeans and possibly put their hair in a ponytail, but that was reserved for the worst cases. No one ever woke up in a filthy sex motel in bed with a homosexual wearing a stripper’s elf costume. Where was that movie? It was a thought that stayed with me while I took a shower and the bath filled up. This was definitely a double-dip situation. One or the other just wasn’t going to be enough.
I wondered what Jenny was going to do about Jeff. I wondered what I was going to do about Alex. I wondered what James was going to do with eight boxes of Cheez-Its and three puppies. I wondered if this happened to everyone when they came to Vegas. Well into my third shampoo, I heard the room phone ringing. One of the things that marked the De Lujo out as a swanky hotel was the fact that they had phones in the toilet. For some reason I found this endlessly impressive. Swiping suds out of my eyes, I ducked out from under the water and answered.
‘Hello?’
‘Awesome. You’re alive.’
It was a reasonable reaction, given the number of voicemails I’d left for him the night before.
‘I am so sorry.’ Rather than try to explain myself, I thought it would be better to just go with a constant flow of apology until he stopped me. ‘So sorry. Just more sorry than you could imagine. Incredibly sorry.’
‘I don’t think I quite caught that?’ he interrupted, and I was thankful for the small smile I could hear in his voice. ‘What the hell happened to you last night?’
I sat down on the toilet still wearing my sudsy hat.
‘Tequila, caffeine pills and a puppy sanctuary. It’s really an in-person story. What time’s your flight?’
‘Oh, yeah.’ His voice soothed my caffeine come-down better than the shower, the bath and two packets of minibar M&M’s combined. ‘We’re actually staying until tomorrow.’
