by Lindsey Kelk
‘Go on then,’ Louisa said, giving in to my paranoia but making it very clear she was humouring me at best. ‘Convince me.’
‘Before she invited me on this trip, I hadn’t seen her in ages,’ I started as the treatment room door opened and three pairs of feet crept quietly across the floor. ‘And she hasn’t been over to see Al in months. She’s always got an excuse not to come over. Seriously, it’s been months. Al doesn’t even know who she is. Even Mason pops in sometimes, on his way home from CrossFit competitions. He’s obsessed with her and yet Jenny is never around these days. It’s all I can do to drag her out for coffee.’
‘Maybe she hates your baby?’ Lily suggested. ‘Maybe your baby’s awful.’
‘Please be quiet,’ Louisa instructed. ‘Jenny is a busy woman, Angela, and obviously we know Alice is an angel but some people don’t connect with babies as well as others. Jenny might not want to share you with Alice when you’ve actually got time to spend with each other. Not to mention the fact we both know how she feels about travelling to Brooklyn – although as someone who has to drive forty minutes to the nearest Waitrose, I have no sympathy for that.’
Truly, Louisa lived a life of suffering. I said nothing about her standing weekly Ocado order and went on with my list. I shuffled my boobs up and down on the table until I was comfortable. I was so excited to go up a cup size when I was pregnant but, silly me, I hadn’t taken massage comfort into account. Thank goodness I didn’t have my own spa at home and wouldn’t have to worry about this again for some time.
‘Something is definitely up, Lou, I can just tell.’
‘Maybe she’s cutting you out,’ Lily said, offering another unrequested opinion. ‘Maybe she’s trying to ghost you but you won’t take the hint and she brought you out here to tell you she doesn’t want to be friends anymore.’
‘Shall you tell her to shut up or should I?’ I muttered into the bed.
‘Shut up, Lily,’ Lou said. ‘I’ll admit, it sounds like she’s maybe being a little bit weird. You know I’m always going to be a little bit jealous of her, keeping you all to herself in New York, but really, Angela, if I’m being honest, this all sounds like new mum paranoia. You’ve got so many real things to worry about, you start inventing new ones to distract yourself. Jenny is not avoiding you and Alex is not cheating on you.’
Next she’d be trying to tell me Cici wasn’t the devil and Perry Dickson wasn’t the head of a secret Mafia-like organization, intent on recruiting me or setting my feet in concrete blocks and dropping me in the bottom of the East River.
‘Oh, I’ve worked it out!’ Lily’s excited voice carried across the quiet room quickly and clearly. ‘What if Alex is cheating on you with Jenny?!’
‘Shut up, Lily!’ Louisa and I said at the exact same moment.
‘Perhaps we could perform the rest of the massage in silence,’ the therapist suggested.
‘Good idea,’ I replied, gritting my teeth as she dug her elbow underneath my shoulder.
‘You’ve got a number of knots I would like to work on,’ she whispered into my ear while Lily and Louisa made much happier-sounding noises across the room. ‘Try to breathe, this might be uncomfortable for a moment.’
I opened my mouth in a silent scream as she pressed even deeper.
‘Is that too much pressure?’
‘No,’ I squeaked, in absolute agony. ‘Feels great actually.’
‘Fantastic,’ she replied. ‘I can go a little deeper then.’
As tears formed in my eyes, I scrunched my hands into tight fists and tried to remember my breathing exercises from when I had Alice. When would I learn? When I asked the universe to distract me, I’d been thinking something more along the lines of such complete and utter bliss that I couldn’t feel my toes, not the most excruciating experience since I’d forced a human being out of my vagina. At least at the end of that I got a baby and the special bar of Dairy Milk that Alex had been hiding in his guitar case for a month.
‘You’re OK?’ the therapist asked again, digging her strong little fingers into my neck.
‘Oh, yes,’ I replied, silently trying to atone for any and all sins. This was surely the end. I was going to die from this massage. ‘Great, thank you.’
If there wasn’t a bar of chocolate waiting for me at the end of this, someone was going to be in serious trouble.
CHAPTER TWELVE
After our Friday afternoon massages, I’d plunged myself directly into my hot tub and refused to get out until I could move without sobbing in agony. The massage therapist had found knots in muscles I didn’t know existed and never needed to know about ever again. Thankfully, James was not just an actor, he was also a walking pharmacist. Ever the caring friend, he supplied me with a trusty Canadian muscle relaxant (he swore this was truly a muscle relaxant from Canada and not a euphemism) and, before I knew it, I had slept right through the special showing of his latest film they’d put on for the entire group in Bertie Bennett’s screening room and didn’t open my eyes until Louisa started battering down my door on Saturday morning, screaming something about a cat sanctuary.
Hawaii had everything.
‘My name is Louisa and I love kittens!’ Lou wailed, flat on her back in the middle of a lush, green lawn, half an hour away from Hala Lanai, and surrounded by dozens upon dozens of happy cats and kittens. And I’d thought Bennett’s place was heaven. ‘Jenny, please have one of your assistants move all my stuff here. I’m never leaving.’
‘I thought you were never leaving the estate?’ I said. The air smelled of freshly cut grass and tuna and I wasn’t mad about it. ‘Or the first-class cabin on the plane? Or that little shop that sold those macadamia nut truffles at the airport?’
‘This wins,’ she replied, picking up a little white cat with a black tip on its tail and holding it above her face. ‘This wins everything.’
‘Bertie Bennett own this place too?’ James asked as he rattled his fingers across the grass while a grey and white tabby shook his bottom in the air before pouncing on him.
‘He supports it,’ Jenny replied from her perch. ‘I think it’s the only thing on the island he doesn’t own. Angie, what is wrong with you?’
‘I think my neck is broken,’ I whined, gingerly pressing a finger against my flesh. ‘That masseuse tried to kill me yesterday.’
‘Mine was lovely,’ Louisa said, rolling her head from side to side. ‘I don’t know what you’re complaining about.’
‘You know Angie, she loves to complain,’ Jenny laughed, stretching out her vowels while summoning a small army of kittens. I was desperately trying to cling to the single, little black cat that had shown the slightest bit of interest in me and she already had more kittens than she could possibly stroke in one lifetime.
‘I do not,’ I grumbled, looking over at Louisa, who was eyeing Jenny with very little subtlety. Sherlock Holmes, she was not. I’d hoped to find time to talk to her about whatever was going on but, what with having spent fifteen hours asleep and then being herded onto a minibus immediately on waking, I hadn’t had the chance. Nor had I been able to speak to Alex who, in spite of his promises, most certainly had not called me back. One meagre photo of Alice done up like a mini drag queen version of season two Carrie Bradshaw and that was my lot. Even if I could not be sure whether he was shagging a supermodel or not, I knew I was definitely in the dog house. Or cat house, as was more appropriate. Wait, didn’t that mean brothel?
‘Will you take a photo of me?’ I asked Jenny, carefully pulling my phone out of the arse pocket of my denim shorts and handing to the closest human within reach. ‘Alice loves kittens.’
‘Gracie loved kittens when she was Alice’s age,’ Lou said. ‘But now it’s pony this and pony that. We should never have caved and got her the guinea pig.’
‘Does she still have the guinea pig?’ Jenny asked, framing my portrait just so.
‘We don’t talk about the guinea pig,’ Louisa said sombrely. ‘Which is one of many reasons she’s not ha
ving a pony.’
Jenny flipped my phone from horizontal to vertical while I attempted to wrangle the black cat into the cutest possible pose.
‘Angie,’ she said, staring at the screen. ‘Perry Dickson is calling you again.’
‘Ignore it,’ I called, my focus on the wriggling cat. It was like trying to hold water. ‘I’m really not interested in anything she has to say.’
And I was sure I’d find out what she wanted when I got home and found a horse’s head in my bed.
‘But what if she wants to invite you to a fabulous party?’ Jenny said, backing away with my phone still in her hand. ‘Delia told me they had Adam Levine perform at their Fourth of July picnic last year and you know he’s on my hall pass list. Mason would at least have to let me shoot my best shot.’
‘Jenny,’ I said with a gentle warning, releasing the kitten to gallop wildly across the lawn. ‘Please give me back my phone.’
But she didn’t. Instead, she kept walking further and further away.
‘She left a voicemail. Let’s just listen to the voicemail,’ she pleaded, already tapping in my passcode. ‘Someone should. What if it’s a death threat? You’ll need to know so we can get you into the witness protection programme.’
‘Give me my bloody phone,’ I shouted, rising to my feet and chasing her across the lawn as she set off in a sprint with several of her kitty minions in hot pursuit. I tried to give chase but it was very difficult to run in flip-flops and every time I got near her, one of the kittens threw itself under my feet, kamikaze-style. I’d narrowly avoided standing on three different tabbies by the time I gave up as Jenny tried, and failed, to shin up a palm tree.
‘Give me the phone,’ I panted. I was so bloody out of shape. ‘She probably just wants tickets for Alex’s show.’
‘She’s calling again!’ Jenny cried with glee as she slid all of two feet back down the tree and hit the floor with a thwack. ‘Angela Clark’s phone?’
‘You did not just answer my bloody phone?’
When would I learn it was utterly pointless to expect Jenny Lopez to behave like a reasonable, average human?
‘Oh, hi Perry. This is her friend Jenny, she’s right here, let me hand you over.’
Jenny passed me the phone with the look of someone giving out an Oscar for Best Dickhead before scooping up one of the mewing kittens and waving its little paw in my face.
‘Talk to her, talk to her, talk to her,’ Jenny chanted, making the cat punch the air in time.
‘Hello, Angela speaking?’ I said, turning my back on the gang.
‘Angela, Perry.’
What a shock.
‘Angela, darling, I’ve been trying to get a hold of you for days.’
‘I’m so sorry,’ I said, my neck seizing up again at the sound of her voice. ‘I’m in Lanai on a press trip. It’s been so hard to get to the phone.’
‘Lanai? Wonderful! There’s a little restaurant down by the water that’s divine. It’s been in the same family for decades, you must go. I’ll send you their details.’
‘Thanks,’ I replied while Jenny and her kitten waltzed in front of me. ‘Was there anything else?’
‘I don’t want to rush you with your decision about joining us,’ she said slowly, even though I did not believe her in the slightest. ‘But I did want to talk to you about something else. I was talking with a dear friend a few days ago and he mentioned he was looking for women writers with an interesting point of view and I immediately thought of you. So he read some of your work and he’s very interested.’
‘That’s very sweet,’ I said, pulling away as Jenny brushed the purring kitten’s tail against my face. ‘But I’m so busy with work and Alice and I don’t think I have time to take on any freelance.’
‘Not freelance.’ From the tone of her voice, Perry didn’t care for the term. ‘Luka is a publisher at Cooper & Bow. He wants to talk to you about writing a book.’
‘A … a what?’
‘A book,’ she repeated. ‘Anyway, I’ll text you his number and you must give him a call first thing on Monday. I told him you’d call Friday and then I couldn’t get hold of you but, since you’re in Lanai, I’ll forgive you. Bring me a pineapple. Mahalo!’
‘Mahalo,’ I said softly, slipping the phone back into my pocket.
‘What did she want?’ Paige asked from her seat underneath a sweeping banyan tree.
I turned back to the group, Louisa, Jenny, Paige, James and two hundred cats waiting on my announcement.
‘She wants to introduce me to a publisher at Cooper & Bow,’ I said as I sat on the floor with a bump. I was feeling very light-headed all of a sudden. ‘They want to talk to me about writing a book.’
‘This is freaking exciting, Ange,’ Jenny exclaimed, placing her kitten carefully on the floor before giving me a hug. ‘She got you a meeting with a publisher? That’s huge!’
‘She got me a call with a publisher about possibly having a meeting,’ I corrected, too scared to get my hopes up. ‘Which is very nice of her.’
‘You can write my life story,’ James suggested as he tried to pick an aggressively keen white cat’s claws out of his Gucci T-shirt. ‘Did you see I’ve been voted the gayest man to have ever been born in Sheffield?’
‘Twitter is a very cruel place,’ Louisa said, patting his hand.
‘Are you going to call the publisher?’ Jenny demanded. ‘Like, right now, please? So we can all listen?’
‘Yes, on Monday morning,’ I replied, even though the thought of having to sit on this for forty-eight hours was agonizing.
‘So exciting, AC,’ Paige said from her perch under the tree. ‘You should film a writer’s diary for the website. I bet loads of people would love to know how a book gets made.’
For a moment there, I’d almost forgotten Paige was actually my boss.
‘That could be a good idea,’ I said, lying down in the grass and holding out my hand to a curious tabby. A book a book a book a book. ‘But it’s only one phone call at the moment, nothing to get excited about.’
But it was, though. A book. I could write a book. It was so exciting, I hardly dared think about it, let alone talk about it.
‘I want to know about your new website,’ Louisa said, tapping a finger to test her sunburned nose and promptly changing the subject. She always had been able to read my mind. ‘What’s it about?’
‘Oh, the website is going to be brilliant,’ I said, relaxing as I made a grab for a fat black kitten that wasn’t fast enough to get away. Recherché was easy to talk about. It was the one area of my life that was completely under control. ‘It’s a mix of all the things women like us care about, reported in a clever, compassionate way. So there’s fashion and lifestyle but also news and culture and anything that’s important really.’
‘And who’s boning who?’ Jenny asked. ‘Because that is so important and it’s super hard to find a reliable source.’
‘That’s because no one is getting banged any more,’ James told her. ‘It’s pitiful. This generation of celebs is the dullest ever assembled. All they do is work out and go to bed early and care about things. They always know their lines, they’re always on set early and if that wasn’t bad enough, they’re all sober.’
‘What a bunch of monsters,’ I said to the fat black kitten.
‘It’s offensive,’ James sniffed.
‘Surely not Timothée Chalamet, though?’ Louisa rolled over on her front to stare him down before he could answer.
James nodded with great knowing. ‘Utterly boring. But Armie Hammer can call me by any name he likes.’
‘There will be celebrity stuff,’ I said, rerouting the conversation before he shattered all of her celebrity dreams. ‘But it’s all going to be positive. I want it to be a place where people can come for five minutes or however long they have and go away feeling better about themselves, not worse.’
‘I’ll get you all the insider info from my next film,’ James promised. ‘If there is any. It’s all
very top secret, you know.’
‘Finally making your move on the Bond franchise?’ I asked.
He turned and gave me a sly wink.
‘You are not,’ I challenged. ‘There’s no way you’ve kept that to yourself for the last two days.’
‘Oh, you should see your faces,’ he said, bursting with laughter. ‘Hardly. It goes woman Doctor Who, black Bond and then possibly, if you’re very lucky, implied homosexual superhero. It’s another DC film. So no, I can’t introduce any of you to Chris Hemsworth.’
Jenny crawled over and gripped his shoulders with her blood-red nails.
‘I give you so much,’ she hissed through gritted teeth. ‘And you give me nothing.’
‘I was thinking,’ Paige said, pulling her feet in towards her as a tiny tortoiseshell started attacking the strap of her sandals.
Biting my lip, I looked over at the boss. No good ever came from a sentence that started with ‘I was thinking’.
‘I love your message for the website but how would you feel about being more visible?’
‘Visible?’ I asked, clinging to my black kitten as he tried to wriggle away.
‘It seems like such a waste to have you hiding behind the computer when you could be on the screen,’ she said. ‘You should be the face of Recherché, show the readers the woman behind the content. We should be sharing your incredible life with everyone.’
‘Ooh, what a good idea.’ Lou threw her a thumbs up. ‘I’d watch it.’
‘You’re the only person who watches my Instagram stories as it is,’ I said before turning back to Paige. ‘I’m a writer, not a presenter. I don’t think I’d be comfortable chatting away into a camera, trying to convince everyone how brilliant I am. I’m not Lily.’
‘That’s exactly why you should be doing it,’ she said, pulling her feet up onto the bench. ‘It’s going to be amazing, Angela.’
It is? I really didn’t like the way she was talking as though this was already happening. The black kitten mewed, straining against my arms before jumping up onto my shoulder. He snuffled against my ear, preferring his pirate’s perch to my lap.
