by LUCY LAING
I do have a computer at home and a webcam, so yes, we can definitely link up and discuss the minutes of the meetings – and I would love you to email them all over to me, so I can catch up with all your progress, so far.
Kindest regards
Jen XX
I gaped at the screen. I’d always thought Jen would be silly not to jump at the opportunity of joining the HHC, but to hear back from her was amazing. I could barely speak with excitement, as Nick walked into the office. I grabbed hold of his shoulders and propelled him towards my computer screen. He read the email in silence.
‘Well, I have to hand it to you girls,’ he said, straightening up and looking at me with admiration. ‘I never thought you could do it, but you have. A famous Hollywood actress wants your help – may be I’ve under-estimated the club,’ he added.
‘Damn right you have,’ I said, triumphantly, with an I-told-you-so smile on my face. ‘You watch out, the HHC is going to have world domination at this rate.’
There was no time to lose. I phoned the girls one by one and told them about Jen’s email. They were hysterical – Rach screamed down the phone for at least five minutes.
‘I can’t believe it,’ said Kaz. ‘Who would have thought that a famous Hollywood actress, like Jen, would want to join our club?’
‘Kaz, how can you say that?’ I exploded. ‘Of course, Jen would want to join. It’s an opportunity of a lifetime. It could change her life forever.’
When I had finished telling all the girls, I drafted a reply back to Jen.
Dear Jen.
It was great to get your email. We are all very excited over here, and can’t wait to link up with you on webcam. Some of the girls couldn’t believe that you have replied, but I always knew that you would. What woman in her right mind, wouldn’t want to have all the dirty work of finding a husband done for her?
I have sent you a list of all the minutes of previous meetings, so you can get up to date.
Love
Bee
P.S. I have also enclosed a list of all the potential husbands, who we have already earmarked as suitable for you, so browse through those, when you have a few minutes break from filming.
I couldn’t sleep with excitement that night. Would I have a reply back from Jen, the next morning? I went into the office early the next morning, and there it was, a little envelope flashing in the corner of my screen.
Dear Bee
Thanks for the list of all those men you sent over. Yes, it does seem like a good idea to buy a property in the UK, especially as some of these men live over there. I’ve always fancied one of those old-fashioned cottages with roses growing over the door, with perhaps a couple of hens in the back garden. Can you imagine – it would be like the Good Life. The paparazzi would go wild! I’ve got a pair of green wellies that I never wear – they are a bit dusty, but they’d do perfectly. If you could have a scout around for some suitable areas for me, that would be great.
I like the sound of your Steve Clark who runs the stables – he sounds like he’s got his feet on the ground and is a sensible type, but gorgeous too. And I don’t mind getting my hands dirty mucking out a few horses, either!
Love, Jen
I printed out Jen’s reply to show the girls that night.
‘I can’t believe that she is emailing you,’ breathed Rach, looking at me admiringly. ‘Jennifer Aniston, Hollywood actress. It’s amazing.’
I almost burst with pride and excitement. How many people could say they had a famous actress emailing them?
‘We need to get the webcam sorted, so Jen can feel as though she’s joining in,’ I said to Kaz. ‘We need to get it assembled in time for the next meeting.’
For almost an entire week, Jen and I were emailing back and forth. She said she was so excited – she couldn’t wait to meet all the girls over the webcam. At the end of the week came the most exciting email I’d ever had from her.
Dear Bee
I’m coming over for a London premiere for my latest film next month, and I’d love to meet all the girls, in person. So why don’t you come down to the premiere, and I’ll put your names on the door and we can meet up?
I’d love to have a look around Cheshire too, so perhaps I’ll come back up with you for a few extra days. Is there anywhere I can stay? Perhaps I could book myself into a hotel for a couple of nights.’
I was so excited I nearly peed myself on the spot. We were actually Going To Meet Jen. Nothing so exciting had ever happened to me before in my entire life – and there was no way I was going to tell Jen that she would have to slum it in a hotel. She could stay in the flat with me and Scarlett.
‘Jennifer Aniston’s going to be staying here?’ Scarlett looked at me as though I was stark, raving mad. She came over to the sofa where I was sitting and put a hand on my forehead. ‘Ouch, it’s boiling hot, Bee. You have a raging temperature and are hallucinating.’
‘Don’t be silly,’ I said crossly. ‘I’m telling the truth. Jennifer and I have been emailing each other and I’m going to invite her to stay.’
I told Scarlett about inviting Jen to join the HHC and how she had eventually emailed me back. I even showed her all the emails on my work Blackberry. Scarlett’s eyes grew wider. ‘I can’t believe it,’ she said, grabbing the Blackberry from me and reading all the emails.
I rang Rach and told her about inviting Jen to stay.
‘Oh, my God, Bee, you’ll have to tidy up before she comes. Are you sure it’s a good thing?’ she added doubtfully. ‘Jennifer will be used to some huge mansion with loads of bedrooms in America. Don’t you think she might find your flat a bit small?’
‘Oh no,’ I said, airily. ‘Remember the flat she used to share with Monica in Friends? Our flat is about the same size.’
‘You’ll have to give her your bedroom. You can’t give her the sofa to sleep on –especially not with that dodgy-looking stain on it, where Scarlett dropped that pizza.
‘Of course, I’ll give her my bedroom,’ I said. I would have to put a load of stuff in boxes before Jen arrived. Not that I was expecting her to be snooping in my underwear drawer or anything, but there were things like the latex mask in there. I didn’t want her thinking that I had some of gimp fetish – she would run a mile.
The rest of the girls were all wildly excited, when I told them that Jen had invited us down to her London film premiere. We held a special meeting at my flat that night, to discuss what we were going to wear.
‘I’m going to have to go shopping, I’ve got nothing to wear with my bump,’ wailed Rach.
Scarlett was green with envy, when she heard that we had all been personally invited to Jen’s premiere.
‘I love her films, can’t I be an honorary member for the night?’ she begged.
‘Sorry, Scarlett, but we can’t bend the rules,’ I told her, firmly. ‘I’ll get you an autograph.’
***
The next few weeks dragged by. But eventually it was time to go to the premiere. Everyone had managed to get two days off work, and we all met at Manchester train station, giddy with excitement.
Rach had bought a glitzy silver sequinned maternity dress and it looked fantastic. I was wearing my favourite Karen Millen black dress, with sexy slits up the side. We’d all had fake spray tans and Tash had been to the hairdressers that morning, and her black, shiny hair looked even sleeker than ever.
I’d emailed Jen a few days before and invited her to stay at the flat. She’d said yes she would love to stay.
Dear Bee,
You’ll have to show me the burnt bit on the top of your ceiling where you nearly set alight to your cooker! (I’d forgotten when I’d sent the minutes over to Jen to read, that she would have read about what a culinary dunce I was.)
Mind you, I don’t even know how to work my cooker – my chef cooks for me all the time. So I’d have probably set the whole house alight if I’d tried to cook Duck a l’orange. (That instantly made me feel better – I had obviously found a culinary s
oul-mate in Jen.
I’m looking forward to meeting Scarlett too. She sounds so gorgeous, she’ll probably make me feel like a heifer. (Yeah, right, Jen, as if that's ever going to happen.)
Thanks for sending the photo across of you all, so I know who I’m looking out for.’
Love Jen.
We spent about four hours getting ready at the small hotel we had booked into, off Leicester Square. The premiere was starting at 7.30 p.m. and we were going down early to get a good place on the red carpet. We had arranged to watch the film, and then meet up with Jen afterwards.
‘Tash, you’re squashing me,’ grumbled Kaz in the taxi, as Tash leaned across to get her lipstick out of her bag. The air of excitement was all around us. We piled out of the taxi at Leicester square and tottered across to the cinema in our high heels. It was an hour before the start of the premiere, and we made our way to where we could see the red carpet rolled out in front of the cinema.
‘This is so exciting,’ said Rach, as we jostled our way to the rope barrier at the front. ‘I can’t wait to meet Jen. I wonder if she’s as pretty in real life as she is in the films.’
‘Of course, she will be,’ I said, knowingly. ‘Prettier and thinner too; the camera puts ten pounds on you.’
The minutes ticked by excruciatingly slowly. Then finally a hiss of excitement rose from the crowd. We craned our necks to get a better view. Owen Wilson, Jen’s co-star, was at the end of the red carpet, already signing autographs. Then, suddenly there she was. She looked stunning in a floor-length, shimmering pale-blue gown. We all let out a collective gasp. Jen was now walking down the red carpet holding on to Owen’s arm and looking back over her shoulder now and again at the waiting photographers. Every time she looked back the flashbulbs kept popping.
She was only metres away from us now, and then she was so close I could have touched her gorgeous gown.
‘Hey! Jen, it’s us,’ I called out. Jen looked round and straight at me. I expected her face to break into a huge smile – but it didn’t. She was looking straight through me.
‘Hey! Jen,’ I tried a wave. She gave a little half smile at us, and then turned and went through the cinema doors.
I blinked a few times in surprise. I’d expected a bit more of a warm welcome from her than that.
‘It was as if she didn’t know us,’ said Kaz, puzzled.
‘It’s probably because she was on the red carpet. She couldn’t exactly throw her arms around us could she,’ reasoned Tash. ‘Come on, let’s go over to the door, the film will be about to start.
We went to the end of the barrier, and then up to the main door, where a woman was standing with a huge clipboard.
‘We’re guests of Jennifer,’ I explained, and gave our names to the woman. She looked at us doubtfully, and then scanned down the list on her clipboard.
‘Sorry,’ she said, brushing us aside. ‘Those names aren’t on here.’
‘There must be some mistake,’ I said, taking hold of her arm. ‘Jennifer has definitely put our names on the door.’
‘I’m sorry,’ the woman was quite firm. ‘Your names are on not on this list. Now would you please go or else I will have to call security.’ She glared at us. There was nothing for it. We walked away from the door and away from the crowds, which were already beginning to disperse. To top it all, it had started to rain.
‘I can’t believe it,’ I said. ‘What on earth has happened? There must be some mistake. Jen told me she’d put our names down.’ The rain was beginning to hammer down.
‘Let’s go back to the hotel,’ said Tash. ‘There’s no point in getting soaked.’
Feeling like a bunch of pricked balloons, we climbed into a taxi. We looked a sorry state with our rain-soaked hair plastered to our foreheads and black panda eyes from water-logged mascara. I couldn’t understand it – what on earth had gone wrong?
I looked at my Blackberry the next morning, lying in bed at the hotel. I hoped there would be an email from Jen explaining about the mix-up last night. There was one unopened mail – but it was from Nick. It had been sent yesterday morning, and in my excitement at getting on the train, I hadn’t even looked at it. I almost couldn’t be bothered to open it. It was probably him moaning about some photo shoot that had gone wrong. Sighing, I clicked it open.
Dear Bee,
I hope you get this email in time. Maria told me you were off to the premiere to meet Jen and I wanted to stop you before you got on the train.
I never thought you would really go. I thought you had realized right at the beginning that it was me all along sending the emails from Jen and you were playing along. I thought we were just having a joke. I never thought you would really go to London – so I hope you get this before you get on that train!
Forgive me!
Nick X
I nearly hyperventilated on the spot. Red spots of anger danced in front of my eyes. It had been Nick all along playing a joke on me. I couldn’t believe it. I shook Rach awake and showed her the text.
‘Oh, my God!’ she said. ‘It was never Jen all along – and we’ve come all the way to London. What are you going to do?’
I was so fuming I couldn’t even speak. Just wait until I got my hands on that scheming bastard. Grrrrrrrrrrr! Words couldn’t even describe what I was going to do to him. So Nick thought he could play a joke on me, did he? He wasn’t going to know what had hit him, when he next clapped eyes on me. Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned by fake emails from Jen. He would wish he’d never been born. Charred duck testicles? The next meal I was going to serve him would be his own burnt testicles, rammed down his throat.
**************************************
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
The girls were speechless when I told them what had happened. For the entire two-hour journey back to Manchester I ranted about what I was going to do to Nick.
‘There won’t be a cell in his body left unharmed by the time you’ve finished with him,’ Tash said dryly. ‘I do wish you’d looked at your emails before we left for London, though. Then we would have known it was a joke and not gone to the premiere at all.
‘Fancy going all that way and we didn’t even get to see the film,’ moaned Kaz. ‘All we got was soaking wet through and flat hair.’
‘It could have been worse,’ said Rach. ‘At least we didn’t embarrass ourselves in front of Jen – and we did get to see her in the flesh, which was pretty exciting.’
I had to agree with Rach, although I would never have admitted it. I go a bit silly when I see a celebrity, and it had been thrilling to see Jen in her gorgeous gown.
‘It would have been even more exciting, if she had been staying in my flat for the next two days,’ I said to Rach.
‘Yes, but think about the practicality of having Jen in your flat – she may have turned her nose up. It is rather untidy, Bee,’ pointed out Rach. ‘And I know that you and Scarlett don’t mind the pizza stain on the sofa, but Jen may not have been keen.’
‘And she probably only drinks skinny lattes, and all you have is a jar of Nescafé in your cupboard,’ Kaz added.
The girls did have a point. It would have been stressful having Jen to stay. I’d flown around with a Hoover quickly before I’d left for London, but the flat could have done with being steam-cleaned from top to bottom. Jen was used to a spotless Hollywood mansion, not some poky flat in Cheshire. There was a huge cobweb in the corner of the bathroom; Scarlett and I had both been promising each other we would move it, but neither of us actually dared touch it, in case we disturbed a spider of Miss Muffett proportions.
I waved good-bye to the girls at the station and got in a taxi. Twenty minutes later, we pulled up outside my flat. I nearly dropped my bag in shock. There was Soph, sitting on my front step.
‘Hi,’ she said awkwardly, getting up and helping me pick up my bag. ‘I’m sorry to make you jump, but I had to see you.’
I nearly grabbed her by the scruff of the neck and marched her back down to the pavement,
but the fortune-teller’s words flashed into my mind. ‘None of you will ever be happy without the fifth missing piece of your jigsaw...’
‘Okay,’ I said. ‘You’d better come in.’ A few minutes later, I handed Soph a cup of steaming tea. I put two extra spoons of sugar in mine. I’d had such a lot of shocks over the past two days – I could feel my blood sugar levels plummeting.
Soph sat down on the sofa, warming her hands around the mug and looked over at me.
‘I’m sorry, Bee,’ she began. ‘I know what I did wasn’t right and I came to apologize. I never meant to hurt you.’
I didn’t know what to say to her. For weeks I’d dreamt of a having a massive showdown with Soph, which always ended up with me satisfactorily punching her in the nose, but now she was sitting in front of me, I didn’t know what to do.
‘I really miss you all,’ she added. Her blue eyes filled up with tears, and one splashed into her tea mug.
‘You should have told me before that you had met Paul at the reunion,’ I said. ‘I felt you had betrayed me by keeping it a secret.’ I passed Soph a tissue and she wiped her eyes.
‘I know,’ she said, ‘but I was worried that you would be cross with me. I kept pretending that if no-one knew about it, then we could carry on seeing each other and nobody would get hurt.’
‘But I would have found out in the end, like I did. I’d have preferred it, if you had told me yourself.’
‘Can we be friends again?’ she begged, twisting the tissue around in her fingers. I looked at her. There was genuine anguish on her face. I thought back to Paul. Maybe I’d got carried away with this husband-hunting business – I’d been clutching at straws and desperately trying to find anyone who would fit the bill. I’d dumped Paul once, and I should never have gone back. If I’m totally honest, the way he patted his car when he got out, would have ended up driving me nuts.
