A is for Apple

by Kate Johnson

  Five days later we had sex in the rubble of an abandoned building site. It probably wasn’t the best way to start our relationship, but there was a nice quality of drama to it. We bounced around for a while (no, not like that. Well, okay, yes, a lot like that), trying to figure out how we felt about each other, if we felt anything at all. I think a large percentage of what I feel for Luke is pure lust. The jury’s still out on what he sees in me.

  I don’t mean that masochistically. There are days when I look in the mirror and think, damn, I’m hot. And there are days when I look in the mirror and it breaks. Luke must have caught me on a good day the first time he saw me, because the main SO17 hypothesis is that he hired me because he wanted to shag me. That’s really the only explanation anyone can think of. I’m a rotten spy. I make mistakes, I forget things, I’m quite terrified of my gun—

  Dammit, my gun! It was still at home. I was going to New York and I didn’t have a gun. That’s like going to church without a hat, isn’t it?

  I picked up my phone again as I navigated the complex route Karen had told me would take me to the staff car park, and called Macbeth. The line wasn’t good, and I could only hear about half of what he said, but I told him my ETA and asked, somewhat hopefully, if he had a gun I could borrow.

  He laughed. “Darlin’,” he said, “I got plenty.”

  I ended the call hoping he’d been talking about what I’d been talking about.

  A is for Apple

  Chapter Two

  Despite being knackered and grumblingly pissed off, there was still a part of me that was excited about going to America. I mean, I’d never been outside the EU before. France, Spain, Italy, I have the T-shirts. (No, I really do. I’m a geek as well as stupid.) I was going to go to Prague with a couple of old school friends a while ago, but it fell through. I’ve always wanted to go to Australia. Maybe I still will. Who knows where the work of an international spy will take me?

  ‘Cos it’s usually not much further than my local chipshop.

  But America. New York, the Big A. That’s exciting, right? All those shops and bars and beautiful people. Maybe I’d finally get to find out what all those cocktails they drink on Sex and the City actually were. I’d see my first Jimmy Choo up close and personal. Although, probably only in a shop window, because I’m far too scared by posh shops to actually go in them.

  I parked up and found my way to Terminal Four. The BA check-in desks were right ahead of me and I tugged my case up to the front of the short queue. It weighed twenty-two kilos, and I was glad Luke wasn’t there, because twenty-two was ludicrous for one week’s holiday somewhere hot. I still wasn’t sure what had made the case so heavy. I mean, all my summer clothes were really tiny and thin. I hoped New York wouldn’t be too cold, because I had one fleece sweater and it was buried under all my sarongs and bikinis.

  Security was stupid. I mean, it probably isn’t any more secure than the regular question-and-scan routine we use at Stansted. Hell, some days I’ll check in six flights to Belfast—and meet six flights coming back—and believe me, they know about terrorists there. The endless rounds of confusing questions (Why was it necessary to know how I’d arrived at the airport? Why?) and dragging my case from one place to another just served to annoy me. And, you know, if you’re trying to stop people bombing you, then annoying the hell out of them probably isn’t the way to go about it.

  Blah. I was just bitchy because I was tired. No sleep and no coffee makes Sophie a mean girl.

  I finally made it through to regular ol’ fashioned security, where I made the scanner bleep and had to be searched by rather unamused woman, a contrast to the cheerful Stansted guys, who all knew me anyway. When I’d been allowed to put my shoes back on (remind me not to travel in DMs), I turned to find someone holding up my bag, asking whose it was.

  “Mine,” I said gloomily.

  “Do you mind if I search through it?”

  “Would me saying ‘no’ make any difference?”

  Boy, these staff really needed a sense of humour. My tightly packed shoulder bag was emptied, my two wallets (one euros, one pounds—dammit, I’d need dollars, too) both swabbed for… I dunno, what the hell do they swab for? Explosives? Drugs? Did I look that wrecked?

  “That’s fine.” The euro wallet was handed back to me, and I was left to try and fit everything back into my bag. James Bond never has to deal with this shit.

  I got myself some coffee and slumped down by the gate, idly watching the staff print out load sheets and make phone calls, mentally picking on their performances. I was tired, really tired—I hadn’t slept since yesterday morning and what I really wanted to do was go home and curl up in my lovely soft bed with Tammy, my little tabby cat. Or Luke. Either would be good.

  They called the flight and I shuffled down the jetbridge and found my seat. Oh, joy and rapture, they’d given me a bulkhead seat! Now I could stretch out my unfeasibly long legs (yeah yeah, but you try buying jeans) for the seven and a half hours it’d take to get to New York. Of course, sleep on public transport is impossible, that’s just a law of the universe. As soon as I dropped off, my neighbour shuffled past, or the hostess rattled by with a trolley, or they’d make an irritatingly perky announcement. How dare they be perky when I was a zombie? I started wondering in my delirium what the US policy on the walking dead was.

  A thousand years later, we started descent and I hurried to fill out my customs declaration and visa waiver. The customs declaration was easy. I wasn’t carrying any food apart from a choccy bar and I wasn’t sure that counted. The green visa waiver was another matter. I filled in the front with no problem—name, date of birth, passport number, etc., and then I turned over.

  Oh.

  I had no communicable diseases, had never been convicted for a crime, wasn’t on drugs or looking for work. It was point C that got me. The one where they asked if I’d ever been involved in espionage activities.

  Oh. Dear.

  Ahem. I had the feeling this was a trick question.

  I ticked no, and hoped I didn’t look guilty.

  The queue at Immigration was long enough to make me want to cry, but when I got to the little desk, a woman looked me over, asked how long I’d be staying (crap, how should I know?), stamped my passport and waved me off.

  Right. All that anxiety for nothing.

  I collected my bag and switched on my phone. “Macbeth,” I called him, “I’ve landed. What do I do now?”

  “You’re staying at the Hotel Philadelphia,” he told me, “on Seventh between 32nd and 33rd.”

  “In English?”

  “That’s the address.”

  “Oh.”

  He laughed. “Go to the Ground Transportation desk in arrivals and get the hotel shuttle. It’ll take you right to the door.”

  “Where I will…?”

  “Meet me, and I’ll fill you in.”

  “Okay. Philadelphia, shuttle—got it.”

  But evidently I hadn’t, because I had to call him back when I got to the desk, to get my hotel name. I kept thinking of the Hotel California. See what I mean? I’m useless. It’s a wonder I didn’t end up in actual Philadelphia.

  The shuttle was a minibus and it took me right to the door of a massive hotel. I’d been dozing on the bus so I didn’t take much in of my surroundings, but as soon as the door was opened a wall of heat and sound hit me. Hot town, summer in the city.

  In total contrast, the huge, grand Art Deco lobby of the Philadelphia was air-conditioned to Arctic conditions. I was shivering as I met Macbeth. He took one look at me and took over the check-in procedure.

  “You’re in room 1316A,” he said, handing me a little green credit card of a door key. “Want me to show you where it is?”

  I nodded feebly and he dragged my suitcase off to the bank of lifts. Oops, I mean elevators. I was in America now.

  Inside was a small TV screen showing CNN news. Swanky. Businessman Don Shapiro had made a massive donation to the ASPCA, following his adoption o
f two hideously ugly hairless puppies. I was confused. Was our bad guy a good guy?

  “Don’t let that fool you,” Macbeth said. “He’s a real piece of work. He wants the dogs to guard his new apartment.”

  “Where does he live?”

  “In a hotel until his apartment is finished, but it’s on the Upper East Side. Very expensive.”

  Of course.

  “What do I need to do?” I asked, as the lift doors opened and Macbeth kindly towed my huge case out into the thirteenth floor lobby. I averted my eyes from the window—heights make me very nervous.

  “He hits the hotel bar most nights. You sit there, look pretty and show some skin and keep him and his goons occupied while I go through his room. Tomorrow I need you to do the same again while I check out his apartment.”

  Marvellous. I knew all that training would come in handy.

  It was about two in the afternoon, but to me it was seven in the evening and I’d been awake for two whole days without taking off my makeup. Thank God I’d got a tub of green gunk to clean my skin up—Angel and I had spent the week in Fuerteventura pampering ourselves. I scoured my face, took off my clothes and fell into bed.

  I was woken in the late afternoon by my phone trilling out the Darth Vadar theme tune. There was only one person who made it ring like that.

  “Hello, Luke,” I yawned.

  “Am I keeping you up?”

  “Mmm. What time is it?”

  “Eleven.”

  “Shit!” I bolted upright. “I’m supposed to be at a bar—”

  “Are you, now? I meant eleven my time. It’s about six where you are.”

  I squinted at my watch and relaxed. He was right. “Don’t scare me like that.”

  “Right back at you. I thought you were going to call me when you landed? Which should have been ten hours ago.”

  “You’re counting?”

  He didn’t answer that. “Was your flight okay?”

  “Mmm. I got to watch Charlie’s Angels. Again.”

  “And did you rant, again, about the plane decompressing when they open the door and jump out? And how they’d suffocate from lack of oxygen at that altitude?”

  “Yep.”

  “Glad to hear it. What’s Macbeth got you doing?”

  I told him about Shapiro, the hotel and the apartment, and Luke asked what I was going to wear.

  “I don’t know,” I said, nonplussed. “Something out of my case.”

  “Do you have anything in there that looks remotely expensive?”

  “I don’t have anything anywhere that looks remotely expensive.”

  There was a pause, such as might be made by someone trying hard not to add a comment to that.

  “Go out and buy something.”

  “With what?”

  “Got your company credit card?”

  Oh, God, yes. I’d almost forgotten about that. I’d been with SO17 nearly five months now, and I’d only just been allowed a credit card to cover things like flights and emergency clothes.

  “I can’t go in expensive shops,” I said, “I’m intimidated.”

  Luke muttered something I didn’t catch.

  “Try Bloomingdales. They have nice stuff but it’s not too scary. And don’t forget shoes—Manhattanites set a lot of store by their shoes.”

  “I know, I watch Sex and the City.”

  “Hmm.”

  I looked at my reflection—crumpled clothes and mussed greasy hair sticking to the face mask I’d forgotten to take off. Good job Luke hadn’t got a vid phone.

  “Do you miss me?” I asked nervously.

  “Course I do. Place is all quiet and tidy.”

  “Ha ha.”

  There was another pause, then Luke said more quietly, “I do miss you. Things are just…less fun without you.”

  A little tear trickled through the green gunk on my face. How adorable was that?

  “I miss you too,” I gulped.

  “If you’re not home soon we’re going to have to try phone sex.”

  I rolled my eyes at my green reflection. So much for adorable.

  “I have to go,” I told him, before he started really thinking about it. “I have to get a dress.”

  “Something tight and short… How’s your tan?”

  “You’ll laugh at me.” Luke’s one of those annoying people, like Angel, who walks under a streetlight and goes a lovely golden shade all over. Well, nearly all over, ahem.

  “That bad?”

  “I got sunburnt on my shoulders. The rest of me is Persil white.”

  “Well, I’ll just have to check that out for myself when I see you.”

  “Hmm.”

  “Oh, Soph—when you filled out the immigration form, did you tick the espionage box?”

  “I’m not stupid.”

  “Questions still stands.”

  I stuck my tongue out. “No.”

  “Okay, good.”

  A pause. “Well, bye then,” I said.

  “Bye.”

  So there was nothing for it. I had to go shopping.

  The only thing was I didn’t know where Bloomingdales was. I didn’t know anything about Manhattan, except for where the Friends and Sex and the City characters lived. Which wasn’t very helpful.

  I wandered down to the lobby and went to the information desk, where there were some leaflets about the city. One of them had a map, and I scanned it for department stores. There it was.

  I also saw an ATM, and wondered if my cash card would work there. Yes, my friends, I truly am an innocent abroad. The card worked, and I got fifty dollars out, hoping that was a reasonable amount of money. I really had no idea what the exchange rate was. I was fresh from Euroland.

  Armed with my little map, I set off across town. I wasn’t brave enough to try the subway yet, and anyway, it couldn’t be very far from 32nd and 7th to 59th and Lexington, which was next to Third. Couldn’t be that hard, right?

  Right?

  By the time I’d got to Central Park, I was knackered. It had taken about forty minutes, and I still had to make my way across to Lexington, which was five blocks over, because somewhere around the chaos of Times Square I’d taken Broadway instead of Seventh and ended up a block over…

  When I stumbled into the air-conditioned calm of Bloomingdales, a nicely suited man asked me cheerfully, “And how are you today?”

  “Bloody knackered,” I said. “Where’s women’s clothing?”

  He gave me a once-over, like the women on Rodeo Drive in Pretty Woman. “Second floor.”

  “Cheers.” And I set off, only to find that Bloomingdales is the most confusing shop in the whole world. The escalators are set up oddly, each floor has about ten different levels and I went straight up to the third floor first, because in English that’s the second floor, and I was all confused…

  Eventually I found the ladieswear department, flipped my scruffy hair out of my eyes and started looking for something drop-dead. Because drop-dead was exactly how I felt.

  I ended up with a very cute black and white fifties-style dress, all fitted bodice and fluffy skirts, and shoes to match, and then I had to hunt down some stockings and while I was there I went for new underwear too, and a cute little handbag… Well, I was on assignment, and there was no telling how much distracting I might have to do. Besides, I didn’t have to pay for it.

  Which is just as well, because I’d spent hundreds of dollars.

  The other thing I don’t understand about American money is the tax system. If you pick something up off the rail and the label says $19.99, you don’t pay $19.99. Because they add sales tax on at the desk. How this has not been rectified I don’t know. Americans must all be good with numbers. What’s wrong with putting the tax inclusive price on the tag?

  I left Bloomingdales with my Medium Brown Bags, feeling a lot smarter, and found it was chucking it down with rain. And my bags were made of paper. And my shoes were incredibly flimsy.

  So. Less smart.

  There we
re, of course, no cabs. I trudged to the subway, a system I thought I might be familiar with since I’d used London’s, and promptly got lost.

  By the time I got back to my hotel, I was wet and blistered and grumpy, and there was a voice mail on my phone from Macbeth telling me to meet him in the lobby of the Park Avenue Hotel in an hour and a half. Bloody hell!

  I leapt into the shower, shrieking when the hot water hit my blistered feet, and washed my hair. When I was done drying it, the room was like an oven, so I opened the window and flashed half of Manhattan in the process. No one told me New York would be this humid.

  I pulled on my lovely little dress, which was even better for being a size eight (I tried on several twelves, thinking ecstatically that I’d lost loads of weight and must now be the same tiny size as Angel, before I remembered that American sizes are different to ours) and the shoes it had taken me so long to find (see above re: sizing). I made myself up with the cosmetics I’d picked up at Sephora on my way through Times Square, smoothed down my hair and braved the subway again. Yeah, I should have got a cab. But I’ve seen too many movies about psychotic cab drivers and, well, I’m a wimp.

  I had to change twice, but I paid especial attention to the signs this time, and only got lost once. I arrived on Park Avenue feeling a little wilted, but reasonably expensive, and no one sneered at me so I must have been looking okay.

  The hotel door was opened for me by a man in a fancy suit, and a dredged up memory told me he should be tipped. So I took a five from my wallet, still not entirely sure what the conversion rate was, and not wanting to be stingy. The doorman beamed.

  “Thank you, ma’am. You have a splendid day.”

  Hmm. It was nine p.m. Not much day left.

  Macbeth looked pretty impressed, too, when he saw me.

  “Very nice,” he said. “That new?”

  “Why, it doesn’t still have the tags on, does it?”

  He grinned. “You look new and shiny. But stop limping.”

  I made a face. “My feet hurt. I’m all blistered and these things,” I waved my pretty new shoes at him, “aren’t helping.”

  “You have to suffer to be beautiful.”