‘What goddam it?’ A voice sounded from behind the wood.
‘Oh, hello?’ Anna said. ‘Is that Miss Mimi Me? Um, hello, my name is Anna Carter and I’m wondering if it would be possible to talk to you for a few minutes?’
‘Are you the Queen of Frigging England?’ the testy response came back.
‘Er … no, my name is …’
‘’Cos if you ain’t the queen of frigging England, what the hell are you doing harassing me just before a goddam show, bitch?’
‘Um …’ Anna didn’t have an answer to that one. ‘Well, Liza said I should come back and talk to you about …’
‘Liza, that goddam slut on reception? She in charge of my diary is she, that bitch, I’ll rip her hair out and make her eat it.’
‘OK then,’ Anna said to the door, patting it placatingly. ‘Sorry to trouble you, bye then.’
She was all but running back up the corridor when Mimi’s door opened and one heavily made-up eye peered through it.
‘What’s it about?’ she asked, scowling at Anna with all the welcoming charm of a hungry lion.
‘What’s about what?’ Anna asked her, riveted to the spot, never thinking she’d be anxious to see Tony the doorman again.
‘What did you want to see me about, Lady Di?’ Mimi asked. ‘What does Princess fucking Kate Middleton want with me?’
‘Oh! Nothing, really, just I think you might have known a friend of mine that I’m trying to track down. I think she worked here until about a year ago. Her name is Charisma Jones.’
‘Carrie?’ Mimi exclaimed, dropping her nasty nasal twang in an instant. ‘You a pal of Carrie, well why didn’t you say so? Come in you dumb bitch, pull up a chair.’ Whereupon Miss Mimi Me opened her dressing-room door to reveal she was wearing a thick hot pink towelling robe, and a turban on her head.
‘Um, thank you,’ Anna said, feeling a lot like she was entering a lioness’s den.
‘Sorry, honey,’ Mimi said, as looking around she found a chair, well hidden by a great deal of costumes, and perched on the edge of it. ‘We get so many perverts and nut jobs round here, I forget sometimes that people are just people. Most of the time it pays to start out angry and work your way down from there.’
Anna nodded. ‘I can see how it would be like that. I’m really sorry to have surprised you.’
‘So you’re a pal of Carrie’s?’ Mimi said with a pleasant smile, taking what looked like a very frail bathing suit, which seemed to comprise of nothing more than one string of tinsel and a couple of plastic holly leaves, off a hanger and doing some mysterious shimmying under her robe, which meant the tiny outfit did not reappear. ‘How come? You’re not a dancer, I can tell by looking at you, and Carrie never said she had any British friends.’
‘Oh well, to cut a very long story short Charisma is married to my fiancé,’ Anna said, seeing no point in stringing out her vague untruth. ‘He married her in Vegas a few years back and sort of forgot to mention it when he proposed to me a year ago, and here I’ve been planning my dream wedding all these months to find out that actually, unless we get ‘Carrie’’s signature on the annulment really soon then my wedding is off!’
‘Shit,’ Mimi said. ‘Oh my God, you must be engaged to Tom, British Tom. Yeah, Carrie talked about him a lot.’
‘She did?’ Anna said in a small voice. This was not good news. Not good news at all. If Charisma was still talking a lot about Tom just recently then what did that mean for her prospects of signing an annulment?
‘Oh yeah, whenever she’d had a little too much wine, you know what I mean? He was the one that got away, I guess. We’ve all got one of those, right?’
‘No, I haven’t,’ Anna said unhappily. ‘Well, not yet, anyway. But Tom said she left him?’
‘Really?’ Mimi’s smile was sphinx-like. ‘Carrie tells another story. Well, anyway, kid, I wish I could help you but when Carrie quit the Slipper she quit her old friends too. Guess she didn’t want us tarnishing her reputation.’
‘Her reputation as what?’ Anna asked. ‘An … erm … exotic dancer? No offence.’
‘None taken,’ Mimi laughed. ‘No, she went for this audition for an acting role, in some off-Broadway thing, just before she left here. Only she did it under another name, oh what was it … Erica Barnes, that was it. Anyway, she must have been good, because she got the part. I said I’d go and see it, but it was some play about the mortgage crisis, and you know how it is, there always seems like something better to do … we lost touch. I don’t know how long it ran for, or if she’s done any other work since. I haven’t seen her name up in lights on Broadway, I know that much. But she hasn’t been back here either, so maybe things are going better for Erica Barnes than they did for Charisma Jones.’ Mimi looked sympathetic. ‘Not much help to you, am I, honey?’ she said, apologetically.
‘Actually a huge help,’ Anna thanked her. ‘Now I have a name and an idea of where to look, so thank you. I never actually thought I’d get this close.’
‘I hope you find her, and I hope that if you do she isn’t still carrying that torch for your man. Charisma’s never normally the sort of person to give up on something she wants. And when that girl’s claws are out, you’d better make damn sure you don’t get in the way of them.’
‘Super,’ Anna said, brightly. ‘Marvellous. Well, I won’t take up any more of your time. I’ll let you get ready for your next … appearance.’
‘Thank you, honey,’ Mimi said, slipping off her gown in one sudden movement, sending Anna’s eye line skywards once again as she tried very hard to avoid looking. ‘Tell me, what do you think of my Christmas fairy outfit? You couldn’t just help me on with those wings, could you? And any idea where I should hang these baubles …’
Anna had run halfway up the corridor when she collided with a tall, suave-looking man in a very expensive suit. He caught her arms as she plummeted into him, and held her away from him as he greeted her, without, Anna noticed anxiously, letting her go.
‘Well, hello,’ he said, taking her waist in his hands. ‘I didn’t know I was interviewing today, but come to my office. For you, I’ll make time.’
‘Unhand me at once!’ Anna said firmly, resorting to the most schoolteachery tone she could muster. ‘I am most certainly not here for an interview, now let me pass, you … you … blaggard’
Blaggard? Anna felt the heat rising in her cheeks as the man regarded her with a good deal of amusement. ‘You know what this club is missing, it’s missing a feisty little English rose like you, darling. Come on, come with Max and let me see if I can get past those thorns.’
‘No!’ Anna protested, trying to twist out of his grasp and finding it impossible.
‘Come on, little lady, it’s Christmas time and I’m due a present to unwrap.’ Max leered at her.
‘I don’t think so, geezer,’ Miles said, his arms crossed as he stood in the doorway that should have been guarded by Tony. ‘Hands off the lady, OK?’
‘How did you get back here?’ Max asked. ‘Where’s Tony?’
‘Tony is reading a modern American classic, in the gents,’ Miles said, who seemed to be having the opposite affliction to Anna, as he suddenly sounded like he should be related to someone named Kray, and as if ‘the gents’ was actually a euphemism for sleeping with the fishes.
‘If you’ll excuse me,’ Anna said poshly. Max in the nice suit let her go and stepped aside, so surprised by the English princess and what appeared to be her bit of rough that for a moment he wasn’t sure how to react. As they fled out of the lobby, Anna took Miles’s hand for no other reason than it seemed appropriate. As they ran they heard Max yell ‘Tony!’ so loudly it seemed like it might rattle the building to its foundations.
Anna found herself laughing when they finally came to a stop, her hand still in Miles’s.
‘When did you become a Cock-en-knee?’ she asked him cheerfully.
‘When did you become all Mary Poppins?’ he retorted, wiping the tears from his eyes, as he rega
ined his composure. They’d somehow found themselves in a sort of courtyard, surrounded on three sides by mirrored glass, and on the fourth by a series of pillars that ran parallel to the street. Perfectly circular bay trees stood sentinel around the square, each one adorned with white Christmas lights, and a weatherproof red bow around their pots.
‘That Max, one of the creepiest men I’ve ever met,’ Anna gasped, seeing the funny side of the situation now that she was no longer in it. ‘It’s a good job you turned up when you did, I’m not sure Mary Poppins would have been enough to keep him at bay for much longer.’ She smiled at him. ‘What were you doing there, anyway? I thought you’d be enjoying the show.’
‘Yeah, me too,’ Miles said. ‘It turns out that wondering what women look like under their clothes is a lot more interesting than when they just take them off and wobble about. Who knew?’
‘I thought you did. I thought you hung out in strip bars all the time. Or was that an exaggeration?’
‘Slight exaggeration,’ Miles admitted, ruefully. ‘I did go to a lap-dancing club once on a mate’s stag, but I was so drunk I passed out, and don’t remember a thing about it, except that when I woke up, someone had drawn … something quite crude on my forehead in permanent marker.’
Anna giggled, hooking her arm through Miles’s, as they strolled back towards the street.
‘So any leads?’ Miles asked her. ‘And discoveries?’
‘Yes, actually,’ Anna said. ‘We need to get back to the hotel and Google Erica Barnes.’
Chapter Nine
‘This is ridiculous,’ Liv said out loud, even though she was alone in the flat, clearing the search history from her laptop, just in case anyone ever discovered that she’d been Googling breast implants. What was wrong with her? One pretty dress and a bra stuffed with tissues and suddenly she wanted to be Jordan?
‘Tom is not not marrying you because you are only a C cup,’ she told her reflection in the mirror, a little tipsily, because after the day she’d had, half a bottle of Merlot and no dinner seemed like the only sensible option. ‘He is not marrying you because you are not Anna, you muppet.’
Liv stared at herself in the mirror, the same person, but so entirely different from the one that had been trussed up in the magic wedding dress earlier that day, as she stood there in her red cotton PJs with the cute penguin pattern and her bare feet. In the corner of her bedroom, her little Christmas tree twinkled humbly away in its tub. She had doused it in stringy tinsel and it was a little bit tipsy itself since she’d forgotten to water it for a few days and currently it tilted dangerously to one side. Her little tree and Anna’s monument to all things Christmassy – the tree that stood six feet tall in the living room, perfectly symmetrical, and tastefully decorated to within a inch of its life – could almost be a metaphor for their friendship. Anna, perfect, brilliant, impressive, strong, overcoming adversity Anna, who deserved to be placed in a bay window, curtain constantly drawn back, smugly declaring to the world, ‘Look at me, passers-by, look how perfect I got this ribbon and bauble combination, and then go home and weep at your shoddy approximation of what a Christmas tree should look like.’ And then there was Liv, nice safe middle-class family, never had to struggle for much, or try very hard at school, sensible shoes, no idea what to do with eye shadow, C-cup Liv who if she were a tree would be one that was in the bargain bin at the garden centre, less than a foot high, shoved in a corner where no one could see it and with a tendency to wilt unless she was often watered. That’s why Liv had rescued the little orphaned tree – much to Anna’s horror – because it looked so dowdy and forlorn next to all the others; it reminded Liv of herself.
Liv picked up her glass and took another long draught of wine. The thing was she didn’t resent Anna for the brilliant things she’d done, or the way that she furiously chased whatever she wanted from life, no matter how great the odds were against her. Resentment was the last thing that Liv felt for her friend, her adopted sister. If anything it was probably true that if she hadn’t brought Anna home that Christmas her own life would be much less impressive than it had been. She felt that keenly, even now, boyfriendless and big-boobless as it was. It was Anna who’d spotted her talent in the kitchen and encouraged Liv to develop her skills and confidence, Anna who made her take her CV to all the top kitchens in London and beg for work experience in the fiercely competitive and male-dominated environment. And it had been Anna who’d convinced her that her talent was a strong enough basis for them to start their own business. What saddened Liv was that with all the privileges and comforts she had grown up with, she didn’t nearly have half the drive, ambition, confidence, sheer force of will or cleavage that her best friend had somehow acquired. Also she had a really stupid tendency to fall helplessly in love with men who were completely out of reach, mainly, Liv thought a touch miserably, because the men that were within her reach tended to be short, round and annoying.
When the doorbell sounded, it took Liv a moment or two to uproot herself from her spot on the sofa and trundle haphazardly to the main front door, where she peered through the spyhole to check she hadn’t accidentally ordered a pizza or something and then forgot about it.
‘Oh it’s you,’ she told the small truncated image of a man, who stood on the other side of the door. ‘What are you doing here?’
It occurred her about eight seconds later and on his third insistent pressing of the bell that the best way to answer that question was to answer the door.
‘Oh good, you’re not dead in a ditch then,’ Liv’s brother Simon said as she opened the door, tipping first back with its momentum, and then forwards again into his arms. ‘That text you sent me sounded positively suicidal.’ He cast a withering gaze at Liv and her surroundings. ‘Though clearly I’ve come with only moments to spare.’
‘Did I send you a text?’ Liv asked him, confused. ‘I don’t recall sending you a text.’
‘Probably for the best. Come on, chicken, let’s get you inside and you can tell your big brother why you’re drinking yourself into oblivion in your pyjamas on a Saturday night instead of being out on the town with an array of handsome studs.’
‘So let me get this straight,’ Simon said, pouring Liv another coffee that she still didn’t want. ‘You’re depressed because you put on some Barbie dress and felt fantastic. That’s depressed you? It’s like me when I was seven all over again.’ Simon ruffled her hair, in that annoying way that her family, and ninety-eight per cent of the world, continued to think was appropriate. ‘Darling, it’s OK. You’re a girl, you’re allowed to like looking like a girl, no one will mind. Not even the miserable old feminists mind you putting on a spot of lippy and a bra these days, darling. It’s postmodern, or something.’
‘But that’s … that not really it,’ Liv said. ‘I mean it is, but it isn’t. It’s more that it was only when I was dressed up like her that he … Oh God.’ Liv dropped her forehead onto the kitchen table with an audible crack, which fortunately she was still too inebriated to feel.
‘What? What are you talking about?’ Simon asked her, wrinkling his nose as Liv wiped hers on the sleeve of her pyjamas. ‘You’re not really that upset about Tom seeing you in Anna’s dress, are you? She’ll never know, darling, and, to be honest, I think a pre-existing wife is much more of a bad omen than a bit of unscheduled dress-viewing. Liv, you’ve got to stop beating yourself up over everything. It’s not your fault that Tom is already married. It’s not your fault that Anna’s run off to New York in an act of unparalleled mentalism. It’s not your fault that Tom doesn’t know never to enter a bridal fitting room. None of these things are your fault, sweetheart. Come on now, sober up. It’s Saturday night, I could be out, dancing the night away.’
‘Or in, making sushi and watching Strictly Come Dancing with your husband,’ Liv retorted.
‘OK, darling, let me live the delusion that I’m not completely middle-aged and married for just a little longer,’ Simon replied, mildly. ‘What is it, really?’
‘I can’t tell you,’ Liv sobbed. ‘I’m so pathetic, I hate myself. I mean look at Anna. Look at everything she’s been through, she’s not sobbing at the kitchen table comparing herself to Christmas trees, she’s in New York sorting everything out, kicking ass, being superwoman, while I’m … I’m … here wishing I had bigger boobs so that Tom would have noticed me.’
Liv was dimly aware that she was a very noisy crier, that she didn’t silently sob with big watery eyes like Anna did, that she gurgled, and rattled and heaved and sniffed, that her eyes puffed up to four times their original size and her face went blotchy and red. As her poor confused brother, torn against his will from a rendition of Madam Butterfly on Sky Arts HD, rubbed her shoulders, Liv just knew he was looking at her and wishing with all his heart and soul that she would just blow her nose already.
‘You have a thing for Tom?’ Simon asked her, repeating the phrase a few moments later with an entirely different intonation, this time as it all made perfect sense. ‘You have a thing for Tom, of course you do! You met him first, you became friends, you even wore that dreadful dress to Anna’s party … the party where Anna met Tom! Oh my God, Olivia, you are a tragic heroine from a Victorian novel, without the crinoline!’
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