Hearing the gabble of her friends’ voices now, Lola ran down the rest of the stairs and into the big drawing-room. Pausing in the doorway for an instant, mostly to let her poor aching eyes accustom themselves to the bright sunlight pouring in through the bow windows that gave onto the garden, she took in the scene. This room, too, was done in pale yellows and golds, with hints of baby blue. Devon had insisted on having the house completely redecorated when she and Piers moved in: she wanted it to be a perfect frame for her. The result was a life-size jewellery box in which Devon sparkled, her big blue eyes bright as aquamarines, her wheat-blonde hair matching the gilded furniture. Piers, a big slab of British beef, fair-haired, blue-eyed and pink-cheeked, was too large for the delicate furniture, but at least he suited the décor.
Even now, despite Lola’s current misery, she had a moment of complete appreciation for the picture Devon made in a camel cashmere-blend T-shirt and slim beige jeans, lounging on one of the twin primrose silk sofas, a cigarette dangling from her fingers, fine gold bangles clinking on her wrist. Madison and Georgia, on the other sofa, were also clad in versions of the same chic leisure wear: Georgia in a green silk sweater, to set off her flaming red hair and white skin, Madison in a white T-shirt, her famously endless legs clad in jeans specially treated to be as soft as suede and just as expensive.
On the coffee table between the sofas were a couple of copies of the Evening Standard, but the main focus of attention was the screen of Devon’s white laptop, together with half-drunk glasses of champagne, a plate of strawberries and another one of edamame beans. A big silver ice bucket was strategically placed next to the coffee table, within easy reach, and the room was fuggy with cigarette smoke, rising in fragile white curls above the sofas. The girls were so absorbed in chatter they didn’t notice Lola’s entrance.
‘What is she going to do? So humiliating!’ Georgia exclaimed eagerly, pushing back her heavy red curls with both hands.
‘I know, ’ Madison drawled, leaning forward to click on the keyboard. She took a long drag on her Silk Cut Ultra, reading what had come up on the screen. ‘I’m so glad now I didn’t fuck Jean-Marc, think what I might have caught –’
‘Oh God, ’ Devon gasped. ‘She’ll have to get every test there is! That tranny looks riddled with disease in the photos!’
They all bent forward to peer at the computer screen. Lola felt tears pricking her eyes.
‘Is it all true?’ she asked, taking a few steps into the room, onto the priceless Aubusson rug.
Dead silence fell as they all swivelled to look at her.
‘Jesus, Lola, you look like shit on a stick, ’ Madison said frankly.
‘Do I?’
Lola crossed the room to examine herself in the gigantic gilt-framed mirror hanging over the fireplace. Although it was age-misted enough to give a flatteringly softened reflection, she still screamed when she saw herself. Her make-up was halfway down her cheeks, her hair was a tangled mess and her eyes were redder than twin traffic lights. Even her skin looked sallow.
‘Here, ’ Georgia said, holding out a glass of champagne. ‘Medicine.’
‘I need painkillers, ’ Lola said, collapsing on the sofa next to Georgia and taking the glass.
‘Here you go, ’ Madison said, rootling in her Bottega Veneta bag. After the rattling noise that Madison always made going through the pill section, she produced an orange prescription vial with a white lid and handed it to Lola.
‘Vicodin. Take two, ’ she said. ‘Fantastic with champagne. You’ll be on Cloud Nine in no time.’
Lola downed them immediately.
‘How did I get here?’ she said feebly. ‘I fainted at my neighbour’s, didn’t I?’
‘Ugh.’ Devon made a face. ‘She got my number out of your phone and rang me. Horrible. Lots of “Your Grace’s” this and “Your Ladyship’s” that. So nouveau. We sent the car for you and apparently she was standing in the mews yelling, “Out of the way for the Marchioness of Claverford’s chauffeur!” at the top of her lungs, so that everyone knew who was visiting. Foul woman. You really owe me, Lo.’
Lola’s head was still hurting so badly she couldn’t take everything in.
‘Why was she having to yell “Out of the way?”’ she asked, sensing she wasn’t going to enjoy the answer.
Devon’s big blue eyes had not been Botoxed recently, as was evident by the amount they were able to widen.
‘Because of the paps, of course!’ she exclaimed.
‘They’re surrounding the front of the house, didn’t you know?’ Madison drawled, shaking out her long golden mane. ‘They followed the Bentley here.’
‘They got a lot of photos of the driver carrying you into the car, ’ Georgia said.
Her blood running cold, Lola sculled the rest of her champagne and reached for the Evening Standard.
‘Lo?’ Devon said. ‘You might want to wait till the Vicodin kicks in before you look at that . . .’
But Lola was already scanning the cover, barely able to breathe for shock. This was the later edition, and the photograph of Jean-Marc on the stretcher was now shrunk down to make space for the main one – the transsexual in whose apartment Jean-Marc had overdosed.
There are some transsexuals in the world who look even more beautiful than the most stunning of women. Gay fashion designers and Donatella Versace dream of their creations being worn only by Thai ladyboys, with their exquisite features, their improbably full and high breasts, and their narrow, narrow hips. And if Jean-Marc’s transsexual, Patricia, had looked like Donatella Versace’s ideal fashion model, Lola thought that she might have been able to bear the humiliation slightly better.
This one, however, resembled a reader’s wife photo from Razzle magazine.
Patricia’s bosoms were the size of footballs and placed so high on the ribcage that she could barely see over them. The Adam’s apple had been shaved, too. Her hair was dyed a harsh dark brown, clearly by herself out of a packet, and her pores were so big they’d probably have been visible from the moon. Patricia had been caught by the photographer clutching together – not very successfully – the edges of a ratty velour dressing gown, coming down the steps of her housing estate, following the paramedics carrying Jean-Marc’s stretcher. Concrete, stained, windswept, covered in graffiti, with a group of jeering hoodies making V-signs at the camera from one of the crumbling walkways, the estate looked, compared to the luxury of the Claverford mansion, like the seventh circle of hell.
‘She looks like a total whore, ’ Georgia observed.
‘A total whore crossed with a really rough cleaning lady, ’ Devon added.
‘She doesn’t even look like a whore, ’ Madison sighed. ‘She looks like an Eastern European madam who pimps out her daughters. I mean, who’d pay to get with that?’
‘My fiancé!’ Lola sobbed, breaking down in tears.
Madison wordlessly shook out another white pill and handed it to Lola, who managed to control her tears enough to swallow it obediently. The doorbell rang, and was answered by Devon’s housekeeper, Josefina. As the door opened, there was an uproar from outside, shouts from the gathered paparazzi of, ‘Lola! Come out and talk to us!’ ‘Lola, have you heard from Jean-Marc?’ ‘Come on, Lola, at least give us a photo!’
India rushed into the room.
‘I brought London Nite!’ she cried, brandishing a copy of the freebie paper. ‘Wait till you see the cover!’ Then she spotted Lola, and her face fell. ‘Lo! I didn’t think you’d be up yet! Um—’ She made a ridiculously clumsy attempt at hiding the paper behind her back.
Lola held out her hand, still crying.
‘India, don’t—’ Devon started.
‘Ah, come on, ’ Madison drawled. ‘The Vicodin’ll kick in any second now.’
Lola was beginning to feel light-headed. India crossed the room to give her the paper, saying dubiously:
‘Maybe it’s best just to, you know, see it all at once and get it over with . . .’
But, unfolding
London Nite, Lola wasn’t so sure. It was worse than she could possibly have imagined. Devon’s driver hadn’t, as she had thought, carried her out of Raisin-Face’s house in his arms: he’d slung her over his shoulder in a fireman’s lift. And the photographers had had a field day with that. The photo on the front of the paper was mainly of her bottom, the combination of her white jeans and the upwards angle making it look mortifyingly enormous. The sandal with the snapped heel dangled off her foot. She looked like a broken-down doll. With a big white bottom.
‘What’s the headline?’ Devon asked.
‘Um . . .’ India looked as though she’d rather be anywhere than there. ‘IT’S ALL GONE ARSE UP FOR LOLA!’ she mumbled eventually. ‘I’m so sorry, Lola . . .’
‘Oh, Jesus, ’ Madison said.
A trilling from one of the phones on the table made Lola jump: she recognised her ring.
‘It’s been going madly, ’ Georgia said. ‘We haven’t answered it . . .’
Lola grabbed the phone and checked the number. Her father’s lawyer, George Goldman! Trusty George, who had worked for Daddy longer than Lola could remember, the very person Daddy had always told Lola to ring if she ran into any trouble. Just the person she needed to talk to! Eagerly, she pressed the key to answer and babbled:
‘George! Hi, it’s me!’
‘Lola? Honey, how you doing?’
No matter how upmarket George’s legal practice was, he’d never lost his New Jersey accent completely. Benny, Lola’s father, had always respected him for that: Benny was a Jersey boy made good too.
‘Oh George!’ It was actually, Lola realised, very hard to answer the question of how she was doing. Her vicious headache was fading, but still present, overlaid and muddled up by the champagne and the Vicodin, which was definitely beginning to have an effect. The combination made her feel as if someone were driving nails into her head, but had been kind enough to replace her brains with cotton-wool first.
‘I don’t know where to start!’ she said hopelessly. ‘Daddy – Jean-Marc – I’m locked out of my house—’
‘You’re locked out of your house?’ George sounded baffled.‘Jeez, Lola, call a locksmith!’
‘No, you don’t understand! I rang Daddy because the key didn’t work and Carin answered his phone and she says she has power of attorney and my house is in Daddy’s name, or the name of one of his companies, so she’s not letting me in, and my credit cards are being declined—’
‘Shit, ’ George said. ‘This isn’t good.’
In her entire time of running to George with problems, this was the only time that Lola had ever heard George say those words. From a long way away – wow, the Vicodin really had kicked in – she felt her heart sink to her stomach.
‘You mean she can do this?’ Lola gasped.
‘Lola, baby, I don’t know! Your dad – or I should say Carin – fired me six months ago! Didn’t anyone tell you?’
Lola sagged back into the soft sofa cushions.
‘No!’
The idea of George no longer working for her father was almost blasphemous, like hearing that God had told the Holy Ghost that its services would no longer be required.
‘Uh-huh. Carin finally got to him. She had some fancy Park Avenue guy all lined up instead a me.’
Lola flashed for a second on George’s offices, the whole floor of a nondescript Manhattan building on 36th Street between 6th and 7th Avenues. It was a shitty, ugly block, lined with delivery trucks, dumpsters and lost tourists wandering in circles, looking for Macy’s. But George, and Benny, liked it that way. What was the point in spending big money on Park Avenue office space when you didn’t need to?
‘But Carin didn’t just sack you because you weren’t on Park Avenue, ’ Lola said weakly.
‘Honey!’ George sighed. ‘I know you’re in shock, but you gotta wake up! Carin’s clearly got some shyster to draw her up a power of attorney, and now your dad’s’ – he paused – ‘um, temporarily out of circulation, she’s calling all the shots! That’s why I’m on the phone with you now! You want me to act for you?’
Lola’s face brightened.
‘Oh George, would you?’
‘Of course! You nuts! We gotta find out what’s going on here!’ His voice became even more serious. ‘But Lola, baby, things could be pretty bad for a while. You know how your trust fund works?’
‘Um, it gives me money?’ Lola suggested hopefully.
‘It’s all administered by your dad, ’ George continued. ‘He’s the sole trustee. I did tell him he ought to give you more responsibility, but he wouldn’t listen to me.’
‘So how come Carin got him to give her power of attorney?’ Lola said. ‘That means she controls everything, right?’
‘Exactly.’ George sighed. ‘And she must have got him to make her a co-trustee too, otherwise she couldn’t control your trust fund. OK, here’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to fax over to you a letter confirming you’re hiring me to act for you. You sign it and send it right back to me. I’ll get onto this new lawyer now and get a look at that power of attorney, check everything out, see if we can find any way to get your trust fund under your control, or at least give you access to it.’
‘Oh God, that would be great.’ Lola sagged with relief. ‘But what about Daddy? I need to find out how he is!’
‘You hafta come to New York as soon as you can, ’ George said.
‘I know! But Jean-Marc – my fiancé – he’s in hospital here, he just overdosed, I need to go and visit him as well—’
‘Oh Lola. Honey. I don’t know what to say. He going to be OK?’
‘I don’t know – I have to ring the hospital—’
‘You got some good friends around you, honey?’ George sounded really worried. ‘Maybe you should call your mom—’
‘No!’ Lola looked at her four girlfriends, lounging on the sofas, listening avidly to her side of the conversation. India had already finished the edamame beans and had started on the strawberries. God, that girl was such a pig. ‘I’ve got really good friends here, George. They’re taking great care of me.’
Devon and Madison raised their champagne flutes to her. Georgia, who was sitting in the bay window, talking on her mobile, wiggled her fingers at Lola. And India gave her a lovely big smile, her teeth only slightly stained by the strawberries.
Going in search of Josefina, Lola tracked her down in the kitchen and handed her the phone so she could sort out the whole fax situation, something Lola couldn’t remotely have coped with at the best of times. Then she returned to the living-room.
‘So, ’ Madison said, her green eyes glinting. ‘Tell us all about Jean-Marc! Did you know? What kind of stuff did you guys do? I had no idea he was that filthy!’
‘What?’ Lola stared at her, uncomprehending.
‘Well, you know, if he’s into trannies—’
But Devon had already read Lola’s expression.
‘You didn’t know anything, did you?’ she exclaimed. ‘Oh my God, you must be in total shock right now!’
‘Oh Lola, poor you, ’ India whispered, her pretty round moon-face, framed by light-brown curls, genuinely sympathetic.
‘So did he just have totally vanilla sex with you?’ Madison continued, her perfectly shaped eyebrows raised.
‘Under the covers with the lights off?’ Georgia added.
‘Missionary?’ Devon capped it off, as the girls fell about in hysterics.
‘We didn’t actually have sex that much, ’ Lola said simply. She was halfway through her second glass of champagne, and, as Madison had said, the combination of fizz and Vicodin on an empty stomach was making her feel increasingly dissociated from reality.
The laughter stopped as if it had been turned off at the mains.
‘What?’ Devon said, baffled.
‘We didn’t actually have sex that much.’ Lola took another swig of champagne. ‘We sort of did at the beginning, but neither of us were that into it, so after a while, we didn’t bother
.’
They were staring at her, speechless.
‘Frankly, I’ve always thought sex was really messy, ’ Lola continued. ‘All that humping and fussing and getting sweaty, and then you’re lying in a—’
‘Sticky, oozy mess, ’ India contributed, pulling a face.
‘Exactly, ’ Lola said gratefully. ‘I never really liked it, even before Jean-Marc. I hate when men caress you and look into your eyes and do slow kisses all over you for hours, you know? Besides, sex messes up my hair. Actually, that’s why we stopped. We did it once and I’d had my hair put up for a charity auction we were going to afterwards and my hair got pulled around, and honestly, I don’t know who was crosser about it, me or Jean-Marc. So after that we’d sort of joke, “Oh, no, careful of my hair!” and not bother any more. We were really happy, ’ she added sadly. ‘I mean, we’d cuddle together and hold hands, and that was perfect.’
The girls were gaping like groupers packed in ice on a fishmonger’s slab.
‘But what did you do to get off?’ Georgia asked.
‘Oh, I’ve got a vibrator, ’ Lola said cheerfully.
‘And I think we all know what Jean-Marc did!’ Devon said, tapping the cover of the Evening Standard. ‘Miss Patricia from Kennington!’
‘How could he?’ Lola shuddered.
She jumped up.
‘I’m going to the hospital, ’ she announced. ‘I have to find out what’s going on with Jean-Marc.’
‘We’ll all go with you!’ Devon said, rising too, as all the girls snatched for their handbags. No one was going to be left behind: the opportunity to be right in the epicentre of the biggest scandal in years was far too good for them to miss.
‘You can’t go like that, ’ Madison said, surveying Lola from head to toe. ‘You’re a wreck. You’ll be on the cover of every paper tomorrow morning looking like a soap star coming home from an all-night bender with some football players.’
Divas Page 6
