Divas

by Rebecca Chance

  It was Old World versus New World. In London, you knew who you were. In New York, you knew who you wanted to be.

  “Miss Fitzgerald! Welcome back!” said the black-clad doorman as Lola stepped out of her limo.

  New York boutique hotels: you just couldn’t beat them. There was so much competition that if you rested on your laurels, some other bright spark would nip in to steal your A-list customers with an even sexier, trendier, hip venue. And though Lola always stayed here, at 60 Thompson, she expected a great deal for her loyalty. Immediate recognition by every one of the good-looking black-clad doormen with their throat mikes and sexy Secret Service vibe; her favourite luxury suite, with champagne perfectly chilled in a designer ice bucket; a maid on standby to unpack her suitcases and press anything that needed it; and, of course, in every member of the chic, black-wearing, hyper-attractive staff members, the perfect attitude of friendly but appropriate deference to her social status and her unlimited credit.

  Oh well, at least she had one of those left, Lola thought as the elevator whisked her up to her exquisite suite, all white upholstery and sexy dark polished wood, with a raised mezzanine bedroom with the sweetest little balcony, so romantic. She had never realised how much Virgin first class one-way across the Atlantic actually cost. The woman at the Heathrow ticket office did explain that it wouldn’t be quite so expensive if you booked it in advance, but Lola had just stared at her blankly. She practically never booked anything in advance if she could help it. That would be stressful, because it would mean you were rushing around on someone else’s timetable rather than your own. Lola didn’t think she’d ever advance-booked a plane ticket in her life: there was always a seat in first class available when she needed one. And she’d never bothered about the cost before, as her credit-card bills went directly to her father’s secretary.

  And often she would travel by private plane anyway, which was so much nicer. She sighed, remembering the luxury of the Van der Veer jet, on which she and Jean-Marc had often hopped down to St Barts.

  Anyway, Lola thought regretfully, she had better try to be a little careful with money: that ticket had eaten a larger-than-expected hole in her £35, 000. And 60 Thompson wasn’t cheap . . .

  She poured herself a glass of champagne, pulled out her phone and hit some buttons. It was nine p.m., which meant that downtown would be jumping. One of the reasons Lola always chose 60 Thompson to stay at was that it was the epicentre of the small area of SoHo and Tribeca otherwise known as Eurotrash Central, where all her set hung out. To the west, its boundary was 6th Avenue and the restaurants Bar Pitti and Da Silvano; then it ran down across Broome Street, where a friend of Lola’s lived in an enormous loft and threw parties that were always crammed with supermodels playing pool with rap stars, over Canal to Odeon and the Bubble Lounge on Broadway, where they would slice a champagne bottle open with a sabre if you ordered one expensive enough.

  Lola hit lucky with the second call: there was a posse hanging out at Cip’s Downtown, aka Eurotrash Headquarters. On the next block over, Cipriani’s was so close to 60 Thompson that it practically backed onto it. Fabulous. She’d washed a sleeping pill down with a glass of champagne and crashed out on the lovely flat bed for most of the flight. Right now she was fresh and ready to go – the bubbles were already helping to pick her up – and the maid, bustling away in the bedroom, had mostly unpacked her cases. Lola slipped on a black Hervé Léger that wrapped her slim body like a series of incredibly expensive surgical bandages and a pair of wittily clumpy silver Miu Miu slingbacks, and pinned up her hair. Grabbing a tiny clutch made from baby alligator stomach, she tossed a twenty on the bedroom chest of drawers for the maid, who picked it up gratefully.

  Throwing a dyed sable stole round her shoulders – the sweetest thing, it was the palest buttercup-yellow, silky soft, and quite safe to wear in New York, where the anti-fur protesters were much less vehement than in London – Lola tip-tapped out of the suite and into the lift once again. As the doorman threw open the big glass entrance door for her, she briefly considered taking one of the waiting limos, and then rejected the thought with a rush of virtue. Cipriani Downtown was literally round the corner, after all. She would economise by not being driven. And walking in these shoes wasn’t absolutely impossible . . .

  ‘Lola! Chérie!’ someone called as soon as she entered Cipriani’s.

  ‘Ciao, Lola!’

  ‘Hey, sweetie!’

  The large table, their favourite, was packed with downtown society: international bankers, heirs to hotel empires, Vogue stylists cruising for a rich husband, and the inevitable gossip columnist.

  ‘Welcome back to Eurotrash Central!’ said Thom, a bond trader from Strasbourg, pulling her out a chair.

  Everyone laughed: the joke was on the Americans who, disliking the confidence of the already-rich Europeans who dropped into New York for a few years to make even more money, before heading back to their home countries to crack superior jokes about the lack of sophistication of the American race, had dubbed this circle ‘Eurotrash’. The men were unashamed of looking what Americans would consider homosexual: they sported tight cashmere sweaters, designer stubble, lavish watches and plenty of aftershave, all of which, blended with their sexual confidence, made American straight men extremely insecure and hostile.

  The table was laden with plates: carpaccio with rocket and truffle shavings, artichoke salad, grilled tiger prawn risotto. Light food, which barely anyone had touched.

  ‘Are we all still drinkorexics?’ Lola asked, sitting down and taking the glass of champagne proffered by Thom who, off-duty, was in his usual black polo neck and wire-framed glasses. He wore suits and contact lenses to work, but preferred, away from his desk, to look like a fashionably minimalist architect.

  ‘Just sticking with what works, ’ smiled Mandana, an Iranian-English girl who preferred to be described as Persian, and had superb dark flashing eyes and a magnificently hawkish profile.

  ‘I’m actually hungry, ’ Lola admitted shamefacedly, forking up a piece of rich scarlet carpaccio and allowing herself just a sliver of Parmesan with it, because she was jet-lagged.

  ‘Lola, ’ breathed a gossip columnist, his beady eyes gleaming. ‘Honey, tell us everything! We’ve all seen the British papers online! Has Carin really cut you off? How’s Big Daddy doing? Is he really in a coma?’

  Lola looked around the table. Not only their circle, but most of the people at adjoining tables were leaning forward avidly, desperate for the latest gossip from the horse’s mouth. She took a long sip of champagne, and Thom eagerly leaned forward to refill her glass. At least as long as everyone wants to hear all about my scandals, she suddenly realised, I won’t be picking up a single tab! Wonderful! As well as not taking limos round the corner, this is going to be another great way to economise . . .

  Lola was dreaming, a hectic, upsetting dream in which she was having to climb a huge stack of suitcases, which were wobbling dangerously underfoot. She was in her silver Miu Miu slingbacks, but they weren’t that easy to walk in, let alone climb, and she asked Jean-Marc to help her, but he was too frail, and besides, some awful woman with huge fake melon breasts and cheap dyed hair was pulling him down somewhere she couldn’t see. She tripped on the edge of a suitcase and nearly went flying, but someone caught her. It was Niels van der Veer, glowering down at her, and she tried to shake him off, but he was very strong and they were all tangled up and they rolled around, Lola finding it harder and harder to move. For some reason he kept calling her ‘Miss Fitzgerald, Miss Fitzgerald’, shouting in her ear, tapping on her head, which was all echoey, and then the noise got louder and louder till she gasped and woke up to realise she was tangled in the bedsheets, actually a little sweaty from the nightmare, and someone was knocking on the door of the suite, calling, ‘Miss Fitzgerald? Miss Fitzgerald?’ in a gently persistent tone of voice.

  ‘What is it?’ she called, unpeeling the silk sleep mask from her eyes. Eew, that was sweaty too. She’d have to get the ma
id to hand-wash it.

  ‘Miss Fitzgerald? It’s Tai, the day manager. May I come in?’

  ‘Give me twenty minutes, ’ Lola called back, irritated at being woken like this at the crack of dawn. ‘No, half an hour. And could you bring me a skim-milk cappuccino when you come back?’

  Wincing from a hangover, she climbed out of the deliciously soft bed and padded down from the mezzanine level to draw the floor-to-ceiling curtains. The living-room was two storeys high, and the spring sunshine flooding in was blinding. You forgot how much sun there was in New York when you were used to grey old London. She pinned up her hair carefully, to avoid messing up her blow-out, and took a long shower. By the time the rainforest shower head had done its business, Lola was feeling so revived that she was actually humming to herself as she massaged her BeauBronz tan extender into her smooth skin, wrapped herself cosily in a big white robe and slipped her feet into her cashmere slippers.

  The clock in the living-room said it was past noon. Lola’s eyes widened. And then she looked around the room, beginning to notice the number of empty glasses and overflowing ashtrays stacked on every surface. Memories from the night before started to drip back into her consciousness, one drop at a time, like Chinese water torture. A whole group of them hanging out in the garden at Barolo, which was just below 60 Thompson, wanting to move on, looking up at the roof terrace bar, deciding to go up there. On the terrace, everyone laughing and smoking up a storm, ordering more cocktails, cocooned in a cosy nest of brick walls and lush plants, the New York skyline glittering in the dark velvet sky. Then, being kicked off the terrace, because some stupid neighbours had complained about the noise and made them close the bar at midnight or something ridiculously early. Going down to the hotel bar, but not being able to smoke there, and everyone pretty drunk by this time, not wanting to move too far, so a smaller group of people heading up to her room, where they could smoke . . .

  ‘Miss Fitzgerald?’ The knocking on the door started up again. ‘It’s Tai again, with your cappuccino? Skim milk?’

  Lola crossed the room to open the door, wondering whether the coffee would be enough to cure the slight headache she was suffering, or whether she should go for some codeine.

  ‘Hi!’ Tai said, smiling brightly. She had a very American mixed-race beauty, with pale creamy-gold skin, dark almond eyes and a sprinkling of freckles over the bridge of her tip-tilted nose. Her black outfit, a cheong-sam-inspired shirt over slim black trousers, hung loosely off her slender bones, and her dark chestnut hair was pulled back into a tight ponytail. The archetypal New York career woman, she was extremely slim, dressed all in black, her make-up blending in so perfectly you could hardly tell she was wearing it, every hair smooth and in place.

  ‘I brought you coffee and some fruit, ’ she said, indicating the dark wood tray she was carrying. ‘And we’re just going to clear up a little bit for you.’

  Behind her was a bus boy who slipped into the room, produced a large tray he had been holding discreetly under one arm, and loaded it up with most of the debris from last night, leaving the coffee table free for Tai to deposit Lola’s breakfast upon. Lola sat down on the sofa, sipping her cappuccino, and waited until the bus boy had left, closing the door quietly behind him. Grateful as she was for the coffee, she was beginning to have a bad feeling about this visit.

  ‘So, ’ Tai began, ‘I hope you don’t mind, Miss Fitzgerald, but we were wondering how long you were planning to stay with us.’ She flashed Lola another smile, her teeth dazzlingly white. ‘Of course, we’re always very happy to have you with us – you’re welcome to stay as long as you want! We’ve had guests who settle in for months on end!’

  ‘I don’t understand, ’ Lola said, reaching for a blueberry. ‘Can’t I just stay on and let you know when I’m leaving? I mean, I’m not sure now how long I’ll be here.’

  ‘Of course you can!’ Tai’s teeth flashed again. ‘That’s exactly why I’m here! We just need to talk it over and decide how often you’re going to settle your running expenses. Once a week is usual for our longer-stay guests.’

  ‘Running expenses?’ Lola had clearly not had enough coffee yet.

  ‘Your bill, ’ Tai clarified.

  There was a long pause.

  ‘You said a week, ’ Lola said, feeling her way, ‘and I’ve only been here four days—’

  ‘Five days, actually, ’ Tai corrected her with a little smile.

  ‘Really? It’s been five days?’ Lola said, shocked.

  Lola still hadn’t been to visit her father. Or George, the lawyer. Every morning (or noon) she’d woken up and told herself that today was the day: she wasn’t going to put things off any more. She was going to ring Carin, arrange a time to go and see her father. But after making that brave resolution, her nerve dwindled. She was intimidated by Carin, to be honest. She always had been. And since Carin had cut her off from her trust fund, she had become even more scary, because someone who had the nerve to do something that unpleasant to her stepdaughter was a person who clearly didn’t care what anyone thought of her, and those people were very difficult to fight.

  She didn’t want to see George, not really, because she knew that if he’d had good news he would have rung her with it immediately, and so when she went into his office he would tell her a lot of things she didn’t want to hear. And she didn’t want to see her father, because the mere idea of seeing Daddy lying helpless in a bed, unconscious, hooked up to a lot of tubes, was so awful that it brought tears to her eyes just thinking about it.

  Lola had been living in a bubble for the past four – five – days, partying and shopping and clubbing and resolutely pushing aside any thoughts of the crisis she was in, all the trouble that was brewing overhead for her. But now, as she looked at Tai the day manager, and the envelope that Tai had propped up on the tray, which Lola had vaguely thought before might contain messages for her taken by the front desk, she realised that her bubble was about to burst.

  ‘It wouldn’t normally be hotel policy to have this conversation with a valued guest after only a few days, ’ Tai was saying, ‘so I do apologise for that. But there have been, ahem, mentions in the papers about some difficulties you may be having with, ahem, funding issues. . . and then there was that party last night, which did run up quite a substantial tab to your room account . . .’

  Oh my God, Lola thought in horror, all of that got billed to me? I thought Thom was covering it! Shit! Drinks at the upstairs bar, all those little nibbles people had ordered to pick at . . . the cocktails downstairs, the bottles of vodka they’d had brought into the room, even sending out for cigarettes . . .

  ‘So we just thought, why not give you a statement of your account now, ’ Tai said, ‘and you can settle that at your convenience. Then we can just roll over to a weekly bill? Does that work for you?’

  Tai was as smiling and friendly as ever. But the last sentence was only there for politeness’ sake, as were the question marks. Lola might not have had enough coffee – and not nearly enough codeine, as her headache was now raging – but she could tell that much.

  ‘I’ll drop off a cheque at the front desk when I come down, ’ she said bravely.

  And then Lola could tell, by the slight widening of Tai’s eyes, that she had made a huge, and possibly fatal, mistake. Nobody paid with a cheque any more. Lola had had to get temporary cheques from her bank, because none of her cards worked any more; but someone who could afford to stay for an indefinite time at 60 Thompson was the kind of person who had cards with a pretty much unlimited line of credit. If Lola couldn’t manage that, if she had to pay by cheque either because she had cards with a low limit, or, even worse, no cards at all, she was not the kind of person whom an expensive boutique hotel wanted as a long-term guest.

  ‘That would be great, ’ Tai said, professionalism enabling her to keep her composure. She pushed back her chair and stood up. ‘I’m so sorry to have bothered you like this, Miss Fitzgerald.’

  ‘Oh, not at all, ’ Lola sai
d brightly. ‘Could you get them to send me up another cup of coffee, by the way?’

  ‘Of course, ’ Tai said, smiling automatically. ‘Skim milk again?’

  Lola nodded.

  ‘I’ll see myself out, ’ Tai said.

  As the door closed behind her, Lola grabbed for the envelope and ripped it open. The three pages of closely printed items on the bill were an ominous detailing of charges that horrified her, with a final sum that was so enormous it would take a huge chunk out of the bank balance that had looked relatively healthy when she arrived in New York and deposited horrible Niels’ cheque. How much was dry-cleaning nowadays? How could they charge that much for laundry? Had she really spent that much on water? And, oh God oh God oh God, how had they possibly managed to run up a steep four-figure bar bill last night?

  She did a quick calculation. Cocktails at eighteen dollars apiece, 20 per cent service, bottles of vodka for so much money it sent a shiver down her spine. . . God, it was all too possible. Then her eye fell on the charges for her regular morning coffee, and she couldn’t believe it. She was paying that much for coffee? Surely you could get a cappuccino for much less than that from Starbucks. Couldn’t you? Was it too late to ring down to room service and cancel that second cappuccino, save some money that way?