Divas (8 page)

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.’

Georgia sucked in her breath.

‘Harsh but true, ’ she confirmed.

Devon grabbed Lola’s hand.

‘Come upstairs with me, ’ she commanded. ‘I know
just
the right supportive-but-hurt fiancée outfit for you to wear. I’m thinking Elizabeth Hurley just after
Hugh Grant got caught with that hooker on the Sunset Strip . . .’

‘Lola! Over here!’

‘Lola! It’s Richie from the
Mail!
Did you know about Jean-Marc’s drug addiction?’

‘Lola, are you going to forgive him?’

‘Lola! Devon! Can we get you both together, girls?’

Devon had decided that Elizabeth Hurley’s Hugh-Grant-forgiving outfit – all white, with a large crucifix at the throat – might just be overkill, especially as the London sun
was considerably fainter than the LA one. She had dressed Lola in black trousers and a polo-neck, worn under a short white trenchcoat, cinched at the waist with a wide black leather belt. Since
Lola’s Jimmy Choos were ruined, Devon had lent her a pair of black patent Gina boots, which Lola had had to stuff at the toes with toilet paper, as Devon’s feet were a size bigger
(something Devon hadn’t been very happy to discover).

Lola’s golden hair was pinned back in a deliberately dishevelled chignon at the back of her head – ‘Not
too
tidy, ’ Madison had cautioned. ‘If she’s
too pulled together everyone will hate her’ – and large black sunglasses completed the look. Devon had helped Lola do very discreet make-up, just enough to make her skin flawless for
the photographs, but not so much that it seemed as though she cared what she looked like. Lola applied a final coat of pale pink lipstick just before they climbed out of the Claverfords’
Bentley.

‘Fab, ’ Georgia said approvingly. ‘Very Grace Kelly.’