From Notting Hill to New York . . . Actually (11 page)

Jamie and Max both laugh. ‘No,’ Max says. ‘Not the ex-rapper, now actor and producer Mark Wahlberg. This guy is called Mark L. Walberg. Same name, different spelling.’

‘Oh right,’ I blush. ‘Sorry.’

‘It’s fine,’ Jamie smiles. ‘I bet he gets it all the time.’

‘I bet he wishes he got rapper Wahlberg’s wages, though!’ Max jokes. ‘They’re worth a lot more than anything you’ll find on that Roadshow.’

‘So I’ll have a word with my friend about your brooch,’ Jamie continues, ‘and see if Harry knows anyone that might be an expert in such matters, you know, fakes rather than the real thing.’

‘That’s very kind of you.’ I smile at them both. ‘I’m so glad I came to Tiffany’s today. I should have
known it would help me in some way.’

‘You never know,’ Jamie says, ‘you might be able to help us out too. This could make a good story, if you were interested in being on
Morning Sunshine
.’

Hmm … at least it would be on a different channel, and I’d actually be appearing as myself this time.
‘Of course I would. Sure, that sounds great.’

‘Right, well, let’s swap numbers and I’ll be in touch.’ Jamie gets out his iPhone. ‘It seems like bumping into you today, Scarlett, could be pretty beneficial for both of us.’

That evening, to make up
for ‘abandoning me’ during the day, Oscar takes me for dinner at Serendipity 3, the eclectically decorated restaurant made famous in the movie of the same name. This, of course, pleases me greatly.

‘What are you doing on that phone, Scarlett?’ Oscar asks, putting down his menu for a moment to see what I’m up to. ‘For heaven’s sake, you’re supposed to be choosing your rather yummy, by the looks of this fabby menu, dinner.’

‘I’m seeing if there’s a Wi-Fi signal in here,’ I say, furiously tapping at my iPhone.

‘Why do you want Wi-Fi in a restaurant, darling?’

‘Because I haven’t tweeted today, and I want to find out what’s going
on back home. I’ve had to switch off data roaming while I’m here, or it will cost me a fortune.’

Oscar looks amused. ‘The last time I used anything called “data roaming” over the internet I met a Greek chap called Cosmo. He didn’t speak much English but he had a very big—’

‘Oscar!’

‘I was going to say kebab shop, actually. Just off the Edgware Road.’

‘Hmm …’ I narrow my eyes at him. ‘Moving on … how was Jen?’ I almost say this through gritted teeth. But I manage to turn it into a smile of sorts.

‘She’s very well, thank you. She’s working as a PA to the boss of one of New York’s top fashion houses now. Oh, you should see her, Scarlett, she does look the business in all her finery. Very Carrie Bradshaw, she is. I’m so proud.’

My menu suddenly becomes infinitely absorbing. I give up on the internet and put my phone back in my bag. I’ll tweet later on the hotel’s free Wi-Fi. ‘That’s great. Good for her. Let’s order, shall we?’ I say with newfound enthusiasm, keen not to talk about the ‘fabulous’ Jen any more.

‘So, darling, what did you get up to today?’ Oscar asks after we’ve studied the sumptuous menu for a good few minutes and finally placed our order. ‘Were you a tad lonely all by yourself?’

‘Actually no, I had a lovely time strolling
along Fifth Avenue in the morning, and then in the afternoon I met some people outside Tiffany’s.’

‘Oh
yes
?’ Oscar pricks up his ears. ‘Outside Tiffany’s, eh? Were they rich and dripping with diamonds?’

‘Hardly. They work in television.’

Oscar opens his eyes wide and blinks at me. ‘Television, how fabulous! Are they famous American stars?’

I laugh now. ‘No, they’re both from the UK, actually; they work for one of our breakfast TV shows.’

‘God, not the one you were banned from?’

‘I wasn’t banned! I was just asked to leave the building on that occasion.’

Oscar opens his eyes even wider. ‘OK, OK.’ He holds his hands up in submission. ‘I’m not going down that U bend with you now. So who are these TV types, then?’

‘They’re not from
Wake Up Britain
, they’re from the other one,
Morning Sunshine
, and they were filming a piece outside Tiffany’s. I helped them by answering some questions.’

‘Cool.’ Oscar takes a first sip from his glass of Serendipity’s infamous frozen hot chocolate that the waiter has just brought us both. ‘Oh my days, Scarlett, this is to die for. Quick, try yours, darling, it’s heavenly!’

I take a sip of my own frozen hot chocolate. An odd
combination to achieve, you’d think. But Oscar’s right: it is indeed heavenly.

‘So what are they like?’ Oscar asks after we’ve enjoyed a couple of minutes of pure chocolate indulgence. ‘These TV bods.’

‘Really nice. They took me for coffee in Starbucks, and I told them all about the brooch and they’ve offered to help me.’ I tell Oscar what happened in Tiffany’s, and then what Jamie had said about his contact.

‘That’s good of them,’ Oscar says, his eyes narrowing. ‘What do they want in return?’

‘Nothing. Well, they might want to run a story about it, if it turns out to be anything interesting, that’s all.’

‘Hmm, I knew there’d have to be something in it for them. You can’t trust these televisual types, Scarlett; I’ve met them before. Especially not journalists.’

‘Jamie’s not a journalist, he’s a correspondent, and Max is a cameraman. They’re hardly tabloid hacks.’

‘Oh,’ Oscar says pointedly, his mouth forming a big O. ‘They’re both
men
, are they?’

‘Yeah, and what of it?’

‘Scarlett, you’re a pretty girl in a foreign town …’

‘That sounds like the tagline from a movie.’ I put on a deep voice. ‘She was just a pretty girl in a foreign town …’

‘Don’t mock me, darling. I’m only looking out for you.’

‘Oscar, they’re both harmless. Max is
really down to earth and funny, and Jamie, he’s, well …’ I pause. How do I describe Jamie? I stir my straw around in the remnants of my chocolate for a moment.

‘He’s what?’ Oscar prompts.

‘He’s just all right, that’s all. I don’t know how I know this, Oscar, but I do.’

Oscar raises his eyebrows. ‘Scarlett …’

‘What? Look, you can come along and meet them when they get in touch next, if you want.’

Oscar nods approvingly. ‘I think I might just do that. My man radar is pretty accurate. Even with straight men. They are straight, right?’ he adds as an afterthought.

‘I think so. Funny, we didn’t really get around to discussing our sexual preferences.’

‘Didn’t you?’ Oscar looks shocked. ‘That’s usually one of the first topics of conversation when I meet a stranger in Starbucks.’

Next morning, I’m up
and out of the hotel early and heading towards the Empire State Building. As I stride happily along the streets, I think about Sean and the conversation we’ve just had on the phone. Sean had been very eager to hear all about my first day in New York and what I’d got up to. And I’d told him most of what I’d done, strangely skirting around the TV issue for some reason. I hadn’t
not
told him, I’d just been sparing with the details after what Oscar had said about Max and Jamie both being men. Instead, I’d given him much more to worry about when I’d told him all about Fleet Week in the city and the hordes of sailors we were expecting to see while we were here. And, as I’d suspected, that subject had immediately relegated
any other topic of conversation to the bottom of the ‘non-urgent’ pile.

As I find myself on the junction of East 34th Street and Fifth Avenue, I see the Empire State Building towering up before me in all her glory. A doyenne of the New York skyline for so long, it’s odd to see her standing here squeezed in among all the shops and restaurants that line the streets below. I feel as though something as prominent and important as this should be set aside away from everything else, so that she can be admired for all her art deco beauty, not squashed at the corner of a busy street for dogs to pee on and litter to be scattered at the foot of.

I enter through the door at the foot of the building and am at once surrounded by yet more art deco wonder, immediately drawing me back to a bygone age of Hollywood splendour, of Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire swirling around a dance floor.

‘Excuse me,’ a woman with a foreign accent says, barging me out of the way as she pushes past and heads for the ticket desk.

I suddenly remember why I’ve got up so early to get here. I need to do all the big tourist attractions in New York early, or the queues will get really long later on. I break away from waltzing with Fred and hurry along behind her, following her up to buy a ticket on the first floor. We wind our way around
a long series of roped areas, reminding me very much of the queueing system at Disneyland Paris, and I’m thankful again for setting my alarm early this morning when I realise just how long the queues can get here. After I’ve paid for my ticket, there’s yet another set of ropes and a small queue to wait for the lifts to take us up to the observation deck.

The lifts are tiny, and as we all excitedly squeeze into one and whizz up to the eighty-sixth floor, I watch in amazement as the numbers flash past on a little counter above the doors, measuring our journey to the top. When we arrive and the doors part for us to exit the lift, I’m surprised at just how small the observation deck seems. I’ve watched
Sleepless in Seattle
more times than I care to admit, and Meg Ryan would have whizzed around in a couple of minutes and immediately known Tom Hanks wasn’t up here waiting for her.

Even though it’s still early, the deck is already pretty packed with tourists. Thankfully today, unlike when I ventured to the top of the Eiffel Tower last year on my own, it’s not filled with loving young couples canoodling in every corner. In fact, as I gradually make my way around each side of the observation deck, it becomes increasingly noisy and boisterous. I turn a corner onto the east side of the deck and am stunned to see
a gang of young men in the process of stripping off their clothes and folding them neatly into piles on the floor.

I can’t help but stop and stare at them as one by one they pull from their bags what look like big black hairy rugs. I’m not the only one: they’re starting to draw a small crowd of onlookers who, for a few minutes, are distracted from gazing out at the incredible views of Manhattan and the surrounding area and are watching what’s going on on the observation deck itself.

The men begin to pull on the rugs, and I realise they’re not rugs at all but costumes, monkey costumes – no – as one speedy chap get his head on first, gorilla costumes.

‘Do you know what they do?’ an elderly oriental woman standing next to me asks.

‘Yes,’ I smile knowingly. ‘I do, actually. They’re all dressing up as King Kong.’

‘But why they do that?’

‘Because of the movie,’ I explain. ‘You know, the part where King Kong climbs to the top of the Empire State Building and then battles with all the planes?’

She looks at me with uncertainty. ‘King Kong, he is a monkey?’

‘No, he’s a gorilla, but a really big one. Oh, I need to get photos of this. It will look great on Twitter!’ I begin snapping pictures of the
dozen or so men now all dressed as King Kong.

‘You guys need a girl,’ someone shouts from the crowd. ‘To kidnap!’

The apes all beat their chests in agreement and begin lolloping around the assembled crowd in search of an appropriate victim. Thank God I don’t have blond hair, I murmur to myself, thinking of Fay Wray in the original movie, and oh, who was the actress in the recent remake?

While I’m desperately trying to think of her name, I realise three gorillas are now poised in front of me, beating their chests.

I shake my head and point at my black hair.

Gorilla number one pulls a curly blond wig from behind his back.

I shake my head again. I’m not sure why I don’t just speak; it’s as if I think they’re real gorillas, incapable of understanding English.

The crowd begins to clap, slow rhythmical claps supposed to encourage me to join in with this nonsense. ‘Come on, gorgeous,’ someone shouts, ‘play nice and put on the wig. The guys have gone to all this trouble, they need a girl to finish the job off properly.’

What did he think they were going to do up here? Hang over the edge of the viewing platform with me dangling under one of their hairy
arms, about to fall to my doom?

‘All right, I’ll wear the wig so you can take a photo, but that’s it, OK?’ I grab the blond wig from the gorilla and tuck my long black hair underneath it. Then I shove my camera at the guy that shouted out. ‘Can you take a photo for me then, since you were so keen for me to do this?’

I stand with the King Kongs and have my photo taken in a traditional pose. Then one of them whispers through his mask, ‘This is all for charity, ma’am. Do you think we could pick you up and make it look like we’re running off with you?’

‘What charity?’ I whisper back into his wrinkled rubber face.

‘A children’s home in the Bronx.’

I sigh. ‘OK then, but make it quick.’

I let the gorillas lift me up and hold me sideways across their hairy arms, like one of those bridal shots of the male wedding party all holding the bride up. Then we do a couple of photos of me pretending to run away with a pack of hairy gorillas chasing after me, and me pretending to scream while they lift me up in the air above their heads. By the end of it I’m actually quite enjoying myself, but I don’t let on.

When we eventually come to the end of the photo shoot, one
of the gorillas pulls off his head and passes me back my camera. The chap I’d given it to originally had got bored after the first set of photos and moved on.

‘Thank you, ma’am,’ he says, smoothing his cropped blond hair. ‘You’ve really helped us out. We were offered more sponsorship if we found a willing young lady to take on the Ann Darrow role. The guys back on the ship will have to pay up big time now.’

‘The ship?’ I look back at him enquiringly. Then I notice the other King Kongs are now stripping off their costumes and dressing in naval uniforms. I’d been so surprised to find men undressing at the top of the Empire State Building, let alone fit-looking ones, that I hadn’t really noticed what they were undressing out of. ‘Oh, you’re sailors!’