Going La La (26 page)

‘Hmm, maybe not. It looks a bit common.’ Rita was about to shove the dress back on the rail when an assistant materialised by her side and eased it from her grasp, as if removing something precious from a sticky-fingered toddler. ‘I’m afraid we’re closing,’ she hissed in a thick Mafia accent.

‘You’re joking? Already?’ She turned to Frankie in surprise. ‘What time is it?’

Frankie caught a look from the assistant that came straight out of
GoodFellas
. ‘Time to go.’

‘I never did like all that safety-pinned stuff anyway,’ huffed Rita after being ushered to the door, which Lurch had closed firmly behind them. Ruffled, she lit a cigarette and, standing with her hands on her hips, glared down Rodeo Drive, smoke billowing out of her nostrils like a dragon. ‘At that price you’d think they’d at least be able to afford bloody zips.’

‘Hurry up. It’s nearly seven o’clock.’ Knackered, Frankie sat cross-legged on the changing-room floor. She’d lost count of how many shops they’d been in, but Rita had promised her this would be the last. ‘At this rate we’re never going to get to the party.’ She leaned back against the floor-length mirror.

‘Won’t be a sec.’ Rita’s voice wafted out from behind a curtain. After all that walking, her feet had swollen up inside her Perspex mules like loaves in the oven and, being lazy, she’d attempted to take off her trousers without taking off her shoes first. As a result, her trousers were now firmly wedged, inside out, around the stiletto heels. ‘I just want to find something special for tonight. You know, something with a bit of oomph.’ Her head reappeared from the side of the curtain. ‘Matt’s been invited to this party as well, and I’ve got a feeling that tonight’s going to be the night that we finally do it . . . You know . . . sleep together.’ Making a final effort, she pulled the bottom of her trousers. ‘I can’t wait. The suspense is killing me . . .
And so are these fucking trousers
,’ she muttered, giving them a final tug. Like the pop of a cork, her feet appeared and she fell backwards, grabbing the curtain for balance and tearing it partly from its hooks. ‘Fuck,’ she swore, managing to stand upright. Catching her breath, she looked at Frankie. ‘I’ve already bought some great underwear, especially for the occasion. It’s black satin trimmed with red lace. Real hooker stuff.’ She let out a Sid James cackle.

Frankie smiled. Rita didn’t have to tell her. She’d already spotted the bulging Trashy Lingerie carrier bags stuffed behind the laundry basket in the bathroom. ‘So is it serious between you and Matt?’

‘Definitely.’ Rita nodded. ‘You know what it’s like when you meet someone. It only takes a few minutes, sometimes less, to suss out if the relationship’s going to work or not.’

‘A bit like drying your hair.’ Smiling wryly, Frankie pulled a ringlet and let it spring back. ‘Sometimes you know it’s going to look great before you’ve even picked up the hairdryer, and other times you spend ages faffing around, trying all kinds of things. But even after all that effort it still ends up going wrong and looking terrible.’

‘Exactly.’ Rita grinned. ‘Well, this is one time I know it’s going to work. I can tell it’s going to be great. He’s the one . . . I just know it.’ Grabbing a pair of leather trousers, she started pulling them on.

‘You said that about Barry,’ Frankie reminded her, picking up some of Rita’s discarded clothes from the floor and putting them back on their hangers. Barry was a Scotsman who’d said he was a millionaire and worked in transportation, and with whom Rita had had a fling a couple of years ago. ‘In fact, didn’t you say you were going to marry him?’

Rita blushed. ‘That was before I ordered a take-out one night and found him on our doorstep with a twelve-inch Meat Feast.’

Frankie started laughing at the memory.

‘Well, how was I to know “working in transportation” meant zipping around London on a fifty-cc moped delivering Domino’s pizzas?’ Rita couldn’t help but laugh too. ‘There was I, imagining a lifetime of luxury – holidays in Florida twice a year, big detached house with a double garage, fancy sports cars, the works – and instead I was faced with a future of extra garlic bread and doughballs. I think I had a lucky escape.’ She stopped yanking the trousers. Wedged across her calves, the leather stretched tightly like the skin of a drum, they refused to go any higher. ‘God, I give up. I’m never going to fit into these. I must have picked up the wrong size.’ Tugging them off, she tossed them across to Frankie. ‘Why don’t you try them?’

‘Me? In leather trousers? You’ve got to be joking.’

‘Why? You’ve got the figure for them.’

Tempted, Frankie looked at them, before dismissing the idea. ‘I couldn’t afford them anyway.’

‘I’ll lend you the money.’ Rita wasn’t going to let her get off that lightly.

‘Thanks, but they’re just not me.’

‘What is you? For God’s sake, you’re twenty-nine, not eighty-nine. Be bold. Wear something different for once.’ Rita stood in her G-string, hands adamantly on hips.

Frankie deliberated. Perhaps Rita was right, perhaps she did need a change of image. Deciding there was no harm in trying, she peeled off her trainers and jeans and tried on the leather trousers, together with a little shoestring strap top Rita had discarded earlier. Both fitted perfectly.

Rita let out a long, low whistle. ‘Bloody hell, you look amazing.’

Frankie looked at her reflection, and surprised herself. She looked completely different. ‘Do you think so?’ She wasn’t used to wearing clothes like these. Hugh always used to like her in dresses or trousersuits, something smart-casual. This outfit was neither. The trousers were like a second skin and the top was definitely on the skimpy side. ‘Are you sure it doesn’t make me look . . . well . . .
tarty
?’

Rita pulled a face. ‘C’mon, would I ever choose something that’s tarty?’

Frankie was afraid to answer. Luckily she didn’t have to.

‘Now, what about this?’ asked Rita, wriggling into a red silk dress. Breathing in, she twirled in front of the mirror.

‘You look great.’

Frankie wasn’t just saying that. After a fortnight’s diet of raging hormones and a racing pulse, the pounds had dropped off, leaving Rita with the perfect hour-glass figure – boobs, bum and waist – a body shape hated by the fashion world, but loved by men in the real world.

‘Do you think it makes my boobs look too big?’

‘We’re in LA, remember. Since when could boobs be too big?’

Sticking out her chest, she tweaked the material. ‘You’ve got a point.’

‘Judging by all those before and after photos I’ve seen in
LA Weekly
, you’ve got about five thousand dollars’ worth there. You should be proud of them, they’re a valuable asset.’ Frankie peered down at her own silhouette. ‘I’ll be lucky if I’ve got ten bucks.’

Laughing, Rita yanked the straining bra straps that were beginning to dig deep grooves into her shoulders. ‘Let’s just hope Matt’s a boob man.’

‘Well, you’ll certainly find out tonight in that outfit.’

Rita’s expression became serious. ‘I never thought I’d say this, but I’m glad we haven’t slept together. This way it feels as if we’ve been able to have a proper courtship without the whole sex thing taking over.’

‘A courtship? It’s only been a few weeks.’

Rita pouted sulkily. ‘Don’t get all prudey with me, you slept with Hugh after three days . . .’ She broke off, regretting what she’d just said. Her and her big mouth.

Frankie pushed a curl of hair behind her ear and didn’t say anything. Instead she stood looking at herself in the mirror, remembering. After a moment she spoke. ‘I know, New Year’s Eve. God, it seems so long ago.’ Her voice was quiet.

‘Well, it was nearly two years ago. Things have changed, we’ve all changed.’ Rubbing her friend’s arm affectionately, Rita gave her a smile of reassurance. ‘Even you.’ Raising an eyebrow she stood back and looked Frankie up and down. ‘Just look at you! Hugh would hardly recognise you.’

Frankie hardly recognised herself. It was as if she was looking at a different person.

‘Well? Are you getting those or what?’ Pulling on her leggings and halter-neck top, Rita picked up the dress, ready to pay for it at the cash register. ‘Come on, you only live once.
And
it’s Christmas.’ The classic excuse for everything.

Staring at her reflection, something inside Frankie kick-started. For the first time in ages she liked what she saw, and it wasn’t just the clothes. For weeks she’d thought of herself as a failure, the helpless victim that things kept happening to. It had taken something as simple as a new outfit to make her see a different Frankie, a new Frankie, one who was going to start taking control again. Rita was right. And what better way to celebrate her one and only life than by buying a pair of three-hundred-dollar leather trousers? She smiled. ‘Yeah, why the hell not?’

28

The party was already in full swing by the time they arrived. Uniformed waiters were busy serving drinks and sushi to the hundreds of guests mingling outside on the stadium-sized terrace, while around the edges of the pink, heart-shaped swimming pool coked-up leggy blondes with silicone tits and gravity-defying bikinis were dancing to the live band’s blasting rendition of ‘
Play That Funky Music, White Boy
’. It was like walking into an MTV video.

‘I feel a bit overdressed,’ hissed Rita, pausing at the top of the mosaic-tiled steps leading down to the terrace. ‘Nobody said bring a bikini.’ She looked disappointed.

Frankie felt relieved. One look at the gyrating Barbie dolls and she shuddered at the thought of getting into her M&S two-piece, underwired cups or not. ‘I don’t know about you, but I need a drink,’ she said, trying to attract the attention of one of the waiters. The wine she’d brought suddenly seemed a mistake. This wasn’t the kind of house party where you bring a bottle, even if, at ten bucks, it was better than the plonk she usually bought from Oddbins. Catching the waiter’s eye she quickly hid the Chardonnay behind a marble statue and grabbed a couple of cocktails.

From the moment they’d been whisked through the huge electronic gates by security men with walkie-talkies and Frankie had caught her first glimpse of the huge White House-style mansion, she knew that, despite a face plastered with Clarins Beauty Flash Balm and Estée Lauder cosmetics, forty minutes spent with her curls clamped between Rita’s hair straighteners and a pair of leather trousers from Rodeo Drive, she was completely out of her depth. To date, her experience of house parties had been the ones she’d been to with Hugh in one-bedroom flats in west London where there’d been
Chillout Ibiza
wafting out of the stereo, a fold-out dining-room table full of M&S nibbles and Tesco’s readymade 95 per cent fat-free dips, and a choice of Penfolds white or red to drink in Habitat wine glasses, or chipped mugs for those arriving late from the pub. None of them had put on horse-drawn carriages to ferry the celebrity guests to the entrance, live bands together with a couple of famous pop stars as entertainment, or men in white uniforms bearing a striking resemblance to Richard Gere in
An Officer and a Gentleman
and serving Bellinis and oysters on silver trays. It was intimidating stuff, but at least there was one consolation. She wasn’t there by herself. She had Rita.

‘Christ, have you seen all the free booze?’ whooped Rita, taking a swig from her crystal glass. ‘Makes a bit of a change from some of the parties I’ve been to. At most of them you’d be lucky to scrounge a warm can of Fosters.’ She licked the bubbles from her top lip. Still, it’s a bit of a shame I can’t take full advantage.’

‘Why not?’ Frankie had never known Rita pass up alcohol, especially when she wasn’t paying for it.

‘I don’t want to be drunk when Matt gets here, do I?’ Trying to fluff her hair, which she’d earlier sprayed rock solid with hairspray, she tutted. ‘I want to seduce him, and falling all over the place with my dress up to my armpits and mascara down to my chin isn’t exactly attractive.’

‘What time’s he arriving?’ Frankie fiddled self-consciously with the lace-trim on her top. She wasn’t used to showing so much cleavage. Even if most of it was Wonderbra.

‘In about half an hour. He’s coming straight from an audition.’ As she squinted down at the party below, a smile curled up the corners of Rita’s mouth. ‘Bloody hell, I wondered where Dorian had disappeared to.’

‘I thought he said he had some business to attend to.’ Frankie stopped fiddling and tried to see what was so amusing.

‘Well, he’s certainly attending to something.’ Rita pointed towards the swimming pool, where Dorian was rubbing himself up and down one of the pneumatic blondes in a zebra-print thong, bikini. ‘Isn’t that Pamela whatshername?’

‘Looks like her,’ agreed Frankie, ‘but then most of the women do.’ Sipping her drink, she watched him. He obviously didn’t feel out of his depth.

‘I’ll tell you who I haven’t seen, yet . . .’ Noticing that the plasters which she’d put on her toes to stop her new slingbacks from hurting were peeling off, Rita crouched down to restick them. ‘I haven’t seen Reilly.’

‘Reilly?’ Frankie attempted indifference. ‘You didn’t mention he was invited.’ Taking a large sip of her drink, she felt her hand tremble.

‘Sorry, I completely forgot. You know me, memory like a sieve.’ Satisfied that her plasters were now firmly in place, she stood back up and switched her attention to nicotine. ‘Dorian invited him and that blonde, I can’t remember her name, the one he was with in Malibu.’ She began hunting around in her handbag for her American Spirit.