I Heart Hollywood (26 page)

‘No one’s going to think we’re shagging round the back of a museum, are they?’ James shrugged. ‘There are children everywhere and, you know, tar isn’t exactly an aphrodisiac.’

‘Whatever.’ I tried to prepare myself. This wasn’t going to be easy and I hadn’t reckoned on my resolve weakening on seeing how awful James looked. Well, awful for James. His hair was rumpled and his dark circles were as pronounced as mine, but he still looked as though he was just playing the part of heartbreak, while I looked more like Amy Winehouse after a particularly bad night out. And even if he looked like shit, he still smelt awfully pretty. ‘Can we just get this over with?’

Blake led the way and past the tar pits to a large deserted expanse of park around the back of the museum. He leaned against what was, according to a small inscription on its base, a plastic sculpture of a giant prehistoric sloth and looked the other way. James sighed and sat down on the grass a few feet from him. I looked from one to the other. Blake’s face was frozen, impossible to read. Maybe James’s lack of sleep was down to more than just worrying about what I might say or do.

‘Angela,’ James started, pulling at my hand. I sat down beside him, not really knowing what else to do. ‘First, can I just say I’m sorry?’

‘You’ve actually said that a couple of times already,’ I said, my eyes still trained on Blake. ‘And I think it’s best if I talk first. Sorry if you’d been rehearsing.’

‘Go for it,’ he said, squeezing the hand I’d forgotten he was holding.

‘I spoke to my editor this morning.’ I pulled my hand away and paused to see his reaction. Stupid bloody actor didn’t bloody have one. He should absolutely play professional poker. ‘The magazine doesn’t want to run your interview any more.’

‘What?’ He looked shocked. ‘What did you say?’

‘Calm down, I didn’t tell them anything. Yet…’ I noticed we’d almost got Blake’s attention. ‘They want us to do a “we’re so in love” interview in
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next week instead. Apparently, I’m no good as an interviewer any more because everyone thinks I’m a great big slag who came out here solely to seduce you.’

‘Seriously?’ James shook his head.

‘Seriously.’

‘Well, thank fuck for that,’ he laughed, pushing me back in a giant bear hug. Too shocked to do anything but worry about grass stains on my T-shirt, I lay staring helplessly up at Blake.

‘That’s brilliant!’ James roared. ‘This is going to solve all our problems. We’ll do the interview, you’ll move here, everyone will think we’re dating. This is perfect. We’ll get an apartment—how about Los Feliz? You liked it there, didn’t you? Or would you rather be near the beach? Oh, Angela, this is fantastic. Why didn’t you tell me on the phone?’

Finally finding some strength, I pushed him off me and shot up to my feet. ‘Because we’re not doing it! I have a life and a job and a boyfriend and I’m not giving that up to cover up for you.’

‘But it’ll be perfect.’ James looked confused. ‘I’ll pay for everything. And you’ll have your own room in the apartment and everything. It’s not like we’ll really be dating after all, is it?’

‘Can you hear yourself? I’m not doing this, James. You have to tell the magazine the truth.’ I span round to Blake. ‘And you, you can’t seriously be OK with this?’

He shrugged but his face was ashen, eyes burning. And, oh my God, were they red around the edges? Had he been crying?

‘Angela, do you think this is the first time this has happened?’ James jumped to his feet, his hands on my shoulders. ‘We get on well, don’t we? We’re friends? And it would be great for your career. Think of how cool it will be, living in LA, in the sun, going to parties, premieres—it would be a dream.’

‘But not mine,’ I shrugged off his hands. ‘James, listen to me. I have a life. I have a boyfriend. And if you don’t come out, tell the truth, I’m going to lose it all. If we’re really friends, you’ll do it.’

James rubbed his hands down his face. ‘You don’t even know what you’re asking. You’re being so bloody selfish.’

‘
I’m
being selfish? You don’t actually know anything about women, do you?’ I snapped.

‘Doesn’t know much about men either,’ Blake muttered.

I carried on regardless. ‘All I’m asking you to do is to tell the truth and you’re asking me to lie and give up absolutely everything. Which sounds more reasonable to you?’

James threw his hands up in the air. ‘But think about what I’m offering you. You’d pass all that up for some arsehole that thinks you’re shagging about behind his back and a crappy job writing for a website?’

I’d been angry before. I was pretty pissed off when my mum boil-washed my Bay Trading angora sweater dress the night before the Year Ten disco. I was fairly annoyed when Peter Jenson told everyone in the sixth form that I was a lesbian after he walked into the bathroom at Louisa’s sixteenth birthday party and we were in there chatting while I had a wee. And, of course, I wasn’t overly pleased when I found my boyfriend shagging his mistress in the back of our car at my best friend’s wedding. But none of that was anything to how I felt at that exact second.

There he was, this ridiculously beautiful man who had everything going right for him in the world, standing in front of me waving around what he genuinely thought was the perfect life, like the moon on a stick, while his secret boyfriend stood six feet away, leaning against a giant brown plastic mammal. And
I
was being selfish? No wonder Blake was such a twat all the time. His boyfriend was the biggest arsehole in the universe and he couldn’t complain about him to anyone.

‘Do you love Blake?’ I asked.

‘What?’ James looked past me to where Blake was staring at us from the arms of the sloth.

‘Do you love him?’ I asked again.

‘Angela, just stop playing games. Are you going to fuck me over or what?’

I ignored him and carried on. ‘Because I actually love my boyfriend and the idea of him not knowing that for sure is actually worse than any of this bollocks right now.’

As soon as I’d said it, I knew it was absolutely true. I couldn’t get the look on Jenny’s face when she talked about Jeff out of my head, and I didn’t want to ever feel that way about me and Alex. ‘I don’t believe that you two are in love. If you were, you wouldn’t care who knew, you’d just want to be together.’

‘As if it’s that easy,’ James snapped back. ‘I’m not some random guy that can just do whatever he wants when I want, Angela. My career depends on my reputation. It’s all a character, everything I do.’

‘Oh shut up. It’s not the Fifties any more, you idiot.’ I took my turn to push him; unfortunately his six-foot-plus frame didn’t actually budge. ‘No one cares if you’re gay.’

‘It wasn’t the Fifties when I was growing up either, but they cared then,’ he fumed quietly. ‘I’m not doing it, so just pack it in. Blake understands why we have to do things the way we do.’

‘Do I?’

For the first time I realized Blake wasn’t leaning against the (actually hilarious in any other situation) giant sloth because he was too cool to stand up, he actually couldn’t stand on his own. His eyes were no longer a little bit red around the edges but wet with real tears.

‘Do I, James?’ he asked again. I suddenly felt extraordinarily uncomfortable. Oh bugger.

‘We talked about this last night,’ James said, in a considerably softer tone of voice than the one he’d been using with me. ‘You said—’

‘No, you talked about it last night.’ Blake’s voice got louder as James’s got quieter. ‘And I didn’t say anything, but I’m saying something now. Bitch’s right. There’s no need for all this bullshit any more. I know you had a hard time when you were younger but it’s over. You’re here now and you’ve got me. If you felt the same way I did, none of the rest of it would matter.’

I paused in my steady backtracking out of the way. Did Blake just call me a bitch? Arse, I was on his side!

‘Blake, don’t.’ James’s pretty face was dangerously close to crumpling. I swapped positions with Blake, him holding James’s shoulders, me clutching the oversized paw of the sloth. He looked fascinated by the proceedings. For a giant, infamously lazy plastic creature.

‘Don’t what? You remember when you asked me not to make you choose and I said I never would?’ Blake placed a hand against James’s cheek. ‘Well, I changed my mind. I’m asking. In fact I’m telling. If you do this interview with her, I’m gone. Call me when you’ve made up your mind. Or don’t. I won’t be at the hotel when you get back.’

We watched Blake stalk across the park and out of sight before James turned to me.

‘Drama,’ I said, raising my eyebrows.

‘Is it too early for a drink?’ James asked, holding out his hand.

I hesitated before I took it. He looked exactly how I felt. He looked exactly like Jenny had that morning. He looked heartbroken.

‘It’s a bit early,’ I said, slapping his hand away and walking on ahead. ‘But that’s never stopped me before.’

After our third block of driving in silence, I fished my phone out of my bag and willed it to ring.

‘Oh, just call him,’ James said without turning to look at me. ‘It’s like looking at puppies in the window of a pet shop. I can see your reflection in the window.’

I smiled tightly and speed-dialled Alex, but it still didn’t connect, no answer phone, no anything.

‘Hold this,’ I said, passing James my phone and emptying my handbag out onto the car seat. I knew it was in there somewhere.

‘Good God woman, how much crap have you got in that handbag?’ he asked as I sifted through Post-it notes, loose dollar bills and chewing gum wrappers. ‘I’ve seen apartments with less stuff in them.’

‘I know, I know,’ I said, shaking out an address book for loose entries. ‘I promised myself when I got this bag that I’d look after it but, well, I’m just a bit rubbish.’

‘Wait until I see Marc next and tell him what you’ve done to his bag,’ James tutted, sorting through assorted tampons and lip glosses. ‘He’ll be disgusted.’

‘You know Marc Jacobs?’ I froze mid-dig. ‘You actually know him?’

‘I did some ads for him,’ James nodded. ‘He’s cool.’

‘Keeping that from me until now is officially the shittiest thing you’ve done,’ I said, unfurling a screwed-up bit of old receipt from the back of my diary. ‘Got it.’

Before I could regret it, I dialled.

‘Jeff, it’s Angela. Clark. Alex’s girlfriend? Jenny’s friend?’ I said quickly before he could even speak.

‘Yeah, I actually had you at Angela,’ Jeff replied. ‘What’s up?’

‘Uh, well, I was wondering if you knew if Alex was in?’ I stammered. ‘He’s not answering his phone and well, I’m not in the city. Is he about?’

‘He’s not, no. He didn’t tell you where he went?’ Jeff sounded surprised. At least it seemed as if there was one person in the world who hadn’t heard all about my ‘Angela’s Adventures in Hollywoodland’. It was just unfortunate that it was my best friend’s ex-boyfriend who I was absolutely forbidden to speak to ever again. ‘Hey, uh, how’s Jenny doing?’

‘He went somewhere?’ I leaned forward, resting my forehead on my knees.

‘Yeah,’ Jeff replied. ‘He came over last night and asked me to keep an eye on his place. He had a bag, seemed in a rush to get someplace. So, she’s OK?’

‘What? Oh, Jenny, yes,’ I lied. ‘She’s fantastic actually.’

‘Cool, tell her I said hi,’ Jeff said. ‘OK, well, when he comes back, I’ll tell him you called? Bye.’

‘Shit,’ I said, sinking back against the car seat. I felt as though I’d been kicked.

‘Bad news?’ James asked.

‘Until you say “Angela, I’d like you to organize my coming out interview in as public a forum as possible,” I think everything is going to be bad news.’ I frowned at him. ‘Don’t think you’re forgiven because your boyfriend dumped you. We’re not even yet.’

‘Tell me about Alex,’ James said, sliding his arm around my shoulders. It was weird how quickly that had gone from stomach-flippingly exciting to stomach-churningly irritating. ‘Tell me why he’s worth all this.’

‘This isn’t all about him,’ I said. ‘This is about you not being an arse and giving me my life back. I only just got one, for God’s sake, it’s hardly bloody fair that I should lose it so quickly.’

‘Just shut up and tell me about him.’

‘Fine. Alex is…’ I didn’t know where to start. ‘He’s kind, intelligent, he’s sweet, he’s thoughtful, creative—’

‘You haven’t mentioned hot yet. Or good in bed. Come on, you’re not describing him to your mum.’ James slapped my knee. ‘Sorry, carry on.’

I gave him as filthy a look as I could muster. ‘He’s just…he’s passionate about things. About his music, about me. That’s what was missing from my life for so long. Passion. Passion for something, anything really.’

‘I know this isn’t going to make me popular,’ James said. ‘But you know they say passion doesn’t last? They say that for a reason. You can’t seriously be asking me to throw my entire career down the shitter because you really like doing it with a boy in a band.’

Just when I thought we were making headway. ‘Passionate, not passion—there’s a difference; and besides, that’s not everything. I love him because he makes me feel like I can do anything. He makes me feel like the person I want to be.’ I tilted my head to one side. ‘I feel so sorry for Blake.’

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘Don’t you feel the same way about him?’ I asked.

James didn’t say anything.

‘Excuse me,’ I leaned forward to speak to James’s driver, ‘could we please head back to The Hollywood?’

‘Yes ma’am,’ he nodded curtly.

James gave me a sideways glance and sighed.

‘So are you going to do it or not?’ I asked finally, as we pulled up outside my hotel.

‘You still don’t get what you’re asking me,’ James shook his head. ‘There’s so much more riding on this than your boyfriend.’

‘I know,’ I said. ‘There’s my job, my visa, my apartment, my reputation, the respect of my family and friends. Oh, and your boyfriend.’

‘Don’t think this is easy for me,’ he closed his big blue eyes, the hollows underneath looking more pronounced in the dim light of the limo. ‘But, I’m sorry, I can’t do it.’

It took all my strength to push open the car door and step out on to the pavement. I really had thought he would come through, if not for me then for Blake. The limo pulled away quickly before I could get back in and beg James to change his mind, leaving me standing alone in the street.