I Heart Paris (4 page)

‘Maybe not just yet. You’re having a party?’

‘Er, yes. Tim thought,’ she sounded as though she was picking her words very carefully, ‘it might be nice to have a bit of a do what with last year’s…fireworks.’

‘Right,’ I pressed my lips together in a tight, thin line. ‘Well, you can tell him not to worry about me. I’ll actually be in Paris.’

‘You’re going to Paris?’ Lou squealed. ‘But that’s so close by! You have to come to the party.’

I held my phone away from my ear. ‘Oh, I’d love to,’ I was lying a lot today. ‘But Alex is playing at a festival and I’m reviewing it for
Belle
, so I just wouldn’t be able to get away.’

‘Really?
Belle
? Wow!’ Louisa made a small mewing noise that I chose to ignore. ‘But you can’t be so close by and not come and visit. What did your mum say?’

‘My mum hasn’t said anything because I haven’t told her yet,’ I said quickly. ‘And I’m not convinced I’m going to so please don’t say anything if you see her.’

‘Oh, Angela,’ I could feel a lecture coming, ‘I know your mum can be hard work, but she does miss you.’

‘Playing the mum card is the wrong way to guilt trip me into coming home. You of all people should know that,’ I warned. ‘Besides, since she and dad took that internet course I can’t bloody get rid of them. Did you know they have Skype?’

‘I had heard,’ Louisa said. ‘She’s always on about it to my mum in the supermarket. So Alex is playing a festival? I can’t believe you’re going out with a rock star. Is it amazing? Has he written any songs about you?’

‘He’s not a rock star,’ I gave my official line. ‘He’s just Alex.’

I felt myself flush from head to toe. It wasn’t entirely true. I absolutely loved that Alex was in a band. I loved that I got to watch him get all sweaty onstage, singing songs he’d written for me. I loved to see a room full of chin-stroking hipsters and doe-eyed girls with ironic tattoos in vintage dresses staring at him while he did something he loved, something he was amazing at. But really, day in and day out, it wasn’t about him being a rock god. It was about him buying tea bags for his apartment without me asking, even though he hated tea, the way he always Tivo’d
Gossip Girl
for me, even the repeats, and how, when he was writing a new song, he would sit cross-legged on the living-room floor with his acoustic guitar, fringe flopping into his eyes, tongue stuck out of the corner of his mouth, always with a Diet Dr Pepper. Everyday life really wasn’t rock and roll, but it was sort of wonderful.

‘Yeah, right,’ Louisa said, entirely disbelievingly. ‘You love it.’

‘Well, maybe.’ No point even trying to lie to Lou. ‘He’s actually asked me to move in with him.’

‘Wow, really? Already?’

‘It’s not that soon, I’ve known him for a year,’ I said, surprised to find someone who wasn’t jumping up and down with joy while simultaneously packing my bags for me.

‘But it hasn’t exactly been smooth sailing, has it, honey?’ Louisa said diplomatically. ‘I just don’t want you to rush into anything. You’re not lonely out there, are you? You know you can always come back. Any time. Just say the word and I will have your room ready.’

‘Louisa, calm down, everything is fine.’ Bless her heart. ‘I’m fine and I’m not rushing. Honest. I haven’t even decided if I’m going to move in yet.’

‘I just worry about you, that’s all,’ Lou replied. ‘Anyway, if you can’t come to me, how about I come to you? Will you have an afternoon free for lunch or something? Are you there on the Saturday?’

‘That actually sounds brilliant,’ I said, suddenly excited at the idea of seeing Louisa, not in a wedding/wedding reception/wedding anniversary/anything to do with weddings situation. ‘I would love that.’

‘Fantastic!’ Louisa squealed again. ‘Let’s be really cheesy and meet under the Eiffel Tower or something.’

‘Yeah, OK.’ I smiled. That was just the sort of thing Jenny would want to do. God forbid the two of them should ever be in the same place at the same time. The universe might implode or something. ‘I actually cannot believe it’s been a year.’

‘I know,’ Louisa said. ‘I think the longest I’d gone without seeing you before you abandoned me was something like four days.’

‘Surely not more than three,’ I was surprised at how upset I was all of a sudden. I really hadn’t been that homesick since I got to New York. When had I had time? ‘I’ll text you when I get to Paris. Love you, Lou.’

‘You too honey. Can’t wait to see you and maybe you could bring this non-rock star of yours for my approval?’

I pursed my lips. ‘Yeah, if he’s not rehearsing or something, then yeah, definitely.’ Was it weird that I felt a bit queasy at the idea of mixing my two lives up like that? ‘Talk to you later.’

I hung up and smiled. It would be amazing to see Louisa. It would be amazing to go to Paris. It would be amazing to write for
Belle
. It would be amazing to take a trip with Alex. Really, this wasn’t turning out to be the worst Wednesday in the world ever.

After another hour of lounging in the park, the sun finally worked its way around to my safe little spot and forced me to drag myself home. Vanessa, my temporary roommate, was at work at The Union and so the apartment was eerily quiet and ridiculously hot. I bashed the air-conditioning unit sticking out of the living-room window and grabbed a Popsicle out of the freezer before sitting down at my laptop. What would the
Adventures of Angela
reveal today? I logged into TheLook.com, clicking through the links until I got to my blog.

When I started writing, almost a year ago, I’d found it so hard to put my thoughts well, not exactly down on paper, but it was tricky to write about what was going on in my life and then post it online for all the world to see. But now I found it so cathartic. Writing the blog really helped me clear my head and make sense of things. I’d learned what was safe to put up there and what wasn’t, how to share what was going on without spilling anyone’s secrets, and for the most part, I only got nice comments and emails, at least no one had ever chased me down the street with flaming torches and pitchforks. And apparently, my mother had got bored of reading it some time ago. Thank God. I started tapping away into the empty white box.

The Adventures of Angela: Ooh la la

Today has been one of those days when everything happened at once. My boyfriend asked me to go to Paris with him next week, I had a really important work meeting which has led to a really really exciting new project, I arranged to meet up with my best friend from London, oh, and I got my hair cut. It’s been a big day.

But aside from the massively dramatic event that was taking half an inch off the ends of my bob, how exciting is Paris? I know I’m a bit rubbish for not having gone before, especially when I lived in London for five years, but yay, I’m going now! And sigh, with my boy. And that’s the only way to do Paris isn’t it? It’ll be all romantic walks down the Left Bank, holding hands outside Notre-Dame, watching the sunset from the top of the Eiffel Tower. I am a little bit concerned about the wardrobe though – my experience of Paris is more or less limited to
Funny Face, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes
and the last third of
The Devil Wears Prada.
So it’s either black turtlenecks and pedalpushers or haute couture. Hmm. And bugger.

So, while I try to resolve my sartorial crisis, please let me know if you have any Parisian advice – I want to know exactly where to sip my chocolat chaud and bag the best baguettes. And obviously, any shopping suggestions are more than welcome. My heart says Chanel, but my head and credit limit says flea market. Why don’t you send both and I’ll work it out once I get there…

Before I could really start thinking about actually getting to Paris, I had to get through my meeting at
Belle
. Maybe it would be a good idea to write out a proposal for this Insider’s Guide. Maybe it would be a good idea to find some Parisian insiders. Maybe it would be a good idea to spend three hours hunched over my laptop, scouring the internet. I checked in at all the usual places,
Time Out
Paris, Gridskipper, Citysearch, and started to pull together my synopsis. Several hours later, I had, well, something. For want of further inspiration, I swapped my crumpled sundress for a stripy Splendid vest and Hello Kitty knickers. It was just too hot to wear anything else. I took an icy can of Diet Coke from the fridge and draped myself across the sofa, rummaging around for the remote. Maybe just fifteen minutes of
E!
and then I’d do some more research. Or half an hour. And then an episode of
America’s Next Top Model
. Two hours later, looking back guiltily at the sleeping screen of my laptop, I tried to convince myself that there was in fact such a thing as too much preparation. And turned back to the TV. It really is amazing what I can talk myself into.

The next morning, it wasn’t quite as easy to believe that being over prepared was a mistake. Determined not to fall into my regular trap of waking up late and scrawling at my face with a kohl pencil, I woke up bright and early, washed my hair, did proper grown-up girl make-up and selected my most
Belle
appropriate ensemble, a simple vintage sky blue shift Jenny had guided me towards at a vintage store in Williamsburg. I figured that even the biggest fashion bitches would struggle to find fault with it. It couldn’t be the wrong designer because it wasn’t designer in the first place. Anyway I wasn’t worried about what these girls thought of my dress sense. It didn’t matter. I wasn’t going to pitch an article on the hottest trends coming from the catwalks of Milan, was I? Besides, I thought, slipping my synopsis into my bestest swankiest bright blue Marc Jacobs handbag (OK, so I was a little bit worried), I’d seen
Ugly Betty
, I’d seen
and
read
The Devil Wears Prada
, there was no way these girls would actually be like that. Yes, Mary had been fairly snippy about them, but then I’d never seen Mary out of jeans and Converse. She probably just didn’t like the fashiony types. It would be absolutely fine. And I had Bob’s backing. My good friend Bob. Bobbity bob bob. Oh shit, I’d gone mad.

With one last look in the mirror, I smoothed down my hair and wiped away the tiniest smudge of mascara. I could do this. I’d been writing for
The Look
for a year. I had my column in the UK magazine. I’d interviewed a movie star for God’s sake. All they wanted was a tourist guide to Paris. A city that hardly anyone who was going to read this magazine would ever visit. This was going to be brilliant. Easy even.

‘What this isn’t going to be is easy,’ Donna Gregory barked at me, my synopsis crumpled up in her hand. ‘
Belle
readers have no interest in some tragically obvious tourist piece about visiting the Eiffel Tower and taking a boat down the Seine. Our readers want to know the most exclusive, most stylish, secret sides of Paris. Not where to get the best
crêpes
according to Gridskipper or
Time Out
’s top ten scenic parks.’

I flinched in my chair. As far as I could tell, during the ten minutes I’d been in the office, Donna hadn’t even looked at my synopsis and yet she was still managing, quite adequately, to pull it apart, word by word.

‘Why do you think you should be writing for
Belle
, Angela?’ she asked.

‘Well, I—’

‘I mean, seriously, what makes you think that you –’ she paused to hold her hand out towards me and then wave the hand up and down to make sure I understood her critique encompassed every last little thing about me. ‘– that
you
should be allowed to write for
Belle?’

Silence. Allowed? Why should I be allowed?

‘I’m waiting for an answer,’ Donna said.

I was stumped.

Donna wasn’t very nice.

‘Well, I might not have written a specific travel piece before, but I write about a lot of different things in my blog and I interviewed James Jacobs for
Icon
earlier this year so I think that I could do this,’ I said. Very quickly. All of my confidence had vamoosed and all I wanted to do was get out of the office, bury my face in a pan of chocolate brownies and cry, like the porky talentless excuse for a human being Donna so clearly thought I was.

It was fair to say that Donna Gregory wasn’t the glamazon dragon lady you might expect to find sitting behind the features editor desk of a fashion monthly. She wasn’t that tall for a start, her glossy (OK, very glossy) brown hair was pulled back in a ponytail and she was actually wearing jeans. Very skinny and presumably expensive jeans, but jeans nonetheless. But while she might not be wearing Prada, she was certainly proving herself to be the devil. From the second I’d walked through her door, she’d more or less done nothing, but insult me.

First, I wasn’t allowed coffee because I looked like I needed a good night’s sleep and the caffeine wouldn’t help, then I was refused water in case I needed to use the bathroom, which was for staff only. The implication being that I was not now and would never be staff. But she did suggest I try drinking at least two litres a day outside of her office because I really did look a lot older than thirty. When I mentioned that I was only twenty-seven she actually made a little gasping noise and held her hand to her mouth.

Bitch.

‘Hmm, I heard about the
Icon
piece,’ she said, flicking through some printed out emails. ‘You’re the girl that turned James Jacobs gay, yes?’

‘For fu—I mean, no, not exactly.’ I wasn’t quite sure why I was still sitting in the office. There was no way I was going to get this job. ‘I’m pretty sure he was gay before I walked in on him and his boyfriend going at it in a public toilet. But I suppose you never know. It’s possible that my extreme level of dehydration turned him.’

Donna paused for a split second and looked at me again.

‘That dress, I don’t recognize the designer. Where’s it from?’ she asked.