Lindsey Kelk 5-Book 'I Heart...' Collection (94 page)

What’s going on? Has there been some sort of memo put out that I haven’t heard about? Did someone declare it International Shaft Angela Week?

I paused and stared at the screen. Where was this going exactly? What else was there to say? I didn’t really want to have an online breakdown. This had to stop before I was shaving my head in public and beating the crap out of a car with an umbrella. Actually, I didn’t have an umbrella. Probably best.

After a couple of moments, The Look webpage melted away and was replaced with a photo of me and Alex. It was a candid shot Vanessa had taken at Erin’s wedding a few months ago. We were leaning over a balcony, watching the party below. Vanessa had caught Alex whispering in my ear, his tie was undone, the top button of his shirt unfastened, his hair messy and hanging across my face. I was laughing with my eyes closed, one hand on the balcony in front of me and the other on Alex’s chest. My cheeks were flushed and my lipgloss all smudged.

Before I could start to cry, the picture faded away to be replaced by a shot of me and Louisa. I was pretty sure it was from my last birthday in London and we were belting out a big karaoke number in her living room, both of us doubled up with laughter and the emotion of the massive power ballad we were performing. Seeing that picture was a bit of a shock. I’d spent so long blocking out all of my happy memories of my life in London, it was weird to see one right in front of me. That night had been so much fun.

I pressed my hands over my eyes. There was no mascara to smudge, but I still really didn’t want to start sobbing in the middle of a train station. Breathing in through my nose and out through my mouth, I looked upwards, forcing away the tears. There was no need to cry. This wasn’t the same as last year. This wasn’t running away. This was making a choice. I wasn’t jumping on a plane and hoping for the best. I was walking calmly on to a train and knowing that the best wasn’t always the same as what you wanted.

Circling my finger on the computer’s mouse pad brought the screen flickering back into life. Rereading my post once more, I saved it and shut up the laptop. I’d get back to it. A very loud announcement that my train was finally boarding snapped me back to my senses. I shook my bag until all the crap moved around enough to reveal my ticket and passport. This wasn’t a reaction. It was a decision. It was the right decision.

After stocking up on water, Toblerone (well, three Toblerones) and a load of magazines that I knew I wouldn’t read, I stalked straight towards the train. There was no turning back now. I was actually headed for home. If it still was my home. If anywhere was.

The train was mostly empty, just one group of young French girls, a few couples and the odd lone reader, so I ignored my seat reservation and threw myself at a table for four, two entire seats taken up by my arse and my bag, and my magazines covering the table. This was as unwelcoming as I was genetically capable of being. I just couldn’t bring myself to put my feet up on the seat in front. Across the aisle, a vomit-inducingly cute couple fell into their seats and snuggled up together, giggling, kissing and whispering in French. Romantic daytrip to London? Actually, it made sense. If you already lived in the one city the rest of the world visited when they wanted a dirty weekend away, where were you supposed to go? I pulled my iPod back out of my bag and tried to close my eyes. I just wanted to sleep until we got there. Maybe then I could convince myself the last year had all been a dream. A really expensive, impossibly involved dream.

The rowdy rock I’d listened to on the way to the Gare du Nord wasn’t right for the Eurostar, I didn’t want to drown out the voices in my head any more, I wanted to lull them to sleep, but nothing seemed to be right. Instead, I left my iPod on shuffle and watched the countryside roll by, trying to zone out. Every time my eyes flickered shut, I got a mental image of the empty hotel bedroom, swiftly followed up by a vision of Alex’s faded black jeans on the floor of Solène’s beautiful apartment. If only I hadn’t gone to that bloody stupid party, it would be so much more difficult to visualize my boyfriend’s underwear hanging off the back of the sofa if I’d never seen the sofa. Now, it was all too easy to piece it all together in my all too vivid imagination.

I’d been doing my best zombie impersonation for about thirty minutes when I first noticed that I wasn’t alone at my table. Two identical teenage girls, both with glossy shoulder-length black hair and Chanel 2.55 bags perched on their denim-clad knees were staring at me with a tempered excitement, as though they’d just seen a gorilla wake up from hibernation at the zoo.

‘It’s definitely her,’ one whispered to the other. ‘Look at her picture.’

‘I’m not sure,’ the other replied, looking at the magazine her sister thrust into her hands and then looking back at me with a wrinkled-up pout. ‘She looks a bit, erm, not like her photo.’

‘Yeah, she’s properly hungover or something,’ the first girl rationalized. ‘But it’s definitely her.’

I blinked at the girls once, twice, and tried to work out what was going on.

‘Can I help you?’ I croaked. They looked at each other in delight and grabbed on to each other’s hands.

‘Are you Angela Clark?’ the first girl asked.

‘Uh, yes?’ I rubbed my eyes and yawned, reaching out for the bottle of water on the table.

‘Oh, let me,’ the second girl snatched the bottle away from me, unscrewed the cap and passed it back.

‘Thank you?’ I said, taking it cautiously. I wondered if they fancied peeling some grapes for me too. Or at least running to the buffet car for a bacon sandwich. Then I wondered if they were planning on drugging and murdering me.

‘We’re massive fans,’ the second girl went on, still squeezing her sister’s hand and gurning at me.

Even if I wasn’t in the middle of a total meltdown, it was far too early for this nonsense. ‘Of what?’

The girls looked at each other and laughed.

‘Of you.’

They flipped over the magazine they’d been looking at. It was the UK edition of The Look and a very flattering photo peered back at me from my ‘Adventures of Angela’ column.

‘Oh.’ I took a couple of huge glugs from my bottle of water. ‘That’s my column.’

‘And we read your blog.’ The first girl held up an iPhone displaying TheLook.com and yet another photo of me that looked much, much better than the real thing.

‘My name is Sasha and this is my sister Tania,’ Tania gave me an awkward wave. ‘We’re twins and we’re like, totally, totally your biggest fans.’

‘We’ve been to Paris, our mum took us so we could “immerse ourselves in the language”,’ Sasha interrupted her sister to point across the aisle and down the car. An older version of the two girls sat staring directly ahead, looking slightly shell-shocked. ‘We’re starting our A levels in a couple of weeks and we’re taking French.’

‘And we read on the blog that you were going so we got Mum to take us too,’ Tania explained. ‘We’re definitely your biggest fans.’

‘Definitely?’ I asked.

‘Definitely. Like, we both have that Marc Jacobs bag that you used to talk about all the time.’

‘This one?’ I asked.

The girls looked at each other again, this time with a little sadness.

‘Uh, yeah,’ Sasha started slowly, ‘but ours are like, not completely wrecked.’

‘But we’re definitely your biggest fans. You’re our idol.’

Hmm, not the first time I’d heard that this week, and look how well that had ended. The girls smiled at me expectantly, but I really didn’t know what to say. I never really thought too much about the column. The UK edition of The Look had launched at the beginning of the year so I hadn’t actually seen an issue in the newsagents, or come across anyone reading it. I only knew for a fact that I was published at all when I got my copy of the magazine almost three weeks after it came out, received a tiny cheque, or when my mum emailed to see just what was going on in ‘that there New York’ because she’d heard from Carol at the library that according to ‘that magazine’ I was drinking an awful lot. Which to be fair, I was.

‘So, your blog didn’t say you were coming back to London.’ Sasha flicked her finger down the screen of the iPhone. ‘Isn’t it your boyfriend’s big concert today? In Paris?’

‘Yes?’ I tried to remember mentioning that on the blog, but I couldn’t. I didn’t give specific details, ever. I’d learned the hard way that the internet wasn’t always my friend. Brilliant, I had my very own mini-stalkers.

‘Well, won’t you miss it?’ Tania asked. ‘You can’t miss your boyfriend’s big show.’

‘It’s Alex Reid from that indie band, isn’t it?’ Sasha picked up the baton, not giving me a chance to answer. ‘I know you never use his name in the blog, but when there were all those rumours about you and James Jacobs, I mean, it was everywhere. Do you still see James Jacobs? Is he definitely gay? He’s like, the hottest man in the whole entire world. Tania is totally in love with him.’

‘Totally in love with him,’ Tania confirmed. ‘So, it is Alex, isn’t it? He’s hot too. We googled him.’

‘Can we do one question at a time?’ I asked, looking for any sort of pain reliever in my handbag, Advil, ibuprofen, revolver. I didn’t have a headache before these girls had started talking, but there was a blossoming pain in my left temple and I was fairly certain the two things were related. Now I knew why their mother looked the way that she did.

‘Why are you going to London?’ Sasha asked before Tania could even open her mouth.

‘It’s my best friend’s wedding anniversary,’ I said carefully. Not a lie. Score.

‘Your best friend whose wedding you were at when you found your ex shagging that girl in the back of the car? Was that a year ago?’ Tania expanded, entirely unnecessarily. I made a mental note to stop putting absolutely any sort of personal information in my blog. And possibly change my name. And get drastic facial re-constructive surgery.

‘Yes,’ I replied, rubbing my temple.

‘Do you have a headache? You should drink some water.’

‘And take some tablets.’

‘But you can’t go to sleep.’

My water bottle and a box of Nurofen were pushed towards me from across the table. I took them graciously, trying subtly to check my watch. Jesus, there was another hour and a half of this yet.

‘So how come you’re going to London instead of going to your boyfriend’s gig?’ Tania waited for me to swallow the tablets before starting the questions up again, which, given what I’d come to know about her in the last fifteen minutes, must have been really hard for her. ‘We wanted to get tickets, but it was sold out. We bought their albums because he’s your boyfriend.’

‘Tania didn’t like them,’ Sasha added.

‘Shut up.’ Her sister gave her a quick punch on the shoulder.

‘I’m, uh, I don’t know,’ I stumbled over my words. Two sixteen-year-olds with an apparently unlimited handbag fund and a mother that took them to Paris at the drop of a hat were not going to be able to help me with this one. ‘I’m just going to see my friend.’

‘So, how do we get our own blog?’ Sasha asked, flicking her perfectly smooth hair away from her perfectly smooth face. ‘Because we want to be just like you, with the blog and the boyfriend in New York and everything.’

‘Well, you need to finish school first.’ I tried to put on my mature grown-up’s hat, but it had never fitted especially well. It was difficult to give advice to two super cool teenagers when you felt like an awkward thirteen-year-old yourself. ‘And then go to uni and study journalism or English, I suppose. I studied English.’

‘Can’t we just start a blog and then get, like Vogue or The Look to publish it or something?’ Tania cocked her head to one side. ‘We already know loads about fashion and stuff. And my boyfriend is in a band.’

‘They’re shit though.’ Sasha did not mince her words.

‘Yeah, they are,’ Tania admitted.

‘And he’s not that hot.’

‘Not as hot as Alex.’

‘And he’s a bit of a knob.’

‘But he is in a band.’

‘Yeah—’

‘Just because he’s in a band doesn’t mean you should go out with him,’ I interrupted. ‘Believe me, boys in bands are more trouble than they’re worth.’

‘Have you broken up with Alex?’ Tania slammed her hands down on the table. ‘Is that why you’re going home?’

‘And why you look like shit?’ Sasha added, sympathetically.

Honestly, I couldn’t remember a time I’d ever wanted to cry more in my entire life.

‘We’re sort of on a break,’ I said slowly and quietly, not allowing my voice to crack.

‘Ooooooh,’ the girls said in tandem. ‘What did he do?’

‘His ex,’ I replied without thinking. ‘Maybe. I mean, I don’t know. Maybe nothing. I think we just want different things right now.’

Like, I wanted him and he wanted Solène. That was pretty different.

‘He shagged his ex?’ Sasha squealed, attracting the attention of the entire carriage with the exception of her mother.

‘Is she pretty?’ Tania cocked her head to the other side.

‘It doesn’t matter if she’s pretty,’ Sasha was indignant, ‘it’s totally out of order. You should turn around, get back on the next train and kick her arse. And then his arse. And then hers again, just to make sure. Like, properly kick her in.’

‘I think she should go home.’ Sasha said. ‘Sort yourself out, eat loads of ice cream for like, a day, and then get really skinny and be all like “ha, well, I hate you anyway”. And never see him again. Or like, shag his mate or something.’

‘Yeah, you could shag his mate,’ Tania agreed. ‘Do you want to borrow some make-up?’

‘I’m OK thanks,’ I declined politely, ignoring their ‘oh no you’re not’ looks as well as their advice. Even if they were the two best options I’d been able to come up with myself, shagging his friend aside. I really didn’t think I was Graham’s type, what with the lack of a penis and everything.

‘What did your roommate tell you to do?’ Sasha asked, offering me a bag of Haribo. It seemed a weird thing to keep in a Chanel handbag, but there you go. This was what happened when you gave teenagers designer goods. Well, teenagers and me. There were about a million stray Sour Patch Kids refugees living in the lining of my publicly shamed Marc Jacobs. ‘Her name is Jenny, isn’t it?’