The Berkeley Method (2 page)

“No, Mami.”

“Good. Because he is a nice man, Isabella. He fixed the apartment charges for me, and I will never be able to repay him.”

I’d forgotten about that. James took care of the legal issues on the apartment I inherited from my father. The place where Lorna and I now live. We’d been paying a huge service charge for years. But James intervened, and now the apartment is rent free. I was angry at him for interfering, but I can’t deny I was also grateful.

Surely that proves he likes me?
The thought provokes a fresh surge of emotion.

“I have to go, Mami,” I lie. “Lorna and I are going out.”

“Good, that’s good, darling. Don’t sit around waiting for a man to call,” she advises, with an unerring ability to judge my weaknesses.

“Bye, Mami.”

“Goodbye, my darling.”

I hang up and cast the phone despondently into a far part of the couch.

Damn James Berkeley. Damn him.

I lay back and stare at the ceiling, wondering how I can feel this much pain when there is nothing physically wrong with me.

Unable to help myself, I snatch up my phone and find his number in my contacts.

My finger hesitates over the call button, and then in a sudden burst of recklessness, I tap to dial and press the phone tight to my ear.

I am holding my breath as the call dials out. What if it rings? What would that mean?

It goes straight to voicemail, and I catch a few words in James’s sexy deep voice. I hang up quickly, my heart melting all over again at the sound of him.

Voicemail. I assess this. Perhaps he really doesn’t have reception. But how can that be? Nowhere, I remind myself, doesn’t have reception for this long.

Hating myself, I punch out a quick message.

Why don’t you call?
I miss you.

Quickly I press send, before I can change my mind.

There. Done.

I feel a blaze of thrilled pain sweep through me.

Needy, unattractive, unreasonable. Everything I’m not entitled to demand after knowing a man for less than a week. Exactly what I don’t want him to think of me. But the message is sent, and there’s nothing I can do to bring it back.

Nice work, Isabella. Men love desperation.

I push back thoughts of what I might have done. Maybe I don’t care any more.

Then the door of the lounge opens, and I hear Lorna stride back inside.

She plonks herself unceremoniously next to me, making me bounce off the couch. And then I see a shot glass filled with liquor in front of my face.

“Drink it,” says Lorna.

I sit a little more upright. Lorna is holding two shot glasses and a bottle of tequila. She pours herself a shot.

“We’re going to drink these shots,” she announces, “and then we’re going to drink another one. And then we’re going out.”

I hesitate, and Lorna shakes her head. “You are too young and too beautiful to stay holed up on a couch because of some stupid guy,” she announces. “You’re coming out with me whether you like it or not.”

I can see from her face that there’s no room for argument. And a little part of me likes that she’s shaking me out of my low mood.
You can’t be in love after less than a week
, I remind myself. Tentatively, I take the tequila.

“Drink it,” orders Lorna.

I tip it back and feel fire coursing into my stomach. I cough, unused to strong spirits.

Lorna tips back her own shot and fills up both of our glasses.

The tequila is burning through me. I feel awake.

“Your diabetes,” I say uncertainly, looking at the second shot in Lorna’s hand. She really shouldn’t drink alcohol at all.

“Now I know you’re better,” she says, “since you’re fussing over my health. Don’t worry, honey, these two won’t harm me. I won’t drink another drop once we leave the house. Scout’s honour.”

She chinks glasses, and this time I down my tequila with a little more enthusiasm.

Then I reach over and take Lorna’s glass.

“I’m not letting you have two,” I decide. “The last time you drank too much, I had to call an ambulance.”

“Fine,” she agrees, “I’ll pour it back in the bottle.”

But on a sudden crazy whim, I throw back the shot.

The alcohol hits my empty stomach almost immediately.

I don’t feel better. That would be an exaggeration. But I feel more alive than I did. I feel more dangerous. I want something, anything, to happen to get me out of this mood.

“Here.” Lorna is holding my denim skirt and a pair of Ugg boots. “Put these on. You’ll still look better than most other women out there, even dressed down a little.”

She picks up my iPad – the one James sent me just a few days ago to read a movie script from.

A little burst of pain fires through me, remembering the screen test which came after.

“I’m going to show everyone Alex’s latest artwork,” she says, slipping the iPad into her purse. “This will be perfect.”

I look at her uncertainly.

“Oh,” sighs Lorna, “I don’t care that
Mr. James Berkeley gave it to you. I’m not carrying your mega-heavy laptop to a bar when you have this sleek little thing.”

I give her a lopsided smile. The tequila is kicking in.

I pick up my mobile and snap it onto silent. The tequila is already detonating bad texting urges, but I refuse to succumb.

“Take my phone,” I say, handing it to Lorna. “Don’t let me have it until tomorrow.”

“Atta girl.” She slips my phone into her pocket.

Now that I’ve relinquished any hope of hearing from James for the next few hours, I feel a little better. At least I’m in control of things. And I can’t text him anything stupider than I already have.

I feel the third tequila rush through me.

“Ok,” I set my jaw determinedly, “let’s go.”

Chapter3

Lorna has picked the grungiest pub in Camden. As she shows off Alex’s work, I notice a few interested faces glancing towards the shining iPad.

The thin patterned carpet beneath our feet is sticky, and the ancient Victorian bar is made of heavy dark wood and only serves beer in pints. So we’re sat in a tiny battered table, sipping from large glasses.

The look in the bar is a mixture of young punk and Indy. The boys look like rock band members, and the girls have all styled themselves on Amy Winehouse.

Alex, with his geek-chic glasses and colourful tattoos, fits right in. Sandy and Lorna are wearing more or less the right clothes. But their model looks mark them out as a little too well polished.

My denim skirt,
Ugg boots and white silk cami vest should allow me to slide into the background. But for some reason, I manage to attract as much attention as Lorna and Sandy when I head to the bar.

I return with a second round of drinks, and as I arrive back at the table, I find the conversation has turned to my love life.

“So,” says Sandy, the Claudia-Schiffer lookalike from Houston, “tell me about ‘the Berkeley situation’.”

The volume of her voice causes several people to turn around. Sandy has been careful to lose her southern drawl and now speaks pure Californian. But in this rough and ready Camden pub, an American accent is still a novelty.

I shrug as I take my seat. I’d rather not talk about it.

“He hasn’t called in four days,” I say, hoping this will end the conversation.

“Four days is nothing,” says Sandy. “You have nothing to worry about.”

“Berkeley met her mother and aunt and uncle already,” fills in Lorna, “and his company has sent her details of a film he’s cast her in.”

Sandy and Alex stare at me in frank amazement.

“You never told us that part,” whispers Sandy. She’s looking at me with something like awe.

“I don’t know if it’s all going ahead,” I say weakly. Since arriving, I’ve added a pint of beer to the three tequilas and am feeling decidedly woozy.

“And besides,” I add, the drink making me more outspoken than usual, “there is no reason he wouldn’t have phone reception for a week. That’s what he told me when I last spoke to him.”

Alex and Sandy exchange glances.

“That’s what he told you?” asks Alex.

I take a swig of my second beer. It is going down a little too well.

“Uh-huh. So tell me
that’s
a good sign.”

Alex reaches across the battered little table where we’re sitting and touches my arm.

“He’s a guy, Issy. Guys are like that. Did you never read
Men Are from Mars
?”

I shake my head.

“After a few dates, it’s natural for a guy to cool off a little. Give him space and he’ll come running right back.”

I feel a sudden fear in the pit of my stomach, remembering the text message.
Give him space. I’ve probably sent him running to the hills.

“I texted him,” I groan, pushing my head into my hands.

I look up to see they’re all staring with concern.

“What did you text?” asks Alex.

“That I missed him,” I whisper.

Alex waves away my anxiety. “It will be
fine
, don’t worry. He obviously really likes you.”

Sandy is nodding.

“When Pete and I got together, he didn’t call me for two weeks,” she says. “I thought he’d totally lost interest, and I sent him a few crazy texts. Now we’re engaged.”

I smile weakly, not too encouraged by Sandy’s situation. Pete is a sweet southern boy back in Houston who doesn’t handle Sandy’s modelling career at all well. She admits herself that he probably only proposed out of jealousy. And they have a rocky transatlantic relationship, to say the least.

“Maybe he’s just decided he needs time to think for a week,” says Alex. “You said yourself it was an intense few days.”

I nod, a little blurry through the drink. That makes sense, I suppose.

“You mean he’s not telling the truth about the phone reception?” This is a horrible thought.

Alex shrugs. “Would it be the worst crime? If he needed a little space to think? Even nice guys sometimes tell white lies like that. It doesn’t mean anything.”

“I suppose so,” I say slowly. The alcohol is making it hard to make sense out of anything.

“You know how you could find out,” says Sandy slowly.

“No.” I look at her blankly.

She pushes the iPad towards me.

“The movie press is all over James Berkeley. Why don’t you Google a celebrity news site?”

I shake my head. The last time I
Googled James, I found out about the red roses.

It hurt, and it served me right. I had sworn to myself I wouldn’t invade his privacy like that again.

“C’mon,” says Lorna, her violet eyes glowing. “At least then you’ll know.”

I turn to face Alex, who looks uncertain. He at least has moral scruples.

But Sandy has already fired up the iPad and is scrolling around the web.

“Let me see,” she mutters, her long fingers tapping away. “James Berkeley, pictures. Let’s see what he’s been up to.”

She freezes suddenly, her eyes glued to the screen. Then her eyes track up to mine in horror.

“What? What is it?” I grab the iPad out of her hands. For an awful moment, I think James has been hurt. But what I see on the screen is worse. Much worse.

I stare at the headline.

JAMES BERKELEY CHECKS INTO REHAB

Chapter 4

For a moment, I feel as though my head will explode. My ears are ringing, and every sense in my brain is tugging through the haze of alcohol.

I read the words again, desperate for them to say something else. I check the date. Yesterday. My heart sinks further.

“Does he have a problem with drugs?” I hear Sandy say. It sounds as though the words are far away.

“Yes,” I murmur, and as I speak the words, my eyes fill with tears. My first thought is to protect him, to pull these hateful headlines off the internet somehow and save him from other people’s judgement.

But the other unwelcome fact is that he lied to me. He admitted to me that he’d had a problem with drugs, and he’d sworn it was all in the past.

Now it’s obvious that this is a problem he’s still tackling.

I scan the story quickly. James was photographed going into a famous Hollywood rehab clinic. The reporter suggests the ‘pressures of Berkeley’s enormous success’ is to blame.

Lorna is speaking to me, gripping my arm in an effort to make me hear.

“Listen, Issy, listen to me. They’re just pictures. There’s no proof. He was only seen going into a rehab centre, but it could mean nothing.”