I Heart New York

‘What’s this?’ I asked. Wasn’t I a little too old for star stickers?

‘It’s for you to write in,’ Jenny explained, opening the notebook to the first page. ‘You said that you didn’t really know what your ambitions were earlier, now I want you to work some out. And make sure you include getting laid. Now upstairs, dinner, ambitions and then sleep.’

She shooed me away and turned to a hotel guest waiting patiently in front of the counter with a megawatt smile. ‘How can I help you, Mr Roberts?’ I heard her purr as I slipped into the lift, my nose already in the notebook.

Name: Easy, Angela Clark.

Age: Twenty-six and six months. More of a wince with that one.

Ambition: To be a published writer.

Next to published writer, I added, ‘To be happy’.

And next to that, ‘Get laid’.

CHAPTER SEVEN

The next morning, I woke up feeling I had to meet my new life head on. So what if I’d never done anything impulsive before today? I was now a born again New Yorker and a New New Yorker needed a New Handbag. I’d put together a simple outfit, short shorts, a beautifully cut white shirt and cute little lemon ballet slippers. My make-up and hair might not have been up to Razor/Gina standards but I still looked better than I had in, well, since the last time I’d actually bothered to look in a mirror.

Jenny had been insistent that I travel everywhere by subway until I knew the system as well as the London Underground. I hadn’t had the heart to tell her that even after nearly seven years in London, I could still pretty much only find my way from Waterloo to Top Shop Oxford Circus without looking at the map. Cautiously, I slipped down the subway steps, scoping out a Metrocard machine and feeding in my cash. So far, so London. Twenty-four dollars for a one week pass? Not so London. I knew TFL had been ripping me off …

According to my notes, I was supposed to take the 6 train to Spring Street–easy. But looking at the map, I was sure it would have been quicker to walk. Immediately I was confused, why didn’t the lines just have names? What was with the colours, the letters and the numbers? And how did I know what stopped where? Jenny’s notes expressly forbade asking anyone for directions or getting a guidebook out. Halfway around Bloomingdale’s the day before, she had grabbed my Rough Guide out of my handbag and ceremoniously dropped it in a rubbish bin.

The subway was hot in the sticky August heat, but the platforms were much bigger than the Underground. When the train arrived, it was huge inside compared to the cramped little District line. At first I couldn’t work out why the carriage looked so familiar and then I remembered, Ghost. This is my train! Louisa and I must have watched that film a thousand times as teenagers. But Louisa’s not here, I reminded myself. She’s probably playing mixed doubles with her husband, your ex and his mistress. The fact that I knew she was probably on her honeymoon in Grenada did nothing to dispel the ugly fantasy I’d created for myself. Before I could slink off the train and back into the hotel, the doors closed and we pulled off. I dropped backwards onto the hard metal bench and studiously avoided eye contact with the other travellers while sneakily trying to get a good look at them.

It would be such a New York cliché to call the subway a melting pot but it really was. Businessmen in suits clung to the straps, tourist shoppers from Fifth Avenue clutched their Saks and Tiffany’s bags nervously, while a group of Hispanic girls with truly gravity defying hair backcombed each other beside me. In between them, older travellers rode the train with their eyes closed. Before I knew it, we were at my stop. I dashed through the open doors and headed up the steps, trying not to look around with too much confusion. As I exited on to Spring Street, the super strong sun caught me off guard and I almost toppled backwards into a girl, so cool looking I felt sure that she must be famous. Or at least sleeping with someone famous.

‘Sorry,’ I gave her my best ‘what a tit’ grin.

The girl gave me an uncomfortable stare and moved on. Watching her lithe limbs saunter on down the street as if she owned it, I wondered how much I would have to offer her for a blowjob. If I was commanding a hundred dollars, she could be into five figures.

Jenny had told me I’d love Soho and she was right. It was so different to the strict, structured grid system of midtown. I loved being able to see for what seemed like for ever, up and across Manhattan, but this was like stepping into a film set. Even though I’d never been here, the streets seemed so familiar. Either I’d found my spiritual home or I’d watched too much TV. I wandered down the street, towards what I hoped was Broadway, peering in windows, watching the people and intermittently looking down at my shameful old handbag. Before I could decide what to do with it, I found Broadway. And another Bloomingdale’s. Hurrah.

I fought my way through the cosmetics counters, trying to strike a balance between peeping at the magical make-up on the counters without attracting the attention of the vulture-like assistants. Dashing past the Bliss counter, I bounded onto the escalator, sailing up and away to credit card safety. For the moment at least. The bags were helpfully right where I stumbled off the escalator, but the number of bags crammed into this small space was completely overwhelming. Stalking around the counters and shelves, I evaded the gaze of the assistants for as long as I could before I braved a young brunette with approximately three hairs out of place. A relative slattern by Soho standards.

‘Hi, can I help you find something?’ she asked.

‘I’m looking for a bag,’ I nodded, trying not to sound like someone who really didn’t do this often, but at the same time not wanting to get fleeced out of my entire wedding savings for a handbag. ‘Something I can use for everyday really, for carrying my laptop, my wallet, phone, stuff like that.’

‘OK.’ She began rocketing around the department, pulling out various bags of various sizes, all extra-ordinarily expensive, I was sure. ‘You’ll probably want leather if it’s for everyday. It’s the most durable material and it wears well. And you want room for your laptop …’ she paused, biting her full bottom lip and glancing around the shelves before pulling some more bags out from hidden drawers behind her counter. ‘Any favourite designers?’

‘Marc Jacobs?’ I offered, thinking back to yesterday’s induction into the fashion floor. It seemed to be the right answer because she smiled and finished off the collection of luxury leather in front of her with the most beautiful, beautiful bag I had ever laid eyes on. I reached out to stroke its buttery softness, the dark brown of the leather looked like milk chocolate and the subtle gold detailing winked at me.

‘Buy me,’ it whispered tantalizingly. ‘I complete you.’

The sales girl was making noises about updated classic satchel design, Italian leather and brass fixings but I was already working out how much I could ram in there and still wedge my arm through the strap.

‘How much?’ I asked, picking it up delicately. It was heart-stoppingly beautiful. Was it wrong that I felt more passion for this bag than I had felt in my and Mark’s bedroom for the last three years?

‘It’s $895.00,’ she said, sensing the commission. I figured she could smell a sale like a horse smells fear. ‘Plus tax.’

My shoddy internal exchange rate brought that out at more or less £500. I’d never ever spent more than thirty quid on a bag. But I needed it. I thought back to when Louisa and I went shopping for bridesmaid shoes in Harvey Nicks and reasoned with myself. If she could spend £400 on my shoes for one day (albeit guilt shoes, I realized now) I could invest £500 in a bag I would use for the rest of my life. I’d just use it all the time. For every occasion. Every single day.

‘Anything else?’ the girl piped up.

I smiled feverishly back at her. ‘I need a clutch.’

A thousand dollars down and two amazing handbags up, I sloped down Bloomingdale’s steps into the searing summer heat. I figured at £500 I had to get my money out of this bad boy by using it absolutely immediately, rolling my Next pleather wonder into as small a scrunchy ball and dropping it into my Big Brown Bag. Compared to midtown yesterday, Broadway was relatively quiet. A few tourists wandered around in combat shorts and red shoulders with digital cameras constantly clicking, while the beautiful and hip with no perceivable employment, swanned in and out of the shops, weaving around Mercer, Spring and Prince Streets, weighing down their skinny forearms with massive stiff paper bags. It took staring at these girls for less than a minute before I realized how starving I was. Luckily, this was New York City and Starbucks was never more than two minutes away. One quick muffin, I promised myself as I stumbled gratefully back into multinational air-conditioning, and then I’ll head back to the hotel.

My promises were short-lived. If the people watching outside Bloomingdale’s had been good, standing in the ten minute queue at Starbucks was like watching a David Attenborough documentary. I’d never seen such a mix of people. More skinny women ordering non-fat caffeine shots, businessmen holding meetings over blueberry scones, cute muso types intensely discussing the newest guitar band (and not even ordering coffee–rebels.) But the most popular customers were the men and women studiously ignoring the rest of the patrons and desperately tapping away on laptops, intermittently stopping to check their WiFi connections, sigh loudly and sip their huge drinks.

‘You can never get a fuckin’ seat in this fuckin’ place,’ breathed the man behind me. ‘Fuckin’ bloggers.’

I turned and smiled politely even though I didn’t know what he was talking about, assuming he was addressing me. He stared back at me as if I were mentally ill.

‘Bloggers?’ I enquired, suddenly feeling very English as he stared me down.

‘What?’ he snapped. Apparently, he was not talking to me.

‘Sorry,’ I mumbled, turning away, looking for a rock to crawl under.

‘You said something about bloggers, I thought you meant …’ and I let myself trail off with an intense stare into the pastry cabinet.

‘Oh,’ he said, still not exactly what you’d call friendly. ‘Just thinking out loud. You can never sit down in a Starbucks for all these cock sucking bloggers posting their whiny diatribes about how shitty their lives are. No one cares, people! Go find some real friends to talk to!’

At this point he was really shouting at the laptop brigade and I was really, really wishing I hadn’t encouraged the conversation.

‘Next?’

Saved by the coffee order.

I ordered my muffin and Americano to go and immediately hailed a cab. I’d taken the subway once today and my Marc Jacobs satchel really didn’t feel like slumming it.

‘The Union hotel, on Union Square,’ I said, settling back as we turned off Broadway. I watched carefully for street signs, trying to ignore further credit card destroying shopping opportunities. Down East Houston and then up the Bowery, or was it Fourth Avenue? I was confused but happy confused.

‘You on vacation?’ the cabbie yelled through the grid.

‘Yes,’ I called back, happily taking in the sights. ‘I am on vacation.’

‘Girl like you on your own?’ he asked. ‘Don’t get many girls on their own. Mainly get the packs of three or four doing the Sex and the City thing. Can’t tell you how many times I’ve been down to Magnolia Bakery.’

Oh. Cupcakes! ‘I haven’t been there yet.’

‘Yeah, I don’t get it,’ he laughed. ‘They sit in the back of the cab complaining about not being able to get into some dumb dress they can’t afford and then they go eat cupcakes. I just don’t get it.’

The cab ride was so short, I hardly had time to find my wallet inside my beautiful new bag when we pulled up outside the hotel. And it was only six dollars! This was the best city and clearly, clearly offset the insanity of my purchases.

The thing I loved best about my hotel room was that no matter how messy I left it, how many towels I’d used and how many of the mini Rapture toiletries I’d used up in the shower, it was always blissfully restored to pristine condition when I returned. I gently placed my Marc Jacobs bag on the side table and pulled my laptop out of the desk. Setting up a selection of soft drinks and snacks on the tiny table I’d dragged across the room, I grabbed a pillow from the bed and perched the computer onto my knee. The hotel had supplied me with a UK power adaptor without me even asking. Wow. I couldn’t remember the last time Mark had so much as intuitively supplied me with a cup of tea. I also spotted a note from Jenny, reminding me tonight was Gina’s leaving party and that I was to meet her in reception at nine.

Within fifteen minutes of settling into my chair and not typing a single word, my laptop had gone to sleep and so had I. I was back to dreaming my New York life, instead of living my New York dream. For the last six months or so, while Mark had been putting in extra hours at the office and at the tennis club (and in Katie as it turned out) I’d thought about joining gyms, taking yoga classes, even teaching creative writing classes, but I hadn’t actually acted on any of them. Maybe, if I tried, I could genuinely see the positives in what had happened. I had already made a friend in Jenny, even if I didn’t really know her that well. I’d got a new do, a new wardrobe and I was now in possession of the most beautiful handbag I’d ever seen in almost twenty-seven years of life. Who needed what I’d left behind?

While all these thoughts ran through my head, I started typing. For the want of a plot or a storyline, I started writing every single thing that had happened to me in the last week. It seemed like a good place to start, documenting everything for fear of a single second of it escaping. It all came out, the wedding ceremony, the dinner, the toasts, finding Mark in the car with his pants down, bashing Tim’s hand, and my bolt to New York. Before I knew what had happened, it was almost eight, I’d been typing for more than three hours and in just over one, I had to meet Jenny, Gina and Vanessa.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Dead on the dot of nine, fuelled by a hastily necked vodka from the mini bar, I stepped out of the lift and into the lobby.

‘Jesus, Angela Clark,’ Jenny said as I skulked into the bar. I’d never in my life been one of those girls who can look in a mirror and think, yeah, I look good. Even at Louisa’s wedding, after an hour and a half at the mercy of a hairdresser and make-up artist, I hadn’t looked good–I’d looked like a bridesmaid, but things were changing. If I didn’t look at least OK tonight, I knew I never would. It had taken me twenty minutes and three attempts at Razor’s smoky eye make-up tips, but I was more or less there (and he’d promised it would only look better the more smudged it got). My hair was elegantly messy and I’d gone for a simple black v-neck dress I’d bought that afternoon, with my Louboutins, new clutch and bare legs. I’d never felt so great but so nervous in all my life.

‘Hey,’ I held my hand out in a small wave.

‘Remind me again why I’m giving you shopping advice?’ Jenny kissed me on both cheeks and presented me to the girls. ‘Gina and Vanessa, you know, this is Erin.’ They all raised a hand and I ordered a vodka and cranberry hoping it would come soon. ‘I’ve told the girls all about you but I didn’t tell them you were a complete glamazon,’ Jenny said, checking me out from every angle. ‘You did me proud, doll!’

‘I didn’t really know what I should wear so I just went for black. And I didn’t have to make too many choices about going out shoes,’ I held out a foot for inspection to approving hums and nods.

‘Well, you did good, honey,’ Gina said, sipping her cocktail. ‘You’ll be just fine.’

At least I’d got the level of dressing up right. Gina looked ridiculously sexy in high, high heels and a knee-length, skin-tight silk dress in a rich purple. Jenny was putting her namesake to shame in a plunging cream dress that cut way past her cleavage and the other two girls had really taken the ‘short is the new black’ mantra I’d seen in fashion magazines to heart. Individually they looked super sexy but as a pack, they looked unreal. If I were a man, I’d have been terrified.

Not at all strangely, for five scantily-clad women, we found cabs right away and were climbing out at the Soho Grand in minutes. From the outside, nothing really looked that grand but the ordinary fa¸ade belied an amazing interior. Like The Union, it was dimly lit but decked out with chandeliers and amazing wrought ironwork. The Grand Bar was lined with chrome stools that were occupied by equally beautiful people befitting the decor. Jenny had reserved a section of the lounge, which was already spilling over with people I recognized from the hotel and people I didn’t. Everyone was all about the hugs, kisses and ‘you rock’ affirmations, but I wasn’t drunk enough not to feel self-conscious.

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