I Heart London

‘I mean, it’s not like I don’t have parental issues of my own,’ Alex went on, filling in the silence for me. ‘But you’re gonna have to help me out. You don’t want to go home or you just don’t want to see her?’

‘I don’t know,’ I replied. It didn’t help, but it was honest.

‘You guys don’t get along?’

‘We actually used to be all right,’ I said, remembering all the Sunday dinners in front of the EastEnders omnibus. ‘I mean, she’s my mum. She’s a pain in the arse, but I just − I just feel bad.’

Alex resumed the hair-stroking. ‘Because?’

‘Because I came here. I left her. And I know that, for all her moaning, she misses me, and I feel guilty. As much as she’s a pain in the arse, my mum’s always been there for me.’ I couldn’t help but think about Louisa’s wedding. Who else would put you to bed and tell you everything was going to be all right immediately after you’d split up a ten-year relationship, made something of a scene and broken the groom’s hand with a stiletto? Only your mother.

‘The day you don’t feel guilty about your parents will be the day the world stops turning,’ Alex said. ‘I think going back to visit is a good thing. Maybe it’ll remind her you’re still here. You’re not on the moon, you’re just a plane ride away. Maybe she’ll stop guilt-tripping you so much.’

‘Yeah, maybe.’ And maybe I’ll wake up to find a bacon sandwich winging its way past the window. Silly Alex. ‘It just feels so strange. Like, I won’t be welcome.’

‘Well, that’s dumb,’ he laughed, pulling on my ponytail. ‘I didn’t want to say anything, but I’ve already had two emails from Louisa and a Facebook friend request from your dad. They can’t wait to see you.’

‘Parents really shouldn’t be allowed on Facebook,’ I said, making a face and trying to smile. ‘Please feel free to ignore it. I know they’re excited to see me. And I’m excited to see them.’

‘But?’

I looked around the bathroom. At the towels on the heated rail, at all my products loaded on the windowsill, at my boyfriend on the floor, and imagined my life for a moment without any of it.

‘But I still don’t want to go,’ I said eventually.

‘Because?’

‘Because I left,’ I said with a deep breath. ‘And I’m scared that if I go back home to England, I’ll have to give up my home in New York.’

Alex breathed out with a whistle. ‘Wow.’

I turned my head to the side to face him properly and did not enjoy his expression.

‘You realize that’s the dumbest thing you’ve ever said?’ Alex asked. ‘And you know, between you and me, you’ve said some pretty dumb shit over the years. It’s not an either/or sitch.’

‘I know,’ I whined, dropping my toes back into the bath and flipping the bubbles around my feet. ‘But you don’t get it. When I came here, everything changed. I met Jenny, I started writing, I met you. I changed. I didn’t like myself before. Before, I would just sit in my pyjamas and watch Sex and the City and wait for something to happen.’

‘Angela, what did you do last night?’

‘I sat on the settee in my pyjamas and watched Sex and the City, but that’s not the point,’ I replied. ‘It’s different. I’m different.’

‘I do get what you’re saying,’ he started carefully, choosing his words, presumably to minimize the chances that I would pull him face first into the bath. He was treading a very fine line. ‘But just listen to what you’re saying. You are different now. Even if you get back and they’re all the same. I know things weren’t awesome for you before you moved here − people don’t usually get on a plane and move to another country without notice if they’re super-happy with life − but what you have here, what you’ve achieved, no one can take away from you.’

I bit my lip and nodded.

‘No one can take me away from you.’ He reached into the bath water and pulled out my left hand, holding my ring up to the light. ‘And no one is going to take you away from me.’

I felt myself blush from head to toe. Sometimes I still didn’t quite believe it.

‘We’re going to go to London, you’re gonna show everyone this ring, and I’m gonna knock your mom’s socks off. By the time I’m done, she’s going to love me so much, she’ll be pushing you back on that plane. Back to New York, back to the magazine, back to all your friends and, like it or not, I’m going to marry your ass.’

‘Yeah, whatever,’ I said, trying to maintain my grumpy face, but it was hard when he was sitting there making sense and being adorable.

‘So, list of reasons to be cheerful?’ He squeezed my hand tightly. ‘You’re gonna see your mom and stop beating yourself up. You get to see Louisa and the baby. You get to see me being adorable with a baby. Your magazine is gonna kick ass and we get to go on a trip to London. I think that’s pretty cool. I’m excited.’

There were a million good reasons to marry Alex Reid, but one of the best was his ability to talk sense and put a smile on my face when I couldn’t see the lovely wood for the shitty trees.

‘And if you don’t tell me you’re excited, I’m going to drag you out of that bath and throw you into the East River,’ he declared.

‘You’re all talk, Reid.’ I shuffled further into the bath, further under the bubbles.

‘Is that right?’ He leapt to his feet, all six-foot-something in skintight jeans and a battered old black T-shirt. ‘You’re asking for trouble now.’

‘Fuck off and put the kettle on,’ I yawned. ‘I’ll be out in a minute.’

‘That does it. Get your ass out the bath and put the kettle on yourself.’

Without warning, he leaned over into the bath and picked me up. I reached up and grabbed around his neck instinctively, half the bath water following me out.

‘Alex, put me down,’ I squealed, dripping wet and completely and utterly naked. ‘Put me back in the bath!’

‘No way.’ He held me tightly, so much stronger than he had any right to be, and ducked my flailing, sodden limbs. ‘That’s enough sulking in the bath for one day. It’s time you made my dinner, woman.’

I couldn’t argue for laughing, and, despite slipperiness, couldn’t seem to wriggle away, so I let him carry me out of the bathroom, water dripping behind us, and throw me down on the bed.

‘So we’re agreed?’ Alex asked, peeling off his piss-wet T-shirt and tossing it at me. ‘You’re going to stop being a dumbass?’

‘Only if you get that bloody kettle on and clean up the bathroom floor,’ I retaliated, finally getting my breath back.

‘I knew marrying you was going to be a mistake.’ He flipped me his middle finger and walked out of the bedroom. I sat on the bed, holding his T-shirt, then heard the kitchen tap followed by the click of the kettle. I smiled.

Things were probably going to be OK.

Over the next couple of days, due to Alex’s enthusiasm and in spite of my mother’s, I started to get excited about the idea of going home. In between frantic spreadsheet sessions in the office, I’d find myself fantasizing about sausage rolls or imagining a crazed rampage through the Marks & Spencer lingerie department. No one made knickers like M&S. And the more I thought about it, the more excited I was to take Alex with me. He was going to be my good-luck charm. After all, he was right − I had changed, and it wasn’t like I would regress in the space of a couple of days to the same old mousey, housebound Angela whose idea of an exciting night out was a turn round Asda. We would go to London, I would parade him around like the show pony that he was and then we would come home. With enough bags of Monster Munch to warrant the purchase of a new suitcase. Or two.

When Saturday morning rolled around, I finally felt like myself again. There was a bounce in my step and considerably less need for Touche Éclat as I prepared for brunch with the girls. Jenny had been quiet all week, ignoring texts and emails, but according to Erin she’d got her shit together in the office, at least. Every day this week, she’d been on time, awake, seemingly sober and, most importantly of all, appropriately attired. Not only could no one see her underwear, but said underwear was covered by designer clothing befitting a label whore of Jenny’s standing. I was relieved. I wasn’t ecstatic that she was dodging my calls, but I was happy that she was at least functioning. And as a reward, today we were going to sit down with her in a public place, feed her full of scrambled eggs and suggest she get help moving on from Jeff. And hope she didn’t punch me in the face.

I’d chosen a heavily patterned Marc by Marc Jacobs shift dress just in case she decided to launch her Eggs Benedict in my direction and had kept my make-up to a minimum. Nothing that couldn’t be patched up while sobbing in a public bathroom. With one last deep breath and a quick practice of my resolved face in the mirror, I kissed a sleeping Alex goodbye and headed out to the train. Before we could stage our Lopez arse-kicking, Sadie and Erin had asked me to meet them all up town for my ‘surprise’. I wasn’t super-excited, mainly because it added thirty minutes to my journey and that meant thirty minutes’ less sleep on a weekend morning. Plus, while I always told people I loved surprises, what I really loved was someone planning a surprise and then me finding out what it was before it happened. I was something of a spoilsport.

The entire week had been warmer than it needed to be and my deodorant was being sorely tested by the time I emerged on 77th and Lex. I was hungry. I was stressed. I was ready for brunch. What I was not ready for was two giddy blondes, one tall and skinny, the other short and round, humming with excitement outside a big, boring corporate building. The second Sadie spotted me, she started leaping up and down and squealing. This, in my experience, was never a good sign. She was either drunk or high or drunk and high, and I wasn’t mentally prepared to deal with any of those things without a belly full of bacon. Sadie was Jenny’s roommate. My replacement. My six foot, blonde, beautiful, genuinely had her photo taken for money model replacement. But that fact didn’t bother me nearly as much as the fact that Jenny wasn’t with her.

‘Morning,’ I frowned, looking to Erin for some sense. I got nothing. Instead I was bundled into a giant hug, made a little difficult by the bump, but this was one hell of a committed hug. ‘What are we celebrating? Is Jenny sober?’

‘Jenny isn’t here yet.’ Erin broke the hug and brushed my hair behind my ears. ‘But she’s on her way.’

‘We have to go in before we’re late,’ Sadie said, giving me a smile so wide and bright I had to take a step back. I hated models. ‘I am so freaking excited.’

‘Excited about what?’ I looked around, trying to work out what had them so dizzy. If I didn’t find something that would stop my stomach from rumbling in the next seven seconds, I would be snatching a bagel out of the hand of the very next passer-by.

‘Oh, honey, we have a surprise for you.’ Erin took hold of my arm and led me through the doors of the office building and straight into a lift. ‘Sadie and I were talking, and we think it’s high time you got your mind set on this wedding of yours.’

I didn’t know what alarmed me more − the thought of Sadie and Erin having a meeting of minds or the fact that there had apparently been an Angela Clark Wedding Summit without Angela Clark.

‘So we decided to hurry you up a little.’ Her eyes sparkled brighter than my engagement ring.

‘Just to give you a little inspiration.’ Sadie dug her hands into her jeans pockets and tossed her honey-coloured ponytail over one shoulder.

The lift doors opened before I could wonder any longer and I was greeted with three words that simultaneously made my heart swell with joy and put the fear of God into my soul. Vera Wang Bridal.

‘Oh no,’ I whispered.

‘Hell yes,’ Sadie responded, pushing me out of the lift. ‘Now, let’s get your ass into a wedding dress.’

And suddenly I was incredibly thankful for the fact I hadn’t had breakfast.

Ten minutes later, the three of us were perched on silk-covered clouds, masquerading as overstuffed sofas, in a giant dressing room while a very smiley, very enthusiastic assistant named Charise brought in dress after dress after dress. Except that ‘dress’ really wasn’t an adequate word for anything in front of me. They were frothy concoctions of silk, tulle and the souls of unicorns, sewn together by kittens and carried here by a family of bunnies. They were amazing. They were a fantasy. I sat on my hands to keep from poking them. Didn’t seem like the done thing.

‘Sorry we kept it a surprise,’ Erin whispered in an appropriately reverential tone. ‘It was Jenny’s idea. We know you’ve been so crazy busy that you haven’t even started thinking about the wedding, so, you know, this just seemed like a good way to kick-start things.’

I nodded slowly. This was the second time in a week someone had tried to ‘kick-start’ my wedding planning with the lure of pretty dresses. I wondered if Alex’s friends were tempting him out of the house with the promise of delicious meals only to bombard him with designer tuxedos. Probably not.

‘We are still having brunch though, aren’t we?’ My priorities were poker straight.

‘Believe me, I know how stressful wedding planning is,’ Erin said, holding up both hands to emphasize her point while Sadie listened intently. Both ignored my question. ‘And these are the fun parts. Honestly, by the day of the wedding, you’re going to wish you’d just eloped.’

‘I had a friend who got married. She was a model,’ Sadie added entirely unnecessarily. All of her friends who weren’t in this room were models. ‘And she cried the whole time. Everyone thought it was because she was so happy, but it wasn’t. She, like, totally freaked out. I had to talk her out of ditching him in the bathroom.’

‘Sounds like my first wedding,’ Erin agreed. ‘I had to watch the video afterwards to actually see what happened. I was just panicking the whole time.’

Thanks to the massive number of mirrors in the dressing room, it wasn’t just the girls who had the pleasure of my expression. If my eyebrows could get this high this quickly, I would never need Botox.

‘But you’ll be fine,’ Erin said quickly. ‘That’s why we need to start planning now. Dresses first, then the venue and the catering, and then you only need to worry about the guest list. And you’ve got for ever, right? What are you thinking? Next summer? Next autumn?’

I opened my mouth but nothing came out. Guest lists. Venues. Dresses.

‘Oh, you need at least eighteen months,’ Sadie declared. Unmarried, twenty-three-year-old, single Sadie. ‘At least. You won’t get any decent venue with less notice than eighteen months.’

‘Unless you do a Friday.’ Erin shrugged and made a face. ‘But you can’t do a Friday.’

‘Tacky,’ Sadie confirmed. ‘So what are you thinking?’

And that was the first time since getting engaged that I realized I wasn’t just wearing this ring for a laugh. I was actually getting married. I was going to be a bride. I was going to put on a great big dress and mince down an aisle and make promises to Alex in front of lots of people, then eat a painstakingly selected meal that I would endeavour not to spill down one of these incredibly expensive dresses. I was getting married. To a boy. For ever and ever and ever. Gulp.

‘Can I get you ladies some champagne?’ Charise asked, hanging a fourth dress and glowing in our general direction.

‘Yes please,’ we answered in unison.

‘I’ll be right back,’ she replied, backing out of the room. Obviously she could tell something was wrong because instead of cooing over the dresses and having a little cry like we should be, we were sitting in stony silence.

‘Where is Jenny?’ I pulled out my phone and jabbed at the screen. No messages, no missed calls.

‘I knew I shouldn’t have left without her.’ Sadie rubbed her bare arm and frowned. ‘But she’s been OK the last couple of days and she was excited.’

‘And she said she was coming?’ Erin asked, dialling Jenny’s number, hanging up and dialling again. And again. And again. ‘You spoke to her?’

‘I knocked on her door, I told her we needed to leave, she stuck her head out.’ Sadie paused to reinforce her statement through the medium of mime. ‘And said she’d be here, like, ten minutes after us. Now can someone please, for the love of Wang, start trying on dresses?’

‘I can’t try them on without Jenny here,’ I said, reaching out to touch a puff of organza. I prodded it lightly with a fingernail in case it popped and disappeared. ‘I can’t.’

There was silence in the room while Sadie vibrated with impatience.

‘I’ll go and get her,’ Erin said after a long, lustful look at an ivory satin bodice. ‘You get started on the dresses and I’ll go and get her.’

‘No, don’t be stupid.’ I jumped to my feet. ‘You’re the size of seven hippos. I’ll go.’

‘But you have to try on dresses!’ Sadie actually stamped her foot. It was like having a six-foot-two three-year-old in the room throwing a tantrum. ‘Someone has to try on a dress.’

‘So you try one on for me,’ I said, tossing my satchel over my shoulder and heading out of the door. ‘I’ll be back in fifteen minutes. Twenty tops. Don’t drink all the champagne.’

Before Erin could heave herself out of her chair I was up and on my way out of the door, and I didn’t breathe again until I felt the sun on my skin. I breathed in and out as deeply as I could as I stuck my arm out for a cab. The bridal salon had a soft, powdery perfume that had started to make me feel sick. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to try on the dresses. I was only a girl, after all, and what girl could resist wedding dresses? And these weren’t just any wedding dresses, they were Wang. These were hardcore, triple-X bridal crack, enough to go to any girl’s head. But it was the surprise element that was too much for me. A girl needed to build up to something like this; you couldn’t just go in cold on Wang, for God’s sake. I needed an hour or so with some magazines, a visit to the Bloomingdale’s bridal floor, enough notice to make sure my underwear matched, that kind of thing.

I could still see each of the four dresses Charise had picked out dancing around in my head when I jumped into a taxi and gave them Jenny’s address. There was the ivory one with the black ribbon waist that flowed down to the ground like a pile of very elegant used tissues. Maybe not for me. And then the one with the sparkly embroidered bodice that whispered Kim Kardashian a little too loudly for my liking. I didn’t really want to celebrate my special day looking like someone whose last marriage lasted a whole seventy-two days. The whitest one looked a little bit like a very beautifully draped towel, and then there was the prettiest dress I had ever seen. Not the most mind-blowing, not the biggest, brightest or boldest, nothing that would change the world, but definitely the prettiest. I closed my eyes, wound down the window and took a moment to imagine myself waltzing around a candlelit ballroom wearing the delicately peach-hued mermaid dress, roses of tulle floating around my feet, wisps of silk brushing against my skin. It was beautiful and I could see it. But it just didn’t feel like me. And it definitely didn’t feel like Alex. I pressed my fingers against my forehead and nibbled on a thumbnail. It struck me this whole wedding malarkey was going to be harder than I’d thought, now I realized I hadn’t really thought about it at all.

CHAPTER FOUR

‘Jenny?’

I had decided against ringing the buzzer and let myself straight into the apartment with the key I had never bothered to give back − I wasn’t about to stand on the pavement like a spare part if she had just decided she didn’t fancy company. It was about time we got this intervention-slash-arse-kicking on the road.

Things had changed since I’d lived on the corner of 39th and Lex. Every surface in the apartment was now bright white, courtesy of Sadie and her Mariah Carey addiction to blinding surfaces. Unfortunately, that addiction didn’t run as far as actual cleaning or hiring a housekeeper. If possible, their flat was a worse shit-hole than mine. Used-up cartons of coconut water (Sadie’s) and empty pyramids of Coronas (Jenny’s) lined the kitchenette, and the living room was artfully decorated with more clothes than you could find in your average Help the Aged. A cashmere sweater here, an Abercrombie hoodie there, seven Victoria’s Secret thongs adding colour to the couch and an eye-wateringly beautiful Jason Wu dress being used as a rug. It hurt my heart to look at it on the floor, just begging to be picked up, nicked and then never, ever worn, given that it was at least three sizes too small for me. Sadie’s and Jenny’s wardrobes tended to bring out my inner klepto.

‘If you’re not here,’ I called out, tiptoeing around a lovely-looking pair of YSL Tributes in, ooh, my size, ‘I’ll just help myself to that box of Godiva truffles you keep hidden on top of the cupboards.’

I stood outside her bedroom door, barely breathing, just to make sure I could in fact hear shuffling around. Unbelievable. She was in bed.

‘Right, I’ll put the kettle on as well,’ I shouted, slamming the kitchen cupboards and bashing the kettle around. ‘Nice cup of tea and an entire box of chocolates. Probably just throw them straight up. Every single one.’

Now I was annoyed. She knew what we were doing today. She knew Sadie and Erin were taking me to try on wedding dresses, and she had decided to get an extra couple of hours’ kip. What a bastard. I clambered up onto the kitchen counter, skirt up around my knickers, shoes kicked onto the floor, and grabbed around for a golden box tied in black ribbon on top of the cereal cupboard. It was dusty enough to suggest it had been up there for a couple of months, but it wasn’t off-putting enough to stop me from tearing off the ribbon, chucking the lid on the floor and shovelling the chocolates into my mouth three at a time.

‘Bloody hell, Jenny,’ I yelled through the gooey chocolatey goodness. ‘These are amazing. You should get your lazy arse out of bed before I eat them all.’

I contorted myself around to mash my tea, twisting over the sink to reach the kettle, and made a mental note to take up yoga classes soon. Again. And then stuffed another fistful of chocolates into my gob while trying unsuccessfully to pull my skirt over my knickers.

‘Any left for me?’

If hearing a distinctly masculine voice wasn’t enough to topple me from my countertop perch, spinning around to see a half-naked man grinning at me was. But that grin didn’t last long. As soon as he recognized me.

Tyler.

I slapped a hand over my chocolate-filled mouth and inadvertently propelled myself over the kitchen counter and onto the living-room floor.

‘Holy shit.’ It took him half a second to compose himself before running around to help me up. I coughed, choking down a particularly chewy caramel. ‘Bad spill. Did you break anything?’

For a couple of seconds I lay on the floor, dazed, wondering if I’d been hit by a taxi or fallen downstairs and woken up in a coma. Or purgatory. Or out-and-out fire and brimstone, seventh circle of hell. But no, here I was on the floor of Jenny’s apartment, chocolate smeared all over my face and my less than best underwear on display, while my former boyfriend − no, that was too strong a word; former fling − loomed over me in his very best underwear with nothing on his face but a shit-eating grin.

‘Annie?’

Oh, now that was just rude.

Tyler stroked his abs with an absent-minded hand and looked around the apartment with new eyes. ‘I thought this place seemed familiar.’

‘It’s Angela.’ I pushed myself upright and did the best I could to put everything where it was supposed to be. Skirt over knickers, chocolate off face, hair − well, the best I could do was on head. ‘I need to speak to Jenny.’

‘Right, right. English chick. So this is weird, huh?’ he shrugged, still smiling. Actually smiling broader and brighter if possible. What a wanker. ‘She’s in bed.’

I stared hard, willing him to vanish. Willing this not to be happening. Willing myself not to be true to my word and throw up all those chocolates.