‘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 cocksucking 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.
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 façade 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.
‘Hey, you really do look great,’ Jenny whispered in my ear as we were ushered through into our own private slice of opulence. ‘And you’ll be just fine. Just talk to people, you’re practically a local celebrity and shit, you look so hot!’ A reassuring squeeze on the shoulder and she was gone.
No matter how great I was told I looked and how fabulous my surroundings, I still felt like a fish out of water. The first two drinks were wearing off and all of a sudden, I was just Angela Clark in a room full of strangers wearing a really short dress. For the want of something to do, I went to the bar. If I was holding a drink, at least I’d have something to do with my hands. Even though it wasn’t even ten, the bar was busy with hotel guests and after-work drinkers but I managed to slip onto a stool as a sweaty man in a suit vacated, and checked out the cocktail menu. From here, Gina’s group looked as if it could be any A-lister’s after party. I didn’t think anyone at home would believe me if I told them that the gorgeous, groomed minxes in the VIP area were hotel workers and hairdressers. They looked like movie stars to me and no matter how many makeovers I had, it had still only been three days since I was just Angela Clark, nobody. Maybe I wasn’t ready to