He’d embarrassed her. It was kinda cute.
‘I have to get back to meet my agent,’ Imogen stammered. ‘She was supposed to be at the shoot but she must’ve been waylaid. She’ll probably be waiting for me back at the Marmont.’ Imogen cursed herself. She’d just let on where they were staying and hoped Mylo wouldn’t take this accidental admission as a green light.
‘Cool digs,’ he smiled, slurping his bottle of Bud and placing his arm against the wall in a makeshift barrier to prevent her from escaping.
‘Anyways, there’s this hot new club opened downtown, The Playground. I’m on the guest list, so how about you and me …’
‘Mylo,’ Imogen interrupted him, ‘let’s get one thing straight,’ she looked up at him earnestly and said with as much sarcasm as she could inject into her voice, ‘there is no you and me.’
Mylo began to laugh.
‘Touché, lady,’ he grinned, glancing over at Candy who was hovering nearby. ‘But you’re way more my “cup of tea” as they say in England, or so I’m told. She don’t mean nothing to me.’
He gave a nonchalant shrug.
‘And that’s the problem, Mylo,’ Imogen raised an eyebrow. ‘That’s the problem.’
*
Drying herself and wrapping a cream silk Calvin Klein robe around her, Imogen stepped out onto the 1,500 square foot private terrace and let out a little ‘ooh’ of pleasure as she surveyed the breathtaking panoramic views of Hollywood that surrounded her.
Hollywood, Los Angeles; the City of Angels, a place where dreams became reality. Imogen looked up at the sign, blinking in the darkness at the enormous iconic letters emblazoned into the horizon. The gentle evening breeze lifted her robe a little and she exhaled softly. Try as she might, she could not seem to shake this terrible sense of melancholy. The feeling of her past becoming her present once more.
Heading back into the penthouse, keen to distract herself from her thoughts, Imogen decided to order room service. A club sandwich perhaps. Settling onto the king-sized bed and pulling a cashmere throw up around her, she switched on the huge flat-screen TV.
Flicking through the channels she stopped at CNN, concerned voices catching her attention. She heard her iPhone beep in her Mulberry tote, momentarily distracting her. The newsreader was saying something about a plane crash. She hit the volume button.
‘… Virgin Atlantic flight VA02367 from London Heathrow to LAX. Reports suggest a defective latching mechanism in the cargo door was to blame causing the 747 to fail in flight resulting in decompression and loss of hydraulic control. This is one of the worst aircraft accidents of the century, Barbara,’ the all-American presenter said gravely, turning to his on-screen partner.
‘I know, John. It’s shocking stuff,’ the schmaltzy blonde responded, equally full of gravitas. ‘329 dead, including all 15 crew members and 2 pilots …’
Imogen put her hand to her mouth in horror as she listened to the on-screen voices. ‘329 dead … no survivors …’ Her phone beeped again and she scrabbled for her bag, unable to take her eyes from the screen. She had seven new messages! She placed the phone down on the bed and continued to watch the reportage on CNN.
‘Jesus,’ she shook her head, visibly shocked. All those poor people and their families. That was a lot of dead bodies, she thought, a mix of guilt and relief suddenly engulfing her. She could’ve been on that flight herself! Imogen shuddered. It didn’t bear thinking about.
Shaken by the news, she felt the urge to order something alcoholic, and, picking up the room service menu she briefly scanned it. She’d get Cress something too, some Dom Perignon and a club sandwich with a side of fries perhaps. She was always so vocal about how much she loathed in-flight food and … Plane journey. London Heathrow to LAX. No survivors. And suddenly it hit her like a comet.
‘OH MY GOD!’ Imogen screamed as the room service menu slid from her grasp. ‘CRESSIDA!’
CHAPTER 12
Sammie Grainger looked up from her desk.
‘Hey, Sammie, the boss wants a quick word when you’ve got a mo,’ her colleague, Lara Bradshaw poked her head around the door and raised an eyebrow. ‘You been missing deadlines again, or what?’
Sammie let out a heavy sigh.
‘I take it he’s in one of his good moods?’ she asked sarcastically, already knowing the answer. Her boss only had one mood that she knew of: surly.
Lara pulled her mouth to the side and widened her eyes.
‘And there was me thinking he might be wanting to congratulate me on the faaabulous Chelsea Wives piece,’ Sammie said theatrically, thumbing the pages of the magazine in front of her until she came to the colourful double page spread.
‘Hmm.’ Lara leaned over Sammie’s shoulder, glanced at the spread and murmured her congratulations. ‘Looks great,’ she said, picking it up and beginning to read the copy aloud.
‘“It’s harder than it looks, maintaining oneself to such a high standard”, says Calvary Rothschild, one-time Fashion Director on the now defunct Dernier Cri magazine, of her twice-weekly hair appointment at Jo Hansford.’ Lara mimicked a posh voice, flicking her short brown bobbed hair behind her.
‘Oh, the heart simply bleeds for you, darling,’ she scoffed, continuing. ‘“We spent a little over a million pounds on our wedding in Capri,” gushes Lady Belmont-Jones. “But it’s not about the money at the end of the day. I would’ve been just as happy with a little do in a local register office”.’ Lara clutched her chest in mock sincerity. ‘Yeah! Right! Course you would, love.’
Sammie laughed.
‘Must be nice,’ Lara sighed, throwing the magazine back down onto Sammie’s desk, ‘all that money.’
Sammie cocked her head and shrugged.
‘Yeah, but you know, they didn’t strike me as being, like, any happier than you or me.’
Lara let out a little whinny of disbelief.
‘You sure about that, Sammie?’ Lara wasn’t convinced. ‘I’m off now to interview Boris Johnson’s missus about the merits of being married to a mayor and riding bicycles around Shoreditch. Woo-hoo!’
Smiling, Sammie shook her head and watched as Lara flounced from the office. She was a great girl; fun and engaging. Not a bad little journalist either. Even if it had been a healthy dose of nepotism that had got her to where she was now. Thanks to her well-connected media mogul father, there had been no grass route slog for Lara Bradshaw; no mountain of rejection letters or three-year underpaid apprenticeship on some old rag with a readership of one for her. Not like it had been for Sammie Grainger. She’d had to chase her dream with all the fierceness and determination of a Rottweiler going after an intruder in a steak suit.
Sammie had always played down her lowly south London, council estate origins. A privileged background still gave you the professional advantage, even today. But it wasn’t just her provenance she was grappling with. Just lately Sammie had been faced with an altogether more intimate struggle: her sexuality.
‘My mum is so proud of me. I know it would break her heart. She wants the whole white wedding and kids stuff, you know. I want to let her have that dream a little longer before I take it away from her,’ Sammie said to her first and former girlfriend of her decision to stay in the closet. She’d not told anyone at work either, not that it would necessarily be a problem, this was the media after all, it was just that she didn’t want her sexual persuasion to become an issue, a potential stumbling block – and she certainly didn’t want to be lumbered with