‘And that melatonin shit—they don’t sell it in the UK, you know. Made from sheep’s brains.’
‘Too late.’
Sheep’s brains or no sheep’s brains, I was going to Tinseltown, and there was a guy who bore more than a passing resemblance to Robert Pattinson a few rows in front. For all the Hermès in Harrods I wouldn’t swap places with anyone right now.
The one benefit of having a monstrous hangover on a flight was the ability it conferred to glaze over and, as it turned out, sleep. Maybe it was the melatonin, but I managed to nod off for a few hours. Arriving in LA—Mona in her third outfit of the day, a cool, cream Marni shirt dress and ballet pumps, and me still in my first outfit—skinny jeans, ankle boots, black American Apparel sweater (which Mona eyed disapprovingly and I was paranoid was starting to smell)—we made it through immigration without difficulty. This was ‘a bloody miracle’, according to Mona, who had given me strict instructions to bat my eyelids, smile and pretend to be dim, should I be asked any difficult questions, like what I was doing in the United States of America. I wouldn’t be lying if I responded, ‘I’m not entirely sure ‘.
‘They nearly always question the excess baggage,’ she explained, as I pushed a heavy trolley piled high with the rest of her Louis Vuitton luggage, Vicky’s battered suitcase, plus two huge, smart, hard black cases full of clothes for the suite, towards the car-rental centre.
We were soon in the mid-afternoon sunshine, top down on the hired, fashionably eco-conscious Toyota Prius convertible, whizzing up La Cienega and heading towards Mona’s second home in the Hollywood Hills. The warm breeze licked at my face and whisked my hair high into a Mr Whippy before throwing it down again to lash against my cheeks. With Vicky’s Ray-Bans on—she won’t even know, it’s winter at home—and a slick of lip gloss hastily applied in the airport loo, I was feeling surprisingly good. As we cruised up wide, palm tree–lined roads, a cheesy Ronald McDonald smile spread right across my face. The sight would have made Mona wince, but she was too busy shouting at the in-car phone, which was failing to acknowledge any of her instructions. I crossed my arms on top of the door, leaned out and breathed it all in. The air smelled sweet and biscuity. I love it here already.
A trio of honey-skinned girls, who looked as though they’d stepped straight off the set of the latest Abercrombie & Fitch ad shoot, pulled alongside us in a convertible jeep. I wondered if they were the kind of women I’d soon be hanging out with at the W Hotel. They were intimidatingly pretty, all golden Californian perfection. Wait a minute, wasn’t one of them a Kardashian? Could be. Probably is. I can’t wait to tell Vic about this. I caught myself staring. And then a wave of panic rippled through me: Will I be able to fit in here? Suddenly I felt like my teenage self again, the slightly overweight girl with spots and home-dyed hair, denim dungarees and plastic clip-on earrings, who ate her dinner without removing her CD-Man. I bet none of the Abercrombie girls have had bad hair or been overweight in their lives. I bet they were allowed to get their ears pierced as soon as they could talk. The car screeched as we sped around a right turn, on a red light.
‘Mona! Didn’t we just—’
‘Oh, sweetheart, you’re so funny. This is America, remember? It’s perfectly legal to go right on a red.’ I sunk back into the seat, not convinced. ‘Chill out! No need to call the traffic police, Amber Green.’ She laughed to herself and I gripped my seat belt, saying a silent prayer that we would make it to her house alive.
Wiping a bead of sweat from my forehead, another, more pressing thought dawned on me: I may have packed very badly. I realised all at once that I was beyond boiling in my outfit. And I had a nasty feeling that, thanks to my hungover packing, I’d forgotten to chuck the white pile into the suitcase. My heart rate quickened, and my body felt clammier still. This meant I had brought with me an almost exclusively black, winter, working wardrobe—a look better suited to the role of a Black Sabbath roadie about to embark on a tour of Siberia than a cutting-edge stylist preparing for awards season.
I glanced back at the Abercrombie girls. None of them were wearing black. They were wearing spaghetti-strap candy-coloured vest tops and light denim, with delicate, layered gold necklaces to enhance their tans. They looked cool and clean, everything I currently was not.
Finally, we crossed Sunset Boulevard and followed a winding road, climbing steeply into the hills. The words to ‘Sunset Boulevard’ played over in my head. The Lord knew I’d listened to the soundtrack enough times, always in the car with Dad tunelessly singing along. Oh, how apt they seemed today.
Sunset Boulevard, twisting boulevard,
Secretive and rich, a little scary.
Sunset Boulevard, tempting boulevard,
Waiting there to swallow the unwary.
Mona began pointing things out: ‘That house over there, behind those gates, that’s Keanu Reeves’s. We used to share a gardener. And that one is Jennifer Aniston’s old place, before she moved in with Justin. She hasn’t sold yet—maybe she’s hedging her bets. Moby’s got an architectural house way up there and if you keep going down that road, eventually you reach the Playboy Mansion.’ I ooohed and aaahed in all the right places, not even having to feign excitement. It was just like being on a film set as we glided past Mulholland Drive and spied beautiful mansions nestled in the nooks of the winding hillside roads. I imagined Hollywood heavyweights like Sylvester Stallone and Bette Midler tucked away behind the security gates, wearing silk dressing gowns, reading scripts or dictating updates to their autobiographies in sumptuous living rooms.
‘Up there—’ I craned my neck skywards ‘—is Madonna’s house. I’ve been to parties there. Insane.’
‘What happened?’ I attempted to make conversation, but Mona ignored me. I was learning fast that any chit-chat was strictly on her terms. Idly, I wondered how old Mona was and where she was born. I knew so little about this woman currently driving me off into the Hills to stay in her home. I guesstimated mid-to-late forties. Birthplace? I had assumed London, because of her English accent, but now I wasn’t entirely sure.
She was on a roll. ‘Christina Applegate walks her dog around here every day, and see that tree? That’s where Lindsay Lohan crashed her car. And before you ask, no, the Hollywood sign is not near here, it’s the other side of Hollywood Heights. So touristy, though—you won’t want to do that.’ Oh. I’d been quite looking forward to posting that particular photo of myself on Facebook.
Eventually we pulled up on Mona’s driveway, in front of a magnificent, large Mediterranean-style house with terracotta tiles on its whitewashed walls. It was the kind of house I’d own in my fantasy life. Beneath us was the most incredible view of the sprawling city and the smog cloud above it. It was out of this world. I felt speechless.
‘Amazing view, hey, babe?’
I breathed it all in. Beats the sight of Scrubs Lane from my window at home.
‘It’s incredible.’
Inside Mona’s house we were greeted by a zebra skin rug. I hesitated.
‘Don’t panic, babe, no need to Tweet the WWF, it’s fake.’
A wisp of a girl wandered into view. She had long, thin brown hair and was wearing a pale yellow bikini under an oversized white T-shirt with the words ‘Relax Don’t Do It’ emblazoned across the front in shouting black capitals.
‘Amber, this is Klara. She’s staying here while she takes over the modelling world. Isn’t that right, Klara, babe?’
The girl smiled. She was a natural beauty, her face completely bare of make-up. She was younger than me, maybe twenty maximum. And she was thin, so thin. Her pale legs seemed to go on forever. She was like a kind of miniature giraffe.
‘Thanks, Mona,’ she replied softly, in an English accent, before slinking off again through some large glass doors at the end of the open lounge