pursed my lips and closed my eyes. This wasn’t going to be flattering, however I hard I tried. Folding my leg underneath me and almost dislocating it in the process, I inched along the lion as far as I could before I felt myself sliding down its backside much faster than I had anticipated.
‘Shit!’ I wailed, collapsing into James’s outstretched arms.
‘This is going to be the best interview ever, isn’t it?’ James asked.
With massive quantities of self-restraint, I shook myself out of his broad, hard chest and coughed, not knowing whether to brush my hair or my skirt down first.
‘I’m probably not going to mention this part,’ I said, accepting my phone back. It was warm from his pocket. ‘But this set is amazing.’
‘Yeah,’ he nodded, looking around. ‘Always seems crazy to me when they spend a fortune on a set, though. Although I suppose they can’t go around blowing up parts of the real Trafalgar Square.’
‘You’re blowing bits of it up?’ I asked, hoping it wouldn’t be my lion.
‘Shit, I’m supposed to be sworn to script secrecy.’ James pulled an imaginary zip across his mouth. ‘You didn’t hear that from me.’
‘Of course,’ I said. ‘Are you blowing it up today? Can I watch?’
‘Bloodthirsty, aren’t you? Nope, sorry, Trafalgar Square doesn’t get it until next week.’
‘James!’ Blake yelled from the steps of the National Gallery and tapped his watch. ‘Trailer!’
‘Want to see my trailer?’ James raised a perfect eyebrow.
I raised mine. ‘I bet you say that to all the girls.’
‘Maybe a couple,’ he admitted, putting an arm around my shoulder and walking me off into a Waterloo Sunset.
If walking onto the set had been like walking into London, walking into James’s trailer was like walking into heaven. I’d never, ever seen anything so plush. It made The Union and The Hollywood look like a youth hostel.
‘This place is amazing. Why would you even have a house?’ I charged up the steps and into the lounge. Three massive plush sofas dominated the space, all pointing at a huge flatscreen TV with a beautiful low coffee table set in the centre. Under the TV was a DVD player, a Blu-ray player and several games consoles. It was basically boy heaven.
‘Gets boring after a while,’ James said, his hand hovering over a fruit platter on the coffee table before he skipped over onto a bowl of M&Ms. ‘Sometimes I just really want to fuck off back to my mum’s. You can fly direct to Sheffield now, can’t you? I could be there in a day.’
‘Sheffield?’ I gave James a questioning look. ‘I thought you were from London?’
‘Not approved!’ Blake called from the kitchen. He stuck his head around the door. ‘We’re not talking about James’s past, Miss Clark.’
‘OK.’ I launched myself into one of the squishy sofas and filed it away.
‘So, James has to go do some actual work. We’ll be, like, two hours. You’ll stay here?’ Blake pushed James through the door as he threw me a helpless shrug and disarming wink.
‘Perfect,’ I said to myself, pulling my laptop out of my bag. It was almost twelve already and my blog wasn’t about to write itself. Couldn’t hurt to at least attempt to get it in on time…
The Adventures of Angela: LA Story
So finally, I can let you in on my secret…right now, as in right this second, I’m blogging to you from the trailer of a very cool, very talented and, well, gorgeous movie star. Seriously, we’re talking A-list, super-hot, 100% amazing Ac-Tor-type person.
What’s great for me (but possibly a little bit rubbish for you), is that I’m actually interviewing him for The Look—my first-ever proper interview! But that’s not the most rubbish bit (unless I do a really shoddy job, that would be a bit tragic): what’s really sad is that I’m not allowed to tell you who it is.
I know, what a tease.
What I can do is tell you all about LA and all the adventures I’m having…Which have so far totalled a bit of shopping and puking outside a bungalow at Chateau Marmont. I am all class, I know. But seriously, what gives? Why am I not loving this place? I was so excited to leave the New York snow but LA just seems a bit empty and impersonal instead of glamorous and exciting. Am I doing something wrong? If you have any recommendations, please email me and let me know where I should be going. And yes, before you ask, I have a car.
Course, things might pick up when Mr Movie Star takes me out this afternoon…I do this all for you, you know.
Blog written and emailed to Mary back in New York, I popped in the earphones from my Dictaphone and prepared to type up my notes. Hmm. Me telling James how I ended up in New York. James laughing. Me telling James how much I disliked LA. James laughing. Blake telling me I had to stick to approved topics. James laughing. So far, all I had for the interview was: James Jacobs loves to laugh.
Before I could even start to panic, I heard my phone buzzing in my bag. Mary—Office. Meep.
‘Hi Mary,’ I said, shuffling onto the edge of the chair and actively not biting my nails. ‘You got my blog?’
‘I did, you were sick outside his bungalow?’ Mary wasn’t one for pleasantries.
‘Er, yeah, food poisoning,’ I bluffed. ‘James didn’t know anything about it, I just thought it sounded funny on the blog.’
‘Right.’ I know she didn’t believe me for a second. ‘Is everything OK? Have you got some good stuff?’
‘Yes?’
‘Do you want to send it to me?’
I stopped actively not biting my nails. ‘It’s not ready.’
‘It’s not ready?’
‘And I’m a perfectionist.’
‘Right. Send me something tomorrow.’
I didn’t know if it was a good or bad thing that she hung up without absolutely kicking my arse, but I was fairly sure that it was not good. Mary might have agreed to let me do the interview, but if things looked as though they might be going badly, she would pull me off in a heartbeat, and I was absolutely not going to let that happen. This was my chance; I really wanted it to work. Somewhere along the line, I’d got it into my head that if I could do this, then I could do anything. That maybe Mary would send me more exciting assignments than reviewing the new Christina Aguilera album. I just had to do a good job. Even if I had absolutely no experience, precedent or genuine reason to believe that I might be able to. Shit.
So what had I really learned about James Jacobs? He liked to run in the hills, he had just filmed a movie in Canada and he may or may not be from Sheffield. Hmm. Not even enough to warrant a ten-second interview on Facebook let alone a magazine interview.
OK, Angela, I told myself, as soon as James comes back to the trailer, you will be a hard-hitting journo. You will be the world’s most investigative interviewer. You will check your make-up and hope that you are still looking human. And then, of course, James will walk back in while you have two giant rings of Touche Eclat highlighting your impressive eye bags. He was shadowed, of course, by Blake.
‘Well, you, Angela Clark, are a rare beauty.’ He gave me one of his most dazzling smiles. It was a wonder he didn’t think everyone in the universe was mentally challenged, it was so difficult to actually give a coherent response when he really turned it on.
‘It’s a terrible load to bear,’ I agreed. ‘So what are we up to?’
‘I’m all done here for today.’ James stretched,