an old brush they had used to tease their hair for a hilarious Eighties fancy dress party. The brush nearly took the entire apartment block with it when Jenny tossed it in the burning bin. It turned out to be not only disgusting but also a very dangerous fire hazard. But there was a chance I’d written it in the back of my diary – I was just too drunk to work that out at that exact moment.
3.?Speak to James
As much as I wanted to just call The Sun and tell them that James was as gay as a goose, I just couldn’t do it. Damn that stupid misguided sense of dignity. Or was it pride? Or maybe just the idea of me stretched across the front page of the News of the World in a pair of La Senza lace shorts with everything padded, pushed and teased under the headline ‘James Jacobs’s Beard Tells All!’ was just too much. Actually, the News of the World wouldn’t say beard, they’d probably go straight to ‘Pathetic fag hag, Angela Clark spills the beans on James Jacobs’s late-night gay orgies in Hollywood’s public bathrooms …’ My mother would be so proud.
4.?Sort things out with Jenny
It was just too much that things were weird between us, especially with everything else going on, but I had a horrible feeling that things were going to get weirder before they got better. Or was that just a horrible feeling that I was about to throw up? Dropping the pen and pad, I raced to the bathroom to double up over the toilet just in time.
When would I learn?
‘Jesus Christ, Angie, what the hell happened to you?’
I woke up slowly, my face cold and seemingly stuck to something hard, a flip-flopped foot in my blurry eye-line. Trying to move my head hurt far too much, and for some reason my left arm was completely paralysed.
‘Angie, can you hear me? Did you take something?’ The voice carried on but it sounded so far away. ‘How long have you been on the bathroom floor?’
Ahh, that made sense, I was still on the bathroom floor. Which was why it was cold. Which was why I couldn’t move my arm. Which was why Jenny’s feet were almost touching my nose.
‘For Christ’s sake, Angie, are you thinking your answers instead of saying them again?’
Yes, I thought.
‘Mmhuh,’ I said.
With the help of Jenny and a towel rail not meant to be used to hoist ten stone of incredibly hungover girl up off the floor, I was soon sitting, or slumped, on the toilet seat. I readily accepted the glass of water she held out to me, not bothering that it came from the bathroom tap, and glugged it down. Which was my first mistake.
After I’d thrown the first glass of water up, I slowly sipped a second, Jenny shaking her head at me from the edge of the bath.
‘I cannot believe you, Angie.’ She pushed my hair back off my face. ‘What happened after I left?’
‘What happened?’ I closed my eyes again. It didn’t help. ‘You want to know what happened?’
‘Yeah,’ Jenny said, taking my empty glass and refilling it from the bath tap. Was it weird that it tasted like heaven? ‘I mean last night. What happened to “I would never cheat on Alex, even if we’re on a break?”’
‘I remember, I wasn’t that drunk,’ I replied, despite the fact that that was clearly a lie. ‘What are you talking about?’
‘The photos of you and James?’ Jenny gave me her ‘duh’ face. ‘The ones that Erin and Vanessa and Gina all emailed over today? I kinda didn’t expect you to be here. Did he leave already or did you just come back to the hotel after you did the deed?’
‘Oh my God.’ I suddenly felt very, very sick again. ‘It’s so not what you think.’
‘You didn’t, did you?’ Jenny asked, her annoyingly healthy face lit up like Christmas.
‘Jenny, he’s gay,’ I said into the palms of my hands.
She scoffed. ‘If he said no, you can just say so.’
I looked up, my attractive white pallor apparently adding to my serious face.
‘No. Way.’
‘Yes.’
‘No. Way.’
‘With Blake.’
‘Really? That’s hot.’
‘Missing the point entirely, Jenny.’ I pulled a flannel from the towel rail, ran it under the cold water and pressed it against my face. ‘What am I going to do?’
‘Well, you’re gonna take a shower first,’ Jenny said, standing up and pulling the shower curtain across behind her. ‘Then you’re going to explain to me every last little detail of how you uncovered this juicy, potentially financially rewarding piece of gossip, and then you’re coming with me to go shopping for Tessa DiArmo’s award show tonight.’
‘You’re seriously doing that?’ I asked, peeling off my sweaty dress and stepping into the shower. Ahh, the sweet relief of running water.
‘Don’t ever doubt me, Angela Clark,’ Jenny called, closing the bathroom door. ‘Get your ass clean and be downstairs in ten minutes.’
Ten minutes was always going to be a stretch but, fifteen minutes later, I emerged from the lift with a very roughly blow-dried bob, hastily applied make-up and my satchel thrown across my body. Jenny looked my jeans and T-shirt up and down and sighed.
‘That’s so not the ensemble to be photographed in, honey,’ she said, wrapping her arm around my shoulders and guiding me out to the car. ‘Where’s the big hat? The dark glasses?’
I pulled my sunglasses triumphantly out of my handbag. ‘I’m wearing the exact same outfit as you,’ I protested. But of course I wasn’t. My baggy boyfriend jeans and little pink American Apparel T-shirt couldn’t compare with Jenny’s skintight Sevens and clingy, white, deep V-neck. At least our black Havaianas were identical.
We picked up iced coffees en route, me thankful for any reason to get out of the car-slash-death-trap, Jenny ecstatic to be able to demonstrate her ability to sip a Frapuccino whilst driving, and I filled Jenny in on the James/Blake situation. Once I’d finished the story for the third time, I tilted my head back and stared up at the beautiful blue, cloudless sky. At least if I looked up there, I couldn’t see Jenny running red lights.
‘So what are you going to do?’ Jenny asked, swerving around a tight corner onto Melrose Avenue. ‘Did you make everything OK with Alex? Did you speak to Mary?’
‘I spoke to Alex but it didn’t go that well.’ And that’s putting it mildly, I added to myself. ‘I have to call Mary but I’ve been sort of putting it off. I’m guessing the fact that she hasn’t called me yet is not a good sign.’
‘It all sounds pretty clear to me, honey,’ Jenny said, swinging the car into a car park beside a building that seemed to be covered in grass. ‘You just have to tell her the truth. It’s just gonna sort this whole thing out.’
‘I know but, well, actually, I don’t know …’ I pulled my frizzy hair into a loose ponytail and wrapped a band around it. ‘I can’t just out him, can I? Obviously he’s hiding it all for a reason.’
Jenny stopped the car with a jolt. ‘Are you fucking with me?’
‘Jenny—’
‘This ass-hat makes out with you in public, allows photos of the two of you to be published all over the internet, effectively destroys your relationship and costs you your job and you don’t want to casually drop into conversation that he’s the new Clay Aiken?’
I wrinkled my nose. ‘Yeah, well.’
‘Great argument,’ she climbed out over the locked car door.
‘They do open, you know,’ I grumbled. ‘Where are we anyway?’
‘And