Читать книгу Girls’ Night In - Jessica Adams - Страница 14

Marian Keyes

Los Angeles International Airport: teeming with passengers, arrivals, film stars, illegal immigrants, a dazed English girl called Ros and, of course, the odd alien or two freshly landed from another planet. Well, only one alien, actually. A small, yellow, transparent creature who liked to be called Bib. His name was actually Ozymandmandyprandialsink, but Bib was just much more him, he felt. Bib was in Los Angeles by accident – he’d stolen a craft and gone on a little joyride, only planning to go as far as planet Zephir. Or planet Kyton, at the most. But they’d been repairing the super-galaxy-freeway and diverting everyone and somehow he’d lost his way and ended up in this place.

Ros Little hadn’t landed from another planet, she just felt like she had. The twelve-hour flight from Heathrow, the eight-hour time difference and the terrible row she’d had the night before she’d left all conspired to make her feel like she was having a psychotic episode. Her body was telling her it should be the middle of the night, her heart was telling her her life was over, but the brazen mid-afternoon Californian sun dazzled and scorched regardless.

As Ros dragged her suitcase through the crowds and the drenching humidity towards the taxi-rank, she was stopped in her tracks by a woman’s shriek.

‘It’s an alien!’ the helmet-haired, leisure-suited matron yelled, jabbing a finger at something only she could see. ‘Oh my Lord, look, just right there, it’s a little yellow alien.’

How very Californian, Ros thought wearily. Her first mad person and she wasn’t even out of the airport yet. In other circumstances she’d have been thrilled.

Hastily Bib assumed invisibility. That was close! But he had to get out of here because he knew bits and pieces about planet earth – he’d been forced to study it in ‘Primitive Cultures’ class. On the rare occasions he’d bothered to go to school. Apparently, Los Angeles was alien-spotting central and the place would be overrun with X-Filers in a matter of minutes.

Looking around anxiously, he saw a small girl-type creature clambering into a taxi. Excellent. His getaway car. Just before Ros slammed the door he managed to slip in beside her unnoticed, and the taxi pulled away from the crowd of people gathered around the hysterical matron.

‘But, Myrna, aliens ain’t yellow, they’re green, everyone knows that,’ was the last thing that Ros heard, as they skidded away from the kerb.

With heartfelt relief, Ros collapsed on to the air-conditioned seat – then froze. She’d just got a proper look at her cabbie. She’d been too distracted by Myrna and her antics to notice that he was a six foot six, three hundred pound, shaven-headed man with an eight-inch scar down the back of his scalp.

It got worse. He spoke.

‘I’m Tyrone,’ he volunteered.

You’re scary, Ros thought, then nervously told him her name.

‘This your first visit to LA?’ Tyrone asked.

‘Yes,’ Ros and Bib answered simultaneously, and Tyrone looked nervously over his shoulder. He could have sworn he’d heard a second voice, an unearthly cracked rasp. Clenching his hands on the wheel, he hoped to hell that he wasn’t having an acid flashback. It had been so long since he’d had one, he’d thought he’d finally grown out of them.

When the cab finally negotiated its way out of LAX, Los Angeles looked so like, well, itself that Ros could hardly believe it was real – blue skies, palm trees, buildings undulating in the ninety-degree haze, blonde women with unfeasibly large breasts. But as they passed by gun-shops, 24-hour hardware stores, adobe-style motels offering waterbeds and adult movies, and enough orthodontists to service the whole of England, Ros just couldn’t get excited. ‘It’s raining in London,’ she tried to cheer herself up, but nothing doing.

To show willing she pressed her nose against the glass. Bib didn’t, but only because he didn’t have a nose. He was enjoying himself immensely and thoroughly liked the look of this place. Especially those girl-type creatures with the yellow hair and the excess of frontage. Hubba hubba.

Tyrone whistled when he drew up outside Ros’s hotel. ‘Class act,’ he said in admiration. ‘You loaded, right?’

‘Wrong,’ Ros corrected, hastily. She’d been warned that Americans expected lots of tips. If Tyrone thought she was flush she’d have to tip accordingly. ‘My job’s paying for this. If it was me, I’d probably be staying in one of those dreadful motels with the water-beds.’

‘So, you cheap, huh?’

‘Not cheap,’ Ros said huffily. ‘But I’m saving up. Or at least I was, until last night …’

For a moment terrible sadness hung in the air and both Bib and Tyrone looked at Ros with compassionate interest laced with a hungry curiosity. But she wasn’t telling. She just bit her lip and hid her small pale face behind her curly brown hair.

Cute, Bib and Tyrone both realized in a flash of synchronicity. She’s cute. Not enough happy vibes from her though, Tyrone felt. And she’s not quite yellow-looking enough for my liking, Bib added. But she’s cute, they nodded in unconscious but undeniable male bonding.

So cute, in fact, that Tyrone hefted her suitcase as far the front desk and – unheard of, this – waved away a tip.

‘Maaan,’ Tyrone thought, as he lumbered back to the car. ‘What is wrong with you?’

After the glaring mid-afternoon heat, it took a moment in the cool shade of the lobby for Bib’s vision to adjust enough to see that the hotel clerk who was checking Ros in was that Brad Pitt actor person.

What had gone wrong? Surely Brad Pitt had a very successful career in the earth movies. Why had he down-graded himself to working in a hotel, nice as it seemed? And why wasn’t Ros collapsed in a heap on the floor? Bib knew for a fact that Brad Pitt had that effect on girl-types. But just then Brad Pitt shoved his hair back off his face and Bib realized that the man wasn’t quite Brad Pitt. He was almost Brad Pitt, but something was slightly wrong. Maybe his eyes were too close together or his cheekbones weren’t quite high enough, but other than his skin having the correct degree of orangeness, something was off.

Before Bib had time to adjust to this, he saw another earth movie star march up and disappear with Ros’s suitcase. Tom Cruise, that was his name. And he really was Tom Cruise, Bib was certain of it. Short enough to be, Bib chortled to himself smugly. (Bib prided himself on his height, he went down very well with the females on his own planet, all two foot eight of him.)

The would-be Brad Pitt handed over keys to Ros and said, ‘We’ve toadally given you an ocean-front room, it’s rilly, like, awesome.’ Invisible, but earnest, Bib smiled and nodded at Ros hopefully. This was bound to cheer her up. I mean, an ocean-front room that was rilly, like awesome? What could be nicer?

But Ros could only nod miserably. And just as she turned away from the desk Bib watched her dig her nails into her palms and add casually, ‘Um, were there any messages for me?’ While Brad Pitt scanned the computer screen, Bib realized that if he had breath he would have been holding it. Brad eventually looked up and with a blinding smile said, ‘No, ma’am!’

Bib wasn’t too hot on reading people’s minds – he’d been ‘borrowing’ spacecraft and taking them out for a bit of exercise during Psychic lessons – but the emotion coming off Ros was so acute that even he was able to tune in to it. The lack of phone call was bad, he realized. It was very bad. Deeply subdued, Bib trotted after Ros to the lift, where someone who looked like Ben Affleck’s older, uglier brother pressed the lift button for them.

Bib was very keen to get a look at their room and he was half impressed, half disappointed. It was very, tasteful, he supposed the word was. He’d have quite liked a water-bed and adult movies himself, but he had to say he was impressed with the enormous blond and white room. And the bathroom was good – blue and white and chrome. With interest he watched Ros do a furtive over-her-shoulder glance and quickly gather up the free shower cap, body lotion, shampoo, sewing kit, emery board, cotton buds and soap and shove them in her handbag. Somehow he got the impression that she wasn’t what you might call a seasoned traveller.

A gentle knock on the door had her zipping her bag in a panic. ‘Come in,’ she called and Tom Cruise, all smiles and cutesy charm was there with her case. He was so courteous and took such a long time to leave that Bib began to bristle possessively. Back off, she’s not interested, he wanted to tell Tom. Who’d turned out not to be Tom at all. He only looked like Tom when he was doing the smile, which had faded the longer he’d fussed and fiddled in the room. At the exact moment that Bib realized why Tom was lingering, so did Ros. A frantic rummage in her bag and she’d found a dollar (and spilled the sewing kit on to the floor in the process). Tom looked at the note in his hand, then looked back at Ros. Funny, he didn’t seem pleased and Bib cursed his own perpetual skintness. ‘Two?’ Ros said nervously to Tom. ‘Three?’ They eventually settled on five and instantly Tom’s cheesy, mile-wide smile was back on track.

No sooner had Tom sloped off to extort money from someone else than the silence in the room was shattered. The phone! It was ringing! Ros closed her eyes and Bib knew she was thanking that thing they called God. As for himself he found he was levitating with relief. Ros flung herself and surfed the bed until she reached the phone. ‘Hello,’ she croaked, and Bib watched with a benign smile. He almost felt tearful. But anxiety manifested itself as he watched Ros’s face – she didn’t look pleased. In fact she looked bitterly disappointed.

‘Oh, Lenny,’ she said. ‘It’s you.’

‘Don’t sound so happy!’ Bib heard Lenny complain. ‘I set my clock for two in the morning to make sure my favourite employee has arrived safely on her first trip in her new position, and what do I get? “Oh Lenny, it’s you”!’

‘Sorry, Lenny,’ Ros said abjectly. ‘I was kind of hoping it might be Michael.’

‘Had another row, did you?’ Lenny didn’t sound very sympathetic. ‘Take my advice, Ros, and lose him. You’re on the fast-track to success here and he’s holding you back and sapping your confidence. This is your first opportunity to really prove yourself; it could be the start of something great!’

‘Could be the end of something great, you mean,’ Ros said, quietly.

‘He’s not the only bloke in the world,’ Lenny said cheerfully.

‘He is to me.’

‘Please yourself, but remember, you’re a professional now,’ Lenny warned. ‘You’ve three days in LA so put a smile on your face and knock ’em dead, kiddo.’

Ros hung up and remained slumped on the bed. Bib watched in alarm as all the life – and there hadn’t been much to begin with – drained out of her. For a full half-hour she lay unmoving, while Bib hopped from pad to pad – all six of them – as he tried to think of something that would make her happy. Eventually she moved. He watched her pawing the bed with her hand, then she did a few, half-hearted, lying-down bounces. With great effort of will, Bib summoned his mind-reading skills. Jumping on the bed. Apparently she liked jumping on beds when she went to new places. She and Michael always did it. Well, in the absence of Michael, she’d just have to make do with a good-looking – even if he did say so himself – two-foot eight, six-legged, custard-yellow life-form from planet Duch. Come on, he willed. Up we get. And took her hands, though she couldn’t feel them. To Ros’s astonishment, she found herself clambering to her feet. Then doing a few gentle knee-bends, then bouncing up and down a little, then flicking her feet behind her, then propelling herself ceiling-wards. All the while Bib nodded unseen encouragement. Attagirl, he thought, when she laughed. Cute laugh. Giggly, but not daft-sounding.

Ros wondered what she was doing. Her life was over, yet she was jumping on a bed. She was even enjoying herself, how weird was that?

Now you must eat something, Bib planted in her head. I know how you humans need your regular fuel. Strikes me as a very inefficient way of surviving, but I don’t make the rules.

‘I couldn’t,’ Ros sighed.

You must.

‘OK, then,’ she grumbled, and took a Snickers from the mini-bar.

I meant something a bit more nutritious than that, actually.

But Ros didn’t answer. She was climbing, fully dressed, into bed and in a matter of seconds fell asleep, the half-eaten Snickers beside her on the pillow.

While Ros slept, Bib watched telly with the sound turned off and kept guard over her. He couldn’t figure himself out – his time here was limited, they could find the space-craft at any time so he should be out there cruising, checking out the females, having a good time at somewhere called the Viper Room. Owned by one Johnny Depp, who modelled himself on Bib, no doubt about it. But instead he wanted to remain here with Ros.

She woke at 4 a.m, bolt upright from jetlag and heartbreak. He hated to see her pain, but this time he was powerless to help her. He managed to tune into her wavelength slightly, picking up bits and pieces. There had been a frenzied screaming match with the Michael person, the night before she’d left. Apparently, he hadn’t wanted her to come on this trip. Selfish, he’d called her, that she cared more about her job than she did about him. And Ros had flung back that he was the selfish one, trying to make her choose between him and her job. By all accounts it had been the worst row they’d ever had and it showed every sign of being their last.

Human males, Bib sighed. Cavemen, that’s what they were, with their fragile egos and sense of competition. Why couldn’t they rejoice in the success of their females? As for Bib, he loved a strong, successful woman. It meant he didn’t have to work and – Oi! What was Ros doing, trying to lift that heavy case on her own? She’ll hurt herself!

Puffing and panting, Ros and Bib maneovured her case on to the bed and when she opened it and started sifting through the clothes she’d brought, Bib realized just how distraught she must have been when she’d packed. Earth still had those quaint, old-fashioned things called seasons and, even though the temperature in LA was in the nineties, Ros had brought clothes appropriate for spring, autumn and winter, as well as summer. A furry hat – why on earth had she brought that? And four pairs of pyjamas? For a three-day trip? And now what was she doing?

From a snarl of tights, Ros was tenderly retrieving a photograph. With her small hand she smoothed out the bends and wrinkles and gazed lovingly at it. Bib ambled over for a look – and recoiled in fright. He was never intimidated by other men but he had no choice but to admit that the bloke in the photo was very – and upsettingly – handsome. Not pristine perfect like the wannabe Brads and Toms but rougher and sexier looking. He looked like the kind of bloke who owned a power screwdriver, who could put up shelves, who could stand around an open car-bonnet with six other men and say with authority, ‘No, mate, it’s the alternator, I’m telling ya.’ This, Bib deduced with a nervous swallow, must be Michael.

He had dark, messy curly hair, an unshaven chin and his attractiveness was in no way marred by the small chip from one of his front teeth. The photo had obviously been taken outdoors because a hank of curls had blown across his forehead and half into one of his eyes. Something about the angle of his head and the reluctance of his smile indicated that Michael had been turning away when Ros had clicked the shutter. Real men don’t pose for pictures, his attitude said. Instantly Bib was mortified by his own eagerness to say ‘Cheese’ at any given opportunity. But could he help it if he was astonishingly photogenic?

For a long, long time Ros stared at Michael’s image. When she eventually, reluctantly put the photo down, Bib was appalled to see a single tear glide down her cheek. He rushed to comfort her, but fell back when he realized there was no need because she was getting ready to go to work. Her heart was breaking – he could feel it – but her sense of duty was still intact. His admiration for her grew even more.

Luckily, in amongst all the other stuff she’d brought, Ros had managed to pack a pale grey suit and by the time she was ready to leave for her 8 a.m. meeting she looked extremely convincing. Of course Bib realized she felt like a total fraud, certain she’d be denounced by the Los Angeles company as a charlatan the minute they clapped eyes on her, but apparently that was par for the course in people who’d recently been promoted. It would pass after a while.

Because of her lack of confidence, Bib decided he’d better go with her. So off they went in a taxi to Danger-Chem’s headquarters at Wilshire Boulevard, where Ros was ushered into a conference room full of orange men with big, white teeth. They all squashed Ros’s little hand in their huge, meaty, manicured ones and claimed to be, ‘trully, trully delighted,’ to meet her. Bib ‘trully, trully’ resented the time they spent pawing her and managed to trip one of them. And not just any of them, but their leader – Bib knew he was the leader because he had the orangest face.

Then Bib perked up – a couple of girls had just arrived into the meeting! Initially, he’d thought they were aliens too, although he couldn’t quite place where they might be from. With their unnaturally elongated, skeletal limbs and eyes so wide-spaced that they were almost on the sides of their heads, they had the look of the females from planet Pfeiff. But when he tried speaking to them in that language (he only knew a couple of phrases – ‘Your place or mine?’ and ‘If I said you had a beautiful body would you hold it against me?’) they remained blankly unresponsive. One of them was called Tiffany and the other was called Shannen and they both had the yellow-haired, yellow-skinned look he usually found so attractive in a girl-type. Although, perhaps not as much as he once had.

The meeting went well and the orange men and yellow girls listened to Ros as she outlined a proposal to buy products from them. When they said the price she was offering was too low she was able to stop her voice from shaking and reel off prices from many of their competitors, all of them lower. Bib was bursting with pride.

When they stopped for lunch, Bib watched with interest as Tiffany used her fork to skate a purple-red leaf of radicchio around her place. Sometimes she picked it up on her fork and let it hover in the general vicinity of her mouth, before putting it back down on her plate. She was miming, he realized. And that wasn’t right. He switched his attention to Shannen. She was putting the radicchio on her fork and sometimes she was putting some into her mouth. He decided he preferred her. So when she said, ‘Gotta use the rest-room,’ Bib was out of his seat in a flash after her.

He’d really have resented being called a peeping Tom. An opportunist, he preferred to think of himself. An alien who knew how to make the most of life’s chances. And being invisible.

But how strange. He’d followed Shannen into the cubicle and she seemed to be ill. No, no, wait – she was making herself ill. Sticking her fingers down her throat. Now she was brushing her teeth. Now she was renewing her lipstick. And she seemed happy! He’d always regarded himself as a man of the universe, but this was one of the strangest things he’d ever seen.

‘I should be nominated for an Oscar,’ Ros thought, as she shook her last hand of the day. She’d given the performance of a lifetime around that conference table. But she tried to take pride that she had done it. Between jetlag and her lead-heavy unhappiness over Michael she was surprised she’d even managed to get dressed that morning, never mind discuss fixed costs and large order discounts.

However, when she got back to her hotel, she insisted on shattering her fragile good humour by asking a not-quite-right Ralph Fiennes if anyone had phoned for her. Ralph shook his head. ‘Are you sure?’ she asked, wearing her desperation like a neon sign. But unfortunately, Ralph was very sure.

Trying to stick herself back together, Ros stumbled towards her room, where no force in the universe – not even one from Planet Duch – could have stopped her from ringing Michael.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said, as soon as he picked up the phone. ‘Were you asleep?’

‘No,’ Michael said, and Ros’s weary spirits rallied with hope. If he was awake at two in the morning, he couldn’t be too happy, now could he?

‘I miss you,’ she said, so quietly she barely heard herself.

‘Come home, then.’

‘I’ll be back on Friday.’

‘No, come home now.’

‘I can’t,’ she said gently. ‘I’ve got meetings.’

‘Meetings,’ he said bitterly. ‘You’ve changed.’

As Ros tried to find the right words to fix things, she wondered why it was always an insult to tell someone that they’d changed.

‘When I first met you,’ he accused, ‘you were straight up. Now look at you, with your flashy promotion.’

He couldn’t help it, Ros thought. Too much had changed too quickly. In just over eighteen months she’d worked her way up from answering phones, to being a supervisor, to assisting the production manager, to assisting the chairman, to becoming vice-production manager. None of it was her fault – she’d always thought she was as thick as two short planks. She’d been happy to think that. How was she to know that she had a natural grasp of figures and an innate sense of management? She had bloody Lenny to thank for ‘discovering’ her, and she could have done without it. Everything had been fine – better than fine – with Michael until she’d started her career ascent.

‘Why is my job such a problem?’ she asked, for the umpteenth time.

‘My job!’ Michael said hotly. ‘My job, my job – you love saying it, don’t you?’

‘I don’t! You have a job too.’

‘Mending photocopiers isn’t quite the same as being a vice-production manager.’ Michael fell into tense silence.

‘I can’t do it,’ he finally said. ‘I can’t be with a woman who earns more than me.’

‘But it’ll be our money.’

‘What if we have kids? You expect me to be a stay-at-home househusband sap? I won’t do it, babes,’ he said, tightly. ‘I’m not that kind of bloke.’ She heard anger in his voice and terrible stubbornness.

But I’m good at my job, she thought, and felt a panicky desperation. She didn’t want to give it up. But more than her job, she wanted Michael to accept her. Fully.

‘Why can’t you be proud of me?’ She squeezed the words out.

‘Because it’s not right. And you want to come to your senses, you’re no good on your own, you need me. Think about it!’

With that, he crashed the phone down. Instantly she picked it up to ring him back, then found herself slowly putting it back down. There was nothing to be gained by ringing him because he wasn’t going to change his mind. They’d had so many fights, and he hadn’t budged an inch. So what was the choice? She loved him. Since she’d met him three years ago, she’d been convinced he was The One and that her time in the wilderness was over. They’d planned to get married next year, they’d even set up a ‘Meringue Frock’ account – how could she say goodbye to all that? The obvious thing was to give up her job. But that felt so wrong. Oughtn’t Michael to love her as she was? Shouldn’t he be proud of her talents and skills, instead of being threatened by them? And if she gave in now what would the rest of their lives together be like?

But if she didn’t give in … ? She’d be alone. All alone. How was she going to cope? Because Michael was right, she had very little confidence.

For some minutes she sat abjectly by the phone, turning a biro over and over, as she pondered the lonely existence that awaited her. All she could see ahead of her was a life where she jumped on hotel beds by herself. The bleakness almost overwhelmed her. But just a minute, she found herself thinking, her hand stopping its incessant rotation of the biro – she’d managed to get all the way from Hounslow to Los Angeles without Michael’s help. And she’d managed to get a taxi to and from work. Had even held her own in a meeting.

To her great surprise she found that she didn’t feel so bad. Obviously, she felt awful. Frightened, heartbroken, sick and lonely. But she didn’t feel completely suicidal, and that came as something of a shock. She was so used to hearing Michael telling her that she was a disaster area without him that she hadn’t questioned it lately …

How about that? She remained on the bed, and her gaze was drawn to the window. In all the trauma, she’d forgotten about her ‘toadally awesome’ ocean view and it couldn’t have been more beautiful – Santa Monica beach, the evening sun turning the sea into a silver-pink sheet, the sand rose-coloured and powdery. Along the boardwalk, gorgeous Angelenos skated and cycled. A sleek couple whizzed by on a tandem, their no-doubt perfect baby in a yellow buggy attached to the back of the bike. He looked like a little emperor. Another tall, slender couple roller-bladed by, both sunglassed and disc-manned to the max. Hand-in-hand, they glided past gracefully, their movements a ballet of perfect synchronization.

‘Fall,’ Bib wished fiercely. ‘Go on, trip. Skin your evenly-tanned knees. Fall flat on your remodelled faces.’ He had hoped it might cheer Ros up. But, alas, it was not to be, and on the couple glided.

Ros watched them go, gripped by a bittersweet melancholy. And then to her astonishment, she found herself deciding that she was going to try roller-blading herself. Why not? It was only six-thirty and there was a place right next to the hotel that rented out roller-blades.

Hardly believing what she was doing she changed into leggings, ran from her room and in five minutes was strapping herself into a pair of blades. Tentatively, she pushed herself a short distance along the boardwalk. ‘Gosh, I’m quite good at this,’ she realized in amazement.

Bib held onto Ros’s hand as she awkwardly skidded back and forth. It had been a huge struggle to convince her to get out here. And she was hopeless. If he hadn’t been holding on to her hand, she’d be flat on her bum. Yet, her ungainly vulnerability made her even more endearing to him.

Bib had followed the evening’s events with avid interest. He’d been appalled by Michael’s macho attitude, the cheek of the bloke! He’d longed to snatch the phone from Ros and tell Michael in no uncertain terms how fabulous Ros was, how she’d terrified a roomful of powerful orange men. Then when Michael hung up on Ros, Bib used every ounce of will he could muster to stop Ros from ringing him back. He worked desperately hard at reminding Ros how wonderfully she’d coped since she’d arrived in this strange threatening city, even though it was so obvious, she should know it herself –

‘Careful, careful!’ he silently urged, squeezing his eyes shut in alarm, as Ros nearly went flying into a woman who was holding on to a small boy on a bike.

‘Sorry,’ Ros gasped. ‘I’m just learning.’

“S’OK,’ the little boy said. ‘Me too. My name’s Tod and that’s my mom, Bethany. She’s teaching me to ride my bike.’

Bethany was in the unfortunate position of having to hold tightly on to the back of Tod’s bike and run as fast as Tod cycled. Bib eyed Bethany with sympathetic understanding because he was in the unfortunate position of having to run as fast as Ros was roller-blading. Which got faster and faster as her confidence grew.

‘Wheeeeeh!’ Ros shrieked, as she sped a good four yards, before losing Bib and coming a cropper.

When she returned the skates to the hire office, her knees were bruised but her eyes were a-sparkle. ‘I had a lovely time,’ she laughingly announced. Then she sprinted joyously across the sand to the hotel, Bib puffing anxiously behind her, tangling himself in his six legs as he tried to keep up.

She woke in the middle of the night, the exhilaration and joy of the night before dissipated and gone. She felt cold, old, afraid, lonely. She wouldn’t be able to cope without Michael, she didn’t want a life without him.

But then she remembered the roller-blading. She wasn’t normally adventurous, usually needing Michael with her before trying new things. Yet she’d done that all on her own and it was a comfort of sorts.

‘I am a woman who roller-blades alone,’ she repeated to herself until she managed to get back to sleep.

Then she woke up, got dressed and went to work, vaguely aware that there was a new steadiness about her, a growing strength.

When she returned from her day’s work, exhausted but proud from holding her own as they inched their way tortuously towards a deal, she bumped into Brad Pitt in the hotel lobby. From the look of things he was just knocking off work.

‘Did you have a good day?’ he enquired.

Ros nodded politely.

‘So, what kind of business are you in?’ Brad asked.

Ros considered. She always found this awkward. How exactly did you explain that you worked for a company that made portaloos? A very successful company that made portaloos, mind.

‘We, um, take care of people,’ she said. Well, why shouldn’t she be coy? Americans were the ones who called loos rest-rooms, for goodness sakes!

‘D’ya take care of people on a movie set?’ Brad never missed an opportunity. The door to his career could open absolutely anywhere – there was the time he’d seen the director of Buffy the Vampire Slayer in his chiropodist’s waiting room, or the occasion he’d crashed into the back of Aaron Spelling’s Beemer – so he was always prepared.

‘Actually, we have,’ Ros said with confidence.

Quick as a flash, Brad’s lightbulb smile burst on to his face and he swooped closer. ‘Hey, I’m Bryce,’ he murmured. ‘Would you do me the honour of having a drink with me this evening?’

A good-looking man had invited her for a drink! What a shame that nothing would cheer her up ever again. Because if anything would do the trick, this would. But even as a refusal was forming in her mouth, Ros found herself pausing. Wouldn’t it be better than sitting alone in her room waiting for the phone to ring?

‘OK,’ she said wanly.

Bryce looked surprised, women were usually delighted to spend time with him. Then he clicked his fingers. ‘Oh, I get it. You’re English, right? You kinda got that Merchant-Ivory repressed thing going on. Love it! Meet me in the lobby at six-thirty.’ And smoothing his hair, he was gone.

In her room, Ros checked the phone, picked it up, trembled with the effort of not dialling Michael’s number and frogmarched herself into the shower. America, the land of opportunity. She should at least try, after all Bryce really was gorgeous.

From the jumble of clothes thrown on the bed she managed to make herself presentable. A short – but not too short – black dress, a pair of high – but not too high – black sandals. But as she watched herself in the mirror, it was like seeing a stranger. Who was this single girl who was going out on a date with a man who wasn’t Michael?

When the lift doors parted, Bryce was loitering in the lobby, sunbleached hair gleaming on to his golden forehead, white teeth exploding into a flashgun smile. Ros’s spirits inched upwards. Maybe things weren’t so bad. On the way to his car, she noticed Bryce patting his hair in the window as he passed by, then pretended she hadn’t.

The bar was low-lit and quiet. ‘So as we can really, like, talk,’ Bryce said with a smile that promised good things, and the mercury level of Ros’s mood began its upward climb again. As soon as they’d ordered their drinks, Bryce started the promised talk.

‘… and then I got the part as the shop clerk in Clueless. They toadally cut it, right, but the director said I was great, really great. It was a truly great performance, I gave and gave until it hurt, but the goddamn editor was, like, toadally on my case …’

Ros nodded sympathetically.

‘… of course, I should have got the Joseph Fiennes part in Shakespeare in Love. It was mine, they even toadally told my agent, but on-set politics, it’s a toadal bitch, right?’

Ros nodded again. Despite Bryce’s many tales of woe, his smile glittered and flashed. But as his litany of bad-luck continued, Ros began to notice that he didn’t ever make eye-contact with her. Yet the intimate smiles continued anyway. Eventually, wondering if he was coming on to some girl behind her, Ros looked over her shoulder. And saw a mirror. Ah, that explained everything. Bryce was flirting with his favorite person. Himself.

On and on he droned. Great performances he nearly gave. Evil directors, cruel editors, leading men who had it in for him because they were threatened by his talent and looks.

‘Hey, I’ve done enough talking about me.’ He finally paused for breath. ‘What do you think of me?’

Ros could hardly speak for depression. With Bryce she felt more alone than she had on her own.

‘Would you mind terribly if I left? Only I’m ever so sleepy. Must be jetlag.’

‘We’ve hardly been here thirty minutes,’ Bryce objected. ‘I’m just warming up.’

To her dismay, Bryce offered to see her back to the hotel. And up to her room. At her bedroom door she realized he was about to try and kiss her. She braced herself – she didn’t have the the energy to resist him. He looked deep into her eyes and trailed a gentle finger along her cheek. Despite him being the world’s most boring man, Ros couldn’t help a leap of interest. After all, he was so handsome. Slowly Bryce lowered his perfect lips to hers, then paused.

‘What are you doing?’ Ros whispered.

‘Close-up,’ Bryce whispered back. ‘A three second close-up of my face before the camera cuts to the clinch.’

‘Oh for goodness sake!’ Ros shoved the key in the lock, twirled into her room and slammed the door.

‘Hey,’ Bryce was muffled but unbowed. ‘You ballsy English girls, toadally like a Judi Dench thing! Y’ever met her? I just thought with you both being English …’

‘Go away,’ she said, her voice trembling from unshed tears. This was the worst that Ros had felt. Wretched. Absolutely wretched. Was this all she had to look forward to? Boring, self-obsessed narcissists?

Bib had been against the idea of a drink with Bryce from the word go. He just hated those men that thought they could fell women with one devastating smile. He’d tried to warn Ros that Bryce was nothing but a big, pink girl’s blouse, but she wouldn’t listen and – now what was going on? Someone was outside their room, pounding and demanding to be let in. It was a man’s voice – perhaps it was Bryce back to try his luck again?

‘Open the bloody door!’ A voice ordered, and as Bib watched in astonishment, Ros moved like a sleepwalker and flung the door wide. A man stood there. A man that Bib recognized. But he wasn’t any of the would-be film stars, he was …

‘Michael!’

Though it killed him to do it, Bib had to admit that Michael was looking good. With his messy curly hair, rumpled denim shirt and intense male presence he made all the wannabe Toms and Brads look prissy and preened.

‘Can I come in?’ Michael’s voice was clipped.

‘Yes.’ Ros’s looked like she was going to faint.

‘What are you doing here?’ she asked as Michael marched into the room.

‘I wanted to kiss you,’ he announced and with that he pulled Ros to his broad hard chest and kissed her with such lingering intimacy that Bib felt ill.

Finally he let Ros go and announced into her upturned face, ‘I’ve come to get this sorted, babes. You and me and this job lark.’

‘You flew here?’ Ros asked, dazedly.

‘Yeah. ‘Course.’

Hmmm, Bib thought. Hasn’t got much of a sense of humour, has he? Most normal people would have said something like, ‘No, I hopped on one leg, all six thousand miles of it.’

‘I can’t believe it.’ Ros was a picture of wonder. ‘We’re skint but you’ve travelled halfway around the world to save our relationship. This is the most romantic thing that’s ever happened to me.’ And Bib had to admit that Michael did cut a very Heathcliffish figure as he strode about the room, looking moody and passionate.

Bad-tempered, actually, Bib concluded.

‘You come home with me now,’ Michael urged. ‘You knock the job on the head, we get married and we live happy ever after! You and me are meant to be together. We were terriff until you got that promotion, it was only then that things went pear-shaped.’

With his words, the joyous expression on Ros’s face inched away and was replaced by an agony of confusion.

‘Come on,’ Michael sounded impatient. ‘Get packing. I’ve got you a seat on my flight back.’

But Ros looked paralysed with indecision. She leaned against a wall and made no move and the atmosphere built and built until the room was thick with it. Bib was bathed in sweat. And he didn’t even have perspiration glands.

Don’t do it, he begged, desperately. You don’t have to. If he loved you he wouldn’t ask you to make this choice.

To his horror he watched Ros fetch her pyjamas from under her pillow and slowly fold them.

‘Where’s your suitcase?’ Michael asked. ‘I’ll help you.’

Ros pointed and then began scooping her toiletries off the dressing table and into a bag. Next, she opened the wardrobe and took out the couple of things that she’d hung up. It seemed to Bib that her movements were becoming faster and more sure, so in frantic panic, he summoned every ounce of energy and will that he possessed and zapped her with them.

You don’t need this man, he told Ros. You don’t need any man who treats you like a possession with no mind or life of your own. You’re beautiful, you’re clever, you’re sweet. You’ll meet someone else, who accepts you for all that you are. In fact, if you’re prepared to be open-minded and don’t mind mixed-species relationships, I myself am happy to volunteer for the position… He stopped himself. Now was not the time to be side-tracked.

‘I’ll fetch your stuff from the bathroom,’ Michael announced, already briskly en route.

Then Ros opened her mouth to speak and Bib prayed for her words to be the right ones.

‘No,’ she said and Bib reeled with relief.

‘No,’ Ros repeated. ‘Leave it. I can’t come tonight. I’ve got a meeting tomorrow.’

‘I know that, babes,’ Michael said tightly, as if he was struggling to keep his temper. ‘That’s what I mean, I want you come with me now.’

‘Don’t make me do this.’ Misery was stamped all over Ros’s face.

‘It’s make-your-mind-up time.’ Michael’s expression was hard. ‘Me or the job.’

A long nerve-shredding pause followed, until Ros once again said, ‘No, Michael, I’m not leaving.’

Michael’s face twisted with bitter disbelief. ‘I didn’t know you loved the job that much.’

‘I don’t,’ Ros insisted. ‘This isn’t about the job.’

Michael looked scornful and Ros continued, ‘If you love someone, you allow them to change. If marriage is for life, I’m going to be a very different person in ten, twenty, thirty years’ time. How’re you going to cope with that, Mikey?’

‘But I love you,’ he insisted.

‘Not enough, you don’t,’ she said, sadly.

For a moment he looked stunned, then flipped to anger. ‘You don’t love me.’

‘Yes, I do. You’ve no idea how much.’ Her voice was quiet and firm. ‘But I am who I am.’

‘Since when?’ Michael couldn’t hide his surprise.

‘I don’t know.’ She also sounded surprised. ‘Since I came here, perhaps.’

‘Is this something to do with Lenny? Are you having it off with him?’

Ros’s incredulous laugh said it all.

‘So have I got this right?’ Michael was sulky and resentful. ‘You’re not coming home with me.’

‘I’ve a job to do,’ Ros said in a low voice. ‘I fly home tomorrow night.’

‘Don’t expect me to be waiting for you, then.’

And with the same macho swagger that, despite everything, Bib admired, Michael swung from the room. The door slammed behind him, silence hummed, and then – who could blame her, Bib thought sympathetically – Ros burst into tears.

No more Michael. The thought was almost unbearable. She lay on the bed and remembered how his hair felt, so rough, yet so surprisingly silky. She’d never feel it again. Imagine that, never, ever again. She could smell him now, as if he was actually in the room, the curious combination of sweetness and muskiness that was uniquely Michael’s. She’d miss it so much. As she’d miss the verbal shorthand they had with each other, where they didn’t have to finish sentences or even words because they knew each other so well. She’d have to find someone else to grow old with. It was all over, she was certain of it. There would be no more rows, no further attempts to change the other’s mind.

They’d had so many angry, bitter fights, but what was in the air was the stillness of grief. The calmness when everything is lost. She’d moved beyond the turbulence of rage and fury into the still static waters of no return.

What would she do with the rest of her life, she asked herself. How was she going to fill in all the time between now and the time she died?

Roller-blade, planted itself in her head. Immediately she told herself not to be so ridiculous. How could she go roller-blading?

But why not? What else was she going to do until bedtime, and despite all the events of the evening it was only still eight-thirty. She pulled on her leggings even though they had a tear on one knee and ran across the sand. She was surprised to find how uplifted she was by whizzing back and forth at high speed on her skates. It had something to do with pride in what a good roller-blader she was – she really was excellent, considering this was only her second time doing it. Her sense of balance was especially wonderful.

The little boy Tod who had been there the previous night was there again, with his long-suffering mother Bethany. Bethany was red-faced and breathless from having to run and hold on to Tod while he cycled up and down the same six yards of boardwalk and Ros gave her a sympathetic smile.

Then Ros went back to her room and against all expectations managed to sleep. When morning came she woke up and went to work, where, with a deftness that left the Los Angeles company reeling in shock, negotiated a thirty per cent discount when she’d only ever planned to ask for twenty. Blowing smoke from her imaginary gun, she gave them such firm handshakes that they all winced, then she swanned back to the hotel to pack. Successful mission or what?

Bib was in agony. What was he going to do? Was he going to back to England with Ros, or home to his own planet? Though he’d grown very fond – too fond – of Ros, he had a feeling that somehow he just wasn’t her type and that revealing himself, in all his glorious custard-yellowness, would be a very, very bad idea. It killed him not to be able to. In just over two days he’d fallen in love with her.

But would she be OK? She thought she was OK, but what would happen when he left her and there was no one to shore up her confidence? Would she go back to Michael? Because that wouldn’t do. That wouldn’t do at all.

He worried and fretted uncharacteristically. And the answer came to him on the evening of the last day. Ros had a couple of hours to kill before her night-flight, so instead of moping in her room, she ran to the boardwalk for one last roller-blading session. Bib didn’t have anything to do with it – she decided all on her own. He’d have preferred a few quiet moments with her, actually, instead of trundling alongside her trying to keep up as she whizzed up and down, laughing with pleasure.

Bethany and Tod were there again. Time after time, Bethany ran behind the bike, holding tightly as Tod pedalled a few yards. Back and forth on the same strip of boardwalk they travelled, until, unexpectedly, Bethany let go and Tod careened away. When he realized that he was cycling alone, with no one to support him, he wobbled briefly, before righting himself. ‘I’m doing it on my own,’ he screamed with exhilaration. ‘Look, Mom, it’s just me.’

‘It’s all a question of confidence,’ Bethany smiled at Ros.

‘I suppose it is,’ Ros agreed, as she freewheeled gracefully. Then crashed into a jogger.

As Bib helped her to her feet, he was undergoing a realization. Of course, he suddenly understood. He’d been Ros’s training wheels, and without her knowing anything about it, he’d given her confidence – confidence to do her job in a strange city, confidence to break free from a bullying man. And just as Tod no longer needed his mother to hold his bike, Ros no longer needed Bib. She was doing it for real now, he could feel it. From her performance in her final meeting to deciding to go roller-blading without any prompting from Bib, there was a strength and a confidence about her that was wholly convincing.

He was happy for her. He really was. But, there was no getting away from the fact that the time had come for him to leave her. Bib wondered what the strange sensation in his chest was and it took a moment or two for him to realize that it was his heart breaking for the very first time.

LA airport was aswarm with people, more than just the usual crowd of passengers.

‘Alien-spotters,’ the check-in girl informed Ros. ‘Apparently a little yellow man was spotted here a few days ago.’

‘Aliens!’ Ros thought, looking around scornfully at the over-excited and fervent crowd who were laden with geiger-counters and metal-detectors. ‘Honestly! What are these people like?’

As Ros strapped herself in her airline seat, she had no idea that her plane was being watched intently by a yard-high, yellow life-form who was struggling to hold back tears. ‘Big boys don’t cry,’ Bib admonished himself, as he watched Ros’s plane taxi along the runway until it was almost out of sight. In the distance he watched it angle itself towards the sky, and suddenly become ludicrously light and airborne. He watched until it became a dot in the blueness, then traipsed back through the hordes of people keen to make his acquaintance to where he’d hidden his own craft. Time to go home.

Ros’s plane landed on a breezy English summer’s day, ferrying her back to her Michael-free life. As the whining engines wound down, she tried to swallow away the sweet, hard stone of sadness in her chest.

But, even as she felt the loss, she knew she was going to be fine. In the midst of the grief, at the eye of the storm, was the certainty that she was going to cope with this. She was alone and it was OK. And something else was with her – a firm conviction, an unshakeable faith in the fact that she wouldn’t be alone for the rest of her life. It didn’t make sense because she was now a single girl, but she had a strange warm sensation of being loved. She felt surrounded and carried by it. Empowered by it.

Gathering her bag and book, slipping on her shoes, she shuffled down the aisle towards the door. As she came down the plane’s steps she inhaled the mild English day, so different from the thick hot Los Angeles air. Then she took a moment to stand on the runway and look around at the vast sky, curving over and dwarfing the airport, stretching away forever. And this she knew to be true – that somewhere out there was a man who would love her for what she was. She didn’t know how or why she was so certain. But she was.

Before getting on the bus to take her to the terminal, she paused and did one last scan of the great blue yonder. Yes, no doubt about it, she could feel it in her gut. As surely as the sun will rise in the morning, he’s out there. Somewhere …