Читать книгу Original Sin - Tasmina Perry, Tasmina Perry - Страница 14

8

Patty Shackleton had worked her legal magic. The Oracle agreed to print a retraction on their website and an apology in the main paper the following day, but Tess wasn’t taking any chances. She knew that newspapers didn’t take too kindly to being pushed around by lawyers, and the last thing she wanted to do was spark a tabloid vendetta against the Asgills. A charm offensive was called for, so two days later she had arranged to meet Rebecca Sharp from the Oracle for lunch. Sitting under the yellow awning outside Da Silvano, watching the traffic thunder down Seventh Avenue, Tess smiled broadly as she watched her old friend climb from a taxi and glide over to her table.

‘You look fantastic,’ said Tess, quite taken aback at her glamour. Becky had been at the Colchester Observer with Tess over a decade earlier, and they had moved to London at around the same time, Tess on the women’s pages of the Daily Mirror, Becky on the Bizarre showbiz desk of the Sun. Back then she was known as Bonkers Becks, tall and chunky, a great laugh, obsessed with music, and for the first year in the Big Smoke they had cut quite a swathe around town, going to any premiere, party, or gig to which Becky could get a plus one.

Tess had not seen Becks since her transfer to the New York Oracle’s entertainment and celebrity news desk three years earlier, and her transformation was incredible. Her long hair, once the colour of marmalade, was now a honey blonde, falling in soft curls onto her tanned shoulders. She had lost at least three stone and her Amazonian physique had become slender and graceful in her thin cashmere vest and skinny jeans.

‘I cannot believe you’re finally here,’ squealed Becky, causing a couple on the next table to look at them with alarm. ‘And as a publicist of all things! How’s it going on the dark side?’

Becky’s accent had picked up a transatlantic burr and she had always been loud, but her time in the Big Apple seemed to have increased the volume another 10 per cent.

Tess laughed. ‘My first day at work I got into the office at seven a.m. and I was almost the last person to arrive. How do you fit sleep in here?’

Becky waved her hand casually in front of her. ‘Sleep’s for wimps, darling. The second everyone heard how Anna Wintour gets up at five for a game of tennis and a blow-dry, everyone wanted to be in the office before dawn. You’ll soon learn that in Manhattan: it’s all about competition.’

‘So where are you living?’

‘Brooklyn,’ said Becky, pulling a face. ‘Mind you, everyone is there right now, the rental on a shoebox on the island is insane. How about you?’

‘Just a few minutes away actually,’ said Tess casually. ‘On Perry Street in the Village.’

Becky almost choked on her Perrier. ‘You bitch!’ she screamed. ‘I hate you! Someone’s paying you far too much money. Shit, I dream of the West Village, that’s why I love coming here for lunch, so I can play “Let’s pretend”.’

‘Let’s pretend?’ asked Tess.

‘Pretend that I’m someone like that,’ she whispered, nodding towards a super-glamorous blonde at a nearby table. The woman was stunning, with a flawless up-do and two-thousand-dollar dress that Tess recognized as Marni. She was sitting opposite a forty-something man wearing chinos, a navy sweater, and a scarf wrapped around his neck. He was overweight and, frankly, ugly.

‘You want to be a woman like that?’

Becky looked surprised. ‘Who doesn’t?’

‘But have you seen who she’s with? He’s wearing a pashmina!’

‘Darling, every woman in this city wants to land a rich husband. Some women, most of my friends in fact, devote their whole life to finding one. And these days you can’t be too picky.’ Becky let out a dramatic sigh. ‘Ah, the joy of not having to work.’

Tess smiled. ‘You love work.’

‘Completely beside the point,’ said Becky flatly. ‘It’s the option of not having to work.’

She leant forward conspiratorially.

‘Speaking of women with very rich men, how’s your new friend Brooke Asgill? You are going to get me an interview with her, aren’t you?’

Tess pulled a mock-outraged face. ‘After the stunt your newspaper has just pulled?’ she cried. ‘Seriously though, you do realize you have royally pissed off two of the most influential families in New York – and what for? A two-column pot-shot story that has to run an apology the next day?’

‘Actually, my editor loved the story,’ said Becky. ‘Anything to do with the Billingtons is big news, and David and Brooke are the sexiest New York couple since JFK Jr and Carolyn Bessette. It’s not like a tabloid is going to be best friends with them anyway.’

The waiter arrived with their ravioli and the girls started eating.

‘I need a favour,’ said Tess. ‘Two actually.’

Becky looked up. ‘Shoot.’

‘I need an introduction to all the media high-rollers you know. Newspaper editors, society column writers, editors-in-chief, and features editors on all the big glossies. I know a few people out here but I need to know everyone worth knowing very quickly.’

‘No offence, but I was surprised when I heard the Asgills had got you in. PR gigs are all about contacts, aren’t they?’

Tess pulled a sarcastic face. ‘Thanks for reminding me.’

‘What else did you want?’

‘Tell me who gave you the story about Brooke.’

Becky gave a long slow laugh and wagged her finger. ‘Come on, Tess. You worked in papers; you know we never reveal a source. We have journalists on the paper who have been to jail rather than give up the name of their contact.’

‘Since when did you become Miss Integrity!’ laughed Tess. ‘I clearly remember you giving endless column inches to no-hoper bands on your music page in the Sun in return for a press trip – or even a glass of Cava!’

Becky smiled at the memory of their shared time on the loose in London.

‘So what can you do for me?’ she asked.

So much for friendship, smiled Tess. Becky hadn’t got this far simply by being a good laugh. Beneath the fluffy, party-girl exterior she was as hard as nails.

‘Help me now and I’ll see if I can get you a story exclusive on Brooke and David’s wedding.’

‘Honeymoon shots?’

Tess shook her head. ‘Can’t promise that, but certainly something exclusive, something that will earn you big brownie points.’

Becky took a big orange leather diary from her expensive-looking tote and began flicking through its pages. She scribbled down an address on a fluorescent pink Post-it note and handed it to Tess.

‘There’s a bunch of us going down to Soho House tonight. There’s a Cinema Society screening of the new Coen Brothers’ film. Very cool crowd,’ she said. ‘Everyone from Glenda Bailey to Col Allen should be there, and there will be drinks afterwards. That should start you off.’

‘Sounds good,’ said Tess, folding up the paper. ‘Now what about the source?’

Becky laughed. ‘Tess, you’re like a dog with a bone!’

‘Tell me,’ said Tess, but Becky held up her hands.

‘I don’t know, honestly. It wasn’t my story.’

‘Come on, Becks, you know everything.’

Becky looked at Tess for a long moment, then leant forward. ‘I think it was an ex-girlfriend of David’s,’ she said. ‘You know what they say about a woman scorned? Well, in New York, that fury is multiplied. Never underestimate the damage a vengeful social climber can cause.’

‘I’ll bear it in mind,’ grinned Tess.

Becky put her hand on Tess’s. ‘Honey, it’s so good to have you over here. Honestly.’

‘It’s good to see you too. Especially as you’re doing so well. I mean, just look at you. Where did Bonkers Becks go?’

Becky laughed out loud, again causing heads to turn. ‘You know, I used to think that New Yorkers have no time for love because they throw themselves into their careers,’ she said thoughtfully. ‘Now I think it’s the other way around – they become workaholics because it’s so hard to find love.’

‘So I take it you haven’t found your pashmina-wearing Prince Charming yet?’ smiled Tess.

She laughed again, casting a glance towards the couple at the next table. ‘No. The problem is, I think those banker types are pricks,’ she whispered.

Tess giggled.

‘Not that I’ve given up, of course. I even went to this “Fashion and Finance” speed-dating thing the other week,’ continued Becky. ‘Very popular right now, full of pretty girls and rich guys all looking for love, but I have to say I was absolutely bored to tears. I ended up going home with a woman.’

Tess’s eyes opened like saucers.

‘Her name was Dita,’ smiled Becky. ‘A freelance fashion PR. We had much more in common than any of those boring farts in their sensible shoes.’

‘Wow,’ gasped Tess. ‘So what happened?’

‘Nothing,’ laughed Becky. ‘Mother Nature kicked in; I couldn’t do it. But that’s New York, baby. That’s how desperate it is out there. I think it was God’s way of telling me I am destined to be alone. Anyway, how’s the very sexy Dom?’ she asked, sipping her water. ‘I think he always wanted to work in New York more than both of us.’

Tess’s smile faded at the mention of her boyfriend. ‘Dom’s still in London.’

‘You guys haven’t finished, have you?’ said Becky, her expression softening.

‘No, no, nothing like that. He hasn’t got a visa, so we’re having a transatlantic affair.’

‘Very chic,’ said Becky. ‘Are you missing him?’

‘Working fourteen-hour days I’ve not had a chance to miss him.’

‘Hmm. Or maybe you just don’t,’ said Becky, raising a brow.

Tess looked thoughtful. ‘No, I think it’s more that I had to come here to get out of my comfort zone.’

Becky laughed. ‘You two are hardly in a rut, are you? Whenever I hear from you, you’re always flying off to some exotic location.’

‘Maybe not, but we’ve been together for nearly nine years. Sometimes distance can bring you closer together.’

Becky hesitated, playing with her fork.

‘Do you trust him, Tess?’ she asked softly. ‘No disrespect to Dom, but I don’t think I would leave a man that fine alone two minutes in big, bad London. More to the point, do you trust yourself to be let loose in this big city?’

‘The answer is yes,’ said Tess firmly. ‘Yes and yes.’

Although she couldn’t help thinking back to the one time she’d been unfaithful. It had been eighteen months into their relationship when she began struggling with the idea of commitment. She was only halfway though being twenty. Should she not be young, free, and single, and enjoying all London had to offer? One weekend, Dom had been away on a snowboarding trip with his friends, and Tess had been invited to a party by an associate editor on the Globe. It had been at a big Victorian villa in Barnes, stuffed to the gills with media types she recognized from the TV or from their photo by-lines in the papers. The moment she saw Charlie, she knew something was going to happen. He was thirty, an advertising director and the son of the old chief executive of the Globe group. He was also engaged, but that hadn’t stopped him stroking Tess’s neck. She’d been flattered by the attention of someone five years older and infinitely more successful, so they’d gone back to her flat in Clapham and the sex had been explosive. Charlie had left at seven the next morning, but not before telling her about a features editor position he knew was coming up at the Globe. ‘Keep what happened last night between us,’ he’d told her and she had kept her word. Three months later she was the youngest senior journalist at the Globe.

She looked up and had the uncomfortable feeling that Becky had been reading her thoughts.

‘Don’t get too comfortable without him, honey,’ she said seriously. ‘Let Dom go and you might be single for the next five years. Some people call New York a jungle. Well, let me tell you, when it comes to love, it’s a fricking desert.’