Angels (21 page)

For all the talk, it didn't look that remarkable, to be honest.

People weren't lining the streets guzzling Blue Nun, dancing to
Phantom of the Opera
, and teasing their neck curls as I'd almost expected.

“Nearly there now,” Emily said, heaving a breath from her diaphragm. Just then we ran into heavy traffic.

“Come on, come on, come on! Oh Jesus!” Agitatedly Emily pounded her steering wheel, then handed me her cell phone. “Give Flea a buzz and tell her we'll be five minutes late.”

“Flea? You mean that's really her name?”

“Yeah, Flea.” Emily sounded impatient.

“Like the insect?” I couldn't let it go.

“No. F-L-I. It's short for something. Felicity, maybe.”

Then we were driving through the gates, then the man was checking to see that our name was on the list, then we were parking in the special space that had been allocated for us. It was like an out-of-body experience and, despite my anxiety, a long-forgotten feeling stirred—excitement. For months—

ANGELS / 163

though it felt more like forever—my positive feelings seemed to have been running on half power; I hadn't been able to spark up any genuine unbridled joy or excitement.

But I couldn't get too carried away because I knew how important this was to Emily's life. She was nearly out of money and chances and she'd be going back to rainy Ireland and working as a checkout girl if she didn't pull this one off.

Then we were walking through the glass doors—for a moment, I thought Emily was going to faint—then we were looking at posters on the wall of box-office-breaking movies the studio had produced—which was my cue to think that
I
might faint—then we were introducing ourselves to the nauseatingly thin, beautiful, unfriendly receptionist hidden behind the enormous flower arrangement on the curved wooden desk. As soon as she heard Emily's name, her implacable expression lit up.

“Hiiiiii. I'm Tiffany. I love your script,” she said warmly.

“You've read it?” I was impressed. Even the receptionist had read it.

A startled caught-in-the-headlights look skipped across Tiffany's gorgeous face, and when she spoke, she sounded as though she'd been inhaling helium. “Sure,” she squeaked nervously. “Sure. I'll tell Mr. Russell you're here.”

As she clicked down the marble-floored hall, Emily said, between angry lips, “She hasn't read it.”

“But she—”

“
No one
has read it. Except the person whose job it is to reduce one hundred and ninety pages of screenplay to three lines.”

“Shush, she's coming back.”

“Mr. Russell will see you now,” Tiffany said, and Emily and I rose slowly and followed her back down the hall, passing more framed posters of famous movies as we went. There was a loose-hinged wobbliness to my knees, and my ears pounded. I couldn't even begin to imagine how Emily must feel. So much depended on this.

164 / MARIAN KEYES

Tiffany opened a door into a tastefully understated room, where three men and a dinky blond girl—Fli?—were grouped around a table. They stood up and one of them, all teeth and tan, extended his hand and announced himself to be Mort Russell. He was a lot younger than I had expected, but he had that fear-generating charisma that very powerful people have.

“Emily O'Keeffe,” he proclaimed, making it sound like an accolade.

“Guilty as charged.” Emily stepped forward with a confident smile, and I relaxed just a tiny bit. She seemed to have a handle on things.

After Mort had loved up Emily a little, he introduced her to the other people there. The girl was indeed Fli and the two other men were vice presidents of some ilk. Which wasn't necessarily as impressive as it sounds. In the States you could be a bartender and be called vice president of beverage providing. (Indeed, I'd once been a vice president myself.)

Then Emily shoved me and my empty folder at them and they professed themselves to be “So,
so
happy” to meet me. You'd swear it was one of the nicest things that had ever happened to them.

“Nice to meet you,” I replied. I was under strict instructions to say nothing else.

Coffee was offered and accepted—no cookies or cakes of any kind, unfortunately—but other than that, the mood around the table was friendly and informal, and the four of them couldn't have been nicer. Loudly, enthusiastically, they all professed how much they loved
Plastic Money
.

“It's ah…” Mort sketched a shape in the air. “Gimme a word,”

he ordered one of his boys.

“Edgy.”

“Yeah, edgy.”

“But commercial,” the other provided.

“Oh yeah, gotta be commercial.”

“And funny,” the first one supplied.

“Funny is good. We
like
funny. So pitch it to me,” he suddenly ordered Emily.

ANGELS / 165

“Sure.” She smiled around the table, shook back her hair, and started. “I'm thinking
Thelma and Louise
meets
Snatch
meets…”

To my horror you could actually
hear
how dry her mouth was.

Every word was accompanied by a type of clicking noise as she unpeeled her tongue from her hard and soft palates.

Fli slid a glass of water toward her. “Water,” Emily explained, with a goofy grin, before taking a quick gulp from it. Then, to my giddy relief, the Velcroey sounds stopped and suddenly she was like a hare let out of a trap.

All the practice had been worth it. She did her “twenty-five words or less” summary. Then she did a longer description of everything that happens, and even though I'd heard it all before, she was so good that for a moment or two I almost forgot where I was and enjoyed myself.

She finished by saying, “It's going to make a great movie!”

“All right!”

They all clapped and I wondered if I should join in or whether it would be seen as applauding myself, but they'd finished before I could decide.

Then Mort spoke and I could hardly believe the words that came out of his mouth. “I see this as a big, BIG movie.”

A thrill flamed through my entire body and I shot the fastest look at Emily. Her smile was restrained.

Above his head Mort made a screen shape with his hands and we all obediently looked up at it. “Big budget, big stars. Seventy million dollars, minimum. I see Julia Roberts and Cameron Diaz.

Am I right?”

The others all nodded enthusiastically, so I did too.

“Who're we gonna get to direct our movie?” Mort asked the lads.

They named a couple of Oscar winners. Then came talk of fast-tracking it, green-lighting it, opening on three thousand screens across the country. It was the most exhilarating thing that had ever happened to me. Then we were shaking

166 / MARIAN KEYES

hands and Mort was promising that he was “Looking forward to working with me.”

As Emily and I walked back down the hall, I literally couldn't feel my feet.

Another flurry of good-byes in reception, then we were walking away. Aware of their eyes on our backs, neither of us said anything.

I was shaking with unexpressed elation. Still in silence, we got into the car, where Emily lit a cigarette and sucked at it like it was a thick milk shake coming through a narrow straw.

“Well?” I eventually said, and waited for the pair of us to SCREECH and hug with excitement.

“Well,” she said consideringly.

“But that was fantastic! You heard the man! Julia Roberts!

Cameron Diaz! Three thousand screens!”

“Don't forget, Maggie, that I've been here before.”

I thought she was being very negative and told her so. “So now what happens?”

“Now we wait.”

“Now we wait,” I repeated, feeling cheated and resentful.

“Mind you,” she conceded, “we could get drunk while we're doing it.”

AN IMPROMPTU PARTY
was what was called for, Emily decided.

She spent the drive home with her phone clamped between her shoulder and ear, inviting people over. “I don't know if we're celebrating,” she kept saying. “But we're definitely partying.”

Lara was under instructions to come over at six, to accompany Emily to the Liquor Locker to buy up the place. Every time I saw Emily spending money, I felt a pang of anxiety, but for once felt no worry. The good times they were a-coming.

We were home by five-thirty. As I hung up Lara's suit, I asked Emily if tonight's do would be a dress and heels affair.

“Christ, no. Shorts and bare feet.”

Shorts and bare feet it was. While she waited for Lara, Emily tapped and fidgeted distractedly. Then her face fixed on a thought.

“Look,” she said defensively. “There's something I want to do.

Don't laugh, but will you run over to Mike's and tell him to come with his smudge stick?”

“I won't laugh,” I assured her earnestly. “Because I haven't a clue as to what you're talking about.”

“Mike, next door—beardy New Ager?”

“Oh, Bill Bryson? Go on.”

“He's always offering to banish the negative energy in here. It's called smudging. I just feel that maybe I'd have a 168 / MARIAN KEYES

better chance of getting good news if the house was full of positive vibes.”

I didn't laugh. Instead, I felt the full force of her terror. She must be out of her mind with worry to contemplate doing something she had such contempt for.

“Will you go?”

I was happy to. Constant activity was keeping me one step ahead of myself. Sooner or later, I knew the bubble would burst and I'd be flung down hard against the ground, but not just yet. So out I went and rang next door's bell, but no one came. I rang again, and still the door remained unanswered. Then I gave the large wind chime that hung in the porch a smack, setting off a mad, tinny jingling, but that got no response either. At this stage any sensible person would have given up, but the thing was, I knew he was there. I knew he was there because I could
see
him. There was a big pane of glass in the front door, through which he was clearly visible, sitting on a floor cushion, making O shapes with his thumbs and middle fingers. I'd just decided to leave and to promise Emily I'd get him for her another time when I saw him rise to his feet and amble to the door.

“Hi,” he said smiling. “I was finishing a meditation. Come in.”

To my surprise there was no flurry of “Sorry to keep you waitings.” Maybe spiritual people don't apologize.

I stepped into the dim room, to be hit by the sweet smell of rose oil, or perhaps it was lavender. In the background I could hear the plinking of more wind chimes. From somewhere else came the rush of running water, which in any other house I'd assume was from a burst pipe, but, somehow, not here.

Dream catchers dangled from the windows, embroidered throws decorated the chairs, and wooden carvings—mostly of men with bulging eyes and disproportionately large penises—hung on the walls. Every object looked like it meant something, and from the odd placing of the furniture, I was prepared to bet that the place had been feng shui-ed to within an inch of its life.

ANGELS / 169

“Hi, Bill,” I said.

“Mike,” he corrected with a gentle smile.

Cripes! “Oh, sorry, Mike. Emily sent me.”

“She'd like to be smudged?” It sounded as if he'd been expecting this. “I'll get my stick.”

The effect of the house—the smells, the sounds, even the men with the big dicks—was immensely consoling and, as we left, I said as much.

“It's a safe place,” Mike agreed, slamming the front door behind him with such force that it sent the porch wind chime swinging away with a wild jangle. Just as quickly it was penduluming its way back—and heading directly for my face. Before I knew what was happening, it had delivered a smart belt to my right eye: pain shot through my socket, red exploded behind my eyelids, and all I could hear was a riot of discordant notes, like a broken piano.

“Whoops. Shouldn'ta slammed the door,” Mike laughed softly.

“Y'okay?”

“Great!” I exclaimed, wondering if I'd been blinded, acting the way you have to act when you get injured in front of someone you don't know very well. Even if your head falls off, you have to say things like “Just a scratch! Besides, I never use it much anyway!”

As it happens, I
was
fine. My eye watered a bit, then stopped.

But I felt very close to tears and maybe Mike was aware of it, because he held my arm as we walked the short distance between the two houses.

Emily let us in and, clearly torn between embarrassment and vulnerability, she explained her situation.

“Sure,” Mike said cheerfully. “Is now a good time?”

“How long will it take?”

He sucked his teeth and shook his head regretfully, just like a shady builder would. All that was missing was a cigarette tucked behind his ear.

“Let me guess, you haven't got the parts,” I heard Emily mutter.

“Sure I have!” He waggled his stick and Emily had the 170 / MARIAN KEYES

good grace to pinken. “But the energy in here is so bad, one session won't clear it. But, hey! Half an hour now, and we're at least ahead of the game, right?”

Intrigued, we watched him carry out his juju. Smudging appeared to involve lighting tapers, waving the stick into corners of rooms, muttering incantations, and doing a type of hopping Indian-on-the-warpath dance.

“You know, you don't need me, you could do this yourself,” Mike panted at Emily, his belly rising and falling with each hop.

“Ah, I'd never get the dancing right.”

“But the dancing is optional!”

After Mike finished, he assured Emily with great kindness, “This'll give you a fighting chance. But if they don't buy your movie, it's not the end of the world.”

“It IS the end of the world.” Emily was very firm on this.

Mike laughed gently—much the same way he had after I'd been savaged by his wind chime. “Be careful what you wish for, you might get it,” he said, then left, promising to drop in later with Charmaine.

Not long after, Lara arrived and Emily went out with her to buy the liquor.

“Can't I come?” I asked, discovering how very reluctant I was to be left on my own.

“But you don't have a connoisseur's interest in alcohol the way Lara and I do,” Emily said. “And we need someone here to let people in.”