Champagne Kisses (6 page)

‘Well, I can do hairy – especially in London. OK, let’s get details. So, builder boy, when is the party and I’ll see if I can make it?’

‘BUILDER BOY: I’ll take care of u and ure friends Pink Panther. Just say YES 4 sat :)))’

‘Oh, my God. He wants us to go this Saturday. What’ll I wear?’

‘Parker, you always wear the same thing. It’s always black. What the hell will I wear?’

‘Who cares, gorgeous? I’ve a rich boyfriend.’ Then Parker ran out to his balcony which ran about thirty feet alongside the apartment and broke into a diva-style performance of ‘Money, Money, Money’.

Obviously, this was not typical behaviour for a man in his early forties, but for my Parker, the words tart and fickle could sum up his personality adequately. The only thing with depth about him was the fact
that
he liked deep pan pizza. Apart from that, he was as flighty as they come.

Not a great trait, it has to be said, and one that caused us many arguments when we first became friends, but now that we all know him for the Shallow Hal that he is, we work around it and love him regardless.

Caught up in the moment, we started on a second bottle of bubbly, sang our way through ‘Cabaret’ and ‘Sweet Charity’ while Parker paraded around the apartment in a pair of silk boxers, a cravat and a vintage Gucci hat he bought on eBay that allegedly was once owned by Madonna.

It was only as he murdered his favourite Shirley MacLaine number ‘If they could see me now’, that I remembered we hadn’t texted our Builder Boy back. By this stage it was 12.30a.m., which was admittedly quite late on a school night for a person with a regular existence.

Trying to think sober, we managed to type back, ‘Yes. Sat cd b ure luckkky nite.’ But we never got a reply.

Resisting the temptation to text again and annoy the poor bloke into retracting his invitation, we occupied our hands with buttered popcorn and nachos, and finished our evening in front of the TV.

After all, why go into town and risk ruining our happy buzz? Instead we channel-hopped until we found some fairly hard-core American gay porn for Parker, which I sat and watched for ten minutes before
I
got totally grossed out and crashed in one of his spare rooms.

I just loved staying over. It felt like a five-star hotel. Slumping in my sumptuous Ciaran Sweeney oasis – Parker just loved his stuff, and had most of his apartment styled in his trademark hand-printed silk velvet – I drifted off to sleep thinking, maybe life’s not so bad after all …

One o’clock Saturday afternoon I was propping up the Ice Bar @ the Four Seasons Hotel; spray-tanned, plucked, perfumed and preened to within inches of Miss World requirements.

It’s one of our favourite hangouts as it’s a total gossip factory.

A haven for the rich, the mega-rich and the wannabe-rich, on any afternoon you could end up working through the cocktail menu with A-listers like Colin Farrell or Michael Flatley.

Though most of the time the reality is you end up being caught in a corner by some Daddy Sleaze who’s removed his wedding ring, and who pretends to be big in beef. When in reality he works in a camera shop. Trust me, it happens.

Normally, we’d place ourselves at the middle of the long marble bar so we could rubberneck the two entrances. From our regular spot we could gauge what talent was where. Today, though, I couldn’t care less about trying to impress anyone. I needed to be focused on London. I was a woman on a mission.

I wanted a man.

I
needed
a man.

Tonight, I was gonna fall in love.

He’ll be rich.

He’ll be famous.

I’ll walk into this party and he’ll instantly fall for me. I’ll be the most fascinating and captivating person he’s ever met. And we’ll live happily ever after in a mansion in Chelsea, with weekend apartments in Dublin and New York and a getaway summer retreat in the South of France.

Ahhh! I felt better already. There’s nothing like a mini pep talk with myself while sipping on a Bellini at the Four Seasons, surrounded by beautiful people, to give you a boost of confidence.

Looking good and feeling sexy was always half the battle. Today I was going to be militant in my approach to finding my hero. By next week I would be standing on a beach in Cancún wearing nothing but a white bikini like Pamela Anderson. I’d be sipping cocktails once again, while my Tommy Lee says ‘I do’ in a sexy, gravelly voice.

As I started to drift off into daydream land about the beautiful children we’d make, Anna and Maddie strutted through the door looking like extras from
The Rocky Horror Picture Show
pulling their little trolley-dolly cases.

Parker had text-demanded ‘B on 4 seasons 4 court @ 2 on sat EXACTLY.’ So of course we arranged to meet at one o’clock to discuss wardrobes and to
generally
snoop around the hotel to see what stars were hiding out.

‘Well, are we hot or wot?’ demanded Maddie.

‘I think we’re FAB-U-LOUS,’ declared Anna, before giving me a chance to comment. ‘I’d wanna get with us … Tonight, Eva, we’re going to be every girl’s nightmare. Tonight is our night.’

Laughing at their dogmatic self-belief, and their brazen ability to wear Madonna-inspired corsets and miniskirts at lunchtime – in
February!
– I called over one of the cute barmen and flirted. ‘Can I have two of your best Bellinis for my shy and retiring friends please, Colin. They need something to elevate their mood.’

When their drinks arrived Maddie proposed a toast. ‘OK ladies, cheers to London. Here’s to flying in some fella’s private jet, fair play to him. Cheers to the Pink Panther for organizing it. And most of all here’s to getting the spirits down to get the spirits up, first class all the way, baby.’

‘Cheers.’

‘Cheers.’

‘Cheers. Let the games begin!’

By 1.45 I had started to get worried about Lisa’s whereabouts. She wasn’t normally late, and strangely her phone was switched off.

I was just leaving my fourth message for her when I lost the power of speech. David Barron’s wife, Annette, had entered the bar, and she was charging in my direction.

She was immediately eye-catching because of her trademark blonde bob, but was unusually dressed in a casual tracksuit.

She looked emotional.

She was looking for me.

Despite quickly turning my face and sheltering behind Maddie, I knew that she had spotted me.

‘Shit. Shit. Shit.’

Oblivious to the situation a giddy Maddie screamed, ‘What’s wrong with you?’ In such sterile marble surroundings, her voice could be heard by every patron as it pinballed around the room.

With that, a somewhat dishevelled Mrs Barron came storming over to us, put her hand on Maddie’s shoulder and pulled her out of the way. Maddie let out a ‘Hey?’ before she realized who had butted in.

In complete shock the three of us just stared at her, frozen.

Afraid to take a breath we waited for her to speak, but instead she just stood there looking frazzled. Momentarily it felt as if the entire bar had come to a standstill. Everyone was silent. Everyone was fully aware of the situation. But most of all, everyone was waiting for the best gossip to happen in front of their eyes.

Who would triumph? Would it be the spouse or the temptress?

Could the scorned wife kick the muddied journo’s ass? Or would the tart take a stand and tell the wife she obviously wasn’t taking care of matters at home?

Then a lonely tear rolled down Annette’s Botoxed and collagen-enhanced face. The three of us, immobilized, watched as this solitary tear slowly etched its way down her reddened face. Making its way across her high cheekbone, it meandered over her trembling lip and then clung to the bottom of her chin, before dropping off and landing on her baby pink Juicy Couture top.

God knows why Barron cheated on this woman. She still looked stunning even in her most desperate hour.

I couldn’t help but feel guilt for causing her pain so I stretched out my hand to her, and with a quiver in my voice said, ‘I’m so, so sorry.’

Retaining her composure, Annette took a deep breath, brushed the tear from her face, and with one look at my outstretched hand she shook her head slowly. Almost muttering she whispered the words, ‘No way’, then turned as if to walk away.

Just as I began to release the stress from my shoulders, Annette quickly swooped back round to face me and WHAM smacked me square across the cheek, leaving me literally gobsmacked.

Physically and emotionally wounded, I grabbed my face in bewilderment. It really hurt, but almost too much to feel it.

I looked to Maddie and Anna for support but they just looked back at me in this vacuous way which said: don’t look at us, you were the one who scored her husband.

Paralysed at first, Annette then started screaming at me, ‘
You bitch. I hate you! You’re a slapper. You’re nothing but a slapper!
’

It was possibly the most surreal experience I had ever had. No one had ever hit me before. My mother used to chase me around the kitchen with a wooden spoon, but this was a first. I was caught up in one of my nightmares again.

Before I knew it, several members of suited staff had rushed over to intervene, along with some friend of Annette’s who grabbed her and ushered her away.

‘Come this way,
please
, Mrs Barron,’ ordered the manager.

‘She’s just trash,’ I could hear her friend say before she looked back and grimaced at me. ‘Nobody will touch her ever again.’

Quickly returning, the dutiful manager asked, ‘Are you OK, Eva? Can I get anything for you?’

To which I could only reply, ‘Thank you. No. We’re leaving now anyway.’

Scanning the room I could see that every pair of eyes was fixed on me. I’d catch their stare and they’d tilt their heads down and put their hands over their mouths to continue delighting.

I felt like being a total fishwife and screaming, ‘What are you all looking at?’ Thankfully, I thought better of it.

I probably would have ordered another stiff drink if it hadn’t been for Annette crying in the corner. Her
very
disturbing sobs made me feel as if I’d killed her husband, not snogged him.

Then again, a most heinous crime had been committed. Not only had I nationally humiliated her through the papers, I had massacred her marriage in the process. I deserved nothing but to go straight to hell. But as my mother would have said, I deserved nothing.

Feeling it was improper to hang around, Maddie slung her arm around me, giving me a reassuring firm squeeze, and chaperoned me out towards the car park.

‘C’mon girl,’ she encouraged, but I felt worthless to my very core. I had destroyed that woman’s world, and through no fault but my own, torn my own down around me too.

Just before I stepped out through the swinging doors I took one final glance back at Annette, but was obstructed by a ferocious-looking woman, mid-forties, screaming at me: ‘Just leave. You’re not wanted here!’

Noticing Annette and her cronies huddled in a tight circle in the background I gave the interfering stranger a fake smile and turned on my Gina heels. The woman looked oddly familiar, but I still feared a repeat attack. Knowing damn well I was the afternoon’s hate figure, I admitted defeat and left, repressing a retort.

* * *

Without a moment to catch my breath, Parker was the first image I saw. Garishly hanging out the back of a stretch white limousine Hummer, he was waving, frantically shouting, ‘Excuse me? Where’s my welcoming committee?’

Mortified, we ran across the cobbled car park, pushed Parker aside and clambered in the back of the Hummer.

‘Get in, Parker, quick!’ I screamed, but with a look of total disgust he just peered back at me through the doorway, and with the lungs of a sixteen-year-old girl squealed, ‘Excuse me?’

As Maddie tried to coax his nibs inside – to complaints of, ‘Not everyone has seen us yet. I only got this bloody thing so everyone could be jealous’ – I noticed I had ripped yet another heel on the stones. That was the second pair ruined in one week. My karma was screwed. And as I sat surrounded in opulence, glamorized by mood-changing Christmas lights and buckets of ice stuffed with snipes of Moët, I wept. It was only when Maddie managed to find the volume button to turn the stereo down that she realized what a state I was in.

As my mascara stained a road map down my face, Maddie did her best to mop up the mess with a napkin that read ‘Get Happy – Get A Hummer!’

Doing a better job of lifting the moment than the purple, to pink, to yellow strip-lighting, Maddie joked, ‘Well, I always thought it best to be miserable in comfort, sweetie.’ And the two of us laughed.
Well,
laughed until I started to cry again.

By the time Anna had dragged Parker away from flirting with the doormen and stuffed our luggage up the aisle of our big bus, I had started to catch my breath.

In hyper form, Parker slammed the door and declared, ‘The Princess can’t make it, girls, as she’s having her arse injected into her crows’ feet today.’ With that he took one look at me and teased, ‘It’s not worth getting upset about, hon. Her arse isn’t big enough to fill all of her lines. You’ll still be considered one of the prettiest.’

All I could manage by way of retaliation was, ‘You’re so sweet …’ before Anna stepped in to inform him of the confrontation.

I’m sure his screams of ‘
Fuck off!
Fuck off! Fuck right off!’ echoed in the ears of every guest in the hotel.

With that Parker ordered, ‘Driver, take us to Lucan, good man, away from all this riff-raff. Our private plane is waiting for us.’ Anna, who was practically salivating with excitement, handed out the snipes of Moët to lubricate the discussion. Always thinking ahead where gossip was concerned, she came close to being booted out of the car several times with stupid tactless comments like, ‘I wonder is it too late to make the papers tomorrow?’ And, ‘She must really hate you, Eva.’

Trying desperately hard not to channel all my anger towards my pretty, but single-minded gossiper friend,
I
turned up the volume on the TV which was set on MTV2 and screeched, ‘Enough already. Let’s get this party started.’