I Heart Paris (31 page)

So I’m trying a new approach from here on. I’m going to actually tell people what I’m thinking, do what I want to do and see what happens after that
. Que sera, sera
and all that. Hopefully, I’ll be able to let you know how that works out for me…

I pressed send and hoped for the best, closing up my laptop and sipping my coffee. Graham and Craig were still AWOL, presumed sound checking and so I rested my head on my forearms for just a minute, closing my eyes and listening to the lilting music that drifted around from the front of the stage.

‘Angela?’ a small voice whispered above me.

I opened my eyes, realizing that I was still face down on the table and from the smudgy black marks on my arms, I’d been there for a while. The music blasting out of the backstage speakers was quite different to the gentle lullaby that I remembered playing and my arms prickled with goose bumps. How long had I been asleep?

‘Angela?’ the voice asked again.

I looked up, blinking and confused. Where was I again? Standing beside me at the side of the table, but well out of arm’s reach, was Virginie. It took me a moment to remember why I felt a burning desire to claw her eyes out, but once I worked it out, the feeling did not go away.

‘Sod off,’ I said, plonking my head right back on to my arms. I was too tired to deal with her and really, what could she have to say that would help?

‘I have sent an email to your Mary to tell her everything.’

Oh. What do you know?

‘Really?’ I asked, opening one eye.

She nodded, still standing a fair distance away, with her arms wrapped around her back. It made me feel a bit weird to think that she might be scared of me, but it also made me feel ever so slightly awesome. I was badass and somewhere in LA, Jenny Lopez would be smiling.

‘What about this beauty assistant job you applied for?’ I opened the other eye.

Virginie shrugged. ‘It has been filled. I do not think Cici was even speaking to anyone about me. I am sorry. I have been stupid.’

Waking up properly and taking a good look at her, I realized Virginie was not looking her sparkly pep-tastic best. In fact, she looked slightly shit. Her eyes and nose were rimmed with red and her hair was pulled back into a messy ponytail and not the stylishly messy kind, it actually looked as if it needed washing.

‘They already filled the job?’ I pulled out the chair beside me and nodded for her to sit. Instead, Virginie regarded me nervously and ran her fingers along the back of the chair. ‘Oh for Christ’s sake, sit down, I’m not going to hit you,’ I said, holding up my hands in a gesture of peace, ‘not again anyway. And well, sorry about that.’

‘I would hit someone that did the same to me,’ she said, sitting across from me. I made a note never to piss her off. ‘And they have filled it, if there was a job to begin with. It is possible that she created the advertisement herself, is it not?’

‘It absolutely is,’ I agreed, refusing to feel sorry for her. ‘So you didn’t bother to check it out with anyone at
Belle
before you agreed to try and ruin my life?’

‘The girl I knew, the old beauty assistant, she was fired,’ Virginie explained. ‘Cici told me she got fat.’

‘They can’t actually fire someone for getting fat,’ I said, really hoping it was true. ‘If she was fired then there is a job?’

‘I do not know, but there is so much talk of restructure and lay-offs in the US office it is possible she is not being replaced.’ Virginie wiped a stray tear away from a tired-looking eye. ‘And yes, you can be fired for being fat.’

‘Shit,’ I breathed, regretting getting full-fat milk in my coffee. ‘Well, I appreciate it. The email.’

‘It is the least I can do.’ Virginie tried to smile, but didn’t do a terribly good job. ‘I know I have not helped you this week and I know it has been difficult.’

‘You don’t know the half of it.’ I rubbed at the smudges on my arm and tried not to think what that meant for the make-up on my face. ‘I saw Solène at the show last night, before I saw you outside. Apparently she’s decided she’s taking Alex back.’

‘Oh, I am so sorry.’ She tentatively reached a hand out and lightly squeezed my forearm. ‘I was hoping that we were wrong.’

‘Well, I said she’s decided, not he’s decided,’ I clarified for my pessimistic pal. ‘I don’t know what he’s decided. ’

‘You did not speak with him last night?’ Virginie asked, pulling her hand away. Baby steps.

‘He didn’t come back to the hotel last night,’ I said. I really hated telling people that part. ‘And I wasn’t around this morning.’

‘I see.’ She pressed her lips together and rolled her silver necklace between her thumb and forefinger.

‘Right.’

‘Right.’

We sat in silence for a moment, neither one of us knowing quite what to say. There was no point in Virginie leaping back on to the cheer wagon, I wasn’t going to believe it now, and I was all out of energy. I just wanted to see Alex.

‘What time is it?’ I asked, as much to break the tension as anything.

‘Six-thirty?’ Virginie checked her watch. ‘Six-thirty-five. Alex, he is playing very soon. Isn’t he here?’

‘I don’t know.’ I stood up, looking for Graham and Craig. If Alex’s phone was flat, he couldn’t let them know whether he was going to make it or not, and there was no way he would know anyone’s mobile number off by heart to call from a payphone. ‘I’m going to go and have a look.’

‘May I come along?’ Virginie asked, leaping to her feet. ‘I would like to help, if I can.’

‘Why not?’ I shrugged. It was just a waiting game now. There was no more damage to be done.

The security around the stage area was conveniently lax and between my guest pass and Virginie’s press pass, we managed to make it up to the side of the stage without too much trouble. Graham and Craig were standing with their equipment, looking anxious.

‘Did he call?’ Graham asked, holding his hand out for the phone I’d completely forgotten I still had. I pulled it out of my handbag, attempting to peel the sticky Toblerone wrapper off it before I handed it back.

‘He did, he told me to stay here.’ I tried to look apologetic. ‘I guess that means he’s going to be here.’

‘He had better be,’ Graham brushed his hair back off his face, ‘he’s got ten minutes before these guys finish. We’re on at seven.’

‘What happens if he misses the slot?’ I didn’t especially want to know, I already felt quite guilty enough, but it seemed polite to ask.

‘We get fined and I doubt we ever get to play for the promoter again,’ he tilted his head to one side. ‘So not great.’

‘How often do you come out to Paris?’ I held out my arms. ‘Really?’

‘The promoter is global.’

‘Oh.’

‘Yeah.’

Craig walked around Graham and folded me up in a huge hug, with only the slightest hint of a pat on the ass. ‘Don’t worry Ange,’ he whispered into my hair. ‘And what’s with this chick you got with you? She single? Can I hit that?’

I pushed out of the hug and gave him my sternest look. Virginie had already had her dream job taken away and a slap in the face in the past twenty-four hours, hooking up with Craig would just about push her over the edge.

‘So that’s a no?’

‘It’s a no, Craig,’ I confirmed, looking out at the stage. Wow it was big. And wow, there were a lot of people in the crowd. As in thousands. Directly opposite, there was another group watching the band, waving at us. Craig waved back before he had his hand slapped down by Graham. I looked suspiciously at the boys and then squinted back across the stage, through my smudged mascara, holding my hand over my eyes to block out the early evening sun.

It was Solène.

And she was waving at me.

‘Angela, just let it go,’ Graham urged, apparently able to see my temper rising through the back of my head. ‘She’s not worth it.’

‘Did you talk to Alex about it?’ I asked him, as quietly as possible when you were standing next to a band belting out their closing number to 10,000 screaming fans.

‘We didn’t get a chance last night, he vanished right after the show,’ Graham yelled into my ear. ‘When I got that message I figured you two must have had a bust-up or something.’

‘But he didn’t come back to the hotel,’ I said slowly, feeling the Percy Pigs coming right back up. ‘He wasn’t with you?’

‘Uh, no.’ He looked back across the stage to where Solène was dancing with the rest of her band. ‘Don’t get ahead of yourself, Angie, you don’t know what he did. Alex knows this city probably as well as he knows New York, there are a million places he could have stayed.’

‘A million,’ I repeated, unable to take my eyes off Solène. I wanted to believe Graham, but out of the two of us, I was the one with dirty hair and no idea where my boyfriend had spent the night. If Alex had told her to go to hell, why was she dancing? If I knew that I had lost him for good, I wouldn’t be able to dance. I wouldn’t be able to laugh or smile or probably get out of bed for a month, so I sure as hell didn’t know what she was looking so happy about. Unless…

‘Ahh, fuck, they finished early!’ Craig slapped his hand against his face as the drummer onstage threw his sticks up into the air to announce the end of their set. ‘I never liked those bastards.’

The band came off towards us, high-fiving Craig and Graham as they went, while the roadies swarmed the stage, unplugging all the equipment to make way for Stills.

‘What do we do, man?’ Craig asked Graham, looking panicked. ‘You know the words, you could sing?’

‘Knowing the words isn’t the same as singing.’ Graham frowned. ‘But we’ve got to do something. I’m gonna go and find someone, see if we can hold on for a little while. You go set up, you take too long anyway.’

Ignoring, or not recognizing the insult, Craig tiptoed through the cables and on to the stage to help his drum tech set up. I couldn’t believe this was happening and as much as I was trying to stick to my new positive thinking regime, I was pretty sure it was at least fifty per cent my fault. Possibly slightly more. Or slightly less. Depending on whether or not Alex needed to see me to break up with me or to tell me he had been a dick and that he loved me.

‘I am going to find drinks,’ Virginie announced loudly, apparently sensing an impending meltdown and wanting to be out of harm’s way. ‘I will bring back wine.’ Regardless of her previous betrayals, there was no disputing the fact that she was an intelligent and intuitive girl.

I paced the limited space I had beside the stage, willing Alex to burst through the doors, take the stairs two at a time and storm the stage just in time, but the clock kept on ticking and no one came up the stairs except for a tall blonde – oh, brilliant, just what I needed.

‘Angela,’ Solène greeted me, as usual, with a smile. Stage-ready in a stripy black-and-white mini dress I was pretty sure I had owned pre-exploding suitcase, black over-the-knee boots and perfect make-up, she was not a sight I wanted to see. ‘Angela, have you slept at all? You do not look well.’

‘Whatever,’ I replied eloquently, looking past her to where Craig was struggling with a particularly tricky snare drum. I did not want to get into this. There was no way I was listening to another word out of that woman’s mouth until I’d spoken to Alex.

‘Of course, I did not get too much sleep myself,’ she shrugged. ‘But perhaps I am glowing. Where is my Alex?’

My heart fell right to the floor, my stomach and my handbag following closely behind. She hadn’t? He wouldn’t? They didn’t?

‘All right,’ I breathed out, remembering too late that my laptop was in the bag I’d just dropped. ‘You can stop. I’m sure this is all hilarious to you, but until I’ve spoken to Alex, I don’t want to see your face. And I’m fairly certain that even after I’ve seen him, you’re going to be the last person I want to talk to, ever again.’

‘You have not seen him?’ she asked, her bravado drooping slightly. ‘You have not spoken to him?’

‘I’m not talking to you.’ I folded my arms to stop them from doing anything I might regret. One slap per trip was my limit. ‘So whatever it is that you’re dying to tell me, you can just piss off until I’ve heard it from him.’

‘But he said he had to talk to you,’ Solène faltered. ‘Last night. He said we would speak when he had spoken to you.’

‘Well that’s very chivalrous of him, isn’t it? He dragged himself all the way over to London, so he could break up with me before you carried on your epic romance.’ I couldn’t believe this was happening. Had they spent the night together? And that was why he needed to speak to me? Of course he needed to speak to me. He couldn’t be with Solène without breaking up with me first, that way he could convince himself he hadn’t cheated. I was so stupid. Positive thinking, my arse. Delusional was a better word for it.

‘London?’ She looked confused. ‘He is in London?’

‘I can’t actually explain any of this to myself so I’m not going to try and explain it to you,’ I snapped, desperate to be away from her. ‘Please just go away. You’ve got what you wanted, haven’t you?’

‘Yes.’ She shrugged, the self-assured arrogance reappearing on her face. ‘Where is he? There is no way Alex would miss a gig.’

‘Apparently, he would.’ I waved my arms around, tears prickling in my scratchy, dry eyes. ‘Can you see him anywhere?’

‘This is your fault.’ Solène’s eyes narrowed and she prodded me in the shoulder. ‘Alex has never missed a show before, not for anyone. I cannot believe he would risk his career for you.’

I paused for a moment. Why was she so pissed off if they were back together? ‘What, he never missed a show for you?’ I asked.

She froze, her mouth set in a hard line. ‘He would do anything for me.’

‘Except, it was me he chased to London.’ I tipped my head to one side and pursed my lips. ‘When you come to think of it, that’s a weird thing to do if you’re going to dump someone, isn’t it?’

‘No.’ She didn’t even sound as though she’d convinced herself. ‘He said that he could not see me until he had spoken with you.’

I breathed in sharply. They hadn’t spent the night together at all. ‘You’ve said that once. So you haven’t even seen him?’

‘I am sure that once he has spoken to you—’