Lindsey Kelk

Jenny Lopez Has a Bad Week

Exclusive Short Story

Contents

Chapter One

‘Jenny Lopez, you are a delight.’

Chapter Two

‘Oh my god, Jenny, you look like shit.’

Chapter Three

I crashed through my apartment door the next morning after…

Chapter Four

‘What is this?’ I stood in the bar of Hotel…

Chapter Five

‘Oh god,’ I groaned when my alarm rang the next…

Chapter Six

I wasn’t sure what I enjoyed the most. The epic…

Chapter Seven

The Boyd & Norrell show was a huge success. Sadie’s…

Chapter Eight

‘And then he slammed the door and vanished.’ I relayed…

Copyright

About the Publisher

CHAPTER ONE

‘Jenny Lopez, you are a delight.’

It had been a really bad week. I was broke; I was bored and boyfriendless. At least I had been, until now.

My date sat back in his chair and gave me a beaming smile. I couldn’t help but smile back. This was going down in the record books as one of the best first dates ever. Brian Williams was 35 years old, single and so, so cute. We’d met a couple of weeks ago at my friend Erin’s birthday party and, even though I hated to admit it, I’d pulled out every weapon in my flirting arsenal to get this date. It had taken until we walked (staggered) out to get cabs at four in the morning, but goddamn it, I’d got his number.

We’d been hidden away on the tiny back patio of Brooklyn Social for the last hour, laughing over the trials and tribulations of our day, screwball subway adventures and the general ridiculousness of Brooklyn. Time was flying by and I was a delight. Who didn’t love being told that? I’d made a hell of an effort. My hair was freshly washed, a few strands pinned back to tether the curls away from my glowing skin – I’d bought a new bronzer – and sparkly, lots-of-rest-because-I-wasn’t-working eyes. On the ensemble front, I’d gone pretty low-key, but the girls were making an appearance. Skinny jeans, white button-up tank top and heels. I looked as good as I was gonna get. Not that looking good had helped since I’d gotten back from LA. At least not until tonight …

‘So what do you do?’ I asked, readying myself for the bad news. In days gone by, it used to be my first question, but these days it didn’t mean anything. Bankers were broke, musicians were loaded; the world was topsy-turvy.

‘I’m a writer.’ He nodded slowly as he spoke and placed his hands on his knees. ‘Wow, it’s taken me a really long time to be able to say that out loud and mean it.’

‘That’s great.’ A writer, OK, I could work with that. What I couldn’t work with was the fact that my drink had been dry for at least fifteen minutes. Red flag maybe, but hardly a strike. ‘What sort of stuff do you do?’

‘Yeah, so I guess I identify most closely with like, Nietzsche or Kierkegaard.’ He pushed his elaborate black glasses frame back up his nose. ‘And you know, Ayn Rand changed my life. Ayn Rand and Bukowski, you know?’

And there it was. Strike number one.

I nodded, staring into my empty glass before taking another sip of the gin-flavoured melting ice and closing my eyes. One strike in one hour, though – not too shabby really.

‘I guess it’s difficult for a woman to understand those writers,’ he said, before I could fathom a response. ‘So you’re not a reader; not a deal breaker.’

Strike two.

I thought about the stack of dog-eared books piled up at the side of my bed but I kept my mouth shut. I didn’t need to defend my library of self-help guides, travel guides and each and every book in the Twilight series to my formerly awesome date. Besides, I’d read Bukowski and Rand and, in my humble opinion, they were books for assholes.

‘It’s not great but,’ he lifted the dregs of his locally brewed beer to his mouth, ‘not a deal breaker.’

Something terrible had happened to the city while I’d been away. Five months in LA and all the eligible men had vanished. That, or I’d become invisible. Or a troll. And since I was literally running my ass off every morning in the ninety-degree heat, it couldn’t be that. I figured they could still smell LA on me. Nothing like some time on the West Coast to poison New York men against you.

I studied Brian Williams from across the tiny cast-iron table on the back patio of Brooklyn Social. Usually I refused to venture out of Manhattan for a first date, but I’d been back for almost a month and it had been slim pickings. He was cute. Tall enough (that is, taller than me in heels), short dark hair, the heavy framed glasses I’d thought were quirky at Erin’s party. Now they just seemed like some awful affectation. They were so non-prescription. This was what happened when you had nothing to say for yourself, I realized, you hid behind props and buzzword authors. Saved a lot of time and effort in becoming a useful human being.

‘So, who do you write for?’ Ten points to me for at least trying. There was a vague, vague, vague chance he was just a little awkward and not a total ass-hat after all. ‘My best friend writes a column for Look magazine.’

‘Look magazine?’ He smiled to himself. ‘Interesting. Well, my writing runs a little deeper.’

Because badmouthing my best friend was a sure-fire way to secure a second date. Strike three.

‘And you’re published?’ I asked with as much innocence as I could muster.

‘Uh, no,’ he was getting less cute by the second. Thirty-five? Really? ‘It’s about the craft, not the reward.’

‘So what do you actually do?’

What I really wanted to say was: ‘Then maybe you should stop introducing yourself as a writer, dickwad.’

‘Right now I’m spending a little time in photography retail.’ He waved his hands around a lot, the sleeves of his vintage Strand bookstore T-shirt rolling up his skinny arms. ‘That’s my other passion. I actually show my work in a real-time gallery, on tumblr. You should check out—’

‘You work in a camera store?’ I translated. ‘And you have a blog?’

He gave me a cool, level stare. Amazing how quickly things could go from great to ‘I’d rather gouge out my own eyes with splintered chopsticks than look at you for one more second.’

‘So what do you do with your spare time?’ He sat back and took a good look at my rack, apparently deciding my boobs made it worth hanging around a little longer. I was regretting my choice of tank top now. ‘And don’t say watch TV because I don’t even have one. Television is a cancer.’

And yet all I could think about was whether or not there would be a Glee rerun on when I got home. In thirty minutes.

‘You know, I’m gonna get a drink.’ I gave him a dazzling smile, pulled my long, loose curls into a ponytail and then let them drop around my shoulders. My best friend Angela referred to this as my signature stripper move, but hey, I might as well give him something to really regret. ‘Can I get you one?’

‘I thought you were never going to ask,’ he said with a smirk. Dates might have been thin on the ground but going Dutch on the first date? More like going douche. And now it was time for me to go home. ‘I’ll be right back.’

Generally speaking, I didn’t like to lie. It was bad for the soul and – way more importantly – it was bad for the complexion, but there was no polite way of saying, ‘Hey pretentious asshole, you’re wasting precious seconds of my life. I need them. Byesies.’ I didn’t care that he worked in a camera store and I certainly didn’t care that he wasn’t a published writer – if you refused to date everyone who had ever put pen to paper but never had their work published, you’d be limiting your dating pool to investment bankers and men without hands. And even the guys without hands probably had some sort of app on their iPad to type for them. Actually, a guy without hands might actually be a better bet than an investment banker these days.

What I cared about was that he was the kind of guy who would always think he was better than you, no matter who you were, what you did or how awesome you were at doing it. I could have told him I was Florence Nightingale and he would have taken issue with the fact I was working with the troops instead of impoverished kids in the projects.

It had been so long since I’d met anyone who, well, wasn’t. I knew it was possible – most of my friends had awesome boyfriends and husbands – but all I seemed to find were the kind of sleazebags who thought they could slap you on the ass on the way to the restroom, or Brian Williamses.

I skipped up the steps out of the garden and sidled through the narrow bar, my heart beating harder with each step I took closer to freedom.

‘Hey!’ I turned around – as did everyone sitting at the bar – to see Brian Williams following behind me. ‘I was just going to change my order – where are you going?’

‘Home,’ I admitted. ‘Order from the bartender.’

Before he could reply, I leapt out of the door and into a passing cab.

Bye Brian Williams.

‘Thirty-Ninth and Lex?’ I asked the driver as I threw myself across the back seat. It wasn’t that I hadn’t come to love Brooklyn, I had. Sort of. Ever since my former roommate and current BFF, Angela, had moved out here, I’d kind of had to. But as soon as the tyres of the taxi hit the Brooklyn Bridge and Manhattan’s skyscrapers twinkled in the twilight, I felt better. It was as if a tightness in my chest eased, like I could breathe again. If only I weren’t headed home alone. Again. I dug my cell phone out of my eye-wateringly beautiful watermelon leather Mulberry Alexa and relaxed.

‘Pick up, Angie.’ I sang into the handset while slipping my foot out of my shoe and turning off the in-taxi TV. Worst invention known to man.

Angela Clark, my best friend and confidante, picked up on the first ring. She had just the right touch of OCD about things like that to make her near perfect. If only she’d had the same OCD about doing the dishes when we’d lived together.

‘Hi, are you OK? Is everything OK?’

There hadn’t been one phone call that didn’t start with that exact same sentence since she moved out a month ago.

‘Everything’s fine.’ I saw the Woolworth Building and knew that it was. ‘Just another bad date.’

‘It’s summer,’ Angela theorized. ‘The heat makes boys crazy.’

‘Maybe.’ I shucked my purple Jimmy Choo mules to the floor and held my toes up for pedicure inspection. Flawless. As toes should be. ‘I’m just kinda sick of it.’

‘Any news on the job front?’ she asked. ‘Did you hear back from anyone yet?’

The only subject I might have preferred not to discuss than my date was my search for gainful employment. I’d spent many happy years working as a hotel concierge until I’d finally given in, reached for the stars and spent six months in LA working as a stylist. Between a little natural talent (OK, I’m being modest, I was awesome) and a lot of luck, I’d managed to bag some pretty sweet gigs. But when you weigh that up against living with a high-class hooker, there really wasn’t a lot of choice when my lease came up for renewal. And besides, as I told myself at the time, it was styling. I could be a stylist anywhere. Except, uhh, no.

‘Everyone in New York hates me,’ I whined. Hyperbole? Me? Didn’t you hear, I’m not a reader. ‘They’re all like, oh, we were hoping to work with someone with more experience. The only place that called me back was MTV.’

‘To style Jersey Shore or Teen Mom?’ Angela asked with a laugh.

‘Jersey Shore,’ I whispered back.

‘Oh, Jenny.’ She didn’t know it, but on occasion Angela Clark sounded exactly like her mom on the phone. ‘You get out what you put in, you know that. If you’re putting negative energy out there, you’ll get negative results.’

And sometimes she sounded just like me.

‘Thanks for the pep talk.’ The Lower East Side was alive with people as the cab cruised through town. Well, it was a Tuesday. And wasn’t Tuesday the new Friday? Or was that Thursday? I was so out of touch. ‘I just don’t want to have to go back to the hotel.’

‘You loved working at The Union,’ she reminded me. ‘And they would totally take you back.’

‘But that’s just it,’ I replied. ‘It’s going back. I … I just can’t.’

‘I understand, I do. I just don’t want you to be bored and miserable.’

It was a uniquely English ability to know how to point out the obvious problem without being, well, obvious. I was bored. I was miserable. But I wasn’t going back to The Union. Besides, the lack of work was only half the issue. Both Angie and I knew the real reason I’d come back from LA, and it was six feet tall, blond and went by the name of Jeff. Heartbreak beat out hookers and homesickness every time.

‘I know.’ I was too tired to get into it. At 9.15 in the evening. Jesus. ‘We still getting lunch tomorrow?’

‘Yep,’ she confirmed. ‘Twelve, Noho Star. Are you sure you’re OK? Do you want to come over?’

An evening in front of the TV with my best friend and her perfect boyfriend? I’d rather go back and apologize to Brian Williams. I was happy for Angie, I was, and it wasn’t like she and Alex hadn’t faced their ups and downs, but I still hadn’t figured out how she got to move here from England and hook up with one of the hottest guys in the city right away. Some of us had been putting in the groundwork for years. Actually, there was a chance I’d put in a little too much groundwork and that was part of the problem, but you know what they say: practice makes perfect.

‘I’m good,’ I gave her a yawn to demonstrate just how fine. ‘Just gonna take a bath and hit the hay. An early night won’t hurt me.’

‘No, but five in a row will,’ she pointed out. ‘You’re going out this weekend.’ It sounded more like a threat than a promise. ‘I’ll see you in the morning.’

I dropped the phone back in my bag just as we pulled up outside my apartment. Just two minutes and seven flights of stairs until I was snout deep in a tub of Chunky Monkey. Live the dream, Jenny Lopez, live the dream. Yeah, it had been a pretty bad week.

CHAPTER TWO

‘Oh my god, Jenny, you look like shit.’

Erin and I had been friends for years but still, that kind of hello was not going to fly.

‘Hey Erin,’ I replied with two breezy kisses. ‘Your ass looks fat. How’s married life working for you?’

‘My ass is twice the size it was a year ago and I’m fucking ecstatic.’ She pushed a bellini across the table towards me. ‘What’s your excuse?’

‘I’m having tons of super-hot sex with super-hot strangers all the time,’ I lied. ‘Ten orgasms a night take their toll on a girl.’

She narrowed her eyes, flicked her newly bobbed blonde hair behind her ears and shook her head. ‘Right.’ She tapped the platinum bands of her engagement ring and wedding band against the stem of her glass. ‘Only, I can tell by looking. If ever anyone needed to get laid, it’s you.’

‘She told you about her dating drama then?’ Angela dropped into the spare seat on the opposite side of the table with a cheery smile. A cheery smile that vanished as soon as she registered my expression. ‘What? What did I say?’

Erin laughed happily and ordered another round of cocktails, even though it was Wednesday and even though we still had full glasses in front of us. Oh to be a married PR maven in Manhattan.

‘So, bad date?’ She had the decency to wait until we’d ordered before quizzing me any further, but curiosity finally got the better of her. ‘Tell me everything.’

‘I’m glad my tragic encounters with the opposite sex keep you guys entertained.’ Even though I was thoroughly depressed about my single status, I couldn’t deny that I loved being centre of attention, and when you’re the only single lady at a table full of coupled-up gals, you’re pretty much the star attraction. ‘It was nothing, that Brian guy I met at your birthday party.’

‘The cute geek?’

‘He had glasses, yeah,’ I frowned at the definition. It was a slur against geeks. ‘He wasn’t a geek though. Just an asshole.’

‘Example?’ Angela requested.

‘He didn’t own a TV.’

‘Ouch.’

‘And he said he most closely identified with Kierkegaard.’

‘Oh, no.’

‘And he said women couldn’t understand Ayn Rand.’

‘Strike three,’ Erin said. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘Hang on, wasn’t Ayn Rand a woman?’ Angela looked confused.

‘She wrote the book Robbie tried to loan Baby in Dirty Dancing,’ Erin replied.

‘You went on a date with the Brooklyn equivalent of Robbie the Creep?’ Angela shook her head sadly. ‘I can’t believe it’s come to this.’

‘Some people matter and some people don’t,’ I confirmed. ‘So, yeah, he wasn’t the one.’

‘Did he at least have an Alfa Romeo?’ Erin couldn’t help herself. ‘That’s my favourite car.’

I coiled a loose chocolate-brown curl around my finger and tried not to think too much about what she’d said when I came in. Did I really look like shit? Maybe my tan had faded a little since I’d gotten back from LA, and my hair could use the teensiest trim, but my Ella Moss sundress was totally cute and everyone loved a gladiator sandal. Another glance at my pedicure confirmed it remained unchipped and I was even wearing mascara. I was officially making an effort. There was no room in my dating timetable for leaving the house looking shitty from here on in. You never knew who was around the corner in this city. Lest we forget, Ryan Reynolds was single now.

‘I feel responsible.’ Erin smiled at the waitress as our food arrived. Prompt and plenty of it. I loved this place. ‘He was at my party, after all. Let me hook you up with one of Thomas’s friends.’

Thomas was Erin’s husband, one of the few Wall Street traders I knew who hadn’t been totally stung in the recession. Not that my address book was teeming with Wall Street traders.

‘Maybe.’ I took a deep breath, readying myself for the inevitable reaction I would get to my next statement. ‘You know, I kinda thought maybe I might give Jeff a call.’

Their choruses of negativity were loud and indecipherable but the general theme seemed to be a no. I sighed and poked at my eggs, suddenly not so hungry any more.

‘Jenny, you know that’s a bad idea.’ The blonde began her practised argument.

‘I know but I need to do it, OK?’

To be fair, it wasn’t as though this wasn’t old ground. Jeff and I used to date, used to live together, but we’d broken up a couple of years earlier when I’d been dumb enough to confess a drunken one-night dalliance and he’d completely flipped. It wasn’t as if I wasn’t ready to take responsibility – yes, technically I’d cheated, but a) I was wasted and b) I’d told him about it right away. But apparently that didn’t help. He didn’t trust me any more and that was even more hurtful than if he’d stopped loving me. Because he hadn’t. And knowing that was the worst.

‘Jeff is the past, Jeff is bad times, Jeff is staggering around at four a.m. singing “Hopelessly Devoted” in every karaoke bar in the East Village.’ She shook her head. ‘Jeff isn’t happening.’

‘But if I just called him,’ I suggested weakly. I was playing to the wrong crowd. ‘Or send, like, a Facebook message?’

‘I wouldn’t,’ Angie said, sounding nervous. ‘Really, I wouldn’t get in touch at all.’

I bit my lip. ‘Is that girl still living there?’

It was hardly Angela’s fault, but her boyfriend had the misfortune to live in the same building as my ex. Which of course meant that Angela now lived in the same building as my ex. Awesome.

‘Uh, yep.’ She looked down at her burger and then at the ends of her shiny bob. ‘I need a trim. Shall we see if we can get a trim this afternoon?’

She was about as good at hiding something as Lindsay Lohan was at shoplifting, i.e. not very.

‘Spill.’

She gave me a pained expression before dropping her head to hide her blue eyes behind her hair. ‘They’re engaged. They got engaged.’

If driving into Manhattan had been like taking a breath of fresh air, this was like getting every breath kicked out of me. By a pissed off mule. Onto train tracks just as a train was pulling in. I did the only thing a girl could do with that kind of news. I sank my first bellini and made a pretty good attack on the second.

‘He proposed?’ I asked, twisting the knife that was suddenly wedged in my chest. ‘He got a ring?’

‘I assume so.’ She raised her shoulders up to her ears in a dramatic shrug. ‘Alex told me. He saw them in the lift yesterday and she was wearing a ring.’

‘Alex noticed a girl was wearing a new ring?’ Erin asked. ‘Damn, that guy’s a keeper. You need to lock that down, honey.’

‘One problem at a time,’ I responded, my voice becoming ever so slightly hysterical. ‘He’s definitely engaged? She’s not just some tacky ho who wears jewellery on her wedding finger?’

‘Definitely engaged.’ She held her hands up in front of her. ‘I don’t know any details; please don’t shoot the messenger. Or punch the messenger. Or anything the messenger. Please. I’m sorry.’

In Angie’s defence, my first thought was violence. I really, really wanted to hurt someone. It was a long time since I’d had to pull out a bitch-slap – but I wasn’t above it. What was I supposed to do in this situation? The love of my life had got engaged to someone else. The way I saw it I had three choices. Beg him to take me back, cry myself blind or kill them both. Now begging hadn’t worked in the past, and while I could totally beat that man-stealer down, killing her might be a little far-fetched. Besides, there was a teensy chance that Jeff would hold it against me instead of being won over by the romance of the whole murder thing. Which left crying myself blind. Hmm.

No, I was not going to bawl over brunch. It was not an appropriate sobbing meal. I’d find a quiet spot in Saks to weep over some twelve-hundred-dollar purses later. No, right now, I required a plan. That’s what friends were for. Might not have been in the lyrics to that song, but still, fact.

‘Ladies,’ I gave my friends an affirmative nod, ‘I can’t freak out over this. I’m going old-school Lopez on this shizz. What would Oprah do? I have a great network of people around me, I just need to put it into action, right?’

‘Very sensible of you,’ Angie replied. ‘What can we do?’

This was my forte. Getting over break-ups. Moving on. Having a plan. I could do this. Gut-wrenching, desperate urge to vomit because the man I loved was engaged. To someone else.

‘You,’ I pointed at her with my fork for emphasis, ‘can get me a date. Seriously, Angie, you’re living with some hot-ass guitar boy and you haven’t even once tried to set me up with any of his friends?’

‘All his friends are arses.’ She managed to make the ‘r’ in arses last for a lifetime. ‘Really, don’t make me do this.’

‘It’s done.’ There was no time for refusals. When I was on a mission, I was on a mission. ‘I want a date by Friday night. Which brings me to you,’ I smiled sweetly. ‘Give me a job. Any job. Seriously, you must have something? Anything.’

While Angela flicked through the contacts in her cell phone, pulling a face at each and every one, Erin looked to the heavens for an answer.

‘OK, there’s something.’ She was making pretty much the same face as Angela. ‘But it’s not styling. I mean, it’s fashion but it’s really events management.’

‘I can manage events.’ I slapped the table so hard, the lid popped off the ketchup pot. ‘For real, I’m awesome at events. I was a concierge, for Christ’s sake, what’s that if it’s not organizing? Tell me everything.’

‘I guess.’ She didn’t look quite convinced. ‘We’re working with this new design house, Boyd & Norrell, and they’ve managed to bag Sadie Nixon as their spokesperson.’

‘The model?’

‘The supermodel,’ Erin corrected. ‘The Victoria’s Secret model, the Maybelline spokeswoman and, if rumour has it right, the world’s biggest asshole.’

‘Nope, I went on a date with that guy last night,’ I reminded her. ‘So she’s a difficult model. They’re all difficult; that’s what happens when all you eat is one packet of Nutrasweet in seven years. What do you need me to do?’

‘I need someone to handle her for the showcase we’re running on Friday.’ She took out her own phone and pulled up an email. ’I’ve just forwarded you the details. You pick her up at the hotel, bring her to the event, make sure she’s there for fittings, feed her, water her, Nutrasweet her, whatever, and make sure she doesn’t do anything crazy until she’s off the clock for the client.’

Now, it seemed like a ‘famous last words’ kind of a situation, but really, how hard could it be? I was great with people and I loved fashion. Hang out with a model all day for money? Yes please. And the more demanding the better – the less time I had to sulk right now, the better.

‘I always need extra hands for events,’ Erin said. ‘But really, it’s no fun. It’s a lot of pressure, a lot of stress, and people are, for the most part, dicks. Including me.’

‘Dude,’ I placed a hand over hers, dodging the rocks. ‘I have seen you at your dickiest and I am not afraid.’

‘Dude,’ she turned her hand over to give mine a squeeze. ‘You have no idea.’

After lunch, Erin took a cab to work and Angela and I took the subway back to Williamsburg. If my days as a slacker were numbered, I wanted to slack as much as humanly possible. And where else to do it but the slacker capital of the world? Angie could try and pass them off as hipsters and artists as much as she liked, but all I could see were two dozen thirty-year-old white boys in too tight jeans, sponging off mommy and daddy. I wondered if any of them were single. Once we were in possession of vomit-inducing ice-cream cones, we took to the bench outside the ice-cream parlour to watch Bedford Avenue’s crazies pass us by.

‘You really all right about the whole Jeff thing?’ Angela asked. “I didn’t know if you were just putting on a brave face for Erin.’

‘She has been known to be less than tolerant about my Jeff issues,’ I acknowledged. ‘But what can I do? I guess maybe it hasn’t sunk in yet?’

She gave me her best sympathetic expression. It was kind of ruined by the chocolate ice cream on her nose, but I didn’t have the heart to tell her. ‘Maybe it’s for the best, you know,’ she suggested. ‘You can finally draw a line under it.’

‘Yeah, maybe.’ I couldn’t start talking about it here. Because the moment it did actually sink in, there was every chance I’d have a complete emotional meltdown and I was really hoping to keep that between me, a pinot noir and my Vampire Diaries DVD. Ian Somerhalder made the hurt go away.

‘So, names, Facebook profiles, phone numbers. And don’t think anyone’s not good enough. For the first time ever, my standards are officially way low.’

‘Honestly, Jenny, even when after that time you ate all my Ben & Jerry’s, drank every bottle of wine in the house and broke my MacBook searching for gay porn, I wouldn’t have set you up with a single one of Alex’s friends. The ones that show any sign of humanity are already coupled up and the others are either gross, gay or evil.’

‘I’ll take evil,’ I rationalized. ‘Evil might be hot.’

‘You want evil? Is that on your Match.com profile?’ Angie messed with the fraying seams of her purse to avoid making eye contact with the guy who had paused in front of us. Although, if you asked me, wearing tiny Seventies running shirts, a tuxedo shirt and a bow tie meant you wanted to be looked at. I didn’t know how she could live in this crazy neighbourhood.

‘I’m looking for cute and smart and funny and awesome, but that’s kinda hard to come by,’ I replied. ‘But we all know it’s easier to find a man if you have a man. And you know I don’t have a Match.com profile. Too depressing.’

‘So, cute, smart, funny and awesome,’ Angela checked off the qualities on her spare hand. ‘Anything else while I’m taking notes?’

‘Tall would be nice,’ I closed my eyes and conjured up my dream guy. ‘Blond. Tan. Handsome but, you know, like in a goofy way? Maybe he has crooked teeth or something?’

‘But nothing that would push him out of the handsome category?’

‘Oh god no,’ I said, my eyes still closed. ‘I don’t know, maybe he’d be an architect or something. Or a teacher. Something he was passionate about.’

‘Location preferences?’

‘I’m not that picky,’ I wrinkled my nose. ‘But Manhattan would be convenient.’

‘Oh, you know what!’ Angela’s voice was full of delight. ‘Alex has a friend who meets those requirements exactly!’

‘He does?’ I opened my eyes to see her deadpan expression.

‘No. Of course he bloody doesn’t.’

‘Bitch.’

We ate our ice cream in silence for a while, making as much headway as possible before it started to melt. It was super-hot for the time of year but I was fine with it. I could handle a lot more heat than Angie. Between May and September, she pretty much always looked as if she was on the verge of passing out.

‘Have you put the ad on Craigslist for a roommate yet?’ She changed the subject successfully. ‘You can’t afford to keep that apartment on your own. Especially if you’re not working.’

‘Well, Debbie Downer, no, I haven’t.’ Our friend Vanessa had been renting the spare room in the apartment formerly known as ‘our place’, but now it was just me. Cue violins. ‘I was really hoping someone would turn up, like a friend of a friend or something? I’m terrified I’m gonna end up with the Craigslist Killer as a roomie.’

‘I think he was mostly operating out of Long Island,’ Angie reasoned. ‘Although we are relatively close to Grand Central, so the commute wouldn’t be too bad for him.’

‘True.’ She made a good point. ‘I’ve always been so lucky with friends or friends of friends, you know?’

‘Or complete strangers who just arrived in the country?’

No reply necessary. Just a look.

‘Excuse me?’

A heavily accented voice disturbed my death stare. But I didn’t mind. When I turned to see who was so rudely interrupting my non-verbal smackdown my eyes hit one of the hottest guys I had ever seen. At crotch level. Skinny black pants ran into a slim-fit pale denim shirt, the top two buttons unfastened to reveal a tastefully tan chest. A chest that was connected to a neck that was connected to a breathtakingly pretty face. A face shaded with jaw length, silky, silky blond hair.

‘Oh,’ I heard myself say out loud. Angela nudged me hard in the ribs. I dropped my ice cream. The man smiled. I believed all of these actions to be related.

‘Excuse me, I am sorry to interrupt.’ The sun shining through his almost white-blond hair did nothing to persuade me he was in fact not a god. ‘I couldn’t help but overhear your conversation and I had to jump in.’

‘Had to?’ Angela hadn’t got the memo about super-hot guys never being suspicious in any way.

‘Yes.’ He missed her sarcasm, thank god. ‘I just moved to New York from Sweden. I’m a model.’

I turned to smile at Angela with eyes as big as saucers. Happy, happy saucers. ‘He’s a model,’ I repeated.

Regardless, the model went on. ‘My name is Sigge and, so far, I haven’t really met anyone other than the other models in the apartment I’ve been crashing at. But I hear you’re the person to come to for friends when you’re new to the country?’

It wasn’t the best pick-up line ever, but damn it, the boy was only a model and he was working with what he had.

‘Yes, sir.’ If this was my karmic gift for getting my shit together after Angie’s big Jeff announcement, I was fine with it.

‘She’s the best,’ Angela confirmed. ‘New York’s finest tour guide and roommate.’

‘You’re looking for a roommate,’ Sigge nodded. ‘This is what I heard when I was coming out of the nail salon. I am looking for somewhere to live.’

Ahh, maaan. Hopes dashed. Heart broken. Everything falling into place. Dude needed a place to live, not me by his side, forever and ever.

‘Anyway, could I have your number?’ He asked. I tried not to show how badly I wanted to get up and punch karma in the balls. Not cool, karma, not cool at all.

‘Sure.’ Scribbling my cell down on the receipt from the ice-cream place, I handed it over with as much of a smile as I could muster. ‘I’m around Friday if you want to come over then?’

‘Friday is perfect,’ he replied. Seriously, I was so the New York welcome wagon. Except, uh, that didn’t sound ok. ‘And I am so sorry, I did not get your name?’

I closed my eyes and smiled politely. ‘Jenny. Jenny Lopez.’

Awkward pause.

‘Like the pop singer!’ He tucked the number into the back pocket of his pants. ‘She is one of my favourites.’

‘Yeah. She’s great.’

One day, when I was the new hipper, hotter Oprah, I would destroy the producers of American Idol for resurrecting that woman’s career. Doesn’t matter how cute you are if every time you introduce yourself to a guy they immediately compare you to People magazine’s most beautiful person on the planet.

‘I am so glad I got my manicure here today.’ He leaned down to kiss me on both cheeks. Forward, but still, if we were going to be roomies … ‘Friday.’

‘Partyin’ partyin’ yeah,’ I sighed.

As soon as Sigge’s perfect ass had disappeared around the corner, Angela burst out laughing.

‘Oh maaan,’ she said, in between fits of hysteria. ‘You’re really going to move in with a gay male model who cares more about his cuticles than you do?’

‘I care about my cuticles,’ I pouted, reviewing my manicure. ‘And what makes you think he’s gay?’

Aside from the manicure, the fact he’s a male model, a lover of Jennifer Lopez, and that when he walked off down the street every gay man in Williamsburg checked him out?

‘Do I really have to dignify that with a response?’

‘Yes.’

‘Is it because he’s really gay?’

‘That’s probably it.’

‘Maybe I could turn him?’

Angela gave me the look. ‘Not even you, gorgeous.’

She eyed my ice-cream casualty on the sidewalk and handed over the remains of her cone.

‘I really did think the universe had come through for you,’ she said. ‘When he said hello, I nearly wet myself. Tall, blond, tanned. Too handsome, obviously, but still. It was like you’d manifested the man.’

‘Cosmic ordering,’ I agreed. ‘Note to self for next time. Must specify, not gay.’

‘It helps,’ she nodded. ‘It helps.’

CHAPTER THREE

I crashed through my apartment door the next morning after my run, and threw myself into the refrigerator. It was hot as balls outside and it wasn’t even nine a.m. Pulling out my earbuds, I dropped my iPhone on the counter and my ass on the couch. I would never be one of those girls who loved to work out – every step was agony for me – but, as my mom liked to remind me, it took the right kind of bait to catch the right kind of fish and there was a whole heap more bait in NYC than there were fish. And so I ran.

My list of chores for the day was unbelievably long and so, instead of even looking at the pile of laundry in the corner, the dishes that needed doing, the cheques that needed mailing, I grabbed my laptop and rested it on my not-quite-as-flat-as-it-could-be belly. Tomorrow I’d run another mile.

Sigge the Sex God was coming over to look at the room on Friday evening, which gave me thirty-six hours to get the place into some sort of viewing order, but if he was coming from a model apartment, populated exclusively by Derek Zoolanders, I was probably OK as is. Just a quick wipe around and a spritz of air freshener, the place would be a palace. But still, I couldn’t rely on him taking the place. Or me wanting to give him the place. The ladyboner part of my brain rejoiced at the idea of a half-naked man-stud wandering around the place, but the potential spinster section was warning me that having the world’s hottest gay in my apartment while my vajayjay remained retired, was not the best idea I’d ever had. I might as well get a cat and some sensible shoes and just accept defeat.

And so to Craigslist.

‘What am I supposed to write?’ I asked the computer. It whirred a little in response but, really, it didn’t have anything helpful to say. It never did. Instead of putting up my ad, I read a couple of others. Everyone had a relaxing, cosy room to rent. Which my bullshit translator read as dark and small. This was too hard. And besides, if I left it long enough, Angie would totally do it for me. She was the writer, after all. I was the do-er. The planner. The action gal. I was much better at browsing the Bergdorf’s website than I was at finding a roommate. Man, Brian Atwood made some nice shoes. I did miss styling. Shopping for free? Amazing. Even if it was shopping for other people.

‘Speaking of shopping for people … ’ I muttered. Online dating. Everyone was doing it, right? It was no big deal? I pulled up OK Cupid, the site I’d heard most of my friends talk about and entered in my search criteria. There was no box for ‘not an asshole’ so I was on my own with that filter. Huh. Just from the photographs, I could tell why they didn’t offer the ‘no asshole’ checkbox. Because every guy on here was a douche. Any second now I was going to come across Brian Williams’s picture.

‘Asshole … ugly … short … ugly and short,’ I said out loud, scrolling through profiles. ‘Short ugly asshole … OK … OK … dumb looking … can’t spell.’

It was like shopping online for guys but with zero quality control. If you wanted designer duds, you went to the Barneys website, not Forever 21. But online dating? There was everything in here, from Prada to Payless. How were you supposed to choose? But still, it was better than doing what actually needed doing …

Twenty minutes later, oprahlopez2011 had a live profile. The photos were cute, my answers to the dumb-ass questions were brief but fun (‘on a Friday night I am mostly … ’ – surely anyone who could answer that without sounding like a total loser wouldn’t be using an online dating site) and now, to wait. Only, waiting wasn’t something I was good at.

‘How hard can this be?’ The computer still didn’t answer. Ass-hat. ‘I just message them and they message me back?’ I really had to get a goldfish or something, just so I had a living entity to direct my banter at.

‘Height, six feet minimum.’ It was time to take destiny into my own hands. Let’s see what this baby had hiding away. ‘Hair, blond. Age, thirty to thirty-seven. No kids, likes kids, athletic build, sign, Aquarius, and income, one hundred thousand dollars minimum.’

Like OK Cupid was going to have anyone who matched these criteria.

Oh. Oh my God. Sweet baby Jesus in the manger.

Suddenly, my dream man appeared on screen. Just one look into his baby blues and I was lost in a fantasy of Hamptons summer houses, candy-striped pinafores and two cute kids, gambolling around the garden. Did kids gambol or was that just lambs? Whatever, it was instant. I was in love.

I had met my future husband. And his name was AJJ78. A brief perusal of his profile suggested he wasn’t a psycho, he had a healthy distaste for the whole online dating thing and he didn’t have any douche-bag flags flying, i.e. he didn’t at any point suggest that Ayn Rand had changed his life. This guy had to be worth a message. Or a wink. Just because the idea of someone winking at me in the street would make me run and hide didn’t mean I couldn’t bust one out here, right? I mean, if it was a valid option? And so, with one very fast, before I regretted it, click of a mouse, it was done. I, Jenny Lopez, had virtually winked at a man.

There was no going back.

A few hours, a short nap and two tacos later, my phone trilled on the kitchen counter.

‘Hey, Erin,’ I tried to keep the sleep out of my voice. ‘What’s up?’

‘I’m calling about tomorrow,’ Erin did not sound even faintly fatigued. Erin sounded all business. ‘I’ve emailed over the call sheet for the event and the number of your driver?’

‘I have a driver?’ This whole gig was sounding better and better.

‘Sadie Nixon has a driver,’ she replied. ‘And you have Sadie Nixon.’

Oh yeah. The demonic supermodel spawn of Satan. Allegedly.

‘And I’m to do what? Pick her up, get her to the show, get her out of the show and ditch her again?’

‘Precisely.’

I really couldn’t see what the big deal was.

‘And just invoice me your day rate when you’re done,’ she said. ‘And any expenses. Sadie doesn’t usually carry cash.’

‘Who does she think she is? The queen?’

‘Pretty much,’ Erin confirmed. ‘Listen, Jenny, I know you can do this, I know you’re not dumb but I cannot, cannot emphasize enough how important it is to me to have this walking clothes hanger in the right place at the right time, do you hear me?’

Jesus, she was more on edge than she’d been at her first wedding. Way more chilled out than at the third, though.

‘I hear ya, chief.’

Yeah, I might have saluted into the mirror.

‘It’s a new client for me and it’s a client I need to keep. They’re not going to stick with me if I lose their top attraction, are they?’

‘Erin, relax,’ I wanted to reassure her, but she was past it. ‘This is important to you, I get it. I won’t fuck it up.’

‘She’s just … ’ Erin searched for the right words. ‘I’ve worked with her before and Jenny, I can’t tell you. She was such a difficult bitch. And that was pre-supermodel Sadie. There’s no way fame and money have made her a better person.’

So, this wasn’t looking quite so appealing all of a sudden. But still, a driver.

‘I worked with tons of tough clients in LA,’ I lied. ‘Honestly, honey, you think it’s easy being a stylist in the carb-free land of the size zero? We’re gonna be just fine. I’ll pick her up, I’ll tell her how great she looks, we’ll do wheatgrass shots, I’ll keep her off the coke and deliver her in one piece.’

‘Don’t joke about the coke.’

‘Keeping her off it or making sure she’s got it?’ I wasn’t sure what the protocol was with supermodels right now. Personally, I didn’t need to pay a hundred bucks for an inflated sense of self-esteem and crashing misery the next day. I could just knock back a couple of dirty martinis and then check Jeff’s Facebook page for the exact same effect, but the models? Sometimes, they expect you to look the other way. And I’d lived with a hooker. I was an expert at looking the other way, even if I didn’t like it.

‘If she even alludes to taking anything stronger than a Red Bull, you stop her,’ Erin ordered. ‘In fact, I don’t even want her on a Red Bull. I don’t want her on anything harder than green tea. You hear me?’

‘Green tea, got it.’

‘On your head be it, Jennifer Lopez.’ Erin resigned herself to her fate. And not a minute too soon, my ‘call waiting’ buzzed in my ear. ‘I’ll see you at the venue tomorrow.’

‘Y’ello,’ I flicked from Erin’s call to the call waiting. ‘Jenny speaking.’

‘Hey, it’s me,’ Angela replied. ‘Are you OK?’

‘Oh, the kitchen’s on fire and my leg is hanging off but apart from that? Sure.’

‘JENNY.’

‘Fine, I burned some toast and cut my leg shaving. But you keep freaking asking.’

‘Whatever.’ Angela sounded just as resigned to her fate as Erin. ‘What are you doing tonight?’

‘It’s three p.m. and I’m about to eat a grilled cheese.’ I looked over at the slightly dubious two-week-old loaf of Wonder Bread on the counter. ‘And I already ate two tacos. I’m going to be a heifer.’

‘Step away from the sandwich, we’re going out.’ Angie didn’t sound nearly as excited as she should. ‘Alex got you a date.’

‘And it’s you?’ I was understandably confused by the ‘we’ part of her last sentence. ‘And he’s OK with that?’

‘It’s not me, you arse. It’s a boy.’

‘What boy?’

‘What happened to you not being picky?’

‘Touché.’

That statement was of course made before I met my online prince charming.

‘Just be at Hotel Delmano at eight.’

Ooh, nice. I liked Hotel Delmano.

‘And don’t wear stupidly high heels, we probably won’t stay there.’

Oh.

‘It’s like fifteen dollars for a cocktail,’ Angela defended herself against my silence. ‘I’m unemployed and dating an impoverished musician.’

‘You’re freelance and he’s loaded,’ I argued. ‘Fine, whatever. I’ll meet you there. This guy’d better be awesome.’

‘He’s a music producer.’ She sounded quite proud of herself. ‘Alex met him while he was doing that soundtrack stuff for James Jacobs’s new movie and they’re apparently best friends now. He’s just moved back to New York from LA, like you. I thought you’d be a good match.’

‘Sounds good,’ I admitted. ‘OK honey, I’ll see you there.’

‘See you later,’ she signed off.

Five hours to make myself fabulous. I flopped back down on the sofa. There was so time for another nap.

CHAPTER FOUR

‘What is this?’ I stood in the bar of Hotel Delmano, Williamsburg’s swankiest, overpriced cocktail jaunt and pointed at the man in the chair next to Angela. ‘Is this supposed to be funny?’

‘You look hot, dollface.’ The guy, who blatantly was not a music producer just flown in from LA, stood up and gave me an offensively big hug. Ah, Axe body spray, Febreze and just a hint of BO. ‘I am so glad you asked me out.’

Angela dropped her head onto her forearms. ‘I’m so fucking sorry.’ She mumbled, face down. ‘He cancelled. This was the best we could do.’

‘This’ was someone I’d had the misfortune of meeting before. ‘This’ was Alex’s bandmate, amateur bass player and professional asshole, Craig. Cute, yes, blond, yes, potentially carrying the herpes virus, absolutely. I couldn’t believe I’d wasted my Robert Rodriguez LBD on this guy. And I couldn’t believe Angela would do this to me.

‘Hey, Jenny, let me get you a drink.’ Angie’s boyfriend, Alex, unfolded himself from his seat, further illustrating Craig’s shortcomings. Alex was skinny, sure, but he pulled it off by having actual biceps and broad shoulders. Craig was a good five or six inches shorter and just an out-and-out runt. How he was so popular with the ladies, I would never know. Hanging out with Alex couldn’t possibly be helping him. I’d never admit it to Angie, but the first night she’d taken me out to vet the dude, I’d nearly tripped over my own tongue. He was so ridiculously super-hot. But he was still on BFF probation with me after dicking her around on vacation in Paris. Long story short, even though she said everything was OK, as the best friend I was still duty-bound to be on his back until he proved himself. Plus he’d stolen my best-ever roomie, and for that I would never really forgive him.

Not knowing what else to do, I took Alex’s empty seat opposite Craig. There was no way I was sitting within touching distance of that guy. Angela gave me her big apologetic eyes and while I was impressed by her make-up application, I still wasn’t impressed by her choice of last-minute date.

‘I don’t know why you look so pissed.’ Craig settled back into his seat, not looking too pleased with proceedings himself. ‘You’re the one who can’t get a date. I’m doing you a favour.’

‘OK, I’m out of here.’ I stood again but Angela placed her hand over mine and gave me the look one more time.

‘Just one drink,’ she said quietly. ‘Craig’s just joking.’

‘No I’m not.’

‘No he isn’t.’

I wasn’t sure which of us answered first.

This was going to be the longest one drink of my life.

‘And then, and then,’ Craig waved his arms around manically, ‘he tripped on his guitar lead and totally face-planted onto the stage. It was awesome. Right, Alex?’

It turned out that if you were to drink three cocktails, real quick, Craig wasn’t nearly such a bad date. Through my gin-flavoured fug, he was funnier than I remembered. Maybe I was just giving him a bad rap. It was Angela that was always telling me what an asshole he was, but it wasn’t as though dating a band boy had gone badly for her. If you overlooked the fact that he was thinner than one of my thighs, he was cute.

‘Yeah, and I dislocated my shoulder and we had to cancel three shows,’ Alex replied. I noticed he and Angie were drinking way slower than Craig and I. Lightweights. ‘It was hilarious.’

‘So tell me about this job tomorrow.’ Angela changed the subject without much subtlety. As was her way. ‘This super-important job that is an epic responsibility and carries one of your best friend’s careers on its shoulders.’

‘It’s nothing.’ I waved her concerns away, almost waving my drink off the table in the process. ‘It’s babysitting. Fancy babysitting.’

‘Babysitting with a hangover is always a good idea,’ she commented, sipping her cocktail. ‘Do you want to get something to eat? We could go over to Café Colette?’

‘No way,’ Craig slammed his beer and banged the empty glass on the counter. ‘Eating’s cheating. Let’s move this party on.’

‘Yeah,’ I pushed myself up to my feet. Maybe I should have had that grilled cheese earlier. Eating might be cheating, but throwing up in the street was not OK. Not even in Williamsburg, As far as I was concerned. ‘Where are we going?’

‘Manhattan Inn?’ he suggested. I was impressed. Yes, the bar was in Greenpoint, but it was also kind of classy for Craig. There was a live jazz pianist and actual candles on the tables despite the risk of hipster-induced arson. ‘I know a guy there.’

‘He knows a guy everywhere,’ Alex replied, nodding to the girl behind the bar for the check. ‘It’s only usually a problem if their girlfriend knows too.’

I was genuinely surprised. After the rocky start, Craig had been a perfect gentleman. He picked up my drinks, held the door open and even asked if he could hold my hand on the way to the next bar. It couldn’t just be booze that was making my head swim. This was sort of sweet. Wandering through McCarren Park, holding hands with a cute boy at twilight was so nice. I’d almost forgotten how nice.

‘You know, I don’t really know all that much about you,’ Craig said, slowing his pace a little to let Angie and Alex get a head start. ‘Like, where are you from, originally I mean?’

‘I grew up upstate.’ I took in the groups of kids sitting on blankets in the park, almost every single one of them with some tiny instrument or other. Oh, Williamsburg. ‘Moved here for college.’

‘They’re still upstate? Still married?’ he asked.

‘Binghamton and yeah, thirty-five years and counting,’ I nodded. ‘My dad runs a construction company up there. My mom runs my dad.’

‘That’s awesome. My parents divorced when I was three. I never really knew my dad.’

‘Oh, I’m sorry.’ I immediately felt guilty for having a functional family. Something that happened more often than I’d like. ‘Did your mom remarry?’

‘No,’ he shook his head. ‘It was just me and her. She’s amazing, you know? Strongest woman I ever met. I owe her everything.’

‘Doesn’t seem like you’ve suffered for the lack of a male role model,’ I smiled and rubbed his arm.

‘You’re funny,’ Craig said, squeezing my hand.

It wasn’t often that I was lost for words, but in this instance I just didn’t know what to say. I mean, sure, I was as funny as the next girl, but it wasn’t something guys often threw into the middle of a conversation. Not when they could be looking at my boobs.

‘Thanks?’

‘You don’t know how to take a compliment, do you?’ He slowed down until we were standing in the middle of the park, all alone.

Now that was not true. I loved compliments. I actively encouraged them at all times. But for some reason, my mouth was glued shut. I could feel myself blushing under Craig’s steady gaze, his half-closed eyes, his slightly too long hair. Even his weird smell was growing on me – less BO, more man-scent. Yeah, I’d had too much to drink.

‘Jenny,’ he said in a low voice, leaning in towards me. ‘Would it be OK if I kissed you?’

‘Yes?’ I squeaked. It came out as a question because I really, really wasn’t sure.

But to a guy, a yes is a yes. Even one with a very clear inflection. I stood on my tiptoes, both my hands in both of his and let him kiss me. Even half wasted, I could tell it was a good kiss. This boy was no amateur; he had laid one on many a ladyface before me. Breaking away, I saw the sun sinking behind the Empire State Building over Craig’s shoulder and sighed happily at my romcom moment.

‘Wow,’ he squeezed my hand and stroked my cheek. ‘That was kind of amazing, Jenny.’

‘Yuh-huh,’ I agreed, squeezing back and breaking his hold. For some reason, the way he kept saying my name was making the hairs on the back of my neck stand up, and not in a ‘sexy times’ way. I just had a feeling that he needed to keep saying it for fear of forgetting who I was. ‘Let’s get to the bar.’

Because another drink was just what I needed.

When we finally caught up with Angie and Alex, they were already at Manhattan Inn and had a booth, drinks, and faces like thunder.

‘Nice walk?’ Angie asked. I nodded silently, slipping into the seat across from her. How could she be mad at me? This whole date was her fault. Wasn’t the fact that we were getting along a good thing?

‘I’ll get you a drink, sweet thing,’ Craig said into my hair, making me shiver. Although, again, not really in a good way.

‘Did you kiss him?’ Angela demanded, the second Craig was out of the room.

‘Oh, wow, I just suddenly really, really need the bathroom.’ Alex leapt out of his seat, rubbing his head awkwardly. ‘Ladies.’

‘Did you kiss him?’ she repeated.

‘Yes … ’ I admitted. ‘But it’s fine. Really. He’s sweet. You always painted him to be such a dick and he’s not. A little practised, maybe, but not a dick.’

‘Let me guess: he asked about your childhood, told you about his parents’ divorce and then told you that you were really smart?’ She stared at me across the table. ‘Classic Craig.’

‘He actually said I was funny.’ I pressed my fingers into my temples. ‘Man, am I so out of practice I don’t know when I’m being played?’

‘I want to say no but signs point to “You think?”’ Angie kicked me under the table. ‘You can get out of this any time. You have work tomorrow, I’m here to back you up and, bloody hell, it’s only Craig. You don’t even need an excuse.’

‘I guess.’ I couldn’t believe it. And I was trying to work out why he’d told me I was ‘funny’ if his standard line was ‘smart’?

Not giving me time to work anything out, Casanova reappeared with two large, garishly coloured cocktails. But it was too late. My buzz was officially killed and the idea of even sipping on that thing made my stomach turn over. I had another date scheduled for that evening and it was with a grilled cheese and my bed. Alone.

‘These are the best, baby,’ Craig’s hand slipped under the table and onto my thigh. I sat up straight, my eyes open wide. Why hadn’t I worn jeans? ‘One taste and you’ll never want anything else.’

‘What’s it called?’ I asked, trying to wriggle backwards into my fixed seat, but instead of loosening his grip, he took it as a come-on and his hand slid closer to something he would never, ever get his dirty paws on.

‘I call it the Craig,’ he crooned into my ear.

Dude, really?

‘You are so freaking hot. I cannot wait to get you home,’ he whispered. ‘If we even make it home. The bathrooms here are—’

‘I need to make a phone call.’ I shoved Craig out of his seat and pushed my way past him, heart beating fast, breath tight and ragged. No way. No way was I being propositioned to get it on in a public restroom on a Thursday night in Brooklyn. Or any night in Brooklyn. Or any public restroom. It had not come to this.

And so, for the second night in one week, I hailed a cab and ditched a date. So glad that this week was looking better than the last one.

CHAPTER FIVE

‘Oh god,’ I groaned when my alarm rang the next morning. ‘Just no.’

Even though I’d only had three drinks the night before, my brain was rattling around inside my skull as if I’d taken it out and freeze-dried it before bed when, in fact, I had actually cleansed, toned and moisturized. Score one for Lopez. Although, I probably lost any points gained due to my intense desire to vomit. Maybe I wouldn’t be running an extra mile that morning. Instead of lacing up my running shoes, I ran a bath, summer time be damned. There were times when only a bath would do.

I was so disappointed in myself. Old Jenny would never have suffered the trials and tribulations I’d endured this week. My gaydar was totally down, my asshole-recognition software was corrupted and I’d got drunk the night before an important job. Clearly I needed a kick up the ass. And a bloody mary. As soon as I was out the bath, skin moisturized, teeth cleaned and flossed, hair tied back in a practical pony, I turned to my wardrobe. If anything had the power to calm me, it was my closet. I’d spent five years in LA working as a stylist, but I’d spent thirty years living as a fashion addict. When I was broke, I would scour the newspapers for sample sales, hunt down every last designer thread in New York’s finest – and shittiest – thrift stores. No semi-precious stone was left unturned. As soon as I had a real job and real pay-check, I stepped up my game. I started saving, I started splurging, I started my collection.

The Union had been an awesome stepping-stone job to make connections. As head concierge, I’d had to meet the needs of a lot of persnickety celebs, and that meant hooking them up with ensembles on demand. Within weeks I had every one of the city’s top PRs, fashion houses and department stores on speed-dial and made it my business for them to love me. It wasn’t just my job that depended on it, it was something way more precious. Employee discount. Thanks to secret online checkout codes and special handshakes used in downtown boutiques, my wardrobe had swelled to mammoth proportions. And it was beautiful. Nothing hurt me more than the condition of Angie’s Marc Jacobs satchel. That thing was archive, totally irreplaceable, but it was a mess. I couldn’t even bear to look at the torn lining. Once, it had been a thing of wonder, but as far as I was concerned, it was approaching sad.

Today’s ensemble needed to be practical, stylish but not too flashy and, above all else, cute. One thing I’d learned working in LA was that no one who was professionally hot wanted to hang around with someone they considered to be gross. You couldn’t be hotter than them, but you had to make some kind of an effort. I settled on skinny black James Jeans pants and a black-and-white striped Rag and Bone tank top with my comfy black YSL Tribute 90 pumps. I was useless in flats. Throwing my Balenciaga motorcycle bag (a well-deserved gift I treated myself to from my old LA roommate’s collection) over my shoulder, I looked myself over in the mirror, gave myself an approving nod and moved over to my dressing table. And so to the make-up.

Sadie’s driver buzzed my cell just as I was walking through a light spritz of Gucci Guilty.

‘I’m coming,’ I said out loud. One more look in the mirror and I was out of the door. The sparkling black town car whisked me through the streets of Manhattan, all the way uptown. Erin was holding her event at The Union but Sadie was staying at The Hudson.

‘First time you’ve worked with Sadie?’ the driver asked me as we rounded the corner of 57th Street.

‘Yep.’ I checked my tasteful make-up in my powder compact and pressed my lips together to refresh my gloss. ‘I hear she’s a handful.’

‘A handful?’ He nearly choked on his own laughter. ‘Who lied to you?’

‘She’s not a handful?’ I asked carefully.

‘I’m the only driver she’ll have.’ He pulled the car up to the kerb and turned to face me. ‘And I’m the only driver who is prepared to put up with her. She’s the biggest dick I ever met. And I never ever speak badly of women.’

‘That sounded a lot like speaking badly of women.’

‘She’s not a woman,’ he gave me a cheery grin. ‘She’s a hell-hound. You have a good day, though. I’m Chris, by the way. It’s nice to have a name to add in when you’re fetal in the back seat and crying your eyes out later.’

This was bullshit. There was no way this could possibly be as bad as everyone was saying. I was totally prepared to bet that Erin had briefed this guy to terrify me on purpose. Whatever. I wasn’t scared. By the end of the day, we’d be plaiting each other’s hair and adding each other on Facebook. What was the worst that could happen?

About three seconds after walking into Sadie’s hotel suite, I realized I had been an idiot. Why don’t I listen to people? Why do I always have to be so relentlessly sure of myself? It wasn’t just my guydar that was out of whack, it was my every instinct. The room looked as though a hurricane had ripped through it. I had worked in hotels for years and I had never seen anything like this. The floor was invisible under piles of clothes, shoes, bottles, boxes, sheets, towels and pretty much anything else I could think of. We were maybe a cat away from an episode of Hoarders. I stepped carefully over an exploded hairdryer, tiptoed around a shattered bottle of perfume and pushed an empty bottle of Jim Beam out of the way with my foot. Whoever had done this hadn’t thrown the flatscreen TV out of the window, but they had wrenched it off the wall and it lay at the bottom of the bed, shards of glass sprinkled around the edges like confetti.

‘Sadie?’ My first thought was that she’d been murdered. Seriously. I was doing that thing where you’re looking but not looking, half expecting to find what was left of a supermodel somewhere in the detritus of the room. ‘Sadie, it’s Jenny Lopez. I’m here to get you to the show?’

Reluctantly, I made my way into the bathroom. Anything bad that happened in hotel rooms almost always happened in the bathroom. The things I had seen … Readying myself for the worst, I opened the door onto a scene that was all too familiar. Giant tub, full to the brim with bubbles, at least five open packets of M&Ms on the soap shelf and a half-empty bottle of Chardonnay hanging over the side, in the hand of a very sorry-looking girl.

‘Sadie?’

‘I made a mess,’ the girl replied.

You don’t say.

‘Are you OK?’ I set the toilet lid down and perched on the edge. This was interesting.

‘No,’ she gave me a look of indignation. ‘Are you an idiot? Don’t you have eyes?’

‘Yeah, I got eyes,’ I replied. ‘And I saw the massive shit show in the bedroom. And now I’m seeing a girl in a bathtub who is mainlining candy and drinking wine at ten a.m., so I figured I’d tread carefully. What’s going on?’

‘What’s wrong with you?’ Sadie sank further into the water until her nose was covered by bubbles. Whatever products they were using in this hotel were kick-ass. They were some good bubbles. ‘Get out of here.’

But she didn’t want me to get out. She didn’t curse the day my mother bore me or hurl broken glass at my head. She didn’t even jump out the tub and chase me out of the room kicking and screaming. All of these things and more had happened to me at The Union. It was usually one of the cast of High School Musical.

‘What’s wrong with me is a good question.’ I slipped off my shoes. ‘This is kind of my thing. It could be morbid curiosity or, as my friend suggests, it could be because I’m a chronic interferer. I don’t know when to keep myself to myself. So spill. What’s going on? Are you sleeping with Keith Richards or something?’

Nail. Head. Hit.

She let out a primal wail and disappeared under the water, dropping the chardonnay to the floor. Quick as a cat, the bottle was in my hand. I didn’t believe in wasting liquor. Ever.

‘Well, fuck me, it’s a guy.’ I sighed, stood up and went over to the side of the bath. Thank god Angie hadn’t had this flair for the dramatic when we met. I reached into the bath and grabbed a handful of hair, pulling her up to the surface.

‘Honey, no guy is worth drowning yourself in a hotel bathroom over. Maybe the dude who plays Thor. Is it the dude who plays Thor?’

‘Dude, my extensions.’ She wriggled and yowled in my grip like a drowning cat. ‘Get off of me.’

‘So it’s a guy?’ Satisfied she wasn’t going to try for death by bubbles round two, I let go. My jeans and tank top were saturated. Awesome. ‘Tell me everything.’

With the sort of confidence that only comes from being a swimsuit model, or really drunk, or both, Sadie lifted herself out of the bath, completely naked, and held her hand out.

‘Towel.’

Nothing I hadn’t seen before, sweet cheeks.

I handed her a giant, fluffy bath sheet (I always noticed things like the quality of towels and sheets in hotels; I’d worked in hospitality for so long, it was like a sickness) and brushed off the bubbles that stuck to me as she sailed by. All six feet of her and most of it leg. Apparently we were headed back into the bedroom.

‘He says he doesn’t love me.’ She threw herself onto the giant bed in the centre of the room, the towel more or less covering her. Just as well given that all the sheets and pillows were strewn across the floor. ‘He says I’m just a dumb model.’

I couldn’t imagine what gave him that idea.

‘He said that we were just fun; he said that he was never in love with me, never respected me.’ She rolled onto her back, her beautiful face puffy and red. I would not want to be the make-up artist who was responsible for making her look human again. ‘He said I’m just a doll. A dumb doll.’

She turned over, face down into the pillows that remained on the bed. And then the racking sobs began.

Hands on hips, I surveyed the chaos. OK. I had two hours to get this girl all turned around and to The Union for Erin’s show. Why didn’t I ever listen?

‘Sadie,’ I tried not to step in the remains of what looked like an order of Buffalo wings and sat down on the edge of the bed. ‘No guy who can make you feel this way, behave this way, is worth getting this upset over.’

‘You don’t know him,’ she bellowed. ‘You don’t know how I feel. He’s my heart; he’s everything to me. I would do anything for him.’

‘I know I can’t understand.’ I tried another approach, still sticking with the classics. ‘And I don’t doubt that you love him, but would you ever do anything to him that would make him feel the way you’re feeling right now?’

‘Of course not.’ Sadie’s voice was a little muffled by the pillows she was attempting to smother herself with. ‘I love him. He could be a clown and I would love him.’

‘What does he do?’

‘He’s a baseball player,’ she replied.

‘So he kinda is a clown.’ I utched further up the bed. ‘Honey, you’re one of the biggest models on earth right now. You could have any guy on earth. This isn’t good enough. He isn’t good enough.’

‘Yeah?’

I loved an easy win.

‘Yeah,’ I agreed.

‘But I’m still in love with him. I want him to love me.’

‘I don’t know enough about your relationship to really comment.’ I wrung out the edge of my tank top. ‘I only know what I can see and what you’ve told me, but even though he sounds like a total ass to me, if he really does love you, maybe he just needs some time to think about what he did, what he said.’

‘You think he might come back?’

Not in a million years.

‘No one knows but him.’

We sat in a pretty uncomfortable silence for a few minutes while Sadie’s sobs tailed off into sniffles. I checked out the damage to the room from my new angle. It really was impressive. Happily, I noticed all of her clothes and shoes were far away from the violence, hanging neatly in the closet. Girl after my own heart. Trash your room, trash your life, but protect the shoes.

‘What’s your name?’ Once the sniffles had subsided into regular desperate, shallow breathing, Sadie turned over, pulled her towel around her body and stared at me.

‘Jenny.’ I held out my hand, half expecting her to hand me the towel instead but no, she took it. At least she seemed to be demonstrating some skills as a human. ‘I’m here to get you to the show.’

‘You’re my assistant for today?’ She wiped her nose down her arm, tangles of long white-blonde hair starting to dry in a bird’s nest around her head. Maybe not so human.

‘I’m with Erin White PR.’ I really didn’t want to say yes. I was worried what it would mean. ‘I’m kinda your chaperone. And amateur therapist.’

‘You’re better than my pro.’ She lay back against the pillows. ‘I don’t think I can do the show today.’

The thing that worried me the most was the incredibly casual nature of the statement.

‘Funny.’ I lay across the bottom of the bed, trying to control my blood pressure. ‘Do you have an actual assistant?’ A little help would have been awesome.

‘My sister used to do it.’ She stretched a long slender arm way up over her head and tugged at her mess of hair. ‘But I fired her.’

Oh, maaan.

‘Your sister?’

‘My twin.’

Jesus.

‘Not identical, obviously.’

I wasn’t feeling great.

‘So, we have a little while before we need to leave … did you eat already?’ Experience told me the best thing to do at a time like this was keep her active. If I let her get comfy, we might never move. I would rather face Erin’s wrath for showing up with the scarecrow from The Wizard of Oz than face it for not showing up at all. ‘You want to order room service?’

‘I want pizza,’ she replied, closing her blue eyes. ‘What’s the name of the place in Brooklyn? Down near the water. It’s super-famous.’

‘Grimaldi’s?’

‘Yeah, that’s it,’ she smiled, eyes still closed. ‘You go get me a slice from Grimaldi’s.’

‘We don’t have time,’ I explained. It was like talking to a child. ‘We have to be at Union Square at twelve, honey.’

‘Oh yeah, I meant it when I said I wasn’t doing the show.’ She snuggled in under her towel. ‘I figure if Bry doesn’t love me because I’m a model, I just won’t be a model any more. Make the call, will ya?’

Son of a bitch. She was entirely serious.

While I was trying to think of something to say that didn’t start with, ‘listen to me, you bitch,’ I felt my phone buzzing in my purse. ‘I need to take this,’ I explained, unnecessarily. Sadie was preoccupied looking at photos of what I assumed was her boyfriend on her iPhone. And some of those photos were not for my eyes.

‘Hey Jenny, it’s me.’

Me was Erin. Just what I needed.

‘Hey,’ I tried to sound as breezy as humanly possible. ‘What’s up?’

‘Just checking in.’ Her voice was brittle. ‘Everything going to plan?’

If that plan was that the star of today’s super-important show had decided to take early retirement because some misogynistic ass-hat had broken her heart and she was about to destroy her body by consuming her first carbs since 2001, then yes, things were going totally to plan. FML. Maybe I should just give in and call Craig. Definitely needed to stop by the kitty shelter on the way home.

‘I knew you could do this.’ Erin let out a sigh that sounded as if she was breathing out the weight of the world. ‘I know she’s a complete bitch but I knew you’d be able to handle her. You, Jenny Lopez, are a star.’

A star, a delight, funny. So many compliments had been thrown my way over the last few days, but none of them were really helping me out. Where was capable? Where was professional? And, Craig, where the hell was smart? Had I lost my edge? I ended my call with Erin and turned to face Sadie, who was happily dozing on the bed. Right. This was happening. This woman was going to be at The Union at twelve p.m. sharp if it was the last thing I did. And if I had to drag her there on my hands and knees, it probably would be. I would not be beaten.

‘Hey, Sadie,’ I slipped my cell back in my purse and went back in for the kill. ‘If we’re not going to the show, you want to go out and get some ice cream or something? It must be a real long time since you did some damage to a pint of Häagen-Dazs.’

‘Ice cream?’ She opened one eye.

‘Yeah, like we could go crazy.’ The fish had taken the bait. ‘Dulce de leche, Belgian chocolate, strawberry cheesecake, whatever you want. We have all day right? It’s not like you’re going to be getting back into a swimsuit any time soon.’

‘I guess,’ she sat up. ‘But, I don’t know if I … dairy? Really?’

‘No point being a civilian if you can’t enjoy it.’ I slapped the bed. ‘Up and at ’em. Let’s get those skinny jeans on you before they don’t fit you any more.’

For a lazy-assed supermodel, Sadie sure could turn herself around pretty quick. The promise of ice cream and a life off the runway had her in a shirt, shoes and the tightest pair of jeans I’d ever seen within fifteen minutes. Old habits died hard, though, and she couldn’t resist a swipe of mascara and slick of lip gloss. Sickeningly, that was all she needed to look incredible.

‘So where are we going?’ she asked, grabbing a Chanel 2.55 from the dressing table. The holy grail of handbags, it transcended purse status. It was the dream. ‘I’m ready.’

I took one look at her perfectly flat stomach and smiled. She thought she was ready? Sadie Nixon might be a pro on the modelling circuit, but when it came to putting away ice cream, she was an amateur in my world.

‘We’re going to the most ironically named ice-cream parlour in all of New York.’ I opened the door with a flourish. I had just remembered how much I liked a challenge. ‘Serendipity awaits.’

CHAPTER SIX

I wasn’t sure what I enjoyed the most. The epic sense of self-satisfaction I got from luring Sadie out of her hotel room, or the look on driver Chris’s face when we hopped back into the town car and ordered him to drive us to 60th and Lex. Sadie sat quietly, her long legs curled up around her, almond eyes still fixed on the screen of her phone. I didn’t have the details, but I figured we were still in the first twenty-four hours of the break-up. These were the most dangerous hours, when she was most likely to call him or throw a brick through his window or get on a plane and fly to another country. These were just a few examples of short-term break-up behaviour I could think of. The brick through the window was me.

‘Won’t be long.’ I stuck my head through the passenger window once we’d pulled up outside the restaurant and gave Chris a wink. ‘I’ve got this.’

‘You’ve got something,’ he replied, tipping his hat down over his eyes. ‘And it’s bigger balls than me.’

That was more like it, a compliment I could work with.

Sadie sat awkwardly at the tiny table inside the miniature ice-cream parlour, curled around a small table. She played awkwardly with her ponytail. Even with her hair in its ratty, post-bath state, she still looked great. It was enough to make a girl turn to frozen dairy goodness. Which was pretty convenient, given where we were.

‘No one’s looking at me,’ she said after a waiter slammed two glasses of water on our table, dropped a couple of menus and walked away. The place wasn’t known for its service. ‘People always look at me.’

‘I don’t want to upset you, honey,’ I browsed the sweet treats on offer. ‘But you’re not the tastiest thing in here.’ I pushed a menu towards her. ‘What do you want?’

The natural response to that question from a newly retired, recently rejected supermodel was, of course, ‘everything’. But Sadie didn’t bite. Her eyes didn’t grow as round as saucers, she didn’t unfasten the top button of her jeans and yell ‘bring it on’. Instead she blanched slightly and turned the menu away.

‘I just want a Diet Coke,’ she said. ‘And maybe we could split something.’

Ah-ha.

‘Sure.’ I made the internationally recognized ‘we’re ready to order’ face at the surly waiter and began stage two of my campaign. ‘Can we get a Diet Coke, a frozen peppermint hot chocolate and the banana split? … So, tell me everything.’

She didn’t take much convincing, I found celebs rarely did. It was a weird thing they all had in common. People wanted to be around them, they wanted to get in their good graces, but they didn’t really care to listen to anything they had to say. Hence, they became dicks. I didn’t think I’d enjoy being surrounded by lackeys who hung on my every word but never really cared about a single thing I had to say. As soon as someone showed an interest in actually taking time out for a real conversation, famous people usually jumped at the chance, models especially. I figured that’s why so many were in therapy: it was an hour a week where someone had to listen to them.

‘We’ve been dating for a few months.’ She examined her nail beds while she spoke. A sure sign she was serious. ‘We met at some party. He was so hot. We did shots for like, ever, and ended up back at his place.’

It was the most romantic story I’d ever heard.

‘What was the party?’ I asked with feigned innocence.

‘I don’t know.’

‘Where was it?’

‘I don’t remember.’

This shouldn’t really be too tough. We were working on some pretty shaky foundations. If this were true love, she would remember every last second of meeting this guy, whether she wanted to or not.

‘So you hooked up at the party and then what happened?’ I watched for our order winging its way down from the kitchen. I really wanted to get to the balls of the break-up before we moved onto stage three.

‘We were inseparable.’ She smiled at the memories. ‘We didn’t leave his apartment for a couple of days, but then he got in heaps of trouble with his coach so he had to leave. I’d never felt that way before.’

‘How old are you, Sadie?’ I sipped my water. A good therapist gets all the basics before delivering her verdict.

‘Twenty-six,’ she moaned. ‘I know, I’m so old. I’m practically ancient. I have what, two years left in me? And then it’ll be nothing but Ann Taylor Loft and wrinkle creams. That’s why I thought marrying a baseball player now was a good idea.’

‘He asked you to marry him?’ I was fighting every urge in my body to leap across the table and punch her in the face. No, this was a good challenge. I needed this. If I could win this one, I could do anything.

‘Not as such,’ she admitted. ‘He said, you know, some other stuff about … us. And I figured that meant we were for ever.’

The blush in her cheeks suggested these were not words that could be repeated in a church whilst wearing a white dress.

‘So, this guy who you were with for a couple of months and met at a party you can’t remember and told you you’re dumb and he doesn’t respect you,’ I was paraphrasing, ‘he’s your soulmate?’

She at least had the decency to look embarrassed when she nodded.

‘Then sure, you should totally retire.’ With perfect timing, our ice cream and frozen hot chocolate were set on the table in front of us. As in, the entire table. I had never, ever in my life seen something as obscene as that banana split. It looked like angels and unicorns and baby Jesus had spent all of Christmas creating it and then had the Care Bears sprinkle glitter on top. Even I baulked a little, but this was no time for weak hearts. Or stomachs. There was a plan at stake. And it was already past eleven; I didn’t have time to waste.

‘Yeah, you should definitely retire.’ I took up my spoon and dove straight into the piles of ice cream, whipped cream, hot fudge sauce and, presumably, banana. ‘You should totally give it all up and prove to him you’re not just some dumb model.’

‘I’m not dumb.’ She sounded indignant as she picked up her own spoon and looked at it, confused. ‘I got into a couple of good colleges. I couldn’t go but I was accepted.’

‘Sure you were,’ I nodded, merrily munching away on caramelized nuts.

‘I was!’ She poked at the edge of the whipped cream with trepidation. ‘I coulda gone to Wesleyan but I chose modelling. I’m not dumb.’

‘Wesleyan is a pretty great school.’ And this was a pretty amazing banana split. I made a mental note to carry out more of my schemes here. ‘You must really have loved modelling back then.’

‘I still love it,’ she said, putting down the spoon and sipping her Diet Coke instead. ‘People think it’s lame but I love it. I get to travel, I meet a ton of interesting people and I love fashion. When I retire, I’m going to start a high-end ethical clothing line. I’ve been talking to The Olsen twins about it.’

‘Then you’d better get Mary-Kate on the line,’ I gave her a beaming smile. ‘Today’s the day!’

‘Yeah.’

And enter stage three.

‘I’m so glad we met,’ I went on. ‘I love meeting people when they’re about to make huge life changes. It’s inspiring. And I’m sure this Bry guy will totally take everything back when he hears you’ve quit modelling.’

‘Yeah.’

‘Quit it all. For good.’

‘I guess.’

‘Because he’ll totally respect what kind of a sacrifice that will be for you. I mean, you gave up Wesleyan for modelling, the fact that you’d give modelling up for him – wow.’

I happily carried on eating my way to an early grave while Sadie bent the straw in her soda every which way from Sunday.

‘Can I ask you something?’ Once I was feeling suitably sick, I looked up.

She shrugged.

‘Do you think he would give up baseball for you?’

Her eyes widened for a moment and then her face fell.

‘You think I’m dumb too.’ She picked up her spoon again and grabbed a huge spoonful of ice cream. ‘I am so fucking dumb.’

‘You’re not dumb,’ I said gently. Were we reaching a breakthrough?

‘Yes I am.’ She stared at the ice cream as it began to drop off the spoon. ‘I mean, I’m not. I know you’re just reverse-psychologying me. I know I have this amazing life. I get to model for a living and it’s a really good living. I’m not one of those girls living eight to a studio eking out a living doing region runway shows.’

‘And you know how to correctly use the word “eking”,’ I congratulated her. ‘What were you going to study at Wesleyan?’

‘English,’ she almost smiled. ‘But I really did choose modelling over college. And I really do love Bry. Did. Do.’

‘Really really?’ I asked.

‘It’s way easier to get through life as a model by acting like a bitch,’ Sadie said. ‘People expect it and it’s not like you’re ever in one spot longer than a couple of days. I don’t get attached if people don’t like me.’

Even though I was pretty sure I was about to puke, I took a sip of the frozen hot chocolate. ‘So you’re not a bitch?’

‘Oh, yeah, I’m kind of a bitch,’ she managed a full smile that time. I recognized it from a lipstick commercial. ‘Life imitating art and everything. But I did love him. I’ve never really had a boyfriend, never really had time. The last couple of months were crazy. He paid attention to me, he was sweet to me. I thought he cared.’

‘We’ve all fallen for it, sweetie.’ I didn’t care to elaborate that I had been a victim less than twenty-four hours earlier. ‘But anyone who said the things he said to you isn’t worth it. You can’t throw away such an amazing career for this guy.’

Sadie looked up at me and set the spoon back in the bowl.

‘I don’t want to be alone,’ she whispered. ‘I’m so lonely.’

I took her hand and gave it a squeeze. ‘What started the row? If you don’t mind me asking.’

The smiled faded to a bittersweet shadow of its former self. ‘I told him I loved him,’ she said. ‘Can you imagine that being your reaction? Someone tells you that they love you and so you immediately turn on every single aspect of their personality?’

‘They’re not all like that,’ I said. ‘Guys. I mean, some are, there’s totally more than one, but there are a few that are pretty OK.’

I looked at my watch. It was eleven thirty. Half an hour to get down to The Union and save Erin’s ass.

‘What do you want to do?’ I set my spoon down, officially nauseous enough for one day.

‘Kick his ass,’ she said immediately. ‘Tell the entire sports world he has a tiny penis.’

‘All this and more is possible,’ I signalled for the check. ‘But not right away. Can I assume retirement is off the table?’

‘You can,’ she nodded and pointed at the ice-cream sundae. ‘So please get that thing the hell away from me.’

‘And can I assume you’re gonna want to haul ass down to the Boyd & Norrell show?’

‘Oh shit, what time is it?’ She looked at her phone to check on the time and made a face at the screensaver. ‘Let’s go.’

I ignored the fact that she’d stood up to leave without a second thought about the check and remembered that, despite my miraculous breakthrough, the girl was still a model. And she had said she was kind of a bitch.

Self-awareness was an important step on the path of self-discovery. As was picking up the check sometimes.

CHAPTER SEVEN

The Boyd & Norrell show was a huge success. Sadie’s hair, not so much, but it didn’t seem to matter too much to Erin. The look on her face when we arrived was pure shock. It was a whole three minutes before twelve, the first time in recorded history that Sadie Nixon had arrived at an event before the scheduled time. I was feeling pretty good about myself.

‘I don’t know how you did it.’ Erin crept up behind me, arms folded, headset attached to her ear. ‘But colour me amazed. You want to come and work for me full time? Some of the girls could use a kick in the ass.’

‘Can we talk about it next week?’ I asked, watching Sadie transform from sulky dumpee to runway goddess. From the way she was batting away hangers-on, it seemed I had used up all of her good temper points for the day. ‘When my brain has settled back in?’

‘Sure.’ She pressed her hand on my shoulder, professional Erin’s version of a hug. ‘Whenever you want.’

I was just about to make a hasty exit when I heard Sadie yell across the room.

‘Hey, reverse-psychology girl!’

She’d forgotten my name already. Regardless, I paused and watched her run over, two make-up artists and a hair stylist attached to her.

‘Hey, you’re leaving?’

‘I am,’ I confirmed. ‘I have someone coming over to my place to check out a room I’m renting.’

‘Well, uh … ’ She shook off the beauty team and watched them run cowering into a corner. She lowered her voice and leaned in towards me. ‘Thanks. What was your name again?’

‘Jenny.’ I leaned in for a half-hug and she sort of melted against me. Even if she was a clear foot taller than me in heels. ‘Just remember, guys usually aren’t worth destroying hotel rooms over.’

‘Oh yeah,’ she sort of smiled. ‘I trashed that place, huh?’

Good grief.

‘I won’t be booking in for a relaxing weekend anytime soon.’ I saluted my new ‘friend’ and stepped back. ‘Now go model the shit out of those clothes.’

This time when she smiled, it lit up her whole face, making her eyes glow. Now that expression I’d only seen on her iPhone. Hopefully she’d be able to translate it into a cosmetics campaign very soon.

After the utter chaos of Sadie’s hotel room, my apartment looked like a sanctuary. Sure, there were a couple of dishes that needed doing and, absolutely, the floor needed sweeping, but I just didn’t care. I was exhausted. Sigge the Stud had texted to say he’d be over at seven. It was a weird time to view an apartment, but I figured he was Norwegian or Swedish or whatever and maybe it was like Spain where they did everything late at night. Thank god I didn’t have a date. Ha. I poked my head around the door of the spare room and, satisfied that I would happily rent it if I were a giant male model who needed somewhere to lay my head, I ventured back into the living room and vaulted myself over the couch.

My jeans were still damp, not a pleasant sensation, but I was too tired to care. It was a while since I’d played Dr Jenny and I was exhausted. Model number one taken care of, a little siesta and then I’d deal with model number two. And then maybe I’d hang out with three of my favourite friends: Ben, Jerry and Papa John. The perfect Friday night in New York City.

For a shocking change, I slept way too long and woke up cold and uncomfortable to the sound of my ringing phone. I’d set the air-con way too high and my jeans had physically attached themselves to my ass while they dried. I knew I should have ordered pyjama jeans.

‘Hey, it’s me, are you OK?’

‘I’m fine, Angie,’ I yawned into the handset. What time was it? ‘Just taking a nap.’

‘Oh, shit, sorry.’ A professional dozer herself, Angie had always respected someone who could sleep. ‘Just checking in on the model thing.’

‘She was a pussycat,’ I lied. ‘One day with me and she’s a new woman. What happened after I left last night?’

‘Truth or more flattering alternative?’ she asked.

‘Truth.’

‘Craig asked where you’d gone, I told him you’d left because he’s a total knob-head and he went home with one of the barmaids.’

‘I missed out on a keeper.’ I rubbed smudged mascara carefully from underneath my eyes. ‘I’ve got to go, Sigge is coming to look at the room and he strikes me as the on-time type. Call you tomorrow?’

‘Sigge the hand model?’

‘He’s not a hand model.’ Although he totally could be a hand model for all I knew.

‘I googled his name, it means Victory Bear.’

‘Bye, Angie.’

‘Brunch?’ she suggested quickly. ‘I owe you for last night.’

‘Yeah, you do,’ I agreed. ‘Let me know where.’

The doorbell rang as the clock struck seven. Well, at least I could assume he would always pay his rent on time.

‘Let’s get this over with,’ I told the mirror as I buzzed him up.

‘Jenny!’ He looked delighted when I opened the apartment door. Then gave me a once-over, adjusted his expression to curious and entered the apartment. Handing me flowers on the way in.

Flowers?

‘Hey Sigge,’ I stretched and set the posies on the kitchen counter. A man who brought flowers when he hadn’t done anything wrong? I could get used to this. ‘Sorry the place is kind of a mess, I had a crazy day.’

‘Oh, me too,’ he agreed, turning to give me his full megawatt smile. He was so tall and it was so bright, I felt as if I was looking directly into the sun. ‘I had a shoot this afternoon. I was doing crunches all morning.’

‘Really?’ Yeah, gay male model roommate might work out just fine.

‘Really,’ Sigge nodded, making his blond hair fall into his pale blue eyes.

‘Yeah, I’d have to see something like that before I believed it.’ A little bit of mischievous banter was just what this apartment needed. Banter and abs.

‘See?’

Wherever Sigge was from, they weren’t big on joking around. Right there in the kitchen, he pulled up his shirt and displayed the most perfectly defined stomach I had ever seen. It was everything I could do to keep my hands to myself. I had no idea what Sigge’s shoot was for, but I would be buying whatever it was in bulk.

‘Um, impressive?’ I gave myself a mental shakedown, tried to suppress my ladyboner and pushed past him. ‘So, you want the tour?’

‘This is the American custom, I am told,’ he assented with a graceful nod. ‘The tour of the home?’

‘Well, yeah.’ It was an exclusively American custom to give someone a tour of the apartment they were thinking about renting? Europeans were weird. ‘So this is obviously the kitchen.’

‘Where you cook?’ he asked.

‘Yeah right,’ I shook my head. I shouldn’t get his hopes up. ‘And the kitchen leads into the living room.’ Kitchen was really overdoing it: the fridge, sink, tiny stove and microwave that lined the walls as you entered the apartment led into a room dominated by my beloved sofa and the wonderful, wonderful TV.

‘The bathroom is just here; it’s tiny but I’m sure you’ll fit,’ I pointed down the hallway, cutting him off when he tried to speak. ‘Questions at the end of the tour. And this is the bedroom.’

No point showing him my room. And it would be too depressing to have such a fine specimen of man inside those four walls when the closest we’d ever get to going to bed together was a potential pillow fight.

‘The bedroom?’

‘You don’t want to see the bedroom?’ I couldn’t help but smile at the look on his little face. He seemed so confused. His English was great so it wasn’t as though he didn’t understand. What was the problem? ‘Did you want to ask me anything before we did this?’

‘No,’ he returned my smile. ‘Show me the bedroom.’

‘It’s got a great view.’ I scooted round the bed to open the windows and turned to point out the sights. ‘You can see the Chrysler Building if you look this—’

Before I could finish my sentence, Sigge launched himself on me. All six foot whatever of giant man meat was pressed up against me, my back cold against the window. Once I’d got over the shock of the tongue in my mouth and regained my balance, I pushed him away hard, kicking him in the balls for good measure. Man, those abs really were hard.

‘What are you doing?’ I squealed, knocking him onto the bed. ‘Dude, no!’

‘But you brought me into the bedroom?’ He looked genuinely upset. And like I’d landed a pretty good kick to the nuts.

‘You came to see the bedroom,’ I pointed out. ‘And you’re gay.’

‘I’m not gay,’ Sigge protested from the bed, still cradling his crotch. ‘And I did not come to see the bedroom, I came to see you. I thought you wanted me to … do that.’

‘Attack me? It wasn’t at the top of my to-do list,’ I yelled. And then I realized what had happened. ‘You didn’t come to see the bedroom?’

This really was not ideal. I pressed my fingers against my lips.

‘I can’t say I wasn’t hoping I would see it at some point,’ he replied, standing up awkwardly. ‘But I was thinking perhaps drinks or dinner first.’

I put my hands on my head and winced. ‘You thought this was a date?’

He nodded.

‘But you said you were looking for somewhere to live.’ I pulled my ponytail tight. ‘I thought you were gay. My friend thought you were gay.’

‘I am looking for somewhere to live but not with you!’ He threw his arms up in the air and looked to the ceiling for an answer. ‘Everyone thinks that I am gay! I am not gay!’

‘You’re not gay?’

‘I’m not.’

‘And you thought this was a date?’

‘I did. This is why I asked for your number. This is why I arrive with flowers at seven on a Friday night. I’m Swedish, I’m not stupid.’

‘Shit.’

Turns out it wasn’t just Sadie’s ex who underestimated models. Actually, I wasn’t sure if confusing someone’s sexual advances with the desire to rent a room counted as underestimating them.

‘I am very sorry.’ Sigge brushed himself down and vanished out of the bedroom. ‘I’m going to go.’

I sat on the windowsill and tried to think about what a state I looked. And what a fuck-up I’d made. And what amazing abs he had. I heard him shut the front door loudly. I was only sad I hadn’t had my head in it when it slammed. One step forward, two steps back …

CHAPTER EIGHT

‘And then he slammed the door and vanished.’ I relayed the story of Sigge the Heterosexual Stud to Angie and Erin the next morning over a lot of bacon and a very strong mimosa at Manatus. ‘Seriously, what’s wrong with me?’

‘If it helps, it’s totally only your man powers that are off.’ Erin nibbled on a piece of toast. ‘I still don’t know what happened with Sadie but I was more than happy to pick up the three thousand-dollar hotel repair bill. She even asked for your details. There was a scary rumour going around that she liked you.’

‘Say more things like that,’ I demanded. ‘Tell me how great I am.’

‘You know I think you’re great.’ Erin was good at doing as she was told outside a work situation. ‘And I know you said you needed to think about it, but I really do think you should come work for me. How does Operations Director sound? It’s a fancy title for kicking everyone else’s ass when I’m not around. And it could maybe be three days a week to start? So you can still fit in the styling gigs?’

‘Given that I still don’t have a roommate, I can’t really say no, can I?’

‘You can’t,’ she grinned. ‘Welcome to the team.’

‘Man alive, what have I done?’ I raised my mimosa in a toast.

‘Yeah, dude. Seems like a mistake,’ Angela said as she clinked my glass.

‘You two have totally taken on each other’s catchphrases, you know,’ Erin joined the toast. ‘Assimilation is complete.’

‘Maybe that’s why I couldn’t tell that Sigge was straight,’ I suggested. ‘I’ve picked up your shitty gaydar.’

‘I want to defend myself but I can’t.’ Angie held up her hands. ‘My track record is altogether too public on that one. And I haven’t helped myself here. But still, can’t you call him or something?’

‘After the guy showed up for a first date with flowers and I immediately led him into the bedroom then accused him of attacking me?’ I shook my head. ‘I feel like that’s what we call “mixed messages”.’

‘I can’t believe he brought flowers,’ Erin sighed. ‘A hot guy brings you flowers and you fuck it up. Oh, Lopez.’

‘That just made me more sure he was gay!’ I wailed, face on the table. ‘What kind of straight guy brings flowers on a first date! He hasn’t had a chance to do anything wrong.’

‘Pre-emptive posies,’ Angie said through a mouthful of bacon. ‘I feel responsible.’

‘You always feel responsible,’ I reminded her. ‘And you always should. All of my man problems are your fault.’

‘All of them?’ she gave me a questioning look.

‘Ninety-five per cent,’ I relented. ‘I’m blaming the other five per cent on booze.’

Because it wasn’t physically possible for me to get through a meal without my phone ringing, I was almost down to my last mouthful of home fries when it buzzed to life in my purse. It was a number I didn’t recognize, but I couldn’t help myself, I had to answer.

‘Just a sec,’ I said, hitting answer and excusing myself from the table.

‘So rude,’ Erin said loudly while Angie laughed. I sometimes needed to remind myself why I was friends with those two.

‘Hello?’ I turned my face up to the late summer sunshine on Bleecker Street and took a couple of steps away from the restaurant. ‘Jenny speaking.’

‘It’s Sadie,’ a voice announced. ‘I’ve been thinking.’

Hi Sadie, how’s it going? We only met yesterday but don’t let that bother you. Who has time for pleasantries anyway?

‘You’re looking for a roommate,’ she went on, regardless of my silence. Maybe my silence wasn’t laden with enough pissiness. ‘And I’m looking for an NY apartment.’

‘You want to buy my apartment?’ I felt how Sigge had looked the night before. ‘I don’t own it. It’s a sublet.’

‘No,’ she actually tutted at me. ‘I want to be your roommate.’

I let the stunned silence settle for a moment.

‘You want to what now?’

‘I’ve been thinking about it,’ she replied, her voice matter of fact. ‘My apartment is in Miami and I’m never there. And I’ve been thinking about going to school, maybe part-time. NYU is a great school for understanding creative schedules. James Franco goes there.’

‘Do you know James Franco?’ I asked with narrowed eyes.

‘Yeah? Kinda?’

I tried to calm myself.

‘And besides,’ she softened slightly. ‘You’re like, the only person I ever met who actually tried to help me instead of just telling me what to do.’

Surely she wasn’t serious?

‘Look, Sadie, my apartment isn’t fancy,’ I tried to explain as politely as possible. ‘It’s in Murray Hill, it’s tiny, the bathroom doesn’t have a bath. I’m pretty sure you’re used to something a little more luxe.’

‘I’m used to hotel rooms, sleeping on planes and walking in a straight line for three minutes with intense jet lag. Why do you think models always look so pissed off on the runway?’

I frowned. This was a tough one. Not her question, the overall proposal. I assumed they looked pissed off because they had the same relationship with ice cream as Sadie had demonstrated the day before.

‘And I told you. I’m lonely.’

I hated when people pulled out the emo guilt card. Because I fell for it every time.

‘OK, let’s do it,’ I agreed, immediately regretting it. ‘But if you don’t like it when you get there, you can totally back out.’

‘No worries,’ she actually sounded relieved. ‘I’ve got a really good feeling about this. My psychic thinks it’s a great idea.’

Ahh, shit.

‘I’ll text you my email address and you can send me all the details,’ she said. ‘I’ll be over tomorrow, roomie!’

I was an idiot. The only thing worse for a girl’s self-esteem than living with a gay male model would be living with a straight female model. Especially when you’d just turned away the hottest guy who ever lived by calling him gay and then accusing him of sexual assault. I didn’t think kicking him in the balls could have helped me that much either.

‘Anything exciting?’ Angie asked when I sat back at the table.

‘I have a new roommate,’ I nodded.

‘Ooh, who?’ They both looked excited. Oh, the joys of cohabitation. It was sad that they had to live their single lives vicariously through my misadventures.

‘Sadie,’ I replied, making intense eye contact with the saltshaker. ‘Nixon.’

It was amazing that the pair of them didn’t choke to death, they were laughing that hard. Assholes.

I was the first to admit that taking on a random roommate was a risk, but it was a risk that had worked out well for me before. And, like Sadie said, she travelled a lot. I figured we’d hardly ever be home at the same time. And she had no problem with the rent or security deposit I’d asked for. Bonus. And hadn’t she said she knew James Franco?

Out of sheer contrariness, I decided to walk back to the apartment. I didn’t have anywhere to be, well, until I started work on Monday, and it was a beautiful day. A little cooler, a little breezier and a lot perfect. An hour’s stroll through NYC was just what I needed. I headed north, through the West Village, up to Union Square and then made my way east. That’s where it got a little dull and I was forced to turn to my phone. I couldn’t remember what I’d done before I had an iPhone. I guess I used to think more about things. It was possible that the day I became an acolyte of Steve Jobs was the same day I lost my ability to read people in any way, shape or form. Nothing made sense if it didn’t have an Apple logo on it.

I flicked through my emails, my texts, swiped past menus of games. And there, at the bottom of my app menu, I spotted something I didn’t remember. Oh man, it was the OK Cupid app. And it was flashing! I had messages! From men! My excitement subsided pretty quickly when I realized most of the messages started with ‘hey hot stuff, cute pic’ and included many emoticons. But still, I was officially still desirable to things with penises. This was a result. But where was the message from my dream man? Oh. Oh! It was there, I had a message!

‘You can’t be Oprah,’ I started reading out loud, despite the funny looks I was getting on the street. ‘I never wanted to fu— oh no,’ I looked up, red faced. The gist of the messages was that he hadn’t had the same biological reaction to a photo of Oprah that he’d had to mine. Which was kind of a compliment in a way. Only not. AJJ78 was not the one.

Angie and I had made vague plans to meet up again later in the evening but I had all afternoon to amuse myself. I knew I should really use that time to clean Sadie’s room but perversity was taking over. She said she didn’t need luxury, why start off by lying? She could take it as she found it. Although it wasn’t totally unreasonable to expect me to clean the toilet. Which meant I needed toilet cleaner.

Somehow the afternoon had gotten way hotter on the last leg of my walk, and so it was, red, sweaty and laden with Lysol, that I found my guest on the bottom step of my apartment. I dropped the Lysol. He picked it up. Shame he didn’t pick up my jaw at the same time.

It was Jeff.

‘Hey.’ He held the bottle out to me as though I might bite. Cry yes, bite no.

‘Hi.’ I took the bottle back and cradled it to my chest. Jeff, Jeff, Jeff. He was on my doorstep. He was at my apartment. ‘What’s up?’

I waited for him to drop to his knees and tell me what Angela had said about his being engaged was wrong and that he was actually here to take me away forever and ever and ever amen, but instead he just kind of shuffled on the spot and messed about with his belt buckle.

‘Seen Angela recently?’ he asked.

‘Earlier today actually,’ I replied. My mouth was completely dry. Why was this so hard? ‘Brunch.’

‘Oh, I saw her coming in just now. I, uh, she didn’t say.’ He was nodding to himself, not quite looking at me.

There wasn’t any time to worry about how shitty I looked so I concentrated on trying to avoid bursting into tears. Preventative measures. ‘Should she have?’

‘I guess not.’ He took a deep breath. ‘I, uh, I have news.’

‘You’re joining the French Foreign Legion?’ Hysteria was very fast becoming an option for me. ‘Or you’re gay. One or the other.’

‘Yeah, no,’ Jeff bit his lip and squinted down at me. ‘I’m engaged.’

‘You know,’ I shoved the Lysol into my purse, even though it didn’t fit, and simultaneously ransacked it for my keys. Where the hell were they? ‘There are these amazing inventions called phones. This sounds like phone news. Why don’t you go home and give me a call and leave my answering service a real nice message?’

‘Jenny, please.’ He reached out for my arm but skin-on-skin contact was too much. I pulled back. It burned.

‘I wanted to talk to you,’ Jeff pleaded. ‘Jenny, I need one moment, please—’

‘Uh, is this a bad time?’ Another voice interrupted the thoughts of violence streaming through my head. I wasn’t certain as to whether I would be visiting that violence on Jeff or just on myself. Jeff wasn’t a short man, but Sigge towered over him. He was taller, blonder and he was there. It was too weird.

‘Sigge.’ I stopped searching for my keys and stared up at the Norse god in front of me. Had I fallen in front of a bus on the way home? ‘Hi.’

‘Your boyfriend?’ Jeff asked.

‘None of your business,’ I replied.

Why was it, when twenty-three hours out of the day all I wanted was to fall to my knees and beg Jeff to come back to me, now that he was here, on my doorstep, in front of me, I just wanted to punch him?

‘Should I come back another time?’ Sigge looked even more unsure than he had the day before. And that was impressive.

It took me a couple of seconds to pull myself together. So far today I’d got a new job and a new roommate. Did I really want my old boyfriend? Well, yeah, I did.

I looked from Jeff to Sigge, from Sigge to Jeff.

Maybe I needed to take some of my own advice for a change.

‘Jeff, seriously, call me. I can’t talk right now.’ I turned my back until I heard him sigh and give up. My heart broke a little but I forced a smile for Sigge. ‘Hi, what’s up?’

‘I can come back another time,’ he said in a halting voice. The implication being that he really wouldn’t be coming back. ‘I just came by to apologize.’

‘You have absolutely nothing to apologize for,’ I insisted. ‘Seriously, I was just confused. And I guess it was easier to believe you were gay than that you would want to date me.’

‘Really?’ he smiled a little. ‘But you are very beautiful. And funny.’

‘And smart and talented and resourceful,’ I added for him. ‘But you couldn’t know that yet. I’ve just been a little off my game lately. You want to get a drink?’

He nodded and held out his arm. ‘That would be lovely.’

I took a deep breath and took his arm.

This week was going to be a very good week.

Rachel Summers lives every area of her life according to a to-do list and so far, she is ticking most things off. She has a job she loves (make-up artist to the stars), the perfect boyfriend, a cosy London flat and a fantastic circle of friends. All that remains on her life to-do list is to get married, have a baby and live happily ever after. Simple. Well, not quite…

Suddenly, Rachel’s perfect boyfriend wants to take a break. She’s convinced it’s just cold feet but when the break turns into a split, her best friends Emelie and Matthew step in and come up with the ultimate heartbreak cure – the single girl’s to-do list, the top ten things Rachel must see and do to kick-start her fabulous, new single life.

But nothing can prepare her for the adventures that unfold as the to-do list takes them all over town and even abroad, and proves to all three that love is out there if you’re willing to take a chance…

Copyright

This short-story is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

Harper

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First published in GREAT BRITAIN by
HarperCollins 2011

JENNY LOPEZ HAS A BAD WEEK. Copyright © Lindsey Kelk 2011. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

Lindsey Kelk asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

EPub Edition © MAY 2011 ISBN: 978-0-00-744480-9

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