Olivia’s feelings of sheepishness escalated as she arrived at Ferramo’s apartment block and realized she had been expecting a cross between an overpriced Knightsbridge hotel and the interiors favored by Saddam Hussein in his early promotional videos: fitted carpets, square beige sofas, stilted flower arrangements in front of long net curtains, curly gilt chairs and bulbous lamps. In her fevered mind, Ferramo had sprouted a beard, a turban, flowing robes and a Kalashnikov. She was expecting sweet Middle Eastern musks and perfumes, Turkish (for some reason) delight and Ferramo sitting cross-legged on a prayer mat next to one of the bulbous lamps.
But the block was an ultramodern building, the public areas designed in a ruthlessly minimalist style with a nod in the direction of the nautical—everything was white or blue and dotted with porthole accents, i.e., round things. There were no bulbous lamps or curly chairs. Pierre Ferramo’s penthouse occupied the entire nineteenth and twentieth floors. As she stepped out of the white metallic be-portholed elevator, she gazed awestruck at the spectacle in front of her.
The twentieth floor was one vast, glass-walled room, leading out onto a terrace which overlooked the sea. An illuminated lap pool—bright electric blue—stretched the entire length of the terrace. At the back of the room, through one of the walls of glass, the sun was setting behind the Miami skyline in a flamboyant burst of oranges and salmon pinks.
Ferramo was seated at the head of a vast white table, where a card game was in play, an almost palpable air of gravitas and power emanating from his dark, elegant figure. Behind him, the tall Indian model was resting a hand, consortlike, on his shoulder. Her long black hair shone against a pure white evening dress, the whole effect set off by a dazzling array of diamonds.
Olivia looked away, ashamed, afraid that Ferramo somehow knew what lunacies had been running round in her brain. He looked like a clever, dignified businessman: a rich man, a powerful man certainly, but not a terrorist. Thank God she hadn’t said anything specific to Barry.
“Your name?” said the boy at the entrance, holding out a list.
“Olivia Joules,” she said, fighting the urge to apologize, just in general.
“Ah yes, come this way.”
The young man led her to a waiter holding a tray. She carefully selected a glass of sparkling water—no drunken fuck-ups for her tonight—and looked round the room, reminding herself: No one is thinking about you; they’re thinking about themselves, just like you.
Two young girls in T-shirts and tight jeans, the waistbands almost indecently low, were exchanging air kisses. She recognized them as the girls who’d been posing, S-shaped, on the red carpet the night before.
“Oh. My. God.” One girl’s hand shot to her mouth. “I have that T-shirt.”
“You’re kidding me.”
“The exact same T-shirt.”
“Where did you get it?”
“The Gap.”
“So did I! I got it in the Gap.”
“Oh. My. God.”
The two girls stared at each other, overcome by this almost magical coincidence.
“Hi. How do you two know each other?” Olivia ventured with a friendly smile, fighting down the sense of being the most unpopular girl in the playground. Would that she had the Gap T-shirt too.
“Oh, we both work at—”
“We’re actresses,” snapped the other. They, like the T-shirts, were almost spookily identical: big breasts, tiny hips, long blond hair, brown pencil outlining their glossed collagen pouts. The only difference was that one was much prettier than the other.
“Actresses! Wow,” said Olivia.
“I’m Demi,” said the less pretty one. “This is Kimberley. Where are you from?”
“England.”
“England. Is that London?” said Kimberley. “I want to go to London.”
“You’re lucky, living here.”
“We don’t live in Miami, we’re just visiting. We’re from LA. Well, not from LA.”
“My family’s part Italian, part Romanian and part Cherokee,” explained Kimberley.
“Olivia,” she said, shaking hands and feeling awfully English. “So you’re just visiting? Are you working here?”
“No,” said Kimberley airily, pulling at her jeans. “Pierre just flew us over for the launch.”
“Generous guy.”
“Yes. Are you an actress?” said Kimberley suspiciously. “Do you know him from Paris?”
“Can’t act for toffee. I only met him last night. I’m a journalist.”
“Oh. My. God. Which magazine are you from?”
“Elan.”
“Elan? That’s British Elan, right? You should come to LA. You should give us a call. You could maybe do a profile on us.”
“Okay,” Olivia said, taking her little book out of her bag, hiding the survival tin. “What’s the number?”
The two girls looked at each other.
“Actually we’re between addresses at the moment,” said Demi.
“But you can reach us through Melissa. You know, who does Pierre’s PR.”
“Or you can ring us at work, at the Hilton.”
Kimberley looked furiously at Demi. “We’re just working there temporarily,” she said sharply, “to keep us busy between auditions and rehearsals.”
“Of course. Which Hilton?”
“The Beverly Hilton?” said Demi eagerly. “On Santa Monica and Wilshire? Where they hold the Golden Globes? I usually get to host the ladies’ powder room during the Globes. It’s awesome: four makeup stations, every kind of perfume. All the big stars come in for touch-ups: Nicole Kidman, Courteney Cox, Jennifer Connelly, you get to meet them close up.”
Oh, for God’s sake. Osama bin Ferramo indeed. He was just a playboy . . .
“Wow. What’s Nicole Kidman like?” said Olivia.
“Oh my God,” said Demi, hand to her heart.
“But actually”—Kimberley leaned forward conspiratorially—“we’re going to be starring in the movie Pierre’s producing. You’ve heard about that . . .” . . . a cynical playboy, playboying on the dreams of innocent little wannabes.
“May I interrupt you, ladies?”
Olivia turned. A short man had joined them, dark chest hair protruding from a yellow polo shirt. The chest hair, like the hair on his head, was very tightly curled, like pubic hair. He smelled of nasty sweet perfume. He held out his hand, glancing at her breasts. “Hi, baby. Alfonso Perez. And you are . . .”
“Olivia Joules,” she said coldly. “I met Pierre last night at the Devorée launch.”
“Ah yes. And you are an actress too? Perhaps we can find a role for you?” He had a thickly accented voice with heavily rolled r s.
“No, thanks. I can’t act my way out of a paper bag.”
“That’s funny,” said Kimberley. Why did Americans say “That’s funny?” They said it instead of laughing, as if funniness were something you observed from afar rather than something you participated in.
“Really, Ms. Joules? You do not wish to be an actress?” It was Ferramo.
There was a collective intake of breath from Demi and Kimberley. They gazed, lip-lined pouts momentarily ajar. Pierre Ferramo’s legs were encased in neatly pressed blue jeans. His shoulders looked broad in a soft gray cashmere sweater. Olivia forced herself to breathe normally and looked into the dark, penetrating eyes. He raised his eyebrows quizzically.
“I tried acting once. I was given some roles in a comedy revue. One by one all my parts were taken away from me, apart from that of Miss Guided, the mute chambermaid.”
The wannabes and the little oily man looked at her, baffled.
Ferramo showed a glimmer of amusement. “You will excuse us?” he said to the group, taking her arm and beginning to guide Olivia away.
As the wannabes glowered, Olivia had to fight down playground-level feelings of smugness and one-upmanship, feelings she deeply disapproved of in any circumstances. Divide and rule. Ferramo was dividing his roost of girlies in order to rule it.
A waiter hurried up with a tray of champagne.
“Oh, no thank you,” said Olivia quickly as Ferramo handed her a long-stemmed glass.
“But you must,” he murmured. “It is French. It is the finest.”
Yes, but are you? His accent wasn’t easy to place.
“Non, merci,” she said. “Et vous? Vous êtes français?”
“Mais bien sûr,” he said, with an approving glance. “Et je crois que vous parlez bien le français. Vous êtes, ou—je peux?—tu es une femme bien educatée.”
I wish. Worksop Comprehensive, she thought, but merely smiled mysteriously, asking herself if educatée was a proper French word and resolving to look it up later.
Olivia had an ear for languages, and had discovered that even when she couldn’t speak a foreign tongue, she could often understand it. Even if the words were double Dutch, she could usually guess at what the person might be saying, or figure it out through her sensitivity to nuances of expression. There had been a time when her lack of university education had made her sad, so she had made up for it herself. With books and tapes and visits she had developed fluency in French and passable Spanish and German. A couple of visits to the Sudan and the Muslim islands of Zanzibar and Lamu had given her the rudiments of Arabic. Unfortunately, the world of style-and-beauty journalism was not giving her much chance to use all this.
Taking a large swig of champagne, Ferramo led her through the party, ignoring the bids for his attention. It was like being with the star at a film premiere. Eyes followed them, particularly those of the tall Indian beauty. “But of course, Ms. Joules, the French are not exactly populaire in your country,” he said, leading her onto the terrace.
“Nor in this,” she laughed. “ ‘Cheese-eating surrender-monkeys,’ Homer Simpson called them.” She looked up at him, smiling while gauging his reaction. He leaned against the cruise-ship-type railing and smiled back, gesturing for her to join him.
“Ah, Monsieur Simpson. The fount of all human wisdom. And you? You were at one with the French sensibilité?”
She leaned on the cool metal rail and looked out to sea. The wind was still raging. The mood appeared from time to time behind ragged, racing clouds.
“Were you?” she asked.
“I was ashamed of my countrymen.” Yes, but which countrymen? “And you? What was your position?” Why was he asking her this?
“I always find it a bad idea to talk politics at parties.”
“Not when asked for an opinion directly, surely.”
“I was against the invasion.”
“You were? And why was that?”
“Well, since you ask: there was no evidence of weapons of mass destruction, there was no connection between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda or September 11, and they were punishing a breach of international law by breaking international law themselves. I thought it was mad, unless there was something they weren’t telling us, which it turns out there wasn’t.”
“You are right,” he laughed, “you are not an actress.”
“Because I’ve got an opinion? That’s a bit sweeping, isn’t it?”
“Actors. Do you know that, every day, over five hundred young people arrive in Los Angeles, expecting to be actresses, flocking after fame and wealth like so many locusts? There is nothing else of value in their lives.”
“You seem to have taken rather a lot of them under your wing.”
“I wish to help them.”
“Sure you do.”
He glanced at her sharply. “It is a brutal profession.”
“Pierre?” The tall Indian beauty came out onto the balcony and touched him possessively on the arm. She was accompanied by a good-looking, well-toned man of maybe forty with a wide smile which turned up at the edges—a cross between that of Jack Nicholson and Felix the Cat. “Can I introduce you to Michael Monteroso? You remember, the genius facial technician who’s been helping us? He’s the toast of Hollywood,” she added, wrinkling her nose at Olivia in an attempt to be girlishly conspiratorial. “Backstage at everything.”
For a fleeting second a look of contempt crossed Ferramo’s fine features, then he composed his face into a gracious smile.
“But of course, Michael. A pleasure. I am delighted to meet the maestro at last.” Monteroso and he shook hands.
“And may I introduce my friend from London, Olivia Joules,” said Ferramo. “A writer of great distinction.” He pressed her arm as if to suggest a shared joke. “And, Olivia, this is Suraya Steele.”
“Hi,” Suraya said coolly, running her hand through her hair at one temple and flicking back the long shiny curtain so that it cascaded over her shoulders. Olivia stiffened. She hated women who did hair-flicking. It seemed so sneakily vain: disguising hair smugness and “everybody look at me and my lovely hair” attention-seeking as hair tidiness, as if they were flicking their hair back simply to keep it off their faces. In which case why not use a kirby grip or a sensible Alice band?
“Don’t you write about beauty for Elan?” Suraya purred, slightly pitying.
“Really?” said Michael Monteroso. “Let me give you my card and my Web site. What I do is a special microdermabrasic instant-lift technique. I gave it to Devorée three minutes before the MTV awards.”
“Didn’t she look great?” said Suraya.
“Will you excuse me?” murmured Pierre. “I must return to the game. There is nothing worse than a host who wins, apart from a host who wins and then slides off.”
“Yeah, we should definitely get back there.” Suraya’s accent was odd. It was a fluid mixture of drawling West Coast American and bookish Bombay. “Don’t want rumblings of discontent.”
As Michael Monteroso watched Ferramo’s retreating back with evident disappointment, there was no need for Olivia to remind herself that no one was thinking about her. Monteroso looked like a man who had clawed his way to success late in life and was hanging on to it for all he was worth. He nodded at her vaguely, turned to see if there was anyone more interesting to talk to and broke into a white-toothed smile.
“Hey, Travis! How you doing, man?”
“Good, good. Good to see you.”
The guy sharing a high five with Monteroso was one of the most overtly good-looking men Olivia had ever seen, with ice-blue, wolflike eyes, but she sensed desperation.
“How’s it going?” said Monteroso. “How’s the acting?”
“Good, good, you know. I’m doing like a little writing, and, you know, lifestyle management, and I’m making these kind of lifeline boxes, and, you know . . .”
So that would be bad, then, on the acting front, thought Olivia, trying not to smile.
“Olivia, I see you’ve met Travis Brancato! Do you know he’s writing the script for Pierre’s new movie?”
Olivia listened politely to Melissa’s shtick, then escaped to find the giggly Beavis and Butthead guys from Break, who told her excitedly that they were going to be extras playing surfers on Ferramo’s movie and introduced her to Winston, a beautiful black diving instructor who worked for various hotels on the Keys and was in town to take out clients on the OceansApart. He offered to show her round the ship the following afternoon, maybe even take her out for a dive. “I kinda get the feeling I won’t be busy. I’ve only had one client so far, and I had to bring him back because he had a pacemaker.”
Unfortunately, she was interrupted yet again by Melissa bearing a press release and a barrage of autowitter about Ferramo’s new movie, including the news that Winston was going to be underwater consultant. Eventually, Olivia was forced to conclude that the reason she was there was not that Pierre Ferramo had noticed her, but because she was supposed to write an article promoting his new movie.
She left the throng and stepped out onto the terrace. There was nothing but blackness now towards the sea. She couldn’t make out where the dunes ended and the beach began, but she could hear the waves pounding the shore. She noticed a metal staircase winding up from the balcony to a higher level and headed up, finding herself on a small private deck. She sat down, out of the wind, pulling her wrap around her, feeling disgusted with herself. It was insane to have let herself be manipulated by a publicist, to imagine that some ridiculous playboy was interested in her and then care enough to actually mind when it turned out he simply saw her as a marketing opportunity—and an overopinionated one at that. Worse, she realized, a part of her she wouldn’t admit to anyone else was frankly disappointed that Ferramo wasn’t a terrorist. She was just as bad as those fame-driven journalists she despised, always trying to make their names out of other people’s misfortunes. Pull yourself together, she told herself. You’re Olivia Joules now. You need to get out of this daft party and get on.
There was a sound on the metal staircase. Someone was coming up.
“Why, Ms. Joules. You are roosting up here like a little bird.”
Ferramo was carrying champagne and two glasses. “Now you will join me, surely, in one glass of Cristal.”
He was very attractive. It had been a very long day. She took a sip of the exquisite, ice-cold champagne and thought, Rules for Living number seven: sometimes you just have to go with the flow.
“Now tell me,” he said, raising his glass to hers. “Can you relax? Is your work complete? Do you have your story?”
“Yes,” she said. “But I’ve moved on to another. The OceansApart. You know? The giant apartment ship?”
“Oh really? How interesting.” His face said the opposite. “And with the OceansApart you will do what? Interviews perhaps? A visit to the ship?”
“Yes. Actually I met a couple of passengers who come from very near my home town. I’m going to go see them tomorrow and . . .”
“At what time?”
“Um, in the morning at—”
“I really do not think that is a good idea,” he murmured, taking her glass away and drawing her closer.
“Why not?” He was so close she could feel his breath against her cheek.
“Because,” he said, “I hope that tomorrow morning you will be having breakfast . . . with me.”
He reached out and touched her face, masterfully raising it to his, his eyes melting into hers. He kissed her, hesitantly at first, his lips dry against her mouth, then passionately, so that her body pulsed into life and she was kissing him passionately in return.
“No, no,” she said, suddenly pulling away. What was she doing? Snogging a playboy with a roomful of his other snoggees downstairs.
He looked down, composing himself, steadying his breathing. “There is something wrong?” he murmured.
“I’ve only just met you. I don’t know you.”
“I see,” he said, nodding, thoughtful. “You are right. Then we will meet, tomorrow, at nine. I will come to the Delano. And we will begin to get to know each other. You will be there?”
She nodded.
“You are true to your word? You can delay your interview?”
“Yes.” She didn’t need to. It wasn’t until eleven.
“Then good.” He stood, held out his hand and helped her up, smiling with a flash of his perfect teeth. “And now we must rejoin the party.”
As Olivia was leaving, she saw the guest list, abandoned under crumpled napkins and dirty glasses on a white table by the door. Always good to hang on to a guest list. Just as she was reaching for it, a door opened behind the table and Demi emerged adjusting her top, followed by the dark youth who’d been in charge of arrivals.
“Hi!” giggled Demi sheepishly and headed back into the party.
“I think I gave you my jacket when I arrived?” Olivia said to the youth, giving him a conspiratorial grin. “Pale blue? Suede?”
“Of course. I will look for it straightaway. I like your accent.”
“Thank you.” She flashed him a dazzling smile. I like your accent too, she thought. And it’s no more French than your boss’s.
“Oh, gosh!” She hurried along the corridor after the youth. “I’m really sorry. I didn’t come in a jacket. I’m an idiot.”
“That’s all right, ma’am.”
“Brain like a sieve. Sorry. Thank you,” she said, slipping him five dollars.
And she stepped into the elevator, the guest list folded safely inside her clutch.