Chapter Nineteen

‘Morning, sleepyhead.’

I peel open my eyes, which is a hell of an effort, I can tell you, and for a split second I’m completely disorientated. Where am I, who’s talking to me? And then I remember and as I shield my eyes from the sunlight streaming in through the blinds I remember that this beautiful man standing at the side of the bed is Brad, and that last night we made love, and that it was the greatest experience of my life to date.

He sits on the bed and I drink in his looks, the fact that even in a T-shirt and running shorts and sneakers he looks positively delicious, and he leans over to kiss me good morning, and I keep my lips sealed tightly shut because I’m so worried about having morning mouth when he smells so clean, so masculine, so sexy.

‘What time is it?’ I venture when he leans back, out of breath shot, as it were.

‘Nine o’clock. I didn’t want to wake you so I just went out for a run.’

‘Jesus, nine o’clock? I never sleep till nine o’clock.’

‘That’s because you’re never jet-lagged.’

I want to get out of bed and brush my teeth, wash my face, make sure my make-up isn’t all over the place because I can feel already that my skin is gritty, that I definitely didn’t wash it off last night, but I can’t get out of bed because I don’t appear to be wearing any clothes, and, slim as I may now be, walking around naked in front of someone I hardly know – despite the fact we have been as intimate as any two people can be – is not an experience I think I can deal with right now.

I wipe my fingers under my eyes, hoping to remove any stray mascara or eyeliner that may have worked its way down there during the night, and smile at Brad in a way that I hope he’ll find sexy.

‘So what are you in the mood for this morning?’ he says, and I think about my morning mouth and then I think, screw it, and I pull him down towards me and kiss him. Properly. Tongues and everything.

I didn’t think it could get better than last night. Really, I thought I’d hit the height of orgasmic experiences, but today, this morning, in the bright sunlight of day, it was even better. Warmer, softer, funnier. I never thought you were supposed to talk during sex, at least, I’ve never said anything before because it always brought me back to where I was, and made me feel almost shameful. But Brad and I talked to each other this morning, very gently. Before, during and after. And we laughed, which was a complete revelation, because before today I’ve never thought sex was supposed to be funny. Not that it was ha, ha, funny, just intimate I suppose, and maybe that’s what was such a revelation for me.

‘Jesus,’ says Brad, lying back on the bed, breathing heavily. ‘You really are something, JJ.’

I lean over him, my hair trailing over his face as I kiss him softly on the lips, slowly coming to terms with the idea that this man is mine. At least for the time being.

‘So now what?’ I say, wondering how we’re going to spend the rest of the day.

‘What do you mean?’ says Brad, with a panicked look on his face, and I start to laugh because I realize he thinks I’m asking ‘now what’ about the relationship.

‘What are we going to do today?’ I say.

‘Oh. Right. Well, I have to check in to the gym later on this afternoon, but how about this morning we go for breakfast then maybe rollerblading?’

‘That sounds fantastic,’ I say, trying not to let on that I lied about rollerblading and that I’ll probably make a complete fool of myself. But then again, rollerblading is the perfect exercise to keep my thighs slim and toned. ‘But can I work out at the gym later on?’ Rollerblading, I’m afraid, isn’t enough to keep the guilt at bay.

‘Sure you can,’ says Brad. ‘In fact, this afternoon there’s a spinning class which you might enjoy.’

‘Spinning?’

‘Yeah,’ he laughs, seeing I haven’t a clue what he’s talking about. ‘It’s cycling on the spot, but real fast. It’s kind of a killer but you feel great afterwards.’

‘Maybe,’ I say, because, although it does sound great, I think at this stage I’d rather stick to what I know.

We get up, shower, and climb in Brad’s car, and he takes me for a short drive around Santa Monica, just to give me a feel for the place, and, driving along, with his right hand resting on my left leg, I am truly in heaven.

There seem to be hundreds of people milling around, and, although some of them are beautiful, quite honestly I’m surprised at how ordinary most of them are. I somehow expected all of Los Angeles to look like something out of a film, but for every gorgeous person there seem to be ten more who aren’t.

‘That’s 3rd Street Promenade,’ says Brad, pointing to a cobbled street lined with shops and restaurants, ‘it’s famous in Los Angeles for the street performers, especially on the weekends.’ As we stop at the lights I can hear Frank Sinatra playing, very loudly, and I can’t figure out where it’s coming from.

‘Hang on,’ says Brad. ‘You gotta hear this,’ and he parks the car round the corner and takes my hand as we walk down to where the music’s coming from.

In the middle of the street is a man in his sixties. He’s wearing a fedora, a black jacket and a bow tie. He’s holding on to a microphone and swaying slightly while crooning along to the huge Karaoke machine that sits behind him. It’s all Frank Sinatra, and what I can’t believe is that this man sounds more like Frank than Frank himself. Everyone milling past seems to stop, at least for a few seconds, before leaving with smiles on their faces, and the bucket resting on the ground in front of him is slowly filling up with dollar bills.

‘Isn’t he great?’ says Brad, putting his arm around me as we stand next to one of the benches that line each side of the street. I nod, because it is great, and as I turn to look at Brad I notice that sitting on the bench is an old homeless woman. You can tell she’s homeless, her grey hair is long and matted, her raincoat is ripped and torn, and strewn around her feet are a dozen plastic bags. Her eyes are closed, and she’s humming along, and suddenly she opens her eyes and sees me.

She stands up, collects her bags, and as she walks off she touches my arm and says, ‘You gotta hear “New York, New York”. He does it last. It’s wonderful,’ and with that she disappears.

‘Now that,’ I say, looking at Brad, ‘is bizarre.’

‘Not really,’ says Brad. ‘This guy’s an institution. He’s here practically every week.’

‘But that woman …’

‘Right. Santa Monica seems to be a mecca for the homeless. Listening to this guy is probably the highlight of her week.’

‘But how did she get here?’

‘Who knows,’ he says, shrugging. ‘How did any of us get here?’, and with that he leads me to the bucket, throws in a couple of dollar bills, and we go back to the car.

We drive through wide residential streets, huge roads lined with grassy verges and large houses, and eventually we hit Montana, a quiet road that reeks of money, simply because the small boutiques and restaurants on either side are so quaint, and Brad pulls up outside a small coffee shop which looks packed. Outside, on the street, there’s one spare table, and Brad tells me to grab it while he gets breakfast.

Don’t think I’m being egotistical, please, but I can’t help but notice that three – three! – men put down their papers, stop their conversations and turn to stare at me, and although my initial thought is that it must be because I have something on my face, I soon realize that it’s because I look good.

Tutored by Geraldine, I’m in my new second-hand Levi’s, 26 waist, a white shirt and brown suede loafers, and when I put them on this morning I thought that, perhaps for the first time, I really do look like the woman I wanted to become.

‘One coffee,’ says Brad, placing the cup in front of me as the men look away, because one look at Brad and they know they couldn’t compete, ‘and one fat-free blueberry muffin.’

It’s delicious. He’s delicious. This life is delicious. I think I could stay here for the rest of my life.

I suppose this is the time when we ought to be talking, getting to know each other, but we did so much of that last night, and now that we’ve slept together all we seem to be doing is staring at one another and grinning. Brad holds my hand, only allowing me to have it back to pick up my muffin and take the occasional bite, and even as I’m eating he strokes my leg, or my arm, or something. It’s as if we have to have permanent contact with each other, and everyone seems to be staring at us, or perhaps that’s my imagination.

But in my imagination I imagine that they’re staring because they wish they had what we had. I have no idea what it really feels like to be in love. I loved Ben, it’s true, but I never had Ben, and, as I sit here with this man I’ve just made love to, I wonder whether perhaps it wasn’t love with Ben, it was merely infatuation.

Not that I love Brad, not yet, of course not. But I feel so high, I can’t stop smiling, and I’m sure that my glow is lighting up the whole of America.

‘You’re so beautiful,’ Brad says to me again, and I bask in the glory of his admiration. He checks his watch and says we should go blading because he’ll have to do some work when we get to the gym.

And so we stop at the hire shop and pick up some blades for me then we drop the car home, Brad picks up his blades, and we walk, in sock-clad feet, down to the promenade.

‘Um, there’s something I have to tell you,’ I start nervously, as Brad looks concerned. ‘I lied about rollerblading. I’ve never done it before in my life.’

Brad throws his head back and laughs. ‘Why on earth bother lying about that? Don’t worry, you’ll be fine.’ He continues chuckling as I shakily put the boots on and stand still, too terrified to move.

‘Here,’ he says, taking my hand, ‘This is how you blade,’ and he shows me how to start with my feet at right angles to one another, how to push off with the right and glide forward with the left, and wonder of wonders, me, clumsy, oafish Jemima Jones, can do it. I’m not very good, admittedly, but Brad keeps hold of my hand, and with those strong arms he balances me every time I threaten to tip over.

It takes a while, but soon we’re blading side by side, on this wide tarmac boardwalk that runs alongside the beach. I don’t even care that every few minutes these gorgeous women pass, headphones on, perfect figures gyrating to the music that’s filling their ears. And I don’t even care that these women all eye Brad up and down as they approach, because he’s not looking at them, he’s looking at me. And I don’t even care when one of the blonde bombshells turns to her friend skating alongside her, also with headsets on, and mouths ‘gay’, gesturing at Brad, who doesn’t see. I don’t care. Actually, I think it’s funny, and in a way I know what she means. It’s almost as if Brad is too damn perfect to be straight. It’s not something I would ever have thought in England, but here, where the gay culture seems to be so much bigger, here I can understand why she would have said that.

I laugh to myself, especially when I picture what Brad was doing to me at ten past nine this morning, and then I stop laughing to myself and I start shivering with pleasure at the memory.

‘This is so much fun,’ I shout, as we pick up speed and head down towards the Santa Monica pier.

‘I thought you’d never done this before,’ he says, and with a grin I shoot off in front of him, amazed that I’m so confident on these wheels.

‘I lied,’ I shout back and he grins and blows me a kiss as he races to catch up with me.

Jemima and Brad look like the perfect couple, like they’ve just stepped out of a romantic love story, and even though they’re not really talking, they’re giggling together and teasing one another in a way that is increasingly like two people falling in love with each other. Or could that be two people falling in love with love itself?

Two hours of rollerblading has completely done me in, and when we’ve finished we stop at a deli and help ourselves to salad, which we put in a container and take to Brad’s gym to eat in his office. Just in case you’re wondering, I’m even more conscious of keeping my figure here, so I bypass the salads of rice and pasta, which, delicious-looking as they are, are not what I need to maintain my figure. I opt, instead, for mounds of exotic salad leaves, piled high with roast vegetables and sesame seeds, not, according to the woman in the deli, roasted in oil. Completely fat free. Aren’t I good? Aren’t you proud of me?

The gym, just off 2nd Avenue, when we get there, is much like I expected. A sun-filled reception houses a huge desk, behind which sit two gorgeous women in perfectly co-ordinated aerobic gear. One is wearing a pink bodysuit with tight, tiny orange lycra shorts, and the other is in an orange bodysuit with pink shorts, both with tiny thongs at the back. They are extremely tanned, extremely fit and extremely friendly, which surprises me somewhat, because back at home, when women look like this, they usually turn out to be class A bitches.

‘Hey, Brad!’ says one enthusiastically as they walk in.

‘Hey, Brad!’ says the other, looking up in her wake.

‘Hey, Cindy, Charlene. I’d like you to meet JJ.’

‘Hey, JJ,’ they both say at the same time. ‘It’s so great to meet you.’

‘And you.’ I suppress a laugh, because what could be so great about meeting me?

‘You’re JJ!’ says Cindy suddenly. ‘Oh my God, we’ve heard so much about you. We’ve even seen your picture. Wow, you’re here.’

‘Yup.’ Is anybody over here ever going to say something that makes sense? ‘I’m here.’

‘And you’re from England?’ It’s Charlene’s turn.

‘Uh huh.’

‘That’s so great. I had a boyfriend from England once. He was from Surrey. Gary Tompkins?’ She’s looking at me expectantly, as if I might know him. As if. I shake my head and shrug my shoulders. ‘Sorry,’ I apologize. ‘It’s a big place.’

‘Don’t worry,’ says Charlene, ‘he wasn’t so hot anyway. But welcome to Los Angeles. Do you think you’ll stay?’

‘I’m here for two weeks,’ I say. ‘Then I have to get back to work.’

‘That’s too bad,’ says Cindy. ‘It’s a great place. Maybe you could come back.’

‘Maybe,’ I say, wondering if everyone here is so friendly. I mean, I’ve heard Americans are like this, but I never really thought it would be true.

‘They’re really nice,’ I say to Brad, as we pass through the reception area and through the actual gym, and then I stop because I have never in my life seen a gym so well equipped, nor people so perfect. The gym is buzzing. Heavy hip-hop music, a song I vaguely recognize, is bursting out of every corner, and although everyone in here is sweating up a storm, they all look fantastic, the sweat only seems to set off their glistening tans and perfect bodies.

‘God,’ I whisper in bewilderment, because it’s worlds away from my gym, where most of the people are either there because they’re at the before stage and they look terrible, or because it’s a place to see and be seen, and they’d never let something as mucky as sweat mess up their make-up or hair-do.

‘You like it?’ asks Brad, obviously proud of this thriving business. ‘Meet Jimmy, one of the personal trainers here.’

Tall, bronzed and buff, Jimmy shakes my hand. ‘It’s so great to finally meet you, JJ. Welcome to Los Angeles, and if you need any help here, anything at all’ – looks at me meaningfully – ‘don’t hesitate to ask.’

‘Hands off, Jimmy,’ says Brad, pushing him playfully.

‘Whoah, Brad,’ says Jimmy, holding up his hands with a cheeky grin on his face, ‘you can’t blame a guy for trying.’

‘Hello?’ I say. ‘I’m here.’

‘Sorry, JJ,’ says Brad. ‘But boys will be boys. C’mon, we’ll go to my office and eat lunch.’

So we do, and ridiculous as this may be – seeing as it’s the middle of the day and we’re eating salad out of plastic containers – we start feeding one another, and soon food is everywhere but in our mouths and we’re kissing furiously when the door bursts open and we leap apart.

Brad, for the record, leaps furthest, but then it is understandable, after all, he is the boss, and we both look up to see a large girl standing in the doorway.

‘Oh’ says the girl. ‘I didn’t realize you were here.’

‘I just got here,’ says Brad, dusting the food off himself and trying to straighten himself out, while I take a good, long look at the girl, partly to try and work out who she is, and partly because, and it’s a hell of a shock to see it, partly because the girl standing in the doorway looks an awful lot like the girl I used to be. She’s small with dark, glossy hair, and I can see that she would be pretty, she could be pretty, all she has to do is lose a few stone. Because this girl is huge, she has two, no, three chins. She is wearing a smock-type shirt to hide the huge bulk of her breasts, she has her arms crossed to hide as much of her body as she can, and she has that slightly wounded look in her eye. She could be me, I think as I carry on staring at her. I could be her.

‘This is JJ,’ says Brad. ‘And this is Jenny. My personal assistant.’

‘Hi, Jenny,’ I’m determined to be friendly, to make an effort, to show Jenny that her size doesn’t bother me, it doesn’t make me think Jenny’s any less a person just because there’s more of her. I stand up from my sitting position on the desk and walk over to Jenny with arm outstretched to shake her hand, but as I get closer I feel instinctively that she won’t be shaking my hand, that, for some strange reason, there’s a strong air of hostility in the room. And I’m right. I come to a standstill because Jenny doesn’t move. Jenny just nods hello. Jenny doesn’t say anything, and Jesus Christ, how I remember what it was like to be Jenny.

I remember how I felt when someone skinny and beautiful was introduced to me, how inadequate I felt, how I couldn’t look them in the eye, and I try desperately to think of a way to make Jenny feel at ease.

‘That’s a beautiful shirt,’ I say finally. ‘Did you buy it here?’

‘No,’ says Jenny, forced to speak, and then she turns to Brad. ‘I have some files here for you. Shall I just leave them on your desk?’ Her voice is as cold as ice, and I recoil, but then I think how much worse it would be, how magnified those feelings of inadequacy would be if you worked somewhere where you were surrounded by bodies beautiful all day, so I try again.

‘Have you worked here long?’ I say, trying to offer her my friendship.

‘Yes,’ says Jenny, refusing, this time, to look at me, and with that she turns and walks out of the office.

‘I’m sorry,’ says Brad, running his fingers through his hair. ‘She can be difficult sometimes.’

‘Don’t worry about it, I suspect I understand far better than you know,’ I say without thinking.

‘What on earth do you mean?’ Brad’s voice sounds slightly harsh, and I wonder what he would think if he knew I used to be the same size as Jenny. I’m tempted, just for a second, to tell Brad how I used to be, but then I decide against it. Too soon.

‘It’s just that I imagine it’s very hard for her, working somewhere like this, being surrounded by skinny people all the time. What I don’t understand is why she does work here. Surely it would be easier for her to work somewhere less …’ I pause, wondering how to put it. ‘Less body-conscious.’

‘I think you’re probably right,’ says Brad, ‘but you see Jenny’s been with me for years, she’s like my right arm, and to be honest I think that’s the only reason she stays here, out of loyalty to me.’

‘You’re sure she hasn’t got an eensy weensy crush on you?’ I tease, too taken with Brad to remember that it’s no laughing matter being the fattest girl in the office and having a crush on the most beautiful man in the building.

‘Jenny?’ Brad snorts with derision. ‘No. She’s more like my sister.’

Hmm. Once upon a time that was what Ben would have said about me. ‘Well, I know someone who definitely does have a crush on you.’ I reach out my hand and place it on Brad’s thigh.

‘If I lock the door will you promise to tell all?’ Brad’s moving over to the door and shutting it gently.

God forgive me for acting like a brazen hussy, but I can’t help it, he’s just too irresistible. I cross my hands over my chest and slide my shirt off my shoulders revealing nothing underneath except bare flesh. I push Brad into a chair and straddle his lap while slinking my arms around his neck. ‘Promise,’ I purr, ‘swear, and cross my heart.’