‘Aisling! Get Charlotte on the phone! We might be just about able to fit in Leo’s Going Green in ’23 party on the twenty-third after all if we send out invitations tomorrow.’
It’s taken weeks for Mandy to accept that Leonardo DiCaprio’s assistant’s assistant is as close as we’re going to get to him and his philanthropy for the time being. Charlotte has been agitating for an event as close to Christmas as possible, but between the Real Housewives Holiday Hot Mess party we already have scheduled in for the 23rd and the Rockefeller Carol Singing in aid of New York Children’s Hospital sponsored by Ben Dixon’s tequila brand on Christmas Eve, we’ve been struggling to accommodate her and Leo. I leap up off my chair and follow Mandy into her office, thrilled that I made it to my desk three minutes before she arrived into work. I was up mad late voice-noting John, who was up mad early to have a meeting with the local enterprise board about his gym concept. It’s crazy that no one else has come up with the idea yet. They’ve been selling protein powder behind the bar in Maguire’s for months now, according to Majella, who spotted it between the clothes pegs and the yellow Snacks.
‘So, it’s really like you’ve never left?’ I asked John at 3 a.m. my time, snuggling down into my bed and throwing a leg over a pillow, wishing it was his hairy thighs. I’m horribly homesick listening to him talking about BGB. When we finally said goodbye at half four, he said he had to do something to keep busy because he misses me so much. Then I cried for half an hour before falling into a fitful sleep and had an anxiety dream where Majella was up a tree trying to hold about fifteen babies all at once. Pablo was there too, juggling courgettes.
‘What about the carol singing?’ I ask Mandy, who’s thrown her belongings on the chair I was about to sit on. I move the Birkin onto the floor and then quickly snap it up again and put it on her sideboard. I’ve seen enough screaming fits about the Birkin touching ‘where your disgusting outdoor hooves have been schlepping in and out’ to be caught disrespecting the bag. Luckily, I know Mandy well enough now to hardly be scared of her any more. She really trusts me and Aubrey, I can feel it. She left a Bellinis for Breast Cancer luncheon completely to us last week when she was in London, even though Oprah’s best friend Gayle was going to be there and there was a chance I might ‘do the word vomit about you shitting yourself’. I regret ever telling Mandy about the time I was home sick from school with a tummy bug and a temperature and I was watching morning telly and Oprah brought Gayle on and I hallucinated that she was an angel sent to save me. I managed to get through the whole luncheon, and it was only when Gayle was getting her coat and had had five bellinis that I discreetly thanked her. I also sneaked a picture of her, which is a big no-no in the celebrity event business, but Oprah’s show was huge when I was in secondary school and WeightWatchers first came to BGB. We felt a kinship with her even though we’re so white we’re practically see-through. I had to send a picture of Gayle to the girls’ WhatsApp. They were all in Denise’s watching The Muppet Christmas Carol, and I got a video response of them screaming, which cut dramatically halfway through to Denise swearing as the sound of a toddler crying flooded down the stairs. I would have loved to be there touching Denise’s grey velvet cushions and admiring her new bathroom. It’s mad how I used to dream about my own grey velvet cushions and new bathroom and now I’m just happy for her that she has them but thrilled I’m not picking tiles and worrying about emptying the septic tank.
‘It’s been agreed that the tequila sponsoring the carol singing is in poor taste after all.’ She can barely look at me while she’s saying it. I was the one who suggested it might not be the greatest fit, but the placement would have been amazing and picked up for lots of TV news slots. We’ve only recently started working with Ben Dixon and the two other James Bonds on their tequila brand. Pierce Brosnan thinks he can get it into his next movie, and Daniel Craig seems happy to just go with the flow. I don’t think it’s going to be a hard sell at all, so I’m pleased the carol-singing gig has fallen through. Mandy has been making some rash decisions since she lost the McNamara contract after he was annihilated by Dominique Devers in the midterm election. She’s well rid, and so are the carol singers.
‘It might be a bit late in the day for Charlotte and Leo, no?’ With Christmas Eve free that would mean a blissful four full days off work. We have the reality-star shitshow on the twenty-third and then nothing else until the twenty-eighth, when we have one of Hugh Grant’s kids’ christenings. It was supposed to be on the twenty-seventh but he forgot he had one of his other kids’ birthdays. Maybe I can convince Mandy not to jump in with this Leo event. She looks thoughtful.
‘I’m not sure they’ll want to play second fiddle just because the Bonds got dropped.’ We’re not actually allowed use the James Bond name in conjunction with the tequila, so we’ve had lots of long strategy meetings about decoration and branding that just skirts the line of what’s permitted. Aubrey has been battling with MGM over producing beermats with ‘Never shaken, never stirred’ on them. She had an hour-long debate with someone called Kai over what constitutes a recipe. No better woman.
‘And I actually think waiting until the New Year would work well for the Leo event. Nobody usually makes a splash in January, whereas the Christmas events get lost on top of each other. There’s an opportunity there.’
Mandy muses for another minute. ‘And Charlotte did say that Leo is in the Caribbean for the New Year but can take the jet back to the city if needed.’
‘How very green of him.’
‘Don’t start, Aisling.’
‘Why don’t I suggest an end-of-January gala to her? I bet Leo can get Harry and Meghan in January. I bet he can get Jack Nicholson.’ Mandy has a soft spot for Jack Nicholson, who once tickled her ear with a cigar in the mid-nineties. She told Aubrey about it on a tipsy evening at a premium wedding planner convention in Vegas.
‘Okay, but get her today, before lunch. I want her confirmed in writing before she goes to someone else.’
‘And I can lock in the Christmas week schedule then?’ I ask hopefully. I had all my presents wrapped and sent back home by the second week in November, but I still have some last-minute bits to do, including finding a Christmas crackers source. What else can change by next week?
‘Lock it in.’
****
When I get home at a quite reasonable 7 p.m. that evening I send a message to Sadhbh on the off-chance she’s still up. She’s happily settling back into the gorgeous house she and Don renovated in Ranelagh and FaceTimes me straight away.
‘Look at you, home before eight!’
‘I know. I think Mandy is going easy on us before Christmas mania, which actually got a little bit less manic today.’
‘Well?’
‘The tequila choir thing is off.’
‘Not surprised.’ Sadhbh turns on the light in her bedroom and sits back on her gorgeous pale green linen pillows. ‘So what does next week look like then?’
‘Busy busy until the night of the twenty-third.’
‘The Housewives thing?’
‘The Hot Mess, yeah. I just reconfirmed the order of sugar glass today.’
Sadhbh laughs. ‘I know it’s meant to be safer than real glass, but if anyone can turn sugar glass into a viable weapon it will be a Real Housewife.’
‘Don’t tell me that, please – I’m the health and safety officer. And then I’m off until the twenty-eighth. I could have bloody gone home after all.’
This is the first time I’ve said it out loud, and I’m surprised by how angry I feel that the truth is that I could easily have done a few days in BGB. Well, not that easily, or cheaply, but it could have been done.
‘Could you not still?’
‘Ah, it’s a bit late now. Imagine trying to get flights?’
‘You never know.’ She’s quiet for a beat. ‘Are you talking to him much?’
‘Loads. I miss him so much. I …’
‘What? Go on?’
I start laughing. She’s always at it, FaceTiming her rockstar boyfriend in skimpy bralets. It doesn’t come as easy to me. ‘We’ve been having phone sex. Like, loads of it.’
Sadhbh squeals and throws her phone in the air and then scrabbles for it. When her face reappears, she’s laughing. ‘I love this for you. I think. Just mind yourself, okay? Remember what happened the last time you got back together? It didn’t work out and I don’t know if you’d survive letting him go for a third time.’
‘I know, I know. But this feels so different, Sadhbh. Being apart for so long really made me realise what I’m looking for. Not what I thought I was looking for. I have never fancied him this much. Or felt like he’s a missing part of me or something.’
‘Check the flights. You never know.’
When I open Skyscanner, there are a couple of seats available, but the price of one is equivalent to the GDP of a small country. I’d have to be certifiable to even consider it.