I'm in deep hibernation mode as I try to get to the end of the never-ending first draft of my grown up novel, Unsticky.
The fourth and final book in the Fashionistas series, Candy, is out or is almost out or was stocked way too early by some bookshops. Whatever! Either way, here is a teaser to whet your appetites:
"I'm moving to London and that's all there is to it," Candy informed her mother who was clipping coupons.
"Is this about that boy who tried to do the kiss and tell, sweetie?" Bette cooed, putting a fifty cent coupon for cupcakes in the 'yes' pile. "I know that you've had your heart broken but what has London got that New York hasn't?"
"It doesn't have you in it," Candy wanted to say but she stuck to the lines she'd rehearsed in her head. "It's got nothing to do with that asswipe," she bit out, which was only half true. "I'm fed up with taking part in this freaking freakshow. God, I want to be halfway normal for a little bit so I want out!"
"If I ran off to London every time life let me down, I'd have dual nationality by now," Bette breathed. "C'mon, Candy Cane…"
"I've told you not to call me that..."
"…you're not a quitter. Stay in New York and we'll buy new shoes, go to The Waverly for brunch, anything you want, you'll soon be sunny smiles again."
"I've never been sunny smiles in my life," Candy snarled, because Bette was the most infuriating woman in the world when she was purposely not getting a clue. Actually, scratch that. She was the most infuriating woman in the world. Period. Candy glared at her half brother, Reed, who was here under duress and hadn't made eye contact with Bette yet. He really needed to get over the whole my-mother-left-me-and-my-father-when-I-was-five-to-run-off-with-a-degenerate-punk-icon thing.
Reed sighed. "I don't think this is the best place for Candy to be right now," he said, gesturing at the cluttered apartment, his gaze resting on one of the cats licking milk from Candy's half-finished bowl of cereal. "And I'll be in London to keep an eye on her." He sounded far too Big Brother-ish for Candy's liking. As if he wasn't just saying it to get her Mom off her back but like he was planning all sorts of fun things like curfews and rules.
"But you're just so young, baby girl," Bette breathed, eyes wide.
"I'm 16 and when you were my age, you were gallivanting around the world and being all model-ly and shit," Candy pointed out.
"And look how well that turned out," Reed muttered sotto voce but Candy wasn't done.
"I'm old enough to take care of myself," she burst out, her voice rising to a pitch that had Conceptua bustling in with a handful of laundry.
"She go to London, she miss school," she intoned darkly in her heavy Portuguese accent. "Then she stay out all night, start with the drinking, then the drugs. She be dead before 20." Conceptua was a big fan of the worst-case scenario. "I light a candle to pray for your immortal soul."
Candy rolled her eyes. Reed stared at his nails. Conceptua shoo-ed the cats off the laundry and Bette carried on clipping coupons that she was never going to use. She'd just put them on one of the many piles of crap in the apartment and they'd stay there for ever.
"God, I can't bear to live in this dump any longer," Candy snapped and she was halfway to flouncing out of the room when her father headed her off at the pass.
"Can't sleep with all this yelling," he mumbled, scratching his spiky black hair. He paused to pick up one of the cats and wrap a long, skinny arm around Candy, as Conceptua shot him a dark look.
"Is five in the afternoon. You should not be sleeping," she announced censoriously and speeded up with the folding; her gnarled fingers making light work of Candy's polka dot bed linen.
David Careless yawned. "Yeah, well, power nap," he said vaguely before his heavy lidded eyes rested on his only child. "What's bugging you, baby?"
There was no short answer to that question and just as Candy was trying to come up with a reply that wouldn't take several hours and about a hundred swear words, Bette beat her to it.
"Oh, Candy's having a hissy fit," she said lightly. "She wants to move to London to mend her broken heart."
"My heart is not…"
"Baby, that's so Henry James," David smirked. "Can't remember which book it was but they shipped the girl with the ruined rep back to the motherland. Or was it Edith Wharton?"
"I'm going to London," Candy said forcefully. "I am and that's all there is to it. If you're all down with the goddamn dead novelists, then you should be happy that Reed'll be there to act as a chaperone."
"Don't take the Lord's name in vain," Conceptua said automatically as Bette actually put down her scissors and looked at her estranged son in consternation.
"Reed, I can't believe that you put this idea in her head." Bette probably thought that she sounded all reproachful and dignified, but it actually came out really whiny.
"She came up with it all by herself." Reed shrugged and still managed not to make eye contact with his mother. "And if Candy's mind is made up then short of calling out the National Guard there's nothing any of us can do about it."
Candy wriggled off David's lap because he was trying to tickle her and giggling wasn't very effective when she was meant to be laying down the law.
Bette had this look that Candy recognised. A look that meant she needed a large vodka and tonic to get through the next five minutes. Like a shark scenting blood in the water, Candy moved in for the kill.
"If you don't let me go to London, I'll… I'll…" Her voice rose perilously high as she weighed up the countless threats she had good to go. And then it hit her. She smiled triumphantly. "I'll get a lawyer and I'll divorce you and become a legally emancipated adult and then I can go where I like, do what I like and there'll be fuck all you can do about it!" Candy hadn't paused for breath once and as she stood there panting, enjoying the shocked expressions on Bette, Conceptua and even David's face, there was a cough from the corner.
"That was great, guys," said the director of At Home With The Careless. "But we need another take – we're not happy with the lighting in this scene."
Candy looked up to where the old wall of the kitchen had been until the TV production company had bought the apartments on either side and knocked through so they'd have room for their cameras and the gazillion people that needed to mill about with cups of coffee and clipboards.
"So much for fly-on-the-wall, reality TV," Reed noted sagely
"At Home With The Careless is not reality TV," Bethany, the assistant director, hissed. "It's a genre-defining, reality-based dramedy, actually."
Reed didn't look a all chastened. "I'm out of here," he said. "I'm meeting some finance guys at the Gramercy Park Hotel in half an hour."
"But we haven't wrapped the scene yet," Bette protested, but Reed was already heading for the door with a terse, "Not my problem."
"I thought we told you to make him sign a contract," one of the producers said but the director clapped his hands.
"On your marks, people. Scene five, take seven, action!"
Showing posts with label excerpts. Show all posts
Showing posts with label excerpts. Show all posts
Friday, April 18, 2008
Friday, March 07, 2008
Sneak preview of Fashionistas: Irina
I promised a sneak preview of Irina and here it is! I can't wait for you guys to get hold of a copy of this book, especially as there's a very special guest star who may well make you squeal out loud. As ever, though the book isn't officially released for a week or so, there are copies already for sale. This is because unless you're JK Rowling, book shop staff usually start putting books on the shelf as soon as they come in, never mind the actual date of publication. And it really boosts my first week sales so I've learnt not to mind. One last thing, if you have read the book ahead of the release date, please try not to give spoilers away in your comments. Anyway, on to Irina:
Irina checked the pocket of her coat again for the bulky but reassuring weight of the bolt cutters, and cast an anxious look at Sergei who was chattering animatedly to the two glacially unimpressed sales assistants
She scanned the rails for the black silk dress that Sergei's client had requested. This was the bit that Irina hated the most because she could never tell the difference between silk and satin, charcoal and grey. Actually the part she hated the most was setting foot in Kitai-gorod where everyone looked at her shabby clothes and knew that she didn't belong, even wearing the voluminous fur coat that Sergei had stolen from his grandmother.
There were three black silk dresses hanging from one rail; so understated and elegant that Irina was convinced they'd disintegrate from one touch of her grubby fingers. She grabbed the collar of the first dress, checked the size and reached into her pocket for the cutters.
"You're gorgeous," she heard Sergei say behind her. "You ever think of being a model?"
Irina scowled. She knew that he was only flirting to distract the salesgirls. And she also knew that guys like Sergei with his twinkling blues eyes and easy smile weren't interested in girls like her. But still, it was pathetic the way the sales assistants were fawning over him now, even though he looked just as out of place in their stupid, ritzy boutique as she did.
Her fingers were shaking as she manoeuvred the bolt cutters carefully between the stem of the security tag and the delicate material. Not because she was scared. Irina wasn't scared of anything but Sergei was laying it on too thick now and their cover could get blown.
"Wow! I've never seen such beautiful women." Irina shifted to one side so she could glare at the simpering sales staff and make sure that a well-dressed couple were between her and the security guard stationed at the door. Sergei would punch him when she ran for the exit, Irina assured herself as she tried to cut through the thick plastic tag.
But then Sergei's phone started ringing.
"Lilya, baby, I'm a little busy right now. Can I call you back?"
Lilya was tiny and blonde and punctuated everything she said with a high-pitched giggle. Irina yanked impatiently at the dress, which gave up the fight and tore under her impatient fingers.
She swore softly under her breath. Keep calm. Keep calm. One black silk dress was much like any other. Irina seized the next one on the rail, vaguely aware that the guard was walking towards Sergei who was badgering one of the girls to open a glass display case. They could get 1000 rubles for Prada sunglasses. It wasn't part of the plan but that's what she liked about Sergei – he was so spontaneous, so exciting and so very about to get busted.
"Leave the store now," the guard ordered tersely. "Out, or we press the panic button."
He hadn't seen her yet. Irina fumbled with the cutters again, heard Sergei remonstrate with the staff.
She felt her body grow clammy, beads of sweat popping up on her forehead as a hand clamped down on her shoulder. "Any second now, that security guard is going to see you," a voice advised her. "If I were you I'd leave the dress and come with us."
Us? The well-dressed couple had her book-ended. Irina's eyes darted wildly around and came to rest on the man's polished black shoes. He spoke Russian with an accent. The woman was younger, blonde, elegantly dressed in a soft leather coat and staring at Irina incredulously. What a bitch!
"Go away," she spat loud enough that the security guard slowly swung round. "I'm not going anywhere with you."
She could already see Sergei sidling towards the door, not even bothering to look back and check that she was OK. Then he was gone, an indistinct blur streaking past the window and she was on her own with the guard striding towards her. They didn't carry guns, Irina was pretty sure about that. Not here where the rich came to shop. Though you could never tell with the private security firms.
Irina tried to put the dress back on the rail; wrinkling it in her sweaty hands, messing it up like she did everything. "I… I…" the words were stuck in her throat, but the woman was calmly shielding her from view, taking the bolt cutters out of Irina's hands and dropping them into a capacious Gucci tote.
"Do something, Henri," she hissed in English. "And do it quickly."
Henri was already pushing Irina towards the sales desk. He presented the dress that she'd already torn with a flourish. "I'm terribly sorry but my niece has had a small accident. We'll pay for it, of course."
Irina waited until he was taking a credit card out of his wallet, before she bolted, the worn soles of her trainers skidding across the highly polished marble floor, but the blonde woman was blocking her exit.
"Don't even think about it," she rapped out. "Just stay there and smile and remember to thank your 'uncle' for getting you out of this mess."
Her 'uncle' had a stiff cardboard bag in his hand, as he nodded his head at the staff before hurrying over to them. "Let's get the hell out of here," he gritted between clenched teeth as they bundled Irina out of the door.
"What do you want from me?" she demanded brusquely, trying to wrench away from them as soon as they got outside. "You want me to pay you back for the dress, huh? How do you want me to do that?"
She knew about rich tourists. There were girls that hung around on the edges of Sergei's gang who'd come into the city and go to the fancy bars attached to the biggest hotels. They came back the next day with tearstains, bruised lips and fistfuls of dollars.
The woman was pulling Irina into the weak sunshine spilling down on Tretyakov Drive. There was nowhere to hide from two pairs of beady eyes that swept over the moth-eaten fur coat, the grubby tracksuit bottoms and trainers poking out from under the hem and Irina's face. Her stupid, sallow face with the blotchy brown marks all over it.
Irina sized them up – the woman could easily be knocked over, but Henri was tall and she could feel the tensile strength in his hand as he kept a tight grip on her arm. "I didn't ask you to pay for the dress," Irina insisted again.
It was like her words were made out of air. They simply brushed them away and continued to stare at her.
"Have you ever seen cheekbones like hers?" the woman said in English because they thought she was some dumb hick. "And she's tall."
"Thin too," the man added, actually daring to pull back the side of her coat, even as Irina hissed at him. "Rangy, she's got long legs."
Any moment now, Sergei would roar up on his bike. Except Sergei was probably halfway to St Petersburg by now and Irina was on her own. They didn't know that she could speak English and that was something at least that she could use to her advantage. Maybe even take the woman's bag while she was at it.
All Irina needed was to come up with a plan while they talked about her like she was a slab of meat on the butcher's block.
"I wonder how she photographs," the woman was saying and Irina couldn't help the shudder that ran through her. Everyone knew a girl who'd gone off to Sweden or Germany or Switzerland with a rich foreigner who'd promised her a passport and they were never heard of again. Sergei said that they got sold into prostitution rings. They'd sit there wide-eyed, listening to him go into lurid details. Then he'd ruffle Irina's hair. "Not like you have to worry about that," he'd say. "You'd have to pay them." And they'd all laugh. And Irina would laugh too, though actually she didn't think it was that funny.
"I'm going now," she said decisively, because the icy panic washing over her was making it hard to think clearly. "Get your hands off me or I'll scream."
She'd never screamed in her life but they didn't know that.
But they weren't letting go, instead the man nodded and the woman turned to her with a smile. "Tell me something, have you ever thought about being a model?"
Irina checked the pocket of her coat again for the bulky but reassuring weight of the bolt cutters, and cast an anxious look at Sergei who was chattering animatedly to the two glacially unimpressed sales assistants
She scanned the rails for the black silk dress that Sergei's client had requested. This was the bit that Irina hated the most because she could never tell the difference between silk and satin, charcoal and grey. Actually the part she hated the most was setting foot in Kitai-gorod where everyone looked at her shabby clothes and knew that she didn't belong, even wearing the voluminous fur coat that Sergei had stolen from his grandmother.
There were three black silk dresses hanging from one rail; so understated and elegant that Irina was convinced they'd disintegrate from one touch of her grubby fingers. She grabbed the collar of the first dress, checked the size and reached into her pocket for the cutters.
"You're gorgeous," she heard Sergei say behind her. "You ever think of being a model?"
Irina scowled. She knew that he was only flirting to distract the salesgirls. And she also knew that guys like Sergei with his twinkling blues eyes and easy smile weren't interested in girls like her. But still, it was pathetic the way the sales assistants were fawning over him now, even though he looked just as out of place in their stupid, ritzy boutique as she did.
Her fingers were shaking as she manoeuvred the bolt cutters carefully between the stem of the security tag and the delicate material. Not because she was scared. Irina wasn't scared of anything but Sergei was laying it on too thick now and their cover could get blown.
"Wow! I've never seen such beautiful women." Irina shifted to one side so she could glare at the simpering sales staff and make sure that a well-dressed couple were between her and the security guard stationed at the door. Sergei would punch him when she ran for the exit, Irina assured herself as she tried to cut through the thick plastic tag.
But then Sergei's phone started ringing.
"Lilya, baby, I'm a little busy right now. Can I call you back?"
Lilya was tiny and blonde and punctuated everything she said with a high-pitched giggle. Irina yanked impatiently at the dress, which gave up the fight and tore under her impatient fingers.
She swore softly under her breath. Keep calm. Keep calm. One black silk dress was much like any other. Irina seized the next one on the rail, vaguely aware that the guard was walking towards Sergei who was badgering one of the girls to open a glass display case. They could get 1000 rubles for Prada sunglasses. It wasn't part of the plan but that's what she liked about Sergei – he was so spontaneous, so exciting and so very about to get busted.
"Leave the store now," the guard ordered tersely. "Out, or we press the panic button."
He hadn't seen her yet. Irina fumbled with the cutters again, heard Sergei remonstrate with the staff.
She felt her body grow clammy, beads of sweat popping up on her forehead as a hand clamped down on her shoulder. "Any second now, that security guard is going to see you," a voice advised her. "If I were you I'd leave the dress and come with us."
Us? The well-dressed couple had her book-ended. Irina's eyes darted wildly around and came to rest on the man's polished black shoes. He spoke Russian with an accent. The woman was younger, blonde, elegantly dressed in a soft leather coat and staring at Irina incredulously. What a bitch!
"Go away," she spat loud enough that the security guard slowly swung round. "I'm not going anywhere with you."
She could already see Sergei sidling towards the door, not even bothering to look back and check that she was OK. Then he was gone, an indistinct blur streaking past the window and she was on her own with the guard striding towards her. They didn't carry guns, Irina was pretty sure about that. Not here where the rich came to shop. Though you could never tell with the private security firms.
Irina tried to put the dress back on the rail; wrinkling it in her sweaty hands, messing it up like she did everything. "I… I…" the words were stuck in her throat, but the woman was calmly shielding her from view, taking the bolt cutters out of Irina's hands and dropping them into a capacious Gucci tote.
"Do something, Henri," she hissed in English. "And do it quickly."
Henri was already pushing Irina towards the sales desk. He presented the dress that she'd already torn with a flourish. "I'm terribly sorry but my niece has had a small accident. We'll pay for it, of course."
Irina waited until he was taking a credit card out of his wallet, before she bolted, the worn soles of her trainers skidding across the highly polished marble floor, but the blonde woman was blocking her exit.
"Don't even think about it," she rapped out. "Just stay there and smile and remember to thank your 'uncle' for getting you out of this mess."
Her 'uncle' had a stiff cardboard bag in his hand, as he nodded his head at the staff before hurrying over to them. "Let's get the hell out of here," he gritted between clenched teeth as they bundled Irina out of the door.
"What do you want from me?" she demanded brusquely, trying to wrench away from them as soon as they got outside. "You want me to pay you back for the dress, huh? How do you want me to do that?"
She knew about rich tourists. There were girls that hung around on the edges of Sergei's gang who'd come into the city and go to the fancy bars attached to the biggest hotels. They came back the next day with tearstains, bruised lips and fistfuls of dollars.
The woman was pulling Irina into the weak sunshine spilling down on Tretyakov Drive. There was nowhere to hide from two pairs of beady eyes that swept over the moth-eaten fur coat, the grubby tracksuit bottoms and trainers poking out from under the hem and Irina's face. Her stupid, sallow face with the blotchy brown marks all over it.
Irina sized them up – the woman could easily be knocked over, but Henri was tall and she could feel the tensile strength in his hand as he kept a tight grip on her arm. "I didn't ask you to pay for the dress," Irina insisted again.
It was like her words were made out of air. They simply brushed them away and continued to stare at her.
"Have you ever seen cheekbones like hers?" the woman said in English because they thought she was some dumb hick. "And she's tall."
"Thin too," the man added, actually daring to pull back the side of her coat, even as Irina hissed at him. "Rangy, she's got long legs."
Any moment now, Sergei would roar up on his bike. Except Sergei was probably halfway to St Petersburg by now and Irina was on her own. They didn't know that she could speak English and that was something at least that she could use to her advantage. Maybe even take the woman's bag while she was at it.
All Irina needed was to come up with a plan while they talked about her like she was a slab of meat on the butcher's block.
"I wonder how she photographs," the woman was saying and Irina couldn't help the shudder that ran through her. Everyone knew a girl who'd gone off to Sweden or Germany or Switzerland with a rich foreigner who'd promised her a passport and they were never heard of again. Sergei said that they got sold into prostitution rings. They'd sit there wide-eyed, listening to him go into lurid details. Then he'd ruffle Irina's hair. "Not like you have to worry about that," he'd say. "You'd have to pay them." And they'd all laugh. And Irina would laugh too, though actually she didn't think it was that funny.
"I'm going now," she said decisively, because the icy panic washing over her was making it hard to think clearly. "Get your hands off me or I'll scream."
She'd never screamed in her life but they didn't know that.
But they weren't letting go, instead the man nodded and the woman turned to her with a smile. "Tell me something, have you ever thought about being a model?"
Monday, September 10, 2007
SNEAK PREVIEW! Fashionistas: Hadley!
Officially out on September 20th (though it seems to be available from most good bookshops and amazon.co.uk now, which isn't something I'm losing any sleep over), here is a small taste of Hadley Harlow to whet your appetites:
Hadley didn't believe in what might have beens. It was better to regret something you had done, than something you hadn't. That's what her yogi used to tell her. But then her yogi hadn't witnessed the moment that George and Candy first laid eyes on each other. If he had, he'd have given up on Buddhism and started stock-piling canned goods for the inevitable apocalypse.
"Oh my God, girlfriend!" George squealed, when he caught sight of Candy emerging from behind the velvet rope. "I fricking worship you, you foul-mouthed little bitch!"
"I love you too!" Candy threw her arms around George as the cameras started flashing. "You're the funniest thing in that lame-ass sitcom."
Hadley impatiently tapped her foot and waited for Candy to back away from her pretend boyfriend.
In the end, she had no choice but to trail after them, like the original third wheel, as they made their way up to the VIP area. To add insult to injury, Candy and George sailed past the door whore without a backward glance while she was forced to insist sweetly that, yes, she was on the guest list, thank you very much.
"… nightmare, Candy," she heard George say, as she caught up with them. "Used to step on all my cues and then Momzilla, that's what we called Amber on set, banned all baked goods because Hadley might get super-fat."
"I'm wheat intolerant," Hadley said icily, sliding into the booth. "And I never stepped on your cues."
"Take the stick out of your butt, Hadders," Candy advised, flagging down a waitress who deposited a tray full of garishly coloured drinks on the table. "It worked out OK in the end, didn't it?"
"How did it work out OK?" Hadley took a dubious sniff at one of the drinks and nearly got impaled on a stray cocktail umbrella. After her foray into champagne and the monster headache she'd had the next day, she was living alcohol-free.
"Well, you and George are love's young dream," Candy said archly, nudging George who giggled. "I mean, get a room, you two!"
That was obviously meant to be a joke as they were sitting miles apart but Hadley forced herself to turn her frown upside down and smile lovingly at George who pulled a face.
"Hadley's all right," he said grudgingly. "But, hey, don't you think she's really bossy under that fluffy exterior? She's all, like, hug me there's a photographer or don't act so gay when people are around." George clapped his hand over his mouth as he realised his monumental gaffe.
Candy's smile glittered. "But you're not gay," she pointed out. "Because you wouldn't be going out with Hadley if you were."
"Everyone in London acts gay," George hastily assured her. "It's the cool, new thing."
"Oh, really…" Trust Candy to be all suspicious-y.
"See, George acts all camp and stuff because he thinks it's funny," Hadley bit out, which was quite an achievement given the way her jaw was so tightly clenched. "Even though I've told him a million times that it's not."
George slid across the banquette so he could sling a careless arm around Hadley's shoulder. "You know I love to get a rise out of you, sweetness," he cooed, planting a sloppy kiss on her cheek. She should have got an Oscar right then for resisting the urge to squinch up her face and rub her hand over the spot that George's lips, lips of George!, had touched.
"You're so funny, darling," Hadley simpered, patting his hand and if she dug her nails in just a teensy weensy bit, then even God himself would forgive her.
"Have a drink," George whispered in her ear as Candy waved at someone on the other side of the room. "Loosen up a little bit before she begins to realise that I can't actually stand the sight of you."
"The feeling is beyond mutual," Hadley whispered back and grabbed the nearest drink, a fluoro pink concoction with a stray piece of pineapple floating forlornly in its depths. Hadley took a cautious sip.
"This has pomegranate in it," she announced, ignoring the acidic after-taste, which was more liquor-y than fruity. "That's like a superfood."
"See, it's practically a health drink," George soothed.
Candy agreed with him. "For God's sake Hadders, stop sniffing it and just chug." She took a long enthusiastic gulp from her own glass.
It definitely tasted nicer than the champagne. And the second drink, a blackberry martini, was almost approaching yummy, though the pips kept getting stuck in her teeth.
When Candy and George went off to dance, she even managed to wave them off with a carefree smile. Oooh, maybe she could get Mervyn to leak some bitter love triangle story to the gossip rags, as long as she emerged the eventual winner.
Hadley beckoned a tray-yielding waiter so she could have another blackberry martini – they really were all kinds of more-ish. She was starting to feel fuzzy round the edges. Fuzzy was good. For the first time since she sat in her lawyer's office all those months ago, the sharp, nagging anxiety had floated away.
She was just a girl with a pink flower in her hair slurping down a martini in a club in London. She didn't have to tell anyone off or do their job for them, or remember to keep her left profile away from the cameras. If this was what drinking did for you, then she was a fan.
It was all going fine, until Hadley tried to stand up and her legs registered their disapproval. She could do things in five inch heels that most girls had never even dreamt about, but suddenly balancing on them was a problem.
Her knees knocked painfully together as she cannoned off the side of the booth and into the back of someone.
"Sorry!" And that was also weird. Her teeth had gone numb. Hadley ran her tongue over them experimentally and they all seemed to be present and correct, but actually her tongue felt odd too. Like it was made of rubber.
She needed to pee and she needed to find George and she might possibly need another drink too. It took a few seconds to get her priorities in the right order and then she was stumbling down the stairs; her hand clutched tight to the rail.
Pit-stop done, (two of girls in the bathroom had broken into a tuneless rendition of Feelin' Kinda Hadley, the theme tune from Hadley's House, which Hadley had found hysterically funny) Hadley's next mission was to find her fake beau.
The problem was that George didn't really have any distinguishing features. Apart from his spectacularly smug smile and it was too dark in the club, to be able to hone in on that. Every second boy had over-gelled blonde hair and a white shirt.
"George's shirt is Comme des Garcons," Hadley muttered to herself, scanning the crowd of blonde, white-shirted boys to see if she could spot the ruffle detailing that made George totally not stand out in a crowd.
In desperation, Hadley clambered on to a chair almost putting her heel through a girl's leg, who took it with a really bad grace, and peered over people's heads.
It was no use; she still couldn't see. Hadley carefully held aloft her martini glass and climbed up on the table. It was so much better. Now she could see George and Candy whirling around like they were on So You Think You Can Dance?
"George!" Her ear-piercing shriek didn't carry over the surf guitars bursting forth from the DJ booth, but the people who were sitting around the table that she was currently standing on, still started bitching. "I'm sorry," she hissed. "But I have to find my boyfriend."
"You spill my drink, you pay for it," snarled one really surly girl who got even surlier when Hadley told her that there was a free bar if you were a celebrity.
"Are you from one of those sad-sack reality shows?" the girl said belligerently. "God, where do they find people like you?"
Standing on top of a table was not the best place to recite the highlights from your resume, but Hadley gave it her best shot.
Her audience was less than impressed. "Go fuck yourself."
"Well, there's no need to get snippy," she started to say when she felt two hands around her waist and she was lifted from the table and set on her own two, very unsteady feet. "How dare you, you…"
"Do you stand on tables at home? I'm sure Candy would have mentioned that before."
It was Reed. The man who'd manhandled her with his hands. At least her blackberry Martini was still intact. Hadley took a long, slow sip because table-hopping was thirsty work. "I've lost my boyfriend," she informed Reed gravely. "Your sister's run off with him. But he's my boyfriend. Mine." She poked Reed in the chest with her finger so he'd get the seriousness of the situation.
Instead he looked down to where her finger was prodding what felt like rock-hard abs, with a frown. "How much have you had to drink anyway?"
Hadley finished off the rest of her Blackberry martini in one defiant gulp. "You're not the boss of me. I'm the boss of me. And that whole stubble thing is so over. Would it kill you to shave?"
Reed rubbed the chin in question. "Yeah, it might."
Hadley squinted at him. In a sea of white shirts and blonde hair, he stood out like some black-clad interloper, determined not to get in to the Tiki swing of things. "Are you allergic to shaving cream?" she breathed, because, hello, freaky.
"You really can't hold your drink," Reed pronounced, deftly taking the glass out of her hand. "I thought all you LA kids were in rehab by the time you were 14. You're a real lightweight."
Hadley liked to think that she was dignified in her alleged drunkeness. "I never touched alcohol when I was younger. It would have totally stunted my physical development."
And deja ewwww! Because that made Reed remember he had a hard-earned reputation as a player to maintain and he ran his thickly lashed eyes all over her. She was obviously lacking, mostly in the breast department, because he turned away as someone touched him lightly on the shoulder.
Someone with straggly hair, gangly limbs and jutting cheekbones - obviously she was a successful model.
"Reed," the girl said in heavily accented English. "This place sucks. I want to go now."
He stroked the backs of his fingers down the girl's cheek but she pouted furiously and took a step back. "Now. We go now," she repeated emphatically.
"Will you be all right on your own?" Reed asked Hadley doubtfully. "Should I go and find someone?"
"Who would you find?" she asked, but he'd already turned away.
"Later," he called over his shoulder and she was left to go and fling her arms round George, and nudge Candy out of the way with her hip, just in time for a stray photographer to take their picture.
Hadley didn't believe in what might have beens. It was better to regret something you had done, than something you hadn't. That's what her yogi used to tell her. But then her yogi hadn't witnessed the moment that George and Candy first laid eyes on each other. If he had, he'd have given up on Buddhism and started stock-piling canned goods for the inevitable apocalypse.
"Oh my God, girlfriend!" George squealed, when he caught sight of Candy emerging from behind the velvet rope. "I fricking worship you, you foul-mouthed little bitch!"
"I love you too!" Candy threw her arms around George as the cameras started flashing. "You're the funniest thing in that lame-ass sitcom."
Hadley impatiently tapped her foot and waited for Candy to back away from her pretend boyfriend.
In the end, she had no choice but to trail after them, like the original third wheel, as they made their way up to the VIP area. To add insult to injury, Candy and George sailed past the door whore without a backward glance while she was forced to insist sweetly that, yes, she was on the guest list, thank you very much.
"… nightmare, Candy," she heard George say, as she caught up with them. "Used to step on all my cues and then Momzilla, that's what we called Amber on set, banned all baked goods because Hadley might get super-fat."
"I'm wheat intolerant," Hadley said icily, sliding into the booth. "And I never stepped on your cues."
"Take the stick out of your butt, Hadders," Candy advised, flagging down a waitress who deposited a tray full of garishly coloured drinks on the table. "It worked out OK in the end, didn't it?"
"How did it work out OK?" Hadley took a dubious sniff at one of the drinks and nearly got impaled on a stray cocktail umbrella. After her foray into champagne and the monster headache she'd had the next day, she was living alcohol-free.
"Well, you and George are love's young dream," Candy said archly, nudging George who giggled. "I mean, get a room, you two!"
That was obviously meant to be a joke as they were sitting miles apart but Hadley forced herself to turn her frown upside down and smile lovingly at George who pulled a face.
"Hadley's all right," he said grudgingly. "But, hey, don't you think she's really bossy under that fluffy exterior? She's all, like, hug me there's a photographer or don't act so gay when people are around." George clapped his hand over his mouth as he realised his monumental gaffe.
Candy's smile glittered. "But you're not gay," she pointed out. "Because you wouldn't be going out with Hadley if you were."
"Everyone in London acts gay," George hastily assured her. "It's the cool, new thing."
"Oh, really…" Trust Candy to be all suspicious-y.
"See, George acts all camp and stuff because he thinks it's funny," Hadley bit out, which was quite an achievement given the way her jaw was so tightly clenched. "Even though I've told him a million times that it's not."
George slid across the banquette so he could sling a careless arm around Hadley's shoulder. "You know I love to get a rise out of you, sweetness," he cooed, planting a sloppy kiss on her cheek. She should have got an Oscar right then for resisting the urge to squinch up her face and rub her hand over the spot that George's lips, lips of George!, had touched.
"You're so funny, darling," Hadley simpered, patting his hand and if she dug her nails in just a teensy weensy bit, then even God himself would forgive her.
"Have a drink," George whispered in her ear as Candy waved at someone on the other side of the room. "Loosen up a little bit before she begins to realise that I can't actually stand the sight of you."
"The feeling is beyond mutual," Hadley whispered back and grabbed the nearest drink, a fluoro pink concoction with a stray piece of pineapple floating forlornly in its depths. Hadley took a cautious sip.
"This has pomegranate in it," she announced, ignoring the acidic after-taste, which was more liquor-y than fruity. "That's like a superfood."
"See, it's practically a health drink," George soothed.
Candy agreed with him. "For God's sake Hadders, stop sniffing it and just chug." She took a long enthusiastic gulp from her own glass.
It definitely tasted nicer than the champagne. And the second drink, a blackberry martini, was almost approaching yummy, though the pips kept getting stuck in her teeth.
When Candy and George went off to dance, she even managed to wave them off with a carefree smile. Oooh, maybe she could get Mervyn to leak some bitter love triangle story to the gossip rags, as long as she emerged the eventual winner.
Hadley beckoned a tray-yielding waiter so she could have another blackberry martini – they really were all kinds of more-ish. She was starting to feel fuzzy round the edges. Fuzzy was good. For the first time since she sat in her lawyer's office all those months ago, the sharp, nagging anxiety had floated away.
She was just a girl with a pink flower in her hair slurping down a martini in a club in London. She didn't have to tell anyone off or do their job for them, or remember to keep her left profile away from the cameras. If this was what drinking did for you, then she was a fan.
It was all going fine, until Hadley tried to stand up and her legs registered their disapproval. She could do things in five inch heels that most girls had never even dreamt about, but suddenly balancing on them was a problem.
Her knees knocked painfully together as she cannoned off the side of the booth and into the back of someone.
"Sorry!" And that was also weird. Her teeth had gone numb. Hadley ran her tongue over them experimentally and they all seemed to be present and correct, but actually her tongue felt odd too. Like it was made of rubber.
She needed to pee and she needed to find George and she might possibly need another drink too. It took a few seconds to get her priorities in the right order and then she was stumbling down the stairs; her hand clutched tight to the rail.
Pit-stop done, (two of girls in the bathroom had broken into a tuneless rendition of Feelin' Kinda Hadley, the theme tune from Hadley's House, which Hadley had found hysterically funny) Hadley's next mission was to find her fake beau.
The problem was that George didn't really have any distinguishing features. Apart from his spectacularly smug smile and it was too dark in the club, to be able to hone in on that. Every second boy had over-gelled blonde hair and a white shirt.
"George's shirt is Comme des Garcons," Hadley muttered to herself, scanning the crowd of blonde, white-shirted boys to see if she could spot the ruffle detailing that made George totally not stand out in a crowd.
In desperation, Hadley clambered on to a chair almost putting her heel through a girl's leg, who took it with a really bad grace, and peered over people's heads.
It was no use; she still couldn't see. Hadley carefully held aloft her martini glass and climbed up on the table. It was so much better. Now she could see George and Candy whirling around like they were on So You Think You Can Dance?
"George!" Her ear-piercing shriek didn't carry over the surf guitars bursting forth from the DJ booth, but the people who were sitting around the table that she was currently standing on, still started bitching. "I'm sorry," she hissed. "But I have to find my boyfriend."
"You spill my drink, you pay for it," snarled one really surly girl who got even surlier when Hadley told her that there was a free bar if you were a celebrity.
"Are you from one of those sad-sack reality shows?" the girl said belligerently. "God, where do they find people like you?"
Standing on top of a table was not the best place to recite the highlights from your resume, but Hadley gave it her best shot.
Her audience was less than impressed. "Go fuck yourself."
"Well, there's no need to get snippy," she started to say when she felt two hands around her waist and she was lifted from the table and set on her own two, very unsteady feet. "How dare you, you…"
"Do you stand on tables at home? I'm sure Candy would have mentioned that before."
It was Reed. The man who'd manhandled her with his hands. At least her blackberry Martini was still intact. Hadley took a long, slow sip because table-hopping was thirsty work. "I've lost my boyfriend," she informed Reed gravely. "Your sister's run off with him. But he's my boyfriend. Mine." She poked Reed in the chest with her finger so he'd get the seriousness of the situation.
Instead he looked down to where her finger was prodding what felt like rock-hard abs, with a frown. "How much have you had to drink anyway?"
Hadley finished off the rest of her Blackberry martini in one defiant gulp. "You're not the boss of me. I'm the boss of me. And that whole stubble thing is so over. Would it kill you to shave?"
Reed rubbed the chin in question. "Yeah, it might."
Hadley squinted at him. In a sea of white shirts and blonde hair, he stood out like some black-clad interloper, determined not to get in to the Tiki swing of things. "Are you allergic to shaving cream?" she breathed, because, hello, freaky.
"You really can't hold your drink," Reed pronounced, deftly taking the glass out of her hand. "I thought all you LA kids were in rehab by the time you were 14. You're a real lightweight."
Hadley liked to think that she was dignified in her alleged drunkeness. "I never touched alcohol when I was younger. It would have totally stunted my physical development."
And deja ewwww! Because that made Reed remember he had a hard-earned reputation as a player to maintain and he ran his thickly lashed eyes all over her. She was obviously lacking, mostly in the breast department, because he turned away as someone touched him lightly on the shoulder.
Someone with straggly hair, gangly limbs and jutting cheekbones - obviously she was a successful model.
"Reed," the girl said in heavily accented English. "This place sucks. I want to go now."
He stroked the backs of his fingers down the girl's cheek but she pouted furiously and took a step back. "Now. We go now," she repeated emphatically.
"Will you be all right on your own?" Reed asked Hadley doubtfully. "Should I go and find someone?"
"Who would you find?" she asked, but he'd already turned away.
"Later," he called over his shoulder and she was left to go and fling her arms round George, and nudge Candy out of the way with her hip, just in time for a stray photographer to take their picture.
Monday, January 01, 2007
Inaugural 2007 post
Happy New Year!
I crawled out of bed at noon today after a very late night. I had a little party where I stuffed my guests full of an ungodly amount of food. Then we walked up to Ally Pally (the second highest point in London) for midnight and watched all the fireworks across the city as we drank champagne. Then back to my place for more Cava and pomegranate juice cocktails – because I am old enough to drink alcohol! Anyway, I hope that however you celebrated New Year's Eve, you had a good time and that 2007 brings you everything you want from health and happiness too foxy boys and styling frocks.
As promised this is an excerpt from Let's Get Lost that didn't make it into the final version.
And Rob really had been the best of a truly bad bunch. At least he'd hit puberty. We'd drunk these two super-sized bottles of cider quickly enough to qualify for the world record before Rob had dragged me off in the direction of the hut behind the Crown Bowling Green. He'd fancied himself quite the raconteur and regaled me with all these stories about how he could break into a car in five seconds and steal the stereo and the sub woofers, whatever the hell they were, before anyone realised. He was quite the charming conversationalist.
"People are real twats," he'd sniffed. "Most of the time they leave the doors unlocked."
"You don't say."
"Yeah. I've never really talked to a posh bird before."
I arched one of my eyebrows. "And how's it working out for you?"
"Dunno," he'd said, after a minute's thought. "So you gonna let me feel you up then?"
Out of the corner of my eye, I'd caught a flash of pink and I knew Nancy was in the vicinity already to report back. "C'mon, then," I'd sighed. "You can kiss me if you like."
After Rob had thoroughly rinsed my mouth out with his tongue for a good few minutes while I carefully manoeuvred him out of the line of fire, I'd had enough. Then he'd mauled my tits like he was trying to tune in one of those purloined car stereos and I'd had more than I could stand.
I'd gently extricated myself from his octopus-like embrace and firmly removed the paw that was clamped around my left buttock.
"What did you do that for?" Rob had asked, trying to worm his leg between mine while I thrust my head back to evade any more spit.
"Don't get me wrong, this has been real and stuff but I have to go," I'd said very pleasantly given the extreme mauling I'd just suffered. "Maybe I'll see you around."
He'd reached for me again as I'd adroitly side-stepped out of the path of his questing hands. "You're tight, you know that," he'd told me furiously.
"Gosh, thanks awfully for enlightening me." He didn't seem to be getting the message that I'd rather have my skin removed from my body with a rusty potato peeler than kiss him again. He'd kept lurching towards me with his lips puckered and Jesus, those hands… They should have had a government health warning tattooed across the knuckles.
"You know you want to," he'd cajoled, grabbing my wrists and it's so annoying that even the weediest boy can overpower me. But even weedy boys don't have nails as sharp as mine or know how to use them.
He gave a girly squeak when I dug them into the back of his hands and finally let me go. "Sorry about that," I'd chirped. "Did I mention that I was a Mormon?"
And then I turned and ran while he was still scrolling through the empty files where his brain should be to understand what I was saying.
I crawled out of bed at noon today after a very late night. I had a little party where I stuffed my guests full of an ungodly amount of food. Then we walked up to Ally Pally (the second highest point in London) for midnight and watched all the fireworks across the city as we drank champagne. Then back to my place for more Cava and pomegranate juice cocktails – because I am old enough to drink alcohol! Anyway, I hope that however you celebrated New Year's Eve, you had a good time and that 2007 brings you everything you want from health and happiness too foxy boys and styling frocks.
As promised this is an excerpt from Let's Get Lost that didn't make it into the final version.
And Rob really had been the best of a truly bad bunch. At least he'd hit puberty. We'd drunk these two super-sized bottles of cider quickly enough to qualify for the world record before Rob had dragged me off in the direction of the hut behind the Crown Bowling Green. He'd fancied himself quite the raconteur and regaled me with all these stories about how he could break into a car in five seconds and steal the stereo and the sub woofers, whatever the hell they were, before anyone realised. He was quite the charming conversationalist.
"People are real twats," he'd sniffed. "Most of the time they leave the doors unlocked."
"You don't say."
"Yeah. I've never really talked to a posh bird before."
I arched one of my eyebrows. "And how's it working out for you?"
"Dunno," he'd said, after a minute's thought. "So you gonna let me feel you up then?"
Out of the corner of my eye, I'd caught a flash of pink and I knew Nancy was in the vicinity already to report back. "C'mon, then," I'd sighed. "You can kiss me if you like."
After Rob had thoroughly rinsed my mouth out with his tongue for a good few minutes while I carefully manoeuvred him out of the line of fire, I'd had enough. Then he'd mauled my tits like he was trying to tune in one of those purloined car stereos and I'd had more than I could stand.
I'd gently extricated myself from his octopus-like embrace and firmly removed the paw that was clamped around my left buttock.
"What did you do that for?" Rob had asked, trying to worm his leg between mine while I thrust my head back to evade any more spit.
"Don't get me wrong, this has been real and stuff but I have to go," I'd said very pleasantly given the extreme mauling I'd just suffered. "Maybe I'll see you around."
He'd reached for me again as I'd adroitly side-stepped out of the path of his questing hands. "You're tight, you know that," he'd told me furiously.
"Gosh, thanks awfully for enlightening me." He didn't seem to be getting the message that I'd rather have my skin removed from my body with a rusty potato peeler than kiss him again. He'd kept lurching towards me with his lips puckered and Jesus, those hands… They should have had a government health warning tattooed across the knuckles.
"You know you want to," he'd cajoled, grabbing my wrists and it's so annoying that even the weediest boy can overpower me. But even weedy boys don't have nails as sharp as mine or know how to use them.
He gave a girly squeak when I dug them into the back of his hands and finally let me go. "Sorry about that," I'd chirped. "Did I mention that I was a Mormon?"
And then I turned and ran while he was still scrolling through the empty files where his brain should be to understand what I was saying.
Sunday, December 24, 2006
A Christmukkah gift to you
Happy Chrismukkah, dear readers!
I have a little present for you. Think of it like a DVD extra feature but with words. I'm posting some excerpts from Walker's bit of Pretty Things that never made it into the final version. I thought they might amuse you.
And then we had to stop because Lavinia strutted in and started screaming like a fishwife at us.
I had Charlie practically in catatonic shock next to me and over the other side of the room there was Daisy, curling in on herself as she bore the brunt of Lavinia's wrath.
Daisy has this really annoying thing about how she's fat. It's all "No, don't touch me there, I'm so lumpy." And even though I'm besotted with the evil little bitch, even I could never call her exactly sylph-like. But as she sat there, her lips, her shoulders, her everything drooping further down as Lavinia got going with her invective, she seemed to shrink before my eyes. Disappear into herself.
When she got up and tore out of there, it was like she was taking another piece of my soul with her.
***************************************************
"Um hang on a second," Charlie said from behind his fingers. "Don't take this the wrong way but I… well, I… that is… I like it when you flirt with me. I know it's not going to go anywhere. Believe me, I'm painfully aware of that but it doesn't mean you have to stop."
"I can't help it," I tried to explain. "It's like this inevitable reaction once I know someone fancies me. But I could try to stop…"
Charlie pushed the sun-bleached tips of his hair out of his eyes and frowned. "Didn't you just hear what I said? I don't want you to stop flirting with me. It's about the only sexual contact I get."
"Or you can stop," he hastily amended. "But only when I'm madly in love with someone who has the good sense to be madly in love with me back."
"I think the back of my head has just fallen out."
***********************************************************
"So I guess you told Charlie," Daisy said calmly to Brie who refused to back down. I was getting really pissed off with V.02 of Brie, the bolshy remix.
"Charlie's my friend." The tone of Brie's voice redefined the word 'petulance.'
"Yeah and you didn't want him to find out like you did and be upset. I get that." Daisy put a hand up to shield her eyes from the sun and smiled at me.
"You been making inroads into my stash?" There had to be some reason why she was being so pleasant to me in front of other people.
I got another lazy Daisy smile and then she deliberately leaned forward and covered my hand with hers. None of this was wasted on Brie and Charlie who wore matching perplexed expressions like we were the last question in Who Wants To Be A Millionaire.
"Walker didn't tell you because I asked him not to," Daisy said to Charlie. "Because I was trying to pretend that me and him were just this temporary bout of insanity."
It took Brie and Charlie several millennia to eat their sausage and chips and bombard us with questions, which Daisy refused to answer. Instead she wouldn't stop touching me. Running her fingers along the back of my neck and tugging at the short strands of hair she found there. Curling her leg round mine under the table. Resting her head against my shoulder. There's only so much resistance a boy can give and in the end I stopped trying to fight it and let her do her worst.
The other two finally pissed off and then Daisy sighed. "Thank God for that. I thought they'd never leave. C'mere."
****************************************************
Next week, I will be posting a little unseen snippet from Let's Get Lost for your viewing pleasure.
Have a good one!
Love Sarra x
I have a little present for you. Think of it like a DVD extra feature but with words. I'm posting some excerpts from Walker's bit of Pretty Things that never made it into the final version. I thought they might amuse you.
And then we had to stop because Lavinia strutted in and started screaming like a fishwife at us.
I had Charlie practically in catatonic shock next to me and over the other side of the room there was Daisy, curling in on herself as she bore the brunt of Lavinia's wrath.
Daisy has this really annoying thing about how she's fat. It's all "No, don't touch me there, I'm so lumpy." And even though I'm besotted with the evil little bitch, even I could never call her exactly sylph-like. But as she sat there, her lips, her shoulders, her everything drooping further down as Lavinia got going with her invective, she seemed to shrink before my eyes. Disappear into herself.
When she got up and tore out of there, it was like she was taking another piece of my soul with her.
"Um hang on a second," Charlie said from behind his fingers. "Don't take this the wrong way but I… well, I… that is… I like it when you flirt with me. I know it's not going to go anywhere. Believe me, I'm painfully aware of that but it doesn't mean you have to stop."
"I can't help it," I tried to explain. "It's like this inevitable reaction once I know someone fancies me. But I could try to stop…"
Charlie pushed the sun-bleached tips of his hair out of his eyes and frowned. "Didn't you just hear what I said? I don't want you to stop flirting with me. It's about the only sexual contact I get."
"Or you can stop," he hastily amended. "But only when I'm madly in love with someone who has the good sense to be madly in love with me back."
"I think the back of my head has just fallen out."
"So I guess you told Charlie," Daisy said calmly to Brie who refused to back down. I was getting really pissed off with V.02 of Brie, the bolshy remix.
"Charlie's my friend." The tone of Brie's voice redefined the word 'petulance.'
"Yeah and you didn't want him to find out like you did and be upset. I get that." Daisy put a hand up to shield her eyes from the sun and smiled at me.
"You been making inroads into my stash?" There had to be some reason why she was being so pleasant to me in front of other people.
I got another lazy Daisy smile and then she deliberately leaned forward and covered my hand with hers. None of this was wasted on Brie and Charlie who wore matching perplexed expressions like we were the last question in Who Wants To Be A Millionaire.
"Walker didn't tell you because I asked him not to," Daisy said to Charlie. "Because I was trying to pretend that me and him were just this temporary bout of insanity."
It took Brie and Charlie several millennia to eat their sausage and chips and bombard us with questions, which Daisy refused to answer. Instead she wouldn't stop touching me. Running her fingers along the back of my neck and tugging at the short strands of hair she found there. Curling her leg round mine under the table. Resting her head against my shoulder. There's only so much resistance a boy can give and in the end I stopped trying to fight it and let her do her worst.
The other two finally pissed off and then Daisy sighed. "Thank God for that. I thought they'd never leave. C'mere."
Next week, I will be posting a little unseen snippet from Let's Get Lost for your viewing pleasure.
Have a good one!
Love Sarra x
Saturday, April 29, 2006
Let's Get Lost - excerpt
I'm behind schedule on my writing, which means I've had to cancel all my plans for the weekend. So instead of a post telling you all of my thrilling adventures in typing, I thought I'd let you read this extract that was cut from the final version of Let's Get Lost. It came in at 20,000 words over, so a lot had to go.
This was a scene with Isabel and her clueless guidance consellor. Hope you enjoy it, even if you haven't read the book yet!
Only two things got me through Friday: Smith's unfeigned delight when I told him that I'd engineered a whole weekend together and the holdall I had stuffed in my locker which contained everything I needed to maintain his delight.
It even got me through another session with Claire who kept prodding and prodding at me as if I was a sleeping dog she was trying to wake up.
Thankfully she'd abandoned her little scheme to have me spilling my guts and copious tears all over her kilim rug and decided to talk about what a mean, old bully I was.
"You seem to have quite a fierce reputation among your peers, why do you think that is," she asked, gimlet eyes fixed steadily on me. I made a mental note to find out if Lily was seeing her too. "Sometimes when people are in pain, they transfer it on to those around them, don't they, Isabel?"
I crossed my legs and tried to decide whether I should wear my vintage little black dress or my other vintage little black dress when we went up to London tomorrow. It was such a tough decision that I could almost tune out the sound of Claire's voice buzzing vaguely around the periphery of my senses.
"… and you wrote such a beautiful essay about The Great Gatsby. Mrs Phillips told me that you have a very advanced understanding of the themes of the novel for your age. You're not immature, Isabel, quite the contrary, so I'd really like to know your thoughts on your behaviour over the last year. What do you think are the underlying reasons for your problems with socialisation?"
I blinked at her. Maybe the silent thing was getting old. And maybe I could befuddle her with some dense psychobabble. Because one thing was for sure, she didn't want to know the truth.
"I guess…" I began uncertainly and she leaned forward with an obscenely eager expression.
"Yes, Isabel?"
"Well, it's like in The Great Gatsby when Nick idealises Daisy as this perfect woman and she isn't. And she didn't ask for it, but she takes advantage of his love all the same. Nobody ever knows what someone else is like. Not really. They just end up projecting all this crap onto the other person, you know?"
Claire was staring at me blankly and it was pretty obvious that she didn't know. She was the Grand Pooba of cluelessness.
"I see," she said, nodding frantically and I stared at the box of tissues and wondered if I could get her to cry. It would be my greatest triumph.
"I don't mean to be rude, but have you actually read The Great Gatsby?"
That stopped her in her tracks. She fingered her spectacles chain and licked her thin lips nervously. "Well, many years ago. Or was that The Fountainhead?"
"The Fountainhead is by Ayn Rand, F Scott Fitzgerald wrote The Great Gatsby," I told her kindly. "They're two completely different books. Gatsby's about the death of the American dream and The Fountainhead is about the theory of objectivism and the strength of the individual. They couldn't be more different," I finished scathingly and I'd missed this.
Before, Dad would pick out novels for me to read, then he'd take me out to Mrs Hudson's on Sydney Street for apple pie and we'd discuss each book in detail. But it had stopped, after Mrs Cohen got all antsy that I was developing too far ahead of the curriculum because God forbid that I should actually be bored in class because I'd read the set text three times before and debated it with a Professor of Literature. And Mrs Hudson's had the best apple pie.
"Goodness, Isabel, you can be quite strident," Claire breathed. "Are you this forceful with your friends? Maybe if you were a little gentler with your opinions, then people would be less intimidated by you."
I think it was that patronising little speech that made me swear a solemn vow that I'd have her crying like a little baby before the end of term.
"Really? Do I come across as intimidating? How weird. Am I intimidating you, Claire? 'Cause if I am, I'm very sorry."
She gave a nervous laugh. "No, of course not. It's lovely to have you participating in the session."
"Why?"
"Why what, Isabel?"
"Why is it lovely to have me participating in the session?" It was a fair question because it wasn't lovely for me. It ranked somewhere below rectal surgery.
It was a totally moot point, which one of us was more relieved when the final bell sounded.
"4 o'clock already?" Claire cried, scooping up her papers and almost falling over her Earth shoes in her haste to put as much distance between us as possible. "Have a wonderful weekend. I'll see you next Friday."
I stayed sitting down long enough for her to start getting this haunted look at the possibility that I might want to stay and chat, before I slowly uncoiled myself out of the chair. Then I sauntered towards the door, taking my sweet time about it and it wasn't until I closed the door behind me that I let myself break into a mad sprint so I could throw my books into my locker, grab my bag and get the hell out of Dodge before The Trio Of Doom caught up with me.
Cross-posted to http://blog.myspace.com/sarramanning
This was a scene with Isabel and her clueless guidance consellor. Hope you enjoy it, even if you haven't read the book yet!
Only two things got me through Friday: Smith's unfeigned delight when I told him that I'd engineered a whole weekend together and the holdall I had stuffed in my locker which contained everything I needed to maintain his delight.
It even got me through another session with Claire who kept prodding and prodding at me as if I was a sleeping dog she was trying to wake up.
Thankfully she'd abandoned her little scheme to have me spilling my guts and copious tears all over her kilim rug and decided to talk about what a mean, old bully I was.
"You seem to have quite a fierce reputation among your peers, why do you think that is," she asked, gimlet eyes fixed steadily on me. I made a mental note to find out if Lily was seeing her too. "Sometimes when people are in pain, they transfer it on to those around them, don't they, Isabel?"
I crossed my legs and tried to decide whether I should wear my vintage little black dress or my other vintage little black dress when we went up to London tomorrow. It was such a tough decision that I could almost tune out the sound of Claire's voice buzzing vaguely around the periphery of my senses.
"… and you wrote such a beautiful essay about The Great Gatsby. Mrs Phillips told me that you have a very advanced understanding of the themes of the novel for your age. You're not immature, Isabel, quite the contrary, so I'd really like to know your thoughts on your behaviour over the last year. What do you think are the underlying reasons for your problems with socialisation?"
I blinked at her. Maybe the silent thing was getting old. And maybe I could befuddle her with some dense psychobabble. Because one thing was for sure, she didn't want to know the truth.
"I guess…" I began uncertainly and she leaned forward with an obscenely eager expression.
"Yes, Isabel?"
"Well, it's like in The Great Gatsby when Nick idealises Daisy as this perfect woman and she isn't. And she didn't ask for it, but she takes advantage of his love all the same. Nobody ever knows what someone else is like. Not really. They just end up projecting all this crap onto the other person, you know?"
Claire was staring at me blankly and it was pretty obvious that she didn't know. She was the Grand Pooba of cluelessness.
"I see," she said, nodding frantically and I stared at the box of tissues and wondered if I could get her to cry. It would be my greatest triumph.
"I don't mean to be rude, but have you actually read The Great Gatsby?"
That stopped her in her tracks. She fingered her spectacles chain and licked her thin lips nervously. "Well, many years ago. Or was that The Fountainhead?"
"The Fountainhead is by Ayn Rand, F Scott Fitzgerald wrote The Great Gatsby," I told her kindly. "They're two completely different books. Gatsby's about the death of the American dream and The Fountainhead is about the theory of objectivism and the strength of the individual. They couldn't be more different," I finished scathingly and I'd missed this.
Before, Dad would pick out novels for me to read, then he'd take me out to Mrs Hudson's on Sydney Street for apple pie and we'd discuss each book in detail. But it had stopped, after Mrs Cohen got all antsy that I was developing too far ahead of the curriculum because God forbid that I should actually be bored in class because I'd read the set text three times before and debated it with a Professor of Literature. And Mrs Hudson's had the best apple pie.
"Goodness, Isabel, you can be quite strident," Claire breathed. "Are you this forceful with your friends? Maybe if you were a little gentler with your opinions, then people would be less intimidated by you."
I think it was that patronising little speech that made me swear a solemn vow that I'd have her crying like a little baby before the end of term.
"Really? Do I come across as intimidating? How weird. Am I intimidating you, Claire? 'Cause if I am, I'm very sorry."
She gave a nervous laugh. "No, of course not. It's lovely to have you participating in the session."
"Why?"
"Why what, Isabel?"
"Why is it lovely to have me participating in the session?" It was a fair question because it wasn't lovely for me. It ranked somewhere below rectal surgery.
It was a totally moot point, which one of us was more relieved when the final bell sounded.
"4 o'clock already?" Claire cried, scooping up her papers and almost falling over her Earth shoes in her haste to put as much distance between us as possible. "Have a wonderful weekend. I'll see you next Friday."
I stayed sitting down long enough for her to start getting this haunted look at the possibility that I might want to stay and chat, before I slowly uncoiled myself out of the chair. Then I sauntered towards the door, taking my sweet time about it and it wasn't until I closed the door behind me that I let myself break into a mad sprint so I could throw my books into my locker, grab my bag and get the hell out of Dodge before The Trio Of Doom caught up with me.
Cross-posted to http://blog.myspace.com/sarramanning
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