Rhino What You Did Last Summer Read online

  Then Sahara’s old pair ring to congratulate her and Sahara tells them she thought about how she was going to do it for, like, such a long time and in the end decided to do it in exactly the same way as she did the disclaimer for Bank of America.

  ‘If it ain’t broke…’ Nia goes.

  This continues, it has to be said, for most of the next hour, until Corey eventually stands up and announces that she has, like, bikram yoga in the morning. Nia leaves as well, presumably not wanting to be a Klingon. On her way out the door, she tells me she hopes I’m proud of Sahara and I tell her of course I am – birds who can read fast don’t come along every day.

  I’m not a happy bunny, it has to be said, feeling like I’ve been taken for a mug here. But it’s amazing how quick I am to let bygones be bygones when her friends are out the door and it’s just me and her alone.

  Not to put too fine a point on it, I’m all over her like I’m a diabetic and her tongue’s sugar-coated.

  She kicks off her flip-flops and drags me down onto the corpet. I yank up her structured Roland Mouret sheath – she told me what it was and how much it cost when she heard what she thought was a rip – then I’m suddenly showing her one or two tricks, which, judging from the oh-my-god tally, she definitely hasn’t seen before.

  Now this is going to sound weird, roysh, but despite all of this, I suppose you could call it, foreplay, it’s pretty focking quiet south of El Paso. Which never happens to me. It might have been all the talk of pelvic inflammatory disease, not to mention stable relationships, but I’m suddenly limp as the proverbial bizkit.

  Sahara is gagging for me so, all credit to her, she’s pretty understanding in the circumstances. She suggests we take it through to the bedroom and just take our time. Which works a treat, as it happens. Five minutes of rolling around in the old Thomas Lees and she’s suddenly taking the Lord’s name again – this time at, like, the top of her voice?

  At some point in the proceedings – I’d like to say halfway, but then I never make promises I can’t keep – Sahara’s face goes all serious and she’s like, ‘Fuck – what was that?’

  I’m there, ‘I didn’t hear anything,’ which I actually didn’t?

  But then, of course, I suddenly do. A man’s voice going, ‘I saw the TV! Congratulations!’

  She says something then that always ends up nearly stopping my hort, no matter how many times I’ve heard it down through the years. ‘Oh my God – it’s my boyfriend.’

  Of course, I’m out of that bed like the mattress is on fire and my orse is catching.

  I’m going, ‘Boyfriend? Boyfriend? ’

  She says he’s supposed to be in Napa – as if that’s any explanation.

  ‘You never said you’d an actual boyfriend,’ I go and she’s there, ‘Would it have mattered?’ and I’m forced to admit – to myself obviously – that it never has in the past.

  I’m telling you, if getting dressed running was an Olympic sport, Jockey Shorts would be banging the door down to sponsor me. I’m throwing on my clothes while she’s rubbing her temples going, ‘I need to think, I need to think, I need to think…’

  However much time that’s going to take, we actually don’t have it? I jump into the old Dubes, then I reef open the window and look out. We’re, like, two storeys up.

  ‘I’ve got an idea,’ she suddenly goes and, like a fool, I wait around to hear it.

  ‘I’m really, really sorry,’ she goes. ‘You’re, like, a great guy? But Trevion also happens to be my agent?’

  I’m actually there thinking, Trevion? How random a name is that? when, all of a sudden, Sahara switches off the light on the nightstand, sending the room into total darkness, then storts screaming.

  It all happens pretty quickly after that.

  The next thing I hear is these big clumpy footsteps running across the landing, while at the top of her voice she storts going, ‘Trevion! Trevion! I think there’s someone in the room!’

  The door flies open, the main light goes on and I’m suddenly stood there staring at this enormous dude with biceps like focking basketballs. ‘Who the fuck are you?’ he goes, obviously surprised to see me.

  I’m like, ‘Okay, I kind of know how this looks?’

  Sahara points at the open window. ‘He must have climbed in,’ she goes. ‘Thank God you came home! I don’t know what he was going to do to me.’

  ‘Whoa, whoa, whoa,’ I go, then I look at Trevion. ‘I know it’s no consolation to you, Dude, but this was an actual legitimate pull.’

  Now I know fock-all about American sports, roysh, but I’d bet ten squids to your fifty that the thing that suddenly hit me across the side of the head and sent me falling against the wall was, like, a softball bat. My ears are suddenly ringing, but they’re still working well enough to hear him tell Sahara to call the cops, which is when I realize that the time for, like, polite negotiation is over. The LA focking PD, I’m thinking, I’ve seen some of their work on YouTube.

  I turn around and look at the drop to the ground. It’s got to be, like, twenty feet, maybe more. But Trevion swings the bat at me again, this time missing my head, but taking, like, a huge chunk of plaster off the wall. I hop up onto the window-sill and, without even turning to Sahara to say goodbye, I jump two storeys to the street below.

  2. On the shores of Lake Ewok

  She’s standing at the door of my hotel suite with a box of doughnuts and that smile that I never could resist? ‘Peace offering!’ she goes, waving them at me.

  Of course, I’m not even that pissed off. But I’m still like, ‘You were out of order – and we’re talking bang.’

  I let her in.

  She goes, ‘It’s, like, oh my God, you have no idea how much of a shock that was to my system? But I totally over-reacted and I’m sorry.’

  I tell her not to sweat it – it’s LL Cool J.

  ‘I’ve been trying to get her on her mobile,’ she goes, as in Erika, ‘but it’s going straight to her voicemail.’

  I’m there, ‘I’d, er, leave her if I were you. I was talking to her – as in, yesterday? She said she doesn’t want to talk to anyone. She mentioned needing space.’

  ‘But she couldn’t be including me in that. I’m, like, her Best Best Friend.’

  ‘She said everyone.’

  ‘But did she name me specifically?’

  I just nod, which I suppose still counts as a lie. It’s just I know that if the two of them get talking, she’ll be on the next plane over and the next thing they’ll be doing the whole sisters-in-law routine. I need time to get my head around this shit first.

  I change the subject, tell her she looks well. She looks down and tells me it’s a Brette Sandler sheer tunic and that everyone’s going to be wearing them this year. And underneath she mentions that she’s wearing an Ashley Paige bikini. I tell her I wouldn’t mind checking it out, to see is it suitable for an establishment like this, and she laughs and tells me I’m actually dreaming.

  ‘Anyway, get dressed,’ she eventually goes, ‘I’m taking you out for the day –my way of saying sorry.’

  I grab a quick Jack Bauer, then we’re suddenly on the freeway on the way to wherever it is we’re going. We’re in his old cor – the focking Prius – so I’m just sitting back, watching the sights. In the next lane, this – if I’m being honest – Ales-sandra Ambrosio lookalike in a Mercedes SLK Luxury Roadster gives me the serious once-over and from the look on her face, she’s impressed.

  ‘So,’ Sorcha suddenly goes, possibly copping it, ‘how was your date last night?’ at the same time trying not to sound too interested.

  I’m there, ‘Not bad – I’ve had worse,’ and she smiles and goes, ‘Worse than a belt across the side of the head?’

  She misses fock-all, in fairness to her. I touch my left temple. He could have killed me, the focking lunatic. She gives my hand a squeeze, to tell me she’s only ripping the piss, and of course I end up having to laugh?

  ‘So come on,’ she goes then. ‘Erika �
� tell me the story.’

  I’m there, ‘Not a huge amount to tell. Turns out my old man and her old dear were, like, childhood sweethorts…’

  ‘Helen and Charles – oh my God, that’s, like, so random.’

  ‘Big-time. It’s, like, who knows what the fock she saw in him.’

  We end up stopped at lights. She goes, ‘Your parents have had, like, such fascinating lives, haven’t they?’

  I’m there, ‘Depends what you consider fascinating.’

  ‘Like, I knew your mum was engaged before? Then that broke up and, well, she’s told me loads about her Paris years. You know she had an affair with a bullfighter?’

  ‘Yeah – and she ended up marrying a bullshitter.’

  I’m actually pretty pleased with that.

  She’s there, ‘Your dad, though – even though I’ve always got on, oh my God, so amazingly with him, he’s still a bit of a mystery to me.’

  ‘There’s no mystery,’ I go. ‘Him and Helen were, like, boyfriend-girlfriend in, I don’t know, the olden days, whatever you want to call them. She went to live in the States – probably to get away from him. Years later – as in after he married my old dear? – she came back and they ended up having a fling…’

  ‘Oh! My God!’

  ‘I know. Focking seedy. He’s not exactly the Mr Nice Goy he cracks on to be? I’ve been saying that for years.’

  ‘You know,’ Sorcha goes, sort of, like, looking at me sideways, ‘I can actually see the likeness between you and Erika now,’ which I suppose – looks-wise –is a compliment.

  The lights turn green again. I still can’t believe I’m sitting in a Prius.

  ‘How’s Cillian?’ I go, deliberately trying to make his name sound ridiculous. ‘Are you letting him keep the Lamborghini?’

  She doesn’t answer. She just goes, ‘He came home so drunk last night.’

  I’m there, ‘Drunk? The last I knew, he was a gin and tonic man – if you could call someone who drinks gin and tonic a man.’

  ‘Well, last night it was beer. He went out with Josh and Kyle.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘They’re friends of his – they work in, like, Collateral Debt Obligations?’

  ‘How has he got friends over here already?’

  She’s like, ‘Well, they’re both from California? But Josh went to the Smurfit School of Business,’ which is where Cillian went. ‘And Kyle is Josh’s best friend.’

  I actually laugh. ‘Sad,’ I go. ‘So, what, he went out and got mullered? Who’s he trying to be – me?’

  ‘That’s what I said to him. I said I’ve already had one unhappy marriage, Cillian – I don’t want another one?’ which I have to say hurts, although I don’t let her know that.

  Her BlackBerry beeps. She’s like, ‘Will you be an absolute sweethort and read that for me? It might be important.’

  As it happens, it is.

  ‘Cameron Diaz is reportedly angry with Jessica Biel for turning up at the Sundance Film Festival with Justin Timberlake,’ I go, ‘then going sunboarding with her former beau…’

  ‘Oh! My God!’

  ‘And Halle Berry wore a satin Monique Lhuillier dress with peacock feathers along with Terry de Havilland strappy sandals and glittery Chopard diamonds to some movie premiere.’

  She repeats every word of this carefully, like she’s memorizing it, then she nods, like she approves.

  When Sorcha said she was taking me out for the day to apologize, what she meant was she was taking me to Kitson, the boutique on Robertson Bouvelard where she’s already got – oh my God – so many ideas for her own shop.

  So suddenly, roysh, instead of wrapping my face around a plate of wings and a couple of JDs, I’m standing there watching Sorcha go at the racks like a lion picking a wildebeest clean, my orms filling up with clothes that she’s planning to try on.

  ‘Robertson is the place to be,’ she’s going. ‘That’s why they’re all here, Ross – Kitson, Curve, Lisa Kline. Because they know all the celebrities hang out here. Having Katie or Halle or Reese photographed walking into your shop in, like, a supermarket tabloid is better than a two-page ad in Vogue. I read that in the LA Times. All the shops on this street, they’re not so much retail outlets as, like, shrines to the major brands. That’s why rents have gone up, like, five hundred per cent…’

  A dude who works in the shop walks by and, at the top of his voice, goes, ‘Whoa – you’re working three summer trends there, girl! Baby blue, ruffles and a maxidress,’ and Sorcha turns to me with a look of, like, awe on her face and says that’s the kind of thing she wants to be able to say to customers.

  ‘You want I start a room for you?’

  She’s like, ‘That’d be amazing.’

  Anyway, where all this is going is, I end up sitting in the little sofa area, flicking through magazines, looking at photographs of Faye Dunaway and thinking what a total and utter GILF she is, in fairness to her. The dude who’s been helping Sorcha in the changing rooms wanders over and sits basically down beside me. ‘Can I ask you,’ he goes, totally out of the blue, ‘are you, like, a footballer?’

  I laugh.

  ‘Near enough,’ I go. ‘I’m, like, a rugby player?’

  I don’t say former because that’s the beauty of LA – you can be whoever you want?

  ‘Rugby?’ he goes.

  I’m still trying to get my head around the fact that no one’s heard of me over here.

  ‘It’s like American football?’ I go. ‘Except we don’t go in for all the padding. Where I come from, that’d be considered majorly wussy.’

  ‘So where are you from?’

  He’s actually a really nice goy.

  ‘A place called Ireland?’

  ‘Oyer Lund! Oh, that accent! So, this is, like, a personal question?’ he goes, obviously checking out my biceps. ‘But what do you bench-press?’

  I’m there, ‘I could tell you, but it’d probably make you sick.’

  He seems pretty impressed by that, it has to be said. Which is nice because he’s obviously in pretty good shape himself. He’s there, ‘So are you in, like, a gym?’

  I’m there, ‘Not over here. I was thinking of looking for one, though.’

  ‘Oh! My God!’ he goes. ‘I am in the most amazing gym. You want to check it out sometime?’

  I’m there, ‘Dude, I’d love that,’ because, like I said, roysh, he’s pretty sound.

  ‘Great. You want, we could get, like, a coffee later? I could show you my workout journal? I’m kind of a part-time personal trainer. I could give you some tips on your fitness goals.’

  ‘Coola boola – that’s what we say for, like, cool.’

  ‘Okay, here’s, like, my card? I finish at six? My name’s Harvey?’

  I’m there, ‘Ross,’ and we shake hands, which feels kind of weird? But I tell him I’ll bell him later and I think nothing more of it.

  Sorcha decides she wants none of the three hundred and seventy-five pieces of clothing she took into the changing room, though I notice that Harvey doesn’t give her the filthies that she usually gives to customers who try on loads and buy fock-all.

  On the way out the door, she tells me that she has, like, a treat for me. She’s booked lunch for us at The Ivy.

  So we tip over the road. I order the mesquite-grilled Cajun prime rib, she orders the lime shrimp salad, and we end up sitting there, eating and just shooting the shit. The place is, like, full of celebs and every so often, roysh, Sorcha will go, ‘Peri Gilpin, six o’clock,’ or ‘Paul Sculfor, immediately behind you,’ then tell me how she would – oh my God – so love to be famous herself.

  She asks me how I’m liking LA and I tell her I’m actually loving it. I might even stay a few months. She tells me she loves the way they say, ‘Those are lovely items,’ when they’re folding your shit and sticking it in the bag. She says she must remember to call things items. And the way they call you by your name when they’re processing your credit cord. And the way they present you yo
ur receipt in a little cardboard folder with a chocolate – always fairtrade cocoa, by the way. ‘It’s, like, the customer over here is God?’

  I tell her I thought that goy in that shop was really cool. ‘Had a great chat with him,’ I go. ‘Seems big into his sport. I’m actually meeting him for a coffee later.’

  ‘The guy in the shop?’ she suddenly goes.

  I’m like, ‘Yeah.’

  ‘The guy with the really good tan and the tight T-shirt?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘And the BlackBerry like mine, except white?’

  ‘Yeah, he’s going to take me to this gym he goes to.’

  She’s there, ‘After you have a coffee?’ with a big smile on her boat.

  I’m like, ‘Yeah – what’s the biggie, Babes?’

  ‘What’s the biggie? Ross, you’re going on a date.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You’ve agreed to go on a date with this guy.’

  I’m there, ‘It’s hordly a date. It’s, like, a mate thing – like I said, he’s pretty keen to show me this gym of his. And his workout journal. But that’s all there is to it.’

  ‘Well, I wonder does he see it like that. It sounds to me like he was hitting on you.’

  ‘Hitting on me? Do you think he’s even… you know?’

  ‘Are you honestly telling me you couldn’t tell?’

  ‘Well, no.’

  ‘Ross, he wasn’t even manbiguous. He was, like, so gay. Not that I’ve got a problem with that – as you well know, I’ve got, oh my God, loads of gay friends. Or I did in UCD.’

  ‘Shit.’

  ‘Ross, you’ve got to go and tell him.’

  ‘Tell him what?’

  ‘Tell him that he got the wrong end of the stick.’

  I’m there, ‘Nah, I just won’t bother my orse ringing him – the usual.’

  ‘Ross,’ she goes, ‘you will not do the usual. I don’t want to be ashamed to go in there – it happens to be a shop I go into practically twice a week.’

  ‘Sorcha, please do not make me do this.’

  ‘You led this guy on…’

  ‘I didn’t lead him on!’

  ‘Well, you must have done something for him to think you were interested.’