Part 40 (2/2)

'You promised,' I remind her.

'Desperate times call for desperate measures...'

Five minutes later Zo emerges from the Ladies with Eddie stretched across her ample bosom.

'You've given him some kind of fabric facelift,' I say, trying to tug him back to normality.

'Let's get another drink this time we'll get ones that match our outfits!'

The girl behind the bar seems distracted as we make our order. Halfway through blending the pineapple she looks beyond us and calls, 'Goodnight, Mr Powers!' with underlying 'Take me with you!' pleading.

Zo turns round for a final gawp, causing Eddie to do a major double-take as he pa.s.ses.

'Hi! Wow, is that me?' He studies her chest. 'It's like looking in a funfair mirror!'

Zo giggles.

'You know what I have to say next?'

'What?'

He leans in close. 'Your chest looks great with my face on it.'

Just when I think it can't get any worse he adds, 'Wanna try it for real?'

Zo laughs. For real.

He takes another look at his super-sized smile. 'Shoot, I look like the Ches.h.i.+re Cat!'

'She has that effect on men,' I mistakenly say out loud.

He looks her up and down. 'I bet she does.'

The girl behind the bar 'accidentally' spills Zo's drink but this time she's too quick and jumps out of the way into Eddie's waiting arms. He's just about to resume flirtation when a timid a.s.sistant approaches.

'Mr Powers, your car is outside.'

He nods acknowledgement then turns back to us. 'You girls wanna come for a nightcap? They've put me up at the Beverly Hills Hotel.'

Now he has my attention.

Zo gives me a pleading look. Who am I to stand in the way of a C-list s.h.a.g in a five star hotel?

'Alright!' we agree, ready to follow him to the car, but he stops us at the exit.

'I think we'd better arrive separately, there's sometimes press loitering in the foyer we don't want to end up splashed across tomorrow's tabloids, do we?'

Actually that's always been one of Zo's fantasies but I guess it's not going to be realized tonight.

'I'm in the Sunset Suite. Just come straight up when you get there,' he smarms. 'I'll be waiting.'

Chapter 31.

'I'm not sleeping with him!' Zo blurts as we cab it down Sunset Boulevard.

'No one's asking you to,' I rea.s.sure her. 'Yet,' I mutter to myself.

'I mean it. I know I used to want to when I was fifteen but now I just want to be able to say that we had a drink at the Beverly Hills Hotel with someone famous. Is that wrong?'

I tell her it's perfectly acceptable 'When in LA ...'

'All the same, there's something about him, isn't there? Remember that poster I had of him standing s.h.i.+rtless in the rain? I used to kiss his bellyb.u.t.ton every night before I went to sleep ...'

I sneak a look at Zo. Maybe this is what she needs to get skin on skin with a celebrity to see there really is no line dividing them and us.

'The Pink Palace!' the cab driver alerts us as we pull off the road and disappear into the lush greenery disguising the hotel driveway.

I get tingles looking up at the pink bell towers with their caps of oxidized copper and jaunty flag accessories.

'This place is so famous!' trills Zo. 'I can't believe we're here.'

There's a Bentley ahead of us and a limo behind as we pull up under a concrete canopy striped ivy and white. I quickly pay the driver and together we emerge on to a red carpet. Zo's normally thrusting chest caves after just one step.

'I can't go in wearing this T-s.h.i.+rt!' she exclaims.

Remarkably, I'd forgotten all about it.

She looks around, as if there might just be a spare Gucci top in the foliage.

'I haven't got a pashmina or anything I can lend you,' I apologize.

Despairing, Zo pulls Ed's face by the nose and winches it round so his whole face twists into an unidentifiable blur.

'How does that look?'

'Like you've got a third nipple,' I have to confess.

'What if I put it on backwards?' Zo suggests.

We're obviously equally drunk because this actually seems like a good idea to me as if a woman trying to wriggle around beneath a tiny top is going to draw less attention than a T-s.h.i.+rt with some old has-been on it.

'Everything all right, ma'm?' the doorman tries not to look perturbed.

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