Authors: Thérèse
“Congratulations, Dr. White. What a wonderful achievement,” enthused the TV host. “How did you come up with such an amazing idea?”
“Thank you so much,” he had said, visibly relaxing and peering directly into the camera. “We all have to take risks in life, don’t we?” Then, in an unusually posh accent, he warmed to his theme. “I have long held the belief that young people need to be challenged. They need to learn about helping others.”
“Bollocks!” India had muttered at the television screen. “I have long held the belief that you are a jerk.”
As she sat in her MINI at a traffic light, she remembered how she had waited in vain for some sort of acknowledgment, for a reference to the wonderfully dedicated teacher who had done such an amazing job. For seventeen years she’d been working at the same school. Where on earth had the time gone? Countless Monday assemblies, seventeen Easter Parades, endless Midsummer Night’s Dreams… Sure, her natural enthusiasm and energy and the fact that she demanded a lot from the kids made her popular with them. The colleagues, however, were another story. Take last Christmas when she’d suggested hiring a martini bar for the staff party.
“Alcohol,” Miss Roberts, the vice principal, had snorted. “Whatever next?”
A good time perhaps? India thought, but said nothing.
No. This was not her tribe, and worse, she was about to turn forty!
“A milestone birthday,” she’d complained to her friend Sarah over a glass of Fat Bastard at her local pub the night before.
“Forty’s the new thirty, haven’t you heard?” Sarah offered.
“You’re only thirty-four,” India snapped. “Let’s see if you’re laughing in another six years!”
“Well,” Sarah sighed. “Not all of us have legs up to our arm-pits and a bone structure to die for.”
“Thank you. I can take any amount of that,” India said, flattered. “And at least I’m not gray yet,” she added, examining the ends of her long dark hair.
It was five o’clock when she turned into her narrow street and ran up the stone steps to her tiny apartment in Queen’s Park. Even though it was too far away from Camden Town to be trendy and her street was a mess of seedy Victorian houses that had long lost their grandeur, India loved her place. She had scoured flea markets and junkyards for one-of-a-kind pieces and devoted entire weekends to painting the walls in perfect Farrow & Ball shades of gray and cord. She’d installed the wooden shutters and silk drapes herself to create just the right light. “Benign neglect.” That was what the French called it, a look and a feel that was all about ease; where you didn’t get neurotic about how you arranged your throw pillows.
Uncorking a bottle of chilled Sancerre, India collapsed on a couch and listened to her phone messages. Her sister, Annabelle, sounded totally stressed.
“I can’t wait for you to get here,” she said. “We’ll send the car. I’m at a shoot in Pasadena and Joss and the girls are already at the house in Malibu. But Maria will be here and I’ll be back late evening…”
Annabelle was India’s older sister. Older by only two minutes, India thought, but what a head start, because, clearly, in those two minutes, she had worked out exactly what she wanted to do with her life. She was truly passionate about acting. When she was a kid, Annabelle would watch and rewatch movies for days. Bugsy Malone, India recalled with a smile.
India just wasn’t driven in the same way. She didn’t take private voice lessons, write her own shows, or win a coveted scholarship to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts when she was eighteen. She wasn’t a household name in England after starring in several award-winning BBC series. And she certainly hadn’t married a rock star like Joss. India sighed.
What had triggered her sister’s extraordinary drive? she wondered, knocking back her wine. Maybe it was their parents’ separation when the girls were teenagers. It was such a cliché: Husband has affair with wife’s best friend. “Aunty Dora’s run off with Dad,” was how it felt to India. She’d watched her mother turn from the vivacious life and soul of every party to a withdrawn depressive. India would come home from school to a house filled with cigarette smoke and the sight of her mother coiled up in the fetal position on the bed.
Annabelle’s form of escape, avoiding the house and throwing herself into more and more acting classes, seemed to have worked out better than India’s, whose own response had been to throw herself into a world of her imagination. India was the one making dinner and taking care of her mother on those endless winter nights when the house was deadly quiet. She buried herself in books, finding connection in Anna Karenina, Bonjour Tristesse, and works by Lévêque de Vilmorin, hoping that one day her own life might mimic a romance novel.
But at least I’m proud of her – I’m not at all jealous, India told herself. Well … that’s if you don’t count her closet. Yes, I plan on spending many happy hours in Annie’s closet, she thought, picturing the circular rack that went round at the touch of a button and the light that clicked on when you opened a drawer, and the beautiful hand-painted gold wallpaper and dozens of shoe racks. Most of the shoes had hardly been worn and the names had such a lovely ring to them: Louboutin, Prada, Lanvin. With a sudden rush of excitement India leapt off the couch and ran down the small hallway to her bedroom. I need to get a move on, she thought. La-la Land! Here I come!
Packing for LA was almost as daunting a prospect as walking on broken glass (a follow-up event Pete had suggested and that India had politely declined). What am I going to travel in? She thought, looking at the mountain of clothes on her bed. She’d been planning “rock-star casual” all week (à la Kate Moss in Marie Claire) but right now it was not coming together. “Sod it!” she cursed, flinging her All Saints biker boots across the room. “I’m going on a plane, not a Harley Davidson.”
As she folded a couple of white tees, she thought of all the years she had spent trying to develop a “signature” style. A way of dressing that would carry her effortlessly through life; a life in which people would assume she was, well, French.
How India longed to be French. Just the faintest whiff of lavender or baked bread always sent her back to that high school trip to Provence. The confidence, that certain je ne sais quoi… For a while, she’d assumed it must have something to do with baskets. She’d never seen so many; swinging from bicycles, hanging from ceilings, balanced on window ledges. They used them for everything, from decorating doorways and carrying bread or laundry to ferrying babies. On several trips to Paris she’d focused more on clothes and noticed another obsession, this time with scarves, which curiously enough, were often tied around those baskets as well as on necks, heads, purses, bicycles and babies. This marked the beginning of India’s extensive scarf collection, which, in the absence of that elusive je ne sais quoi, remained unworn. She also abandoned all attempts to speak the language, after a humiliating experience in a Paris brasserie, where the waiters had met her order with condescending amusement.
She poured herself another glass of wine, then removed a couple of turtleneck sweaters from her suitcase, and the worn leather jacket from her carry-on bag.
After failing to become French, India had decided on becoming quintessentially English. This was when she graduated from high school and moved to the countryside, to a college in Stratford-on-Avon. Forget romantic visions of making love under old oak trees and meandering through fields of cowslips and buttercups in fine white cotton dresses. The reality turned out to be a lot more prosaic. The men she met were mostly farmers and, without exception, the girls all wore green sludge jackets, riding boots, and jodhpurs on weekends, pleated skirts, flat shoes, and pearls during the week. “I refuse to be cloned,” she’d decided, giving up the ghost and transferring her teaching course to London, to the joys of a nearby Starbucks and Nine West, her favorite shoe store at the time.
The trill of her cell phone roused India from what was fast becoming a depressing trip down memory lane. She flung herself on her bag and rooted around till she reached the bottom and pulled it out.
“Hello, hello?” she said, breathlessly.
“Been shagging again?” Sarah laughed.
“I wish,” India said, and settled down on the bed to chat with her best friend. Sarah was a nurse who lived in the hopes of meeting an Italian aristocrat, being whisked off to Tuscany, and drinking Chianti. So far, the closest she’d come was a blind date with a policeman in an Islington trattoria.
“Here, know what I read in a magazine today?”
“No idea!”
“It said that men are their most honest at the exact moment before ejaculation. For real, that’s what it said.”
“Who’s done the research?” India laughed. “More importantly – what kind of magazines are you reading these days?”
Sarah laughed. “Marie Claire, as it happens. Get a copy for the plane.”
“Will do.”
“Are you all packed?”
“Not exactly.” India surveyed the chaos around her. “I haven’t a clue what I’m going to be doing when I get there. And I didn’t check the baggage allowance.”
For the next twenty minutes, they talked about her plans, or lack of plans, in Los Angeles.
“Annie and Joss love having me around – well, for the first few weeks at any rate. But visiting isn’t the same as moving in, is it?” India said, attempting to button up a cardigan with one hand.
“I suppose even with their great contacts, you’re going have to work out what you want to do if you want to stay on,” Sarah agreed.
“That’s the problem. I’m good at teaching. I had such a passion for it. But if I have to fill in one more standard assessment form… It’s soul destroying. If I’d wanted to be a bookkeeper…” She trailed off. “I’ve got to get out of there, Sarah. At this rate I’ll end up some twisted old spinster like Miss Roberts.”
“You could get another cat.”
“And grow a beard I suppose.”
“Just think of it as a vacation for now,” Sarah said, laughing. “Try and relax. You’re tired; enjoy yourself.”
India sighed. “What am I going to do without you?”
“Date Bradley Cooper? Soak up the sun? Shop on Rodeo Drive?” Sarah offered.
“Sarah. I love you.”
“Love you too. Send a postcard. Skype me. Or ‘whatever,’ as they say over there!”
“Will do. Bye.”
How Sarah manages to stay so upbeat after giving injections and checking prostates all day is a mystery to me, India thought, clicking the off button and opening her wardrobe.
What would Audrey wear? she wondered. After a few minutes she pulled out her Agnes B. wraparound black dress and held it to her shoulders in the Cheval mirror. “I shall wear my hair up!” she decided. “Très chic.”
“Ladies and gentlemen, I apologize for the delay, and thank you for your patience. There seems to be more air traffic than usual. We will be making our descent just as soon as we have clearance.”
India fidgeted nervously and tried not to look out at the wing. Were those flaps supposed to be opening and closing like that? She’d never been fond of flying. And her seat had been in an upright position for thirty minutes. She was dying to get up and stretch. Thanks to Joss’s air miles, India was flying business class. The copious amounts of decent, free champagne, not to mention the fine Sauvignon, had soothed her nerves for a while, but now she had a slight headache.
She looked again at the “leaving” presents Sarah had given her, at the tiny pink leather Smythson notepad inscribed in gold lettering C’est la Vie and its bright blue companion, Profound Thoughts.
“No guesses which one I’ll fill up first,” India had joked, touched by the thoughtfulness of the gifts.
Sarah knew India so well, how she was always planning on writing a book and constantly scribbling down notes; observations, one-liners. She tucked the notepads back into her handbag, and, as the plane circled inland, she tightened her seatbelt again. They were so low she could see the lines of freeways, the mathematically precise grid of the streets, and the road signs. Clutching the armrest, she closed her eyes as the Airbus bumped down on the runway and braked sharply. Please, please, let this be a whole new beginning, India pleaded silently. I am so ready to start over again.
An hour later, she was edging her way toward the head of the line at Immigration Control, where a decidedly unwelcoming official greeted her with a nod, and took her passport.
“Press your thumbs there,” he said, indicating a plastic screen.
Finger printing? India wondered, awkwardly pressing each thumb as instructed.
“Look into the camera now,” he ordered, tapping endlessly on his computer keyboard.
“Do I smile?” she asked, getting even more nervous. More tapping.
Maybe there’s an alcohol limit for getting into America, she thought, half serious now.
“What is the purpose of your visit to the United States?” he continued humorlessly.
Okay, India registered. This is not the time to bring up Bradley.
“I’m here to visit my sister.” She smiled.
There was a pause. His face remained expressionless, then her passport and visa were thumped, and India stepped into the “Land of the Free.”
It seemed that lots of other people had had the bright idea of tying a ribbon around their suitcases. Eventually, she dragged her Samsonite off the conveyor belt and headed toward the line for customs.
“Are you bringing any livestock into the country, ma’am?” a heavily armed official asked.
“Not today,” she said, smiling, wondering how one could possibly smuggle a chicken onto a plane and why.
“I do have some English chocolate though,” she said cheerfully. “I’ll give you some if you promise to ignore the chicken.”
“Ma’am, in the United States it is a felony to attempt to bribe an officer,” he said sharply, before ticking her customs form and letting her pass through.
Whatever happened to “Have a nice day,” she wondered. It’s not like I was trying to bring in lard from the Ukraine.
Scanning the crowd, her face lit up the moment she recognized Annie’s driver, Robert.