Chapter 17
17
MINNIE
Now
‘Another Pimm’s?’ Minnie asked the city boys, shiny faced, wearing thick ties and cream linen suits. She’d seen their type all week. On a jolly from Deloitte or JP Morgan; Hearst or Procter & Gamble.
The men looked at each other in their corner of the busy corporate hospitality tent, ruddy from a day at the tennis. The taller one, with black hair, blue eyes and emergent freckles shrugged. He’d had enough, he could feel sugar on his teeth, but he didn’t know how to say no to the waitress wielding a glass jug of the stuff in each hand.
Regardless of their response, Minnie was going to top them up anyway. Once she got rid of this round, she was clocking off. She needed to prep for Paris. Run her lines one last time and work out what to wear. Midsummer in Paris was looking pretty warm.
‘There you go!’ she said, filling the man’s glass almost to the top.
‘Whoa!’ he said, heeding caution, but Minnie was careful to offload as much of the stuff as she could without spilling a drop.
She looked expectantly at the freckled man’s friend, who was blonder, wider and ruddier. He stood with an empty pint glass and wolfish eyes.
‘Go on then…’ he said, thinking Minnie would get him a fresh glass, one more suited to Pimm’s, lemonade and fruit. She filled his pint until one of the glass jugs she was holding was satisfyingly empty, gave them a smile, then waltzed off to the adjacent kitchen tent behind canvas screens.
Once Minnie was out of sight, she stopped behind a canvas partition, tilted the lip of the almost-empty second jug to her mouth and drank Pimm’s and lemonade like a hamster from a bottle. She was mindful not to choke on any cucumber, strawberries and mint mulch at the bottom of the jug.
‘Job done!’ she said to herself cheerily, as she continued into the kitchen and handed the empty vessels to the boy who was washing up.
‘There you go!’
The boy didn’t say thanks, as Minnie went to her locker and grabbed her jacket, bag and phone. Her phone was already ringing as she picked it up and her blood ran cold when she looked at the screen. JP. The photo she had assigned him when she had the privilege of being his lover. Small blue eyes sparkling at the camera, tumbler in one hand, cigar in the other, and Minnie, arm draped around his neck as she kissed his cheek adoringly. How dare he invade her space when she was doing so well? She hadn’t spoken to him since he’d dumped her in the cafe of Bondiga’s Books almost three months ago. Yesterday, at her session with Tony, JP’s name barely came up, which felt liberating – but then nor had Jesse’s, and she had wanted to sense check her changing feelings for him with her therapist. Next time , she had thought.
‘Fuck,’ Minnie said, ignoring the call but letting it ring, as she nervously looked at the screen.
She took off her lanyard and handed it to the guard at a makeshift table in the staff security tent and weaved out to the exit, conveniently shielded by an American tennis star, his huge racket bag and his entourage. It felt a bit dramatic for dodging a call and Minnie chastised herself for caring. For hiding. What did she have to hide from?
She walked out of Queen’s and down the stuccoed streets of West Kensington, back towards the tube station, her white shirt, skirt and black tights making her feel clammy. She made a mental note: definitely no tights tomorrow. Paris was going to be even warmer.
Paris. Keep the focus on Paris.
Minnie’s phone rang again.
Fuck.
If only she’d been in the tube already.
She thought it was unlikely to be JP – he didn’t chase or leave messages. She dared to look at the phone she clutched like a hand grenade, and saw that it was him calling again.
Shit.
What did he want?
I don’t have to answer.
Why now?
You can do this.
‘Hello?’ Minnie answered, cautiously.
He will not steal my power. He will not break my soul.
‘Hey, kid, how ya doin’?’
Kid.
Minnie took a deep breath.
‘Yeah not bad thanks.’ Keep it breezy. ‘How’s tricks?’
‘Yeah all right thanks, all right.’
What do you want?
JP didn’t have time to call for pleasantries. In the four months he had ricocheted through her life like a pinball, he had never called her to chat. He was too busy with his restaurants to chat on the phone. He liked to talk at dinners or in bed after sex, but if he ever did call her, it was to make a plan. To confirm she’d be where he wanted her, when. To request that she come to whichever restaurant he was having a meeting in. In fact, Minnie realised then that JP only made phone calls when he wanted something urgently.
Fuck.
She had a terrible feeling he was nearby, in one of his West London ‘properties’.
There was a pause. JP never paused.
‘What’s up?’ Minnie asked.
‘I was just thinking about you. Wondered how you was getting on.’
Minnie took a deep breath.
‘Yeah I’m fine thanks.’ She smiled into her phone, as if to convince herself. Until she remembered she was doing fine.
‘I’m off to Paris tomorrow actually, for an audition.’
‘Oh great, what’s it for, TV?’
‘No, a movie. A Wim Fischer movie.’
‘Fuck me,’ JP exclaimed.
‘I’m meeting his casting director tomorrow.’
Don’t sound grateful, Minnie. She thought of Tony’s listening face. She thought of the empty chair. She thought she might throw up into the gutter but perhaps that was the Pimm’s. She knew better than to swig it like that just to finish a shift.
‘Good for you.’
The patronising pleasure in JP’s tone made Minnie feel defensive. Her throat tightened. She felt like she couldn’t speak. She couldn’t speak. He’d taken the wind out of her sails again.
I’m doing so well. I have earned this audition.
‘Actually, Min, you was on my mind – I read in the paper about Summer of Siena coming to screen. All legal scores settled. That’s great news, babe.’
Minnie exhaled in relief. Relief that she understood. She was desirable again. On the up. Not some sad waitress who didn’t get a call back from Marvel. Not the disappointment whose famous parents hadn’t seemed as charmed by him as he thought they should. And in one conflicted, constrictive clash, Minnie regretted telling JP about Paris. It wasn’t his business.
She was scared of being desirable again.
‘My ingénue,’ JP said proudly.