She lit a cigarette. Smoke came out of her nose. “It seems to me that maybe you haven’t been doing your research.”
“Now listen,” I said. ?
??I’m perfectly willing to be reasonable about this, but—”
“That’s not good enough,” she said. “You’re going to have to find an Englishman, a real Englishman, and you’re going to have to shag him. And don’t call me until you do!”
Oh dear. All I could think about was my poor bottom.
II
There’s only one thing better than being single, American, and in London over Easter weekend. And that is being single, American, in London, and in love over Easter weekend.
I wasn’t planning to fall in love. Okay, I thought I was, but I didn’t really think it would happen. Especially since I’d met dozens of men, and although they were all very charming and amusing and would talk about things New York men wouldn’t, like novels, I hadn’t found one of them appealing enough to go to bed with. To tell you the truth, they all looked a little . . . grubby. You got the feeling that if they took their clothes off, you might find something you really didn’t want to know about.
Plus, this assignment was beginning to drive me crazy. I knew it was, because two days earlier, Grasshopper had apparently checked into the Halcyon Hotel in Holland Park at three in the morning. It’s all pretty much a blank as to how she got there and what happened after she did, but it appeared that she had eaten a hamburger, and that somehow, in the past forty-eight hours, she had become a complimentary member of three private nightclubs. Apparently, she had also done something to the staff at the hotel, because every time one of them saw her, he or she would look at Grasshopper with a terrified expression and scuttle away.
See what I mean?
In fact, I was looking forward to the fact that everyone was going away for the weekend. I was planning to take long walks and look at the cherry blossoms and the short white buildings that were everywhere. Even without a man, London was a romantic city: unlike in New York, you could see the sky, and at night there was a full moon. When you walked down the street, the people in the coffee shops looked interesting, and at the sandwich shop on the corner, the lady behind the counter said she liked my shoes. A young man came in with flowers, and she bought some. We looked outside and a funny car was passing, a car that was half boat that you could drive into the river.
Anything can happen, I thought.
But I still had to complete that stupid assignment.
“I DIDN’T NEIGH”
The night before, I had gone trolling at a party at the restaurant MoMo with The Fox. The Fox had promised that it would be a party crowd, as opposed to a posh crowd, which would be much better. All it really meant was that Tom Jones, the singer, was there with his bodyguards.
A pretty girl with half-closed eyes and a short flowered skirt walked by. Sonny Snoot was following her. “It’s so funny to see a posh girl trying to be trendy,” Sonny said. “Upper-class girls don’t know what style is. They don’t even know about Prada. But you know who’s worse?”
“Who?” I asked.
“Upper-class guys. They don’t know anything about women. They don’t know how to treat a woman.”
“Basically, the longer the name, the worse the person,” The Fox said.
“And the worse they are in bed,” Sonny said.
I had to ask the inevitable question: “Is it true that they keep their socks on?”
“Only in Chelsea,” The Fox said.
Then Claire came in. “I hate the upper classes and I hate the lower classes. I only like the middle classes.”
“I hate anyone who lives in Notting Hill,” Sonny said. “Even though I live in Notting Hill.”
All this was a bit too much for me, so I went to Notting Hill, to a tiny club called World, where there were rastafarians and a really, really dirtylooking Englishman who was dancing by himself. My old boyfriend, Gerald the Suffocator, was there with his friend Crispin. They were drinking vodka out of tiny plastic cups.
“Babes!” Gerald said. “What were you doing at a party in Soho? You’ve got to be in Notting Hill. Or even better, Shepherd’s Bush. It’s all happening in Shepherd’s Bush. We’re the new bush-geoisie!”
“I can’t stand the people in Notting Hill,” Crispin said sullenly. “They live wild lives, and they all say they don’t want to get married, but then they do. And they all say they don’t have any money, but then you see them driving a bloody Mercedes!”
“Excuse me. But aren’t you getting married?” I said.
“He lives in Shepherd’s Bush. So it’s okay,” Gerald said.
“Whatever you do, don’t go out with one of those Chelsea types,” Crispin said. “They’re all upper class, and they engage in Gothic sex.”