A WAG Abroad

Take the earrings that are so heavy you can barely lift your head and the gold necklaces that are so chunky they give you whiplash every time you turn round. Take it all, then buy loads more at the airport while you’re waiting for the flight that you will inevitably miss because you’re too caught up in a shopping frenzy to even think about silly things like gate numbers or departure times.

There. I hope that advice is clear and concise enough. That’s certainly what I intend to do. This is Tracie Martin bidding au revoir to Luton Town as I head off to my new life in LA. Welcome to my world …

Contents

Title Page (#ue69d4430-b159-5b4f-b2d5-90e36c99ced4)Copyright (#ud697990d-0acf-592c-b5b2-7304a83011aa)Dedication (#ucdb2bd10-2ddf-5013-b05b-6f2247f28df8)Sunday 25 May 3 p.m. - I think. Los Angeles (#u2f6923dd-e08b-548a-9251-7718cef2c259)Sunday 25 May 10.30 a.m. (LA time) (#u1555760d-547e-502d-a94b-4dbde21682fb)Monday 26 May 9 a.m. (#uf74fd3df-c232-5505-a525-a3ff3411ea7f)Tuesday 27 May 10 a.m. New car just arrived. (#ue4b84240-7257-5fb6-bb56-b72a59ee681c)Wednesday 28 May 8 a.m. (#uc1fcca6b-5acb-583d-943a-c2382e20e842)Thursday 29 May (#uae566f15-27bc-5877-b3a1-5466061e93f5)Friday 30 May (22 days until LA Galaxy game) 6 a.m. (#litres_trial_promo)Saturday 31 May (21 days to go) 6 p.m. (#litres_trial_promo)Sunday 1 June (20 days to go) (#litres_trial_promo)Monday 2 June (19 days to go) (#litres_trial_promo)Tuesday 3 June (#litres_trial_promo)Wednesday 4 June (17 days to go) 11 a.m. (#litres_trial_promo)Thursday 5 June (16 days to go) (#litres_trial_promo)Friday 6 June (15 days to go) (#litres_trial_promo)Saturday 7 June (Two weeks to go!) 10 a.m. (#litres_trial_promo)Sunday 8 June (#litres_trial_promo)Monday 9 June (12 days to go) 8 a.m. (#litres_trial_promo)Wednesday 11 June (#litres_trial_promo)Thursday 12 June (9 days to go!!!) (#litres_trial_promo)Friday 13 June (8 days to go) (#litres_trial_promo)Saturday 14 June (One week to go!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) (#litres_trial_promo)Sunday 15 June (#litres_trial_promo)Monday 16 June 8 a.m. (#litres_trial_promo)Tuesday 17 June (#litres_trial_promo)Wednesday 18 June (#litres_trial_promo)Thursday 19 June 8.30 a.m. (#litres_trial_promo)Friday 20 June 8 a.m. (#litres_trial_promo)Saturday 21 June 9 a.m. (#litres_trial_promo)Sunday 22 June 8 a.m. (#litres_trial_promo)Monday 23 June (#litres_trial_promo)Tuesday 24 June (#litres_trial_promo)Wednesday 25 June (#litres_trial_promo)Sunday 29 June (#litres_trial_promo)Tuesday 1 July (#litres_trial_promo)Friday 4 July (#litres_trial_promo)Sunday 6 July (#litres_trial_promo)Monday 7 July (#litres_trial_promo)Tuesday 8 July (#litres_trial_promo)Thursday 10 July (#litres_trial_promo)Sunday 13 July (#litres_trial_promo)Monday 14 July (#litres_trial_promo)Thursday 17 July 6 p.m. (#litres_trial_promo)Friday 18 July (#litres_trial_promo)Saturday 19 July (#litres_trial_promo)Sunday 20 July 9 a.m. (#litres_trial_promo)Monday 21 July (#litres_trial_promo)Tuesday 22 July (#litres_trial_promo)Wednesday 23 July (#litres_trial_promo)Thursday 24 July (#litres_trial_promo)Sunday 27 July (#litres_trial_promo)Wednesday 30 July (#litres_trial_promo)Saturday 2 August (my wedding anniversary) (#litres_trial_promo)Wednesday 6 August (#litres_trial_promo)Thursday 7 August (#litres_trial_promo)Friday 8 August (#litres_trial_promo)Saturday 9 August. LA City Raiders against LA Galaxy!! (#litres_trial_promo)LAX Airport (#litres_trial_promo)TRACIE MARTIN’S GUIDE TO LA - what to see, eat, and visit in the city of Angels . . . (#litres_trial_promo)About the Author (#litres_trial_promo)About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)

Sunday 25 May 3 p.m. – I think. Los Angeles

Good heavens, doesn’t it take a long time to get from Luton to Los Angeles? I mean, a really long time. I left on Thursday, for God’s sake. Thursday! Can you believe that?

One of the cleverer footballers at the club told me that it would be a twelve-hour journey, but he was clearly lying through his pearly white, dentally reconstructed, gold-capped teeth. The flight may have been twelve hours, but the journey sure as hell wasn’t, it took days!

Now I’m finally here – lying on a plump white leather sofa in my gorgeous new, bright and airy Hollywood home, surrounded by my family and a large collection of brightly coloured airport shopping bags.

Right now it’s midnight in Luton and I know that all my mates will be enjoying the last few drops of their Bacardi Breezers in Spangles wine bar, singing footie songs and snogging the face off the nearest bloke. Hovering over them will be a tired barman and an angry landlord ready to wrestle them out of the door and onto the cold, hard, vomit-coated pavement of Luton High Street. Ahhhh … what fun. It’s strange to be so far away from it all, lying here without a care in the world, with the blistering LA sun streaming through the windows and warming me from head to toe. What a journey I’ve just been through. Honestly – it’s been such a traumatic few days. As I lie back, relaxed for the first time in ages, I feel myself drifting slowly off to sleep … What a journey, what a journey, what a journey …

The day before

Heathrow Terminal Four

I confess that I’m not much of a traveller. You’d look at me with my fabulous clothes and my sophisticated air and think, ‘Gosh, she’s cosmopolitan!’ but the truth is that I start to get the shakes whenever I leave the Luton postcode area. As far as I’m concerned, travel is all about getting on the train to Liverpool, going into Cricket and buying a vast amount of tight pink clothing, glittery accessories and must-have handbags, then getting back on a Luton-bound train as quickly as possible.

So I’m not all that used to airports, and I certainly had no idea how many things there are to do there, like rushing into Boots and buying more miniature toiletry items than you can reasonably get through in a decade, as well as stocking up on medical supplies for the flight in such quantities that you could open a small on-board hospital.

Then there’s queueing. Oh, yes, you wait in queues for all sorts of things at airports – for people to check your ticket, your passport, your bags, coats, pockets and even your shoes.

Yes … your shoes!

I kid you not. And they don’t just check to see whether the shoes are genuine Louboutin or this year’s Gucci. No, get this – these people are looking for an altogether more crazy concept in shoe wear … they are checking to see whether anyone’s shoes have bombs in them.

‘Can you get shoes with bombs in?’ I ask, all excited. I mean, if anyone knows shoes, I do. I’ve seen shoes with buckles, bows, glitter and sequins … but never bombs. Imagine that! I’ve always fancied myself as a blonde bombshell and now I could do the look head to toe.

‘Have you ever found any shoe-bombs?’ I ask, but the uniformed lady just shakes her head mournfully, and I’m overcome with a feeling of total admiration for the way she fearlessly continues to search for the perfect pair of shoes – making everyone in the airport remove theirs and causing utter turmoil in the process.

‘Good luck!’ I say, blowing a kiss as she pushes my shoes through the machine. ‘Really hope you find some.’

Her brave battle reminds me of my own search for Marc Jacobs pink-and-white diamond-encrusted wedges a few years ago. I found them eventually, after hiring a team of crack shoppers and personal stylists. I turn to tell the shoe-bomb lady about this, in the hope that it will encourage her, but as I do she emits a loud scream, four people dive to the floor and someone falls to his knees and starts reciting the Lord’s Prayer.

‘Seize that woman,’ says a small burly man in an ill-fitting jumper, rushing to the lady’s side and pointing right at me. He hits a big red button on the machine and screams for assistance.

‘Help! Help!’ he cries, in a not altogether masculine fashion. It reminds me of my husband Dean when I last took him to the dentist.

Shoe-bomb woman howls as a major alarm wails through the airport, and people in uniform come tearing across from all directions, many of them armed.

‘Oooo … how exciting,’ I say, looking up at Dean and giving my daughter Paskia-Rose an entirely unwelcome hug. Three policemen with vicious-looking dogs are sprinting towards me. I feel like I’m on a movie set or something. Dean’s not quite as impressed.

‘What the fuck have you got in your bag?’ he asks, as the alarms grow louder and the panic in the airport rises to fever pitch.

But I can’t answer above the sound of screaming and shrieking. Those who are still standing hurl themselves onto the floor. Suddenly I’m being thrown down next to them in the most undignified and unladylike fashion.

‘I’m wearing next season’s Chloe,’ I scream, trying to pull my teeny-weeny, pink mini-skirt across my lady place as I fly backwards through the dirt and dust.

There’s not a flicker of compassion or concern on the man’s face. Does he have no idea how hard it is to get hold of Chloe four months before it hits the catwalk?

‘Get up!’ he growls. ‘Follow me!’ He speaks in a real Arnold Swarzenegger-type voice that, despite everything, makes me want to giggle.

I turn to Dean and say, ‘I’ll be back,’ in a similarly stern fashion, but realize immediately that this is a big mistake.

‘Ah, funny girl,’ he says, leading me towards a severe-looking woman with tightly cropped brown hair who is snapping on latex gloves. ‘Let’s see just how funny you’re feeling after this.’

An hour later

Not funny at all, actually. Not in the least. My sense of humour deserted me entirely as I was forced to endure the horror of a strip search conducted by a woman with no highlights and bad taste in knitwear.

‘What is the problem?’ I asked, as she ordered me to remove my clothing.

‘I think you know what the problem is,’ she said before searching everywhere you can imagine. Finally, when she was happy that I wasn’t concealing anything that might constitute a threat to national security she told me to get dressed, and sat down in the chair opposite me.

‘You look tired,’ I said because she did, poor love. ‘Have you been working too hard?’

‘Something like that,’ she said, as I slipped on my skirt. Then she sat upright. ‘Can I ask you something personal?’

‘Yes,’ I replied.

‘Would you mind telling me where you get your bikini line done? I think the stars and stripes flag looks great.’

Oh, so she’s human after all. I gave her the name of the beautician whose handiwork with sequins, glitter and jewels she was admiring, and continued to dress.

‘Does it hurt?’ she asked.

‘It doesn’t hurt a bit,’ I reassured her. ‘It itches though, and you find jewels in the strangest of places, but it’s worth it. Is it for a special occasion?’

The woman smiled and took off the gloves, flicking the glitter off them as she did so and removing an electric blue star from one of the fingers. ‘A date. Tomorrow night,’ she confided as she led me through the door.

‘Wow. Have fun,’ I said. ‘Make sure you ask for Mallory when you call that number. She’s the best.’

‘Thanks,’ she replied warmly, then she switched on her more formal self. ‘I’ll leave you with Mr Matthews.’

‘Tracie Martin?’ asked a tall, cross-looking man who wouldn’t know a fashionable bikini line if it jumped up and bit him.

‘Yes.’

‘Take a seat, please.’

On the table in front of us were a small replica gun, dagger and hand grenade.

‘Do these belong to you?’ he asked.