A Night In With Marilyn Monroe

‘That’s only bad luck for actors. And thank God I’m not one of those any more.’

Seriously, thank God. Because if I were still an actress (as I was, shockingly unsuccessfully, until almost a year ago), I wouldn’t now be about to walk up these steps and into a meeting with a bank manager to ask for great wodges of cash – sorry, an investment – to plough into my very own small business.

It’s a big moment.

I watch Adam for a moment or two after he turns away and starts to head towards Olly’s new premises, partly for the simple pleasure of watching such a fine figure of a man stroll away from me, and partly to see if he’s going to ogle the even finer figure of a hot blonde in a tiny skirt who’s just crossed the road to walk ahead of him.

But he doesn’t.

Because, as I need to get to grips with remembering, he’s Adam. Not Dillon. And I’m not with Dillon any more.

Then I turn away myself and head up these steps, trying to feel as go-getting as Adam thinks I am.

I mean, all his American positivity, it’s bound to be rubbing off on me in some way, isn’t it? If I just believe that the meeting will be a rip-roaring success, then it will be.

*

It wasn’t.

A rip-roaring success, that is.

On a sliding scale, with rip-roaring success at one end to abject failure at the other … well, that meeting with Jonathan Hedley, Barclays Business Development Manager, Clapham branch, was quite a lot closer to the latter end of the scale than the former.

All right, so he didn’t actually tell me I wasn’t going to get the small business loan I was applying for. But then he didn’t actually say, out loud, that there was more chance of his bank investing in a factory that makes inflatable dartboards and chocolate teapots.

It doesn’t mean he wasn’t thinking it.

I don’t know if it was an issue with my business plan, or if he didn’t like the Marilyn-inspired earrings, or if he just didn’t like me, but I certainly didn’t walk away from our half-hour meeting with the sense that the eight grand I urgently need will be forthcoming.

And there isn’t any time for me to properly take stock (or even to endlessly replay the meeting over and over in my head, torturing myself with the things I must have said and done wrong), because I came out of the meeting to a series of texts from my sister Cass.

Libby where are you?

Libby I need to talk to you

Libby why are you ignoring me?

Libby this is really unfair, call yourself my big sister, what a joke, I’m always there for you when you need me and now when I really need you for like once in my life you can’t even be bothered to pick up the phone and call me back

Which did press my guilt button quite a bit because, to be entirely fair to Cass, she did send me a couple of really nice supportive text messages while I was on my way to Dad’s wedding (he’s not her dad; we have different fathers).

So of course I picked up the phone and called her back, only to be directed, through a barrage of incoherent sobs, to come straight to her flat in Maida Vale, ‘because everything’s completely shit, Libby, I can’t do this any more!’

I’m not too worried about all the tears and hysterics. Cass has a tendency to overdramatize things. The last time I was summoned to hurtle to her flat, after a nerve-chilling six a.m. phone call, it turned out to be because she’d stubbed her big toe getting out of bed, wasn’t going to be able to make it to her early morning spinning class, and could, apparently, literally feel the fat blobbing itself on to her thighs. There’s no way of knowing what this afternoon’s crisis has been caused by, but it’s not worth ignoring it in the hope that it goes away. It never does. I have a couple of hours before I need to get to my client appointment in Shepherd’s Bush, so I may as well use it profitably by ensuring that my client appointment in Shepherd’s Bush isn’t constantly interrupted by the pinging of my phone, with increasingly furious messages from Cass.

There’s another message pinging through now, as I emerge from the tube at Warwick Avenue.

Popped to nail salon. Meet me there?

Oh, and another one, a moment after this.

Bring coffee?

When I stamp into the nail bar around the corner from her flat ten minutes later, with a frappuccino for her and the cappuccino for me that I would have really liked from Adam instead of that espresso, she waves me over, imperiously, from where she’s sitting towards the back. Her feet are soaking in one of the foot basins, and a weary-looking Filipina woman is tending to her hands with a cuticle stick.

‘Thank God you’re here,’ Cass announces, which is her way of being grateful, and, ‘Thank fuck for this,’ as she grabs the frappuccino from me, which is her way of saying thank you. ‘You won’t believe what’s happened, Libby. You literally won’t believe it.’

‘Tell me.’

‘It’s all off! The whole thing!’

For a fleeting, thrilled moment, I think she’s talking about her relationship with her boyfriend (and manager) Dave. Which, given that he’s married to another woman, is about bloody time, too.

‘Oh, Cass. Well, I’m really sorry you’re upset. But, you know, it was always a terrible idea, and too many people risked being hurt—’

‘Who was going to get hurt? Nobody was going to get hurt! It wasn’t supposed to be a bloody stunt show! It wasn’t Dancing On Ice!’

I’m confused, until I remember the other thing that could be ‘off’.

Her reality TV show, Considering Cassidy.

‘RealTime Media called Dave this morning and they’re pulling the plug,’ Cass sniffs. ‘Not enough interest from advertisers, apparently.’

‘Oh, Cass.’

This is genuinely upsetting news for her. Considering Cassidy was going to be her very own, eight-part ‘scripted reality’ show, on the Bravo channel, documenting – according to Dave’s pitch – ‘the crazy, behind-the-scenes dramas of one of the most famous actresses working in Britain today … from pampering to premieres, from dating to mating; follow much-loved TV It-Girl Cassidy Kennedy as she dishes the dirt on Slebsville, her way!’

(And yes, I was a bit surprised they got as far as they did in talks with the production company, RealTime Media, on the basis of that pitch – but, nevertheless, a deal was about to be struck. No matter that Cass isn’t, by any stretch of the imagination, ‘one of the most famous actresses working in Britain today’ … nor that, thanks to her relationship with Dave, any ‘dating and mating’ the programme intended to depict was going to have to be far more on the ‘scripted’ side than the ‘reality’ side. It was going to be her very own show, her step up from her usual soaps, or her small, regular role in sci-fi drama Isara 364. Her springboard, at least the way Cass was looking at it, to Kardashian levels of fame and glory.)

‘I’m really sorry,’ I begin, only for her to interrupt me.

‘I mean, not enough interest from advertisers? Are they kidding me? I can be used to sell anything, if the angle’s right. I mean, your friend Olly wouldn’t have invited me to that opening-night party of his this week, would he, if he weren’t just using me to get more customers through his doors?’

I’m pretty sure that Olly’s invited Cass to his opening-night party because he needs someone there to whom his youngest sister Kitty will deign to talk; she’s an MTV presenter now, and a competitor of Cass’s from their child-star days, and I very much doubt she’d make a hole in her busy schedule for Olly’s big night if it weren’t for the opportunity to score points off an old frenemy.

‘No, Libby,’ Cass is going on, ‘it’s absolutely nothing to do with the advertisers. It’s Tanya, from RealTime. She hated me, right from the word go.’

‘Um, I’m sure she didn’t hate you, whoever she is …’

‘She’s Ned’s producing partner. And she did hate me. I mean, not that I give a shit. If I had a tenner for every girl who’s ever been jealous of me, I’d have …’ Her eyes, slightly smudged from all the crying she’s been doing, widen as she tries to work out this calculation. ‘Well, enough money to start my own production company, and produce my own show. And win, like, every single Emmy and Golden Globe I possibly could. And then Tanya could fuck off.’

It’s not worth pointing out that scripted reality shows on the Bravo channel aren’t all that likely to be in the running for Emmys or Golden Globes. If Cass wants to imagine herself swanning along some red carpet, holding armfuls of awards in one hand and making rude gestures at this Tanya with the other, then it’s no skin off my nose.

‘Well, look, maybe something good will come out of all this,’ I say, as Cass starts to peruse the selection of polish colours the weary nail technician is holding out to her, wrinkling her pretty nose at too-red reds and not-pink-enough pinks. ‘After all, you’re an actress, Cass. Reality TV would be a bit of a diversion.’

‘Yeah. An amazing diversion. I mean, we had it all mapped out, Dave and I. Considering Cassidy was going to lead to an offer from Celebrity Masterchef, and that would lead to an offer from Strictly, and then I’d be able to call all the shots with one of the really big TV channels, like E!, for an even bigger, better reality show … and now I’m going to have to go back to boring old acting. And learning lines. And, like, pretending to care about character development so the writers don’t give all the good storylines to somebody else.’

‘I know. It’s a tough business,’ I say, in the sort of soothing tone that Mum is good at deploying with Cass whenever she’s having a meltdown. Which reminds me … ‘Have you spoken to Mum about it yet?’