The word on the street was one thing, making contact was another. She had a couple of names, a couple of numbers, but all it took was being put on indeterminate hold a couple of times and she was back at square one. She’d put out feelers, left messages, but so far none had been returned. The actual job she had come to do she had done in a morning; the imagined job she was after was only shimmering tantalisingly on an unreachable horizon.
Shit.
She caught a cab from the movie theatre back to the Brent- wood. The cab couldn’t get close to the kerb because a big stretch limo was hogging all the available space and she had to squeeze her way past it. She walked out of the fetid, goat-frying air and into the blessed cool of the lobby. The fine cotton of her blouse was sticking like grime to her skin. Her hair felt as if she’d bought it at a fairground on a stick. At the front desk she asked if there were any messages, grimly expecting none. There was one.
Oh…
Good.
It had worked. She had gone out to the movie specifically in order to make the phone ring. She couldn’t bear sitting in a hotel room waiting.
She wondered. Should she open the message down here? Her clothes were itching and she longed to take them all off and just lie on the bed. She had turned the air conditioning way down to its bottom temperature setting, way up to its top fan setting. What she wanted more than anything else in the world at the moment was goose pimples. Then a hot shower, then a cool one, then lying on a towel, on the bed again, drying in the air conditioning. Then reading the message. Maybe more goose pimples. Maybe all sorts of things.
No. What she wanted more than anything else in the world was a job in American television at ten times her current salary. More than anything else in the world. In the world. What she wanted more than anything else at all was no longer a live issue.
She sat on a chair in the lobby, under a kentia palm, and opened the little cellophane-windowed envelope.
`Please call,’ it said. `Not happy,’ and gave a number. The name was Gail Andrews.
Gail Andrews.
It wasn’t a name she was expecting. It caught her unawares. She recognised it, but couldn’t immediately say why. Was she Andy Martin’s secretary? Hilary Bass’s assistant? Martin and Bass were the two major contact calls she had made, or tried to make, at NBS. And what did `Not happy’ mean?
`Not happy?’
She was completely bewildered. Was this Woody Allen trying to contact her under an assumed name? It was a 212 area code number. So it was someone in New York. Who was not happy. Well, that narrowed it down a bit, didn’t it?
She went back to the receptionist at the desk.
`I have a problem with this message you just gave me,’ she said. `Someone I don’t know has tried to call me and says she’s not happy.’
The receptionist peered at the note with a frown.
`Do you know this person?’ he said.
`No,’ Tricia said. ` Hmmm,’ said the receptionist. `Sounds like she’s not happy about something.’
`Yes,’ said Tricia.
`Looks like there’s a name here,’ said the receptionist. `Gail Andrews. Do you know anybody of that name?’ ` `No,’ said Tricia.
`Any idea what she’s unhappy about?’
`No,’ said Tricia.
`Have you called the number? There’s a number here.’
`No,’ said Tricia, `you only just gave me the note. I’m just trying to get some more information before I ring back. Perhaps I could talk to the person who took the call?’
`Hmmm,’ said the receptionist, scrutinising the note carefully. `I don’t think we have anybody called Gail Andrews here.’
`No, I realise that,’ said Tricia. `I just -‘
`I’m Gail Andrews.’
The voice came from behind Tricia. She turned round.
`I’m sorry?’
`I’m Gail Andrews. You interviewed me this morning.’
`Oh. Oh good heavens yes,’ said Tricia, slightly flustered.
`I Left the message for you a few hours ago. I hadn’t heard so I came by. I didn’t want to miss you.’