From Notting Hill to New York . . . Actually

Book 2: The Notting Hill Series

by Ali McNamara

Genres: Women's Fiction

Synopsis

Scarlett O'Brien, utterly addicted to romantic films, has found her leading man. She's convinced Sean is Mr Right, but the day-to-day reality of a relationship isn't quite like the movies. With Sean constantly away on business, Scarlett and her new best friend Oscar decide to head to New York for the holiday of a lifetime.

From one famous landmark to the next, Scarlett and Oscar make many new friends during their adventure - including sailors in town for Fleet Week, a famous film star, and Jamie & Max, a TV reporter and cameraman. Scarlett finds herself strangely drawn to Jamie, they appear to have much in common: a love of films and Jamie's search for a parent he never knew. But Scarlett has to ask herself why she is reacting like this to another man when she's so in love with Sean . . .

Release date: November 22, 2012

Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group

Print pages: 448

Sample

‘Scarlett, can you get me another glass of juice, please?’

I close the lid of my laptop and sigh, getting up from the chair in the study to go across the hall and through to the living room where a sorrowful pair of blue eyes looks up at me from the sofa.

‘Sure, what do you want this time, orange or apple?’

‘Apple, please.’ Sean holds out his empty glass. He manages a weak smile.

‘All right, you don’t have to lay it on so thick,’ I admonish. ‘I thought you were feeling better this morning.’

‘I am, but I still feel a bit wobbly when I try to get up.’

‘OK, I’ll get your juice. You just stay right where you are watching …’ I glance at the TV screen, and it doesn’t surprise me in the slightest to see cars racing around a track, as per usual. ‘Let me guess – it wouldn’t happen to be Top Gear, would it?’

Sean nods absent-mindedly, his attention already lost to the petrol-head world of Clarkson, The Stig and their ridiculously priced cars.

I wander through to the kitchen and fill Sean’s glass with juice. He’d been off sick for a few days now, and I’d been doing my best nursing act, when I’d been at home, looking after him. I didn’t mind, even though I was just beginning to think he was pushing his luck a bit with the ‘I’m so ill’ looks when he wanted something. But when I’d had an extremely nasty dose of the flu last December and could barely get out of bed, let alone walk to our kitchen, for over a week, Sean had taken time off work – unheard of for him – and had waited on me hand and foot. He’d even carried me to the bathroom on one occasion when I was too weak to get there myself. So I really couldn’t complain about a few glasses of juice and a sandwich here and there.

I stand for a moment, admiring our new kitchen. I’d spent many a happy hour poring over designer-kitchen catalogues with my friend, Oscar, choosing just the right oven and fridge to go with the newly installed granite-covered worktops and pale wood units. Sean couldn’t understand why, when I first moved in here with him, I’d wanted to refit what he considered to be a perfectly adequate kitchen. But I told him that if I was going to move into his house in Notting Hill, I would at least want to put my own stamp on the place, and as always Sean had just let me get on with it. He was very easy-going like that.

Smiling to myself, I stare out of the kitchen window into our small, recently renovated back garden. Neither Sean nor I were really into gardening, so we’d gone for the minimal amount of planting and maximum amount of ‘garden architecture’ as our landscaper, Murray, had called it when we’d hired him to help us out last autumn when deciding what to do with the patch of land at the back of the house. Now we have the perfect area to sit outside in on a summer’s evening, with a glass of chilled wine, chatting over the day’s events with each other. Except, I realise as I stand here now, we’ve only ever done that once, and the person I sit out there with most often is Oscar, when we’re discussing the lives of the contestants in the newest reality TV show, or the latest salacious plot twist in our favourite soap opera.

I lift the glass from the counter and head back to Sean. ‘Here you go,’ I say, handing him the glass. ‘One juice.’

‘Thanks, Scarlett. You’ve been great at looking after me while it’s been my turn for the flu.’

I look sceptically at him. I hardly think this is anything like what I had in December: his is more of a bad cold. What I’m seeing in front of me, I think, is the common phenomenon known as ‘man flu’.

‘So when do you think you’ll be well enough to go back to work?’ I ask, slipping onto the sofa next to him. I lift up yet more car and sport magazines and drop them on the ever-growing pile on the floor.

‘Maybe tomorrow,’ Sean says, turning his attention from the TV for a moment. ‘But definitely by Thursday. I have to fly to Brussels for a meeting.’

‘Again?’ I ask in astonishment. Sean takes so many business trips abroad he might as well be a bird. His ratio of air-to-ground time is certainly enough to qualify him as one of our feathered friends.

‘Yes. Come on, not this again, Red?’ he raises a sandy-coloured eyebrow at me. ‘I thought we’d been over all that. You knew when you met me that my business means I have to be away a lot.’

I shrug and stare at the TV screen. Sean’s right; I did know he had to travel for meetings and stay away often – that was one of the drawbacks of running your own very successful company. But it didn’t mean I had to like it. It wasn’t fair. I ran my own company. Well, I did, with my father, but I never got to travel away from home. There weren’t many opportunities to go to popcorn-machine conferences, and the only people I ever seemed to meet with were the managers of cinemas. It was always me here, waiting for Sean to come back from his trips.

My thoughts are distracted by the TV for a moment. What are they doing this time, are they actually trying to sail those cars across water? Makes a change from blowing up caravans, I suppose.

‘Don’t you ever get fed up watching this?’ I ask, hoping to change the subject. I really didn’t want an argument today. We’d had quite a few of those lately, petty things such as Sean leaving towels on the bathroom floor, clothes on the bedroom floor. In fact, floors were quite a sticky point with us right now.

‘Top Gear? No, it’s hilarious.’

‘Hmm …’

‘It is! The other day I watched an episode where they were actually playing a game of darts with real cars and a huge gas-powered cannon!’

I look at him doubtfully. Is this the same man I met a year ago, who had swept me off my feet on the top of the London Eye by silently declaring his love for me in movie quotes with flash cards, Love Actually-style?

‘And,’ Sean continues, ‘I seem to remember you being very interested in the episode when Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz were driving around the race track.’

‘Yes, well, that was different. They don’t usually have movie stars on there, do they?’ I hadn’t lost my love of movies altogether since moving in with Sean. It had just been diluted to a more ‘manageable’ level. I gesture at the TV screen. ‘A programme where three middle-aged men drone on about cars for half an hour just isn’t my idea of fun. It’s like Last of the Summer Wine, but with engines and a bit more hair.’

Sean’s lips twitch in amusement as he tries to remain serious. ‘What is your idea of a good programme, then? Hmm … let me think. I know, there needs to be the minimum of at least one crime, preferably a murder to be solved by a dour yet lovable detective. Or the actors need to be trussed up in a corset, a pair of tight breeches and live in a big mansion in the country somewhere.’

‘I do watch more than police shows and costume dramas,’ I reply haughtily. ‘I have quite a varied taste in televisual viewing.’

Sean grins now. ‘That’s right, I almost forgot – we need to make sure the leading man is a bit of a handsome fella too, and then it’s your perfect programme! I should call the BBC and suggest it to them: remake Pride and Prejudice with Colin Firth, except this time call it Mr Darcy Investigates. He could ride around on his horse, unravelling local mysteries. There must have been loads of unsolved murders in Jane Austen’s time.’

I fold my arms and survey him disapprovingly across the sofa. Although the idea of Colin Firth striding around Pemberley as an eighteenth-century detective is not altogether a bad idea …

‘Well, tell me I’m wrong,’ Sean challenges, still grinning.

‘Why would I need to lust after TV stars when I’ve got my own handsome hunk sitting right here on my sofa?’ I answer, my frown beginning to soften into a smile. ‘When you’re actually at home, of course,’ I add.

‘Hmm … I might just let you get away with that,’ Sean says, reaching across the settee and pulling me towards him.

‘Oi,’ I pretend to complain, as I find myself on Sean’s lap. ‘I thought you weren’t well!’

‘I’m suddenly feeling much, much better,’ Sean whispers as he deftly flicks off the TV with the remote control in one hand, while the other wraps itself around my waist. And I find, for once, that it’s my chassis commanding his attention for the next few minutes, instead of the highly polished, overpriced ones on the TV screen.

‘You’re going where with Oscar?’ Sean asks me as he buttons up his shirt and deftly knots his tie in the mirror of our dressing table.

‘To the gym. Well, we’re calling in somewhere first to drop off one of his outfits.’

One of my best friends, Oscar, falling on his designer-shoe-clad feet, has managed to ride the tidal wave of recession hitting the independent high-street retailer and has turned his cornucopia of a boutique, where he was selling designer fashions through the decades, into a thriving costume-hire business. Now he’s offering his genuine period clothing not only to private clients and businesses, but quite often these days he is asked by magazines and newspapers for one-off items for photo shoots. And recently he’s had some breaks in the film and television market, too. It was with much excitement that we’d eagerly tuned in to an episode of a new BBC1 wartime drama the other night, just so we could spot one of Oscar’s hats appearing on the head of Prostitute Number Two in a scene set in the East End of London.

‘You and Oscar are going to the gym?’ Sean asks, turning round to face me. ‘So that’s why you’re dressed like that.’

I look into the full-length mirror that stands in the corner of our bedroom. ‘Is it a bit over the top?’ I ask, eyeing my new black and red Nike tracksuit with matching Lycra vest top. There’s also a pair of coordinating cycling shorts concealed beneath the tracksuit bottoms, which may or may not be revealed this morning, depending on just how many mirrors the gym contains.

Sean moves behind me and considers my reflection, then he kisses the side of my neck. ‘No one will even bat an eyelid at you when you arrive with Oscar, sweetheart. I don’t even want to try to imagine what he’s going to turn up in!’

Ever since I met Oscar last year, when I first came to Notting Hill, he’s always had a pretty eccentric taste in clothes. Never one to blend into the background, Oscar’s taste definitely leans towards the brighter end of the colour spectrum. In fact, a macaw parrot would probably feel dull and uninteresting perched next to him.

‘You’ll find out in a moment – he’s coming round to pick me up.’

‘Why this sudden interest in joining a gym?’ Sean asks, moving away from the mirror to lift his jacket from the hanger.

‘Oh, no reason. Oscar and I just decided we wanted to get fitter, that’s all, and we thought we’d go for a little induction today to see if we like it – it’s free, after all.’

‘Scarlett, I know you a bit better than that by now …’ Sean thinks for a moment while he adjusts his tie in the mirror. ‘Let me guess: there’s a rumour that some celebrity has joined this gym you’re testing out, and you’re hoping to catch a glimpse of him in his shorts.’

Damn, Sean knows me a bit too well.

‘You know I’ve been exercising a lot with my workout DVDs lately,’ I say, sitting down on the bed and pulling on my new Nike trainers. ‘I just thought I’d step it up a gear.’ In reality, I’d bought a box set of Davina McCall workouts and done the first DVD two and half times. The half was because I’d got distracted midway through by a man outside in the street busking Beatles songs. Not unusual in London, but in a suburban street in Notting Hill definitely a stop-and-stare necessity.

Sean waits with his arms folded. He taps his foot on the carpet for added effect.

‘OK, OK, yes,’ I look up at him from the bed. ‘There was a tiny little rumour that Jude Law has been spotted using the gym while he’s in a West End play in town, but that’s not the only reason we’re going there today.’

‘I knew it!’ he announces triumphantly, a broad grin spreading across his face. ‘You’ll never change, Scarlett.’

‘That’s not true! You know I don’t watch anywhere near the amount of movies I used to.’

‘No, you don’t,’ Sean’s face becomes serious. ‘But you’ve replaced your obsession with other things.’

‘Like?’

‘Like TV, and that computer of yours. You’re never off it.’

I finish lacing up my shoes. ‘You can talk about TV, with your stupid car programmes and your sport, you watch just as much as me. And I like my laptop. It keeps me in touch with people.’

Sean snorts. ‘Not real people, though. Internet people.’

‘They are real people! Just because I can’t see them in the flesh doesn’t make them imaginary.’

Sean’s face softens again; he walks over towards me and kisses me on the forehead. ‘Scarlett, as long as you’re happy I don’t mind what you find yourself obsessed with next. As long as it’s legal, of course,’ he adds with a wink. ‘Now I have to go to work. Have fun with Oscar at the gym, won’t you? Don’t work out too hard – you’re just a beginner, remember.’

‘I’ll keep it in mind, thanks, Sean,’ I reply, trying to sound aloof. But as Sean scoops me up into his arms to kiss me goodbye properly, as always, I melt at the feeling of his lips on mine. Some things never change.

We both head downstairs, and as Sean opens the front door to leave the house Oscar is already standing on the doorstep, about to ring the bell.

‘You must have sensed I was coming, darling,’ Oscar announces, flamboyantly swishing past Sean into the hall.

‘Yes, I thought I could feel my retinas beginning to burn,’ Sean says, pretending to shield his eyes from Oscar’s bright clothing. ‘Much as I’d love to stay and chat, Oscar, as always, I have to go to work. Bye, Scarlett, have fun working out those noses of yours.’

Both Oscar and I grimace at him as he closes the door.

Oscar and Sean have never seen eye to eye. Mainly because, some years ago, Sean used to date Oscar’s sister, and when they broke up, quite bitterly at the time, Jennifer went to live over in the States.

‘Oscar, you look …’ I search for an appropriate word as I gaze at the abundance of neon Lycra positively throbbing before me in the hallway ‘… resplendent,’ I decide.

‘Do you think?’ Oscar says, pirouetting around on the tiled floor. ‘I thought it might be a tad over the top. But as I always say, if you’re going to do something, you may as well do it to the absolute limit!’

‘You’ve certainly done that. Perhaps …’ I hesitate as I think about the hip and trendy private gym we’re going to be entering today.

‘Perhaps what?’ Oscar scoots over to the wall and scrutinises himself in front of the mirror. ‘It’s too much, isn’t it?’ he wails. ‘I knew it. It will have to go.’ He carefully removes a shocking-pink towelling headband. ‘There, what do you think now – better?’

I try not to look at the rest of his ensemble – his electric-blue Lycra leggings with emerald-green leg warmers, or his matching blue singlet with a bright pink tick across the chest. ‘Much better, Oscar,’ I agree. ‘The headband was a bit OTT.’

‘Fabbo! Now, are you ready to get going? We’ve got to drop this at the TV studios on the way, you know?’ Oscar holds up a zipped suit bag containing one of the vintage outfits from his shop.

‘Yes, I haven’t forgotten.’ How could I? We were going to a real TV studio! I was so excited. But I was trying to act cool and calm, like it was an everyday occurrence. ‘Will we be OK to get in looking like this, though?’ I glance down at my gym gear.

‘Are you kidding, Scarlett, this is TV! Anything goes behind the scenes. It’s only onscreen that there are rules and regulations.’

‘Like what?’

‘Like, they don’t want you wearing big stripes because it interferes with the screen, or something, and if it’s morning TV there’s no black, it has to be bright and breezy.’

‘So if one of us accidentally ends up on air today, then you’ll have no worries, Oscar.’

Oscar tosses his head. ‘There’s as much chance of that happening as one of us dating Bradley Cooper. Too much security, darling; it’s like Colditz getting in and out of there.’

We set off for the TV studios in a black cab. Oscar won’t allow his clothes on public transport, in case they get squashed or tainted by the smell of commuters. As we trail across London in the taxi, I look out at the city I now call home.

It hadn’t taken me too long to get used to living here permanently. After I’d spent a month house-sitting last year in Notting Hill, and I’d fallen in love with my next-door neighbour at the time – Sean – it hadn’t taken me much thought at all before upping sticks and moving in with him. We’d relocated the offices of the popcorn-machine company I continued to run with my father from Stratford-upon-Avon down to London, and our headquarters were now based in a little office in Chelsea. But it was only me and my new assistants, Tammy and Leon, that ran the offices now. Dorothy, my father’s faithful secretary of many years, had decided to retire when Dad had gone over to New York to run the new US arm of the business. Which was blossoming, after Sean had purchased a chain of cinemas last year in one of his business deals, and our popcorn machines were gradually supplying the ever-growing needs of the cinema-goers of America.

I missed Dad terribly. But he’d taken to living in New York surprisingly well. I think he quite enjoyed having the chance to do something different with his life for once, and my moving in with Sean had given him the push to move on.

‘What ya thinkin’ about?’ Oscar asks, as we suddenly pick up speed and start moving through the early-morning traffic at a pace.

‘Dad.’

‘You miss him, don’t you?’ Oscar asks, resting his hand on mine.

I nod. ‘Yes, but he’s having a whale of a time over in New York. Best thing that ever happened to him, going to the States. It’s been like a new lease of life.’

‘Doesn’t mean you shouldn’t miss him, though, Scarlett. It was only the two of you for twenty-three years. It’s understandable you should feel the loss.’

I nod again. Oscar always knows the right thing to say. He’s been like my new best friend since I’ve come to live in London. Maddie, my oldest friend, still isn’t that far away in Stratford-upon-Avon, when she isn’t off travelling around the world with her husband, Felix, but it just isn’t the same.

Suddenly the taxi driver screeches to a halt.

‘What’s wrong?’ I exclaim, peering through the glass partition to see what’s caused him to brake so hard.

‘Bloody joggers!’ he moans, rolling his eyes. ‘Shouldn’t be allowed. She just stepped right out in front of that bus, and now there’s a three-vehicle pile-up.’

As the taxi driver slowly pulls around the line of vehicles, I see some early-bird tourists already snapping photos of the incident, and uniformed police officers appearing on the scene, trying to grab a couple of witnesses to take a statement from as the jogger looks anxiously at her watch.

‘I don’t think she is a jogger,’ I remark as we drive by. ‘Her clothes suggest she’s going to a gym, like us, not out road-running.’

Oscar laughs. ‘Two sessions with Davina McCall, and you’re a fitness expert now?’

‘Three, actually, and I have bought some other workout DVDs, I just haven’t had time to do them yet.’

‘And will you?’ Oscar asks with wide eyes.

‘Depends on how I get on at the gym later this morning. I could well take up a yearly membership if I like it.’

‘You mean if you catch a glimpse of Jude Law in a sweat-soaked vest!’

‘There is that added incentive!’

The taxi pulls to a stop outside the TV studios where we’re dropping off Oscar’s outfit. While Oscar pays the driver, I look up at the rather dull building we’re about to enter. It doesn’t look much like I’ve imagined a TV studio might look. It’s quite drab and boring on the outside. But as we go through the security gate outside, giving our names and reason for being there, and then on into Reception where we sign our names in a book, it begins to feel a bit more exciting. I see photographs of some of the programmes that are filmed there, and some of the personalities that work on them. Oscar flashes his visitor’s pass at the smiling receptionist and we’re allowed further into the building.

‘So where do we have to go now?’ I ask, trying to act cool but feeling a sense of nervous anticipation, like a child about to visit Santa.

‘This way,’ Oscar says, prancing down a long corridor.

As I follow him, I try and look as if I visit TV studios every day of the week, but the reality is my head is swivelling to and fro trying to see inside rooms and offices in the hope that I might spot something exciting going on.

But it’s all quite boring, really, not at all what I expected. It’s just like a normal office block.

Then as we turn a corner, and Oscar hurriedly sets off down the next long corridor, I pause for a moment to glance back at a small crowd of people gathering outside one of the rooms we’ve just passed.

It couldn’t be – could it? It had looked an awful lot like him sitting in that chair as we’d whizzed past … But what would he be doing here at this time of the morning?

Then I see a sign above me on the wall that says Wake Up Britain TV Studios, and the penny drops. He must be a guest this morning on breakfast television. I’m about to call out to Oscar to wait a moment, but the corridor stretching out in front of me is empty.

I look at my two options. Chase after Oscar and his 1920s flapper dress and matching headband, or casually wander back down the corridor and possibly get the chance to speak to Colin Firth …

It doesn’t take much thinking about.

I’m about to take a step towards my date with destiny when a young man in faded jeans and a Ted Baker t-shirt taps me on the shoulder.

‘Excuse me?’ he enquires.

I’m almost thrusting my hands in the air in surrender and admitting that yes, I’m not supposed to be here alone when he continues, ‘Are you the fitness expert?’

‘I … I’m sorry?’ I ask, looking at him in bewilderment.

‘The new Wake Up Britain fitness expert? To say there’s been a bit of a panic going on down there,’ he gestures down the corridor, ‘is an understatement. We didn’t think you were going to make it when you said you’d been in a traffic accident. I’m Rich. We spoke on the phone.’

I stare at him blankly.

‘Are you OK?’ he asks, looking worried. ‘Are you in shock or something? You don’t have concussion, do you?’

‘Er, no …’

‘Good-good, then let’s get you down to make-up. You’re looking a bit pale.’

He grasps hold of my arm, and before I know what’s happening I’m being escorted down the corridor and into a small room decorated almost entirely in white. It has large mirrors running the length of the wall, and several high seats standing in front of the mirrors.

‘Hi,’ says a young girl with long auburn hair and wild jewellery, gesturing at one of the seats. ‘Sit right here. Won’t be a mo.’

I’m just about to explain that I’m not actually an expert in fitness, and that the only time I really get out of breath is when I have to run the length of Oxford Street on the first day of the sales, and that I can judge my current strength levels on just how many shopping bags my biceps can endure in the process without becoming too overloaded … when she whips a white gown away from the person sitting in the chair next to me.

‘There, all done, Mr Firth,’ she says, coyly smiling at him in the mirror.

‘Thank you, Michelle,’ he says, a charming smile spreading across his newly made-up face. He lifts himself from the chair and glances in my direction. ‘Don’t worry – you’re in safe hands. Probably bump into you in the green room in a few minutes,’ is his parting comment, before he’s suddenly surrounded by people wearing headphones and carrying clipboards. Most that gather in the gang don’t actually seem to have a reason to be there, but just need to be passing by at the time because, hey, it is Colin Firth.

‘Now,’ Michelle says, securing a clean white gown around my neck so I can’t escape. ‘Let’s have a look at you.’

I should protest. I should say, ‘No, I’m not supposed to be sitting here. I’m not a fitness expert,’ or whatever it is Rich thinks I am. But I can’t. Colin Firth has just spoken to me. Mr Darcy has just said, ‘See you in the green room in a few minutes.’ I’m not going to turn down an invitation like that, am I?

Michelle spends the next few minutes making me look fit to appear on TV. This involves spraying quite a lot of very dark base on me so I look as if I’ve been under a sunbed a tad too long, with a sort of spraying wand that Michelle explains is sp. . .