Olivia Joules and the Overactive Imagination by Helen Fielding Page B

open the door, Olivia climbed in, or rather fell in, tripped over the bump in the middle, and found herself looking at a pair of Gucci stilettos. Her eyes moved upwards past delicate olive ankles and a dusty-pink silk dress to discover she was sharing the limo with Suraya. What was this?
    “Hello again,” said Olivia, trying to crawl onto the seat while retaining some vestiges of dignity.
    “Hi. My God! What happened to your face?”
    “I had a facial,” she said, glancing round nervously as the limo purred off onto Sunset.
    “Oh no.” Suraya started to laugh. “You went to Michael, right? He’s such a bullshitter. Come here.”
    She clicked open her bag, leaned over and started dabbing at Olivia’s face with concealer. It was an oddly intimate moment. Olivia was too startled to protest.
    “So, you and Pierre, hey?” Suraya’s voice didn’t fit with the elegant beauty. She sounded stoned and what Olivia’s mother would have described as “common.” “Are you guys an item?”
    “Heavens no! Just a friendly dinner!” There was something about Suraya which was turning Olivia into a hearty Girl Guide.
    “Oh, come on,” drawled Suraya, leaning forward. “He thinks you’re very intelligent.”
    “That’s nice!” she said brightly.
    p. 90 “Sure.” Suraya looked out of the window, smirking to herself. “So you’re a journalist, right? We should go shopping.”
    “Right,” said Olivia, trying to work out the logic of this.
    “We’ll go to Melrose. Tomorrow?”
    “I have to work,” she said, thinking how nonencouraging it would be trying on clothes with a six-foot, eight-stone model. “What do you do?”
    “I’m an actress,” Suraya said dismissively.
    “Really? Are you going to be in Pierre’s movie?”
    “Sure. Movie, bullshit, whatever. Do you really think he’s for real?” Suraya said conspiratorially. “Feramo, I mean.” She opened her purse and checked her reflection, then leaned forward again. “Well?” she asked, slipping her hand onto Olivia’s knee and giving it a squeeze.
    Olivia started to panic. Were they planning a hideous seventies-style sex romp as part of the smoke screen? They were passing the pink palace of the Beverly Hills Hotel now. She wanted to open the window and yell out, “Help, help! I’m being kidnapped.”
    “Pierre? I think he’s very attractive. Are we going out to a restaurant?”
    “I dunno. Restaurant, order in, whatever,” said Suraya. “But do you think he’s really a movie producer?”
    “Of course,” said Olivia levelly. “Why? Don’t you?”
    “I guess. How long are you going to be in LA? Do you like the Standard?”
    If she was trying to get information, she wasn’t very good at it.
    “It’s great, but not the sort of place you feel like putting on a bikini. It’s like being on the set of Baywatch. Though that wouldn’t be a problem for you.”
    “Nor you,” said Suraya, pointedly eyeing her breasts. “You’ve got a great little figure.”
    Olivia adjusted her dress nervously. “Where are we going?”
    “Pierre’s apartment?”
    “Where’s that?”
    p. 91 “On Wilshire? So why don’t I call you on your cell tomorrow to fix up shopping?”
    “Call me at the hotel,” said Olivia firmly. “Like I said, I’ll be working.”
    Suraya looked nasty when she wasn’t getting her own way. They lapsed into an uncomfortable silence as Olivia glumly imagined what was ahead: Olivia tied naked back to back with Suraya, while Alfonso strutted round them dressed as a baby in rubber pants and Pierre Feramo minced to and fro, cracking a whip. If only she’d stayed in the hotel and ordered room service.
     
    Pierre’s apartment in the Wilshire Regency Towers was the pinnacle of vertical luxury living. The elevator doors swung open on the nineteenth floor to reveal a gold and beige temple to understated bad taste. This was more like it—mirrors, gold tables, a black onyx statue of a jaguar. There was only one elevator. She