Havana Adams - Black Diamond

“Tonight?” Brody asked. “I’m pretty beat and I was going to drop in on the guys, pump some iron…” Lola had heard enough.

“That’s OK,” she answered sweetly, though it really wasn’t.

As they emerged from Valhalla a small cluster of photographers snapped off several pictures, but Lola barely paid them any attention. She stalked ahead of Brody, not caring whether or not he was behind her. She was tired of playing nice. With her licence still suspended, Lola was stuck with being chauffeured around everywhere and she sighed with relief as her car rounded the corner.

“Thanks for dinner,” Lola said brusquely, her air kiss metres away from Brody’s cheek.

“We should hook up…” Brody began but his words were cut off by the slam of Lola’s door. She’d already hopped into the back of her car.

Lola curled up in the plush leather seats of the car and watched Saturday night unfold all along Sunset Boulevard. She longed to jump out of the car, leave the tinted windows behind and be part of the life happening on the streets. How had she become this shadow of herself? Once she had been the life of the party. And suddenly Lola was enraged, she wanted to fight and she knew exactly where to take her rage.

“Mom!”

Lola’s call echoed through the house but the only response was silence. It had been months since she had set foot in this house. Months since Scarlet had let it be known that she was no longer welcome here. Lola’s gaze darted around the vast open living space. She stared at the huge Warhol mounted above the fireplace and she had an urge to shove a knife through the canvas and destroy her mother’s pride and joy.

Lola toed off her platform shoes and padded barefoot to the kitchen. Without thinking about it she reached for a bottle of her mother’s most expensive whisky and twisted the top off, pouring a generous measure into a coffee mug.

“What the hell are you doing here?” Lola spun around, startled to see Scarlet staring at her, red-faced and furious. A slow smile unfolded across Lola’s face and she took a deliberate sip of the whisky. She felt the tension uncurl within her as the warm liquid hit the back of her throat.

“What does it look like?” Lola’s retort had Scarlet shaking her head.

“I don’t have time for this.”

“I thought you might have missed me, Mother,” Lola sniped and was rewarded by a reddening of Scarlet’s cheeks.

“You’re a fucking liability,” Scarlet shrieked and Lola gloried in seeing her mother lose control. Scarlet Wilde, Hollywood’s serial bride might have reinvented herself as a veg-eating, animal rights-loving teetotaller, but Lola knew what still lurked beneath the surface. Scarlet’s conversion had come in the wake of a string of flop movies and Lola knew that her mother would do anything to be back in the A-List, pity for her then that a woman of almost fifty was probably more likely to be eaten by a unicorn on Malibu beach than star in a studio movie.

“I’m a liability, I’m a liability,” Lola laughed and took another sip of the whisky. “Well I guess I learned from the best.”

“You are an embarrassment,” Scarlet lashed out again. “Parading around everywhere waiting for the photographers to see you. Jeez, you’d think you’d have more class.”

“This from a woman who gets married more often than most women change their panties.”

Lola didn’t see Scarlet move, didn’t see the hand coming. The hand that struck her was swift, the slap ringing out in the quiet kitchen and then a deathly silence fell. Slowly, Lola put her cup down; she saw the shock on Scarlet’s face.

“I didn’t mean…” her mother began. But Lola was already walking away. She heard her mother’s bare feet slapping on the tiled floors as she scurried after her.

“You think I’m an embarrassment now?” Lola snapped as she spun around to face her mother. Lola gave a dangerous smile as she met Scarlet’s gaze. “Just you wait.” Scooping up her high-heeled shoes, Lola swept out of the house and slammed the front door so hard that paintings on the wall shook.

CHAPTER 9

The sun was setting over the River Cherwell as Grace walked back from her tutorial, crossing over Magdalen Bridge. Grace slowed her steps, moving to lean over the bridge as she watched the sky. From below, there was a burst of laughter and Grace looked down to see a group of students on two punts pushing through the water, with more enthusiasm than skill. Grace sighed. Trinity Term, the Oxford summer term, was over, her room back at Hennies had been packed up, there was no avoiding it now; she had to go home for the summer. The sun had almost completely disappeared and the punters were disappearing around a bend in the river. Reluctantly, Grace grabbed her bag up and continued the walk back to College. The last few weeks of term had flown by and Grace had been aware of a certain lightness in her; even Vicky had noticed the difference.

“Why are you smiling?” she’d asked Grace once, as they’d completed another shift serving dinner at Newman. Grace had shrugged and said nothing but Vicky had thrown her a knowing smile and rolled her eyes. Grace had recounted the events to Vicky – the dropped potato and then the incident outside the lecture theatre and talking with Matt.

“You shouldn’t get all moony about him,” Vicky said with her usual pragmatism. Grace rewarded her friend with a glare.

“I’m not mooning,” she snapped.

“You barely even noticed when Nessa screamed at you.” Grace shook her head and they’d carried on towards College.

But now as she slowly threaded her way down Turl Street, she knew that Vicky had seen through her. Since that day, when they had talked, Matt nodded to her whenever he saw her, he greeted her with a smile on the rare occasions when she’d ended up serving him in Hall. He had never purposely sought her out and yet somehow Grace knew that he was protecting her from The Gatsbies. There had been sidelong looks and glances from Poppy and the others, but none of the unkind words that Grace had feared; there was no doubt about it, Matt was her protector. Grace was embarrassed and yet she found herself daydreaming about Matt, wondering how she might orchestrate a meeting with him. And then she would catch sight of herself in a mirror and the fantasy would be broken. Matt would never look at anyone like her.

Grace sighed and she turned her mind to the journey home. By claiming pressures of college work and taking a job on the cleaning staff of the College during Easter, Grace had managed to stay away from London, away from The Pastor for most of the academic year. She had not seen her mother in months. Grace had longed for her mother to come up to Oxford, just for the first day but The Pastor had forbidden it. Grace felt a sting of guilt. She had abandoned her mother these last few months, but she gritted her teeth and pushed the feeling aside; she had done what she needed to do.

As she walked through the University Parks, Grace noticed in the distance a small group of people. Several picnic hampers had been carelessly discarded, a kissing couple slow danced and several bodies lazed on checked picnic blankets in the dull glow of the setting sun. Grace adjusted her glasses and squinted as she tried to make out their faces and then she froze. It was The Gatsbies. Her eyes turned back to the couple slow dancing and now she saw them clearly. It was Matt and in his arms was Laura. Grace felt her stomach plummet. All the inchoate fantasies that she had hardly allowed herself to give name to scattered in the wind and behind her glasses, she blinked hard. Her head down, Grace continued towards the exit that would take her to Hennies. As she stamped down on the mournful emotions that threatened to rise up in her, she thanked the gods that this time at least, her humiliation had been private.