call a friend at a New York modelling agency. He said he’d be happy to walk me down a red carpet sometime soon – I’d learnt the hard way that a shot of me on his arm would send Mister Walmart’s career skyrocketing – so I’d gotten rid of him as soon as I could.
So what if you had told Mrs Dormouse the truth, Electra? So what if you’d admitted that last night you were so off your face with liquor and coke that you could have slept with Santa and you wouldn’t have known about it? That the reason you couldn’t even begin to think about your father wasn’t because of his death, but because you knew how ashamed he’d be of you . . . how ashamed he’d been of you?
At least when Pa Salt had been alive, I’d known he couldn’t see what I was doing, but now he was dead, he’d somehow become omnipresent; he could have been in the bedroom with me last night, or even here in the limo right now . . .
I cracked and reached for a mini vodka, then poured it down my throat, trying to forget the look of disappointment on Pa’s face the last time I’d seen him before he’d died. He’d come to New York to visit me, saying he had something to tell me. I’d avoided him until the last possible evening, when I had reluctantly agreed to have dinner with him. I’d arrived at Asiate, a restaurant just across Central Park, already tanked on vodka and uppers. I’d sat numbly opposite him throughout the meal, excusing myself to go to the ladies’ room to do a few bumps of coke whenever he tried to start conversations I didn’t want to pursue.
Once dessert had arrived, Pa had crossed his arms and regarded me calmly. ‘I’m extremely worried for you, Electra. You seem to be completely absent.’
‘Well, you don’t understand the kind of pressure I’m under,’ I’d snapped at him. ‘What it takes to be me!’ To my shame, I only had vague memories of what happened next or what he’d said but I knew I’d stood up and walked out on him. So now I’d never even know what it was he’d wanted to tell me . . .
‘Why do you give a shit, Electra?’ I asked myself as I wiped my mouth and stuck the empty bottle in a pocket – my driver was new and all I needed was a story in a newspaper saying I’d drunk the mini bar dry. ‘He’s not even your real father anyway.’
Besides, there was nothing I could do about it now. Pa was gone – like everyone else I’d loved in my life – and I had to get on with it. I didn’t need him, I didn’t need anybody . . .
‘We’re here, ma’am,’ said the driver through the intercom.
‘Thanks. I’ll jump out,’ I added, then did so, closing the limo door behind me. It was best to make my arrival at any place as inconspicuous as possible; other celebrities could wear disguises and get away with going to a local diner, but I was over six feet tall and pretty hard to miss in a crowd, even if I hadn’t been famous.
‘Hi there, Electra!’
‘Tommy,’ I said, managing a smile as I walked beneath the canopy towards the entrance to my apartment building, ‘how are you today?’
‘All the better for seeing you, ma’am. Did you have a good day?’
‘Yeah, great, thank you,’ I nodded as I looked down – and I mean down – at my number one fan. ‘See you tomorrow, Tommy.’
‘You sure will, Electra. Not going out tonight?’
‘No, it’s a quiet one in. Bye now,’ I said as I gave him a wave and walked inside.
At least he loves me, I mused as I collected my mail from the concierge and headed for the elevator. As the porter rode up with me simply because it was his job (I considered offering him my keys to hold as that was all I was carrying), I thought about Tommy. He stood sentinel outside the building most days and had done so for the past few months. At first it had freaked me out and I’d asked the concierge to get rid of him. Tommy had stood his ground – literally – and said that he had every right to stand on the sidewalk, that he wasn’t bothering anyone, and that all he wanted to do was to protect