I Heart Forever: The brilliantly funny feel-good romance

CHAPTER FOUR

The St Regis was a great choice for an emergency after-work drink. It was a fancy hotel with a classy bar that made you feel like you were either a very important person or a very expensive call girl, depending on which boots you might be wearing at the time. Nothing terrible could happen at the St Regis, it was altogether too swanky for that, they simply wouldn’t allow it. There was something about necking a twenty-five-dollar cocktail that made the rest of the world disappear, leaving just you, your booze, and an extortionate credit card bill to take your mind off whatever troubles you’d trotted in with.

‘It’s six ten,’ Jenny greeted me, pushing a French martini down the bar and tapping her wrist where a watch was not. Jenny never wore a watch. She claimed to have an innate ability to tell the time, but I suspected it had far more to do with the fact that she never went more than fifteen seconds without looking at her phone.

I hopped onto the bar stool next to her, wondering for the first time how appropriate my outfit was for the venue. A corduroy dress with a stripy T-shirt underneath was great for a fashion mag, but not all that wonderful for the King Cole bar of the St Regis. The two older gentlemen in three-piece suits certainly didn’t seem to share my appreciation for Free People’s finest work.

‘I had to finish proofreading an article about the psychology of nail shapes,’ I said, smiling to myself before turning back to my friend. ‘Did you know that almond-shaped nails mean you’re more likely to be faithful?’

‘What do these say about me?’ she asked, flashing ten Chanel Rouge Noir stiletto-shaped nails in my face.

‘That you’re a sweet homebody who is good with animals and children,’ I replied, ferreting around in my handbag for my phone. Alex hadn’t been in touch all day and I didn’t want to miss him if he called.

‘Not that I’m complaining about a two-night back-to-back Angelathon,’ Jenny said, admiring her nails before she wrapped them around the stem of her cocktail glass. ‘But what was so bad about today that called for emergency drinks? Did you get busted photo- copying your ass again?’

‘That was one time,’ I said defensively. ‘I was just curious. And I still had my tights on, so it barely counts.’

She raised an eyebrow and supped.

‘I met my new boss today,’ I explained, gripping the base of my martini glass and twisting it around in shiny circles.

‘And it was amazing and he loves you and he’s already given you a promotion and a raise and every other Friday off?’

‘Exactly that,’ I agreed. ‘Except the opposite.’

She gave me a quizzical look. ‘So, you have to work every other Friday?’

‘Keep your fingers crossed I keep working at all,’ I said, pressing my fingers into my temples. ‘We had a really fun, confidential meeting where he basically told me he’s going to sack about half the staff, just before Christmas. Delia has hired the Grinch and given him complete authority over my magazine. A mean, tall, super-handsome, impeccably dressed Grinch.’

‘He’s hot?’ Jenny asked.

‘Not the point,’ I replied. ‘But yes. And it doesn’t help.’

‘Shit, doll, I’m sorry.’ She reached over the bar and swiped a little glass bowl of snacks. Truly, she knew the way to my heart. ‘That sucks. I just figured you wanted to lecture me about my decision without Erin here to back me up.’

‘Well, since you mention it …’ I slipped my phone into the pocket of my skirt so I wouldn’t be tempted to spend the entire night looking at it. Just like Jenny was at that exact second. Just like Jenny always was. ‘You know I love you and I am Team Jenny all the way, but are you really, really sure this is the best idea you’ve ever had?’

‘Best ever,’ she nodded, taking the olive out of her drink and pulling it off the toothpick with her teeth. ‘Like, even better than that time I invented that keychain with a phone charger attachment.’

‘You didn’t invent a keychain with a phone charger attachment,’ I reminded her. ‘You superglued your keyring to a phone charger and then you loaned it to someone in a bar, forgot about it and had to call a locksmith at 3 a.m. to get your locks changed.’

A flicker of remembrance crossed her face before she went on chewing her olive. I turned green as a wave of nausea washed over me. I hated olives, all briny and green and evil. I liked my martinis the same way I liked my bread and my cheese, so French they should be wearing a beret.

‘Did I?’ she replied, knowing full well that she did. ‘Whatever. I was worried about it but now I’ve made my mind up and I know it’s the right thing to do. Lisa Vanderpump says if you’ve told a guy what you want and he won’t give it to you, it’s time to move on.’

Puffing out my cheeks, I counted to five before I opened my mouth to speak. I wanted to count to ten but there was just no way.

‘If Lisa Vanderpump told you to jump off a bridge, would you do it?’ I asked. Jenny paused for a moment while she considered the question.

Her phone sparked into life on the bar before she could answer me and she pounced on the illuminated screen.

‘Expecting a call?’ I asked.

‘No one in particular,’ she said, pushing it away with a sigh as the screen flickered back into darkness. I couldn’t help but notice she still had the photo I had taken of the two of them kissing on New Year’s Eve as her wallpaper. Maybe there was still hope. ‘Like I said, things haven’t been the same lately. He’s hardly ever available and he’s distant when he is there. I’m telling you, Angie, I have to end things before he does.’

And maybe there was literally absolutely no hope at all.

‘Please don’t rush into it,’ I begged, sloshing my untouched drink all over the bar. For twenty-five bucks, you wanted a generous pour but my mum still gave me half a cup of tea at a time when I was at home, so there was little to no hope of my picking up a full martini glass without a fair amount failing to find my mouth.

‘He’s going through a lot of stuff at work, trust me. Things are crazy right now, with the new brand managers, all the rumours flying around. He’s worried he’ll be out of a job soon, that’s not exactly ideal, is it?’

Jenny narrowed her dark brown eyes at me.

‘Since when were the two of you BFFs?’ She slid her neat and tidy glass away from the pool of vodka, pineapple and Chambord that was slowing spreading across the bar. ‘I thought you hardly ever even saw each other?’

‘We don’t,’ I said, mopping up my mess with a napkin under the watchful eye of a waiter. ‘But I know how stressful things have been at Spencer lately. For everyone. And I know I sound like a broken record but he’s such a good person, Jenny, and is it just me or are his arms getting even bigger?’

Try as she might, she couldn’t help but smile at the mention of his giant biceps.

‘They are,’ she confirmed. ‘I measure them every week.’

‘You’re a match made in heaven,’ I replied, grabbing another handful of napkins. ‘Really creepy heaven, but still …’

‘Let me get that for you.’ A not-at-all-impressed waiter came over with a clean cloth to clear up my spillage, just as my phone buzzed against my thigh.

‘Ooh!’ I leapt out of my seat and held it in the air. Jenny raised an eyebrow while the two older gentlemen further along the bar audibly tutted in my direction. ‘It might be Alex,’ I stage-whispered in apology. ‘Give me a second. Don’t dump Mason until I’m back.’

I ran-walked out of the bar and into the hotel lobby, pressing the green button as I went.

‘Hello?’

‘Angela?’

It wasn’t Alex but it was a man, leaving me momentarily stumped. Literally no men ever called me on the phone unless they wanted me to donate to their charity or my dad needed to know how long to microwave a baked potato and my mum was out with the WI.

‘Speaking,’ I replied with great reluctance. Once they had your name, it was so much harder to tell them you didn’t want to give twenty dollars a month to help rescue dogs or the New York Philharmonic or whichever political candidate was complaining the loudest this week.

‘It’s Mason, I’m outside the store, where are you?’

Bugger. I’d completely forgotten about my plan to meet Mason. Here I was listening to Jenny explain why she wanted to dump him and all the while I was supposed to be helping him buy her an engagement ring.

‘I got stuck in the office,’ I fibbed, looking back over my shoulder at Jenny, who was, predictably, flicking through her phone. ‘But I’ll be there as soon as I can.’

‘I hope it’s soon enough,’ he answered. ‘I’m pretty sure the security guard is about to make a pass at me.’

Hanging up, I walked purposefully back to the bar. Jenny could always tell when I was lying so this was going to be awful.

‘Hey,’ I picked up my bag from the floor without making eye contact, ‘so, I need to run back to the office. I’m so sorry, I completely forgot.’

‘But I just ordered another drink,’ she said, pointing at the stoic bartender. He shook his cocktail shaker in confirmation. ‘Can’t it wait?’

‘It can’t,’ I said. She looked annoyed but not as though she was about to go nuclear. ‘But I can come back if you want to wait?’

‘What’s going on?’ she asked sharply. ‘What could be such an emergency that you have to go deal with it right now?’

‘Uh, Kris Jenner has announced she’s running for president,’ I rambled, putting my phone on the bar and dropping my bag on the floor while I fought my way back into my Topshop biker jacket. ‘We’ve got to change the cover story. I’ll be back in fifteen minutes. Twenty tops.’

Jenny propped her elbow up on the bar then rested her chin in her hand as I struggled with my outerwear.

‘You OK, hun?’ she asked calmly.

I leaned in to kiss her cheek then turned and ran.

‘Twenty minutes, tops,’ I shouted again as I left.

The doorman gave me a curt nod as he held open the main doors and I peeled out onto 55th and took a right on Fifth Avenue, dodging tourists as I ran the whole block up to Tiffany. Panting, I came to a sweaty halt in front of Mason, swiping strands of hair away from my forehead as I caught my breath.

It was the perfect crime.

‘That was fast,’ Mason said with suspicion as I held up a finger, waiting for my breathing to calm down. I really was out of shape. Sometimes, it wasn’t enough for your jeans to fit, I told myself. First thing Saturday morning, I was going to rejoin the gym. Probably.

‘I ran,’ I explained, choosing not to worry as to whether or not Jenny had bought my story. By the time I got back, she’d be three martinis deep into her evening and wouldn’t care in the slightest. ‘Let’s do this.’

‘You’re sure this is the right ring?’ he asked as I sailed through the door with all the confidence of a woman whose friend was about to spend thousands of dollars on diamonds while she excused herself and used their lovely toilets.

‘I could not be more sure,’ I said, guiding him directly to the lifts at the back of the store. This was not the first time I had made this trip. I was fairly certain Jenny had played tapes of exactly what to ask for while I slept back when we had been roommates. The knowledge was just there, as certain as the sky was blue.

‘Which floor for you both this evening?’ The elevator attendant smiled warmly, clearly presuming Mason and I were a couple. I wasn’t sure if it was the massive grin on my face or the light sweat that had broken out on his forehead, but we definitely looked like two people shopping for a massive rock.

‘We’d like the engagement rings, please,’ I said, my tone triumphant. Even though this ring wasn’t for me, I was beyond excited. This was Jenny’s dream and I got to play a part in making it come true.

‘Wonderful,’ he replied, hitting the button for the second floor. ‘Do you know what you’re looking for or is this an adventure?’

‘Oh, we know,’ I replied. I’d never felt so good about buying something that wasn’t for me. ‘We know exactly.’

I threw Mason my biggest grin and he returned it with a shaky smile of his own.

‘Have fun,’ the attendant said as we arrived at our floor with a ping. He added a wink just for me as I stepped out onto the glorious showroom floor. ‘And congratulations.’

For six thirty on a Tuesday night in November, Tiffany & Co. was surprisingly busy. Multiple couples hovered over display cases with wide eyes and feverish expressions. Credit cards hovered in mid-air, and everywhere I looked, bright, white ice sparkled under the specially designed lights.

‘It’s over here.’ I led Mason over to the glass counter that held the Embrace rings. It had been a couple of months since Jenny and I had ‘popped in on our way past’ but the rings hadn’t moved. I imagined the risk of fifty thousand dollars falling into a crack in the floor or half a mill getting hoovered up by the cleaners really wasn’t worth that hassle. ‘This one.’

And there it was.

Jenny’s ring.

Bold, bright, and almost obscenely sparkly, it was La Lopez herself in jewellery form.

‘Good evening.’

A shortish, baldish, pleasant-looking man appeared behind the counter.

‘Is there anything I can show you this evening?’ he asked with an encouraging expression.

‘We’d like to see the half-carat Embrace,’ I said, pointing at the glass but not quite touching. It wouldn’t do to leave fingerprints in Tiffany. ‘Right, Mason?’

‘Yep,’ he squeaked. ‘We would.’

‘A beautiful ring,’ the assistant said as he opened the cabinet and reached inside to gently pull out the display tray. ‘This really is one of my favourites. Such a glamorous option, a truly romantic offering for an elegant woman.’

He stopped to take a breath and consider my plum-coloured corduroy pinafore dress and stripy T-shirt ensemble.

‘Oh, don’t worry,’ I said, looking down at my own toddler-inspired outfit. ‘It’s not for me.’

‘Quite,’ he replied before placing an almost identical, only slightly larger ring beside the first. ‘Just for size comparison, this is the one-carat version of the same ring. It’s still quite tasteful, perfectly suitable for daily wear. Slightly larger central stone.’

There was nothing slight about it. The new ring looked like something Barbie might have worn around her dream home. Even Elizabeth Taylor would have said it was a bit much.

‘I think we’re fine with the first one,’ Mason gulped.

The assistant nodded. ‘Is there anything else I can show you?’

‘No,’ Mason replied.

‘Yes, please,’ I countered. ‘Have you got anything that’s really massive?’

Mason elbowed me in the ribs as he stared at white diamonds on black velvet.

‘Not for you,’ I replied, eyes glazing over at the pretty things in front of me. ‘While I’m here, I might as well.’

The shortish, baldish assistant amiably opened up neighbouring cabinets and laid several giant rocks out on a separate tray. Mason continued to eyeball Jenny’s ring but made no attempt to touch it. Even though I’d seen it a million times, Jenny had never allowed herself to take the ring out of the cabinet. We only ever looked at it from behind the safety of the glass. Up close, it was even more stunning than I remembered. The central diamond sparkled under the store’s lights while the halo of smaller stones shimmered with a subtlety that belied the fifteen-thousand-dollar price tag.

‘It’s gorgeous,’ I whispered, as I slid a two-carat canary yellow solitaire onto the little finger of my right hand. ‘She’s going to be so happy, Mason.’

I held my breath as, very slowly, a huge smile broke out underneath his beard. He looked at me, and I realized there were tears in his big manly eyes. ‘This is it, this is the ring. It’s Jenny’s ring.’

As soon as he said it, I began to well up.

‘Oh,’ I sniffed, scratching my cheek with an enormous sapphire as I wiped away my own tears. ‘Mason, she’s going to be so happy.’

‘Thank you,’ he said, draping his arm around my shoulders. Given his ridiculous lumberjack build, he had to reach down quite far to give me a half hug but I wrapped my arm around his waist as the assistant gave us one happy nod and silently disappeared to fetch a ring box. ‘Part of me can’t believe I’m actually going to do it, but as soon as I saw the ring, I knew it was right. I want to ask her right now, I don’t even want to wait.’

‘Don’t wait!’ I agreed, tears streaming down my cheeks at the thought of the proposal. ‘Do it right now!’

‘I’m going to call her.’ Mason wiped his eyes with the back of his ringless hand and pulled his phone out of his pocket. ‘Maybe she can meet me for dinner, she’s probably still at work.’

‘No, I know where she is!’ I reached up to snatch the phone out of his hand. ‘She’s right next door, we were having a drink at the King Cole bar before I met you.’

Mason looked at me, confused. ‘I thought you said you were at work?’

‘I did but I lied,’ I said happily. ‘I forgot I was meeting you and I went to meet her but then I told her I had to go to work and – and none of this matters! Let’s go and do it now, her hair looks nice and she’s just had a manicure. She’ll be ecstatic.’

‘OK.’ Mason ran both of his hands through his sandy hair then threw his arms out wide. ‘I’m doing this! I’m going to propose to my girlfriend!’

Before I could object, he grabbed me around the waist and hoisted me off my feet, twirling me around in a circle.

‘Oh, steady on,’ I said, grabbing his shoulder with one hand and clapping the other over my mouth. ‘I’ve been feeling a bit gippy all day.’

Slowly, everyone on the shop floor began to clap.

‘Whoo!’ yelped one overly enthusiastic man in a backwards baseball cap across the way. ‘Congratulations!’

‘Oh no,’ I said, mortified. Whether it was sheer embarrassment or the fact a man was wearing a backwards baseball cap in Tiffany, I couldn’t be sure. ‘Oh, Mason, put me down.’

‘Yeah, Mason, put her down.’

Still holding me hoisted three and a half feet up off the floor, Mason turned to reveal a decidedly unecstatic-looking Jenny Lopez.

‘What the fuck is going on?’

‘Jenny, I—’ Mason, startled, seemed to have completely forgotten what he was doing in the most famous engagement ring shop in the entire history of the world. ‘What are you doing here?’

‘Duuuuude, busted.’

Backwards Baseball Cap Man gasped on the other side of the store and I realized everyone in Tiffany & Co. was watching us.

‘What am I doing here? What are you doing here?’ Jenny demanded. Her face was almost the same shade of red as her nails and her hair was wild. She was furious. ‘Angie left her phone on the bar so I was going to take it to the office but when I followed her out, she didn’t go to her office. She came here. To meet you.’

‘You followed me from the bar?’ I scrunched my eyebrows together, perplexed. ‘How did it take you this long to find us?’

‘Because I had to pee on my way up here, OK?’ she yelled, hurling my phone at me. ‘Someone left an entire martini on the bar and I paid seventy-five dollars for three drinks. I knew you were lying to me – tell me what the hell is going on!’

‘Jenny …’ Mason dropped me like a bag of hot dog shit and I stumbled forward into the glass counter. Before she could say anything else, he dropped to one knee and everyone in the shop held their collective breath. ‘I have something I want to ask you.’

Behind him I gestured wildly for her to come closer but she didn’t move. The fury in her eyes began to shift into wide-eyed shock and her red cheeks faded to white.

‘I’ve been thinking about this for the longest time,’ Mason went on, inching closer to his girlfriend, still on one knee. Even kneeling he was almost as tall as I was. He really would be a handy person to have around if you needed something getting down off the top of the wardrobe. She had done well. ‘Since I met you, my life has changed completely. You make the bad days better and you make the good days fantastic – and I need you to know how much I love you.’

‘Oh.’

Jenny looked up at me as she realized what was happening. From my spot at the counter behind Mason, I gave a nod so big I thought my head might drop off.

‘This isn’t exactly how I’d envisioned it,’ Mason said, ‘but you are the most exceptional, intelligent, ridiculous, beautiful and incredible woman I have ever met and I want to spend the rest of my life beside you.’

He really was very good, I thought, tearing up again as I trained my phone’s camera on Jenny’s face. Impressive proposals were one of the upsides to dating a professional writer.

‘Jenny?’ he reached out and fumbled on the counter for the ring. ‘Will you …’

‘Yes?’ she said, manically combing out her hair with one eye on my phone.

Mason opened his mouth to seal the deal but instead of saying ‘Will you marry me?’ he barked like a wounded sea lion and keeled over, huge, rolling sobs shaking his giant shoulders. Jenny looked at me with fear in her dry eyes. There was a chance this wasn’t exactly how she’d imagined this going down.

‘Mason?’ I said, poking him with my toe. ‘You all right there?’

‘I’m just so happy,’ he choked out each word in between a fresh wail. ‘Jenny, I want to ask you, will you … will you?’

Just as I thought he was going to get through the sentence, he rolled over again, tears streaming down his face and getting lost in his beard before they pooled into a stain on the front of his plaid shirt. For the want of a comprehensible sentence, he held out the ring and squealed.

‘I will,’ I mouthed at Jenny over the top of his prone, checked form.

‘I will!’ she said, rushing towards him and skidding to the floor on her knees to plant a kiss on his lips and, most importantly, get the ring on her finger.

‘Congratulations!’ I shouted, circling around them with my phone, still recording the perfectish moment while all the staff and customers breathed a group sigh of relief and began a round of thunderous applause. It was like something out of a very expensive, slightly odd, fairy tale.

‘Dude!’ yelled Backwards Baseball Cap Man. ‘Sweeeeet.’

‘Yes, congratulations,’ the assistant added, while Jenny and Mason continued their celebratory make-out session on the floor of Tiffany & Co. ‘Will sir be paying with cash or credit?’

‘Oh, it’s credit,’ I said, handing him the credit card Mason had left on the counter before slowly removing all my borrowed baubles. Who walked around New York with thousands of dollars in cash on them? And were they currently in the store and looking for a new British friend? ‘Thank you so much for your help.’

‘Not at all,’ he replied, smiling at the newly engaged couple. ‘It looks perfect on her. I’m so glad he decided to go with the one-carat ring, so much more impactful than the half carat.’

I bit down on my lip as my eyes opened up, saucer-wide at the sight of the half-carat ring still on the counter. Down on the floor, Jenny was laughing deliriously, staring at her own left hand. There wasn’t a snowball’s chance in hell he was getting it off her finger now.

‘What’s the price on the one-carat ring?’ I asked as the assistant quickly and carefully put everything away. ‘Just out of interest.’

‘That one is actually 1.18 carats, and will be twenty- one thousand five hundred,’ he replied without looking up from the task at hand. ‘Plus tax.’

There was that nauseous feeling again.

‘Worth every penny,’ I said, snapping another photo. It would be nice to have as many as possible before Mason saw the price tag and had an aneurysm. ‘It’s a fairy tale come true.’

‘Angie!’ Jenny crawled over to me and hauled herself upright. ‘I’m engaged!’