Chapter 25

Chapter Twenty-Five

Text from Colin: Hey Olive! You didn’t reply to my last text. Is all okay? I am hung-over after the beach party, but it is very warm today. Poolside chill-out day, methinks!

Text from Colin: What’s your email address? I have some amusing memes I can send to you, if you like! I have a folder of them on my iPad :D :D

The thingthey don’t show in TV shows is that in addition to it being super nerve-wracking, getting arrested involves a whole lot of admin. There was a queue. Usually I love a queue. But this was the worst queue I had ever encountered. Really shit queue mates. The woman in front of me said she would perform some erotic poetry for ten dollars and then called me a ‘sumbitch’ when I declined the offer. The man behind me wanted to sell me meth and didn’t mind if I paid him or not. He just wanted a buddy to do the meth with. And the man behind that man just kept yelling that he had to get home immediately because his baby iguanas needed feeding.

After booking me in, taking my prints, mugshot and all of my personal belongings – including, much to my humiliation – the joint that Phyllis gifted me earlier, I was taken to a holding cell. That’s where I am rightnow.

In a jail cell. A freaking jail cell. I don’t even know what’s going to happen next! Do I get a lawyer? Are they going to make me wear an orange jumpsuit? Will the British Embassy be informed? I think I’m in shock. It all feels like a crazy scary trippy dream. This time last week my biggest worry, after Birdie, was the fact that Alex and Donna were making me move into the box room. And now… I am in jail! Sitting next to a woman who tells me her name is Mandy Banana and that I should not look her directly in the eyes because she will ‘fuck a bitchup’.

Oh Jeeeeebus.

I sit huddled on the cold bench of the holding cell – one of those real American movie ones with actual bars – and I shake. My hands, my legs, my bum, my chin, my ears, probably. All of it is trembling. Because at each stage of the booking-in process I’ve tried to explain why I’m here and what I’m trying to do for Birdie. I don’t want to play the ‘my friend is dying’ card, but I do it. And no one seems to care. All they care about is the fact that I am ‘The Menace of Manhattan’ and that I called New York stoopid.

Okay, so I have done some pretty menacing things over the past few days. But I didn’t mean to. It was all accidental. I didn’t really have any choice! And this is New York! A massive, bonkers city. There are worse criminals than me! Since I’ve been here I’ve seen a person not pick up their dog’s turd. I’ve seen multiple people having road rage. I’ve even seen a man throw a frosted cronut at a sightseeing tour bus. What about those people? Those are the real menaces.

But the NYPD don’t care when I inform them of this. I don’t think it helps that my voice is very high-pitched and my face is as red as a cherry. They just tell me to be quiet and wait. Wait for what? I don’tknow.

I do as I’m told and end up sitting in the holding cell for two entire uncomfortable hours before it occurs to me that I’m allowed to make a phone call! That’s the thing isn’t it? One phonecall!

I stand up from the bench, avoiding eye contact with Mandy Banana, and wobble over to the front of the cell, putting my hands around thebars.

‘What now, English?’ the officer at the desk asks without even looking up. He’s been calling me English since I got here. He thinks it’s funny or insulting or something. Little does he know that I quite like it. I’ve always wanted a nickname. In primary school I tried to get everyone to call me Olli, but it never took. I tried again in secondary school, urging people to call me Liv, but that never caught on either. I tried to get both Joans to call me ‘Speedy Brewster’ because I’m the fastest filleter on the team. But sadly it never happened. Since being in New York I’ve aquired two whole nicknames. The Menace of Manhattan and English. I definitely prefer the latter.

‘I need to ask you something,’ I say to the officer.

He sighs. ‘What do you want, English? Why can’t you wait patiently for your assigned legal counsel like Mandy Banana over there, huh? I just want an easy day. That’s all Iwant.’

‘I get a phone call, right?’

The officer looks up. He seems weary, his blue eyes tired beneath his grey eyebrows. He has a kind face, though.

‘You didn’t make your callyet?’

‘Nope. I get a call, don’tI?’

‘Yes. Yes, youdo.’

Yes! Aha!

The officer unlocks the cell, attaches a handcuff to my wrist, which he then clips to his own wrist, and leads me over to his desk, pointing at a cream-coloured desk telephone.

‘I need my mobile,’ I say. ‘It has all my numbers init!’

‘You don’t know any of your numbers by heart?’ he says in disbelief.

‘Of course not! Humans stopped remembering phone numbers with the invention of the smartphone.’

With another laboured sigh, the officer takes the phone and dials a number. ‘Joyce? It’s Officer Leeland. Can you bring Olive Brewster’s smartphone please…? No, she doesn’t remember her numbers by heart… I know. Thanks.’

Within a minute or so, a pretty, chubby woman arrives in the office with my phone. I reach out to grab it fromher.

‘Not so fast!’ Officer Leeland says, taking the mobile before I can. ‘You can tell me the name of the person whose number you want and I will findit.’

‘I can’t give you my passcode! I have private things on there!’

‘Ohyeah?’

‘Not, like, sexy stuff. Just… lists and reminders and notes and links to videos of dogs and cats being friends. Sometimes turtles.’

‘I won’t look at anything. But I’m afraid you can’t have your phoneback.’

‘What do you think I’m gonna do?’ I blurt. ‘Text my way out ofjail?’

My sarcasm does not sitwell.

‘You are arrested,’ Officer Leeland says sternly. ‘You do not get your mobile phone, capiche?’

I nod, willing my ratty temper to simmer down. Now is not the time to get snappy.

With Officer Leeland looking at me expectantly, I realise that I don’t actually have a large pool of people to call. I’m in a different country after all. Then I get an image of Seth giving me his number in the hallway at Trickys this morning. He will help me! ‘Seth,’ I cry. ‘Call Seth. It’s in the contacts app, underSeth.’

‘You don’t say,’ Leeland deadpans, pulling up the number and tapping it into his landline.

He passes the handset to me and I press it to my ear, my stomach flipping at a) the prospect of talking to Seth again after this morning’s kiss fest and b) having to tell him I’m in freaking jail. Very attractive. Olive. Not that I care about how attractive he thinks Iam.

Except I totallydo.

Olive Brewster, you are a damnfool.

Seth’s phone rings.

And rings.

And rings.

When it eventually disconnects, I panic.

‘He didn’t answer! My one phone call and he didn’t answer! He doesn’t even have a voicemail.’

And then, I can’t help it, I burst into tears. What the hell will I do now? I only get one phone call and he didn’t bloody answer! Ohdear.

‘Calm yourself, English!’ the officer says sternly. ‘It’s not true that you only get one phone call. That’s just in the movies. We’re not total monsters. Just call someone else already.’

A river of relief runs over me. But then it occurs to me… I don’t have anyone else I can call. Birdie or Alex and Donna can’t do anything from the UK. And I don’t have Mrs Ramirez’s number.

Officer Leeland is scrolling through my contacts list. ‘You don’t got many friends, huh?’

How rude. ‘I have friends,’ I say, blowing my hair out of my face. ‘I’m very well thought of in Manchester, England.’

But the truth is I have a great friend. Birdie. And soon she’ll…

Nope. Do not think about that. This is not the time to think aboutthat.

‘Anders von Preen?’ Officer Leeland snorts. ‘Sounds like a made-up name. You makin’ yourself up some friends, kid?’

Anders! The hair-obsessed socialite of GramercyPark…

I couldn’t…

Could I? I’ve only met him once. And he was really very strange…

But I don’t have many optionshere.

‘You want me to call someone or not, English?’

‘Call Anders von Preen,’ I instruct Leeland with a firmnod.

So hedoes.

But to my dismay, Anders doesn’t answer either! Unlike Seth, though, he does have a voicemail facility on his phone.

I leave a frantic, jumbled message asking Anders to please come to the precinct and helpme.

When I’ve put the phone down, I look at Officer Leeland in despair.

‘So what am I supposed to donow?’

‘You wait for your assigned legal counsel, like I already told you,’ he answers, leading me back to the holdingcell.

‘How long will that be? I have a flight back to the UK in…’ I look at the clock on the wall. ‘Thirteen hours! And I still have to track someone down beforethen.’

He shrugs. ‘It takes as long as it takes. New York is a very big, very busycity.’

‘You don’t say,’ I snip back. I’ve never had such a quick temper before. But I guess if anything is going to bring it out of a person, it’sthis!

‘Sit down and keep it down, English. Manhattan Menaces do not get to answer back to New York city cops, all right?’

With slumped shoulders and still trembling legs I shuffle back to the bench of the holding cell, sitting as far away as possible from Mandy Banana.

‘You’re the Menace of Manhattan?’ Mandy asks, giving me a sidelong glance.

‘Oh, um… Yeah, but it’s all a mistake, I didn’t—’

‘So cool! You’re, like, famous or something!’ She scooches down the bench to sit next to me. I dare to make eye contact and see that her angry face has transformed into a smiling one. Up close I notice she has little freckles all over the bridge of her nose. I thought she was in her early thirties when I first saw her, but she must only be about eighteen or nineteen. I think it’s all the eyeliner she’s wearing. ‘I’ve been reading about you on the New York Daily News blog. You’re a fuckin’ baller! Not the jerking off in public – gross – but they did you on Sunday Night Live, right? I love thatshow!’

Mandy Banana’s voice has completely changed from rough and aggressive, to sweet and interested. She seems very impressed byme.

‘W-what are you in here for?’ I ask, still too afraid to look her directly in the eye. She might, frankly, still want to cut a bitch.

‘I just stole my boyfriend’s car. The douche has been putting his dick inside the whole of the fuckin’ east village. Dirtbag.’

‘Ah.’ I nod. Stealing her boyfriend’s car. That’s not so bad… not really. And the guy sounds like he deserved a bit of a spook.

Mandy nods. ‘Yeah. Then I set fire to the car. I drove it to a parking lot and just set it off. It was a biiiiiig fire.’ She looks psyched, her eyes staring wistfully into the distance. ‘It was fuckin’ beautiful.’

‘Oh.Gosh.’

Car on fire. That’s a little more seriousthen.

Mandy pulls her purple furry jacket a little tighter around her shoulders. ‘The idiot won’t be cheating again anytime soon.’ She says to herself with a wry smile. ‘That’s forsure.’

‘Wait… you’re staying with him?’ I ask in astonishment. ‘What about all his, um, hoes in different area codes?’

Why did I just say hoes in different area codes? It sounded hip and cool in my head, the kind of thing Mandy might be impressed by, but out loud I sound like l learned all of my cool lingo from a sexist 90s dance movie. Jeez.

Mandy laughs and shrugs. ‘I love him. I love him so much I could die, yaknow?’

Wow.

I wonder what it’s like to be so in love with someone that you completely lose your shit and set fire to theircar?

I shake my head in wonder.

But then it dawns on me… I do know how it feels to be so head over heels about someone that you behave in ways you never thought you would. Because that’s what I feel about Birdie. About our friendship. This whole thing, the depth of my feelings for her has got me losing my shit like I never have in my life. I mean, I’m in a jail cell for goodness’ sake.

Despite my daunting situation right now, I feel a bubble of laughter bounce in my chest. The irony of it. All these years I’ve been avoiding men and sex and anything that might make me ‘feel’ too much because I so desperately wanted to keep a tight hold on my emotions. But here I am! In a freaking jail cell for Birdie!

I look over at Mandy beside me. ‘I get what you mean,’ I say to her, a small smile lifting the corners of mouth. ‘Love can make you do some crazy things.’