“Beckeeeeeee!”
I suppose in the old days, we would have waited for the first editions to come out. We might even have got some sleep. But this is the twenty-four-hour Internet age. The news was right there, instantly.
It’s 6:00 A.M. now, and none of us has been to bed. I’ve read about two hundred different pieces online. I can’t stop. The headlines have been changing every hour, as more bits of news filter in:
Lois is “Shoplifter”!!!
ASA ceremony disrupted
Sage accuses Lois of theft, interrupts awards
Store assistant confirms shoplifting, police “pressing no charges as yet”
Sage: I feel betrayed by former friend
And there’s a whole load just about me.
Witness Becky “saw everything”
Becky “may testify in court”
Stars fight over bag from stylist Becky
They just go on and on. The most extraordinary one is this one I found on a gossip site:
Becky “drank cocktails” before row, bartender reports
I mean, for God’s sake. What does that have to do with anything? They might as well write LOIS AND SAGE VISITED BATHROOM ON DAY OF ROW. They probably will write that.
We’ve all given up saying how bizarre it is. Suze and Tarkie are on the sofa with all the children, eating cornflakes and watching the coverage on E!, which is basically a loop of Sage screaming at Lois and a shot of me looking bewildered. I’ve seen it about forty-seven times. I don’t need to see it any more.
Luke and Aran are in the kitchen, talking grimly. Somehow they persuaded Sage to stop giving interviews, go home, and promise to go to bed. Aran delivered her personally into the care of her housekeeper, handed over a huge tip, and said, “This girl needs to sleep.” But I bet she’s stayed up all night too. I bet she loves it.
As for Lois, I have no idea. Her people surrounded her and hustled her out of the place almost instantly. It was like seeing a caged animal again. Every time I think of it, my insides squirm with guilt.
“Want watch Barney!” Minnie barges into me, interrupting my thoughts. “Want watch Barney, not Mummy. Not Mummy,” she repeats disparagingly.
I suppose it is a bit boring, watching your mother on a loop on the TV when you were hoping for a big purple dinosaur.
“Come on.” I lift her up, all cozy in her rabbit dressing gown and slippers. “Let’s find you Barney.”
I settle her upstairs, watching Barney on our bed with a bowl of sugar-free spelt puffs. (Totally tasteless but, unbelievably, her favorite snack. She really is becoming a child of L.A.) Then I pull back the curtains and do a double take. There’s a camera crew outside our gates. An actual camera crew! The next minute I hear the entrance buzzer sounding. Someone’s pressing it, over and over. I bolt along the landing and start running down the stairs, but Luke is at the bottom, waiting for me.
“Don’t answer it!” he says. “Aran will take care of it.”
He shepherds me away from the door, into the kitchen. “You’re going to have to keep a very low profile over the next few days,” he says. “Which is boring, but that’s how these things go. We’ll draft a statement and release it midmorning.”
“Becky!” I can hear a man’s faint voice from outside. “Becky, we want to offer you an exclusive!”
“Should I maybe give an interview?” I turn to Luke. “Like, make things clear?”
“No!” says Luke, as though the idea is anathema. “A statement is enough. We don’t want to feed the frenzy. The more you give them, the more they’ll want. Coffee?”
“Thanks. I just need to … get my lip gloss.…”
I dart into the hall again and run halfway up the stairs. There’s a window from where I can see out to the front, and I peer through the glass. Aran is at the gates, talking to the camera crew. He’s laughing and looks relaxed and even high-fives one of them. I can’t imagine Luke behaving like that.
“Sorry, guys,” I hear him say, and then he turns back toward the house. “I’ll let you know as soon as I can.”
“Aran!” I say, as the front door opens. “What’s going on?” I walk back down the stairs to talk to him.
“Oh, nothing much.” He smiles easily. “World’s press descending, same old same old.”
“And they want to interview me?”
“They sure do.”
“What did you say to them?”
“I said, ‘Don’t scratch the gates, you miserable bloodsucking lowlife.’ ”
I can’t help smiling. Aran seems so relaxed about things. The buzzer sounds again and he peers out of a side window.
“What do you know,” he observes. “ABC just turned up. This story is going mainstream.”
“Luke says I should stay inside and ignore them,” I venture. “And we’ll give out a statement later.”
“If you want this to go away, that’s the best thing you can do,” he says, in neutral tones. “Totally. Keep your head down and they’ll get bored.”
I can sense a “but” hovering in the air. I look at him questioningly and he shrugs noncommittally.
He’s not going to say a single word more unless I press him, is he? I walk a little way off, in the opposite direction from the kitchen, and wait for Aran to follow me.
“But?” I say, and Aran sighs.
“Becky, you’re Luke’s wife. I’m not here to advise you.”
“But?”
“It all depends on what you want. And what Luke wants.”