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Catching Alice: A Novel - Softcover

Naylor, Clare

 
9780449005576: Catching Alice: A Novel
Softcover
ISBN 10: 0449005577 ISBN 13: 9780449005576
Verlag: Ballantine Books, 2000

Inhaltsangabe

After losing a job, boyfriend, and apartment all within one kick-me-when-I'm-down week, Alice Lewis desperately needs a break. So when an old pal sweeps into London and offers her escape, Alice jumps at the chance--and onto the next plane to Los Angeles, the city of . . . yeah, right.

L.A. turns out to be a little less "angelic" than the down-to-earth English girl anticipated. For one, there's the new nine-to-five: the unbelievably glamorous, frenzied chore of coddling (doing PR for) the stars--not to mention the bevy of gorgeous, stick-thin models who suddenly appear in Alice's orbit and the suntan/convertible lifestyle that taunts her pasty-white self (starting with her thighs). And just when she thinks her new life couldn't get any more surreal, Alice acquires that most American of accessories: her very own stalker.

While the B-list actresses grumble how unfair it is that Alice gets a stalker and they don't, Alice tries to figure out who the mystery man leaving her poems and flowers could be. Is it Charlie, the slick but twisted talent agent? Or Paddy, the hot Irish director who has eyes for any breathing woman? Or maybe it's Tommy, the unbelievably beautiful and totally wasted movie star? Because if truth be told, Alice doesn't think it's all that strange, this stalker business. In fact, she's pretty sure it's downright romantic . . .

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Clare Naylor is the author of several novels, including Love: A User’s Guide, The First Assistant, The Second Assistant, The Goddess Rules, Catching Alic, and Dog Handling.

Aus dem Klappentext

a job, boyfriend, and apartment all within one kick-me-when-I'm-down week, Alice Lewis desperately needs a break. So when an old pal sweeps into London and offers her escape, Alice jumps at the chance--and onto the next plane to Los Angeles, the city of . . . yeah, right.

L.A. turns out to be a little less "angelic" than the down-to-earth English girl anticipated. For one, there's the new nine-to-five: the unbelievably glamorous, frenzied chore of coddling (doing PR for) the stars--not to mention the bevy of gorgeous, stick-thin models who suddenly appear in Alice's orbit and the suntan/convertible lifestyle that taunts her pasty-white self (starting with her thighs). And just when she thinks her new life couldn't get any more surreal, Alice acquires that most American of accessories: her very own stalker.

While the B-list actresses grumble how unfair it is that Alice gets a stalker and they don't, Alice tries to figure out who the mystery man leaving her poems a

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

Food is the new shopping and shopping is the new sex.
Alice wasn't really getting very much shopping or sex in
her life right now, so she thought she might as well eat
something. Yes, food. Not hard cornflakes that grazed her
gums or char-grilled toast, but proper food that could feasibly,
if she closed her eyes and let her imagination run
riot, masquerade as sex.

She opened the fridge. Not a thing. And certainly not a
host of sun-dried tomatoes or a bar of rich Belgian chocolate.
She wanted something that would make up for all
that she was lacking in her miserable life. She wanted
something to make her forget the bitter aftertaste of her
tyrannical, unfaithful ex-boyfriend, Jamie. She wanted something
so sweet that her teeth would rot just thinking about
it. A sponge. A light sponge smeared with seedy raspberry
jam and double cream. She pulled the round cake tin from
the drawer beneath the oven and set about weighing out
her flour. But as she reached for the self-rising flour, her
arm wobbled dangerously. She really should go on a diet.
She opted for a carrot cake. Fewer calories, she reasoned.
Except the fridge revealed only half a moldy carrot. Alice
wiped a floury hand through her hair and set off for Chelsea
Green.

The houses on her street were the color of sugared almonds
and were dappled with sunlight this Monday morning.
Bywater Street was the gypsy caravan of Chelsea.
Myriad baskets of flowers and rare lilies adorned the doorways.
Her neighbors were, as far as she could make out,
Woodstock refugees and grandes dames, opera singers
and retired colonels, practicing their scales, getting to
grips with elementary taxidermy and feeding lobster thermidor
to the roses in this first flush of May. Spring was
here, and if she concentrated, Alice was sure she could
hear birds above the traffic noises on the King's Road.
Wearing her holey leggings and a dyed-in-the-wash T-shirt,
hoping that her cousin Simon's Turnbull & Asser size-eleven
slippers could pass for the latest in Gucci footwear,
Alice attempted to mingle with the tawny-skinned women
and heroin-chic men hanging around outside cafés and
chewing the fat over their modeling portfolios. But catching
sight of herself in the window of an exclusive lingerie
boutique, she realized that there wasn't a cat in hell's
chance of her flour streaks being mistaken for the labor
of love of a top Toni and Guy stylist. She ruffled her rebellious
chestnut curls in a bid to liberate some of the baking
ingredients and dashed around the corner to take
a shortcut away from the withering glares of the beau
monde.

Alice rounded the corner to Chelsea Green, a curious
place. Those who had never been to the city would recognize
it instantly as London and break into a rendition of
"I've Got a Lovely Bunch of Coconuts" in a Dick Van Dyke
cor-blimey-me-old-treacle sort of way. Surrounding an
elegant patch of manicured grass, it boasts shopfronts
from a film set: a fishmonger's whose rainbow trout leaped
from stream to weighing scales with a casual flip of the
fins, a greengrocer's whose pears and potatoes nestled in a
blissful time warp on a bed of AstroTurf and a newsagent
who sold penny chews and sherbet fountains. Those who
knew better regarded it suspiciously as London's answer
to the Stepford Wives, lots of impossibly perfect women
whose racehorse legs deemed it impossible for them to
have given birth to a soufflé, let alone the pristine toddlers
huddled in the back of the Mercedes. Alice, realizing that
the only part of her anatomy that could be mistaken for that
of a racehorse was her rump, stood behind one of these
beings in the greengrocer's and tried to pull her T-shirt
down to her knees. The woman was squeezing a peach so
perfectly blushing it should have been made of marzipan.
Alice helped herself to a more humble carrot, trying to imagine
a life where the only grocery shopping you had to do
was to buy soft fruits, where you kept your Egyptian bed
linen in a trunk scented with patchouli and fretted only over
the consistency of your polenta.

Alice wasn't cut out for a life of jobs and bill paying. She
wanted to live in an Aga saga. She longed for a rectory
with a crumbling wall and dogs. She couldn't quite picture
the children just yet, but she thought she could manage
responsibility of a dog kind. She accepted that she'd probably
have to marry a vicar, though she wasn't quite sure
where you found young vicars. They all seemed fifty if they
were a day. Perhaps there was a seminary nearby.
The Jane Asher tea shop next door seemed as likely a
place as any to find a member of the clergy, so Alice talked
herself into a spot of tea and a cream cake. She sat alone,
her spoon stirring up a diminutive whirlpool of Earl Grey in
her cup, as she carefully surveyed the street outside for cassocks.
Was that what they were called or was that something
Russian? God, she couldn't really pull it off at the
rectory garden party if she couldn't get a grip on her husband's
clothing preferences.

"Absolutely, Lady B. I find that Ariel automatic does wonders
for the marks on the reverend's dresses."

In the ideal vicarage life she wouldn't have to worry
about washing, of course; in those Aga sagas there always
seemed to be heaps of vicar groupies around to do all the
unsavory jobs--arranging the flowers, pouring tea, wiping
choirboys' noses. Yes, they'd have to be very choosy about
which parish they plumped for, Alice and her vicar. The only
other problem she could envision would be her looks--they
weren't terribly chaste-vicar's-wife looks, they were the
messy kind. Her hips were far from virginal--she'd look
atrocious in a pleated skirt--her lips were plump enough to
put the congregation off holy communion, and her curls
would never in a month of Sunday sermons agree to anything
as organized as a bun or a French pleat. Maybe it
was a lost cause. Except, of course, that she'd make a fabulous
Mary Magdalene in the Easter pageant.

As her carrots had sat in their brown paper bag on the
table in the tea shop, they must have been mysteriously
imbued with the spirit of Jane Asher, because Alice's cake
rose magnificently and was much improved by the maverick
touch of adding a few poppyseeds. "Inspired," declared
Alice as she licked the mixture off the whisk and contemplated
a future of cake baking for special occasions instead
of typing. But right now she couldn't even afford a dozen
eggs, so that put paid to that.

If you thought that Alice had come into this seemingly
charmed life as some genetic freak with a trust fund and
ever-so-bijou flat in a fashionable part of London, you'd be
wrong. Alice is a girl like any other. Less fortunate than
most, really, if you consider losing your job, flat, and
boyfriend in the same fortnight a misfortune. One minute she
had a somewhere career in PR, the next the company was
merging with a corporate giant and Alice was surplus to
requirements and thrust headlong into a life of daytime
television. The adage, kick a dog when it's down, became
grim reality when dastardly Jamie decided to dump her and
move his new girlfriend into the conjugal bed of their
shared flat just days later, leaving Alice nursing her pillow
and her paltry redundancy check on the assorted sofabeds
of various friends.

Thankfully for Alice, and for the friends whose Kleenex
supplies were proving woefully inadequate for their guest's
needs, she just happened to have a dashing cousin called
Simon Benedictus. Simon had left London six months earlier
for...

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Verlag
Ballantine Books
Erscheinungsdatum
2000
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
0449005577
ISBN 13 
9780449005576
Einband
Taschenbuch
Anzahl der Seiten
336
Kontakt zum Hersteller
SC
https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/

CL MODESTO LAFUENTE 41
Madrid
Madrid
Spanien