But I can’t. I’m not on home turf. I’m standing in the parents’ lounge at a pre-school in LA, surrounded by strangers who think that Alicia is a sweetie-pie who’s just done me the most massive favour in the world. And now a new feeling creeps over me. A horrible, cold realization. These women are all Alicia’s friends. Not my friends, Alicia’s friends. It’s her crowd.

The thing about Alicia is, she’s always managed to make me feel about three inches tall. And even now, even though I know I’m in the right and she’s in the wrong, I feel like I’m diminishing by the second. She’s in the cool gang. And if I want to join it I’m going to have to be friendly to her. But I can’t. I just can’t. I can barely even look at her, let alone go to her ‘moms’ yoga class’.

How can they all be fooled by her? How can they call her ‘sweet’ and ‘super-fun’? An overwhelming feeling of disappointment engulfs me. For a moment I was so excited. I thought I’d found a way in. And now I find Alicia Bitch Long-legs is standing at the entrance, barring the way.

The door swings open and Erica comes in, her colourful shawl trailing behind her like a sail.

‘Rebecca!’ she exclaims. ‘I’m glad to say that Minnie is doing extremely well. She’s acclimatized remarkably quickly and seems to be making friends already. In fact, she’s a natural leader.’ Erica beams at me. ‘I’m sure she’ll have a little tribe following her in no time.’

‘Brilliant.’ I manage a wide smile. ‘Thank you so much. That’s fantastic news.’

And it is. It’s a massive relief to think that Minnie feels at home in LA already and is happy and is making friends. I mean, I’m not surprised. Minnie’s so confident and charms everyone she meets, it’s no wonder she’s fallen on her feet.

But as I look around at Alicia and all her disciples, I can’t help thinking … what about me?

SEVEN

For the next few days I’m in a total state of shock that Alicia Billington has turned up in LA. Except she’s not Alicia Billington any more, she’s Alicia Merrelle. It all gets worse, as I found out when I Googled her yesterday. She’s filthy rich and well known all over LA, because she’s married to the founder of Golden Peace. The actual founder himself. He’s called Wilton Merrelle and he’s seventy-three with a goaty grey beard and those fixed, stretched eyes you get when you have too much plastic surgery, and they met on a beach in Hawaii. A beach. Who meets their husband on a beach? They have a daughter called Ora who is a month younger than Minnie and they are, according to one interview, ‘hoping to expand their family’.

As soon as I started Googling, I found all these articles about the ‘super-stylish home-maker’ with her ‘British wit and charm’. I sent them to Suze and she sent back a one-word email: ‘WHAT?????’, which made me feel better. Suze has no time for Alicia. And neither does Luke (which is no surprise, bearing in mind she once tried to steal all his clients and ruin his company. Oh yes, whilst trashing my reputation in the newspapers at the same time. Luke and I actually split up because of it. It was awful). When I told him, he just grunted, and said, ‘Might have known she’d land on her Manolos.’