Find the Girl

by Lucy Connell

  ‘And now Nancy is, too. I can’t believe they posted about your story on Buzzfeed AND included a link to your website.’ Jimmy sighs. ‘I’d kill for that kind of publicity.’

  ‘It’s been popular, but it’s a tough act to follow,’ I point out. ‘As Layla was just reminding me, I need to come up with something equally good in the next few days. Otherwise it will be a bit of a one-hit wonder.’

  ‘Welcome to the world of journalism,’ Jimmy says with a smile. ‘It’s always about the next story. Or so I’ve been told.’

  ‘Yeah, well, I can’t muck this up. Firstly, if I do, Layla will kill me. And secondly, I’ve finally found something that I can do to make people proud. Like you have, Nina. So, for the sake of my future, I have to make it work.’

  ‘Hang on,’ Nina says, as we pull into our drive. ‘What do you mean you finally have something to make people proud?’

  I shrug, getting out of the car and slamming the door shut behind me. ‘You know, it’s obvious to everyone that you’re going places. I want people to think that about me, too. I don’t want to be left behind.’

  We’re interrupted by our neighbour Mrs Byrne, who opens her front door and calls out to Nina.

  ‘This arrived for you in the post today, when you were all out,’ she says, coming over with a box. ‘It had to be signed for.’

  ‘Thanks, Mrs Byrne,’ Nina says, taking the parcel. ‘I wonder what it is.’

  Once we’re in the house, we head into the kitchen and Mum puts the kettle on, while Nina gets a pair of scissors to cut through the packaging.

  ‘What is it?’ Jimmy asks, leaning over her shoulder. ‘Did you order something and forget about it?’

  ‘Jimmy, have you met Nina?’ I laugh. ‘Internet shopping with her is one of the most frustrating processes I have ever had to experience.’

  ‘It’s hard to pick things when you can’t see them in person,’ she insists, opening the box. She gasps at its contents. ‘Whoa!’

  ‘What? What is it?’

  She pulls out a brand-new Canon camera, the latest model. I am so jealous that I might explode. It’s the EXACT camera that’s recommended for professional vloggers and I’d been looking at it online recently, imagining how incredible my videos for All That Glitters would be if I had one of those. I knew I could never afford it or ask Mum to get it for me because it was so expensive.

  ‘Nina!’ Mum exclaims. ‘Did Chase send you that?’

  ‘Maybe,’ she says, admiring it with total awe. ‘I can’t believe he would do this! It’s so thoughtful of him. And this is way over the top! It’s not even my birthday yet.’

  ‘There’s a note,’ Jimmy says, pulling a card out of the box and handing it to Nina. ‘What does it say? Read it out. Unless it’s gross lovey-dovey stuff, in which case, feel free to paraphrase,’ he adds with a wink at me.

  Nina’s expression transitions from amazement to shock as she reads the card.

  ‘Nina?’ Mum asks. ‘Are you all right? What did Chase say?’

  ‘It’s not from Chase,’ she says, lowering the card and picking up the camera.

  ‘Who’s it from then?’ I ask.

  ‘Dad,’ she says.

  The kitchen falls into silence. Mum stares at her.

  ‘Your father sent you that camera?’

  ‘Yeah.’ She nods slowly. ‘He wants me to use it to start a YouTube channel. He thinks it would be helpful for my career. That’s what he’s said in the card.’

  ‘Dad sent you the camera,’ I repeat quietly, still taking it all in. ‘Did … did he say anything about me? Read it out loud.’

  It’s a stupid question that I already know the answer to, but I torture myself by asking it anyway. If he’d meant it for me, it would have been both our names on the parcel.

  ‘It doesn’t really say anything,’ Nina says, looking uncomfortable. ‘It’s just about music stuff.’

  ‘Read it aloud,’ I repeat, getting flustered. ‘If it’s just music stuff, then it doesn’t matter if we hear it, does it? Jimmy, you can read it.’

  Jimmy picks up the card and, with a nod of reluctant approval from Nina, begins to read it out, ‘Dear Nina, I’m so proud of you and everything you’ve accomplished. This is to help with your future achievements. Maybe you could use this to launch a music channel. I’m sure it would be a big hit with your growing fan base. Love, Dad.’

  ‘Wow,’ I croak, clenching my jaw. ‘He’s really, really trying to get in your good books, isn’t he?’

  ‘I think it’s only because when we met I told him that I was finding Guildhall a little tougher than I’d expected and he … well, he really wanted to help me. That’s all,’ Nina says quickly. ‘But we can share it.’

  She slides the camera across the table to me, but I push it back.

  ‘No, he sent it to you. It’s yours. And he can’t buy his way back into my life. He’s going to have to make a little bit more of an effort than posting a camera.’

  ‘Please don’t be upset. He’s proud of your achievements, too.’

  ‘I don’t have any achievements,’ I mutter.

  ‘That’s absolutely not true,’ Mum says firmly, reaching across to squeeze my hand.

  ‘He doesn’t know about your amazing website yet, Nancy. He’ll be blown away when he sees what you’ve done,’ Nina says, desperately trying to make me feel better. Her over-the-top effort makes it all the more embarrassing. ‘If he knew about it, then he’d have sent this for both of us to use. When you see him, you can fill him in and then he’ll be really interested and want to help with that, too.’

  ‘He doesn’t know about the website because he hasn’t asked,’ I say, feeling a lump form in my throat. ‘He hasn’t tried to get in contact with me once since he’s come back to say that he’d wished that I had been there, too. I guess he’s too busy choosing expensive cameras to help your music career.’

  ‘I can’t accept it,’ Nina says, looking to Mum. ‘I’ll tell him that I can’t. I don’t want it if it’s going to upset you both.’

  Mum opens her mouth to say something, but I cut her off.

  ‘It doesn’t upset me,’ I say with a shrug. ‘He can do what he wants. I’m happy for you. You should keep it.’

  ‘He clearly doesn’t know Nina very well anyway,’ Jimmy offers. ‘I can’t imagine you launching a YouTube channel. You get embarrassed if I try to take a picture of you for one Instagram post.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ she says, biting her lip. ‘Maybe it would be a good thing.’

  ‘What? Are you serious?’ I ask, stunned at this reaction. ‘You hate that kind of thing.’

  ‘Yes, but Dad’s right. I need to change things if I’m going to do well. Maybe I need to start putting myself out there, and stop being so afraid. Like he did with his PR business.’

  Mum raises her eyebrows. ‘He told you about that?’

  ‘Yeah.’ She examines the camera lens distractedly. ‘Maybe a YouTube channel would help me tackle my stage fright and get me noticed by the right people.’

  I can’t believe what she’s saying. It’s so unlike her.

  It sounds pathetic but the hurtful thing is that I’ve been on at her for ages about setting one up. Ever since that video of her and Chase went viral, I kept saying that she had the perfect platform to launch her own channel, but she always laughed and told me it wasn’t her thing. And now Dad has come along out of nowhere with a fancy camera and she’s suddenly interested?

  ‘But I won’t keep it if you don’t want me to,’ she says firmly, putting the camera down and meeting my eyes.

  ‘No, like I said, you should keep it,’ I reply, turning round to get some mugs from the cupboard and blinking back the tears that are starting to form. ‘You deserve it.’

  ‘Really? Are you sure?’

  ‘I’m sure.’

  When I turn back to face her with a fresh smile, the tears have disappeared. Because, if anything, that stupid camera has spurred me on more than ever. Not only am I going to w
in this competition, but my website is going to be huge and then I won’t be nothing. Then Dad will want to help me with my big, successful career.

  Then maybe he’ll be proud of me, too.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Nina

  Dad tells me to lie to Nancy.

  At first, I say that I can’t do that; I have to tell her the truth. We don’t keep things from each other, and she can tell when I’m lying anyway. But it’s a difficult situation and the more I think about it, the more it makes sense not to mention it to her and pretend I’m heading to London early for something else.

  I don’t know what Dad has got planned but he invited me to come up to London on Friday evening, rather than Saturday morning like I’ve been doing. He has an idea for my showcase and wanted to work on it before my Saturday morning lesson. But that means telling Nancy and Mum why I am heading up an evening early and, after seeing Nancy’s face when the camera arrived last week, I don’t think I can bear telling her that Dad and I have organized something together without her again.

  If I do tell Nancy, I’ll have to invite her along. It would be horrible not to. But, if she does come, she’ll be sitting there while Dad and I work on the showcase music and it would be like the piano shop all those years ago, which just isn’t fair on her.

  ‘Maybe we delay the showcase stuff and tonight we all go for dinner together,’ I suggested over the phone to Dad when he’d called that Friday morning. ‘I think she’d really like to see you, no matter what she says. She has a tendency to put on a hard front, but I think she was sad to hear that we went for a hot chocolate together.’

  ‘I thought you wanted to focus on your showcase,’ he said.

  ‘I don’t want to go behind Nancy’s back again. She needs time, but I think she would come around to the idea of you being back in our lives. You’re our dad. She’s very protective of her family, that’s all. But, if I tell her that you want to go for dinner with both of us in London tonight, I think she would be interested.’

  ‘Nina, I would love to go for dinner with you and Nancy. I really would. But could we do it another time? Because I’ve already organized something for you for this evening and it would be very difficult to rearrange. And don’t you want as much time as possible to get things ready for the showcase? It’s not that far away now, is it?’

  ‘No, it’s looming.’ I remembered the last time I had to get up on that Guildhall stage. ‘I definitely need all the practice I can get. I still haven’t chosen the music I’m going to perform.’

  ‘No need to panic – that’s what tonight is for. So, I appreciate it’s difficult with Nancy but if you’re serious about your music, which I think you should be, then I really think it’s best if we leave dinner for another time.’

  ‘I’ll just have to lie to her and Mum,’ I’d said, burying my head in my hands. ‘I’ll … I’ll say I’m meeting Chase.’

  ‘Great, sorted!’ was his cheery response. ‘I have to go into a meeting now, but I’ll meet you at Guildhall at seven p.m. And you booked the music room like I asked?’

  ‘Yes, I booked that earlier in the week.’

  ‘I can’t wait to see you, Nina.’

  ‘Same,’ I replied, before hanging up.

  Now, I’m looking in the mirror and practising what I’m going to say to Nancy and Mum, and how exactly I’m going to say it. Maybe I should just tell them that I’m meeting Dad to go through music things, then Nancy might not mind. But I thought that might have been the case last weekend, when I rang her to tell her that Dad had messaged asking if I’d like to go for a hot chocolate after my group rehearsal again.

  ‘Is this going to be a weekly occurrence, then?’ she’d asked.

  ‘I don’t think so. I won’t go if you don’t want me to.’

  ‘Why didn’t he let you know earlier so I could come into London and join you?’

  ‘I think he thinks you don’t want to.’

  ‘He gives up easily then,’ she’d said, sounding disappointed. ‘Whatever, Nina – do what you want and go for a hot chocolate with him. But maybe remind him he has two daughters, not one.’

  And then she’d hung up before I could reply. I’d spent the whole of half-term week trying to work out if she was mad at me for going. She doesn’t like talking about it and, whenever Dad is brought up in conversation, I can see a twinge of sadness in her expression, no matter how well she pretends not to care.

  The main thing she does keep probing me about is why I’m not questioning him all the time. Why I’m not grilling him about why he left, whether he ever missed us, why it took him so long to come back.

  ‘If he took me for a hot chocolate, that’s what I’d be doing,’ she’d said over dinner one evening. ‘I wouldn’t be bonding with him over music. I’d be expecting some answers after all these years.’

  Maybe she’s right. Maybe I should be angrier with him for walking out, and maybe I should be asking him questions so I better understand exactly what happened.

  But I don’t want to. It has been so nice getting to know him again. I love talking to him about music and filling him in on Guildhall and hearing everything he has to say. I love him talking about old memories, like last weekend when he reminded me of my first-ever performance. It was a Saturday morning concert at school and it was only in one of the small music rooms in front of a few parents, but I was so nervous that I hid round the side of the building and Dad had to persuade me to come in.

  ‘You were so stubborn,’ he’d chuckled as he recalled it. ‘You told me that if I made you play the piano in front of the people in that room, you would be sick. And guess what happened?’

  ‘No!’

  ‘Oh yes.’ He’d burst out laughing. ‘You sat shivering away on the piano stool, played a few notes and then threw up everywhere! So, trust me, I know you think you’re terrible at performing now, but you have greatly improved since then.’

  He’d told me other stories too and it had been so nice to just sit there, laughing over old memories, like we were a normal father and daughter meeting for a hot chocolate and a catch up. If I started probing him about why he left and everything else, then I would lose that feeling, and I didn’t want that yet. I knew we’d have to get round to it sometime, but I wasn’t ready. I want to savour all these new memories, where he can tell me lovely, silly things about my childhood and then help me with my problems. Like dads are supposed to.

  I look at my reflection in the mirror and shake my head at myself. I can’t believe I’m even considering lying to Nancy about meeting Dad tonight. But what would be the point in telling her? She can’t come anyway because it’s a music thing, so it would essentially be rubbing it in her face.

  ‘I wish there was a simple solution,’ I say out loud.

  There’s a knock on the bedroom door and Nancy pokes her head round.

  ‘Are you talking to your reflection?’ she asks, when she sees me standing in front of the mirror.

  ‘No. Yes. Sort of,’ I say, gesturing for her to come in. ‘I was thinking out loud.’

  ‘About simple solutions?’ she says, coming to sit on my bed. ‘What’s the problem? We can work it out together.’

  ‘It’s OK, it’s stupid. Music stuff,’ I say, brushing it aside. ‘What are you up to?’

  ‘I was going to ask the same question. I wondered if you wanted to do a little study group together,’ she says hopefully. ‘We could work in the kitchen or in my room? I was just about to get some popcorn ready before I get started.’

  I smile. ‘Sounds good. I am so behind on GCSE revision. The exams seem a way off, but then I remember they’re next term.’

  ‘I know. Crazy.’ She notices my bag half-packed at the top of my bed. ‘Are you already packed for tomorrow?’

  ‘Actually –’ I take a deep breath and pretend to organize some folders strewn across my desk – ‘I’m going to London tonight.’

  ‘You are? But normally you go on Saturday mornings.’

  ‘Yeah, bu
t I thought I would do some music practice at Guildhall this evening. Take advantage of having a proper piano to play on. This way, I can get some practising in tomorrow morning, too.’

  ‘Oh, OK – yeah, that makes sense.’ She nods. ‘Are you going to see Chase as well?’

  ‘I think I’m seeing him tomorrow night.’

  ‘Is everything OK with you guys? Mum and I were saying that we were expecting to see him a bit over half-term but he hasn’t come here at all. And you’ve only been to London once this week, and you weren’t even there the full day.’

  ‘He’s been busy writing music, that’s all,’ I say hurriedly. ‘He needs to focus right now on that. We’re fine.’

  At least, I think we’re fine. Things are better this week than they were.

  They hadn’t been so great after the Emerald Entertainment party. I had been on such a high after the party at Guildhall and woken up the next day feeling like a huge weight had been lifted off me. Speaking to TJ, Nico and Florence with Grace had reminded me that it was OK not to be the perfect musician yet – that’s why we were there in the first place.

  Chase had called just before my music lesson with Caroline, and I’d been so eager to tell him about the party that as soon as I’d picked up I’d launched into an excited speech about how wonderful the other students were at Guildhall, now that I’d got to know them, and how I felt a fresh wave of determination.

  He said that he was pleased I had a good time, but his tone was so down that I realized something was wrong, and then when he went, ‘Did you know that Miles overheard me talking about going solo?’ my stomach dropped.

  I had completely forgotten to tell Chase about Miles. I’d meant to message him at the Guildhall party, but I’d been having such a good time and then was so tired going to bed that I’d forgotten.

  Chase was really upset, wondering why I hadn’t given him the heads-up so he could go and find Miles the night before. Apparently, Miles wasn’t talking to him and he didn’t even know where he was. I felt terrible, especially when Miles was supposed to be my friend too, and I’d forgotten about him while I was having a good time at a party. Things between Chase and me the week following that had been a bit off – I think he was still annoyed at me for not telling him straight away about Miles. They’re barely talking at the moment; Miles is so upset with him.