•
The entire ride back, I watched from my own private pity party as Amir tore into Carter for sabotaging the photo shoot, costing Beatnik thousands. Back at home, I went straight into the shower and scrubbed at my scalp under the steaming water. ‘You ready for this?’ he’d said, like he was just joking around. I should have known by now not to trust him.
I wiped a gap in the steamed-up mirror with my fist. I had open pores around my nose and a hollowed-out look to my eyes. How had I ever thought a make-up artist could make me look beautiful, even with the miracles of modern cosmetics? Maybe Carter had just saved me from myself.
‘At least the photos won’t be boring,’ Carter was saying to Amir when I emerged. I could hear Saskia clattering in the kitchen, putting her clean-eating plan into action.
Amir shrugged. ‘Well, you’re right there. Marketing want this as the cover for the single.’ He bypassed Carter and held out his phone to me.
My face was washed out with retro flash so every line looked black and stark, the pink milkshake dripping over my face, my hair matted with it. Looking at it brought back the humiliating sensation of cold slime down my back, but the photo showed something else: a defiant girl looking square at the camera, her tongue snaking out to lick her face. It said a lot more about what kind of band we were than any image of the four of us sharing a milkshake.
‘Can I see?’ said Carter. ‘Or are you only going to show Liliana?’
I gave him the phone. It no longer really resembled me, and it was cheeky and original. I was relieved: the girl on the cover was someone to hide behind, a mask to keep me safe.
‘It’s kind of subversive,’ said Sam approvingly. ‘And at least you can hardly see that horrible leopard dress.’
Saskia brought me a bowl of leafy greens, quinoa and sweet potato that looked like it could do with some cheese. ‘That “horrible dress” is Dolce & Gabbana. Show some respect.’
‘Got any halloumi?’ I asked.
‘Halloumi is not on the eating plan,’ she said.
‘Where’s ours?’ asked Richie.
‘I thought you guys preferred takeaway.’
‘I prefer takeaway,’ I muttered.
Carter was still holding Amir’s phone with the photo of me. ‘Is this really what they’re using for the single?’
‘It’s a great photo.’ I scooped up a forkful of salad.
‘Well, you would say that.’
‘Why are you pissed off with me?’ I said. ‘I’m the one who gets to be pissed off! You tipped a milkshake over my head.’
‘You’re right,’ he grated. ‘It’s practically my own fault.’
‘What is your actual problem?’
‘It should be obvious! Or it would be if you weren’t so high on being the centre of attention.’ He looked from Amir to Saskia, then back to me. ‘This isn’t a picture of a band now, is it?’ he said, and stalked from the room.
CHAPTER 20
I’d worked out by now that Carter’s anger would flash hot and then quickly subside, but I was still relieved when he was back to normal the next day. When I came into the kitchen, he poured me a black coffee and I breathed out my relief as I took it from him. We spent the whole day in the studio putting ‘King Cutie’ through its paces, and by the time we were finally finished recording, I never wanted to sing it again. But when Boris let us watch while he mixed the song, I found new reserves of energy. Carter and Richie headed out in their nightly attempt to sample every one of London’s bars, but Sam and I stayed late as Boris patiently showed us around his advanced software – smoothing my voice, flattening the guitars and blending the whole thing into synthetic, catchy pop-rock. When he was done, it sounded nothing like the song I’d played to the boys in the boathouse, but Boris assured me it was normal to feel like it didn’t belong to us anymore.
‘You won’t be able to promote it if it’s too close to your heart,’ he said as we stepped out of the studio. ‘A bit of distance is essential.’
I got into a taxi beside Sam. Neither of us spoke as we drove home, though we were both content. The production side of music had always interested me – the way a song could be stretched and morphed and shifted. It was the kind of thing they never taught us at the academy.
‘Don’t look now,’ said Sam as the cab pulled up to the kerb. Verity was leaning against the appliance store beneath our flat, an expanse of slim white belly between her T-shirt and her jeans. I’d tried not to think about her, or Ava or Stevie or any of the other girls I’d seen with Carter, but now I had no choice. I straightened my shoulders and got out to face her.
‘Wow, is this your place?’ she said, as if we’d been expecting her. Or maybe she thought we had. ‘I can’t believe they’ve set you up, free digs, everything! Where’s Carter?’
‘You should’ve called him if you wanted him to be home,’ I said.
She pouted at me. ‘Are you still in a strop about Regatta?’
My gaze fell on the huge carry-all at her feet. ‘You’re not staying here.’
‘Why don’t you let Carter decide that,’ she said, hoisting the bag and following Sam up the stairs. Inside, she flopped around the flat, looking in each doorway with interest.
‘It’s a bit small, isn’t it?’ she said, her head in the broom closet that passed for my room. ‘Do you really only have a single bed?’
It turned out Carter had been right in his room allocation, judging by the present company. Sam set about making tea for all of us and I tried to ignore her.
‘Poor babby,’ she said, flicking through the rack of dresses that were still in the hall. ‘It must be so weird for you, living with him.’
‘Oh, get over yourself,’ I snapped. ‘I’m not the one who’s pining after a guy who’s clearly not interested.’
‘And that just proves you don’t know him like I do,’ she said.
Downstairs, the front door clicked, and we fell silent.
‘All right, all right.’ It was Richie’s voice, louder than usual, in the stairwell outside our door. ‘Carter’s got the keys.’
They weren’t alone, then. Absurdly, I wanted to rush into the hall shouting, ‘It’s a trap!’ but I was rooted to the floor. There was the sound of female laughter outside, and then Carter fell into the flat, his arm around a girl in a cocktail dress. Another girl stumbled in after them, and Richie brought up the rear. Both girls looked older than us, maybe in their twenties, but it could have been their make-up.
Carter’s gaze moved over the room in slow motion, finally landing on Verity in the armchair. ‘When did you get here?’
Verity’s face was white, the capillaries around her nose showing through her clear skin. ‘Oh, I’ve been here a week,’ she said. I had to admire her calmness. ‘I’ve been staying with a guy in Shoreditch. Catching the early train, though. Got to get going, actually. Much as I’d love to stay and, erm ...’ She trailed off, her facade slipping.
‘You don’t have to go,’ he said.
That statement was so stupid I had to clap a hand over my mouth to contain my laugh. His eyes darted to me and I stared back, for once relieved that things had ended between us before they began.
‘I think you’ve got a full house tonight,’ she said, each word tart. Then she picked up her bag, squeezed past the crowd at the door and tore downstairs.
The bewilderment on Carter’s face was quickly smoothed over.
‘Shame she didn’t stick around,’ Richie commented, lurching into the kitchen to get the bright green bottle of absinthe he had bought himself as a housewarming present. ‘Could’ve used the entertainment.’
Sam and I flinched. I shot Carter a look that I hoped conveyed how despicable all this was.
‘Don’t like the green fairy, Jim?’ he said, nodding at the bottle in Richie’s hand. ‘You shouldn’t judge new things before you’ve tried them.’ And he ushered one of the girls into the armchair Verity had just vacated.
I was thumping down the stairs before I could talk my
self out of it. The street was quiet except for the sound of Verity’s heeled boots heading in the direction of the night bus. When I caught up to her she whirled around to face me and spat, ‘Come to gloat?’
Her mascara had run and I was reminded of Regatta, and the humiliation she’d inflicted on me – but, despite that, she didn’t deserve this. I pulled my Oyster card from my back pocket.
‘Here, take this.’ I held it out to her. ‘It’ll get you to Paddington and then you just need to take the train to Henley.’
Her mouth tightened. ‘Well,’ she said, snatching it up. ‘We share everything else.’
‘Hey.’ I grabbed her arm. ‘That was hideous.’
‘Well, he didn’t know I was coming,’ she said, in a voice that suggested she was trying hard to be reasonable.
‘Still, at the very least, Carter should be here now, not me.’ She shrugged the world-weary shrug of someone who had heard it all before. ‘Sure, babby.’
I walked home slowly despite the cold. Now I had no Oyster card, my prize money from Battle of the Bands was almost gone, and I didn’t dare ask Dad for any more funds. Back at the flat, I wasn’t surprised to find the living room deserted, four shot glasses abandoned on the table beside the empty bottle.
CHAPTER 21
Four days a week, I was up at the crack of dawn with OJ, my new personal trainer, a former weightlifting champion with a lilting Kiwi accent. She had a gentle smile that came out when she spoke about her wife – and whenever she mentioned the many failings of my muscular structure, which she called ‘skinny-fat’.
‘You look skinny, but it’s misleading because you have no muscle tone,’ she said. No-one else would have got away with that, but she softened the blow with a reassuring pat on my shoulder. ‘We’re gonna make you strong.’
I’d never been one for sport, but I liked being up early, the way the morning felt like a secret. Sam came with me some days, but Carter and Richie were out too late every night to get up in time to join us. Sometimes, when we got back to the flat after training, I’d catch a bleary-eyed girl hobbling out of the house in last night’s heels, and hope she was Richie’s.
The day the single came out, Sam and I were in the kitchen, drinking our post-workout coffee and nervously waiting for Amir’s call. When it came through, I exhaled slowly before I answered.
‘Lily!’ His voice was ecstatic. ‘You bloody did it!’
Sam looked at me from the corner of his eye. ‘She did?’
‘You all did,’ said Amir, clearly realising he was on speaker. ‘Number one! For a debut! It’s virtually unheard of, especially in this day and age. Jen is actually smiling, can you believe it?’
She wasn’t the only one. My own incredulous grin was mirrored in Sam’s as he hugged me. My mind flashed to an image of the four of us onstage at the Supernova awards, thanking our friends and family, before I stopped myself from even daring to dream of it. ‘Oh, wow,’ I got out.
‘This is it, Lily. This is what we’ve been banking on! It’s what we needed to prove to Jen you’re worth a second single. An album! A tour! It’s only upwards from here. Onwards, and upwards!’
My heart was still singing as I went into Carter’s room and leapt onto the bed, oblivious to the stagnant smell of beer and sweat. He was awake, but barely. ‘What ...?’ He smiled when he saw me, his face inches from mine, misinterpreting the hell out of this. ‘Hello.’
Oh, god. I clambered off him and hovered awkwardly beside the bed. He lay back against the pillows, apparently not worried that he was nearly naked. I tried to ignore the warmth coming off his smooth chest. ‘The single, Carter. “King Cutie”. It’s number one!’
He yawned. ‘Oh, Jimi, of course it is.’ But then it sank in and he grinned at me. ‘Of course it bloody is!’
I called Dad with the news. Ever since he’d allowed me to stay in England, our weekly calls were cagey and I knew he still hadn’t forgiven me for missing my flight, but he let all that slide when I told him about the song. He’d given me six months to make it, and I’d done it in much less time – we all had. When the single came on the radio in Sydney, Phoenix sent me a video of their victory dance around their bedroom, and my thoughts went to Ellie – if it was getting airplay back home, what would she think of it?
•
It might have been a rainy evening outside, but inside the Full English studios it was always mid-morning. Bright lights cast everything in sterile high-def. After nailing the song on national TV, the four of us squashed onto a couch shaped like a pursed mouth.
‘I gotta tell you,’ said the orange-haired presenter, waving his freckled hands around, ‘that song is everywhere right now. Can you tell us a bit about the inspiration behind it?’
Amir had given us a list of questions yesterday that had seemed pretty straightforward, but now that we were lit up like a window display in front of a live audience, it wasn’t so easy to answer them. Carter was right next to me, his thigh pressed against mine. I forced myself to look away from him, which unfortunately meant looking out at the audience as they waited for my answer. My lips tasted of inch-deep lipstick, and I smoothed a crease in a rose-print skirt I would never have chosen for myself.
Sam answered, rescuing me from the world’s longest pause, and I tried to throw him a grateful smile, but my hair flopped over my face.
‘And so, Lily ... I’m assuming this was written about a specific person?’ asked the presenter, fingering one of his rings. What was his name again? Chris, or Clive, or something. ‘Has he heard the track?’
Maybe-Clive was watching me so closely that I had to look away. I picked at a stray thread on my skirt, the material bunching slightly as I pulled it, and wished the confidence I’d felt playing the song had carried over to the couch. ‘Yes, he’s heard it,’ I squeaked. ‘But I don’t think he knows it’s about him.’
The audience laughed like I’d really been making a joke and I slid back against the couch. Behind the nearest cameraman, Amir looked alarmed.
‘And I mean, it’s so catchy, and it sounds so fresh – did you have any idea it was going to be a hit when you wrote it?’ the presenter asked.
What kind of a question was that? My hair fell forwards like a curtain.
‘Well, yeah, actually. When Lily first showed up with the beginnings of it, we knew it was good,’ said Carter, poking me in the ribs.
‘We had no idea it was going to be our first single, though,’ Sam added. ‘I mean, we just can’t believe we’re here.’ He smiled at the audience. I could feel his generosity reflected back at him, but I still couldn’t look at all the people.
‘Is that how you guys write your songs?’ Clive asked. ‘Lily, are you the main writer and then the other three add their input?’
Carter was staring at the cameraman as though daring him to zoom in on me. I couldn’t think of a graceful way to both tell the truth and appease Carter. The question fell into an awkward silence, with Richie openly glaring at me and Clive waiting impatiently. He sounded exasperated when he asked the next question.
‘So, Lily, our viewers want to know – are you single?’
I blushed again, hyper-aware of the sizeable audience, the cameras, and Carter’s raised eyebrow. There had been nothing in Amir’s coaching about how to deflect questions like that. I thought about Ellie, how lonely I’d been after our break-up. ‘Erm. That’s a little … forward,’ I mumbled.
‘What?’ he said, leaning in to hear me better. The audience laughed again – this time, they were laughing at me.
‘Sammy’s the monogamous one,’ Carter interrupted. ‘The rest of us … we’re more …’ He winked out at the audience. ‘Fluid.’
Speak for yourself, I wanted to say, but it would only draw attention to me – or worse, the audience might laugh again.
Luckily, Clive finally seemed to realise he wasn’t going to get much out of me, and turned to the others. ‘So, Sam, what does your girlfriend think of all this?’
‘Oh, she’s our b
iggest fan,’ he said. ‘We wouldn’t be here without her. She suggested we put our videos online, and that’s how we got discovered, so ...’ Offstage, Amir was frantically gesturing for him to stop speaking. ‘I mean, all our families, our friends, they’ve all been so supportive,’ he finished vaguely.
Supportive wasn’t exactly the right word for everyone. Jack had been thrilled for me, and Phoenix was my own personal cheer squad, but there had been radio silence from Ellie. I wanted to give her some space, hoping that in time she’d forgive me and we could be friends again, so I hadn’t contacted her, either. Sometimes the silence was deafening.
•
‘What happened in there?’ Amir was pacing around the make-up room. ‘Lily, you totally clammed up. You’re such a confident girl onstage, but put you in front of a studio audience and you’re a tortoise with its head in its shell.’
‘I just wasn’t expecting it to be so weird.’
Carter started taking off his make-up, glaring at his reflection. I reached for the wet wipes, but Saskia batted my hand away.
‘Keep yours on,’ she said. ‘Someone might want to snap a photo.’
‘Who’d want a photo of me?’
Richie sniggered his agreement.
‘Especially after that little routine,’ said Amir snarkily, and my shame burned.
‘The song was good,’ said Saskia, shooting him a look.
‘Yes, you guys have that down,’ Amir agreed, calming down a bit. ‘The performance was great.’
Sam rolled his eyes. ‘That wasn’t a performance. When are we going to play a real show?’
Amir patted his shoulder. ‘All in the fullness of time. At least we know when you do play a full show, you’ll nail it.’
Carter was still pouting at the mirror.
‘And what’s the matter with you?’ said Sam. He was really wound up, despite his excellent interview technique. ‘It’s almost like you don’t have a hit single out.’
Stars Like Us Page 10
