‘I thought you said it was a power imbalance. I was worried for a minute there that I might’ve violated the code of starfucking.’
I stared at him. ‘You think this is funny?’
He looked at me for a while as if trying to work out which answer was less likely to set me off. Eventually he said, ‘I don’t think it’s funny. But I do think it’s nice.’
‘Nice?’
A smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. ‘That you care about what I do after all.’
CHAPTER 24
Lily Donadi’s Secret Lesbian Tryst!
Teen sensation Lily Donadi’s star might be rising, but it came at the expense of true love, says Ellie Wong, 17, Lily’s former girlfriend from Australia. After three months together, Lily left Ms Wong behind in Sydney to study at the prestigious Henley-On-Thames Music Academy in April, but promised she would return.
‘I waited for her,’ Ms Wong told our reporter through tears. ‘She was the love of my life.’
But their long-distance relationship was no match for the bright lights of London and the promise of fame when Beatnik Records signed Lily’s band, Lady Stardust, this June.
‘Music always came first for her. It was hard for me to accept because I wanted to be her number one priority,’ said Ms Wong.
The kick in the teeth for Ms Wong is that the band’s number one single, ‘King Cutie’, revolves around Lily’s infatuation with a boy.
‘I always knew she was bisexual, but it really hurts to hear her pining after a guy every time I turn on the radio,’ she said. ‘It feels like our whole relationship was a lie, like I’ve just been erased from her life.’
I pressed the backs of my hands against my face. Why would Ellie do something like this? That wasn’t the girl I’d known – the girl who’d reach for my hand as we walked home from school, the girl who’d made me mixtapes of old-school punk. The words shimmered in front of me like a mirage, like my brain was rebelling: if I couldn’t read them, maybe they wouldn’t exist.
‘We’ve been doing it all wrong!’ said Amir. ‘I can’t believe we were so stupid!’
The sound that came from me was half a choke, half a sob, but I was too shocked to cry. The clickbait headline had made me feel dirty, but it was Ellie’s words that really cut. I’d known she must have heard the song, but it had never occurred to me that she would take it as a personal blow. Richie leaned back on the couch and laughed, but Carter was conspicuously silent.
‘This is great for us.’ Amir paced up and down the studio. Boris was late. ‘This is a golden opportunity to up your appeal with a more diverse cohort. Why didn’t you tell me you were gay? There’s no need to be in the closet anymore, Lily! It puts a whole new slant on the Perennial Single Girl!’
‘What’s wrong with you?’ Sam snapped at him. ‘Can’t you see she’s devastated?’
Amir stopped pacing and looked at me. ‘Oh, this just happens once you get to a certain level,’ he said, as if my public humiliation was nothing. ‘The haters gonna hate, Lily, am I right?’
Sam squeezed my shoulder and I blinked back tears, too torn up to correct Amir for calling me gay and assuming I was in the closet.
‘It’ll be lost in the twenty-four-hour news cycle soon enough,’ Amir added. ‘But this won’t be the last jilted lover to cash in. And if any of you’ – he looked at Richie, Carter and Sam – ‘have any secrets, you’d better expect they’ll come out. Nude photos? Disgruntled former bosses? Anyone who thinks you copied their homework? They’re all coming.’ He set his fingers together, and I got the impression the matter was closed. ‘Now. We need to talk strategy. I’ve been thinking about our next phase: Perennial Single Girl Finds True Love.’
‘Excuse me?’ Carter spluttered.
‘Media loves a couple,’ he said, stroking the sad tuft of hair on his chin. It looked like he was trying to grow a beard – and failing. ‘Obviously, you don’t have to actually fall in love. You’d just have to be photographed together a couple of times to start the rumour mill going. “King Cutie” really set us off on the wrong path! Now we know you swing both ways, it gives us a whole new world of possibilities. We’ve got a lot of girls on our books.’
‘You want me to pretend-date someone?’ Saskia’s passion for ‘branding’ was one thing, but outright lying was a step too far. Where would it end? Was I meant to go through a pretend break-up with the mysterious person as well? Marry her? Adopt a child from Malawi? Still, at least discussing my new showmance had stopped them from talking about Ellie.
I feel like I’ve been erased from her life.
That was how I felt, too – like Ellie had erased me until, for some bizarre reason, she’d talked to the press. I’d wanted to be friends again one day but that was impossible now, after what she’d done. I sighed just as Sam spoke up. ‘So you’re saying it’s all right for Liliana to fake a relationship, but I’m not allowed to mention my girlfriend in interviews?’
Amir stood very still, as if he thought this could be a trick question. ‘I’ve been doing this a very long time, Sam, and it’s –’
‘And it’s what? All right as long as you can market it? All right as long as they belong to Beatnik? Or all right as long as none of it is actually real?’
‘Oh!’ said Amir, as if he suddenly understood. ‘Would you like a new celebrity girlfriend yourself? We can probably arrange something for you …’
‘No thank you,’ said Sam. ‘I want my actual girlfriend. I want to be honest and not feel like I have to hide her. I’m not interested in your fake, stupid game.’ He threw me a confused look. ‘And you shouldn’t be either, Donadi. I can’t believe you’re even considering this.’
‘I’m not considering it,’ I said.
‘Why don’t you just meet Addie and see if you hit it off?’ Amir said coolly, and it was like the world stopped spinning.
‘Addie Marmoset?’ I said slowly.
‘The very same.’
Richie laughed, examining his fingernails. ‘Well, Liliana, this is all your wet dreams come true.’
I’d been so sure a moment ago, when it was just some anonymous starlet, but the thought of actually meeting Addie Marmoset was something else. Phoenix would lose their shit. Jack would break out laughing. And Ellie … well, if it got back to Ellie, maybe she’d regret telling her story online.
‘Addie’s popularity took a nosedive after she left Perfect Storm,’ Amir was saying. ‘We’re working on repairing her image before her solo single comes out. She has a scheduled candid tonight at Yellow Brick Road – just come along and meet her. The whole band should go, actually.’
‘Yellow Brick Road?’ Carter sat up straight. ‘The restaurant in the Cross?’
I raised an eyebrow at the familiarity of ‘the Cross’. Every time Carter brought up his nightly activities, I felt like I’d been slapped.
He grinned at my expression. ‘If you actually went to bed any later than nine o’clock, Jimi, you would know that Yellow Brick Road is about a hundred pounds a head and has a six-month waitlist.’
‘What’s a scheduled candid?’ I asked.
‘Oh, now you’re interested,’ said Amir. ‘It’s an appearance that seems impromptu, maybe at a restaurant or cinema, but we invite photographers. Everyone wins: we increase your profile, the paparazzi get paid, and newspapers have something to put in their pages. How about it, Lily? I’ll call OJ and blow off your session tomorrow.’
‘Tish’d love it, Amir,’ said Sam. ‘Can she come?’
Amir surveyed me. ‘It’s up to Lily,’ he said.
I knew how much Sam missed Tish. If I’d been on the fence before, his excitement was enough to tip me over, and Amir had clearly guessed that. I tried not to let that irritate me as I nudged Sam. ‘So now you think I should go for it?’
‘Well, it’ll take your mind off the article. And it’s Yellow Brick Road,’ he said. ‘You might be allowed to eat something other than salad.’
•
There was no time t
o call Phoenix or Jack to tell them I was going to meet Addie Marmoset. A scheduled candid called for a full face of make-up, and Melody Nelson contoured my cheekbones until you could see my skull under my skin. Saskia considered my wardrobe for what felt like hours, eventually choosing a pair of voluminous silk pants, platform heels and a tiny camisole that left a strip of my belly exposed to the balmy air. ‘Simple, but classy,’ she breathed as I stood back from the mirror. A jolt ran through me – this was the outfit I would wear to meet Addie Marmoset. I was about to meet Addie Marmoset!
Tish came down on the train and hogged the bathroom, finally emerging in an orange cocktail dress slit from the neck to the navel, her hair straightened into flat, dark sheets like a missing Kardashian’s.
‘Wow,’ I said. ‘Sam is gonna have a coronary.’
She laughed the way she always did when I used words like ‘coronary’. ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘That’s the idea.’
On the street, Amir stood beside a limo like a gangster. We scrambled in behind him, sliding sideways on the smooth leather seats. Carter fell onto the drinks fridge and Amir hastily confiscated everything alcoholic. Tish hooked up her phone and flicked through her playlists until the car was throbbing with over-bassed Peking Duk.
‘One thing I should clarify,’ I said to Amir. ‘Just because I’m coming tonight doesn’t mean I’m getting a fake girlfriend.’
He put down his phone and grinned with the unbridled joy of a kid who’d successfully hidden all his vegetables. ‘That’s what fake means, Lily. If there just happen to be paps outside, and they happen to shoot a picture of you leaving with Addie, and they happen to leap to the conclusion that you’re together, what can we do?’
‘We’ll just tell them they’ve got it wrong,’ I said.
He nodded. ‘Funny thing about rumours: the more you deny them, the more it seems like they’re true.’
I tried to get a grip on the seat, but the limo was hurtling through the night and my silk pants slid against the leather. ‘Don’t I get a say in this at all?’
‘You’ve had your say,’ he said patiently. ‘And now circumstances are beyond your control. Isn’t it strange how life mixes it up like that?’
CHAPTER 25
The pink lights of the restaurant seeped out through tinted windows. Photographers lined the pavement, dressed in black jeans and Cons, cameras like extensions of their arms. The limo door slid open, exposing us to the light. Richie grinned fearlessly and stepped into the throng, but when I tried to stand my ankles caved in the platform heels and I fell against Sam, who looked so nervous I wanted to hug him.
‘Chill out man, no-one’s going to be taking your picture,’ I said, trying to muster the bravado of Perennial Single Girl. ‘Not with what Amir’s got planned for me.’
He smiled and patted my arm. ‘You go first, then, Donadi.’
I extended one foot, testing the shoes on the ground before I transferred my weight. There was a hailstorm of white flashes, so sudden and loud I was blinded until Carter put his arm around my waist and yanked me upright. I forced myself to hold still, Perennial Single Girl smile in play. Carter smelled fresh and clean and masculine, even though he was wearing the same clothes he always wore on a night out and hadn’t spent hours in preparation like I had. For a second, I allowed myself to imagine what it might be like to be his girlfriend – to be held like this, and not just for the cameras. I leaned into him as if I had a choice – as if I wouldn’t fall to the kerb if I let go.
Behind me, Sam and Tish got out too, and the photographers went silent, then erupted with shouts of vicious delight, like this moment had just made their night. I caught sight of Tish’s flustered smile and Sam’s wide eyes, but Carter pulled me across the pavement before I had a chance to ask what had happened. The bouncer unhooked a velvet rope to sweep us past the queue and I said, ‘Bet you’re loving that.’
Carter grinned. ‘It’s the Lady Stardust effect,’ he said. The restaurant felt subdued and intimate, and I was suddenly aware of the tightness of his arm around my waist.
Amir wrenched me away, saving me from disentangling myself. ‘You come with me.’
I was careful not to tread on the diaphanous silk pants as I stepped up the stairs, still thinking about the betrayed look on Sam’s face outside. In a separate elevated section, with a direct view to a live jazz band, another bouncer gave Amir the once-over and let us past.
Addie Marmoset was sitting at a table opposite a huge guy who could only be her bodyguard. She ignored the band and scrolled on her phone as if this restaurant was no more interesting to her than her own living room.
‘Oh my god,’ I squeaked before I realised the words were out of my mouth.
Up close, she was smaller than I’d expected. Her chestnut hair was in an impossibly perfect ponytail that was so long she could have sat on it, and she was dressed in a white shirt with the sleeves rolled to her elbows and suede boots that went over her knees. She looked like a sexy pirate. My feet took me towards her before my head caught up.
‘Hi,’ I said. ‘I just … I was at the Perfect Storm concert in Reading, when you announced you were leaving the band. It was such a great gig. I’ve been listening to you since you won Quest for the Best.’
She looked behind me as if hoping security would materialise. ‘Oh ... how did you get up here?’ She clearly thought I was a crazed fan who’d broken into the VIP section. By the time her gaze landed on Amir, I was already backing away, muttering apologies, my arms locked across my bare stomach. God, how embarrassing. Why did I open with that? I had to get out now, before I did any more damage.
‘No, no, it’s OK. Don’t leave.’ She glanced at Amir again, then threw her smile at me. It was like she’d flicked on a light. ‘I was just surprised. I didn’t realise you were here with the label.’ She motioned to the chair beside her and I squeezed in, trying to pretend her bodyguard wasn’t there and wondering if I could take a sneaky photo for Phoenix. Below us, the band finished a song to polite applause. I sought out the others at a table in the main section: Richie interrogating the waiter, Tish and Sam reading the menu, Carter watching the band, his arms crossed. Addie Marmoset shifted and suddenly her knee was touching mine, lightly, under the table.
‘So, it’s Lily, huh?’ she said, as if she hadn’t even noticed the knee.
‘Yes. I’m in Lady Stardust,’ I said. Her eyes were heavy with mascara, but then, so were mine. I wondered if Melody Nelson had done a number on her too.
‘Right. “King Cutie.” That’s a dope song.’
I tried not to drop my jaw to the floor. Addie Marmoset knew my song. Also, Addie Marmoset used the word ‘dope’. And Addie Marmoset had a small freckle on her collarbone and drank amaretto sours and smelled of men’s cologne and Bepanthen, the antiseptic cream you put on tattoos – and I knew all this because I was sitting right next to Addie Marmoset right now.
‘So Lily, tell me about yourself,’ she said. She lifted the drink and I saw the new tattoo on her arm: a pattern of lace in black ink. I wanted to ask about it, but it seemed too intimate.
‘Where should I start?’ I asked.
She leaned closer to me, amusement playing in her eyes. ‘The truth, of course,’ she said. ‘Always start with the truth.’
From anyone else that would seem laughably pretentious, but on this surreal night, it wouldn’t have surprised me if she’d suddenly grown wings.
I couldn’t think of anything clever to say, so I followed her advice. ‘The truth is … I’m here because Amir wants us to hook up. Or at least pretend to.’
She nearly choked on her drink. She’d asked for honesty, but clearly this was more than she was expecting.
‘I’m a massive fan of yours, don’t get me wrong,’ I said hastily. ‘I’ve always wanted to meet you. But having a fake relationship just doesn’t feel very … honest.’
I thought about the boathouse, those joyful nights when it had been just the four of us and our instruments and the sheer love o
f playing, with no-one standing over us to see if we failed. I suddenly realised Addie Marmoset would understand that. ‘I didn’t get into music because I wanted to connect with people or preach a message or make heaps of money or anything. My band couldn’t even write songs at first. We just really loved making music.’
She nodded as though my garbled explanation made perfect sense. A waiter brought us matching tiny sashimi portions, but she didn’t even look at the food.
‘The truth is … this wasn’t what I thought it would be,’ I said. ‘I wanted to be successful. But it was like I didn’t know what I was choosing.’
Carter had always been upfront about his dreams – fame, adoration, more groupies than I can handle – but fame had always seemed like something for people far more genetically blessed than me: people who were confident and outgoing, who enjoyed the limelight beyond the moment they stepped off the stage. People like Carter, or the girl beside me now, who was ignoring the band and her phone and the hulking guy opposite her as if we were the only two people in the restaurant.
‘I guess I wasn’t expecting the whole machine of it all,’ I said. ‘The interview techniques, the makeover, the clothes and the hair and everything. I mean, I know we’re lucky that the single is doing so well, and to have all this attention. I wanted to make music. But now I think I’m going to have to give away more and more of myself to keep hold of it.’
The restaurant had faded. There was only Addie’s gaze and her hand on my arm and the words between us. I was talking too much, but she was listening. She squeezed my elbow.
‘So you think that if you do this thing, if you pretend to “hook up” with me, as you put it, you might lose another part of yourself,’ she said. It wasn’t really a question.
I nodded, relieved that she’d got what I’d said. ‘It’s the lying. I don’t know how to do it. I don’t know where it ends. It’s one thing to pretend to feel confident when I’m not, but it’s something else to lie and say yes, I’m in a relationship with the hottest girl on the planet.’
Stars Like Us Page 12
