Stars Like Us

by Frances Chapman

  ‘Um, hi,’ I said. ‘Sorry to wake you. There’s no good way to ... I mean … there are some photos today. Of me, uh … kissing my boyfriend.’

  There was a crushing second, just long enough for me to wonder whether she was so upset that she’d hung up, but then she said, ‘Boyfriend.’ She sounded cool, but then she was practised in defensive calmness. ‘Who is it? Someone I know?’

  ‘No. Well, maybe. It’s Carter.’

  ‘Your guitarist? The one who’s always on the internet stumbling out of MudDragon? Were you trying to humiliate me?’

  ‘I didn’t …’ I started, but the words stuck in my mouth like Fantales. I couldn’t say anything without sounding defensive. ‘I’m really sorry.’ It sounded totally inadequate.

  ‘But you said we’d talk when I got back from the States,’ she said. There was a second, as if she needed time to absorb it, and then she added in a strangled voice, ‘Everyone’s going to think I’m such an idiot.’

  ‘No they won’t. They’ll just think I was cheating on you,’ I said miserably. ‘And Amir says it’ll be great for your career,’ I added, trying to rescue the situation. ‘Maybe you can do some interviews about it, and people will think you’re heartbroken.’

  There was a pause. I looked up at the poster of Iggy above my bed, waiting for her to lose it at me. But she didn’t seem angry. ‘Lily, I’m not talking about our professional relationship. I’m talking about our personal relationship,’ she said, and I felt like I’d been winded.

  ‘I thought we were friends,’ she continued. ‘Maybe I thought we could be something more than that, one day – I don’t know. It feels stupid to admit it now. But I thought you saw me as an actual person, not someone you could use to get where you wanted and drop when I was no longer useful.’ I went to apologise again, but she spoke over me, her voice hard. ‘I let my guard down with you. But I guess I should’ve known better.’

  Carter had said, ‘At least we don’t have to lie anymore,’ but I didn’t feel any better being honest. I was embarrassed and tired and full of deep, dark shame – and above everything, I felt the loss of Addie, with all her defences and vulnerabilities and her fake hair, who’d held my hand in my bedroom and kissed me without an audience, whose lips were so soft.

  •

  Photographers camped outside our building for days, waiting for a glimpse of me, so I stayed home over Christmas. Gossip columns devoted inches to my break-up with Addie, holding it as evidence that the Perennial Single Girl couldn’t commit to a serious relationship. Sometimes it felt as if it was all happening to someone else, and sometimes it hurt so much I could barely breathe. I didn’t check my socials. They would only be full of overwrought threats from her fans, furious I’d broken her heart. I would have been one of those fans once, indignant on her behalf. A part of me still was.

  But the worst thing was the look in Dad’s eyes when I told him the whole story. He tried to stay positive over Christmas, sending Jack to Tesco for supplies, roasting a duck and making the traditional pavlova for the boys, but I knew he was disappointed in me. I was disappointed in myself.

  ‘You’re still seeing this Carter fellow, then?’ he said on Christmas Day as he carved the duck.

  I stopped stirring the gravy on the stove. He knew the answer and I was already humiliated enough.

  ‘And he makes you happy?’

  I didn’t know how to answer that. Carter certainly made me something, but I didn’t think it was something I could admit to my dad.

  ‘Or at least, you’d rather be with him than Addie?’

  ‘Addie and I were never …’ I started, but I couldn’t finish the sentence, and he nodded as if he had expected this.

  Quietly, he said, ‘I wish I could learn your lessons for you, patatina, but this might be one of those times you have to figure it out yourself.’

  Addie gave long, serious interviews where she talked about always having a lot of respect for me and didn’t mention Carter. Her graciousness made it hurt more, and probably made me look even worse in the public eye. I stopped watching after the first few and tried to distract myself with rehearsals for the New Year’s Eve concert. Public opinion had turned against us, and a lot of Addie’s fans were threatening to hate-watch the gig. If we wanted to prove everyone wrong, we needed to knock it out of the park.

  The only good thing about it was that Carter seemed delighted. I didn’t know if it was because he didn’t have to lie anymore, or because he finally had me to himself, and I didn’t have the energy to ask. Every night he tried to get me to come out with him, but I was scared photos of us together would just give the press more ammunition and I didn’t want to run into any of Addie’s furious fans. We stayed home and Richie went out without us.

  Sales of ‘Stargirl’ went through the roof.

  CHAPTER 41

  Even backstage, I could hear the burble of voices in the foyer of the Royal Albert Hall. I might have been unpopular, but we still had a full house for the gig. In the dressing room, Sam was already wearing the black-tie dress code Saskia had decided was compulsory for New Year’s Eve. Tish scraped a clothes brush over his dinner jacket and I said, ‘Yeah, you scrub up OK.’

  He smiled. ‘“Scrub up OK”? We’ll make a Brit out of you yet, Donadi.’

  Saskia swept into the room, back from the tailor’s shop in the nick of time, carrying a black clothes bag and calling my name in the way that always made me wary. ‘You’re going to love the dress! It’s absolutely perfect!’ She unzipped the bag. The simple, classy dress I’d tried on a few weeks ago was a distant memory: now it was bedazzled in gold sequins. When I pulled it on, it barely covered my bum and the freshly altered neckline gaped open to reveal my lack of cleavage. Saskia hastily fixed it in place with Hollywood tape.

  Tish snapped a couple of photos of Sam in his suit, then handed him the phone. While they pored over the photos, Saskia turned to me. ‘What’s the matter?’ she asked in a low voice.

  I blinked back tears. ‘The whole world already thinks I’m a slag,’ I got out. ‘And now you’ve put me in a dress that’s going to confirm that.’

  ‘We prefer the word “vixen”.’ Saskia batted my hands away and tore off another strip of tape. ‘We have decided to appeal to a slightly older cohort, especially given your transition in the press from innocent newcomer to temptress. This dress is a more adult step for you.’

  Carter was looking at me like he was about to cut into a steak. ‘That’s not a dress, Saskia, it’s a hand grenade.’

  I remembered Tish’s mishap outside Yellow Brick Road and pressed the tape harder against my neckline.

  Carter moved towards me to help, but stumbled, catching himself on the dressing table. Sam met my eyes in the mirror and I could tell we were both thinking the same thing.

  ‘You haven’t had anything to drink …?’ I asked.

  He looked offended that I would even ask. ‘Of course not. Just lost my footing.’ He waved a metallic drink bottle in the air. ‘It’s only water,’ he said, and took a swig.

  Sam busied himself with Tish’s phone again, then inhaled sharply. His eyes flicked from me to Tish’s phone and back again.

  ‘Oh, what is it now?’ I said, snatching the phone from him. I expected to see that the back of the dress was shorter than I expected, maybe even exposed my underwear, but the picture on the screen was one I’d seen plenty of times in the past few weeks: the photo from the newspaper of me and Carter, my legs draped over his lap, taken from the stage of this very theatre.

  No. Wait.

  I hadn’t seen this photo before. I had seen one very like it, reproduced over and over with each new interview Addie had done. Slowly, I flicked backwards and forwards through Tish’s photos. There were hundreds from that day, some taken from sidestage and some from the audience, all showing me with Carter as we rehearsed for tonight’s show.

  If I’d still had any doubt, it was written all over Tish’s face. ‘Lily …’

  ‘That’s not my
name.’

  ‘Go easy on her, Liliana,’ said Carter, but I didn’t even blink. He couldn’t have held me back with a tractor.

  ‘I thought we could trust you.’

  ‘You can,’ she said, ‘Lily – ana. I’m sorry. I thought I was doing you a favour. You were so clearly out of your depth with the Addie thing. I knew you and Carter wanted to be out in public. I thought it would help ...’

  ‘It wasn’t Liliana who wanted it out in public,’ said Sam. Tish stopped pleading with me and turned to him. He was gripping a chair, his knuckles pushing through the skin. My anger burned bright and hot, but he just seemed really, really tired. ‘You didn’t do it for Liliana, you did it for yourself,’ he said in the same strangled voice. ‘How much did the press pay you for that photo?’

  ‘Sam, please …’ said Tish.

  ‘You betrayed her.’ His eyes skimmed over Carter. ‘Were you in on it? Did you two cook it up together?’

  Carter jumped, then glanced at me. ‘No, of course not.’

  Sam turned back to Tish. ‘Have you been using me this whole time? Does it make you feel important? Do you even like me?’

  ‘What? I love you.’ Tish’s mascara was running in black tracks down her face.

  ‘I don’t know if I believe you.’ He looked at her as though something was dawning on him. ‘You knew you were going to spill out of that dress at Yellow Brick Road, didn’t you? You wanted to be front page news the next day.’

  She was silent, but he nodded as if she’d answered his question. ‘I don’t think I can do this anymore,’ he said. ‘I think we both know it’s over.’

  Amir chose this excellent moment to poke his head around the door. ‘It’s showtime!’ he exclaimed. When he saw our faces, he stopped. ‘Is there something I should be aware of?’

  I touched Sam’s arm, but he set his shoulders and, leaving Tish sobbing in the dressing room, we followed Amir up to the stage.

  CHAPTER 42

  Game faces on. The roar from the crowd crashed over us like a wave, but behind the mask I was churning with what had happened backstage. The cameras were covering us from every angle – how could they miss it? How good would our performance have to be to convince the whole world that the band wasn’t a fractured mess?

  The hall was full, but the stage lights saturated the view and I couldn’t make out individual faces. Sam watched from the drums behind me, his jaw set as if tonight – the gig he’d been fighting for – was now something to be endured rather than enjoyed. The stagehand helped Carter loop his guitar over his head as if he’d never put one on before and Sam counted us in.

  My hands hit the strings. Sam kept perfect time and Richie fell into sync with me, but I strained to hear the riff through my earpiece. I hardly dared to look at Carter as I pressed up close to the mic and sang the opening line. He wasn’t playing, or if he was, I couldn’t hear it at all.

  I went through the whole first verse, waiting for him to snap out of his daze and jump in. He missed my glare because his eyes were closed, his body loose, his hands moving over his Telecaster. He was playing – or at least, he thought he was. I still couldn’t hear it, and that meant only one thing: his thousand-pound guitar wasn’t even plugged in.

  I did a quick mental calculation about whether to sacrifice rhythm or lead, and switched over. This was the biggest performance of our careers and there was no way he was going to ruin it. As we built to the bridge, Sam’s showman smile did little to hide his horror. Richie shook his head ruefully, as if I should never have expected any better from Carter.

  Carter finally looked over at me, baffled, and not just about the guitar. It was like he’d just woken up and couldn’t work out what he was meant to be doing onstage at the Royal Albert Hall. We finished the song and the crowd cheered – still on our side despite the performance. I let out my breath. We had nine tracks and a New Year’s Eve countdown: we still had a chance to turn this around. I waved at the stagehand and she skidded onto the stage to plug in Carter’s guitar.

  I strode over to Carter, keeping my back to the audience, and hissed, ‘Get it together.’ His eyes were glassy and he staggered a little, as though it took all his power to stay upright. How had he deteriorated so fast? He’d seemed fine in the dressing room, a little unsteady maybe, but this was something else. This was almost as bad as the night he’d ended up in hospital.

  That horrible night. No – I couldn’t think about that. If I thought about that now, while every camera was on us and our concert was being broadcast around the country, I would crumble. I’d be only a few seconds away from thinking about what he’d promised me afterwards. If I thought about that night, my mind would go to the girl I’d given up in order to believe him.

  In the next song, Sam dropped the beat, causing Richie to forget he was on national TV and glare at him. But I couldn’t blame Sam for that – if I’d just ended a two-year relationship, I wouldn’t have even made it onstage. Anyway, we had bigger problems: Carter’s contribution to the song would have been better if his guitar hadn’t been plugged in.

  When I imagined Dad and Jack sitting in the wings, I burned with shame. We might have been able to pack out a hall, but we couldn’t deliver a quality show. Glitter promises, empty smile. What if I was the stargirl, after all?

  Each song was worse as my failure welled up inside me, until my own guitar work started to slip. What was the point in getting it right if the band was falling apart around me? Carter looked weirdly triumphant, as if my mistakes made his screw-ups less embarrassing. Either that, or he was beginning to sober up.

  At midnight I did the countdown, and while some of the crowd joined in, it was a scattered response – nowhere near what you’d expect for a massive New Year’s Eve party.

  ‘King Cutie’ was our final song and, in rehearsals, I’d imagined this as the moment we proved our worth to the audience, where my mistakes might be forgiven, but Sam sped up the tempo as if he couldn’t wait to get over the finish line.

  ‘He’s got the words, they always work …’ I sang. ‘One cocked eyebrow … an arm’s-length smirk …’

  I’d written this song before I had even really known Carter, and yet I’d known that much. I’d believed him when he’d told me the girl on Have You Heard was Richie’s pull, when he’d said he wanted something meaningful with me. When he’d promised to stop drinking. If tonight was anything to go by, that promise was worth nothing – so what did that mean for the rest of them?

  Mid-verse, my voice cracked and I dropped the rest of the line. Tears pressed behind my eyes and before I knew it, they were running down my face, my make-up coming off in sheets. The screens at the side of the stage showed me in real time, sobbing through the chorus, my own giant face mocking me as I cried while a stunned, paying audience looked on.

  CHAPTER 43

  Amir hooked my elbow as soon as we stepped backstage and pulled us through the corridors. His teeth were gritted, his nails digging into my arm. I tried to wrench away, but his grip was strong. Saskia trotted at our heels as we hurried down the fire escape and out into a car park, where drivers smoked beside their sleek black cars and the cold air slapped my thighs.

  ‘What’s the point of spending three weeks in rehearsals if you’re just going to bollocks it up on the night?’ Amir grated.

  My teeth were chattering so much I could barely breathe. Sam draped his jacket around my shoulders and the shivering subsided to a dull tremble.

  Carter swayed slightly nearby. ‘There was a problem with the sound …’

  ‘I’ll say,’ cut in Sam. ‘Some kind of blockage between the amp and the guitar.’

  But Amir wasn’t interested in Carter. He turned to me. ‘Lily, you totally fell apart up there. What the hell happened? Because it looked like you were crying live around the country in high-definition.’

  This had been our chance, and we’d blown it. Sam was clenching his fists by his side. I wanted to tell him how sorry I was for ruining the gig he’d been dreaming abou
t for months, but I was scared that if I spoke, I would start crying again.

  ‘All right, all right,’ said Amir, taking a deep breath. ‘I blame myself, of course. I knew you weren’t ready for a proper gig. We’d better go back to radio appearances and impromptu candids for a while. We’ll just have to knock back the request from the Supernovas.’

  Saskia let out a small chirp, but Sam and I just stared.

  ‘Oh, didn’t I tell you?’ Amir looked like a poker player who’d been holding the winning card in reserve. ‘Word on the industry grapevine is that “King Cutie” and “Stargirl” will both get a nomination for Best Single. You’ll be up against yourself in the same category, Lily! And they did ask the band to perform at the ceremony, but we’ll have to turn that down, given tonight’s little preview. There’s no way Jen will let you embarrass yourselves like that again.’

  Carter grabbed me and whirled me around as if the previous two hours hadn’t happened, but Sam stepped back and crossed his arms over his chest.

  ‘When were you going to tell us?’ he said.

  ‘Excuse me?’ said Amir.

  ‘Everything is strategic to you. The whole reason you wanted Liliana to do a solo single was so you could pit her against us at the Supernova awards.’

  ‘Hey …’ I said. ‘What do you mean, “us”? I never stopped being part of this band.’

  Sam looked at me, and his eyes were full of pain. ‘Maybe you haven’t,’ he said quietly. ‘But I have.’ And, setting his shoulders, he left the car park.

  Amir was conspicuously silent. It was left to me to totter after Sam. I expected Carter and Richie to follow too, but they stayed; Richie took out a cigarette. I didn’t know how I was going to make Sam stay in the band. A Supernova would mean nothing if Sam wasn’t there to collect it with the rest of us. Saskia tailed us at a respectful pace, but we both knew she wasn’t going to try to make Sam stay. She just wasn’t meant to let me out of her sight.