Emma Ever After

by Brigid Coady

  Paul and a few security guards formed a barricade and corralled them into their meet and greet area, as if they were a flock of recalcitrant sheep.

  She supposed it was a good way to contain all the adrenaline that was buzzing through them. And maybe keep them out of trouble.

  ‘Still with the smug smile, Woodhouse.’ A voice called down the corridor.

  Her heart leapt and spun, her breath caught in her throat. It was shock, that was all it was, because she hadn’t expected to see him so soon.

  ‘Gee,’ she shouted and before she could think, she was running down the corridor. She threw herself at him.

  He caught her, as he always did.

  This felt right.

  ‘Hey, Ems. I missed you too,’ he said and squeezed her. She buried her face in his neck, her eyes prickling with tears. She hadn’t realised how tired she was. It was making her silly and sentimental.

  The moment was ruined as a chorus of wolf whistles erupted from behind her.

  Bugger. It seemed the sheep hadn’t been fenced in quite as tightly as she’d hoped.

  This was work, where she was supposed to be the ultimate professional. The Emma they saw and knew would never be caught like this. And now they probably thought, well, that she and Gee… which was completely silly. But it probably looked like it was true, because but they didn’t know that wasn’t what she and Gee had. They were friends, best friends. That was all.

  Her face was hot, she was not going to be living this down anytime soon. She looked round to see Ed smiling and whistling with his fingers in his mouth. Sean and Amit were also joining in whilst Will stood silently with his arms crossed looking thoughtful.

  ‘Get in there, Emma,’ Ed catcalled.

  Emma pushed away from Gee, although not too far and brushed her hair away from her face.

  ‘They look like a handful,’ Gee said distracting her from the embarrassment.

  ‘You don’t know the half of it,’ she said. ‘Come on.’

  She walked back to the boys, with Gee at her side.

  ‘So, Ms Woodhouse is human,’ Will said with a raised eyebrow. Why did he think she wasn’t human? She tried very hard to ensure that they had the best support.

  ‘Oh wow. Aren’t you Gee Knightley?’ Ed whispered as they got closer. She cheered internally, he hadn’t said, ‘didn’t you used to be?’

  ‘Yeah, hi’ Gee put his hand out to shake.

  Ed’s eyes went wide and he grasped it as if it were sacred, as though he wasn’t worthy of touching his hand.

  ‘I… I…’ he stuttered. Although the way he stuttered reminded Emma of the first time he’d met Frankie, it differed in one big way. Ed looked like he was right where he wanted to be. Ed patted Gee’s hand without realising, as if testing he was real.

  Will laughed and nudged him out of his trance.

  ‘I’m Will and that idiot is Ed,’ Will grasping Gee’s hand that Ed had reluctantly let go of. He glanced sideways at Emma as he did.

  ‘So, you’re dating our Emma, are you?’ He asked archly.

  ‘We’re not dating,’ Emma said quickly trying to get things on a more professional level. And when had she become theirs? Will barely tolerated her.

  ‘Don’t sound so horrified about it, Ems.’ Gee said with a bite to his words. He turned to Will. ‘We went to university together and now we’re housemates.’

  ‘Oh, housemates.’ He looked slyly across at her as he carried on. ‘So a bit like me and Ed then.’

  Ed started giggling, Sean snorted and Amit laughed.

  Will, moving fast, had Gee turned around and swept into the room between all of them, leaving her standing on the outside, looking in.

  Will and Ed took Gee around the whole team backstage, introducing him and treating him as if he were an all-conquering hero. Emma came into the room and stood watching. She shouldn’t be jealous, should she? It wasn’t of Gee, she loved that everyone liked him. No, it was that she should’ve been the one introducing him to everyone. He was hers. In a friend way. He was her best friend.

  ‘Excuse me,’ Frankie said as she appeared in the doorway and then seemed to go out of her way to knock into her as she barged past. Tess followed in her wake, grimaced and shrugged at Emma as if to say ‘what can you do?’. She knew exactly what she could do, she could try and teach her client manners.

  Frankie stood just inside the room waiting for everyone present to notice her. No one turned around, the energy in the room didn’t change, their whole focus was on the boys and their new favourite person, Gee.

  Emma watched from behind her and could see Frankie’s shoulders get tauter.

  No matter how satisfying it was to see Frankie put in her place, she needed to make sure there was at least one shot of Frankie and Ed together. Preferably looking happy. Hell, she’d take them looking neutral at the moment.

  Thank God, she had decided to let the other boys’ fauxmances simmer while they got this one set up. She wasn’t sure she could have handled dealing with all three in full on mode at once.

  This was getting embarrassing, she realised. She needed to get someone’s attention, before Frankie went nuclear. She willed Gee to look at her, as she stared hard at him across the room. She felt her arm involuntarily going up to wave to get his attention.

  He looked over as if he’d heard her. He raised one of his eyebrows. She nodded her head to the woman in front of her. His eyebrow dropped and he frowned. It was Gee Knightley’s brooding look number one. He’d been known for it.

  She watched as Frankie, obviously angry with waiting to be acknowledged, stalked further into the room towards the group of men.

  They all turned to watch her. Gee stared at her like she was a snake and he wasn’t sure if she was poisonous or not.

  She stopped right in front of him, a tad too close. Emma wanted to drag her away, step between the two of them and tell her to back off.

  ‘Didn’t you used to be Gee Knightley?’ Frankie said running one of her hands down his arm.

  Ouch. If Frankie was thinking of adding Gee to her conquests she had made a bad first step, Emma thought. Thankfully. The thought of Gee tangled up with her… she felt sick even seeing them like this.

  She watched as Gee stood taller, his shoulders coming back. His fake fan smile twisting his mouth from the real one he’d been beaming before.

  ‘Yes, and who should I make the autograph too?’ He said with sickly sweetness and at the same time shaking her hand from his arm.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  It was perfect.

  The silence that Frankie had wanted as she walked into the room was hers, that change in energy. But it wasn’t a positive one. And then it was broken as Ed let out a honking laugh which he tried to smother in Will’s back. Sean and Amit started giggling. Will grinned and reached up a hand to high-five Gee who ignored it for the moment and merely raised an eyebrow. Emma could see the back of Frankie’s neck go red.

  It was funny, but she didn’t want to laugh. This wasn’t good. Frankie wasn’t a good enemy to have. This would end badly, because if Frankie was the sort of person Emma thought she was…

  ‘No, I wouldn’t want to take you away from your new job as a babysitter.’ It wasn’t the best comeback for Frankie but it was a small slap down. Well, at least Frankie wasn’t going to try and sleep with Gee so there were some positives.

  She saw him narrow his eyes and taking the belated high-five from Will.

  Crap, she knew that look. He was about to decimate Frankie. In other circumstances, she’d be right behind him egging him on. But this was her job. And Frankie was an integral part of the narrative she was rolling out. Their whole strategy depended on this going well. And her personal goals didn’t include getting fired because Gee and Frankie had got into a pissing contest.

  ‘Gee, why don’t you come with me to get a drink?’ she said as she walked over.

  ‘Wait Emma, before you drag him off, let’s get a photo with him.’ And before she could stop th
em the BOTP boys pulled Gee into a selfie with them. Sean holding the phone up above them, everyone crouching down to be in it with Gee in the centre.

  ‘Let me see,’ she asked Sean when he’d taken it. He handed over his phone.

  This could be perfect, she thought. They were all grinning hard, Gee amused but with a hint of bemusement. And there in the background, it was very obviously Frankie. Luckily, she was actually smiling. Maybe she had a sixth sense when it came to cameras being round her and could slip the mask on.

  Oh yes, this was the best way to let it be known that she’d been with them. It was almost organic. As if Frankie really was Ed’s new girlfriend. Social media was going to go mad.

  For the first time in weeks, it felt as if she wasn’t pushing a stone uphill. From now on would things would only get better.

  ‘That is wonderful, can you send it to me, and I’ll post it to your Instagram account with all the correct hashtags,’ she said as she grabbed her phone, logging out of her own accounts and logging into Sean’s. She sat on one of the folding chairs around the outside of the room.

  ‘Always working,’ Gee said as he walked past her to the table that was covered with coolers of ice full of cans of soft drinks and beer.

  Tess waved frantically at her and motioned that Frankie was going and made the universal signal of ‘I’ll call you’.

  Crap. If only she could run Ed and Frankie’s relationship completely from social media. It was always much easier when she or Jamie or one of the team could pretend to be their clients. She could spin stories and could have them on verge of being engaged in weeks. All with them only having met once.

  But no, they had to have photos which meant Ed still had to do the pap walk to the pumpkin patch tomorrow. Please don’t let Frankie take it out on him, she thought.

  ‘It doesn’t look like everything is shiny and happy in your version of Love Island, does it?’ Gee came to sit next to her, as she uploaded the selfie.

  ‘A few teething problems, nothing I can’t handle.’ She said as she hashtagged the post to within an inch of its life. She added Gee’s Instagram account; if he was going to poke fun at her job then she was going to make him pay… but he always said he didn’t want to be famous, didn’t he? She sighed and went to delete his username.

  ‘Looks to me like it’s dead in the water. But on the positive side just think of the time you’ll save not having to make up fake wedding speeches.’ Gee said before he raised the bottle in a salute to her.

  Emma sighed. She had wanted at least one of these PR relationships to work, maybe get as far as renewing the contract. On paper Frankie and Ed had been perfect. Of course, that was before she realised that Frankie’s team were very good at hiding her very problematic attitude.

  ‘Shut up,’ she said. ‘It seemed like a good idea at the time.’

  She published the photo without deleting anything. Sometimes people needed to learn when to be quiet, she thought.

  ‘I don’t think whoever you choose for any of them would work,’ Gee said as he looked at the boys.

  She followed his gaze, what did he mean no one would work? What was it that he saw differently from her?

  It didn’t look any different than it usually did. Will was the central person that they all revolved round. Ed was standing as close as he could get to Will, one part of their bodies touching at all times. Amit slouching with an elbow on Will’s other shoulder, leaning over to whisper to him. Sean was spinning around them, grinning wildly. To her they looked like overgrown puppies with too much energy. Innocent, even. And it seemed none of them had gone down the groupie and drugs route. Yet.

  ‘Well, Ed usually goes for older women,’ she said logging out of Sean’s account and logging into the others’ in turn so she could make sure all the band liked it.

  ‘You really don’t see it?’ Gee said.

  ‘See what?’ She asked. ‘Oh, you might see a spike in your Instagram followers after this.’ She finished liking the photo on all the accounts and logged into her own account.

  Gee threw his arm around her shoulder and pressed a kiss to her head.

  ‘Ah, my clueless Ems, what would I do without you?’ he teased.

  ‘Be very bored,’ she replied. And she wasn’t clueless, he was just cynical.

  ***

  The papped Pumpkin Patch date could’ve been worse. It also could’ve been better but Emma would take what she could get.

  ‘Fuck me,’ Ed said in bewilderment as they arrived at the parking lot, part of which had been converted into a kitschy straw-covered pumpkin paradise. There were giant plastic pumpkin statues everywhere. She couldn’t disagree. It was as if a demented Jack Skellington had gone all out. She looked at the prices – who paid eighty bucks for a pumpkin? She dug out her purse, and dragged out a pile of bills that she had for expenses. She handed it over.

  ‘Buy her a pumpkin, they also seem to have some champagne and waffle thing going on. But remember, you are still underage here, so stick to soft drinks.’

  ‘Bloody stupid country. I’m having a massive drink when I’m back,’ he muttered.

  You and me both, she thought. Gee was still in bed, Lew and Harry having let him stay at theirs. They’d probably soon be having a lazy lunch together at Soho House where no one would bother them.

  ‘Also, as it seems I’m doing this, I do not want her mauling me,’ he said definitely.

  ‘I’m sure she won’t,’ Emma lied. It seemed that that was something she hadn’t been told about Frankie. She liked to seduce her fauxmances. It was amazing what suddenly came out about someone you were doing business with once you couldn’t back out of the deal.

  Dan had let it slip on a conference call that it was very well known in Psyco Records.

  It was a good thing he was still in London, because this was the sort of information that you shared in a team. As it was Emma felt like a pimp.

  She opened the door and all but pushed him out. Ed turned to look at her as if she was sending him off to his execution.

  The back door of a black limo opened next to them. First one long black skinny jean clad leg emerged with a high heeled boot at the end of it, and then the rest of Frankie appeared from the car.

  Emma wondered if she could give herself a prize for guessing that Frankie had a collection of themed knitwear she wanted to show off. She was wearing a large orange knit shirt with a jack o’lantern face knitted into it in black with a heart shape for a nose.

  She was glad she’d said no to a pumpkin latte when Ed had suggested it on their drive. This was too much orange for even a Dutch person. She watched as Frankie gripped Ed’s hand and dragged him off to Pumpkin Paradise. They were staying for as long as the paps got the photos from where they were stationed across the street and also for any fans to start sharing them. She sat in the car and logged into social media. How long would it take for the visit to hit the channels? She wasn’t sure how long Ed was going to survive out there on his own. Maybe she could suggest that someone from the team was also around? So that he was never on his own with her, to make him less anxious. Something like the comfort goat they sometimes put with twitchy racehorses.

  Fifteen minutes later the first fan picture hit Twitter. Frankie smiling, with her arm round a fan. Ed standing beside them looking blank. Well, at least he’d stopped looking terrified.

  Emma watched, chewing on her thumbnail as the #Fred and #Freddie mentions rose across Twitter and Instagram. Okay, so what did it matter if Ed was a little uncomfortable, this was golden publicity.

  After another five minutes, she realised that interspersed with the #Freddie hashtag was the mention of bears again. The rainbow bears.

  Okay, so this was going to be a thing, she thought. Excellent, it was a good way to eke out the story between stunts, whoever was running it was helping her out. People would be making the connection between the pumpkin tableau last night and today’s trip round Orange Wonderland. Good. It would show the fans that Frankie was a serious relat
ionship, that this was here to stay. Smiling, she took her thumb out of her mouth and clicked onto one of the fan accounts.

  @wedisreal: This shows that #Freddie is fake. Wed Lives! #rainbowbears @bop_bear

  The retweets and replies on this, some of which were vitriolic, were growing exponentially. What the hell was on this account that made everyone think Freddie was through? She clicked through to @bop_bear

  ‘Bugger.’

  It was the first coherent thing she could think, let alone say. She stared down at the photo, the first ever tweet from the account.

  The two rainbow bears were posed in a mini pumpkin patch, not dissimilar to the one she was sitting next to. They were both now sporting very thick and frowning eyebrows, not unlike Gee’s she thought, absently. A pumpkin sat between them which someone had carved to look like the puke face emoji. Its eyes were squinting and it even had the inside of the pumpkin spilling out of it, a sea of seeds.

  Nothing was inherently wrong with that.

  The problem was the Barbie doll that was stuck head first into the mouth of it. As if it were drowning in the pumpkin vomit or was what had gagged the pumpkin into vomiting. Oh, and the doll was wearing a knitted fox sweater, which looked remarkably like the one Frankie had been wearing during ‘the kiss’.

  Okay, so this wasn’t what she’d had in mind. This whole photo was in direct opposition to her job. The whole narrative she’d created with Freddie was undermined in a single photo and communicated to the world by a tweet.

  It didn’t matter that the photo was only gaining traction in the fandom. This was the sort of conspiracy theory that could cause no end of issues down the road. Here was something that fans could point and show it was all fake.

  Who the hell was doing this? It had to be someone close to the boys, someone who was part of the crew, otherwise they wouldn’t have been able to attach the bears to the stage.

  She shook her head. She’d have to think about it later. See if anyone had any idea what was going on.

  There was a sudden frantic banging on the side of the van. Ed’s face was pressed to the window and flushed as if he’d sprinted back. She opened the door and he threw himself in as if they’d been part of a heist.