All About the Hype

by Paige Toon

The evening isn’t so bad after that. In fact, it’s pretty good. The bond that was breaking strengthens again after I come clean, and soon my friends are trying to reassure me that everything will work out in the end.

  ‘I can’t even speak to Jack,’ I say in a shaky voice, wracked with emotion. ‘Johnny confiscated my phone and Stu won’t let me use the home phone. I just want to talk to him, to check he’s OK. It wasn’t his fault,’ I say with a trembling lip.

  ‘I’d let you use my phone, but it doesn’t have international dialling,’ Natalie says.

  But it’s Tom who places his phone in my hands. ‘Use mine,’ he says.

  I stare at it with surprise, my eyes darting up to look at him.

  ‘Are you sure?’

  He nods. I can tell by his expression that the offer is genuine. He may not like Jack, but he knows that he’s the one I’ve chosen. And Tom is nothing if not a good sport. I guess that’s what makes him one of the most popular guys at school. He’s going to make some girl very happy one of these days.

  I hurry into the bathroom and lock myself inside a cubicle before dialling Jack’s number. Please answer, please answer… I know he won’t recognise the caller ID, but—

  ‘Hello?’ He interrupts my thought process.

  ‘Jack!’ I exclaim, my insides flooding with relief. ‘It’s me!’

  ‘Jessie?’ he asks with amazement. ‘Where are you?’

  ‘I’m in England.’

  ‘Agnes told me you were going.’

  ‘I’m here.’ Tears trek down my cheeks as I cradle the phone to my ear.

  ‘Are you OK?’ he asks.

  ‘No,’ I reply in a tiny voice. ‘It’s been hell.’

  ‘I know. For me, too.’

  ‘Jack, I’m so sorry. This is all my fault—’

  ‘Don’t,’ he interrupts me. ‘Don’t waste time by talking about it. I miss you so much,’ he says urgently. ‘I just want to hear how you are.’

  ‘I miss you, too,’ I whisper. The pain in my heart is hard to take. I take a deep breath, bracing myself and trying to be brave as I open my mouth to speak. I’ve said it before, but I want to say it again, even if he’s not going to reply.

  ‘I love you,’ I say.

  ‘I love you, too,’ he replies in a choked voice.

  My eyes spring open. I’d squeezed them shut. ‘You do?’ I ask with surprise.

  ‘I do,’ he replies sadly. ‘I just wish I could have told you in person.’

  I return to LA, after a seven-day break, feeling stronger, if not happier. Just before I left the UK, I came to a decision. I talked it through with Stu and he agrees. It’s the right thing to do.

  ‘I’m going to finish my school year in England,’ I tell my dad and Meg, as we sit on the living-room sofas, straight after Davey has dropped me home from the airport.

  Johnny leans forward and rests his elbows on his thighs, clasping his hands between his legs. He stares at me jadedly. Meg looks stunned.

  ‘Stu wants me to do my GCSEs, anyway. It’s too hard here. There are too many distractions.’ I’m trying not to cry. I need to be convincing for this. I need to show them I can be mature. I look directly at Meg. ‘And you’ll be able to go with my dad on tour without worrying about him – or me.’

  Nope, can’t do it. My vision goes blurry.

  Finishing school in Maidenhead will mean spending about four months away from America – and Jack… And All Hype… It’s going to be so hard, but my family has to come first, and I’ve done enough damage. There’s no way Gramps will ever be allowed to act as my guardian if I stay in America, and I couldn’t bear it if Meg had to look after me instead of supporting my dad on his world tour. That would hurt too many of us – Johnny was crushed when she went away after the Dana argument. He needs her.

  ‘Oh, Jess,’ my dad says, getting to his feet and pulling me off the sofa and into his arms. He cradles my head to his chest as I cry.

  ‘I’m so sorry I let you both down,’ I sob against him.

  ‘Hey,’ Meg says sadly, coming to join the family hug.

  ‘So sorry,’ I say, opening my arm to her. ‘I hope I can make it up to you by doing the right thing now.’

  ‘It’s OK, chick. It’s OK,’ my dad murmurs, holding me tightly. A memory of Dana calling me ‘chick’ pops into my head, but I do my best to push the thought away. There’s no way I’m going to let her taint the term of affection my dad has for me. She’s done enough damage.

  There’s little point in me going back to school now that I’ve decided to finish the year in England, so, the following day, my dad lets up on my punishment and says I can see my friends to say goodbye.

  ‘It wasn’t Jack’s fault,’ I tell him imploringly. ‘Please don’t blame him.’

  He’s not convinced, but he doesn’t argue with me. I call Jack and he manages to get off work early so Davey drives me over to his house with instructions to wait on the drive for an hour. It’s not long enough, but I’ll take what I can get.

  Jack answers the door to me and my heart threatens to burst through my ribcage as he crushes me in his embrace. Nothing prepares me for how good it feels to be with him again. His warmth, his smell, the strength of his arms around me. Now I know how Agnes felt.

  It’s not until we’re in his bedroom, lying on his bed, that I tell him I’m leaving.

  ‘No,’ he says beseechingly, pulling us into an upright position. ‘No! You can’t.’

  ‘I have to. I’m so sorry.’

  He looks absolutely crushed. ‘But what about us? What about the band? Christ, you don’t even know, but we’ve had interest from record labels.’

  My heart leaps. ‘Have we?’

  ‘I’ve got so much to tell you,’ Jack says hopelessly. ‘You can’t go.’

  ‘I don’t have a choice. I’ll put Meg and Johnny under pressure if I stay. I won’t do it. You should’ve seen them after Dana. It was awful.’

  ‘Oh, God,’ he says, pulling me close. ‘This is gonna kill me.’

  ‘It won’t be forever,’ I say. ‘Just a few months. I’ll be back in the summer.’

  ‘I love you,’ he says, cupping my face and forcing me to stare straight into his eyes. ‘I’ve never said that to anyone before.’

  ‘I know.’ I laugh and cry at the same time, and I realise that the pain of being away from him will be dulled slightly by the fact that I do trust him. I do believe he’ll wait for me.

  I lean forward to kiss him.

  As I’m walking outside with Jack to get back into the car, Agnes comes home from school.

  ‘How was Australia?’ I ask her, as we stand on the cobbled courtyard inside her property’s gates.

  ‘Amazing.’ She’s glowing, but her smile turns into a frown. ‘How about England?’

  I quickly fill her in. She looks to and from Jack and me with distress.

  ‘Will you look after him for me?’ I ask dejectedly.

  ‘I already do, every day,’ she replies.

  I don’t get to see Sienna before I leave, but she does answer my call.

  ‘I don’t know what to say,’ she says flatly.

  ‘You don’t have to say anything,’ I respond. ‘I know she hurt you as much as she hurt me.’

  ‘More,’ she corrects me.

  My heart squeezes. ‘I’m so sorry.’

  ‘It was all to get to you,’ she says in a monotone. ‘I feel like such an idiot’

  ‘You don’t need her in your life. Sienna, you’re incredible. You’re going to be über-successful, much more successful than she is.’

  ‘You’ve got that straight,’ she says. ‘Apparently, her tour has been cancelled. She’s been dropped by her record label.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Your dad likes to throw his weight around.’

  I’m stunned. I had no idea. ‘Are you sure it was Johnny?’

  ‘I’m sure. My mom told me.’

  ‘Oh my God.’

  ‘Yeah. So much for her attempt at revenge,’ she
says dully. ‘What goes around comes around.’ She sighs. ‘I’m just gonna focus on me, now. Rafe and I are doing our first CiaoCiao shoot this weekend. It should be pretty cool.’

  ‘I can’t wait to see it in magazine spreads all over the world,’ I say.

  She laughs half-heartedly. ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Can I email you?’ I ask. I have a feeling from this conversation that Sienna would probably like to wipe her hands clean of our friendship, but we did have fun before her sister came on the scene.

  She sighs, leaving a long pause before replying. Perhaps she’s weighing up everything, too.

  ‘Yeah,’ she says. ‘And give me a call when you’re next in LA. Maybe we can go ice-skating or something.’

  I giggle and, after a moment, she does, too.

  The time has come for me to leave LA, and Jack, Agnes, Brandon and Miles are here to see me off. I keep trying to tell myself that I’m doing the right thing, but it’s hard. Johnny is setting off on tour next week and he needs to focus. Luckily the opening night is in London so I’ll be able to go and watch with Barney, Phee and Meg from backstage. It’s a little ray of light in these dark days.

  ‘Have you heard back from Wendel yet?’ I hear Brandon asking Johnny.

  ‘Not yet. Stay cool,’ Johnny replies.

  He asked his solicitor to look over the offers we’ve received from two smallish record labels. Johnny initially advised against accepting.

  ‘It’s too soon,’ he told me earlier today. ‘Hang on for the big guns. You’ve got time.’

  ‘But I’m going back to England! I don’t want to miss this opportunity.’

  ‘Believe me, more offers will come. You guys should use this time to write some new material, collaborate with other artists, even. When you return in the summer, it will either work or it won’t.’

  ‘But I don’t want it not to work!’

  ‘Don’t force it, chick,’ he said. ‘What will be will be.’

  ‘Sometimes I think you don’t want me to be in All Hype,’ I said sulkily. ‘You won’t help us. You won’t even watch our gigs from the front.’

  He stared at me for a long moment and I felt my face heating up.

  ‘Sorry,’ I mumbled, knowing I had no right to give him crap about anything.

  ‘I want what’s best for you,’ he said quietly. ‘If I think there’s an opportunity that fits the bill, I’ll advise you to take it.’

  We left it at that.

  ‘I’ll see you in a week,’ he says to me now, giving me a hug.

  I nod, fighting back tears. I hug Agnes, Brandon and Miles before coming to Meg.

  ‘I’m sor—’

  ‘Enough,’ she says, squeezing me tightly. ‘It’s OK. All is forgiven, remember?’

  We had a heart-to-heart last night when Johnny was doing bedtime for Barney and Phee. She confided in me that it’s been a fear of hers for a long time that Dana would try to get her claws back into her husband.

  ‘She never got over their break-up,’ she said. ‘I was just so upset with Johnny for not telling me she was back in our lives, even inadvertently. I would have warned you about her, told you what she was like. She’s pure evil, she really is.’

  ‘Johnny did try to warn me,’ I defended him.

  She sighed. ‘I know. And as for Gramps…’ She’d sent him home with his tail between his legs soon after the incident. ‘He never should have taken you to that party, but it’s me I’m mostly angry with. I wanted to go with Johnny, so I put you at risk. I should have known better. You can’t teach an old dog new tricks. And Brian is certainly an old dog.’ She smiled sadly.

  ‘Please don’t stay angry with him for long,’ I implored.

  She sighed. ‘I’m sure we’ll bounce back. It’s just going to take a little time.’

  I brush away my tears as I crouch down to say goodbye to Barney. ‘I’ll see you next week, OK? We’re going to hang out backstage together, yeah?’

  ‘How many sleeps?’ he solemnly demands to know.

  ‘Seven,’ I say.

  ‘One, two, three—’

  ‘Bye, Phee,’ I say with a smile, as Barney continues to count on his fingers.

  ‘Bye, Dezzie,’ he replies obligingly. My heart squeezes as I stroke his little blond head.

  Finally I straighten up and turn to Jack.

  He can barely meet my eyes, and then I realise they’re tinged red. That sets me off.

  He holds me tight, burying his face in my hair as my chest heaves against his.

  ‘Come on, man,’ Johnny says gruffly after a long while. ‘She’s going to miss her flight.’

  I step away from Jack and dry my tears on my sleeve.

  ‘You can come and visit, can’t you?’ Johnny pats Jack’s back. He feels bad for us, despite everything.

  Jack nods, biting his lip as he stares disconsolately at me. My heart is breaking, I swear.

  ‘Christ,’ Johnny mutters. ‘You can all come, if you like.’ He looks around at my friends. ‘How about I fly you all out for the opening night?’

  I stare at him, gobsmacked. ‘Are you serious?’

  He shrugs. ‘Why the hell not?’

  This time when I throw my arms round his neck, I’m laughing hysterically.

  He’s just made leaving bearable.

  Chapter 27

  A week later, I’m sitting on my bed in a five-star hotel room, scrolling through Samson Sarky’s gossip site on my iPad. It’s so bizarre looking at old pictures of me with Gina, Margarita, Lottie and co. I can’t believe that girl there is me. But then it’s not me. At least not all of me.

  I glance up at my reflection in the mirror. This is the real me, the me I still identify most with. I’m wearing blue jeans and a grey hoodie and my blonde hair looks dishevelled and messy as it spills around my face. My green eyes are clear and my lids and lashes free from make-up. I look at my lips and think of Jack kissing them. I can’t believe he’s going to be here later today.

  Tonight is the first night of Johnny’s world tour and it kicks off at Wembley Stadium in front of a sold-out crowd. He has three dates here in London before he takes his tour around the country. I’ve realised I’m actually going to be closer to my family here in the UK than I would have been if I’d stayed in LA. I’ll be able to go to some of my dad’s dates – certainly the weekend ones – and, by the time he sets off for the European leg of his tour, I’ll be gearing up for my exams and will have to focus on school, anyway. Then Johnny will be back in America for the summer, touring stateside. I’ll be able to make a few of those dates, too – and maybe Stu will come back to LA as my guardian for the summer holidays. In some ways, I couldn’t have planned it better if I’d tried.

  There’s a knock on my door. I get up to answer it and find Meg with Barney and Phee.

  ‘Jessie, can you take the boys for a bit? I want to go with Johnny to a meeting downstairs.’

  ‘Of course,’ I reply, delighted she asked. She may not trust me to behave around evil bitches with tattoo fetishes, but at least she trusts me with her sons.

  Johnny told me I had to get my tattoo laser-removed, but I’m trying to convince him to let me keep it. I really did want it, even if it is two years too soon, and at least it’s out of sight most of the time.

  Hopefully one day I’ll be able to look at it without feeling sick with guilt.

  I scoop Phee up in my arms and take Barney’s hand, running to the bed for a bouncing session.

  I hadn’t known how I was going to get through the next few hours before I can realistically start to get ready – I’m wearing the black-and-gold skirt and bodice that Jack likes, and I’m so desperate to see him. At least my little brothers will distract me for a while. Jack, Agnes, Brandon and Miles are all flying in this afternoon and going straight to the concert venue. Agnes’s stepdad wouldn’t let her have even a single day off school and Jack thought it would be unkind to make her fly out alone, so this is the earliest they could come. Unfortunately Agnes has to leave again tomorrow
, but Jack is staying in the UK for a week. It’s the Easter holidays here, and I’m dying to show him the places I grew up. I just wish he could stay for longer.

  Libby, Natalie, Lou and Em are also coming to the gig and Johnny has given them Access All Areas passes. Natalie told me she thought Em was going to spontaneously combust when I called them at Nat’s house to tell them.

  I’m backstage at Wembley – something I’ve only ever dreamed about being able to say. I’ve just heard that Johnny’s driver has arrived back from the airport and security is bringing my friends up. I’m so nervous. It’s only been a week since I’ve seen Jack, but there’s something about tonight that makes me feel even more on edge. Maybe I’m just feeling nervy for Johnny. This is the first big tour he’s done in years. I hope it goes well.

  Earlier I’d asked him how he was feeling.

  ‘Pretty good. This might be my last world tour,’ he said, ‘so I intend to enjoy it.’

  ‘Don’t say that!’ I gasped.

  ‘It’s true, chick. I’m thirty-seven. I won’t always be selling out stadiums and arenas. And anyway I don’t want to do this shit forever. You saw how stressed Meg got about the tour.’

  ‘But this is what you love!’ I said. ‘Meg wouldn’t want you to stop doing what you love.’

  He smiled at me. ‘I love making music. I love writing and singing and playing my guitar, but I don’t really love touring and being away from home for months on end. No, I’d be happy doing the odd gig here and there, just the ones I really want to do, you know? That would suit me just fine.’

  I’ve already had a look at the stage. It’s absolutely enormous, at least twenty times bigger than the two I’ve sung on. I watched my dad do a soundcheck and he looked pretty far away even from where I was standing in the wings. To the people at the back, he’s going to look like not much more than a pinprick. But his voice filled the stadium effortlessly when they tested out the mics, and two huge screens at either side of the stage will be projecting his image to his faraway fans. I can’t wait to see him in action.

  The door to the green room opens and my heart leaps as Jack, Agnes, Brandon and Miles walk in.

  I run over and throw myself into Jack’s arms. He laughs and picks me up, swinging me around. I plant a kiss on his lips.