Playing the Game

by Cathy Cole

  Josh’s grandfather looked round, startled. Josh leaped out of the sofa. The blonde woman stayed exactly where she was, her long tanned legs crossed and ending in the highest pair of black stilettos Lila’d ever seen.

  “Lila?” Josh looked utterly horrified. “What are you doing here?”

  “This is a pleasant surprise,” Josh’s grandfather remarked. He reached over to the pot of tea on the driftwood table. “Would you like a cup?”

  Lorna Lustre’s trademark sunglasses sat on the table beside the teapot, her wide blue eyes framed in familiar layers of thick black mascara. She gazed at Lila with a interested look on her heavily made-up face.

  “Hello, you pretty little thing,” she said, in that famous husky voice that people loved so much to imitate.

  Nothing here made sense.

  “You’re Lorna Lustre,” Lila managed. Lorna Lustre the star of the show The Blonde Game, the reality TV show that Josh hated so much.

  Lorna Lustre crinkled her nose. “Aren’t you a darling girl to know who I am? Are you joining us for tea? Josh darling, take over from your grandfather and play the host. Pour this adorable child a cup of tea.”

  Josh’s face turned as pink as the cushion covers as Lorna Lustre took his hand and kissed it before pushing him gently towards the teapot.

  The strange paralysis that had descended on Lila fizzled away, leaving pure jealous rage in its place. Lorna Lustre wasn’t allowed to call her a child. Lorna Lustre definitely wasn’t allowed to kiss Josh’s hand.

  “Don’t you dare call my boyfriend ‘darling’,” she hissed. “And you can stop pawing him as well.”

  Lorna Lustre threw her head back and laughed. Her perfect blonde curls bounced on her shoulders like a shampoo advertisement. “Young love,” she sighed. “There’s nothing like it.”

  “Lila,” said Josh in an agony of embarrassment. “This isn’t what—”

  Lila was too angry to care what she said now. “Young love,” she snarled at the reality TV star. “The clue’s in the name, or hadn’t you heard? You’re chasing a boy half your age and it’s disgusting. You’ve made a career out of stupidity, but this – this is beyond stupid. It’s pathetic!”

  Josh sank back on to the sofa with his head in his hands. Josh’s grandfather simply looked amused as he drank his tea. If anything, Lorna Lustre looked even more delighted.

  “Josh, this girl is heaven,” she gasped. “Such a breath of fresh air to meet someone with true fighting spirit. Love is worth any battle, darling, I quite agree.”

  Lila felt her hands curling into claws, ready to scratch. I will fight you for him, she thought in a haze of fury. Don’t think I won’t. Pure outrage drove her on. “You must be really desperate, Miss Lustre. Is your TV show in trouble? Are you trying this ‘young love’ thing to get your ratings up? Is that it?” She looked around warily. “Where have you hidden your cameras?”

  “Lila, please stop,” Josh begged.

  Lila rounded on him. “You’re not stupid, Josh. How have you been suckered by this reality-TV vampire? I know she’s glamorous and famous and it’s probably really flattering being chased by her, but seriously? You dumped me to go out with a Z-list celebrity old enough to be your mother?”

  Josh groaned and buried his head in his hands again.

  “Josh has told me so much about you, Lila.” The reality star took a sip of her tea, leaving a smudge of red lipstick on the rim. “It’s such a pleasure to meet you at last.”

  “Well Josh has told me nothing about you,” Lila shot back. “Then again, he doesn’t have to, does he? The gossip mags have done it for him. Your reputation precedes you! I don’t care how famous you are. Josh is mine.”

  “The way I heard it,” Lorna remarked, “he isn’t any more. Something about a surfer? Such a shame.”

  “That … that’s none of your business!” Lila spluttered. Josh had told this woman what an idiot she’d been? How … what… ? She could almost hear the conversation. There there, Josh, young girls can be so cruel… Let me kiss your broken heart all better…

  Josh had turned an even brighter shade of pink. He couldn’t meet her eye. You’re free to go… I won’t be played…

  “That was a mistake,” Lila shouted, trying to shake the horrible memory from her head. “My mistake, OK, but I know how stupid I was and…” Why was she saying all this? It’s a trick, she thought wildly. Lorna Lustre knows exactly how to pry out a person’s emotions and lay them bare for everyone on TV to see.

  “Put the poor girl out of her misery, Louise,” said Josh’s grandfather unexpectedly. “Before she starts tearing down my house.”

  “You’re such a spoilsport, Dad,” Lorna Lustre pouted. “Things were just getting interesting. Lila and I were having such fun.”

  Once again, Lila felt the ground shift beneath her feet. Louise? Dad?

  “I’m not going after Josh, as you would have it, Lila,” the reality star sighed. “We go way back, you know. Him and me. Right to birth, in fact.” She smiled happily. “I’m Josh’s mother, darling. How do you do? I know we’re going to be the best of friends.”

  EIGHTEEN

  Lila was struck dumb with mortification as Lorna Lustre’s words hit home. She didn’t dare look sideways at Josh, who had now buried his entire head in one of the cushions.

  Josh’s grandfather cleared his throat. “More tea, anyone?”

  “You’re Josh’s what?” Lila croaked, unable to tear her eyes away from the woman on the grey sofa.

  Lorna Lustre took another sip of tea. “Mother,” she repeated. “As in, I gave birth to Josh.” She laughed coyly. “I know what you’re going to say, darling. I look far too young to have had a boy so big and grown-up. It’s terribly sweet of you to think so, but I can assure you, it’s perfectly true.”

  This felt like a storyline in The Blonde Game. It couldn’t be real. Lila looked beseechingly in the direction of Josh’s grandfather. Tell me this is all a terrible dream. The older man was halfway towards the kitchen with the teapot in his hand. Making a discreet exit.

  If only she could make a discreet exit as well.

  She had called Josh’s mother disgusting, pathetic and stupid. She’d accused her of seducing her own son. In a state of a thousand agonies, Lila looked one last desperate time at Josh for rescue. He had emerged from the cushion and was now looking at her cautiously, his green eyes dark and anxious.

  “I was going to tell you,” he said.

  Lila gave a little moan of horror and whirled for the door. She had to leave. She had to get away from this nightmare.

  “Lila!” she heard as she skidded through Orlop Square, racing for the first cobbled turning she could see. “Lila, come back!”

  Josh was giving chase. She could hear his footsteps behind her. Lila put her head down and kept running. If only she could outrun the things she’d said. She’d ruined everything.

  “Lila, please come back!” Josh shouted. “We have to talk about this!”

  Lila ran faster, skidding on the smooth cobbles as she took a twisting flight of steps three at a time. She turned right, then right again, trying to lose Josh. She had no idea where she was going. At the rate she was sprinting, she was going to break an ankle, but she didn’t care. She had to put as much distance between herself and Orlop Square as she could.

  “OH!”

  She had cannoned right into Josh, who had suddenly stepped out from an alley she had completely failed to see. He caught her firmly by the arm, to stop her running any further.

  “When you live in this place, you get to know the short cuts,” he said.

  “Let me go,” Lila wept, struggling to free herself.

  “Keep running this way and you’ll run straight into the sea. This street ends in a jetty Grandpa uses when he goes fishing.”

  The way she was feeling right now, Lila decided the sea w
as probably the best place for her. “Let me go,” she said again, more forlornly.

  “Not until you listen.” There was a sudden flash of amusement in his eyes. “I never knew you felt so strongly about me.”

  “Don’t laugh at me,” Lila shouted, bursting into tears. “I just made a total idiot of myself in front of your mother. Do you have any idea how that feels?”

  “Mum can take it. You don’t get to be Lorna Lustre without growing a very tough skin.”

  Lila’s legs felt wobbly. She wouldn’t have been able to run any further even if she’d wanted to. Standing back, Josh let her slide downwards until she landed with a thump on the shiny cobbles, dashed the tears from her burning eyes and buried her head in her arms. This is what an ostrich does, she thought stupidly. Only they use sand.

  Josh sat next to her. “Mum had me when she was sixteen. Dad wasn’t much older. They met on another reality show, something called Secret Island. You won’t remember it, they haven’t rerun it in years, but essentially they put a bunch of teenagers on an island in the middle of the Pacific and watched as they went crazy for the benefit of the viewers.” There was a thread of steel in his voice. “Grandpa tried to talk Mum out of going, but she was determined to be famous. My dad was in the same mould. If anything, he was more hungry for it than she was. They fell in love on screen and Mum got pregnant.” Josh gave a thin smile. “The viewers loved it. I am the ultimate child of reality TV.”

  The name of the show rang a bell somewhere deep in Lila’s whirring mind. She’d read a hundred articles about Lorna Lustre in the gossip mags. She remembered early pictures of the reality star in a tiny bikini beneath a palm tree. Secret Island: the start of Lorna Lustre’s career. The start of Josh.

  “What happened to your dad?” she found herself asking.

  “He was even less capable of rearing a child than my mum. They thought it would be easy, like it was on TV. A smiling baby, cute outfits.”

  They were only sixteen, Lila thought. Hardly older than us.

  “Funnily enough, reality was a terrible shock,” Josh went on drily. “Grandpa took me on when Mum couldn’t cope. Dad left for America around the same time, seeking fame and fortune on the other side of the Atlantic. Last I heard, he’d got a gig on an American soap called Alpha Mail. It’s about a postman.”

  Part of Lila wanted to giggle. Most of her wanted to cry. She put her hand tentatively on Josh’s arm. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t know.”

  “Why would you?” he said. “I never told anyone. Mum would show up in Orlop Square every once in a while to play at being a parent. Last week, she got in touch after almost a year. Buying me presents, you know, those boxes you saw? But she seemed to have changed. She said she wanted a real relationship with me. And she’s my mum after all…”

  Josh looked tired.

  He continued. “This never used to be a problem because I wasn’t going out with anyone, I didn’t have any friends – I didn’t have to tell anyone about my life if I didn’t want to. It was different this time.” He looked at her. “There was you.”

  Lila flushed. “You told her we broke up,” she said.

  Josh grimaced. “I’m a hopeless liar. She asked me if I had a girlfriend last week. I told her about you. Then I told her we broke up. Maybe I thought it would make me more interesting.”

  Lila took his hand. “You are interesting,” she said honestly. “You’re the most interesting boy I know.”

  Josh didn’t push her hand away. “I didn’t want you to know about my mum, even though she knew about you,” he admitted. “I was embarrassed. Your family is so perfect. Mine is a screw-up.”

  Lila was surprised at Josh’s description of her family. “Perfect” wasn’t a word she’d have chosen to describe the chaos of her brothers. She opened her mouth to say as much.

  “Darling, you’re too harsh,” said a voice above them. “Every family has its challenges.”

  Lorna Lustre was standing at the top of the cobbled steps looking down at them on the cobbles, her hands on her slim hips and her sunglasses on her nose. It was the perfect pose, like something out of a film. Lorna Lustre probably did everything with a view to it being filmable. Lila got to her feet awkwardly.

  “I’m really sorry I went off at you like that,” she made herself say. “It was rude of me. I didn’t understand.”

  Lorna flapped a perfectly manicured hand at her. “Give yourself a break, darling girl. I’ve heard worse. The tabloids rip me apart at least once a week. I’d rather people had a bad opinion of me than no opinion at all.” The reality star gazed at Josh, who was still sitting on the cobbles. “Why don’t you both come back to the house? I have to leave this evening, but before I go I have the most exciting news.”

  Josh stood up. “You can tell us out here, can’t you?”

  Lorna clapped her hands like a little girl. “Well, if you insist,” she giggled. “I’ve got a wonderful opportunity for you, Josh darling. You won’t be able to turn it down.”

  “Try me,” said Josh.

  Lorna Lustre continued as if Josh hadn’t spoken. “And if by some strange twist of fate you do turn it down, your lovely Lila will, I’m sure, talk sense into you. She seems like a girl with a sensible head on her shoulders.”

  Shows how much you know, Lila thought.

  Lorna pushed her sunglasses up on her head and fixed Josh with her bright blue stare. “Darling, you’re going to be very rich,” she said brightly. “I’ve come down to offer you a spot on my show as my young and handsome son. You’re going to be a total surprise to the viewers. No one’s seen you since you were a baby. I couldn’t have designed it better myself. The ratings will hit the roof the moment you appear.

  “Isn’t it simply marvellous?”

  NINETEEN

  “I know it’s a bit of a shock,” Lorna was saying as she looped her arm through the crook of Josh’s elbow, “but my producers were on it like a shot when I suggested it. It has everything: truth, drama, honesty. We need to discuss the details with your grandfather and talk about contracts of course. We are talking about a lot of money, darling, even before the interviews and endorsements start. My agent is offering a very reasonable deal to promote you. He’s quite brilliant. He’s kept me at the top for over fifteen years.”

  Lila walked silently behind the TV star as she propelled her son along the cobbles, talking excitedly about her plans all the way back towards Orlop Square.

  Josh’s grandfather was on one of the sofas when they returned. “Welcome back, Lila,” he said. “I hope my daughter has been gentle with you.”

  Lila flushed and sank miserably on to the sofa across from him. Lorna Lustre clapped her hands.

  “I’ve told him, Dad,” she said happily. “And he’s absolutely thrilled.”

  Josh’s grandfather’s expression didn’t change. “Whatever is your mother talking about now, Josh?” he said.

  “Dad, I explained it all to you last week,” Lorna said. “The TV deal? Honestly, you have a brain like those smelly fishing nets you love so much.”

  Josh didn’t look as thrilled as Lorna was suggesting. In fact, Lila thought he looked like he had been carved from stone.

  “I suppose it could showcase your art, Josh …” she said reluctantly, to fill the silence more than anything.

  “Absolutely,” said Lorna, nodding. “I knew you were a sensible girl, Lila. We could have a few of your little paintings dotted about on the set.”

  “I draw,” said Josh quietly. “I don’t paint.”

  Lorna was rummaging in her large red handbag. “That gives me a wonderful idea for an episode,” she said, drawing out a tablet and typing swiftly with her long red nails. “I have no idea how talented you are at painting, and you surprise me with a gorgeous portrait you’ve painted without me even noticing. I would of course pose for you off-camera, give you plenty of time
to get me in my best light. But the audience doesn’t need to know that. It would be the most marvellous surprise!”

  Lila frowned. Hadn’t she heard her son say that he didn’t paint?

  Josh’s grandfather stood up. “I didn’t think you could disappoint me any more, Louise,” he said coldly. “It seems that I was wrong.”

  “Whatever are you talking about, Dad?” Lorna Lustre sounded impatient. “Don’t you see what an incredible opportunity I’m offering my son?”

  Josh had been staring at his hands for the past few minutes. He looked up now. “Get out of my house,” he said.

  The smile dropped off Lorna Lustre’s face. “I beg your pardon?”

  Lila pressed herself back into the sofa as Josh stood up. “I said, get out,” he repeated more loudly.

  Lorna looked at Lila. “This is what I was afraid of,” she said with a pout. “Josh can be as stubborn as a donkey. Talk to him, darling girl. He’ll listen to you.”

  “He won’t,” said Josh’s grandfather. “If you knew the first thing about your son, you’d know that Louise.”

  Lorna Lustre snatched up her bag and stood up, teetering slightly on her bright blue heels. The laughter had gone from her face. All of a sudden, her eyes looked as hard as sapphires. “Is that all the gratitude I get? It took me weeks to arrange this—”

  “GET. OUT.” Josh howled the words.

  Lorna marched to the front door, and turned in the doorway. “You’ll regret this,” she said, pointing with one long red fingernail. And then the door slammed and she was gone.

  “Please forgive my daughter,” said Josh’s grandfather in the shocked silence that followed the sound of the red sports car squealing away from the cobbles outside. “She scripts her whole life like a soap opera.”

  Josh had gone out into the courtyard garden, his entire body radiating tension and hurt. Lila followed him, wondering what she could say to make him feel better.

  “It’s always nice when your own mother arranges for you to re-enter her life as a PR stunt,” Josh said, studying the roses that climbed the white courtyard walls.