Accidental Superstar

by Marianne Levy

  ‘What?’ said Devi, after about twelve hours of chat about Star Wars.

  ‘Nothing,’ I said, going back to the food table in case there were any crisps that I hadn’t spotted the first time around. Which there weren’t.

  There was Lacey, though, coming in from the garden with the canal crowd. Wearing a purple top I’d never seen before. Had she been to Oxfam without me?

  ‘. . . Helter-skelter!’ she was saying. At which point everyone in the vicinity cracked up.

  ‘Katie.’

  ‘Hey, Lace! Ha ha!’

  ‘Why are you laughing?’

  ‘Because . . . it was funny?’

  ‘You missed the beginning,’ said Lacey, her eyes shining with a very particular kind of cruelty. ‘You don’t know what we were talking about.’

  ‘Sorry,’ I said, simultaneously wanting to disappear and emigrate and die. You don’t point that kind of stuff out where people can hear. Especially not to your best friend. Even to your ex-best friend.

  ‘So what’s been happening?’ I said in this super-casual way.

  They all stared at me, then started giggling.

  ‘We are so drunk,’ said Lacey, waving a great big plastic bottle.

  ‘Excellent. Can I have some?’

  ‘There’s none left.’ Lacey sent the bottle bouncing down on to the floor.

  I picked it up. It was pre-mixed shandy, alcohol content 0.3 per cent.

  ‘Not if you were drinking this you weren’t,’ I said.

  They giggled again. ‘We are.’

  ‘You’d have to drink about ten bottles, Lace. Do the maths. 0.3 per cent of two litres is . . . it’s . . . well, it’s not very much.’

  They turned their backs on me too and I was starting to think that this evening might have been a mistake when . . .

  ‘Katie, have you got a lighter? This is, I don’t know his name, he was outside the off-licence. God, this party sucks.’

  Jaz was in this humungous black ball dress, slashed up the legs to show all this red netting stuff, and she had about six chokers around her neck simultaneously. One was a pair of interlocking hands, which genuinely made it look like she was being strangled by her own jewellery. Plus, she was managing to wear all the make-up in the universe. Really. It was a miracle she could keep her eyes open. And the strange thing was that she still managed to look incredibly messy, what Gran would call ‘slovenly’, as though she’d sort of fallen into her clothes, even though getting that outfit together must have taken forever.

  ‘Hi, Jaz. No, sorry, I haven’t got a lighter. I find them a bit frightening, actually. Mands has them for burning incense and I always worry she’ll set fire to her fingers.’

  ‘Well,’ said Jaz, looking at me with disdain through about thirty-seven coats of mascara, ‘it was a long shot.’

  ‘Hi, Nicole,’ I said. ‘And hi . . . you.’

  The bloke Jaz had brought shuffled and took a swig from a small bottle. Which, I could tell from the way he was swaying on the spot, probably contained a little bit more than 0.3 per cent alcohol.

  ‘How’s your, erm, lovebite, Nicole?’

  In answer, Nicole pulled her polo neck down and showed me. I slightly wished I hadn’t asked.

  ‘Whoah,’ said Jaz’s bloke. ‘That is blowing my mind.’

  ‘I know,’ I said. ‘I’m probably going to have nightmares about it later. Nicole, should you maybe put something on it? Or go to the doctor?’

  ‘Not that,’ said Jaz’s bloke. ‘That.’

  I followed his eyes to the middle of the dance floor, where two people who I assumed were either Savannah’s parents or her slaves (or, from their exhausted expressions, possibly both) were unveiling the world’s most bonkers cake.

  It was five tiers high, kind of like a wedding cake, if a wedding cake had been pimped so hard that it barely stayed up. Each layer was a different colour, with gold blobbles on, and flowers, and candles. And then –

  ‘Darling, lift up your feet?’ The man pulled out an extension cord, plugged it into the generator, and the whole thing lit up like Vegas as a literal waterfall started coming down from the top, sploosh sploosh sploosh.

  It was simultaneously the best and the worst thing I’d ever seen.

  ‘I LOVE it,’ Savannah was shrieking. ‘I LOVE it! I mean, it’s smaller than in the picture. But I love it!’

  Jaz had now made her way over to the speakers and was hooking up her phone. Ambient Karamel made way for a bang-bang-bang bass, overlaid with a man who sounded like he was being liquidized.

  ‘No!’ said Savannah, gliding across the floor like a seriously angry swan.

  ‘No offence, Sav,’ said Jaz, ‘but your taste in music is tripe.’

  ‘Yours is worse,’ said Savannah.

  ‘I am not staying to listen to that boyband puking up into my head.’

  ‘Fine by me,’ said Savannah.

  Not quite fine by me, though, seeing as how Jaz was the only person at this party who had bothered to talk to me.

  ‘There must be something we can all listen to,’ I said, searching through her library for some Mad Jaz/Savannah crossover music. A sort of sugar-pop-metal-hardhouse fusion. Oddly enough, there didn’t seem to be anything that would even slightly do.

  ‘It’s a shame you won’t let us play your single,’ said Jaz. ‘It’s literally the only thing we both want to hear.’

  ‘You know I don’t have it yet,’ I said.

  ‘So sad,’ said Savannah, pityingly.

  Lacey was just coming back in from the garden and even though I waved at her, she looked straight through me. As though I was a ghost. Not even the scary sort that get to star in horror films, but the invisible kind that just trails around after proper, living people, waiting to get noticed for the rest of all eternity.

  Wembley Arena, though. She’d notice me then.

  But by the time I was at Wembley she’d just be a dot in the crowd. I needed her to see me now.

  ‘How about I sing it live?’ I said.

  The canal crowd came bobbing along behind her.

  ‘You know, unplugged. Acoustic!’

  There was no time to think whether or not this was a good idea because straight away Jaz was turning off the stereo and everyone stopped talking.

  A space opened up around me.

  Lacey’s eyes met mine and I felt myself go solid again.

  This was my chance.

  To show her.

  To show everyone.

  I opened my mouth and in my head the song swelled up behind me, a huge wave, and I let it rise, and rise, until it lifted me. And then I opened my mouth and sang.

  I’ve got mad skin

  I’ve got mad hair . . .

  And straight away I knew I’d made a truly epic mistake.

  Basically, there was a complete disconnect between how the song sounded in my head, i.e. magical and awesome and amazing, and how it sounded in Savannah’s megatent. Which, and I’m not going to linger on this because it is too, too painful, was not magical, or awesome, or amazing. It was small and sad and rubbish.

  I got through the first bit, though, and while I missed having my guitar there every last second, I was just starting to think that maybe it would be, if not OK then at least not suicide-level awful.

  Only, then, while I was singing, that bloke, the one Jaz had picked up like the rest of us might pick up a twenty-pence piece, started looking kind of restless, shaking his little bottle, and saying in a very loud voice:

  ‘What else is there to drink?’

  And – total traitor weirdo that she is – Jaz said:

  ‘Probably not much, I told you this party would be bad.’

  I carried on, louder now, and shifted my eyes over to just behind Dominic Preston’s gorgeous head.

  And Dominic was talking, too! Whispering, to Devi Lester.

  Aaaaaargh!

  I was still going, which was my second mistake. If I’d stopped at the end of the first verse, maybe I could have saved my
self, pretended I’d always meant to end there, while at least some people were still listening.

  No, though. Toothpaste-for-brains Katie has to plough on like a sad slug and –

  ‘SAVANNAH!’ Paige came whizzing in. ‘Karl is doing it with Nicole. In your roses!’

  And that was that. The whole crowd relocated itself outside to see Nicole and Karl, who cannot have been doing it, unless you can do it with all your clothes on.

  I couldn’t go and join the Flowerbed Sex Show, as I was trapped in my own song, flailing around somewhere towards the end of verse two.

  Still, at least I didn’t have to worry about where to point my eyeballs any more, because the only person left in the disaster zone was me.

  ‘Oh, Katie.’

  And Lacey.

  I stopped singing.

  It was very quiet.

  Except for some laughter from outside, and then a double shriek. It sounded like Savannah had chucked Karl and Nicole on to the grass. Savannah is surprisingly strong, for someone who makes stick insects look pudgy.

  ‘You poor thing.’

  She came over and went to hug me. Only, because she was Lacey, she gave up at the last minute and half draped her hand on my shoulder, as though she was patting me, and I was an injured horse.

  I realized that no one had put their arms around me in a while.

  ‘That was a bit embarrassing,’ I said.

  ‘A bit?!’ said Lacey, and we both laughed.

  ‘Can we . . . can we be friends again?’ I said. ‘Because all this stuff is really wearing me out.’

  ‘Me too,’ said Lacey. ‘It’s difficult enough having to do the walk every morning on my own, without having to spend all day being upset.’

  This I did not understand. ‘But you’re not on your own. You’re with the canal crowd.’

  ‘Who chuck my bag in the water and call me “Lacey with the stupid facey”.’

  ‘Do they?’

  ‘They always did. And they do it even more now you’re gone.’

  ‘I thought you were all mates?’

  ‘I have to pretend it’s OK,’ said Lacey, ‘or I think they might chuck me in as well.’ She sighed. ‘I can handle the occasional dunking. But not every day. Not on my own.’

  Which made perfect sense. Man, life can be hideous sometimes.

  ‘I’m not much enjoying the bus,’ I said.

  ‘But you and Mad Jaz are total besties these days.’ She said it in this flat, sad way and I felt very, very bad.

  ‘We’re friends, I suppose. Just about. Sometimes I even quite like her. I mean, she’s funny, and she’s exciting and she’s . . .’ I stopped, because this didn’t seem to be going down ever so well. ‘But, Lace, she’s like an unexploded bomb. I just never know what she’s going to do next and it’s really . . .’ I searched for the right word. ‘Tiring. Like, just now, she was the one who wanted me to sing. And then she talked right through it! You’d never do that.’

  ‘No way,’ agreed Lacey.

  We had this nice moment, Lacey blinking at me from beneath her fringe, which was looking pretty good as she’d straightened it for the evening. Which I was about to tell her, when she said:

  ‘I missed getting ready with you tonight.’

  ‘Me too! Oh, Lacey.’

  We hugged, properly this time, and it was the best of the best.

  ‘I’m so sorry I lied about the video. I’d do anything for us to be mates again. All I want, literally, is for us to watch Mean Girls and have pizza. That is my complete vision of happiness right now.’

  ‘Mine too,’ said Lace.

  ‘I need you in my life.’

  ‘And I need you,’ said Lacey. ‘I hate before and after school now. They used to be my favourite bits of the day.’

  ‘And how am I supposed to cope with all this fame stuff on my own? I need our friendship. To ground me. Otherwise I’ll probably turn into one of those mental people who only eat blue M&Ms and won’t have anyone make eye contact.’

  ‘Katie, just stop.’

  I was so busy thinking whether it was the blue M&Ms I’d eat, or whether the orange ones were actually better or whether M&Ms were a bit too American and it would be more patriotic to have Smarties, in which case I’d definitely go for the orange ones, that it took me a second to realize what she’d said. ‘Stop what?’

  ‘It’s not that your songs aren’t good. You know I like them. But all this stuff about a record label –’

  ‘It’s called Top Music.’

  ‘Is it?’ She fiddled with her zip, then looked me in the eye. And I could kind of see why some celebrities didn’t like it. ‘Is that really what it’s called?’

  ‘I don’t understand,’ I said, because I didn’t.

  ‘You don’t need to pretend. Or, maybe you do, to everyone else. If you want to stay on Planet Savannah, then, OK. But don’t pretend to me. Not if we’re friends like you say we are.’

  ‘Pretend what?’

  ‘Come on, Katie. There wasn’t a recording studio, was there?’

  Which is when I began to think that things were even worse than I’d realized.

  ‘Of course there was.’

  ‘It’s OK. You’ve let it all go too far and it’s embarrassing to admit it’s made up, I know, so I’m not going to make a big thing of it. But I don’t get why you need to tell all these –’ and I saw her reach for the word ‘lies’ before stopping herself and saying – ‘stories, about a label and a single and a tour and whatever. I think we’d all respect you more if you just told the truth.’

  ‘But I did. I was.’

  ‘It’s over, Katie. You’ve had your five minutes and now it’s done and we can all get back to normal.’

  She said it so kindly. And I did think, as a series of shrieks from the other side of the canvas told me that the tent was about to fill up again, that maybe I could even go with it. I could nod, and not talk about it again, and wait until the single came out. And in the meantime we could be proper mates, like before.

  But I mean, really – how could I be friends with someone who thought I was a liar?

  Then there was Sofie, standing, framed in lights, the garden dark behind her, shouting, ‘Look! It’s Harltree’s number one superstar!’

  And Lacey laughed.

  ‘You don’t know anything,’ I said. ‘You’re the world’s most ignorant person. You think I’d make up something like that?’

  She stopped laughing, and I noticed that I was talking very loudly.

  ‘I have recorded a single, a proper single in a proper recording studio. In proper London.’

  ‘You lied about getting Jaz to take the video down. You wouldn’t let me come with you to the recording. You couldn’t even get Savannah her Karamel tickets. I mean, you’ve got literally no evidence whatsoever. Not even a photo. Why should we believe you?’

  ‘Because –’ I searched through my head – ‘they had special pencils, I’ve got one for you, at home, and there were massive bowls of sweets everywhere and you could have as many as you wanted. And the room was this bizarre soundproofed box and there was a sort of thing over the microphone that looked like a stretched pair of tights and – how can you think I’m making this up? It’s true, all of it. I recorded a single. My single.’

  ‘Then why can’t we listen to it?’ said Paige.

  ‘Because it’s not out yet!’ I shouted. ‘There is a reason that this stuff takes a while, and you wouldn’t understand because unlike me, you are not in the music industry. But there is a single and I am going on a tour, really really soon. To Madison Square Gardens. In New York.’

  ‘Of course you are, babes,’ said Savannah.

  ‘And Wembley!’ I said. Now everyone at the party was standing and staring at me, and a tiny part of my brain chose to inform me that I now had the audience I wanted, just ten minutes too late. ‘I am playing Wembley Arena!’

  ‘Let it go,’ said Lacey.

  ‘Fine,’ I screamed. ‘I don’t even care what y
ou think. Because I don’t need you! You’re losers, you know that? Boring, pointless losers. And I have integrity and talent and dignity and I am taking them elsewhere.’

  At which point I turned around, tripped over the extension cable and crashed straight into Savannah’s stupid cake.

  I’ve had parties end badly before. There was the time when I was seven and we all went to an ice-cream parlour and ate ten different types of ice cream, and I was sick ten different types of ice cream all the way home. Or the time I accidentally left in Paige’s coat and then had to spend the next term trying to convince everyone I hadn’t been trying to steal it.

  Even so, standing outside Savannah’s house, wearing her cake, for a full half-hour while I waited for Amanda to come and pick me up, was a new low.

  ‘What?’ she said, as I slid into the seat beside her, dripping gold icing all over the upholstery.

  ‘It’s nothing. I’m fine.’

  ‘OK.’

  She crunched the gears and I remembered, as I only ever do when it’s too late, that it took Amanda four goes before she passed her test, and even then she only scraped through. And then literally scraped through on her way home.

  ‘All right,’ I admitted. ‘I’m not quite fine.’

  Her eyes darted to take in my jacket, which was slathered with buttercream. And globs of pistachio and rose or lemon and cherry or diamond dust and unicorn tears or whatever it was that Savannah’s poor team of bakers had stuck in there.

  I’d eaten quite a lot while I was waiting. But that still left most of it.

  ‘Katie, have you been . . . ?’ Amanda tailed off. ‘What have you been . . . ? How have you . . . ?’

  ‘Savannah had a very large birthday cake. “Had” being the operative word.’

  ‘Is that one of those monster ones from the place by the junction? I love those cakes! They were on telly a few weeks ago, they send them all round the country. They have ones with speakers inside them that play music and they did this one full of live butterflies, so that when you cut into it –’

  ‘You get a load of cut-up butterflies?’

  ‘Yes, it’s quite hard to see how that would work,’ said Amanda. ‘But Savannah had one?’