Stars

by Sophia Bennett

  We’re also busy talking about what to do next. Crow has so many ideas she can hardly choose. She’d like to do more designs inspired by the 1950s, with full skirts and nipped-in waists. I think she should experiment with modern fabrics and techniques, like neoprene and laser-cutting. Edie suggests creating an ethical range, using Fair Trade cotton from Uganda. Crow likes that idea too. It’s just a question of choosing the best one and contacting Andy Elat to discuss the next step towards setting up our ready-to-wear label.

  This is not a good time to be doing exams. It’s almost impossible to concentrate, but I do what I can. Mum has promised me a new laptop if I do well this year. I really need it, because I spilled smoothie on the keyboard of my old one and it hasn’t been the same since.

  I’m supposed to be revising for Business Studies when Jenny announces that she’s back from New York and do we want to meet up? Well, of course we do. We agree to go out for pizza together. I even persuade Edie and Crow to come along.

  We spend ages agreeing how good Jenny looked in her ballgown and diamonds. Even now, she still looks radiant, in a jet-lagged sort of way.

  ‘So?’ I tease her. ‘Who’s the lucky boy?’

  ‘Which lucky boy?’

  ‘The bloggers all said you must be in love, you looked so happy.’

  ‘Oh, that,’ she says. She shrugs. ‘No lucky boy. I was just having a good time.’

  ‘Was it meeting Tom Ford?’ I ask.

  She looks apologetic. ‘Didn’t even see him. Sorry.’

  ‘Was it wearing all those diamonds?’ Edie asks. ‘I hope they were ethically sourced, by the way.’

  Jenny sighs. ‘I knew you’d ask, and yes they were. But I don’t think it was the diamonds. I was more worried about losing them.’

  ‘What then?’

  ‘Was it singing?’ Crow asks.

  Jenny grins at her. ‘Yes! Yes, you’re right. It was. We’d just nailed a couple of songs in the workshop. It was incredible. How did you know?’

  Crow smiles. ‘When you’ve made something . . . right. The way you wanted it. I feel like that, sometimes.’

  Jenny nods. ‘Oh, and I forgot to say, thanks for looking after Stella, Edie. The kittens are so cute.’

  I whip my attention from the Met Ball to Jenny’s kittens. Meanwhile, Edie looks uncomfortable and stares at her plate.

  ‘Oh, you did go round, didn’t you?’ Jenny moans.

  ‘Yes I did!’ Edie snaps. ‘I went round twice. Stella was fine. She hadn’t had them yet, but she’d made a little sort of nest in your wardrobe.’ Then she hesitates. ‘. . . Jenny, you know you said your mum wasn’t well? Well, is she stuck in bed or something?’

  Jenny’s face clouds over. ‘No. Sometimes there are days she doesn’t get out of it. But she could. It’s not as if she can’t walk or anything.’

  ‘But the place was really untidy, Jenny. Not just untidy, but smelly. And I didn’t actually see Gloria, but I got the impression she was following me. It was creepy.’

  Jenny’s lip trembles. ‘Thanks,’ she says, offended. ‘It’s great to know my mum is creepy.’

  Edie looks embarrassed. ‘Sorry. I was just worried about her.’

  ‘Well, I’m home now,’ Jenny says. ‘So that’s fine.’

  Crow and I look at each other. We’re not sure what happened. One minute we’re talking about diamonds and kittens, and the next, Jenny and Edie are having a fight. I put it down to the stress of exams and jet lag. The only solution is ice-cream sundaes for pudding. Large ones. I order them for all of us. We were supposed to grow out of them years ago, but luckily we didn’t. There are times when a teeny-weeny grown-up coffee and a biscuit just won’t do.

  At home, things are back to normal. Granny’s gone. Isabelle’s still in New York and Harry’s staying with her. Mum and I are alone, and instead of home-cooked casserole, evening meals tend to be a snack whenever we think of it.

  Business Studies revision requires serious quantities of popcorn and after I’ve ruined two expensive pans trying to make it, Mum has kindly offered to do it for me. We sit in the kitchen, waiting to hear the first popping sounds from pan number three.

  Mum looks like she’s about to say something, but I interrupt her.

  ‘You know Gloria Merritt . . .’

  ‘Yes,’ she says, with a wary expression.

  ‘Yeah. Well, you’ve known her for a long time, haven’t you? D’you know what’s the matter with her? She’s been acting strange recently.’

  ‘Strange, how?’

  ‘Well, letting the flat get into a state. And not going to New York with Jenny.’

  ‘God. Gloria,’ Mum says. ‘She always was unreliable. When you were younger, the number of times I’d get a call asking if I could pick you both up because she was late for Jenny. I always used to wonder if there was something going on there. I didn’t like to ask. I thought she’d been better the last few years, though. Mind you, do you remember how she knocked back the drinks at Jenny’s opening night last summer?’

  ‘Oh!’

  Goodness. Does Gloria have bottles of vodka secretly stashed round the flat? Is she lying comatose somewhere, while Jenny cleans up the mess? That would be completely terrible. When I think how I sometimes worry about Mum’s Chardonnay consumption. This is in a different league.

  ‘What should we do?’ I ask.

  ‘What can we do?’ Mum sighs. ‘Be nice to Jenny, I suppose. Make sure she’s OK. She is OK at the moment, isn’t she?’

  ‘She seems really happy, most of the time.’

  ‘Well, there you go.’

  ‘Edie went round to check on her kittens,’ I add.

  ‘That’s nice of her.’ Mum smiles. She’s always approved of Edie. Sensible, skirt-to-the-knee clothes, super-kindness and straight As. Mum’s template for the perfect teenager.

  The popcorn starts popping. Once I have a yummy bowl of it in front of me, Mum sits down opposite me again with a strange expression in her eyes.

  ‘Nonie, I’ve been thinking,’ she starts.

  This suddenly doesn’t feel good. I don’t say anything. My mouth has gone dry. Not ideal when you’re trying to eat a bowl of popcorn.

  ‘About this house. It’s a bit huge, isn’t it?’

  ‘Is it?’ I ask. I would have said it was about the perfect size, personally.

  ‘We’ll be a bit lost in it when Harry’s gone, won’t we?’

  ‘Will we?’

  Mum changes tack. ‘Don’t you think a flat somewhere trendy would be good once you’ve finished your A levels? You’ll be at college somewhere and it’ll be just me, really. Somewhere in the East End, where the creative energy is. I was thinking about that apartment in New York Isabelle was describing, and how perfect it sounded. A part of me has always been a converted warehouse girl at heart.’

  Really? This is news to me. Certainly no part of me has ever been a converted warehouse girl. Or an East End girl. I’m a house in Kensington girl. I’m a Number 14 bus to the V&A girl. A ten minutes to Oxford Street for shopping girl. And a my-room-is-perfect-and-I-don’t-want-to-change-any-of-it-ever girl.

  ‘Have you?’ I ask. It’s all I can manage.

  ‘Mmm,’ Mum says. ‘Actually, I was going to get some estate agents round and get the place valued. It would be interesting to know how much it’s worth. Of course, we’d have to pay Vicente back, which would be a lot, but we’d have enough left over to get somewhere nice for ourselves. Are you OK?’

  I nod. I’m not, but I nod anyway.

  ‘What about my room?’ I ask in a little voice.

  ‘You can take it with you. Lock, stock and barrel, if you like. All your posters and furniture. But honestly, darling, you’ve had it like that since you were about nine. It could do with a bit of updating. We could get you new stuff. One of those mirrored wardrobes you’ve been going on about. A four-poster . . .’

  I nod again and feel sick. It’s true, I’ve been pestering Mum for months – probably years – to upgrade my w
ardrobe to something cool with mirrored doors and lots of extra storage. And I’ve wanted a four-poster bed since I was tiny and she’s always said no. I thought it was one of the most incredible things I could ever possibly own, but now that I’m actually being offered one, it suddenly doesn’t matter.

  Mum’s BlackBerry goes off. She looks sorry, but I tell her to take it. I’m grateful that this conversation is over. I take my popcorn up to my room and sit at my desk, in front of my dodgy laptop with the sticky keyboard. I’m determined not to be upset. I’m busy. I have my career to plan and lots of revision to do. People move all the time. I’ll just have to get used to it.

  Besides, waiting in my inbox is an email from the men in matching overcoats – or MIMOs, as I like to think of them – reminding me about meeting us in Paris, and saying how impressed they were with the ‘saturated coverage of your actress friend at the Met Ball’ and the ‘commercial appeal’ of the new Miss Teen collection.

  ‘We’re interested in exploring avenues with rising talent relating to a prospective opportunity to establish a teen brand,’ it continues. ‘Please contact us to discuss, and to share perspectives on potential creative directions.’

  I read it four times. I’m still not quite sure what it means. I wish I was better at English, and that they’d used a bit more punctuation. Or actual words I can understand. However, I think the gist of it is that they like Crow’s designs and they want to talk to her about a job. An actual designer job, working for a big new fashion house called Alphia. With a salary and an office and rooms full of people to make the clothes. Do they know she’s only sixteen next January? It sounds a bit high-powered for a teenager, but they’ve met her, so I suppose they think she’ll cope. What would they do about me? The email doesn’t mention me. I’d have to explain that I’m the chutzpah girl. But it feels like a dream anyway. Something crazy to tell Crow about and watch her eyes go wide.

  Mum pops her head round the door with a mug of hot chocolate and a sort of ‘sorry I’m selling the house’ expression. She asks what I’m up to and I tell her it’s French.

  ‘Good girl,’ she says, giving my hair a stroke. ‘I thought that new laptop might be a good incentive.’

  ‘Oh, it is,’ I agree.

  A nice new laptop to go in my nice new bedroom in my nice new warehouse apartment in East London, away from all my friends and, now that I think of it, without any space for Crow to work, either. But that’s fine, because by then she’ll be in her own studio, or maybe even in New York, working on a mega-label. She’ll be fine. Absolutely fine.

  A tear hits my keyboard, which is a surprise. But maybe it’s a good thing. It might make the keys less sticky.

  ‘I couldn’t imagine my mum selling this place,’ Jenny says, sighing deeply on my behalf.

  We’re sitting in her kitchen, where there’s a round, wooden table and an assortment of chairs that sort of go together, but look as though they’ve led very different lives. Gloria Merritt likes ‘eclectic’. Mum calls it ‘junk’, but it creates a cosy atmosphere.

  I don’t reply. I’m glad that Jenny’s being so sympathetic, of course, but she’s been doing this for a month now, and I’d rather she didn’t. I want to forget about my house. I’d rather be talking about Stella’s three kittens, who are completely ADORABLE, and are nestled with their mother in a basket in the corner.

  I was hoping I’d get to name them again, like I did with Stella herself, and I was going to call them Jean, Paul and Gaultier, but Jenny refused. She’s thinking along a musical theme, of course. I suggested Andrew, Lloyd and Webber, but she told me to grow up. (It doesn’t help that one of them’s a girl.) Edie thought of Macavity, Gus and Jemima, because they’re from Cats (musical), but invented by TS Eliot (poet, and therefore seriously good at thinking of names). Jenny said no: too obvious. Instead, she’s suggested a dozen names from 1950s musicals that we’ve never heard of. Right now we’re stuck.

  Crow has stayed out of the whole naming issue, which is very wise. She’s restricted herself to making pom-poms for them to play with. She’s sitting on the floor next to them, happily winding pink wool around a piece of card like I used to do when I was six. For the moment, I think she’s forgotten she’s a Serious Fashion Designer. In fact, we haven’t talked Serious Fashion since I told her about the MIMO email and her eyes practically filled her face, they were so huge. Since then, it’s mostly been exams and panicking. Right now, she’s just a girl who’s got a friend with cute kittens, and who likes playing with wool. She’s already wearing a pom-pom necklace and I have to admit, I’m thinking of asking her to make one for me.

  ‘I must say, this place is looking a lot better,’ Edie says. I think she can sense I don’t want to talk about my room any more. She doesn’t always say the right thing, but she certainly tries.

  ‘Thanks,’ Jenny mutters. ‘Wasn’t that difficult.’

  It’s true. The flat isn’t a rubbish tip now. It’s clean and bright and the perfect place to bring up kittens. Either Gloria’s feeling better, or Jenny’s been working hard on it in between exams. Which, thank God, are finally over. It gives us lots of time to sit in each other’s kitchens, wondering what to do with ourselves.

  Gloria still seems to be avoiding us though. I can’t help scanning the cupboards, wondering if there are any vodka bottles stashed inside them. Does Jenny know? Does she look?

  We all sit around in silence for a while, lost in our different thoughts.

  ‘Any more news from Jackson Ward?’ I ask, for the sake of something to say.

  Jenny grins and goes pink.

  ‘Yes, actually,’ she says. I can tell she’s really excited but she’s trying to play it cool. ‘I heard yesterday. The producers have managed to get a theatre in Chicago. The show’s going to open in November. For six weeks. They’ve got this mega-incredible new director. And the cast is amazing.’

  ‘Including you?’ I check.

  ‘Including me!’

  Edie and Crow both look up sharply. Even one of the kittens opens a sleepy eye.

  Jenny continues, happily. ‘The workshop worked. They’ve got Carmen Candy as the star, so they can afford to have an igloo. Nope. Ingenius? Ingénue, that’s it. The new girl. Plus I was in that movie, so people have kind of heard of me.’

  ‘Wow!’ Crow says, at the same time as me.

  Edie’s speechless for a bit longer, but eventually she says, ‘SIX WEEKS?’

  Jenny nods, excited.

  Edie’s still shocked. ‘SIX WEEKS? In November? What about your A levels?’

  Jenny shrugs. ‘They’ll give me a tutor. But I’ll put exams on hold for a year. It’s the only way, really.’

  Edie sits there, stunned. ‘Seriously?’

  ‘I think you mean congratulations,’ I prompt.

  ‘I certainly don’t,’ Edie says. ‘How will you get a work permit?’

  ‘Born there,’ Jenny says. ‘Remember? Dad was on tour, so I have a US passport. It’s the one thing I can be grateful to him for.’

  ‘Oh my God,’ Edie rushes on. ‘And what about Stella and the kittens? Is your mum OK to look after them for six weeks?’

  Jenny looks embarrassed. ‘Actually, it’s more than that. We perform for six weeks. But there’s rehearsals too. And Jackson wants me to go back to New York first and work on my voice with a singing coach he knows, so I can handle so many performances. And learn the dance routines, because I’ll need more time on those than most people.’

  I feel dizzy. It sounds as though everything’s organised and I can hardly get my head around it.

  ‘So when do you start?’

  ‘Any time I like,’ Jenny says. ‘Jackson says the more time we spend together the better. I can stay with him. And don’t worry, he’s not some pervy old man. He’s married to this amazing sculptress who’s famous too, and there’s Charlotte, his daughter – remember? She can’t wait to show me more of New York. He just wants to help me out.’

  Edie looks as shocked as me. Crow’s got
her head down, avoiding the conversation. I don’t blame her. ‘When exactly?’ I ask.

  Jenny tosses her red curls. ‘In a couple of weeks. He’s got this to-die-for house. I’m sure you could come and stay too for a bit, if you wanted to.’

  Edie keeps her voice quiet, but she sounds super-unimpressed. ‘I’m busy. I still have my personal statement to prepare for Harvard, remember? And essays. And more SATs. And my summer job. And it looks as though I’ll have to come over here to keep an eye on your kittens.’

  ‘Oh!’ Jenny says. ‘Would you?’

  I don’t know if she’s deliberately ignoring the sarcasm in Edie’s voice, or if she hasn’t noticed. But she seems thrilled to think that someone’s going to look after the cats.

  Edie says nothing. You could make the atmosphere into a thick blanket. I look across at Crow and laugh lightly. At least, that’s how it’s supposed to sound.

  ‘Well, it looks like I’m going to have one friend in America and another in the library all summer. Thank goodness I’ve got you, hey?’

  Crow puts her pom-pom down carefully and tilts her face to look at me. Her expression is not promising.

  ‘My dad wrote to me last week. He’s worried about how I’m doing at school. And the family’s missing me. They want me to spend the summer with them in Uganda.’

  I’m stunned. Crow’s known this for a week and she hasn’t told me until now. She is rubbish with important news. I do wish the girl would talk more occasionally. Well, sometimes her silences are lovely, but not all the time.