Stars

by Sophia Bennett

  I’d talk to Jenny about it – by Skype if necessary – but of course she’s not even doing A levels this year and she’s so into her musical she probably can’t remember what they are.

  Of all the lessons, the one I’ve had the most sleepless nights about is French. This year, Keep your head down Friday has shifted to Keep your head down Wednesday. However, the same rules apply. The news is out that Jenny will be performing in Elizabeth and Margaret and if one more person sets their ringtone to ‘There’s no business like showbusiness’, I am liable to thump them.

  I’m determined to concentrate properly for once, so I keep my head down even more than usual, but it’s no good. Liam is four rows in front of me. His hair has grown slightly since the summer, so it rests on his collar. He’s been away on some sort of outdoor holiday in Ireland and has a light brown tan. When he shifts his arm out to the right, I can just see the hairs on his skin . . .

  When I walk into the room each Wednesday, I hold my breath and wait to see if I’ll get a flash of his half-amused smile as I head to my seat. But the first week he looks slightly disappointed, and by the third week, his smile has faded completely. What have I done wrong? I’m supposed to be thinking about the French film industry in the Nouvelle Vague, but all I can think about is that smile, and the way it vanished.

  Halfway through class, my school bag starts vibrating against my foot. My phone. I carefully manoeuvre it out of the bag without the teacher noticing and slide it under the desk. A text from a number I don’t recognise.

  ‘Where’s the belt?’

  I don’t understand. Is this some sort of bullying by total confusion? I ignore the text and go back to thinking about the smile.

  My phone vibrates again.

  ‘Why are you dressed like a ruler?’

  This is unfair. I look down. I’m in a perfectly acceptable Keep your head down Wednesday outfit. Sand-coloured jumper. Maxi camel skirt. Desert boots. OK, it has a certain sameness to it. True, if you squared off the edges I might look like a wooden ruler, possibly. But it is unobjectionable.

  More vibrations.

  ‘???????????’

  Somebody is objecting.

  I look around. Of course, I can’t help looking at Liam first and I catch the swish of his curls. I’m sure he was just staring at me. I decide to try something out and text back: ‘Which belt?’

  ‘The bike chain.’

  Aha! It is Liam. He’s the only person here who ever saw the bike chain. My heart is suddenly pounding like a road drill. I am SO not thinking about the French film industry.

  I type rapidly. ‘It was heavy. And my brother needed it back.’

  More vibrations. He’s a super-fast typist. ‘And the ruler look?’

  I’m in the middle of a long and complicated reply, which I’m about to delete anyway, when somebody jogs my chair – quite a common occurrence – and my phone clatters to the ground. Madame Stanley looks up with a sigh and tells me to add it to her collection of confiscated phones on the front desk. Liam looks very guilty when he catches my eye on the way back to my seat. After the lesson, I find him waiting for me outside the classroom door.

  ‘Sorry about that,’ he says.

  ‘No problem.’

  ‘But I wish . . .’ He pauses. He looks embarrassed. I look embarrassed. We look embarrassed together.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I liked you in the summer. I thought you looked cool.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yeah. Amazing, actually. Like back when you wore that kimono.’

  ‘You liked the kimono?’

  ‘Well, not liked, exactly. But it was interesting.’

  ‘Believe me, looking interesting isn’t always a good thing.’

  I glance across at the Belles, who are a few metres away, chatting to the most popular boys while adjusting their miniskirts over their long, smooth legs.

  ‘Well, I think it is,’ Liam says.

  My name is being called, loudly and repeatedly, by the girls from my school who want to get back.

  ‘Better go,’ I say.

  He smiles. The corners of his mouth turn up very slightly and I badly want to kiss them.

  ‘Sure,’ he says. ‘You’ve got my number.’

  He disappears off with his mates and I go and join my school friends. I am so confused. Certainly, I have his number, but WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO DO WITH IT? I’m the girl he ‘liked in the summer’, apparently. It’s now autumn. I am therefore quite obviously the girl he doesn’t like any more. This is hopeless, and typical.

  I try and ignore the part of my brain that’s already planning an interesting outfit for next Wednesday. But I can’t help it. The only thing I’m sure of, in a large world of confusion, is that if I have to choose between being interesting to Liam and invisible to the Belles, the bike chain look wins every time.

  When I get home, I can see a light on in the basement window. This means that Crow’s in her workroom again. She hasn’t been there much since our discussion about labels. When I do see her, she goes on about Joseph and his amazing internet classes in the summer, or GCSEs and other school-related things. Her dad has definitely had an effect on her. She’s stopped making her dresses to sell in the Portobello Road and she’s told Andy Elat she won’t be designing another collection for Miss Teen in the foreseeable future. The only thing she’s working on, as far as I know, is a new design for Isabelle’s wedding dress.

  I let myself in and Crow smiles when she sees me. I curl up in the velvet armchair while she fiddles with the dress on the mannequin.

  ‘Does my outfit remind you of anything?’ I ask her.

  ‘Stand up,’ she commands. I do. ‘Hmmm.’ She thinks for a while. ‘A tower block in Kampala. A beige one.’

  ‘Someone at school said a ruler.’

  She raises one eyebrow and nods in agreement. ‘He was right. You should wear your usual stuff.’

  ‘Who said he was a he?’

  She looks at me and laughs. ‘I’ve known you a long time, Nonie. It’s the coffee shop guy, isn’t it? The one you told me about. Anyway, he’s right. What do you think about this, by the way?’

  She’s fiddling crossly with a seam on the latest wedding dress. ‘I don’t know what it is,’ she adds. ‘Usually I have such a clear idea from the start and all I have to do is make it look the way I imagine. But this dress . . . it keeps going wrong.’

  I shift my attention from Liam to the dress. This version will be a white chiffon shift with a slight 1920s feel. It will hang from satin ribbon shoulder straps and fall to Isabelle’s ankles. Crow is working on the cotton toile that will make the pattern. The final dress will be weighted by thousands of tiny white mother-of-pearl beads and silver sequins, which will be applied by a workshop in India. Isabelle’s really excited and emails Crow about it almost every day, apparently.

  ‘It’s beautiful,’ I tell her. ‘But you’ve got ages to get it right. And, I’ve been thinking. Remember the MIMOs?’ She looks confused. ‘The men in matching overcoats who were setting up that fashion house? They’re still looking for someone. If you don’t want to do your own label, you could do theirs. I really think you should get back to them about your creative directions.’

  ‘But I don’t have any. I have school. I have exams. So do you. We need to revise.’

  ‘I know . . . but they might not wait.’

  Crow shrugs. I thought I’d got used to her shrug and it didn’t annoy me any more, but right now I am super-annoyed. I have to make her snap out of her laid-back attitude.

  ‘They sounded really excited about you. And they’ve got so much money, they could make any design you could think of. You just need to tell them what you want to do.’

  Crow shrugs AGAIN and doesn’t speak.

  ‘Christopher Kane’s doing a line for Versace,’ I point out.

  Nothing. Even though Christopher Kane is one of Crow’s favourite designers.

  ‘Stella McCartney went to Chloé. Alexander McQueen went to Gi
venchy. It’s how most of the big names got famous and this is your chance. You’ve got to talk to them, at least. Show them some ideas.’

  I look across at her pleadingly. Her lovely, large mouth is set in a thin line and for once, it’s not because it’s full of pins. She doesn’t look impressed, but she should be. Not only by the big chance, but by how noble I’m being in suggesting it to her. Even though we both know there wouldn’t be a job for me.

  ‘I promised Dad I’d study really hard this year.’ She looks up. ‘At home,’ – and I realise by ‘home’ she means Uganda, not her flat down the road from here, and suddenly that hurts – ‘lots of girls have to leave school to help their families. They can’t do exams or training. In London, people take school too much for granted.’

  She’s not looking at me when she says this. She’s deliberately avoiding me, in fact. But I think when she says ‘people’ she means ‘you, Nonie’. And I could do without having a best friend who sounds like a Ugandan version of my mother.

  We end up sitting in silence for the next half hour, while she unpicks a side seam on the dress and pins it into a new position. She does it very carefully, but at first the change seems so tiny that I can’t see why she bothered. Then suddenly the dress hangs differently and seems to come to life on the mannequin. She’s so good at this! I can’t bear it that she’s not grabbing this amazing opportunity with both hands.

  I stomp upstairs in frustration, muttering something about assignments. She doesn’t say goodbye.

  I’m in the middle of English homework when Mum puts her head round the door, sees that I’m working, and smiles. She’s dressed to go out. Little black dress, Jimmy Choos and freshly waved hair.

  ‘I’m off to a private view. Won’t be late. What is it tonight?’

  ‘The Great Gatsby.’

  ‘Going OK?’

  I nod. Actually, Crow isn’t the only person who’s decided to turn over a new leaf. I’m fed up with dreading every result I get. When I’m not with my friends I’ve been secretly experimenting with putting in some real effort into my assignments and, so far, it’s working. My English teacher has stopped picking them up by her fingertips like she used to do – as if they were toxic. This time, I’m hoping for a B.

  Mum comes over and kisses the top of my head. I smell the familiar mixture of Rive Gauche, Jo Malone shampoo and Elnett hairspray. She takes my face in her hands and smiles at me again.

  ‘You’re really trying this term, aren’t you, darling?’

  There’s a happy gleam in her eyes and a new lustre to her hair. I’ve been noticing it a lot recently. Just like I’ve noticed the single white rose that gets delivered anonymously every Monday morning and is instantly put in a little crystal vase on the desk in her cubbyhole at the top of the house. And the way she leaps several centimetres whenever her BlackBerry goes off. And the secret glow on her face if it’s the message she was hoping for. Well, I know that feeling now. It’s the feeling I got when Liam texted me about the bike chain. It’s love, or something close to it. Extreme like, anyway.

  It’s useful, because it’s put her in a permanent good mood and it means that when I asked her if I could possibly go and see Jenny perform in Chicago after half-term as part of my eighteenth birthday treat she said yes almost straight away. She’s trying to be nice to me and hasn’t mentioned flying pigs since the summer. She hasn’t really talked to me about it, but it’s totally obvious what’s happened. The white roses were the biggest giveaway.

  Vicente.

  They got the spark back when he visited in February. You could see it when they danced together. I guess it was always waiting to happen. I wish she’d just come out and tell me, but she won’t. She’s embarrassed. Maybe she realises it looks a bit bad for me – falling in love again with the man she was with before I came along and ruined it. And things haven’t really changed, because it’s thanks to me and my ‘important academic year’ that she can’t go off to Brazil and spend some proper time with him.

  ‘D’you think she would?’ Jenny asks. ‘Brazil? Really?’

  I’m Skyping her about the trip to Chicago. But we’ve got distracted by men. As you do.

  ‘I don’t see why not,’ I say.

  ‘It’s such a fairytale,’ Jenny sighs.

  ‘What d’you mean?’

  ‘Well, you know, pining for someone for so long, then finally getting it together with them. I mean – eighteen years. It’s a lifetime.’

  I have a feeling that in her head she’s turning Mum’s life into a musical and she’s imagining the number where Mum falls into Vicente’s arms and he whisks her round the stage singing ‘Finally!’ Or words to that effect.

  ‘Anyway,’ I say, keen to change the subject, ‘how about you? You must be surrounded by gorgeous men.’

  ‘I am!’ she giggles. ‘Totally gorgeous and adorable. And so talented. But the ones I like are mostly dating each other, or girls from the chorus. I spend most of my time rehearsing with Gary Lee, who plays Prince Philip, and he’s hooked up with one of the ladies in waiting. You should see her do the splits. She’s amazing.’

  ‘What about you? Are you ready? You start previews in three weeks.’

  ‘I know! We’ve got our first full rehearsal with the orchestra soon. It’s going to be awesome. And the sets are so cool. The ballroom at Buckingham Palace. The Royal Yacht Britannia. A massive tent in Africa. Wait till you see them!’

  I hope she’s not avoiding telling me something awful. Usually, at this point, she’s incredibly nervous about her performance.

  ‘Yes,’ I say, ‘but what about you? Are you OK?’

  ‘I’m fine,’ she assures me. ‘Just tired from all the dance classes. I have to do extra ones because I’m so rubbish. It’s kind of weird having a starring role. I have to buy presents for everyone for opening night. I’ve got no idea what to get them.’

  I’m about to offer some ideas, but she carries on without listening.

  ‘Luckily, Carmen’s going to take me shopping. It’ll be cool. Carmen keeps being stopped for autographs, but she says you get used to it. It’s bizarre but you just have to be really natural about it . . .’

  She goes on for five minutes about the difficulties of being a STAR in a MUSICAL, and I realise that I even miss her babbling away about herself. She’s not always the easiest friend to have around. Her life is usually some sort of drama, but I’ve got used to that. Or I had. I suppose I’ll have to un-get used to it for a while, until the show is over. At least I can visit her. Although how I’m supposed to pack enough stuff for three days into one ‘standard checked-baggage size’ suitcase is a mystery to me.

  Just before half-term, I’m busy trying to fit my underwear into one of the teeny-weeny pockets of my case, when Crow comes round with a package for me to take.

  I look at her. We haven’t spoken much since the whole discussion about ‘people’ not taking school seriously enough. I look at the package. It is the size of a folded-up dress. A folded-up Jenny dress, with voluminous skirts and a nipped-in waist. The sort of thing Crow always does when Jenny has a big moment coming up.

  ‘Something for her to wear on her opening night?’ I ask.

  Crow nods.

  ‘Something you just ran up between homework assignments?

  Crow nods again, looking guilty.

  ‘I don’t suppose you’ve managed to . . .’

  She shakes her head. She looks towards my suitcase. It is full. Totally full. I’ve only packed about three sweaters and some leggings. A girl needs a little variety to choose from. But it’s bursting at the seams. She looks more guilty. We both wonder where the package can go.

  I sigh. ‘I’ll fit it in somehow.’

  She gives me a grin. And I realise she’s right. It wouldn’t be the same if Jenny went to a big event without wearing something of Crow’s.

  ‘I promise I’ll look after it.’

  She grins some more. So far she hasn’t said a word. Unlike me, she is seriously not a tal
ker.

  ‘Got some stuff to do at home,’ she mutters, and leaves.

  I look down at the parcel. It says all I need to know about how she feels about Jenny, and misses her, like me, and wants everything to go well for her. Then I set about unpacking my suitcase and working out how to squeeze it in.

  ‘Oh my God, I LOVE IT!’ Jenny gasps, the moment she opens the parcel.

  She twirls round my hotel room in Chicago, holding the dress in front of her and admiring herself in the full-length mirror on the wardrobe.

  ‘Crow emailed me about my measurements. I did wonder why. I assumed it might be a dress or something, but not THIS.’

  I smile encouragingly. Crow doing all her own emailing now, with no need for me to be involved. Yaaay.

  ‘And of course, I was a totally different shape, so thank goodness she did,’ Jenny rattles on. ‘All that dance practice. Look. Feel.’

  She shoves an arm in my face. Gingerly, I feel her shoulder. It’s rock solid with muscle. She does the same with a leg. Same story. Her figure has changed, but not too much. She looks thinner, but healthy. And she’s bouncing round the room as if she’s high on energy pills.

  I’m thinking about the power shower she dragged me out of so she could open the parcel. I could do with another few hours just standing under it. It was wonderful. However, I’m not allowed to. She whisks me round the corner to Starbucks for breakfast, then off to the shops so we can talk about all the relationships we’re not having, while window-shopping for stilettos (Jenny) and anything unusual that might impress Liam in French (me).

  After what feels like twenty minutes, Jenny looks at her watch and gasps. It’s lunchtime already, and she has a matinée to perform at 2.30. There’s just time for a quick – but massive – sandwich, before we head off to the theatre for the show.

  Backstage is full of shouting, banging, creaking and little snatches of piano music and singing, as people finish limbering up their voices. Jenny lets me sit with her while she puts on her hidden microphone, dark wig and makeup, transforming herself from a modern-day redhead teen into a demure royal from the 1940s. It’s fascinating to see her face change. She shows me photos of Princess Elizabeth from those days, and I watch as Jenny’s features become the beautiful, reserved face of that girl.