I looked at her. She clearly hadn’t forgotten to be angry with me at all.
“Nydia, I’m sorry I was late,” I began, hoping to get past her being cross with me as quickly as possible so that I could talk to Danny about that kiss. “But I had to go to the premiere. Art said I did and I was going to phone and tell you but…”
“You didn’t,” she said.
“No, I didn’t because, well…” I struggled to find a way to say what I meant. “Look, Nydia, you’ve been really strange recently, ever since I got the part of Polly Harris and, well, it’s just not easy to talk to you any more…”
“What, not like your new film-star friends?” Nydia said, nodding towards the living room where Sean and Anne-Marie had put on some loud music.
“I thought you’d be glad I brought Sean,” I said. “I thought you’d like to meet him.”
“Well, I would have,” Nydia said. “But now Anne-Marie’s got her claws into him I don’t expect he’ll have time to talk to me.” Nydia crossed her arms.
I held out the bag of crisps and chocolate. “I brought you food?” I offered.
Nydia snatched the bag and threw it on the floor.
“You just don’t get it, do you?” she yelled at me.
I stared at the contents of the bag which were scattered across the floor.
“I don’t,” I said. “I know I was a bit, OK—very—late, and I know it was stupid not to just ring you and tell you why. I don’t know why I didn’t. I’m sorry for that, I really am.” I looked at her face, which was so hard and cold and not like the old smiling Nydia at all. “But even though I’ve told you I’m sorry, you’re still angry with me,” I said, and then I realised something. “You were angry with me before you even knew I was going to be late, weren’t you? You would still have been like this If I had turned up three days early!” I shook my head in confusion. “What have I done so wrong, Nydia?”
“Nothing. You haven’t done anything wrong. You never do,” Nydia said. “Everything always goes right for you. You mess up an audition so badly that you are actually sick and you still get the part! You never had to worry about fees or about whether you’d get a new scholarship each year. And I stuck by you, kept on being your stupid fat friend even when no one else could stand you—always moaning about being famous and how hard it was, when the rest of us were wishing we had even half of the chances you’ve had.” I opened my mouth and shut it again.
It had never occurred to me that I might be especially lucky; I had always thought that people like Anne-Marie, with the money, the looks and the swimming pool, were the lucky ones. But I supposed out of all of the children at the academy, maybe I was the one to be envied. I was the one who was doing what all of us dreamed about. But even so, I had never imagined that Nydia, my nearly twin, could be jealous of me. Just as she knew I would never be jealous of her. And then I realised—maybe that was the problem.
“Who helped you when you had to do that kissing scene with Justin on Kensington Heights in the summer? And you got all panicky because you’d never kissed anyone.” Nydia narrowed her eyes at me. “Me, the same silly old Nydia, always there for you, always thinking about you—well, who thinks about me?”
“I do,” I said. “I do, honestly, all the time.”
“Like you were tonight?” she said.
“I’m here now, aren’t I?” I pleaded, hoping that at any moment her face would be transformed by one of her smiles. “Please don’t be angry any more, Nyds. Let’s make up. You know you’re a brilliant friend—the best.”
“I am,” Nydia said. “Are you?”
“I…” I suddenly felt very stupid in my blue satin dress and diamonds in Nydia’s hallway. My shoulders drooped and I knew that whatever I said next would not be the right thing. “I thought I was.”
“You shouldn’t have got that part,” Nydia said. “Everybody else who auditioned for it deserved it more than you. It’s not fair; you only got it because of who you are.”
“That’s not true,” I protested, starting to feel quite angry myself.
“And the one night when you know how much I really wanted you to be around—where are you? On TV kissing somebody else in front of Danny.”
“Nydia!” I snapped at her. “I’m here now, aren’t I? And anyway, that kiss was just for the camera. Danny won’t mind…” I stopped talking and looked at the living-room door behind which Danny would be waiting. I really wanted to see him.
“Won’t he?” Nydia said. I took a step closer to my old friend.
“Nydia, please,” I said, making a last attempt to stop this going too far. “Let’s not fall out. We don’t really have anything to fall out about, do we? I’m sorry if you think I shouldn’t have got the part, but I did get it. And I think I’m doing a pretty good job of it. And if it was the other way round, if it had been you, I would have been so pleased for you, Nydia.”
Nydia kicked a family-size pack of Maltesers in my direction.
“Yes, but it’s never me, is it, Ruby?” she said. “It’s always, always you.”
She ran up the stairs and after a few moments I heard her door slam shut.
For the first time in our friendship I found that I didn’t know how to talk to her. I didn’t know what to say that would stop her being angry with me, just for being me.
I bent down and scooped up the food that lay scattered across the hall and bundled it back into the carrier bag. If it had just been me and Nydia and I hadn’t been wearing a long blue satin dress and diamonds, I would have left then, gone home, put my pyjamas on and gone to bed. But Danny was sitting waiting for me in the other room and, although I had been hoping during my argument with Nydia that he would come out and rescue me, he hadn’t, and I still needed to talk to him.
I pushed open the living-room door and saw that Anne-Marie and Sean had pushed Mrs Assimin’s coffee table to one side of the room and were dancing in front of the gas fire. Danny was sitting on the sofa looking out of the patio doors and into the garden.
“Hello, Danny,” I said. When he heard my voice he stood up and smiled at me.
“Wow!” he said. “You look amazing. Better than on the telly.”
I smiled back at him. Danny was the first person to say anything about the way I looked, and whether or not the dress and diamonds made any difference at all to plain old Ruby Parker, he was the only person that really even noticed me at all the whole evening.
“I tried to call you this week,” I said, suddenly wishing I had some pockets to put my stupid hands in. As if reading my mind Danny nodded and stuffed his hands in his pockets. Usually about five seconds after meeting each other we are holding hands. Now it felt as if doing something so simple and easy seemed impossible.
“I know,” he said with a shrug.
I glanced round at where Anne-Marie and Sean were twisting quite inappropriately to an American rock band that one of Nydia’s brothers was into, laughing their heads off as they danced.
“You met Sean then?” I asked him. Danny nodded.
“He said hi. He didn’t seem that interested in me.”
I smiled. “That’s Anne-Marie for you,” I said. “She’s got hypnotic powers.”
Danny and I stood looking at each other by the sofa, and it felt that we were about a kilometre apart instead of just a few centimetres, and Danny might as well have been a tiny spot on a far horizon, because even as I stood right in front of him I couldn’t tell what he was thinking or feeling.
“I can’t believe you didn’t tell me you were going to a premiere,” Danny said finally. “Like, I mean, I saw you on the news, Rube.”
“I tried to phone,” I repeated. “I phoned you and texted you and left messages with your mum but you didn’t call me back.” Danny glanced at the carpet and then back at me.
“I know,” he said. “I’m sorry—I just thought that, well—I didn’t know if you wanted me to.”
“Why not?” I was amazed.
“Well, I thought that maybe you
were changing your mind about…well, me, I suppose,” Danny half-mumbled, suddenly not able to look me in the eye.
I stared at him. “What?” I asked him. “But why?”
“Hey, Ruby Parker,” Sean yelled over the music. “Come and dance.” I smiled at Sean but shook my head.
“I’m talking to Danny—this is Danny, my boyfriend.” I said the last word with as much emphasis as I could and looked hard at Danny, who went to the patio door and opened it.
“Can we talk outside?” he asked me, shooting a narrow look at Sean. “I can’t hear myself in here.”
I nodded and followed him.
The evening was cold and damp and as soon as I stepped outside I felt the goose bumps rising on my hands. Danny slid his denim jacket off and draped it around my shoulders.
“Thank you,” I said, wishing he wasn’t being so formal, wishing that he’d just put his arms around me and hug me like he used to.
“So what’s the great Sean Rivers like then?” Danny asked me, nodding back at Sean and Anne-Marie, who we could see through the patio doors had flopped down on to the sofa and were talking and laughing as if they’d known each other for ever.
“He’s really great,” I said warmly, and then seeing the shadows on Danny’s face added, “but he’s just a really good friend.”
“Yeah, I could tell that by the way you were kissing him,” Danny said darkly.
“Oh, that,” I said. I felt my tummy churn with so many emotions I couldn’t tell what I was feeling. Anger was the one that surfaced first. All I had done was to come around to spend some time with my friends and my boyfriend and so far all I got was attacked for doing absolutely nothing wrong. “It was just a peck, Danny—hardly anything—and it was just Sean messing around for the cameras. I didn’t even know he was going to do it until he did it.” I tried to sound jokey. “I mean it was over in a nanosecond.”
“You looked like you enjoyed it,” Danny started. And it was then that I really lost my temper.
“Oh, Danny!” I raised my voice in frustration. “It was a stupid five-second kiss, it’s not a big deal! This is so silly! It’s like, it’s like a stupid scene from Kensington Heights!”
Danny’s face clouded over dangerously.
“Oh, so now you’re a movie star you think Kensington Heights is stupid, do you?” he said sulkily.
“Danny!” I said in exasperation. “You think Kensington Heights is stupid—you’ve said it enough times! And anyway—you know what I mean.”
“I thought I did,” Danny said. “But you’re not you any more, Rube. You’ve changed.”
“Can’t I change?” I asked him. “You’ve changed. You’ve changed a lot since you started on Kensington Heights, topping readers’ polls in magazines—and I’m not getting all freaked out.”
“You freaked out about my fan letters,” Danny reminded me.
“For about five seconds,” I admitted. “And then I realised I was being a total moron, like someone else I could mention is being right now.” I challenged Danny with a stare, but as I watched him his shoulders relaxed and all of the tense lines seemed to drain out of his body.
“I’m sorry,” he said with a small smile. “I’m so stupid sometimes.”
“Oh, Danny,” I said, venturing a smile back.
But before I could run up to him and hug him he added, “Just as long as that Sean bloke knows that you belong to me.”
I felt the heat in my cheeks sharply against the cold air as I suddenly grew tired of everyone being angry with me, and got angry myself.
“Danny, I don’t belong to anyone!” I found myself shouting at him.
Danny and I stared at each other for a long moment.
“Right,” Danny said stiffly. “So what are you saying then? That you don’t want to go out with me any more too, now that I’m not good enough for you?”
And what I wanted to say was, “Of course I want to go out with you, you idiot, just as long as you stop being so silly and jealous and we can go back to having fun again.” But I was so tired, so angry and annoyed at Danny for somehow managing to create this whole drama out of nothing at all, and at myself for not being able to make him see sense, that I hesitated. I wondered if I really did want to be with him, if being with him meant going through all of this.
First one second, and then two, three, four, five slipped by. It was about four seconds too long for Danny to wait.
“Fine,” he said, starting back towards the house. “Fine. Bye then.”
“Danny!” I called after him. “You didn’t let me speak!”
Danny stopped at the patio doors and looked round at me.
“You didn’t have to,” he said. “It’s obvious how you feel.”
“But, Danny, I was just…” Danny swung the door shut behind him and left me shivering in the garden for a moment. I was furious with him for acting like an idiot, but I couldn’t believe that we had ended. Over nothing.
I couldn’t leave it that way, I just couldn’t.
I ran into the house leaving the patio door swinging open behind me. I ran into the hallway where the door had just slammed shut as Danny left, and I ran out of the front door. And I would have caught up with Danny, and maybe would have been able to make him see what he was doing, and maybe might have made everything all right again.
Except that was when I got arrested.
TEEN STAR SWEETHEARTS FLEE PREMIERE WITH PRICELESS DIAMONDS!
Last night American teen sensation Sean Rivers and ex-Kensington Heights star Ruby Parker almost pulled off one of the greatest diamond heists the country has ever seen—and all by accident!
Young Love?
The couple attended the premiere of Imogene Grant’s new film Lizzie Bennet last night, walking down the red carpet hand in hand. Sean broke the hearts of millions of his fans when he kissed Ruby in front of the world’s press (photo, bottom right).
Hands
Sean clearly displayed his passion for Ruby as they embraced each other as if in a world of their own. Fifteen-year-old Sean is renowned for leaving a string of celebrity starlets in his wake. And he’s certainly got his hands on some top British totty in talented teen Ruby.
Flight
It’s unclear what happened next, but Sean Rivers was seen having a heated discussion with his father and manager Patrick Rivers. Close personal friends of Sean say that Patrick Rivers was telling him to stay away from British protégée Ruby Parker, as she would ruin his heart-throb image. Determined to be together the passionate pair left the party in secret.
Alarm
The love-struck youngsters had been gone for nearly an hour before people started to miss them. Ruby’s mother/manager Janice Parker was said to be beside herself with worry and feared kidnapping. The police were called in and that’s when they realised Ruby was still wearing nearly sixty-five thousand pounds worth of jewellery borrowed from world-famous diamond importers and jewellers De Beers. Insiders feared the pair planned to elope to parts of the US where underage marriage is still legal.
Wild Party
Luckily, Oscar-winning movie mogul Art Dubrovnik, who is directing the teen stars in his new project The Lost Treasure of King Arthur, remembered that Ruby had promised to visit a friend’s party that evening in Highgate. Police rushed to the scene and found Ruby and Sean partying with Ruby’s friends, unaware of the panic they had caused. Ruby and Sean were then escorted back to De Beers, where they handed over the jewellery and, inside sources say, “were given a good talking to”.
Embarrassed
When asked, upon returning to the five-star Central London hotel they were staying in, what had been going through their minds as they left the party, Ruby said, “Nothing really. I hadn’t even remembered I was wearing the De Beers diamonds—I really am ever so sorry!” When asked the same question, Sean Rivers put his arm around Ruby’s shoulder and told us with a wink, “We just needed some time alone!”
Attention
Now Ruby Parker can be assured t
hat the world will be focused on the young British girl who seems to have caught heart-throb Sean Rivers. What can be next for Ruby Parker?
Chapter Seventeen
“But none of that is true!” I looked at the morning paper in dismay. Mum clattered a plate of toast on to the table and sat opposite me, thudding into her chair. “Hardly any of it,” I added nervously. Mum had jumped right to the front of the long queue of people who weren’t very happy with me.
I had hoped I could have got away with it. Last night when Mum first saw me after we got back, all she did was cry and laugh at the same time. She ran up to me and grabbed me and kissed me all over my face and hugged me so tightly I thought my ribs would break. Even Dad was there too and the three of us hugged each other for a long time, and I did think to myself that actually maybe accidentally stealing all those diamonds wasn’t such a bad thing—it made us a family again, if only for a little while.
Mum had said she wanted to be at home—not at our flat but at our real home—and so did I, so Dad drove us back to our house, while Mum and I sat in the back of his car holding hands. When we got in, Everest was there sitting in the hallway as if he knew we were coming. As we opened the door he even hauled himself off his fat belly and lurched towards us meowing a greeting.
“I think next door are feeding him too much,” Mum said.
“Yes, but which next door?” Dad joked. “He’s got the whole street thinking he’s malnourished.” I lugged Everest up into a cuddle which he put up with for as long as he could bear before twisting out of my arms and lolloping towards the kitchen, hopeful of a midnight feast. It had felt so nice to have everyone at home again. Everyone happy. I had forgotten what it used to be like, and I felt this twist in my tummy as I remembered.
Film Star Page 14
