by Katy Cannon
But when I reached the kitchen there was a note stuck to the fridge that said, ‘Gone for a run. Back soon.’
I stared at it for a moment before I realized – this might be my chance to get back into her good books. I checked my watch. Three hours before the audition. Plenty of time to make things right.
I went to grab my purse – before remembering I didn’t have one any more. Then I remembered Alice’s emergency twenty-pound note, tucked away in the back of her passport holder. If this wasn’t an emergency, I didn’t know what was, so I tugged it from its hiding place and pulled on my shoes.
Rushing out of the front door of the flat, I went straight to the coffee shop on the corner where Mabel and I had been a few times before.
Armed with a latte for Mabel, and a frozen berry drink for me, plus two huge muffins and two pastries, because I couldn’t remember what Mabel liked best – I headed back to the flat, only to pause as I reached the shop below. Flowers. Maybe they’d help too, if I had enough cash left. I’d take all the help I could get right now.
It was a challenge juggling coffee, baked goods and the cheapest bunch of flowers they had up the metal staircase again, but I managed it. I was even able to get plates set up and the food laid out before I heard Mabel’s key in the lock.
She stood in the kitchen doorway, hot and sweaty in her running gear, and surveyed the breakfast table I’d set out.
“I take it this is an apology?” she said, as I hunted in the cupboards for a vase for the rather sad-looking flowers. “Top right cupboard. Over the toaster.”
Vase located, I dumped the flowers in it and turned back to face her. “I’m very, very sorry about last night.”
And I was. I felt sorry, and stupid, and most of all guilty. It wasn’t a feeling I’d experienced all that often and I really didn’t like it. I’d been so determined to enjoy myself that I hadn’t thought about Mabel. Most of all, I hadn’t wanted to admit that Hal had good reasons to be furious with me. I’d screwed up – on all sides.
Mabel nodded slowly, then sighed. “Let me take a quick shower. Then we can talk.” She took her coffee with her and headed upstairs.
Fifteen minutes later we sat opposite each other at the kitchen table, me shredding a pain au raisin, and her absently picking off bits of blueberry muffin to chew.
“So. Want to tell me what really happened last night?” Mabel said, at last.
I pulled a face. “I’m not completely sure.” I’d been thinking about it all morning, and I still didn’t know exactly what had made me act so … bratty. Still, I’d managed to come up with a story that fitted all the lies I’d already told Mabel – but was also sort of the truth. “I just … we went to the party with the guys from camp, just like we said we would. But then Hal and I … we kind of got into a fight. And he might have been right, but I didn’t want to admit it.”
Spelling it out like that, I sounded like a little kid.
“So what happened then?” Mabel asked.
“He walked out. Went home, I guess. I was going to follow, but someone told me to let him calm down first. And then … then I managed to convince myself that it was all his fault anyway, so I insisted on staying at the party and having as much fun as I could … but then I had to travel home on my own and, well, you know what happened next.” I wished I’d had a chance to say sorry to Hal. Wished I’d never lied to him about Alice in the first place.
“I hate the idea of you on your own in London at night too. God, do you know how lucky you were to only lose your bag? If that policewoman hadn’t found you…” She shook her head without finishing the thought. I was glad. Just the idea of the possibilities made me shudder. “Your father will be so mad with me.”
My head jerked up at that, so I could look her in the eye. “It’s not your fault I was stupid!”
“Maybe not,” Mabel said. “But I’m responsible for you this summer. So that makes it my fault.”
“I’m sorry.” My voice came out very small. “I know it was wrong. Dangerous even. And I definitely won’t do it again.”
Mabel sighed again and reached out to place her hand over mine. “You know, I remember when I was fourteen, my mum told me every day to tidy my room. And every day I ignored her.”
“What happened?”
“One day I tripped over a pile of my own stuff and broke my ankle. By the time I got back from having it put in plaster, my mum had bagged up all my stuff and told me that anything I hadn’t sorted and put away by the end of the weekend was going in the bin.”
I frowned. “Is there a moral or a message I’m supposed to be getting here?”
Mabel took a huge bite of muffin, chewed and swallowed. “Not really. I just… I guess I didn’t do anything very rebellious when I was a teenager. I wasn’t that sort of kid.”
Just like the real Alice. I bet Mabel’s summer would have gone a lot more smoothly if she’d been here instead of me.
“I’m not good at this, Alice,” Mabel went on. “I told your dad I wouldn’t be, but he said I’d be fine and, well, I wanted to believe him. But when he talked about you… It’s like he was describing a different girl. And now you’re here, and I don’t know how to talk to you and I’m getting it all wrong, and you’re staying out until midnight, lying about who you’re with and being brought home by the police and I don’t know what to do. So I’ve been thinking about when I was a teenager, and apparently it isn’t helping very much.”
Guilt swooped down on me, ready to swallow me up.
This was what we’d planned, Alice and I, sitting on that plane. We’d talked about how, after a summer with me, Mabel would hate the idea of ever being a step-mother. How I’d fix it for Alice so she didn’t have to worry about Mabel and her dad any more.
And I’d done it – or near enough. So why did I feel so bad?
“It’s … it’s not you,” I said. “I just – this summer is really weird, being away from Dad, being here. And I guess I haven’t been handling it very well. But that’s not your fault.”
Mabel grabbed my hand again, squeezing it tight. “I can’t imagine how unsettling it must be for you, being here with someone you barely know. But I’d hoped we’d have time to really get to know each other this summer. To become friends, maybe.”
Friends. Mabel didn’t want to be another mother like Alice had thought. Mabel wanted to be friends.
“Friends sounds good,” I said, with a small smile.
Alice would just have to deal.
“Speaking of friends, do you think there might be someone else you need to make up with too?” Mabel asked.
Hal. Of course.
And I still had an audition to get to. Making up with Hal would be the perfect excuse for me to slope off to the audition without Mabel noticing.
I could do both, right?
I bounced to my feet. “Do you mind if I…” I waved towards the door.
Mabel smiled. “Go. Make up with Hal. But … dinner together tonight? Just you and me?”
“Definitely. Oh, and could I borrow your phone? And some money…?”
“Actually, I picked you up this on my run.” She handed me a cheap pay-as-you-go phone, along with two ten-pound notes. “The phone’s already loaded with credit. So no excuses for not calling if you’re going to be late, or if you need me to come and get you. OK?”
I smiled ruefully at her. “OK.” Then I gave her a big hug. “Thank you, Mabel.”
WILLA: I screwed up. Am making apology rounds now.
WILLA: Also, I had to get a new phone, so this is Willa. In case you hadn’t guessed.
WILLA: Lucky for us, my tablet synced all my contacts. Otherwise we’d be in trouble.
WILLA: Well. More trouble.
ALICE: How bad is it? Do I need to start packing?
WILLA: No. Not that bad. Just…
WILLA: I got bratty and made things worse here.
WILLA: Anyway.
WILLA: Have apologized to Mabel with breakfast. Off to find Hal now –
well, after my audition.
WILLA: Will fill you in properly tonight.
ALICE: OK. You all right?
WILLA: I’m … not sure, really.
WILLA: I will be, if Hal forgives me.
WILLA: But I need to talk to you about Mabel.
ALICE: Is she being awful?
WILLA: No. That’s the problem.
WILLA: She’s actually kind of awesome.
WILLA: I think you might really like her. If you ever get the chance to meet her.
ALICE: After this summer? Seems unlikely.
WILLA: Yeah. I guess it does. Talk later x
ALICE: Yeah, later. Off to the beach now!
Luca was still feeling bad about his grandparents when I made it downstairs. He said he was fine, but I could tell by the way he was bonding with the donkeys that he was feeling like one of Sofia’s lost causes again.
I got Sofia to help me pack a picnic for three, gathered up Rosa, our swimming costumes and some towels, then headed off to drag Luca away from Achilles and Hercules.
“I’ve got something planned for tonight too – when you three get back,” Sofia called after me.
I paused in the doorway and spun round to face her. “What?”
“It’s a surprise,” was all she would say.
The beach was the perfect place to let go of all the things that were worrying me – Willa’s cryptic messages about screwing up, what I was going to do about Dad and Mabel, and what would happen once the summer was over. Even Luca seemed to brighten up when we hit the beach.
I beamed, watching him chase Rosa with a crab. “I knew it. It’s impossible to be grumpy by the sea.”
“No, it’s impossible for you to be grumpy by the sea,” Luca replied, rolling his eyes at me. Then he got back to chasing his sister, and I knew that whatever he said, this had been the right thing for us all this morning.
“You told me once there were caves here,” I said, later, after we’d eaten our picnic. “I’d like to see them. Which way are they?”
I glanced to both sides. To the right, the beach was edged by rocks and grass, leading back inland and to the road that went up to the village. To the left, there were cafés and seafood restaurants and small shacks selling towels and other beach essentials. Further along on both sides, the rocks rose into real cliffs. I guessed one of them held the sea caves.
Luca and Rosa looked at each other, then Luca waved towards the right.
“We can go back the other way for gelato later,” Rosa said.
“Sounds like a plan.”
The sea caves were cool and damp, with seaweed and shells stuck to the walls and rocks. Dad would love them, I thought absently. Rosa hung back by the entrance, collecting shells, while Luca led me through the network of tunnels and caves, deeper into the cliffs.
Until suddenly I heard what I’d been waiting for.
Falling water. Not as loud as Cascata della Fuga, not even close. More of a trickle than a roar. But still, water, cascading down over rocks from the river above the cliffs. Just like Luca had told me there would be, my first full day in Italy.
“You reckon this waterfall has magic powers too?” Luca asked. He tried to make it sound like a joke, but I wasn’t sure it was, not completely.
“Do you really think any waterfall has magical powers?” I said disbelievingly.
“No.”
“Me neither.”
“Really?” Luca gave me an amused look. “Then why did we have to take four buses, walk miles and scare off pigs the other day?”
“Because I promised my mum I’d visit that waterfall one day. And because…” I tried to find the words. “It wasn’t magic, I know that. But it was cathartic.” An English-lesson word that I’d known would be useful one day. “The water didn’t take away my worries. I threw them away.”
“You definitely seem happier since,” Luca admitted. “I don’t know how to explain it. It’s kind of like … you’d been waiting to say something all summer, and now it’s out there.”
“I guess it is.” Except I’d only told my secrets to the water. Not the people who really needed to hear them.
I could tell Luca now. Spill everything. And I wanted to, I realized. I wanted him to know who I really was.
In the cool damp of that cave, with water trickling down behind us, I wanted him to know Alice. Not Willa.
But I couldn’t tell him yet. I needed to talk to Willa first. This wasn’t just my secret to tell.
“Come on,” I said. “We should get back to Rosa.”
We spent the rest of the afternoon building a giant mermaid in the sand, complete with seaweed hair and shells for scales on her tail. Luca was strangely obsessive about getting the scales just right, so I left him to it and snapped a few photos of them on my phone instead. I emailed them over to Willa, already a little wistful that my time in Italy was coming to an end. At least I felt like I’d done something worthwhile now, while I was there.
I’d made a real friend in Luca. I just hoped he still wanted my friendship when I finally told him the truth.
I retrieved Hal’s number from my tablet contacts and texted him from my new phone, asking him to meet me that afternoon. I wanted to do this on his terms, so I picked The Old Operating Theatre as our meeting place. After all, he’d told me that was where he went to think things through. And we both had a lot to think and talk about today.
I just hoped he showed up.
But first, I had an audition to get to.
My nerves were jangling as I made my way across London, though I wasn’t sure if it was about my first real shot at an acting career, or worry that Hal might not forgive me. To be honest, the second seemed more important to me – which made me think that pretending to be Alice had rubbed off on me this summer.
I found the building where the audition was being held – which was much harder without my smartphone – and joined a queue of teenagers waiting outside. Slowly, we made our way inside as the doors opened, each checking in at the desk in the lobby.
“Willa Martyn,” I said when it was my turn. “The casting director asked to see me personally, after my showcase at the Old Row yesterday.”
The person behind the desk just grunted, handed me a number and a sheet of paper, and motioned towards the rows of chairs laid out for waiting.
The whole room was filled with other teenagers – mostly with their parents, in fact – waiting to be called to audition. I saw Tuppence across the room with Ryan and Bethany, but didn’t go to join them.
I was too busy thinking.
I should be excited to be here. This was everything I’d been working for all summer. By the end of the day I could have a part on Heatherside and a way to keep my dad in my life. Plus I’d have hopefully made up with Hal.
Everything was going exactly to plan.
So why did I feel like I was in the wrong place?
“First time?” the girl next to me asked. She looked a year or two older than me. “You seem nervous,” she explained.
I shrugged. “Yeah. First time.” I didn’t admit to being nervous, though.
The girl stretched out her legs in front of her. “I’ve done a million of these. They’re always the same. You go in there, the people behind the desk barely look at you, you read the script – which they’ve already heard a hundred times that morning. Then they ask you to do it again, but different, then maybe again … then they send you home. Maybe you get called back, maybe you don’t. It’s all up to them.”
Logically, I knew all this. My parents were actors, after all. But mostly when they got called in for auditions it was because the casting director already knew them and wanted them for a role. This – starting out at the bottom – was something different. This was potentially years of auditions, fighting for roles, dealing with rejection – all while also trying to have a normal life, with school and friends and everything.
I had to be honest, it didn’t sound as glamorous or as much fun as I’d been imagining.
>
I’d assumed I’d walk in there and wow them, I realized. But actually, this was my first time auditioning for anything beyond the theatre course at the Old Row. Nobody knew me, or who my parents were, and even if they did they might not care. Maybe I’d get the part, maybe I wouldn’t…
But all of a sudden, I wasn’t so sure I wanted it.
I frowned, staring down at the script, willing the words to swim back into focus. They didn’t. My mind was too busy whirling.
I wanted to talk to Hal, or to Alice, or even to Mabel. Hal would know why I felt this way. Alice would have advice on what to do when I felt nervous and confused. And Mabel would just give me a hug and tell me none of it mattered.
And… I wanted my mum or my dad there with me, like all the others had. I wanted them to tell me stories about their first auditions, the first time they got a part, anything.
I didn’t want to be doing this alone.
In fact, I wasn’t sure I wanted to be doing it at all.
I’d loved my theatre course at the Old Row, but it wasn’t the acting that had made it fun for me. The part I’d loved most was helping the others put their showcases together. I’d liked being the director more than the star.
I didn’t want to stand in a room and have other people tell me how to say lines.
I wanted to tell others how to say them.
I blinked. Maybe I didn’t want to be an actor at all. And definitely not yet. I had enough people telling me what to do in my life without adding an actual director into the mix.
And it wasn’t just that realization that was making me think I was in the wrong place. It was thinking about my parents too.
I’d wanted a part on Heatherside at least partly to be closer to my dad – to force him to remember me and make me a part of his life again. He’d run off to Edinburgh with his new girlfriend, chasing a new dream at the Fringe Festival, and forgotten all about me. Heatherside had been my way of winning him back.
Except what I’d found in London this summer had me thinking twice. Because here, I had Mabel and Hal. Two people with no real reason to make me a part of their lives – but they had. They’d helped me, looked after me, entertained me, humoured me, worried about me – and I’d repaid them with lie after hurtful lie.
