Beads, Boys and Bangles (28 page)

He stops again. He puts the piece of paper down and sort of pretends it’s not there. He bustles over to Sigrid
and Joe and starts loudly ordering another bottle of champagne. Jim, the actor who plays Jenny’s father, picks up the review and carries on the reading for the crowd who are still listening.

‘“. . . if only to find out how awful a performance can be when delivered by someone with the vocal range of a fruitbat. Whatever was director Anthony Lyle thinking, putting an actress with such poor diction and projection into one of the largest theatres in London? The poor woman may look a million dollars on screen, but she mangles her oversize part in this play to rising hysteria from the audience. It is only the stunning performances of her fellow cast-members that prevent this comedy from quickly descending into farce.”’

I look up to see how Sigrid is handling it, but she’s gone. These Hollywood stars seem to have a sixth sense for back entrances and quick exits. No sign of Joe either, or Anthony, or the Gift Guards.

‘Poor Sigrid.’

I look up. It’s Edie speaking. Only Edie.

‘How’s she going to face everyone tomorrow?’

‘She’s going to have to act,’ I say. ‘Act happy. Like Jenny did when Sigrid stole Joe.’

‘Aha!’ says a deep voice behind me. It’s Bill, the playwright, who has his arm around his new star, shining in her vintage Givenchy dress. ‘Would that be Jenny Merritt, the “striking young talent”? I’m sure she made an excellent job of it. She’s just been telling me she thought it was
she
who had the voice problems. Silly girl. Of course it was Sigrid. But Anthony would have killed anyone who admitted it.’

Jenny is looking the way her cat Stella does when you tickle her under the chin. I’m not sure she isn’t actually purring. For a girl who has GCSEs in less than a month, it’s amazing how happy she seems.

On the way out, I spot a Robert Pattinson lookalike sitting on a squashy leather sofa, with a famous teenage rock princess on his knee. She’s on the receiving end of the horror-movie kiss. I grab Jenny and point.

‘Oh my God!
Nonie!
’ She grabs me back, stunned.

He’s got his same old scarf on, and the too-tight jeans. Funny that I used to find him so attractive. Next to Hot Phil from No Kidding, he’s really just pushy and ew. I check my insides and I have to admit, they’re not being totally loyal. They’re still doing the odd jeté and halfhearted arabesque, but it’s getting better.

‘Let’s go,’ I say.

‘Isn’t he still going out with that model?’ Jenny whispers.

‘Who knows? He probably doesn’t even know himself.’

We go home and I sleep like a baby. I don’t dream about Alexander, or spiders, or horror movies of any kind. My insides may be taking a while to catch up, but my brain has definitely moved on.

O
ver the next few days, I work my way through the biggest pile of revision in the history of the universe. I lock myself in my room and only come out for meals,
Project Catwalk
and
Gossip Girl
. Not only that, I only allow myself one hour a day Googling and messaging. How strict is
that
? So it takes me a while to find out the following things.

1. Jenny is being called ‘the new Judi Dench’. Judi Dench is very famous, has an Oscar and is in the James Bond movies (although not Harry Potter, surprisingly – perhaps she was busy), and is a Dame, like Vivienne Westwood, so this is good.

2. Sigrid has tried to pull out of
Her Father’s Daughter
‘for medical reasons’ (not having big enough vocal cords, I guess) but isn’t allowed to because of all the money they’ve spent on the Big, Scary Theatre, so sometimes even starlets can’t have everything they want.

3. Harry has somehow managed to get a signed photo
of Freddie Flintoff to put in the envelope of information for Sanjay. Jenny’s also donated her picture of Sigrid, just in case he’s interested. Funnily enough, we’re all feeling a bit sorry for her now.

4. Crow’s White Light collection is already the talk of Miss Teen. Facebook and the fashion blogs are full of people saying how amazing it’s going to be.

5. Edie’s ‘Cheap Clothes Cost Lives’ tee-shirts have completely sold out, but one of the retail chains has asked if they can make and sell some more. Ethically, of course. Edie really
is
beating Crow and me to becoming a fashion supremo. All profits to charities that help street children in countries with big garment industries.

6. Little Suraj Patil has found out about the slave children through reading Edie’s blog and wants to know how he can help.

7. Vogue
want Jenny to write an article (I say ‘write’ – I mean talk to a journalist) about being a successful teenage actress
and
doing GCSEs
and
wearing jaw-dropping Givenchy. Jenny has tried to point out that she’s too busy actually doing all of these things to talk to someone about doing them, but in the end she can’t resist. It’ll be in the September issue.

8. Svetlana Russinova, the supermodel, is rumoured to be going out with a New York-based photographer called Zanni, who did the pictures for her last
Elle
cover. There is, apparently, a queue of models waiting to go out with her ex-boyfriend, Harry Chatham, the
rising fashion show DJ.

9. On the subject of models, Lulu Frost has announced her split with Alexander Taylor, who was recently seen romancing a teenage rock princess at a posh London club.

10. Miss Teen will shortly be making an announcement about a major new PR initiative.

I call Edie to see if she knows anything about this initiative, because I certainly don’t. But she’s as much in the dark as me.

‘I just got a call from someone in Paolo’s office saying they’d be sending me a press release on the twentieth of May.’

‘
Press
release?’

‘I know. I’ve never had one before. I did check they’d got the right person, but they said yes, they definitely had. They even said they liked my blog.’

The twentieth of May is emblazoned on my heart. It’s geography GCSE. What on earth is going on?

Well, it sort of makes sense. When the day comes, Edie sends me the Miss Teen press release and it turns out to be geography-related. It’s about a new strategy called ‘Fashion Holds Hands’. As a business manager, I understand all about strategies, of course. I use them all the time, you know. And the more I hear about this one, the more I like it.

Andy Elat’s on the news that evening, talking about it. First of all, he explains, there’s going to be a Fashion Holds Hands team, who will work full time checking how clothes are made in every factory they use. There will be funky new labels on every garment saying ‘Check me out’ and giving details on where it came from. Then there is the Miss Teen Fashion Fund, which will help thousands of children who’ve been made to work in the garment industry. Finally, Andy wants to set up a special committee of all the major high-street brands, with himself as chairman, to help everyone come up to the new standards.

In the conversation that follows, Andy hints at other ideas to come, and suddenly everyone is talking about Miss Teen, waiting to see what happens.

Edie gets a bouquet of roses from the No Kidding team that’s seriously worthy of Joe Yule.

After our geography papers, life doesn’t seem too bad. I almost start to enjoy the summer for about a week, but then I bump into Lulu Frost in the West End, and life goes back to being excruciating for a while.

Crow and I are back in the Big Scary Theatre, to see Jenny doing her thing in
His Father’s Daughter
(‘Beg, borrow or steal a ticket . . .’). It’s my seventh visit and Crow’s third. They give us cheap tickets and squeeze us in somehow and I’ve discovered they use the same ice cream supplier as the Royal Opera House, so the interval is yum.

We’re queuing up for our usual supplies, when someone taps me on the shoulder and it’s Lulu. What
is
it about this girl and queuing?

‘Hi,’ she says smiling nervously at us both. ‘Oh, Nonie, you look exhausted.’

Gee thanks. So would you if you were in the middle of revising for science and English. Thank goodness Crow’s persuaded Henry to help me with Eng. Lit. He’s an amazing tutor. I think I might even get a B.

‘Oh, I’m fine,’ I lie. ‘You look great.’ Also a lie. She looks rubbish. But YOU DON’T SAY THAT.

‘Thanks.’

Lulu smiles nervously again and fiddles with a tassel on her handbag. Oh no. She wants me to ask her something. Why do people do this? Why does it always have to be me who thinks up the conversation?

‘I’m sorry to hear about Alexander,’ I say.

Crow pats me on the elbow at this point and disappears back to her seat. She may not seem to be paying attention half the time, but she certainly knows her stuff when it comes to relationships. And she knows how much I want to discuss this one with Lulu. NOT.

‘Right,’ Lulu says. ‘Thanks. Well, he’s history. There was that kid at the club. And, well, there were rumours about someone else. Someone he was really smitten with. He denied it, of course.’

She looks at me long and hard. I concentrate on looking exhausted. Merely exhausted.

‘Poor you,’ I say. I suppose I should say ‘I’m-sorry-I-snogged-your-boyfriend-I-didn’t-know-you-were-still-going-out-isn’t-he-rubbish?’ But I’m just not that brave. I find the whole ‘gosh-I’m-exhausted-I-don’t-know-what-you-mean’ approach much simpler.

But smitten, huh? Smitten.

I cheer up slightly. ‘Lulu,’ I say, ‘d’you mind if I ask you a question?’

She looks even more nervous. But she says yes anyway.

‘It’s about Harry. My brother. And Svetlana. You’re a friend of hers. Do
you
know why they split up? Because he won’t say and it’s been bothering me for ages.’

Her look changes from nervous to relieved.

‘Oh.
Harry
. Well, Svetlana said it was all about her apartment.’

Her apartment? I don’t remember that bit in
Romeo and Juliet
. Or the Taj Mahal story.

‘What d’you mean?’

‘Just that Harry assumed he’d move in with her when he graduated. She’s got this cool little place in TriBeCa for when she’s working in New York. And she thinks he’s great and everything, but she thought they should keep their own places. And it just sort of spiralled.’

And that was it? They split up because they couldn’t agree whether to SHARE A FLAT? All this time I’ve been worrying about broken hearts and Shakespeare scenarios and it was about living arrangements? I completely give up with relationships. Thank goodness I only have
GCSEs to worry about.

At this moment, a voice comes over the speakers, telling us all to go back to our seats for Act Two.

Lulu says a hasty goodbye and I head back to my seat, where Crow’s waiting for me. I tell her about the flat conversation and she doesn’t seem surprised.

‘Besides,’ she says, as the curtain rises, ‘there’s always Isabelle.’

Isabelle?
Isabelle?
Isabelle who?

‘Isabelle who?’ I whisper loudly.

But Crow simply shushes me and points at the stage, where Jenny’s got a big speech coming up. And grins silently when she sees the look on my face.

O
h,
that
Isabelle.

GCSEs are finally over. Harry’s set up a projector in the kitchen and Mum has let him take down about twenty framed photographs so he can show us his finished degree project on a wall. He’s extremely nervous. Partly about what the viewing public at Central St Martins will say, but mostly about what Mum will say. Mum adores Harry, but he drives her nuts. And he and I both know that when it comes to art, she’s the hardest person to please. If she likes something, you’re walking on air for the next week. And if she doesn’t, you just want to dig a little hole and bury yourself in it.

Harry originally set out to be a great painter. Or possibly a great photographer. But we all know that really he’s a great DJ, and doing an art degree probably wasn’t his best decision. Although if you can even half draw (unlike me) and have Mum for a mother, an art degree is pretty inevitable. Anyway, he’s managed to find a compromise. His degree
project is made up of three videos and, guess what, they’ve got a major instrumental soundtrack. We know he spent most of the time perfecting the music and only a small amount on the videos, but luckily he had a friend to help.