She smiled at that. ‘Oh, I don’t usually look like this. You should see me behind closed doors. I’m a total slob.’
I laughed, although the thought of seeing her behind closed doors made me blush. ‘I just don’t think Amir’s going to let either of us walk out of here without a brand-new fake girlfriend. And I don’t know what to do about that.’
There was a pause as I waited for her to speak.
‘Lily,’ she said slowly. ‘What if you and I came to a … like, a business arrangement? We could – if you wanted – we could get to know each other as friends. If the press want to think we’re a couple, well, I learned a long time ago that I can’t control what they think. But we wouldn’t lie to each other.’
Her words reminded me of Amir saying that the paps would leap to their own conclusions, and I considered her for a moment, wondering if she was playing me. But she seemed genuine, and I nodded. ‘All right,’ I said. ‘I’d like that.’
She broke out that smile again, and I felt her light reflected on me.
CHAPTER 26
Tish’s embarrassed but still charming smile couldn’t distract from the slinky orange dress gaping at the front, her nipple covered by a star icon. The headline gloated Lady Shame! I skimmed the article, but there was no mention of me and Addie.
Sam was tense and silent, leaving Richie, Carter and I to answer questions in the interviews that filled the day. When we got home, Tish had arranged a flat-lay of The Express, a coffee cup and a small cactus, which she’d purchased for the occasion, on our kitchen bench. The photo on her socials, with a self-deprecating caption, got twenty-one thousand likes. Not bad for a college student from Reading.
That night, Sam and Tish left for dinner but were back within an hour. I watched from the window as she got out of the cab and stalked inside, holding her handbag up to protect her still-straightened hair from the rain. I turned as she came into the flat but she ignored me and went straight to Sam’s room. Sam stood in the wet street for a moment, looking bewildered, then headed to the convenience store across the street.
I went downstairs to wait for him, watching through the open front door until he returned with a pint of milk and a packet of Maltesers.
‘Oh, hi.’ He held up the chocolate. ‘Want one?’
Luckily Saskia wasn’t around to see me cheating on my diet. I crunched one between my teeth as he sat down beside me, not bothering to shut the door. ‘We had a fight,’ he said. I’d kind of figured that. A faint siren wailed somewhere in the city.
‘You want to talk about it?’
‘There’s photos of my girlfriend. Naked. In a newspaper.’
‘She’s not naked,’ I pointed out, rolling another Malteser over my tongue. ‘She’s got little stars on her nipples.’
He let out a laugh despite himself.
‘Anyway, Amir would say that tomorrow it’ll be wrapping fish and chips.’
‘She says it’s just a laugh,’ he said. ‘She can’t understand why I’m upset.’
‘Why are you upset? It’s her body. If she’s not worried, it shouldn’t matter to you.’
‘I know that. I guess I’m quite a private person. I’ve never even kissed Tish in front of my mum.’
‘It was an accident, though,’ I said. ‘The photographers were there for Addie.’ And me, I thought. I was meant to be the one on the front page of The Express, eyes downcast against the camera flashes, a sexy pirate on my arm. Part of me was relieved that I wasn’t dealing with the attention – and part of me knew Amir wouldn’t let me off that easily. But if that meant scheduling another meeting with Addie, I wouldn’t complain.
A trainload of people spilled out of the Underground, opening their umbrellas like a flock of birds taking flight. Sam let out a long breath. ‘Then how did they know she’s a make-up artist?’ he said. ‘Or that she wants to be? She’s sixteen and works at Subway.’
I sat still for a moment. ‘It’s on her socials, isn’t it?’
He shrugged like he wasn’t sure that explained it. The streetlight lit his face and when he spoke again, his voice was a little shaky. ‘Did I ever tell you I applied to do Medicine at Bristol? If my A-level results were good enough. And, well, it turns out they are.’
I looked at him in surprise. ‘Well, it’s a shame you got stuck in this dead-end job as a rock star, or you could’ve realised your dream.’
He laughed. ‘My dad was a children’s doctor in Nigeria. When he first came here they didn’t recognise his qualifications, so he worked at a hospital as an orderly, but he used to tell us about all the people he’d helped back in Lagos. He used to say those sick kids were just like us, except less lucky. He made it sound like helping them was the most important job in the world.’
‘I can see you doing that,’ I said. ‘You’re so good with people. Is it what you want to do?’
He pressed the empty Maltesers packet between his hands. ‘I don’t know what I want to do. I’ve deferred my place at Bristol for a year. I love music. But this thing ... it’s not really music, is it? We haven’t played a gig in ages, the single sounds nothing like us, and we do more photo shoots than songwriting.’
I pressed into his shoulder. ‘We wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for the music. We’ll write more songs, and we’ll play a proper gig. We just have to do the promotional stuff so that when we do have a show, people will pay to see us.’
‘I’m just not sure it’s worth it. I’m not sure it’s worth having my girlfriend in the newspaper with stars over her nipples.’
I nodded. ‘Sometimes it’s like being inside a fishbowl.’
‘Come on, you’re an Aussie, you should know better than that,’ he said. ‘It’s more like being in a shark tank.’
CHAPTER 27
Dawn was more than an hour away when I folded myself into the back seat beside Amir. I gazed out the window as we wound through narrow urban streets that gradually gave way to wide, tree-lined avenues.
‘Remember that mailbox,’ said Amir. ‘That’s where we’ll meet you.’
Tall iron gates reared up ahead of us, parting with a creak when our driver keyed in the code. The sensor light flicked on as I walked up the path, the pool slides Saskia had chosen crunching on the gravel, a yoga mat under my arm. I’d never done yoga in my life. There was a large brass knocker, but the door opened without me touching it.
‘Lily,’ said Addie. She had a full face of make-up even though she was dressed casually in a white T-shirt and sweats. Jangling with nerves, I stepped inside and took off my shoes. The carpet was soft and bouncy, as if no-one had ever walked on it before.
‘How long have we got?’ she asked.
‘About an hour. Amir wants it to be light when they get here.’ I peered out through the heavy curtains at the deserted street beyond the gates.
She watched me with slanted eyes, like she wasn’t sure if I was about to kiss her or strike her and wanted to be ready for both. We were still standing in the dimly lit hall, a curved staircase lined with framed photos leading to the next storey. Not a single one featured her former bandmates: they seemed to be mostly shots of a woman who looked like her mum, plus some of Addie with her friends in the academy uniform. According to the photos on the wall, the last few years of her life, from the moment she’d won the reality show, hadn’t happened.
‘So what do you want to do for an hour, Lily?’
I still wasn’t used to people calling me that, and I almost corrected her without thinking. But I was Lily – or at least, I was in public, and I was to Addie, too. My stomach was churning, although whether it was hunger or nerves, I couldn’t tell. I suggested breakfast and her mouth twitched.
Her kitchen was immaculate, as if elves came in the night to polish everything. Addie stood at the marble bench and said, ‘There’s no food, but I can offer you tea or coffee.’
‘There’s no food?’ My stomach was eating itself. When I opened the pantry, I found pristine shelves holding a can of tomatoes and a spice rack wi
th paprika, cumin and salt in it – and nothing else. The fridge contained a lonely carton of milk.
‘Celine comes every day. But she won’t be here till seven.’
‘You have a chef?’
‘I’m away a lot,’ she said. She grinned her magic smile again. It didn’t make sense that she was always pouting in photos.
‘Coffee, then, please. Black.’ I swung myself onto the bench as she turned on a Nespresso machine and pulled out two stoneware mugs. I watched her manicured fingers tapping the machine, her back to me.
‘This is weird, isn’t it?’ I blurted out. ‘It’s weird coming here at four in the morning to drink coffee for an hour so I can be photographed leaving your house in active wear.’
She didn’t look away from the coffee machine. Her waist-length hair was over her shoulder and her white neck looked very exposed, almost as if I was seeing something private. She always looked so tanned in her videos.
‘I guess it probably does seem weird to you.’ She gave me my coffee and leaned back against the counter.
‘You’ve done it before, though,’ I realised. ‘This isn’t your first rodeo.’
She let out a snort. ‘Is that an Australian expression?’
I smiled. ‘You’re avoiding the question.’ The coffee scalded my tongue. She’d been linked to lots of people in the press, but the only one who seemed to stick was Valentina Salazar, an Argentinian Victoria’s Secret model, the girl she’d thanked at the Supernovas last year. I remembered seeing paparazzi photos of them lounging in bikinis somewhere tropical, and the thought made me blush. Now that she was standing in front of me, it seemed wrong that I had seen Addie in a bikini.
‘Was it Valentina Salazar?’ I asked.
She flinched. ‘No. It was real with Val.’
Her defensiveness made me realise I was just as bad as everyone else, treating her life like public property. I sure as hell didn’t like it when it was done to me.
‘So why are you doing this, then?’ I said. ‘I get what’s in it for me, but why would you need a nobody girlfriend?’
Her eyes grazed over me. ‘A rock star girlfriend will boost my indie cred – or so I’m told. I learned a long time ago it’s best to pick my battles when it comes to Beatnik.’ She rested one scrubbed foot against her shin, like a flamingo. Out the open kitchen window, the night sky was splitting, faded light picking out the statues on her impressive lawn. ‘And anyway, I liked you the other night. You seemed … honest.’
‘If you’re picking your battles, what are you fighting for?’ I asked. She liked me! Addie Marmoset liked me.
‘The solo album,’ she said. ‘I sent Beatnik back to the drawing board to write new songs.’
I frowned. Addie had a songwriting credit on every track on Perfect Storm’s two albums – I’d pored over the songs when I’d first learned them, admiring their structure. I’d thought she’d be writing her own solo album, but it seemed Beatnik had taken over. I hoped that never happened to my band. ‘What was wrong with the songs they gave you?’
‘They were too similar to what I’d done with Perfect Storm. Just upbeat, generic pop about falling in love or saying goodbye. I wanted something that sounded new. More mature, maybe.’
We drank the coffee. Just like the other night, I did most of the talking, but I found her easy to talk to, as if I had nothing to lose in being honest with her, and occasionally a smile would break through her veneer. Instinctively, I knew she’d understand how nervous I was about stepping into the spotlight with her. I felt like she wanted to help me pick my way through it – maybe as a mentor, or even a friend. When my phone buzzed with Amir’s text, it seemed like hardly any time had passed.
At the front door, she placed a pair of sunglasses on me. ‘Wear these. They’ll love it, I promise.’ It was probably my imagination that her hand lingered on my ear for a second too long.
Outside, a clamour of photographers snapped and snarled and called to me, male voices rising in the quiet morning. When I reached the gates I hesitated, reluctant to get too close, but despite the noise they split into two orderly lines and let me past. They didn’t want to touch me – they just wanted their photos.
‘Are those Addie’s sunglasses?’ one shouted, and suddenly they all took up the chant. I got to the car waiting near the letterbox, my heart thudding, and threw the yoga mat in before me.
Amir slammed the door shut, smiling. ‘The shades are a nice touch,’ he said. ‘You’re a natural! I knew it!’
•
I couldn’t stop thinking about Addie. It was like she was a new species: a creature who looked like a beautiful human, but had actually been created in a lab. I wanted to understand her, this girl who was only two years older than me but had lived so much; who lived alone in an enormous home and seemed totally self-assured, but couldn’t cook for herself beyond using a Nespresso machine. I wanted her to open the gates behind her eyes, to tell me what she really thought beyond the rehearsed, careful things she told everyone else. But I couldn’t work out if that was because she was Addie Marmoset, the girl I’d wanted to know since I’d first seen the clip from the reality show all over my socials, or if I thought we really had a connection. We couldn’t, could we? Not after one plate of sashimi and a pod coffee. Not an ordinary girl and an international pop star.
•
After news of my ‘overnighter’ at Addie’s hit the press, Amir announced our first European tour. Sam’s face lit up at the prospect until he realised we wouldn’t be playing a lot of shows, but instead doing a string of promotional appearances on French and German TV. The tour was going to be a whirlwind two weeks, with every minute of our lives accounted for, finishing with our album launch on the beach in Ibiza – the only time we’d play live. Saskia went into overdrive choosing my outfits, and Carter and Richie compiled a list of Paris’s hottest bars, but I wasn’t even sure if Dad would give me permission to go.
When I rang to tell him, he sounded more disappointed than upset. ‘If you’d given me notice, I could have come with you,’ he said. ‘But we’re in the middle of the semester and I have a research paper I have to get done …’
I felt guilty for being relieved. It would have been so embarrassing if my dad had tried to accompany us, like being on a school trip. Carter’s mum had given her support without a moment’s thought, and I’d never even met Richie’s parents, who were currently skiing in Switzerland and seemed to totally ignore their only son.
‘I suppose there’s no point asking if you could postpone,’ said Dad. ‘I really don’t feel comfortable with my sixteen-year-old daughter running riot around Europe by herself.’
‘I won’t be by myself. Saskia and Amir are coming with me, and the boys will be there, too. Anyway, I think we have to do it on Beatnik’s schedule,’ I said. ‘I’m not exactly calling the shots here.’
Dad let out a bitter laugh. ‘Yes, patatina,’ he said with affection. ‘You actually are.’
I grinned to myself, despite his tone. I was going to Paris! The band was going on tour. My band.
I tried to call Addie to tell her I’d be away, but the only number I had for her went through to an assistant at Beatnik. Amir arranged for us to go for a walk in Hyde Park the day before my flight to France, where we were sprung by a guy with a camera who chased us down the path. Addie grabbed my hand as we bolted for the exit. We’d known he would be there, but my pulse was racing as she pulled me into the back seat of her waiting car.
‘You’re surprisingly fast in heels,’ I commented. Saskia had put me in Cons, to give the impression it was totally candid, but Addie had towered over me in her signature platforms.
‘You learn to get good at it,’ she grinned. She seemed exhilarated by the chase, whereas I was just breathless. Loose strands of hair were falling all over her face. She looked suddenly unguarded, and hotter in that moment than she looked in any of her video clips. ‘I need the heels.’
‘Come on, you’re no shorter than I am,’ I said.
‘God, if even you have body hang-ups, there’s no hope for the rest of us.’
Her smile faded, even though I’d meant to return the compliment. ‘The rest of you aren’t having every fashion choice you make picked over in the press,’ she said.
When the car dropped me back at the flat, she told me to wait and I paused, trying not to seem too keen as she put her number in my phone. ‘This is my private number,’ she said. ‘Don’t share it with anyone.’
‘I won’t,’ I said.
‘I can make you sign a non-disclosure agreement.’
I squeezed her hand, and her smile returned. ‘You can trust me,’ I said.
‘Yeah,’ she said, considering me with those deep eyes like she was meeting me for the first time. ‘I actually think I can.’
CHAPTER 28
The back corridors of Charles de Gaulle airport were a warren; Amir could have been leading us to the centre of the earth. He ushered us through automatic glass doors, down another long hallway, then through a heavy fire door into bright daylight and the clicks of a hundred iPhone cameras. Above the shouts I could make out occasional shrill sentences:
‘Lily, over here, s’il vous plâit!’
‘Mon dieu, mondieu, mondieumondieu ...’
‘Lily, LilyIloveyou ...’
I had a hysterical urge to bolt back through the doors, but Sam grabbed my hand and we held fast as though we could brace ourselves against the avalanche. At least I had worn sunglasses, so my expression was hidden – I was learning from Addie. For some reason I’d expected the French to be less easily impressed than the English, but if anything the hysteria was worse here.
Amir hissed ‘Perennial Single Girl’ in my ear and I slapped on a smile, writing my name on the offered paper and skin, whirling from one fan to the next with Amir’s steady hand on my back. Carter slapped high fives and leaned in for photos like a pro.
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