by Holly Smale
Have you heard about what happened on Twitter?
I’m sorry, I don’t follow.
I’ve been cut off.
Never mind being dropped in the ocean, by 7am the next morning, I have been thrown out of the internet like it’s an exclusive nightclub and I’m wearing trainers. I can no longer access a single social-media site. My passwords have all been changed, the tweets have gone, the badger profile photo has been swapped for a flawless headshot and a series of earnest apologies have been posted:
I would like to say sorry for any offence I may have caused lovely @Scarlettbell yesterday. I am deeply ashamed of my outburst. 1/3
I have no excuses other than that I am very tired and a bout of flu had left my judgement impaired. Scarlett is a highly talented actress, I respect her immensely and wish her well for the future. 2/3
I appreciate the support from my followers and fans at this difficult time. Faith xxx #LoveLightLaughter 3/3
There are also several new photos on my Instagram.
The latest is a heart drawn in white sand, covered in pink shells and lapped at the edges by turquoise water. Underneath it: The love is real, never let your inner light dim. Donut let the haters hate #LoveLightLaughter .
A lot of people are finding the typo very funny. Genevieve is not.
‘Don’t,’ she’s muttering under her breath as I climb into the limo to head for my second acting class. She taps furiously on her phone: bang bang bang bang. ‘I meant don’t. That’s not even how you spell doughnut in England.’
Startled, I take my seat. My grandmother’s assistant is in ripped jeans and a T-shirt, hair in a scruffy ponytail, no make-up, furious expression. All professional reserve and tasselled old lady styling is gone.
‘Genevieve …’
‘You do realise the damage you’ve done?’ she snaps, tapping away. ‘I keep so much out of the media – your mother’s breakdown, your parents’ imminent divorce, Roz’s existence, Hope’s unchaperoned excursion to LA, Max’s indiscretions, Mercy …’
She stops there: the word Mercy encompasses a lot.
‘And here you are bullying an unknown actress ONLINE. Do you know how that makes the Valentine family look? Your grandmother is livid. She’s requested to have the whole of Twitter deleted!’
My nose twitches and I abruptly dip my head down.
Oh, Grandma.
‘I’m sorry, Genevieve,’ I say, looking back up with a twist of guilt. ‘I didn’t mean to make extra work for you, I just—’
‘Oh, that’s fine,’ she snaps, blowing a strand of blonde hair out of her face. ‘I’ll keep spending every evening drawing flowers on cappuccinos and taking photos of my neighbour’s pug. It’s not like I want a life or anything.’
Scowling, she keeps tapping away.
I stare at her in amazement. OK, hang on – that dog isn’t even hers? Does she actually do yoga? Has she got a quote file, or does she know them already?
Is everything fake?
‘I—’
‘Have you picked a boy yet?’ She looks up sharply. ‘There are ten eligible young bachelors on that list and all we need you to do is choose one. It’s not that hard, Faith. The majority of girls would really quite like to have a famous replacement boyfriend lined up for them.’
Fresh anger zips through me. ‘I don’t want a—’
‘In the meantime, I’ve released a press statement and donated money in your name to a number of youth charities. I will contact Scarlett’s people to arrange a friendly, candid photoshoot. I suggest a health-food café with good lighting.’
Scarlett texted me first thing:
MATE, are they legit insane? They can all see I started it! xxx
No worries. It was kind of worth it :) xxx
‘But I—’
‘Until that happens,’ Genevieve continues, ignoring my attempt to get a word in edgeways, ‘keep yourself to yourself. We cannot add any more fuel to this fire.’
She puts on a pair of rimless glasses that I guarantee she doesn’t need.
‘Right,’ I say, quietly simmering. ‘Sorry.’
‘And put these on.’ Genevieve pulls out a huge pair of mirrored sunglasses and hands them over. ‘And this.’ She produces a white, box-fresh baseball cap. ‘Also these.’ A baggy white jumper and long white skirt. ‘Try to walk hunched over if you can. Ashamed of yourself. Horrified by your own behaviour – you know.’
In silence, I tug it all on as the car draws up to the acting school.
Smack. A hand hits the window near my head.
‘FAITH! FAITH VALENTINE!!! WHY DID YOU PUBLICLY ATTACK A WORKING-CLASS ACTRESS?’
‘ARE YOUR OUTBURSTS WHAT DROVE NOAH AWAY?’
‘HAVE YOU LOST YOUR MARBLES?’
Fuming now, I turn to Genevieve. ‘The paps are here?’
‘I called them,’ she nods as a dozen people with cameras and Dictaphones swarm round the car. ‘We were trying to hide it before your little online charade, but now it’s a suitably humbling class to attend.’
‘Sure.’ My stomach twists as the cameras flash and I yank my cap even further down. ‘So. What do you want me to say?’
I step out of the car.
‘Nothing,’ Genevieve snaps behind me. ‘Just keep your mouth shut.’
Three. Bags. Full.
Shall I tell you a joke about butter?
Better not, it might spread.
Silence I can do.
Unfortunately, by the time I’ve squeezed through the yelling paps – sunglasses on, baseball cap tugged firmly down – the class is in full sway. Jemima’s crouched in the corner, pretending to lick her leg; Zach is roaring; Ivy is bouncing across the room on her haunches and Mia is sliding on her stomach, making sssssssss noises.
My phone pings.
A selfie of me uploads to my Instagram: I’m lying on the floor, smiling, surrounded by paper butterflies.
Love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries – the Dalai Lama #learningcurve #I’msorry
I shudder. Genevieve needs to be paid overtime.
‘Come in, Faith!’ Mr Hamilton calls. ‘Put the mobile device away and pick an animal! And sunglasses and cap off, please! You’re not in Hollywood now!’
Embarrassed, I remove them and blink.
Diego is soaring round the room with his arms held out rigid: every now and then he swoops on Theo, who squeaks and tries to climb under a chair. Rafe and Zoe are charging at each other.
Swallowing, I try to work out what animal I am. Shame mouse is already taken.
‘Ah,’ I say. ‘I think I’ll be—’
‘Keep it to yourself, please! Interact with your classmates without telling anyone what you are! Let your actions speak for themselves!’
So I roll up in a tight ball and put my hands over my head. Then I wait for the noise to stop.
‘Great!’ At last, there’s a loud clap. ‘Take a break, everyone! After this, we’ll be using Spolin’s theory to explore living in the moment of the scene!’
Stiffly, I unroll from my ball and stand up. Good luck, Mr Hamilton. My grandmother’s been trying and failing to teach me that for a solid year.
My classmates have headed straight to the sofa corner, where they’re keenly discussing this morning’s exercise. (‘What was up with your eagle, Diego?’ ‘I was a kestrel.’)
Awkwardly, I pull my cap on, fix my sunglasses and go and sit with them, hunching down as small as possible in my seat. Keep yourself to yourself, Faith.
My phone pings again. Surreptitiously, I glance at it: it’s me in a blue ballgown, spinning in circles.
Have no fear of perfection – you’ll never reach it – Salvador Dali #Mistakes #Movingon
Ironic, really, that before Photoshop my waist was eight centimetres thicker, my biceps more defined and that dress was actually yellow. I shove the phone back in my pocket.
‘Who is this Spoon dude anyway?’ Jemima’s asking.
‘Viola Spolin was a very famous theatre academic and ac
ting coach,’ Rafe says with a small eye-roll. ‘I personally lean more towards method acting as demonstrated by Lee Strasberg.’
‘Is he the guy that invented jeans?’
‘No.’
‘What about Chekhov?’ Zach is looking at the itinerary for the rest of the week. ‘Is that the same thing? Meisner? Adler? Uta Hagen? Who are these people?’
There’s a collective silence.
‘Well,’ Rafe intones, ‘why don’t we ask the famous girl? She must know everything about the world of acting.’
They all turn to me with expectant faces.
Don’t say anything.
‘Umm.’ I hunch down further as my phone pings again. ‘Chekhov is more about a physical body connection. Meisner encourages actors to respond directly to the environment. Adler emphasises imagination over emotional recall, Hagen tells students to insert their own experiences into a scene while Spolin focuses on improv.’
Then I tug my baseball cap over my face. I’ve spent a long, tedious year learning that stuff; it seemed churlish not to answer the question.
Sorry, Genevieve.
‘Why are you even here!’ Zoe throws her hands up. ‘You already know it all! If I was you, I wouldn’t be wasting my time with us lot. I’d be at A-list parties, eating caviar, making out with really beautiful—’
‘BECAUSE SHE CAN’T ACT!’ Rafe roars. ‘Have you not been watching? She is terrible. She’s the worst in the class! Fame means nothing if you don’t have the talent to do anything with it!’
I think I’ve found Mercy’s dream boy.
‘Actually, Rafe,’ Zoe says witheringly, ‘the Valentines are bona-fide acting royalty. We’re lucky to share air with one of them.’
And I’ve just found Grandma’s dream girl.
My classmates turn to stare once more, and suddenly I’m so sick and so tired of always always always keeping my mouth shut.
Something inside me pops.
‘He’s right,’ I say, taking my stupid sunglasses off and tossing them on the floor. ‘I can’t act.’
A warm tingle rushes through me: whoosh.
‘I’m sure you—’
‘Nope.’ Another whoosh. ‘I. Can’t. Act. At all. If you want the truth, I’m in this class because I am so bad at acting, my family are terrified that I will single-handedly destroy their precious reputation.’
OMG, that felt so good.
The class blinks and it’s like the floodgates have opened and I can’t stop, don’t want to stop …
‘What’s a cow’s favourite party game?’ I take my baseball cap off and rub my bald head. ‘Mooo-sical chairs. What do you call a fake noodle? An impasta. Want to hear a joke about construction? I’m still working on it. What did the cheese say to itself in the mirror? Hallou-mi. What’s green and has two wheels? Grass, I lied about the wheels.’
Bewildered silence.
Whoosh.
‘Yeah,’ I say, grinning wildly.
Whoosh.
‘Can’t tell jokes, either. No timing. Not funny. I don’t like dogs, and what kind of monster doesn’t like dogs? I wear the same pair of running leggings for, like, eight days in a row and frankly they smell and it’s gross. And look.’
I pull out my phone and it obligingly pings with a new post on my feed.
A picture of slender brown feet wearing silk ballet shoes.
‘That’s not even me.’ I show them all. ‘An extremely irritated blonde is sitting in the back of a limo stuck in traffic somewhere, updating my social media. I don’t even have access to my accounts any more. Everything you read about me is fake. Always has been.’
Silence.
But I’m suddenly warm all over – and so freaking relieved I could cry. Scarlett was right. I don’t have to care what they think, I don’t have to care what they think, I don’t have to care what they—
‘Erm.’ Zoe coughs. ‘I photoshop my nose smaller in every single photo I post online, wear loads of make-up and hashtag “no make-up”. You’re not that special, Faith Valentine.’
‘I once pretended to go to Glastonbury,’ Ivy chips in. ‘Got all dressed up, took photos of me dancing at the back of a field. Never been. Hate crowds.’
‘Ooh!’ Theo claps his hands. ‘I faked a girlfriend to make my ex jealous! My flatmate took a photo of me on the sofa with my eyes shut and I posted it with: Hate it when bae watches me sleep #newlove.’
‘I buy expensive clothes I can’t afford, tuck the tags in, take photos in them, hashtag “ad” and “influencer”, then send them back.’ Jemima flushes.
‘I fake hobbies,’ Diego admits loudly. ‘A lot.’
‘My boyfriend and I hate each other,’ Mia whispers. ‘We spend all day screaming and I cry and I cry and then, when he’s stomped off home, I post a picture of us, curled up on the sofa together, and put hearts all round it.’
‘I pay for followers,’ Zach admits, grinning. ‘I’m followed by, like, sixteen thousand robots in Russia.’
We all instinctively turn to look at Rafe.
‘Pathetic,’ he says, wrinkling his nose. ‘What kind of world are we living in? I eschew social media.’ He pauses, then looks at the floor. ‘But my dachshund’s account is pretty awesome. Do you want to see it?’
Everyone is now howling with laughter. Bent double, snorting, making ugly ack-ack-ack noises. Every time one of us makes eye contact, it starts all over again. We’re all so busy editing a perfect version of ourselves, we don’t notice everyone else is faking it too.
‘Right!’ Mr Hamilton returns. ‘Make a circle!’
In one united motion, the entire class drops to the floor and puts their hands over their heads. Then we all collapse in hysterics.
‘Very funny,’ I laugh as warmth and brightness flood through me until I’m shining everywhere. ‘Now I get it.’
And I don’t feel famous any more.
I feel seen.
Know why you never see elephants hiding up trees?
They’re really good at it.
The rest of the class is fun.
Obviously, I’m still rubbish – we’re supposed to use imaginary keys to get through a make-believe door and have a pretend reaction to something totally non-existent on the other side of it – and I can neither see the keys nor the door, let alone the monster.
But Jemima kicks my door open, Zoe drags the beast through and Diego punches it in the face while I pretend to scream hysterically with my hands on either side of my face. And I’m too busy laughing with my classmates – and exchanging phone numbers – to care that I’m still the world’s worst actress.
By the time I arrive home, I feel … happy. Light. As if I’m being slowly untied and let go.
Buzzing, I text Scarlett:
Class was amazing! Wanna come over? I’m hyper but too exhausted to go out xx
She texts back:
Got table-reads for FF, need to work on script. :( But yassss, girl, I knew you could do it!
Acting just takes practice! Proud of ya xxxx
Still texting, I open the front door with a smile. I’m proud of me too.
Sure, good luck with th—
Something whacks me in the face.
‘YYYAAAAAAAAAAAGGGHHHH!’ I scream crazily. ‘DO NOT TOUCH ME I’M TRAINED IN SELF-DEFENCE I WILL DESTROY Y— oh.’
It’s a heart-shaped helium balloon.
Blinking, I stare in surprise at the hallway. There are dozens of pink hearts floating vertically from weighted bases, strings dangling like a terrifying forest. It’s like a horror-film remake of Up.
‘What the—’
They’ve all got tags attached.
You make my heart float!!! Drink??
Dylan Harris
(TV star, currently on Netflix)
I’m not going to bother reading the rest. You get the picture.
Gritting my teeth, I grab the heartstrings together and rip all the tags off. Then I drag the bouncing, squeaking bunch upstairs. They keep bopping me in the face and getti
ng twisted round the elaborate bannisters, and I’m getting crosser with every step.
What is this dude’s problem?
If a girl behaved like this, she’d be labelled a desperate loser unable to take a hint, but because it’s a guy I’m supposed to swoon and consider myself thoroughly wooed? Yeah, right.
Grumbling, I knock on Hope’s bedroom door – no answer, she’s obviously out with Ben again – so I let myself in and release the pink balloons to hit the ceiling. There are already yellow roses filling every available space. Looks like my little sister and I had the same idea: might as well put all of this somewhere it’ll be appreciated.
I’m aggressively whacking the dust out of Po’s red velvet curtains when my phone rings.
‘Uh-huh,’ I answer, whacking again.
‘Excuse me?’
‘I said –’ whack – ‘uh-huh.’
‘I heard what you said,’ my grandmother trills indignantly. ‘That is not an acceptable phone greeting, Faith. It’s not even a word. It’s not even two words.’
‘I’ve got two words for you,’ I say, and put the phone down.
A whoosh of warmth again.
OK, this is starting to get addictive.
My phone rings.
‘We were inexplicably cut off mid-sentence,’ my grandmother continues blithely. ‘And we don’t have time for pleasantries. I need you in central London in an hour.’
Whack. ‘Why?’
‘I’m sorry?’
‘I said why?’ Whack. Whack. ‘Because I’m kind of busy right now.’ Whack. Whack. Whack.
There’s a shocked silence.
‘Faith Valentine! If I wanted a laissez-faire attitude, I would ring your brother. You have made the proverbial pig’s ear of your reputation with the national media, so it’s time for me to guide you directly.’
I scowl and let go of the curtains. Of course it is.
‘Right,’ I sigh resignedly, heading out of Hope’s bedroom and back towards my own. ‘What’s the plan?’
I feel like one of Dylan’s gross pink balloons – tied to words I don’t mean, tethered by something heavy, battering against the ceiling.