Starcrossed

by Suzanne Carroll

  “How come he never called you?” Emily asked.

  Georgia gritted her teeth. “Because we didn’t swap phone numbers.” Or addresses, or even last names. There had been too much else to talk about – music and art and books and films. They’d thought they had more time to get to all those mundane little details.

  “Maybe he just didn’t like you,” Emily snickered.

  “Emily, leave her alone. I’m sure out of all the Pegasus pendants in the world, Georgia’s isn’t the only one with a bent wing.” Mum sipped her tea and tried to change the subject. “Georgia, love, you’re good with crosswords, what’s a word that means lost and found?”

  Tom, thought Georgia. “Um, I don’t know, sorry.” She wasn’t interested in the crossword and suddenly she couldn’t watch Star Factory any more. As Tom, or TJ, began to sing a pop song that had been popular for two weeks last Christmas, the old fault line in her heart tore wide open. She got up and went back to her room.

  Tom hated pop music.

  He loved the blues and Mozart, the Beatles and Bach, and an Icelandic punk band Georgia had never heard of. But right now he was singing about a girl who was his groove baby, with the all the right moves, baby. His voice drifted up the hall to her room.

  The fan magazine was still in her hands. With shaking fingers, she sat on the bed and started flicking through the pages, past the other contestants, until she found him.

  There were about a dozen small photos of him; posing on his own, with the other contestants, in the studio, in a park, looking pensive, looking silly. She stared at the pictures of TJ in his cool clothes and hip hairstyle, and remembered Tom’s frayed jeans and faded t-shirts. She looked closer at the photos, trying to find him in there somewhere.

  The publicity blurb talked about his star sign and his favourite foods, but it never mentioned his guitar, or his violin, or the music he wrote. Or how he hoped to study at the London Academy of Music. There was nothing about his dreams; to perform his own compositions at the Royal Albert Hall – just him and his guitar. And maybe one day play his violin with the London Symphony Orchestra.

  The only thing that seemed right, was his age. Twenty. That was how old he’d be now.

  “What’s happened to you?” she whispered, as a single tear trekked its way down her cheek. “What is all this?”

  It was obvious she hadn’t know him at all. And why should she? They’d only had three days together after all. It was clear now that she’d built their romance up to be something it wasn’t.

  How could she have got it so wrong?

  Suddenly, Georgia felt all sorts of stupid. And angry. Had he been leading her on? Telling her what she wanted to hear in the hope he might get in her pants?

  She threw the magazine across the room and it hit the wall and fell to the floor. It landed open at the middle page spread, with a mini-poster sized photo of TJ. He was grinning. And he was wearing a University of Georgia sweatshirt.

  “Oh my God,” she whispered, staring at her name across his chest. Then she remembered that he’d kept her pendant, like she’d kept his sheet music. And tonight on the show he’d talked about moonlit walks along the beach.

  Georgia knew then that she hadn’t been wrong. She’d been right all along. Right from the very start.

  Tom had been busking the first time she saw him. On holidays, and armed with her sketchbook, she’d been on her way to draw the cliffs that overlooked the sea while her family stayed by the hotel pool. Clouds had been slowly rolling in over the small coastal town, blocking the sun, and Georgia had almost decided to turn back. But then she’d heard the music.

  Amazing music.

  So she’d followed the sound that led her across a park, to the heart of the high street.

  He’d been playing his guitar on the footpath in front of a tavern, a battered old hat at his feet to collect the coins from appreciative listeners. Eyes closed, singing a song that was sweet and sad and wrapped up in beautiful. His voice had drawn her in, and though Georgia had been just one in the crowd that had gathered to listen, she’d felt like he was singing just for her.

  When he’d opened his eyes, his deep blue gaze had fallen immediately on hers. Like he’d known she was there. Like he’d been waiting for her. But then the sky had opened, the rain had fallen, and the spell had been broken. Everyone had scattered.

  Georgia had allowed herself a quick look back as she’d run across the park with her sketchbook held over her head. He’d been running in the opposite direction with his guitar case tucked tight under one arm, and the hat under the other. Her heart had skipped when he’d turned back to look for her, too.

  Georgia thought maybe this holiday wasn’t such a fail, after all.

  She’d returned the next day. So had he.

  She’d sat in the park, listening to him sing while she sketched the tavern that was his backdrop. Every time she’d glanced up his eyes had been on her and when Emily had come to find her so they could go to the beach, Georgia was sure he’d given a nod of goodbye.

  The next day, Georgia had gone back again, without her sketchbook. He’d been waiting on the corner, hands in pockets, without his guitar. He’d smiled when he saw her.

  “I was hoping you’d come.” He had seemed nervous but he’d pushed his dark hair back from his eyes and held out his hand in a determined sort of way. “Hi, I’m Tom.”

  When her skin touched his, Georgia had felt her world shift and change. Like her heart was saying, “Oh, look... there you are, I’ve found you.” And she hadn’t missed Tom’s soft, fast intake of breath, or the widening of his eyes as his hand had closed gently around hers. To Georgia it had seemed the most natural thing in the world to go from shaking hands to holding hands before she’d even said hello.

  “I’m Georgia,” she’d said.

  “Georgia?” He’d grinned. “That’s a coincidence. I used to have a parrot called George.”

  It had been such an unexpected thing for him to say. Georgia’s mouth had fallen open and there’d been a flash of panic in Tom’s eyes, until she started to laugh. Then he’d smiled a beaming smile. “Let me start again?”

  “No,” she’d said. “I like this beginning.” But Tom had tried again, anyway.

  “Nice necklace,” he’d complimented. “Pegasus, right?” Georgia had felt a stab of surprise, and warmth.

  “Yeah, it is,” she’d said. “Not many people get that. They just think it’s a horse with wings. I’m impressed.” And when she’d squeezed his hand, Tom had squeezed back. Then he’d asked if she wanted to go for a walk and Georgia could still remember the look in his eyes when she’d said yes.

  Now his eyes were hidden behind those yellow lenses.

  Suddenly, Georgia was off the bed and running down the hall, past the living room. She almost skidded into the kitchen, where her dad was on the phone.

  “How long will you be?” she mouthed.

  “It’s your Gran,” he mouthed back. So it could be a while, then, Georgia thought. According to the clock on the wall, Star Factory was only on for another ten minutes. The studio was miles away across London, she’d never get there. So she grabbed the Yellow Pages from the kitchen drawer, looked up the number for the television station, and scribbled it on the back of her hand. Then she raced back to the hall, grabbed her coat from the coat rack, and was out the door.

  “Where are you going?” her mother called.

  “To the corner,” she called back.

  There was a phone booth at the end of the street and Georgia prayed as she ran that it had been fixed after vandals had broken it the week before. When she flung open the door and saw everything intact, she almost laughed with relief. She fumbled the coins in her pocket and dropped them twice, and then the first time she managed to put them in the slot they fell out the bottom into the tray with a clunk. But this often happened with public phones, she reminded herself, and it didn’t mean anything was broken. She took a deep slow breath and tried again.

  Again, the
coins went straight through and bounced into the tray. Georgia swore quietly under her breath, and then more loudly when it happened a third time. She was getting ready to scream, but on the fourth try, the phone finally accepted her coins, and let her dial.

  “Come on,” she said as the phone rang and rang. “Come…”

  “Metro Television, this is Jean, can I help you?”

  “Oh! Um…” Suddenly, Georgia didn’t know what to say, and her blood was pounding so hard she could barely hear herself answer. “I’m…I’m trying to contact Tom. TJ. On Star Factory.”

  “There’s no-one in the publicity department right now.” The receptionist sounded bored. “You’ll need to call back on Monday between 9am and 5pm. Do you have a scheduling enquiry? I can help you with scheduling enquiries.”

  “No, no you don’t understand. He knows me. I need to contact him.”

  “You can request an autographed photo of the Star Factory contestants from the publicity department during working hours.”

  “I don’t want a photo. I’m trying to contact him. Please. He’s in the studio now, isn’t he?”

  “I can’t put you through to the studio, but if you call the publicity department…”

  “Can I leave a message for him then?” Georgia interrupted. “Could you pass on my name and number after the show?”

  “A message?” There was a brief pause, and for those couple of seconds it felt to Georgia like the whole world had been put on hold. “You can leave a message with the publicity department on Monday between…”

  Georgia hung up. Frustration burned through her and tears stung her eyes as she rested her head against the cold glass of the phone booth wall. So her first attempt to contact him hadn’t worked, but she wasn’t going to give up. Tom was looking for her, and she was going to find him.

  She walked out of the phone booth and back to the house, her mind racing.

  The Star Factory credits were rolling when she walked through the door. They were accompanied by a voice-over from Mandy. “If you’d like tickets to be in the audience of next Sunday’s grand final…”

  “Did TJ win?” Georgia asked quickly.

  “Yep!” Emily grinned, and then frowned as Georgia ran back out the door.

  This time, her coins worked first go.

  “Metro Television, this is Jean, can I…”

  “I want to order an audience ticket for the Star Factory final next Sunday.” This was brilliant. This was going to work. She’d be in the audience and he’d see her and…

  “Tickets can only be obtained in person from the Metro Television offices during normal business hours.” Jean paused. “They do announce this at the end of the show, you know.”

  “But…”

  The receptionist sighed heavily. “You’ll have to come in on Monday, love. But be early, they’ll start queueing before the sun’s up.”

  The next morning, Georgia abandoned her classes and caught the first train across London to join the long line of giggling teenage girls and their bleary-eyed parents that wound out the station’s doors, past the security gates and and down the street. But in the end it didn’t matter that she’d got up at four o’clock to be there. The tickets had gone before her end of the queue got near the gates.

  As the crowd broke up, and giggles turned to tears, Georgia made her way into the Reception area, and asked if she could leave a message for Tom.

  The receptionist, whose name tag said Samantha, smiled. “Sure, you can leave a message.” She handed over a pen and paper. “I’ll pass it onto our publicity department, but I should tell you, there’s no guarantee he’ll get it.”

  “Why not?” Georgia asked. “If it’s addressed to him…”

  Samantha gave her a sympathetic look. “The Star Factory guys get piles of fan mail every day. They don’t always get to read every letter or note. I’m sorry.” She pointed over her shoulder at a plastic tub on the floor, overflowing with envelopes. Brightly coloured ones mixed in with standard white. Some were huge and oversized. Others were decorated with drawings. “That’s just from this morning,” Samantha said.

  Georgia sighed and wrote her note anyway. Just in case. Then she put it in the envelope the receptionist gave her.

  “You know, lots of fans who miss out on tickets come and wait by the driveway gates on show day to see the contestants arrive. The limos usually slow down for the crowd.” She winked and Georgia felt a flare of embarrassment. She thought about explaining, but decided that would make it sound worse. So she smiled and said thank you and let Samantha think she was a fourteen-year-old stuck in a nineteen-year-old’s body.

  “The things we do,” she muttered to herself as she walked away.

  But next Sunday, Georgia was back at the studio, waiting like a groupie at the gates. The crowd was huge, at least a couple of hundred fans, and she was glad she’d got to the studio as early as she had. She was only two rows back from the barricades.

  “I hope TJ plays the guitar tonight, like he did in week three.” The girl beside her was grinning and holding a cardboard sign that said I love you TJ. “He seems so moody, and quiet. All mysterious-like, you know.”

  Georgia smiled but didn’t comment. It was strange seeing Tom through the eyes of others. While the girl rattled on about his dark, brooding side, Georgia remembered the boy who smiled and laughed and made her laugh, too. How they’d swapped jokes as they’d eaten fish and chips on the pier that first day, and shared stories of their most embarrassing moments and compared their favourite films and bands. How they’d run along the sand, laughing, chasing each other with seaweed. But Tom was serious about his music, and he’d told her his hopes and plans. He’d been so excited as he’d talked about his upcoming audition at the Academy. The light in his eyes had made Georgia smile.

  “What do you think about when you play?” she’d asked.

  “Oh, everything, and nothing.” He’d chuckled softly. “That doesn’t make much sense, does it?” He’d leant back on his hands, his legs dangling over the edge of the pier as he’d smiled into the sun. “It’s kind of like I disappear. Like I become the music, so there is nothing else.” Suddenly, he’d seemed shy. “That probably sounds weird.”

  Georgia hadn’t thought it sounded weird at all. “I think I get it.” She’d been swinging her legs over the water, too. “It’s like that when I paint. Or draw. I’m so into it, the rest of the world goes away and the painting becomes everything…”

  “And nothing else gets in…”

  “So it’s like I’m thinking of everything…

  “And nothing.” Tom had smiled as he’d finished for her.

  “Is there much difference between the guitar and violin? I mean, apart from the obvious.”

  "Yeah, they’re different," he'd said, and he'd talked for a moment about finger techniques and tone, then he'd paused and Georgia had smiled at the way he'd scrunched up his face as he'd thought. "If I’m honest, sometimes I feel a bit freer with the guitar." He'd spoken quietly, and Georgia had had the feeling he'd just shared a great secret. Then he'd laughed, and offered her the chip bucket. “Enough about me. Tell me what you like to paint.”

  He’d listened so intently, letting his chips get cold as she’d talked about her art and how she’d been accepted into the prestigious Langdon Art College after the summer, and her dream to exhibit her paintings one day.

  So on their second day together, Tom had taken her to see a small art gallery, tucked away behind a guest house, on the outskirts of town.

  They’d wandered the gallery happily together, and Georgia had spent ages studying a painting of a park bench, empty except for a book that had been forgotten and left behind. Tom hadn’t shared her fascination.

  “It’s just an empty bench,” he’d said.

  “But the book...what’s the story behind the book?”

  Tom had been standing behind her, not quite touching, but close enough that she’d felt the warmth of him.

  “We’ll never know,” he
’d said, gently. “The story’s probably different for everyone. Maybe that’s what the artist is saying…that we make our own stories.”

  “I like that idea,” she’d whispered, looking at him over her shoulder. He’d smiled, and moved, closing the small gap between them.

  “Me too.”

  And that had been the first time he wrapped her in his arms.

  “My auntie still has her old Dave Dark records.” Georgia’s thoughts were interrupted as the girl with the sign started talking again. “I can’t believe he’s TJ’s Dad. Can you?”

  “No.” Georgia shook her head. “I can’t.”

  That surprise was something she’d learned from the Star Factory magazine. Tom’s father was 1970s pop icon, Dave Dark. The man who’d had three number one hits in two years and then disappeared from the scene in a haze of drugs and alcohol.

  Georgia and Tom had talked only a little about their families. She’d told him she was on holidays from London with her parents and sister. He’d said he lived up north with his mum and brother, but was spending the summer busking his way along the coast. “For fun and adventure,” he’d joked. “Definitely not for the money.” He hadn’t mentioned his father, except to say he didn’t see much of him. Georgia was glad now that she hadn’t pressed him to say more.

  “My brother read somewhere that TJ’s gay.” The girl on Georgia’s other side held up her Marry Me Saxon sign. “And the publicists are trying to keep it quiet.”

  “That’s pure shite, that is,” said the first girl, glaring. The second girl shrugged and Georgia laughed quietly.

  Tom wasn’t gay, she knew that for sure.

  The night she’d snuck out of the hotel to walk with him along the beach, he’d held her in one arm and his guitar in the other. They’d walked towards the cliffs and sat on the sand and while the moonlight had played over the water Tom had played for her; his audition piece for the Academy.

  Georgia had listened, transfixed, as his music, soft and rich, swirled around them. “It’s beautiful,” she’d whispered when he finished. She’d wanted to tell him how it made her feel, but she couldn’t find the words. “It’s just…you really wrote that?”