If the Dress Fits

by Daisy James

  ‘Oh, Callie and I grew up with a couple of the band members. Sorry, Harvey, this is my best friend, Callie. Callie, this is Harvey Adams. He was a drama teacher at St Hilda’s before fame came calling and he scooted off to the bright lights of Manchester.’

  ‘I’m delighted to meet you, Callie.’ Harvey lifted her fingers to his lips.

  ‘Yes, I’m an actor.’ He flicked his floppy blond fringe from those bright blue eyes and graced them with his bleached smile. Callie felt Nessa stiffen at her elbow, knowing she was stifling a chuckle.

  ‘You may have seen me in Death in the Aire – the gritty detective series set in West Yorkshire?’

  ‘Oh, yes, I have,’ Nessa said, much to Harvey’s blatant delight. ‘On BBC4? What part did you play?’ She scrunched up her nose as she tried to recall the series.

  ‘I played the murder victim. A difficult and challenging role to get right, but of course I managed to nail it. I’m nothing if not professional. The director told me I have a bright future playing the dead and dying,’ Harvey boasted without a hint of irony, ‘and those scenes are often pivotal to the plot, I find. If you’re interested, Nessa, perhaps you’ll allow me to talk you through my last role as a firefighter who fell to his death whilst tackling a blazing clock tower. The demands on the actor can be strenuous, but fame and celebrity must be secondary to the sense of pride at having contributed to the whole ensemble.’

  Callie sucked her lips between her teeth to prevent her mouth from twitching as she felt Nessa shaking with an onslaught of barely repressed giggling.

  ‘Can I offer you ladies a drink? You know, I have some promotional photographs I could autograph for you. One never knows when one might be recognised and it’s prudent to be prepared. Wouldn’t wish to let a fan down. Fame is an onerous burden, but us actors must bear our responsibilities with stoic fortitude.’

  Harvey flashed his pearly whites again at a nonplussed Nessa, who’d been rendered temporarily speechless.

  ‘Erm, thanks, Harvey, but I think we need to go and find our seats.’

  ‘Toodle-loo, then. Have fun. Maybe we can catch up later?’

  Inside the airless auditorium, the noise was incredible. Every perch was occupied; every gilt-framed box had been pressed into service. The crowd was made up of ninety per cent teenage girls and ten per cent concerned parents who’d been unwilling to allow their offspring to attend the concert unchaperoned and who wore expressions of reluctant stoicism.

  ‘I think you’ve made a friend.’

  ‘You mean Harvey?’

  ‘Yes. He’s very attractive, if a little overconfident. I think he might wear coloured contact lenses, but I saw the way his eyes lingered on yours. And you already know each other.’

  Nessa gifted her best friend with a roll of her eyes as she pushed her way along the third row to take her seat.

  ‘I’m so excited,’ she squeaked in Callie’s ear. ‘This is the first time I’ve been in a West End theatre. Do you remember that pantomime we staged in Year Ten? What was it? Oh, yes, Peter Pan, remember? You were a full-blown pirate and I was a lowly deckhand. We had a blast!’

  ‘You had a blast, Nessa,’ Callie corrected her. She’d hated every minute of being on the stage. ‘I’m not blessed with the same bare-faced confidence you are. Never again! But I tell you who was excellent and a huge surprise. That girl who played Captain Hook from Year Nine? What was her name again?’

  ‘Lillian Greenwood?’

  ‘Yes, I’d never noticed her before. Always thought she was one of those geeks who kept herself to herself and preferred the more cerebral pursuits. Nose always stuck in a classic? She certainly never ventured onto the sports field, unlike you, Nessa – the girl who’s won every trophy going’.

  Nessa giggled. ‘Remember when we made Mr Barringer walk the plank for a laugh at the end of the show?’

  ‘I do, and I’d be prepared to bet my last pound that the experience will live on in his nightmares until the day he leaves the earth. That was a nasty ankle sprain.’ And the girls doubled over in fits of laughter.

  ‘I couldn’t do what Theo and Archie do, though. Stand up there in front of all these people and sing their hearts out. I’m not sure which is the most terrifying – performing to an arena full of avid, all-forgiving fans or to a more discerning audience at a celebrity wedding where the groom is a world-famous musician. Both are gut-wrenchingly scary!’

  ‘Totally agree. All I had to do was deliver my wedding gown creation along with a little piece of my soul, wrapped in tissue paper in a cardboard trunk, and then sit back and await the devastating rejection of my talents, not parade it live in front of a room full of music industry professionals.’ Callie indulged in an involuntary squirm of sympathy.

  ‘But your design wasn’t rejected, was it?’

  ‘No, but for a time I thought it had been. It’s a painful experience that I have no wish to repeat any time soon.’

  As the noise reached maximum decibel level, a beanpole-thin guy clutching a clipboard like a shield, decked out in the black uniform of all stage and screen crew, his microphone strapped to his cheek with a Band-Aid, stepped onto the stage and proceeded to ask for quiet.

  Immediate silence ensued.

  ‘Okay, ladies and gents, as you know this is The Razorclaws’ rehearsal gig for the wedding of the decade between Finn Marchant and Lilac Verbois, which will take place up in Yorkshire in two weeks’ time.’ A huge roar of approval rolled out of the stalls and reverberated around the room. ‘You are about to hear a selection of the band’s bestselling songs and, I’m excited to announce, a ballad that is being debuted this evening, written by their lead singer, Theo Drake!

  ‘Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you… The Razorclaws!’

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  A tsunami of screams roared into the auditorium coupled with whistling and foot-stomping. Callie exchanged a glance with Nessa and they joined the throng in leaping from their seats and applauding. A surprise swirl of nausea assaulted Callie’s throat and chest. Her heart pounded and her stomach muscles clenched with a mixture of excitement and nerves, and something else she was reluctant to name. She attempted to stretch her lips into a smile but failed. The hairs on the back of her neck prickled as the crystal-clear notes of a bass guitar seared through the air.

  But it was when Theo, her Theo, strode onto the stage, grabbed the microphone from the stand and stared out into the crowd that her knees crumbled from under her. As he launched into a rendition of their most recent number one, she sank down onto the burgundy velvet seat, drawing in huge gulps of oxygen to steady her emotions, annoyed with her reaction to seeing him up on the stage after three long years apart.

  For God’s sake, she had seen him perform with The Razorclaws hundreds of times when they were at school and university. Okay, she knew nothing of his new material and had had no idea what to expect that evening. But the years rolled back and he looked exactly the same as when she’d fallen in love with him, with his eyes that sparkled like silver buttons and his quirky personality, not to mention his spiky, honey-blond hair and honed, muscular body.

  As she peered between the breaks in the crowd, she drank in his onstage presence. He exuded an almost ferocious magnetism. He’d chosen black Armani jeans and a matching shirt, open at the neck to reveal not only a glimpse of golden chest hair, but also a glint of silver that caught Callie’s eye and whipped her breath away. There, poking from the folds of his shirt, was that stupid St Christopher chain she had bought him for his eighteenth birthday and which he had sworn to her he would never remove.

  Callie leant towards her knees, her forearms clenched into her stomach.

  ‘What’s up, Callie?’

  ‘Oh, erm…’

  Nessa sat down next to her. ‘I know, darling, I know. You still love him, don’t you?’

  ‘No, no, I…’

  ‘Come on, stand up or you won’t be able to see anything.’ Nessa linked her arm through Callie’s reluctant one and dragge
d her back to standing.

  The next forty minutes flashed by like a dream. Callie was swept away on a tidal wave of memories stretching back fifteen years to the first time Theo had held her hand in the playground at their primary school. The music playing tonight was the accompanying score to every important event of her life; something she had found solace in when she’d cried herself to sleep on the days when the loss of her parents was the most acute, like on their wedding anniversary or at Christmas or on her birthday.

  She’d made a half-hearted attempt not to follow Theo’s most recent success, as reading about him in magazine or newspaper articles only brought the pain of losing him flooding back. But she was a masochistic fool and had downloaded a selection of his music to her iPod, listening to the lyrics endlessly to dissect their meaning until her brain was fried and the pain once again became ragged and raw.

  She was jolted back to reality as she realised the auditorium had quietened.

  ‘Thank you, everyone. Have you all had fun tonight?’ Theo’s familiar voice boomed over the sound system.

  A roar of approval rippled over the crowd.

  ‘Okay, this is our final song. It’s a ballad I wrote several years ago, but every word is still valid today. I hope you like it.’

  Theo nodded across to Archie who struck the first chord. He smiled at his childhood friend and then flicked his eyes along the length of the third row until he’d picked out Callie’s face.

  She tried to avert her eyes but the music demanded her attention with a mesmeric force. She stood motionless, captivated by the powerful rock ballad Theo was belting out right at her. Goosebumps spread the length of her body and the roots of her hair prickled against her scalp. As she listened to the poetic lyrics she wondered whether each word was really directed at her. She was tempted to discard the thought as egotistical nonsense. Since they’d split, Theo had no doubt had his pick of attractive and available girls, she knew that. Even though he frequented her dreams, it did not mean she still inhabited his.

  As the final notes of the song died away, there was a brief pause before a burst of thunderous applause erupted into the auditorium and the crowd surged forward with whoops and whistles. The Razorclaws stalked from the stage and the audience continued to scream, clap and stamp their feet as they demanded an encore. It took a full five minutes for Clipboard Man to restore calm and ask everyone to leave the theatre in an orderly fashion.

  Callie’s emotions boiled over. She could no longer hold back the tears of joy for the magic Theo had created on stage. The lyrics he’d sung spoke of the intensity of love, the cauldron of emotions its many guises stirred and the agony of its loss. In that moment, she knew he had suffered just as much as she had during their separation and she could hold back her true feelings no longer.

  If nothing else, she needed Theo’s friendship in her life. Her heart escaped from its prison of misery and loneliness and her spirits lifted. She felt jubilant at The Razorclaws’ success that evening and about the forthcoming honour of playing at Lilac and Finn’s wedding reception. And she would be there to see them perform, she promised herself. It was time to make amends with Theo. This night would go down as one of the best of her life.

  ‘I’m so happy for them, Nessa. They deserve all their success, especially Theo. I think it’s time I made my peace with him, don’t you?’ Tears smarted at Callie’s eyes as she sought her friend’s reassurance.

  ‘At last! Come on. Let’s use those backstage passes!’ Nessa screamed, dragging Callie against the flow of the departing throng to the corridor that led to the rear of the stage. The girls flashed their privilege passes at the surly security guard and rushed to the door of the band’s dressing room. Someone had pinned a huge golden star to its glossy exterior on which the band members’ names had been scrawled with green glitter pen – Theo, Archie, Rick, Danny and Serge.

  ‘Ready?’

  ‘Ready,’ Callie nodded as her heart hammered out a rock anthem of its own.

  The first thing she planned on doing was congratulating the whole band on a fantastic performance, but a close second would be delivering a heartfelt apology to Theo for her inexcusable absence from his life over the last three years. She also wanted to slide into the conversation a question about his inspiration for the ballad he’d performed for the first time that night.

  She wiped her palms down her thighs, inhaled a steadying breath and plastered a smile on her lips. She was so nervous her thoughts began to spiral away from her so she mustered every last ounce of her courage and pushed open the door.

  The dressing room was packed wall-to-wall with a congratulatory swarm. Men in designer suits and dark glasses, a bunch of wardrobe and make-up girls, and the guy they’d seen on stage holding the clipboard had all crammed into the room to offer their individual congratulations. There was also a coterie of giggling fans, who’d been lucky enough to win tickets to meet their idols after the show, pressing their lithe bodies around the band members.

  She could see Rick and Serge lounging on a pair of leather swivel chairs, holding bottles of champagne to their lips as a crowd hustled them for an autograph. Archie had been backed into a corner by a group of girls handing over cellophane-wrapped roses and teddy bears clutching red hearts.

  ‘Any sign of Theo?’ whispered Nessa, twisting from left to right on her tiptoes as she tried to see over the heads of the crowd in front of her, unable to make any headway into the room.

  ‘If it’s Theo Drake you’re after, girls, you’ll have to take your place in the queue,’ smirked one of the entourage, shoving his thumb over his shoulder. ‘It’s like this all the time, especially for Theo. Crazy, but, well, he is the lead singer. I suppose he has to get special treatment. And anyway, he loves it!’

  Callie’s joyful smile melted from her lips to be replaced by a grimace of horror. Through the tightly packed throng she could just glimpse Theo lounging in his own swivel chair, his snakeskin boots propped up on the dressing table with a bottle of Moet in one hand and a red rose clasped between his teeth as he signed a fan’s autograph book with a flourish. She watched as he drew in a mouthful of the bubbles, swallowed and ran the tip of his tongue over his lips in a familiar, yet for Callie shockingly intimate, gesture.

  She endured a wave of nausea so strong she felt it breach the back of her throat. A concrete block took up residence in her chest and her heart rate quickened. She felt threatened. The mass of warm, undulating bodies packed so tightly together made her feel light-headed. Could she do this? Could she stand by and watch Theo become the object of such adulation night after night? Loitering in the background like a spare part, an object of pity, the discarded girlfriend hanging on to her boyfriend for dear life? Or worse, battling against the assumption that she was simply following in his wake in the hope that a little of his stardust would fall onto her shoulders?

  Had she made the right choice in coming to the concert tonight? Clearly she had been naive at the very least in her anticipation that Theo would be waiting for her – and her alone – in his dressing room. Heat filled her cheeks when she acknowledged that she had hoped, after their kiss in the ballroom at Harewood House, that tonight would be the first step on the journey to rekindling their relationship. How could she have been so foolish? Nothing had changed – nothing at all – so why did she think this time around things would be different? Theo was even more successful now than he had been three years ago, with thousands more fans demanding a slice of his attention. She still craved success for Callie-Louise and was even running an additional branch of the shop! They both had more demands on their time than they had ever had before. It was almost inevitable that if they pursued a long-distance relationship, just like before, it would end in betrayal as they sought solace in other avenues. She couldn’t put herself through that pain again.

  She turned to Nessa, parted her lips to say something, but no words arrived. She slipped back into the dimly lit corridor, annoyed by the intensity of the spasm of jealousy the tablea
u in the dressing room had aroused in her. Her head told her that leaving was the right decision, despite the vehement objections raised by her heart. In fact, if she thought about it, she had so little time for socialising right now that it wouldn’t be fair to expect Theo to be happy with whatever crumbs she could spare him. She wasn’t in a position to prioritise a relationship at the moment. What on earth had she been thinking? The past was simply repeating itself – and their inevitable separation would be her fault once again.

  As tears gathered along her lashes she determined to make as swift an exit as possible. But it was not to be. She chanced a final backward glance over her shoulder and caught Theo’s steel-grey eyes boring into hers. She saw him leap from his chair and plough his way through the crowd, almost knocking Archie to the ground in his determination to stall her escape and prevent a repeat of what had happened before.

  ‘Callie, wait!’

  Theo caught up with her at the exit door of the theatre. He hooked his arm through hers and spun her round to face him. He nodded to the burly security guy who cracked open the door, checked their route was clear and guided them into the empty tour bus that was parked at the back of the venue. They fell into the front seats together, their presence obscured by blacked-out windows, as the security man stood guard at the door, nonchalantly smoking a cigarette.

  ‘Callie, I’m so sorry, that was a bit manic. It’s not always as bad as that. It’s this wedding fever that’s got everyone overexcited. Just let me finish signing autographs and posing for selfies and we can share one of those bottles of champagne.’