by Mel Sparke
“Um, kind of,” Sonja shrugged. To be honest, she didn’t know why Billy had suddenly started talking about the band when they were supposed to be talking about her modelling.
“What I’m saying is, just because you want something doesn’t mean you’ll automatically get it,” he said earnestly, hoping now that the message might sink in. Sonja was very pretty, but he wanted her to realise that it didn’t mean contracts, money and fame were about to slip into her lap just like that.
“Don’t worry,” Sonja replied. “I’m sure The Loud will do really well.”
She patted his hand patronisingly, then said brightly, “OK, I’ve warmed up now. Will we do some more shots? I’m never going to get signed by an agency if I don’t have the right pictures!”
CHAPTER 11
DON’T MENTION THE ‘M’ WORD…
“Got any haemorrhoid cream?”
“Ollie!”
Kerry widened her eyes at her boyfriend and glanced round into the pharmacy section of the chemist to make sure her boss, Mr Hardy, hadn’t heard him.
“What - haven’t you got any? You call yourself a chemist and you haven’t got any haemorr—”
“Ollie, get out!” she shooed him away, trying not to encourage him by laughing. “I get my lunchbreak in five minutes!”
“OK, I’ll go.” he shrugged, pretending to take offence. “I know when I’m not wanted…”
Five minutes later, Kerry flew out of the shop and into his arms.
“You idiot!” she said as soon as their kiss was over. “I nearly died! Mr Hardy could have heard you!”
“So?” he replied, squeezing her hand. “He couldn’t have sacked you because I asked for haemorrhoid cream. And if he did, I think you’d find that an industrial tribunal would be on your side. In fact—”
“Enough!” said Kerry firmly, smacking her free hand over his mouth to silence him. “I only get an hour for lunch and I don’t want to waste it listening to you wittering on about stupid haemorrhoid cream! Now, where are we eating?”
“Well, since it’s a very special day—”
“Why, what day is it?” Kerry interrupted.
“Tuesday,” shrugged Ollie, enjoying being silly. “Anyway, as I was saying, because it’s a very special day, I thought I’d take you somewhere exclusive, rather expensive and with a truly amazing ambience…”
Kerry looked at the shopfront they were approaching in the High Street.
“But all you could afford was Burger King?”
“Got it in one!” he grinned, pushing the door open for her.
“I love having the money, but I wish I didn’t have to spend my October break working,” moaned Kerry, pulling back the top of her bun and dribbling a sachet of tomato sauce over her Spicy Beanburger.
“What - would you rather be sitting in the End listening to Sonja go on and on and on and on about her future in modelling?”
“Oh, God, she’s not at it again, is she?” winced Kerry. Every time she and Sonja had met up in the last few days, every time they’d talked on the phone, there had been only one topic of conversation.
“Yep. Just as I finished this morning’s shift, she arrived and started bending Cat’s ear about it.”
“Poor Cat…” Kerry said with feeling.
“Too right,” nodded Ollie. “Cat came into the caff about half an hour before I left and was moaning on to me about how bored she was. But that’s probably nothing compared to how bored she is now.”
“Isn’t Joe working at the End today?” Kerry asked, taking a bite out of her burger.
“Yeah, but he swapped with Irene so he’s doing dishwashing duties, just so he can hide out in the kitchen and not have to hear Sonja droning on.”
“What about Natasha? Has Sonja been back in touch with her? She told me she was going to give her a ring and talk to her about where to buy one of those books to put your pictures in.”
“A portfolio? She’s jumping the gun a bit, isn’t she?” snorted Ollie. “She hasn’t even got an interview with an agency yet, never mind any offers for work. But, whatever; I don’t think she has been in touch with Tash. Not that Tasha seems to be in the mood to talk about work at the moment.”
“Why? What’s up with her?”
“Dunno, really. Nothing serious, I don’t think. It’s just that normally she’s all ‘such-and-such a designer says I’ve got a brilliant walk!’ and ‘ooh, I’m up for an advertising campaign job in the Bahamas!’”
Ollie’s impersonation of his sister was spookily accurate, but Kerry didn’t want to giggle in case he got defensive. He was very protective of his twin, even though they weren’t particularly alike in personality.
“And this time she hasn’t?” Kerry said instead.
“No, she’s just been a bit quiet and mopey. I asked her to come along with me and meet you for lunch today, but she said she just wanted to hang about at home.”
Kerry gave what she thought might look like a sympathetic nod. She wouldn’t have wanted a moody, bored girl she had nothing in common with spoiling her precious lunch hour with Ollie.
“Hey, I forgot - this’ll make you laugh,” Ollie suddenly burst out. “When I was leaving the End, I heard Sonja tell Cat that she’d never do such a revealing shoot as that one Natasha showed us. Like anyone’s begging her to!”
“What am I going to do with her?” Kerry mumbled helplessly through her food. “I’ve already tried to hint to her that she’s expecting too much from this modelling lark and going on about it too much.”
“That’s the polite way of saying it, isn’t it?” Ollie grinned, picking up a handful of fries. “Don’t you mean she’s turned into a big-headed pain-in-the-neck and she’s boring the knickers off of all her friends?”
“Oh, Ollie, don’t say that… It sounds so mean!”
“But it’s true!” Ollie reasoned. “Listen, Kerry, I like Sonja a lot, but there are times - and this is one of ‘em - that she’s a bit too much like someone else we know for her own good!”
Kerry looked at Ollie and knew that they were thinking of the same someone. Someone who, at her worst, was vain, self-centred, thoughtless and amazingly annoying.
Right at that moment, Cat wasn’t being vain, self-centred, thoughtless or amazingly annoying. Instead, she was doing something that was very, very difficult for her. She was trying to be patient.
“Y’know, it struck me last night - I really should learn how to drive,” Sonja proclaimed.
“Yeah? What made you think of that?” asked Cat, glad that for the first time in twenty minutes the conversation had turned to another topic.
“Well, I just thought it would be handy to get to modelling jobs. You can get sent all over the place, you know. Which reminds me, I should ask my dad if I can have a mobile phone as well, just to keep in touch with the agency…”
Cat had been very proud of the way she’d forgiven Sonja for not letting her style her for the shoot (not that Sonja seemed to remember their last tense meeting on Saturday from the way she’d breezed in), and she was especially proud of the fact that she’d managed to listen to Sonja’s boasting for a whole half hour, resorting to only the bare minimum of digs along the way.
But now she was ready to snap, and the only thing that saved Sonja was the bell. Not that she realised it, but the tinkling of the café door, and the entrance of Matt and Gabrielle, had distracted Cat long enough not to empty a packet of cheese and onion crisps over her cousin’s head.
“Matt! Gabrielle! Over here!” Cat waved over to them enthusiastically as if they were long-lost friends she hadn’t seen in a thousand years. And as if the last place they’d expect to see Cat and Sonja was in the window booth of the End-of-the-Line café.
“Uh, all right?” Matt grunted suspiciously. He always got suspicious when Catrina was being a little too friendly for comfort. His comfort, anyway.
“Gabs! Sit down beside me! How are you?” Cat twittered, patting the red vinyl of the padded seat.
�
�Yeah, I’m fine, thanks, Catrina,” Gabrielle smiled at her. “Hey, I like your hair!”
Cat twiddled the brown tips of her bright blonde hair and shot a ‘See?’ look at Sonja. “Well, I love yours too! You must braid mine like that some time - and put in some of those dinky little beads! Wow - maybe you could do it next Wednesday, at Anna’s girls’ night!”
Cat’s motives (this once) were totally innocent, but Matt wasn’t to know that. Watching his conniving ex sucking up big time to his girlfriend filled him with dread. As did the thought of Anna’s upcoming girls’ night.
It was really sweet of her to include Gabrielle in her invitation, but the idea of Gabrielle being alone and unprotected in the presence of Cat made him feel slightly queasy.
Matt was concentrating so hard on figuring out what Cat might do next that he practically yelped when Sonja spoke.
“You haven’t seen Billy the last couple of days, have you?” she asked.
“Um, no. Why?” he replied, still keeping a worried eye on Cat and Gabrielle.
“Oh, it’s just that he did some shots of me on Saturday - you know, for my modelling? And I—”
“Right, that’s it!” Cat suddenly announced, turning her attention away from Gabrielle and gathering up her bag. “I’ve got to go! Sorry, Gabs…”
“Where?” asked Sonja.
“Oooo - just somewhere…” said Cat enigmatically as she stomped out of the café.
“Just somewhere I can’t hear your boring prattlings, you silly moo,” she added under her breath.
CHAPTER 12
BORED, BORED, BORED!
“Ollie, I’m booooorrrrrred!!”
“And I’m busy, so get lost, Cat,” Ollie replied, without a trace of malice in his voice.
“No, you’re not,” said his friend, leaning her arms and her chest on the counter of Nick’s Slick Riffs record shop and staring at Ollie pleadingly as if he could magically make something entertaining happen. “There’s no one in here apart from me!”
“Just ‘cause there’s no customers doesn’t mean there’s no work, Cat,” said Ollie, without lifting his head from the forms he was filling in.
“What are you doing then?” she asked, trying to pull the sheets of paper away from him and turn them around towards her.
“Cataloguing records,” he said in a firm voice, pulling the forms back round to face him, “before I price them and put them out in alphabetical order in the racks.”
“Sounds just fascinating,” sneered Cat.
“Well, it’s just one of those things you have to do when you’ve got a thing called a job. You wouldn’t know,” Ollie teased her.
“You know something?” Cat sighed, oblivious to his cheek.
“Nope,” Ollie responded flatly.
“This is the most boring holiday ever. It’s Thursday already, the week’s nearly over and I’ve done nothing!”
“Well, what are you bugging me for? It’s not my fault.”
“I know, but it’s not fair. No one’s around! Maya’s away, you and Joe and Kerry and Anna are all working, and Matt’s… well, Matt’s just being wet.”
“You mean Matt’s doing something with Gabrielle,” Ollie clarified.
“Same difference,” shrugged Cat.
“Still, Sonja’s not working - there’s nothing stopping you hanging out with her…” suggested Ollie with a little grin.
“No, thank you!” barked Cat indignantly. “I’d rather dye my hair mousy-brown than spend any time with her at the moment!”
“Cat, your hair is mousy-brown underneath all that bleach,” Ollie pointed out, his eyes still glued to his figures.
“Exactly!” Cat responded emphatically and illogically.
“Guess I can’t blame you,” he smiled, raising his eyes at last. “Kerry’s just about had enough of Sonja at the moment too. And I reckon she’ll be worse today…”
“How come?” asked Cat, fiddling with the pricing gun in front of her on the counter.
“Billy was developing and printing up those shots of her last night. He told me at band rehearsal on Tuesday night that she’d arranged to meet him today to get them off him.”
“What, next door?” asked Cat, thumbing her hand in the direction of the End.
“Yeah,” answered Ollie. “Don’t know what time, though.”
“Well, that’s it - I’m not hanging about in there this afternoon. No way.”
“And you’re not hanging about in here either,” said Ollie. “If Nick and Bryan come back from this record fair and find that I’ve done nothing, it’ll be dishwashing duty at the caff for me for the next year!”
Ollie’s Uncle Nick and long-time buddy Bryan, who ran the second-hand record shop, were always skiving off on ‘business’, leaving Ollie in charge. Not that he minded; it was fun hanging out in Slick Riffs and having a legitimate excuse to listen to loads of records and CDs, instead of darting around in the hot, sticky café.
“But, Ol!” whimpered Cat. “What am I supposed to do?”
“Actually, it’s a pity that you and my sister don’t get on,” he said, ignoring Cat’s grimace at the mention of Natasha’s name. “She’s as bored as you.”
“God, what’s the catwalk queen doing still stuck with us mere mortals in Winstead? Hasn’t she got to jet off somewhere and model Gucci bikinis or something?”
“Nope, she doesn’t seem to have any work on at the moment,” Ollie shook his head. “Now, Cat, don’t you have to jet off and be bored somewhere else?”
Cat was about to reluctantly do as she was told when the creaky door of the shop was pushed open and Billy and Andy strolled in.
“Hi, boys!” trilled Cat, her eyes lighting up. Slithering around the other side of the counter beside Ollie, she picked up one of the albums from the pile that he had been sorting through.
“What can I sell you today? Can I interest you in this overpriced, outdated, scratchy record? Or one of the other overpriced, outdated, scratchy records we have in this fine emporium?”
“I like your assistant, Ol,” laughed Billy. “She’s very enthusiastic.”
“She’s also just going, aren’t you, Cat?” said Ollie, giving her a hefty nudge with his hip.
“Nope,” Cat replied, enjoying her game. She picked up the pricing gun and clattered a ticket on to the album she was holding in her other hand.
“Mmm,” nodded Andy, peering at the ticket. “You’re right, Cat - it is overpriced in here: £4000 does seem a lot for a second-hand Madonna album when you can get a CD of it in Our Price for a tenner.”
“Cat! It should be £4! What have you done?” Ollie sighed, grabbing the price gun from her hand and checking the setting that she’d fiddled with.
Cat looked suitably repentant, but before Ollie could shoo her away again, Billy spoke.
“Hey, have either of you seen Sonja around? I’m supposed to be meeting her in the café to show her these…” he held up a large brown envelope, “…but she wasn’t in there a second ago.”
“Are those her photos from Saturday?” asked Cat, her eyes narrowing. “Can I have a look?”
“Well,” said Billy dubiously. “I really think she ought to see them first…”
“Oh, Son’s my best mate and my cousin - she won’t mind,” said Cat persuasively.
Billy seemed on the point of giving in when the door of the record shop creaked open yet again.
Ollie was relieved, despite the fact that he needed to get on with his work. He’d just spotted that Cat had surreptitiously picked up a black marker pen from the counter and knew that he’d have had to wrestle it from her if Billy had let her get her hands on the shots. The mood Cat was in, Sonja would have ended up with a moustache and glasses scribbled across her face in lightning-quick time.
“Hi!” said Matt, walking up to the counter with Gabrielle in tow.
“Smells a bit funny in here, doesn’t it?” Gabrielle commented, wrinkling up her nose at the permanent damp and dusty odour that pervaded the s
hop.
“Ah, it’s all part of the atmosphere!” Ollie joked. “So what are you two up to?”
“We’ve just come from the city - there was a record fair I wanted to catch,” answered Matt. He was always on the look out for new stock for his DJing business, even though he seemed to spend more money buying records than he actually got paid doing gigs.
“Wow, Matt, a record fair - you know how to show a girl a good time!” said Cat dryly. “Poor you, Gabs!”
“Oh, it was all right,” smiled Gabrielle. “We went shopping too and he bought me this.”
Cat looked at the intricately beaded choker that Gabrielle was pointing to, instantly felt jealous that she didn’t have a boyfriend to buy her spur-of-the-minute gifts and promptly shut up.
“Anyway, we saw Nick and Bryan when we were there,” Matt continued. “Nick asked me to pass on the message that they’re going to be back later than they thought.”
“Hey, big surprise,” laughed Ollie.
“And he also said to tell you guys…” Matt looked round at Billy and Andy “…that he’s got The Loud a gig. A really important one, he said.”
“Where? When?” gasped Ollie, desperate for details.
“He wouldn’t say,” shrugged Matt. “Said he wanted to tell you lot himself.”
“I’m looking forward to seeing you play. Matt’s told me how brilliant your band is,” smiled Gabrielle enthusiastically.
“Well…” shrugged Ollie, almost shyly.
“I’ll bring all my friends to see you,” Gabrielle continued. “They won’t believe me when I tell them I know a proper band!”
“I don’t know if we’re quite a proper band yet,” said Billy with a cautionary note, but looking none the less excited at the thought of playing an ‘important’ gig. “We’re still just starting out—”
“But you are a proper band! Have you got a record deal yet or… or - groupies?” Gabrielle laughed brightly.
“Not us!” Ollie joked back. “Having groupies is more Matt’s line!”
The realisation of what he’d said had just sunk in, and the resulting ‘what-have-you-done?’ pinch on his arm from Cat was just starting to hurt, when another creak heralded yet another visitor to the shop.