Star Struck

by Jane Lovering

  ‘You nervous? I’m nervous as hell, really in this to win the date with Gethryn Tudor-Morgan but, hey, take it as it comes. You on the forum?’ She pulled the front of her shirt out to show the message. ‘This is me. My forum name. Come true, I wish.’ She gave a shrug and the queue moved forward a few steps as some more people joined behind me.

  ‘I’m Blue Sky.’

  ‘Oh. Hey, yeah, you started the thread on why Defries couldn’t really call himself Prince of Skeldar, way to go, girl, that was some serious political argument there. My real name’s Ruth.’

  ‘Skye.’

  ‘Cool.’ Ruth leaned across me to address the man behind. ‘Hey, B’Ha-man, this is Blue Sky.’

  The man bent forward. He looked like an accountant. ‘Hi.’ Carefully ironed shirt, neatly pressed jeans and shiny shoes were out of place here, where loose T-shirts covered in Fallen Skies related slogans seemed de rigueur. ‘This is just so exciting.’

  My breathing had steadied. With Ruth in front and B’Ha-man behind I had acquired a degree of security and the rest of the convention crowd was being filtered off to Meeting Room Two, where I understood another signing session would shortly be underway, where Felix would be pretending to pay attention whilst, no doubt, twitching. This left only us quiz-participants standing in line and, as the numbers dwindled, I felt better.

  Up front Jack was levering open the doors. ‘Everyone take a seat. We’ll be coming around to check you don’t have any crib sheets or phones set up, okay?’

  I sat in one of the evenly spaced chairs, between Ruth, who was bouncing around with excitement, and B’Ha-man who sat rigidly, feet together. Each of us was handed a clipboard with logoed sheets of paper and a Fallen Skies biro attached. Adrenaline surged, leaving me feeling slightly light-headed as one of the T-shirted men looked me over quickly, patted my pockets and moved onto Ruth. This was serious.

  ‘We’re closing the room now.’ Jack, up front, was standing on a makeshift stage, put together from some enormous wooden blocks, wearing a microphone headset. I was glad to see he had put shoes on and buttoned up the shirt. He was still wearing his glasses, which made him look particularly writerly. ‘Don’t want any accusations of anyone getting answers from the crowd.’

  And now I knew why he’d looked familiar. The beard was gone, replaced by an untidy brush of stubble, his hair was much shorter and he’d lost a little weight but … yes. I could see it now. Jay Whitaker. A huge change, a huge improvement. What made you pull yourself back?

  The wondering shook me. Why the hell was I so concerned about Jack? Okay, he’d undergone a radical make-over … well, judging by the persistent jeans and bare feet it hadn’t been that radical, but he was certainly a long way from the drunken writer who’d been the subject of the sci-fi community’s more lurid speculations. I watched him check the mic connection, ignoring the bantering exchanges of the back-stage crew as he did so, and felt again the cool touch of his hand on my forehead last night, the firmness of his fingers around my wrist earlier this morning. For all his cantankerous posturing, he was secretly a really nice guy.

  And then, throwing Jack into sudden shadow, Gethryn was there. He climbed up onto the stage, circling like a wild animal, eyes on the crowd. He looked burnished, polished by fame to a golden perfection and dressed in cool tans and natural mossy greens like a force of nature personified.

  I think my mouth fell open a little. He was just … gorgeous.

  I followed his gaze as he looked around the room. There must have been nearly a hundred people; if this room got blown up the world’s knowledge of Fallen Skies trivia would probably drop to near zero. I breathed carefully. Didn’t want to scare myself by thinking about all these people, all in the same space. Talked myself down: there was nothing to stress over. If I won, terrific, if I lost, well, at least I’d tried. All the same, my heart raced and the sweat broke out between my shoulder blades. Gethryn stood a moment longer, staring out over the heads of the hopefuls, then pursed his mouth and turned away, jumping down and vanishing off the back of the stage. My heart gave a little moan of protest.

  ‘All done?’ Jack looked towards the officials, then did another quick mic check. As he counted down from ten, to make sure the people in the back could hear and that feedback wasn’t an issue, he caught my eye and smiled.

  ‘Wow.’ Ruth bent towards me. The chairs were so far apart, to prevent collaborative cheating I suppose, that she had to push most of her torso off her chair. ‘That’s Jay Whitaker. No wonder they keep him under wraps. Isn’t he just one sexy mother of a writer?’ She gazed up at the stage again. ‘I recognise him from those pics on BackStageSpy’s blog. They call him the Iceman, isn’t that just the coolest name ever? Wrote “Behind Evil”, voted best TV episode in Scene magazine last year. Made an entire nation cry.’

  ‘Yeah. And they say that he came up with the idea for the series when he was waterskiing – isn’t that just too cool?’ B’Ha-man came in from the other side.

  I wondered if they were trying to intimidate me with their knowledge. They needn’t have bothered, I knew about the magazine award, who presented it and which clip they’d played at the ceremony. And I didn’t think Jack was a waterskiing kind of bloke. I was still trying to get my head around his being one of the driving forces behind all this.

  ‘Okay. Each of your chairs has a number underneath.’ Jack’s voice crackled over the speakers. ‘Write that number at the top of your paper. When you leave the room, you’ll be asked for your name and seat number and that information won’t be revealed until the results are announced. All papers will be marked anonymously.’ We dutifully crouched down and wrote our seat numbers, then sat, pens sweaty in hands. ‘Block capitals only, yeah? My eyesight’s not what it was.’ Jack indicated his glasses and the crowd gave a dutiful giggle. ‘Here we go. Question one. What prevents the pilot of the fighter craft D’liss from landing on Skeldar?’

  And the questions went on. Fifty of them, to be precise, getting harder and harder. I found myself oddly excited, feeling the challenge in every planet name asked for, every piece of observation needed, had to stop myself from groaning ‘oh, that’s easy’, or muttering under my breath as I calculated the load weight of a Shadow craft. Beside me Ruth was frowning, scrunching her face up; almost every question past fifteen made her sigh and her scribbled answers grew fewer, the pauses longer. B’Ha-man was writing furiously in answer to every question, even one-word answers seemed to draw forth a frenzied stream of penmanship. I wondered whether he was answering the questions or putting forward a script of his own.

  Between questions twenty-five and twenty-six, there was a short break for Jack to take a swig from a bottle of water. He removed the headset and his glasses to do so, throwing his head back to stretch out his spine and I heard Ruth give a stifled moan in her chair. He did look good, I had to admit, all lanky and dark and in charge as he was, although from the way he was twisting his water bottle around on the table and sucking on the end of his biro I could tell he was dying for a cigarette.

  Then we started again and I almost forgot to get it wrong. I’d just written my answer to question forty, ‘What was the real name of Defries’s mother?’ (It was Lauria, but the name was only mentioned once, during the title sequence of episode 13, Sleeping with the Enemy) when I realised that I was finding this too easy. I crossed out my answer and wrote ‘Mary’ neatly beside it. Two more answers got deliberately sabotaged, that should be enough; this crowd looked seriously fanatical. Ah well, at worst I’d get a series of Scratch-n-Sniffs, and at best … ah, at best I’d get my date with Gethryn.

  Who was now lounging on the stage. I hadn’t seen him come back, I’d been so intent on my answer sheet, but Ruth’s eyes were fixed on him and her robust bosom was definitely heaving in his direction as we dutifully answered question fifty and the officials came round to collect our papers. My eyes joined Ruth’s.

&
nbsp; ‘He looks like a vampire,’ Ruth whispered, once the papers were all in. ‘All kinda pent-up and dangerous, like he’s got a whole secret life. Jeez, I really hope I did enough to win that dinner with him. If I don’t, I think I might just curl up and die.’

  Gethryn moved over and spoke to Jack, who was co-ordinating the careful sealing of the answer papers into envelopes. His question was inaudible, but Jack’s reply hissed over his microphone, ‘Just stay out of the way!’ before he pulled off the headset to engage in a furious debate at the back of the stage. Gethryn looked relaxed, unflustered, making soothing hand-gestures, but Jack seemed wound-up and angry, pacing around with his head down.

  We were hustled out in two lines, officials on the door waiting to take our names and seat numbers as we passed through. Out in the reception area Felix was waiting for me, hopping up and down. ‘Well?’ he tried to whisper as soon as I was out. ‘How did it go? Stupid question, you know everything there is to know about Fallen Skies … No, but really. How did it go?’

  Ruth gave me a daggers look as she passed us, and linked her arm through B’Ha-man’s. ‘Let’s go to the forum meet,’ she said to him, deliberately cutting me. ‘Everyone’s going to be there.’

  ‘What’s up with her?’ Felix watched the unlikely pair go towards the bar. ‘And what’s with him? They look like a Munsters out-take.’

  ‘I think, maybe, she didn’t know as much as she thought.’ A brief flurry of activity and Gethryn was leaving Meeting Room One, surrounded by a bevy of girls, all talking and swooping around him, urging him to this event and that, giving him schedules and itinerary run-downs until the poor guy must have felt dizzy with it all. Felix’s hand tightened on my arm.

  ‘I’m beginning to see your point about him,’ he said. ‘Totally amazing.’

  ‘I really don’t think Gethryn is into guys, Fe.’

  ‘You don’t know.’ Felix’s gaze followed Gethryn’s progress. ‘He might be bi-curious.’ He gave a quiet whistle. ‘Oh, now look at that arse. You can’t tell me that’s not a waste, an arse like that has definitely got to have leanings.’

  ‘Looks pretty straight-up to me.’

  As if he’d heard, Gethryn turned a wide arc across the floor and approached us, preceded by his multi-coloured harem, like a crow chasing down a flock of parrots. ‘Skye! Hey there, you been taking part in the quiz?’ The expression on his face told me that he knew damn well I had. ‘And I hope you’ve not been taking too much notice of old disaster-knickers there, Mr Whitaker. Bit of an old woman, he is.’

  ‘No, I …’

  For a second Gethryn pressed close. ‘Hope you get second prize, my lovely,’ he whispered, directly in my ear. ‘Think I’d rather have you as a dinner date than some of the things I saw in there.’ Then he dropped another one of his patent winks my way and was gone again, back into the middle of his flock, all still talking non-stop.

  Felix fanned himself. ‘Oh, my Lord.’

  ‘Hey, Felix.’ We both jumped. It was Lissa, now wearing a tiny little skirt from which her legs protruded, shiny and brown. ‘Wanna go for a ride? I got the car out front, nowhere to go, nothing to do, so I thought you might be up for an adventure.’ Her eyes were suspiciously wide and she was weaving from foot to foot as though undergoing some kind of personal earthquake.

  ‘Sure. I’ll just …’ He made some kind of meaningless hand movement.

  ‘I’ll see you in ten. Little pink convertible, yeah?’

  ‘That’s no way to talk about you,’ I giggled as she sashayed outside, walking carefully and swinging car keys from one finger.

  ‘Hey, too right, no-one’s ever called me little. But I was hoping to hang around for the results of the quiz, find out if I … I mean, if you’ve done well.’

  ‘Oh, those won’t be released until later. Go off and make use of all that sexual energy you’ve got burning a hole in your underwear. After all, if you’ve even started to contemplate doing the lusty thing with Mr I’m-so-hetero-it-hurts Tudor-Morgan, you need to calm it all down or you are going to get into so much trouble.’

  ‘Well, yeah, but I kind of told Jared that I’m up for a rematch tonight, and that is a man you do not want to disappoint. You would not believe …’

  ‘Fe. Just go.’

  ‘Will you be okay here on your own?’

  ‘I’ll manage.’ I flicked a finger at him and headed away. It probably looked as though I was going towards Meeting Room Two, with its queue still snaking in an orderly way out through the doors and half-way across reception, but at the last minute I diverted and headed up the stairs back to our room. At the bottom of the staircase I peeped back. Felix was draining a furtive scotch at the bar as though fortifying himself for the afternoon and I really hoped Lissa knew what she was letting herself in for, hanging around with him.

  Once alone in the room, I felt a brief burst of self-pity which I tried to squash down. After all, Gethryn seemed to like me, didn’t he? I lifted my shirt and looked down my body at the intricate web of scars and stitch marks left by the accident, marks like cracks in droughty earth, and wondered what he’d say if he could see these. There had been an episode late in Series Two, where Lucas James had rescued a badly burned woman from a downed Shadow craft. He’d spoken such words of consolation and acceptance that I’d watched the DVD over and over until it started sticking on that scene. He’d talked about how no-one should be defined by the way they looked, that it was who they truly were that defined them; their memories and their actions. She’d died, of course; all Lucas’ women had a tendency to keel over before the end of the series – it was a high-risk job being the chosen partner of a man who fought such battles for justice and understanding for other races.

  I traced a finger over the scars. Nothing in life is truly perfect, and those who pretend to be are covering up something nastier than these. I could hear his voice as my lips mouthed the words that were etched on my brain, along with the image of Lucas James holding his lover, gazing down on her damaged body. Words I’d clutched for the comfort they brought when I was at my absolute lowest. No-one was perfect. No-one. You could see my imperfections, that was all. And they could be overlooked too, by the right man.

  There was a bang on the door and I let the shirt fall. ‘What?’

  ‘Skye? You in there?’ It was Jack. ‘Have you seen Lissa?’ He was inside the room, panting and dishevelled, as soon as I opened the door, scanning the floor as though I’d got her hidden under the boards. ‘She’s been drinking, gone off with her car keys. We’ll be pulling her from the wreckage …’ My face must have gone rigid, because he added, more gently, ‘Metaphorically speaking, obviously.’

  I told him about Lissa and Felix heading off to get the car and he swore inventively for a minute. You could tell he was a writer. ‘We could go after them.’

  ‘Can’t. I don’t drive.’ He paced up and down for a bit. ‘And I can’t call the cops, she’ll get done for drunk driving, and the last thing I need is more of that kind of thing hanging over the show.’ He paused. ‘Not that the show is the really important thing, obviously.’

  ‘We could take Felix’s car.’ The keys were sitting on the little bedside cupboard. ‘It’s not great but …’

  ‘I just want to find them, to know that she’s safe. Get her back. Everyone knows she’s my agent, I don’t want rumours flying around about her … about me, I mean, I know we need press coverage, we need them, pull in the advertisers, but …’ He stopped pacing and rubbed the back of his neck. ‘Oh God, I’m doing the talking thing again, just punch me in the mouth, Skye, for the good of us all.’ His hands came round and he hid his face in them. ‘I need sleep.’

  ‘Jack?’

  A quick head shake. ‘No, nothing. Sorry, Skye. Don’t even know why I’m here to tell the truth, I just sort of panicked and …’ He shrugged and chewed a nail.

  I
made a huge, a monumental, decision. Jack would probably never know how big. ‘I can drive.’

  Maybe he did know. Or guessed. ‘And have you driven lately?’

  ‘Not lately. As such. But I can.’

  ‘Skye, have you driven anywhere since the accident?’

  ‘I …’ You’re such a crap driver. Useless, Skye. Pathetic.

  He gave me a long, dark look. ‘I can’t ask you to do this.’

  ‘But Felix is my friend. Let’s go.’ I picked up the keys and almost ran from the room. I didn’t want to give myself a chance to change my mind, to feel the terror that I knew was going to come flooding in somewhere. It was bad enough being a passenger, how much worse was it going to be getting behind the wheel?

  I found out, when I sat in the hired Ford, with the seat burning through my trousers, my hand shaking so hard that I couldn’t start the bloody thing.

  ‘Skye. Look. Maybe I panicked too soon. I’m sure they’ll be fine.’ Jack was hunched up on the other side of the car, legs too long for the pathetic footwell.

  ‘No. I can do this.’ I gritted my teeth so hard I could hear grating inside my head. ‘I have to stop letting the accident rule my life. I drove before, there’s absolutely no reason why I shouldn’t drive now.’

  ‘It’s been a long time for you, hasn’t it?’

  I thought back over all the things I couldn’t now do. Of all the things I didn’t do. ‘Yeah, but you don’t forget.’ The key shook, chiming against the keyhole as my nerveless fingers tried to turn it again. ‘You don’t forget,’ I repeated.

  Jack gave a strange kind of laugh. ‘The roads are dead straight though. Boringly straight. Even smashed out of her tiny, Liss can drive these roads.’

  The engine caught, and my shaky leg eased off the brake. ‘Do you want to do this or not?’ I had to push down on my knee to stop the shaking. ‘Because I’m going to find Felix. If you want to find Lissa, then stop whining and come with me.’