by Karen Swan
‘All righty,’ she said, rubbing her hands together before assuming the same position and trying to push up. She managed eight.
Dan tutted, moving over to the parallels. They came to his hip height and Nettie watched as he stood between them and jumped up, one hand on each bar, his ankles crossed and legs bent. He began dipping quickly, working out his triceps, working off his irritation.
There was room for two, she figured, coming and standing in front of him, between the bars also. ‘Hmm. Doesn’t look so bad,’ she said, watching him bob up and down. She put her hands on the bars and jumped up, locking her elbows. And promptly froze.
She could dangle but not move. Or move but fall. Those seemed to be the options her body was presenting her with.
Dan looked annoyed by her hovering in front of him as he continued to dip, although she figured she had his attention here.
‘So, listen, about the other night.’ She wrinkled her nose, bit her lip. ‘I’m really sorry.’
He snorted again, looking down at the ground.
‘Really I am, Dan. I know I left you in the lurch.’
‘Whatever.’
‘Not “whatever”. It was a crummy thing to do.’
‘It’s no biggie to me. If you didn’t want to chill, you could’ve just said.’
‘But that’s the thing! I did want to hang out with you!’ she said, her arms beginning to shake. She shifted her hand slightly. ‘Jules and I had made arrangements to see the new Bond, but then she bailed to go . . . go to the concert and I thought that meant I was free. I had no idea she was going to turn up and expect me to go with her.’
‘No idea?’ Dan panted, but his voice was still incredulous as he continued dipping at the same rate as when he’d started. Nettie was beginning to think he was bionic. That or he was more exceptionally pissed off than she’d appreciated. ‘She’s got backstage passes for Jamie Westlake and you’re telling me it was a surprise she turned up on the doorstep? After he whisked you off on a just-for-two VIP trip the night before?’
‘It wasn’t like that. It was a work thing. She’d agreed to go to it, not me.’
‘So then why did you go?’
Nettie blinked. She shifted her hands on the bars – they were freezing, even through her gloves. ‘You saw the note.’
He laughed. ‘Don’t tell me you believed it? Jesus, Nettie! Can you be that naive? It was a line. A cheesy pick-up line.’
‘No. He—’ She stopped. What good would it be to tell him that it had been true? Jamie had been waiting for her, true to his word. Dan wouldn’t want to hear that either. She realized now that Jamie had been right in his observations – this wasn’t protection she was seeing, the surrogate big brother looking out for her; it was jealousy, plain and simple.
He finished his reps and jumped off, turning away as he clapped his hands together and swung his arms out, back and forth like a boxer.
Nettie jumped down after him, grateful to be able to release her arms again, and watched as he went over to the pull-up bar, not sure what to say. How had she never seen it before? She’d been so sure he’d seen their awkward, clumsy teenage kisses in the same way as her; it had never occurred to her that maybe he’d been waiting for . . . For what? The stars to align? Their chemistry to mutate as their lives progressed?
He would deny it all, of that much she was certain. He jumped, his arms up and gripping the overhead bar, his palms facing inwards. He began to lift, his energy levels seeming to increase rather than falter, a sure sign he was angry.
He did thirty pull-ups, then dropped down again, looking irritated to find her still standing there. ‘What are you doing here, Nets? What do you want?’ he snapped.
‘I’m sorry, that’s all. I didn’t mean to hurt you.’
He looked baffled by the sentiment. ‘You didn’t,’ he said, his usually soft, dopey face almost a sneer. ‘You couldn’t.’ His words were like punches, deliberately hard, knocking the wind from her, but she had heard this tone in his voice before, usually when his mother announced her latest divorce.
She stared at a blade of grass peeking through the snow.
‘Why aren’t you at work, anyway?’
‘Oh, uh . . . they’ve given me the afternoon off because I’m out tonight.’ That wasn’t quite true. Mike – no doubt at Jules’s bullying behest – had given her a ‘duvet day’, but she didn’t want to tell Dan about Gwen’s call when he was mad at her like this. He was entitled to be angry about her treatment of him, and telling him the latest twist in their family drama would oblige him to forgive her.
‘Let me guess – Jamie again?’ Dan shook his head in disbelief, his hands planted on his hips as she bit her lip. ‘So what’s it now, then? You’re going backstage at the . . . I dunno . . . the Oscars?’
‘The Jingle Bell Ball.’
He groaned.
‘It’s a link-up with White Tiger, Dan. They’re our biggest client. I don’t have a choice.’
‘Right. Right, yeah. White Tiger.’ He sighed, raking a hand through his hair and shaking his head. Jamie’s name hovered, unspoken, in the air between them. ‘Whatever. It’s none of my business. I don’t care.’
Nettie stared at him. It didn’t seem like that. ‘Look, I’ll make it up to you, I promise. The campaign’s only running for another few days and then he’ll be gone and life will be back to normal again.’
He snorted. ‘I actually think you believe that.’
‘Dan—’
‘Wake up! Do you really think someone like him blows into your life and out again, and everything just stays the same? I mean, you know he’s seeing other girls, right? I take it you saw the pictures of him and that blonde singer coming out of Mahiki last night? He’s a player, Nettie. He plays by different rules.’
She felt winded. What photos? ‘D’you mean Coco?’
‘I dunno what the hell her name is,’ he scowled.
‘You don’t understand. It isn’t what it looks like. They share a manager. They’ve got a song coming out and he’s just helping her get some press.’ But even as the words left her mouth, she heard how feeble they sounded, a pathetic excuse.
Dan laughed, but his eyes were bleak. ‘Yeah, right, sure he is. That’s exactly what it looked like.’ He shook his head as she stared back at him, feeling a rising sense of panic; she had never felt so estranged, so far away from her oldest, dearest friend. How had things become so messy, so quickly? How could almost a lifetime of friendship unravel in the space of days? Only a few days ago they’d been laughing in the market, shopping for his mother just like they always did, meeting up with friends and bagging their usual table in the pub, Scout sitting on her feet and hovering up the crisp crumbs.
She blinked. ‘Dan, we are still . . . friends, aren’t we?’
It seemed an age before he answered. ‘Whatever that means,’ he muttered. ‘I’ll see you around,’ he said, pulling up the hood on his sweatshirt and jogging away.
‘I can’t believe we’re back here again,’ Jules said as the taxi was waved past the security barrier and they diverted into the VIP lane that took them round the back of the arena. ‘Three times in a week. We’re getting to be pros.’
‘I know,’ Nettie murmured, feeling sick at the sight of the giant arena. It was too soon for her to come back to the scene of the crime. She didn’t want to see him again. It was too much. She closed her eyes, trying to visualize a rowing boat drifting on a still, misted lake – happy place, happy place – but all she saw was an edit of Saturday night’s highlights: his driver taking her to him; the way he’d waited for her to show; the way his eyes had held hers every time he came off stage for a water break; the sense of inevitability between them.
But then the way it had ended between them had been inevitable too.
Dan’s words echoed in her head and she knew he was right – even if he wasn’t right about Coco (and she hoped to God he wasn’t: the bed sheets were still warm), he had blown into her life and would blow out again
soon enough. Nothing would ever be the same.
She turned to look at Jules, who was reapplying her lip gloss. ‘You should do tonight.’
‘What?’
‘On stage. I want you to do it.’
‘Nettie, no, I can’t.’
‘Yes, you can! You did it yesterday. There is absolutely no good reason why it has to be me in the suit.’
‘I’m afraid there is. Dave is insisting upon it.’
‘Dave?’
‘His manager.’
‘Yes, yes, I know who he is. But why is he insisting on it? What does it matter?’
Jules shrugged. ‘Only thing I can think is that Jamie’s insisting on it.’
Nettie shook her head. ‘Nuh. Uh-uh.’
Jules shrugged again. ‘He wanted to know where you were yesterday.’
There was a silence as questions immediately began ringing out like church bells in Nettie’s head. ‘Well, w-what did you say?’ she asked, growing pale, shifting forward in her seat anxiously.
‘I told him you had the day off.’
‘And he bought that?’
‘Seemed to. He was in a foul mood, though.’
‘Oh.’ She sat back in her seat again.
Jules sighed. ‘Please will you just tell me what happened with you two? You obviously left the club together.’
She looked out of the window and sighed, knowing she couldn’t keep it a secret forever. Jules had been there. She turned back. ‘Yes.’
‘And . . . ?’ Jules prompted.
Nettie bit her lip, gave a small shrug. ‘We went back to his hotel.’
Jules closed her eyes and held her hands up in a ‘stop’ gesture. She took a deep breath before opening her eyes again. ‘I am calm. Pray continue.’
‘Well . . . what else is there to say?’
Jules pinned her with a look. ‘Obviously I don’t want details. That would be indelicate. And I am a lady . . .’
Nettie felt a smile twitch her lips at her friend’s high drama, and she allowed herself to relive the good bit just for a moment. It was like peering into a box.
‘Just tell me it was amazing.’
Nettie blinked. ‘Of course.’
Jules waggled her head excitedly and gave a small scream. ‘Oh my God! I knew it!’
Nettie couldn’t help but smile. Jules’s was the right response to her crazy, mad situation. ‘And did you cop off with the guitarist?’
‘Gus? Yeah. I think musicians might be the way to go.’ Jules gave a smile that bordered on . . . shyness. Nettie looked at her in surprise.
‘Have you seen him since?’ she asked.
‘Might’ve done.’
‘When?’
Jules tried to look lackadaisical – and failed. ‘Last night,’ she squealed, holding her hands up for Nettie to clasp. ‘He came over.’
‘Gus Chambers was in your flat, last night?’
‘I know! It’s insane. They’d been in the studio all evening, laying down the new track. He came over after.’
‘Wow!’ Nettie uttered, stunned. ‘I’m . . . I’m so surprised. You never said.’
‘I was going to tell you last night, but . . .’ Her happy-go-lucky expression faded. ‘It wasn’t the time, obviously.’
Nettie nodded, feeling bad that her news had overwritten Jules’s, once again.
‘Anyway, I’m keeping dead quiet about it at work. God, can you imagine’ – she rolled her eyes – ‘can you imagine if Caro or Daisy found out about it? And I don’t even want to know what Daisy would do to you, dark horse,’ Jules teased, pushing lightly on her thigh.
Nettie shook her head. ‘No. I only saw him the once. It’s not the same.’
‘But don’t you want to see him again? I don’t get it. How did you leave it with him?’
Nettie looked out of the window again, wishing her reflection wasn’t so clearly written there, the humiliation still box-fresh. ‘Badly. I left him standing in the corridor in his boxers. I just left him there.’
Jules looked horrified, her fairy-tale fantasy shattered on the ground. ‘Oh shit.’
‘I know.’
‘But why?’
‘I just . . .’ She sighed, staring into the palms of her hands. How could she articulate it? ‘I panicked. I mean, he was talking about us spending the whole day together and it was making me feel . . .’ She looked back at her friend. ‘It was making me feel . . . I had to get out of there, you know?’
‘Not really,’ Jules said softly, rubbing her arm. ‘But yeah.’
The cab was pulling up to the stage door they had entered through on Saturday, although Ron wasn’t here to greet them now.
A sudden thought struck Nettie. ‘Jules, you haven’t told Gus, have you, about me, I mean? If he was to tell Jamie—’
‘Hey. I’ve already told you. My lips are sealed. It’s your story to tell and no one else’s,’ Jules said, handing the driver a twenty-pound note and asking for a receipt.
Nettie felt a pinprick of relief. She couldn’t bear the thought of Jamie knowing the truth about her life.
‘Although, for what it’s worth, what happened is hardly a reflection on you. I mean, he wouldn’t think worse of you because your mum—’
She was stopped by Nettie’s expression.
‘Well, anyway, you know my thoughts on the matter,’ she mumbled, rubbing Nettie’s arm lightly.
They stepped out into the snow. Thanks to a driving wind, the snow seemed to be falling horizontally – as though gravity had loosened its grip; certainly Nettie felt rudderless herself as she watched the flakes spin and drift, bouncing on air pockets. Jules struggled to get the rabbit’s body past the cab door.
‘Earth to Nets!’ Jules called, holding out one of the bags for Nettie to take.
They staggered up to the door together, heads down in the wind as though pushed back by the sound. A man with a clipboard and headphones was standing there, swaddled in a puffa, looking at them suspiciously as the bulbous rabbit costume glowed blue in the hanging bags.
He pushed the headphones back to free one of his ears and be able to hear them. ‘Jules Grant and Nettie Watson, White Tiger,’ Jules said. ‘We’re with Jamie Westlake.’
The man reluctantly scanned his list, appearing disappointed to find their names. ‘What’s in the bags?’ he asked, leaning forward to peer in.
‘That’s confidential, I’m afraid.’
‘I need to see inside the bag, Miss.’
‘No can do. It’s for Jamie Westlake’s stage act later,’ Jules said with her best ‘sorry-not-sorry’ smile.
‘I can’t let you in without checking the bags. You could be anyone rocking up here with . . . well, whatever that is in there.’
‘Fine, then, so long as you call Jamie and get his permission to look. I’ve got a number in my phone,’ Jules said, struggling to pull her phone from her jeans back pocket.
The guard carried on looking suspicious, intrigued by the unusual packages. ‘Oh, fine. Go through,’ the man muttered, losing interest and waving them past.
They walked along the corridor they had travelled down on Saturday, turning left up the short flight of stairs and into the whitewashed corridor where Jamie’s photos had, until so recently, been plastered like wallpaper. Only a few remained now, images of tonight’s other artists flanking him.
A lot of them were boy bands, pretty, post-pubescent groups aimed at the teen market, their arms wrapped round each other and pork-pie hats on their heads as they dipped towards the camera. Coco Miller – the golden girl, the latest pop princess, Jamie’s most recent conquest? – dazzled in her poster, an image taken from her new album showing her running from the camera, her long hair streaked across her face, her mouth open, eyes glinting.
But Nettie couldn’t take her eyes off Jamie’s image. He was a man, not a boy, a musician, not a showman, and the very sight of him sent shockwaves through her. She was dreading seeing him again. She’d been so overtaken by events with her mother that she had m
anaged to keep him to the periphery of her thoughts in the past twenty-four hours, but she was back on his turf now and memories, sensations, scents tossed about wildly in her mind. There was no escaping him here.
‘Don’t look so worried,’ Jules said, barging her affectionately as they walked towards the dressing room they remembered from Saturday, constantly dodging people with familiar faces. ‘Hey, wasn’t that Calvin Harris?’
‘Was it?’ Nettie thought her voice sounded odd.
Jules looked at her. ‘Listen, he’ll be cool. He was fine yesterday. There was no rancour or spitting whenever your name came up,’ she teased.
‘Really?’ Nettie asked, her arms aching from trying to keep the unwieldy costume from dragging on the floor. She hoisted it up over her shoulder.
‘Really.’
They stopped outside the closed dressing-room door, Jules’s hand already raised in the air to knock, when Nettie caught sight of the name in a tab to the side. ‘Wait! This isn’t Jamie’s,’ Nettie said, holding her friend’s arm still as she looked around them.
‘Bollocks. I just thought he’d have the same one.’
‘Mmm,’ Nettie said, wondering who was on stage right now. The noise level was thunderous and everything was shaking – the floor, the ceiling, the walls, her heart.
‘Well, he can’t be far, right?’ Jules asked, turning to continue down the hall.
Nettie trudged after her, reading the names on the sides of the doors as they tried to get out of the way of a woman – a backing dancer? Nettie wondered – running past in five-inch heels, shorts and a sequinned bra.
‘Jules, I think we’d better ask someone,’ she said as they got to the end of the corridor. ‘They could be God knows where and this costume is too heavy to be double-backing on ourselves.’
‘Hang on a minute, hang on a minute,’ Jules said with a grin, pulling her phone out from her back pocket. ‘I’ll text Gus. Mr Lover Lover,’ she murmured.
Nettie leaned against the wall with her eyes closed, her palms flat to it and feeling the vibrations that came from 20,000 girls screaming all at once, a 1,000-watt amp and a drum kit. She tuned it all out, rehearsing what she would say to Jamie when she saw him: Nice jeans . . . Have you seen the weather? . . . Good luck out there . . . It’s not you, it’s me . . .