by Emma Grey
After a while, just sitting there with him, she must drift off, because it’s at least an hour later when she wakes. He’s still here. ‘How are you feeling?’ he asks, and she doesn’t want to face him because she knows she looks atrocious right now. She’s not used to feeling this unsure of herself around him, but the goal-posts have shifted and she’s out of her depth. Although, she can’t imagine why she’s bothering with how she looks because the game is up. Kat’s been found. It’s now only a matter of time — the time it will take to find the guts to tell him. She knows she should tell him now, otherwise what kind of friend is she? ‘Joel, I have to tell you something,’ she says. Her head is pounding and she desperately needs painkillers.
‘Hey, whatever it is, it can wait,’ he insists. ‘Come on. You’re not well. Don’t even speak. I’m going to insist that you lie on this lounge while I go and get us something to eat. I’ll even consider chick flicks if I have to. What are you in the mood for? 10 Things I Hate About You?’
She knows there are ten things he hates about that movie. He listed them one night over dinner when she told him it was her favourite. Yet he’s prepared to sit through it again for her. She’d love to watch it, even though the main character is called Kat. It goes for what, ninety minutes? That’s an hour and a half more. Just her and him on the couch. Then she will definitely tell him.
Towards the end of the movie, the character, Kat, is reading her poem out in class and crying. Sarah’s bawling her eyes out, too. She never bawls her eyes out in movies. At least, not in front of Joel.
‘I’m not kidding, Joel. I have something really big to tell you,’ she says, between sobs. It’s now or never.
‘Sarah. Not now! I don’t care what it is! You’re not well. We’re writing the entire weekend off, okay? This is our time!’
Our. Time. Have they ever officially had ‘Our Time’ before? She doesn’t think so. And frankly, she loves the suggestion. If only she didn’t feel so guilty.
‘Whatever you have to tell me can wait until the end of the weekend, all right? Let’s just focus on spending some time together. And then you can tell me on Sunday night.’
Sarah gives this a moment’s thought. The next rehearsal for the musical isn’t until Monday, so there’s no way they could even contact Kat before then, anyway. What’s the harm in not saying anything until Sunday night. Really? In fact, it would probably only ruin the weekend to mention it earlier, because Joel would be thoroughly distracted but unable to do anything.
‘Okay,’ she says reluctantly. ‘Sunday night.’
She’s feeling slightly better now the pressure is off, and there’s a magical window of one weekend left with her Joel . . . before the axe falls.
Chapter 16
Cassidy Moore flops on the couch in the Deluxe Royal Suite at the Four Seasons and summons a fruit platter from room service. The harbour views are to die for, but as soon as she sits down, she hits the remote control and the curtains automatically close. She hasn’t got time for views. She’s in Sydney for one reason and one reason only: to take Angus Marsden off the dating circuit once and for all.
Booking into his hotel has been a good start. Worth every cent of the exorbitant fee. Tonight’s party is the next step. She’s had several of Australia’s top designers send dresses to her suite, and any one of them would be gorgeous. A private booking at a stylist in The Rocks should take care of her masses of red hair, after a hot rock massage to help her relax.
Relaxing is important. She likes to think she’s very perceptive, and she’s picked up that Angus doesn’t like it when women stress out. Unfortunately, Cassidy has a habit of stressing out, particularly where Angus is concerned and most especially since this very public little dalliance with some faceless fan from an Unrequited audience — someone he’s never even spoken to aside from batting back and forth a few tweets. Honestly! He can do better than that!
And not with that blonde girl in the bikini who he was frolicking with in the harbour the other day, either! She knows Angus well enough to read his body language in those photos. It was entirely one-sided. She’s convinced of it.
She checks her email on her gold iPhone and sees that her manager has sent through the draft of a new advertising contract. It’s for a major cosmetics line. It’s lucrative, and he implores her to ‘READ IT PROPERLY’ in bold type as if he thinks she hasn’t got a single business brain cell in her head. She so has, and she proves it by marching straight downstairs to the Business Centre and printing a copy of the lengthy document. She snoops around various bits and pieces left in the printing tray while she’s waiting, and . . . Hello! What’s this? She picks up a copy of some handwritten sheet music and, with a start, instantly recognises the handwriting.
Gold! It’s a duet! What a coincidence that Angus should be writing a song for himself and a female singer, when he knew she’d be in town! She’d instructed her publicist to make sure he did know she was here, of course.
Her hopes skyrocket. She takes the sheets and scurries to the elevator. She needs to rehearse the song a bit so she’ll appear polished when he springs this surprise on her. Oh, it will be the most romantic moment ever!
The elevators can’t climb to the top floors fast enough for Cassidy, who has devoured the lyrics already and convinced herself they could even be about her. All this stuff about living in a plastic world . . . it’s like every single A-list party they routinely swan around together. Ships that really just pass in the night, while the media gobbles it all up and builds a ‘budding romance’. Cassidy looks at the lyrics again. Sure, this song could equally be about pining over that silly girl from the audience. But she’s not a singer, is she? She doesn’t even like Unrequited — she made that clear in her tweets — and who on earth else would Angus sing a duet with around here, except Cassidy?
Excitement builds in her chest as she enters her suite. She dashes to the keyboard and dives into the song. It’s beyond anything she’s ever heard from him. Who knew Angus was so musical? He’s talented, of course, but only as one-fifth of a boy band right now. Cassidy is convinced he’ll be way better as a solo artist, which is exactly where she intends to steer him once they get closer. Boy bands don’t last forever. Someone always leaves, and the first person to break away is usually the one who makes it.
By the time she’s made it through the entire song, she’s convinced. It’s going to be a HIT. It’s got Grammy written all over it, and she wonders if Angus even understands how good it is. Maybe it’s just something he and the boys have been tinkering around with in the tour trailer, the way they kick a football around in parking lots like a pack of goofy high schoolers. Although it’s a lot different from the kind of stuff they usually perform.
You know, if she just shows this song to her manager, who everyone knows is über professional and is way more experienced than Unrequited’s entire team put together — he’ll know exactly what to do with it. In fact, he’ll probably even do the right thing and discuss it with Angus’s management, and eventually with Angus who, quite frankly, should be more careful about what he leaves lying around on hotel printers.
Chapter 17
Saturday afternoon and Kat begins writing:
Dear admiring musician,
Thank you for your unexpected gift. Very unexpected, actually. You rightly observe that I did not — and would never — ask a random stranger for a duet.
You do realise how totally arrogant it is to eavesdrop on and stampede into someone else’s private work, trample all over it in your big boots and leave your mark, don’t you? I mean, do you make a habit of this? I’m intrigued . . .
All of that said, I played the piece. Maybe more than once. Probably about twenty times now, because despite your strangely stalkerish behaviour, what you’ve written is actually pretty good. But you already know that, don’t you?
In case your ego is now completely out of control, you should know that I’ve made a few amendments in the second half. Now that I’ve done that, I am, mos
t annoyingly, compelled to share it with you, and to also admit that maybe we do make a good songwriting team.
Who are you, anyway?
I’m Kat.
PS: Thank you for your compliment about my voice. You seem to know a thing or two about music so it does mean something.
Too much? Nah, the guy needs to know how irritating he is. How good he is, too. But not too much of the latter, obviously. He’s already way overconfident.
She stuffs the song and the note in an envelope and leaves it at the unattended box office desk, as instructed. She pushes it through the wire cage like she’s acting out some kind of undercover operation, which makes her want to roll her eyes one minute, and makes her heart beat faster the next.
She’s felt a bit icky since speaking with Sarah on Wednesday. It was just so weird how Sarah went from being perfectly fine one minute to ghostly white the next, and running out of the room. Maybe it’s a bug of some sort? Hopefully it wasn’t Kat’s playing or singing or anything she said . . . but she can’t think of anything remotely offensive in their conversation.
Help! I need a formal partner! she thinks, randomly, although given the number of times per day this terrifying thought leaps into her head, it’s hardly random any more. More regular than random. She’s a ball of anxiety over the mishmash with Sarah and the formal and the HSC and the musical and McDreamy and the only thing she’s semi-confident about right now is her song. Secretly, she’s very confident about it — not that she’d say so out loud to anyone. What will she even do with it when it’s finished? She doesn’t have an agent, and surely she doesn’t need one since she only has one song. Well, half a song, technically. The rest is his.
Becky, who works in the box office, returns from her break. She sees the envelope on the counter and smiles.
‘You’re really doing this, Kat? Sending something back to this guy?’
‘This is crazy, right?’
‘Maybe a bit. But do it anyway! It’s just songwriting.’
Kat hesitates for just a second, and Becky laughs and says ‘YOLO’. What is this — 2009? But she’s right. Kat has to take this chance.
Right! Coffee time. While she’s sitting in the sun at the cafe, she checks her phone on autopilot and finds herself reading a tweet on the Unrequited Official page between Reuben and megastar Cassidy Moore. It’s about some big party they’re all going to tonight, and Cassidy is being sickly flirtatious, as usual, even with Reuben. Cassidy knows Angus is going to see the Twitter conversation, and the entire world already knows she’s got her sights set on him.
Not that Kat cares at all who Angus Marsden parties with. In fact — she catches herself — what is she even doing on Unrequited’s Twitter page again? She clicks the page closed and then, flakily, checks her own calendar, as if some dazzling social event may have magically deposited itself in there. But, nup. Nothin’. She’s the only person she knows with nothing to do tonight other than flop in front of the TV, inanely Snapchatting. Although, in truth, there are a couple of parties on, and she’s been invited to them — along with every other person she knows. But, meh — she’s been to a few like that and they’re never as good as you think they’ll be. They’re certainly nothing like anything the A-list superstars will experience tonight . . .
And that’s when Kat drifts off into a scrumptious daydream in which she is, in fact, at an A-list party, but not as someone’s date. She’s there in her own right, having altogether earned it. She’s dreamt about this a lot growing up, but she’d never once seriously entertained the idea of earning something quite so fabulous. Not until this week. Not until this song. In fact, she’d deliberately tried to avoid even thinking about it, because music makes her mum so miserable. How could Kat become a constant reminder of everything they lost when her dad died? She thought she couldn’t ever go there in any real way with her music for that reason.
But could she?
It’s not about the fame and the parties and the red-carpet glittery dresses and shoes. It’s about doing the thing that makes her heart explode. The thing that makes her sick with nerves and excitement at the same time. And it’s about the achievement — being able to prove everyone wrong and say, ‘I did this!’
She picks up her teaspoon and makes gentle swirls of cappuccino froth in her cup. Maybe she could do this for herself and for her dad, who never had the chance to prove how great he was. She remembers how he sang her to sleep every night until she was six. After the accident, she had to sing herself to sleep — quietly, so her mum wouldn’t hear. She and her dad used to make up their own songs in the car while they were going places. They were always going places. He was going places. Maybe she could now go places — in memory of him.
That’s when it hits her. This isn’t a choice. She has to do this. She’s been thinking all this time about her mum and being careful to protect her from this, but what about her dad? What would he want? Doesn’t she owe it to him to try?
She glances at the students sitting in the cafe in the sun around her. They’re going about their normal lives, chatting and laughing, listening to music, taking notes on laptops — and she wonders how they can just carry on, as if her brain isn’t exploding with change right beside them.
Alongside the realisation that she must pursue this comes another one, hot on its heels. It doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks. Not even her mum, this time — because this is Kat’s life. What if she decides, right now, that there is no more hiding? What if she commits, wholeheartedly, to making it? Unleashed, she can feel the ambition that’s been starved for so many years welling within her. Suddenly, sitting here frittering time on social media and thinking about parties is so pointless! There’s so much to do! Is this what it feels like to be driven? To want something so badly she can almost taste it, even though there’s stacks and stacks of social-life-murdering work to be invested in her dream?
She looks at her phone, her heart pounding. At least her calendar is wide open.
Chapter 18
Angus is at the scheduled party, out on a sweeping balcony overlooking the Opera House, wishing he wasn’t. He’s hoping Cassidy won’t find him out here. If she does, he’ll be cornered. He even organised with Zach to fake an important call as an SOS escape tactic. Knowing Zach, though, he’ll go and dump Angus with Cassidy just for the laugh.
Angus’s phone lights up with a call, and he smiles when he sees who it is. Neala! His first girlfriend from high school. His closest friend, really. Of all the opinions in the world that matter, hers is top of his list. They’d starred together in a high-school version of Romeo and Juliet and it had spilled into real life for a while. Until she dumped him, anyway. Now she keeps him grounded. He suspects that’s why she’s calling . . .
‘Hey, gorgeous,’ he says warmly, leaning over the rail, looking at the harbour.
‘Don’t “gorgeous” me, Romeo,’ she answers, laughing. ‘You’re in enough trouble as it is!’
‘It’s not how it looks, Neals!’
‘It never is, is it?’
‘There’s only one girl! Elle. I swear it! Oh, and there’s also this songwriter . . .’
‘What? What songwriter? Have we — and by “we” I mean myself and the twenty million others who hang off your every tweet — heard anything about a songwriter?’
‘Not yet,’ he says. And with impeccable timing, a text comes through from Kev to say there’s a package from the Seymour Centre. Angus’s heart thumps. He’s got to get out of here before . . .
Too late, here she comes! Tall, cool, perfectly put together, as always, in a shimmering silver dress. Anyone can see Cassidy’s fabulous. From the outside. Angus doesn’t trust her as far as he could throw her.
‘Angus!’ Cassidy cries, and delivers the very same pout that she sports in practically every Instagram selfie ever posted — not that there are enough hours in a day to trawl through them all and check. ‘Are you hiding out here?’
‘Is that Cassidy Moore? What are you doing?’ Neala l
ectures.
He tries to be a gentleman. ‘Cassidy. You’re looking lovely, as usual. I’m just on the phone at the moment.’
‘Oh, this? Isn’t it sweet?’ Cassidy ignores the fact that he’s on the phone and twirls around as if to prove her point. He could swear she pauses for him to admire the back of the dress. Or lack of it. She flicks her red hair like she’s starring in a shampoo commercial. Someone who looks as good as her really doesn’t have to try as hard as she does.
Neala cuts in. ‘I’ll leave you to it, Casanova. Just wanted to hear your voice. And tell you to stop being a FREAKIN’ IDIOT. If you really want to impress Elle, she’s got to be the only one. The only one, okay? Lose Cassidy right now. No more girls on boats. I don’t know who this songwriter is —’
‘Neither do I,’ he says, cryptically. ‘But I can’t talk about it now . . .’
She laughs. ‘Breaking up with you was the best decision I ever made, Angus. Just so we’re clear.’
‘Clear as mud,’ he teases. ‘Talk to you soon, beautiful. Duty calls.’ Cassidy winces as she eavesdrops.
She notices the party photographer hovering and threads her arm through Angus’s, probing him with questions. It’s clear she couldn’t care less about his responses, just so long as it looks like she’s hanging on his every word. The fakeness is exhausting. Bloody Zach! Absolutely hopeless on the SOS front. Probably sent Cassidy out to the balcony in the first place. Likely hiding somewhere, laughing.
‘Listen, Cassidy, I have to make an important call.’
‘What, now? You just got off the phone!’
‘Yep. Sorry. Good to see you. Enjoy the party. I’m sure Zach’s here somewhere.’
He knows she expects him to kiss her on the cheek but he steps away from her embrace and waves his phone at her instead, emphasising his urgency.