by Lynsey James
I got out some hairbrushes from my bathroom drawer, handed one to each of them, and hit Play. The opening bars of one of Madonna’s finest hits burst out of the speaker and we all immediately began to dance. Lucy was the first to start singing and soon, everyone else followed suit. She had an amazing knowledge of music and could burst into song at the drop of a hat.
As we went through the entire song list, from Madonna to Simple Minds, I felt like things were finally coming together. Watching my two new friends and the drop-dead gorgeous hunk who’d recently waltzed into my life sing the best that eighties’ cheese had to offer felt a million miles away from the old me. Anonymous Alice would’ve baulked at the thought of letting people into her life, but not New Alice. I wanted to surround myself with people and make my world as huge and open as possible.
Oh, and listen to as much eighties’ music as I could get my hands on.
Chapter Eighteen
The next day, I was due to pitch my new idea to the cast. I’d stayed up most of the previous night preparing the script and I’d even made a PowerPoint presentation to go along with it.
‘You’re a woman on a mission aren’t you?’ Ethan said as we walked down to the theatre together.
‘You’d better believe it!’ I tapped the laptop bag in my hand and smiled. ‘I can’t wait to show it to them; I just hope they like it!’
Ethan’s mobile buzzed and he dragged it out of his pocket. When he saw what was on the screen, he frowned and stuffed it back where it had come from.
‘Something important?’ I asked, slinging my arm round his waist.
‘Nah, it’ll keep. Now let’s go and blow the cast away with this, eh?’ he said with a smile.
I practically skipped towards the theatre and threw the door open.
Time for Cinderella the Musical to come to life!
*
Once everyone had milled into the theatre, ready to rehearse, I took to the stage.
‘Thanks for coming today, guys. Before we get started, I’ve been having a little think about the pantomime. I’m sure you’ll all agree it needed some jazzing up, so I’ve been playing around with some ideas and here’s what I’ve come up with. Have a sit down and I’ll show you.’
They all murmured amongst themselves – obviously wondering what I had in store for them – as they clambered into their seats.
‘What do you guys think about…?’ I paused for a second as I set up my slide show. ‘Cinderella the Musical?’
A huge slide came up with the song list as Madonna’s Material Girl played in the background. It showed all the songs and the scenes they’d slot into.
Girls Just Wanna Have Fun – Cinderella singing about the life she wants to have instead of cooking and cleaning for stepmother and ugly sisters.
Material Girl – Ugly sisters singing about Prince Charming.
I Wanna Dance With Somebody – Cinderella dreaming of going to the ball.
I’ve Had The Time of My Life – Prince Charming and Cinderella dance at the ball.
Every Little Thing She Does is Magic – Prince Charming about Cinderella after he meets her at the ball.
Feels Like I’m in Love – Cinderella after she meets the Prince.
Don’t You Forget About Me – Prince when he’s looking for Cinderella after the ball (glass slipper etc.)
Holding Out For a Hero – Cinderella locked in the tower.
Walking on Sunshine – Prince Charming and Cinderella’s wedding.
‘Now I’ve made some changes to the script as well, just to freshen it up a little. There’s a lot to learn, but I think you guys can do it. What do you say, fancy taking Cinderella into the nineteen eighties?’
‘Definitely!’ Lauren shot up from her seat and came to join me on stage. ‘If I can sing Girls Just Wanna Have Fun, you’ve got yourself a deal!’
‘Can the ugly sisters have another song?’ Angie asked, sticking her hand in the air. ‘We’ve only got one and I reckon we should have another. Shouldn’t we, Helen?’
She nodded and murmured a reply. It was clear to see who the more dominant twin was.
‘OK,’ I agreed. ‘I’ll see what I can do. Are you guys in?’
They looked at each other for a minute then nodded simultaneously.
‘Excellent!’ I turned to Callum, dreading what his latest flirting attempt would be. ‘What about you, Callum? Think you could handle belting out The Police and Simple Minds?’
‘Anything for you, gorgeous.’ He shifted in his seat and kept his eyes trained on me, making my cheeks redden.
Out the corner of my eye, I saw Ethan straighten up in his seat. I had a nasty feeling that things were about to come to a head between those two, but hopefully they’d hold off for today.
‘What about everyone else? Do you all fancy the idea?’ I asked, addressing the newer cast members in particular. They were all huddled together on the other side of the aisle; I guessed they were sticking together for comfort because it was only their second rehearsal with the group.
‘Well I’m in,’ Eileen said. ‘As long as I get my own song; I’m thinking something like Kate Bush might be good. I do a mean Babooshka on the karaoke.’
‘You’re on!’ I replied.
*
The rest of the rehearsal consisted of the cast learning the revised show and singing our hearts out to some top eighties’ tunes. Lauren was fabulous at her songs; although she screeched her lines out at the top of her voice, her singing voice was fantastic. Callum also sounded great, although I decided not to praise him too much. I didn’t want him getting any funny ideas.
Ethan did a star turn of his own, by taking to the stage and singing Don’t You Forget About Me. Callum looked more than a little miffed, considering that was his song in the show, but it wasn’t as if he was about to be usurped or anything. Lauren stood at the stage like an adoring groupie, gazing up at him as her chin rested on her hands.
‘You were amazing!’ she said when he clambered down off the stage. ‘Like, really amazing. You should totally play the handsome prince in the panto!’
‘Hey!’ came Callum’s voice from the back of the theatre.
‘Ah you’ve already got a handsome prince; you don’t need me.’ Ethan laughed, flashing a smile in his rival’s direction.
As he turned his back on her to walk up to me, she hooked her arm through his and pulled him in the opposite direction. No mean feat when he was six foot two and she was barely five foot.
‘Would you mind running through this scene with me? I can’t seem to get it right and I reckon reading it with a professional like you would really help.’
‘How about running it through with me? I’m the bloody prince after all!’ Callum strode down the aisle and stood with his hands on his hips.
‘Mate, I’m not here to step on anyone’s toes,’ Ethan said, holding his hands up. ‘If you want to go over the scene with her, go for it.’
‘I don’t need your permission, mate, thank you very much.’ Callum rounded on him, his script clenched tightly in one fist. ‘What are you even doing here? You’re not part of this pantomime anyway.’
I took that as my cue to intervene before someone said something they’d regret.
‘He’s here to help me out,’ I said, getting in the middle of the two of them before punches were exchanged. ‘He’s not here to take over anyone’s part or tell anyone how to play their role either. So cool it, OK?’
Callum muttered something under his breath, but stalked off to find a seat before I could ask him what he’d said.
‘Lauren, I’ll do that reading with you if you want?’ Ethan offered.
She nodded and they stepped up on the stage. I took a seat at the front to watch them, eager to see what Ethan was like in action. She showed him which one she wanted to practise and he flicked his script to the page.
‘Tell me your name,’ he said. ‘I can’t let you leave tonight without knowing who you are.’
‘I can’t, I have to get back
to my pump—I mean my carriage!’ She went to run off into the wings, but Ethan grabbed her hand and pulled her back.
‘Wait, don’t leave like this.’ He stared into her eyes and lifted a hand to touch her cheek. I felt goosebumps run up my arms as I remembered him looking at me that way. ‘We’ve just spent an amazing night together; at least tell me your name. Even if this is the first and last time we see each other, I want to know the name of the amazing girl who stole my heart.’
I could see Lauren begin to melt. I didn’t blame her one bit; it was all I could do not to climb up on stage and snog his face off myself.
Oh no, Alice, don’t get in too deep.
As our eyes locked, I knew that I was in trouble. A few kisses here and there was fine, along with the occasional lunch together, but I wanted more. Much more. It couldn’t last though; any minute, he would probably get a call from his agent about some big role he wouldn’t be able to turn down and he’d be gone. My heart sank at the thought of him leaving, but I forced a sunny smile onto my face and got up to applaud them.
‘Well done, guys, that was excellent!’ I said. ‘Really raw and I could feel the emotions from here.’
Ethan smiled, but Lauren didn’t answer. She was too busy staring at him, open-mouthed and with her hand on her chest. If this were a cartoon, there would be love hearts popping out of her eyes and bluebirds circling her head.
Sensing the awkward atmosphere, I clapped my hands and brandished the script I was holding.
‘Right, how about we—?’
‘Have dinner with me!’ Lauren blurted out. She grabbed hold of Ethan’s arm, startling him, and gazed up at him with wide cocoa-brown eyes.
‘Oh!’ Ethan’s whole face and neck started to take on a shocking crimson shade. ‘Um, Lauren, I’m really flattered but… I-I’ve actually started seeing someone and I really like her. I’m sorry.’
I felt for him being put in such an awkward position. I had to turn round to hide my smile. Bless him, he was such a gentleman. A little voice piped up at the back of my head: he was referring to me when he said he was seeing someone, wasn’t he? Or was it Sarah? No, I told myself, it couldn’t be her. He’d talked to her and nothing was going to happen. He’d made that clear.
Lauren’s face fell and for a moment, I thought she was going to cry. However, she burst into a fit of shrill laughter.
‘Haha, you fell for it! I-I was only joking; I didn’t really want to have dinner with you. That’s just something I do sometimes, you know, for a laugh!’
Her cheeks glowed bright red, clashing with her auburn locks. She made a very hasty exit off the stage before she stuck her foot in it even more.
‘Someone’s popular,’ I joked. ‘You’ve set quite a few pulses racing in Luna Bay, Mr Fox.’
He descended the little wooden staircase and approached me, wrapping his arms around me and pulling me in for a kiss. I let go of all my fears of him leaving me, and allowed my body to sink into his. A few of the cast members made ‘oooooh’ noises and a couple even cheered. We hadn’t been that demonstrative around them, but now it seemed like a good time to be open about whatever was going on between us. I could see Lauren standing at the curtain, her eyes glistening with tears. Once she clocked me looking at her, she flounced off to collect her things.
‘OK, everyone, another good job for today. Learn the songs as much as you can; get them on YouTube or Spotify or however you want. We’ll pick it up again next time.’
I caught snippets of what the cast members were saying as they filed out the door: ‘this is so much better than what we were doing before’; ‘this is going to be great’; ‘I can’t wait for opening night’.
My heart swelled so much I thought it might burst out of my chest. I’d just seen something I’d created come to life on stage. OK, so we’d only rehearsed a couple of scenes and run through the songs, but it was still amazing to see. My love for the theatre had been reignited; there was a fire in my belly that hadn’t been there in at least three years.
I turned to see Ethan staring at me with that lopsided grin. I had to let out a sigh of contentment; things were going so unbelievably well. It was hard to believe that just a month ago, I’d been so isolated and unhappy.
What could possibly go wrong now?
Chapter Nineteen
With officially only a month to go until Christmas, festive magic began to descend on Luna Bay.
Diane changed her menu to Christmas-themed cakes, the Purple Partridge started offering their very own Christmas lunch and the shops began to sell ornaments and assorted stocking fillers. You could almost taste Christmas in the air. If there was one thing Luna Bay knew how to do well, it was the festive season.
I wasn’t dreading it quite so much this year. I wasn’t sure if it was because I had the holiday to look forward to, meaning a change of scenery and the chance to relax even though I’d still be thinking about Jamie, or the changes I’d made in my life. I had a funny feeling it was the latter. I’d opened myself up to more opportunities and could feel the first glimpses of my old self beginning to re-emerge.
Although my fears about Ethan leaving still lurked in the back of my mind, I still continued to spend time with him. In the two days after his rather moving performance at the rehearsal, we’d become inseparable. We ate dinner together, we strolled round the village and I’d even introduced him to my mum.
‘Wow, I’ve never met anyone famous before!’ she’d said when we’d gone for a drink at the Purple Partridge. ‘You were fab in that superhero movie you did! Now just what are your intentions for my daughter?’
I’d covered my face with a beer mat at that point. ‘Mum, you can’t ask him that!’
‘My intentions are…’ He’d paused to take a massive swig of his pint, which I didn’t blame him for one bit. ‘I want to spend as much time with Alice as possible. She stops me being a grumpy git and I think that’s good for me.’
We’d clinked glasses before Mum launched into Alice’s Embarrassing Baby Stories: Volume One, including the one where I got a toilet seat stuck on my head and ran around the house with it. As I’d listened to a selection of my most cringeworthy moments being bandied around, I hadn’t been able to resist a smile. While most people might’ve recoiled with sheer embarrassment, I revelled in it. In a very strange but funny way, laughing with my mum and Ethan was about as close to perfect as I could imagine.
*
December arrived in a flurry of Christmas decorations and gingerbread lattes. Rehearsals for the pantomime continued to go from strength to strength. With a new show to perfect and just over a week and a half before our first performance, we were packing in as many as we could. Eileen had very kindly volunteered to do the costumes and Lauren, a self-proclaimed make-up whizz who did tutorials online, had stepped forward to do the make-up. We’d decided just to stick with traditional costumes so as not to confuse the audience too much.
Each time they delivered their lines a little better or sang one of the songs with a little more passion, it was a sign that the show was coming together. Working on it had been amazing and I couldn’t wait for opening night.
Before I knew it, we only had ten days to go until opening night. After hopping out of bed early with a spring in my step and making myself Ethan’s famous Nutella-stuffed pancakes, I got myself ready to head to another rehearsal. Today, the cast would be strutting their stuff to tunes from Kelly Marie and The Police as we rehearsed the ballroom scenes and the scene where Cinderella did a runner from Prince Charming.
I grabbed my bag and was all set to leave when my mobile buzzed. It was a text from Mum: have you seen the showbiz news this morning?!
Included in her text was a screenshot of a page in a national newspaper with the headline TRAGIC PAST OF HOLLYWOOD HUNK’S NEW LOVE splayed across it. My mouth dropped as I saw pictures of me next to ones of Ethan and although the text was too little for me to read, I could guess what it probably said.
I was about to phone Mum for a cris
is talk when my mobile burst into life again. This time, it was a call from a number I didn’t recognise.
‘Hello?’ I asked, dreading who’d be on the other end.
‘Good morning, Miss Woods,’ a bright but slightly tinny voice replied. ‘This is Fran Proctor from The Daily Echo. I was wondering if you’d be interested in doing a feature in response to the article that ran today about you and Ethan Fox? I’d really like to hear your version of events and it’d be an opportunity for you to challenge some of the claims made in the article too.’
Claims? What bloody claims? I felt sick and the room around me began to spin. As Fran Proctor, whoever the hell she was, banged on about the fees I could command for “lifting the lid on Hollywood’s most mysterious leading man”, all I could wonder about was how the hell someone had managed to write an article about me. I kept myself to myself and had done for years; someone had obviously dished the dirt on me.
‘I-I’m sorry, I don’t know what you’re talking about!’ I fumbled for the button to cut the call and the phone slipped out of my hands.
I picked it up, told Fran Proctor where she could stick her fee and collapsed onto the couch. My imagination began to run away with itself as I wondered what was in the article. There was only one thing for it: I would have to hotfoot it to my mum’s house and read it for myself.
Luckily, she was there when I got to her cottage. This was definitely one of the benefits of living just five minutes away from your parents.
‘Can I see it?’ My voice trembled and I felt my entire body shake. ‘I need to see it for myself.’
Mum pursed her lips and reluctantly stepped aside. ‘I’ll warn you now, Alice, you’re not going to like it.’
‘I don’t care, I need to see what they’ve said.’ I marched straight into the living room and snatched the newspaper up from the coffee table.
I’d prepared myself for a shock, but that was nothing compared to what lay in front of me. As I skimmed through the article, I caught the phrases ‘once-promising career’, ‘virtual recluse’ and ‘considered an oddball by villagers’. Then there was what the “anonymous sources” had to say: ‘she’s never mixed with locals’, ‘she’s a bit of an outsider’, ‘can’t be sure what Ethan sees in her, if I’m honest’.