Stars

by Sophia Bennett

I catch sight of the overcoat men across the gravel, staring back at us thoughtfully.

  ‘Who were they?’ I ask Crow.

  She shrugs. We have better things to think about right now. I assume.

  Oh my God! Harry! Isabelle! Oh my GOD!’

  Twenty-four hours later, Mum is meeting us off the Eurostar at St Pancras station in London. Or at least, I think it’s Mum. It’s how Mum would be if you seriously speeded up the video and turned the sound up to max. I’ve never seen her like this before.

  ‘I’m so THRILLED! You dark horses! I had no IDEA! You’re so amazing! Come here! Let me hug you.’

  Henry, Crow and I huddle around the luggage trolley, waiting for the enormous hugs and crying to die down so we can say hello.

  It’s been a bit like this since yesterday evening, except mostly on the phone. We were whisked by limo back to Isabelle’s hotel room (massive, and overlooking the Eiffel Tower, naturally) and over the next few hours I opened the door to increasingly large bouquets of flowers and intriguing designer shopping bags with big bows, while Isabelle and Harry answered non-stop calls from people all around the world, checking the story was true and shouting their congratulations. Crow and her brother headed back to my dad’s apartment after a while. They just couldn’t take the excitement any more.

  ‘Hi, darling,’ Mum manages eventually, with a peck on the cheek for me and a quick hug for Crow. ‘Isn’t it thrilling? Granny’s on her way up, of course. Oh, and Harry, Vicente will be here at the weekend. Isn’t that wonderful? We must organise something for him. Big celebrations!’

  Vicente (pronounced Veh-SEN-te – it’s a Portuguese thing) is Harry’s dad. Mum used to go out with him before she met my dad. He lives in Brazil, where he’s a gazillionaire with loads of land and hundreds of eco-projects on the go. We like him, but we hardly ever see him. Isabelle’s never met him. So the news that he’s coming is the cause of more hugs and squealing.

  At this point, Henry Lamogi makes his excuses and goes home on his own by Tube. I don’t blame him. Crow accepts a lift with us in Mum’s car and spends the journey staring at me, wide-eyed. As Crow makes her dresses in our house, she sees Mum all the time, so she knows what she’s like normally – and this is SO not normal. You’d honestly think Mum had never had a wedding to look forward to before.

  And then it hits me.

  She hasn’t.

  And she’s obviously really potty about them. And it’s all my fault.

  Crow sees me suddenly crumple and holds out her hand to me. I take it, and I’m grateful that it’s she who’s here and not one of my other friends. They’d be asking me what the matter was, and of course I couldn’t possibly tell them. Crow doesn’t ask. She’s just there, and that’s all I need right now.

  The next hour is a blur. We get home and the downstairs is full to the brim with yet more flowers and packages. There is a man in a black pac-a-mac lurking outside and it’s quite possible he’s our first very own paparazzo. Isabelle and Harry quickly disappear to Harry’s room and turn the music up loud. Everyone pretends they’ve gone to unpack. Mum makes a hot chocolate for Crow and cappuccino for me (new obsession – still haven’t got the knack of maintaining foam-free lips) and goes on and on about how perfect Isabelle is for Harry, and how she’d been hoping he’d find the right girl, but how amazing it is that he’s managed to do it so soon – he’s only twenty-three – and when are they going to set a date?

  As soon as I can, I drag Crow up to my room and we slump into a couple of chairs and just stare at each other.

  ‘Things are going to be different,’ she says.

  I nod. My eyes brim. I don’t want things to be different. I like them just the way they are.

  I look around my room at the curling posters from the V&A, my wall of Vogue shoots stuck up with Blu-Tack, the butterfly duvet cover I haven’t replaced since I was ten, the view of treetops from my window and the old, familiar mess. I meant to tidy up before we went to Paris for the Dior show, but it didn’t quite happen and actually the place is worse than usual. The wardrobe doors are open and several pairs of leggings are trying to make their getaway from the bottom shelf. My scarf collection is hanging precariously from the top of one of the doors and judging by the tee-shirts, tops and underwear on the floor, I’m pretty sure my chest of drawers must be nearly empty.

  Mum asked me to ‘edit’ my magazine collection before I went (by which she meant throw most of it away) but I only got as far as piling everything in the middle of the room, where it looks like a piece of modern sculpture. The nearest pile makes a very useful footstool. I rest my feet on it and pick up an old Grazia from another pile to take my mind off things, while Crow goes through my book collection, looking for something inspirational. By which I don’t, of course, mean Thomas Hardy or Jane Austen, but a guide to platform shoes through the ages.

  She still doesn’t talk. I know exactly what she means.

  She means, ‘I love Harry too, and I’m sorry we’ll be seeing less of him.’ She means, ‘Your mother’s gone totally loopy, hasn’t she? What is it with all that conversation? She’s usually too busy to say hello.’ She means, ‘I can tell you’re not OK about something. I’m not sure exactly what, but if you wanted to talk about it, you could. I’m here if you need me.’

  ‘Crow?’ I say eventually.

  She looks up from a Salvatore Ferragamo gold padded platform illustration. ‘Yes?’

  ‘Thanks.’

  She smiles and nods. She doesn’t ask what for. I’ve known her since I was fourteen and she was twelve. She’s practically lived in my house for most of that time. She just knows.

  Next morning is triple Business Studies at school. The perfect antidote to Dior. I sit at the back of the class on my own, mentally designing the outfit I should have worn to the show if I’d wanted to look cool. It’s not till break that I finally get the chance to talk to Edie, one of my best friends, who is – I assume – dying to hear all about our trip.

  Edie is a pretty, blonde super-genius who I always thought had a bit of a thing for Harry until she started going out with her new boyfriend, Hot Phil. He lives in California, and by ‘going out with’ I mean messaging, emailing and moping over. I wonder what her reaction will be.

  I tell her the news.

  ‘That’s great!’ she says, without missing a beat.

  ‘Mmm. It is, isn’t it?’

  ‘Isabelle’s lovely. And I s’pose that means you get to be bridesmaid.’

  ‘Yaaay.’

  ‘Oh God, I’m sorry,’ she adds, finally sensing the lack of enthusiasm in my ‘yaaay’. ‘You must be exhausted. How was Paris?’

  And so I tell her about Paris, but after five minutes of ‘mm hmms’ I remember that Edie isn’t really interested in fashion and never will be, so I stop.

  ‘And how are Crow and Henry?’ she prompts, politely.

  This reminds me to mention the men in matching overcoats, but very quickly I start getting ‘mm hmms’ again. Edie’s mind is clearly somewhere else.

  ‘Is something the matter?’ I ask. ‘Have I missed anything?’

  She pauses for a while to consider.

  ‘Have you noticed something odd about Jenny recently?’

  Jenny is our other best friend. Redhead, actress, with slightly diva-ish tendencies and an allergy to men since a rather unfortunate incident with a Hollywood Teenage Sex God while filming a movie. Nothing about Jenny is completely normal, but I must admit, I haven’t noticed anything unusually unusual.

  I shake my head.

  ‘You know she’s missing school for a week next month?’ Edie clearly finds this astonishing.

  I nod, trying to keep a straight face. Edie simply cannot imagine how anyone could POSSIBLY miss school for a week in their second term of A levels. Even if they have four more terms to catch up. Even if it’s to go to New York and perform in a workshop for a new musical.

  ‘And?’

  ‘Well, she’s been asking me to help her out with a couple of
English assignments, so she can get them out of the way. I said I’d go round to her flat and she practically shouted at me not to. She looked almost tearful. And since then I’ve been watching her. She’s got these grey shadows under her eyes. She looks exhausted. Of course I’ve asked and asked what the problem is’ – Edie would – ‘but she won’t say.’

  ‘Perhaps she’s been busy practising.’

  This workshop in New York is to try out a musical written by a playwright friend of Jenny’s called Bill. She performed in a play of his last summer, which is how he knows how good she is. The musical is called Elizabeth and Margaret. Not the world’s snappiest title. And it’s about the Queen and her sister when they were growing up. Not the world’s most gripping news item. But you never know with musicals. ‘Guy gets disfigured at the opera’, ‘Abba songs’, ‘miner’s son does ballet’, ‘chess’. None of them sound too amazing to start with. So we’re giving Bill the benefit of the doubt.

  Jenny’s got four weeks to prepare for this workshop, learning every note of a dozen new numbers. She’s a brilliant singer, but even so, it’s a lot to ask. I’m not at all surprised about the shadows under her eyes. I am surprised about the shouting and tearfulness, though. To be honest, if anyone was going to be shouty and tearful right now, I’d expect it to be Edie.

  It’s Edie’s year for being mega-stressed. Her plan is to join the United Nations as soon as possible, and become some sort of ambassador – like Angelina Jolie, but without the acting career and multiple children (or Brad Pitt) and with an uber-degree from Harvard instead. So with that in mind, she’s doing six AS levels this summer, grade seven clarinet, American SATs (don’t ask), her Harvard essays in the autumn and Oxford interviews ‘as backup’. And meanwhile, she’s still running her save-the-world website, where she talks all about the projects she’s interested in and raises money to save children who need basic stuff like water and computers. AND if Hot Phil doesn’t message her at least eight times a day she assumes he’s gone off her and gets spotty with distress.

  ‘Look, if you want me to talk to Jenny, I will,’ I say. Edie really doesn’t need any more stress right now. ‘She’s got today off to go over some songs with the casting director—’

  Edie cuts me off with a shocked look that says it all. Another day off? How will Jenny ever recover?

  I ignore her. ‘—but I’ll go round to her place tonight. Promise. OK? And by the way, which assignments?’

  It’s worrying me slightly that I now remember something about essay preparation that should have happened before the Dior show, but hasn’t quite.

  ‘King Lear,’ Edie says with a patient sigh. ‘And The Canterbury Tales. But that’s not due until half-term.’

  I mentally dismiss The Canterbury Tales. Any assignment due in more than a week is a bridge I don’t have to cross yet. But Lear is due in by Friday, I’ve just realised. Hopefully Edie will be able to give me a few tips, and my English teacher won’t mind if I give them to her in bullet points and say I’m practising my presentation technique. It worked last time. Sort of. Anyway, I have shouty, tearful friends to worry about, apparently. Bullet points will have to do.

  I get home after school and call Jenny’s mobile. No answer. So I try her landline and a strange thing happens. After about eight rings, the answerphone kicks in, then someone picks up and I can hear breathing on the line. It sounds slow and heavy, like the person at the other end had trouble getting to the phone.

  ‘Jenny?’ I ask, worried. The breathing continues, but there’s no answer. ‘Gloria?’

  Gloria is Jenny’s mum. It can’t be Jenny’s dad because he’s living with his fourth wife in the Cotswolds.

  ‘It’s Nonie,’ I say. Nothing. I’m starting to get slightly freaked out. I wonder if it’s a heavy breather, except I definitely made the call. You can’t randomly call a heavy breather, can you? Anyway, I heard two seconds of the answerphone, and it was Jenny’s voice on the message. I’ve heard it a million times.

  I hang up and grab my bag and a warm scarf. Downstairs, the kitchen is full of family and yet more wedding talk.

  ‘Granny’s on her way,’ Mum yells after me. ‘Be back soon. And have you done that Shakespeare thing yet?’

  ‘Just working on it with Jenny,’ I shout virtuously. ‘See you later.’

  Outside, I feel the cool evening air on my face and suddenly I’m a bit calmer. The lurking paparazzo checks that I’m not a golden-ringletted supermodel and goes back to skulking in a dark corner. Fifteen minutes later, I’m at the door of Jenny’s flat in a big apartment block near the Albert Hall, determined to knock and ring the bell until someone lets me in and explains what’s going on.

  Eventually, Jenny opens the door and stands behind it for a moment, staring at me and not saying anything. I notice how white her face is under the red hair, and those grey shadows under her eyes, which seem almost purple in this light.

  ‘Oh, hi, Nonie. You’re back,’ she says dully, holding the door half closed.

  Edie’s right. This is odd. I pretend it isn’t.

  ‘How did it go with the casting director?’ I ask brightly.

  ‘Fine,’ Jenny says. The door doesn’t move.

  I smile politely, hoping my worried frown lines aren’t showing. ‘Can I come in?’

  She looks behind her. ‘Er, maybe tomorrow?’

  ‘Don’t be silly. I’m here now. I have vital info on King Lear. And we need to chat.’

  Jenny can see that I’m not moving, so she steps back and lets me in.

  ‘Sorry about the mess,’ she says.

  I’m about to say for goodness’ sake, I’m used to it, when I look around and realise that actually, I’m not. The narrow hallway is truly cluttered, littered with dirty laundry, bulging plastic bags and piles of plates that belong in the sink. Even on my bad days I’m not this bad, and if I was, Mum would totally freak out and probably ground me for a week.

  ‘Er, everything OK?’ I ask, as we pick our way through the piles and head for Jenny’s room.

  ‘Fine,’ she says. Her voice hardly makes it past her lips. Edie is right. She is SO not fine.

  When we get to her room, she curls up on her bed, where her cat, Stella, is waiting for her, and gently strokes Stella’s fur. I move a couple of piles of books from the chair beside her desk and sit down near her. I sense Jenny’s been here for a while, curled up like that, and whatever she’s been thinking, it hasn’t been good.

  ‘Tell me about it,’ I say.

  Instead, she tries to change the subject and asks me about Paris, but suddenly I have no interest in talking about Paris, or brothers, or engagements, or any of that stuff, so I ask her again what the matter is and make it clear I’m not moving until she tells me.

  ‘Well . . . I can’t go to New York,’ she says eventually, and a tear hits Stella’s nose, which the cat crossly pats away.

  ‘Why not?’ I ask, appalled. ‘Won’t school let you? Has Bill changed his mind? Or this casting guy?’

  ‘It’s not school. Or Bill. I’ve got nowhere to stay, OK?’

  Jenny’s eyes flash defiantly at me.

  ‘But I thought you had a hotel all sorted out. I mean . . . New York’s full of hotel rooms, isn’t it?’

  She ignores me for a while and focuses on stroking Stella. Then she sighs.

  ‘They won’t let me stay on my own. Or even if they would, Mum won’t let me stay in a hotel by myself. And she can’t go with me.’

  ‘Why?’

  Jenny looks flustered. Then furious. ‘Look, she can’t, OK? She can’t get the insurance, and she doesn’t want to go, and that’s it. It was only a workshop, anyway – not a real show or anything. Look, I’m fine. Just leave it. Shouldn’t you be doing an assignment?’

  I have three choices. I can sit here silently. I can go home and work on King Lear, with Mum and Granny popping in every five seconds to ask what colour bouquet I think Isabelle should have. Or I can argue with Jenny. I go for option three.

  �
�It’s not “only” a workshop! How can you even say that?’

  True, the musical people only need Jenny for a week, to help perform the songs for some producers so they can raise the money to put on a proper show. But it’s her chance to sing and do a bit of acting with the top professionals in the business. She’s been so excited about it she hasn’t been able to think or talk about anything else since Christmas.

  ‘I don’t even know if I’m a good enough singer,’ she says listlessly.

  ‘Yes you do. You do, Jen. You did all those tests for them. You were incredible in Annie when we did it at school. And you sing all the time. Even when it’s really annoying. You are TOTALLY a good enough singer, Jenny Merritt.’

  Actually, I’m quite enjoying the arguing option. It’s getting a lot of things out of my system. I wait for the next thing I can disagree with.

  ‘Well, where am I supposed to stay?’ she asks.

  ‘Can’t you just explain about Gloria not going and ask Bill or someone to put you up?’

  ‘No.’ Jenny’s lips tremble and she shakes her head. I realise she didn’t really want to tell me what was going on, so she’s not going to do it to anyone else – even an old friend of the family like Bill. Even if that means staying in London and missing out on her big chance.

  Then I have my genius idea.

  ‘Isabelle’s flat! You know Isabelle. She’s got this flat in SoHo.’

  ‘Soho? Near Oxford Street?’

  ‘No, dummy. SoHo New York. It’s her second home. I don’t know how big it is, but I’m sure she could give you floor space. It isn’t for very long. And she could get her friends to look out for you. Models are quite used to girls being on their own in big cities.’

  We both shudder at this. Mum has told us some hairy stories about young, pretty girls left to their own devices in big cities by modelling agencies. Why the agencies let it happen is a mystery to us, but it happens. Anyway, it means models are very good at looking after themselves and they’d probably be happy to have a would-be musical actress tagging along for a few days.