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I moved away from the bar, filled with the immense sense of purpose that you only get with your second drink, and determined to listen in, look around. I did have a goal, I wasn’t just waiting around. More people were coming in now and the buzz was beginning. You could feel it—that mixture of energy and sex and money and competition—and wanting a good party. These awards did matter. An increase in sales and your name in the record books for the winner, and a big bonus for everyone on the team that helped get the band or the singer to the top. That meant no matter your part in it, you’d be linked with them—the winners, shiny, disdainful, and up there—forever. Your little life would suddenly have a whole lot of meaning. The atmosphere was humming.

But my second glass was nearly empty, and I wasn’t doing what I was there to do. I knew it, and I knew I needed to fix it. I also knew I didn’t want to go back to the bar alone. I shrugged. Needs must. It was time to call on Mark, and get some reinforcements going. I pulled out my mobile, and was just dialing the newly memorized number, when a pair of hands went over my eyes. I jumped, I couldn’t help it.

“Guess who?” the lightly accented public school voice rang out.

I turned around. “Mark! I was just calling you.”

“I knew it. That’s why I’m here.” We did some air kissing—four for Paris, he always used to say—and he pulled back from me. “You look marvelous. Well done.” His eyes raked over my outfit—put together by Sarah—high heeled ankle boots, a lace and fake fur loose vest over a pleated silk floating tunic with a slashed neckline, and I smiled, in spite of my nervousness.

“Why, thank you, kind sir.” I winked at him. “Doing my part.”

His tone turned serious. “Yes, well this is the moment. Now or never. How do you feel?”

I looked back at him, wrong-footed for a second. There was no compassion in his face. All cold. Fear turned to fury, then annoyance. “How do you think I feel, Mark? Why don’t you tell me?”

His thin smile returned. “There, that’s better. Anger suits your looks so much more than terror.” He slid his arm through mine. “Come on, hellcat. I’ve got a table, and the good champagne’s chilling.” He took my glass from me, and left it on a table. We walked back through the maze of tables, talking of nothing in particular, while he pointed out some business players to me. “There’s Kirk Leary,” he noted, pointing to an older man with a perfectly knotted honey-colored silk tie and a sharp dark suit, gesticulating to two other men, his expression a mixture of bored hit man and evil child. “He’s Leary Music. Been in the business since forever. Owns rights to everything. Discovered heavy hitters from disco to metal. Interesting he’s here. There must be someone he wants.” We moved along. Mark carried on describing. I tried to take it all in. “Lil, what you need to understand is the intense mixture of personalities and egos in operation here. The failed artists who became business, the people that sold their grandmother and the dog just to get here.”

I nodded, not sure what to say. We’d reached our table, and I sat down, meekly, where Mark indicated. All these names, all this history. I looked over towards the thick-necked bottle chilling in the bucket. Mark smiled a toothy cat grin at me. “See something you like? Let me open this.” He reached over, the arm of his long tailored jacket pulling back to reveal the perfectly fitted cuff of his shirt, just covering a tattoo. One of many tattoos, I’d discovered a couple of weeks ago.

He poured us each a glass. We toasted. “To your future success, Lily. Let’s see how far we can get you tonight.” He winked at me. “We’ve got some time, let me tell you about our table. Jake will be sitting over there, but he’s also doing some interviews backstage, so we won’t see that much of him.” He crossed his legs with some care, pulling up the trousers so as not to crease the smooth line of the fabric. “So you will need to be on when he turns up.” I raised my glass, saying nothing. I wasn’t on show for him. I closed my mind to the rising irritation, and listened to him describe the remaining five. “Noelle Painter, she’s a photographer. Does some album covers, some fashion. She’ll be here with her girlfriend, Vanessa de something or other. Stupidly rich. Throws great parties. We won’t be invited, so don’t try. Then Jake’s cousin, who works over in America, has come over for this. He’s a PR guy, but for some reason, Jake tells me, he’s trying to break into engineering.” Mark paused. “Wait, was that it? No, part engineer, part DJ. Something. He runs a club night in Brooklyn.” He laughed dismissively. “Doesn’t everyone?”

I smiled back. I had no idea, but I guessed from his tone, that yes, they did. “Sounds like fun. New York’s great.” I was feeling the power of speech return with the end of the glass.

Mark snorted. “New York’s great. Brooklyn’s great too—especially if you’re a property developer. Still, it shows people are interested in music again. That can’t be a bad thing.”

I felt bolder. “So remind me. How do you know Jake again?”

“We met at Oxford. Although apparently, we had played together at some wedding when we were about 9 or 10. Isn’t that funny? I can’t remember, but he claims I threw a glass of something at him.” He looked at the growing crowd. “Surely not.”

“Surely not.”

Mark watched the crowd for a while, silently, then turned to me. “Lily?”

“Yes?” I responded. I wasn’t really paying attention. I was looking at the bands, who were beginning to arrive. We were just a little too far away to see them as well as I would have liked. The Arctic Monkeys had just come in, along with Kylie Minogue. Bob Geldof. Paul Weller. Was that Kanye? Jesus. A band I didn’t recognize in t-shirts and jeans, looking like they’d just come from the pub. I suddenly felt overdressed, until I looked around and noticed that most of the men were pretty low key, but the women had obviously all just been shopping and hairdressing. The whole double standard of it pissed me off, until I wondered if Mark had been late because he was getting ready. This thought amused me, until I realized he was staring at me.

“Sorry, what? I was watching the bands come in.”

As an answer, Mark put his hand around my arm, and lifted me up. “Come with me,” was all he said.

Unless I wanted to make a scene, I really had no choice. So I let him drag me away from my star gazing. We went towards the back, and he started to open the door to the men’s room.

“What are you doing?” I hissed. “I can’t go in there. What’s wrong?”

“Come on, it’s less crowded than the ladies. I promise not to make you use a urinal. Now, quickly.” And he pushed the door open and led me inside. There was one guy in there, who was arranging his hair, who gave us a quick double take, before shrugging and looking away. This was the music business, after all, I supposed. Laws were not only meant to be broken, but it was a law to break them.

Mark opened a stall, and closed the door behind us. He started looking for something in his inside pocket, then stopped. “Look, Lil. Do you want this?”

“You know I do. You decided I did enough to bring me here. What’s going on?”

He frowned. “Lily, stop. Stop lying. Do you want this? Want it. As in, I want this so badly I will actually do something to get it? Because at the moment, you’re acting not so much like Cinderella at the ball as her librarian.”

I looked down at the tile floor. There was nothing to say. I felt the tears stinging at my eyes.

Mark shook me gently by the shoulders. “Lily, believe me. I’m your friend in this. It’s going to work. You look fantastic. You’re smart, witty. But you’ve got to stop apologizing for existing. You are here. Everyone else—they don’t matter. Except they do matter.” He took a bit of toilet tissue and blotted my eyes carefully. “I’m sorry, but it needed to be said. You’ve got to step it up. You’ll have, what, two minutes with my old friend? Two minutes where you need to be actively engaging. Not building up to, not worrying about if you belong, or whether you’re worth it. Do you understand?”

I gulped, and breathed in a big balloon of air. I shook my head vigorously. He needed to believe me.

Mark pulled out something from his inside pocket. “Luckily, they make supports for moody artists such as yourself.” He quickly undid the vial and snorted up two little spoons. “And they say this stuff’s out of fashion. Yes. Of course. We’re all thin just through willpower.” He looked me up and down. “This will help with that as well. Not that you’re fat.”

“Thanks. You’re so kind.”

“No, stop it. Look around. These people aren’t just regular, they’re…demanding. Let’s put it like that. They all had an idea, and they all made it exist. So they came up with what they wanted. But made it better.” He smirked at me. “You look fantastic naked, by the way.”

I warmed to the compliment, in spite of myself. “Thank you. So much. And thanks for the offer, but I don’t do drugs anymore. I think I mentioned that at some point.”

“Yes, you alluded to some misspent youth—but I’m suggesting you deserve a misspent adulthood.” He smiled, and his smile reminded me of the night we spent together. It had been pretty good, actually. I wasn’t relaxed enough and he wasn’t talented enough to make it all it could have been, for me anyway, but I’d enjoyed it. Not everything had to be great. Good worked too.

“And this is the way?” I wasn’t going to tell him that coke had been possibly my favorite drug at one point. Yes, there had been a few nights where I’d waited for the dawn, alone, quietly shaking. But everyone else had been asleep. Maybe that was their fault.

“It will keep you chirpy. You will be able to drink more, that should be a plus for you. You will lose a dress size in two weeks. And it will feel good when you, or should I say when we—go to bed again.” His hand slipped down under my dress and slowly slid up between my legs and pressed against me. I closed my eyes. But just as I moved against his hand, he pulled away.

“Oh no. There’s a party out there, and your future. Besides, there’s bound to be a fight. I heard there’s going to be some trash talking on stage. One of these giant egos is bound to take offense.” He held up the vial. “Come on.” He unscrewed the top, and filled a little spoon. “Come on.”

One spoon and then the other side. And that sparkle. God, could it still be the same? That slightly burning, bright sense. And a taste that brought back visions of hundreds of little folded up packets, and single-edged razorblades, and that starry cold that slipped to your tongue and made worry irrelevant.

We each did another spoon, and he took a little on his finger and rubbed around my lips, sensuously, before dipping back between my legs, and tracing a line there with his finger. The slight numbness mixed with my heat made me gasp, and he laughed. “Oh, Lil. You’ve got a great future, if you’d just let yourself have it.” He kissed me, surprisingly tenderly. “Come on, let’s go. And for fuck’s sake, keep talking. No more treats if you don’t impress him.” I looked shocked and he laughed. “Should have done this ages ago. Never mind.”

We walked out of the men’s room, casually, and headed back to the table. Everyone was there, except Jake, and all the introductions were made. Mark poured more champagne, and we all made idle chit chat, wondering aloud who would win what, while pretending we weren’t actually scanning the room every so often to see who we could see. I was a bit fixated on Jake’s cousin, partly because he was wearing a plaid shirt, which I found strangely appealing in an unappealing way—red and blue amongst what was pretty much a sea of muted grey and black, but also that he was completely silent. I couldn’t decide whether I admired this or just found it irritating. I wondered briefly if that was what I was like, but then Mark caught my eye, and I quickly turned to the person on my left to make conversation. Mark was chatting to someone who had just wandered over to say hello. Words, everywhere, about nothing and everything. A couple of phrases struck me, and I thought I’d go put them on my phone for the article. I excused myself, and Mark slipped me the vial as I went past. I felt giddy like a schoolgirl as I headed into the bathroom. I almost had a moment once I’d closed the door behind me in the stall as to what to do first. Notes? Drugs? I pulled out the phone, figuring I’d forget, and saw I had a text. It was from Sarah.

How’s the show? Isn’t it due to start? Having fun here. Much love.

Everything seemed right. I did two more of the tiny metal spoons, more indents, I thought, giggling, than actual cutlery, and one more for good measure. Jake would be coming soon. I’d be ready. And I stumbled out of the bathroom to find that we were being asked to take our seats. I walked quickly over to the table, and arrived in what seemed like no time at all. Mark was standing, talking to an attractive man with dark oversized glasses, and what looked like an alpaca sweater over a t-shirt, and dark blue jeans. His hair was short, nearly brush cut, but it suited him. I walked up, wanting my moment in the spotlight so badly I could taste it, like metal on my tongue. Mark turned to me, smiling. “Lily, I’d like you to meet my old friend Jake. Jake, this is Lily, of blogging fame.”

I burst up to him, and held my hand out, clasping his tightly. His eyes were an interesting color of blue. There was something friendly in his manner that made me like him. He seemed genuinely happy to be there, happy to meet me. “Jake, a real pleasure to finally meet you in person. I wanted to thank you for the kind comments you had about the article.”

“Lily, pleasure’s mine. Really rated the article. I thought—still think—the blog’s great. You’re very funny. Interesting, usually good-looking women don’t have much of a sense of humor.” He spoke very quickly, his accent Northern via London, but he enunciated every word with a clipped clarity that made his words feel a little like gunfire. I guessed that came from being on the radio.

I fluttered at him. “I’ll take that as a compliment—from both sides.”

He looked amused. “So you’re enjoying yourself—a music fan, obviously.”

“None of us would be here if we weren’t.”

“True enough. Some more than others perhaps. So you think you’re going to find something interesting to write about this for a 1000 word piece? Turned in? I’ll be kind and give you hangover time—say in 36 hours from now? 8:15am in the morning after tomorrow.”

“Absolutely. And 8:15am in the morning is a pleonasm.”

He grinned. “Just make sure there’s nothing redundant in your piece.”

“I try not to repeat anything that isn’t worth repeating.” I winked at him.

“Does that include your many conquests?”

“Some places you need to return to. Others…,” I paused, and looked him in the eye, “you’d like to visit.”

He held my gaze, and went quiet for a moment. I noted how his glasses had barely any prescription. I wondered if he needed them at all. “It all depends,” he said, “on how much you want to get there.”

“I’m not turning back.”

“Sure?”

“Certain.”

His smile returned, and his line of vision took in Mark again, who must have been standing there watching the whole thing. I had forgotten he was there. “Then email me the article, on time, I’ll call you and we’ll tear it apart over lunch. Deal?”

“Done. I’ll add my phone number to the email. I’m looking forward to you enjoying…the piece over lunch.”

“Excellent. Mark, mate, a pleasure seeing you. I’ll be back in a little while. I’ve got to go interview Razorlight and try and get them to express something negative about someone. Shouldn’t be hard.” He waved, and walked away. I stared after him. He looked shorter from behind.