Authors: Katie Price
Tags: #Literature & Fiction, #Contemporary, #Contemporary Fiction, #Literary
Crystal
Contents
Chapter 7: The Moment of Truth
Chapter 19: Don’t Leave Me This Way
Chapter 22: You’ve Got the Love . . .
Crystal is beautiful, talented and ambitious. All her life she has dreamed of making it as a singer. After years of trying to break into the music industry her chance finally comes when her girl band enters a TV reality show contest.
But Crystal has a secret. She’s fallen for the wrong man and this one mistake could cost her everything – her friendships, her fame and her chance of ever finding love again . . .
ALSO BY KATIE PRICE
Non-Fiction
Being
Jordan
Jordan
: A
Whole
New
World
Jordan
:
Pushed
to
the
Limit
Standing
Out
You
Only
Live
Once
Fiction
Crystal
Sapphire
Angel trilogy:
Angel
Angel Uncovered
Paradise
Children’s Non-Fiction
Katie Price’s Perfect Ponies: My Pony Care Book
Children’s Fiction
Katie Price’s Perfect Ponies
Here Comes the Bride
Little Treasures
Fancy Dress Ponies
Pony Club Weekend
The New Best Friend
Ponies to the Rescue
Star Ponies
Pony ‘n’ Pooch
Pony in Disguise
Katie Price’s Mermaids and Pirates
Follow the Fish
Telescope Overboard
Time for a Picnic
Let’s Play I Spy
A Sunny Day
Let’s Build a Sandcastle
Katie Price
The Audition
‘
OH MY GOD,
look at the queue!’ Crystal exclaimed, taking in the long line of wannabes which snaked out of the London hotel and halfway down the road.
‘Do you think we’ll even get in to see the judges?’ Tahlia bit her lip and looked anxious, but Belle replied, ‘Sure we will,’ confidently flicking her long blonde hair over her shoulders. ‘Most of these people look like total losers. I bet they can’t even sing a note. Their auditions will be over in seconds. You know what Dallas is like.’
She was right, but Crystal wished she had kept her opinion to herself. Several people had turned round to look at Belle and raise their eyebrows at her bitchy comment. Crystal sighed. She mustn’t let Belle get to her. She had to stay calm for the audition. The three girls were going to be singing for a chance of a place in the TV reality show,
Band Ambition
, which aimed to find the perfect pop group and turn them into stars and had shamelessly ripped off
The X Factor
format.
The girls saw the show as their last chance to launch their singing careers. They’d met at stage school more than six years ago when they were sixteen and formed their band Lost Angels, united in their dream of making it as singers. They definitely had talent and had worked hard but their big break just hadn’t come – no matter how many clubs and pubs they’d performed at (and some of them had been real dives) and however many CDs and letters they’d sent off to record
companies. They’d even met an A&R man from a leading record label who claimed he could get them a deal. He was dressed in a tight denim shirt and jeans, which was fine if you were Heath Ledger but not such a great look for a man in his late forties, with moobs and a comb over. But it quickly became all too clear that he was more interested in getting into their knickers than helping them get into the charts. For a start he’d insisted on meeting them in a club rather than his office, which immediately set off alarm bells in Crystal’s mind. ‘There are hundreds of wannabe girl bands out there – all with talent, all good-looking and you need to have your USP,’ he declared, plying them with champagne and perving over them. ‘I can help you work on yours. So how about we finish the champagne and go back to my place. I can play you some of my other artists’ tracks and you can see what I can do for you.’ As Crystal looked at him, lounging back on the sofa, thinking that he was in for some action, his arms round a very uncomfortable Tahlia and a pissed-off Belle, something inside her snapped. She desperately wanted a break but not if it meant shagging some jaded old letch. ‘How about you fuck off!’ Crystal shot back at him. ‘We don’t need your kind of help. Come on you two, let’s go.’
‘Yeah, right back to oblivion,’ he shouted after them. ‘You’ll never make it.’
Belle was almost ready to give up after that, but Crystal and Tahlia stayed strong, keeping the dream alive. But it was hard for them. Belle was fortunate because her parents were wealthy enough to support her and she didn’t have to work, though she occasionally helped out in her aunt’s boutique, but Tahlia and Crystal had no choice but to work, often in dead-end jobs. Tahlia’s CV included waitressing (working in a fast-food chain) and modelling (handing out promotional flyers for a new mobile, dressed as a banana). Crystal’s included several ‘acting’ roles: working as an elf in Santa’s grotto (but being sacked for swearing when one obnoxious brat stamped on her toe) and a major part in Panto (playing
the Cat in
Dick Whittington
in Croydon and being sexually harassed by King Rat). She didn’t include all the other crap jobs – working in a supermarket and behind a bar.
Band Ambition
was it, they had decided; either they make it this time or they would give up and go their separate ways. But none of them, least of all Crystal, wanted to abandon their dream. All she had ever wanted to do was to be a singer. It was the first thing she thought about when she woke up and the last thing before she fell asleep at night.
The girls worked brilliantly as a group, even though the three of them couldn’t have been more different – Crystal, with her exotic Mediterranean beauty, black hair and green eyes, was confident and outspoken; Belle (yes, her parents really
had
named her after the character in
Beauty and the Beast
), blonde, petite, extremely pretty and bubbly, but something of a spoilt princess who always liked to have her own way; and Tahlia, the quietest of the trio, a beautiful, mixed-race, sensitive girl, frowning too often, when, with looks like hers – huge brown eyes, flawless skin, a size eight figure to die for – most women would have been smiling all the time. She and Crystal were the strongest singers. Belle wasn’t in their league, but she was still good and she was a superb dancer. Crystal and Tahlia were best friends and although they got on okay with Belle there were tensions. Crystal and Belle often clashed, usually when Crystal didn’t think Belle had pulled her weight in the group or over her prima donna attitude to life, which got on Crystal’s nerves. If it hadn’t been for the group Crystal doubted she would have had anything to do with Belle. But now their destinies were linked even though Crystal frequently wished that Belle wasn’t part of Lost Angels.
Outside the hotel it had started raining and the three girls huddled under one umbrella, practising their song. They had been queuing for two hours, and Belle had moaned practically non-stop that she was bound to get a cold. Tahlia was too stricken with nerves to say much so it was down to Crystal to keep everyone’s spirits up. But finally they were in
the hotel, they’d registered with the production company and they could rehearse their song properly. As they did so, one of the producers listened in, and Crystal felt a surge of optimism when he gave them the thumbs up. ‘You sound great,’ he told them. ‘One of the best groups
I’ve
heard all day.’ They’d chosen the Sugababes’ ‘Hole in the Head’, knowing it showed off their voices really well. They were equally good at singing pop or R&B. As for their image, they each had very different tastes. Crystal nearly always wore black; Belle wasn’t seen in anything but designer labels and it was practically impossible to prise Tahlia out of her jeans even though she looked amazing in skirts. They’d argued endlessly about what to wear for the audition. Belle had wanted them to wear matching outfits, but Crystal had resisted, saying they should wear things that showed off their different personalities, otherwise they’d look too manufactured and a cringe. In the end Tahlia wore jeans and a white vest trimmed with sequins, Crystal wore a black mini with leggings and black vest, and Belle wore a leopard-print tunic and leggings. Now, as they checked their make-up in the mirror in the ladies, jostling for space with the other hopefuls, Crystal thought they’d made the right choice. They looked good, relaxed and confident, in contrast to many of the other acts who had gone for revealing outfits, and full-on make-up that made them look like hookers. One such girl, in layers of slap and a black leather dress, turned to Belle and said, ‘I like your tunic, is it from Primark?’
‘No,’ Belle hissed back. ‘It’s Gucci. Where’s your dress from? Whores-R-Us?’
Suddenly Crystal, Tahlia and Belle found themselves surrounded by the girl’s band members, who looked equally slutty and hard-faced. ‘Nobody disses us like that,’ one of them said, her dyed auburn hair scraped back into a Croydon face-lift, huge gold earrings hanging from her ears, that looked as if they could double as offensive weapons. Was it ironic chav chic? Crystal wondered or just Vicky Pollard chav?
‘It was just a joke,’ Belle shrugged. Crystal bit her lip, infuriated by her attitude:
like they needed this before the audition.
‘Well, we didn’t think it was very funny,’ the girl persisted, advancing on Belle.
God knows what would have happened next, Crystal thought, but luckily the door opened and someone called out the girls’ number, telling them their audition would be in twenty minutes and immediately the four of them tottered out, not before giving Belle the finger.
‘Nice one, Belle,’ Crystal said sarcastically.
‘Whatever,’ Belle answered, rolling her eyes and sauntering out of the door.
Crystal started to follow her. ‘Are you coming?’ she asked Tahlia, but her friend shook her head, then dashed into a cubicle and bolted the door.
‘I’ll see you out there, then,’ Crystal called, used to Tahlia’s pre-performance nerves – she always threw up before they sang live.
Outside Belle was leaning against the wall, examining her perfectly manicured nails. ‘Is Tahlia being sick again?’ she muttered. ‘God, I hope she’s not going to fuck it up for us.’
‘You know she won’t!’ Crystal answered back hotly, hating any criticism of her friend. ‘She’s the best singer out of all of us, you know that.’
Belle did know that, but she didn’t like hearing it and she flicked her hair back dismissively.
‘How are you feeling?’ Crystal asked as Tahlia emerged from the ladies a few minutes later looking pale.
‘I’ll be okay now,’ Tahlia replied. Crystal put her arm round her friend and hugged her, then, because after all they were a group, she gave Belle a hug too.