Past Secrets (38 page)

‘You’re fitting in around here very well, Syd,’

Amber grinned.

It was funny, she got on better with Syd these days than she did with Karl.

‘Yeah, I think I like this lifestyle, Amber. Better not get used to it, though, as you pointed out.’ ‘Sorry,’ Amber apologised. ‘I didn’t mean that, I didn’t mean that the band wouldn’t make it. I was only trying to be realistic. We, sorry, you shouldn’t count your chickens.’

‘I know that,’ Syd said, drawing her into the suite. ‘You look all lovely and shiny.’

‘I feel great,’ said Amber. ‘And clean! I thought I’d never feel clean again. There’s only one problem, I have nothing to wear.’

Syd laughed. ‘It must be a chromosome thing: women and shopping. Lola’s just the same. Shop or die. I’ve got a few quid left.’ He handed her over a hundred dollars. ‘Sorry, it’s not much, but it’s all I can afford until we get some of the upfront signing money.’

‘Oh, you’re a star!’ Amber said and threw her arms around him and gave him a big hug. ‘Steady on,’ laughed Syd, ‘or you’ll have Lola on the phone soon, giving out that I found me another woman.’

‘Oh, sure,’ teased Amber. She knew he was only kidding, he loved Lola to bits. ‘Thanks, and don’t mention this to Karl?’

‘I won’t,’ said Syd. ‘I understand.’

As Amber went downstairs in the lift, she pondered those last words. What did Syd understand?

That she and Karl were breaking up in front of his eyes and that she couldn’t go to Karl and ask him for a few dollars to buy a’ new outfit? Or that he wouldn’t understand why she needed to in the first place?

Far away in New York, Faye Reid wondered if she should just go home and give up. She’d been in New York for two weeks now and she felt she was dying of loneliness. She missed Amber so much. And since that first phone call just after she’d left, Amber hadn’t even phoned home again.

Faye checked her Summer Street answering machine with a frequency that was verging on the obsessional.

Above all, she felt as if she’d failed her daughter spectacularly if Amber could run away and never contact home. What sort of a mother did that make her?

When her own mother phoned her to see how she was doing, Faye could barely speak from misery. ‘I don’t suppose Amber’s been in touch with you, Mum?’ she asked, ever hopeful.

‘No,’ said Josie. ‘I suspect she feels so guilty and anxious that she’s deliberately not phoning now. She knows I’d give her a piece of my mind for running off like that.’

‘You’re not to say a thing to her if she phones!’

shrieked Faye. It might frighten Amber off and … ‘Faye, listen to me!’ said Josie calmly but firmly.

,if Amber phones, I will give her a piece of my mind because what she’s done is unforgivable. I know she’s only eighteen, she’s in love and she’s all upset, but that’s no reason to treat your family this way. Yes, I’m sure she’s afraid we’ll be furious with her for what she’s done, but that’s no reason not to call again. I am furious with her and when you get over your fit of the guilts, you should be too. Yes, you lied to her.’

Faye winced.

‘Yes, you made up a nice little fairytale about her father and you know I disagreed with you about that, but it was your choice. The bottom line, Faye, is that you’ve done everything you could for that girl, everything. You’ve given up your life for her. The Lord only knows I love her, but I am angry with her.’

‘Oh, Mum …’

‘Don’t “Oh, Mum” me,’ said Josie fiercely. ‘If you don’t make some progress in the next few days, then you’ve got to come home. Amber is a clever girl. She’ll survive. She’s got our blood running through her veins and we’ve survived, haven’t we? So have some faith in her.’

‘You really think she’ll be all right?’ Faye said, starting to cry.

‘She might be wrapped up in young passion, but she’s not stupid,’ Josie said with a touch of pride. ‘She’s a strong girl. You’ve done a great job with her. Remember that.’

‘I will,’ sobbed Faye. ‘I will.’ But it was easier said than done.

Her mother was right: she’d have to go home soon. What was the point waiting here? Amber could have left New York days ago. She could be anywhere by now, and at least when she phoned home again - and she would, Faye was sure she would - Faye would be there to talk to her.

The fashion magazines were wrong, Amber thought crossly, after an hour and a half. They were always implying that Los Angeles thrift shops were full of exquisite vintage clothes: barely worn Schiaparelli gowns, original Dior’ suits, everything for next to nothing. In fact, she was finding an awful lot of very dull clothes and lots of jeans in teeny, tiny sizes. She had jeans. But jeans were not going to cut it in a town where people only wore jeans with half a million’s worth of Harry Winston diamonds, accessorised with Manolo Blahnik shoes and a Judith Leiber clutch.

Then, finally, in a tiny little shop off Melrose, with rails so crammed full of clothes it hurt her arms to rifle through them, she found it. It looked like a 1930s nightie, which in fact it probably was:

an emerald-green bias-cut silk-satin dress with spaghetti straps and a scalloped hem. It clung to her curves in all the right places and highlighted her creamy skin and her tawny mane. It was fabulous and, better still, only sixty dollars. With the rest of the money she bought an embroidered shawl with fringing, to throw over her shoulders, and a shiny lip gloss. There, she’d do.

Karl was sitting on the superking-sized bed putting on his watch when Amber emerged from her bathroom, all ready to go, a vision in shimmering green, her tiger’s-eye pendant -highlighting the silkiness of her slender throat.

‘Wow, you look amazing,’ he said in admiration. ‘Come here.’

It was as if the row had never happened, as if there had never been any coolness between them on the road. He began to kiss her and suddenly Amber wasn’t in such a rush for the dinner party after all. Karl’s hands caressed her body and gently pulled the straps of her beautiful dress over her shoulders so it slithered like a skin to the floor.

‘You’re so beautiful,’ he said, ‘my muse. I couldn’t have done this without you.’

As they made love, Amber thought that these were just the words she wanted to hear. Karl loved her, adored her. That was what mattered, wasn’t it?

They were late getting downstairs but the limo driver didn’t seem to mind.

‘What the hell were you pair doing?’ grumbled Kenny T, who had been sitting in the back of the limo with Syd and Lew for ten minutes and was agitated, as if he wanted to get to this fabulous party soon.

‘Nothing,’ said Karl, with a grin that said quite plainly that he had just had mind-altering sex.

Syd said nothing, he just poked at Amber and smiled a small, knowing smile. She grinned back, feeling slightly treacherous for telling Syd she couldn’t ask Karl for the money for the new dress.

This was Syd’s money she was wearing and she couldn’t tell Karl. But couples had rows and arguments all the time, Syd must know that.

Los Angeles was a strange mix of dress up and dress down. The restaurant they went to looked as if half the clientele had come straight from the Oscars and the other half straight from doing their grocery shopping. There were willowy girls in jeans and socialites in Versace. Jewels gleamed on both men and women and everyone looked fabulously tanned and healthy.

In her second-hand finery, Amber felt she fitted in pretty well and she was with the most handsome man in the room, the superbly talented Karl Evans. Michael, the producer, thought so too, he spent the night talking about the band with Karl.

They discussed different songs, what they’d rearrange, how they might bring in some other songwriters - people Michael worked with all the time - just to tweak, and perhaps to write a couple

of new songs. Karl, who normally maintained that his work was not to be touched, and wouldn’t even dream of singing anyone else’s music, nodded vigorously to all this. He seemed fascinated by the talk of business.

There were ten people at the dinner table but Amber felt bored. Nobody was talking to her. It was as if, she realised sadly, she didn’t quite exist.

She felt just the same as she had at the SnakePit that night when she’d had to hide at the side of the stage to watch the band play - a hanger-on. That’s what Stevie had wanted her to feel, she was sure: that she was nothing but the girlfriend, and of course, the role of the girlfriend was to keep the lead singer/songwriter happy, as well as being attractive and sexually available. So much for feminism, Amber thought grimly and took another sip of wine.

The waiters, all staggeringly handsome out-of-work actors with cheekbones like cliff edges and bodies sculpted by hours in the gym, kept filling the wineglasses so stealthily and discreetly that it was hard for Amber to know how much she’d drunk. At first, as she toyed with her Caesar salad, she tried to keep a tab, but after a while she gave up. Karl was at the end of the table, separated from her by Michael and one of his assistants, who were talking to Karl at length about musicians they all admired and where Karl’s inspiration had come from.

‘It’s got to be Robert Johnson, hasn’t it?’ Karl was saying intently. ‘Oh, and Hendrix, naturally.’

‘Well, you’ve got his gift too,’ said the assistant, smiling, flattering.

Amber thought she was going to puke. Michael had seemed upfront and honest when they’d first met him, but tonight, he had changed: he was fawning on Karl, hyping up the band and their brilliance. What a fabulous team they’d all make.

How they’d change the world. And Karl didn’t seem to see.

Amber pushed her plate away, her appetite quite gone. She loved the climate in LA, adored the sense of freedom. But the insincerity was something else.

Everything she saw or heard in this town was wrapped in a fleecy parcel of bullshit. She almost longed for the straightforwardness of the places they’d stayed on the road: ordinary towns where people said what they meant. Or even miserable old Gretchen in the minimarket back home, who’d glare at you rudely if she was in the mood.

Or her mum. The minimarket made her think of Summer Street and of home. Could Mum ever forgive her? At that moment, Amber didn’t feel as if she deserved forgiveness.

Karl didn’t seem to notice her unhappiness. He didn’t smile or even give her one of those ‘are you OK, honey?’ looks across the table. On her other side was a female producer. A slim, beautiful woman with olive skin, dressed in an exquisite coral wrap dress, she was talking intently to Syd and Kenny T.

Even Lew, who was never going to be a

contestant on Mastermind, was busily being chatted up by yet another member of Michael’s team on the other side of the table. But nobody was bothering with Amber. And she didn’t like it.

She was clever, she wasn’t some bimbo girlfriend.

She lifted her wineglass and took another big sip and thought of her mum. Mum always said that beauty could only take you so far in life, while intelligence and self-belief could take you a lot further. Amber didn’t allow herself to think about her mum much, although she fingered her tiger’s eye pendant thoughtfully. She wore it all the time and she did think of Mum when she put it on. It was her talisman of home. She hadn’t rung since that first phone call, she knew she should have but the argument was all too raw, too painful.

She’d been horrible, she knew that now. Not that she’d made a mistake, no, she’d done the right thing to go away with Karl.

But she still felt guilty when she thought of Mum’s hurt face and what was it that Gran had said?

You should let your mother tell you.

She sometimes wondered exactly what her mother did have to tell her. Gran wouldn’t have said it if she hadn’t meant it, if there hadn’t been some intelligent reason behind it. So what could her mum have to tell Amber that could possibly change the way she had decided to live her life?

‘Was your salad OK for you?’ asked the waiter. ‘Yes, it was delicious,’ said Amber, pathetically happy that at least someone was talking to her. ‘It’s just I wasn’t hungry.’

The evening might have been endured if another party of people hadn’t arrived when their table was drinking coffee. There was no dessert of course. God forbid that anyone in LA would actually eat dessert, apart from toying with some fresh fruit. Amber was cross because she felt like something sugary.

The party included a very beautiful woman with skin like ebony, the body of a supermodel and a face that Tyra Banks would envy. She came over to the table and kissed Michael Levin on both cheeks, a proper kiss, not just air kissing.

She was, Amber heard her neighbour whisper, the latest hot singing sensation with her first album just out, produced by Michael.

‘She can sing too?’ said Amber, staring at this vision of a woman. She was like an exquisite Somalian empress.

Wow, Amber thought, she’d be beautiful to paint: that face, that figure, that elegance.

‘Yeah, she’s going to make it really big,’ said Amber’s neighbour again. ‘Everyone will know about Venetia, I promise you that. She’s gonna be hotter than Beyonce.’

Venetia. Even her name was beautiful, thought Amber mistily. And then, suddenly, she stopped feeling so friendly towards Venetia because Michael introduced her to Karl, not any of the other band members, just to Karl. A few more chairs were

brought up and the exquisite Venetia snuggled in close between Karl and Michael, though slightly closer to Karl than to anyone else. They were talking and laughing, and Amber couldn’t hear what they were saying but she could see Venetia touching Karl on the shoulder and on the knee, as if she had known him for ever.

‘She needs somebody to write some new songs for her,’ said Amber’s neighbour, catching Amber’s fierce glare. ‘Fabulous voice and she’s written a few good tracks herself, but basically she needs songwriters and Michael thinks Karl has a few songs that just might suit her. He’s a very talented songwriter.’

‘Well, Karl doesn’t write songs for anyone else,’

Amber said heatedly. ‘He doesn’t believe in that type of thing, he only writes for himself.’

Her neighbour gave her a long, steady gaze. ‘Karl seems like a pretty bright guy and if you want to get ahead in this business, you make your own music, you make music for other people, hey, whatever it takes. Venetia is going to go a long way, it mightn’t be bad for him to be attached to her coattails.’