Remember My Name (7 page)

‘Y
ou,’ said Patty, pointing one long shellac-ed nail at me, ‘are the worst waitress ever. You’ve had that tray of smoked salmon twists for the last hour. You must be putting people off somehow—you haven’t been
speaking
to them, have you?’

I laid the offensively full tray down on the table, and plastered a tolerant smile on my face. What I really wanted to do was slam the whole tray at her head, and watch the cream cheese slither down the front of her D&G frock. But, no, that would be bad. Satisfying, but bad.

‘The problem is, Patty,’ I said, speaking slowly and clearly and in my poshest voice, ‘that this isn’t exactly a crowd that eats a lot. There are actresses and supermodels and singers, and all of them are probably on some kind of weird macrobiotic fasting diet. They just don’t want food—they only want alcohol. If you give me a tray of champagne instead, I’m sure it’ll be gone in a flash.’

She stared at me, the make-up lines where her eyebrows should have been screwed up in a frown, and replied, ‘Oh, it’s no use! I give up—I need a bloody translator! Go and take another break, will you? Get out of my sight for a while!’

She whirled around, and I saw the transformation as she did it—from a pouty-mouthed gargoyle to smiling PR professional as she faced the rest of the crowd. I was obviously so special, she saved her True Form for me and me alone.

I stuck my tongue out at her back as she tottered away on her super stupid high heels, and grabbed a handful of the cheesy salmon twists, shoving them into my mouth in defiance. Hah—take ‘another’ break, she’d said, as though I’d even had one at all.

I’d been working non-stop for the last three hours. I’d been smiling and happy and professional, offering the canapés to everybody in the room, even the ones who looked like they only ate via intravenous drip. The place was packed, but it was so dark it was hard to make out where everybody was—the club was hazy and black, striped across with flashing neon lighting, dance music pumping out so loud that even the smoked salmon probably had a headache.

There were booths all around the dancefloor, black leather seats and gold-topped tables overflowing with expensive booze. Each little booth had a red velvet curtain at the side of it, like in an old-fashioned cinema, tied with thick gold cord. Lilies that had been spray-painted gold and red were arranged on the tables, filling the place with that prickly pollen smell that always made me think something was on fire.

I’d already seen several famous faces, well-known names from the soaps and music and film. The first time it happened, I even said ‘Hiya’ to an actress from
EastEnders,
my brain somehow convincing me I knew her on a personal level.

Even if I was only there as a waitress, it had all felt pretty
exciting to start off with. I mean, who doesn’t like seeing famous people getting hammered?

The answer to that question, by the time I’d been on my poor feet for a while, was: Me. I’d stopped being interested in their outfits after about an hour, and lost all notion of them being remotely special when a vaguely famous weather presenter belched in my face as he stared at my boobs. Yuck. The rich and famous, I was rapidly deciding, were just as capable of being twats as the rest of the world—maybe even more so, as nobody ever dared pull them up on it.

Jack was there, looking tastier than the party food in his Tom Ford suit and white shirt with the top three buttons undone, but we’d hardly spoken. He hadn’t ignored me—he’d given me a flash of that terrific smile, and waved at me as he chatted up the hot-shot new producer I knew he was keen to woo into the Starmaker stable, but it hadn’t exactly been a date night either.

Only once did our paths properly cross—when he saw me carrying my tray of unwanted food towards a booth that turned out to be empty (you had to be really up close to see that, in my defence), and hurriedly followed me in there, pulling the red velvet curtains firmly closed behind us to create a secret den.

‘You look hot as hell in that get-up,’ he’d said, pushing me backwards into the black leather, leaning in for a kiss and letting his hand drift slowly and deliciously up beneath my pencil skirt.

I’d wrapped my fingers into the dark waves of his hair and smiled into the kiss, knowing exactly how he’d react to the rest of the outfit, and counting down the seconds until he got there.

‘Aaah! Stockings! You’re killing me …’ he said, his fingers exploring the skin he had easy access to, leaving me hot and bothered and with my skirt as ruffled as my pulse.

Almost as soon as he’d started, though, he pulled away, standing up tall and grinning at me as he straightened his hair and adjusted his trousers.

‘You’re a very bad man,’ I said in my best fake-sex-kitten voice. ‘Don’t you know I’m just a humble waitress, trying to get through the night without being molested by passing VIPs?’

‘You loved it, you slut,’ he said, peeking out of the red curtains. ‘And we’ll definitely be following up this naughty-maid theme later, I promise you.’

‘Later?’ I asked, tidying myself up and hating the way I managed to pack a whole world of neediness into just one little word.

‘Later … this week. Not tonight. After Vogue does her spot, I’ll be tied up—all work and no play for me tonight, sweetheart. You understand, don’t you? I’d much rather be seeing what you could serve up in the privacy of my bedroom than schmoozing with this lot, but it’s all part of the job.’

‘Of course I understand,’ I said firmly, giving him a quick kiss on the cheek and picking up my tray again. ‘And now you must excuse me, Mr Duncan, while I take my hot-as-hell outfit back into the club. You’re not the only one with work to do.’

I’d sashayed away, giving my bum a bit of an extra swish as I did, knowing that his eyes would be glued to it. I might feel secretly devastated that we wouldn’t be getting together tonight—but at least I could leave him feeling uncomfortable
about it. In a world where I was largely powerless, the ability to provoke a hard-on in the man I suspected I was falling for was something to be celebrated.

Since then, I’d only seen him in passing—he was indeed schmoozing for Britain—and I occasionally stopped to admire his tall, dark and handsome-ness as I paused with my tray. I scanned the crowds to look for him before going on my break, then realised I still had a mouthful of salmon twists and probably shouldn’t be allowed out in public.

I made my way to the side door behind the stage area, which led to the staff break rooms, dressing rooms, and the corridor that connected to the kitchens. It was a lot less glamorous once you passed through the magic door—no red velvet, no golden lilies, no celebs. But, I realised as I kicked off my shoes and carried them towards the staff room, also no noise—which was an absolute blessing. I hadn’t realised how loud it had been until the thumping sounds echoing around my brain stopped. Or at least reduced—now it just sounded like a gentle rhythmic tap instead of someone whacking me across the ear-holes with a sledgehammer.

I was walking towards the break room—looking forward to ten minutes with my feet in an elevated position while I digested way too much smoked salmon—when the door to the dressing room burst open, catching me on the shoulder as I passed it and flinging me back to bang up against the corridor wall.

Well, I thought, as I unstuck my lip gloss from the plaster-work, at least I hadn’t been carrying a tray of canapés when that happened. Things were looking up.

I rubbed my face to make sure it was all still in one piece, and turned round to see what all the commotion was about.

I came face to face with Neale, the trainee make-up artist. His shaved head was glistening with sweat, and there were actual tears running down his cheeks. His hands flew up into the air in panic, and he looked at major risk of hyperventilating.

‘Neale!’ I said, reaching out to take hold of his hands. I thought he might float up to the ceiling like a helium balloon if somebody didn’t pull him back down to earth.

‘What’s up? Calm down, for goodness’ sake—What’s happened?’

He grasped on to me for dear life, his slim skinny-jean-clad body slumping towards me in desperation.

‘Jess! Help! It’s Vogue! She’s … she’s …’

‘She’s what?’ I asked, peering past him into the dressing room, trying to see what was going on.

‘She’s puking her guts up!’ came a gravelly voice from inside, shortly followed by an unpleasant retching sound that left very little to the imagination.

I stepped inside, dropping my shoes to the floor, and walked towards the megastar—who was currently burying her head in a vase that had, I guessed from the damp patch and the crushed lilies lying on the carpet, until recently been full of fresh flowers.

She was wearing what I recognised as one of her stage outfits—I’d watched her rehearsing in it enough times to know it—made of thin leather straps and sultry dark fishnet. She normally looked amazing in it—all Amazonian sex appeal;
a kind of black-dominatrix-Madonna look that I could never pull off in a million years.

But just then, she looked anything but sexy. She looked absolutely terrible, her body hunched in over the vase, shaking and shuddering as she vomited. She finally looked up, wiping her face clear of drool and smearing vivid red lipstick all across her mouth as she did it.

Her wig had come loose and slipped to one side, so her natural close-cropped curls were peeking out, and her false eyelashes were barely weathering the storm of puke, sticking together in clumps as tears streamed from her eyes, drizzling mascara over her cheekbones.

‘Oh, my God!’ I said, kneeling down in front of her and gazing up at the disaster zone that was Vogue’s usually beautiful face. I grabbed a handful of tissues from the box on the dressing table and started dabbing at her, trying to rescue some of the work that had been done to get her stage-ready.

I glanced at my watch. She was due on at ten thirty—which, horrendously, was only thirty minutes away. Either Vogue was going to start a whole new trend of zombie-faced vomit-chic, or the show was going to be very, very late.

Her shoulders were still shaking, and the tears were still flowing, and she smelled, frankly, like sick—which is an aroma that not even the very glamorous can successfully pull off. She pushed me away with her trembling hand, which, as she immediately started throwing up again, I was very grateful for.

‘How long has she been like this?’ I asked, looking up at Neale, who appeared pretty nauseous himself.

‘It started about fifteen minutes ago,’ he answered, hands
flapping and voice racing upwards to the kind of note that could shatter lightbulbs. ‘At first she just thought it was nerves—she says it sometimes happens before shows—but … it just won’t stop! I’m only here to help out—she arrived half an hour ago, already done by Suzi, her stylist. I was hanging around in case she needed a touch up, or there was a wardrobe malfunction, or … well, I was just hanging around, really!’

I nodded, letting him know I got it. He was looking for his big break at Starmaker, just like I was—which seemed to involve an awful lot of hanging around, just in case.

I stroked Vogue’s back as she puked, holding the strands of her black wig away from the sides of her face and making what I hoped were reassuring noises until the latest bout finally came to a throat-wrenching halt.

With a final shuddering moan she leaned back in her chair and tore off the wig completely, throwing it away from her so hard it got caught on the lampshade, hanging there dangling down from the middle of the ceiling like some hideous Halloween decoration.

She held her face in both hands, using her shaking palms to smear away snot and tears and spit and make-up, turning her look into something Picasso might have dreamed up while he was on an acid trip.

‘I can’t go on,’ she finally said in her thick south London accent—the one that Patty never objected to, even though it was twice as strong as my Scouse one. ‘I just can’t fucking do it. Not tonight. You’ll have to go find Jack, Neale. Tell him I’m almost dead. Tell him I’ve got cholera.’

‘I don’t think you’ve actually got cholera, Vogue …’ started
Neale, then abruptly shut up when she snapped her eyes wide open at him, her watery green glare so vicious he decided to whimper instead.

‘Cholera. Right. Got it. I’ll be right back.’

He fled from the room in a blur of black, and I heard him squeaking to himself in horror as he ran back along the corridor.

I stood up, feeling my knees crack after squatting down for so long, and walked to the dressing table. I found a packet of baby wipes—make-up artists never leave home without them—and handed them to Vogue, keeping a safe distance just in case she started chucking up again. I unscrewed the lid to a fresh bottle of water from the mini-fridge, and passed that to her as well.

She nodded gratefully and took a few sips, before using the baby wipes to start cleaning herself up. I looked on, fascinated, as the layers came away. The make-up and the lashes and the fake beauty spot and the now-smeared lippie. The wig was long gone, and she was snapping open the fasteners at the back of her tight leather bustier so she could breathe better. She tugged out her earrings and lashed them down on the dresser. She used one finger to poke out her intense green contact lenses, revealing her own huge brown eyes. Her thigh-length patent leather stiletto boots followed, slung across the room, where they settled into a shiny, creaking heap.

By the time she’d finished, she looked … well, still gorgeous, in all honesty. But gorgeous in a way that wouldn’t have looked out of place down the market on a Saturday morning. Gorgeous in a way that you could look if you were doing the
shopping, or going to church, or picking the kids up from school. Gorgeous like a normal, genetically blessed young woman—who’d just endured a major vomiting fit.

Underneath the slap and the bling she emerged like a different person—one who looked very much like she needed to go and crawl under a duvet for a few weeks to recover.

‘Are you all right?’ I asked, holding forward the waste-paper bin so she could throw her crumpled up wipes away. ‘Can I do anything else for you, Vogue?’