Remember My Name (8 page)

I could, of course, have offered her a smoked-salmon twist—but somehow I didn’t think that was a cure for cholera. Or whatever it was that Vogue actually had.

She took a deep breath, and another long drag on the water, before looking up at me. She gave me a sad, tired smile.

‘Nah,’ she said. ‘Thanks, though, sweetie, you’ve been awesome. Sorry if I caught you with any splash back. I don’t know what’s happening … my little sis had a tummy bug earlier this week, as did half the other kids at her birthday party. I probably should have stayed away, but, well, you know—it’s family. I don’t see enough of them as it is, and it was her tenth. I couldn’t skip that, could I? They’d have killed me, apart from anything else.’

‘I understand,’ I answered. And I did. Family was family—and it had to come first, even if it made you quite literally throw up as a result of spending time with them. ‘But are you feeling any better now?’

I looked nervously at the door, wondering when Neale would finally be able to find Jack and bring him back here so he could sort everything out. Jack would know what to do—he was
that kind of guy. He’d have a masterplan, I was sure. He was probably a qualified doctor as well as a music-industry guru.

‘A little bit,’ she said, voice wobbling and cracking, ‘but I don’t think I can go on stage tonight. Even if I didn’t look like the Joker after he’s been in a sauna, I couldn’t sing. Not the way my throat is hurting right now. Plus, I couldn’t dance—I know this is probably TMI, Jess, but I have my suspicions the puking was just the start … I think it’ll be both ends soon, if you get my drift.’

I pulled an ‘eek’ face that hopefully conveyed both my confirmation of the fact that yes, I definitely got her drift, and also my sympathy. We’ve all been there, let’s face it—nobody is immune from the levelling power of Having the Shits. Not even really classy people, like the Queen of England, or George Clooney’s wife.

I had no idea what they’d do about it. The party was a Starmaker celebration—a shindig to raise its profile, gather the great, the good, and the gossip-worthy under one roof and get the flash bulbs popping. Not that people really used flash bulbs that much any more.

There were plenty of well-known faces here already; there’d been masses of alcohol consumed, masses of food left to rot, and masses of cocaine had entirely possibly been snorted in the toilets. That was only a guess, mind—I didn’t go in for that kind of thing myself. But I had noticed, during my time on the outer fringes of the celeb world in London, how strange it was that these people could be obsessed with looks and health—eating juiced kale for lunch, going to the gym every day, taking every vitamin supplement known to
man—and still bugger it all up by going on class-A binges at parties. A puzzling paradox.

This party was probably no different, if the high-energy, high-octane atmosphere in the club was anything to go by. As well as the celebs, there were all sorts of important people from the record industry—the execs, the big bosses, the true VIPs. The people with levels of wealth that would make them contenders for hosting the Judges’ Houses section of
The X Factor.
Not just from Starmaker either, but from the company that owned it—and the distributors, the digital-music-movers, and media from TV, print, and online.

It was, to give it its correct term, a Big Deal—and the star of the show, the diva who was supposed to be providing the highlight of the evening, was slowly turning as grey as out-of-date pigs’ liver and rooting in her bag for an Imodium so she could get a cab home with her dignity intact.

I felt sorry for all the people who’d organised it, who’d put so much effort into making the night a success. Apart from Patty, of course, who evoked about as much sympathy as a velociraptor where I was concerned.

‘Shit,’ said Vogue, throwing her handbag to the floor and kicking it with her bare foot. ‘I was sure I had some there. God, I’m dreading the drive home—and I’m dreading reading the papers tomorrow. They’ll have made up all kinds of stories about why I was a no-show.’

‘Maybe they’ll have you pregnant,’ I suggested, probably not very helpfully.

‘Ha! You’re not wrong, kid. Or they’ll give me an eating disorder.’

‘Or they’ll have you booked into rehab.’

‘Or,’ she said, looking at me with the first signs of laughter in her tired eyes, ‘maybe they’ll give me cholera!’

‘Don’t be daft—who’d come up with an idea like that?’ I replied, grinning.

We both laughed, briefly, and then both stopped just as quickly, as Vogue doubled up in sudden agony, rolling over into a foetal position and clutching at her stomach with her arms. She moaned and groaned, and was obviously in a lot of pain.

When she eventually straightened up, still wrapping her arms across her belly, her face was drawn and haggard and her eyes were screwed up against the spasms that I could actually hear rippling through her.

‘No,’ she said, more definitely than she had before. ‘I actually really can’t do it. I thought maybe I could once the vomming had passed, but now we’re heading for round two, and nobody wants to see that live on stage, no matter how drunk they are. Shit, I don’t care what the tabloids say, but I really hate letting people down. I try so hard to be professional and good to work with, and they’ll all be so pissed off and think I’m just throwing some kind of diva fit—but, look at me! I just can’t do this!’

I stepped towards her, and put my arm around her shoulder, giving her a quick squeeze and hoping nothing popped out as a result.

‘Don’t be stupid,’ I said, copying the no-nonsense tone I’d heard my mum use with us when we were being down on ourselves. ‘Nobody will think that. We all know how professional
you are—it’s just one of those things. I know they always say the show must go on, but unless you can do it from the bogs, I don’t think it’s going to happen this time, is it?’

Vogue leaned into me, and I could feel the clammy, cold sweat on her forehead, poor thing. She really wasn’t very well at all. She was quiet for a few minutes, and I genuinely started to wonder whether she’d fallen asleep on me, and how I was going to move her so I could get back to work.

I glanced at our reflection in the mirror, and saw that far from being asleep, she was looking at me through slightly narrowed—but suddenly more alert—eyes. She was chewing one corner of her lip, as though she was wrangling with a big philosophical issue, or an especially hard question on
Pointless.
I raised my eyebrows at her, my expression asking her what she was thinking.

‘Jess,’ she said, finally.

‘Yes,’ I replied, feeling a little bit freaked out by her change of mood.

‘I have an idea.’

‘Okay?’ I said, not willing to commit any further until I knew what it involved.

‘You’re right—the show must go on. And I think I know exactly how we can make that happen …’

I
t was very difficult to speak with someone else’s fingers poking around in your mouth, I was discovering—but I was trying desperately hard to do it anyway.

‘I aaan’t oo it!’ I mumbled, tempted to bite Neale’s hand as he smoothed the Crest whitening strips down onto my gnashers.

‘Of course you can do it,’ he said back, smoothly, refusing to be distracted by my wriggling or my distorted words. ‘And you’re going to look fab-u-lous while you’re doing it.’

He finally finished, and I clenched my mouth shut in relief. He’d already scoured the existing make-up off my face with a touch as gentle as a WWF wrestler, and had sprinkled drops into my eyes to ‘give them a little oomph’.

He’d slathered a quick facemask all over my skin, and when I looked in the mirror I saw that not only was I wearing plastic strips across my teeth, but my whole face was green. I’d gone Hulk within the few minutes it had taken for Neale to realise that this was his big chance to prove himself—whether I was willing or not.

Vogue’s great idea had been so ridiculous, I’d actually
laughed out loud when she suggested it. It was only when I saw her still-serious expression that the true horror of it all sunk in.

‘You go on instead of me,’ she had said, not even cracking a hint of a smile. I fought the urge to look round for the hidden cameras, before coming to the conclusion that she actually meant it.

‘What?’ I’d replied. ‘I can’t do that. I’m just here to hand out the food that nobody wants. I can’t … I’m not … I couldn’t …’

‘You are, and you can,’ she’d said briskly, real steel coming into her voice. She stood up, still clutching her tummy, and I suddenly felt a bit scared. Even without her heels she had a good six inches on me.

‘I’ve heard you rehearsing, Jess. I’ve seen you practising the routines in the dance studio. I know—I one hundred per cent know—that you are capable of pulling this off.’

‘That’s different,’ I bleated, pathetically. ‘That’s just rehearsing. That’s just in private. That’s … no. I can’t do this.’

‘I thought you were here because you want to be a star?’ she said, tilting her head and staring at me.

‘I do … but I’m not ready for this, Vogue.’

‘Nobody is ever ready, Jess. It’s like having a baby—you might not be ready, but you won’t ever regret it.’

I wondered briefly, amid all the panic that was flooding my senses, how she’d know about having a baby—but it was definitely not the right time to ask. It was the right time to flee for my life, and I found myself eyeing the door, wondering if I could make it out alive before she rugby tackled me to the floor.

‘This,’ she said, walking so close to me our noses were almost touching and I could smell the sour note of her breath, ‘is a once in a lifetime opportunity. You’ve been putting the work in. You’ve got the talent. And that room is jam packed with some of the most important people in the music world—are you going to be the one who jumps in and takes her chance to shine, or are you going to be a waitress for the rest of your life? You have to ask yourself which of those paths you want to follow—because right now, you’re at a crossroads. If you want to stay on the road to nowhere, that’s your choice.’

Ouch. She’d hit a nerve just about as effectively as a trainee dentist with a hangover—and I felt the jolt of what she was saying flow through my mind. I
had
come to Starmaker to make a name for myself. Whether that name was going to be ‘Jess Malone—star’ or ‘Jess Malone—waitress to the stars’ was still debatable.

This was the opportunity I’d been waiting for—and if anybody had told me it would arrive like this, in a cloud of vomit and panic, I wouldn’t have believed them. I also wouldn’t have believed them if they’d said I’d be so scared—terrified, in fact.

Because suddenly, now that the opportunity was here, standing in front of me in the form of a hugely tall diva with an upset stomach, I was petrified. Singing at children’s parties was one thing—it was easy to shine when you could hide behind a flouncy polyester princess dress and nobody was that interested in you anyway. But doing it here, in front of this hand-picked super-important audience? The very thought of that made me feel like I could be following Vogue into puke-town any minute now.

‘You know the songs,’ she said, continuing to beat all my spluttering objections down.

‘But—’ I said, before she cut me off with an imperious wave of her hand.

‘And you know the dance steps. Jack can sell this, Jess—you know what he’s like. He’ll persuade everyone out there that they’re lucky to be seeing you and not me. He’ll convince them that they’ve chosen this time to reveal Starmaker’s latest talent—and then, when you pull it off, that will become true. Everything you’ve ever dreamed of will come true.’

I gazed up at her, wondering if she had any idea about what I dreamed of—she’d been famous since she was seventeen, practically a child herself.

‘You’ll be able to look after your family,’ she added. ‘Sort out all their financial problems. Look after the people who’ve looked after you. And you’ll be able to sing and record and tour, and get your voice heard by all those people who rejected you in the past—you’ll show them what they’ve missed out on, what you’re really made of. And those people who believed in you, who encouraged you? You’ll be proving them right. It’ll be making their dreams come true as well.’

Uhh, I thought. Okay. So she
did
understand what I’d dreamed of—and she was offering me a chance to make it all happen.

I stayed silent, turning it all over in my mind, my trembling hands absentmindedly tidying up the make-up scattered across the counter just to give themselves something to do.

Before I could answer her, the door to the dressing room burst open, and Neale almost fell through it—just about
recovering his balance enough to stay upright. He was followed by Jack, who was frowning at Vogue in concern, and—horrendously—by Patty, who strutted into the room like a demented peacock.

Jack glanced at me briefly before striding over to Vogue and taking her in his arms. I was close enough to hear the quiet sigh that escaped from her lips as she collapsed into his embrace, and see the way her clammy hands clutched at his expensive suit.

‘It’s okay, darling,’ he murmured, stroking the back of her head and making soothing sounds. It looked like Vogue and Jack were closer than I’d thought. Even though I knew he’d mentored her in the early days, I’d never seen them together much at the office. I had to assume that those early days had left them with a bond of friendship that had lasted for all these years.

Vogue pulled away from him, and looked into his eyes. I could hear Patty tapping her talons impatiently against the clipboard she was carrying as she watched.

‘I can’t go on, Jack,’ she said, simply. ‘The details are too disgusting to reveal, but I can’t. I don’t want to let you down, but there are limits. I have an idea, though. A good one.’

‘Okay, sweetheart, I’m all ears,’ he replied, running his hands through his hair until he left furrows. He was worried—I could see it in his frown, in his body language, in the tone of his voice. I’d never seen him worried before—and I knew that there was something I could do to help him. If I could pull this off, if I could turn this disaster into a victory for Starmaker and for him, it would change the balance of everything. It
would make me feel less like the poor relation, and more like the star he said he’d spotted all that time ago in a soggy summer garden in the Cheshire countryside. It could be a way to repay him for all the belief he’d had in me, just like Vogue had said.

‘Put Jess on instead,’ she said, simply, as though it made all the sense in the world. I saw Jack’s eyes flicker over me in my waitressing costume, and felt his hesitation as he formulated a response—probably he was trying to find a polite way to say no, a way to nix the idea without hurting my feelings.

‘No, listen,’ said Vogue, sensing the same reaction. ‘She’s been working on my songs—she knows them all, including the new single we were going to do tonight. She knows the routines. She’s got talent, Jack, you know that—or you wouldn’t have brought her here, would you? I trust your instincts, and I’ve seen what she can do. Go and sell her as your next big star—she can do it.’

I felt my eyes mist over as Vogue’s impassioned speech drew to an end—impossibly touched by how much faith she had in me. It was a real Hallmark moment, right up until the second that Vogue clutched her stomach and ran to the toilets, yelling: ‘Just do it! I’m about to shit myself!’

We all stayed silent as we heard the door slam behind her, and then the horrendously large groan as our diva positioned her famous derriere onto the loo. The rest of the sounds were pretty evil, so we all started talking at once to try to drown them out.

‘Can you do this?’ said Jack, looking at me with something akin to wonder.

‘She can’t do this,’ said Patty, looking at me with something akin to hatred.

‘She can look fabulous while she does this,’ said Neale, already rooting in his make-up kit, and cuing up R. Kelly on his iPhone.

‘I can do this,’ I said, looking around at everyone, with as much determination in my gaze as I could pull together.