Search for a Star (2 page)

“He wrote the wonderful fantasy trilogy,
Fanghurst
,” said Ellie. “The books that are being made into three films. The first film was
amazing
! I went to see it with my friend Hannah. I'm not surprised it won so many awards. And the second one is coming out soon. I can't wait!”

“Oh, of course!” Francesca looked annoyed with herself. “Yes, I should have known. I'm sure Joe will take some pictures of the actors arriving on the red carpet when it opens. But I haven't seen anything about the author. Has he written anything else?”

“I don't think so,” said Ellie. “I can check, but I think they might have been his first books.”

“Well,” said Francesca, looking thoughtful, “we don't usually interview authors, but this certainly was a huge film deal. There might be a good story in it. Why don't you have a bit of a dig around online and see what you can find out about Charlie Daniels? Maybe he should go to the top of our list. He'd be someone a bit different for a change, and we might be able to tie an interview in with the new film when it comes out.”

“Okay,” said Ellie. She glanced at the in-house list and noticed another omission. “What about Zone One?” she said, thinking about the boys in her favourite band – especially Al.

Francesca laughed. “You can't keep interviewing the same boys,” she said. “Just because you like them.”

Ellie blushed.

“Go on. Have a look for Charlie Daniels. We can decide if you ought to try and get an interview when we know a bit more about him. Okay?”

“Okay,” said Ellie. She studied the list more carefully and felt surprised. “There are quite a few people on here that
I
don't know,” she said to Francesca.

“That's probably because they're up and coming.” Francesca gave Ellie a teasing look. “Some of the musicians are working on albums that will be really big in a year or so's time.”

“Wow,” said Ellie, impressed. “Well, I'll get searching for Charlie Daniels.”

Ellie did intend to search for him, but she couldn't resist keying in one or two of the names on the in-house list that she hadn't recognized. One was an actor who had only had a couple of small parts in TV dramas, but who looked absolutely gorgeous. Another was a singer in a band she'd never heard of. The band had some music online, and Ellie made a note to listen to it when she was at home. Then she got down to the job in hand.

Authors didn't often become well known, and Ellie couldn't think of anything at all that she'd read about Charlie Daniels, although she'd loved his books. She didn't know if he was young or old, or whether he lived in England or not. But when she googled his name she discovered that he had a website and a blog, so it was going to be easy enough to find out about him.

Ellie spent some time reading his website, his blog and anything else she could find that mentioned his name. Eventually she sat back in her chair and rubbed her eyes.

“Francesca?”

“Yes? How are you doing?”

Ellie bit her lip. “Charlie Daniels is odd. I can't quite work it out.”

“What's the problem? Isn't he very interesting?”

“No, it's not that.” Ellie twisted in her seat so she could look at Francesca properly. “I think our readers would love to know more about him. But in spite of reading loads about his
books
I can't find out anything about what he looks like, how old he is, where he went to school…there's nothing!”

Francesca stared at Ellie. “Really? Doesn't he have a website?”

“Ye-es,” said Ellie. “But there's not much on it.”

A slight smile touched the corners of Francesca's mouth. “That's why you do research, Ellie. I thought you knew that. Not everyone puts their whole life history on their websites. How about Facebook?”

“Tried that,” said Ellie. “I
have
been doing research. I've googled him, read his website and blog from beginning to end, and anything else I could find, but it's all so insubstantial.”

“Well that might actually make him more interesting,” said Francesca, smiling properly now. “Perhaps he's a bit shy. Some authors are, I believe. But there must be some contact details somewhere. Maybe you'll get a scoop. I don't recall seeing him interviewed anywhere else. Go for it! But before you do, you might as well fetch our coffee. It'll soon be time, and no doubt Angel will be asking where hers is in a moment.”

Ellie closed the lid of her laptop and sighed. Francesca expected initiative, and usually Ellie had plenty of that, but at the moment, with this project, she was feeling a bit frustrated. She was sure that if
she
had a website, and she'd written a fantastic series of books, she'd
definitely
be blowing her own trumpet, and including lots of pictures of herself with the stars of the film. True, on the website there were some photos of the actors, but not one of Charlie Daniels himself, not even a single publicity photo, and yet she knew that most authors had at least one of those. On the other hand, Francesca was right. It made him rather mysterious, and it would be fun if she could track him down. She just needed to work at it a bit, and use her imagination.

She paused at reception on her way out to fetch the coffee. “How do you like your coffee, Debbie?” she asked. “I'm just off to get some for everyone.”

“I don't drink coffee,” Debbie told her. “I like Earl Grey tea best.” She smiled at Ellie. “I make myself a drink in the kitchen whenever I want one.”

“Oh.” The small kitchen off the lobby was hardly used by anyone else. Ellie wondered what Piano made of that. She could imagine her sneering at the very idea of tea.

Ellie warmed to Debbie. Anyone who seemed comfortable to be a bit different was okay by her. “See you in a while then,” she said. She hurried to the lift, and when it came she took it down to the basement.

Ellie should simply have gone to the ground floor, and out at the front of the building, but she had a few minutes to spare, and she wanted to go and say a quick hello to Sophie, her best friend in the building. Sophie was the post girl, and was kept busy servicing all the offices. Her boyfriend Flynn also worked in the building. He was part of the IT Department that existed to keep all the computers up and running. He was very good-looking, and was Ellie's second favourite person working at
Heart
.

As soon as Sophie saw Ellie she dropped what she was doing and gave her a big hug. “How
are
you?” she cried. “I was hoping I'd see you. I thought it was today, and then I wasn't so sure. I wondered if I'd got the date wrong. So how's life treating you?”

“Fine,” said Ellie, hugging Sophie back. Although Ellie only saw her when she was at work, Sophie felt like the big sister Ellie had never had. “Been busy though.” She explained about her brief and Sophie looked impressed.

“Sounds great,” she said with enthusiasm. “It's good they've given you a longer-term project this time, as you'll be here for a while over the summer.”

“I'm having difficulty with the person they want me to tackle first though,” said Ellie. “And it's really frustrating because I actually suggested him! I don't have time to chat for too long now because I have to fetch the coffee, but it's Charlie Daniels, and I can't even find out what he looks like. None of the information on his website gives any clues.”

“Have you tried his publisher?” asked Sophie. “I bet they have loads of stuff they could email you.”

Ellie stared at her. “Sophie, you're a genius. Why on earth didn't I think of that? I could use them to get in touch with him for an interview too!”

Sophie laughed. “Probably. But I'm not a genius. On the other hand…” She beamed from ear to ear. “I think I may have sold a pot.”

Ellie's eyes widened in excitement. Sophie was a struggling studio potter. As well as working in the post room, she had been trying for some time to get her work noticed by collectors. “Really?” said Ellie. “That's amazing news. Well done!”

Sophie bit her lip. “Don't get too excited. It's not totally certain yet, but I'm hopeful. Anyway, you must go. You don't want Angel on the warpath.”

“True,” said Ellie, “I'll come and have lunch with you if that's okay. You can tell me all about it then.”

“Okay. See you later.”

Ellie made her way back upstairs and out onto the street. Coffee! Coffee! where she had to collect the coffees was only a few metres away. Luckily there wasn't much of a queue, so Ellie was able to get back to the office in good time. She handed Francesca her drink, and went to put one on Piano's desk.

“What's that?” said Piano, pointing one emerald green, painted nail at the carton.

Ellie looked at it with puzzlement. “What do you mean? It's your coffee of course.”

Piano sighed theatrically. “And no doubt it's full of dairy produce.”

For a moment Ellie wasn't sure what Piano meant. Then she realized. “Milk, yes. It's a skinny latte, like you always have.”

Piano sighed again, and shook her head. “I haven't had a latte for
ages
. Not in the morning, anyway.” She counted off her requirements on her fingers. “In the morning I have a double espresso, and in the afternoon I have a single espresso, followed by a skinny latte at three o'clock.”

Ellie glared at her. “You could have told me. Or you could have emailed me what you wanted if you didn't actually choose to speak to me. I'm not psychic you know! But, as you
didn't
do that you have a skinny latte, with lots of dairy produce. Tough luck!” She stomped off to Angel's office feeling thoroughly annoyed with herself for letting Piano get to her. Every time, she planned to rise above it, and every time Piano somehow got under her skin.

She knocked at Angel's door and sidled in, carefully carrying the coffee upright. It had a lid on it so it shouldn't spill, but she really didn't want Angel snapping at her after her run-in with Piano.

Angel looked up from her desk and appraised Ellie for a few moments without speaking. It was totally unnerving when the Editor did this. Ellie was always worried that her make-up might be smudged, or her clothes unacceptably creased, but so far she hadn't been told off for any mistake in the unofficial and unspoken
Heart
office dress code.

Angel motioned for Ellie to put the coffee on her desk and turned her gaze back to the two handbags in front of her. One was a classic shape in black, with a gold clasp, while the other was a strikingly boxy design in brick-red leather. There were more bags on the glass table by the long white sofa. It looked like
Heart
would soon be doing a feature on bags. Ellie wanted to say that she loved the red one, but wasn't confident that her opinion would be gratefully received. Instead, she turned to go.

“Thanks, Ellie. It's nice to have you back.”

Ellie turned and said, “Thank you!” But Angel was contemplating the bags again, and it was as if she had never spoken. Even so, she must be in favour if Angel thought it was nice to have her back! Now, all she had to do was track down Charlie Daniels, and conduct a brilliant interview. Then she'd
really
be flavour of the month.

Ellie had a quick look on her laptop at the file of articles planned for next month's issue of the magazine so far. As she had suspected, the main fashion feature was to be on bags of all sorts and sizes. There was also an article on a film star. She skimmed it, and wondered who had written it. It wasn't an interview, the film star was American, and hadn't been in England for ages. The article hadn't been the result of a phone call either, which was sometimes the way
Heart
journalists spoke to celebrities. Ellie decided that it must have been put together using websites and blogs. She hoped she wouldn't have to do that with Charlie Daniels. If she did, it would be a very thin article indeed, and hardly worth printing. But then, if
she
was having problems finding out much about him, other journalists must be as well. She put her chin in her hands and leaned on her desk. Maybe there wasn't much written about him because it was just too much bother for most journalists to winkle out the facts, but…
she
had the time to have a go.