Starcrossed (2 page)

Georgia had had enough of Shakespeare and igneous rocks.  Yawning, she closed her text books, got up from the desk and flopped heavily onto her bed.  The quilt billowed up around her and she pretended it was a cloud as she sank into the softness.  She closed her eyes and let her thoughts drift away from assignments and university lectures, along a path she rarely followed these days. 

For the first time, in a long time, she allowed herself to think of Tom. 

Three days.  It had been three blissful summer days, and one perfect, moonlit walk along the beach.  Then came the thunderstorm.  Then nothing.  He was gone.

That had been over a year ago.

Georgia rolled over, and from the bedside drawer she took the rumpled piece of paper, stained by rain and scribbled with lines of his beautiful music.   She traced her finger over the notes he’d written, smiling as she remembered his laugh and the way his hand had curled around hers;  how his dark, messy hair had been forever falling into his eyes.  The touch of his lips.

She wondered if he ever thought of her. 

Georgia tried to smooth out some of the creases in the paper. “I should throw this out,” she murmured.  It made no sense to keep hanging on to it. 

Another thing that didn’t make sense, was the way the thought of him still made her stomach flutter.  That after more than a year, he still had a hold of her heart.  The boy she’d known for three days when she was seventeen.

“Enough,” she muttered to herself. “It was ages ago. You’re almost nineteen now. Let it go.”  But she couldn’t let it go, that was the thing.  She could put Tom out of her mind for weeks, even months at a time, but she always came back to him.

Of course, she’d dated other guys.  Josh had been sweet and funny, and Marc had been adventurous and introduced her to flaming Sambuca shots, but there’d never been the connection she’d felt with Tom. 

That connection had been powerful and instant.  At least, that’s how Georgia remembered it, but she did wonder sometimes if she’d blown it all out of proportion.  If she’d built it up in her mind like some tragic love story of two soul mates who found each other, only to be cruelly torn apart by fate.

She had been reading a lot of Bronte at the time.

Georgia glanced at the waste paper basket in the corner.  Her hand tightened around the paper.

“I really should throw this out…”

“Georgia!  Georgia, come and look!  Look!” 

Georgia quickly slid the sheet of music under her pillow as Emily came running up the hall and pushed open the door.  She was breathless and beaming. “I’ve found Pegasus!”

Georgia’s hand went immediately to her throat where the small, pewter pendant used to hang on thin, black cord.  Pegasus, the mythical winged horse, had been lost on holidays, two summers ago, a hundred miles away, during
that
thunderstorm.  For just a second, her heart stuttered, and then she shook her head.

“Don’t be silly, Em.  Pegasus is gone.”  But Emily had already disappeared back down the hall, still calling for Georgia to come.

So Georgia sighed and rolled off her cloud and went reluctantly to the living room where the television blared.  Sometimes it was just easier to give in. 

This was the downside of moving back home.  The flat Georgia had shared near the university campus might have been cold and cramped, but at least there’d been no annoying little sisters, and her flatmates had known how to knock.  It was too bad the landlord had put the rent up.

“Look!” Emily declared triumphantly, pointing at the tv screen.  Georgia gave her a sceptical glance.

“Really, Em?  Star Factory?  What has Star Factory got to do with my necklace?”

The popular, long-running talent show had been Georgia’s obsession when she was fourteen and fifteen.  She’d watch every Sunday night as aspiring pop stars performed for a panel judges who’d keep some contestants and eliminate others, until another one-hit-wonder was churned out at the end.  But by the time she was sixteen, the shine had begun to wear off.  Now, at almost nineteen, Star Factory was just background noise for Georgia, and thirteen year old Emily had taken up the obsession.

“I’m going back to my room.”  Georgia started to go, but Emily grabbed her arm and tugged.

“You’re not looking!”

Georgia gave the most exaggerated sigh she could, even though she knew the effect would be lost on her sister.  Then she turned back to the television.

“Okay.  I’m looking.”

A young man sat on a red velvet sofa.  He seemed uneasy and shy alongside the show’s over-enthusiastic host, Mandy, who was grinning maniacally at the camera. 

“It’s week nine of the competition and I’m here with Star Factory finalist TJ!  He’ll sing for us in a minute, but right now we have some fan questions for him!”

The studio audience screamed and Georgia froze as the camera zoomed in on the guy with spiky blond hair and the funky glasses with yellow lenses.  Around his neck was a Pegasus pendant. 
Her
Pegasus pendant.  She recognised the bent wing, and the tiny extra knot in the cord.

Slowly, Georgia sank onto the floor in front of the screen.  “Emily, who is this guy?” 

“TJ,” Emily said smugly.   “If he wins tonight he’ll go into the final next Sunday against Saxon.   The winner gets the recording contract and there’s a surprise this year but no-one knows what it is, yet.” 

“Here’s the first question!” Mandy shouted.  “TJ, what is your idea of the perfect date?”

The audience screamed again, but Georgia didn’t care about TJ’s perfect date, she wanted to know how he had her pendant.  She watched as he touched the little horse, rubbing it absently between his thumb and forefinger.

“Walking on the beach,” he said, shrugging.   “Yeah, just walking on the beach. At night. Under the moon.”

Suddenly Pegasus was forgotten.

Georgia knew that voice.  It’s deep, soft lilt was burned into her memory, and her heart, and she stared now at TJ’s face.  The hair and glasses confused things, but she knew...

His sheet music was hidden under her pillow.

Georgia felt like her heart had skidded to a halt.  Like the world had suddenly changed direction without her. 

“Georgia?  Are you alright, love?”  Her mother came in from the kitchen with a cup of tea and the crossword puzzle.  “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

Georgia’s shock left her unguarded.  “It’s Tom,” she said, pointing at the television.

“Who’s Tom, darling?”

“Do you mean the boy from the beach?” Emily joined in, giggling.  “The one you cried over?  It is not him.”

Georgia was about to argue but suddenly thought better of it.  She had no idea what any of this meant, but she didn’t need Emily advertising it at school.

“You’re right,” she said, forcing a smile as she stood up on shaky legs.  “I’m tricking.  Gotcha!”  She tugged playfully on her sister’s ponytail as she dropped onto the sofa next to her mother.  But her mind was confusion and chaos as she tried to make sense of what she was seeing. 

The audience of teenage girls was still screaming.  Mandy was still grinning. “Okay, okay,” she cried, waving her hands up and down, trying to quieten them.  “Looks like you’ve got some takers for that moonlit walk, TJ!”  She elbowed him playfully and TJ, or Tom, looked awkward, giving a hesitant smile as he looked away.  “Next fan question!”  Mandy bellowed.

But Georgia didn’t get to hear what else the fans wanted to know, because Emily started talking again.  “Look in there,” she said and thrust something into Georgia’s hands.  It was a Star Factory fan magazine from the Sunday supplement.  “He’s wearing it in the pictures.  I didn’t really notice before.” 

Georgia didn’t look at the magazine.  She was too busy trying to see around her sister, who was blocking the screen.  “Em, can you move, I’m try…”

“Hang on,”  Emily interrupted, her eyes suddenly wide.  “You lost Pegasus at the beach, so if TJ’s got it...”  She was quickly putting two and two together. “Oh!  It really is him, isn’t it?  You weren’t tricking. Tom is TJ!”  She let out a little scream.  “You know TJ!”

“Shut up, Em!  I already told you I was tricking. They look nothing alike!” Georgia snapped, and her mother shot her a warning look.  “Sorry,” she muttered. “Anyway, there are probably hundreds of necklaces like that.  Thousands, even.”

“Not with the bent wing,” Emily said, smug again.  “That’s how I knew it was yours.  The wing is bent from when you caught it in the drawer that time.  You cried then, too.”

Georgia ignored her sister.  She moved to the arm chair so she could see, and fixed her gaze on the television again as TJ prepared to sing. 

“How come he never called you?”  Emily asked.

Georgia gritted her teeth.  “Because we didn’t swap phone numbers.”   Or addresses, or even last names.  There had been too much else to talk about – music and art and books and films.  They’d thought they had more time to get to all those mundane little details.

“Maybe he just didn’t like you,” Emily snickered.

“Emily, leave her alone.  I’m sure out of all the Pegasus pendants in the world, Georgia’s isn’t the only one with a bent wing.”  Mum sipped her tea and tried to change the subject.  “Georgia, love, you’re good with crosswords, what’s a word that means lost and found?”

Tom, thought Georgia.   “Um, I don’t know, sorry.”  She wasn’t interested in the crossword and suddenly she couldn’t watch Star Factory any more.  As Tom, or TJ, began to sing a pop song that had been popular for two weeks last Christmas, the old fault line in her heart tore wide open.  She got up and went back to her room.

Tom hated pop music.

He loved the blues and Mozart, the Beatles and Bach, and an Icelandic punk band Georgia had never heard of.  But right now he was singing about a girl who was his groove baby, with the all the right moves, baby.  His voice drifted up the hall to her room. 

The fan magazine was still in her hands.  With shaking fingers, she sat on the bed and started flicking through the pages, past the other contestants, until she found him. 

There were about a dozen small photos of him; posing on his own, with the other contestants, in the studio, in a park, looking pensive, looking silly. She stared at the pictures of TJ in his cool clothes and hip hairstyle, and remembered Tom’s frayed jeans and faded t-shirts.  She looked closer at the photos, trying to find him in there somewhere.

The publicity blurb talked about his star sign and his favourite foods, but it never mentioned his guitar, or his violin, or the music he wrote
. 
Or how he hoped to study at the London Academy of Music. There was nothing about his dreams; to perform his own compositions at the Royal Albert Hall – just him and his guitar.  And maybe one day play his violin with the London Symphony Orchestra.

The only thing that seemed right, was his age.  Twenty.  That was how old he’d be now.

“What’s happened to you?” she whispered, as a single tear trekked its way down her cheek.  “What is all this?” 

It was obvious she hadn’t know him at all.  And why should she?  They’d only had three days together after all.  It was clear now that she’d built their romance up to be something it wasn’t.

How could she have got it so wrong?

Suddenly, Georgia felt all sorts of stupid.  And angry.  Had he been leading her on?  Telling her what she wanted to hear in the hope he might get in her pants? 

She threw the magazine across the room and it hit the wall and fell to the floor.  It landed open at the middle page spread, with a mini-poster sized photo of TJ.  He was grinning.  And he was wearing a University of Georgia sweatshirt.

“Oh my God,” she whispered, staring at her name across his chest.  Then she remembered that he’d kept her pendant, like she’d kept his sheet music. And tonight on the show he’d talked about moonlit walks along the beach.

Georgia knew then that she hadn’t been wrong.  She’d been right all along.  Right from the very start.

Tom had been busking the first time she saw him.  On holidays, and armed with her sketchbook, she’d been on her way to draw the cliffs that overlooked the sea while her family stayed by the hotel pool.  Clouds had been slowly rolling in over the small coastal town, blocking the sun, and Georgia had almost decided to turn back.  But then she’d heard the music.

Amazing music.

So she’d followed the sound that led her across a park, to the heart of the high street.

He’d been playing his guitar on the footpath in front of a tavern, a battered old hat at his feet to collect the coins from appreciative listeners.  Eyes closed, singing a song that was sweet and sad and wrapped up in beautiful.  His voice had drawn her in, and though Georgia had been just one in the crowd that had gathered to listen, she’d felt like he was singing just for her.

When he’d opened his eyes, his deep blue gaze had fallen immediately on hers.  Like he’d known she was there. Like he’d been waiting for her.  But then the sky had opened, the rain had fallen, and the spell had been broken.  Everyone had scattered.