The It Girl (7 page)

“You interviewed her. That's how you met?”

“Yes. I had to interview her a couple of times because she had such a hectic schedule. We couldn't do the interview all in one go. But every time I saw her after that first interview it was like we were old friends. We clicked right away. After I wrote the piece, I asked her if she'd like to go for a drink some time, and well . . .” He paused and gave a shrug. “It all started from there.”

“And now you're her . . . boyfriend?”

“Yes.”

“She knows about the tanks book?”

“Yes.”

“And she still wants to date you? Helena Montaine, the famous actress, is dating my dad, the author of a tanks book.”

“I have done more with my life than just write a book about tanks. Not that that's the point here.”

“I'm about to meet Helena Montaine.”

“Yes. It's difficult to digest, but she'll be here any minute, and you can see how wonderful she is. I also invited Marianne—you know Helena has a daughter?—as I've met her a few times now. She's very nice, Anna, a really lovely girl. We thought it would be good for you guys to get to know each other. Marianne is only seventeen, so there's not much of an age difference between you. I know you'll get along wonderfully. She's a little high maintenance but it's mostly for show—I think.”

Dad may have all his hair, but he seems to have lost several of his brain cells along the way. Marianne Montaine and me get along? IS HE NUTS?! She is a movie star's daughter who doesn't have an actual job but is so beautiful and glamorous that she gets invited to every red carpet event anyway. Whereas I can recite
Lord of the Rings
passages and spend weekends re-enacting the climbing of Mount Doom scene with my Labrador.

She has a Wikipedia page for goodness' sake! I once got left off the school registery at the start of the new year. MY OWN SCHOOL DIDN'T REMEMBER ME.

The doorbell rang. I looked at Dad. Dad looked at me. My eye twitched.

“Anna . . . ,” he warned. I feigned innocence.

Then without a moment's warning I leaped to my feet. Dad was clearly prepared and jumped up at the same time.

The race was on.

I ran full speed toward the stairs with Dad in hot pursuit. As I went to jump two steps at a time, he propelled himself forward and gripped my right ankle. I fell flat on the stairs, desperately trying to drag myself up while shaking my right leg manically in the hope of loosening his iron grip.

“Anastasia Huntley! Stop . . . this . . . now!” Dad said through gritted teeth.

“You . . . stop . . . this . . . now!” I retorted, trying to reach for the banister to get some kind of grip. I flung my leg from side to side, but he held tight, determined to reign victorious in our grapple.

Gradually he managed to slide me down the stairs until, with a last yank on my ankle, I slumped to the floor, my chin bumping each step as I went. Dad sat next to me, leaning against the wall and out of breath.

The doorbell rang again. He got to his feet, turned to me as I rolled over onto my back, said, “Right, I'll go let them in,” gave me a thumbs-up, and went to open the door.

I was still lying awkwardly on the stairs in a contorted
starfish position when Helena and Marianne Montaine breezed through the door and Dad gave them both a warm welcome. They looked a little surprised as I stood up awkwardly from the stairs and brushed myself down.

“Um,” Dad began, glancing at me. “This is my daughter, Anna.”

“Hello.” I nodded and then curtseyed.

I CURTSEYED.

Dad closed his eyes in exasperation. Marianne Montaine looked at her mother in utter bafflement. Helena Montaine glanced at Dad and then took a step forward and curtseyed too. “Lovely to meet you, Anna.”

“Let's all go into the living room, shall we?” Dad laughed
very
nervously and ushered us in.

It was completely surreal. I found myself standing stiffly in my living room with Helena and Marianne Montaine. And I'll tell you something: all it takes is a Hollywood film star and an It Girl standing in front of you to become exceedingly aware of how unacceptable it is to go into society every day looking like yourself.

Helena was exactly as a film star should be. Tall and elegant, she was dressed in a white pantsuit with a chunky gold necklace and matching earrings. Those face products must be
working, because her skin was glowing as she looked down at me with a bright smile.

Marianne has the same delicate features as her mother, the big blue eyes and slightly pronounced mouth. Her brown hair was impossibly glossy and, wearing a short blue minidress with a leather jacket and sunglasses perched on the top of her head, biker boots, and sporting plenty of black eyeliner, she looked every inch the rock star's daughter.

Which, incidentally, she is, as Helena's first husband, and the father of her only child, was one fifth of a rock band in the seventies. There was no mistaking the brief up-and-down glance she gave me as she took in my appearance.

I wanted to die. There was no way I was ever going to forgive my dad for this one. He could at least have given me a moment to attempt to make my hair look presentable before their arrival.

Although maybe he thought that since I hadn't managed to make my hair ever look acceptable in the past twelve years, ten more minutes probably wasn't going to help.

“It's so lovely to have you both here, Helena and Marianne,” Dad announced, clapping his hands together.

“It's lovely to be here.” Helena smiled her impeccably white-toothed smile at him, and he stared dopily at her.

Gross.

Helena nudged her daughter subtly. “Thank you for having us,” Marianne added quietly, looking at Dad. Dad then looked at me.

I'm not sure what he was expecting. I assume he hoped I might follow suit and take my turn graciously to announce how “lovely” it was to have them. To his disappointment, my brain was still not fully functioning.

“My chin is not normally this red,” I began.

The three of them stared at me.

“Yeah,” I continued when no one replied. “I had an incident on the stairs.”

I thought about launching into an explanation, but I decided I had nothing else to add so I just nodded slowly. Dad opened his mouth as though to comment but thought better and closed it again.

“Well, I'm so glad that we've all been introduced,” Helena said brightly, taking a step back to put her arm around my dad.

Weird. Weird. Weird. A movie star just put her arm around my DAD.

Helena giggled, and I saw Marianne narrow her eyes at her in suspicion.

“I think it's time to tell them, Nick,” Helena said enthusiastically, gazing up at my father, fluttering her eyelashes.

“Yes,” he said deeply, taking her hand in his.

He took her hand
. My DAD took the HAND of HELENA MONTAINE, a woman who happens to have a STAR on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. And she wasn't pulling it away. It was like it was a NORMAL THING TO DO.

On vacation in Portugal once my dad wore swimming trunks that had elephants sipping cocktails on them. And now he was holding Helena Montaine's hand.

NOTHING MADE SENSE ANYMORE.

He cleared his throat. “Marianne and Anna, we have something we'd like to tell you.”

Marianne gave a fleeting nervous look in my direction.

Grinning like a mischievous teenager, my dad looked down at Helena, who turned to us excitedly with tears in her eyes.

“We wanted you both to know.” She beamed. “We're getting married!”

“YOU LOOK
AWFUL
!”

Jess and Danny peered down at me where I was sitting in the corner of the hockey field.

“So what happened?! Why are we here? You hate sports!” Jess plonked herself down next to me.

“First of all, are you okay?” Danny asked, giving Jess an admonishing look. It's very difficult to hide your feelings from Danny, especially when he looks at you in such an earnest manner, which was what he was doing. Maybe it's something to do with those angelic curls, but whatever it is, it makes Danny seem very trustworthy.

“I'm fine.” I sighed dramatically, picking at the grass.

Jess tutted impatiently, and I scowled at her for ruining the moment.

“We're here because every normal person—except for you, Jess—hates field hockey and would never hang out here voluntarily, and I don't
want anyone else to overhear.”

“Anna, what could be so bad? Did you step on a snail again?” She folded her arms.

“That snail came out of nowhere! And we promised to never speak of that day again.”

“Well then, what's the problem?”

I took a deep breath and told them.

“Helena Montaine?! That's insane!” Jess gasped.

I nodded.

“Marianne Montaine was in your house?” Danny gaped.

“Yes.”

“Wow.” He looked dazed.

“Wipe the saliva off your chin there, Danny,” Jess mocked before turning back to me and shaking her head in disbelief. “What did you do when they announced their engagement?”

•  •  •

Marianne and I had stood there in stunned silence. Helena and Dad glanced excitedly from one of us to the other, waiting for a positive reaction, but I had been unable to speak.

Marianne had eventually just blurted out, “Not again!”

“Now, Marianne,” Helena said, raising her hand. “I know this is a shock, but that's unfair.”

“Um, not really,” Marianne snorted, looking at her
mom in disbelief. “How long have you known each other?”

“I can understand it's a lot to take in,” Helena said hurriedly. “But we really do love each other.”

“I have only said two words to Anna, if that—let alone to her dad!” Marianne looked exasperated. “Can't you be normal and let me get to know someone before you marry them? This is just like Rodney all over again.”

Rodney Jenson, the man I assumed Marianne was referring to, was the second husband of Helena and a director. They had met while filming and married after dating for a year. It had ended after three months when he'd had an affair with the lead in his next film.

Or so the papers claimed anyway.

“It is not like that time,” Helena said, suddenly very serious.

“Why are you always rushing into things?” Marianne demanded.

“I'm not always rushing into things,” Helena said in a strained voice. “Neither Nick nor myself are spring chickens, darling. I've never felt this way before and, well, it just seems right.”

Marianne let out a loud “Ha!” and swept her glossy hair over her shoulder in dismay. Dad and Helena both turned anxiously to me. I was trying to think of something appropriate
to say or do other than running around the room waving my arms about and shouting, “WHAT THE . . . ? I'M SO CONFUSED! I JUST WANT TO HIDE UNDER MY BLANKETS FOR A MOMENT WHILE I WORK OUT WHAT ON EARTH IS GOING ON. I HATE EVERYONE.”

Since that probably wasn't an option, and Marianne had already done the “beautifully glossy but ticked off” response, I decided to go down the sensible and mature route.

Despite the shock announcement, my burning chin was still a reminder of my earlier comment, and I wanted to give some impression of being a normal human being.

“Let's just all sit down and discuss this like grown-ups,” I said eventually in a way I imagined someone sensible and mature might do, and took a step backward toward the sofa.

Unfortunately, I misjudged where the sofa was and instead backed into a side table. I stumbled and grabbed on to a lamp to regain my balance, but my foot got caught. As I fell backward, the lamp came down with me, causing a deafening crash.

•  •  •

“Let me get this straight,” Danny interrupted at this point in the painful recollection. “You fell over. Onto your back. Flat out. In front of Helena and Marianne Montaine.”

I nodded gravely.

“Then what happened?” Jess breathed, enraptured by the whole affair.

“It got worse,” I sighed.

•  •  •

Helena and Dad rushed over to help me up. They both made a fuss, sitting me down in the big armchair and asking if my arm hurt. Marianne excused herself to get some fresh air outside. Just before she stalked out through the door, she gave me a look that I could only translate as disbelief. Disbelief, I imagine, that she and I would soon become members of the same family.

She stepped out of the front door while Dad went to make some tea and Helena sat on the sofa quietly next to me.

All I could do was stare at her in shock. Eventually she actually had to say, “Anna, are you all right? You're making me feel slightly uncomfortable.”

I didn't want to say that I was all right, because I wasn't, but I also didn't want to make the famous actress sitting on my sofa feel uncomfortable. So I decided that instead of staring at her I would stare at the lamp that I had fallen over with. We sat in silence.

After an ice age, Dad came in with the tray of tea. Marianne also came back in and joined in with the silence
that was encapsulating the room. Her hair was slightly more disheveled on her return, as though she had been running her hands through it a lot, and she looked irritated, glowering at her mother as she sat down. Helena must be used to it because she didn't flinch under her daughter's icy glare.

Unfortunately, Marianne hadn't shut our front door properly, so Dog must have managed to get out. Oblivious to Dog's adventure, Dad decided to attempt to make things a little better. He failed. “I think we'll all be very happy together.”

Marianne and I stared at him.

“I'm really looking forward to us all getting to know each other.” He beamed slightly manically.

Marianne and I continued to stare at him. My eyes were starting to hurt from all the staring.