Dream On (23 page)

"Great." She swallowed hard. He'd forgotten, then.  "You
haven't forgotten Harley's birthday? The twenty-ninth?" Maybe the mention of
that would jog his memory -

"Course I haven't. We'll have to get together, talk
about what to get him."

Okay, so it didn't. "Mm. Well, that was
one of the reasons I rang you up. I wondered if you'd like to come round
for Sunday lunch tomorrow."

Silence.

"Jan, I'm ever so sorry, I can't. I'm busy. We've got a gig over at St Neots tonight, we're just loading up the van now -
and we've got another one tomorrow lunch time at The Bandstand."

"I see." Same old Dave. Same as it ever was. She
felt herself begin to shake with anger. "That's okay. Harley hasn't seen
you for nearly two weeks, but that's okay."

She heard him light a cigarette.

"Look, I'm not usually this bad, you know what it's been
like, with the auditions and everything - "

"I know!" she said. "I can bring Harley to see you at The
Bandstand, tomorrow lunch time! He'd love that!"

Dave inhaled loudly.

"No." Pause. "Look, this is crap of me. I was
lying. I haven't really got a gig tomorrow lunch time. It's just
that - well, I've arranged to go out for lunch myself. In a posh
restaurant. Me and Ariel, Melodie and Boz. Sort of, like, to
celebrate the success of the audition."

Janice felt the anger rise up in her throat. "Well,
why didn't you just say so? Of course, all your buddies take precedence over
Harley, don't they? How stupid of me not to remember! Why didn't you just say
you were going out with them - oh, and
Ariel,
of course?"

"I dunno. I didn't want to upset you, I suppose."

"Don't flatter yourself! You haven't
upset
me. I'm angry, for Harley, not upset for me."

"I'll cancel it."

"No, no, don't bother." She sighed. "I can see that
coming here isn't a very thrilling option, in comparison."

Silence.

"How about I come round on Monday night, straight
from work?" Dave said.

"Fine," she said, and was about to add
if you can
tear yourself away from Alison Swan,
but realised that saying that would
make her sound as if she felt something she didn't. As if she
was
upset. And she wasn't, not really. Not about Ariel, so much, anyway.

When she got off the phone, though, she thought
about what Harley had said.

So Dave wasn't available. But someone else might
be. She rang Max, instead.

"I'd love to, Janice," he said, "but I can't leave Lisa and
Kim to run the place two days running."

"Oh." Her disappointment equalled that of Dave
turning her down, to her surprise. "Of course. Oh well, never mind."

"I'll tell you what, though. I'm pretty good at
thinking of better ideas, aren't I?"

She smiled. "Like today."

"Exactly! Look, can you get a sitter for Harley for
tomorrow night?"

"Why?"

"I'd like to take you somewhere."

Janice thought for a moment. "Yes. Yes, I can get
Mum to pick him up and take him to hers. He can stay over and she can take
him to school in the morning; then I won't have to worry about getting back
early."

"Wonderful! I'll pick you up at seven, then."

Janice laughed. "Okay - but where are we going? What
do I wear?"

"Oh, just whatever you'd normally wear to go out. Not
silver lamé and diamonds, unless that's your normal look. Do you like
jazz? Blues type jazz, I mean, not the trad stuff."

"You mean like Miles Davis?"

"Sort of! Yes, that type of thing."

"Yes - yes, I think so."

"Good! I'll see you at seven, then." He coughed. "I'm
really looking forward to it, by the way."

She smiled. "Yes. Me too."

He took her to a Jazz Club in a back room of a
hotel near Ely, and she had a wonderful time. She loved the atmosphere
(though, really, it should have been all smoky, she thought, even though she
didn't like cigarette smoke anymore), she loved the cool, sexy music, and the
novelty of being introduced to all the people Max knew. She felt sexy, too, in
the LBD she'd bought a few Christmases ago, and hardly worn; it fitted better
than it had then. She'd been vaguely aware that she'd lost a bit of weight
over the past few months, what with all she'd been through, and she was
delighted to find that the dress looked completely different now that it was slightly
too big for her instead of slightly too small. Few things cheered a girl more
than losing weight, she thought to herself, as she admired her appearance in
the loo half way through the evening. Especially losing weight,
and
knowing
your hair was growing,
and
being out on a date with a lovely man. Was
it a date? She wasn't sure. Maybe he was just being nice, because he knew how
unhappy she'd been.

When she went back into the room, though, Max put
his arm around her and introduced her to someone else, so perhaps it was a
date, yes. As she watched him talking and laughing with people, confident and
popular and amusing, she realised he'd become more attractive to her; he was a
grown
up,
she decided, not an overgrown teenager like Dave. She adored the jazz
club, and wondered if maybe she'd grown out of the rock and biker scene, now;
she liked this sort of music even better than she liked Whitesnake and Bon
Jovi. Or perhaps she'd never been that keen on all that, really; perhaps she'd
just thought she was, because she loved Dave.

When they left the hotel and drove home, she
discovered it
was
a date, for certain; Max asked her if she'd like to
come back to his and have another glass of wine, as they'd had such a good time,
and as she didn't have to get back for anything.

Was 'another glass of wine' as much of a euphemism
as 'a cup of coffee', when the offer came at the end of a date?

Of course it was, and of course she said yes.

She never drank the glass of wine, though, because as soon
as they sat down on the sofa she realised she was dying for him to kiss her and
it was only when he started doing so that she wondered how on earth she'd ever
thought she didn't fancy him.

Somehow, in the process of that kiss, which lasted
about a quarter of an hour, her dress had got all sort of rucked up, and his
shirt had become unbuttoned.

"Do you want to go to bed?" he asked, when they
came up for air. "With me, I mean."

"What do you think?" she said, and kissed him
again. "But would you think me frightully brazen if I suggested we go now, this
minute?"

Much, much later, when he fell asleep, she looked
at him and, suddenly flooded with a feeling of affection for him so great that
it brought tears to her eyes, realised that she had fallen in love with him. How had that happened? One minute he was just Max, her boss and friend, and
the next moment she wanted to crawl all over him and do all sorts of wanton
things with him.

Or had she started to fall in love with him that
day he'd been so kind to her when she was upset about Dave?

Talking of whom, wasn't he the one she was supposed to be
in love with?

Um, Dave who?

I hope Max is falling in love with me as well, she thought,
or it's going to make things really
difficult at work.
 And then she fell asleep, too.

In the morning, he woke her up with a cup of
coffee.

"I've just phoned Lisa," he said, "and offered her double
time if she'll open up. Kim's going in, too."

"It's her day off!" Janice said, blinking, and struggling
into a sitting position.

"I know," he said, grinning. "I had to offer her time and a
half. See how much you're costing me?"

"Was I worth it?" she asked, a tad coyly, surprising
herself. She didn't usually say things like that -
wanton
things.

"Oh yes," he said, put down the coffee, and crawled
back under the covers beside her. "Every penny." She pulled off his t-shirt
and cuddled up to his lovely big, warm chest.

"D'you know what?" he said.

"What?"

"I've been a bit nuts about you for ages. Well, since
I employed you, if I'm honest."

She sat up and laughed. "Really?"

"Really!" He reached up and curled a strand of her
hair round his finger. "Please will you be my girlfriend? Hold my hand
and kiss me in the playground and all that?"

That made her laugh again. "Oh yes! Yes please!"
she said. "I was hoping you'd - well, I'm glad, I didn't want this to be just a
casual thing - "

"That's good," he said, "because I don't feel casual about
you at all. In fact, I'm sort of in love with you, and I couldn't have
stood to see you every day if you didn't feel the same way, d'you know what I
mean?"

"I know just what you mean," she said, put her arms
around him, and kissed him, and kissed him and kissed him, while the coffee
grew cold on the bedside table.

Then he said, "What about Dave?"

She said,  "What
about
Dave?"

A couple of hours later he said to her, "Is there anything
you want to do today?"

"Just this," she said. "I just want to stay in bed with
you all day, is that okay?"

"Can't think of anything I'd like more," he said. "But
- I
need to ask you - sweetheart, are we together now? I mean, properly; I
don't want to rush you, but - "

"Of course we are." She stroked his arm. "It's wonderful
this, isn't it? Suddenly finding you're in love with someone you already
know and like."

"Isn't it?" he said. "Doesn't it make everything so
much easier, eh?" He propped himself up on one arm and ran his hand down the
length of her body. "Right," he said, "you've met my family, which is Sam, and
I introduced you to some of my friends last night, so there's not much left,
apart from my fellow struggling winos at my alky group, and my sister in North
Yorkshire. I know Harley thinks I'm some sort of cross between Father
Christmas and Ronald McDonald, so that's okay - but do we get to tell the good
news to your mum, soon, too? And Evelyn?"

"Oh - yes, of course, but Gran probably won't understand."
She would have been so happy for her, too.

"You'll have to take me to visit her some time."

"Yes. But not today."

"No. Not today." He kissed her. "I want to know
everything about you, that's all."

She smiled. "There's not much to know. You've seen
me at my worst, all greasy in the café, depressed and crying about Dave."

"You've no idea how much I wanted to whisk you into
my arms and take you away from it all, that day," he said.

"Really? Did you?" She laughed.

"Yes. But I knew you didn't see me in that way, and I
didn't want to put you off."

Snuggling back up against his chest, Janice
wondered why on earth she hadn't seen Max in 'that way' before.

Maybe her heart had just been waiting until the
time was right.

Ed Campion, producer of Inspire TV's forthcoming
show, Raw Talent, sat in his office with A&R man Glenn Hunter, Serendipity
Festival organiser Shelly Mayes, programme researcher Rachel Mackie, and studio
runner Zack, who had been asked in to give the streetwise eighteen year old's
point of view.

"But I don't watch all that talent show shit!" he'd
said, when Rachel was sent to find him in the kitchen.

"Never mind that," Rachel said, taking his tea mug
out of his hand and grabbing his arm. "I thought you were ambitious? This is
a good way to get yourself noticed by Ed. And anyway, it's not 'talent show
shit', and don't you dare refer to it as such. It's a ground breaking
programme to find real new talent,
away
from the pop factory crap on the
terrestrial stations, okay?"

"Okay," said Zack, and grinned. "Do I get to snog Persil
Non-Bio?"

"Persil Non-Bio?"

He laughed. "Ariel Swan. That's what me and the
lighting guys call her. She's well fit!"

Up in Ed's office, the panel had already discarded
five acts from the remaining forty. Now, they had to vote on the rest, in
order to select the lucky fifteen who would perform live on television, when
Raw Talent started in three weeks' time.

Ariel Swan, Melodie Joy Valentine and Thor were
still in the running. So was Ariel's friend, Will Corrigan, but only just - since
Rachel and Zack had declared him "like,
sooo
2003".

"Okay," said Ed. "Now, we watch them all again. This
time, I want to get rid of another five. Then, we watch them once again, and again,
and yet once more, if necessary." He stood up, hands on desk, and looked round
at them all. "Imagine how thrilling the second half of the first show will be. 
The viewing public will have seen the last eighty be cut to forty, and they'll
have decided on their favourites - but they'll have no idea who the final
fifteen are until they come out on stage. Might soulful Danny Coldham or
hearthrob Will Corrigan have got through? The melodic harmonies of Athena, or
Thor the rockers? We want to make sure we give them talent they really want to
vote for, not poor copies of whatever's currently hot on MTV; remember, this is
how we're selling the show, and this is how we're getting the advertising
revenue. So think carefully before you make your choices."

The next cut saw the last of Will Corrigan, though
Ariel Swan, Thor and Melodie Joy Valentine were still in with a chance.

All three of them.

Ariel Swan, Melodie Joy Valentine, and Thor.

Two cuts later, when the fifteen were chosen for
the live shows, with a real shot at success, only one out of the three acts
from Fennington St Mary remained.

Dave felt flat and decidedly non-Vikingesque, the
week after the auditions. On the previous Thursday and Friday Thor had
remained in holiday spirit following their success, but the gig in St Neots on
Saturday night received a rather pathetic turn-out - due to the weather, the
rock chicks had exchanged leather mini skirts for pyjamas and cosying up at
home, Ritchie had surmised. Monday morning saw Dave back to work again, trying
to fit door frames in a biting wind, taking refuge with cups of coffee inside
the half built house, whenever Phil would allow.