Star Struck (22 page)

Andy had been at the London studios of
Star Maker
for two days, working alongside Jason P. Longford as he went through his scripts and barked orders. Jesse had been flown to the US to work alongside Carrie Ward and had been frantically texting Andy to try to make him jealous. Andy didn’t give two hoots, he loved London and he loved his job. He was finding the texts amusing though, as Jesse was adamant that Carrie Ward was falling for his charms and was bound to leave her rich, handsome husband for him.

Jason had taken a back seat at Boot Camp but he was now in full, egomaniacal flow. He didn’t want to spend too much time hanging around London with the under-twenty-fives he said, he wanted to get to St. Tropez where Lionel was entertaining the over-twenty-five women, or Long Island where Carrie Ward was mentoring the under-twenty-five boys, or better still The Beverley Hills Hotel, where Cherie Forster was looking after the over-twenty-five men. Andy hadn’t had the heart to point out that he was fairly sure that Jason had to stay in Europe for the time being, recording in the UK and France until the live finals.

‘Who wants to be in scabby London?’ Jason had asked disparagingly.

Me for one, Andy thought. He had only been to London a handful of times and was in awe of the place. He loved wandering along the small streets near the City with names like Pudding Lane and Bowler Street. Just walking along
the
banks of the Thames made him feel that – despite tabloid claims that it was going to the dogs – this was a great country. He wasn’t totally daft, he knew that London had a seedy underbelly like every other major city in the world. But it also had Tower Bridge, Beefeaters and the Houses of Parliament.

‘I like London. And the house where the contestants are staying is meant to be really amazing,’ Andy said, thinking that he should at least offer some defence.

‘Yeah, if you’re some gauche Russian billionaire, maybe,’ Jason said queenily.

Andy hadn’t spent a huge amount of time in Jason’s company but he thought that the taste of a gauche Russian billionaire would have been right up his street. Jason struck Andy as the sort of man who’d have his teeth replaced with gold dentures if he had the money.

Andy wanted to get over to Forsters’ house so that he could say hello to Catherine. Acting all casual of course, as if he was just popping in to say hi because he was that at-ease kind of guy. Then he would suggest a drink in London before they both headed back. He had already asked Will if he would sign him into Soho House and he’d agreed. He wasn’t sure if Soho House was any good. It sounded like a block of council flats, but Will seemed to think it was the place to take someone to impress them and he was happy to take his advice.

‘Let’s get over there now and then I can get on my way to somewhere half decent. What’s my schedule?’ Jason asked, clicking his fingers. Andy raised an eyebrow but Jason didn’t notice.

‘You’re here until one, then you fly to St Tropez this
afternoon
and then …’ Andy flicked through the schedule. That was it, it was blank. ‘I think that’s it.’

‘What about America?’ Jason threw his arms in the air. Richard Forster had walked into the room; Jason was too busy having a hissy fit to notice him.

‘Tom Sorenson is doing the US end of things, of course,’ Richard informed Jason.

Andy took a deep breath. If there was one thing worse, he was learning, than being in the presence of Richard Forster as he bollocked Jason, it was watching Jason squirm from the bollocking he was receiving.

‘Oh, of course, yes,’ Jason said. ‘Tom. He really is a brilliant presenter. The camera goes on and he lights up the room. Really. You should see him in action.’ Jason said over-enthusiastically to Andy. Andy could tell Jason hated his American counterpart.

‘Time’s tight, Jason. I thought your agent would have been through all this with you. You stay here and Tom stays in the US.’

‘But what about the live finals?’ Jason asked with ill-disguised career panic.

‘You’ll be there,’ Richard said reassuringly. ‘Bloody hell, doesn’t he listen to anything?’ Richard asked Andy.

Andy felt like a gooseberry in between the two. He wished that Jason would pay some attention to his schedule and that Richard wouldn’t be so searingly frank. Although he had to concur with Richard’s frustration: how Jason had a successful career he didn’t know; he wouldn’t have been able to find his way out of a paper bag without the help of an assistant.

‘Anyway, it’s Andy I was looking for.’ Richard said,
thrusting
his hands into his trouser pockets and rocking on his heels, something that anyone wishing to imitate Richard always did. Andy couldn’t quite believe how much he did this in real life.

‘Er, yes,’ Andy said, putting the schedule down nervously and following Richard out of the room, leaving Jason standing alone.

‘Right,’ Richard said, in his brusque time-is-money way. ‘Catherine. There’s been no mention of the dad’s cancer, so I’m going to say something to her today.’

Andy turned pale. ‘I don’t think she’d appreciate it.’

‘Look, I’m not some Machiavellian arsehole, but I’ve got a show to run and I think that she would benefit from having this out in the open. These things get out, it’s better if we help her manage it. Anyway, it makes her far more appealing,’ Richard said with a shrug. ‘A sad but true fact.’ He reacted to the drawn look on Andy’s face. ‘Don’t blame me, blame the British public.’

‘I don’t think it’s a great idea,’ Andy pushed.

‘We’ll just have to ask her, won’t we?’ Richard locked eyes with Andy.

Andy knew that if he wanted to keep his job he had better stop talking right now.

When she’d seen
Star Maker
in the past Catherine had always thought that when the competition got to this stage wherever they were filming was self-contained. Last year, the contestants had been whisked off to Richard’s place in the Caribbean and had been shown singing around the piano inside and then performing on his sea-front terrace outside. Well, there was certainly no Caribbean
for
the under-twenty-five girls this year, but the filming was to be split between two places. They were filmed inside the house practising and then they were whisked off to the TV studios in West London where a mock up of a huge ballroom had been constructed for the auditions. Catherine couldn’t understand at first why they didn’t just use of one the many huge rooms in the house, but apparently the acoustics were wrong and it didn’t look right on the TV.

This was the reason that Catherine and the other contestants found themselves rattling around the back of a minibus on their way to film the ‘rehearsals’. Sierra, Therese and Carly were sitting on the front row of seats and Catherine, Star and Kim were sitting together on the back. As much as Star irritated the hell out of both Catherine and Kim, it seemed they were lumped with her. Having shared a room with her at Boot Camp it seemed to be a case of ‘she’s an idiot but she’s our idiot’. The girls had all been rehearsing for hours but were now going to run through a scripted rehearsal. Everyone agreed it seemed like a total waste of time, but recognised that they didn’t know much about how TV shows worked, so they just had to accept that there was a sensible reason for doing things this way.

‘I’m nervous about meeting the Americans,’ Kim admitted.

‘What’s to be nervous about? They’re just human like us,’ Star stated.

Catherine and Kim shared a look. Catherine had to stare out of the window and concentrate on the passing scenery so as not to laugh at Star’s assertion that she was human.

‘They’ll be good though, won’t they? American singers are always better than British singers,’ Kim said.

‘No, actually, not true,’ Star said, as if this was her chosen specialist subject. ‘America is far bigger than the UK, so they have a far bigger pool of talent to pull from, but you only have to look at people like Adele, Amy Winehouse and Duffy to see that we are more than capable of producing world-class home-grown talent.’

Kim looked at Catherine with a smirk. ‘Here endeth the lesson.’

For once Catherine agreed with Star. ‘Actually, I think she’s right. I think that we do have great singers and I don’t necessarily think that American singers are better.’

‘Oooh, best mates,’ Kim said mockingly.

Catherine felt awkward. She wasn’t being anyone’s best mate; she just thought that Star had a point.

‘I didn’t mean anything, I just think that she has a point …’ Catherine said quietly.

‘And I do have a point,’ Star said firmly.

Kim slapped Catherine on the leg. ‘Bloody hell. Only joking,’ she said, but Catherine wasn’t so sure. Kim was great, but she could be matter-of-fact to the point of cutting sometimes.

A few moments later the awkward silence was interrupted by the driver. ‘Here we are, girls.’

The barrier lifted at the gateway to the studios and the driver parked the minibus outside the back entrance. A moment later Will was at the side of the bus, ushering the girls into the building. ‘This is glamorous,’ Sierra complained.

‘We’ve got other girls going in the front as decoys. Now stop moaning and go through, you’ll be singing in a minute,’ Will said, shaking his head.

‘Decoys?’ Catherine asked.

‘We have to use decoys so that the press don’t find out who’s down to the last six, or last twelve if you include the Americans. We hire twenty-four girls from a model agency, twelve for here, twelve for the US, and everywhere you go, they go. It’s a pain in the arse but it throws the papers off the scent.’

Catherine and the others followed Will, trying to keep up as he powered into the building and along a corridor. ‘You have to do that for each category?’ Kim asked, trying to take in her surroundings as well as concentrate on Will’s reply. On the walls were pictures of famous people who had appeared at the studio over the years.

‘Yep. Total ball-ache.’

The girls were lead through a number of doors that could only be accessed by a security card until it felt as if they were being brought into the bowels of the building.

‘Where are we going?’ Star moaned. ‘My Choos are killing me,’ she said.

‘Don’t you pronounce shoe in a funny way,’ Will said, oblivious.

‘My Choos! My bloody Jimmy Choos!’

‘All right. Keep your knickers on,’ Will said. ‘Right, here we are, girls.’ He showed them into a room that at eye level looked like a ballroom, but with the slightest of neck tilts looked exactly like what it was, a TV set. There were boom mikes and glaring lights dangling from
the
ceiling and the room was surrounded by cameras. Catherine gulped; this was the first time she’d been on a real TV set. In her previous auditions, although they had been constantly filmed, it hadn’t been this obvious. ‘And here are the American girls,’ Will said, gesturing to the six young ladies sitting on chairs, nervously waiting. ‘Shoneeka, Lindsay, Freya, Jenny, Petra and Meagan, meet Kim, Catherine, Star, Sierra, Therese and Carly.’ The girls all nodded, weighing one another up. Catherine had expected the Americans to be super-confident and scary, but on very first impressions they seemed as nervous as she felt.

‘OK, girls. There’s no real time to get to know each other at the moment. We need to get on,’ Will told them. ‘What we will be doing after this is having you learn a few lines and pretend that you’ve been together for a few days and that you’re all getting on famously. Get you to hug one another, that sort of thing.’

Gasps and laughs went around the room, ‘You’re not serious?’ one of the American girls asked incredulously.

‘I certainly am. The public wants to see bonding and camaraderie. Unfortunately we haven’t got the time or the budget for that to develop naturally.’

‘But that’s dishonest!’ Kim said righteously.

‘Come on, you don’t honestly think that people on reality TV have the time or the inclination to become best friends, do you?’ Will asked. Catherine couldn’t believe that he didn’t seem the slightest bit phased by his own cynicism. ‘It is a competition, you know. Not a love-in. Right, where’s my right-hand man with the run-through sheets?’ Will said, looking around.

Andy stepped forward into the light. Catherine, for some reason that she couldn’t quite explain herself, felt like clapping. That would have looked really cool, wouldn’t it? she chastised herself, clapping like a seal just because someone you quite like has entered the room. But she knew it was more than that. She
really
liked Andy, and he seemed to like her. And she felt that they were somehow in this together. They seemed to share the same sensibility about things. She hadn’t known him long, but she just sensed she could trust him.

Andy saw her and smiled shyly. He looked great, Catherine thought. She could tell that he wasn’t aware of how attractive he was. Andy was very tall, but obviously thought himself too tall, which he wasn’t. He had broad shoulders and slender hips and a shock of hair that made him look dishevelled in a sexy way. She knew that if anyone pointed this out to him that he would probably blush, a thought which made Catherine smile involuntarily.

Catherine waved a small wave and looked over at Andy as Will went through what they were all expected to do this afternoon. Once Will announced that they were all to sit down and wait for their name to be called, Andy walked towards Catherine. She felt giddy but tried to pretend that she was a composed Ice Queen.

‘Hi,’ Andy said.

‘Hello,’ Catherine replied. Ice Queen, Ice Queen! she told herself.

‘You look nice …’ Andy blushed. ‘Have they done something with your hair and make-up?’

‘No, I did it myself, they want us to look natural until
we
get to the live finals,
if
we get to the live finals should I say, I’ve never had my make-up done … well, I have, when my sister Jo wants to practise on someone … and then we got to choose something to wear … well sort of, they kind of told us what we were wearing and then we could say if we really didn’t like it, but I quite like this.’ Catherine pulled the green skirt that she was wearing out to one side, like a little girl about to curtsey in front of royalty. She was out of breath and flushed red; so much for the Ice Queen act.