Star Struck (32 page)

Andy smiled shyly at Catherine, ‘So then …’

‘So then …’

‘How’s everything? We’ve all been so busy that I’ve hardly seen you …’

‘Yes, it’s been great. You know, just knackering… And I’ve got new hair and teeth.’ Catherine tapped her front teeth with her finger.

‘Very nice.’

‘Oh and new bones …’ She pointed at her clavicles.

‘I’ve noticed that, you need to eat some more. Is it nerves?’

‘Nerves and Nicole Richie’s diet. Antonia thinks I “look amazing!”’

Andy rummaged in his pocket and produced a Hershey Bar. Catherine hadn’t seen any chocolate for weeks. Andy passed it to her as if he was smuggling drugs. She looked around and, checking that no one was watching, greedily stuffed it into her mouth. ‘That tastes so good,’ she said, with her mouth full. ‘Thank you.’

‘No problem.’

They stood in silence for a moment, Catherine trying
to
swallow the chocolate as quickly as possible and Andy looking like he was trying to find the right words to say.

‘Can I just say that I’m really, really sorry about everything that happened in London …’ Andy blurted.

‘You don’t have to apologise again,’ Catherine said, but was secretly glad that he had. That he hadn’t just forgotten about upsetting her as soon as it had happened.

Andy bit his top lip as if he was working out whether what he was about to say was social suicide. ‘Oh God, listen, I’m going to say something and if you say no, fine, but I’m just going to say it. Let’s go out tonight, please, after the show? I can get them to let you go out for a few hours, I know I can. And we can go wherever you want. And I think we’ll have a great time because I think you’re great …’ Andy tripped over his words.

Catherine was stunned. He seemed genuine, but maybe this is why he was so successful in his Lothario ways, because he didn’t look like the sort that chatted everyone up. And she did have firm evidence that she couldn’t trust him one hundred per cent. She didn’t know what to do, she knew she was letting her defences down, but she couldn’t help it – she liked Andy.

‘You think I’m
great?
’ Catherine asked, embarrassed.

‘Yes, well, I did … sorry that came out wrong, I do. And I know you don’t think much of me but I just want to have chance to go out with you, before everyone knows who you are and I know I’ve left it a bit late and everyone will know you once they see the show tonight but …’ Andy was getting redder and redder ‘… I never say things like this, and I can’t believe I am, so will you?’ Andy looked exhausted as he came to the end of his sentence.

Catherine didn’t know what to think. Andy
appeared
so honest, she didn’t know what to believe. Catherine thought for a moment, one thing she was sure of was that if she didn’t go she’d never know.

‘Yeah, go on then. I will,’ she smiled.

‘Oh, that’s great,’ Andy seemed utterly relieved.

‘But only because you gave me chocolate.’

Andy looked as though he seriously thought this was the reason and when he realised that Catherine was joking he relaxed and laughed, ‘Oh right, yes. You just want me for my confectionery.’

Andy put his hand to his earpiece. ‘Listen, I’ve got to go. Star’s acting up and we need to get her out to rehearse. I’ll see you later, yeah?’

‘Yes,’ Catherine said and then plucked up the courage to add, ‘I’m looking forward to it.’ But Andy had already dashed off.

Jo was sitting with Maria in a food hall somewhere off Fifth Avenue, waiting for their father to return with the McDonald’s that he had set off in search of over fifteen minutes ago. They could have gone anywhere Jo thought, had any manner of food, but Mick wanted a Maccy D’s. He was such a culture vulture.

‘Yes, it’s us!’ Jo shouted at a teenager who was pointing a mobile phone at them. She couldn’t believe that this was happening here as well as back home in Britain.

‘Where’s your dad? He’s nuts!’ the spotty oik asked.

‘With your mum, probably,’ Jo shot back. ‘Dickhead,’ she said under her breath.

‘Where is our “nuts” dad? That is a very good question,’
Maria
asked, from behind her Gucci knock-off shades. ‘I should have known it would be like this, New York is bedlam at the best of times, never mind when you’re famous.’

Jo held her nose and did an impression of a tannoy announcement. ‘Is there a deluded orange air hostess in the building? Deluded orange air hostess? Thank you!’

‘I’m not an air hostess. I’m a member of cabin crew and I’m not bloody orange. This is Fake Bake, you dimwit.’ She pointed at her fake-tanned arms. ‘Victoria Beckham uses it.’ She threw her hair back dramatically as if to make a point.

‘What, your famous mate Victoria Beckham?’

‘I’m not stooping to your level,’ Maria said.

‘You were already there.’ Jo smiled sweetly, she loved the smallest of victories where Maria was concerned.

‘Look!’ Maria said nodding over at the McDonald’s counter where a crowd was gathering.

‘What? People, Maria, you’ve seen people before, haven’t you?’ Jo asked.

‘They’re not just people, they’re people
surrounding
Dad.’

Jo jumped up. Maria was right. ‘Oh shit. I bet he’s loving that.’

A few moments later the crowd parted and Mick practically skipped towards them. ‘Where’s the food?’ Jo asked looking at her empty-handed father.

‘He’s got someone following him,’ Maria said. Two young Goths were trailing after Mick with
Sesame Street
puppet bags slung on their backs, stripy over the knee socks and huge bovver boots.

‘Don’t panic, girls, the food’s here. These two lovely punk rockers offered to help.’

Jo groaned as the girls giggled at being mislabelled.

‘Can we have our picture now please?’

‘Certainly can!’ Mick enthused. The girls put the tray down and one handed her phone to Jo to do the honours.

Mick put his arms around his fans. ‘Say Robber Baron!’ he grinned.

Jo turned to Maria. ‘Oh God he’s making up his own catchphrase!’

‘He’s like Timmy Mallett,’ Maria said, pulling her shades down to fully inspect what was going on, ‘he’ll be writing a novelty song next.’

The girls thanked Mick and then wandered off, looking at their phones and giggling, while Jo watched her dad doing some odd pointing thing – jabbing two fingers after the girls.

‘What’s with the fingers, Dad?’

‘I saw Bill Murray do it on a chat show in the eighties. Always thought it looked good, but needed a bit of celebrity gravitas to pull it off.’

‘You’re not famous, Dad.’ Jo said pointedly, as a group of young girls approached.

‘Excuse me, are you the family from …’

Mick’s eyes lit up. ‘See!’ he grimaced at Jo.

‘Yes we are. Now hop it,’ Maria said.

Jo burst out laughing. Mick tucked into his McDonald’s.

‘So … one big happy family then, that’ll be nice.’ Jo said, referring to the meeting they’d just had. Richard Forster had suggested to Mick and Karen that they appear together tonight at the live finals and be a ‘united front’ for Catherine, he thought it would look ‘appropriate’. So that was what the free trip was about. He said that they were not informing Catherine of any of this because at the moment they didn’t want to put her off her performance.
Then
the
Star Maker
team would feed this news to the papers and give them the story that Catherine’s family were all there for her. Jo couldn’t believe that anyone had convinced her mother to do this; there had to be more to it than a free trip to New York with her estranged family.

Karen, who had said that she needed a few minutes before she joined them for lunch, walked towards them swinging a turquoise Tiffany bag. ‘Oh look, she’s
so
skint,’ Jo said. Karen was always complaining about her lack of funds.

‘She looks like Jackie Collins in that suit,’ Mick said wistfully.

‘She looks like Joan Collins in
The Bitch
,’ Jo said under her breath.

‘I heard that, Joanna,’ Mick gave his daughter a stern look.

Karen sat down in the chair next to Jo and waved the bag in her daughters’ faces. ‘Tiffany’s!’ she exclaimed. She pulled out a box and opened it. It was a pair of Elsa Peretti earrings that Jo had coveted for years. ‘One for Maria,’ she said passing the box to her daughter, ‘one for Jo,’ she slipped a box to Jo, ‘and one for me.’

Jo opened the box. If anyone else had given her these earrings as a present she would have yelped with joy. ‘You can’t afford these.’

‘You could show a bit of gratitude, Joanna,’ Karen huffed.

‘What about Catherine and Claire?’ Jo asked pointedly.

‘Why don’t I just buy everyone in New York something from Tiffany’s while I’m at it?’ her mother snapped.

‘I only meant your other two daughters,’ Jo said coolly, placing the box to one side. ‘So what else did Richard Forster say to you?’

Maria and Jo hadn’t stayed for all of the meeting. The
production
team were keen to talk to Mick and Karen on their own and Jo and Maria decided to leave them to it. It was dull and they didn’t want to have to sit around while their mother planned to be fake and Mick’s mind went into lala mode and he thought that he and Karen were finally getting back together just because some TV bods wanted them in the same studio.

‘They had a few ideas—’ Mick said.

‘That didn’t come to much,’ Karen spoke over him quickly. ‘So we just had a nice chat and left, didn’t we, Mick?’

‘Yes, we did,’ Mick nodded. He seemed entranced to simply have his name uttered by his ex-wife.

‘Right,’ Jo said, throwing her half-eaten burger back into its container; she didn’t feel particularly hungry. She knew that neither her mum nor dad was telling the truth but she just couldn’t be bothered to dig any more. ‘Maria, fancy a spot of window shopping?’

‘Yep.’

Jo looked at the Tiffany box on the table. She quickly weighed up what to do. Her mother was an arse who thought she could buy affection if she ever had the money or the inclination; on the other hand, the earrings were exceptionally pretty. Jo picked up the box. ‘Thanks for the earrings … Karen …’

‘It’s mother to you,’ Karen said pointedly.

‘Tell yourself whatever you need to hear … but it’s not.’ Jo placed the box in front of her mother. ‘And as lovely as they are, if I want some I’ll buy them myself. Come on, Maria.’

Maria looked at Jo, then pocketed her Tiffany box and followed her sister out of the food hall.

Chapter 18

THE TWENTY-FOUR
STAR
Maker
finalists – twelve men and woman under twenty-five and twelve men and women over twenty-five – were standing in the wings waiting for Tom Sorenson to announce their name and for their chance to take the stage. The twelve British contestants were to sing tonight, the twelve Americans the following evening and then two people would be voted off. This was to happen each week until there were six left and then it would go to one show a week.

Catherine was wearing a one-shouldered metallic blue top, Seven for All Mankind jeans which the stylist had assured her was like ‘having an ass-lift’ and some Stella McCartney wedges, which were surprisingly comfortable to walk in. Her hair was pinned to one side at the front and curled down her back and her eye make-up was smoky blacks and greys. She had seen her reflection and barely recognised herself, especially when she smiled and was almost dazzled by her sparkling teeth. Everyone else was equally groomed. Kim had her hair dyed purple, something which she hadn’t liked at first but was now quite pleased with and Star had her long flowing curly hair pinned up in a gravity-defying beehive. She was wearing a large sequinned Christopher Kane shift dress and six-inch heeled gladiator sandals; she looked great but she was in a mess.

She had been pulled into rehearsal and she was still evidently upset. She was taken onto the stage by one of the vocal coaches and asked to sing her song. Star had begun to sing ‘Silent All These Years’ by Tori Amos, the song she had been allotted earlier in the week, but the band seemed to know nothing of it, they had ‘That Old Devil Called Love Again’. This puzzled the other contestants. The song was way too deep for a soprano like Star, and the fact that the song had been changed at the last minute and everyone was acting as if Star should know this had seemed very strange to Catherine. There had been none of the self-confidence that Catherine had come to expect from Star today, she was a wreck. She had tried to speak to her to ask her if there was anything she could do but Star had cold-shouldered her again.

The over-twenty-five women had now all been called and the last of the over-twenty-five men were filing out onto the stage to rapturous applause. Catherine looked at Kim and Kim grabbed her hand. ‘Good luck,’ she whispered.

‘Catherine Reilly!’ Tom shouted and Catherine walked out onto the stage. The lights were blinding, the applause deafening and the walk to the stalls where they were to sit for the duration of the show seemed a mile. Catherine looked around, there were people holding placards with her face on it. How weird was that? She could hear people screaming her name. Catherine took her seat and looked at the judges; Cherie was dressed like Cruella De Vil, Carrie was looking sweetly pretty next to her, Lionel looked like a mad professor and Richard was sitting back in his chair wearing an open-neck shirt with a black suit and a tan.
He
caught Catherine’s eye and then looked behind him. She furrowed her brow, was he trying to tell her something? She looked into the crowd and there, sitting behind the judges, was Jo, Maria her dad … and her mum. She was so excited to see her family, but what on earth was her mother doing here? Jo waved as if she was trying to shake her arm off. Maria jumped up and shouted, Mick pulled up his jumper to reveal a T-shirt with Catherine’s face on it and her mum simply raised her hand and waggled her fingers as if she was the lady of the manor.

Jo was mouthing something, Catherine studied her sister and worked out that she was saying, ‘We wanted to surprise you. Sorry about Mum.’

Catherine winked at Jo. She couldn’t believe they were here and she certainly couldn’t believe Jo had managed to keep quiet about it. Jo had been texting Catherine nonstop all day, pretending to be gearing up to watch the final on the TV.