What's a Girl Gotta Do? (22 page)

thirty-seven

The producer, Chloe, was awfully nice about it.

“Happens all the time,” she said, handing me a glass of water. She'd come all the way out of her important room to check I was okay.

“I don't usually…do that.”

She smiled a warm smile. “You don't normally go on national television.”

“Oh don't remind me, you're making it worse.”

She laughed as she scribbled something down on her clipboard. She was cool-looking, wearing jeans and Converse, with a big woolly jumper.

I was beginning to get the feeling back in my fingers. My breathing was returning. Though my body was still acutely aware it was about to get shoved in front of a camera while I ripped open my soul and bled all over the purple sofa.

Did souls bleed actually?

And if they do, what colour is the blood?

Hang on, that's not a helpful thought right now.

“Thank you for being so nice about it,” I told her.

The warmth of her smile radiated off me so much I could almost have got a tan.

“You think you're going to be okay to go on? We need you in ten minutes.”

Ten minutes. Ten of the Queen's minutes. Hang on, was it just pounds the Queen had? Oh dear, fuzzy brain. Candyfloss brain. This would not do. I couldn't expect to be prime minister if I went totally goo-goo the moment I got any publicity.

“I'll be fine,” I said, sounding just about as confident as I was – which wasn't much.

“Good. I'm really excited to watch your piece, Lottie.” She took my glass away from me and put it down on a table. I hadn't noticed it shaking in my fingers. “I'm the one who suggested we book you. I love your project. God, I wish I'd had your guts when I was your age.”

I looked up at her slowly. “You…you do?”

She nodded. “Girl, you're fearless.”

I was?

“You're just what we need. I'm so glad you're doing what you're doing.”

Her smile was tanning my insides now – my intestines would need aftersun, she'd made me feel so warm, and strong and, more importantly…right.

“Thank you,” I squeaked.

“Now, you ready to meet Jordan and Sue?”

Jordan Gold and Sue Phillips were the presenters. I'd watched them countless times through my TV – they were always on in the background of my life. Jordan was famously a “silver fox” – everyone always commented on his shiny grey hair. Sue couldn't get mentioned in any newspaper without the word “curves” being used. She was the body shape tabloid newspapers always dragged out as “healthy” or “pro real-women” – like maintaining a double-D chest with a tiny waist didn't take a considerable number of eating restrictions and trips down the gym…

Uh-oh…I was going to have to say a lot of things they wouldn't like.

Just as I was taking another quick desperate gasp of air, Chloe reached over and squeezed my hand, like we were the best of friends.

She lowered her voice to a whisper.

“Make sure you bring up the age gap,” she hissed. “Jordan has never co-presented with any woman less than ten years younger than him.”

It was all I needed to hear to know I was going to be just fine.

“And we're filming in five, four, three…two…” The producer didn't say the word “one”. He just pointed at us, and a bright red light came on.

I was sitting on the sofa, opposite Jordan and Sue, who grinned inanely at me. The lights were so bright I couldn't see the audience – worse than that, I couldn't see Evie and Amber in the audience.

I was alone. I was sweating.

This was happening.

Jordan and Sue turned their perma-grinned faces to the cameraman and started talking, all smooth, like they'd done it a million times before, because they had.

“Now, we have a special guest with us today on the show.” Sue's boobs were trying to break free from her tight wrap dress. “Charlotte Thomas's video channel has been rocketing in hits this week due to a very interesting project she's started.”

“Yes,” Jordan said, taking his turn on the autocue. There was a proper autocue, and me, MY NAME, was on the autocue. Somehow I had ended up on an autocue? “She decided that for a month she would call out every instance of sexism she saw – no matter how small…”

I couldn't really hear them properly. Time was slowing to sludge. Nothing seemed real. Was this real? I pinched my hand. It hurt. It was real.

Jordan finally turned to me. Yikes, his teeth were white. I was almost blinded by them. They looked just regular white whenever I watched him on the TV, but here, in real life, especially under all these hot lights, they glowed so brightly we could use them to help land planes, or stand him at the top of a lighthouse and get him to help steer ships away from the rocks and…and… Oh shit, Lottie, he's asking you a question and there's a national television camera pointing at you and you can't stop thinking about his teeth.

“So, Charlotte,” he said, already laughing. “I guess, if you want to be true to this project, you're going to have to tell us what you've already noticed here that's sexist?” He laughed again then, all fake and
yeah-let's-see-you-try.

Sue tittered too. “Yes, let's get that bit out of the way, shall we? Then we can get to talking about what led you to take such drastic action.”

I froze up. I couldn't say, could I?

I had to say – that was the point. That was always going to be the point.

The lights were so hot, my skin so slick. I could feel sweat powering through the thick layer of powder on my forehead, damp patches erupting beneath my newly hairy armpits.

“I…I…”

I stammered. I never stammer. I'm always about the words, the attention, teaching, preaching…

“Go on,” Jordan said. “You don't have to be afraid of us. We can take it.”

Could he?

I thought of Evie and Amber in the audience. I thought of Megan at college, spending every day trying not to bump into Max for whatever reason she was too scared to tell us. I thought of all the girls watching, who may've been waiting for someone like me to say things they'd always thought but had never been able to put into words. I thought of women being spoken over in meetings. I thought of girls not being able to walk to school without being leered at. I thought of girls who didn't get the chance to go to school at all…

So my mouth opened and I found myself saying:

“Well, for one, Jordan… Why are your female co-presenters always at least ten years younger than you, and never the other way round?”

thirty-eight

The pop and instant fizz of a champagne bottle opening.

Oh my lordy, Mum and Dad were actually drinking.

Dad expertly caught the stream of bubbles in the glass and poured it in, quickly swapping it for another glass as it got full.

Mum was still hugging me. So tight I couldn't breathe.

“My baby. On the telly. I'm so proud of you, Lottie.”

I sank into her, so tired. So very tired. I'd been running on past-empty since we'd all collapsed on the train back from London. We'd gone straight from the studio to the newspaper office, then an interview, then a photoshoot where they asked me to get out my hairy legs, then another office, then another studio.

I'd told the story of the van men sexually harassing me so many times I'd started to doubt it was real.

I'd been asked if I was single, and then had to point out how sexist that was, so many times I wanted to stab things into people's eyeballs.

“Don't be proud yet,” I said. “They may have cut me.”

“Well you'd better not have missed a full day of college to get cut.” Dad was half smiling, half meaning it.

“NONSENSE!” Amber appeared in a blur of excitable gingerness. She picked up some full glasses of champagne, holding as many as she could between her fingers, and turned to go back to the living room. “I watched it all. You were uncuttable… Though they may have to bleep out some of your swears.”

Mum pulled away and held me at arm's length. “Lottie, no! You didn't swear on national television, did you?”

I gave her my puppy-dog eyes. “Only a few times. It just slipped out.”

Dad was already popping another bottle of champagne – they really did have a stockpile under the sink.

“We didn't raise you to talk like that, Lottie,” he said, heaving with disapproval.

I stuck my tongue out at them. “Your daughter is on national TV this evening, talking about inspiring positive social change. Do you really have to find the one bad thing to latch onto right now?”

Dad smiled, and I knew I'd got him.

“Help me carry these out to the others.”

Our living room was pretty crowded – every available flat surface covered with Megan, Evie, and some other FemSoc bottoms. Oh, and Will, of course. Who'd been a delight all day, but went all weird and moody and sulky on the train journey home and wasn't really talking. Him and my dad instantly clicked though – as superior-intellectual types tended to do – and he'd mostly been following him around, asking him lots of questions about academia.

Megan was with Amber, both of their long bodies sprawled out on our dated rag rug. Evie had invited Oli. They sat smushed together on one of our old armchairs, hardly able to keep their hands off each other. Not in a lusty way, more an intense hand-holding and can't-stop-looking-at-you-like-I-can't-believe-my-luck way that made me feel a pang inside. A few other members of FemSoc were scattered here and there – plus Jane, who was latching onto me because she didn't really know the others.

My piece would be beamed around the country at 7.30 p.m.

The next day, I'd appear in two national newspapers…and then maybe more than that if all the others copied the story.

Somehow I had made all this happen.

I dispensed more champagne. It was 7.25. We'd already screamed and whooped when Jordan and Sue had mentioned me in the “coming up” section.

Megan twisted round, beaming. “Mr Packson lost his nut when you guys all didn't come into college today.”

I tried to hush her with my eyes, but Mum had already heard.

“Oh no, Lottie! You didn't tell the college you were off?” Megan's eyes widened with apology but I shook my head in reassurance.

“There wasn't time,” I said. “Plus, I have practically one hundred per cent attendance. One day off won't hurt. Especially as I was nice about college in one of my interviews.”

“Still though, Lottie,” Dad butted in, from his place on the superiority sofa with Will. “It isn't a good time.”

I felt myself flush red. Did we need to do this now? With, like, six of my friends listening in?

“I'm more than aware that it isn't a good time,” I said slowly, trying to keep my temper. “But this is something I had to do.”

“AHHHH!” We were interrupted by Evie squealing. “Lottie!”

I whipped round to the screen and there, there I was. The whole room erupted into high-pitched squeals even dogs would have had trouble hearing.

Every organ in my body stood to attention and I felt like I was hovering above myself somehow.

“Lottie, it's you, it's you!” Amber yelled.

My first thought was,
Jeez, that eyeliner flick really is a bit wonky
, which wasn't really the point. I looked a bit dazed, as I waited for them to introduce me. Then Jordan and Sue turned to ask me their first question… Uh-oh…would they cut it? Would they include the bit where I called out Jordan and the age difference?

But when on-screen Lottie opened her mouth to talk, I saw something take over. My face suddenly relaxed, my posture became all confident, I…just…lit up… I mean, I knew exactly what I was about to say, I'd lived it only hours ago, but I still craned forward to see it better.

I'm sorry. I don't mean to sound up myself. But I was electric!

The whole room gasped as I made my first quip about the age gap.

“Lottie, you didn't,” Mum sighed. “Oh, look at his face! He doesn't know what to do with you.”

“They kept it in!” Amber sang. “They ruddy kept it in. I love them!”

I could barely hear what was going on, what with the whooping, and everyone piling onto me to hug me and tell me how awesome I was. But Jordan's mouth was wide open on the screen, looking stunned that I'd gone there, and Sue was pissing herself laughing.

“Shh,” Evie yelled. “We're missing it.”

We quietened and tried to return our attention to the screen, but it all seemed so odd and was all going so fast. I glugged back my champagne, then reached over to the spare bottle by Dad, pouring myself another glass and glugging back some more.

We were already past their reaction to my age-difference question – Sue laughing and saying, “It's so true!” – and they were both grinning, loving me. It was obvious now that the hosts loved me, though I couldn't tell at the time.

Electric Lottie was now telling them about how she got the idea for the project – so electric. So dazzly and electric. Then I mentioned Evie and Amber, our Spinster Club, and all three of us screamed and jumped on each other. Then I brought up FemSoc and EVERYONE screamed again. Finally, they started asking about all my videos, and Electric Lottie started to talk about Will.

It was very clear Electric Lottie liked Will a lot.

My face visibly softened on the screen, and then tried to harden again. But I couldn't keep it up, and I gooed out again.

“He does film studies at our college,” Electric Lottie said. “And he's been amazing. You need to keep an eye on that one. And he's been pretty tolerant considering he's been hanging around me in a permanent state of anger for two weeks.”

The hosts laughed. “And so he should be!” Sue said, smoothing down an invisible crease in her tight dress. “You're doing all this for a good cause.”

I was nodding. “I am. He…he… Well, I couldn't have done it without him.”

Oh no. I was falling for him. Electric, on-TV Lottie and here-on-the-sofa Lottie was falling for him. Bollocks bollocks shitty bollocks.

Could anyone else tell?

I tried to look over without him noticing – suddenly all shy. With a side glance I chanced it, and his eyes met mine. Will was watching me – very carefully, very intensely. Could he tell? It was so obvious. But was that just me?

Electric Lottie had begun talking about something else but Now Lottie still stared at Will. And Will stared back. I couldn't take my eyes off him. I felt vulnerable and freaked out and also just…okay, slap me…mesmerized by how he was looking at me and what I thought it meant. He squinted, just slightly, and tilted his head with a tiny smile – one that asked,
What are we doing, Lottie?

Then he turned back to the screen, and the moment was gone.

Dazed, I followed his lead and tried to watch the historical moment of me being on television for the first time in my life. But I wasn't following any of what I was saying.

Why do I like him? I can't like him. Does he like me? He can't like me. We argue too much. He won't openly use the word “feminist”… What's wrong with me? Why is my heart ignoring my incredibly-clever-maybe-going-to-Cambridge head? There was a gut pull, deep inside of me. An instinct.

Will is not what he seems.

He is better.

You know he is better.

Loud cheers and applause and everyone jumped onto me, marking the end of my TV debut. Dad and Mum were first in there, squeezing me into them.

“You were brilliant. So concise, so likeable. We're so proud!”

Megan beamed at me, happier than I'd ever seen her. “Lottie, that was awesome! You're going to have recruited about ten million new FemSoc members.”

Amber had the channel up on her phone. “Oh my God, guys. We've had an extra ten thousand hits just since you were on.”

Evie managed to leave Oli's side and, because there was no room left to hug my body, crawled on her belly and hugged my leg.

“You were awesome! You were already awesome when I watched it the first time. But it plays back even more awesomely.”

Congratulations and cheering and more champagne being popped and Mum and Dad looking like they'd never, never be prouder – though of course they would be if I got into Cambridge – and hugs and songs and all linking arms and whooping them up in the air and where was Will? Where had he gone? Did I need to talk to him?

And, when I eventually broke free, he'd left.