Confessions Of A Karaoke Queen (14 page)

‘Shouldn’t those pins be crying if they
do
get knocked down?’ I complain, hiding in the fifties-diner-style booth. The little shit in the next lane is laughing, and his older brother’s laugh sounds like a hyena.

‘You’ve got another turn, Maddie,’ says Jennifer, like this is a good thing.

Lou takes it for me, and I get eight, which at least sends me off the starting blocks.

‘Thanks,’ I say. ‘I hurt.’

She passes my wine. ‘I think you landed on every single bit of your body. It was ugly.’

‘I don’t even know why I’m here,’ I grumble, acting like the whole thing is totally below me and that there are plenty more important things in life than being good at bowling. Which there are.

‘You’re here,’ Lou says, ‘because there’s no way I could have suffered it alone.’

‘Apart from that.’ I sip my warm, too-sweet wine. ‘I should be at Sing It Back. I should be sorting stuff out for Friday …’

‘Like what?’

‘I don’t know. I feel like I should be
mentally
preparing.’

Lou sits back. ‘The best thing you can do is relax. Really, you’ll just have to try and do as Evan says and act like the cameras aren’t there. Or you’ll go crazy.’

We mull this over as Jennifer bowls. She uses one of those slides on wheels and does a little victory dance when she knocks down three.

‘This time in two days, Sing It Back is going live.’ I shake my head in disbelief. ‘I can’t get my head around it, Lou.’

She gives me a weak smile. ‘Look, I’ve been meaning to say … I’m sorry I’ve been crap about this Tooth & Nail thing.’

‘You haven’t.’ I frown. ‘You had concerns, but you were totally right to have them, and to tell me. I’d always want you to tell me.’

‘Yeah, but I could have been more supportive. You’ve had a tough time and you made a brave decision.’ She raises her glass. ‘To Sing It Back – and to all the success it deserves.’

We clink.

‘So now can you tell me what’s really on your mind?’ I ask, eyeing her over the rim.

‘What do you mean?’

I roll my eyes. ‘Lou, I know you. Last time you were at the club you were weird. And it wasn’t just the TV thing.’

Lou puts her wine down and turns to me. ‘Do you think there’s something going on between Simon and Jaz?’

I laugh, before I realise she’s serious. ‘No, god no, of course not. Why?’

‘They seem close, that’s all. It’s stupid of me to care …’

‘They are close,’ I say, ‘they’re friends. Honestly, Lou, that’s all it is. Jaz is
so
not Simon’s type – and I can assure you Simon’s not hers. I’d have noticed if it was anything more.’

‘But you’ve been really busy,’ she babbles, ‘maybe you missed the signs.’

‘Lou, seriously – if you like him that much, ask him out.’

‘I couldn’t!’

‘Why not?’

She shrugs. ‘I just couldn’t. I’m too embarrassed.’

‘You’re saying this to the girl who just threw herself down a bowling alley head-first in front of half of Bloomsbury?’

She chuckles. ‘That was quite bad …’

‘Was it? I thought I looked pretty good.’

‘Lou, you’re up,’ says Post Guy, giving Marketing Moron a high-five as they celebrate his seventeenth strike.

‘Hey,’ I say as she gets up, ‘I’ve got an idea. Why don’t you work shifts at the club?’

Lou looks uncertain. ‘I don’t know …’

‘It’s a way of getting closer to Simon, isn’t it? And then you can see for yourself that there’s zilch going on with him and Jaz.’

She lifts one of the balls, tries it for weight. ‘What about Evan? It’s kind of an awkward time to get involved, isn’t it?’

‘Evan won’t come near you, you have my word. And to be honest we could do with all the help we can get.’

‘Really?’

‘Really. Plus Mum and Dad love you. They’d make you a full-time employee in a heartbeat, you know that.’

Lou hugs me. ‘Thanks, Maddie, you’re a star.’ She beams. ‘I won’t let you down, I promise.’

I feel sick.

There’s a real possibility that I might
be
sick. On live TV. On launch night. In front of a nation. On Evan Bergman’s spongy head.

‘Have you seen how many people are outside?’ Jaz pulls back the blind a fraction and peeks out. ‘Maddie, there’s a
queue
. Can you remember the last time you saw that?’

I finish applying mascara – it’s a miracle I got it on right with such shaky hands. I’ve eaten hardly anything today, which is making me feel really wobbly.

‘I don’t think I ever have.’

Jaz pushes Andre’s nose against the window. They’re in matching clothes tonight – floor-length (in Andre’s case, claw-length) red capes and those weeny miniature top hats that look like they belong on a wedding cake.

‘Somebody saw us!’ cries Jaz excitedly, snatching the blind back across. ‘We’ve been seen! OMG we’ve probably been papped!’

No being sick on Evan Bergman’s head. No being sick on anyone’s head
. I can see the headline now:
KARAOKE QUEEN SWAPS BANANARAMA FOR BARFARAMA
.

‘No, we haven’t,’ I tell her in a shaky voice. ‘Nobody knows who we are and nobody cares. It’s like any other night, OK? Business as usual, just like Evan said.’

She gives me a look. ‘Yeah, except it totally isn’t.’

I go into the bedroom and open Mum’s wardrobe, hoping to find a belt to complement my dark blue maxi dress, but then I remember what happened last time I sampled these riches and slam it shut with a shudder. In my anxiety everything has taken on a faintly sinister hue, and when I check the mirror I can see Vanilla Ice looking disparagingly at me from his frame on the living room wall, arms folded, gaze dead-on, spoiling for a fight. (Not, in fact, unlike someone prepared to wreck a mic like a vandal.) I once heard that Vanilla Ice, post-chart-success, auctioned his toenails off on eBay.

‘Be calm,’ I say, padding back to Jaz and sounding distinctly
un
calm. ‘We’re not supposed to act any different, cameras or no cameras.’

‘Is that why you’re dressing up?’ she asks with a sideways smile.

I rake a brush through my hair. ‘I’m a hypocrite,’ I declare.
‘But when you’re all done up like that I can’t very well arrive in a sack, can I?’

Jaz takes me by the shoulders and looks into my eyes. ‘It’s going to be fine, Maddie.’

I breathe out slowly, my heart thrumming in my ears. ‘I hope so.’

‘I know so.’

‘What if something awful happens? I’m wigging, Jaz – it’s live TV. What if I’m sick?’

‘Why would you be sick?’

‘I feel sick. What if I’m sick on Evan Bergman’s head?’

‘What if whatever,’ says Jaz in her warm-California accent, waving her hand dismissively. ‘After this we’ll get accustomed to the cameras being around and it’ll be fine. Just focus on that and get through tonight like it’s any other Friday.’ Sensing this isn’t quite enough, she adds, ‘You’re not going to be sick, Maddie, I swear.’

Outside I can hear whoops and yells – word of the show has spread locally like wildfire. Tentatively I finger the blind. Andre is scrabbling furiously about at the base of the window. Maybe he’s caught his reflection and finally wants to end it all, but worries that his tiny cape might facilitate flight for sufficient time to break the fall and instead he’ll wind up paralysed from the waist down, destined for all time to be dressed up and cooed over by Jaz with no means of escape.

‘Dare I look?’

‘Go on!’ Jaz joins me.

The street is crammed with people, a great trail of them snaking right around the block. I can’t believe my eyes. I
forget my nerves for a moment and allow a rush of pure, unfettered excitement to wash through me. I imagine Mum and Dad’s faces if they could see this. I
want
it for them, so very much. I want tonight to be just the beginning.

‘I’d never have guessed it,’ says Jaz softly. ‘Pineapple, we salute you.’

I’m still not convinced by the name change – it feels too, I don’t know …
current
. Evan wanted something snappy and memorable; a ‘clean brand’ that clearly signalled Pineapple Mist and tied into the name of the programme:
Blast from the Past
. He figured the nod to my parents’ band name was fitting and, I have to agree, it works well visually, too: they’ve replaced the old battered sign with a snazzy new canary-yellow font and the accompanying neon fruit looks confident and refreshing.
SING IT BA K
has been relegated to one of the many cardboard boxes still in evidence in Mum and Dad’s flat. I couldn’t quite bring myself to part with it.

‘Yoo-hoo!’ Ruby du Jour pokes her blonde head round the door. She’s ravishing in an emerald gown and bags of silver jewellery, her false eyelashes batting. ‘Everybody ready for their TV debut?’

The nerves slam back with renewed force.

‘Can everyone stop calling it that?’ I snap. The others look hurt. ‘Sorry – just a bit jumpy, that’s all.’

‘You look
gorgeous
,’ Ruby tells me. She turns to Jaz. ‘Er … so do you. Nice cape.’

‘Andre and I are exploring a modern twist on
Little Red Riding Hood
,’ Jaz explains proudly. ‘It’s the next big thing in fashion: I like to call it “Fairy Tales Reconstructed”.’

‘Did she wear a hat like that?’ Ruby asks. ‘It’s ever so small.’

‘Who?’

‘Little Red Riding Hood.’ Ruby tilts her head. ‘Or Hat? Little Red Riding Hat?
Extremely
Little Red Riding Hat?’

Jaz throws her critic a withering look. ‘I said it was a
modern twist
?’

‘Come on,’ I cut in before things get messy, ‘we’d better get moving. Doors open any minute and Simon’s down there all by himself.’

‘He’s got Alex,’ says Jaz, adjusting her tiny headgear and doing the same to Andre’s.

‘Yeah, which means Simon’s doing
all
the work.’

‘You’re too hard on him,’ states Jaz, ‘he only just started. Give the guy a break.’

‘We did by hiring him.’

‘I’d have hired him in a heartbeat. He is pretty sexy, don’t you think? All dark and brooding.’

I choose to ignore that comment: Alex is sexy if you like men who’re so muscular they look like they’re made of a stacked-up pile of assorted-sized cardboard boxes. ‘As far as I’m concerned, he’s yet to prove himself,’ I say. ‘And so far, he’s not a patch on Archie.’

Davinia’s in the hall, hopping about like a flea. For someone who’d go to just about anything to get photographed (her most recent outing was to the launch of a dog perfume), this is as close to Mecca as it gets. She doesn’t even have to leave the building.

‘It’s Chester Bendwell!’ she squeaks, jumping up and down in her lime-green strappy sandals. ‘I saw Evan showing him in!’

I fasten the backs of my earrings. ‘Chester who?’

‘Chester Bendwell! He presented
60-Second Haircut –
you remember. He’s downstairs with all the crew. That moody camera girl with the dreadful wardrobe was taking him round.’ She gasps. ‘I bet he’ll be doing all the voiceovers as well – can you believe it?!’

‘Oh yes, Evan mentioned that,’ I say, locking the door behind us.

‘And you didn’t tell us?’ Davinia’s voice has ascended to a pitch only wolves can hear. ‘I’ve carried a torch ever since I saw him unplait that mullet.’

Ruby touches her arm. ‘Honey, he’s gay.’

Davinia’s face falls. ‘He is?’

‘A sixty-second haircut?’ Jaz is disgusted. ‘What the hell is that supposed to mean?’

‘It’s a haircut that takes a minute or less,’ simplifies Davinia, as if Jaz is the dumbest person on the planet.

‘Duh,’ says Jaz. ‘Who came up with that ridiculous idea?’

‘Don’t sniff at it,’ Davinia bristles, ‘they got through twenty in a half-hour show. And they weren’t
that
bad.’

Ruby’s confused. ‘Wouldn’t they get through thirty?’

I roll my eyes. ‘Come on,’ I grab Jaz by the arm and peel her away from the fray, ‘we’ve got our own TV show to attend.’