My Secret Rockstar Boyfriend (8 page)

‘Anyway . . .’ Anna changes the subject with a sly grin. ‘Enough about me. I don’t know if you know this, but I’m a big Sour Apple fan as well.’

‘Right . . . ?’ I hope I’m not going to get it in the neck again; I’m kind of over discussing this subject for one evening.

‘So I’ve been doing a bit of research and I really think your mystery commenter
is
the real Jackson Griffith.’ Her eyes are shining and she sounds almost as excited as
I have been. ‘The style of writing, everything he says – it fits. And he’s known for randomly chatting to fans and stuff like that; this is just the sort of thing he would do.
It’s not that crazy an idea.’

At last. Someone. I haven’t told anyone about the photo with the driving licence, or the emails that Jackson and I have been exchanging since. All anybody knows about are the public
comments on my blog, and just that has caused enough of a backlash – Seymour and Nishi have made their position clear and I haven’t even wanted to tell my mum for fear of her reaction.
This is so huge and I have been forced to keep it totally to myself – which is
so
not me.

It might be stupid and childish of me, but suddenly the urge to spill is too much. Even if this is a very risky thing to admit to my disapproving best friend’s girlfriend.

‘Anna, can you keep a secret?’

To: Tuesday Cooper

From: jackson evan griffith

Hey there Ruby Tuesday!

I’m stoked that you replied to my email. I don’t wanna repeat myself and start boring you, but I really think that you’re a cool girl. And they’re rare around these
parts, believe me.

Don’t take this the wrong way, but you remind me of my sisters. The kind of girls I grew up with, before things got so crazy . . .

I loved those interview questions that you sent me. But I have a better idea. Maybe.

So, this is top secret and I’m probably nuts but I have the weirdest feeling that I can trust you. I maybe mentioned that I have been working on some new solo tunes. Man, this is top
secret!! And I mean TOP secret.

Anyway, I like it over in Europe and I’m kind of bored of LA. Don’t know if you’ve ever been here but it’s a pretty boring place. Scratch that – I shouldn’t
say it in case that means you don’t ever want to come here and visit me! LA’s GREAT! Honest! Shangri-LA, baby!

So, I feel like it’s time for a change of scene. Overdue, in fact. My management’s lining up some secret appearances for me in the UK. Good old Blighty as you would say, right?! They
always liked me better over there. I’m gonna do some shows on the down low, do some press . . . And if that goes well, face my old nemesis at Worthy Farm when festival season comes around.
But let’s not go there yet.

I’m rambling cuz I’m nervous to ask you. I never have to ask girls things like this, I don’t wanna seem too eager! But I arrive in London in around a week’s time.
I’m gonna be staying at a hotel over there, I can check which one and let you know. I’ll be there a couple weeks, then staying with my buddy who lives in England, travelling to do some
shows. Then, who the hell knows, maybe Glastonbury. That’s still not a definite. But I will definitely be on your side of the pond for a few weeks at least.

Will you come and meet me? I don’t mean to alarm you but I really wanna meet you so bad! It doesn’t have to be ‘a date’, just a friendly meeting. It will be innocent,
sweet, unimagined . . .

Whatever you wanna do. We can have coffee, climb a tree, eat kippers (that’s what you people do, right?). Whatever. Go to Nando’s!! I’ve heard of that place, never been!

Let me know. Meet me next to Nando’s!

Yours, JEG XXX

To: jackson evan griffith

From: Tuesday Cooper

Dear Jackson,

I believe that honesty is the best policy and I am a terrible liar. Like, really bad. The worst.

So I ought to tell you now that I would love to meet you in London, but I will be unable to do so. I am truly sorry.

I am probably being very presumptuous and childish here, but I should also tell you that I have a boyfriend. His name is Seymour Brown and he is in a band as well (it would be disloyal and you
don’t need me to tell you that they are not exactly on the same level as Sour Apple). He is eighteen and we go to college together.

In fact, I don’t know how much you know about me from my blog. I am eighteen. I go to college, where I am studying for my upcoming A levels (I think that is like American SATs?) and I am
hoping to go to university in the autumn. I live with my mum in a small, boring suburban town about thirty miles outside of London. I am quite a small, boring person.

I just do my blog because it’s a fun project and I want to be a writer. I don’t know if you have seen some of the pictures on my blog or on Facebook but I’m just a loud,
somewhat ‘kooky’ (I hate that word, but let’s face it) girl who’s trying to make the best of what she’s got and stand out in the crowd. I am very ordinary, really. I
am not a model or an actress or a pop star.

I do well at school and I love my friends, but I am not the coolest, or the prettiest, or the most special by any means. I am of average height with unusually short legs (the uncharitable might
call me dumpy). I have naturally brown hair that I dye myself very badly whenever I am bored, which is often. My clothes are all from charity shops and smell of dead people. I have a scar on my
left cheekbone from the time a horse kicked me in the face when I was seven. Oh, and I can’t ride a bike. And I am rubbish at climbing trees.

I don’t know if you really do want to meet me. None of my friends (well, except Anna, but that’s a whole other story) even believes that you are really ‘you’.

My boyfriend is, to say the least, not too delighted about our correspondence. In fact, I am now worried that I may have been inadvertently fraudulent in our communications and given you the
wrong idea. I’m so thrilled that you like my writing, and thank you for your support, but it’s probably better if you don’t post comments on my blog any more.

For all of the reasons above, I’m sure you will understand that I cannot meet you in London. Much as I would like to. If you even really wanted me to anyway.

With very best wishes and my sincerest apologies,

Tuesday Cooper (Ms) x

I haven’t blogged. I am behind on my revision timetable, even in English. I can’t think about anything else.

I send my email to Jackson Griffith, which I must say is very mature, sensible and reasonable of me – although it kills me,
kills
me to send it – and I have to resign myself
to the fact that this is the end of the short-lived, weird, possibly fake affair. I am, just as Seymour and Nishi told me to do, shutting it down, once and for all. It is simply the right thing to
do, or so I tell myself. I love my best friend, and I am very lucky to have a boyfriend like Seymour, and I am doing the right thing. Well done me.

Then I go up to my room with a jar of peanut butter, a loaf of white bread and a copy of
The Notebook
on DVD (my mum’s, not mine – I hasten to add even at such a time of
trauma), and I proceed to cry hysterically for the next two hours. Fortunately my mum is out at a work dinner until late tonight, so I am free to wallow.

I know I’m being ridiculous. I know that it’s technically impossible to miss something you’ve never had. But it’s letting go of the idea that’s the hard part. It
was a flash of excitement in my boring little life, and I’m extinguishing it before it’s even got started. For a tiny window in my ordinary existence I’ve been able to entertain
the fantasy that a gorgeous (not just in my opinion but Official Fact – he’s been listed in the 50 and 100 ‘most beautiful people’ by several trashy magazines) and talented
pop star could be interested in me, Tuesday Cooper – an average girl with a weird name, too-big ambitions, chubby thighs and delusions of grandeur. It was so fun while it lasted. Whether it
was true or not. It added a sprinkle of magic to my dull little life.

Because I’m tired and miserable, and allowing myself to break my usual code of Putting A Brave Face On It At All Times, I take the opportunity to feel thoroughly sorry for myself and think
about every single bad thing that has ever happened to me in my entire life. I’m too fat. I don’t have a dad. My mum is always chasing after something that doesn’t exist and there
is nothing I can do to help. My best friend and my boyfriend are making me feel like utter crap. I’m terrified about the future. I hate my thighs. The most exciting thing ever to happen to me
is about to disappear and I don’t want to be a grown-up about this at all.

Then – because I’m Tuesday Cooper, always putting my foot in it, always making a joke, never serious and never a drag – I pull myself together. I wipe the thick rope of snot
that has somehow made its way past my chin and into a clump of my hair, rub the black eyeliner off my cheeks and tell myself that’s enough.

After my sob-fest, I immerse myself in a boiling hot bath with one of my mum’s old Jilly Cooper novels. A fat brick of a book from the 80s, that’s really saucy and has a lot of
horses in it. That’s always guaranteed to cheer me up. I really go for it, with candles and music on and everything. I manage to stop myself from listening to Sour Apple, and put on a bit of
old Neneh Cherry (hard-copy charity-shop find) to cheer myself up.

It mostly works and that’s a good thing because, by the time I get out and change straight into my pyjamas, my mum might be home at any time. I don’t want to have to get into a whole
stupid discussion with her as well. It wouldn’t do for her to catch me weeping and dripping about the house – I don’t want to worry her for no good reason.

It’s not that late, but I’m just going to go to bed. I’m not in the mood to get anything useful done, like college work or blogging, and I’m not even much in the mood for
watching TV. I’ll just check my emails first.

I sit down on the edge of my bed with my laptop – an old work one of my mum’s, passed on to me, which I have duly decorated with a wide variety of ridiculous and/or sparkly stickers
– and that’s when I see that I have twelve unread messages. Other than one that is trying to sell me a cheap holiday to Latvia, they are all from Jackson Evan Griffith.

The first is just one word. ‘Please.’ The second says only, ‘I really wanna meet you!!’. The next few follow on from this along much the same theme. There is another
iPhone photo of Jackson Griffith, doing a sad face. He looks like an adorable puppy. A very sexy, adorable puppy.

After that, the photos and random messages continue and it should be creepy, but somehow it’s not. It’s weird but it’s sweet. Next is a wonky photograph of a chain-link fence
with a pink flowering plant growing up it, the California sunshine bright and a big blue car in the background: ‘
the view from my new place here in Los Feliz . . . wish you were here. I
live opposite the old high school where they filmed the movie
Grease
. I have a weird feeling you might like that movie. I think it’s OK, as is the country Greece. Write, call, email,
text any time. Come round for dinner
.’

After sifting through them all, I come to the final email. It just says, ‘I will cease being a pest now. Yours etc., JEG X.’

I am still staring at it when I hear my mum’s key in the door. I quickly snap my laptop shut. With lightning speed, I switch off the light, leap into bed, pull the covers up to my chin and
screw my eyes so tightly shut that it hurts.

I think I would feel better about my decision to blow off Jackson Griffith if Seymour and Nishi could just be a bit more bloody gracious about the whole thing.

‘Hey, Chew,’ Nishi greets me in the canteen, where she is already sitting with Seymour – most annoyingly, he is in my usual seat. ‘How’s it going? Meet any pop
stars in double English this morning? I’ve noticed that new caretaker out on the sports field looks a bit like Harry Styles; maybe he reads your blog!’

She’s looking at me like I should know why her tone is so nasty, but I have no idea.

‘Wow! Why are you being so bitchy this morning?’ I ask, genuinely taken aback.

‘Oh, don’t be so touchy,’ Seymour chuckles. ‘Nish is only kidding. You’ve got to admit, the whole thing has been a bit of a joke.’

I smile along as best I can, just to show that I’m not being ‘touchy’. And I’m not, I don’t think. They’re not being fair – I’m really trying
here. This is fast turning into one of those ‘jokes’ that becomes a running theme and is used to make a person feel bad at every possible opportunity.

It’s weird that they’re teaming up like this – and I’m not sure I like it. I’ve always wanted them to get on, but this is a step too far. Nishi has never really
taken Seymour seriously, and he’s always been a little bit intimidated by her, so they’ve kept each other at a comfortable arm’s length before now. Both Nishi and Seymour can be
quite judgemental sometimes – I should have predicted that this would happen if they ever had cause to join forces.

‘I’ve noticed there hasn’t been any more action on your blog. Has the nutter given up and left you alone?’ Seymour asks.

‘I guess so,’ I agree, taking a massive mouthful of my macaroni cheese and burning the skin off the roof of my mouth in the process. ‘That’s the end of it. I’ve
learned my lesson; you guys were right. I won’t reply to anything like that ever again.’

It feels as if they’re both looking at me a bit too hard. Maybe it’s unlike me to give in like this, and not put up a fight or at least try to make some sort of
‘hilarious’ joke out of the whole thing. I just can’t be bothered. I feel like I’ve cut off contact with Jackson Griffith for their sake, and now they’re being so mean
to me it doesn’t seem even a tiny bit worth it. I can’t help but feel a bit begrudging. I shovel down a bit more cheesy pasta to avoid having to make conversation.

‘Watch it, Chew,’ Nishi warns. ‘You don’t want to chuck up your dinner all over Seymour’s jeans again!’

She gives off another drain-like laugh and looks mildly disappointed when Seymour doesn’t join in. If she knew him as well as I do, she’d be aware that Seymour isn’t as great
at laughing at himself as he is at laughing at me. In fact, he’s pretty good at being the touchy one himself.