one-hit wonder (26 page)

“I am not his mother. I’m his aunt. Why are you lying like this, you little shit?” Bee hissed.

“Aw,” said Zander. “See? Isn’t this sweet?”

“Look. I’m sorry,” muttered the producer. “I’ve obviously interrupted something. I’ll just go to Tiffany’s room now.”

“No. Don’t go,” said Zander, “I want to be on TV. Can’t I?

Please? Please Mr. Hotshot TV Producer—I want you to make me a star.” He crossed his arms over his chest and fluttered his eyelashes at the man.

“Sorry, son. No can do. We’re doing Tiffany and that’s that.

Besides, I think you and your mother have got some talking to do, haven’t you?”

“I am not his mother,” shouted Bee, “I am
not
his fucking mother.”

“Hey,” said the man, suddenly stopping in his tracks and giving Bee a strange look. “Aren’t you Bee Bearhorn?”

“Who’s Bee Bearhorn?” said Zander.

Bee’s jaw dropped. This was getting worse and worse.

Worse than she could ever possibly have imagined. She stared at the man in horror. “No,” snapped Bee, “I am not Bee Bearhorn. And I am not this little monster’s mother either.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to get some fresh air.”

“Who’s Bee Bearhorn?” said Zander again.

Bee stormed past Zander and the man and stomped out into the corridor.

“I said, ‘Who’s Bee Bearhorn?’ ” Zander’s voice followed her down the corridor.

“You are, aren’t you?” said the man, hotfooting it after her,

“you
are
Bee Bearhorn?”

“Please—leave me alone.”

“I was a fan. Please—stop. . . .”

Bee ignored him and kept on striding.

She needed a cigarette. Now.

Her cigarettes were in her bag. In Dr. Chan’s office.

Fuck.

“D’you smoke?” she said, spinning around on her heel to face him.

“Er—yeah.”

“Can I have one?”

“Yeah,” he said, “sure.” He began feeling his shirt pockets.

“You can’t smoke in here though. You’ll have to go outside.

There’s a balcony just through here.” He steered her down another corridor.

On the balcony he passed her a cigarette and watched her closely while he lit it for her. Her hands were shaking as she took the cigarette from her lips to exhale.

“Fuck,” she exclaimed, leaning against the railings of the balcony and staring out into the distance. “Fuck. That was a nightmare. What a cunt that kid is.”

“That’s a bit harsh, isn’t it? He’s only a child.”

“No he’s not. He’s a demon. He’s Rosemary’s fucking baby.”

“And who are you, then—Rosemary?”

“No I am not. I am not that little fucker’s mother, all right?” The man put his hands up in surrender. “Sorry. Right. Not another word. But you are Bee Bearhorn, right? I’d recognize you anywhere. I was a great fan, really. I even bought your third single.”

Bee exhaled and turned to smile at him. “Ah,” she said, “so it was
you,
was it?”

He grinned and shrugged. “What can I say? I was a huge fan.

I wanted to single-handedly revive your career.”

“What a mug,” she said, grinning at him.

“Yeah,” he said, “I guess. I’m Ed, by the way. Ed Tewkesbury.”

“Hi, Ed.” She turned and shook his hand. He had small, cool hands.

“Hi, Bee. Wow,” he grinned, “I’m a bit starstruck. This is amazing, I mean . . .”

“Look. Ed. All that stuff in there just now”—she indicated the general direction of Zander’s room—“you won’t, you know? . . . I mean, that was all really personal stuff and I don’t want—”

Ed put a finger to his lips. “It will go no farther than this balcony. I swear.”

“Really?”

“Uh-huh. Do you honestly think that I would drop Bee Bearhorn in it? No way. Nuh-huh. My lips are superglued.” He sealed them with his fingers. “And just to prove it,” he said, reaching into his pockets and fishing out a small card which he passed to her, “here’s my number. And my address.

And if you ever see any evidence anywhere that I’ve spilled a word of this to anyone, you have my express permission to come and chop out some of my vital organs. OK?” She took it from him and smiled again. “OK. And I would, you know? I’d enjoy it, too.”

“Oh, no doubt . . . no doubt. Look. I’d better get back in there. I’m here for only a day and my team’s waiting for me.

Good luck, Bee Bearhorn. With everything. It’s been an absolute honor meeting you.”

“Likewise. And thank you, for, you know . . .” She sealed her lips with her fingers.

“And look—if you’re ever in London and want to be taken out for a really good meal, you know, no strings, just grub—

you’ve got my number. Yeah?”

“Yeah,” she said as he turned to leave, and she listened to his squeaky footsteps on the vinyl-floored corridor until the sound disappeared.

She turned back to the railings and stared across the landscaped grounds and out toward the countryside for a while. Ashford’s town center was a small clump of gray and brown buildings in the farthest distance. She watched a Eurostar train speeding toward the station while she smoked her cigarette deeply and slowly, savoring every moment of not having to go back to Zander’s room. Yes, she’d been warned in advance. Yes, she’d been told he was difficult, precocious, and angry. But still she hadn’t been prepared for that. She’d fantasized about this moment for so long that it had become almost romantic. She’d been expecting to get inside his angry shell, to break down his defenses. She’d been expecting tenderness, deep emotion, tears maybe. She’d been expecting tenderness, deep emotion, tears maybe. She’d been expecting one of the most moving, monumental days of her life. She most certainly had not been expecting to feel this—

this annoyance and plain old-fashioned
dislike.

She wasn’t going to give up, though—no way. She was going to see this through to its conclusion—whatever that might be. She stubbed out her cigarette on the metal railing and straightened herself up. She was going to deal with this little boy. She wasn’t going to let him—excuse the expression—walk all over her. Although it often didn’t feel like it, she was an adult. And Zander was a child. She could do this.

She walked back to his room, took a deep, deep breath, and opened the door.

twenty-four

Zander was sitting at his computer, and spun around in his chair when he heard the door open. He grinned at her. He looked quite sweet when he smiled.

“This is getting better and better,” he said happily.

“What on earth was all that about?” she asked angrily.

“How dare you go around telling people I’m your mother?”

“Well,” said Zander, “how dare you go around telling people you’re my aunt?”

“I am. . . .”

“No you’re not. And I’ve got the evidence to back it up now, thanks to our smarmy TV-producer friend.”

“What do you mean?” Bee perched on the arm of a chair.

“Recognize this?” He turned back to his computer and hit a button.

Nothing happened for a while, and then some music started playing. Zander shut his eyes and swayed his head as the intro began. Bee recognized it immediately. Of course. It was her song. It was “Groovin’ for London.” It was Groovin’

for fucking London.

“Where the fuck . . . ?”

“Aah,” said Zander, “the wonders of modern technology.” He turned and fiddled with his mouse for a while.

“Recognize this, too?”

It was “Space Girl,” her shockingly bad second single.

“But where . . . ?”

“WAV files. I just downloaded them from the Net.” Bee looked at him blankly. She knew absolutely nothing about computers.

“Techno-bimbo?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“You? Are you a techno-bimbo? I.e., is your experience of digital communication limited to thumbing through the Yellow Pages for dress shops?”

She looked at him blankly again.

“Look,” he said, moving slightly so that she could share his view of the monitor. “I ran a search for Bee Bearhorn and it brought up all these results.”

“And what are all these?”

“They’re Web sites.” Zander clicked on his mouse twice, and the screen changed. Slowly, line by line, a picture emerged. It was Bee. A publicity picture taken at the height of the campaign for “Groovin’.” Some graphics popped up underneath, THE UNOFFICIAL BEE BEARHORN SITE in huge sparkly disco letters.

“Hmmm,” said Zander, rubbing at his chin and turning from the screen to Bee and back again. “Looks a lot like you, wouldn’t you say? Except obviously, you look a lot
older
than her.”

Bee slanted her eyes at him—he really did know exactly how to get to her.

“Yes, in the time it took you to smoke a fag . . .”

“How . . . ?”

“I can smell it on your breath—you stink, d’you know that?

Like a dirty old ashtray. Anyway—in the time it took you to smoke a fag and take another minute off your already curtailed life expectancy, I have managed to discover everything there is to know about Bee Bearhorn.” He started scrolling down the screen. “Yes—let me see. Born in 1964, in Devon. Only daughter of Gay and Gregor Bearhorn. You moved to London in 1979 when you were fifteen years old and soon found yourself absorbed into London’s burgeoning club scene. I believe you were something of a ‘wild child.’

You founded a few bands from the years 1979 to 1984, mainly New Wave, New Romantic, and punk bands, all of which disappeared without a trace. But you were disgustingly ambitious and never gave up. In 1985 you sent a demo tape of one of these bands, The Clocks—great name by the way—

love it”—he winked at her and she gave him the finger—“to Dave Donkin at Electrogram Records. He liked you but not the other greaseballs in the band, so you abandoned them and were signed up as a solo artist. What a sweetheart you are.

This was about the time that you adopted your trademark black bob.” He threw a disparaging look. “What happened to that, then?” he asked, pointing at her hair.

“It looked fucking stupid, so I got rid of it.”

“Hmmm. So. Your first single, ‘Groovin’ for London,’ was released in October 1985 and spent five weeks at number one, before being toppled by ‘The Power of Love’ by Jennifer Rush. The single sold in excess of 750,000 copies. Realizing that there was more money to be made in the songwriting side of things than the prancing-about-wearing-stupid-clothes-and-miming-on-
Top-of-the-Pops
side of things, you rejected your label’s suggested song for your second single and insisted on using one you’d written yourself. It was called ‘Space Girl.’ It made number thirteen in the charts in March 1986 and sold around 150,000 copies. Your third, also a self-penned single, ‘Honey Bee,’ was released in July 1986, got to number forty-eight, and sold 24,000. Electrogram Records promptly dropped you, and your pop career came to a grinding halt.

“Still. It wasn’t all dull, dull, dull after that, was it? Your father, the revered theater director Gregor Bearhorn, developed full-blown AIDS shortly after the disastrous flop that was ‘Honey Bee’ and you devoted yourself full-time to caring for him in his dying days. Gregor finally passed away in late 1988 and you inherited shedloads of money. You eschewed all the traditional routes that ex-pop stars take—

no pantomime for you, no marrying a rich record producer or presenting on VH1. You just . . . disappeared. Completely disappeared. Probably to spend all your dad’s money. On cocaine or something, probably. Or—if I’m to believe the ridiculous story you told the staff here to get a crack at me, to become a schoolteacher and decide that you were related to my dead mother.”

Bee sighed. OK. Plan A had gone distinctly pear-shaped.

And she didn’t have a Plan B. “Who writes this shit anyway?” she said, gesturing dismissively at the screen.

“This particular piece of shit was written by . . .”—he scrolled down to the very bottom of the screen—“some sad loser called Stuart Crosby. He’s a ‘big fan’ ”—he made the quotes with his fingers—“of yours, apparently. How sad is that? To be a ‘big fan’ of some has-been, one-hit-wonder old tart who no one’s heard of for more than a decade. Huh . . .

People . . .”

Bee thought about slapping him round the face.
Really
hard. So that it left a big handprint. So that he’d start crying.

Just like a big baby. God, she’d love to.

“Anyway. I have a new theory about you now. You’re not my aunt. And you’re not my mother. And, to be quite frank, I really don’t give a toss who you are. My theory is that you’re just rich and lonely and feeling guilty about contributing nothing to this life except a couple of mediocre—and I’m being kind when I say that—mediocre songs. You’re just a shallow London ex-celebrity with a big gaping hole in your life. And you want to do good. I also believe that it’s you who’s been sending me those big, anonymous money orders every Christmas. Thanks for those, by the way—they’ve been very useful.” He gestured at his PC and his TV and his PlayStation. “Those are my theories, Miss Bee Bearhorn, and I don’t care whether I’m right or wrong, they’re the ones I’m working with.”

Bee opened her mouth to argue with him but then shut it again when she realized that his theory was perfect. Just perfect. She let her shoulders slump forward in a gesture of acquiescence. She shrugged, sniffed. “Well,” she said, “I haven’t really done much in my life to be proud of.” He smiled at her triumphantly. “You know,” he said, “I think this might work. I
like
the idea of being your little project. I like that you used to be famous. I like that you haven’t got any kids of your own. I like that you’re stinking rich. I like the fact that you’re guilty about your pointless existence and that you want to use me to assuage that guilt.

It’s all great stuff. It all puts me in a very comfortable and fortunate position. And I actually quite like you. . . .” Bee was gratified to note that the cocky little shit had the decency to blush. She was also surprised to feel a flush of pleasure in her own stomach.

“So,” he continued, “I’ll play along with this ‘aunt’ thing.

And you’ll play along with me. OK?”

Bee’s eyes turned to slits as she looked at him. “What?” she said suspiciously, “what do you want from me?”

“I want you to take me away from here.”