What She Wants (26 page)

Matt sighed deeply. He didn’t need this hassle, really he didn’t. He’d hard a hard day working on the damn book and no matter what he did with it, his main character remained resolutely wooden. ‘I’m sorry, Hope,’ he said, trying to be accommodating. ‘I’m not trying to be selfish. I go off every day to work and it’s a big stress trying to get the novel off the ground. It’s not easy you know.’ Hope glared at him. He was unbelievable. Selfish wasn’t the word. ‘It’s not easy for you?’ she hissed. ‘How easy is it for me? I love the children to bits but it’s tough to be buried at home with them all day without any friends.’ ‘I know…’ he interrupted. ‘No you don’t,’ she said. ‘If you did, you’d make a bit of an effort. Why can’t you work from home a couple of days a week and give me a chance to get part time work?’ ‘Doing what?’ he demanded. ‘What are you going to do? Work in a shop? Get a job in the pub?’ ‘I don’t know,’ Hope retorted. ‘It’s not what the job is that’s important, it’s the fact that I’ve got one. I’ve worked all my life and it was hard to give it up for you. And I did give it up for you,’ she reminded him. ‘I just want a bit of independence again. There’s at least another month before the day nursery can take the children, I don’t know if I can cope with another month buried away all day feeling lonely while you write the great novel.’ Thinking of how badly the great novel was going, Matt scowled at her. ‘I feel very isolated right now,’ Hope added. ‘Our social life round here is limited apart from dinner at Finula’s.’ She grimaced. ‘We need to meet more people and make friends. Me working would be part of that.’ ‘How am I supposed to work if I’m watching the kids?’ Matt demanded. Hope gave up. They ate their food and listened to the music in silence for the next hour. Hope brooded on her need to spend time with other adults, time when she was

someone other than a wife and mother. Matt didn’t understand this. He seemed to think it was a betrayal of him and the children if Hope wanted anything else. He didn’t realize that Hope’s job had given her confidence. Neither had she, to be honest. Until it was gone. Without the job, she felt her confidence slipping away until she was afraid she’d become a reclusive creature who viewed meeting people with fear. She couldn’t let that happen. Matt stared gloomily at the Nashville Girls and brooded on the novel. Did all great writers have this problem, this not-able-to-write-a-word problem? ‘Hello Hope. Nice to see you.’ They both looked up from their brooding to see Mary-Kate and her two companions: the elegant silver-haired lady and the voluptuous redhead. ‘We’re going home before our eardrums give in,’ Mary-Kate said pleasantly. ‘I thought I’d introduce you to Delphine and Virginia.’ Introductions were exchanged and Matt roused himself from his gloom to be charming. ‘You must come out with us some night, Hope,’ Delphine said. ‘We’re thinking of having a girls’ night soon.’ Hope felt her eyes stinging as she nodded gratefully at the three women. ‘I’d like that,’ she said. ‘And you said you never meet anyone,’ remarked Matt when they’d gone, waving goodbye and promising to phone Hope. ‘She seemed lovely,’ said Virginia as she, Mary-Kate and Delphine said their goodbyes outside the pub. ‘But nervy, I think. You’re right, Mary-Kate, she looks lonely.’ Delphine grinned. ‘We’ll soon sort that out.’

CHAPTER EIGHT

Sam sat in the first marketing meeting of the new year and listened intently to the latest single from Hot Banana, a sexy all-girl band from Birmingham, Alabama. There were nine people around the long matt wood table, all with pages of densely typed marketing reports, A4 pads and biros in front of them and coffee in plastic cups - the office mugs were always being stolen, so disposable cups were the only option. ‘Boy, don’t do it to me, yet,’ cooed the Hot Banana lead singer in a breathy voice to a background of pizzicato strings intercepted with a pulsating drum beat. On the enormous flat screen TV mounted on the wall, Hot Banana danced with a troupe of black male dancers, five tiny tanned blondes writhing with the muscle-packed dancers, clinging to the dancers in a way that was just on the right side of decency. The lead singer, the girl with the longest blonde extensions and the shortest mini skirt, pouted with her inflatable pool lilo lips and breathed the last few words to the camera. She was nineteen, looked about seventeen and had jail bait written all over her. ‘Good video,’ said Sam, swinging her matt grey leather chair away from the screen and back to the table and her plastic cup of fizzing painkillers. She had a murderous pain in her belly, something between the pain of an agonizing period and another, unidentifiable ache. She picked up the cup and stirred the contents with her pen, watching the last bits of tablets dissolve. ‘What’s the story for Top Of The Pops? They’re not bringing all those dancers with them, are they? The hotel bills would be horrendous.’

‘No,’ said Karen Storin, Sam’s publicity director friend, who was masterminding the publicity and the arrangements for the tour. ‘Their manager has them working with the choreographer who did last year’s MTV awards and they’ve got an amazing routine together. They’re very focussed girls, Sam. They want to crack Europe so badly, you wouldn’t believe it.’ She consulted her papers. ‘The album is at number seven in the US album charts. If only we can get them some airplay on MTV, I think we’ve got a real chance of breaking them here.’ ‘Great,’ said Sam, draining her painkillers with distaste. ‘What are we going to do with them, then?’ For the next fifteen minutes, all nine people around the table discussed Hot Banana and the company’s plans for launching their first album in the UK in April, just over three months’ time. A round of media interviews was planned, Karen had managed to get them on the cover of Smash Hits, they were appearing on four TV shows and on a kids’ Saturday morning programme ‘in longer skirts,’ added Karen, mindful of shocking parents with scantily-dressed singers appearing in front of their impressionable ten-year-olds. Promo Tshirts had been printed, along with expensive keyrings for when the first single would be sent out to radio stations. There would also be a month of personal appearances and gigs in shopping centres around the country, along with five gigs supporting a boy band, El Mega, who were currently number two in the singles charts but belonged to another label. A Titus tour manager, along with publicity and marketing personnel were assigned to look after the Hot Banana girls. ‘Just make sure you keep them away from the actual Megas,’ Karen advised the tour manager. ‘The word on the street is that two of the boys from the band are experimenting with heavy drugs.’ Everyone winced. There was nothing worse than seeing a band you’d worked your fingers to the bone for turn to

the bad parts of the rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle. Bands like El Mega appealed to a very young female audience and their image had to be cleaner than clean. One hint of heroin addiction and the whole band would collapse like a house of cards. ‘It drives me mad,’ said Cheryl fiercely. One of the publicity assistants, Cheryl had become devoted to a Titus signing called the LLBoys, who were launched at the same time as El Mega and who’d failed where the Megas had succeeded. ‘You wouldn’t mind if they had any talent in the first place. They’re just singing stuff someone else has written and trying to pretend to the fans that they wrote it themselves!’ Everyone laughed at this. ‘Cheryl, if the only people with songs in the charts had actually written them themselves, there wouldn’t be a Music Week Top Hundred, it would be Music Week’s Top Three!’ joked another of the publicity team. Cheryl went pink. ‘Right, let’s move onto Enchanting,’ said Sam, who had a budget meeting at five and who wanted to cover everything important in this meeting before she had to go. Enchanting were another new act, one which had been signed by Sam’s predecessor but who hadn’t yet released an album. Two pretty London sisters who sang almost identical soprano, Steffi and Katya Ceci were just seventeen and their version of ‘Jerusalem’ would bring tears to anyone’s eyes. Desperate to find their own Charlotte Church, the wunderkind Welsh girl with the angelic voice who’d sold millions of CDs, LGBK had signed the Cecis for a huge sum of money the previous year but, as Sam found out as soon as she took over, the two girls were totally unsuited to a life of fame. Shy to the point of neurosis, both sisters were reduced to silence by interviewers and Karen had discovered that their mother - the original nightmare stage mother - gave them beta blockers before they went onstage to calm their nerves. Karen was also convinced that Steffi was anorexic and firmly believed neither girl would be able to cope with journalists

breathing down their necks and writing articles about them being too fat, too thin, too dull or too wild. Becoming a hit act meant your private life became fair game and Sam wasn’t sure if her newest protegees could cope with it. They’d spent six months on and off recording their album and now that it was to be released, the girls were practically having breakdowns at the thought of doing publicity, while their mother was apparently spending all their advance money in the Versace shop buying herself a selection of highly provocative dresses for a launch party that hadn’t even been finalized yet. ‘Mrs Ceci was on the phone this morning because she knew we were having a marketing meeting,’ Karen said wearily. ‘How did she know about it?’ demanded Sam. ‘I don’t know. She’s like the FBI, that woman - she knows everything. I can’t cope with her,’ Karen said with a shudder. ‘She wanted to come in for the meeting.’ Sam raised her eyebrows. ‘She did?’ Nobody but staff ever went to marketing meetings. Artists and their managers sometimes came in to marketing presentations for campaigns but that was generally only the really big stars. ‘She’s been phoning me all week saying she wants to be involved because she doesn’t want us “screwing up her little girls’ big chance” - and that’s a direct quote,’ Karen said. ‘Perhaps I should talk to her and explain how we do things,’ Sam said grimly. The people round the table grinned at the thought of Sam Smith taking the obnoxious Mrs Ceci down a peg or two. Mrs Ceci thought she was a match for anyone - wait ‘till she met Sam. They eventually had to leave the troublesome Cecis and moved onto a handsome Latin American singer who’d sold millions of records so far and showed no sign of letting up. ‘Thank God for Manolo,’ Sam said, looking at the sales figures for his last two albums. Reliable, clever, utterly committed and entirely professional, Manolo was no trouble at

all. And his ever-growing sales would make up for some of the chunk of money they’d spent buying up the so-far useless Cecis. Sam looked at the album cover where Manolo smouldered inside a white shirt, his bronzed skin a startling contrast. For a moment, her mind rippled back to another man in a sexy white shirt, a man who had come to bed eyes and who could certainly give Manolo a run for his money charisma-wise. ‘What a pro,’ said Karen fondly after she’d reeled off the lengthy list of engagements Manolo had obligingly agreed to do. ‘He’s doing three entire days of press and TV interviews at the Dorchester and I know he won’t complain once.’ ‘Great,’ Sam said mechanically, trying to put the man next door out of her mind. She hadn’t set eyes on him since the morning after the party, although the builders were working at full speed on his house, banging and hammering all day. Despite peering out her window occasionally, hidden behind the curtains of course, Sam hadn’t noticed Him going in or out at all. ‘Speaking of complaints,’ interrupted one of the product managers, ‘we’ve got a problem with Density.’ Sam felt her insides grind painfully. Maybe it was just stress: mention Density and something went pop. ‘What is it this time?’ she said. Karen interrupted smoothly. ‘We’ll talk about it afterwards, Sam, if that’s OK with you,’ she said, shooting a fierce look at the product manager. Sam nodded. More trouble ahead. Things had to be bad if Karen wanted to discuss it in private. For another hour they ploughed through the list, discussing rock bands, a soul singer and a group of folk-singing grandmothers who’d been a huge hit on a talent show and who’d just been signed. Sam fidgeted in her seat, trying to get comfortable but unable to. Her belly ached and no matter which way she sat, it didn’t help. Neither had the painkillers. She had more in her desk drawer, she remembered with

relief, although if she felt this bad when her period was due, how awful would she feel when she got it? Finally, the meeting was over. ‘Thanks everyone,’ Sam said, trying to sound upbeat and positive but unable to. She felt so ill. ‘Are you OK? You look a little tired,’ Karen said as everyone hurried out of the room. ‘Late night,’ lied Sam, grinning. ‘Lucky you,’ laughed Karen. ‘I was in bed at ten watching Ally McBeal.’ You and me both, Sam thought silently. Back in her office, she peered into her make-up compact mirror and winced. She didn’t look tired: she looked grey in the face, grey with a film of sweat sheening on her forehead. She quickly slapped on another layer of Clinique base and brushed on cheekbones. Mascara and a slash of rich lipstick made her look slightly more presentable. As a finale, she popped another couple of painkillers in water, doing her best not to read the instructions about how many you were medically allowed to consume in a twenty-four hour period. Enchanting loomed large and scary at the budget meeting with Steve and two guys from finance. Their album had cost a fortune to record and the video had been nearly as expensive having over-run by two days because the director had had to coax the two reluctant stars into smiling occasionally. As a marketing director, Sam had often faced the hard facts about artists not recouping money for the record company, but in her new job, she faced these facts from an entirely different perspective. Now that she was the managing director of the label, the buck stopped at her desk. The label had spent an arm and a leg on Enchanting and they still hadn’t made so much as three pence profit from them. Steve wanted to know why the album’s release date had been put back. ‘We’re giving out the wrong signal to the trade by doing that,’ he growled, lighting another nuclear cigar. Sam was feeling too ill to bullshit him. ‘Yeah, I know,’

she said. ‘But we should never have signed them in the first place. You know that, Steve.’ She eyeballed him. ‘My people and I are taking the flak for someone we didn’t sign, so don’t give me a hard time about putting the album back. If we work on the theory that selling 30,000 albums will be a miracle, at least we’re being honest about it. I’ve been doing some figures and if we’re lucky, we’ll recoup half the costs. That would be doing brilliantly given the problems we’re discovering with the girls.’ Steve stopped in the middle of lighting his cigar to stare at her, astonished by such candour. ‘Don’t sit on the fence about this one, Sam,’ he joked. ‘Tell us what you really think.’ Sam fixed him with her fierce blue gaze. ‘Steve, we have one possibly anorexic and two definitely stressed-out kids on our hands. They’ve got the most pushy mother my team have ever encountered and when anybody they don’t know enters the recording studio, they refuse to sing. They may have wonderful voices but they are not performers, it’s that simple. Their mother wants this far more than they do. If she could sing, she’d have made millions by now because she apparently had the brass neck for anything. Her daughters don’t. Breaking Enchanting as a successful act is going to be damn near impossible. If it works, fantastic, but at this point, our only option is releasing the album and letting it off on its own without sending the girls out with it. If you want an MD who lies through their teeth to you, then you better rehire. Capisce?’ The two other people in the room blinked. Steve let out a giant roar and started laughing so hard his belly rocked the table. ‘You’re something else, Smith, you know that? We lucked out the day we found you, that’s for sure.’ Relieved that Steve hadn’t blown a gasket, the two accounts guys laughed. Even Sam found the energy to raise a smile. They discussed the redundancies and Sam was grateful that Steve didn’t question the people she’d chosen to lose.