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  Because suddenly, now that the opportunity was here, standing in front of me in the form of a hugely tall diva with an upset stomach, I was petrified. Singing at children’s parties was one thing—it was easy to shine when you could hide behind a flouncy polyester princess dress and nobody was that interested in you anyway. But doing it here, in front of this hand-picked super-important audience? The very thought of that made me feel like I could be following Vogue into puke-town any minute now.

  ‘You know the songs,’ she said, continuing to beat all my spluttering objections down.

  ‘But—’ I said, before she cut me off with an imperious wave of her hand.

  ‘And you know the dance steps. Jack can sell this, Jess—you know what he’s like. He’ll persuade everyone out there that they’re lucky to be seeing you and not me. He’ll convince them that they’ve chosen this time to reveal Starmaker’s latest talent—and then, when you pull it off, that will become true. Everything you’ve ever dreamed of will come true.’

  I gazed up at her, wondering if she had any idea about what I dreamed of—she’d been famous since she was seventeen, practically a child herself.

  ‘You’ll be able to look after your family,’ she added. ‘Sort out all their financial problems. Look after the people who’ve looked after you. And you’ll be able to sing and record and tour, and get your voice heard by all those people who rejected you in the past—you’ll show them what they’ve missed out on, what you’re really made of. And those people who believed in you, who encouraged you? You’ll be proving them right. It’ll be making their dreams come true as well.’

  Uhh, I thought. Okay. So she did understand what I’d dreamed of—and she was offering me a chance to make it all happen.

  I stayed silent, turning it all over in my mind, my trembling hands absentmindedly tidying up the make-up scattered across the counter just to give themselves something to do.

  Before I could answer her, the door to the dressing room burst open, and Neale almost fell through it—just about recovering his balance enough to stay upright. He was followed by Jack, who was frowning at Vogue in concern, and—horrendously—by Patty, who strutted into the room like a demented peacock.

  Jack glanced at me briefly before striding over to Vogue and taking her in his arms. I was close enough to hear the quiet sigh that escaped from her lips as she collapsed into his embrace, and see the way her clammy hands clutched at his expensive suit.

  ‘It’s okay, darling,’ he murmured, stroking the back of her head and making soothing sounds. It looked like Vogue and Jack were closer than I’d thought. Even though I knew he’d mentored her in the early days, I’d never seen them together much at the office. I had to assume that those early days had left them with a bond of friendship that had lasted for all these years.

  Vogue pulled away from him, and looked into his eyes. I could hear Patty tapping her talons impatiently against the clipboard she was carrying as she watched.

  ‘I can’t go on, Jack,’ she said, simply. ‘The details are too disgusting to reveal, but I can’t. I don’t want to let you down, but there are limits. I have an idea, though. A good one.’

  ‘Okay, sweetheart, I’m all ears,’ he replied, running his hands through his hair until he left furrows. He was worried—I could see it in his frown, in his body language, in the tone of his voice. I’d never seen him worried before—and I knew that there was something I could do to help him. If I could pull this off, if I could turn this disaster into a victory for Starmaker and for him, it would change the balance of everything. It would make me feel less like the poor relation, and more like the star he said he’d spotted all that time ago in a soggy summer garden in the Cheshire countryside. It could be a way to repay him for all the belief he’d had in me, just like Vogue had said.

  ‘Put Jess on instead,’ she said, simply, as though it made all the sense in the world. I saw Jack’s eyes flicker over me in my waitressing costume, and felt his hesitation as he formulated a response—probably he was trying to find a polite way to say no, a way to nix the idea without hurting my feelings.

  ‘No, listen,’ said Vogue, sensing the same reaction. ‘She’s been working on my songs—she knows them all, including the new single we were going to do tonight. She knows the routines. She’s got talent, Jack, you know that—or you wouldn’t have brought her here, would you? I trust your instincts, and I’ve seen what she can do. Go and sell her as your next big star—she can do it.’

  I felt my eyes mist over as Vogue’s impassioned speech drew to an end—impossibly touched by how much faith she had in me. It was a real Hallmark moment, right up until the second that Vogue clutched her stomach and ran to the toilets, yelling: ‘Just do it! I’m about to shit myself!’

  We all stayed silent as we heard the door slam behind her, and then the horrendously large groan as our diva positioned her famous derriere onto the loo. The rest of the sounds were pretty evil, so we all started talking at once to try to drown them out.

  ‘Can you do this?’ said Jack, looking at me with something akin to wonder.

  ‘She can’t do this,’ said Patty, looking at me with something akin to hatred.

  ‘She can look fabulous while she does this,’ said Neale, already rooting in his make-up kit, and cuing up R. Kelly on his iPhone.

  ‘I can do this,’ I said, looking around at everyone, with as much determination in my gaze as I could pull together.

  Chapter 13

  Now, though, as everyone around me burst into a bubble of hyperactivity, I was starting to doubt myself. To think that I couldn’t do it, after all. To bottle it, as my dad might have said.

  Neale had leapt into super-stylist mode the moment Jack had agreed to let me go on.

  ‘Have you got your kit with you?’ he’d asked him, and Neale had immediately nodded like the Churchill dog, even replying with an ‘Oh, yes!’

  ‘I always have it with me,’ he’d said proudly, ‘in case there’s a cosmetics emergency.’

  Apparently, I counted as a cosmetics emergency, and Neale was currently scraping off the green goo and standing back to survey my face the same way a builder might before he demolished something.

  ‘You’ll need to sell her up, Jack,’ said Patty, staring at me with more interest than I’d ever seen from her before. I wasn’t sure I liked it—it felt a bit like her eyes might actually laser holes into my skin, and leave me smouldering and sore.

  ‘The advantage is she’s been useless so far, so nobody will know anything about her. Big up the Liverpool thing, people like the common touch. Emphasise the way you plucked her from the shithole she was living in to make her a star.’

  ‘I did not live in a shithole,’ I snapped, pushing Neale’s hand away to object.

  ‘You shut up,’ said Patty, ‘and concentrate on looking good and remembering the words. This part of the business has nothing to do with you.’

  Funny how she’d suddenly started to understand every word I said—and even funnier how she’d suddenly decided that ‘the Liverpool thing’ could be an advantage, instead of the kiss of death she’d always regarded it as before.

  Still, I did as she said, and shut up—I didn’t have much choice, as Neale was back at my teeth, checking the whitening strips.

  ‘I get it,’ said Jack, nodding at Patty. ‘I’ll sell the story—a star is born, yeah?’

  Patty twisted her face up as though she’d just accidentally eaten a dog turd, and reluctantly agreed.

  ‘It’s the only way, I think,’ she replied. ‘We need to distract them from the fact that our real star is inconvenienced, and make them think this is a better alternative. I’ll go back out and talk to a few of the journos, get the buzz started. By the time she’s on stage, they’ll be excited about it, not disappointed. At least until she opens her mouth.’

  She cast me a final scathing glare, and added: ‘You need to sort out costume. The dancing waitress look just won’t cut it, even if it is her natural calling in life.’
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  Neale looked up as she said it, doing his Churchill-dog impression again. Boy, was he keen to please.

  ‘I’ll sort it,’ he said, sounding thrilled at the opportunity. ‘I’ll create something … magnificent!’

  I cringed a little inside—partly at his words, and the sense of terror at what Neale’s idea of ‘magnificent’ might involve, and partly because he was currently yanking my hair around at all angles while he heaped on dry-shampoo powder to ‘volumise’ it.

  He rubbed it all in vigorously, and I looked at myself in horror as I saw my blonde hair was now lifted a good three inches from its roots, sticking out as if I’d been electrocuted.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ he said, patting my hand reassuringly, ‘I’ll finish that when I’m back.’

  With that, he followed Patty out of the room, his Converse squeaking on the lino in the hallway, presumably to go and find me a costume from thin air.

  That left me—channelling Medusa—and Jack. Plus, every now and then, a very vocal reminder that Vogue was still locked in the toilets, earning her PhD in pooing. Poor thing.

  Jack walked over and crouched down in front of me. He smiled and, as usual, I felt better—his smile was like the equivalent of heroin for me, I was starting to realise. He reached out and cupped my face—now thankfully back to its usual colour—and kissed me once, very gently.

  His brown eyes met mine, and I felt a tremble run through my body. I was so completely, utterly scared—at exactly the time I needed to be confident.

  ‘Now then, Princess,’ he said, holding on to my shaking hands and squeezing them softly. ‘This is it. This is your moment. This is your chance to show everyone what you’ve got. This is what you came here for, isn’t it?’

  I nodded, still incapable of speech, and feeling embarrassing tears welling up in my eyes.

  ‘You can do this,’ he said, firmly. ‘I know you can. Vogue is right to trust my instincts. I spotted her at a youth dance festival in Peckham, and I spotted you at a garden party in Cheshire. I don’t back losers, Jess. I back winners. And you’re a winner. Let me hear you say it.’

  I gazed at him, wishing we could just go back to his flat and eat pizza. Or go to the pub. Or have a bare-knuckle fist-fight with Godzilla—anything but this. God, I told myself, you’re not a winner—you’re a whiner.

  I squeezed his hands back, took a big breath, and muttered: ‘I’m a winner,’ with as much convictions as I could find. Which, in all honesty, wasn’t very much.

  Jack nodded, and stood up to leave.

  ‘I’m going out there now to tell everyone about you, Jess—and I believe every word of it. You were born to do this—so just believe in yourself as much as I believe in you, okay?’

  My lower lip was wobbling, my heart was racing, and I kind of had the feeling I might just cling on to his trouser leg and hope he didn’t notice me dragging along on the floor behind him when he left.

  Luckily for any shred of self-esteem I had left, Neale chose that moment to come barrelling back into the room, clutching a pile of random cloth and what looked like two of the spray-painted-lily table decorations perched on top. I could barely see his glasses peeking over the heap, and he dumped the lot at my feet, grinning insanely.

  Jack gave us both a mock-military salute, and left us to it. I stared at his back as he went, wondering how I was going to get through this.

  ‘Right,’ said Neale, oblivious to my mood, rummaging around in his kit and coming up with a pair of vicious looking shears, ‘here we go!’

  I recoiled in horror, genuinely convinced for a moment that he was going to start hacking away at my hair, or trimming my nose or something.

  ‘No, silly!’ he said, laughing at my expression. ‘This is for the costume! Now, take all your clothes off and let’s get a look at you …’

  I stared at him, wondering if he’d lost his mind. There was no way I was going to strip in front of a deranged make-up artist wielding a pair of scissors. Or any other man I didn’t know who wasn’t a qualified medical professional.

  ‘Believe me, girlfriend,’ he said, ‘you ain’t got nothing I’m interested in.’

  He delivered it in such an overdone ‘strong independent Beyoncé’ kind of way that it made me laugh. That alone came as a relief—to be able to breathe again, never mind laugh. I stood up and removed my skirt and blouse as instructed, feeling ridiculously exposed, even if Neale’s gaze was purely professional and not in the slightest bit sexual.

  He inspected my black panties and bra—matching, and lacy, thank you very much, just in case it had turned into a date night with Jack—and my pattern-topped stockings and suspenders. Never had I been happier not to be wearing those washed-out greying knick-knacks that had been through the washer a million times.

  ‘Okay … could be worse. Now, let’s make the magic happen!’ he said, disappearing head first into the pile at his feet and emerging with a red velvet curtain, which he’d clearly filched from one of the booths outside.

  Somebody would be missing their privacy tonight—probably me, I thought, catching a glimpse of myself almost naked in the mirror. At least avoiding those carbs had paid off—I was definitely a sleeker version of my former self, and all the dance rehearsals meant I was a lot more toned as well.

  That, of course, ruled out using any of Vogue’s costume—as she was a foot taller, had curves in all the right places, and then some more on top. I was also relieved that Neale seemed to have ruled out using her discarded wig, as it was still dangling from the ceiling, and had vomit crusted into one side of it. Not a good look for anyone.

  ‘So,’ he said, as he draped the velvet over me, looked at it, nodded, hummed, and then nodded again, ‘what’s your name?’

  ‘You know my name … don’t you?’ I said, frowning in confusion. At least I’d thought he knew my name—I could have sworn he’d used it several times, but maybe I just had delusions of grandeur. I mean, nobody else at Starmaker had bothered to learn it; why should Neale be any different?

  ‘I mean,’ he replied, giving me a look that told me how retarded I was being, ‘what are you going to be called on stage? I don’t suppose Vogue’s her real name, is it?’

  He gestured towards the toilets with his shoulder, then bellowed out: ‘Vogue, love! What’s your real name?’

  ‘Paulette!’ she yelled back, the last bit drowned out by the sound of the loo flushing. Hopefully, she’d peaked.

  ‘See?’ said Neale, closing one eye and peering through a needle as he threaded it. ‘You need a name. Usually, there are meetings about it—you know, head of marketing, head of brand, head of blah-di-blah, all having these top-level debates about being bang on-trend and capturing the key demographics. You’re not getting that, sweetheart, so you need to come up with one on your own.’

  I ouched as the needle accidentally poked into the flesh of my side, and Neale gave me a little ‘oops!’ apology before he carried on tacking away.

  A name … God, I’d never even thought about it before. I felt like a superhero who needed a new secret identity, fast.

  ‘Well,’ I said, breathing in hard as he tugged the red fabric so tight around my waist I thought my boobs might pop out of my mouth, ‘I was always Jess at school. And Jessy to my family.’

  ‘Maybe you could use Jessy, but just add your initial after it?’ he suggested, standing back to survey his handiwork.

  ‘Erm … I think that’s already been done,’ I answered, trying not to cringe as he knelt down in front of me, chopping away at the velvet until he made a skirt so short it revealed the lacy black stocking tops. ‘And Jessie J sounds a lot better than Jessy M, anyway.’

  ‘What about Jessica, then? Is that your naughty name? My parents always use my full name—middle name included—when I’ve been bad, which seems to be a lot of the time.

  I giggled—looked like it was the same the world over. But … Jessica. It did sound classy. A bit more mature than Jessy, and more ‘take-me-seriously-goddamn-you’ than Jess
on its own sounded. I ran through a few scenarios in my mind: ‘And now, live on stage, it’s JESSICA!’; and, ‘For the first time on the One Show, all the way from Liverpool, it’s JESSICA!’; finishing with, ‘And at number one in the UK charts this week, it’s JESSICA!’

  Hmmm. It kind of worked. Especially if I said it in capitals. Admittedly, I was more used to hearing it in terms of Mum saying things like, ‘I asked you to do the dishes, Jessica!’ and ‘Jessica, how many times do I have to tell you, empty the bath when you’re finished with it?’—but it worked. And bearing in mind that Neale and I were having to hold this particular top-level meeting without the benefit of the head of brand, or even the head of blah-di-blah, it would have to do.

  ‘Yeah,’ I said, eventually. ‘Jessica. I like it.’

  ‘Well that’s that sorted then—we make an amazing team! We came up with that without even using PowerPoint! I’ll run over and tell Jack as soon as I’m done here, okay?’

  He was still kneeling down, and was using the edge of the scissors to create a deliberately frayed, ragged look at the end of the red velvet mini skirt. The waist was cinched in tight, and he’d used one of the gold cord tie-backs as a belt. He’d looped the other one around my neck, tying it in a knot and letting the ends dangle down into my cleavage, which was covered in the black fishnet he’d pulled loose from Vogue’s abandoned outfit. Luckily, I decided after a quick sniff, it had escaped the worst of the vom-a-thon.

  Neale reached up one hand to grab an eye liner gel from his kit, then mysteriously crawled around on the floor until he was crouched behind me.

  ‘What are you doing back there?’ I said, twisting my head back over my shoulder and trying to see.

  ‘Drawing seams onto your stockings to make them even more fierce,’ he replied. ‘My nan says the women used to draw lines onto bare legs covered in gravy browning during the war—at least we’re not that desperate!’

  Once he was done, he stood up and faced me, looking at my hair and face critically. I realised then how short he was—barely an inch or so taller than me, and even slimmer.