You Don't Know Me Read online

  ‘And we’re doing one of your songs,’ I tell Roxanne. I sound as if I’m being strangled. Roxanne ignores my nerves and beams delightedly.

  ‘OK,’ Linus calls out, checking that the cameras are in place. ‘Off you go.’

  One of the stage hands comes on, as we requested, with a stool for Rose and her guitar. She sets herself in position on the right-hand end of the group with the guitar in her lap. At this moment, I remember that we didn’t say ‘Seminal leotards’. We meant to, but we got so distracted by following Janet. Too late now. Rose taps her guitar and starts to play the opening chords of ‘I See The Light’.

  Oh. Utterly. Wow. This moment is really happening. I am about to sing Roxanne Wills’s lyrics. TO Roxanne Wills. In a theatre in a space-age HQ. Surrounded by my best friends. Dressed in a catsuit. It’s bizarre, certainly, but possibly in a good way.

  We’ve practised a thousand times, and we know the song backwards. We’ve tried to recreate the feeling we had when we sang it that time at George’s party, after ‘Sunglasses’. We launch into our harmony on the second verse and, as far as I can tell, we sound OK. Certainly not a disaster. In my dreams, I’ve pictured the judges leaning in towards us and singing along, like the crowd did then. Maybe even some of the camera crew and producers. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if everybody . . . ?

  ‘Stop!’

  I’m startled out of my daydream. Linus is holding his hand up. He looks frustrated and almost angry. In the silence that follows, the sound of my heart beating is deafening. We don’t look at each other. We don’t dare.

  Linus sighs. He must see the crushed look on our faces, because his scowl fades slightly.

  ‘It’s not terrible,’ he says, ‘but it’s not working. What d’you think, Roxy? It’s your song.’

  Roxanne purses her lips. ‘Oh, I don’t know. You’re cute, girls. But it needs . . . something.’

  Linus and Sebastian both nod.

  It probably needs a group of girls who’ve done more than four live performances, to be fair, and who don’t normally just muck around in each other’s bedrooms singing in their pyjamas. I guess I was getting carried away just now.

  ‘Try losing the guitar,’ Linus calls.

  ‘No!’ Rose exclaims. The sudden fear in her voice startles me. ‘But I need it!’ she stutters more quietly. ‘Without it we can’t—’

  ‘Sure you can,’ Linus says. ‘We’ve got the track for that, haven’t we?’

  He looks at Janet, the floor manager, who’s hovering near the wings. She presses her headset to her ear, listening for instructions coming from the control room at the back of the theatre. Ivan Jenks is sitting up there, watching us all and controlling what’s happening. Janet nods. She comes over to collect the guitar, which Rose hands over reluctantly.

  ‘OK,’ Linus instructs us. ‘Now stand all together. I see you as a girl band. I want to see you moving, like catsuit girl did in your video. I loved the video, by the way.’

  Right. So he loved the video. That’s good. Bert mentioned the video too. Girl band: we can do that. Perhaps I wasn’t getting too carried away.

  ‘I refuse to jiggle,’ Rose mutters to me through gritted teeth while they quickly sort out the backing track in the wings.

  I give her half a smile.

  ‘Oh, come on. It’s not jiggling, it’s dancing. You’ll enjoy it.’

  ‘I won’t,’ she says, grim-faced.

  I sigh. I wish she wouldn’t be so down on herself, or us. I know it’s hardly Ella Fitzgerald, but it’s supposed to be a masterclass and they’re giving us advice.

  ‘Just do it a little bit, please,’ I whisper.

  ‘I hate it. You know that.’

  Poor Rose. She does. Not that she can’t dance: she just doesn’t enjoy it.

  Nell and Jodie get into position. Rose huffs discontentedly, smoothing down her skirt with restless hands. I try and relax my shoulders so I can get into the mood to impress the judges. If they want jiggling, they can have jiggling. Actually, this is what can help me ‘stay loose’, like Bert Blackwell suggested. I try to imagine myself back in my pyjamas, the way I was for the original video. It seems to work.

  The track starts. I know I haven’t got the best vocals, but as we sing I try and remember some of Roxanne’s moves from her video of this song. I have a go at a simplified version and to my left, I can see Nell and Jodie doing their best to follow. To my right, Rose is just about swaying from side to side, but that’s it. This is hardly team spirit. I pirouette. I move my hips. It’s a fun song and it needs some fun presentation. I know Rose isn’t a huge fan of Roxanne’s music, and I’m sorry about the guitar, but I wish she’d at least try.

  At the end, I crowd in with Jodie and Nell, panting, to see what the judges thought this time. Rose stands a little apart.

  Roxanne beams up at us and claps her hands.

  ‘That was cool. I really liked that. I love you girls.’

  Oh. Wow. I mean, wow.

  At the end of the table, Sebastian Rules shrugs and spoils the moment slightly. ‘You’re OK. It was better. Still not really working, though.’

  ‘I’d like you to try it again,’ Linus announces. ‘One more time. Give it all you’ve got. You,’ he says, ‘the girl in the catsuit. Move over there.’

  He makes me swap with Jodie, so I’m between her and Nell, with Rose still on the end. As we shuffle around, Jodie stares at me, her mouth a round O. I think she’s thinking what I’m thinking: despite what Sebastian said, there’s no way they’d be giving us this much attention if we didn’t have a serious chance.

  Two more minutes and forty-five seconds. Nell, Jodie and I give it everything, all over again. Rose holds the tune for us and even jiggles slightly more this time, although she doesn’t appear to smile. The harmonies go to pieces a bit by the end, but overall, I’m pretty sure, to quote Jodie, that we did not ‘totally suck’.

  When we finish the song, there’s a silence. A long silence. The kind of pause they love in talent shows, when they allow your heartbeat to get so fast you think you might need medical attention.

  Two of the judges are leaning forward this time. Linus and Roxanne. The silence continues.

  Nell sneaks her hand into mine, and I squeeze it, holding out my other hand for Jodie. I can’t see Rose properly, at the end of the line, but I assume she’s holding hands with Jodie too. We watch and wait. The nearest camera moves in to focus on Linus. He lets a slow smile gradually play across his face.

  ‘Well, yeah. OK. That worked.’

  Did he really say that? Nell squeezes me again and squeals under her breath. Jodie grins a totally un-Jodie, un-cool grin.

  Then Linus pauses again, and his smile starts to fade. Oh no. I can feel a ‘but’ in the air. This is definitely one of those pauses that ends with ‘but’.

  But what? After all that. Did he notice that I was flat? I know I was, in certain places.

  Linus taps his pencil on his yellow notepad.

  ‘I see you as a trio,’ he says. ‘Like the Sugababes, or Stooshe – but younger. You look like a dream, you’ve got some crazy energy and . . . how old are you? Fifteen? Sixteen?’

  We nod.

  ‘Yeah. You’re young. You’re hot,’ he continues. ‘But like I say, as a trio. I think one of you . . . has a voice that just doesn’t work with the others. It throws everything out. And the dance moves aren’t working.’

  As he says it, my heart slows down. It feels like it’s contracting into a tiny ball. Oh God. I was flatter than I thought. And I got so close and loved it so much and all the time I must have sounded ridiculous, and probably looked it, too. Catsuit girl. I can’t bear to think that I’ve let everyone down.

  ‘The thing is,’ Linus adds, ‘I think you’re going to have to make a choice. The band, for me, is you, you and you.’ He points with his pencil. ‘Like that, you could go through to the final nine. I’d send you through right now. But as you are . . .’

  A camera moves in to do a close-up on his f
ace, and then Roxanne’s. She looks shocked for a moment, then she nods reluctantly. She stares at her multi-ringed fingers for a moment, while she works out what to say. At the end of the judges’ table, Sebastian shakes his head.

  I look along our line. Beyond Nell, Jodie is squeezing Rose’s shoulder.

  Rose?

  Wait. Me . . . or Rose?

  Rose wasn’t flat. If anything, her voice was even more gorgeous in this big auditorium. But a camera is closing in to do a special close-up on her face.

  How did her voice not fit? It doesn’t make sense. But it’s happening.

  Rose.

  This is wrong. Rose is our best singer. I look across at her, but her face is a blank wall. She doesn’t seem surprised at all, but I’m astonished.

  Rose?

  Meanwhile, Roxanne smiles for the nearest camera.

  ‘Oh, Linus. You’re so mean! I remember when I was growing up, how close I was to my girlfriends. You can’t do that to a girl!’

  She smiles again at Linus, but he isn’t smiling back.

  ‘So? D’you agree with me or not?’

  Sebastian leaps in with his opinion.

  ‘You’re such a doofus, Linus. I totally disagree. Let them stay together. I don’t think they’ll go that far, if I’m completely honest. But splitting them up like that? School friends? That’s just perverse.’ He shrugs.

  Linus grins at Sebastian. It’s clear he loves a fight.

  ‘Not just schoolgirls,’ he counters. ‘I think they’ve got a look. Think the Spice Girls, remember? Or even Destiny’s Child.’

  As soon as he says Destiny’s Child, Jodie squeezes my hand so hard I think she’s going to break it. Beyoncé’s old band: home to my other favourite pop star, apart from Roxanne.

  ‘Roxy?’ Linus says. ‘It seems you might have the casting vote.’

  Roxanne takes a deep breath and smiles wryly for the nearest camera.

  ‘Oh God, this is So. Hard,’ she complains. She looks up at the four of us. ‘I mean, it’s tough, girls, but I guess Linus has a point. We’re here to deliver the good news, but the bad news too. The bad news is that sometimes a group just doesn’t fit the way you hoped. But the good news is that the three of you could really make it as a trio. I see that in you. I do.’

  She beams at us like what she just said is a good thing. But a trio is not good. Not when there are four of you.

  She didn’t seem to think that before. What happened? What went wrong?

  ‘Guitar girl,’ Linus calls out, making me jump. He checks his notes. ‘Er, Rose, right? . . .This is tough on you, I know. What do you think?’

  Rose Ireland. The ‘stand-out’ girl who could sing all of us off the stage without even thinking about it, never mind playing the piano like an angel and the guitar like a dream.

  She dips her head forward to the mic in front of her and says in a clear, low voice: ‘It’s a band decision. I’ll do whatever the girls want to do.’

  Jodie steps forward.

  ‘Er, I think we’ll stick together,’ she mutters.

  Nell and I nod. I mean, obviously.

  At the judges’ table, Linus shrugs. ‘OK. But I want you to think about this. It’s all nice and lovely if you all stick together and I’m sure you’ll be an OK school band. But I don’t think you get it. I’m not just talking about making the final nine here. I could make you into recording stars. I’m serious. Take fifteen minutes. Think about it.’

  Fifteen Minutes: Part 2

  Final nine. Recording stars. No Rose. My head feels as if it’s about to explode.

  Shell-shocked, we’re led out of the room by Janet, who’s busy radioing details of what’s happening to the central control centre. She pauses in the corridor outside and turns to us.

  ‘We’ve got a room nearby. You don’t mind if we bring the cameras in, do you?’

  We shake our heads without really considering it. We’re used to the lenses, lights and cables by now. Besides, we have more important things to think about.

  I walk quickly down the corridor to catch up with Rose, who’s stormed ahead of the rest of us.

  ‘Are you OK?’ I ask.

  ‘Sure,’ she mutters gruffly. ‘Of course I’m OK. It’s only a competition.’

  She glares at me briefly, then looks away. Her cheeks are burning. She won’t let me put my arm through hers. Instead, she wraps her arms around herself.

  ‘I could see this coming,’ she goes on. ‘I knew I was crazy to come here.’

  ‘But you’re not. You’re amazing. You know it.’

  She just glares at me and shivers.

  Janet tries a couple of locked doors, then finds one that opens onto a small, airless meeting room, with four chairs set around a white-topped table. We each take a chair.

  ‘You have fifteen minutes,’ Janet says, glancing at her watch. ‘Actually, twelve now. But wait until I get the cameras before you say anything, please.’ She disappears into the corridor, already barking instructions into her head mic.

  For a moment, we do as we’re told, sitting in silence, until I really can’t bear it any more. I’m not going to sit here saying nothing just because the cameras aren’t here yet. Honestly.

  ‘That man! I can’t believe he’d try to split us up. We wouldn’t be the Manic Pixie Dream Girls if it wasn’t the four of us.’

  ‘It’s fine,’ Rose says crisply. ‘Don’t worry about it.’

  All the blood seems to have drained from her face, apart from two bright pink spots on her cheeks.

  I try to put a hand on her arm, but she pulls it away as if it’s been scorched. I’ve rarely seen her like this, and she’s never been so harsh with me before. Is she blaming me for dancing? It’s not really my fault if I can ‘jiggle’ and she doesn’t want to. There are a million things she can do and I can’t.

  There’s a long, awkward silence. Eventually, Rose breaks it. Her voice is flat, and she won’t look at any of us, not even me.

  ‘Look, it’s clear they want you three,’ she says. ‘And to be perfectly honest, I hate the stupid song, and I hate the stupid dance moves, and I couldn’t do it anyway.’

  ‘Of course you could!’ Nell says. ‘You were brilliant just now.’

  Rose gives us a cold stare. This isn’t like her at all. I don’t understand.

  ‘I’m holding you back. Just forget about it. It’s only a stupid show. You do what you want to do.’

  There’s a knock on the door and it opens to reveal a cameraman and a sound recordist, with a fluffy mic held high on a boom.

  ‘Don’t mind us,’ they say, moving in and setting up in the corner of the room. Janet hovers in the doorway.

  ‘Right, girls,’ she says, checking her watch. ‘You can talk now, but you’ve only got about ten minutes left, I’m afraid. Then they need you back in the theatre for your decision.’ She smiles anxiously.

  Rose is already on her feet. ‘I’m coming with you,’ she says to Janet, pushing her chair back. ‘It’s easier for them if I’m not here.’

  Janet looks uncertain for a moment. She’s obviously considering the TV value of ‘decision with Rose in the room’ against the value of ‘decision without Rose in the room’. But Rose doesn’t give her the chance to make up her mind. She’s already out of the door, and she doesn’t look back.

  Left alone together, Nell, Jodie and I stare at each other in silence for ages.

  Jodie’s the first to speak. She looks utterly dejected.

  ‘Well, that was a waste of time. I never thought we’d get so close, though.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Nell sighs.

  ‘I know,’ I say. ‘Except . . .’

  They both stare at me. I wasn’t supposed to say ‘Except’. But now it’s out there.

  My God – why did I say ‘except’?

  ‘Except what?’ Jodie asks.

  Everyone’s looking at me. My thoughts are a jumble.

  ‘Well, Rose really didn’t want to be here, did she? She’s always been shy. I know
it’s crazy, because her voice is fantastic, but think about it. She didn’t really want to do George’s party, until we made her. And she hates dancing.’

  It looks like dancing is part of the deal, and thinking back, I enjoyed that last version we did so much, when we could put in some choreography. To be perfectly honest, it was the easiest it’s ever been.

  Jodie nods slowly. ‘I suppose so.’

  Nell bites her lip. ‘I never pictured us as a trio.’

  I nod. Neither did I. Now, though, for a moment, I do. Three months ago, we were just a bunch of girls, singing stupid songs in our bedrooms. Now, thanks to Elliot Harrison, we could be on live TV, being watched by millions of people. It would only be for one night – two, if we made it down to the last three acts. I don’t believe what Linus said about making us recording stars. But would two nights on TV be so terrible?

  Rose seems to think it would be OK. Think of all the rehearsing we’d do . . . the costumes . . . the professional advice. I never, ever thought I’d get this chance. Rose is the one with the talent. She’s always outshone me. She can make it any time . . . but this could be the only chance I ever get.

  What if someone gives you a winning lottery ticket and you just hand it right back? What then?

  ‘Five minutes!’ Janet calls through the closed door.

  ‘You’ve gone very quiet, Sash,’ Jodie says. ‘What are you thinking?’

  I screw my face up. This is all too complicated. ‘Maybe we could just ask her,’ I say. ‘You heard what she said. She seemed happy for us to be a trio. Could we maybe just do the TV bit without her?’

  ‘Wouldn’t she be upset?’ Jodie frowns.

  ‘Well, like I say – we’d ask her. We’d get back together afterwards, obviously.’

  Nell says nothing. She picks at a loose thread at the bottom of her shorts and looks unhappy. But she doesn’t disagree.

  ‘So, what do you think?’ I say, watching both of them.

  ‘Yeah, I suppose,’ Jodie shrugs, looking very uncomfortable for a girl who so badly wants to be famous that she’s already designed the perfume bottle for her fragrance range.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Nell mutters, dislodging a sequin from her shorts and looking almost tearful about it. ‘Whatever’s best for Rose.’