Page 15

15

LONDON, 1986

“What if I’m not how he remembers me?” says Cassie, lowering the front of her crinkle swimsuit that she’s paired with a neon-green puffball skirt and white stilettos.

“I’m not sure anybody’s going to remember anything from the other night,” says Amelia laughing.

“Apart from my dad,” mutters Cassie acerbically.

“He’ll get over it,” says Amelia, proving that she doesn’t know John very well. “I assume he doesn’t know that you’re here?”

Cassie looks at her incredulously.

“He would lose his absolute shit,” she says. “I’m grounded and he’s refusing to talk to me, so right now there’s a me-shaped mound of pillows in my bed.”

“Oh my god,” squeals Amelia. “What if he takes a closer look and realizes that you’re not there?”

The thought had occurred to Cassie, and for a split second it wasn’t a risk she was prepared to take. But Ben was expecting her— why else would he have given her an embossed invitation the other night? And she wasn’t about to let him down.

“I’m sixteen!” she says. “He has to realize that he can’t control my life anymore. I’m an adult now.” Though as she walks into the vast entrance hall of the Natural History Museum, with the life-size skeleton of a diplodocus bearing down on her, she suddenly feels out of her depth. This isn’t like the party at the hotel, with all its debauchery and excess; this is an event for real grown-ups, who, Cassie notes, are all power-dressed to the max. Men in pastel-colored linen suits, with shirts open two buttons too low, stare appreciatively at her and Amelia, and women who are too old to be dressed in lamé totter past on impossibly high heels.

“Bloody hell,” mutters Amelia under her breath as they accept the offer of champagne from a passing waiter. “It’s like Dynasty on speed in here.”

Cassie almost chokes, sending bubbles fizzing up her nose. “Well, as long as we’re not Krystle and Alexis…”

“If you stick to the agreement we’ll get along just fine,” says Amelia, more seriously than Cassie would like. “ You stay away from Michael, and I’ll stay away from Ben. Speaking of whom…”

“Oh god,” says Cassie, unable to look, as pinpricks of anticipation make her fingers tingle. After five days of every eventuality going round her head, she still hasn’t worked out how this is going to go down. What if he doesn’t recognize her? What if he doesn’t seem pleased to see her? What if … No, she can’t bring herself to go there. “Where is he? Where is he?”

“Over there,” says Amelia.

When she’s brave enough to follow Amelia’s gaze, Cassie can’t help but be disappointed to see she’s talking about Michael. His newly dyed peroxide-blond hair flops into his eyes as he leans in to listen to a man who looks like a headmaster lecturing one of his pupils.

“So, where’s Ben?” asks Cassie, her excitement immediately turning to abject desolation as she scans the expansive lobby. She can’t contemplate the possibility that he’s decided to swerve it and go somewhere else instead. She’d feel so stupid. She’s risked so much, and it would all have been for nothing.

“Come on!” says Amelia, grabbing a couple more glasses of champagne as another tray goes by.

She pulls her shoulders back and sticks her chest out as she makes her way through the crowded space, smiling sweetly at the leering men in suits. The same men, Cassie imagines, that Ben had accused of stifling his career. “We haven’t got as much freedom as you’d think,” he’d told her at the hotel the other night, when she’d asked why the band hadn’t performed her favorite song: the B-side of their fourth single. “They insist we go with the masses; follow the money,” he’d said despondently. And as Cassie looks at their smug faces, she doesn’t doubt that their greed represses his creativity.

“Hi, Micky,” purrs Amelia, as she sidles up beside him.

The man he’s with throws him a cautionary glance as he walks away, one that simultaneously says, Be careful, but by god, if I had the chance, I would.

“Well, hello there,” says Michael, looking Amelia up and down, his dilated pupils coming to rest on her breasts. “I recognize those.”

She giggles coquettishly and slaps him, reminding Cassie of a Barbara Windsor character from a Carry On film.

“What are you doing later?” she asks brazenly. “Fancy getting out of here and having some proper fun?”

He pulls a face as if weighing up his options, while Amelia waits expectantly. “We could go back to your hotel,” she prompts, to fill the awkward silence.

Cassie clears her throat, embarrassed for her, but out of the corner of her eye she can sense a tangible excitement in the room, an uptick of energy that she knows only Ben could create.

She forces a deep breath in and out, wanting to look but unable to. Instead, she fixates on Michael, whose expression clouds over with utter contempt. His mouth pulls into a tight line, and he puts a hand on Amelia’s behind and gives it a squeeze.

“Why wait till later?” he says, giving her a push. “Let’s get the fun started now.”

Left alone, Cassie alternates between watching them disappear behind a display case and staring at Ben as he holds court among a bunch of aging executives and what looks to be a gaggle of their wide-eyed daughters.

Wearing a red blazer over a black vest and a smile that could power the whole of South Kensington, Cassie’s heart feels as if it’s about to take flight—along with a hundred others, no doubt. But she’ll wait her turn—play it cool while he works the room, getting to her when he’s sweet-talked the suits and charmed every other girl along the way.

“A vol-au-vent?” asks a waiter, shoving a tray under her nose.

Too polite to refuse, Cassie takes a pastry cup and instantly regrets it, not knowing how she’s supposed to negotiate a glass and an hors d’oeuvre while maintaining any degree of decorum.

Her face must say it all, as when she looks up, Ben is staring straight at her, smiling, as if he can read her innermost thoughts. Her cheeks flush with a red heat that grows hotter the more she tries to stop it.

“Oh, hi,” comes a voice from behind her. “Weren’t you at the party the other night?”

As much as Cassie is thrilled to be recognized—a sure sign that she’s been initiated into the inner circle—she is equally horrified when she turns around to find Kimberley Banks standing there, holding a cigarette up to her painted pink lips.

“Oh,” is all she can think to say, her brain feeling like a ten-ton truck has slammed into it.

“Have you seen Micky about?” asks Kimberley, looking around.

“Er, no,” says Cassie, sticking to single words for fear that she’ll inadvertently divulge that he’s currently screwing Amelia behind the eight-foot-yeti exhibit.

“OK, cool,” says Kimberley, turning toward the bar. “I guess I’ll have to amuse myself until he is, then.”

Cassie holds her breath as she watches Kimberley veer dangerously close to the glass cabinet, before she’s thankfully thwarted by Luke. Whether he does it because he knows what’s at stake, Cassie’s not sure, though she imagines the band are more than used to covering for Michael’s indiscretions.

By the time Cassie’s turned her attention back to Ben, he’s whispering to a girl with a blond poodle perm and too much electric-blue eyeliner. She knows he has to talk to people—it’s a networking event, after all—but seeing the two of them being unnecessarily intimate makes Cassie’s chest tighten.

She needs another drink and takes the opportunity to head to the makeshift bar closest to where Ben’s standing, hoping she can catch his eye. If he gives her a sign, she’ll happily go to his aid—he looks like he could do with rescuing. But just as he looks up, a glass smashes, shattering the atmosphere—and her illusion.

“What the fuck?” someone screeches.

There’s a commotion across the hall, and as Cassie joins everyone else in looking to see where it’s coming from, her heart sinks.

“You fucking bitch.”

Cassie instinctively moves toward the fracas, needing to see what’s going on while simultaneously hoping that she won’t get dragged into the mêlée. A wail like a banshee rings out around the cavernous lobby, echoing off the brick ceiling that curves high above them.

Fists fly as Kimberley and Amelia fight for their man, while he stands by, watching them with an amused expression, his inflated ego enjoying the sideshow.

“Babe, it’s not what you think,” he offers half-heartedly.

Kimberley laughs sardonically as a security guard pulls her off a bedraggled-looking Amelia.

“You’ve just lost the best thing you’ll ever have,” she yells at Michael, her face contorted with rage and humiliation.

“Baby, please …” he begs, as if it’s suddenly just dawned on him that she’s serious.

“You’re welcome to him,” she spits at Amelia, who’s struggling to right herself. “Good luck—you’re gonna need it.”

She slings her white handbag onto her shoulder with as much dignity as she can muster and storms toward the doors.

Cassie can’t help but put herself in Kimberley’s position, imagining what it would feel like if she were to discover Ben in such a compromising situation. She knows there’s temptation around every corner, but she’d hope that he wouldn’t sacrifice something so special for a sticky moment like Michael’s just done.

“OK… testing… testing…” comes a booming voice through the speakers, a little sooner than Cassie would imagine was planned. “Ladies and gentlemen, if I could have your attention…”

The address pulls the eyes of rubberneckers away from the fray at the back of the hall to the stage, where a man is tapping the microphone head. “OK, I hope everyone can hear me. My name’s Paul Jacobs and I’m the managing director of Tramline Records.” He holds his hands up in faux modesty as a smattering of applause ripples around the room. “It’s my honor to have Secret Oktober sign to our label and deliver an album that I believe is going to define their career. It has all the sounds you’d expect, but with an edge; it’s new, it’s exciting, and I just know that the world won’t be able to get enough of it. But don’t take my word for it, decide for yourselves… Ladies and gentleman, I give you Ben, Michael, and Luke— Secret Oktober !”

The boys make their way to the stage, Michael unsurprisingly the last as he straightens his shirt and checks his fly.

“Jesus Christ,” wheezes Amelia, patting her hair down.

“You OK?” asks Cassie, as Luke fires up the opening chords of the new album’s title track. She can’t help but notice the look of disdain that Ben throws Michael as he heads to his place behind the drums.

“You could have given me a heads-up,” says Amelia, before dissolving into a fit of giggles.

“That’s not funny,” whispers Cassie. She likes Amelia but she doesn’t want to be associated with her sordid behavior. What she and Ben have got is poles apart from the shallow relationship that Amelia and Michael share.

Ben catches her eye and smiles, as if he’s heard her thoughts, and as the bass guitar kicks in she wonders if he might sing this song to her. She flushes when he winks in her direction and happily imagines a hundred pairs of eyes burning like lasers into the back of her head, wishing they were her.

Girls sigh and swoon at the line, “ I want to lay down beside you, and do what we do so well .” But he’s only looking at one person and her insides have turned to jelly.

“That was incredible,” breathes Cassie heavily into his ear as he comes offstage. She’s praying they don’t have to endure much more of this tireless sucking-up exercise before they can get out of here. Where will we go? she wonders, as desperate to be on her own with him as he clearly is to be with her.

“I’m glad you liked it,” he says, brushing her hand with his, careful not to linger too long for fear that someone will see.

Now that she’s in this position, Cassie can begin to understand why any relationships the boys have need to be kept under wraps. It would break the hearts of a million teenagers if they thought Ben had someone special in his life, though how she’s expected to keep the secret to herself, she has no idea.

“I’ll be waiting for you when you’re ready to leave,” she says as he goes to walk away.

He stops short and turns back to her. “What?”

“You know… I’m ready, whenever you want to go,” says Cassie, hoping that he catches on this time. There are a lot of people jostling to get to him and she doesn’t want to make any of the other girls feel bad.

He gives her a secret look—one that says Be patient —and her insides soar with a power so all-consuming that she feels as if she could grow wings.