Page 17

Chapter Ten

From a river-view penthouse to a half-packed house, heading home means coming back down to earth with a bump, literally.

Most of our furniture is already piled up in the dining room ready to be loaded into a moving van when we can find somewhere in our budget, if we can find somewhere in our budget.

Our ‘sofa’ is currently some scatter cushions propped up against a wall of boxes, and a blanket flung on top.

For a brief moment it’s comfortable but then one of us, Mam, Dad or me, moves and a strategically placed cushion topples and the whole set-up is compromised.

I’ve taken to lying with my head in my mam’s lap, my legs stretched out in front of me, while she gently strokes my hair, or plaits little braids in it.

I need her motherly warmth, to be honest. We returned from the telly awards, hungover as anything, with all our clothes sopping from the hot tub incident as the foam, eventually, ran into the wardrobes too and got everything wet.

Gerald said it served us right for doing something so stupid, despite the fact it wasn’t even us who put the bubble bath in the hot tub, it was one of the COC lot.

I’d put my money on Sebastian. Mam and Dad came and collected me from the station, they said I looked like a sopping, sad sheep in my fluffy wet tracksuit.

Since then, I’ve been helping Mam and Dad call round estate agents asking about new rentals.

But that also means I’ve been trapped by my phone.

Even when I’m meant to be looking at property, I can’t stop checking gossip sites.

Finally, I’ll get so sick of the scrolling, I’ll throw it to one corner, exclaiming to Dad to “set the timer, I’m going to manage half an hour without checking it, OK?

” and then I sit, itchy, shaking my legs out, trying to concentrate on something – anything – else, a magazine, a book, but absorbing none of the words.

Mam even pointed out that, one time, I was holding the book upside down.

My record so far, before I give in and retrieve the phone from the corner, is ten minutes.

Dad thinks I can do fifteen this time, but I’m not so sure.

What if something major has happened? What if Samantha has announced she has nits?

To the whole nation? Or Beyonce is touring and decided she needs a new backing singer?

So, of course, with visions of tabloid headline gold in my mind, I rush over and open up all my apps, before checking the newspaper websites.

Sigh! She’s not announced she has nits, I guess that was wishful thinking.

But nothing has changed in the past ten minutes.

This obsession started after the telly awards.

First, I just wanted to see what people thought of my dress and how I looked in those red carpet photos with Damon.

So as soon as we got home and settled on our ‘sofa,’ Mam and I quickly opened up the websites together.

We’d promised Dad we’d wait for him but he’d driven to get the take-away and, oops, sorry Dad, we just simply couldn’t wait.

I looked, as Mam insisted I looked “drop dead gorgeous” in the pictures.

I was trying really hard to see it and in some, I almost could.

Especially this one with Damon, where I’m looking up at him, and he’s grinning at the camera.

I have this soft smile on my face and he just looks so, genuinely, happy.

“You do make a very attractive pair,” Mam had said, before warning that I shouldn’t fixate on looks.

“Cleopatra and Marc Anthony looked very fine together,” my dad said, appearing suddenly in the doorway.

I didn’t know much about them and asked what happened. “They died,” Dad said, bluntly.

What I should have done, like Verity told me to, is just listen to the words of the people I love. But I did not do that. Instead, when Mam nipped to the loo, I scrolled all the way down to the comments.

That much slap could plaster a wall.

Someone get her a mirror… and a stylist.

She looks like she’s been Tangoed.

Someone needs to lay off the pies, she needs to spend less time

partying, more at the gym.

I really did manage to throw my phone to the other side of the room then, and I left it there for a whole night.

After seeing those comments, my brain only honed in on the nasty ones lurking there on my toxic phone, and every time I considered going near it, it seemed like approaching an electric fence coated with barbed wire.

Something that was guaranteed to damage me.

But after a restful night’s sleep, I knew I had to face my fears.

For one, I was waiting for a message from Layla to tell me what she’d been up to.

She’d carted one of the waiters from the award-ceremony home with her, even making Gerald pay for his train ticket up north.

Last I’d heard they’d done it eight times in one night, in her parent’s house , and she had the worst UTI ever, so instead of getting at it again, she’d sucked him off in the local car wash.

That’s what I loved about Layla – she didn’t give a damn about what anyone else thought, she was always living her best life regardless.

And I knew she’d have me in hoots of laughter telling me what had happened next.

I also, admittedly, wanted to see if Damon had messaged too.

I’d eventually found him at the party, he was in the room where I’d heard all the weird animal noises, and he said he and these girls had been playing zoos.

So, I joined in, I can do an amazing monkey impression, after all.

And Damon knows I’m always up for a laugh.

So in the end I gave in and checked my phone.

OMG, send help and cranberry juice. My bladder is on fire AND he wants to shag again tonight! He is so freaking hot but my kitty is even hotter right now. CHRIST ON A BIKE!

Then, before I’d even known I was doing it, I was back surfing the press and gossip websites.

No pictures of me glowing from my phone this time.

Was that good or bad? Was it better to be talked about than not – even if the press were trash-talking me?

I knew I should stop scrolling but instead I saw a familiar face and clicked the link.

Samantha. She was in three new stories, already, and it was only 10a.m. Samantha has friends in London so she had stayed down there after the awards, and already it was clear that was the best way to get papped.

There she was necking on with a male model, in Hyde Park.

I’ve seen him on billboards on the motorway, his pants are so tiny in those pictures I’m amazed there’s not been a car crash.

Then, the next story was Samantha necking it on with a supermodel this time, a girl who was the face of the perfume of the magazine sample I’d rubbed on myself that very morning.

They were spotted stumbling out of that jungle nightclub and then kissing in the back of the car.

The photos make it look like they thought they were being sneaky, holding up a clutch bag to shield their faces, but Samantha knows where cameras are at all times, she definitely knew what she was doing.

Even when her tongue was down the model’s throat I could tell she’d planned which side of the car to sit on so the paps could get her best side.

I have to admit she’s a genius at this stuff – she’s way better at playing the game than I think I ever could be.

The final story she was featured in was less scandalous, just her leaving a restaurant in London with Ben, her agent in tow, still with a smug look on his face.

Though I bet Sam doesn’t take any shit from him, she might be ruthless but she’s also ballsy.

She doesn’t let men walk all over her. I sometimes wish I could be as tough as she seems. But the only comfort I can take from that is the message I received from Samantha later that day.

Just so you don’t worry about me going quiet on Insta, my new manager says he can get me on a new invite-only social media site, Neos.

It’s so private you can’t even google it.

Once I’m a member I would give you one of my invites, babe, but it’s so exclusive, and I already promised the BiB lot I’d let them in on it.

Seeing Samantha all over the papers made me feel all funny inside.

I tried to tell myself it wasn’t jealousy as I didn’t want that much attention (you should see the comments she got…

half of them were worse than mine) and that I was much better off, up here, hanging out with people who loved me instead of all those fakers who party to be seen rather than to actually have fun.

But, at the same time, I know what I want.

Freedom. The kind of money that gives you choices and means you never have to worry again.

A life of adventure but also the comfort of knowing I’ll be looking after my family.

And right now, the only way to get that is to secure as many tabloid pages as possible, if I want the interviews, the sponsorships and the screentests to come rolling in.

It turns out that the secret to success actually isn’t that much of a secret – it’s hard work.

Fliss keeps telling me that this buzz we’re all experiencing now, unless there’s a season two, won’t last forever.

“We have to capitalise on it while we can,” she says, as if I’m a banker or something.