Remember My Name: A glamorous story about chasing your dreams

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‘It’s not him,’ I said quietly, fingers crossed on both hands as the lie slipped out, along with a few random tears that I’d not managed to completely squish away. I felt them trickle away down my cheeks and disappear, along with my self-respect.

I told myself the lie was for her sake. That she was pregnant, and her life was changing fast; that she’d just bought a house and was in the process of moving and that her plate was full. That the last thing she needed was to be worried about me.

I told myself that, but that was a lie, too. Or at least it wasn’t a hundred-per-cent truthful. I was also embarrassed, and ashamed, and miserable. When I was with Jack, it all felt right. But when I was away from him, I started to feel like some dirty little secret, hidden away from the real world he lived in. And now—just when I’d thought it couldn’t get any worse—I’d fibbed to my sister. My pregnant sister—which had to be bad karma.

‘Good,’ she said, firmly, rolling around on the bed, trying to get comfy. ‘Now I’ve got that off my chest, I feel relaxed enough to do this …’

She paused, then let out a giant, rip-roaring fart that seemed to echo around the tiny flat, before it came to settle fragrantly in my nostrils. I tried not to inhale—I’d suffered those sisterly gifts many times over the years and knew they were lethal—but I was laughing so much I couldn’t help it.

‘Jesus, Becky! I think I need a gas mask!’

‘It’s my hormones. I can’t help it.’

‘It’s the kebab, and you are loving it!’ I said, pinching my nose together to try and block out the smell, still laughing.

‘That’s good to hear,’ she said, fidgeting around. I suppose it was hard to settle when you had an alien being growing inside your stomach. ‘You laughing again.’

She finally seemed to find a position that agreed with both her and the baby, and I made out her face in the moonlight seeping through the curtains that never seemed to quite close properly. She was smiling at me, and reached out to hold my hand.

We touched fingers, and I smiled back. Nothing was perfect in my life—but I still had Becky, and the rest of my family. No matter what.

‘You can always come home, you know,’ she said. ‘Nobody would think any the worse of you. Nobody would think you’d failed.’

Nobody apart from me, I thought, but didn’t say it. When I didn’t respond, she carried on.

‘Because home,’ she said, screwing up her eyes in effort, warning me what was coming next, ‘is where the fart is.’

The sound of that one—along with the sound of us both giggling like the little kids we were not so very long ago—was the last thing I remembered before I fell asleep.

Chapter 10 (#ulink_d28e45b8-c712-5436-92de-b66d31081350)

When the text first landed, I thought I’d finally made it into the inner circle. How wrong could I have been?

‘Get to the Panache Club by 8 p.m.—urgent! Make sure you’re clean!’ it read. Typically, Patty hadn’t bothered with any internal debate about whether to add kisses or not, and was presumably labouring under the illusion that Scousers didn’t wash. I had no idea where she got that concept from, but I spent a good twenty minutes standing under the lukewarm jets of the shower before I left for the club. Just in case she checked behind my ears or something.

The Panache Club was in central London, and was currently considered the Cool Place to Be. It was the kind of club where Rihanna would go for a boogie if she was in town; the kind of club where supermodels would ignore canapés and look moody. The kind of club I was never, ever invited to.

I knew there was a big event there—Patty and her pals had been having orgasms about the tabloid opportunities for weeks now—but, as usual, I wasn’t asked along. It was a Saturday, and I was supposed to be in my broom cupboard, polishing my glass slippers and wishing for a Fairy Godmother. Instead, I thought excitedly, I was maybe—just maybe—going to make my first public Starmaker appearance.

Maybe Jack would be there, and we’d snog on the dancefloor. Maybe Rihanna would be there, and we’d down some tequilas together. Maybe the tabloid snappers who turned up would be wowed by my awesome beauty and stunning star quality, and I’d be papped as I arrived.

Maybe, I thought, rubbing myself dry and feeling the chill of a flat that simply never warmed up until the kebab shop did, I would finally be accepted.

I heard the phone beeping again, and dashed over to check it out, hoping it would be from Jack—saying he’d pick me up, or meet me beforehand, or that we’d spend the night together after the party. Also hoping—if I was entirely honest—that he’d magically arranged for a beautiful dress to be delivered, so I could make some grand entrance in modern-day Pretty Woman style. Without the prostitution angle, obviously.

Shivering, I swiped on the phone to check my messages. Huh. No such luck—it was from Patty again.

‘Black skirt and white blouse. No stains.’

As the words and all that they implied slowly sunk in, I fell backwards onto the sofa, deflated and disappointed and damp. Black skirt, white blouse—I knew what that meant. It meant they needed an extra pair of hands for the waiting-on staff, and I was their very first draft pick.

So much for downing tequila with Rihanna—I’d be the one serving it to her. Not that she’d be there, of course—this was my fictional Rihanna.

I did a grumpy face for a few minutes, and considered texting Patty back to say I couldn’t make it—that I had a hot date at a cage fight with Tom Hardy that night, or I was busy strolling down the Ramblas on a city break in Barcelona with Orlando Bloom. It would serve her right for the ‘no stains’ comment—I mean, as if! My mother was the queen of laundry, and some of it had been passed on by genetics.

I toyed with the idea of refusing for a while, and started to mentally compose the message, before I turned off the phone and placed it well out of reach on the mantelpiece. I gave myself a good talking to, recalling all of Jack’s words about playing for the Starmaker team, about learning my craft, about understanding the industry from the inside out. Starting at the bottom, soaring to the top.

I wasn’t entitled to anything—and I needed to keep my feet on the ground, and not give in to the depression.

But truth be told, since Becky had left, I’d been struggling. We’d spent her last morning here wandering around Camden Market, where she’d bought an entire set of baby clothes decorated with tiny skulls, before I saw her off at Euston. As I waved her away with tears in my eyes, part of me just wanted to jump on that train with her. To give up, to abandon it all, and head for home. Liverpool was only two hours away on the train—but a whole world away on the lifestyle scale.

At home, I could sleep in my own bed, get annoyed with my baby brother, and be fed huge plates full of bacon and eggs the next morning. Without any guilt whatsoever. Mum and Dad would welcome me back, and I could pick up right where I left off.

Except … where I left off wasn’t exactly brilliant, was it? I was sharing a flat that was almost as crappy as the one I lived in now, with Ruby and her perverted geriatric boyfriend, singing princess songs to spoiled brats every weekend. I might not have any spare cash now—but I didn’t have any then, either.

I realised, as Becky’s face in the window dwindled to a tiny blob heading into the tunnel, that I didn’t care about the flat, or the money. Or even the bacon and eggs, that much.