Could It Be I'm Falling in Love? (8 page)

And so she did.

Sue sighed and released her grip on the duvet. She shook herself and sat up. Sweet Fennel – that would do it. Reaching for her dressing gown, she set off to make some tea.

To:
Roxy Squires

From:
Dancing On Ice
production office

Thank you for your application to be a
Dancing On Ice
celebrity skater.

Whilst we thank you for your interest in our show, we would like to take this opportunity to remind you that only the most colourful, entertaining and newsworthy celebrities are selected as contestants …

Roxy woke with a snap.

Normally it took her hours to become fully conscious. She’d doze luxuriantly until hunger (or the need for Alka-Seltzer) eventually forced her to rise. But this morning was different. At 10.30am her eyes opened and stayed open. It was her earliest morning in years.

She grabbed her phone from the bedside table and dialled Tish’s number. God, Tish would scream her head off to hear Woody was her window cleaner. And when she’d finished, she could help Roxy plot his seduction. Tish was always good for tips on a man-harvest. Or she always used to be. As Tish’s phone started ringing, Roxy had a sudden, crippling fear. She quickly flipped through her memory log of Tish’s shags.
Christ, Woody had better not be one of them!
But then she sighed in relief. Of course Tish hadn’t bonked Woody! Of all the men in the world (most of whom, it seemed, had hurled themselves at Tish’s feet at one time or another), Roxy would definitely remember him. Besides, Woody had already disappeared off the scene by the time she and Tish rocked up.

Tish’s phone was still ringing. Frowning, Roxy hung up. Honestly – what was the point of having a best friend who never picked up when she called? But she couldn’t stay mardy for long. Not now she knew Woody was just a few streets away. How was it possible she’d never noticed? Had she been walking around with her eyes shut and libido off? Grinning, she flung on her leopard-print dressing gown and hurtled down the stairs.

Automatically, she headed for the doormat. She couldn’t function before reading the tabs. She picked up her copy of the
Daily Post
and flicked past the news stories straight to the Nicola Blunt page, stopping expertly at its infamous masthead silhouette. Greedily, Roxy’s eyes drank in the stories of celebs behaving badly. She
loved
the Nicola Blunt page! It was catty, cutting and compulsive – all the best celebs were there. Roxy was forever calling the number at the bottom of the page, leaving anonymous messages about herself under the guise of being ‘a friend’. She’d never made it into the page, though. Not yet, anyway.
But all that was about to change
, Roxy thought with glee. OK, so last night hadn’t quite gone to plan – but next time it would. Nicola Blunt might be able to resist Roxy Squires alone, but Roxy and Woody together …?

Roxy giggled out loud. She didn’t know what was better … getting back in the papers, or horizontal with Woody? It was as if Christmas and her birthday had decided to come at once. Laughing, she hugged her dressing gown around her and raced back upstairs to shower.

From the top of his ladder, Woody eyed the black Aston Martin. It had been sitting in Cedar Crescent, engine running, for at least ten minutes now. He was sure it was the same Aston Martin he’d seen earlier, loitering in Peach Street – and yesterday, in Cherry Blossom Drive. Not that an Aston Martin in Lavender Heath was unusual; every road had at least one, but this one always parked the same: a foot from the kerb, engine running, its wheel pointing out.

He watched its reflection in Mrs Henderson’s window and then doused the pane in suds. His mind wandered back to Roxy. He’d been worried about last night’s meeting and reckoned it’d be fifty-fifty as to whether the group would accept her. Famous people weren’t like normal people – they saw themselves as a super-selective club. The moment fame struck, life adopted a door policy; membership was not open to all. Terence and the gang may only have been
slightly
famous, but they could still act like divas. Not that Woody minded – he’d been a right pillock himself.

But, luckily, Woody thought as he wrung out his shammy,
Roxy
had
been accepted. He remembered Roxy from the period after his own stint of fame. He’d wasted the last few years of the nineties, glued to late-night telly, wondering whether to curse or thank the hot new acts who’d replaced him centre stage. For months he’d hardly smiled at anything – with the exception of Roxy Squires. She had presented all the music shows back then. She’d interviewed all the bands in her special, bonkers style. Hell, if he’d held on to his record contract, she’d probably have interviewed him too. But he’d been too sick of the game by then – he’d just wanted to get out. He was sick of being the guy who’d forgotten how to smile for a family photograph without giving the camera his best side. He couldn’t remember having a conversation that wasn’t a career-enhancing schmooze. He’d even got bored with the shagging – the women came and went so quickly he barely learnt their names. He had suddenly realised that he was embarrassed by the man that he’d become. And so he’d decided to take his pop-star millions and supermodel girlfriend and leg it. So what if he was sued for six figures over the abandoned tour? And, yes, his supermodel girlfriend hadn’t been so super once the parties all dried up – but normality hadn’t disappointed him. It had just taken getting used to.

That was why he’d set up the group. After years of lazing about, he’d finally got a job. And, when he discovered he had used-to-be-famous clients, he decided he’d been a selfish arse for too long. It wasn’t a cure for cancer but, in his own small way, he hoped he was doing some good. These days half the world wanted to be famous, but nobody thought about what
came next …
after
you were famous – when the work dried up and the cameras went away. You might only be twenty-three, but life suddenly felt like it was finished. What could you do next? Fame was fun, but it turned into a millstone. When the whole world knew you, could you
really
work in a shop? An office? A bank? Would you even make it through the interview without being smirked at by the boss, or pressed for an autograph by a pink-faced woman from HR? Fame didn’t open doors – it closed them. It stopped you moving on.

Woody tipped back the potted bay tree and collected the wages Mrs Henderson had left for him. The thing was, the group wasn’t going quite as well as he’d planned. He was happy with his new life and wanted the others to be too. He wanted to stop Terence and Simon being bitter, to stop Sue worrying about the past, to teach Holly the trick of confidence and get Cressida to relax enough to make friends. He wanted to tell them that being not-famous wasn’t failure, just a chance to do something new. But it wasn’t exactly working. Terence was as angry as ever and Holly still wouldn’t say boo to a goose.

He shouldered his ladder and headed off to the next set of dirty windows. Maybe he’d bitten off more than he could chew? he thought grimly. After all, who was he to meddle in other people’s lives?
Smash Hits
covers were hardly qualifications.

He could see the group needed a bit of a shake-up – that was why he’d invited Roxy. Not that she could fix their psyches – but she might just make them laugh. When Woody thought about Roxy, he thought of a joyous Nike up the jacksy of life.
Of course, she had her own career crisis to deal with now, but she couldn’t quite see it yet. And whilst she was figuring everything out maybe she could get the group to have fun. After all, she’d unknowingly helped him through
his
doldrums … Yes, Woody smiled – Roxy Squires was
exactly
what the group needed. And she might not know it yet, but the group was
exactly
what she needed too.

10.51am @FoxyRoxy

Wow! Liz Hurley right (as ever!). Lust IS good for the skin! My mug’s GLOWING! Cheeks like an air-brushed baby – nips like champagne corks!

To:
Roxy Squires

From:
Celebrity MasterChef
production office

Dear Miss Spires,

Thank you for your recent email(s) requesting consideration as a contestant on the forthcoming series of
Celebrity MasterChef
.

Thank you also for your admission that you can ‘bollocks-up boiling an egg’.

As per our replies of 3
^rd
October, 8
^th
November and 10
^th
December, we regret that we will not be offering you an appearance on the show.

Sue had plumped for Assam and Bourbons in the end. She placed her tea and biscuits on the kitchen table, opened her computer and readied herself for a surge of endorphins. But these endorphins weren’t the kind that came from tea. These were technological endorphins, sparked into life by the reading of her emails. Or rather, her email, because her inbox only ever had one.

Sue’s inbox was a bleak little corner of cyberspace. She’d become so invisible she’d never made it on to any spam lists. But her sole, weekly email brought a special kind of joy. The email was Holly’s minutes and it turned up – without fail – just before eleven every Friday morning.

Sue
loved
Holly’s minutes. She loved them just as much as her
Times
crossword and her weekly gossip magazines. Every Friday she’d pull out the biscuits and prepare. Holly was so punctual – Sue could boil her kettle at 10.55 in anticipation of the ping of her inbox at 10.59. She’d then lose herself in Holly’s perfectly recalled, minutely detailed account of the previous evening’s chat.
Bliss!

Sue was about to devour this week’s email when the doorbell rang. She jumped. It couldn’t be Woody; he’d be busy on his round. And she’d already seen the postman stride past the end of her drive. She didn’t get spur-of-the-moment callers, unless they were well-meaning old ladies from the church, offering her the path to salvation – but even they didn’t come round very often. They didn’t want her soul
that
badly.

The bell rang again.

She scraped her chair back and scuttled to the door. Neonbright colours moved behind its mottled glass.

‘Jesus, Sue – I’m freezing my norks off out here!’

Sue opened the door.

Standing on her doorstep – her breath steaming into clouds in the cold, January air – was a woman dressed for the beach. Or was it the Alps? Whichever, Sue was gripped with admiration. She’d never dressed like that – not even when she was Suzi. The woman didn’t have a coat, but was wearing a pink sparkly T-shirt and a tiny miniskirt the colour of summer seas. Her legs were brown and bare. Her only concessions to the elements were a pair of enormous fluffy boots, a matching fluffy gillet, a Day-Glo muff and a woolly hat with dangly bobbles. The whole thing was topped off with two peroxide plaits, a slash of lipgloss and a pair of mirror shades.

Roxy
.

‘Sorry. I, uh … I’m on my way out. To the shops. To buy some … socks.’ Instinctively she gripped the door.