Ruby Parker Hits the Small Time (8 page)

“Nydia! I haven't got time to write in to a problem page! And anyway, what with all the letters I get, my life practically
is
a problem page. I might as well write to myself.”

Nydia stopped, mid-rummage, and looked at me. “There you go! That's a plan. Let's write to you and see what you say.” She was still giggling. For some reason, she wasn't taking me completely seriously.

I buried my head in my hands and closed my eyes. “Nydia! I can't answer my own problems! If I could, I wouldn't be here in the first place practically having a panic attack over the most important moment of my life!”

Nydia sat back down on her bed and thought for a long moment. At least she'd stopped all the hysteria at my expense. “We need help,” she said finally.

“I know, but I can't afford counseling,” I said with a squeaky laugh.

This time Nydia didn't laugh. She leaned her head in her hands. “No, I mean we need someone who
really
knows what they're talking about. We need an expert consultant to teach you how to kiss.”

I uncovered my face a little bit and looked at her. She was either a complete loony or a genius. I just wasn't sure which.

“An expert?” I asked her tentatively. “What are you talking about?”

Nydia shrugged. “Well, it's obvious when you think about it. We know totally nothing, so we need someone who knows totally everything—or
nearly
everything. We need someone who, say, knows everything about kissing.”

My hands fell away from my face, my jaw dropped, and I shook my head in horror. She was officially a complete loony.

“Oh, no!” I spluttered. It took me a moment to let the full horror of what she was suggesting sink in. “No way.
No way!
We are
not
asking Anne-Marie Chance to tell me how to kiss Justin. She'll laugh her head off and then tell everyone.
You
might be able to handle the daily ritual humiliation, but I can't. I would truly die of embarrassment. They'd be able to make a documentary about me and put me on
National Geographic
: ‘People Who Die of Ridicule: A Case Study.'”

Nydia pursed her lips and crossed her arms like she does when she thinks I'm being too dismissive of her ideas. “Ah, but we'd make it so she wouldn't be able to tell anyone,” she said with a hint of menace, nodding at me as if I should be in on a secret that I had no idea about.

I shook my head. “You mean give her concrete stilettos and sink her in the Thames?” I wondered if my voice would ever stop squeaking and return to its normal pitch. On the other hand, if my career flopped I could always get a job doing voice-overs on
Charlie and Lola
.

“No, silly,” Nydia said. “I mean we'll
bribe
her to keep quiet.”

I reached into my pocket and pulled out three pounds and eighty-nine pence. “What, with this? Because this is all I have left out of my allowance, and it's only Wednesday. I don't think it'll cut much sway with a millionaire's daughter, do you?”

Nydia looked at the coins languishing in my palm. “What about your trust fund?” she said.

“No way, José,” I replied. “I can't touch it. And anyway, Anne-Marie would never—”

“I know!” Nydia's eyes lit up, and I could see the worst had happened. She'd had one of her mad plans again, the kind you can't get her to leave alone—the kind that always,
always
gets us into trouble. Only this time I had the feeling she was going to surpass herself.

“You said your mum is feeling guilty, right? And your dad too? Well, we'll find out what Anne-Marie wants—a mobile phone that can take photos or a PSP or something—and then get them to buy it for you and then we'll give it to her. Easy peasy.”

I thought for a moment. “I don't know,” I said. “They feel bad, but …oh, Nydia, this plan is ridiculous! It's never going to work. Anne-Marie won't help us, even for a cool mobile phone. And even if she would, my mum would never buy me one. You know what she's like about me being normal! Anyway, it doesn't seem very fair to Mum or Dad to rip them off like that.”

Nydia took both my hands in hers. “Have they been fair to you?”

I shook my head, the bleak reality of what was waiting for me at home surging back for a second. All these plans, all this excitement over Justin: It was mad and silly, but it was better—
anything
was better—than thinking about
that
. I boxed up all thoughts of home and shoved them to the back of my mind.

“And besides,” Nydia continued, “it would only be a one-off. It's not as if you'd do it every week. You deserve to get something out of all this, Ruby, don't you?”

I nodded uncertainly. The only thing I really wanted was my family back the way it always had been. But I couldn't have that, so I'd just have to be tough. It was the only way to get through it.

“Have you got a better idea?” Nydia asked pointedly. I shook my head.

“And do you want to be able to kiss Justin so well that he'll be blown away at what might be your only chance?”

My heart plummeted. But it was no good. I just couldn't do it.

“I can't,” I said. “I just can't get Mum and Dad to buy me something to give to Anne-Marie. Even if I don't like them much at the moment. I'm sorry, Nyds.”

Nydia squeezed my wrist and thought for a second longer. “Yes, you can,” she said excitedly. “And you don't even need your mum and dad to do it. You've got the one thing that Anne-Marie wants more than anything else.”

I looked confused. “What? A bra the size of a battleship?”

“No, silly.
Fame.
You've got fame and she hates that.

If you told her that you could maybe help her get a part on the show …”

“But I can't,” I protested. “I'm barely holding on to my own part.”

Nydia shook her head quickly. “Yes, I know that, and you know that. But
she
doesn't
,
does she? She'd go for it. I bet she would. She dyed her hair orange to try to get the lead in
Annie
. If she'd do that, she'd do anything.”

I nodded. “Maybe …” I said. Maybe I was overtired and overwrought, but Nydia's plan
did
have a mad kind of logic to it. And so what if it would mean lying to Anne-Marie? It's not as if she'd ever been anything but nasty to me.

Nydia was looking pleased with herself. “Well then,” she said, “all we have to do is just call Anne-Marie and we'll see what she says, OK? There's no harm in that, is there? We won't say
exactly
why we need her help to start off with—just that we do. And if she turns us down flat, the worst she'll even be able to say around school is that we tried to suck up to her. If she agrees, then she'll have to keep her mouth shut or she won't get your help. It can't fail.”

“It
can
fail,” I said bleakly. “In fact, it probably
will
fail. But, oh well. Let's do it anyway.”

Chapter Ten

"
O
K, I'll do it,” Anne-Marie said.

Of course, it wasn't as easy as that.

Nydia and I didn't just breeze up to Anne-Marie's posh mansion in Highgate the very next morning and sail past the security gate. We didn't just waltz into the marble-floored entrance hall, sweep up the curved staircase, pop into her suite of three rooms (including her own bathroom and dressing room), sit down on her balcony, and agree to it all over chilled Diet Coke.

First off, there was the phone call. Nydia decided that if we didn't put the wheels in motion right then and there we would chicken out the next day. She grabbed her mobile phone and called Anne-Marie's number without giving herself a chance to think. I don't know how or why she had Anne-Marie's number. Maybe it was left over from the time when we all first got mobiles, and it seemed more important to have a lot of numbers in your phone than whether the person was nice or not.

I had Menakshi's and Jade's numbers in my phone for about a week before I realized they were never going to call me and I was certainly never going to call them, and so I deleted them. Nydia, on the other hand, still harbored these fantasies that we were living in a real-life teen movie where the lame kids like us eventually become cool and everybody is friends in the end. That's the kind of optimistic person she is.

Anyway, I thought Anne-Marie would see it was Nydia calling and just ignore the call without even picking up, but it looked like she must have deleted Nydia's number, because she answered. I pressed my ear to the other side of the phone to hear the conversation. My heart was thundering in my chest.

“Hi-iiii!” Anne-Marie sang into the phone.

“Hi, Anne-Marie. How are you?” Nydia said.

“Fine, fine.
Who
are you?” Anne-Marie replied archly.

“It's Nydia, um, from school. Listen I was just wondering—”

“Nydia?” Anne-Marie was clearly shocked. “How did you get my number?”

“You gave it to me,” Nydia said, looking slightly hurt. “Anyway—”

“I don't remember giving it to
you
. Anyway, whatever it is, no. No, I do not want to come to one of your lame sleepovers, or join in on one of your stupid film projects, or even walk on the same side of the street as you. OK?”

Nydia looked at me and rolled her eyes. I shook my head, drawing my forefinger sharply across my throat in what I hoped was the universal sign for “Cut!”

But Nydia ignored me. “Hang on,” she said quickly. “Just listen for a minute. It won't cost you anything to listen—and it could be to your advantage.” She tried to be all mysterious but instead sounded like she had a nasty cold.

Anne-Marie nearly choked on her own laughter. “I'm listening because, luckily for you, I'm alone and bored and could do with a good laugh. But hurry up.”

I pictured her tapping her pink nails impatiently.

“Well,” Nydia took a deep breath, “Ruby and I need your help. We need you to coach Ruby with a scene that's coming up on
Kensington Heights
. Sort of like Method acting. It's an area where Ruby hasn't had much experience and, well, we thought you could maybe offer your advice? Because you're
such
a good actress, after all.”

There was a pause, and I imagined the expression on Anne-Marie's face was somewhere between disbelieving hysteria and horror. After all, I more or less felt like that, and I wasn't even
her
.

“Me? Coach Little Miss I'm So- Brilliant-and Famous?” Anne-Marie barked out a harsh laugh. “No way. If she'd ever wanted any help from me she should have gotten off her high horse years ago and stopped acting so snotty about being on TV. She's got everything! She doesn't need me! And even if she did, I certainly wouldn't help her. I mean, she's so high and mighty that she can't even ring and ask me herself; she has to get her little servant to do it.”

My jaw dropped and I looked at Nydia. Anne-Marie calling
me
snooty?
Me
stuck-up? I tried to grab the phone from Nydia to tell Anne-Marie exactly what I thought of her, but she tussled it out of my hands, held me at arm's length, and glared at me until I signaled that I would listen quietly again.

“I know,” Nydia said with surprising calm. “You're right. She
can
come across as a snob sometimes, but it's basically only to cover up her many insecurities. She didn't phone you tonight because, well, I haven't told her I'm calling you. I wanted to see if you'd help us before I raised her hopes. She really does respect you, Anne-Marie. More than you know. She actually looks up to you.”

I stuck my finger down my throat and mimed vomiting onto the floor.

Nydia motioned for me to shush. “And just think, if you help Ruby now, maybe she'll be able to get you some introductions on the show like she did for Danny Harvey—”

“
Danny's
got a part on
Kensington Heights
?” Anne-Marie exclaimed. “I
knew
she fancied him; it was so obvious! God, how sick is that, trying to buy a boyfriend? If it wasn't for the fact you've got no other friends and no one else would even talk to you, I'd tell you to drop her, Nydia.”

Nydia winced as if Anne-Marie had slapped her face and, taking a deep breath, put on her stage smile.

I felt horrible. She was only putting herself through all of this for me. She really was the world's best friend.

“No! No, she doesn't fancy Danny. Not at all,” Nydia exclaimed. “They just talked a bit during the school play last year and she decided to help him out. She could help you out too—get you on the set and introduce you to a few important people.” She paused for a moment to let the idea sink in before adding, “Apparently they're looking for a new teenager …”

Anne-Marie was silent again for what seemed like forever.

“How do I know you're not just feeding me a pack of lies?” she said, her voice as cold as ice.

Nydia and I exchanged looks. That was a tricky one because, after all, that's exactly what we were doing.

Nydia steeled herself. “Because we need you to help us,” she said evenly, looking at me and crossing her fingers. “And because you can trust us.”

“Trust you two? The original stupid twins?” Anne-Marie snorted, sounding like a pig. “As if !”

“OK, then,” Nydia said quickly. “Fine. We'll drop it. But when you see someone else with the part, don't go blaming us.”

Anne-Marie sighed. “No, no …hang on a minute. Tell me exactly what I'd have to do and I'll think about it.”

“Er, we can't tell you exactly how you're helping us until we meet you tomorrow, and you must
never
tell anyone
anything
about this. Ruby will arrange for you to get on the set and meet all the right people, but that will only happen after completion of the agreement. So what do you say? Will you do it?” Nydia held my hand so tightly the tips of my fingers went white.