Chapter Nine
‘Hello, Mike,’ I said, unable to contain my delight.
‘Hello, stranger,’ he said, opening the boot and heaving my suitcases in and grinning at me.
Once I was safely in the back seat, Mike looked at me in the rear-view mirror and asked, ‘Where to, miss?’
‘Smithdown Studios, silly,’ I said, just like I said the first time we met seven years ago, outside my parents’ house when my mum was still chaperoning me.
Now, I was allowed to travel alone (despite my mum’s best efforts), but the familiarity of Mike was like a warm blanket.
Wonderwick had always tried to remain a tight and consistent team since the first film, and that extended to my driver.
‘We’re making a stop on the way, though, aren’t we?’ he asked as we set off, gliding along Prince Albert Road in the dark, the tiniest hint of dawn breaking through on the horizon.
‘We are indeed!’ I said, full of excitement at the prospect of picking up Carrie en route. I could get away with not having a Carrie, but if the studio was willing to pay for her, I would happily take an assistant. Chloe and Carrie were colleagues, but they were also my closest friends.
‘Would you like me to put the radio on, Emily?’
‘Yes, please,’ I said, knowing without a shadow of a doubt that he was going to choose Classic FM.
He tapped a button on the screen without taking his eyes off the road, and the car was filled with the sound of violins.
At exactly the same time Mike asked me, ‘Who’s this?’ I said, ‘Verdi.’
‘Am I that predictable?’ Mike laughed.
‘A little bit! But think of all the knowledge I’ve accumulated over the years!’
‘This one was too easy, anyway. Let’s see if we get anything more challenging.’
‘I don’t know if I’m up for challenging. I don’t think my brain is working again yet.’
‘You’ll be back in the swing of things soon,’ he reassured me. ‘Anyway, I don’t know if your brain has ever stopped working as long as I’ve known you. Seems like there’s always something buzzing around in there.’
I smiled and looked out the window. He was right. There was always something buzzing around in there. Not least today.
I barely noticed we’d made it to Carrie’s when we pulled up outside her flat, but the sight of her dragging her suitcase to the car with a huge grin on her face was enough to distract me from my thoughts for at least a few seconds.
‘There she is!’ Carrie drew me into an enthusiastic sideways hug in the back seat of the car as Mike rearranged the luggage in the boot. I inhaled the familiar scent of her perfume. ‘Enough to make up for the ungodly hour. Not that I’m complaining! Film is all about the ungodly hours.’
Carrie had been my best friend at school, and it made me feel marginally more normal to have her around.
‘Thank you for doing this,’ I told her as we set off for Smithdown.
‘As if,’ she scoffed. ‘Thank you for the work. Means I can postpone the post-graduation meltdown a little while longer.’
I felt a little twinge of jealousy at the word ‘graduation’. It sounded so shiny and complete, the pinnacle of work and effort and real learning. I know I’m lucky to get to do this job, but I wondered if Carrie knew how lucky she was to have gone to university.
‘Anyway, let’s not waste time on my boring chat – what’s going on in the wild world of Emily Montgomery?’
‘Wild? Have you met me?’
‘All right,’ she conceded, ‘maybe not wild but . . . glamorous?’
I sighed. ‘Is it too early for you to have seen any of the stuff about Josh and Darcy?’
‘What stuff?’ Her eyes widened with intrigue.
‘I don’t know for sure yet what’s going on, but the press are eating it up.
There was this party last night for the video game and the studio sort of used it as Darcy’s coming out party, she was wearing this really wild outfit and it felt like the whole party was for her, sort of.
And then her and Josh left together.’ I shrugged.
‘Like together together?’
‘Well, the paparazzi clearly thought so.’
‘This is good, right? Building buzz for the film and all that?’
‘Of course! It’s really great timing! And the fans are going to love it, aren’t they?’ I said, a little too enthusiastically.
Carrie eyes me with great scepticism. ‘That didn’t sound very convincing, Em . . . what’s making you feel nervous here?’
‘Am I really that bad at hiding it?’
‘I mean, it helps that I know you, but . . . yeah, pretty bad. Talk to me?’
I covered my face with my hands and looked through my fingers at her. ‘It’s so embarrassing when I say it out loud.’
‘Come on.’
‘I guess I’m just scared of being replaced, you know?’
Carrie tilted her head to the side and narrowed her eyes at me. ‘Emily, you’re the lead, no one can replace you.’
‘I know that’s true in theory, but if everyone’s been campaigning for Darcy to be in the films, and now she’s in them, and then she’s maybe going out with Josh, then it’s basically giving the fans everything they want on a platter and I’m just this dusty old bore that they’re stuck with in the lead role rather than this spicy and exciting new prospect. ’
‘First of all, you’re not dusty, you’re wearing new season YSL, and second of all, there’s definitely room for both of you in this film. More than enough room.’
‘In my head I know that’s true but in my heart, I’m just feeling . . . pushed aside, somehow?’
Carrie thought for a moment, opening her mouth to say something then closing it again, her features arranging and rearranging themselves.
‘What?’ I asked her.
‘Well, it’s just . . . speaking of the heart, I mean, I just thought it was worth asking . . .’
‘What?’ Where was she going with this?
‘It’s not that you’re jealous of the Josh thing, is it? I feel silly even asking it but, you know, just wanted to check so I definitely understand the situation.’
‘The Josh thing?’
‘Her going home with Josh, or whatever it was?’
‘Am I jealous of that?’
‘Yeah, I know it sounds crazy,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘I shouldn’t have even asked. It makes no sense.’
I cleared my throat. ‘No, it doesn’t. Of course I’m not jealous.’
‘OK, good, because I just thought maybe it’s not just about Darcy being popular with the fans, but maybe about her being popular with Josh in particular.’
‘Er, no,’ I said flatly, my cheeks feeling hot with embarrassment.
‘I mean,’ Carrie said, her tone light, ‘it would be completely OK if you fancied him. Lots of people do.’
‘Fancy Josh?’ I squinted at her, uncomprehending.
‘Yeah, I mean, he may be annoying but he is also quite cute. That hair, those eyes, those cheekbones, that body . . .’ she said, a little dreamily.
I knew this was what most people thought about Josh Sacco, but it was not what I thought about Josh Sacco. ‘Absolutely not! He’s a demon!’
‘Cute demon,’ Carrie murmured. ‘Hot demon, even.’ I thought Carrie’s experience working on Wonderwick would give her a different perspective, I thought she understood what he was like!
But no, she was just like all the girls mobbing Josh at events, taking sneaky pics of him skating topless on Venice Beach.
‘No. This is absolutely not a thing,’ I said, gesticulating wildly, keen to put an end to this.
‘All right! If you say so!’ Carrie said, defensively.
‘I do say so.’
‘And you’re the boss. I mean, literally, you are my boss . . . so . . . yeah, not a thing.’
‘I’m glad we agree on that,’ I said, finally. ‘But less of the boss stuff.’
‘All right, boss,’ she said with a sly smile.
I just rolled my eyes and looked out of the window.
An awkward silence had descended upon the car that neither of us knew how to break.
The jaunty Prokofiev tune coming through the speakers felt like it was mocking us.
Was I blind to the fact that Josh had dark curly hair, deep brown eyes, a great bone structure and lifted weights every day?
No. Did it change the fact he was a menace?
No! To me, he was still the obnoxious American boy who turned up to the Wonderwick set completely unprepared, and not just because I chose to remember him like that, but because he literally still was that person.
Sure, he had been a bit nice to me at the party last night but only because he wanted me to put in a good word with Edgar Malek about him.
It didn’t change the fact that we have a seven-year track record of finding each other irritating.
Finally, she broke the silence. ‘I solemnly swear not to bring it up again.’
‘Thank you,’ I said, not wanting the whole shoot to feel awkward between us.
‘I appreciate it.’ I paused for a minute, trying to think of a way to make it clear I wasn’t annoyed with her.
I really wasn’t, but my words often had this way of emerging from my mouth sounding sharper or harsher than I intended. ‘And I appreciate you.’
‘I appreciate you, boss,’ she said, grinning. ‘So, are you excited for this one?’
‘I’m always excited to come back. It sort of feels like home to me.’
‘You’ve probably spent more time there than you have in your actual home over the past seven years.’
‘I’d hate to do the maths on that but you’re probably right.’ I grimaced.
Her eyes filled with delight. ‘This one’s even more exciting because of the—’ she said, before abruptly cutting herself off.
‘The what?’ I frowned at her, before realising. ‘Oh, you mean the kiss?’
‘Yeah, but I thought after what we talked about you wouldn’t want me to mention it.’
‘That’s different! That’s just the film!’
‘I know that! I just thought . . . I mean, how are you feeling about it?’
‘I’d rather not do it, but like I said, it’s acting, isn’t it?’ I nibbled the skin on my lip before remembering I was going to be on camera in only a day or so. It wouldn’t be very Emily Montgomery to have flaky lips, now, would it?
‘Maybe the kinda bad vibes between you will make the whole thing even hotter,’ she said, almost breathless with enthusiasm.
‘For the audience, you mean.’
She furrowed her brow. ‘Yeah, of course. For the audience. Because there’s obviously no way it could be hot for you.’
‘No way,’ I said, resolutely, shaking my head.
Because this kiss was not going to be hot, and I definitely didn’t fancy Josh Sacco.