Wishful Thinking Page 5

  From then on it was impossible not to take notice and acknowledge that Amber had a remarkable and versatile voice that made compulsive listening. The lyrics turned around the usual message, evidently aimed at the low-profile, middle of the road kids who drift through school without ever being noticed or singled out as special. Amber’s message was about not letting the lack of academic achievement prevent them from following their heart's desire. No wonder the kids rate it, Jess thought. The song had been Amber’s first solo hit. It was certainly different to the girl band songs she’d listened to at Katya’s age.

  “You like?” Katya asked as the song came to an end.

  Jess nodded. “Very interesting.”

  “You can sign in and join here, if you like,” Katya invited. “I haven’t had any new followers for nearly a week and I need to get my numbers up. Then I can keep you posted on both of them.”

  Jess gazed at the crowded page and noted that the site had over three thousand followers. “I’ll tell you what – here’s my email address. If you send me the link, I’ll do it as soon as I get home so I can post a comment too. You have a lot of posts here and I’d like to sit and read them properly. It’s an impressive site, Katya. Well done.”

  Katya preened. “I know. I work very hard on it. I should run Christian’s fan club really – I’d do a much better job of it than Paige Steele.” Katya paused, before muttering “Even if she has met him in person.”

  Jess nodded sympathetically. “So his relationship with Amber is not…on, at the moment, as far as you know?”

  Katya sat back in her chair, looking for all the world like a little starlet being interviewed on television. “Well personally I think Amber should stick with Adam. After all he says he adores her and that’s what she needs. Christian has his own career to take care of now and the fans can’t get enough of his films. We’re longing for him to sing in one of them.” She released a long-suffering sigh. “But she and Christian just can’t leave each other alone. They need closure, so they can move on. But I think they’re in each other’s skin.”

  In each other’s skin. The strange expression made Jess shudder slightly. It created an image of Lady Macbeth scrubbing away at the imaginary blood-stain on her hands.

  “So is he the one you had facetime with? I need you to dish the dirt so I can blog about it.” Katya said forcefully, interrupting her thoughts. “It could be the exclusive of the year for me!”

  Jess shook her head. “No, it was just someone like him. It wasn’t him, I’m afraid.”

  Katya gave a contemptuous little snort. “I didn’t think so. I knew that silly little boy was wrong.”

  All Jess’s old irritation with the precocious child re-surfaced. “He’s not often that wrong, Katya. If you took the trouble to get to know him, you’d find out.”

  6

  Although Adam supported Christian in trying to persuade Amber to stay in the clinic, she insisted on leaving, against the advice of all the staff. She claimed she felt ‘marvellous’ and didn’t want to miss the remainder of the Christmas festivities. After all, the band had made a special effort to get together for the celebration at Christian’s house, whether or not Christian could be bothered to join them for the whole holiday.

  He’d returned from his parents on Christmas night to find her busy on the phone tipping off her sleazy press contacts. He guessed that meant she was hoping for the red carpet treatment when she exited the clinic. Amber was only ever happy when she was in the spotlight – a real press-darling. She had probably tipped them off about her intended overdose too – day, time, location, etc.

  Once again he berated himself for his cynical thoughts and felt immediately guilty. His pity for Amber always overrode his anger with her. Outside of the band, very few people knew what a terrible life she’d had before being catapulted to fame in Wishful. He thought of her now much more as a sister than an ex-girlfriend. They’d come through such a lot together. He still loved her, but not in the way he once thought he did, when they were both so young and naïve. He knew her good points and her bad points and neither made any difference to their friendship.

  When she started seeing Adam, he felt a great sense of relief. There was no better bloke in the world than Wishful’s lead guitarist and of all the band members, Christian felt closest to him. Undoubtedly the most talented, he worshipped Amber and seemed absolutely right for her. Amber knew that on her better days. But on her bleaker days, could be just too much for the sensitive Adam to handle.

  Adam arranged to meet them at the clinic at 10 am, but he didn’t show and Christian couldn’t raise him on his mobile. He called Justin at the house who questioned the others but no one had seen him since the night before. It was a big house – easy to avoid people if you wanted privacy. Whatever Adam’s reason, Christian felt pretty sure it must be a good one.

  But that left him in the lurch, with no choice but to escort Amber out alone. He’d pleaded with her to leave by the back door but she would have none of it. She’d called her beautician in at eight and felt no inclination to waste all that make up. Although she smiled in a bright and brittle way, she appeared far too unstable for his liking – but she’d made up her mind. They needed to get the ordeal over and done with as quickly as possible.

  At least she’d agreed to cancel her commitments until after the New Year – which explained why her manager was stuck in his office on Boxing Day, sorting everything out. She would go straight to ‘Westacres’ where two nurses were awaiting her. That was the best compromise he could manage from her. Once he had her safely home and out of harm’s way, he might be able to start thinking about himself.

  And Jess. Try as he might, he had failed to push Jess out of his mind. He realised she wouldn’t remain at ‘Good Rest Ye’, of course, when he saw the thaw setting in. He’d wished hard for more snow to keep her at the hotel for a few more days but when he saw the roads on his early morning dash into London, he waved goodbye to that idea. Before leaving, he’d had no time to write more than a quick note and had berated himself ever since for not writing more; telling her he wanted to see her again; or even giving her his phone number so she could call him.

  On his return to the hotel the next day, he checked almost immediately to see what message she’d left for him, but to his dismay found none. Either his mother forgot to take her phone number, or Jess forgot to leave it. Of course, there also existed the possibility that she didn’t want to give it to him, but he preferred not to consider that.

  He then checked her registration details and suffered yet more disappointment at finding only a name and a London postcode – and that so badly-written, he could barely make out the last three digits. His parents’ inefficiency in not insisting on proper registration details shocked him. Fliss, the usual receptionist, would never permit such incompetence. He even wandered into the room Jess and Ben had occupied, though not expecting to find anything – which, of course, he didn’t. For a moment he tried to persuade himself that her perfume still lingered in the air, but he failed to convince himself entirely.

  And that was that. End of story. He couldn’t contact her, even if he wanted to. And in fact, he wasn’t sure if he did want to, or rather, if he should. His life seemed complicated enough right now. The best thing for both of them would be to draw a line under that night - closure. But it was hard to find closure when your mind kept taunting you about what hadn’t yet opened, or begun, he thought. He couldn’t help wondering what might have happened, had circumstances been different.

  But right now he had Amber to worry about and Adam to sort out; another quick trip to LA followed almost immediately by a round of premieres and other red carpet appearances; not to mention a pile of scripts to read and consider. This was not the time to be embarking on a new relationship; especially one that came with baggage of her own in the form of a child.

  He sat at his desk in the study of his Weybridge mansion – one of the few ‘off limits’ rooms in the house – and tapped Jess’s possib
le postcode combinations into Google.

  ****

  “Home at last, Ben. Let’s get all our things unpacked and you can play with your new toys. I have a feeling Santa might even have left something behind under our tree upstairs.”

  Although Ben had slept through most of the journey, as usual, he still appeared sleepy and subdued. Jess looked at him in concern. She had to be back at work tomorrow and Ben would have to be alert for the usual early morning routine in order to spend the day with the child-minder. It wasn’t the life she wanted, and she knew it wasn’t what Ben would prefer. Of course he was perfectly happy with his child-minder; she had no fears on that score. Maeve was a lovely Irish lady with two children of her own who seemed to adore Ben and with whom he played quite happily. Extremely artistic, Maeve did wonderful, creative things with the children, which they loved. They baked, they painted, they even made pottery and weird and wonderful sculptures but most of all, and what Ben liked best, they created and performed their own plays. Maeve called them ‘costume dramas’ and the children loved dressing up and performing to any willing audience – human or animal.

  It was an idyllic lifestyle for any child. It would have been an idyllic lifestyle for Jess, if only it could have been hers. That was the role she had envisioned when she was pregnant with Ben and she thought the whole world would bloom and blossom for her and her child. Her partner promised her all that, so she had every right to expect it. Every right to believe in it. More fool her.

  Jason disappeared shortly before Ben’s first birthday and she never saw him again. He’d written a long, incomprehensible letter trying to justify his abandonment and had slipped away late one night, never to return. His departure had left Jess utterly bewildered and she grieved for him as if he was dead. He might as well have been as he was so irrevocably lost to them now. Once she reconciled herself to the truth of her situation, she had little choice but to draw on her survival skills and throw herself into her work in order to salvage her dignity and provide for her son.

  They currently rented a small flat in a rather soulless, purpose-built block to the west of London. There was nothing remotely glamorous about it but the residents looked out for each other and Jess felt relatively safe in her bed at night. In fact she felt lucky to have found it. She knew there must be far worse places to live and had learned to count her blessings. It was also close enough to the Central Line that she could be at work in just under half an hour, although she preferred to see the benefit working for her in the opposite direction. If anything happened to Ben, she could be home in just under half an hour to take care of him.

  After they’d hauled all their luggage upstairs, Ben knelt before the little Christmas tree and retrieved the two packages Santa had left behind for him, while Jess sipped her coffee and enjoyed his excitement. She wished more than anything that she could take a few days off work just to spend more time with her son. She had enjoyed turning the flat into a little fairy grotto and spending the last few evenings before Christmas watching heart-warming films and reading (though mostly inventing) Christmas stories for Ben. Now the year was rapidly drawing to a close. Christmas was over and life would continue much as usual, despite all its glitter and false promises.

  When Ben had gone to bed, Jess flipped open her laptop and logged onto Katya’s blog. After skimming through the more interesting posts, she began to widen her search. Christian’s latest film, called ‘Evil Endeavours’ was receiving much interest. It was due to be launched in the early spring and was a sequel or prequel – Jess couldn’t quite work out which – to ‘Evil Absolute’ for which his name was already being paraded in the forthcoming awards lists in the Best Supporting Actor category. She explored a little further and found he had two earlier film credits to his name, though again, he had not played starring roles in either of them. She jotted down the titles to look up the films later with the aim of renting or buying them.

  She then looked up Amber Rayne and was dismayed to see millions of pages of Google listings about her. She was a phenomenon - and glamorous too, as page after page of stunning images showed. Jess began to navigate through the articles, sorting out the internet wheat from the chaff. But even the chaff was revealing and made interesting reading.

  This Amber Rayne appeared to be a sad and complex character. She had risen above a seriously damaged childhood to superstar status due to her incredible voice and charisma. Adored by teenage fans, especially girls, all over the world it seemed she had tried to be a good role model, particularly since joining the band Wishful. Once the group had disbanded, she’d gone onto enjoy even greater success as a solo performer, though haunted by her past and suffering several minor breakdowns - drug and alcohol abuse were mentioned on several occasions.

  Her name was always linked with Christian’s, even after their break up and her subsequent engagement to Adam Ainsworth. Some articles called them ‘inseparable’, others insisted that her engagement to Ainsworth was merely a smokescreen to give her and Christian some privacy and allow them to pursue their separate careers. The fans seemed to divide themselves between the two schools of opinion.

  Jess closed her laptop with a sigh. Oh well, it was a nice dream, while it lasted, she thought.

  ****

  Amber lay back on her pillows looking frail and tired.

  “I don’t really want to think about New Year right now, Adam,” she said in response to his question.

  “But you love parties,” Adam objected. “You chose the planners - we all thought you’d be working closely with them.”

  Christian added: “We thought it might give you something different to think about, Ambs.”

  Amber shook her head, her eyes shining with unshed tears. “I hate New Year. Or maybe it’s the thought of the old year dying that I hate. By the time December comes, you’ve grown comfortable with the old year. It’s like an old friend – it hasn’t any more new surprises to spring on you and you can be comfortable with it. But the New Year is different – everyone has such high expectations of it. And they can only ever lead to disappointment.” The tears spilled down her cheeks and both Christian and Adam reached for her hands and squeezed them comfortingly.

  “When I was younger, people were forever making promises to me about what the New Year would bring me. But it never did. Wherever I went, it was always just more of the same.”

  Christian rose and went to the door to summons the nurse. “I think she needs a sedative,” he whispered.

  The nurse slipped silently into the room.

  “I hate being me,” Amber said in a weak and weary voice. “I’ve got such a dirty, ugly past.”

  The two young men retreated to a corner of the room while the nurse made her general status checks on Amber.

  “I can’t be around her when she hits the wall like this, man,” Adam said, his voice thick with emotion. He dug his hands deep into the pockets of his jeans and stared at the floor in misery.

  Christian nodded. “I should never have let her leave the clinic.”

  “As if you had any choice,” Adam said, his voice full of bitterness. “It’s when she gets like this, I just freak out. I just can’t deal with her. I’m sorry, mate, but I can’t be here right now.” He turned to leave the room but Christian followed him, catching his arm outside the door and pinning him to the wall.

  “Do you think it’s any easier for me? We’re all she’s got, you know. We can’t abandon her. We’re in this together – we said that all along. Don’t leave her to me again. I need you as much as she does. We’ll get her through this – we’ve done it before. We just have to wait it out…together. I can’t do it on my own.”

  Adam sniffed. Tears were streaming down his face, but he brushed them away with his fisted hand and nodded. Both men took a few deep breaths each before re-entering the room.

  7

  When Jess walked into the office three days after Christmas, she knew at once that something was wrong. Sam and Kamia sat hunched over their computers as usu
al, but there was a suspicious stillness about them.

  “Happy New Year…nearly,” Jess said, trying to sound more cheerful than she felt as she hung up her coat and unwound her long scarf. Rather typically, after the pre-Christmas snow, followed by a very mild three days, the weather had now turned bitingly cold and the sky looked ominously heavy, with dense grey cloud cover. She glanced at her co-workers one after the other, before addressing Kamia, who was biting her lower lip nervously.

  “Something bad has happened, hasn’t it?”

  “She’s calling a meeting,” Kamia said. “Just as soon as you get in.”

  Jess nodded and sighed. Please, please, don’t let me lose my job, she thought. But a tiny, rebellious voice at the back of her mind asked: would it be so very bad if you did?