‘Daddy?’ Will asked in disdain.
‘Uncle?’ Ed said in confusion.
‘Oh yes,’ McKee said. ‘This is Tina Churchill. You know her father, John Churchill, head of Maple Groove Records. And my goddaughter.’ Tina bent and bussed a kiss on his cheek. For a brief moment, McKee’s face softened.
Emma didn’t think that boybands were supposed to use the sort of language that came spilling out of Will’s mouth. It was as if Peter Pan met Quentin Tarantino. There was no bloodshed but she wasn’t sure that he wasn’t going to go Kill Bill at any moment.
‘Enough.’ Si roared.
She flinched and hit the wrong button on her laptop. Suddenly the song that she’d been listening to when she’d been making the presentation came blaring out of the speakers. You Can’t Always Get What You Want by the Rolling Stones.
‘Good choice, Emma. Most apt.’ McKee said. ‘Now, where were we?’
***
Two hours later, Emma staggered out of the conference room.
Holy hell, she thought, how was she supposed to make this work? She might as well delete most of her presentation and strategy. All that research and work up in smoke.
She slumped against the wall by the lifts. How could she face going downstairs and telling Jamie that their perfect plan was now a perfect mess?
She pressed the call button quickly. She wanted to get away before any of the others came out of the room and caused any more havoc. At least her plan for Amit and Ed didn’t need changing much.
But Will.
The lift arrived and she got in quickly jabbing the button for her floor. After everyone had calmed down, or at least shut up, Will had sat at the table like a small thundercloud waiting to go off. None of the boys had made any kind of comment on the plans after that.
God, she hoped they’d play along.
And Tina… Emma walked out of the lift when it got to her floor, hoping that the taint Tina had brought into the room wouldn’t follow her.
How was she going to make Tina seem like someone Will would date? Hell, like someone anyone would date?
Maybe she could make sure she never spoke? In the space of two hours she’d made a casually racist comment to Amit, had made insinuations that Sean was the idiot some village was missing and ignored her new boyfriend and his best mate. Which might have been the brightest thing she’d done. She obviously had some sense of survival. And through it all McKee had watched on benevolently.
As she got to her desk she thought, Kate Moss never spoke for years and that never stopped her from being an icon… If Emma could just project a made-up persona on her it would be easier. Create a mask for Tina and sell that to the press.
Lies upon lies, she could hear Gee’s voice in her head. He sounded disappointed. But how was this her fault? Her first plan had been flawless. But if she wanted to keep her job and stay on track with her own plan she needed to be flexible. Roll with the punches. Adapt.
Not that she was telling him any of this. She knew what he’d answer. He’d say it was a bad deal, that she should stay as far away from it as possible.
She sat down at her seat. No one seemed to be around, the team meeting was obviously still going on.
She shrugged her shoulders trying to loosen the tension. But Gee would be wrong, wouldn’t he? This situation wasn’t anything like it had been for him and Johnnie. The whole reason their record company had been pushing fauxmances, was because they wanted to hide who Johnnie really was. He’d avoided a fake relationship because he’d had a girlfriend. But they had still wanted him to deny who he was. And that wasn’t the same for the BOTP boys. This was all about getting them the best promo, giving them the big push they needed to get to the next level, to sell more music, more tickets and merchandise. They didn’t have anything to hide, they weren’t being asked to deny anything. The band would get with the programme eventually. If she had to drag them to it kicking and screaming.
Yeah. What was she worried about, if she could get Phooke to the altar then she could do this. Getting the boys to accept this as a fait accompli would be a doddle, and then she could move on to getting Jamie and Dan to go on a date.
She pushed away the thought that she had to do this. Because what if she failed, where did that leave her?
***
Hours later, Emma stared at the two screens in front of her. On her lap top she had Ed’s calendar open, on the large monitor she had Frankie’s schedule and the spreadsheet for their relationship timeline open.
She began to count off on her fingers. So, Frankie had been touring in London in May, that could be the perfect time for when she could allege that Frankie and Ed had first met. It wasn’t too far in the past and there was time to get some quick blind gossip items sold in. She checked Ed’s calendar and schedule to make sure it added up.
Oh, for goodness’ sake. She wanted to swear. Of course, Ed wasn’t in London then. He’d been posting constantly on social media from Ibiza where he’d been on a very cosy lads’ holiday with Will. It seemed that every time she tried to work out when Ed and Frankie could’ve met he was off with Will. Were they joined at the hip? They shared a house but that didn’t mean they couldn’t do things separately.
Her phone pinged. It was Gee.
You home tonight?
She looked at the time. How the hell had it got to 8 p.m.?
Yeah, just leaving the office, she replied
The dog ate your dinner, Gee texted back including the puppy dog and then the chicken leg emoji.
Emma snorted. As if. It looked like he had got bored in the studio or someone hadn’t turned up for their appointment so he’d cooked. She knew there would be enough of whatever it was for her. In some ways, he really was the perfect housemate.
She stared back at the screen, her stomach now rumbling and gurgling to remind her that she hadn’t eaten all day. The meeting had run through lunchtime and she hadn’t wanted to eat afterwards, her stomach had still been in knots.
She saved and then closed down all the documents. There wasn’t anything she could do tonight. Much as she loved finishing off schedules, sometimes you had to let them sit and stew. Maybe tomorrow she’d have a brainwave about how she could make this all work and still look like she was good at her job. Grabbing her coat and bag she took a look around the empty office and walked out.
***
An hour later she opened the door to the house, her bag weighing down her shoulder. It seemed to get heavier the further into her walk from Mile End station to home. She should’ve got a cab, it was false economy not to. Closing the door with her foot, she deposited her bag and headed for the stairs, staggering down them to the kitchen. It glowed with light and the smell of food enveloped her like a hug.
It was good to be home.
Gee was sat with his back to her and had papers spread over the kitchen table.
‘Hey stranger,’ he said turning to smile at her. She tried not to notice the way his battered Feckless Rogues T-shirt stretched across his shoulders.
‘Hey,’ she said, trying to inject some energy in her voice.
Gee stared at her hard, his smile dropping and frowning.
‘Hard day at the coalface of matchmaking two business empires with each other?’ It was obvious he was trying to say it lightly but falling flat. It came across with a hint of bitterness.
‘Can we not tonight?’ she said. There was a thumping in her head as if every member of BOTP had grabbed drumsticks and used her head as the percussion section.
‘What, someone couldn’t decide whose name came first on the pap photos?’ He lifted an eyebrow.
‘Gee,’ she warned, turning away towards the oven. She picked up the lid on the saucepan sitting on it.
Chilli.
Just what she needed. Comfort food, a hug in a bowl.
He wasn’t far off with his throwaway comment, she thought, thinking of the contract McKee had brokered with Tina and ‘Daddy’ Churchill. It seemed that any article about Tina, Will and their ‘romance’ had to have Tina mentioned in the headlines. Also, she would always be listed first on the pap shots that would be set up.
But that paled into insignificance compared to the contractual obligations demanded by Frankie Quick’s people… She stirred the chilli vigorously. It was feeling more like a hostile takeover than the merger that a good fauxmance should be.
‘Hey,’ Gee put down his papers and looked at her. ‘What is it?’
This was the best thing about him and the worst, he knew her too well. Knew every little tick and tell.
She opened her mouth to let rip, to tell him how everything she’d done over the past week had been completely derailed. But…
He was going to agree with the boys.
She snapped her mouth closed. Not that she wasn’t on their side. There weren’t any opposing sides anyway. She shrugged it off. They were all working for the same end goal, what was best for the boys. It was just that Gee would have a different idea about what was best for them.
He didn’t get that what she did for a job helped them. And there was no way she was telling him what had happened this afternoon, he’d get the wrong end of the stick. He’d see it as the band being coerced when everyone had their best interests at heart. No, she wouldn’t tell him because then they’d get into a massive fight, where he’d tell her what she should do. His idea of what her life and career should be like was very different from hers.
What she was doing for the band was for their own good, wasn’t it? Being a success was never only about the music. It was the package, what you wore, where you went. And that included who you dated. Hell, it had happened in the early days of Hollywood, for all they knew it had been going on in ancient Greece.
She carried on stirring the pot.
‘Nah, just a long day.’ She lied, but she could see he was agitated, she needed something to direct his anger towards. ‘Oh, did I tell you Phooke called me to say they’re thinking of getting pregnant and wanted to know what was the best month for the baby to be born.’ She couldn’t help but smile at the message.
‘What? Are they going to co-ordinate the kid with their publicity schedule?’ Gee started to rant. ‘Is he going to coincide his latest film promo to hit at the same time? These people, don’t they care about the actual stuff they create? Do they have no faith in it? Or did they only start doing this to become famous?’ He grabbed some paper in front of him and threw it in the air.
She’d distracted him. Excellent.
Mind you, she thought, coordinating these big life decisions was important, famous or not famous. Schedules and plans kept things safe, kept things from getting messy.
If you didn’t have plans you ended up doing something stupid like getting pregnant during university. You took jobs that had no security. You pulled your kid from pillar to post while you chased pipe dreams and then when you decided you didn’t want to be married anymore you just left.
She stirred the chilli so vigorously part of it spilt over, and she jumped back so it didn’t splash her.
It wasn’t that her parents were awful. They loved her, she knew that, but sometimes she found it hard to like them. Especially when she was still the one doing all the organising and planning for the whole family.
Maybe one day… she stopped herself from thinking about how nice it would be if someone else looked after her. Because that meant she wouldn’t be in control, that she could be left again. She shivered.
‘I swear to god, Ems, the world just gets worse. Babies being born for promo for Christ’s sake. They might as well just tattoo ‘em with an advert as soon as they pop out.’
More papers flew around the room as his arms became more expansive. The transfer of her bad mood to Gee made her feel better. She served herself a bowl of chilli and grabbed a glass of water.
What she wouldn’t do for a glass of wine. But it was a weekday and not a special occasion or work thing. She would do without. Those were the rules.
‘I hope you told them that they need to get their priorities straight?’ He looked at her, pointing an accusatory finger as she sat opposite him at the table, pushing his papers out of the way. They seemed to be a mix of marked up contracts and schedules for the studio.
‘Of course,’ she lied and took a spoonful of the chilli. No need to tell him she’d actually done some research on which fertility doctors they could go to who could also help them time the pregnancy to fit into their promo plans the best.
In fact, she and Jamie should brainstorm ways of teasing a pregnancy with no one knowing the true conception or birthdate until they needed to. They could get a good year or two’s worth of mileage, playing the ‘is she, isn’t she’ angle. Brooke could try IVF before going through the pregnancy by being all coy like Cheryl Cole. She’d add it to the notes for the next planning meeting.
But she wouldn’t mention it, Gee’s blood pressure probably couldn’t take it.
‘I need a drink,’ he said and pushed his chair away from the table.
She watched him idly as he got up and wandered over to the fridge. What must it have been like to have been Gee’s publicist and PR when he was in Status Single? Could she have made it any easier for him?
She thought back to what it had felt like being a fan of the band. Gee had been portrayed as the moody bad boy who didn’t say much in articles, he just smouldered. There had been stories in the papers and online of wild parties and groupies, there had even been whispers of drugs. Whilst the rest of the band had been the clean cut perfect boys that wouldn’t upset any parents.
It wasn’t until it exploded in the tabloids, her final year at school, that it turned out that Johnnie had been the rock‘n‘roll one. All the drugs and sex except it had been with men not women. There had been crazy nights and rumoured overdoses. In contrast Gee had been in loved up domesticity with his long-term girlfriend.
That had been crazy in itself. And Gee could’ve had a career if he’d left it at that.
She sighed as he came back to the table with a beer.
No, he decided to stick with Johnnie when it all hit and announced he was bisexual and had had a serious boyfriend when he’d been at school. Which was admirable and showed great friendship but… No boyband could have two gay guys.
Not that he was gay, but well… he probably could’ve got away with saying he didn’t like to label himself if he hadn’t wanted to say he was straight. But once you brought in the fact he’d had a serious male romantic partner… they would’ve preferred he’d had a drug overdose too.
Holding a beer and muttering under his breath, Gee went back to his paperwork.
But what if she had to be his PR person now? He could be famous again if he wanted. Instead of some boy-banders, who’d grown up and lost the cute features that made them desirable as teens, he had become honed and more handsome. Defined.
And he had charisma by the bucketload. Bastard, she thought, thinking of how all the neighbours loved him even when he had noisy parties and impromptu jams in the garden during the summer. They pretty much spat at her.
She chewed on her chilli. Yeah, she’d have him wearing more of those Gucci soft shirts. Tease his black hair to fall over his forehead. And, of course, to really sell it, he’d have someone high profile on his arm. Man or woman. His bisexuality would look good on him now.
And that is where her mind skated like a needle bumped on a vinyl record. No. There was no one who she could see working with Gee. For once her matchmaking radar failed. She tried to think, maybe Sam Smith… no, he wasn’t… she wasn’t sure what he wasn’t, she just knew it was a no.
Why was she even thinking about this? That meeting had obviously made her go a little crazy. Because he was never going to be famous again. That wasn’t what he wanted. He’d made it very clear. His life was his, not created or crafted to share with the general public. Anyone in Gee’s life was in it because he wanted them there.
And after they’d sat there in comfortable silence for an hour, she got up and hugged him goodnight from behind as he sat in the chair. She held him hard for a moment. And later as she lay in bed, the scent of his shampoo still in her mind, she was thankful she didn’t have to share Gee with the world. She slept like a baby.