Can You Keep a Secret?

'Oh my God! Emma! It's you!'

'It's not,' I say, but my voice won't quite work properly.

'It is!'

A few people start nudging each other and turning to look at me.

'She reads fifteen horoscopes every day and chooses the one she likes best …' Jack's voice is saying.

'It is you! It's exactly you!'

'… she scans the back of highbrow books and pretends she's read them …'

'I knew you hadn't read Great Expectations!' says Artemis triumphantly.

'… she adores sweet sherry …'

'Sweet sherry?' says Nick, turning in horror. 'You cannot be serious.'

'It's Emma!' I can hear people saying on the other side of the room. 'It's Emma Corrigan!'

'Emma?' says Katie, looking straight at me in disbelief. 'But … but …'

'It's not Emma!' says Connor all of a sudden, with a laugh. He's standing over on the other side of the room, leaning against the wall. 'Don't be ridiculous! Emma's size eight, for a start. Not size twelve!'

'Size eight?' says Artemis with a snort of laughter.

'Size eight!' Caroline giggles. 'That's a good one!'

'Aren't you size eight?' Connor looks at me bewil-deredly. 'But you said …'

'I … I know I did.' I swallow, my face like a furnace. 'But I was … I was …'

'Do you really buy all your clothes from thrift shops and pretend they're new?' says Caroline, looking up with interest from the screen.

'No!' I say defensively. 'I mean, yes, maybe … sometimes …'

'She weighs 135 pounds, but pretends she weighs 125,' Jack's voice is saying.

What? What?

My entire body contracts in shock.

'I do not!' I yell in outrage at the screen. 'I do not weigh anything like 135 pounds! I weigh … about … 128 … and a half …' I tail off as the entire room turns to stare at me.

'… hates crochet …'

There's an almighty gasp from across the room.

'You hate crochet?' comes Katie's disbelieving voice.

'No!' I say, swivelling in horror. 'That's wrong! I love crochet! You know I love crochet.'

But Katie is stalking furiously out of the room.

'She cries when she hears the Carpenters,' Jack's voice is saying on the screen. 'She loves Abba but she can't stand jazz …'

Oh no. Oh no oh no …

Connor is staring at me as though I have personally driven a stake through his heart.

'You can't stand … jazz?'

*

It's like one of those dreams where everyone can see your underwear and you want to run but you can't. I can't tear myself away. All I can do is stare ahead in agony as Jack's voice continues inexorably.

All my secrets. All my personal, private secrets. Revealed on television. I'm in such a state of shock, I'm not even taking them all in.

'She wears lucky underwear on first dates … she borrows designer shoes from her flatmate and passes them off as her own … pretends to kick-box … confused about religion … worries that her breasts are too small …'

I close my eyes, unable to bear it. My breasts. He mentioned my breasts. On television.

'When she goes out, she can play sophisticated, but on her bed …'

I'm suddenly faint with fear.

No. No. Please not this. Please, please …

'… she has a Barbie bedcover.'

A huge roar of laughter goes round the room, and I bury my face in my hands. I am beyond mortification. No-one was supposed to know about my Barbie bedcover. No-one.

'Is she sexy?' the interviewer is asking, and my heart gives a huge jump. I stare at the screen, unable to breathe for apprehension. What's he going to say?

'She's very sexual,' says Jack at once, and all eyes swivel towards me, agog. 'This is a modern girl who carries condoms in her purse.'

OK. Every time I think this can't get any worse, it does.

My mother is watching this. My mother.

'But maybe she hasn't reached her full potential … maybe there's a side of her which has been frustrated …'

I can't look at Connor. I can't look anywhere.

'Maybe she's willing to experiment … maybe she's had — I don't know — a lesbian fantasy about her best friend.'

No! No! My entire body clenches in horror. I have a sudden image of Lissy watching the screen at home, wide-eyed, clasping a hand over her mouth. She'll know it was her. I will never be able to look her in the eye again.

'It was a dream, OK?' I manage desperately, as everyone gawps at me. 'Not a fantasy. They're different!'

I feel like throwing myself at the television. Draping my arms over it. Stopping him.

But it wouldn't do any good, would it? A million TVs are on, in a million homes. People, everywhere, are watching.

'She believes in love and romance. She believes her life is one day going to be transformed into something wonderful and exciting. She has hopes and fears and worries, just like anyone. Sometimes she feels frightened.' He pauses, and adds in a softer voice, 'Sometimes she feels unloved. Sometimes she feels she will never gain approval from those people who are most important to her.'