So it’s been me all along? Both mes? I try to get it straight in my head.
I should be happy.
But I can’t help feeling annoyed that he liked the “me” behind the studio doors more than the real me.
Also, it’s a bit weird, falling for a voice.
Maybe I’m being harsh. I think hearing him sing, that first time in the library, was what sealed it for me, so in a way, we’re the same. If I’d just been able to sing that day, none of this would have ever happened. Maybe we’d be together.
It just never entered my head that he could be attracted to someone he’d never met before. I was so convinced he was with Jade. And I’m sure that’s what she wanted me to think, as well.
We’re like a sort of Georg and Amalia in She Loves Me—unaware that their colleague is, in fact, their mystery pen pal they’ve been in love with the whole time. Or Stephanie and Michael in Grease II—where she’s in love with him, but only when he’s in disguise as a hot biker. I realize that makes me the hot biker and Fletch the Pink Lady, but hey. We’re a musical theatre plot gone wrong.
But musical theatre love stories generally have happy endings.
So why shouldn’t ours?
The cab stops in traffic. Oh god—the show opens in twenty-five minutes. Miss Duke will be prowling the corridors making sure everyone’s sufficiently nervous. I definitely cannot afford to be late. If I don’t make it for the fifteen minute call, they won’t let me onstage.
“I’ll just get out here, thanks,” I say to the cab driver. It looks as if there’s more traffic ahead. It’s not easy to run with a broken head, but it’s quicker.
As I cross Tavistock Street to the stage door, Natasha Bridgewell jumps out at me from behind a car. What’s she doing here? She should be inside.
“Hi, Nettie.”
“What do you want?”
“Hi.” Now Jade’s appeared. Of course.
“We just need to ask you a little favor,” says Natasha. She and Jade hold me by the elbows outside the stage door to stop me going in. “As part of my duties as assistant dance captain—” (Christ, she just loves saying that.) “—Miss Duke has asked me if I can give you a little extra task in the Summer Show.”
“What?” I say, irritated. I need to get signed in. I try to free myself, but Natasha tightens her grip.
“You see, Jade’s really suffering from a terrible throat.” Terrible voice, more like, but I’m not going to go there.
“I am,” says Jade.
She sounds perfectly normal to me.
“You know the booth in the wings?” says Natasha. “For backing vocals?”
“Yes,” I say. I can’t get rid of them, so I might as well humor them.
“Well, there’s another one, under the stage,” says Natasha. “It’s not been used this year, but I’ve had it all wired up and ready to go. We’re going to need you to go in there during Jade’s vocal number with Fletch and sing her part.” She says it quite casually, as if she’s just asked me to go and grab her a Diet Coke from the corner store.
“What are you talking about?” I say.
“I’ll show you,” she says. “It won’t take a minute.” She pushes me through the stage door and drags me down under the stage to a caged-in area with a microphone set up on the back wall. It’s cold and smells of mice. Alec was right about it being grim down here.
“All you’ve got to do is sing into here,” she says cheerfully. “You’ll have cans so you can hear the orchestra. And there are three monitors. The first screen shows the MD in the pit. The second shows the stage right wing—I’ll be there—and you’ll see Jade and Fletch on the live-feed monitor here, so you can match Jade’s mouth. I’ve wired the booth mic up to Jade’s radio mic channel. It’ll go straight out front.”
“Hang on a minute.” The realization of what they’re asking slowly seeps through. “You want me to sing for Jade while she mimes onstage? No way.”
“Miss Duke’s asked especially for you,” says Jade, “so you have to.”
“Miss Duke’s never heard me sing,” I say. “So, that’s rubbish.”
I go to leave but Natasha stops me by putting her arm across the entrance of the cage.
“We have,” she says. “And we think you’re the person for the job.”
“You haven’t heard me.” I wrack my brains for a time where they might have overheard me. Upstairs with Steph? No, they’d have been in class. When, then?
“Your little friend Alec showed us a video of you singing on New Year’s Eve,” says Jade.
Oh god. “Well, I’m not doing it,” I say.
“You will do it,” says Natasha. “Because if you don’t, you’ll be expelled.”
“Miss Duke’s not going to expel me for refusing to be part of your sick plot to make Jade look good.”
“No,” says Natasha. ‘“But she might expel you for telling one of her longest-standing teachers to go fuck herself.”
Of course. Natasha was in the class with Millicent Moore. Naturally she’s been waiting for an opportunity to use that one. I can’t get expelled now. Not after everything that’s happened.
I’m cornered. I know it, and they know it too. Natasha moves her arm to let me go, calling after me, “See you here at the top of Act Two!”
I trudge up to the dressing room. Kiki’s not there, so I go and knock on the first-year boys’ door. Alec answers.
“Hi, darling. You’re here.”
“What the hell did you think you were doing, showing Jade and Natasha that video of me?” I say angrily.
“What video?” He looks at me blankly.
“The video of me singing in the karaoke bar,” I say. “I specifically told you not to share it after you showed Steph.”
“Well, technically, I didn’t—after,” says Alec. “I’d already shown them. They were bitching about how you never did anything and how you were such a shit singer that you ran out of MT. I wanted to shut up their smug faces. Anyway, what does it matter now?”
“This is a disaster.” I put my head in my hands. It’s still throbbing from the fall.
“Why?” says Alec. “It was ages ago.”
I tell him what’s just happened under the stage. He stands, thinking, for a few moments while I wait expectantly for him to come up with a brilliant solution as usual. But instead he says, “You’ll just have to do it.”
“What?” I can’t believe he’s saying that. Whose side is he on? “Nettie, they’ve got you over a barrel. You’ve just got your voice back, haven’t you? You don’t want to be expelled now. Not after everything you’ve been through. And I need you here, darling girl.” He takes my hand in his and kisses it affectionately.
I snatch my hand away. “What, you’re saying I just get on with it?”
“I’m saying exactly that. It’s only one song.”
“Two songs.”
“Whatever. Just get over yourself and sing them. Then you can move on with your life. Look, I’ve got to go. See you after?”
And with that, he disappears. Fuming, I storm back to my dressing room.
I avoid speaking to anyone during Act One. I sit in my place with my headphones on listening to “No Good Deed,” enjoying the way it feeds my anger at Alec (but secretly hoping he bursts through the door with a plan). Kiki mutters something about going down to rehearse something during the interval. She doesn’t come back. On the five minute call for Act Two, realizing that Alec’s not coming, I head down under the stage to the secret booth.
Why am I doing this—letting Jade win? I could just not do it. The satisfaction of seeing her fail might just outweigh being hauled into Miss Duke’s office with Millicent Moore to explain my actions. But then I imagine that scenario. Miss Duke would never believe me over one of her longest-serving staff members. I’d be booted out on the spot. And then Jade and Natasha would really have won. No, much as I hate to admit it, Alec’s right—I’m just going to have to suck it up and sing.
I step into the booth, put the cans on over my head, and listen to the sound of the audience through them. When the show starts again I guess I’ll be able to hear the orchestra or whatever foldback they’ve got onstage. I watch the monitors. The one focused on the MD just shows an empty seat at the front of the pit and a few people milling around with ice creams in the stalls behind it. The onstage monitor currently shows the iron. On the screen displaying the stage right wing, I can see students flitting about, chatting, grabbing props, warming up. Natasha’s there in the background, going over some choreography with someone off-screen.
Then I see Alec. He looks like he’s waiting for something or someone (in the splits, but still waiting). Fletch walks past. Alec jumps up and calls after him. Fletch turns back and they start talking. What’s he up to now? Whatever he’s saying, it seems to be pretty interesting to Fletch. Oh God, please don’t let it be about me. Not before I’ve had a chance to speak to him myself. Alec puts his arm around Fletch’s shoulders, and they stand there whispering to each other for a good few minutes. My stomach has a knot in it that has nothing to do with singing.
The MD appears on the second monitor, raising his baton, as the house lights go down behind him. On the backstage monitor, Alec and Fletch disband—Fletch onto the stage for his number with Jade, and Alec melting into the darkness of the wings. A figure I think is Michael St. John appears next to Natasha and starts talking to her. Surely he wouldn’t be in on it? The orchestra starts up. I can just make out Luca on the far left of the MD, picking up his trumpet.
The lights go up onstage. As the curtain lifts, I see Jade and Fletch in position, ready to begin. Oh God, am I really doing this? I take a simultaneous breath with Jade and begin singing. It seems to work. I can sort of hear myself coming through the cans in addition to hearing my voice coming out of my own body. Jade’s miming muggily, grinning at Fletch wherever she can. His face isn’t showing a flicker of recognition. I get that once you’re up on the stage, it’s a bit awkward to just stop if something feels weird—but it’s like he hasn’t even noticed. Oh, God, please tell me I don’t sound like Jade.
The song ends and Jade stands there with a satisfied look on her face as the audience goes mad. The applause is so loud I have to take one side of the cans off my ear. I can’t believe she’s taking the credit for my singing. Jade and Natasha are going to blackmail me forever with this. I see the next year at Duke’s, the two of them swanning around college having a wonderful time while I run around being their bitch.
Then something else occurs to me.
I just got my voice back, and it’s been stolen from me. I’ve become a ghost singer.
Marni Nixon, move aside. There’s a new kid in town: Nettie Delaney-Richardson.
There’s no time to think about it anymore because the music’s just started for the second duet. It’s the song I wrote with Fletch, to add to the misery.
Behind Jade and Fletch, the big screen at the back of the stage is projecting a black-and-white film of 1940s London. I start to sing again, all the while hating myself for what I have done. Jade looks so smug I can’t even look at her. So I concentrate on the MD. It’ll all be over soon. Just watch the MD.
I hear talking in the audience. It gets louder. The people I can see on the screen in the front row are nudging each other and pointing.
Then I see it.
On the screen behind Jade and Fletch, large as the entire backdrop, is my face, projected live onto the stage. I see the look of terror in my own eyes, and oblivious grin on Jade’s face as she carries on miming.
What the—?
Then suddenly, from behind, someone grabs me and stuffs a hand over my mouth. It’s Leon. Alec slips into my place and carries on singing, his voice an octave lower. Suddenly the audience is divided between gasps and confused chatter. The band eventually stops, led by a mystified conductor.
“Miss Duke, everyone, my apologies,” says Fletch. Leon has let go of me now as I watch the monitor, dumbstruck, too absorbed in the drama unfolding to check my horrified expression now being projected to eleven hundred people. “But there is something you need to know. The voice you’re hearing does not belong to the person you’re watching.”
Jade looks at Fletch in fury but says nothing.
Miss Duke’s voice materializes through the speakers. “What are you talking about, Fletch? Can someone please tell me what’s going on, and why I’ve had a show stop of two and a half minutes?”
“Nettie’s downstairs singing in the booth,” says Fletch. “Jade and Natasha forced her into it.”
“Bring her up here,” demands Miss Duke.
Leon and Alec drag me up to the wings and push me onto the stage.
“Well?” says the disembodied voice. “Antoinette? Was that you singing?”
“Yes,” I say, but I have no mic on, and she doesn’t hear me.
“What? Speak up!”
Fletch comes over to me and points to the radio mic on his cheek. “Speak into here,” he whispers, holding it so he won’t be heard.
“Yes, Miss Duke.” I say it to Fletch’s cheek, which is glistening with sweat.
I look out to the audience. I can pick out some faces in the dark, but I can’t see Miss Duke. People in the crowd start murmuring. I look to Alec in the wings, who’s rather unhelpfully standing with his hands clasped in excited mini-applause. Then in the dark I see Miss Duke step through the pass door and into the wings. She walks onto the stage with her mic.
“My apologies for the show stop, ladies and gentlemen,” she says, perfectly calmly. “But it appears we have a bit of a situation going on here.” She turns to me.
“Antoinette, was that you we just heard?” I nod.
“Can you do it again?”
“I—I think so, Miss Duke.” She turns to Jade.
“Get out of my sight, before I turn you out of this theatre and out of my college. You disgust me.”
Jade flees into the wings, mortified. A couple of people in the audience boo her as she goes offstage.
“Before this descends into the realms of pantomime,” says Miss Duke, “I wonder if you’d indulge me in hearing that last song again. With its rightful star.”
A soundman runs on from the wings and fits a radio mic on me quicker than you can say Debbie Reynolds. Miss Duke strides over to where I’m standing with Fletch on center stage.
“Antoinette,” she says to me, smiling, “I think it’s about time you came off probation, don’t you?” The audience cheers.
She drops the mic down to her side and adds quietly, “Anastasia would have loved this. Make her proud.”
She steps off the stage, leaving just me and Fletch. He takes my hand and mouths “Ready?” at me. I nod, and the MD strikes up the band again. Alec and Leon are dancing together in the wings like the couples do at the end of Strictly, and I think I can make out Kiki jumping up and down by the sound desk at the back of the stalls. Shouldn’t she be backstage?
“They’re playing our song,” says Fletch, laughing at his own cheesiness.
It is the cheesiest line ever, but today it also happens to be true. By the time we reach the end of the chorus, half the college has rushed onto the stage and is dancing with us. The audience is up in the aisles. Theatre etiquette seems to have gone out of the window.
The applause is thunderous—more so because there are at least a hundred students on the stage applauding as well. There’s been so much going on that I’ve almost forgotten all the stuff that’s happened with Fletch. He tilts my chin. Do I want to do this with all the cheering and whooping and students onstage?
All of that melts away as his face nears mine and he kisses me softly.
And this time I know it’s for real.