Darcy fiddled with the ring on her finger. The large bookstore, one of only few remaining, was filled with celebrities, with VIPs, reviewers, a camera crew reporting for some entertainment channel, Marge and a skeleton crew for the show, Zoë, Blanche, Susannah…and Kate. Why was she here? Her tone had been quite clear that she wasn’t going to put up with being discreet. Why was she acting like they hadn’t argued? And why were her jeans missing an entire back pocket? Had Zoë abducted her?
“You ready?” her agent, Paul, asked with a smile. He’d been stunned when he’d read her manuscript—as if being beautiful meant her brain had fallen out. Zoë was sure she’d just hired a ghostwriter and lied. She rolled her eyes. Zoë would have done that. Not Darcy. It was too…exposing to have someone dig at her private thoughts.
“Darcy, are you okay?”
She shook her thoughts free and nodded. “Yes. I’m ready.”
Paul strode to the podium and smiled at the audience. “Darcy’s book isn’t quite an autobiography. It isn’t a guide or a ‘how to’ book. We were only allowed to put some pictures in because I promised to buy the right shaped jeans.” He tugged at them, and the audience chuckled. Why, she wasn’t sure. His jeans before had made him look like a slob on a tight budget. He looked like he was an agent now. “It’s a compelling read; yes, Darcy can write, and it’s quite the story getting to know her.”
Know her? She doubted anyone who read it would remotely know her. Susannah frowned and turned to Zoë, who shrugged. As if she would tell a book anything they didn’t know. She tutted, then all eyes fell on her and she shot a dazzling smile at Paul. Yes, pretend that he wasn’t speaking drivel.
“So, this book, ‘the frozen image’ shows that Darcy McGregor is more than just a beautiful face.” He motioned to her and she strode over, trying not to roll her eyes. Cliché much?
“Thanks, Paul.” She took up the podium. Kate studied her like she was curious as to what the book was about. Maybe she could just give her a copy—then would Kate stop trying to pry answers from her? “Fashion has been a friend. Sometimes it’s been an untruthful, unkind friend, but we always seem to make it up.” She flashed a dazzling smile. The audience laughed, easily pleased. “But it provided the escape I needed and provided me with a wonderful daughter.”
Susannah pursed her lips. Yes, she thought that was a show too.
“So here is the opening. I hope you agree with Paul that I can write. If you don’t, please pretend you do.” She smiled again, the audience laughed again, but unlike everything else she had done publicly, this made her hands tremble, her knees tremble. She took a deep breath. “There has always been a frozen image in my mind which returns to me in important moments. I was ten, sitting on the front step of the council house my mother owned. Three boys were fighting over something down the street, hurling abuse at each other. The man next door had come home drunk; he was a violent man, and his wife was trying to keep the door barred from him. My mother was on the pavement in front of me, screaming at my father because she’d discovered he had another family. It was the moment when I realised I didn’t live in a cosy, happy home, and I never would again.” She took a deep breath. Reading in front of an audience was easy usually, bearing parts of her that hurt was not as easy. “That image haunted me when Susannah was born. Happiness was not something I knew or expected to have, but I made the decision that she was never to see that. I never wanted her to be hurt like that. I wanted her to live far from the damage I’d left behind.”
She dared to look at Susannah. She had her hands over her mouth, tears in her eyes. She hadn’t wanted Susannah there at all. She didn’t want her to read the book, but Zoë insisted.
“So, I focused my sights on reaching for a better life and needed to learn how to catch attention, to hold it, to harness it, and to turn it into a career.” She met Zoë’s eyes. “And for that, I needed a little help.”
She closed the book and stepped back. Silence. Good silence? Did they think she could write, or had they fallen asleep?
“Questions?” Paul asked, a smug look on his puffy face.
Kate nodded to her as hands shot into the air, and she breathed out a sigh of relief. Must be good if Kate liked it. Kate was a reader. Confidence oozed up, and she eased into a smile. Yes. If Kate, Susannah, and Zoë liked it, that was all she cared about.
The audience had loved it. Every copy there had been sold in minutes, and there was a long line of people waiting for her to sign theirs and have a photo. Paul looked like his eyes might turn to pound signs, and she flicked her gaze over to Susannah, Kate, and Zoë loitering with Marge in the corner.
“Darcy, that was so poignant, so raw,” one lady said, handing over her book. “I don’t know what I was expecting, but it wasn’t that.” She beamed and flicked her blonde hair back. Not natural. Too much tinted moisturiser. “Marshall doesn’t usually go for rough people.”
Marshall? “Yes, well…perhaps he should remember that his grandfather worked on the docks before his big break.” She smiled at the lady. Whoever she was, she was clueless. “He’s hardly aristocracy himself.”
The woman laughed. “He did?” She leaned over, thrusting her breasts forward as the camera shutter clicked. “He’s a smooth talker.”
“If you say so.” She leaned back, hoping the woman would hurry up and move on. She produced her most polished smile and reached for the next book.
“He said you look a picture,” the lady said, pausing and glancing back over her shoulder. “Said that the book should be called ‘the fake image.’” She laughed again, like it was hilarious, and strode off.
Darcy shook her head and turned back to the line. Odd woman.
Kate shoved her hands in her front pockets. The unease of hearing Darcy read from the book prickled at her. She wanted to read it, yet she really didn’t. It definitely wasn’t going to include her relationship with Zoë, so what did it include?
“Did you know?” Susannah stared up at Zoë, hugging herself. “I didn’t know. Why didn’t she tell me?”
Zoë wrapped an arm around her shoulder. “Yeah, I knew. Took a lot of elocution lessons to get her talking like that.” She smiled down at her. “When I met her, she had a really strong accent.”
Susannah glowered over at Darcy, then stomped off. Marge lowered her camera and sighed. “Think I’ll delete that bit.”
Zoë nodded to her and hurried after Susannah, then Marge wandered over to Darcy, and Kate stared at the cover of the book. Darcy in front of a tall window, high contrast, white against the black details of the window panes, Darcy’s long legs stretched out on the window seat. She was looking out, a pensive look on her face, pulling the focus in, right to her eyes. Not the masked look that she always produced in all the other pictures, but a raw look.
“How’s the stalker doing?” some woman whispered next to her, then laughed. Kate looked her up and down. Wow, she didn’t know a lot about make-up, but orange definitely wasn’t good. “Did she tell you to keep your mouth shut?”
Kate looked around. No. The woman was talking to her. Great. “If you’re going to try ripping my jeans, I warn you that Zoë is mean with a tape measure.”
The woman leaned in, false smile—Kate coughed—and too much perfume. “Marshall said she was hot for him. Followed him around, begging for his attention. Didn’t like it much when he let her down easy.”
“How sad are you?” Kate shook her head and turned away.
“Oh, come on. You think she’s hot for some cheap tart like you?” The woman walked around to stand in front of her. “She’s heartbroken over him. Can’t you see it? He knows it too.”
“Honey, Marshall is nothing but some soggy-cheeked jerk who thinks he can act.” Blanche strode over and slid her arm around Kate’s shoulder. “And he’s lucky Darcy as much as breathed on him.”
Kate stared at her. Was Blanche really talking or had she just passed out?
“Marshall is a red-blooded man who is better than any…” The woman paused, then laughed, then held up the book. “He is a real man inside.”
“Everyone has red blood unless they have a very bad circulatory problem,” Kate mumbled. She never got that saying.
The woman looked her up and down. “What?”
Blanche blurted out her laugh.
“Blood is a mixture of plasma: water and proteins, red blood cells, white blood cells, and platelets.” Kate shrugged as both Blanche and the woman stared at her. Okay, so her A Levels came out when she got nervous too. Another defensive trait: humour, kissing, and biology… Odd mix. “And the lymphatics clear the waste products.”
“What are you talking about?” The woman glared at her as Blanche laughed harder.
“Everyone is made up of cells and water. Bones, muscles, tendons, ligaments, blood, etcetera…” Kate smiled at the woman. “So no one can really be better than anyone else, and everyone’s insides look the same.”
“What?” The woman waved the book around. She looked thrown off.
“She’s a geek.” Blanche kissed Kate on the lips. “But we love her.”
Darcy scowled over. So she was watching, then.
“Honey, if you’re gonna kiss her, it’s only fair I do.” Zoë strolled over and kissed her on the lips too.
Right. Well if she wasn’t bright red before, she must be now. And…yes, Marge was filming it, and Darcy looked like she might smack her across the head with her book. It was hardback too. Didn’t fancy that.
“Disgusting.” The woman turned and stormed out.
Zoë raised her eyebrows at Blanche. “Any reason?”
Blanche winked at Darcy and smiled. “Just getting my own back.” She strolled off, and Kate chuckled. Yes, she might have been, but was it her, or had Blanche defended Darcy?