The back corridors of Charles de Gaulle airport were a warren; Amir could have been leading us to the centre of the earth. He ushered us through automatic glass doors, down another long hallway, then through a heavy fire door into bright daylight and the clicks of a hundred iPhone cameras. Above the shouts I could make out occasional shrill sentences:
‘Lily, over here, s’il vous plâit!’
‘Mon dieu, mondieu, mondieumondieu ...’
‘Lily, LilyIloveyou ...’
I had a hysterical urge to bolt back through the doors, but Sam grabbed my hand and we held fast as though we could brace ourselves against the avalanche. At least I had worn sunglasses, so my expression was hidden – I was learning from Addie. For some reason I’d expected the French to be less easily impressed than the English, but if anything the hysteria was worse here.
Amir hissed ‘Perennial Single Girl’ in my ear and I slapped on a smile, writing my name on the offered paper and skin, whirling from one fan to the next with Amir’s steady hand on my back. Carter slapped high fives and leaned in for photos like a pro.
When we finally swept into the waiting car, Amir was still huffing about the mob. ‘Of course the French have no idea how to do crowd control. There should be a velvet rope and a security guard, at the very least.’
‘We don’t mind signing a couple of autographs,’ said Richie amiably.
Amir was already on a call to Beatnik, running through our itinerary. Out the window I saw narrow city streets, stone buildings, women in linen shorts and tanned men laughing and chatting, and tried to memorise it all so I could tell Phoenix about it later. They’d been so excited for me when I’d said the band was going to Paris, but if the scene at the airport was any indication, we wouldn’t be able to explore the city without an entourage.
Amir hung up and turned from the front seat to face us. ‘So it’s Carter’s turn to be front-page news today.’
Carter’s head snapped up. ‘What?’
‘Someone named Verity Coleman has spoken to Have You Heard,’ said Amir.
Richie laughed, and I had to admit it did feel a bit karmic.
‘Same as Ellie?’ asked Sam.
‘This is a little more – uh – explicit,’ Amir clarified.
Carter was anxiously getting it up on his phone. ‘Can I read it after you?’ I asked, trying to keep the laughter out of my voice.
‘No, you sodding cannot,’ he said. ‘And you won’t be laughing when you see what she said about you.’
‘I barely even know Verity. What could she say, apart from that I generously gave her my Oyster card when you failed to show her the courtesy?’
‘Let’s see ...’ He scrolled through the article. ‘How about ... “Lily Donadi was an incorrigible tease who wanted all the boys to fancy her and would stop at nothing until she had Carter eating out of the palm of her hand.”’
‘I didn’t know Verity knew words like “incorrigible”,’ said Richie.
‘I think that might be a bit of artistic sub-editing,’ said Amir.
This might have been a joke to them, but I was already searching for the article myself, ignoring the roaming charges. I read it with the same sinking feeling I’d had with Ellie’s interview.
Since Lady Stardust first burst onto the scene with their hit single ‘King Cutie’, rumours have swirled as to Lily Donadi’s mystery muse. Finally, we can reveal in an exclusive that the subject of the song is none other than the band’s guitarist, Carter Tanqueray!
‘I knew the minute I heard it that she’d written it about Carter,’ said Verity Coleman, 16, who was Carter’s first love and is a student at Henley-On-Thames Music Academy, the prestigious boarding school that Carter and Lily also attended. ‘It’s embarrassing, really – it was so obvious.’
Verity reveals that Lily always had a crush on Carter, even resorting to underhand tactics to steal him from her.
‘She would pretend to be my friend to get inside knowledge on what Carter liked,’ Verity reveals, adding that their friendship stood for nothing when the bisexual Australian siren decided to go after Carter. ‘I used to tell her everything about me and Carter. I never expected she would use it against me.’
‘We should name the album Bisexual Australian Siren,’ interjected Sam, trying to make me laugh. ‘What do you say, Donadi?’
I managed a watery smile, but inside I was churning.
Verity says things came to a head at a wild party at June’s Henley-On-Thames Royal Regatta. ‘She knew Carter and I were together, but at the party she kissed him and then bragged about it.’
That was such a misrepresentation of what had actually happened that I wanted to throw the phone out the window. I thought of the last time I saw her, the look on her face, like she needed to claw back her dignity. Maybe she wanted revenge on me for witnessing her humiliation that night – but it felt so much more personal than that.
The only consolation for Verity was that Lily’s underhand tactics were unsuccessful. ‘Carter came back to me in the end,’ she said. ‘What we have is unique. We’re soulmates.’ Even though the pair is currently on a break, Verity is confident they will be reunited. ‘We need space right now but I know we’ll end up together. We’re endgame.’
Well, she was right in one way. Carter and I might have repaired our friendship, but we were a long way off being a couple. Living in the same house as him really drove that point home.
Verity claims his reputation as a Casanova is undeserved. ‘He’d talk like he was good in bed, but when it came to it I was actually very disappointed. He’s not very well-endowed, and he wasn’t interested in my pleasure at all. He just wanted to get off.’
Wow. Verity was bold, especially if she thought she could say something like that and still expect to be Carter’s ‘endgame’. I let out a bitter laugh, but when Carter looked up I realised how deeply this had cut him.
‘Sorry,’ I muttered. ‘But how are you meant to defend yourself against that? Are you meant to whip it out on national TV to prove she’s wrong?’
He started laughing too. It was slightly hysterical, still on edge, but it was laughter all the same.
•
But that wasn’t the last of it. In a live TV interview that morning, a rail-thin presenter asked point-blank whether Carter was the subject of ‘King Cutie’, although she stopped short of inviting him to get naked on air to refute Verity’s claims.
‘The song is about a sort of combination of people,’ I said as breezily as I could. ‘There are traits from lots of different guys I know.’
‘And is it true you and Carter used to date?’
‘No,’ I said, somehow keeping the tremor out of my voice. ‘That’s a really weird rumour. We’re just friends.’ Beside me, he was very still; I wondered if he was holding his breath. I cast around for a change of subject. I couldn’t see Amir or Saskia offstage this time: it was all on me. I thought about the way Addie had squeezed my hand in the back of the car, the way her hair had fallen around her face after we’d run from the photographer. ‘And anyway, I’m not exactly single right now.’
‘Aha!’ she said. ‘Yes, Addie Marmoset, isn’t it? Is it love?’ I was already regretting saying something outright. It was one thing to have paparazzi photos of us walking in a park; it was another to lie. ‘It’s very early,’ I said, in my most coy voice – Perennial Single Girl to the max. But then I thought about Ellie, and how brutally she’d sold me out, and how when she found out I was with Addie it would show her I didn’t care how many news outlets had bought her story, and the words were out of my mouth before I realised what I was saying. ‘We’re just having fun and I’m looking forward to seeing where it takes us.’
‘Look at you!’ she said. ‘You look very happy.’
‘I am,’ I said, and the audience smiled as one, but my insides twisted like a tornado. ‘I am just very happy.’
‘Because you were single for a long time?’ she suggested.
Well, I wouldn’t have said it was perennial. I clamped back my thoughts and hoped my smile looked natural. ‘Yes, and I think that really makes you appreciate it, you know?’ I said. ‘When something real comes along after all that time.’
That night, in my hotel room, I thought about how I’d leapt on board with Amir’s plan. I felt hot and ashamed, as if everyone might see through me immediately – but no-one had. The whole audience had cooed and leaned in to hear more. I wondered if Addie would mind, if this was violating our agreement to take things as they came.
I picked up my phone and sent a text to Addie.
I still couldn’t believe that the number she’d given me was her actual personal mobile. I considered telling her about Verity’s tell-all, but it was too complicated, so in the end I just added:
I was still thinking about Verity’s interview when I got into the shower. Washing the long day away, I wondered if I could force the website to retract it. We falsely reported that Lily and Carter were more than friends. But I couldn’t confront Have You Heard without making it into a bigger deal than it already was. Anyway, Verity hadn’t exactly lied –she’d just told the truth as she saw it. And if she wanted to think of me as a siren, so be it.
There was no way I was going to sleep after the day we’d had. Sam would already be in bed, but Carter and Richie would be heading out on the town. I’d turned them down so many times that they’d stopped inviting me, but tonight I needed to escape from my own head. I put on jeans and a baseball T-shirt and knocked on the door to Carter’s room.
He answered almost immediately, fresh from his own shower and dressed in a towel, droplets of water at the hollow of his neck. I looked away from all his unblemished skin and barged into the room. Commentary was coming from the TV: Aston Villa were two goals up against Arsenal. That would put him in a good mood.
‘I think I’ll come out with you and Richie tonight,’ I announced. ‘It’s been a while.’
‘It hasn’t. We went to Yellow Brick Road the other day. Or were you distracted by someone shiny?’ He narrowed his eyes and ran a hand over his hair. ‘If this is about Verity –’
‘It’s not about Verity.’ I sat on the bed beside him, trying to ignore the smell of soap radiating off his bare skin. I didn’t want to go back to my soundproofed room and lie awake thinking about him kissing French girls. ‘I just think we should go out. As long as you promise not to abandon me as soon as you’ve pulled.’
‘Would I do that?’
‘You would definitely do that.’ But I couldn’t feel any anger about it. ‘So where are we going?’
‘Well, the first option is this club in the Marais Richie wants to check out. He said the last time he went there they had girls dancing in cages.’
I gave this the silent treatment it deserved. ‘And the other place?’
He grinned. ‘Whisky-A-Go-Go. It’s a karaoke bar in the Latin Quarter.’