CHAPTER FOUR
My dad calls during dinner.
I don’t pick up, but Liam notices my face when I see the caller’s name flashing on the phone.
“Sorry,” I say, turning the phone facedown on the table and pushing it away. “I needed to check, just in case it was Shamari. You know, Audrey Abbot’s agent? I’m still waiting to hear if I’ve landed that interview with her. Fingers crossed!”
“No problem.” Liam watches me curiously as he chews his mouthful. “You don’t really talk about your parents.”
I shrug, pushing my rice around my plate. “Not much to say.”
“You haven’t told me anything about them, or your sister,” he comments, swallowing. “You know about my whole family.”
“You know enough. I have two parents and an older sister, Juliet. There you go.”
He picks up his glass of white wine, swirling it thoughtfully. “Yes, but what are they like? All I know is they’re lawyers and that’s it. Any time I ask you something about them, you change the subject.”
I feign surprise. “Do I?”
He tilts his head. “You don’t want to talk about them.”
“It’s not that I don’t want to talk about them,” I say, sighing. “It’s just … I don’t know. Okay, maybe I don’t want to talk about them.”
“Have you told them about me?” he asks expectantly.
I hesitate, thinking about lying, but decide to be honest so as not to get caught out later on. “No. But it’s nothing to do with you. My family … I don’t really speak to them that often, so I haven’t had the opportunity.” I pick up my glass and take two large gulps of wine. “Let’s talk about something else.”
“All right.” He scoops some rice onto his fork. “So, what’s Isabella Blossom like in person? Is she happy with her current representation? Oh, that reminds me, I need to give you some of my cards. I had a very promising email today from a musician who is starting to get some attention on TikTok…”
I try to focus on what Liam is saying, nodding in all the right places and doing my best to look interested, but my dad’s call hangs over me. I’ll have to call him back at some point, and the idea of how awkward and stilted our conversation will be fills me with dread. I wish he’d send a WhatsApp or text like a normal person, but he’s old fashioned when it comes to communication, and on the rare occasion that he makes contact, it’s usually a phone call about meeting for dinner, which is then followed by a formal email in which he confirms the date we’ve just discussed to meet.
When I think about it, my dad and I have a relationship similar to that of mutually disapproving colleagues forced to keep each other in the loop.
“So, what do you think?”
Liam’s question takes me by surprise. I haven’t been listening to a thing he’s been saying.
“About…?”
“Writing a feature on my company,” he prompts eagerly. “That kind of publicity would be invaluable; I think I’d get a lot of clients with a plug like that.”
“I don’t feature talent agencies. I feature … talent.”
“Yeah, but weren’t you listening? It would be a ‘behind the scenes’ piece!” he explains, his eyes wide with enthusiasm as he envisions it. “You could do, like, a whole thing on the hot new agencies propping up these artists, the legs beneath the water, paddling madly.”
I stare at him. “What?”
“You know! On the surface of the water, ducks look all calm and chilled, but underneath the water, those webbed feet are working like crazy. Talent agencies are just like that. We’re the webbed feet. The artists are the ducks.” He looks thoughtful for a moment. “I like that analogy. I might put that on my website.”
I’m too bewildered to speak.
“So, will you at least think about the feature?”
“Uh. Yes. Okay,” I lie, too tired to explain that it will never happen.
“Great,” he says, finishing his wine and gesturing to my glass. “Want a top-up?”
“No, thanks. I have a busy day tomorrow.”
“That’s why you want to be working for yourself, babe. I get to pick my own hours,” he says, winking at me.
He opens the fridge to retrieve the wine bottle. I quickly check my phone on the off chance that Dad has sent a text to explain why he called, but there are no new messages.
While the phone is in my hand, it vibrates. I pick up as soon as I see the name, my heart leaping into my throat.
“Shamari, hi,” I say as breezily as I can muster. “How’s your evening?”
“Audrey Abbot will do the interview.”
I inhale sharply.
“It will have to be before her rehearsal tomorrow morning. I’ll send you the address of the theater,” Shamari continues. “I’m just finalizing a time with her, so I’ll confirm when I can. I told her the focus would be on her career, not on … what happened. And it will be a celebration of her work. I mentioned that the journalist in question could be trusted. You should have heard what she replied to that.”
I smile to myself. “Was it something along the lines of how no journalists could be trusted?”
“Plus a few choice words, yes,” she says briskly.
“Shamari, this is … this is brilliant news,” I gush, hardly daring to believe that this is happening. “Her first interview in sixteen years! I knew you could persuade her. You are a wonder.”
“Front page of the magazine, yes?”
“You have my word,” I promise.
“I’ll see you tomorrow morning, then.”
“See you tomorrow.”
“Oh, and Harper?”
“Yes?”
“Don’t fuck this up.”
I would not like to play Audrey Abbot at poker.
From the moment I walk in the room, I know she’s going to be a tough nut to crack. I’d expected to be greeted with a scowl or, at the very least, a look of mistrust, but she’s impossible to read, giving nothing away, her expression blank.
The interview is being held in a studio in central London where they’re conducting rehearsals for the upcoming play. I’ve arranged to meet her forty-five minutes before she’s needed for her scenes, which sounds like forever, but when you factor in the greetings and how long it takes to draw an actor out of themselves, it isn’t much time at all.
Shamari met me outside the door to the studio before guiding me through to the room in which Audrey was waiting, sitting at a desk reading through a script. Poised, elegant, immaculate, Audrey Abbot is as mesmerizing and commanding in person as I’d imagined. She has a short, stylish pixie haircut, hazel-green eyes, delicate features, and thin lips—she was always best at playing misunderstood, prickly characters that the audience would slowly warm to as she carefully exposed their vulnerabilities and humanity.
“Audrey, this is Harper Jenkins,” Shamari introduces. “Harper, this is Audrey Abbot.”
“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Miss Abbot,” I say, holding out my hand.
Closing her script, she takes my hand in hers and shakes it firmly, but remains silent, studying me as I pull up a chair opposite her and begin pulling my things from my bag.
I accept Shamari’s offer of a coffee and Audrey requests a green tea. I notice Shamari hesitate before she leaves the room, as though she’s suddenly unsure whether she should be leaving us alone for any amount of time.
“We won’t start until you get back,” I assure her.
She gives me a grateful smile before hurrying out, the door swinging shut behind her.
“Are you happy for me to use this?” I ask, showing my digital voice recorder.
“Yes, that’s fine,” she replies, her voice clear and controlled.
“Great, thank you. I won’t press Record until Shamari is back and you feel absolutely ready and comfortable,” I inform her.
“All right,” she says.
We fall into silence and, under her scrutinizing gaze, I cross my legs, then uncross them, then cross them again.
“I have to thank you for agreeing to speak to me today,” I say eventually. “I’m honored that I get to be the person to celebrate your return to the stage.”
She arches an eyebrow. “You think that should be celebrated?”
“Are you kidding? People are going to lose their heads with excitement!”
It’s perhaps a little too casual an expression to use in a professional setting, but she seems to find it mildly amusing, so perhaps casual is the way to go here.
“Shamari tells me you’re a ‘kindhearted’ journalist.” She leans back and folds her arms. “Seems like a paradox to me.”
I smile. I was ready for this.
“You think journalists who write about public figures are evil?” I ask.
“I think journalists who write about public figures have a flair for sadism,” she explains. “That’s what sells.”
“Something the movie industry knows all about,” I reason.
The corners of her lips twitch, but she suppresses the smile. She inhales deeply, juts out her chin, and then speaks.
“Are you going to ask me about what happened?” she says coldly, as though daring me to do it. “Where it all went wrong? That’s what your readers want to know, don’t they? My downfall makes them feel better about themselves.”
“Sounds like your problem lies with readers rather than journalists?”
She purses her lips at my quick reply. I shrug and continue.
“It’s up to you. We all know what happened sixteen years ago—if you want to talk about why it happened, what led you there, how you felt, then you’re welcome to. Shamari told me that you wanted to focus on your acting career, so that’s what I’m here for.”
“You won’t be disappointed if you leave here today without the inside scoop?” she spits out the words. “You’ll be perfectly happy to write the article without a mention of it?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t believe you.”
I know she’s trying to get a rise out of me, but I refuse to crack. “You can believe what you want.”
“You’re really saying you’d write an article about me with no mention of such an infamous and defining incident?”
“Is that incident the only thing that defines you?” I retort. “I strongly suspect it isn’t, so I’m sure I’ll have a lot of other material to focus on.”
“It’s a scandal. And journalists like to tell a good story.”
“Only if it’s a truthful one, otherwise we’d write fiction. Or maybe go into film.”
She pauses. “Nothing much fazes you, does it, Harper?”
“You’re wrong there. A while ago, I had to do a feature on Madame Tussauds. Have you been there? Terrified the crap out of me. I don’t know why anyone in their right mind would agree to have a wax replica made of themselves.”
“I’m in Madame Tussauds.”
“I know.”
She laughs despite herself, lines forming satisfactorily around the corners of her mouth, her eyes brightening. Her whole face changes. I start laughing along with her.
Shamari comes bustling into the room, carrying a tray of hot drinks. “I’m sorry I was so long! The kettle wasn’t working in the kitchen here, so I had to pop across the road to get these. Here you are.” She hands me a coffee and passes Audrey a tea, before perching on a chair to the side of the room with her own coffee. “All right, we can get started now, if you’re both ready?”
“I am, if you are?” I ask Audrey.
“Yes,” she says warmly, giving me an easy, relaxed smile that I can tell takes Shamari by surprise. “After all this time, I’m finally ready.”
The Incident involving Audrey Abbot happened at a restaurant in Mayfair.
She was a famous Hollywood star, an established, dignified, and highly regarded actor, whom nobody expected to put a foot wrong, so when she did, it was documented and analyzed in an unsympathetic, almost offended way. As though she’d let down all of us, not just herself.
And as with any woman in her position, the tabloids relished her fall from grace.
It all started when she fell in love with Hank Lane, famous punk rocker and son of an LA real estate billionaire. She married him after four months of dating. It was her third marriage—first, there was her childhood sweetheart, followed by a film director, who left her for the lead in his newest film—and while she was quite a lot older than Hank, she was head over heels. He was adventurous, spontaneous, outrageous, the opposite of anyone else she’d publicly dated.
Audrey began making headlines when she was caught drunkenly emerging from a club; rumors started circulating that “a source close to the star” had seen her “sniffing a suspicious substance at a party” (of course, there wasn’t any evidence). She started wearing louder and brasher clothes, and experimenting more with her makeup; soon, reporters wrote that “her friends said” she married Hank too fast; their public arguments were “embarrassingly loud, according to onlookers”; she was “spiraling out of control.”
Increasingly hunted by the paparazzi, she was reportedly “paranoid and anxious,” and Hank began to lose interest. When she accused him of cheating, he told her she was deluded and controlling. A photo emerged of him kissing another woman in a Battersea nightclub, an actor who had played Audrey’s daughter in her latest film. Then another rumor began circulating that he was dating the model who had opened the Versace show at that year’s London Fashion Week.
One day, after drinking too much while on some prescription medication, Audrey Abbot showed up at a fancy Mayfair restaurant, having learned that Hank was inside enjoying scones and having the cream licked off his fingers by the dancer who’d starred in his latest music video.
The paparazzi were already waiting outside.
First, there was a huge screaming match between Audrey and Hank. Then, according to witnesses, she picked up a champagne bottle and brandished it at Hank, prompting the waiting staff to yell out for everyone to get down just in case. She burst into tears and dropped it, smashing it across the floor and causing all the guests to gasp in horror and excitement.
When Hank yelled out that he was going to “divorce the crazy bitch,” she tried to slap him, but he dodged, grabbing her arm. She grabbed a fistful of the tablecloth and pulled it. The contents went flying: the cake stand, the scones, the macaroons, the finger sandwiches, the teapot, the cups and saucers, the crockery and cutlery.
The noise, according to onlookers, “was deafening.”
Audrey then went marching out of the restaurant, flipped off the paparazzi, and when one photographer put his camera so close to her face that it nudged her sunglasses farther up her nose, she pushed him aside and his camera was knocked out of his hands, the lens cracking as it hit the ground. (The photographer accused her of “viciously attacking” him, and she settled out of court for a rumored six-figure sum.)
The paparazzi followed her home that day, where she proceeded to grab a golf club and smash up Hank’s Ferrari. Those pictures have gained a sort of legendary status in pop culture: the scorned, blurry-eyed older woman smashing up the young, philandering heartthrob’s car.
Hank wrote a song about The Incident and it went straight to number one. The Correspondence called him a “lyrical, musical genius.” Jonathan Cliff at Expression said the song was “inspired.” Hank released several more successful albums over the following years, cleaned up his act, and appeared on a Bachelor-type TV show in the USA, dating the winner briefly but marrying the runner-up instead and having two children with her. He launched an alcohol-free gin alternative and released a children’s book about a young boy who dreams of being a rock star. It was a bestseller.
Meanwhile, Audrey Abbot disappeared from the public eye.
As social media became a thing, the photo of her smashing the car with her mascara running down her cheeks transformed from an iconic image to a readily adaptable meme. But in recent years, she’s been reconsidered as one of the victims of an era that didn’t forgive women when they acted out.
Off the record, Audrey tells me that in the immediate aftermath, she was in so much pain, so humiliated, so lost, and so small, that she wanted to disappear. There is nothing like that feeling, she says, when you’re made to think everyone in the world despises you. It makes you afraid to leave the house, to go into a shop, to speak to anyone without hiding your face.
She eventually got help and began to feel whole again. The friendships that lasted through that period of her life became stronger. That overpowering feeling of shame began to fade. She invested in businesses, becoming a silent partner in a bestselling health, wellness, and beauty brand. She started writing her memoir. Depending on how this foray back into the world of theater goes, she’s considering taking a stab at directing a play, which she’s always wanted to try. She is happier now, more accepting, more loving—she forgives Hank. She forgives herself.
“I wish I could go back, wrap my arms around that woman I was then, and protect her,” she says, before adding thoughtfully, “I’m not afraid of what happened anymore. Looking back reminds me how far I’ve come.”
On the record, Audrey tells me that she decided to take the role in this play because it is about a passionate, reckless, haunted woman with sinful secrets, a character she can understand and hopes to do justice. Determined to live in the here and now, Audrey Abbot won’t dwell on regrets.
“Everyone has bad days,” she says with an impish smile. “Like everything else I do, mine was particularly spectacular.”
“Cosmo, you have got to listen to me,” I plead, exasperated. “It’s Audrey Abbot. The Audrey Abbot. She has to be front page.”
Cosmo puts his hands behind his head and leans back in his office chair. “I’ve already decided that Don Bright is our cover story, Harper.”
“If you decide to bury the comeback story of Audrey Abbot behind a cover story on a boring businessman, the whole industry will think you have lost your mind.” I rub my temples, taking a deep breath. “Cosmo, this is a very important story and sixty-one percent of our audience is made up of women.”
“Exactly.” He shrugs. “They’ll want a bit of eye candy on the front. Don Bright is a good-looking chap.”
“Eye candy is great, but they’d rather read about a woman who they looked up to and who, after being torn down by the press, has come back to the stage stronger than ever! You have to trust me on this, Cosmo, this is the story.”
His brow furrows, as though he might be considering it, and I press on with a glimmer of hope.
“This is the first time she’s spoken to a journalist since 2007. People will talk about this; it will trend on social media. Audrey Abbot is back.”
Cosmo rubs his chin and then lets out a long sigh.
“Sorry, Harper, the answer is no. I’ve got the clever ‘Future Is Bright’ cover line. That piece is a surefire hit, ready to go to press, and I’m not willing to brush—”
“Cosmo, we have a problem!”
Rakhee comes rushing into Cosmo’s office, her eyebrows knitted together in concern.
“I’m so sorry to disturb your meeting, Harper, but this couldn’t wait,” she says breathlessly, before turning to Cosmo. “We can’t run the Don Bright piece this week.”
“What?” he splutters.
“It looks like he may have lied to us.”
“Who?” Cosmo demands to know. “Who lied to us?”
“Don Bright! His quotes and statistics about some of his business ventures don’t quite match up,” Rakhee explains. “We’re going to need more time for our fact checkers to run it past his lawyers. They’ve said they’re flat out with a case at the moment—I think he’s being sued by a disgruntled employee?—but they can have a look over it this weekend.”
Cosmo bangs his fist on the table. “This weekend! We go to press tomorrow!”
“I’ve told them that.”
“Well, we’ll just have to publish it how it is,” he says, his expression thunderous.
“We can’t risk it,” Rakhee says simply. “If we publish incorrect details, it will cause embarrassment for us and Don Bright. And it will open us up for legal repercussions.”
“Let me speak to these lawyers,” Cosmo huffs. “If they hear from the editor himself, they might make some time in their hectic schedules to run some bloody numbers.”
Rakhee grimaces. “I already said that you’d be calling them, and they said it didn’t matter—they’re up to their neck in this other lawsuit and this article is not a priority in comparison. It can wait until next week or we can pull it altogether, they said. I said we’d wait until next week. We don’t want to lose Don Bright altogether, do we?”
Cosmo’s jaw clenches.
“No,” he seethes. “I suppose not.”
“The only thing is, we need to find a good cover story to go to press tomorrow,” Rakhee says, biting her lip.
I turn to Cosmo triumphantly.
Rubbing his forehead with his right hand, he glances up at me through the cracks in his fingers.
“All right, Harper,” he mutters. “Audrey Abbot is our cover story. Make it happen.”
“Yes! Thank you!” I cry ecstatically, skipping out of his office feeling like I could burst with happiness, followed by Rakhee.
When we get back to our seats, I let out a squeal of excitement and then lean over to Rakhee to say, “I know it’s probably caused you a lot of stress, but I am so pleased that Don Bright mucked up his interview.”
“He didn’t,” she whispers back calmly, opening an email on her screen.
I stare at her. “What?”
“Do you think I was going to let anyone but Audrey Abbot grace our front cover?” She turns to look at me with a sly smile. “Not on my watch.”