Stars and Hearts

Chapter Ten

  The next morning, I awoke feeling great and I set off to work feeling confident enough to face the day. Tyrone was going to be mine!

  I arrived in the office bright and early. It was Suki’s day off – so she wouldn’t be there to get in the way of Ty and I. Perfect! I breezed through the morning, answering every telephone call with confidence, wondering if the people on the other end of the phone actually realised they were talking to Tyrone Small’s future wife.

  Shortly before lunch, I had an idea. I thought about writing a quick note to Ty with my number on it. I could leave it at the stage door for him. It felt a bit daring, but he did really seem to like me, I couldn’t communicate my feelings by talking to him and I really liked him and wanted to win this challenge. I was very nervous about the idea, but a voice within me kept pushing me and telling me it would be okay. Was this my gut feeling – or madness? I’d never done anything like that before for fear of making a fool of myself. I decided it was time to take positive action for once in my life.

  I grabbed a blank sheet of photocopy paper and an envelope, folded the paper in half and wrote: Hi, Yazmin here from the box office. If you’d like to go out sometime, my number is … I added my number, addressed the envelope, sealed it, and placed it in my bag.

  When lunchtime came, I nervously nibbled at my food and took a stroll down the street to calm my nerves whilst I pondered over whether or not I was doing the right thing. I decided to throw caution to the wind for once in my life and go for it. I rushed to the stage door like I was being carried along by a gale, nervously popped the envelope into the alphabetical pigeonhole marked T, and hurried away. About three minutes into my shift, I realised I’d been a bit stupid. I’d shoved the letter in the T pigeonhole for Tyrone instead of the one marked S for his surname – Small. Shit! I couldn’t really leave the room because I’d only just come back from lunch and there was a queue of impatient faces at my window.

  About half an hour later, just as I was about to make the excuse of needing the toilet so I could place the letter in the correct pigeonhole, Jeff – an elderly usher – came to my window, all smiles.

  He looked around the foyer, leaned in and whispered, “Have you heard about Tracy from the bar?”

  “Who’s Tracy?” I asked.

  “The girl with the pink and blonde streaked hair.”

  “Oh yes! I know who you mean.”

  “She’s dumped her boyfriend for that young actor Tyrone Small.”

  My heart plummeted like a plane falling from the sky. I must have done something really terrible in a former life to have bad enough luck to hear such horrible news straight after sending what was practically a love letter to the male subject of the gossip.

  “Oh!” I said, feeling my cheeks flush as my crashing aeroplane heart hit the ground and burst into flames.

  “I saw them in the pub last night. They were all over each other. It was a bit embarrassing to watch, to be honest.”

  “Oh,” I said again, suddenly unable to remember how to pronounce any other word in the English language.

  “Worst bit is – she has a baby with her ex. I don’t think the kid has even had her first birthday yet.”

  “Oh!” I said for a third time, annoyed I’d wasted my money on a stupid hypnosis download, only to find out the man it was supposed to help me be with had got together with someone else.

  “She’s a stunner though. I can’t blame him,” Jeff said dreamily.

  “I don’t think so,” I said, finally finding my tongue. “I’d imagine him with someone much prettier and slimmer.”

  “Men don’t want thin!” he laughed. “Voluptuous – that’s what I’d call her. I’d have her myself, if I were forty years younger.”

  Fortunately, a couple approached him and asked for directions to the motor museum, which allowed me to silently cry to myself. Voluptuous? That’s not the term I’d have used for her – I’d have just said lumpy, and she had funny eyes which sloped downwards at the outer corners. If I’d had those eyes, I’d have wanted to return them to the manufacturer as defective. She wasn’t a patch on me. Ty had obviously believed I wasn’t interested, which wasn’t surprising given my behaviour. Then he’d gone for her. Perhaps she’d thrown herself at him. How cheap! The girl made Miss. Piggy look like an absolute stunner. It really felt like this husband ghost person the fortune teller had mentioned was having a laugh with his mates in the spirit world.

  As soon as Jeff’s back was turned, I told Kalisha I was desperate for the loo and dashed through the building towards the stage door, thinking it was a good job I’d put the letter in the wrong place, as he was less likely to have picked it up.

  To my horror, when I got there, both the T and S pigeonholes were completely empty.

  Breathing heavily, I turned to Bhumi, one of the stage door keepers, who was sat at the counter sipping tea.

  “Has Tyrone Small collected his post?” I asked.

  “Yes!” she replied, smiling. “Only just.”

  “Oh dear!” I said. “My colleague put the wrong note in the envelope!”

  “He’s most likely in the greenroom or his dressing room,” Bhumi said.

  “Thanks!” I replied, dashing through a glossy black internal door.

  I cautiously approached the greenroom and peeped in. Ty was at the counter ordering a hot chocolate and the envelope was sticking out of his baseball jacket pocket. Had he read it? I decided to be brave. I took a deep breath and bounced up to him.

  “Ty!” I said, my voice quivering. “Have you read it?”

  He looked baffled. “Read what?”

  “Have you opened the envelope?”

  He smiled and drew it from his pocket. “Not yet, why?”

  “My colleague made a silly mistake – she put your name on the envelope, but it contains a note about tickets for Dudley Mountain. Silly her!”

  “I can give it to him,” Ty said. “He should be here any minute.”

  “No!” I said, my face partially frozen with nerves. “The whole thing’s a mistake – they sent him the wrong type of ticket letter too.”

  “Wrong type of ticket letter?” he said, puzzled.

  “Oops, yes! I’d really rather have it back so she can do the whole thing properly, if you don’t mind. She’s embarrassed about it.”

  “Er … sure,” Ty said, placing it in my trembling hand.

  An hour or so later, I told my colleagues I needed the loo again and left the box office to take a casual stroll through the bar to see if Tracy was there. Sure enough, she was stood there leaning on the wrong side of the bar – the side the customers are supposed to stand – chatting to a young barman. The young barman saw me staring and stared back. Tracy turned around and smiled.

  “Hi!” she exclaimed, as though I was her favourite person in the world.

  “Hi!” I answered, pretending to be just as thrilled, because I didn’t want her to think I was jealous. I looked at her face – the faulty eyes, the horribly long turned up nose and the thin, mean lips. Then my eyes dropped down to her chest. She had saggy tits - like a seventy-year-old. My eyes travelled down her body. Her legs were like tree trunks – big thick ankles – no shape to her legs at all. She had the weirdest figure I’d ever seen. She seemed to have lumps in all the wrong places. I walked back to the box office in shock. Could the whole story have been made up to test me? Surely a beautiful person like Ty wouldn’t fancy that thing. Perhaps the old man suspected I fancied Ty and made the story up to see what my reaction would be. But would Jeff really go to all that trouble? Unlikely.

  I grabbed my phone and sent Suki a text: Have you heard Ty is going out with Tracy from the bar? Doubt it’s true.

  Suki replied immediately. Tracy? I don’t know her.

  Pink streaked hair, I replied.

  Oh yes - pretty girl, came Suki’s stupid text.

  No - weird eyes, thick ankles, big ski snout - ugly.

  She’s not that bad, but I know how you feel - I’m j
ealous too.

  I’m not jealous of that thing - I’d kill myself if I looked like that. Got to go - extremely busy.

  I threw my phone into my bag, hoping it was all a bad dream. Perhaps the hypnosis tape didn’t suit me and had given me a nightmare. Trashy Tracy certainly looked like something out of a nightmare. How could anyone in their right mind call that thing beautiful? Could my life get any worse? What was I supposed to do now? It was all my stupid fault for coming up with this ridiculous actor boyfriend challenge crap.

  Then I began to wonder if Ty never fancied me after all. Perhaps I had some mental disorder which made me believe people fancied me when they actually found me repulsive. The last bloke I believed fancied me went off with a seriously ugly woman too. Perhaps the same mental disorder made me see love rivals as caricatures. Perhaps the women didn’t really look that disgusting. Perhaps my sick brain was distorting their features. Was I destined to be alone forever because I was mad?

  One miserable week passed, during which Ty and Tracy were the talk of the town, and the press night of Mothballs arrived. I’d heard Ty got killed off near the beginning of the play – something for Suki and I to look forward to. Dirty Dudley was the leading man, and colleagues who had already seen the play said he was a hopeless actor, so that would give us a laugh. Perhaps this performance was just the tonic I needed.

  At half-past six, Suki and I met in the bar. Tracy wasn’t there – she’d obviously taken the night off to watch Ty get murdered in the play. How thrilling for her! We enjoyed a lemonade each before excitedly entering the buzzing auditorium and taking our prime seats. We were actually sitting on the stage with our sides to the audience and consequently very much on show. Suki sat on the front end of the stage and I had the next seat in.

  I spotted Tracy on the front row with a tarty looking woman I presumed was her mother. Tracy had made a great effort with her make-up, but it did nothing to hide her faults – her eyes still sloped down at the outer corners, resulting in a permanently pained expression and her nose still looked like a very long ski slope. As for the red lipstick on those almost non-existent lips - pwah! It suddenly occurred to me that Ty might have fallen for her because he’s a kind soul who felt sorry for her face. He had, after all, endured a granny figure practically attempting to have sex with him in front of a crowd and then, instead of humiliating her, he kindly made sure she got safely home – if that story was true. Then I remembered Suki saying Ty was seeing someone else, then we found out he was seeing Tracy the trollop. I began to wonder again if something had actually gone on between them. Perhaps Kalisha had been sworn to secrecy. It was stupid of Rose telling Kalisha within ear wagging distance of Suki when the information was supposed to be confidential though.

  The lights went down and the play began. Suki and I looked at each other and grinned. Some squeaky old-fashioned violin music played as Ty walked onstage. My eyes wandered down to Tracy, who was gazing at him all lovingly. I felt like throwing a bucket of slime over her. Ty walked to the back of the stage, opened a fake window, took a deep, theatrical breath and started talking about how lovely the countryside was. Then he was joined by some bitch with a squeaky voice who was playing his mother. His character then went hunting and got mistaken for an animal because of his furry coat and got shot dead. There was a long, boring court scene where the bloke who shot him was proclaimed innocent, I think - I was half asleep. It took great effort for Suki and I to keep our eyes open. Then Dirty Dudley appeared in the wings. He spotted us and froze in fear. There was silence as the other actors waited for him to come on. Suki and I immediately regretted taking stage side seats because we began giggling in full view of an audience of one thousand two hundred people. The more we tried to keep straight faces, the more we shook with laughter. The one thousand two hundred pairs of eyes on us did nothing to help this. The pressure not to laugh was so great that we exploded into loud shrieks of laughter. Dudley came on, forgot his lines and had to be prompted, but he couldn’t understand what the prompt was saying. So Tyrone, who was supposed to be dead of course, crawled onstage and said his lines for him. It was the most unprofessional thing ever. I couldn’t help thinking that Suki, me, Tyrone and Dudley would now all have to emigrate to Australia – I didn’t see how any of us could continue working here.

  We watched Dudley as he walked off stage, stood in the wings, took a deep breath and composed himself. He was then able to continue acting - if you could call it acting. The rumours were true – he was a totally crap actor - really over the top with his big, exaggerated gestures and shouting voice which sounded like he was reading directly from the script. But at least he could now remember his lines, including a very boring poem about using mothballs to keep his trousers from being eaten. Was this play real?

  Our giggling stopped abruptly as a totally gorgeous dreadlocked black actor entered the stage. He had beautiful high cheekbones and gym workout muscles. What a god! He made Ty look like a gawky school kid.

  “Wow!” Suki whispered. “He wasn’t on the company list!”

  “I know!” I said, ogling him as my heart bounced under my boobs.

  He looked at me with a cheeky glint in his eye and that was it – I was smitten.

  The interval came, Suki and I dashed to the bar for a quick drink before eagerly taking our seats again. The second half of the play was every bit as boring as the first. Dudley continued to shout and throw his arms about wildly in over-dramatic gestures. The gorgeous black guy hardly appeared but, when he did, it made sitting through the boring drivel worthwhile. As the performance ended, the relieved audience were left wondering what the play was actually about.

  “Shall we hang around the stage door and wait for the actors to come out?” I asked.

  “No way!” Suki replied. “That’s the kind of shit groupies do.”

  “Ok,” I agreed, though I was feeling a bit disappointed. “I guess you’re right – we don’t want to make fools of ourselves.”

  “Let’s go for a drink in The Bell,” Suki said.

  “Great idea!”

  We hurried to the pub and managed to get the best window seats. Suki searched for the Mothballs cast list on her phone, and found out the black actor was called Jamal Hammer.

  “Ooooo!” I said. “If I marry him I’ll be Yazmin Hammer!”

  “I think Suki Hammer sounds much better,” Suki replied.

  “Nah – Yazmin Hammer sounds kind of cool – I win – he’s mine!” I replied, meaning every word.

  Suki looked exasperated. “You can’t be serious.”

  “I am, actually.”

  We sat there with a lemonade and lime each, waiting for the actors to appear. We waited and waited, but not one of them came in.

  “Must have early rehearsals in the morning,” I guessed.

  “Unless there’s a press night party somewhere and we’re not invited,” Suki said slowly.

  “Charming! Yes – perhaps everyone is there but us. Perhaps the whole theatre has been gossiping about how they didn’t want the mad bitches there.”

  “Perhaps it’s at Dudley’s house,” Suki suggested.

  “No wonder we’re not invited then!”

  “I wish one of us had a car, so we could drive around and find out where it is.”

  “We could walk around, I guess. Worth a try.”

  “Let’s do it!” Suki said.

  We knocked back our drinks, buttoned up our coats and set off, walking briskly in the cool night air. We trotted around for about half an hour before giving up.

  “Let’s share a taxi,” Suki said. “I’m freezing.”

  “I’ve got a better idea,” I said. “I’ll phone Mum – she might even be able to detour a bit and have a look for this party with us. I can but ask!”

  “Go for it!” Suki said, shivering.

  Mum agreed to come out for us as a special favour, but stated she wasn’t feeling too well, so I decided to just opt for the straight lift home – no detours, apart from to Suki’s
house. On the way home, however, we spotted Dudley strolling along smoking like a chimney with one hand and carrying a bottle of wine in the other.

  “Mum!” I exclaimed, pointing at the ungainly sight. “Follow that idiot!”

  “How can I?” Mum replied. “We’re travelling faster than he is.”

  “Would you mind pulling over by that row of shops for a minute to watch him?”

  “Why do you want to watch him? What’s he up to?”

  “We think there might be a press night party we’re not invited to.”

  “Perhaps it’s just for the cast,” Mum suggested, looking like she desperately wanted to be home in bed with a hot water bottle.

  “You’re probably right, but we’re curious.”

  “You want to spy on the actors?” Mum said, half laughing.

  “In a word – YES!” I admitted.

  “Sounds like a bit of fun,” Mum said, as we watched Dudley turn into a side road. “But not for long. I really need to get some sleep.”

  “Thanks Mum. You’re a legend!”

  We waited a minute before slowly setting off again, crawling along until the car headlights caught another glimpse of the big buffoon. Then we pulled over and stopped for another minute or two, until we saw him turn another corner, then we set off again, slowly following him into a modern cul-de-sac. Mum parked the car as Suki and I pulled our coat hoods up, sank into our seats, and slyly watched as he knocked on the door of a small two storey terraced house. He turned and looked around the place, as though he was checking to see if anyone was watching. Then the door opened and a woman emerged, threw her arms around him and snogged him shamelessly right under a streetlight.

  “It’s not Rose, is it?” Suki said, staring at one of the most repulsive sights we’d seen all year.

  “OMG!” I exclaimed, observing the short haired bespectacled woman necking the old sod. “I think it might be!”

  “And she has the cheek to tell us to stay away from actors!” Suki said in disbelief.

  “Really?” asked Mum.

  “Yes!” I exclaimed. “Apparently, they’re all drunken womanizers!”

  “True in Dudley’s case,” Mum said.

  “Very much so,” I agreed.

  “Looks like there’s no party or Dudley would be there as he’s the leading man,” Suki pointed out. “Unless it’s in the house, but I don’t get the impression a swinging party’s taking place, somehow.”

  “Nor me,” said Mum.

  I looked again up at the terraced house and almost puked. Dudley and the woman had moved upstairs – we could see them undressing. They hadn’t even bothered to shut the curtains!

  “Look!” I exclaimed, pointing up at the window of the dimly lit room.

  Everyone stared, mouths hanging open in disbelief, as we watched the freak show.

  “Eeew!” squeaked Suki. “I can’t watch anymore!”

  “I can’t believe Rose told us to keep away from actors,” I said, practically having an epi. “First she throws herself at Ty, now she’s shagging that flea bag! Hypocrite!”

  “That’s right,” Suki added. “And she’s signed off work sick with depression.”

  “I’d be off work with chronic puking if I’d shagged that big puffy sleaze ball!” I said, trying not to be sick.

  We sat in the car for a few minutes, to recover from the most shocking sight of the year so far, before heading home, laughing wildly.