Stars and Hearts

Chapter Fifteen

  The following week went by in a blur. None of it felt real. Dudley was released from hospital a day after being diagnosed with mild food poisoning, probably caused by consuming a dodgy burger. People continued to point at me and stare and giggle and smirk, but I went to work every day and decided not to hand in my notice. I was glad the evenings were dark at that time of year so I could walk home in a black coat with my hood up and hopefully not be noticed, although I still felt like people were staring and whispering everywhere I went. I decided they were jealous and quickly developed thick skin – I imagined myself covered in skin as tough as rhinoceros hide with fuck you idiots tattooed all over it. This worked well for me.

  The customers seemed to get weirder than ever too. Exactly one week after the horrendous newspaper shock, I was sitting at the box office window when a disgustingly snobbish bitch swished into the foyer, nose in the air, looking like she thought she owned the place. What an idiot!

  She looked at me disdainfully and said, “I need tickets for The Mad Dentist on January the third.”

  I tapped the date into my computer. “We have a few left up in the gods,” I replied.

  “The gods? The gods?” she said, practically convulsing. “People like me don’t sit in the gods!”

  “That’s all we have left,” I replied.

  The stupid bitch looked at me like I was a fly buzzing around her face and asked, “Where’s your manager?”

  “She’s on lunch.”

  “Get her off lunch then!”

  “Come back after two o’clock if you really want to see her. But, as I told you, we only have tickets in the gods.”

  Kalisha was, in fact, eating at her desk a few feet behind me, but I wasn’t going to disturb her lunch for that snobby old slag. What sort of a stinky, dirty old hag would insist I pull someone out of their lunch just because they didn’t like the tickets offered to them? Spoiled lowlife scum!

  “This isn’t anywhere near good enough,” the snooty bitch screamed. “I specifically wanted good tickets for that date.”

  This was the last straw. I’d had a dreadful enough week without listening to idiots like that. How dare the ignorant, thick, vile individual act like that! Who on Earth did she think she was? I decided it was time to put her in her place. My temper shot up like a rocket.

  “I told you all the best seats are sold out!” I bawled, rising out of my chair. “What part of sold out don’t you understand?”

  The dirty snob reeled back in horror, clutching her chest and breathing dramatically. “How dare you talk to me like that!”

  “Shut your foul face hole!” I yelled. “Look at you – walking around looking like you’ve got a bad smell under your nose. Oh, wait a minute! You do have a bad smell under your nose – it’s your stinking self! Get out before we throw you out. Go on! Go!”

  The old witch ran for the doors, losing a white high heeled shoe on the way, her balance faltered slightly as she bent down to pick it up. Then she fucked off out into the rain.

  My heart beat like a galloping racehorse as I turned to Kalisha, who was sat behind me, frozen like a statue, a forkful of salad held mid-air, halfway between her plastic lunch tub and her face. She’d probably been frozen in that position for a good five minutes. I wondered for a moment if she had died and set like that. Images of an ambulance arriving and paramedics throwing a sheet over her, then taking her out still in that frozen position flashed through my head like something out of a horror movie.

  Then she dropped her fork and spoke. “Congratulations,” she said weakly.

  “Congratulations what?” I screamed. “Congratulations you’re fired? Congratulations you’ll never find another job? Congratulations and goodbye?”

  “Just congratulations,” Kalisha said, beaming. “We’ve been dealing with that stuck-up old bottom wipe on and off for years and no one has ever told her straight like that. Yazmin Jones, I think you’re wonderful. Many bosses would sack you for this, but I have more sense. I wish there were more people like you.”

  “Seriously?” I said cautiously, wondering if she was just frightened of me.

  “She owns the manor by the Daisy Hills. She’s one of those utter and complete idiots who think having money makes them superior.”

  “Well done Yazmin!” Suki agreed, grinning and throwing her arms around me. “People who think having money makes them superior are the lowest of the low. It’s being a nice person which makes you superior.”

  “Exactly!” agreed Kalisha. “Couldn’t have put it better myself!”

  “I need coffee!” I gasped, holding onto the box office window bars, feeling a bit lightheaded.

  “Coffees all round on me!” Kalisha beamed. “I’ll go and get them. I’ll get them from The Sesame Bap – best coffee in town. I’m buying soya cappuccinos with cinnamon sprinkles.”

  “Thank you!” Suki and I chorused.

  Kalisha pulled on her coat and returned about ten minutes later with three frothy coffees in black paper cups, plus a bag of peanut butter cookies, which we devoured in delight. They were delicious!

  “In future,” Kalisha declared. “I’m going to make that part of the training – stand up to snobs and educate them. If people keep coming out with bullshit like the customers always right and bowing down to the fools, this world will never change.”

  “Quite right!” Suki said, her face screwed up in a grin of absolute and total agreement. “You two are great people!”

  “Remember though,” Kalisha cautioned. “Some bosses would regard that woman’s money as valuable and grovel to her and you’d be in big, big trouble.”

  “The world has to change!” Suki said angrily. Kalisha and I nodded in agreement.

  “What if she complains about me?” I asked.

  “Don’t you worry,” Kalisha said softly. “I’ll deal with it. She had no more right to talk to you like that than you had to say what you said to her.”

  “Thanks,” I replied.

  After work that day, I went to Suki’s house. Suki’s mum, dad and gran were out. They were having a meal together and then going to the theatre to see Mothballs. Suki and I had arranged to spend the evening looking after Max.

  As soon as we arrived, rain soaked, we were greeted by the sweet little fella, dancing about and wagging his tail. It was a lovely greeting.

  But then I entered the living room and let out a shriek of horror. Hung above the fireplace was an enlarged photocopy of the ghastly photo of Dudley and I, complete with the Dudley’s New Love headline. It was surrounded by a gleaming frame which looked as though it was made from twenty-four carat gold. It looked so bloody heavy I was surprised it hadn’t fallen down and taken most of the wall with it.

  “What’s that doing there?” I snapped.

  “Great, isn’t it?” Suki said. She smiled brightly. “Mum was such a big fan of Dudley when she was younger. My gran liked him too – she really loves that picture! You’re a bit of a star in our house.”

  “A star, eh?” I said, shrugging my shoulders, feeling a weird mixture of disgust and amusement. “I wonder if they’ll still be fans after they’ve seen his awful acting.”

  “I’m sure they will be,” Suki giggled.

  “Have they met him yet?”

  “Mum’s too shy,” Suki said. “She prefers to admire him from afar.”

  “Just as well,” I said. “She doesn’t want to get too close to that whiffy wanker!”

  We found a note on the coffee table informing us Max had been for a walk just before the family left for the meal, which was just as well as rain was now pouring down in sheets.

  “I’ll show you my new room!” Suki said excitedly, leading me back into the hall and through an internal door to the garage conversion. She switched on the light. “I’ve painted it. What do you think?”

  The walls had been painted a lovely rich velvet red. Suki’s single bed stood in the back corner next to a pine wardrobe, and there were half a dozen unpacked boxes scatter
ed around.

  “Wow!” I said. “It’s wonderful.”

  “Sexy eh?” grinned Suki. “My new actor boyfriend will love it!”

  My heart lurched. “New actor boyfriend?”

  “Yes – when I find one!” Suki said.

  I let out one of my embarrassingly loud sighs of relief.

  “We can do the tarot readings and stuff in here when I’ve got it straight – I’m going to buy a little table for two to go in the corner as well as a TV.”

  “Cool. I’m very jealous!”

  She led me back through the house to the kitchen, where we sat down and enjoyed peanut butter on toast and some warm blackcurrant squash. Then Suki left the room for a couple of minutes and returned with a DVD and a white crystal heart necklace.

  She put on the necklace. “Sweet, isn’t it?” she smiled. “It’s supposed to attract lasting love.”

  I looked at it and smiled falsely. It was very sweet, but unlikely to be as powerful as Maisie’s magic. I was determined to win this actor boyfriend challenge thing.

  “Cute!” I said. “Where did you get it?”

  “It’s a secret!” she said, with a wink. “To help me win the challenge.”

  I just laughed. A little stone heart on a bit of string was nothing compared to a powerful love spell. I could easily acquire something similar, if I so wished. I actually felt a bit sorry for her and pictured her throwing the novelty necklace into the bin in floods of tears when I gave her the news I’d won the competition. Poor kid!

  “I thought you might enjoy this!” Suki said, holding up the DVD which was titled Pink Hearts and Champagne. Romantic films were not my thing. I much preferred a good thriller or a nice gory horror, but I didn’t want to upset Suki and, besides, the romantic film might give me some useful man catching tips, so I decided to grin and bear it. I sat there for the next forty minutes, bored out of my skull, staring blankly at the screen as Suki drooled over the leading actor – some odd looking bloke with wiry silver hair and round rosy cheeks. In my eyes, he was almost as disgusting as Dudley – and almost as old.

  I was just about to fall asleep and flop off my chair when Suki’s gran walked through the door.

  “Hi girls!” she said, beaming. Little Max jumped up at her, wagging his tail wildly. “Hello my beautiful boy!” she laughed, stroking his sweetie cutie little brown head.

  Startled, Suki looked at her watch. “The play doesn’t finish for ages yet. Why are you home?”

  “Yes – it’s finished,” answered Suki’s gran.

  “It can’t be. Where’s Mum?”

  “I don’t know,” her gran said, looking concerned.

  Suki rushed out through the front door, which her gran had left wide open.

  I turned to the old lady and asked, “Did you enjoy the play?”

  “Yes, it was very good,” she said, nodding her head.

  “Why did you leave early?” She just gave me a puzzled look. I thought she must have wandered off, due to her dementia.

  Then Suki and her mum came into the room. Suki was laughing her socks off, but her mum looked livid. “It’s not funny!” she snapped.

  Puzzled, I looked from Suki to her mum and then back to Suki and asked, “What happened?”

  Suki collapsed in fits of laughter as her mum said, “The performance had to be stopped. Dudley fell down through a trap door.”

  “It was during his mothballs keep my trousers nice speech,” Suki screamed through her raucous laughter.

  I collapsed on the settee, tears of jollity running down my face. “Poor bastard had just come out of hospital and now he’s probably back in!”

  “He could have been very badly hurt!” yelled Suki’s mum. “He could have died for all we know. The world isn’t ready to lose such a talent.”

  Suki and I screamed and squealed and giggled and laughed uncontrollably, as her mum looked more and more livid. Her gran stood there smiling sweetly, looking more and more confused.

  “Poor Dudley,” Suki said. “You’d think he had a curse on him or something with all the things going wrong for him – first he falls in the street, then he collapses in the foyer, then he falls through the floor – all within days! Perhaps his stupid Halloween wizard costume put the curse on him.” She burst into fits of giggles again.

  I felt the blood drain from my face. Cursed? Was it Maisie’s magic then? I’d never be able to live with myself if I killed someone. I still failed to see how women kept falling at his feet and calling him talented and wonderful though. In my eyes, he had about as much talent as a stodgy sponge pudding, but didn’t look half as appealing.

  Not wanting anyone to know about Maisie, I managed to recover my composure, then I turned to Suki and asked seriously, “What do people see in Dudley?”

  “He has a certain magic,” she sighed. “You must see it, at least a little bit.”

  “Can’t even see a pixel of it,” I replied, pulling a face. “Magic, eh? Perhaps he actually is a wizard – perhaps he wears that costume all the time when he’s at home.”

  “You’re funny!” Suki laughed.

  I didn’t find it funny at all. To me, the wizard thing was the most likely explanation I could think of for his undeserved popularity.

  Then Suki’s mum said she’d better fetch Suki’s dad – who had gone for a quick drink to the pub after Dudley’s steep drop. She took me home on the way.

  As soon as I walked in the flat, I told Mum about Dudley. She laughed almost as madly as Suki and I had done and said it had made her night. Then I enjoyed some spicy beans and rice before doing my ritual magic concentrations to grab Ty. I left Dudley out of the spells that night, as I was worried about cursing him further. I then spent hours on the internet – mostly looking at fashion and beauty articles, as well as catching up on all the latest celebrity gossip and comparing famous people’s girlfriends to myself.