“But if you go on TV, don’t you think someone might see you? ‘Oh, there’s Jasmine Wyatt. I didn’t realise she’d changed ethnicity. I wonder if you can do that down at the registry office.’ And next thing you know, they’re on the phone to the papers with their story, and you end up with egg on your face.”
Jas’ heart went cold. Of course he was right. Perhaps she should confess all when…if…she met up with Ajay. Should she? No, she couldn’t, not yet. She would see how far she could go, or she would wonder forevermore if she could have made the final.
“My white friends won’t be watching,” she asserted, hoping she was right. “This show airs on a specialist British Asian channel. Why would they be looking at that?”
Krish shrugged. “You’ll probably be fine,” he conceded. “But don’t come running to me if it all blows up.”
“Really? Cos you know, you’d be the first person I’d want to run to.”
His smile was strangely melancholy.
“Okay,” he said softly. “You can run to me.”
People all
around them began rising from their chairs and surging towards the double doors.
Jas pinched Krishnan’s hand.
“The announcement! Let’s go.”
Grumbling, Krish picked up his half-full mug and took it out with him to the heaving colour-clash of the auditorium.
Of the one hundred and fifty auditionees, only ten would go through to the next round.
At the top of the stairs stood the judges, Ajay in the centre, towering over his left- and right-hand companions, a piece of printed paper held out in front of him. The babble of voices hushed to silence and the cameras began to roll.
“If I call out your name,” said Ajay in his sonorous, actorly tones, “you are coming to the next round. Only ten competitors from the East Midlands will join their counterparts from the Birmingham, London, Manchester and Glasgow auditions. Those ten competitors are…”
Jas seized Krishnan’s wrist, causing him to spill tea on his shoes.
The names were read out and Jas counted each one. She wasn’t in the first eight.
“Anjali Gupta.”
She watched, her stomach in knots, as the pretty, local girl ran up to the top of the stairs to join her idols, waving her hands and ululating in triumph.
“And our final contestant is…Jasmeena Khan.”
Jas leapt into the air for the second time that day, clamping both hands to her mouth. It was a few moments before she could trust her legs to carry her through the crowds to the staircase.
“Congratulations,” said Krishnan, deadpan, as she launched herself away from him.
Ajay said the same word at the top of the stairs, accompanying his with a telegenic hug. He pulled her closer than necessary and she almost swooned against his broad chest so that she breathed in his delicious scent of spiced patchouli.
He took the opportunity to murmur into her ear, “Later, yes?”
She could only murmur, “Uh-huh,” before retreating from his arms to turn and face the one hundred and forty unsuccessful contestants with their friends and supporters.
She waved with the other winners, sensing the vibes of jealousy and disappointment. Anjali, who stood next to her, put an arm around her and pulled her close for the benefit of the photographer.
“We’ll have to stick together,” Anjali whispered through her bared, smiling teeth.
“Yeah,” replied an unconvinced Jas. She had the oddest feeling that Anjali wasn’t to be trusted.
The flashes seemed to go on forever, long after Jas’ facial muscles began to twitch and sag, her smile increasingly forced. Eventually, though, the photographers must have been satisfied and the successful contestants were led to a meeting room to collect the information about the next round.
“Two weeks today,” said Anjali, smiling as they walked back to the auditorium together. “And they’re sending cameramen to our homes! My mother will go into a cleaning frenzy.”