‘Really? Sanderson’s is …’
‘It’s just a glorified sandwich shop, Mia. Meet me there at one.’
‘Well, if you’re sure.’
Jenna felt a little sad at the wonder in her voice, as if a little café that put a rocket salad on the side of its plates was Le Manoir. She remembered being that girl, and the awkwardness she had felt in ‘proper’ restaurants and glitzy hotels. I don’t belong here.
Deano, of course, had taken to it like a duck to water.
‘Who was that?’ asked Jason when she returned to the kitchen to find him soaking some couscous, ready for dinner. He understood couscous, now, though on first acquaintance he had simply stared at it and asked if it was edible.
‘Ah, nobody. Business. About the talent show.’
She had small bruises on her bottom the next day and, when she got into the car, she shifted about on the leather seat, enjoying the feeling and the memories it evoked.
‘Why was I afraid to explore this side of me?’ she asked herself, not for the first time. She concluded, then as before, that she had been scared of what people would think of her. It was the story of her life. Always hiding behind other people and their star qualities, until LA had force
d her into the spotlight with Talent Team. Her discomfort and anxieties about being a public figure had been, if she was honest with herself, part of what had led to the break-up with Deano. She’d become tense, snappy, defensive.
God, she had so needed to find a Jason.
But, now, she needed to let him out of deep cover. They couldn’t live this way forever, much as it seemed like a fairytale for the moment.
She was early to Sanderson’s, wanting to see Mia walk in and find out if she would recognise her. She would be younger than Jenna, probably prettier.
The girl who walked in at ten past one, still yawning and bleary-eyed, was pretty but unkempt. Her hair, dyed with henna, was scraped hastily back in a tight ponytail and she’d applied a lot of eyeliner quite clumsily so that she looked as if she’d been punched. Her skin was recognisably that of somebody who slept too little and partied too hard. Jenna had seen it countless times on her clients, Deano’s friends, Deano himself … Baggy trackpants covered her lower half, but her layers of thin vests showed off some glorious tattoos. One of them, at least, looked as if it had been designed by Jason. His style was immediately recognisable in any format, a thought that made Jenna’s heart beat faster, because it surely meant that he was as good as she hoped he was.
‘Jenna?’ she said, stopping in front of her. ‘They said you looked different on TV. You do, a bit.’
‘It’s the make-up,’ said Jenna. ‘And the elaborate hairstyles. Take a seat.’
Mia sat down and slung an embroidered denim bag on the chair back.
‘I’m starving. Haven’t eaten since yesterday teatime.’
‘I’m going to order the alfalfa and sesame salad,’ said Jenna, handing the menu over.
‘The Alf who? Do they do a bacon cob?’
Jenna smiled, thinking it had been at least fifteen years since she’d spoken of cobs – the local dialect word for a bread roll.
‘I think they do a pancetta and sunblush tomato flatbread,’ she said. ‘Sort of distantly related to a bacon cob.’
‘I’ll have that, then. And a Red Bull.’
‘Late night?’
‘Yeah.’ She yawned but didn’t elaborate.
Jenna went to the counter to order, trying hard to calm down the butterflies in her stomach. She had to play this right, or Jason might never be free. If she could get Mia on side, get the real story out of her, everything could change.
But did she want everything to change?
What if Jason strolled out and went back to his old life? What if he was just with her because she was there?
Maybe she should leave it. Because she couldn’t leave him.
But she had to try, or she would hate herself, despise herself, forever.