Rowan Coleman - Ruby Parker - Musical Star

“Weren’t you scared?” Dakshima asked me, her eyes widening.

“Seriously scared. I just had to get out of Hollywood, right then. Mum said anything could have happened to me.” I paused, remembering how much Mum had cried and shouted at me when she caught up with me. “Anyway, reminding myself about Hollywood isn’t the most fun thing, which is why I don’t really want to wear this dress.”

“Rubbish,” Dakshima said firmly, without a shred of sympathy. I looked at her. “That’s plain rubbish, Ruby. Put the dress on – you’ll look really great in it. And you can’t tell me any remotely sane thirteen-year-old girl is not going to wear something totally cool because it reminds her of a place that wasn’t so cool. If you wear that dress tonight then from tomorrow it will remind you of Anne-Marie’s party. Problem sorted and it’s all good.”

I looked at the dress and then took it off the hanger. Dakshima was right – what was I thinking, I had a whole wardrobe of clothes that Jade Caruso would kill for! Leaving them unworn was unthinkable, no matter how much they reminded me of Hollywood.

“You and Anne-Marie are more alike than you think,” I said, my voice muffled as I temporarily got my head stuck in an armhole.

“If you say so,” Dakshima snorted, pulling the dress over my shoulders. “Nice one,” she said, with a nod of approval.

Just then there was a knock at the door and Mum popped her head round it.

“Look who’s here,” she said, pushing the door back for Nydia, who was wearing a green silk dress with a paler green stole wrapped around her shoulders. She had sprayed her skin with gold glitter spray so that she sparkled.

“Hello,” Dakshima said, with a friendly and slightly shy smile.

“You look great,” I said. “It’s a shame Greg is still up north – he’d be blown away!”

“Thanks,” Nydia said, before adding, “I texted him a photo.

“Right, well,” Mum said, with the funny look on her face that she usually had when she wanted to hug me but knew I’d drop dead from embarrassment if she did. “Hurry up and get your glad rags on then, girls. I’m dropping you off at Anne-Marie’s and Nydia’s dad is picking you up at 10.30 sharp, so be ready, no excuses, OK? I want you in this door at 10.45 latest. Dakshima’s mum and dad are trusting me to take care of her tonight, so don’t let me down.”

“We won’t,” I said, rolling my eyes at the others.

Secretly though I liked having my old un-Hollywood mum back again. Since she started going out with world famous star of stage and screen Jeremy Fort, she kept her roots tinted and her nails manicured and wore high heels on weekdays to go to the supermarket, that was true. But at least the orange skin and stiff face that she had experimented with had faded away, and with it had gone the monster mom she’d become for a while. In Hollywood she’d been so ambitious for me and blinded by the glamour that just for a bit she forgot about asking me what I wanted or how I felt about everything that happened over there. So I didn’t mind if she told me off for leaving my shoes in the hall or wiped off the lip-gloss I tried wearing to school with spit on a tissue. That was my mum, the one who wanted what was best for me, even if it was sometimes boring and a total lip-gloss-free zone.

With Anne-Marie unavailable, it was Dakshima who did our make-up, me first and then Nydia. Considering jeans and trainers are her favourite things, she seemed like an expert. (It would have been hard to be worse than me. I tried out some pink and purple eye shadow a while back and my Auntie Pat asked me if I had conjunctivitis.)

“You’re good at eyeliner,” I said, admiring hers, which swished out at the corners making her eyes look even bigger than they were.

“Well, it’s the law in my house to learn how to do make-up. My mum started teaching me when I was about three,” Dakshima said with a laugh.

“What are you going to wear?” Nydia asked.

“This,” Dakshima said uncertainly. “I’ve got a couple of dresses but this is the sparkliest most “fabulous” thing I could think of. It’s my sister’s and if she finds out I’ve borrowed it I will be dead, so don’t let me spill anything on it.”

Dakshima held up a two piece Indian trouser suit in a rich deep purple that was decorated with gold thread and beading all around the neck and sleeves.

“Wow!” Nydia said.

“It’s a bit more Bollywood than Hollywood,” Dakshima said, a little uncertainly.

“It’s amazing,” Nydia said. “Ooh, this is going to be a good party, I can feel it.”

“I hope so,” I said, as Mum called us from downstairs. “Otherwise Anne-Marie will never shut up about it.”

“Rubes,” Nydia laughed, “whether it’s the best party in the world or the worst, there is one thing we know for sure…”

The two of us looked at each other and laughed. “…Anne-Marie will never shut up about it.”

I was quiet in the car while Nydia gave Dakshima the lowdown on Anne-Marie’s place. I was feeling nervous and not only because I’d be seeing all of the Academy kids again for the first time since the Valentine’s disco. I’d be seeing Danny too, and he was bound to be there with Melody. Anne-Marie had told me that despite her policy of inviting everyone she even vaguely knew, whether she liked them or not, she was happy to uninvite Danny and Melody if I wanted her to. And I had wanted her to, but I told her it was fine. I knew that they all still hung out with him at the Academy so it would have been silly for Anne-Marie not to invite him. Besides, I wanted him to see that I didn’t care any more, even though that was a total lie; he seemed to be stubbornly sticking around in my head despite my best efforts to get him out of it. Even a Valentine’s kiss for Hollywood High hunk Hunter Blake (as Teen Girl! Magazine called him) hadn’t dislodged Danny from my daydreams, which was highly inconvenient. I decided to try a bit of method acting to see if that worked. I thought if I acted like I didn’t give him a second thought for long enough, then pretty soon it would become true.

It was funny that no matter how much I tired to give up acting, there was always a little part of me still doing it.

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