Power Games. Victoria Fox

isn’t about is this.’ Sketch gestured once more at the still. ‘Pelvic thrusting. Cursing. Rubbing his crotch like a … I don’t know, like a dog with his balls in a knot. Telling girls he wants to,’ Sketch consulted his iPad and inhaled sharply, ‘grind you up against the wall where your mom and dad can’t see.’

      ‘That was part of the song.’

      ‘It wasn’t.’

      ‘It should’ve been. It’s not my fault I’ve got to sing like a pussy. I told them I wanted the lyrics to reflect my personality.’

      Sketch put down his pad. He assumed his I’m listening face, tempered by a twinge of fatherly concern. When all was said and done, he was the closest thing Kevin had to a father—hell, maybe that was where it had gone so wrong.

      Abandonment issues: oldest fuck-up in the book.

      Of course the record company was doing little to alleviate it.

       Forget it. It’s for the kid’s own good.

      Sketch contained a gruesome shiver. You just keep telling yourself that.

      He straightened. ‘What would reflect your personality, Kevin? Tell me.’

      But Kevin didn’t know, or else he couldn’t articulate it. He didn’t even know if he had a personality, outside of what everyone else told him it was. Lately he had started gazing in the mirror and not recognising the person looking back, half expecting the other Kevin to do something he hadn’t asked it to, like stick its tongue out, or burst out laughing at the punchline his life had become. He might laugh too, if he could remember the joke. Instead, every day was a circus of grabbing bankrollers, snatching and pawing at his fame like rabid dogs. He had no real friends.

      He scratched at a mark on the knee of his jeans and tried not to cry.

      ‘Listen to Sketch, honey,’ Joan crooned, leaning forward in her chair. She wore ill-fitting Prada and too much make-up. ‘He knows what he’s talking about.’

      ‘Yeah right,’ mumbled Kevin. Sometimes he wanted to throttle his mom. She was happy to tag along for the ride but she didn’t appreciate how much work he had to put in, what this job took out of you, how much stress he was under. She should try being Kevin Chase for a day and see how she liked it!

      ‘Not good enough.’ Sketch ran a hand through his hair. ‘If this was an isolated incident, buddy, then maybe I’d buy it, but the fact is it’s not. You want me to lay it out for you? Turning up three hours late to the Seattle concert. Telling an audience of schoolkids that if they didn’t like it, they could bite me. Flicking the bird to that pap outside your crib. Rocking up drunk to that book signing and breathing vodka fumes in a nine-year-old’s face—it was a treat to see that splashed across USay the next morning, let me tell you. Trying to get that pregnant ape at the California Zoo Convention to drink a can of Kool beer. Forgetting what song you’re meant to be singing. Messing up your routines. Speeding. Swearing. Trashing hotel rooms … and don’t get me started on taking a leak in that plant pot at Il Cielo—’

      ‘All right, all right, I get it,’ Kevin supplied bitterly.

      ‘And what’s with the attitude? That dance troupe you worked with on the last video said you gave them hell. Cursing at reporters, telling press where to go, slamming out at that photographer in Berlin. I mean Jesus H., Kevin—’

      ‘I never trashed any hotel room. I told you. The sound system exploded.’

      Sketch took a breath.

      ‘And I needed a leak! What do you want me to do, pee in my fucking pants?’

      ‘You could visit the toilet like everyone else.’

      ‘I’m not everyone else, though, am I?’

      ‘Think about it,’ Sketch said. ‘You’ve got a reputation to uphold.’

      ‘I’m sick of having a reputation.’

      Joan put a hand on his shoulder. ‘Honey …’

      He shrugged her off.

      ‘I’ve cancelled your commitments this afternoon,’ offered Sketch. ‘Go home, rest up, get looked after; watch some cartoons—’

      ‘Cartoons?’ Kevin flared. ‘What am I, five?’

      ‘Relax.’ Sketch put his hands out. ‘You’ve been under a lot of strain and it’s starting to show. My job is to look after you, and this is what I’m prescribing.’

       Along with the rest.

      Sketch swallowed his conscience like a bad oyster.

      ‘I’ll call you in the morning. Sound good, bud?’

      Kevin allowed himself to be ushered through the door. Joan was fussing over him, picking threads from his back. ‘Ugh, Mom, piss off, will you?’

      They took the elevator in silence. Kevin knew he was being an asshole. He wanted to say sorry but he didn’t know how. He just couldn’t help how angry he felt the whole time. That was the only word. He felt like a bomb about to blow off. The slightest word sent him plummeting into a rage. A throwaway comment made him fly off the handle. Right now he hated everyone and everything and he didn’t, for the life of him, know why. All he knew was that he couldn’t sustain it much longer.

      Kevin was going to snap, and it was going to be soon. He couldn’t say what would happen when he did, but one thing was certain: it was going to be bad.

       3

       London

      Regardless of how many celebrities she interviewed, Eve Harley would always be amazed at the scale of their egos. Supermodels were the worst.

      ‘I guess I kinda always knew I was beautiful,’ Tawny Lascelles was saying from her position in the make-up girl’s chair, angling her face as the blusher brush swept across a pair of immaculate cheekbones. Tawny had a lilting, Texan drawl, and a flush of softness to her voice that betrayed what Eve was beginning to suspect was a core of gritty ambition. She was the magazine favourite of the moment, sweet as candy but sharp enough to be interesting, with a well-publicised streak of rebellion.

      ‘Can you remember your first shoot?’ Eve asked, adjusting her position on the uncomfortable stool alongside Tawny’s cushioned throne. In the portrait awarded by the bulb-lined mirror she accepted the uncrossable distance between prettiness and beauty. Eve was attractive enough, with her neatly cut shoulder-length brown hair, green almond eyes and petite, bright features, but next to Tawny’s Cara Delevingne vibe anyone was going to look like a sack of potatoes.

      ‘Oh, yes,’ Tawny’s blue eyes widened, ‘a girl never forgets.’ She pouted to permit a rose-pink liner to caress the contours of her perfect, bee-stung lips. Ravishing wasn’t nearly enough for tonight’s parade: she had to be flawless. ‘I was so nervous. I mean, I’m actually totally uncomfortable with this whole “look at me” thing.’

      I bet you are, thought Eve, tapping keynotes into her tablet.

      ‘So, lucky for me,’ Tawny went on, ‘it was on this paradise beach … and d’you know what the really weird thing was? Like, totally surreal?’

      Eve took the question as rhetorical, but when Tawny’s sapphire eyes at last deigned to meet hers in their joint reflection, she shook her head.

      ‘I’d been there before! On vacation.’ The make-up girl tilted Tawny’s chin, lifting it like a petal so she could add a hint of gloss. ‘And as soon as I walked out on that sand,’ Tawny managed to keep her mouth totally still while she spoke, ‘I was, like, Whoa, this is cosmic, y’know? Like it was meant to happen that way.