One Day in Cornwall. Zoe Cook

wait until you get your results in a few months and decide from there –’

      ’– no, I mean,’ Tom hesitated, making Lucy nervous too now. ‘I mean, I don’t think I’m going to go back at all. I don’t think I’m going to do my A levels. I don’t think I need them.’‘What?’ Lucy said, raising her voice in disbelief. ‘That’s ridiculous. Good one. Good luck convincing your parents with that.’

      ‘They agree,’ Tom said, kicking a line of sand ahead of them. ‘I’m going to get more involved with the businesses. I’m going to help them out. They don’t want to do all this forever and it will all be mine one day anyway, so –’

      ’– so you’ll just give up on anything else at the age of sixteen and decide to stay here for the rest of your life? Are you fucking crazy, Tom? You’ll have no options at all.’

      ‘I know that’s how you see it, Luce,’ he said as she pulled her hand away.

      ‘This isn’t what we talked about,’ she said, quietly, feeling foolish now. ‘I thought we were going to get our A levels and then travel, you know, actually do something. Why did you let me talk about all that when you were planning to just sit here in Cornwall and work in a fucking café?’

      ‘We can still do that,’ Tom said, reaching for her hand again. She tugged it away from him.

      ‘Yeah, or we can say that we will and then end up not doing it, because you’ll never be able to tear yourself away from this place,’ Lucy spat at him. ‘You’re pathetic sometimes, Tom, a massive fucking let-down.’

      ‘Lucy!’ he called after her as she walked away, rage burning her cheeks.

       12

      London, 2010

      Lucy examined her freshly dyed, chest-length blonde hair, curled from the midsection, and reapplied her peach lip gloss in the mirror of the ladies’ loos. The last show in this long-running series of Cook My Dinner really did feel like cause for celebration. The eighteen-week run had been a particularly stressful one, with fallouts between Spectrum and the broadcaster leading to plenty of unpleasant meetings and phone calls that Lucy was often caught in the middle of. The show was one of Spectrum’s trademark productions and they’d been making it at their onsite studios for almost six years, with a variety of different presenters. The current ‘talent’ was a particularly difficult character, Gareth Bell, a former Michelin-starred chef who’d fallen into disrepute years before following a tabloid scandal involving cocaine and prostitutes, and who Emma had whole-heartedly believed she could rehabilitate onto daytime TV. He was also incredibly cheap to book, which was always appealing to Emma, but the relationship hadn’t worked out quite as she’d hoped and his tendency for arriving on set half cut had caused some challenging production issues. He was sticking around for the wrap party tonight and Lucy had been tasked with checking this with him earlier in the day. From what she could tell, he was already halfway drunk and it was only 7pm. His speech would be interesting.

      The show’s daily guest was also due to stay for the celebrations. Warren and Charlie had gone all out for the last show in the series and had found someone who wasn’t an obscure soap character, or someone Lucy needed to Google (you NEVER ask a booker who the name on the board actually is). Today’s guest was Lawrence Shield, a member of chart-topping boy band The Team, and the most famous one at that. Emma was embarrassingly excited that Lawrence was staying for the party and hadn’t left him alone. She was still fawning over him as Lucy left the toilets and headed to the bar. She ordered a pineapple martini, which came in a plastic glass, decorated in carnival-coloured circles and finished with an umbrella. She had hardly touched alcohol since the fainting incident and had expected to feel better for her abstinence. The lack of hangovers had been a nice break, but other than that, she just missed the taste of wine and cocktails; the pineapple martinis were going down well. Lucy felt a hand on her back and turned to see Helen from the edit standing nervously behind her.

      ‘Hey, Helen,’ Lucy smiled. ‘You okay?’ Lucy wasn’t sure if she’d spoken to Helen properly before. She’d said hello a few times whilst she was up in the edit running errands for Emma, but couldn’t picture Helen outside of the dark suites at all.

      Helen had dressed up for the party and was wearing a calf-length leather dress and studded jacket. Lucy hadn’t noticed her gothic style before.

      ‘I’m, um, I’m a massive Teamer,’ Helen looked at the floor as she spoke.

      ‘Sorry?’ Lucy replied. ‘You’re a what?’

      ‘Oh,’ Helen laughed nervously, shifting her weight from foot to foot. ‘It’s what we call ourselves, ‘teamers’, The Team’s super-fans.’

      ‘Oh, I see,’ Lucy replied, bemused. ‘That’s cool.’

      ‘I wondered if you think it’d be possible to get a picture with Lawrence?’ Helen looked up at Lucy now, hopefully.

      ‘Oh, of course!’ Lucy replied. ‘I can’t see that being a problem. Just go and ask him, he’s lovely.’

      ‘I can’t,’ Helen’s eyes returned to the floor. ‘Please, would you ask for me? I’m too nervous.’ Lucy looked at Helen and felt a patronising pity for her. She was a large girl, probably the only girl at the party bigger than a size ten; Emma oversaw the recruitment at Spectrum and heavily policed what she called ‘the look’. Lucy wondered how Helen had slipped through the net and immediately hated herself for the thought. Helen had never been part of team drinks, team evenings out or any socialising at all as far as Lucy could remember. Maybe she’d never wanted to, but had she ever been asked? She’d probably worked there for a year now and Lucy had never spoken more than three words to her. She didn’t fit in with the group Lucy hung out with and so Lucy had never made any effort to include her. Never invited her to join them.

      ‘Of course I can ask him,’ she smiled at Helen again earnestly and hoped suddenly that Helen didn’t hate her for being the cliquey bitch she’d probably always seemed to her.

      Lucy was used to politely interrupting Emma’s conversations and edged her way in to the group Emma was talking to, waiting for an opportune moment to get her boss’s attention.

      ‘Emma?’ she spoke quietly as the conversation continued among the rest of the group. ‘Helen from the edit would love a picture with Lawrence. Can I borrow him for a minute?’

      ‘Who?’ Emma replied at full volume, not taking her eyes off Lawrence.

      ‘Helen,’ Lucy repeated, ‘she works in edit one.’

      ‘I have no idea who you mean,’ Emma insisted, and Lucy recognised the rising irritation in her tone.

      ‘That’s her, over there, in the, er, black dress,’ Lucy gestured towards Helen, who was still at the bar, trying to look away.

      ‘Oh, dear God,’ Emma turned back and looked at Lucy. ‘How on earth did she get a job here? She doesn’t have the Spectrum look at all.’ Emma laughed at her own cruelty. ‘She’s a beast!’ she exclaimed, causing the rest of the group to stop their conversations momentarily before laughing awkwardly.

      ‘She is not to come anywhere near Lawrence,’ she whispered fiercely to Lucy. ‘She is not to speak to him, she is not to ask for an autograph. I will not have her embarrassing me. What the hell is she wearing? She looks like an S&M hippo!’ This line gave Emma enormous pleasure and she began laughing again.

      ‘Emma…’ Lucy began, but Emma’s attention had turned again to Lawrence, who she was giggling at now like a school girl. Fury burned on Lucy’s cheeks. How could she walk back to Helen now? What was she supposed to say? She ducked back out of the group and walked in the opposite direction, away from Helen, who she knew must be looking at her, wondering what was going on. Lucy ordered another two pineapple martinis at the mobile bar, downing one on the spot. Out in the