Faking It Read online

  PENGUIN BOOKS

  Faking It

  Lotte Daley was raised in a tiny Scottish town in the Highlands, a place that is still very dear to her heart. Now a London girl, Lotte lives a bohemian lifestyle in Wimbledon. A fan of vintage markets, she can often be found wandering up and down Brick Lane looking for a bargain, or gathering friends together for a girly gossip over several bottles of red wine. She is a freelance writer and copywriter, and enjoys working on her business, Gorgeous PR (London) Ltd.

  Faking It

  LOTTE DALEY

  PENGUIN BOOKS

  PENGUIN BOOKS

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA

  Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4P 2Y3

  (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)

  Penguin Ireland, 25 St Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd)

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  (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd)

  Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi – 110 017, India

  Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, Auckland 0632, New Zealand

  (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd)

  Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa

  Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  www.penguin.com

  First published 2011

  Copyright © Lotte Daley, 2011

  The moral right of the author has been asserted

  All rights reserved

  Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book

  ISBN: 978-0-14-195024-2

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgements

  To Ger, for making my dreams come true, and to Ellen and Freddie – I love you

  Chapter 1

  ‘He broke up with you in a text message?!’ my best friend Danielle shrieks down the phone at me. London traffic whizzes past her in the background.

  ‘Are you being serious with me here, like, swear on his life serious?’ she says, her voice going an octave higher with each word spoken.

  ‘I’m being deadly serious,’ I sniff, unable to control my tears. ‘Jack … broke up … with … me!’ I cry.

  ‘When?’ she says.

  ‘Early this morning,’ I sob.

  There’s a stunned silence from Danielle’s end of the phone, aside from the sound of her lighting up a cigarette. I light one up too. I hear her puff before she continues to talk. ‘Oh my God, Katie, that is totally un-cool of him, I can’t believe anyone would do such a thing, in a text!’

  I grab a tissue and blow my nose into it. ‘I know, he’s just, so … so mean!’

  ‘Spineless!’ Danielle replies.

  ‘Horrible, nasty, cowardly!’ I cry.

  ‘Have you, like, got a decent explanation out of him?’ Danielle queries.

  ‘No, no I haven’t. I’ve been repeatedly calling him all morning. He won’t pick up. All I got was this pathetic text,’ I cough and clear my throat. ‘It said, “It’s not you, it’s me, I’m sorry, Katie”.’

  ‘That’s it?’

  ‘That’s it,’ I sob, ‘nothing else! Does he think that I don’t know what those words really, actually mean?’ I pause, letting the words between us sink in.

  Danielle waits expectantly for further shoutage on my part.

  ‘We ALL know what “It’s not you, it’s me” means!’ I sob. ‘It means it IS you!’ I begin to cry some more. ‘It’s meeeee!’ I wail, almost choking myself with snot and tears.

  ‘Shit …’ Danielle says slowly, before adding, ‘after everything you’ve done for him as well …’

  With no clue as to why Jack had dumped me, my hysterical mind had begun to conjure up favourable reasons of absence to explain why he had left. I tore round the bedroom opening now half-empty drawers of our things and slinging back coat hangers in the wardrobe, searching for his clothes, and groaned aloud with each empty space that met me as further proof he’d gone. To keep myself momentarily sane, I wistfully imagined things that didn’t involve me at all, which for a brief moment made me feel better. At least with an external disaster, he wouldn’t have had a choice in the matter of leaving me. Aside from being abducted by aliens, a sudden death was the optimistic reason for explaining his departure.

  I paced up and down my living room going over and over the time we last spent together, searching for clues whilst furiously speed-dialling his number. He must have had at least fifty missed calls. By 9am, two hours after the text, I was frantic. My calling had so far remained fruitless, as I was going straight through to his voicemail. His answerphone led me to stupidly hope against all odds that this whole break-up text could actually be a hoax, and not him ignoring me, and that Jack could have been tumbled into the back of a van with a bin bag over his head on his way to work, bound and gagged, and his kidnapper was simply getting a sadistic kick out of hurting his poor girlfriend. I had visions of a man in a balaclava wielding a knife, ordering him to text me, to break my heart or have his bits chopped off and made into a soup. He’d be begging for mercy, ‘Please no, don’t do this to her, do anything you like to me, but not her …’ whilst the kidnapping, murdering, female-hating man would bellow, ‘Text or you die!’ and then laugh in an evil way. Jack, of course, would have put up resistance to his heinous request and quite happily risked death by henchman. On second thoughts, he would never allow anything to go near his ridiculously good-looking face, or his £1,000 designer jacket. He’d willingly sacrifice me though, I thought, based upon this morning’s efforts. I gave a heavy sigh and peeked out of the window. The street was filled with large vans and men wearing fashionable scarves and carrying cameras. Perhaps someone famous had moved into Lauriston Gardens? After all, the East End was always being touted as ‘trendy’ and ‘up and coming’ – which bits of it, I was still unclear, because to me personally, it made no sense. Last time I checked, I still had to dodge weird-looking men calling me ‘darrrrling’ with elongated Rs, asking for dates at the bus stop in broad daylight, when clearly, all they really wanted was a shag and to make a copy of my Visa. Not much different to Jack, then … sex and my Visa debit. I quickly drew the curtains to match my mood. In the reality of daylight, my whimsical fantasies of abduction and the like became painfully embarrassing, but with the curtains closed and the lights dimmed, I could keep up the pretence, at least, until anyone called round. Thank God I hadn’t told anyone what was really in my head – they’d be slinging me into the loony bin within a blink of an eye. Jack’s phone was now ringing out … a painful stab of rage grappled with my heart, as I knew that this meant his earlier phone issues were a mixture of cowardice and lack of signal. He had probab
ly emerged from the Tube by now and was not dead after all. In reality, I would hazard a guess that he was probably sitting at work, a shot of espresso in his hand, phone on silent, reading The Times and scratching his balls, without a care in the world.

  As for me – I was inconsolable and it wasn’t even lunchtime.

  ‘Fucking men,’ Danielle continues, between puffs of smoke. I could hear her heels clip-clopping down the street. ‘What a loser with a capital L! Listen, I’m on Brick Lane about to get a bagel. Want one?’

  ‘I can’t eat, I’m stricken,’ I moan. ‘But bring me a soft cheese one with pastrami, just in case …’

  ‘OK, I’ll grab the food and then I am so on my way over, I’ll bring the choc– OH MY GOD!!’ she screams down the line, nearly deafening me.

  ‘What? What is it?’ I squeal back at her. ‘Are you being mugged? Are there celebrities in Starbucks again? Is it Jack? Can you see Jack?’

  There’s nothing but silence for a few moments before a sharp intake of breath. ‘Give me that!’ she hisses to someone. ‘I’m serious, it’s a matter of urgency!’ she shouts. I hear her whip something from the unknown person. A few seconds pass before she says, ‘I’m not being mugged, a credible celebrity hasn’t been seen in Starbucks since forever and yes, Katie, my God, I’ve seen Jack all right!’

  ‘Well, what’s he doing?’ I query. ‘Who is he with, does he look OK, is he dead?’

  ‘Oh my …’ she says tepidly. I hear her rustling. ‘Katie, he’s not dead … what on earth … just please don’t go anywhere until I get there, OK? Sorry, here’s a tenner, keep the change. Just wait until I get there and I’ll explain.’ I hear her rushing out of the bagel shop and into the street.

  ‘Why?’ I question, losing my patience. ‘It’s like you totally know something I don’t about Jack!’ I had to know, I mean this was serious!

  ‘TAXI!’ she yells and I hear her getting into a cab. ‘Can you take me to Lauriston Gardens please, number eight,’ she says, ‘and step on it!’

  ‘Whoah, Danielle, I thought they only said that in films?’ I attempt a laugh, but I’m still pretty freaked out by Danielle’s emergency action.

  ‘I’ll be there as soon as I can, don’t go anywhere!’ she repeats breathlessly, and hangs up on me.

  Puzzled, I stared at the phone for a few moments before laying it on the coffee table. Could Jack have left me for someone else? Is that what Danielle saw, him draped across the body of another woman on Brick Lane? I mean, he’s hot for this little café down there that serves macrobiotic food and holds Bikram yoga classes on Wednesday evenings … but it was our haunt, he wouldn’t dare take another girl to a place we go to together … no, that’s just insane, especially as it’s only been a couple of hours since we broke up.

  If Jack was having an affair, I totally hadn’t noticed. I sat on my sofa, in my house, which was now empty of any man-stuff and surveyed the room for clues. Everything Jack owned, which wasn’t much aside from the designer clothes I bought him, appeared to be gone, and I wasn’t even sure exactly when he’d moved out. As an up-and-coming actor, Jack Hunter was always on the go, schmoozing and boozing, living the dream, whilst I filed my life away in an office. I worked flat-out as an administrator in a PR company to fund his lifestyle, which meant he could take acting jobs which were largely low paid or unpaid. Jack was a man of extreme leisure, he moved at a slow pace, everything was ‘chilled, man’, and would be done ‘in a minute’. He was hardly ever seen without his trademark Wayfarer shades on and if he tried to lie to me, his ears, which stuck out slightly, went bright red. Now I come to think about it, bits of his stuff had been missing over the past fortnight, just the little things, like his electric mouth-moulding, gentle-vibrate toothbrush that I liked to use when he wasn’t looking, his Liberty hand cream that made my hands feel super smooth and his Louis Vuitton vanity case that I hoped he’d tire of because, to the outside world, the dial was hovering on the wrong side of the sexuality gay-o-meter. Jack was effeminate. He even wore light make-up to casting calls. He began to take his new man-bag that he begged me to buy him, made of real distressed leather, to work with him. He took it with him most mornings, instead of leaving his essentials lying around my bathroom, much to my annoyance. His stuff was way better than mine.

  I must admit, I had noticed Jack was a lot quieter than usual, but I simply put it down to stress, after all, it’s tough trying to break into an industry that bases your entire worth on the symmetry of your face. I was, however, used to occasionally not being able to immediately get hold of him. His phone would sometimes be on silent or off altogether for castings and very important meetings with other semi-successful actors. It was rude, you see, to have it on, and apparently even ruder to take five measely minutes out to pacify your fretting girlfriend. As an actor, Jack was deep, he was brooding, and sometimes, if he didn’t get a job he really wanted, he went into his metaphorical ‘cave’ (round to his mother’s) and was impossible to talk to. Sometimes he’d stay there for days, with his phone off or on silent, and I would be left wondering if it was something I’d done wrong that prevented him from sending a simple ‘hello, I’m fine!’ text back to me.

  After around six months of sitting on his backside in my house, learning how to throw his voice, he decided to make a bit of money for himself that didn’t come from the Department of Work and Pensions. He took a part-time barista job in one of those organic patisseries in Primrose Hill. I told him to keep the small wage he took, otherwise he’d never begin to make a proper life for himself. He did this job for the flexibility it gave him to attend auditions for commercials and the fact that he didn’t have to tire himself out working beyond sixteen hours, thus not affecting his benefits.

  He had a part in the Hollywood bonkbuster Cowgirls with primadonna diva Jessica Hilson, star of numerous cheesy rom-coms, that was set for release this summer. It was, as far as I knew, a small part, but he hoped that this would be his big break. As a result of his experiences rubbing shoulders with minor celebs on set for the past three months, he had developed a very noticeable swagger. He yearned to get closer to the A-list actors, especially Jessica Hilson, whom he idolized. He had the entire collection of My Fabulous Life, a fly-on-the-wall show which followed Jessica and her mega rich, gorgeous Italian boyfriend Fabio Matravers around the world with zillions of cameras, as they swanned about sunbathing on yachts, or schmoozing with celebrities at Cannes. They often jetted off to Mimi Sparkles beach hut in Honolulu. Mimi Sparkles is the name of Jessica Hilson’s pet tiger who lives in her own personal mini jungle garden, with monkey helpers to cater to her needs. I was forever reading about Jessica and Fabio in Sizzle Stars, and then, when I reached for my gossip magazine’s television guide, it would be missing. A hunt would ensue and I would find it either wedged down between the wall and my bed (Jack’s side) or next to the toilet. Heaven knows what he was doing with it. Jack was desperate to get close to Jessica or any other Alister, but failed because they always had an entire security system circulating them at all times on set and, as such, it was impossible to catch a glimpse of a manicured fingernail, let alone get close enough to introduce himself. I didn’t really blame him for obsessing over various blonde starlets because when I did complain about it, he very rightly pointed out that if there was a slight chance of my coming into contact with Gerard Butler or Hugh Jackman in the stationery cupboard at work, I would probably faint on the spot and/or attempt some manhandling of said celebrity hunks into the nearest hotel room. Perhaps … I could dream, right?

  Jack’s cute dimples, his cheeky grin and his to-die-for skin tone caught the eye of at least a dozen older actresses who were partial to his effervescent charms. These actresses worked on neighbouring sets as the mothers of lithe young beauties in teen soaps. Jack never stepped out with the younger actresses – if he did, he’d find himself missing certain bits of his anatomy, because even I had my limits. Despite his protestations that those skinny minnies could open doors for him, I had my suspicio
ns that the only doors that opened would be the ones to their bedrooms. I mean, I’m all for career progression, as long as it’s kept in public view and with clothes firmly on bodies. Jack sniffed around the Cougars, the older ones who actually, in all fairness, could help him. They hadn’t always worked on Z-list soaps, some of them had trodden the boards of the West End, some of them had even been in Dynasty and knew Joan Collins and everything! For those women, he would happily forsake lazy weekend mornings in bed with me to eat crumpets with them on Primrose Hill. He would laugh at their jokes and make them fall in love with him; he would compliment them to death whilst they fawned and simpered over him, flicking their Barbara Cartland curls and always footing the bill.

  He always went to these breakfasts without me. Most girls I knew wouldn’t let their boyfriends have as much free rein as I allowed Jack. But there was a very good reason why I did. He told me that his ex-girlfriend, Megan Vodianova, a Russian-born, feline-looking girl, was a total diva who ruined their relationship with her possessive, bunny-boiling behaviour. There was no way I would lose Jack Hunter, love of my life, for anything or anyone. Megan was slender and beyond beautiful and worked as a fashion model. She had a small dog that she carried everywhere in her little handbag. She walked with a wiggle and had the most annoying laugh he said he’d ever heard. To me she sounded perfect, flawless, amazing. But he said she was an attention-seeking control freak who had to know where he was at all times or she would cry and scream in public and cut up his clothes. He couldn’t even break wind without permission, and she always had to be on top. This led him into my arms … the girl who was happy to take a back seat, who would give him a knee-lift up on to his shiny pedestal and who would let him fart to his heart’s content. I would hold his mirror up for him so he could check his hair wasn’t out of place, I carried his vanity case for him on his weekend casting calls and I organized his life with practical precision. But most of all, after Jack had almost shed a tear recounting the trials and tribulations of his awful life with Megan one day, I had decided there and then that I would be the opposite of Megan Vodianova in every single way.