Part 1 (1/2)
The Road to Her.
By KE Payne.
Synopsis.
Sparks fly when twenty-year-old Holly Croft, star of the UK soap Portobello Road, meets Elise Manford, the actress who's going to play her on-screen love interest in the soap's first ever lesbian storyline.
Enigmatic Elise's super-confident att.i.tude and unwelcome advice drives Holly to distraction at first, but as fans go wild over the storyline, and the pair start to spend more and more time together, Holly begins to see another side to her costar. Liking what she sees, Holly slowly finds herself falling in love, but can she ignore her growing attraction to Elise when the lines between fact and fiction begin to blur?.
Acknowledgments.
Creating a book doesn't just happen by magic, and so I have some fabulous people to thank for getting this, my fourth novel, through the publis.h.i.+ng process and onto book shelves. Firstly, the lovely people at Bold Strokes Books who do such a brilliant job: Radclyffe for welcoming me to the BSB family in the first place, to Lynda Sandoval and Ruth Sternglantz for guiding me through the editing maze, and to Sheri for going with my choice of cover and turning it into something even more amazing. I'm also truly grateful to each and every other person who works tirelessly behind the scenes at BSB and who made publis.h.i.+ng this book such a pain-free journey for me. Thank you all.
I'm indebted to Sarah Martin, for not only being an awesome beta reader and giving up her precious time to read my work, but also for her constant encouragement and support. I'm always telling you how grateful I am, Smartie, but seriously-thank you! A ma.s.sive thanks also to Emma for your funny and encouraging e-mails over the last few months that have all driven home to me just how important it is to never let the b.u.g.g.e.rs get me down and to always persevere with my goals. PS: Tell your gran to keep reading the PFs too!
To BJ-no words will ever be enough to let you know how much I appreciate everything you do for me. Without your constant love and support, I would never be able carry on with what I love doing, so thank you.
Finally, a huge thank you to all the readers who continue to buy my books, and who take the time to contact me to say how much they enjoy them. I greatly appreciate every e-mail, Facebook comment, and Tweet that you send me, and your continued support is immensely important to me. Thank you all so much.
Chapter One.
”So, Holly, what do you think?” Kevin Driffield sat back in his chair, his small speech over. ”We reckon having a lesbian character is going to really b.u.mp up the ratings this year.” He steepled his fingers and looked at me from across his desk, the flicker of a smile on his round, nondescript face.
”We're thinking this could be the most popular gay storyline since Martin and Dexter in The Escape two years ago.” Kevin's a.s.sistant producer, Susie Abeca.s.sis spoke before I'd had the chance to answer Kevin's question. ”Are you up for it?”
”And Jasmine Hunter's been chosen to be that character?” I met Kevin's continued look and mirrored his smile.
”Having an already-established character such as Martin fall in love with a newcomer like Dexter was an instant hit with the fans,” Kevin said. ”People are still talking about it, even now.”
”And now we want to recreate that success in Portobello Road with you.” Susie spoke animatedly.
My name is Holly Croft, and I guess if you're older than twenty-five then you'll possibly never have heard of me, but I'm an actress in a well-known early evening soap opera which half of the UK's teenage population go absolutely crazy for. It's set in and around the Portobello Road area of West London and is called, appropriately enough, Portobello Road.
Well, over the years, Portobello Road has totally changed my life. I'm twenty now, but I've been in it since I was just twelve. I play a character called Jasmine Hunter, and fans of the show have followed her through thick and thin: through her school years, all the way through her parents' long and bitter divorce, to her first day at university, and right through to her now apparently falling in love with a girl.
”We thought it was time Jasmine came to the fore,” Kevin was now saying, tilting back on his large plush leather chair-the sort that executives are fond of using-and leaning back so far I was convinced he'd topple over backwards and clatter to the floor. ”She's been too long just in the background, but we feel she has potential...”
”More potential than she's being given at the moment,” Susie said, c.o.c.king her head to one side and smiling so much her eyes crinkled. ”We think you have potential, too, Holly.”
I looked down at the sample script on the table in front of me and chewed at the inside of my lip. Jasmine was being taken in a totally different direction, and to be honest, I couldn't decide whether I was nervous or excited at the prospect of her having such a major storyline after years of just being ”that Hunter kid.” Just recently, the most exciting thing that had happened to Jasmine was her pa.s.sing her driving test and her parents divorcing last year after her father was caught in flagrante delicto with his secretary. But this? This was something else.
”Well, I'm flattered,” I began, ”uh, flattered that you'd give me such a huge storyline, and that you think I can handle it.” I looked down at the script again.
”We want this storyline to run for at least the next year.” Kevin leaned forward in his chair. He placed his arms on the table and looked at me intently, then picked up his copy of the script and ran his eyes over it. ”It's going to be a terrific love story, a real heart tugger. We don't want it to be just a token piece, shoved in somewhere between Shane's hair transplant and Hazel's nervous breakdown.”
”Casey Fletcher-Jasmine's love interest-is a brand-new character,” Susie said, reading from a printed sheet in front of her. ”She's eighteen-the same age as Jasmine-and they'll meet at university.”
”They'll be friends to begin with,” Kevin continued, ”but then they'll both begin to realise that they want something more than just friends.h.i.+p.”
”We want Jasmine to struggle with her feelings, deny she likes her, all that sort of stuff,” Susie said, glancing up at me then looking back down at her sheet of paper, circling something on it with a pen. ”We'll keep the viewers hanging on a good while with the cla.s.sic will they, won't they scenario before they both confess their feelings for each other.”
”And Casey certainly won't just be a flash affair for Jasmine,” Kevin added. ”It'll be a proper, long-lasting, and loving relations.h.i.+p.”
”The Martin and Dexter storyline will pale into insignificance compared to what we've got in store.” Susie nodded in agreement.
I looked from Susie to Kevin and back again, adrenaline beginning to fizz inside me.
”It sounds awesome!” I looked back at Susie and then tried, unsuccessfully, to sneak a glimpse at what was written on her sheet of paper.
”So are you up for it?” Kevin finally asked. ”You think you can handle the pressure?”
”Up for it?” I said. ”My G.o.d, yeah, I'm up for it!” I tried to contain my excitement. ”And, yes, I can totally handle the pressure.”
I was more than keen to be involved in the process right from the off as well. I was protective of Jasmine. Of course I was. I'd grown up with her, so it was important she got the right girl, and it was important that the writers did the whole story perfectly. I loved Jasmine and I loved the show. Portobello Road had given me a good life for the last eight years; it had given me money, and perhaps while it hadn't given me as much fame as it had some of the other cast members, it had given me security and many loyal and fantastic friends and colleagues. I was very lucky. It had also given me the opportunity to move from my parents' home in the countryside and buy myself a small but fabulous modern apartment overlooking the Thames. I was so privileged and I knew it; there weren't many twenty-year-olds out there that could afford their own place, let alone one in the centre of London.
Yes, I loved PR, I loved Jasmine, and right now I totally loved Kevin and Susie.
”Excellent!” Susie reached over and pulled out a small pile of papers from a blue file and absent-mindedly flicked through them. ”Now we know you're happy to go ahead, we'll contact some agents and get some auditions going for the part of Casey,” she said, putting the papers back into the file. ”Then get whoever we choose to do a screen test with you, okay?”
”We'll get the ball rolling this afternoon if you're okay with that.” Kevin gathered his papers together and stood up to leave.
”I'm more than okay with that,” I said, already thinking ahead to how fabulous it was all going to be.
The next week pa.s.sed by in a flurry of the usual routines, during which I didn't hear any more about the new plotline. Instead, my days mainly consisted of hours pa.s.sed in the green room and canteen at the PR studios, which were located in a large complex around five miles outside of London, where I would learn my lines and chat with my co-stars while I waited to be called on set. This was usually followed by a few brief scenes shot with my on-screen family, particularly my on-screen mum, a lovely, vivacious, and totally scatty actress called Bella Hamilton, who was currently Soaps' Favourite Mother, according to Just Soap magazine.
But it was shortly after lunchtime-ten days after I'd first heard about my new storyline and just as I was packing my things together, ready to leave again for the day-when Susie came into the green room with a file under her arm and a look of importance on her face.
”So we chose our Casey last week,” she said, sitting next to me on the sofa and taking a piece of paper from her file. ”She had her audition on Thursday and we're really pleased with her.”
I put my bag to one side, interested. My scenes over the last few weeks with Bella had been fun enough, but the thought of now doing something completely different was more than appealing.
”We interviewed four actresses altogether.” Susie shuffled herself back on the sofa and crossed one leg over the other. ”Elise was, by far, the best of them all.”
”Elise?”
”Elise Manford,” Susie said. ”Seems very nice. I think you'll like her.”
”I hope so,” I said, suddenly nervous.