Chapter 1.

TEARS OF A CLOWN

(edited extract)

Elevators are like life, when you think about it: You’re either going up or going down. I was dressed like a whore and descending fast, alone, for a “private” in Las Vegas I should never have agreed to. There’s always something a bit creepy about privates. But I was desperate. For so many reasons. If only my luck would change, and this would be the last dodgy gig I’d have to face for a while.

I was wearing a tiny scrap of fabric posing as a dress, half-hidden beneath my ex-boyfriend’s vintage cardigan, the one possession I’d pinched, for sentimental reasons, when he’d left me for a twenty-three-year-old lingerie model. Two months ago.

Don’t you dare cry. Not about him, not about this, not now.

I caught sight of myself reflected in the mirrored doors and flinched. Who the hell is that? Oh right. It’s her. She dances, she sings, she entertains.

“Hang in there,” I murmured, rallying. “You can do this. A gig is a gig is a gig. The show must go on!”

The doors slid open on Mezzanine, and Pippa appeared in silhouette, late-afternoon sun flooding in from an outlandish wall of glass, creating the impression of a shimmering halo above her tousled blond hair. Pippa, my angel, best friend, and manager, who’d winged all the way from London to rescue me from despair. 

Our reunion was cut short by a commotion in the corridor. Pippa seemed to vaporize in a blast of white light, and I was knocked back by a warm body barreling blindly, and rather rudely, into the elevator, and me.

“Sorry! God, so sorry,” said a richly resonant, Australian-accented voice. Two clumsy hands on my shoulders steadied me, and the warmth of them, the weight, sent an unexpected ripple through me. I peered up, caught the flash of a smile (apologetic) and the sweep of long hair (dark and glossy), and was locking eyes with a pair of big blue sparkly ones when Pippa reached in and plucked me from the elevator.

Hello, goodbye, I thought, as the elevator doors slid shut and he vanished in some terrible sleight-of-hand trick. His eyes had been so encouraging, his smile so profoundly sunny, that I experienced something I hadn’t since Alex, my partner of four years, had confessed to cheating with Jessica: a faint stirring, something resembling optimism.

Pippa came back into focus. “That was All Love.” She grinned, grabbing the handle of my roller bag, click-clacking ahead down the long corridor in her strappy heels. 

I raced to catch up, glimpsing a preposterous imitation Eiffel Tower rippling in the heat mirage beyond the windows.

“What do you mean, that was all love?”

“Pop duo, from Australia, in the elevator,” she said.

“Duo?” I’d only noticed the one.

“Brothers. Aren’t they gorgeous? Playing tomorrow night at the arena next door. You have been living under a rock.” Pippa shot me a look, brushing back perfect bangs. Her doll-like features lent her a striking resemblance to a young Marianne Faithfull.

Honestly, Pippa had pulled off a miracle getting me this gig. It’d been years since I’d done a show. She knew I needed the money. I was living with my parents again, which at thirty-three was a demoralizing last resort.

And I was there . . . the sagging twin bed . . . dust motes dancing over four garbage bags I hadn’t the will to sift through . . . all that remained of my life with . . .

“How have you not heard of All Love?” Pippa quipped, amused, incredulous. “They’re massive.”

I had been living under a rock. She was right. That’s how I’d missed Alex philandering, for months. My stomach plunged. How could I have been so clueless? And he, so heartless.

“This is us, darling, just in time for a quick sound check.” We screeched to a halt before a pair of mysterious red leather doors. “God, I’ve missed you,” she said. “This will take your mind off Alex, surely. Doing what you do best, in front of an adoring audience.”

“Exactly.” I forced a smile. Lie. I had zero confidence that I’d be good, that the audience would even remember who I was, or that it could possibly take my mind off him. 

Pippa beamed and hugged me again. Fake it till you make it. Over her shoulder, off in the sunlit distance, I glimpsed hotel security rounding up a gaggle of fluttery All Love fangirls still loitering by the elevator.