Look At Me Now Read online

  Look At Me Now

  Simone Goodman

  Surround yourself with people who believe in you – beginning with yourself

  For Cat Hedge Farm

  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

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Acknowledgments

  More from Simone Goodman

  About the Author

  About Boldwood Books

  1

  ‘Oops!’ Rushing into the television station where I work, escaping the demonic gale that’s sweeping across London this morning, I slide delicately across the wet tiles inside the entrance.

  I say delicately. But it’s more hope that I look like an accomplished ice skater as I clumsily regain my balance. Being a healthy size 14 – I don’t consider myself fat, I’m just not reed thin – there’s a risk I’ve come off more like a comedian on a banana skin. Thankfully, no one other than Mitzi, our receptionist, is here to hold me accountable.

  ‘Golly, Gracie, are you okay?’ Mitzi calls from across the foyer, where she’s sitting behind the front desk, most likely reading a script.

  ‘I’m okay, Mitzi.’ By all accounts, my near miss looked distinctly less than elegant. Laughing, I steady myself on the death-tiles. It could have been worse. I could have toppled right over my own feet.

  It’s only a short few hundred metres dash from Oxford Circus Tube station to my workplace, our studios located in a narrow but deceptively cavernous Georgian building on Soho Square. My umbrella blowing inside-out against the pelting rain and wind this morning, I covered the distance as quickly as possible. My dash best described as a nippy jog, it’s the most exercise I’ve done in months. It’s early January, the time for New Year resolutions. Possibly, it wouldn’t be the worst idea for me to consider joining a gym?

  ‘I’ve been warning someone will break their bones on those tiles,’ Mitzi says.

  ‘We could do with a non-slip mat here,’ I agree.

  ‘We could do with a lot of things around here,’ Mitzi sighs.

  She reminds me of Daisy Lowe, the model. Dark hair. Doe eyes. Cherry-red lips. Though her role is to welcome visitors, Mitzi looks the part for television. Like many people who work here, she yearns to be in front of the camera.

  I have my own show. But it troubles me, more and more lately, that I don’t look like I belong. This isn’t to say I don’t have my finer points. Pragmatically speaking, we all do. What can I tell you? My eyes are sometimes so blue as to appear violet. Almond-shaped, they’re generously framed with oodles of long, thick lashes. My dark locks cascade to below my shoulders and, at thirty-three years of age, I’ve not got a single grey hair on my head. My complexion is creamy, free of lines and, generally, spots. But before you picture me as some uber-glamourous cross between a young Elizabeth Taylor and a brunette Katy Perry, bear in mind I’m the more robustly packaged (sometimes size 14 plus) version. Some days, I fear I’m veering more into the territory of a Dawn French and Melissa McCarthy lovechild – without their comedy vehicles for kicks. But surely no one likes a thin chef?

  I host my own daily cookery show, Gracie Porter’s Gourmet Get-Together.

  The title is a bit of a misnomer. It’s impossible to prepare gourmet meals, haute cuisine of several aesthetically balanced and rich courses of food, within a short thirty minutes allotment of air time. Notwithstanding that with preparation of the set, the ingredients and me, it takes almost a full day to pre-record every show that then airs across the whole of England, Scotland and Wales at 10.30 a.m. the following week. Also, there isn’t much ‘getting together’ with my format. I like to think I’m always engaging with my audience as they tune in to connect with me from the comforts of their own homes, but the original concept had me hosting the occasional special guest: other chefs, celebrities and perhaps the more interesting politician. With none of us, including my producer, Robin, moving in celebrity circles, with Westminster MPs otherwise occupied with their scandals, solicitations and squabbling and me reasoning that any chef who wants to be on television would surely want their own show, we failed to deliver. When no one pushed us, we let it slide. We don’t even have a live audience. It’s pretty much me and the crew who chow down after a recording finishes. On this basis, my cookery show has aired daily for almost a year and a half.

  Previously, I worked as a normal chef. I prepared mouth-watering meals in lovely places where people came to eat. When it comes to food, I’m a consummate professional. As far as television goes, I’m still cutting my teeth.

  From the beginning, both investment and expectation of our little cookery show has been low. Being at the bottom end of a long list of hot shows and hotter stars left me below the radar – and this has suited me fine. Things changed late last year after Titan Media, the US entertainment giant, acquired a large chunk of our relatively tiny UK operations. This afternoon, at 3 p.m., I have a meeting with the American executives who now run things to discuss my ‘future services to the company’. It hasn’t escaped me that not everyone summoned to such meetings returned from their New Year breaks. People have been literally disappearing from the studios in droves. And I know my ratings aren’t the best.

  I don’t disagree with Mitzi that things around here could be better. However, today is a day for putting the best, most confident and upbeat version of me forward.

  ‘I’m sure things will settle down and everything will be fine again soon,’ I assure her. I put my wet umbrella inside a cotton shopping bag.

  Behind me, the front doors burst open. I turn to look. Shadowing the doorway, wearing her long, spectral black-hooded cape, stands Zelda the Magnificent, our resident daytime television psychic.

  ‘Gracie,’ Zelda declares on seeing me. ‘Dahling.’ Her voice is deep and melodic. Her accent is old Budapest enchantment. She’s like a darker, earthier Zsa Zsa Gabor. ‘Please, stop for Zelda,’ she implores in her dulcet tones. ‘I have, for you, a vision.’

  Pushing the hood from her head, Zelda releases a mass of black curls to topple down and over her shoulders. The curls are part of a voluminous wig. Rumours abound that, underneath, Zelda is completely bald. Rumours also abound that Zelda isn’t merely old but ancient, a hundred years and counting. Because these conjectures add to her mysticism, Zelda does little to quash such blather. Having once shared a dressing room, I know from my own eyes that her scalp is in fact covered with a short mop of white-grey ringlets and, by the birthday card she received last summer, that she isn’t more than eighty years young.

  Closing the few steps between us, Zelda clasps my frigidly cold hands within her un-seasonally hot fingers. She smells of sage, vanilla and cloves. I breathe in her aroma. My mind drifts to thoughts of crispy sage in a burnt butter sauce, drizzled through ribbons of pasta. Of vanilla pods in pots of clotted custard. Of melt-in-your-mouth hot salt beef, boiled with cloves and juniper berries and served thic
kly cut with mustard on rye. Shutting her eyes, Zelda’s face wrinkles with whatever wizardry she’s conjuring.

  ‘Um, Zelda, I’d rather—’ I begin to protest.

  ‘My child, I see a gathering of dark clouds.’ Ignoring my attempt to dissuade her, Zelda begins her psychic vision. ‘I see a storm is brewing...’

  I don’t need divine intervention to inform me of this. There are the pressures at work. At home, things aren’t much better. This morning, I endured another cold flannel wash at the bathroom basin after my boyfriend, Jordan, again used all of the hot water in our flat. During, I should add, another of his suspiciously long showers – by his indifference towards me lately, Jordan could better be described as my supposed boyfriend. To fill you in a little bit, we met the same night I won the contract for the show. After a whirlwind courtship of the best sex I’d ever had, eighteen months on, our physical connection has fallen by the wayside. All less of him no longer being my hunk-a-hunk-of-burning-love and more Jordan no longer seeing me as his mi amore. On top of which, although we live together, we barely talk. Whatever friendship we shared has flatlined alongside my boyfriend’s libido. There’s the excuse that Jordan works ridiculous hours as an advertising executive. But things are so distant between us, we haven’t properly discussed what is – or, more to the point, isn’t – going on in our relationship. Let alone my professional challenges.

  ‘Ach… so much rain,’ Zelda clucks her tongue and shakes her head sadly. Over her closed eyelids is a poorly applied, pale purple eyeshadow. I don’t believe in clairvoyants, but I love a character – I adore Zelda. Whenever I cook anything like a Hungarian goulash or a sweet baklava pastry, Eastern European dishes that I know she’ll enjoy, I set aside a plate for Zelda.

  Outside, lightning flashes, followed by a thunderous crack. A gust of wind slams the front doors shut. Zelda’s emerald eyes pop open.

  I sigh my relief that we appear done. Holding up a bejewelled finger, Zelda begs of me a moment more.

  She fumbles amongst the pockets of her cape and then inside her patchwork bag, her charm bracelets tinkling. Eventually, she withdraws her hands and slips a small, pink crystal into my open palm.

  ‘To help you little bit,’ she says. With a warm expression, Zelda shrugs.

  I clasp the stone, smooth and surprisingly warm, inside my hand.

  ‘Quieten the storm.’ Zelda gently taps my chest with her bony finger. ‘Quieten the storm inside,’ she murmurs. ‘Then, all will be well.’

  And with that, Zelda the Magnificent, resplendent in her sweeping satin cape and semi-precious trinkets, sweeps across the reception and disappears into the labyrinth of recording studios and meeting rooms beyond.

  ‘Can I see?’ Mitzi begs, intrigued.

  I walk over and show her the small, smooth crystal. Pale pink, with ribbons of milky-white.

  ‘Gracie, this is a rose quartz,’ Mitzi exclaims, seemingly knowledgeable about such things. ‘It’s to attract romance and unconditional love.’

  ‘That wasn’t quite how Zelda put it,’ I admit.

  A deluge of rain lashes the floor-to-ceiling windows. Aside from my scepticism, I don’t wish to believe there’s a karmic storm brewing over my personal fate. As far as I’m concerned, I’ve got enough challenges in the here and now.

  Mitzi returns the stone to me. I drop it inside the pocket of my coat.

  ‘Did you hear about Howard?’ she whispers, changing the topic.

  According to the station grapevine, Howard is the latest person to be axed on Titan’s chopping block. A cantankerous, borderline alcoholic whose show, Nature’s Best, had, admittedly, seen better days, Howard is nonetheless something of an industry legend, having once jived around a live-to-air set as a – thankfully – tamed carpet snake chased a lively white mouse up and down inside his corduroy trousers. All of it was filmed in front of an audience of delightedly squealing schoolchildren, and no less a VIP than the highly amused HRH Prince Philip, consort to our lovely Queen. Legend has it Howard overdid his habitual morning vodka before taking to his small stage filled with animals. The mouse escaped the cage, the snake escaped Howard’s clutches, the ensuing chase became TV gold at the time. Today, Howard Gladstone is something of a YouTube sensation for generations too young to have seen it first pass. When I first got the job at SC6, he was the only person Jordan asked about me meeting.

  ‘He’s gone,’ Mitzi confirms. ‘Howard. Who’d been here for, like, ever.’

  I glance around the foyer where, under fluorescent accent lighting, posters of our most popular stars jockey for position. In pride of place, on the magenta wall opposite the entrance, hangs a full-body shot of Sonya Sokolov, a Russian bombshell in silver spandex who hosts, of all things, our children’s cartoon programme. There are multiple pictures of the pale-faced and bushy-eyebrowed youths who present our various music video shows. I’m grateful the promo for my show is positioned down in the basement, outside the studio where we film. One bonus of working at the less illustrious end of this business is that I don’t have to see my face, ten times enlarged and beaming over a bowl of whipped cream, up here on display. In the picture, I’m sporting a stupendously high-peaked white chef’s hat I’ve never once been forced to wear on camera. Not one to play the shrinking violet, here in reception, on the back wall in an ornately gilded frame, hangs a life-sized oil painting of Zelda. Painted as nude as the day she was born, she’s wearing only her gold hoop earrings and a strategically draped plum-coloured silk sheet. In the far corner are black and white photographs of the news crew and of Suzi Sunshine, the latest in a long line of attractive weathergirls – I’m not making up the name, though Suzi might be. Beside Suzi is a patch of canary yellow paint that’s conspicuously brighter than the rest of the wall: the place where Howard’s promo hung for a great many years, until today.

  ‘Howard may have been a crotchety old goat, but isn’t that what television is all about – personalities?’ Mitzi proposes.

  It seems to me profound wisdom for someone reluctantly stuck sitting behind a front desk. ‘I’ll miss the old goat nicking my cooking sherry,’ I say, pricked by an unexpected pang of nostalgia. I will miss chasing Howard out of my studio, him plonking the bottle of fortified wine wherever it lands and cursing me for denying him a drop as I mock-threaten him with my rolling-pin. I will miss it all.

  Not to mention that the forced exit of an industry legend doesn’t bode well for my inexperience on a flagging cookery show. A storm is brewing indeed.

  ‘Drinks are from six tonight at The White Horse,’ Mitzi says.

  ‘I’ll pop by,’ I say.

  ‘One last tipple for Howie.’

  ‘Old trouser snake!’ shouts a baby-faced production assistant, as he crosses the room.

  2

  From reception, I head directly to the first-floor dressing room. Here, Brendan and Brenda, who ordinarily work for the newsroom, also attend to my hair and make-up each morning – the end result being that I arrive on my cookery set looking like I too should be shoved into a suit, shunted behind a desk and forced to read autocues about breaking headlines.

  As usual, Brendan begins with my tresses. Forgoing a dampening spritz of water – the rain took care of that this morning – he blow-dries my locks with an assortment of brushes. Flicking my long hair up and out, he sets it all with an abomination of holding spray, bouffant style. Meanwhile, I’m browsing recent reports from marketing, hoping to discover something that may cement my success in today’s big meeting. So far, there’s no silver bullet.

  Next up is Brenda, who layers on primer, concealer and foundation to my face until I’m slightly tangerine in colour (‘Bronzed, Gracie,’ Brenda insists) and then more ‘highlighter’ on my cheekbones, nose and forehead. Brenda is also favouring a pale-coral lipstick that blends in so well with my newly applied skin tone that my respectably plump lips are barely visible (I’ve been sneakily replacing it with a generous smear of my French Kiss pink lip stain before filming commences). On my mobil
e, I google what the proper celebrity chefs are up to lately. There’s not much help to be gleaned from out there either. It’s all restaurant chains and marriages going bust. Not for the first time, I wonder if being a commercially successful television chef isn’t more about being in some sort of personal spotlight, the worse the better, and less about food than it ought to be.

  After about an hour of such pampering, preparing me for the bright lights, I’m sent on my way to my studio in the basement.

  Unlike the explosion of colour on me personally, the room where we record Gracie Porter’s Gourmet Get-Together is painted dull grey and holds only the necessary equipment. There are two cameras and a boom microphone, a laptop and monitor on a table, some other equipment I’m still unfamiliar with, plus a few foldaway chairs. The floor is littered with lengths of looped-up wiring and cables and spotlights are anchored on the floor and dangle from the ceiling above. The kitchen set itself is dated cream laminate with pine panelling – resurrected after a long hiatus in cookery programmes when I joined. I inherited the electric oven, gas hob and a refrigerator prone to hissy-fitting. Only the microwave was purchased new for me. Here in the basement, there are no windows and, save for a ducted fan above the stove, precious little ventilation. The air becomes stifling once the big lights come on for filming.

  Working in television is not as glamorous as I once envisioned. But our set is friendly. I very much want to keep my job.