Remember My Name by Abbey Clancy Read Free Book Online Page B

make sure I didn’t put any weight on, so even that was off limits for me. I’m a size ten, but that was considered a bit on the plus side, so the joys of living above the best kebab shop in North London, and the cupboard choc-full of biscuits, were lost on me.
    To be honest, the joy of pretty much everything was lost on me right then.
    I nodded to let Heidi know I was okay with my schedule, and she trotted off, stuffing a Hobnob in her mouth as she went.
    My schedule was … knackering. I’d never been so tired in my entire life. Jack had held true to his part of the bargain, but it wasn’t quite the dream lifestyle I’d imagined. More of a living nightmare, in fact. I got into the office at half nine, and spent the whole day being treated like something the PR team would scrape off their shoe after a walk on Hampstead Heath. I made their coffee, fetched their lunch, did their photocopying, collected their press cuttings, made their hair appointments, and provided target practice for their pen-throwing workshops.
    I wasn’t allowed to answer their phones, or meet their guests at reception, or deal with the public in any way—because, as Patty had put it, ‘Nobody will understand a word you say—you practically speak a foreign language.’
    If I was lucky, I got to shadow them in meetings, which allowed me to at least get to know a few people in the rest of the business, and get an idea of how things worked. And the way things worked was … badly.
    I’d never come across so many egos and divas and primadonnas in my life—and that wasn’t even the performers. Everyone here thought they were a star, or at least thought they should be treated like one. Even the cleaners had a habit of singing while they emptied the bins, presumably hoping that someone would hear them warbling Whitney Houston tracks, and say ‘Now, that’s what I call music …’
    The only genuine star I’d met was Vogue, and ironically she was adorable—probably the least up-her-own-bum of everyone I worked with. She certainly couldn’t beat Patty for being a rude cow, she always remembered my name, and she never threw anything at my head. She’d even complimented me on my singing when she’d heard me one night.
    The singing that I would get to do after a full day’s work in the office. I usually finished at about six—when the others would go off to wine bars and parties and glitzy functions, and I’d stay behind, like Cinderella being banned from the ball. Maybe I was too fat and too Scouse to be allowed on the guest list.
    After that, the rest of my work schedule would start—and from six until nine I’d get to do the stuff I’d come all this way for. The stuff I’d left my family for. The stuff that the dreams really were made of.
    I’d see Dale in the dance studio and learn steps to the routines he was choreographing for Vogue and the other A-listers on the label. I’d see Frankie, the vocal coach, and spend an hour gasping for air and doing freaky voice exercises and perfecting my runs and pretending I was Mariah Carey. I’d see Neale, the junior make-up guy, who seemed to be as low down the ladder as I was, and ‘we’d gossip as dancedaround to R.Kelly’s She’s Got That Vibe, Neale showing off the moves he still had from his time as professional dancer. And maybe—when there was time available—I’d get to go into one of the studios and work with a producer. That didn’t happen too often, but when it did, it was absolutely the best bit of all.
    Standing there, alone, in that darkened booth, headphones on and singing my heart out, was what made it all worthwhile. It was the same feeling I used to get when I sang the princess routines—I could shut everything else out, and lose myself in the song. Go to my happy place.
    So far, I’d only done Vogue songs and a few covers—nobody was writing new tunes for the PR slave, let’s face it. But it still made it all worthwhile—it gave me a delicious taste of what it