I blink a few times, take a deep breath and look up to see Luke Brandon gazing at me, his eyes dark and expressionless.
'Friends,' I say coolly. 'Sending me their-good wishes.'
Carefully I place the card on the coffee table, making sure it stays open so it'll keep singing, then pull my balloon down from the ceiling and tie it to the back of my chair.
'OK,' comes Zelda's voice from the door. 'Luke and Rebecca. Are you ready?'
'Couldn't be readier,' I say calmly, and walk past Luke to the door.
Twenty-One
As we stride along the corridors to the set, neither Luke nor I say a word. I dart a glance at him as we turn a corner – and his face is even steelier than it was in the green room.
Well, that's fine. I can do steely, too. I can do hard and businesslike. Firmly I lift my chin and begin to take longer strides, pretending to be Alexis Carrington in Dynasty.
'So, do you two already know each other?' says Zelda, who's walking along between us.
'We do, as it happens,' says Luke shortly.
'In a business context,' I say, equally shortly. 'Luke's always trying to promote some pathetic financial product or other. And I'm always trying to avoid his calls.'
Zelda gives an appreciative laugh and I see Luke's eyes flash angrily. But I really don't care. I don't care how angry he gets. In fact, the angrier he gets, the better I feel.
'So – Luke, you must have been quite pissed off at Rebecca's article in the Daily World,' says Zelda.
'I wasn't pleased,' says Luke.
'He phoned me up to complain, can you believe it?' I say airily. 'Can't cope with the truth, eh Luke? Can't cope with seeing what's under the PR gloss? You know, perhaps you should change jobs.'
There's silence and I turn to look at Luke. He looks so furious, I think for a terrifying moment that he's going to hit me. Then his face changes and in an icily calm voice, he says,
'Let's just get on the fucking set and get this little charade over with, shall we?'
Zelda raises her eyebrows at me and I grin back. I've never seen Luke so rattled before.
'OK,' says Zelda as we approach a set of double swing doors. 'Here we are. Keep your voices down when we go in.'
She pushes open the doors and ushers us in, and for a moment my cool act falters. I feel all shaky and awed, like Laura Dern in Jurassic Park when she saw the dinosaurs for the first time. Because there it is, in real life. The real live Morning Coffee set. With the sofa and all the plants and everything, all lit up by the brightest, most dazzling lights I've ever seen in my life.
This is just unreal. How many zillion times have I sat at home, watching this on the telly? And now I'm actually going to be part of it. I can't quite believe it.
'We've got a couple of minutes till the commercial break,' says Zelda, leading us across the floor, across a load of trailing cables. 'Rory and Emma are still with Elisabeth in the library set.'
She gestures to us to sit down on opposite sides of the coffee table, and, gingerly, I do so. The sofa's harder than I was expecting, and kind of… different.
Everything's different. God, this is weird. The lights are so bright on my face, I can hardly see anything, and I'm not quite sure how to sit. A girl comes and threads a microphone cable under my shirt and clips it to my lapel. Awkwardly, I lift my hand to push my hair back, and immediately Zelda comes hurrying over.
'Try not to move too much, OK, Rebecca?' she says. 'We don't want to hear a load of rustling.'
'Right,' I say. 'Sorry.'
Suddenly my voice doesn't seem to be working properly. I feel as though a wad of cotton wool's been stuffed into my throat. I glance up at a nearby camera and, to my horror, see it zooming towards me.
'OK, Rebecca,' says Zelda, hurrying over again, 'one more golden rule – don't look at the camera, all right? Just behave naturally!'
'Fine,' I say huskily.
Behave naturally. Easy-peasy.
'Thirty seconds till the news bulletin,' she says, looking at her watch. 'Everything OK, Luke?'
'Fine,' says Luke calmly. He's sitting on his sofa as though he's been there all his life. Typical. It's all right for men, they don't care what they look like.
I shift on my seat, tug nervously at my skirt and smooth my jacket down. They always say that television puts ten pounds on you, which means my legs will look really fat. Maybe I should cross them the other way. Or not cross them at all? But then maybe they'll look even fatter.
'Hello!' comes a high-pitched voice from across the set before I can make up my mind. My head jerks up, and I feel an excited twinge in my stomach. It's Emma March in the flesh! She's wearing a pink suit and hurrying towards the sofa, closely followed by Rory, who looks even more square-jawed than usual. God, it's weird seeing celebrities in real life. They don't look quite real, somehow.
'Hello!' Emma says cheerfully, and sits down on the sofa. 'So you're the finance people, are you? Gosh, I'm dying for a wee.' She frowns into the lights. 'How long is this slot, Zelda?'
'Hi there!' says Rory and shakes my hand. 'Roberta.'
'It's Rebecca!' says Emma, and rolls her eyes at me sympathetically. 'Honestly, he's hopeless.' She wriggles on the sofa. 'Gosh, I really need to go.'
'Too late now,' says Rory.
'But isn't it really unhealthy not to go when you need to?' Emma wrinkles her brow anxiously. 'Didn't we have a phone-in on it once? That weird girl phoned up who only went once a day. And Dr James said… what did he say?'
'Search me,' says Rory cheerfully. 'These phone-ins always go over my head. Now I'm warning you, Rebecca,' he adds, turning to me, 'I can never follow any of this finance stuff. Far too brainy for me.' He gives me a wide grin and I smile weakly back.
'Ten seconds,' calls Zelda from the side of the set, and my stomach gives a tweak of fear. Over the loudspeakers I can hear the Morning Coffee theme music, signalling the end of a commercial break.
'Who starts?' says Emma, squinting at the autocue.
'Oh, me.'
So this is it. I feel almost lightheaded with fear. I don't know where I'm supposed to be looking; I don't know when I'm supposed to speak. My legs are trembling and my hands are clenched tightly in my lap.
The lights are dazzling my eyes; a camera's zooming in on my left, but I've got to try to ignore it.
'Welcome back!' says Emma suddenly to the camera. 'Now, which would you rather have? A carriage clock or ?20,000?'
What? I think in shock. But that's my line. That's what I was going to say.
'The answer's obvious, isn't it?' continues Emma blithely. 'We'd all prefer the ?20,000.'
'Absolutely!' interjects Rory with a cheerful smile.
'But when some Flagstaff Life investors received a letter inviting them to move their savings recently,' says Emma, suddenly putting on a sober face, 'they didn't realize that if they did so, they would lose out on a ?20,000 windfall. Rebecca Bloomwood is the journalist who uncovered this story – Rebecca, do you think this kind of deception is commonplace?'
And suddenly everyone's looking at me, waiting for me to reply. The camera's trained on my face; the studio's silent.
2.5 million people, all watching at home.
Oh God. I can't breathe.
'Do you think investors need to be cautious?' prompts Emma.
'Yes,' I manage, in a strange, woolly voice. 'Yes, I think they should.'
'Luke Brandon, you represent Flagstaff Life,' says Emma, turning away. 'Do you think-'
Shit, I think miserably. That was pathetic. Pathetic!
