Page 50 of Star Struck

‘You okay?’ Jack murmured to me, over the clapping. ‘Sure?’

I let my breath out in a little gasp and nodded. Jack’s hold on my arm increased, pulling me hard up against his body. He smelled clean, of ironed linen and coconut shampoo, not a trace of smoke about him, so he must, I reasoned, be fairly relaxed. Which was good, one nervous wreck per couple was quite enough. ‘Hey,’ he whispered in my ear, ‘let’s find out if I was lying, shall we?’

With one arm still around me he moved out onto the dance floor which was a posh name for the space surrounding the band, who were playing in a corner of the diner and consisted of two scruffy guitarists, a sweaty drummer and a keyboard player with only one arm. Jack stepped, faultlessly, into the rhythm of the music. He put both hands on my waist until we swayed in unison to the indie rock track, grinning at me as he did so. ‘You can dance,’ I said into his ear as the music drove us closer together. ‘You’re pretty good, for a miserable git.’

‘Yep.’ He stepped around me, sliding his body around mine, with maximum contact, until the velvet of my skirt wound across his skinny hips and drew us even closer. He moved like a snake and actually seemed to be enjoying himself, for once. ‘Love dancing. Always have.’

‘All right.’ The band took the tempo up, driving into a Green Day cover. ‘Let’s see how good you really are.’

I lost myself in the music, in the proximity of Jack’s whirling body, in the occasional close moments when he pressed his hot skin against mine and whispered, ‘Had enough yet?’

‘Not while you’re still standing, Whitaker,’ I whispered back, and he laughed and threw himself back into the beat.

At last the band took a break and, panting and giggling, Jack and I left the floor. His face had softened; without the lines of stress he usually carried he was more than just good-looking, he was quite breathtaking. Little shivers of enjoyment rippled the surface of my skin. ‘Hey, you go and sit over there. I’ll get us both a drink.’

I perched on a chair just inside the doors which were open to the yard, in the way of the cooling breeze, and admired the costumes on display. I couldn’t see Felix, but there were a lot of Shadow Planet refugees dotted around the room; in their furs and dark glasses they were interchangeable and any one of them could have been him, although I would have taken bets on him being the one weaving furiously closer to the bar which had been erected behind the usual food-counter. A number of beautiful girls wearing pilot costumes were clustering around a sober-looking Gethryn, who, to my relief, hadn’t even acknowledged my presence, the Thulos telepaths moved ethereally in character through the crowd and over near the door to the reception area I saw the two lads dressed as the alien Skeel race that I’d noticed before, weighted nearly double by the cylinders on their backs and I wondered how they’d managed to get those through the doors.

For a while I sat, legs stretched out, and watched the rise and fall of groupings. Everyone seemed automatically drawn to those wearing similar costumes, so the crowd rapidly clotted into sets of B’Ha, Shadow Planet residents, Thulos and pilots, with the alien races forming a separate sub-set on the other side of the room. Two token Klingons and a solitary person inside an inflatable Dalek suit free-floated for a while then latched onto each other and were drawn into the rest of the aliens. Everyone seemed happy, relaxed.

I could see Jack across the room, talking to Jared, who was wearing his full regalia as Prince of Skeldar. They saw me watching. Jared raised his glass and Jack winked, flicking back his sweat-dampened hair, and I smiled back, the smile dying a little when a young man approached me. He was cropped-headed and massively stubbled, as though his hair grew in a consistent ring around his whole skull, and was wearing a crew T-shirt, jeans and an earpiece. ‘Hi,’ he said in a business-like way. ‘You’re Skye Threppel, right?’ He came and stood in front of me, blocking my view of the diner. ‘We need to have a conversation.’

‘Why, are you trying to avoid someone?’ I looked up at him, unwilling to stand up and risk spiking him on the unfamiliar heels.

‘I mean, we need to talk with you.’

‘Who’s we?’

‘Just come with me please.’ He touched a walkie-talkie device at his belt and spoke into a headset. ‘Yeah, she’s with me. I’m bringing her in now.’

‘What? Bringing me in where?’

‘Please. Just come with me.’ He reached out a burly arm which, I was slightly comforted to see, bore a tattoo of a Shadow Ship, and hauled me to my feet, where I tottered for a second until I got my balance.

‘Brandon? What’s up?’ Jack arrived back at my side and pushed a bottle of chilled water into my hand. ‘What do you want with Skye?’

‘Hello, Mr Whitaker.’ Was it my imagination or did this official guy look a bit shamefaced? ‘Maybe you better come along too.’

‘Where?’ Jack took his glasses off and hooked them back into his shirt. His eyes had gone chilly. ‘What’s this about?’

‘I’ve been told to bring Miss Threppel to the office. They’ll explain there.’

The three of us walked from the diner. Jack led the way and I followed the security guy, who wove through the crowd as though no-one in the world existed apart from him. I saw a few glances thrown at us, a couple of conversations interrupted to watch us pass through the room, one pilot nudged another and one of the Skeel half-raised his tinted visor. It all made me very uncomfortable, and I was glad when we’d reached the reception area again.

‘This way.’

Again, with Jack leading, I was waved through, past the reception desk and into the back offices of the motel, through a small room with a telephone and a TV showing a Fawlty Towers episode, into a tiny square room with only one high window. It was a little bit like a cell, even down to the concrete floor, although it had several plastic chairs and a cast-off looking table sitting directly in the middle. On one of the chairs, elbows on the table, sat a man I’d seen around the place all week. He too wore a crew T-shirt but was older than most of the backstage guys. His hair was a cropped salt-and-pepper mix, but his jaw was square and his face uncompromisingly good-looking. He looked as though he’d walked out of Law and Order.

‘Hey, Jay.’ He stood up to shake Jack’s hand. Didn’t offer to shake mine.

‘Hi, Gary. What’s going on?’ Jack turned around and I shuffled up closer to him. Although Brandon had gone to stand over near the door, he was still too present for my liking. ‘This is all a bit formal, isn’t it?’

He looked over at the little fold-up table and I saw his eyebrows lift. On the table sat my quiz answer sheet. I recognised the crossed out answer to the name of Defries’s mother, where I’d scratched out the right answer and replaced it with Mary in order to throw first prize. Were they going to accuse me of that? But it hadn’t worked, had it?

‘Kinda has to be formal, I’m afraid.’ Gary had a gruff voice, again straight out of Central Casting. ‘Some serious accusations have been made.’

I made a little squeaky sound and Jack looked at me sharply. ‘Gethryn?’

Gary smiled. ‘No.’

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