Num8ers - By Rachel Ward Page 0,92
up with me, so that I can manage all this for you. If it’s not carefully managed, you could get overexposed or miss a key offer — but done the right way, as I said, you’re made for life.” Finally, he stopped. He gave me a broad smile and nodded encouragingly at me.
“What?” I said.
“What do you think? Are we going to be partners?”
Still reeling from his verbal attack, I just shrugged and said, “I dunno.”
And he was off again.
“I know, it’s a lot to take in, isn’t it? Perhaps you don’t really understand what I mean. I can make you rich, Jem. We’re talking hundreds of thousands here. You’re young, you’ve got an amazing story to tell, the whole world is talking about you. This is it, Jem. This is your moment. You can have everything you want — clothes, parties, cars, trips. You name it, you’ve got it. The world wants to hear from you now. It’s all about you.”
“And what do you want?” I looked at his camel-colored overcoat, the fat gold signet ring on his finger, and the Rolex half-hidden by his crisp white shirt cuff.
“I want to help you.”
“And you get…?”
“A percentage, of course.” He fixed his hard gray eyes on me. I couldn’t avoid seeing that, middle-aged as he was, he still had another thirty years of hustling, wheeling and dealing ahead. “I’m not a charity. We’ll be in this together, Jem.”
“No. Fuck off.”
“You what?”
“Fuck off. I don’t want any of it — I don’t want your help.” I spat it out like a swearword. “I don’t want your money. I don’t want fame. I don’t want to be a poxy celebrity.”
He looked at me like I’d lost my marbles.
“You have no idea what you’re saying. You can’t walk away from this. You’d be mad to.”
“I know what I’m doing. I know what I want. And I want you to leave.”
He held up his hands. “Let’s not be hasty. You’re under a lot of stress here, I know that. I’m going to leave you to talk it over with your mum here. Give you a bit of space. I’ll be right outside.”
Sitting in the corner, Karen had been watching all this. I thought of her little house back in London, with the wallpaper peeling off the damp patch in the kitchen. She’d struggled all her life without money. What would it mean to her if I went along with all this? I knew she only had a few years to go. Perhaps this guy could make sure that those last ones were the best years of her life.
“What do you think, Karen?”
She shook her head. “You know what I feel about all this. It’s gone too far already. If you start giving interviews and writing books, it’ll just get worse.”
“But I could get you things — a bigger house, with more of a garden for the boys.”
Her face softened. “They’d like that, wouldn’t they?” she said. “But you don’t have to get me anything, Jem. We’re alright where we are. His kind of world — it’s a fantasy, it’s not real. I know you, Jem — that’s not what you really want, is it?”
Maybe she did know me after all. I grinned at her.
“No — it’s all bullshit.”
Karen opened her mouth to object to the language, then shut it again and came over to give me a hug.
“I don’t want any of it,” I said. “I want it all to go away. I should never have told anyone.”
“It’s alright. It’ll be alright.” She was still holding me, but I eased away.
“But it won’t, will it? This sort of thing feeds on itself. Now that it’s out there, there’s no stopping it.”
“I think you could stop it yourself.”
“How?”
She looked straight at me, clear-eyed. “Just tell them…tell them you made it all up. That it’s not true.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
The last time I’d had to stand up and talk to a group of people had been back at school: “My Best Day Ever.” When was that? A month ago? I couldn’t remember. I’d stood up at the front of the classroom that day, and I’d told the truth, at least the truth as I saw it. That hadn’t exactly turned out well. Now I was getting ready to stand up in front of a crowd of strangers — the sick and dying, journalists, people like that agent, God knows who else — and call myself a liar. I was going to deny the truth that had dogged me