Page 87 of Take the Lead
She’s right, of course. I’ve come too far to just give up on it all now. So I ring off, having promised I’ll find a way to get it sorted.
I look up to see Aleksis arriving back from the gents, closely followed by Olivia, who tells us we’re up next for rehearsals. As we walk to the studio, I can tell from the way he keeps looking at me that he knows I’m agitated, but I wait till we’re alone before I tell him why.
His expression turns quickly from concern to fury as I relay the details of my exchange with Merle, and before I can stop him he’s striding back towards the door, fists clenched with rage.
‘Wait!’ I call out after him. ‘We need to figure out the best thing to do.’
‘I’ll deal with it,’ he says over his shoulder, and images of him and Merle throwing punches at each other flash through my mind.
‘No, wait,’ I yell again and this time the urgency in my voice stops him in his tracks. He turns back to face me.
‘This is my problem and I need to be the one who makes it go away,’ I say firmly, a surge of determination flooding through me. ‘But thank you.’ I smile, touched by his eagerness to protect me. ‘I’ll be back as soon as I can.’
Then I slide past him and into the corridor, with absolutely no idea what I’m going to do next.
I don’t make it further than the first corner though, because – hang on a minute – isn’t that my dad walking towards me from the opposite end?
‘Dad?’ I ask, completely bewildered. ‘What on earth are you doing here?’
‘Oh!’ He looks startled – and then guilty. ‘It was meant to be a surprise.’
‘It’s certainly that,’ I reply, wide-eyed. ‘But seriously – you’re here? Is Mum here, too?’
‘There you are!’ Mum’s voice rings out from behind me. ‘Oh Kate, it’s you. Hello, darling. Sorry, it was meant to be a surprise.’
‘So I keep hearing. Will someone tell me what’s going on?’
‘You’d better let your sister explain,’ she says. ‘Come on, follow me. Come on, Jim.’
‘Dee’s here too?’ I ask as I hurry along behind her, momentarily forgetting my Merle predicament.
She pushes the door to Shane’s office open without knocking and inside are Dee, Pete, Nathan and Daisy. Dee is sitting at the desk doing her make-up while Pete wrestles Daisy into a clean dress and Nathan waits his turn.
‘Auntie Katie!’ Daisy squeals, breaking free and throwing her arms round my legs. ‘We’ve come to watch you do the dancing.’
‘So I see,’ I say, hugging her back. ‘But how?’
My question is aimed at my sister, who shoots me a sheepish grin.
‘Surprise! You’re not supposed to know we’re here until the actual show, but I guess it’s too late for that now.’
‘Explain,’ I demand.
‘Well, when you asked me if I could collect the camera bag, a little idea popped into my head – what if I were to fly it back here in person to ensure it made it safely back to Channel 6? That way there’d be no risk of them not getting it back in one piece. I ran it by Olivia and she thought it was a great idea – so I asked if she would do me a favour in return and bring the whole lot of us over, so we could support you on tonight’s show.’
‘And she agreed?’
Her smile gets even bigger. ‘I didn’t think for an instant she’d say yes – it was just a silly suggestion – but the next thing I know she’d discussed it with the producers, got the green light and booked us all on a flight on Friday morning.’
‘So you’ve been here since yesterday?’ I can hardly take it in. Now it makes sense why none of them were answering their phones all morning.
‘Yep, we stayed at Mum and Dad’s last night. Then we snuck in here a couple of hours ago and the plan was to surprise you live on tonight’s show – oops! Now you’ll just have to pretend you’re surprised.’
I don’t think it’ll be too hard to make it look convincing – l’m pretty sure I’ll still be in shock.
‘I don’t know what to say. I mean, this is amazing. I can’t believe you’re all here.’
‘Just tell me I’m a genius,’ she laughs. ‘And come over here and give us all a hug. We’re absolutely bursting with excitement. It was so hard not to tell you.’
