“Kimbeerrleeeeey” whined Sacha, my little sister “how much longer do we have to wait?”
“I dunno babes” I replied, stroking my eight year old sister’s head, brushing her thick, dark hair out of her eyes. It was nearly nine o’clock at night and she was tired. So was I, and I had to be at work in a few hours. In fact everyone in the queue looked shattered, and they’d all waited for hours, days even, to meet their idol.
Sacha had nagged me for days, pleading with me to take her to the signing. “Please Kimberley” she’d said, her big, dark, puppy dog eyes never leaving my own. “Please, this is all I want, I just wanna meet her. You’re the best big sister in the whole world, I love you sooo much...” Even our dad agreed with her. “It’ll do her good, she’ll love it. Stop being so selfish Kimberley. It’s not all about you” he’d said, never taking his bloodshot eyes off the TV. “Just take her Kimberley.” And I was too tired, too miserable, to argue with either of them. Anyway, what harm would it do? So I said yes. I said yes, I would take her to go see Cheryl Cole.
Standing in the line I hugged my baby daughter closer, resting my chin on her head of soft black curls. “It won’t be much longer” I whispered, half to myself and half to Sacha, who smiled at me
“You sure?”
“Yeah. And if she’s not here soon I’m gonna be late for work.”
All day we’d waited, Sacha eating endless packets of monstermunch and talking to anyone and everyone. My baby grizzled and cried. I was bored. I painted my nails, then Sacha’s, carefully painting ‘I <3 CC’ on each of her tiny nails. Quickly a small crowd of teenage girls congregated around me, some of them older than I was, all shyly asking if I would paint their nails. I painted everyone’s even some of the boy’s, writing ‘CHERYL COLE’ and ‘FFTL<3’, a letter on each nail. Sacha held the baby whilst I painted, and she chatted away to everyone. I didn’t say anything, I didn’t even make eye contact with many people. The younger children looked at me in awe, the teenagers looked at me as if they were scared and their parents looked at me as if I were scum. ‘You are scum’ I reminded myself. I listened to what they said, the way they babbled on, and the snatched snippets of songs that they sung.
“Ooh, thank you! It’s beautiful! You’re so clever!” they cooed, grinning at me when I’d finished. And I smiled too, happy with my work, but still silent.
But now the sun had gone down and it was getting colder once again. Shivers ran through the waiting crowd and somebody called out “she’s on her way!” The crowd seemed to take a breath in, and became almost silent. Suddenly I felt as though the people around me were closing in, I was being squashed, I couldn’t even breathe...
“Hold her.” I thrust the baby at Sacha, who instinctively clutched her tight. “I need air.”
“But Kim, you heard them, she’s coming-”
“I’ll be two minutes, I promise” I say, already turning and walking away, looking over my shoulder at my little sister, standing alone in the crowd, holding the baby. She looks lost, alone. But then I turn away, and walked away as quickly as I could towards the disgusting public toilets at the end of the street, my trainers squeaking on the concrete.
I wrenched the toilet door open and stepped inside, listening intently. Silence. Nobody was there. The sticky tiles were wet under my feet and there was an unnatural chill in the air, making my skin come up in goose bumps. I crossed the room and placed my hands around the edge of one of the sinks and leant forwards so that my forehead was almost touching the cracked glass of the mirror. I looked at my reflection. I looked shocking. My long, light brown hair fell limply around my face, puffy purple bags hung under my dark eyes and my skin was far too pale. Taking off my cap I scraped my hair away from my face, but it only highlighted the huge, dark shadows under my cheekbones, so I let it fall back down again. I looked tired, sad guilty.
“No” I said out loud. I mentally shook myself. “It’ll all be okay. Get a grip Kimberley.” I tried to pretend that I didn’t have butterflies eating away at my stomach. I picked up my cap and fixed it at what I liked to think of as an ‘I don’t give a toss’ angle, smiling at the word ‘PIMP’ that was written on the front in big, red capital letters. I ran my eyes over the rest of my outfit, my white vest top through which you could just see my leopard bra, my silver army dog tags, my grey skinny jeans that clung tightly to my curves, and my old battered trainers with red laces. From my bag I pulled a packet of tiny white tablets. I popped one and swallowed it easily without water. Then I stood back, glancing for a final time at my reflection, smiling sadly. ‘I’m going to meet Cheryl Cole’ I thought.
