Being Brooke Simmons

by Karen Clarke

Genres: Contemporary Romance; Romantic Comedy

Synopsis

Abby Archer, a smart and savvy woman who refuses taken in by celebrity culture, becomes fascinated with it-girl and media darling Brooke Simmons after she falls into a coma following a car crash. Her loyal security-guard-turned-lover Nick Lawson is implicated in the accident, someone Abby met just days before. One day Abby begins to feel unwell, and is shocked to see the face looking back at her in the mirror is no longer her own, but that of Brooke Simmons . . .

Release date: December 4, 2014

Publisher: Corsair

Print pages: 286

Sample

I’d never been so hot in all my life. The weather was positively tropical for suburban Oxford, and I wished I could conjure up an ice-cold pina colada.

I stopped digging and leant on my spade, panting like a Labrador. I’d been in the garden for hours, digging the foundations for a new shed, and I was gasping for a drink. I glanced towards the house, but no one indoors seemed remotely aware of me. My family treated my passion for gardening with varying degrees of bemusement. My younger sister, Jess, thought it wasn’t cool for women to have dirt beneath their nails, and my brother, Sam, probably didn’t even know I was a gardener. He was nineteen, and totally wrapped up in himself. As for my dad, he felt guilty because gardening was ‘man’s work’ and therefore, as a man, he should be tackling the garden. It was just that his idea of gardening meant randomly hacking at stuff when the mood struck him.

My love of nature had been encouraged at an early age by my grandfather, and had blossomed into a full-on affair with horticulture in my teens. By the time I left school I knew what I wanted to do, but gardening scored a big fat zero on the cool-scale, according to Jess, while my other hobby of bird-spotting (I’d been known to whip out binoculars on occasion) tipped me into the arctic zone.

Not that I was bothered – at twenty-eight I’d learnt to live with the jibes – but that morning I was literally uncool, and could have done with some help.

‘Abby! Come and look at this.’

Alerted by something vigorous in Jess’s tone, I threw down my spade – secretly glad of the excuse – and wiped my hands on the comfy and practical denim dungarees that my sister despaired of.

‘ABBY!’

‘All right, I’m coming, keep your wig on.’ I kicked off my trainers in the dirt and stumbled inside, relieved to be in the shade. ‘What’s happened?’ I asked, squinting through the gloom.

Jess was prone on the sofa, still in her dressing gown. ‘Look!’ She pointed the remote control at the television screen.

‘At what?’

‘Nick Lawson is on the news,’ she announced, winding a lock of hair around her finger. She was as fair as I was dark; ethereal whereas I was sturdy. Her eyes were a soft, dove grey; mine could best be described as chipmunk brown. Strangers found it hard to believe we were related.

‘Why?’ I glanced at the TV, letting my eyes adjust, and saw a man in a black T-shirt warding off a camera with a tattooed arm. I couldn’t see his face, but the name was familiar.

I’d briefly spoken to Nick Lawson on the phone, days earlier, after answering an ad he’d placed in the newsagent’s, looking for a gardener. Jess had been roused to excitement when I told her; apparently, he was a celebrity of sorts.

‘What’s happened?’ I asked, watching a reporter chase him across the road, and narrowly miss getting hit by a white van. ‘He hasn’t murdered someone, has he? I need that job.’

‘It’s not him, it’s his girlfriend.’ Jess’s usual pallor had been replaced by a spot of rosy colour on each cheek. There was a spark in her eyes that had been missing since her boyfriend, Flake, had dumped her a month ago.

‘So, who’s his girlfriend?’ I perched on the edge of the armchair, feeling an ache in my shoulders. I longed to sink into a bubble bath. But there was shopping to be done, and I had to find a plumber to fix the toilet. At times, it was hard to believe there were men living in our house.

‘Brooke Simmons, you dope,’ Jess was saying, and I tried to concentrate. ‘I can’t believe even you don’t know that.’

An image of a blonde-haired girl with delicate features and mesmerizing green eyes appeared on-screen. I wondered whether she was wearing special contact lenses. Surely no one’s eyes were naturally that colour? ‘What’s wrong with her?’ I asked.

‘She was injured in a car accident last night. She’s in a coma.’

‘That’s awful,’ I said, unable to look away from the full lips beaming out, revealing impossibly white teeth. Her tan was so perfect it had to be fake.

I wasn’t very interested in celebrities – their lives were beyond the scope of my imagination – but obviously I’d heard of her. ‘What happened?’ It was hard to picture someone who looked so beautiful and full of life lying in hospital.

‘They don’t really know, but they think it might have been a suicide attempt. She doesn’t normally drive apparently, Nick ferries her about, or she has a chauffeur.’

‘Of course she does,’ I said dryly.

I remembered seeing Brooke Simmons on the front page of Jess’s OK! magazine, promoting a trip to Nepal, where she’d opened a beauty salon for the economically disadvantaged. She was what the media gleefully referred to as an ‘it girl’ – an heiress, in the mould of Paris Hilton, but a vacuous, empty-headed one, if you believed what you read.

Though she couldn’t be that empty-headed if she’d managed to open a beauty salon in Nepal.

‘Nick’s usually with her. He’s her security guard. That’s how they met. But he wasn’t there,’ Jess went on, blinking slowly. ‘Did you know he inherited that house near us, and he’s been doing it up for him and Brooke to live in?’

‘He didn’t mention it when I spoke to him,’ I murmured. ‘He didn’t say much at all, actually. Just offered me the job there and then.’

‘I can’t believe I didn’t know. We’ll practically be neighbours! So, anyway, he’s not been spending much time in London, or wherever Brooke normally is.’ Jess paused to swallow. ‘That’s why the press are hounding him. They think they had an argument and broke up, and Brooke took off in his old car.’

‘Is she going to survive?’ I said, suddenly breathless. Her image was still on the screen while the news presenter gave details of the accident, and I found I couldn’t tear my eyes away. I felt pinned down by Brooke’s vivid gaze – almost hypnotized. It was the oddest sensation.

‘They don’t know.’ Jess cupped her chin in her hand, her mouth turning down at the edges. ‘It’s so sad.’

I tried to focus on the news report. According to the presenter, before he became Brooke’s security guard and fell in love with her (just like a film I remembered watching with Mum when I was little), Nick Lawson was an ordinary bloke from North Yorkshire without much money. Though I couldn’t see what that had to do with anything. The press were clearly looking for angle: as if they were looking for someone to blame for Brooke’s accident.

Jess slumped against the cushions. ‘Maybe you won’t be working for him now,’ she said, darting her eyes at me. ‘He’ll have other things on his mind.’

‘His garden still needs sorting out.’ Surely the photo of Brooke should have gone by now? The newsreader had moved on to another story – something about an ice-skating poodle.

‘Maybe he wants you to dig a grave,’ said Jess, grinning ghoulishly. ‘Perhaps he’s trying to do away with her and get his hands on her money.’

‘Surely they’d have to be married for that to happen, and anyway don’t be so grisly. What happened to innocent until proven guilty?’

Jess shrugged and switched channels, and I crashed to the floor.

‘Ouch!’ I said, astonished. ‘That hurt!’

‘What happened there?’ Jess leaned over, concern on her heart-shaped face. ‘Are you OK?’

‘I’m fine,’ I said, rubbing my arm. ‘I banged my elbow, that’s all.’ I did feel strange though. As soon as the picture of Brooke had vanished I’d tumbled to the carpet as though a connection had been severed. My head felt swimmy.

‘I’ve been in the sun too long,’ I added, clambering to my feet. They felt different, smaller, somehow. I looked at my toe, poking through a hole in my sock. ‘I might be dehydrated. I probably need a drink.’

Jess lost interest and turned back to the TV. Clutching the furniture, I made my way to the kitchen and poured myself a drink of water.

‘I think I’ve got Weil’s disease,’ said a mournful voice behind me.

‘Dad!’ I almost dropped my glass in the sink. ‘I thought you were going to clean the windows today.’

‘Couldn’t find the ladder.’ My father was slumped at the kitchen table, poring over an old medical dictionary littered with sticky notes. ‘I’ve got all the symptoms,’ he said anxiously, holding his head in his hands as though it weighed a ton. ‘I’d better phone Dr Finch.’

I suppressed a sigh. I could easily imagine the look on Dr Finch’s face if she saw Dad’s name on her patient list again.

My father was a hypochondriac. He’d been one when he married my mother, twenty-five years ago, and her untimely death from cancer when I was twelve had dramatically fuelled his fear of dropping dead.

‘It’s not Weil’s disease, Dad.’ I leaned over and snapped the book shut. The cover was dog-eared with use. ‘You’ve got a summer cold, that’s all.’ His obsession had worsened since he discovered the internet, and he often spent hours trawling websites, convincing himself he had everything from lumbago to a rare disease never before seen in humans.

‘How can I be sure without a check-up?’

‘You can’t. You’ll have to take my word for it.’ Before I could stop it, a bubble of laughter rose in my throat and escaped. ‘That’s amazing!’ I said in a breathy voice I’d never used before.

‘What is?’ Distracted from researching his imaginary ailment, my father’s brown eyes swivelled towards me, as droopy and sad as a bloodhound’s. ‘Why are you laughing?’

‘I . . . I don’t know,’ I said, clutching my throat. How odd. I hadn’t meant to giggle, but out of nowhere something – I didn’t know what – had struck me as amazingly funny. I tried to grasp what it was, but my head felt full of compost. ‘Garden centre,’ I said, mentally shaking myself. I wondered whether I was coming down with something. Maybe Dad was infectious after all. ‘I’ve got to pick some things up before I start work on Monday.’

‘Is that the gardening job you applied for at the Lawson place the other day?’ Dad stood up slowly, clutching his back. He often held on to himself, as if scared bits might drop off.

‘That’s the one.’ I washed and dried my hands, surprised to see they were trembling, then reached for my bag. ‘I mentioned to Mr Lawson that his great-uncle taught you at school, years ago, and that seemed to swing it.’ I wasn’t sure it had, actually. Nick Lawson had seemed distracted. Said he was on his way out and didn’t have time for a formal interview. He hadn’t been remotely interested in seeing my horticultural degree, or showing me his garden, and didn’t even ask for references. I’d had the feeling I was the only person who’d called about the job.

‘He died tragically, you know.’

‘Who did?’ I couldn’t seem to grab hold of the strap on my bag. My hand seemed intent on fondling the plastic apron hanging on the back of the door; the one with the words ‘007 – Licensed to Grill’ scrawled across it. When he wasn’t fretting about dying, my father was a surprisingly good cook.

‘Bob Lawson. Choked on a fish bone.’

‘That doesn’t mean it’s going to happen to you.’ At last the bag was in my grasp. ‘You never eat fish.’

‘That’s why.’

‘Look, Dad, I’ve got to go. The ladder’s in the garage, right at the back. If you get time, could you call a plumber about the toilet? I’ll see you later.’

Desperate to get out now, I sprinted through the back door and crashed into my brother, almost sending him flying.

‘Steady on, sis.’ Sam exaggerated a backwards stagger, flailing into the hedge.

‘Shouldn’t you be getting ready for work?’ I said, cramming a straw hat over my unruly curls.

‘I’ve swapped shifts. Lacey wants me to go shopping with her this afternoon.’ Sam straightened and brushed a leaf off his shoulder. ‘You couldn’t lend me a tenner, could you?’

‘No, I couldn’t. Your girlfriend needs to get a job.’

Sam had emerged from his spotty early adolescence as a hunk, with a trail of girls beating a path to our door. He’d swapped studying to be an architect for bar work at the local pub (‘good for meeting fit birds’) and he worked out a lot at the gym, honing his already bulging muscles.

‘I’m done with lending you money,’ I added. ‘I don’t know what you do with it all.’

I watched as Sam pulled his sweat-stained T-shirt over his head. ‘Hubba-hubba,’ I said in a husky voice, reaching out a finger and prodding his abs.

‘What the hell . . . ?’ He recoiled as though he’d been bitten by a snake. ‘What’s wrong with you?’

I didn’t know which of us was more scared. ‘Just kidding,’ I said quickly. ‘Don’t have kittens.’

I hurried down the drive and got in the car, my heart pumping wildly. I didn’t feel like myself. ‘At least give Dad a hand with the windows before you go,’ I shouted, and then I drove off in a cloud of exhaust fumes before I could say anything else hideously inappropriate.

The garden centre was buzzing. People were taking advantage of the unusually hot weather to replace their decking and lay gravel, judging by the queue snaking down from the till.

There was no sign of Tom, and my spirits dropped. Chatting with him while I picked up my fertilizer or chose some bedding plants had become the highlight of my week.

I slipped outside and immediately spotted his tousled, tawny head towering above everyone else’s. He had his back to me and was talking to an earnest-looking couple browsing petrol mowers. My spirits rose again.

Even in his regulation green shirt and trousers, which bore the company logo in orange, Tom Curtis was the best-looking man I’d ever laid eyes on. He had particularly nice hands and a strong jaw and, whenever I saw him, I couldn’t help picturing us both in the countryside, in muddy boots, with windswept hair, or sitting in comfortable silence, drinking tea, in front of a roaring fire. I’d been nurturing a crush since he’d helped me lug a sack full of sand into the boot of my car a year ago, though I was careful to hide my feelings. He was out of my league for a start and – more importantly – I’d sworn off men since Patrick, my ex, had run off with my best friend, Lola, nearly two years ago. You don’t bounce back from something like that with your trust gene intact, and mine was badly damaged.

I was hovering by an ornamental fountain when Tom turned and spotted me. He raised a hand in greeting, smiling warmly, and colour flooded my cheeks.

Go on over, urged a voice in my head. It didn’t sound like the usual voice; the inner, rather scathing one that said, Tom isn’t interested in you in that way, so don’t even try. You’re lucky he’s even friends with you. It was a soft, excited, coaxing voice, and I found myself marching towards him, swinging my arms, head tilted.

‘What’s up, gorgeous?’ I said in a perky voice, slapping him hard on the rump.

The couple he’d been talking to melted away, exchanging knowing smiles.

‘Hey, what’s up with you?’ Tom’s caramel-brown eyes widened with surprise – and something else. He seemed pleased. ‘In all the time we’ve known each other, that’s the first time you’ve laid a hand on me, Abby Archer.’ He grinned and leaned on the broom he was holding so his lightly tanned face was only inches from mine. ‘Should I call the police?’

‘N-no, don’t do that,’ I said, the confident feeling from moments ago draining away. I shuffled my feet, not sure where to look. ‘I don’t know what came over me.’

‘Oh.’ Seeing my discomfiture, Tom straightened, his eyebrows knitting together. ‘Must be sunstroke,’ he joked, scratching his head. His eyes shifted from mine. ‘What can I do you for then?’

Trying to ignore a growing headache, I told him about my new job, back on safe ground now that our roles had reverted to normal – Tom the jokey protector, and me (at least on the outside) his hard-working, determinedly single friend.

‘Nick Lawson? Isn’t he Brooke Simmons’s boyfriend?’ Tom hoisted a sack of peat onto his shoulders and I tried not to notice the way the muscles in his forearms rippled. ‘I read that he’d moved out this way recently. I used to have such a crush on Brooke Simmons. I wonder if she’ll move in with him when she gets better.’

‘If she gets better.’ I felt the usual pang that occurred whenever Tom referred to women he found attractive. They were usually tall, slim and blonde, with overblown lips and massive breasts. His last girlfriend had been a glamour model, who left him for her plastic surgeon. Not that he’d seemed too bothered. The women in his life seemed to come and go without leaving much of an impact.

‘I didn’t know who he was when I applied for the job,’ I admitted, wondering why I felt hot enough to explode. We were standing out of the sun’s glare in a shady spot by a display summerhouse, but my whole body felt as if it was on fire. ‘I’m hoping the job’s still on, actually.’ I fanned myself with my hand. ‘He might be too distracted to remember hiring me now.’

‘I heard about the accident on the news.’ Tom closed in to let a customer past, and I held my breath as his arm brushed my bare shoulder. ‘God, you’re hot,’ he said, springing back. ‘I mean – actually boiling,’ he qualified with a laugh. ‘Are you OK?’ He dipped his head and studied me closely. ‘You seem . . . different.’

‘I do feel a bit odd,’ I confessed. I caught sight of myself in one of the summerhouse windows. My forehead was jewelled with sweat and my hair hung down like oily rags. Not a good look.

I caught a glimpse of blonde hair. ‘Did you see that?’ I said. I wheeled round, but there was no one there.

‘See what?’

‘Somebody . . . somebody waved at me.’

Tom looked at me keenly. ‘Abby, you waved at yourself. I think you should go home and get some sleep.’ He ruffled my hair affectionately, then wiped his fingers on his shirt. ‘You look like you’re coming down with something.’ He waggled his fingers. ‘Give me a list of the stuff you need and I’ll get Dad to drop it off later with your new shed.’

‘Oh, the shed!’ I clapped a hand to my cheek, which was unpleasantly sticky. ‘I haven’t finished digging the foundations yet.’

‘Can’t your family help?’ Tom’s expression clouded. He didn’t think much of my family – considered them work-shy losers. Like me, he had a strong work ethic. When he wasn’t at the garden centre, which he ran with his father, he worked in a busy restaurant. ‘I suppose your dad’s worried he might have a heart attack if he so much as lifts a finger?’

‘Don’t be like that.’ I sometimes regretted going for a drink with Tom on my birthday. I’d had far too much red wine, and ended up spilling my family secrets over a Chinese takeaway. ‘Dad’s busy this morning, and Jess is still in recovery.’ I rolled my eyes to show I was joking.

‘Still writing lovesick poetry?’

‘She’s wondering whether she could make a living out of it.’

‘Oh, dear God.’

We laughed, and the awkward moment passed.

Tom offered to finish digging the foundations for the shed, and to erect it, refusing to take no for an answer, and it wasn’t until I was driving home that I began to feel even weirder. My arms and legs were tingling, and, at one point, I almost mounted the kerb.

‘I need to lie down,’ I whispered, as I parked outside the Victorian end-of-terrace where I’d lived for most of my life. The foundations for the shed could wait. I felt too full – as if I’d scoffed an eight-course meal and badly needed to throw up.

‘I’m making a roast dinner,’ Dad announced, as I staggered through the kitchen with a hand to my mouth. ‘Look . . .’

‘Not now, Dad.’ I ran upstairs, still clutching my mouth.

‘Abby, listen to this.’ Jess appeared, blocking my way. She’d changed into a floaty white cotton dress and her hair was piled precariously on top of her head. She looked like a wood nymph.

‘This isn’t a good time, Jess.’

She grabbed my arm in a surprisingly firm grip. ‘Imploring, adoring,’ she read in an anguished voice, eyes scanning a crumpled sheet of paper in her other hand. ‘Exploring and pouring, my love is still soaring . . .’

Oh God. I felt light-headed and wondered whether I was going to faint for the first time in my life. ‘Can you give me a minute?’ I pleaded, but Jess was in full flow, one arm gesticulating, gaze fixed on a distant horizon.

‘Snoring, whoring, roaring and . . .’

‘Boring?’ Sam padded out of the bathroom, glistening from a shower, a minuscule towel wrapped around his waist and another draped around his shoulders. ‘Give it a rest, Jess. You’re making my brain hurt.’

‘What brain? The one in your pants?’ Jess threw him a wounded look and stormed into her bedroom, slamming the door with such force that a picture fell off the wall.

‘Helpful, Sam, really helpful.’

‘I’m not even wearing pants,’ he said, unperturbed. ‘Oh, Abs, have you changed your mind about that money?’ he added, as I hung the picture back up, wishing my head would stop spinning. ‘Only I promised Lacey I’d buy her a double chocolate-chip frappuccino with a cream and caramel mocha twist at the new Starbucks in town. They’re really expensive, and I don’t get paid until tomorrow.’

‘Well take her to Betty’s for a cup of tea with milk then,’ I snapped, and shot into my bedroom ignoring his astonished expression.

I leaned against the door, wondering whether I was developing late-onset asthma. I couldn’t seem to breathe properly. Unless I’d caught Dad’s hypochondria. Staring longingly at my bed, with its plumped-up duvet and piles of colourful cushions – my one concession to girliness – I headed towards it, but my legs gave way without warning and I dropped to my hands and knees.

‘Get up,’ said a voice. It seemed to come from somewhere deep inside my head, and it was the same voice I’d heard earlier: breathy and slightly excited. ‘Get up and look in the mirror.’

‘What?’ I looked around the room, but it was empty apart from Old Rabbit who was staring at me from the top of my wardrobe with one glassy eye. ‘Leave me alone,’ I whimpered. Did madness run in the family? Split personality? Oh God, please don’t let me be going mad.

‘Look!’ squeaked the voice in my head.

Grabbing the edge of the dressing table, I hauled myself up. This was crazy. Perhaps I should make an appointment to see Dr Finch. Lifting my head I stared hard at the mirror, unsure what to expect. That I’d grown two heads, perhaps?

‘Wha—?’

Gone was the round, freckled face and twig-brown curls I’d inherited from Mum. Instead, two sea-green eyes in a deeply tanned face sparkled back at me and rosebud lips curved in a naughty smile.

‘What the hell?’

My shoulders hunched and I watched, mystified, as the girl in the mirror lifted her shoulders too.

‘Exciting, isn’t it?’ she said, clapping her hands, and I looked down to see my own hands moving in tandem.

‘What’s going on?’ My voice was small and shaky. I would probably wake up in a minute. This was a dream. Of course it was.

Why else would Brooke Simmons’s cheeks be dimpling at me in the mirror, as though it was the most normal thing in the world?

‘Have I got sunstroke?’ I dropped to the carpet again, covering my eyes with trembling hands. This was too much. I couldn’t be ill, not now. Everyone was relying on me to bring in money from this new gardening job. Sam’s efforts at the pub didn’t pay much, and Dad was in one of his down phases after losing his job with the Forestry Commission. As for Jess, fresh out of university, she had stupidly turned down a junior copywriting job after meeting Flake at a party. In the throes of true love she’d gone to work on his dad’s farm, so they’d always be together, but that job had fallen through when their relationship collapsed.

Not for the first time, I wished Mum was still around to help. I glanced through my fingers at a photo on my bedside table, fixing the image of Susan Archer’s smiling eyes and wayward hair in my mind. She was bouncing a two-year-old me on her lap, her cheek pressed against my curls, her expression soft with love.

‘It’s hard, isn’t it?’ said the voice in my head, and I jumped. ‘I lost my mother when I was little. I’ve got a great step-mum though: Catherine. She’s so worried about me right now. She must be, because she keeps singing to me. But she’s got the most terrible voice, like a duck being strangled. And she’s found religion, which isn’t like her at all – she used to be an actress for God’s sake. She slept with all her leading men, even the one who was gay.’

I struggled to my feet. ‘Look, this just can’t be happening,’ I said in my most common-sense voice, careful to avoid looking in the mirror.

‘But it is.’ Brooke’s voice was soft and persuasive, like a hypnotist’s. ‘I willed myself into your body.’

‘WHAT? Oh, for crying out loud! That’s not even possible.’

Without warning, both my arms punched the air. I looked at them, alarmed. My fingers wiggled as though they had a . . .

‘. . . mind of their own?’ said Brooke, and giggled in that breathy way that Jess tried to imitate sometimes. It was very irritating. ‘Isn’t it amazing? I can make you do this too.’

To my utter horror, I started Riverdancing round my room, legs flicking back and forth like scissors, arms clamped to my sides.

‘Stop,’ I wailed, clutching at the windowsill in vain on my way past, scared . . .