Imagine Meeting Your Celebrity Crush

Today is my novel-versary. A year ago today, after a decade of writing seriously, I finally became a published author. Absolutely nothing about publication or planning the launch went smoothly, but I had an amazing time celebrating with my friends, many of whom had travelled long distances, and I was and am very proud of this years-in-the-making book of my heart.

Unscripted is the story of a young woman with a celebrity crush and a determined plan: to catch the eye of the actor she loves and get him to write a screenplay with her, during which of course they will fall in love. Except… life is never quite that simple, is it?

Below is an excerpt, in which she gets to meet the actor for the first time. Libby has headed to Cambridge with her flatmate Vicky for an event where he is speaking, hoping to get to give him her novel and kick off the story.

The day, the day. Months of waiting, and finally it’s May; finally the day is here. Libby makes it through the teaching, somehow, in a caffeine-fuelled fog as befits the day after a night during which she slept for three hours. Vicky tried so hard to calm her down. Even tried to make her drink chamomile tea. (Yuck. Libby took one sip, and no. Just no.) She tried to lower her expectations. That has, in fact, seemingly been Vicky’s mission for longer than Libby can remember. Vicky does not believe in The Plan. Vicky says things like, he’s a Hollywood actor, Lib! He’s almost twice your age. Which, on a surface level, Libby cannot fault. All the facts are true, though she sometimes quibbles with the math. (Maths, Vicky tells her. Maths. You are not an American.)

But, come on. What was it Eleanor Roosevelt said, the quote that Callum McKenna wrote on the board at the start of every schoolyear in The Classroom? “The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.” She believes. The future is hers.

And in Vicky’s defence, she is at least coming to Cambridge with Libby. “To try to stop you making a fool of yourself,” whatever that is supposed to mean.

“Hey, look,” Vicky says at King’s Cross Station. “Platform 9 and three quarters. While we’re here maybe we could try and see if we can get to Hogwarts.”

Whatever. She’ll be sorry when she doesn’t get the all-expenses-paid invitation to the wedding on a Hawaiian beach. Except that Vicky needs to be a bridesmaid. Okay, fine. But first Libby will make sure Vicky does some serious grovelling.

A train, a taxi through the cobbled streets and past the ancient stone colleges to the Cambridge Union, and by the time they get there the queue stretches all the way around the corner. Except, no. It doesn’t. No queue! How could there be no queue? Don’t these people know who Thom Cassidy is?

“It’s coming up for exam season,” Vicky says, and they pause for a moment of silence, of reverence for the memory of their days pretending to revise by the river, absorbing — they fervently hoped — academic vibes by osmosis. In memory too of the oppressive atmosphere in the Tudor dining hall each night, when hundreds of stressed, single-minded high-achievers congregated with nothing to talk or think about other than their impending doom. Three-hour long silences, aching wrists, the pressure of proving one’s acceptable levels of knowledge and intelligence by regurgitating enough facts and coating them with a veneer of something resembling independent thought but not straying too far from the received wisdom. A delicate balancing act. This, needless to say, they did not miss, though they often reminisced wistfully about the celebrations that followed. The balls, especially, all the champagne you could drink all night, all the intelligent, rich boys with posh accents, frightfully handsome in their dinner jackets, the a cappella close harmony groups and the jazz bands and the string quartets, the dodgems, the bucks fizz and pains au chocolat and bacon butties at an early breakfast, the survivors’ photo at dawn.

And survive they had, not just the balls and not just the hangovers, not just the exams, but the whole Cambridge experience, and now here they are, claiming their prize. The diploma, framed in what was once her bedroom at her parents’ house, is nothing compared to this, the chance to engage with — to perhaps even meet — Thomas Cassidy.

They creak open the oak door to the Union bar, through which they will later gain access to the hallowed debating chamber where Thom will speak.

“Since there’s no queue…” Vicky hazards. Libby raises her eyebrows. “Maybe we could go and get something to eat?”

How anybody could think about food at such a moment is way beyond Libby’s comprehension. “You can,” she says. “I’ve got work to do.” She takes out her makeup from her bag and heads to the loo.

“It’s okay,” Vicky mumbles. “I have energy bars.”

“If a queue starts to form while I’m in there –”

“Yeah, yeah. I know.”

Mascara, Libby knows, is a risk when her hands are shaking the way they are. Still, after two attempts she is done. She brushes and rebrushes her hair, practises tossing it to one side, playfully, sexily, and then after an hour of fidgeting next to Vicky and trying not to drum her fingers on the table or crack her knuckles because Vicky has already had to ask her to stop tapping her foot, finally she can take it no more.

“I’m getting in the queue,” she says.

Vicky makes a show of spinning round to look. “What queue?” she says.

“The queue I’m about to start,” Libby says. “You coming, or what?”

“What,” Vicky says, shaking her head, but coming too nonetheless. Sure enough, the queue starts to form behind them: nervous excitement runs through the assembling crowd, though how much of that is simply a result of leaving the library during exam season Libby cannot be sure. They seem excruciatingly young, these undergrads — excruciatingly young and so painfully keen — and she wants very much to stand apart from them, to be the sophisticated grownup, the equal to Thom and not to them.

And then it is time to go in, to have the inevitable, interminable debate about where to sit for the best combination of proximity and visibility. Which chair will be his, and which will be the interviewer’s? Where will his line of sight be? Why are there all these reserved seats in the front row with nobody in them? Libby checks in her pocket mirror: her mascara has not smudged. Her hair looks more than passable. Her handbag, where to rest her handbag? Is it okay just under her chair? Chill, Vicky says, as if such a thing were possible. Libby has never in her life been chilled; now seems an unlikely moment to try out this new stance towards events of supreme importance. For her manicure, she has chosen a red called “Bastille My Heart”, an attempt at sending herself soothing vibes. She sees now how futile this was, though she is pleased with the colour, a deep merlot. Sexy and sophisticated.

She sits. She waits. And then, finally, finally, there he is: Libby sees him standing the other side of the door, a blurry figure through the misty glass of the window. Until this moment, all of her life has been nothing but blurry figures. The door is pushed open and there he is, Thomas Cassidy, striding in, all confidence, dark jeans, a green blazer, his winsome smile, mere metres away. The air he is walking through is the same air that envelops her. Hence, goosebumps. Hence, a slight shiver. Related? Perhaps. Chemistry. There is so much chemistry. She knew there would be.

“Thank you,” he says in response to the applause, elongating his “a” American-style, Callum McKenna-style, bringing to mind a thousand scenes from The Classroom. The moment before Callum finally kisses Sarah, for example. The moment she has watched a hundred times. Thom does not look at Libby as he walks past her. Their eyes do not lock. That’s okay, she tells herself. Not yet. It isn’t yet. When he does, there will be electricity. Possibly the room will spontaneously combust.

Libby leans forward, rests her chin on her fist. I am listening to you, she communicates with every fibre of her being. Watch me listening to you. No one has ever listened to you the way that I am listening to you right now.

It isn’t long before her cheeks ache from smiling. It is a little longer before she is able to concentrate on what it is he is actually saying. There in front of her. Mere metres away.

In answer to the Union chairman’s questions, he speaks about literacy. He speaks about the actress who played his love interest in The Classroom. He speaks about the importance of quality education for all children, for the good of their nation. He speaks — carefully, diplomatically, though after chortling a little — about the “special relationship” that Brits try so hard to cling to and Americans occasionally remember. Then he takes questions, and Libby’s hand shoots up. And again after the first question. And again after the second. She will be patient. She has nothing to prove.

Although, by the fourth question, Libby is starting to bounce in her seat, to pump her arm up and down as she used to at primary school when she knew, she knew, she just knew the answer. “Oh come on,” she stage-whispers, when yet again someone else is handed the microphone for their chance to speak to Thom. He catches her eye and chuckles, and her insides turn to goo. Okay, she thinks. It was worth it. For that moment of eye contact alone it was worth it.

Which does not stop her bouncing in her chair and pumping her arm more violently still on the fifth attempt. And then, a miracle: Thom turns to the moderator.

“I think,” he says, “I mean would it be okay if I took a question from the girl in purple?”

Vicky squeezes her hand. Keep calm, says the hand. Remember to breathe. It is a timely reminder. Libby exhales deeply as she takes the microphone. This is your moment, she tells herself. Do not blow it. Be normal.

“Hi,” she says. So far, so good.

“Hi,” he says back, and a tiny part of her brain thinks: I could give the microphone back now. Mission accomplished. He has spoken to me. He knows I exist.

“Your show changed my life,” she says instead. “I said I’d never go into teaching because my parents are teachers and that just seemed a bit lacking in originality, but your character inspired me. And now I’m writing a novel, just like Callum told his favourite student to.”

“That’s great,” he says, and oh, that smile. “What’s it about?”

“It’s about –” Libby pauses, but really at this point what choice does she have? “It’s about an English teacher who really just wants to be an actor.”

“Sounds great,” he says. “Should we get some wine later, talk about it some more?”

The audience laughs. Vicky squeezes her hand again: breathe, remember to breathe. Libby knows he doesn’t mean it, that it is in keeping with his playful spirit to say something like this, but still, all she wants to do is get on Twitter and tell the world, you guys, Thomas Cassidy just asked me out on a date.

Instead, somehow she composes herself. She hopes Vicky is proud.

“I know that you wrote a couple of the episodes of The Classroom, and they were some of the best.”

“Thank you,” he says, graciously.

“So I was wondering if you still write, if that’s something that’s still on your radar.”

She will have to listen to the answer later, when the video goes up on YouTube. Because for now, all she is capable of processing is that Thomas Cassidy is looking at her, he is talking to her, and he does not seem to think she is crazy, and oh my gosh, he is utterly charming.

You can buy Unscripted as an ebook in all the usual places, and the most reliable place to get the paperback currently is Blackwells.com, which has worldwide shipping included.