Love Me Till Wednesday (Sapphire Stars #1)

5

5

‘Congratulations on delivering another successful project, everyone,’ Kash, the project manager, said, raising a glass of champagne to the rest of the team crammed into a cosy room in the back of a pub in the heart of Manchester.

‘When are you going back to London?’ Lisa’s colleague Mark asked her.

‘Tomorrow lunchtime after I’ve run the final training session.’ She’d be sad to go. They’d been a fun team to work with. It was the first time she’d been to a the end of project celebration meeting in a karaoke bar.

Two waitresses arrived with large platters of nibbles: sausages, chicken wings, samosas, bhajis. The only thing that wasn’t brown were the tiny bits of salad garnish at the ends of each plate.

‘This looks healthy,’ Lisa said, mentally adding up the number of calories in each item.

‘It’s just here to soak up the alcohol. Tasty though,’ Mark added, biting into an onion bhaji.

‘Ok, who’s up first?’ Kash asked.

‘Me!’

Lisa turned in the direction of the shout. The usually quiet system admin guy, Kevin, had leapt up and snatched the mic from Kash’s hands. He began pressing buttons on the console.

‘Thank you very much,’ he said in a more than passable Elvis voice before launching into an enthusiastic but slightly out-of-tune version of Jailhouse Rock.

‘That was unexpected,’ Lisa whispered to Mark as Kevin took a bow and the rest of the room clapped.

He laughed. ‘For you, maybe, but not for the rest of us. He always does that. What’s your party piece?’

Lisa shook her head. ‘I haven’t got one.’ Which wasn’t entirely true, but she didn’t feel up to giving a performance. She was happy with them thinking of her as “Lisa the training consultant” and not “Lisa the failed pop star”.

Mark grinned at her. ‘You better think of one because there’s no way Kash is going to let you off.’

‘We’ll see. What are you going to do?’

‘I’m in the mood for something from Grease,’ Mark said as he topped up her glass with the remains of the champagne bottle next to them.

Kash had the microphone again. ‘Who’s next?’

There didn’t seem to be any shortage of volunteers. Karaoke was obviously a popular activity. Lisa relaxed back in her seat, sipping her champagne. Hopefully they’d have got fed up with it or be too drunk before Kash realised she’d dodged taking a turn.

Mark volunteered for the next slot and pulled off a classic pub singer rendition of ‘Is this the way to Amarillo’.

He took a bow at the end to rapturous applause. He grinned at Lisa. ‘I think Lisa should show us what she’s made of.’

For a moment, she wondered if he’d worked out who she used to be. But he was too young, surely .

‘Come on, Lisa. Don’t be shy.’ Kash waved his arm in the direction of the small stage. ‘You’re a training consultant. You’re used to standing up in front of an audience.’

She was more used to it than he realised, but that had been a long time ago. ‘No, sorry. It’s not really my thing,’ she said.

‘Everyone says that. We don’t take any notice.’

‘Lisa! Lisa! Lisa!’ The rest of the group started chanting.

The woman sitting to her left stood up to let her out.

You’re not going to get out of this one. Show them how it’s done, her inner voice said.

Her ex-manager Dougie had always said you should give the crowd what they want. She hated him for lots of reasons, but he was right about that. Lisa knocked back the rest of her champagne and made her way to the stage.

Mark handed her the microphone. ‘You’ll be great,’ he said as he headed back to his seat.

How did one of these things even work? She looked at the list of songs on the console and used the scroll bar to see more. There were so many to choose from. She paused a second on ‘Love Me Till Wednesday’, surprised to see her own song on there. Who bothered singing that these days? Don’t sing Love Me, Lisa. You might be rumbled. She carried on scrolling. ‘Rolling in the Deep’ would do. Without thinking, she did a quick vocal warm-up exercise.

You idiot. Why did you do that?

‘Seems like Lisa’s taking this seriously.’ Kash grinned.

‘You know me,’ she said, laughing it off. ‘If a job’s worth doing.’ She pressed the Go button, and the backing track started.

Lisa had sung this song in the shower often enough to know it by heart. She closed her eyes and gave it her all, losing herself in the performance like she always used to. She’d forgotten how exhilarating singing to an audience could be .

As the music finished, she became aware that everyone else in the room was staring at her.

‘Is there a problem?’ she asked.

Kash shook his head. ‘Not at all. Have you thought about entering The Voice?’