Milly caught at Polly’s chin. “Babe, you’re a bit pale. We’ve got a photographer coming by—shall I contour you up a bit?”
Suze was snapping pictures of Dr. Max from every angle. “The surgeon, too. Keep the shadows but blend out the nose a bit and—”
“Ladies!” he roared. “I will not be interviewed, and I will not have makeup put on me! I have paperwork, and sick patients to visit, and wounds to check. I don’t have time for this.”
“Love the anger.” Suze sighed. “Maybe we can harness that. I’m thinking Channel 4 News. I’ll bell Liam.”
“The money’s coming in.” Milly waved her phone. “Big Twitter surge. But we need a personal story, Polly babes. So people can relate. Quick video diary?”
“Money,” Polly said to Dr. Max. “Wouldn’t that go toward the new scanner you wanted? The extra MRI machine? So people don’t have to wait as long for diagnosis and maybe you can catch their cancer earlier?”
He considered it for a moment. “No makeup. I draw the line there.”
“Ace!” They spirited him away, tapping and snapping and chatting all the while.
Polly sighed. “Those two could run the world. I shouldn’t have shut them out, I guess.”
“It’s your cancer. You can shut people out if you want.”
Polly laughed. “That’s why I like you, Annie. No pressure to be positive or organize fun runs or write long blog posts about how I feel.”
“I thought that’s exactly what you wanted to do?”
“On my own terms. Not because people expect it of me.”
“But tonight, though, we have to pretend we’re all positive and happy and that we can make a difference?” Whatever Dr. Max said.
“We do. Except I think we might have a small problem.”
Panic gnawed at Annie’s stomach. “What?”
Polly checked her watch. “Well, I know he has the lead role and everything, but have you actually seen George at all tonight?”
*
Annie had sweated all the way through her black vest top. Backstage was full of people—comedians running through their routines, dancers limbering up, singers going through scales, even someone juggling with IV packs. But of George, who was meant to MC the whole night, there was no sign. “Call him again?”
“I’ve tried.” Polly was even paler. “Oh, God. I bet he’s bottled it. That’s what happened, you know, when he got his West End break—back of the chorus line as a soldier in Miss Saigon. He couldn’t go on. Got fired after one night. I bet he’s with fucking Caleb. I’m going to kill him.”
“His ex-boyfriend?” But Polly wasn’t listening. “Look, maybe there’s an explanation. Maybe he got stuck in traffic or—”
“He’s coming on the tube!” Polly was starting to lose it, something Annie had never seen before. “It’s all going to fall apart. All those media people—we’re going to let them down, Annie. The kids. The hospital. We’re going to fail.”
Fail. The word stuck in Annie’s throat. Of course she couldn’t pull this off. Why had she even tried? She wasn’t the kind of person who could change things. She was the kind of person who got dragged along by life, and eventually towed under. But through her cloud of yammering thoughts, she could hear something. “What’s that noise?”
“What noise?” Polly’s hands were squeezed together so tightly they’d gone white.
“It sounds like...” It was crying. She was sure of it. She hunted around the small backstage corridor, eventually throwing open the door to the disabled loo. In there, perched on the seat, in his spangly red MC suit, was George. His hands hid his face and his shoulders were working. “What happened? Are you okay?” She rushed forward, but Polly stood where she was.
“Let me see your face,” she said coldly.
He shook his head.
“George! Let me see it.”
Slowly, George looked up. Annie gasped. His left eye and the side of his face were covered in another purpling bruise, blood matted in his hair.
“Did he do this?” Polly demanded. George just nodded. Polly swore. “We’re calling the police this time. Okay? You promised.”
George spoke in a tiny voice, one Annie had never heard before. “I can’t go on. Look at the state of me.”
“But you have to!” Polly said. “You have to do it!”
George sobbed. “Look what he did to me. I—I loved him. And look what he thinks of me. I—I’m nothing. I’m a nobody. I’m a fat nobody. And he’s this big TV star and I’m just a failure and...” Annie suddenly put it together. Of course, Caleb. He was that guy in that thing about the vet.
“You got back together?” Polly sounded livid.
George shook his head, ashamed. “He wouldn’t take me back. We were just...seeing each other sometimes. But now it’s...” Fresh tears drowned his voice. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Poll. I wanted him to come tonight. I wanted him to see me do well. So I called around and...this is what happened.”
Polly strode in, kneeling in front of her brother. “Listen to me, George. You’re not nothing. He’s the one who should be ashamed. He should be in jail. But you’re my brother and I need you right now. I really need you. This is your big night. But it’s more than that—we could raise thousands tonight. We could help so many people, people who are sick like me. We could catch cancers earlier, give people a chance... Look.” She pulled at her bag. “Where is it, where is it...here.” She took out her hat of the day. “Fedora today, luckily. Put this on, knock it into a rakish angle, and we’ll get someone to patch you up—that lovely nurse Leroy is about—then a bit of makeup and no one will know. It’ll be dark. I promise.”
He just swallowed, so hard Annie could hear it from where she stood. She heard herself say, “The show must go on. Right?”
Shakily, George stood up. When he turned to the light, the bruise was livid, and Annie winced. “I’m not wearing a fedora,” he sniffed. “I’m not a bloody men’s rights activist. See what else you can find and get me the buffest nurse and the best makeup person we have, and we’ll try to pull this off.”
“Done.” Polly held out her hand. “Come with me. We don’t have much time.”
“Annie?” She turned to see Dr. Max standing in the corridor. “Is everything okay?”
Annie was distracted, watching some dancers get their tail feathers perilously close to the lights. “Look, I know you think this is stupid, but it’s really not helpful if you just keep criticizing things and—”
“I don’t think it’s stupid. I shouldn’t have said that. I’m sorry.”
She gave him a look.
“Fine, okay, it’s not my thing. But...you’ve done a good job. An amazing job, really, in the time you had. It’ll be good, I’m sure.”
“Will it?” Suddenly Annie’s own panic showed. “I don’t know, because we really didn’t have much time at all and it’s all a bit thrown together, and you’re right, there are important people here, and George is having a meltdown and there are seminaked dancers about to go onstage, and, oh, God. You’re right. I shouldn’t have done this.”