Billy and Me, chapter 8

We're going to mix it up for chapter eight, because Billy and Me is doing my head in. Technically, I'm not recapping ... I'm leaving it to Carter and Lambrini.

If you're new to this, they're the main characters in my writing. I make no apologies for whatever Carter comes out with, but you'll probably agree it's not far off what I'd say on this. Lambrini ... she'll probably make you guys tolerate this more. I don't know, she's a bit of a weird one. So ... guys?

Carter: Yeah, yeah, yeah, we're on it.

Lambrini: Not exactly thrilled to be reading a book, but since you said it was only a chapter-

Carter: She's given us the long one. Not the four page treat she did last week.

Lambrini: Typical!

Carter: Yup. So ... Billy and Me. This is a book about a chick meeting a famous actor and they fall in love? Has this chick gone on fanfiction.net?

Lambrini: Becki says you can't use real life people on there. Maybe Giovanna thinks that makes her different?

Carter: Because that's how you start different. So ... the chapter starts by talking about the excitement of the day before. What was the excitement again?

Lambrini: She made national news! Or maybe because her mum was tidying up out of depression?

Carter: *eyes Lambrini suspiciously*

Lambrini: I was always tidy, don't go pulling that bullshit with me. Floordrobes are gross, all your clothes end up smelling of feet.

Carter: Anyway, Sophie - that's who Siobhan said was the lead character right? - Sophie talks about not being able to sleep again. What was Siobhan saying about starting and ending chapters on sleeping? It's getting really tacky.

Lambrini: And you'd know from tacky.

Carter: Sure, I just have to look at my BFF.

Lambrini: *shoves Carter's shoulder*

Carter: What was that? Was that meant to hurt? Anyway, Sophie thinks that insomnia at one in the morning means it's acceptable to go surfing for gossip on yourself. No, that's when you put your headphones in and rudetube.

Lambrini: You would rudetube.

Carter: So would you *winks* so Sophie searches for "Billy Buskin Sophie" and since I'm now in rudetube mode ... is that some kind of ass play?

Lambrini: *muttering* You're some kind of ass play.

Carter: The search only gets 243 hits, so obviously he's big news.

Lambrini: With all the facebook and twitter and tumblr and blogs out there?

Carter: All the gossip columns and official sites ... 243 is not a huge number. 243 wouldn't even bother Google. After three links you'd find old articles about this famous dude that are probably by Sophie Smith or some shit.

Lambrini: I like this bit "It's even made the news in India, Australia and the States." Because isn't he meant to be famous in Hollywood? So wouldn't they want to know?

Carter: Love how it's mind blowing. Maybe she doesn't have much mind to blow?

Lambrini: Are you still in rudetube mode?

Carter: So anyway ... the searches are just basically all the articles from the day before. But with comments. Is this the point where Siobhan would jam in a Mean Girls gif? Because that sounds like the burn book scene.

 

Lambrini: What's Mean Girls?

Carter: You know, there's not watching TV a lot because there's no decent shows, and there's being socially retarded. You just crossed the borderline. Ask Sky or Becki. As for this book, Sophie reads the comments, and the ones put up are stupid and mean and not even well thought out. I've been on gossip slam sites before with Fearn, they have far more imagination. They make me laugh ... this is just pitiful.

Lambrini: She mentions there are nice comments too, but then she dismisses them. What's that about? They 'don't carry the same weight as the rest'.

Carter: Nice comments mean you can't hate the people who wish they were you, I guess.

Lambrini: Okay, now this is something I don't like, she's saying all these girls are picking up on her insecurities. So she's ordinary, and not tiny, and has no dress sense and shouldn't eat cake. Didn't Siobhan say she works with cakes? That's stupid. The whole lot of it is stupid.

Carter: Are you seriously telling me you don't have basic girl insecurities?

Lambrini: Thanks for the misogyny, but that's not what I meant. Siobhan said this girl is meant to be  girl-next-door and normal and nice, but then that's what she wishes she could change. I don't get that, do you get that?

Carter: I think I get you, like she's selling this idea that famous people just want some normality and that she is that normality but then somehow it's not enough?

Lambrini: Exactly! Is this what Siobhan means when she talks about Sophie being a Mary Sue? Because I don't get it, you can't say you're some type of perfect and then not want to be that type of perfect even though that's what you're trying to sell me on!

Carter: This is why you don't read isn't it? I think you just broke.

Lambrini: There's nothing even valid in it! There's no one she knows telling her that she's awful and doesn't deserve him, just nameless people on the net who vent like that to blow off some steam!

Carter: Giovanna Fletcher, you owe me for making Lamb talk exclusively in exclamation marks.

Lambrini: And the next bit! It's somehow more of a truth from when she was insecure about it if someone she's never met has sat there and torn her apart!

Carter: So ... every time Siobhan confuses Justin Bieber with Miley Cyrus ... does that make them more confused?

Lambrini: You're an ass, and that's good music.

Carter: I give up with you. We get some more rant about how this famous actor will go off with an 'A-lister' whatever the hell that is and how she's not worthy of her man. *beat* Do girls ever think that?

Lambrini: I have never thought that about any guy I've been with.

Carter: I don't get that, and not just because of Claudia and how she would never define her self-worth by my opinion. Surely a relationship can't function if one of you constantly feels less worthwhile than the other person and spends all their time trying to impress the other person. You're not in a real relationship if that's the basis, because they're not falling for you. I don't get this. And it can't be a British chick thing, because you're saying it's bullshit.

Lambrini: I am saying it's bullshit.

Carter: This girl is seriously emo. I'm going to paste a bit of her self-depreciating rant. This is why Twilight is shit, who wants to read about the internal world of a main character when you get crap like this:

Over the past month have we both been delusional? Billy has been outside of his glitzy world and thrust into a perfect little country life. But is there really any longevity in it? Seriously? Filming finishes in a matter of weeks, and with that Billy will pack his bags and head back to his previous life. Is there really any place for me in that world? Of course not. I've been foolish to think otherwise.

Lambrini: Did she just call her life perfect?

Carter: Of all the crappy bits of that inner monologue, you pick up on that?

Lambrini: Yes, because look what she's actually saying. She's saying her life is perfect, her presence makes his perfect, and he'll have to revert to the past when their time together is over. She's saying that she's a welcome break in the monotony of his life. She's saying he'll just have to burden himself with fame and glamour when he's left her behind, but they're empty in comparison to her.

Carter: Girls read too much into everything.

Lambrini: What did you have a problem with in that bit?

Carter: Well, okay, Claude does auditions and stuff all the time, sometimes modelling, sometimes acting-

Lambrini: Doesn't surprise me-

Carter: And I've been to those auditions. The waiting rooms are hot and crowded and full of backstabbing. The rooms they audition in a shabby little holes that get rented out on the cheap. Our school is more updated than some of these places. The glamour she's talking about? That's set dressing, that's what they shove on the models and actors, and where they shove them when the cameras are pointing their way. There is nothing glamorous in it.

Lambrini: Which would work with what I was saying, if that was on the paper. But it's not.

Carter: And the fuck with the needy? The whole 'where do I fit in when he leaves' bit? Sometimes, things aren't meant to last. Sometimes, you should just embrace what you have.

Siobhan: *barging in* sorry guys, but something I feel I should add in, which I noticed when I left uni and high school and stuff. You won't have experienced it yet, but as I've gone on in life, I've noticed it's the people you worry about staying in contact with that you won't. On some subconscious level, you know that they're not going to stick around. The people you don't worry about? They're golden, because you know they're not going to leave you. I got a horrible sense when I read that bit, because it sounds like a set up for something that's just not going to come up, and it hurt my head. And that's why you two are doing this.

Carter: I hate you.

Siobhan: I can live with that. I'm going now, but first *gives Carter a plate of bacon, and Lambrini some Sour Patch Kids*

Lambrini: She knows how to work us *rips into the candy*

Carter: Hmmmmm ... depends on how good the bacon is.

Lambrini: She makes a good point though, this almost feels like what Das-Mervin call a dead herring, because it's setting up for tension that's not going to happen.

Carter: Because drama is hard to write, I guess.

Lambrini: Do you know what as well? I like mcfly, and there's a song called foolish on their last album, and now it is stuck in my head and it feels like she did it on purpose, like a set up. The lyrics are something like 'foolish for me to think/she wouldn't leave by December/foolish to let misery/let her fall apart in autumn/driving down a one-way street/no u-turn to get back to me/running close to empty but I/I'll never say goodbye.' And Tom sings it high. Really high.

Carter: I'm surprised Siobhan hasn't been trying to spot more lyric inserts. But maybe this is making her feel dead inside, like it is with me *eats some bacon* and this is cold. Bitch.

Lambrini: So the next bit is Sophie waking up to her alarm clock and she's even more emo, talking about laying 'underneath a thick blanket of emptiness' and how she aches and everything is swollen and sore. She's talking about staying in bed for the rest of her life.

Carter: So 'hey, this is textbook depression because people can see I am who I tell you I am'?

Lambrini: Now, when I moved to live next to you, I was completely crushed. Not because of you, or any of your brothers-

Carter: Are you sure?

Lambrini: It's because of why we moved. And yes, I couldn't stop crying for a while, and yes I took to my bed, but not all day, and not because someone said something mean about me. That's all this is, she wants to stay in bed forever because someone called her fat.

Carter: My experience with depression is different too. Bi-polar. And manic episodes are far scarier. And even though I don't know why they were bi-polar, I know it was a lot more valid a reason than some comment about work-clothes.

Lambrini: Exactly. This is stupid.

Carter: So she calls in sick, and goes into full out 'I'm attention whoring, because I'm soooo depressed' mode, hiding under the covers and then she gets woken up ... so did she dream all that?

Lambrini: And did we just get almost five pages of her going to bed and then getting up? That's so freaking boring. I hate books. You read, and I'll comment.

Carter: Because that's what I do, I carry people when they can't be fucked.

Lambrini: I know Becki does your homework for you sometimes, so go to hell.

Carter: I hate when you point out my hypocrisy. So the door goes and she goes running out of bed because that's what you do when you're sick, and lo, there's Billy the actor. He's come to be her nurse.

Lambrini: I hope he's wearing this

Carter: Okay, if you're throwing pictures like that in? This totally works for me. For some reason, nurse Billy (someone please photoshop the singer's head on that model) thinks grapes, chocolate and Sudoku are the remedy for illness.

Lambrini: The correct answer is drugs and Jeremy Kyle. Because your stomach might feel turned inside out or you might have stage four lymphoma but fuck, at least you don't have three potential fathers and a face like a dead horse.

Carter: Looking on the bright side there, Lamb?

Lambrini: You know it.

Carter: Sophie cries at the sight of the Sudoku, so I guess filling in numbers one through nine into a grid pattern is particularly heart-breaking?

Lambrini:

 

Carter: *grips chest* ouch! All that red! Anyway, Billy is there only to make her feel special so he immediately asks how she is, like they're girlfriends or something.

Lambrini: Nurse Billy isn't giving a physical?

Carter: You have got to stop putting pictures like that in or we'll never be done with this.

Lambrini: I am just going through my net browser history. From the time I was in the shower and someone was in my room on their own?

Carter: I thought I cleared that?

Lambrini: You disgust me.

Carter:  Anyway, Sophie starts attention seeking crying and covering her face and he keeps talking like he's a woman and then tells her to calm down.

Lambrini:

Carter: *laughing*Right? And then she breaks up with him.

Lambrini: Shut up!

Carter: Seriously, excerpt time:

"Come on ... calm down, Soph," he says, shutting the door and walking me into the living room, where he sits down with me on the sofa. Billy cradles me and rocks me gently, soothing me, my face still buried in my arms.
"I'm sorry. It's nothing. It's just ... I think we should stop seeing each other."

Lambrini: It's nothing, we should break up because someone I've never met before and will never be in my sphere of existence called me fat?

Carter: Girls just don't do this.

Lambrini: Girls just don't do this.

Carter: It's so out of left field. It's attention-seeking, it's affirmation seeking. 'You love me, right? You love me more than anyone else? Even though the only points of my existence are the things I wish I could change?' Fuck, if I had a girl that needy, she would be dropped like that *snaps fingers* I would be so creeped out. I mean, she might get a pity fuck first, but-

Lambrini: Car, that's horrible!

Carter: Confidence is sexy, okay? Whether you're a girl or a guy, that's the appeal. Confidence is saying you have brilliant genes, it's like, animal instinct. This girl sounds like a step away from nutjob-going-to-follow-him-around-and-kill-him-in-his-sleep-so-no-one-else-can-have-him. She's Glenn Fucking Close in Fatal Attraction.

Lambrini: I'd say you have issues, but I agree with this, to an extent. I mean, I'm not saying only showboats get dates, but there's a difference between confidence and attention-seeking and this is the line. And didn't Siobhan say there'd be autobiographical bits in this? That sounds like one part, which makes this horrible. I don't feel any connection between them, and not just because you're purposefully making this devoid of emotion ... I don't know how they connect. I can't feel any lust or anything, just a need to be reassured she's amazing.

Carter: Could she be any more Bella Swan if she tried?

Lambrini: That's the boring vampire girl Fearn compares me to sometimes, right?

Carter: Please don't say that. We can't be friends if you're like her.

Lambrini: It's only because I don't snapchat her or anything.

Carter: You're now on the maybe pile. You've been downgraded.

Lambrini: Anyway, can we just keep the character assassination to Sophie and Billy?

Carter: With relish. Okay, so Sophie admits she read some shit, and Billy's like 'you read' - isn't this girl supposed to be a reader? If I were this Billy dude, I'd be like 'did you read Dumbledore died?' because then the emotion connected to reading makes sense. But no, she admits she read some comments.

Lambrini:

 

 

You're right, I need to watch this *downloads on netflix, has on while Carter reads*

Carter: I wish you found the 'Too Gay To Function' quote.  Anyway, Billy has like, one brain cell because he works out she means internet comments, and then just ... this is why Siobhan hates this, isn't it? You want another quote, people?

"Never read those comments, Sophie. Do you know who writes that stuff? Sad, lonely people who have nothing better to do than sit and write crap. They don't know you and they don't realize that they're talking about real people with feelings ... None of them would ever actually say anything to people's faces. They just hide behind their computer screens spouting nonsense."

He's an asshat. A complete dillhole. A jerk-off, a dickshit, a douchebag, a fuckface, a knobcheese

Lambrini: Are you broken on insult loop?

Carter: These people? They're his fans! They're keeping him in money, and movies, and his house and his car and his family in Cali and they're spouting crap and wouldn't say this shit to people's faces?

Lambrini: I would love it if you met this guy.

Carter: Siobhan, spitefic that. Immediately.

Siobhan: Okay ... spitefic time!

 

Before Sophie could react, there was a pounding on the door. They had barely moved from the entrance hall, and Billy peeped through the glass on the front door. There, leaning against the door jamb, looking completely unaffected, was a teenage boy, about five-foot-eight, with auburn hair,  and pale skin splattered in freckles. He was wearing skinny jeans with a large belt buckle shaped like a retro music tape, black converse that had seen better days and a white T-shirt with the Clash's London's Burning album emblazoned on the front. Billy opened the door cautiously, and the boy sprang into action.

"You!" The boy stood close to Billy, a few inches apart, looking up at him with his eyes blazing in fury. His hands were by his sides, but his arms were tensed and his fists curled into balls. His jaw jutted forward, clearly spurring for a fight. "Did I just hear that shit right? People on the net are fucking assholes and wouldn't dare speak up in real life?"

Billy looked at Sophie, like he was trying to get some strength from her, and she lowered her arm from her face slowly. The boy wasn't about to be distracted.

"Well, fuck you man! My girlfriend made me go to see Halo and it was shit. The scripting was derivative and you were about as wooden as a two-by-four. I could pull a better movie outta my ass in five minutes, and tape it on my cell. My girlfriend's now on grovel mode, because she thought you'd be good! We were told you were like, the next Tom Hanks but we both know that's a pile. I can't wait to see what you vomit up this time. How the fuck are you rich? I want my money back from that date. Two tickets, the popcorn, the soda, the junior mints and goobers Claude insists on, the cover for my car insurance on that day, the petrol for that day, the airfare and time I wasted making this trip into bumblefuck country, and the seconds of my life that I wasted on your dubious talent. If you can't give me any of that back, then you can rot in fucking hell and take it when I put my opinion - which is as valid as anyone elses and not the only one in the category, douchebag - out in a public forum. You don't wanna be told you suck at your job? Find a job that doesn't get public feedback.'

And then the boy reached up, punched Billy in the face, and stalked out the door, muttering to himself about jumped-up actor douchefags.

Carter: I would so say all that to his face. He is a douchefag.

Lambrini: I keep looking at the bit you transcribed ... Carter, she's meant to be British, it's meant to be realise.

Carter: Nuh-uh, I wrote it exactly how it is in the book. And I remember that, Thomas looking over your work like 'what's with all the 'u's man? And replacing 'z' with 's' all the time?'

Lambrini: Yeah, I never thought at fifteen I'd have to learn to spell things American.

Carter: Well, I didn't get to punch this asshole in the face, so Sophie can keep up the attention-seeking shit. She's all 'they're telling the truth!' Like these people have met her and know her which is more than this guy can claim right now, and he's like 'baby' because he totes forgot her name. And she's all 'I'll never be good enough for you, I'm fat and ugly and boring!' and he's all 'hey, you're not fat' and she's 'but you're leaving and you're such a rolling stone, who knows which moss you'll leave behind next? Models, right?' and he's like 'you complete me, I thought you knew I'd be taking you with me or some shit, I live around the corner you know and you'll like LA when we go and I care so can I see your face?'

Lambrini: I feel sick just reading that.

Carter: I'm barely even paraphrasing, I swear. She's that needy and he says that many lines. It's all drama. And like, I know Becks only ever eats chicken salad and fruit, and Fearn and Claude make sure they don't eat crap because of cheerleading, but seriously, the whole 'I'm so fat'/'No you're not' thing pisses me off. I want her to be a complete whale, so this is justified, but we know she's not.

Lambrini:

Carter: Beautiful! So Billy orders her to uncover her face and since the man has spoken, she does ... does this ever work?

Lambrini: Carter, you get your way all the time.

Carter: But it's not because I'm a guy, it's because I'm right. And you answer back all the fucking time, so shut up.

Lambrini: Go fuck yourself.

Carter: See, you're still talking.

Lambrini: Just do the recap.

Carter: Case and point. So Billy gets her some snot rags and she wipes her face like she hasn't been doing that on her sleeves the entire time, and she says she looks awful because she needs more compliments. And then he says he loves her.

Lambrini: Well, that's kinda sweet, like 'hey, you were sad but don't be, because I care'.

Carter: But it's not, because he's like 'I completely and utterly love you' and I don't know why he loves her and I don't feel it. At best, he's like my aunt Meredith. Like 'oh Casey-Cole-Cody-Carter, I love you ... because my brother spawned you and I have to.'

Lambrini: Better than my uncle Adam, who's like 'hey ... so you're still alive?'

Carter: This chick is full on batshit crazy. She says she's not creeped out that he loves her and she smiles because love in a month is totally possible and then she says it mirrors her feelings. Isn't mirroring the antithesis?

Lambrini: I think she meant it like 'I love him back, like a love reflection'.

Carter: I threw up in my mouth a little. So there's a time jump and it's Sunday, which is date day, and now whenever I eat ice cream in the park with you I'm going to be reminded of this horseshit. There's a red sports car in the driveway of her house so now my mustang is completely tainted and Sophie asks 'what's that'.

Lambrini: You're disgusted, aren't you?

Carter: He just says it's a car. No idea which. Just a red sports car that's a 'bit flash' so is it ostentatious?

Lambrini: You spend too much time with Thomas.

Carter: But I know nothing. Is it a merc? A BMW? A Lamborghini? Chevy? What year? Horse power, engine size ... anything?

Lambrini: Carter's car is a red mustang.

Carter: It's a '68 convertible. First year mustang put in side marker lights, 302cu, Windsor V8, which is a 230 bhp. 4.9 litre engine.  it's the most iconic car like, ever.

Lambrini: Stock picture of Carter's car:

 

 

Carter: I have the white leather upholstery. And thank you for the car porn.

Lambrini: You're welcome.

Carter: Look at the steering unit:

 

I am so in love with my car.

Lambrini: And Billy says is that it was an impulse buy.

Carter: I am going to borrow from Siobhan's favourite, Jenny Trout:

 

Because that was just like Christian fucking Grey. So they drive to London and Sophie bangs on about childhood trips to London, which is only an hour away.

Lambrini: 20 minutes on the train, suck it!

Carter: Half an hour from Vegas? Not impressed.

Lambrini: Technically, even when I was in England I was half hour from Vegas ... Bas Vegas.

Carter: Is this some Brit joke I don't get?

Lambrini:

Carter: That's a yes. So Sophie wants to feed pigeons and Billy's grossed out and says it's illegal and she gets sad and reminisces about feeding them as a kid and loving them swarming around her with their various bugs and other grossness.

Lambrini: I hope she got pooed on.

Carter: You and me both. Then she asks if she can sit on some statue and he's like, yeah, until they make that illegal and you Brits are fucking crazy. So then he says, just to shit all over her, that he's taking her to his place, not some statues. I hope he buries her in the back yard.

Lambrini: The chances are, he doesn't have a back yard.

Carter: You're telling me that this actor who's so rich he can buy a car and learn nothing about it beyond it impressing girls can't afford a place even in the capital with a back yard?

Lambrini: Good point.

Carter: She describes the house and the view for a couple of pages and I see what Siobhan said about skipping this shit. I've missed nothing. He has pictures up of his family, and they're smiling and playing ... how old are these guys again?

Lambrini: It's him and his brothers on an X-box marathon.

Carter: Right? Otherwise Billy has issues. Sophie's impressed he's not flashing awards about ... so all actors have awards now? He's all 'you think I'm self-centred? LOL!' And I'm like, dude, you both are. And then he tells her he's been going to meetings for weeks and I thought they were making movies, silly me. He's got a new job, acting in a theatre in London, and she creams her pants about him being so close, but can she really move in with him? This is glazing over about four pages of her basically repeating 'what's the play about' because nothing goes in with Sophie.

Lambrini: They've been dating a month and she's moving in?

Carter: They've known each other a month, and he's pretty much demanding that she does. And that's the end of the chapter and I hate Siobhan. Let's go to Becki's and cool off in her pool and talk about something decent.

Lambrini: Deal.

Siobhan: So they've cleared out pretty quickly. Can I just say, we're a third of the way through this book and I've almost written enough about this for a standard novel? That's bizarre.