She'd been packed off to LA to finish her album. She'd promised herself it would all be desperately boring and she'd remain boringly steadfast and keep her head down and work and sing and remain hydrated and oxygenised and balanced throughout the whole ordeal.
She'd told Kimberley this plan and been met with a full-bodied laugh.
"You don't have to live like a nun, Cheryl," she'd said.
But focus was important right now. She was on the cusp of so many things, a new love, a new life, the phantom of a global career loitering along her horizon.
It was easier in London, to keep grounded. She had the girls and the team, and proper teabags and television. She had her home comforts and regular routine. She felt herself, at home. The big fish readying for the leap into open water. She had the respect, back home.
It wasn't like that here. Here everyone called her baby.
Yo, whassup baby. You wanna drink baby? S'okay baby, I got it. That's hot, baby, that's hot.
And at first she'd found it disconcerting and hovered between being mildly offended and secretly flattered, such was her subtle but undeniable shift into the tide of objectification, the glory of being a face first with a name they would all soon learn.
And then it was just a word, and soon she was into the rhythm: read, record, smile and fawn in equal measure, demure when they lay down the beats that all but drowned out her vocal. Nudge and wink as they teased her accent, tinkling laughter that only encouraged their crude mimicry "Eim gaspin' for a fag, lyke. Yo Cheryl, you wanna go pick up gay dudes?"
It was hard and easy all at once, and she found herself settling into a steady stream of careful, observed, casualness; considered coolness in the face of heavily trafficked mornings, accentuated by the tap tapping of her nails against the keys of her Blackberry as the driver snaked across the lanes and another car horn blared.
She rolled her eyes and smacked her lips at another photo opportunity - a mall, a hotel entrance, a dinner in some fashionably hip nightspot, the man of the hour at her elbow or, more often, lagging three paces behind as she brushed him off with a turn of her head.
They let her be, as long as there was a clear shot, it was worth it; the headlines seemed to write themselves these days.
And in the middle of all this, the eye of the storm, came Kimberley and her deep soothing phone calls at stupid hours of the night, when Cheryl should have been sleeping.
"I love you," she would exhale into the cooler night air, as the LA temperature dropped with alarming abruptness and the breeze stirred the remnants of her ashtray.
"I'll see you soon," would come the reply, firm and reassuringly present next to her ear, belying the thousands of miles it was echoing across.
And then there were those other nights.
She'd shimmy her way into a waiting Escalade and speed off into the Hills with the boys from the studio and their assorted entourage of musicians, industry exes and hangers on.
They'd be drinking by the side of a pool as darkness descended, lighting her cigarettes for her and telling her how amazing it would be when America finally got to hear her. And she'd meet a hundred people that night, all of them looking either ridiculously glamorous or absurdly underdressed and she'd not know who the important ones were and who were the nobodies, so she'd smile and drink and refrain from being too overly friendly with anyone, lest she be sucked into the irredeemable ranks of the z-listers.
And there'd be crowded rides into exclusive clubs. "Where's the blow, Joe?" and clapped hands and lit cigarettes, someone had a cigar - she remembered the pungent stink of it, angling her body away - discrete passes from one palm to another of little wraps of powdery promises. People constantly shuffling and getting up and switching places and excusing themselves and coming back full of animation and frenetic conversation about nothing before lapsing into dulled, eyeless silence.
It was hard to tell whether it was all the drugs or just LA.
And she was pretty good at politely refusing at first, without the need for explanation, just a knowing shake of the head accompanied by a large slurp from her cocktail glass.
She'd get a smile and a You sure? And she'd smile back, eager not to offend anyone, not to be the provincial cousin afraid to dip her toes beneath the city's soulless surface.
And it was Wayne or Angelo or some guy she didn't really know, who had given her a toothy grin and drawled lowly, "Cheryl's a good girl," with smoke billowing out from his nostrils and eyes distorting into the massive cheeks of his face - fat bejewelled fingers flashing mockingly at her altogether more minimalist appearance for the night - that had her tight smile wavering for a brief purposeful second, and then she was reaching for his hand and telling him Not always.
And when she returned to the table he looked up and didn't seem menacing at all, just hilariously large sat amongst a throng of barely there beauties, all skimpy dresses and protruding shoulder blades.
His arm was slung along the back of the corner couch, his legs open wide, "Okay baby?"
And she nodded and laughed and squeezed herself in next to him, ignoring the look of disgust from the girls she had instantly displaced. Her head rested across his shoulder as the music pounded and the monotone stories of people and places she didn't know swirled around her. She fiddled with the gold chains that hung from his neck, idly running her finger along the ridiculously oversized pendants and laughing when they all laughed at jokes she hadn't bothered listening to.
When she'd finally staggered into her hotel suite, she collapsed onto a chaise longue, tried and failed to work out what time it would be in London and then spent a furious 45 minutes composing a text message that she accidentally deleted before sending. She cried bitterly for several minutes after that, cursing her solitude and the city's duplicity, that left her high and alone and wanting.
The familiar sun had already crept across the room by the time she closed her eyes.
* * * * *
