Starcrossed Read Free Page B

there.  So she grabbed the Yellow Pages from the kitchen drawer, looked up the number for the television station, and scribbled it on the back of her hand.  Then she raced back to the hall, grabbed her coat from the coat rack, and was out the door.
    “Where are you going?” her mother called.
    “To the corner,” she called back.
    There was a phone booth at the end of the street and Georgia prayed as she ran that it had been fixed after vandals had broken it the week before.  When she flung open the door and saw everything intact, she almost laughed with relief.  She fumbled the coins in her pocket and dropped them twice, and then the first time she managed to put them in the slot they fell out the bottom into the tray with a clunk.  But this often happened with public phones, she reminded herself, and it didn’t mean anything was broken.  She took a deep slow breath and tried again.
    Again, the coins went straight through and bounced into the tray.  Georgia swore quietly under her breath, and then more loudly when it happened a third time.  She was getting ready to scream, but on the fourth try, the phone finally accepted her coins, and let her dial.
    “Come on,” she said as the phone rang and rang.  “Come…” 
    “Metro Television, this is Jean, can I help you?”
    “Oh! Um…”  Suddenly, Georgia didn’t know what to say, and her blood was pounding so hard she could barely hear herself answer.  “I’m…I’m trying to contact Tom.  TJ.  On Star Factory.”
    “There’s no-one in the publicity department right now.”  The receptionist sounded bored.  “You’ll need to call back on Monday between 9am and 5pm.  Do you have a scheduling enquiry?  I can help you with scheduling enquiries.”
    “No, no you don’t understand.  He knows me.  I need to contact him.”
    “You can request an autographed photo of the Star Factory contestants from the publicity department during working hours.”
    “I don’t want a photo.  I’m trying to contact him.  Please.  He’s in the studio now, isn’t he?”
    “I can’t put you through to the studio, but if you call the publicity department…”
    “Can I leave a message for him then?” Georgia interrupted.  “Could you pass on my name and number after the show?”
    “A message?”  There was a brief pause, and for those couple of seconds it felt to Georgia like the whole world had been put on hold. “You can leave a message with the publicity department on Monday between…”
    Georgia hung up.  Frustration burned through her and tears stung her eyes as she rested her head against the cold glass of the phone booth wall.  So her first attempt to contact him hadn’t worked, but she wasn’t going to give up.  Tom was looking for her, and she was going to find him.
    She walked out of the phone booth and back to the house, her mind racing.
    The Star Factory credits were rolling when she walked through the door.  They were accompanied by a voice-over from Mandy.  “If you’d like tickets to be in the audience of next Sunday’s grand final…”
    “Did TJ win?” Georgia asked quickly.
    “Yep!” Emily grinned, and then frowned as Georgia ran back out the door.
    This time, her coins worked first go.
    “Metro Television, this is Jean, can I…”
    “I want to order an audience ticket for the Star Factory final next Sunday.”  This was brilliant.  This was going to work.  She’d be in the audience and he’d see her and…
    “Tickets can only be obtained in person from the Metro Television offices during normal business hours.”  Jean paused.   “They do announce this at the end of the show, you know.”
    “But…”
    The receptionist sighed heavily. “You’ll have to come in on Monday, love.  But be early, they’ll start queueing before the sun’s up.”
    The next morning, Georgia abandoned her classes and caught the first train across London to join the long line of giggling teenage girls and their bleary-eyed