YOU HEARD IT HERE FIRST - excerpt

Chapter One
Luce

Luce and Huds were tucked so close behind the column that his breath tickled her neck.

“Is that her?” he whispered.

She followed his gaze to a wandering student—a pretty but ordinary girl, her brown hair tied back into a loose ponytail.

“Nope—her letter from the July issue said she cuts her hair into a bob every summer and lets it grow out during the year. Remember? That’s why he didn’t recognize her at the mid-winter party.”

Huds stared at Luce with a mixture of confusion and admiration, then peered through his camera’s viewfinder and adjusted some settings.

“Do you think we could move next to the dumpling stand?” he asked. “I kinda wanna backlight them as much as possible. Make them look like angels or something. I think that would be more romantic.”

Luce kept her eyes on the dozens of students milling around in the university cafeteria, talking, laughing, eating—being young and carefree, and blissfully oblivious to the multitude of injustices lying in wait for them in the outside world. In a few minutes, they would witness an inspiring celebration of love, orchestrated by Luce Sharp via Seen in Silverbridge, the magazine she ran. Well, the magazine she and Huds ran. The publication had run for almost four years now, a new issue every month, and had accumulated a following of about eighteen thousand readers. While their social media presence had ballooned in previous weeks, Seen in Silverbridge’s presence was still defined largely by the printed magazine.

This stunt would absolutely skyrocket Seen in Silverbridge’s popularity; Luce just knew it. Right in time for the final issue … but she didn’t want to think about that right now.

“Let’s not move. It’s gonna happen soon,” Luce said. “Trust me.”

She could almost hear Huds rolling his eyes, a standard response to her request for trust.

“Ooh—there! That girl. She’s got a bob. Is that a bob?” Huds turned to Luce. “Okay, I’m going to be honest here and admit I don’t know what a bob is.”

Luce sighed theatrically but smiled.

For the whole lunch break, they had waited for two students who had been corresponding all year through the “Letters to the Editor” section of Seen. The students—known only by their non de plumes of Hagrid91 and CelineSunrise—had met during a party at the University of Silverbridge’s orientation week, but hadn’t traded social handles or last names. CelineSunrise claimed there had been an immediate spark. Hagrid91 swore they were soulmates. It was all disgustingly saccharine.

Instead of putting them in direct contact as any normal person would have, Luce had drip-fed the couples’ letters into the monthly issues. What had started as a simple ‘Can you help me find this person?’ had turned into a year-long saga of the printed correspondence of long-lost lovers yearning to be reunited. They were a reader favourite, and Luce knew that she had been right to hold off their long-awaited reunion until the end of the year.

She had set a time and date, and now she and Huds were prepared to document a spectacle (hopefully) worthy of the front page.

“That’s not her, either,” Luce said, checking the time on her phone. “They’re late.”

They watched in strained silence for a few moments.

“Hey, I have an, um … a question,” Huds said. “After exams are done, do you want to come over for dinner?”

“To your house?” Luce asked, surprised.

Huds blinked rapidly. “Not a big deal. It’ll just be my family. Not, like, the whole crew,”—Luce relaxed; Huds came from a very loving and involved Niuean family—“just Mum and us kids.”

Luce groaned.

“What?”

“Come on, Huds. You know what. Your mum hates me.”

“She doesn’t hate you! She doesn’t hate anyone … I don’t think the capacity for hate is in her DNA.”

“She has a very strong aversion toward me,” Luce clarified.

Huds grimaced. “I would say you’re in a fortunate position … you have the opportunity to show her your true personality. I’m sure she’ll come around once she gets to know the real you. The ‘you’ deep down … like, subterranean deep.”

Luce shoved Huds in the arm, eyes still on the cafeteria. A dull sadness tugged at her stomach, but she couldn’t pinpoint its source.

“So—this will be the final issue,” Huds said. The empty feeling in her stomach intensified.

“Yup,” she said.

“It’s gonna be dope.”

“I hope so.”

“It will.”

Somewhere in the cafeteria, a tray toppled and was met with cheers.

“It’s a shame we can’t keep it going,” Huds said, and Luce recognized his attempt at nonchalance. Neither of them wanted to let on how they truly felt about shutting Seen in Silverbridge down. It had started as nothing more than a fun project to take their minds off their studies, but soon, through the job of writing trivial gossip and provocative opinion pieces, they’d found themselves with thousands of passionate readers. In the four years they’d worked on Seen in Silverbridge together, they’d grown close, much closer than they’d been in high school. Luce doubted she was alone in lamenting the impending end of it all.

If she were to be honest with herself, Luce was enjoying the modest degree of infamy she’d acquired among her fellow students. Sure, it had the drawback of evoking a standoffishness in social settings, a concern that whatever Luce was a party to would find its way into publication, or onto Seen’s social media, but that was a small price to pay.

On the flipside, Huds had determinedly remained anonymous.

“You were the one who said Seen in Silverbridge couldn’t survive outside of uni. I wanted to keep it going!”

Huds threw his hands up. “I know, I know, I’m just saying.”

Luce hissed through her teeth at Huds. He kept his gaze fixed on the cafeteria.

“Huds, you’re about to graduate with a degree in graphic design, with no intention of pursuing a career in the field. And I’m about to graduate with the most pointless degree in the history of education, and bugger off overseas to work for some random friend of my parents’. Seen is over, okay?”

“But what about your grand plans to expose the conspiracies of Silverbridge? About the common New Zealander deserving to know how the country really works?”

Luce felt her heart rate climbing.

“You know there’s more going on in this city than we know about,” Huds continued. “And if we don’t expose it, who will?”

“Dude, nobody even reads our serious political stuff,” she snapped. “We sell more copies if we put a local celebrity on the cover. Your grand illusions of moral triumph are just that—illusions. Plus, we agreed to call it quits!”

“I know we did,” Huds said. “But I’m allowed to complain, aren’t I?”

“No—because I hate talking about it. Now shut up.”

Huds checked his watch. “Where are they? I have to get to a lecture.”

The feeling in Luce’s stomach hadn’t eased, but the sight of a bob hairstyle pulled her attention.

“There.” She pointed.

A button-nosed girl with a small mouth and a tidy bob hairstyle sheepishly approached an empty table. She looked around at the cafeteria, her cheeks rosy pink.

“CelineSunrise,” Huds said, raising his camera to his eye. He snapped off a series of photos. “Aw, she looks nervous.”

“It’s been a whole year,” Luce said. She tapped her phone and started recording a voice note. “CelineSunrise arrives a mite after one p.m., looking nervous. Apart from going a little bit heavy on the eye makeup, she is pretty in a ‘sneak in through my bedroom window and let’s pretend to study together, while I pretend not to notice the way my nipples point out of this shirt’ kind of way.”

Huds adjusted a knob on his camera and snapped more photos. “I think her eye makeup looks nice. I’m trying to frame out that Ripe For Picking concert poster but—”

“Shh,” Luce reprimanded. She raised her phone and lowered her voice. “She looks around, forlorn, begging the universe not to steal away her chance at potential happiness. It’s been almost a year since she and Hagrid91 first laid eyes on each other at the Pihema’s New Year’s Eve party and subsequently lost contact, making do with increasingly lengthy notes sent to each other through this very magazine. Who knows how many lonely nights she’s spent thinking about this moment? About how it will feel to finally be in Hagrid91’s arms? How many minutes has she spent fantasising about the penis of someone whose moniker refers to a fictional giant from a children’s book series?”

“Do you have to bring everything back to sex?” Huds interrupted.

“Everything is about sex, Huds. Grow up. Ooh, is that him?”

A tall, lanky boy that Huds hadn’t noticed earlier wandered among the tables. He ran a shaky hand through his shoulder length hair, pushing it back behind his ears, then stuck his hands in his pockets.

“Oh no, he’s hideous,” Luce said, unable to keep some guilty glee from her voice. “This is fantastic.”

Huds’ camera shutter clicked faster and faster. “He’s an acquired taste.”

“She can do so much better than him. Oh no, she’s looking around … she’s seen him … make sure you get her reaction.”

To Luce’s surprise, when CelineSunrise finally locked eyes with Hagrid91, her face betrayed no underlying shock or disgust. Instead, she shone. She suddenly looked ten times more confident—and beautiful, if Luce was honest—as she strolled toward him.

The click of Huds’s camera sounded triumphant. So far, none of the students seemed to have noticed them.

CelineSunrise and Hagrid91 closed the gap between each other. They began talking at the same time, laughed, and when Hagrid91 extended his hand awkwardly intending to shake, CelineSunrise batted it away and pulled him into a hug. They stayed hugging longer than Luce would have expected, and Huds’s camera clicked again.

“I wonder what they’re saying,” he said.

Luce grinned. She hadn’t told him yet, but she’d recruited a student from her human geography workshop to record the interaction using his phone’s microphone. She could see him seated near the happy couple and knew he’d be capturing everything they said. She would transcribe it later and add it to the piece. Maybe they’d release the audio file on social media … if that wasn’t illegal. She’d have to check.

“It’s a nice moment,” Luce said. “Perfect end to the story.”

Huds murmured agreement. “Feels poignantly understated—just two people in a cafeteria. No bells and whistles.”

“Yeah…” She stepped out from behind the pilaster and waved her hand at another student from her environmental science class. The student, a stout guy called Vern who always wore heavy metal band shirts, nodded and pulled a cable.

Above the cafeteria, a large canvas banner unfurled with a sound like wind whooshing through a forest. The crowd of a hundred students in the cafeteria turned to look.

Congratulations CelineSunrise and Hagrid91! Together again at last!

The words stood out in garish pink lettering. Vern tossed a handful of confetti over the couple as the watching students cottoned on to what they were witnessing. One by one, they began to applaud. Soon, the whole cafeteria was filled with a cacophony of cheering and wolf whistles.

Luce felt Huds gawking at her, but she avoided his eye and motioned to the couple. “Keep taking photos. You always miss the money shot!”

As Huds acquiesced, Luce spoke into her phone, hoping her voice would be heard over the clamour of the students’ cheers. People had begun to stamp their feet like they were at a sporting event.

“As many of us approach our exams with the sense of an ending, we must also recognise that with an ending comes the chance for new beginnings. Delete that, that’s lame. Um … okay, how’s this: as the year culminates in laborious study and exams for many of us, there are a lucky few who will be easing their frustrations with a much more satisfying climax.”

“Charming,” Huds muttered.

Hagrid91 and CelineSunrise made a perfunctory bow to the clapping students, their smiles wide and bashful. Huds and Luce watched on, complicit yet removed, and Luce felt sure Huds was thinking the same thing as she: the spectacle was a perfect way to end Seen in Silverbridge, but what a shame to end it at all.

Chapter Two
Luce

Luce spent the afternoon working on the final issue of Seen instead of studying for exams. Her university books lay forgotten on her coffee table while her laptop glimmered with photographs of CelineSunrise and Hagrid91.

She interspersed her bouts of writing copy with ordering snacks from Atlantica, her favourite cafe down the street. As her word count rose, she felt her happiness increasing, due to the sickly-sweet nature of the piece.

Luce’s phone vibrated but she ignored it. There was so much to do! Writing copy and choosing photos was merely the tip of the iceberg. The real editorial labour involved planning the structure of the magazine, obtaining signed release forms, and compiling it all into an online document she shared with Huds. Huds crafted the material into a complicated design document that Luce didn’t fully understand. He’d tried to teach her how the layout process worked, but digital masonry held no appeal for her; Luce was all about the human drama.

When her phone had buzzed for the tenth time and showed no signs of stopping, she snatched it up, her eyes fixed on her laptop.

“Yeah?” she barked, jamming the phone between her ear and shoulder.

“Yo,” a deep voice purred. Luce’s frustration evaporated like steam from a coffee mug.

“Jords!” Luce turned away from her computer so she could focus her full attention on her famous sports star boyfriend. “You wanna come over?”

“I wish, boo. But na, I’m out with Tom and Zak.”

“Tell them I say hi.”

“Luce says hi.” This was greeted with enthusiastic roars from Tom Hunt and Zak Babich, Jordan’s teammates from the Silverbridge Arrows, his soccer team. They sounded drunk. Luce checked the time—it was barely six o’clock.

“Could you bring my spare pair of soccer shoes to practice tomorrow? Some of the studs snapped off my current pair.”

“How did that happen?”

Jordan laughed. “The boys bet me I couldn’t do a back flip off the bench in the changing room. But I nailed it and now they owe me beers all night. Smashed off a few of the studs—worth it though.”

Luce rummaged around in the cyclone of fallen clothes in her wardrobe. “Found them. Even better idea though, babe, why don’t you come stay here tonight when you’re done with the boys?”

“I’ll be pretty drunk…” Jordan said, but Luce noted with pleasure that his voice had gotten huskier, and quieter.

“I don’t mind,” she said truthfully. In fact, she enjoyed sex with Jordan more when he was drunk—he was more enthusiastic.

“Yeah? Sweet as. Don’t wait up though.”

“I’ll be up late anyway,” Luce said. The prospect of not having to sleep alone relaxed her. “Working on Seen. Call me if you get horny.”

She hung up, grinning at the thought of Jordan telling his teammates what a lucky guy he was. At twenty-seven he was five years older than her but still lacked maturity.

Luce tried to concentrate on her work, but only three minutes later her phone buzzed again. Men. So predictable. Without looking at it, she let it ring for a few more seconds then picked it up.

“How hard do you get when you think of me?” she asked.

“Lucinda? Is that you?” An older voice.

“Dad!” she yelped, her body feeling like she’d been submerged in a barrel of ice water. “What are you—? Hi! Sorry, that was, um … that was about a … I ordered a pizza, and … I was changing the order, and um … anyway, what are you calling for?”

“I’m not sure we approve of you ordering pizza, Lucinda.”

“Pizza?” Luce heard her mother’s pinched voice in the background. She could picture her parents now, standing aboard a luxury yacht somewhere drinking port, or maybe sitting bolt upright with perfect posture in one of their long-term residential hotel suites. “Give me the phone, Gregory—” A muffled sound as her father handed the phone to her mother. “Lucinda, we didn’t bring you up to poison your body with empty carbohydrates.”

“I know, Mum,” Luce sighed. “I was … ordering it for a friend.”

“You shouldn’t buy things for friends or they’ll start to make a habit of relying on you.”

“I’ll be careful,” Luce placated, staring at her screen, eager to continue working. One never had control over a phone call from the Sharps, so she resigned herself and settled in for the long haul.

“Two things. First: good news. I hope your passport is valid,” her mother said.

“What? Really?” It had been over a year since she’d last seen her parents in person, and that had been a brief weekend visit while they were back in New Zealand for business. They’d had dinner on the Friday in Goldston, but her mother had cancelled their Saturday plans due to feeling poorly. After a rushed Sunday champagne breakfast, Sylvia and Gregory Sharp had boarded a plane due for the United Arab Emirates where Luce’s father had had pressingly important business meetings.

Sylvia Sharp continued, “You will fly to Milan in early December. That time of year is cold in Italy, so make sure you pack coats.”

Milan! Italy! The prospect of travelling to Europe filled her with anxious excitement. “Mum, that’s amazing! Milan? I’ll check my passport. Coats … I have coats.”

“We’ll transfer you some money to buy more. They must be elegant, you understand. Milan is a fashion capital.”

New coats! For a family holiday? It sounded like a dream.

“I’d love that, thanks, Mum. Does this mean we’ll be spending Christmas together? A snowy family Christmas in Europe? Sounds like a picture book.”

“Europe is gorgeous in the winter. Isn’t it, darling?” Luce’s father mumbled assent in the background. “But no, we won’t be spending Christmas together, I’m afraid. Your father and I have commitments in Africa we can’t avoid. No, the reason you’re going to Milan is to meet Valerio Rivera. The designer.”

“Oh, okay … cool.” Luce tried to sound upbeat despite the disappointment spreading through her chest. “I think I’ve heard of him.”

“Her, Lucinda. Valerio is a leading designer who’s only growing more influential. She’s got workshops in over a dozen cities throughout the world now, but her headquarters in Milan still reign supreme. So—brace yourself—we’ve organised an interview for you.”

“An interview?”

“We told her you love fashion so we knew you’d be thrilled,” Sylvia said, sounding like a clueless Queen bestowing unasked-for blessings upon a pauper. “Choose your coats wisely because let me tell you, there is very little room for forgiveness in the fashion world.”

Luce gathered her thoughts. A trip to Milan was beyond the level of good fortune most people received in their lifetimes. Likewise, an interview with a leading fashion designer was more than she could’ve wished for. But Luce’s mother had grossly overestimated her interest in fashion. She enjoyed wearing nice clothes, but Luce had never pored over fashion magazines like other girls at school. Her parents knew so little about her interests despite how often she’d told them.

“Our travel agent will iron out the details. Now, the second thing …”

“The video interview, I know—” Luce tried to get ahead of the scolding she knew would come, but Sylvia talked over her.

“You embarrassed us by missing it. At first, Pablo thought you were late so he waited ten minutes, but when it became clear you’d merely forgotten, he wrote us a rather strongly worded email.”

“I’m sorry, Mum. It’s just that—”

“No excuses. You shouldn’t run from your responsibilities, Lucinda. Your father and I have discussed it and we agree the best course of action is to freeze your allowance. Effective immediately.”

For a second, she couldn’t breathe. “My allowance? But … you’ve paid that since I left home…”

“No more. Simple as that. Actions have consequences, don’t they?”

“Mum, if you could just—”

“Now listen, well done on your exams. Graduating from university is the smart thing to do. Having a degree is like a shiny badge. It might not mean a heck of a lot, but it denotes that you’re in a certain club, which can be helpful.”

“I haven’t actually graduated yet,” Luce said, her mind reeling. How would she pay her bills? Surely she could talk her parents around.

“Seen has almost doubled in readership since this time last year,” she said, cringing at the obvious desperation in her voice. She felt like she was bragging to the cool girl at school about how big her swimming pool was. When her mother didn’t respond, she clarified: “Seen in Silverbridge. Our magazine. Huds and I, we’ve been building it up for the last four years.”

“I remember. That’s very sweet. You’ll always have fond memories of university projects, I’m sure. I’ll put your father on to say goodbye. Be good.”

“But Mum, about the allowance—”

“Lucinda?” Her father’s voice sounded unsure, as if he had forgotten it was him who made the call in the first place.

“Hey Dad, Mum says that we need to discuss alternative arrangements for my allowance, so I was thinking—”

“We’re in the Côte d'Azur,” Gregory said with pride. “That’s how your mother fell in with that designer’s crowd. You know my Sylv, she’ll waltz up to anyone and start pestering them about their livelihood.”

“That sounds nice, Dad. But—”

“While I’ve got you, love, get in touch with Flo, would you? Think she’s feeling a bit dicky.”

“Grandma? What’s wrong with her?”

“I suspect her synapses are finally giving up the ghost. I keep telling your mother it’s only a matter of time before we’ll have to put her out to pasture.”

“Gregory!”

Luce’s father chuckled. “I’m just teasing. We’ll take good care of her, of course. Good luck with your exams, Lucinda.”

“Dad, before you go—we uncovered some dicey accounting going on with the university board,” Luce babbled. “We printed it back in October and they tried to shut the magazine down, which means there’s obviously more to explore. It’s basically money laundering. Can you believe it?”

Her father paused for a long second. She’d gotten his attention now. It was true, what she’d said. It was a huge scoop, proper journalism, although of course, none of their readers cared.

“You ought to be careful who you upset, dear,” Gregory Sharp said. “Money makes the world go round and all that. Mess with the people making the money and you could find yourself in all sorts of trouble.”

“But that’s exactly my point. It’s corrupt! These people, they need to be exposed so they can be stopped by the people’s court!”

Luce’s dad chuckled. “The Court of Public Opinion is a failed experiment, Lucinda. A number of countries have tried handing power to the masses. It’s called Socialism and it always fails. You know why? Because people are fallible, barbaric and generally rather dim. They don’t know what’s good for them. Sad, but true.”

“Right,” Luce said. Somehow they’d gotten onto the subject of politics but she wasn’t quite sure how. She never seemed to be able to have a cogent discussion with her father. “But regardless, people shouldn’t be able to get away with cheating society—”

“It’s morning here, so we better be off,” her father interrupted. “But dear, don’t chase conspiracies, it always ends in tears. Go for pop. Peace and love. All that jazz. Movie stars, musicians—that’s what the people want. Must go. Love you.”

“Love you too,” she said, dazed. A common feeling after talking to her father, like pulling out a sword and finding it was merely a floppy joke prop.

“Yes, you too,” he said again, and the line went dead.