Page 11 of The Next Chapter

Summary:

This report details information obtained via inland revenue and electoral registers into the whereabouts of one LOLA STARR. Lola is believed to reside at the address below:

Broadford Hotel and Water Sports Centre

Broadford

Isle of Skye

Scotland

IV49 9AB

After conducting extensive research into several unconfirmed sightings of LOLA STARR in the United States, our investigation concluded that one LOLA STARR has resided at the above address since approximately 16 March 1994, when she first appears on the electoral register of the UNITED KINGDOM under the name Lola Vain. According to deed polls, Lola Starr became Lola Vain in January 1994. Lola Vain is the same person as Lola Starr, the former lead singer of the pop punk band Beyond Baton Rouge. Our investigation concludes that neither Lola Starr, nor Lola Vain are registered as having been married. Lola Starr has no children beyond one, Lily Brown. The adoption order for Lily was finalized in March 1994.

As per our client’s request, no contact has been made with the subject of this report. This information was correct as of 14 May 2022.

Please find attached our invoice. Payments can be made via bank transfer or over the telephone.

In something that feels close to complete and utter shock, I search for Lola’s hotel on my phone, pulling up an image of a white building next to a lake.

I can’t believe Lola lives there. Here. This whole time I’d been sure that there was a full-on gigantic ocean between us when she’s been right here the whole time.

‘Shit,’ Seb says, reading over my shoulder. ‘She was way easier to find than I thought she’d be.’

‘I don’t know if she was,’ I tell him. I sound like I’ve been drugged. ‘It says they looked in America first. No one expected her to be in the UK. She was American. Why is she in Scotland?’

I’m just looking between the letter and my phone.

My brain can’t connect the image of Lola in my imagination with a Lola who lives in some secluded spot in Scotland. It’s there in black and white. Lola was a party girl, a superstar. Lola in the band had more glamour in her little finger than I have in my entire being. I look again at the picture of her in the orange dress. Her hair is blonde and big. Not big in the way that mine gets big, which is entirely of its own violation. Big in a way that suggests it was meant to be like that. Her eye make-up is smudged, so I know there was a lot of it. Her lipstick is bright red. I don’t know if it’s weird to notice your birth mum’s boobs, but she’s wearing the push-up bra to end all push-up bras. We’re just… very obviously different.

And that’s before you even consider that she used to hang out with Bill Clinton.

I silently spiral while Seb sifts through some of the magazine articles that I have in my folder. Being gentle with them.

‘Right,’ he says. ‘Let’s sort this shit out. Start at the beginning. Tell me what we know about Lola already.’

I take a deep breath.

I don’t like talking about Lola, but I do know many things about her. Apparently, it’s a thing when you’re adopted. They like kids to know about their birth mum because it saves them coming up with their own version of events, or else jumping to conclusions. Mum and Dad had told me a bit about Lola’s early life, information the adoption agency must have shared with them.

Talking about Lola’s early life feels a lot safer than thinking about that letter.

‘Okay, so you probably know some of this stuff, I mean, it’s on her Wikipedia page. Lola grew up just outside Baton Rouge, Louisiana. That’s where they got the name of the band from, I think. She was really poor, from what Mum and Dad said.’

‘How did she end up in the band, then?’ Seb asks.

‘It’s one of those stories that no one believes could happen in real life, but Jimmy Nickel, you know their manager, he was on holiday there and heard her busking. She was only seventeen or something, crazy young. Anyway, he was putting a band together in LA. The label wanted to tap into the pop punk thing that was big in the nineties, find the next Gwen Stefani. He invited her to try out, and you know the rest. They were huge. More so in America, but big over here, too. It makes sense that she’d go a bit wild, when you think about where she came from.’

‘He died a few years back, didn’t he?’

‘Jimmy?’ I ask. Seb nods.

‘Yeah, I think so. I haven’t heard much about him for years, but he was like Simon Cowell famous when the band made it big.’

‘So, Lola goes to LA and gets proper famous. What next – where do you come in? You don’t know who your dad is, right?’

Seb must see me flinch.