Brand - I Carried a Watermelon

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Thank you first and foremost to my agent, Cathryn Summerhayes, and HQ publisher Lisa Milton, who had such absolute belief and enthusiasm for this idea, and made a deal happen so fast it made my head spin. That kind of speed gives anyone doing creative work such an immense boost from the beginning that the energy cant help but be positive on starting writing. I still cant believe it. Its like a miracle.

Thanks to all who work with Cathryn at Curtis Brown for the endless help and patience with getting everything in place. Thanks to the whole team at HQ, especially Kate Fox for great early notes and reassurance, and Sophie Calder and all the publicity department for getting the word out in such a dynamic and exciting way. Thanks to all who were involved with the cover shoot and design it was a ridiculously fun afternoon, and I am still washing bits of watermelon out of my hair.

Thanks to Liz Marvin for the sensitive and superb copy editing you made the book 100 per cent better in every way. Thanks to all at HarperCollins for making me feel so welcome (and throwing an excellent party!). Thanks to Mandy Ward and Kirsty Lloyd-Jones, who helped me build my career over many years. Thanks to Deborah Frances White for making some incredibly helpful points, and sending some brilliant thoughts of her own on Dirty Dancing which I was able to quote. Thanks to Vix Leyton for the chat about Secret Cinema. Thanks to Hadley Freeman, Tracey Thorn, and Tanya Gold for excellent quotable writing. Thanks to Irin Carmon and all the other bloggers, journalists and writers who have produced such insightful work on Dirty Dancing in recent years. And thanks to all those who responded on Twitter to my questions Im sorry I couldnt quote you all in the book.

Thanks to my husband David, the greatest first reader a writer could hope for, and to Skye and Thomas for endless joy and inspiration. Thanks to my parents and sister, Jessica, for putting up with me, and to Jessica especially for the excellent and expert advice on the cover.

Thanks to everyone who has given me all the experiences I have talked about in the book if nothing happens, I cant write it! I hope I have been fair

Thanks to all at Mountain Lake Lodge (or Kellermans, as I will always call it) for an utterly magical Dirty Dancing weekend.

And finally, all thanks must go to Eleanor Bergstein, Patrick Swayze, Jennifer Grey, and everyone else who created the masterpiece that is Dirty Dancing.

It was the summer of 1990, when everyone called me Katy and it never occurred to me to mind. Mainly because that was my name. I was 11 years old. The world felt new, my secondary school uniform felt newer, and as it was a weekend I was told that if I wanted to, I could stay up to watch this film Id barely heard of on TV called Dirty Dancing.

I liked films with dancing in them like Bandwagon, Singin in the Rain, and Top Hat, with Gene Kelly or Fred Astaire. My favourite films were Mary Poppins and The Sound of Music, where women on a mission turn up and sort some people out. I liked the big numbers and sassy romantic story-lines, the up-against-the-clock drive when characters put their differences aside to pull together for the Big Show, the finale. I knew I liked the old stuff best. I could take or leave Grease, frankly its always struck me as a bit cold. Rizzo was all right, but Rizzo was meant to be a schoolkid and she looked like she was 45 and already on her third divorce. So even though this so-called Dirty Dancing was intriguing, I wasnt expecting much. I could always turn it off if I didnt like it.

Well.

Im not sure I moved a muscle for the entire duration of the film. Its possible I held my breath. When it finished, I went straight upstairs for I couldnt bear to break the spell by talking to anyone. I lay in bed, staring at the glowing star stickers on my bedroom ceiling, tracing them from one to the next. I was trying to remember every moment and relive it. My body was alive with some unspecified but powerful energy. My mind was blown.

Scenes flew across my memory like shooting stars with such speed and brightness that I couldnt keep hold of them for long. It was a feeling. A heartbeat. And my heart was beating out of my chest. The opening the familys arrival at the hotel inauspicious in some respects, but with the promise of something more as porter Billy and Baby bond over unloading the bags. Then the tingle of the opening bars to (Ive Had) The Time of My Life, played slowly on the piano, a tease of the magic yet to come, as Baby makes her way up to the main house to look around, and later glimpses Johnny being told off by Max Kellerman (no funny business, no conversation, and keep your HANDS OFF). That opening dance number, where Penny and Johnny burst into the room and show what they can really do left me almost panting. The stage is set this magnificent, talented man, pulsating with passion, but with a bad attitude, is breathing the same air as our Baby. The anticipation of what would happen next was almost too strong to handle

And then, and then, oh and then that staff after-party still my favourite scene the sense of stepping into something ripe but forbidden, too good to turn back now. The dancing like nothing I had ever seen before, raw and direct, primal. I felt hot thinking about it. And giggling and hugging myself over that line, I carried a watermelon, as Johnny curled his lip and Baby scolded herself for being so naff. I felt I could so easily be her. It was coming back to me in flashes the impossibility of the task ahead of Baby learning to dance to a professional standard in five days; the build-up of tension between Baby and Johnny, so perfectly paced you knew what was going to happen, but you couldnt wait to see it the delicious inevitability of it. And then that sex scene the confidence of Baby now! To pull him in, to make it happen. Could a girl really do that? Could she just go and get a man if she wanted him? I couldnt believe it.