Hollywood Star (13 page)

“I don’t know,” I shrugged. Adrienne squinted at me. “Honestly, why would I know? No one tells me anything.”

Considering that I am terrible at lying, they seemed to believe me. I decided not to think about what would happened once they found out the truth.

“Well, I want
you
to make up with him so that when he comes back to Hollywood
you
can introduce him to me and
we
will fall instantly in love,” Adrienne said happily as if her wish really was my command.

“But what about Hunter?” I asked her, a little shocked.

“Hunter is the male lead in
Hollywood High,”
Adrienne said with a shrug. “And he’s the best-looking boy in our grade, so naturally I’m dating him. But if Sean Rivers were available? Well,
that
would be a whole other story…”

“Okey-dokey,” I said, even though I didn’t think it. I felt a bit like I was being swept away in a fast-flowing river of crazed girl power.

“Working with you is going to be so great, Ruby,” Nadine said, her voice suddenly warm and friendly again.

“Thanks,” I said with a smile, feeling my knotted tummy muscles relax a little. No matter how different or
difficult it was to be friends with these girls, at least I could feel good about the fact that they had chosen to like me for me.

“Hey,” Adrienne said suddenly, “when you go to the premiere of your movie you can take us as your guests and we can all get photographed on the red carpet – how cool will that be?”

“That will be cool,” I said. Perhaps they didn’t like me for me after all. But they
liked
me, and even if it was Just because of the people I knew or a potential invitation to a film premiere, as far as I could see it was
much
safer to be liked than hated by them. And that was the way I intended it to stay.

When it came to shooting my first scenes for
Hollywood High,
it was actually quite relaxing compared to hanging out with Nadine and Adrienne, trying to think up mean and funny things to say about whomever they decided to pick on at any given moment. I noticed that all the people at the beginning of the day who’d said “hi” and smiled at me had gradually begun to ignore me until only the inner circles of girls that Nadine and Adrienne approved of would even look at me.

So, despite my blushing issue, it was actually a relief that all of my first scenes were with Hunter Blake, shot on location outside the school. I didn’t know him at all apart from the article in
It’s Your Life!
called ‘Get to know Hunter Blake – his Top Ten Favourite Things’, so at least I knew his favourite colour was green and he seemed like a really nice, easy-going boy who reminded me a bit of Sean, except that he made me blush and Sean never did.

“Hey, Ruby,” he said while we were waiting for Suzie to come and listen to us read our scenes through together. “How was your first day at Beaumont? Have Adi and Nadine managed to clone you into one of them yet?”

I laughed properly for the first time that day. “They’re still working on it,” I said with a smile, shading my eyes from the sun as I looked up at him. “They’ve been really kind to me. My first day would have been really scary if it hadn’t been for them.”

“That’s true,” Hunter said, mimicking the deep and gravelly tone of a film trailer voiceover.
“They have the power to make your day really great or really, really bad.”

“I know which I prefer,” I told him.

“Me too,” Hunter said with a rueful grin. Then I saw Adrienne watching us from a distance and even though I wasn’t standing at all close to Hunter, I took a step back.

“Hey, guys,” Suzie Blenheim came over. “Let me hear you read the scene through while they set up the cameras and the lighting.” She smiled at me. “We don’t like to rehearse too much, Ruby; we like to keep that realistic, improvised edge. If you want to change the script a little or if you have any ideas for the scene, then tell us. We’re all very open here, OK?”

I nodded and felt a bubble of excitement in my tummy. After all, this is what I loved to do. The reason I spent so many years on
Kensington Heights,
why I made myself sick auditioning for
The Lost Treasure of King Arthur
and why, despite all of my reservations, I was here today, was to act.

Acting was the fun part, the wonderful and magical part that made me feel happy and alive. And if I could forget, even Just for a little while all of the complicated and difficult parts that seemed to come with it, then it would be worth it.

When Hunter and I read through the scene I was a different girl in a different world for a few minutes, and it felt good.

“That was great, Ruby,” Suzie told me with a broad smile once we had finished. “But I need you to relax a little and remember Lady Elizabeth wants to take Hayden from his girlfriend. So you need to try
acting
shy and
vulnerable, but sort of flirtatious and confident too. Can you do that?”

I looked at her. “Yes,” I said, thinking to myself that if I could, it would be a first in both my acting and my real life.

But here I was on the set of a TV show, acting opposite one of America’s hottest young stars. All I had to do was to let myself disappear into the mind of Lady Elizabeth. Instead of being Ruby saying her words, I had to
be
Elizabeth, I had to
think
and
feel
her words. And gradually, after take after take, that special kind of magic you sometimes get when you are acting really well began to happen.

“That’s a wrap for today, everybody!” Suzie called a few hours later to a ripple of applause from the cast and crew. “Really great work, guys,” she said, coming over to me and Hunter and giving us both a hug. “Ruby, you nailed it, honey. There’s a day off for you kids tomorrow and then interior scenes on Wednesday and Friday. And pick-ups Saturday morning. Good Job, everyone!”

I walked back to the make-up and costume trailers where I found Jeremy talking to Mr Blenheim.

“Any time we can persuade you to do a guest role, you let me know,” Mr Blenheim was telling Jeremy. “We love to get quality actors like you on board. It would light the whole show up. Give it kudos.”

“Thank you. I’ll bear it in mind,” Jeremy said politely, smiling as he saw me approaching. I said hello and goodbye to Mr Blenheim as he left to talk to Suzie.

“So, Ruby, how was your day of firsts?” Jeremy asked me jovially.

“Fine,” I said happily. “Great actually, especially the scenes I shot today. I remembered what you taught me.” I looked around. “Where’s Mum. She said she’d be here.”

“Janice couldn’t make it,” Jeremy said. “A meeting came up at the last minute. She’s with Lisa planning what you and…” He glanced around at the group gathering around us, Adrienne pushing her way to the front. “Well, it was important, Ruby.”

“Oh,” I said. I felt disappointed. I was looking forward to being with Mum on the drive home, me telling her about my day and listening to her stories. And then maybe we’d sing along to our favourite new song and Mum would get all the words wrong. I wanted to tell her about Adrienne and Nadine and maybe, if she seemed in an understanding mood, even about the girl called Tina who I had been unkind to. I wanted her to tell me that I
was wrong to do that, because although I already knew that, knowing didn’t seem enough to stop me doing it.

“She sends her apologies,” Jeremy said. “And as I didn’t have scenes to shoot this afternoon, I came to pick you up instead of just sending the chauffeur.”

“That is nice,” I told him, smiling and feeling suddenly very tired. “Thank you.”

I glanced around at Adrienne, Nadine and quite a few of the other cast members who were all waiting to meet Jeremy Fort.

“Well,” I said. “Let me introduce you to my new friends.”

Later that night, after two helpings of chocolate pudding, I climbed gratefully into bed, with David curled up in a tiny bony ball at my feet. I was exhausted and the thought of getting up and going through another whole school day made me feel even more tired. It was something I had to get used to though, because I would be doing it every weekday for the next six weeks. I was supposed to have been back in England, but now it wouldn’t be until late February that I’d get back home. I wondered if Everest would even talk to me because he
was bound to know I’d been hanging out with a dog. And not even a proper dog, but the silliest, smallest and crassest dog the world had ever known.

Tomorrow was going to be hard. Not only because I only had one acceptable thing to wear (which now had chocolate sauce down it), or because my new friends frightened me most of the time. It would also be hard because, despite everything, I was homesick.

Not Just for the grey skies and wet pavements, a yearning of Jeremy’s that I suddenly understood. Not just for the buildings, my house, my bedroom and my cat. And not only for the people that I missed so much, Dad and Nydia, Danny and the others.

I was homesick for a home that I was sure had vanished.

A dad who didn’t seem to care about me any more, friends who hated me and an ex-boyfriend who was probably already dating Jade Caruso.

I felt like I was homesick with no real home to go to.

22 Green Park Road London NW1

Dear Ruby,

I hope you don’t mind me writing to you. I thought about sending an e-mail, but it didn’t seem right. I thought about phoning too, but i knew it i talked to you I wouldn’t get what i wanted to say elear in my mind.

I’m sorry that when we spoke on the webeam I was tunny with you and you got upset. Rubes, I know you never meant to spoil things for Sean and everyghing that happened was just you being on TV in America and not realising what you were saying. I saw a tape of you on that show and it was odd. It made me think that you weren’t my Ruby Parker any more; you were Ruby Parker, Hollywood Star. Which made me think, who am I now? Am I the same Danny Harvey that kissed you on the set of
Kensington Heights? I don’t think I am any more, which probably sounds strange because you’ve only been gone three weeks, but it’s been long enough for some things to happen.

Ruby, I think we should break up. You always told me that we are too young to act like Romeo and Juliet and get all serious, and I think you are right.

You are a good friend and I still really like you. I hope that when you are back we will be OK as friends.

Take care then,

Danny

Danny’s letter came on the Saturday after I had finished my first week on
Hollywood High.
It was waiting for me on a silver plate on the table by the door.

When I saw his handwriting my heart leapt a little bit. I ran up the stairs with David at my heels and took the letter straight to my bedroom to read, full of happiness to have heard from him.

My first ever love letter, I thought, as I sat on my bed and opened the envelope imagining all the sweet and lovely things that Danny would say to me and how sorry he was and how much he missed me.

I was disappointed.

I didn’t expect to cry, but I did. Suddenly, as the words he had written sank in and I realised that we were actually properly finished, for good. As the tears came and I lay down on my bed, buried my head in the pillow and wept, David’s cold and wet pointed muzzle poked me in the cheek as he licked away the salty tears.

“Ruby?” I heard Mum’s voice on the other side of the door. “Ruby are you coming down for lunch?”

I held my breath and waited for all trace of tears to be gone from my voice. I didn’t want Mum to catch me crying.

“In a minute,” I said when I thought I sounded normal again. Obviously, I didn’t sound normal enough because Mum opened the door and came in, setting David off into a barking frenzy.

“Oh, shut up, you idiot dog,” my mum said, sending him scooting under the covers with a whimper.

“Ruby, why are you crying?” she asked me in a much softer voice that made me want to cry even more, because Mum had not been very mum-like recently and I had missed her fussing over me more than I thought possible.

She sat on the edge of the bed and put the palm of her hand on my back. I pointed at the letter that had slid on to the floor and tried to speak, but my words got all muddled up in sobs. Mum picked up the letter.

“May I read it?” she asked. I nodded.

“Oh dear, Ruby,” Mum said when she put down the letter. “I’m sorry about that. I thought Danny was a nice boy, I really did, and you two were sweet together. But you know, you
are
only thirteen. And you two do live on opposite sides of the world now.”

“No, we don’t!” I protested. “This is only meant to be a holiday! He says that I’m different, but I’m not. He is. He’s changed and something else apart from his Christmas number one and six thousand Christmas cards has done it to him. And we’re not living here
forever.”

“Well, who knows where events might take us,” Mum said lightly. “Look, darling, I know you feel bad, but I promise you in a few weeks you won’t even remember what you saw in him. In a few years you won’t even remember who he was.”

“I will!” I answered. “Just because I’m a kid doesn’t mean I don’t feel things!”

“I know you feel lots of things, but what I’m saying is that they will pass,” Mum said.

I lay still for a moment and looked at the pattern on my pillowcase. There was something / had to know.

“Mum.” I sat up and rubbed my eyes, smudging the mascara I’d so carefully applied earlier, practising to get perfect. “Can I ask you something?”

Mum nodded and smiled.

“If I tell you that I want to go home, for good, will you promise to take me?”

Mum looked at me levelly. “Do you want to go home now?” she asked me instead of answering the question.

I thought about what it would be like seeing Danny and Nydia and the others when I wasn’t friends with them and it made me want to cry again. I swallowed the tears though.

“No, not right now. But if I
do
want to go home, even if I get offered loads of roles here and get nominated for an Oscar, will you Just take me without trying to make me stay?”

Mum nodded. “If that’s what you really want, then I will,” she said. “But hopefully, it won’t come to that.” She gave me a quick hug and kissed the top of my head.

“Now wash your face and come down for lunch. I’ve just spoken to Suzie and she says they are really pleased with how you are doing. Also I have lots to tell you about the release of
The Lost Treasure of King Arthur,
including the premiere, so start thinking about what to wear!”

A lot of the things Mum said to me as I picked at lunch washed over my head. I vaguely heard something about a premiere, some interviews and possibly even a photo shoot for some magazine. And then I heard Sean’s name.

“Say that again?” I asked her.

“Sean is arriving here next Friday, in time for the release of the film. He’ll escort you to the premiere. But before that, he and you will record an interview for
The
Carl Vine Show,
all taped beforehand with no audience so much less pressure for you.

“Sean’s coming in a week?” I asked. “And he’s taking me to the premiere? But that means photographers and press and that is exactly what he doesn’t want.”

“Apparently Art has talked to him about how the film is being received by the critics and how important it is that he supports it. So, being an honourable young man, Sean has agreed to do this one last bit of publicity before retiring for good.”

“Poor Sean,” I said, staring at my tuna salad.

“Well I’m sure there are millions of fifteen-year-old boys who would love to be famous movie stars so I don’t think we’ll feel too sorry for Sean.”

I looked at my mum in surprise. “Millions of boys might want it, but until you’ve done it you don’t know how hard it is,” I told her. “And it was harder for Sean than anyone.”

“Well,” my mum said. “Maybe. Now eat up all that baby spinach leaf. You’ve got a busy week ahead and you’ll need all of your strength.”

It‘s Your Life!

The magazine for girls that have really got it going on

GET TO KNOW…RUBY PARKER!

This week
we’re
getting to know ihe latest export from Cool Britannia – Ruby Parker!

IYL:
If you could be a pet, which type of pet would you be?

RP:
I’d be my cat Everest,
because
he has the best life of any cat I know. All he does is lay in the sun all day or on a radiator and eat food.

IYL:
And who would you most like to feed you kitty treats?

RP:
Oh, I don’t know!
Someone nice.

IYL
:
If you were a cookie, what type of cookie would you be?

RP:
Easy. A double chocolaie chip cookie.

TYL:
Which is better, a night in with a movie and the boy you have a crush on, or a night out with your girlfriends dancing till dawn!

RP:
My
mum wouldn’t like me to stay out until dawn, but I’ll pick dancing all night.

IYL:
Describe your personality in three words.

RP
:
Gosh, um, fun, friendly and fashionable!

So there you have it! Now you know Ruby Parker better than she knows herself!

Mum was right about my busy week. It was a week of being an actual celebrity of being someone who wasn’t famous for her acting (because no one in America had even seen me act yet). But Just famous for being…well, famous.

First of all, Adrienne and Nadine nearly went into hyperspace when I told them that Sean would be escorting me to the premiere of
The Lost Treasure of King Arthur
and that Wide Open Universe had invited all of the cast and crew of
Hollywood High
to it too.

“Sean Rivers is taking us to the premiere!” Adrienne had shrieked at the top of her voice.

“Well, me, technically,” I replied hesitantly, but then I saw that scary look in her eye and added, “But of course he’ll be with all of us.”

And from that point on it got kind of embarrassing because the three of us (but mainly the two of them) never stopped talking about Sean and how wonderful it would be to meet him, and how he’d asked especially to meet Adrienne (I didn’t remember that bit, but I thought it was best not to contradict) and what we (they) were going to say, wear, think and do with Sean. Oh, and by the way, wasn’t it wonderful that Sean Rivers would only come out of hiding for Adrienne (me) and no one else?

If Adrienne and Nadine didn’t get sick of the sound of their own voices then everyone else certainly did. The students who weren’t on Adrienne’s elite list of friends might have avoided me before, but now it was clear that they hated me. And I didn’t really blame them. It must have looked as though I was properly stuck up and that I considered myself to be too good for anyone else. The truth wasn’t like that at all, but Nadine and Adrienne had sort of taken me over. They told me how to look, what to say and how to act, and I let them. Without their help I would have been completely lost and stuck out on the edge of school society, which was somewhere I didn’t want to be, especially not in Hollywood.

Besides, Adrienne could be funny even if she could be mean, and when I hung out with her I also got to hang out with Hunter. He still made me blush whenever he talked to me, but he made me forget about how much I missed Danny, and he knew how to make me laugh properly, and not Just because I was too frightened not to.

One morning recess I discovered to my surprise that not all of the kids Adrienne hated, automatically hated me back. I was waiting outside the girls’ Ioo for Adrienne to finish her make-up before we were picked up and taken to the studio to film some scenes (where they would take off
all that make-up and put some different stuff on) when Tina Petrelli went by. She walked a step or two past me, then stopped, turned around and said, “Hey, Ruby.”

“Oh!” I checked over my shoulder to make sure she wasn’t greeting someone else. “Urn, hello,” I said with a smile. Tina hadn’t even looked at me since my first day when I had taken her desk.

“I Just wanted to say that I love you in
Kensington Heights.
I watch it on BBC America. When you play Angel you get right under her skin. It was real deep. Not that glossy, shallow garbage they do on
Hollywood High.”

“Oh, don’t you like it?” I asked her, surprised.

“Nobody cool likes it,” she told me with a shrug. “It’s for dorks.”

“It’s very popular in the ratings,” I said.

“Well, that goes to show there are a lot of dorks out there,” Tina said with a chuckle. When she smiled she looked like a different person; her face opened up and her bright brown eyes sparkled. She looked friendly, fun and although not exactly fashionable (my three stupid words from the ‘Get to know Ruby Parker’ article), just the kind of girl I’d enjoy hanging out with.

“Kensington Heights
seems like a long time ago,” I said, even though it was only a few months since I had left the show.

“Your life
has
changed a lot recently,” Tina said sympathetically. “Are you happy, Ruby?”

I paused for a moment, surprised by a question that nobody else had asked me.

“Well,” I said, “I’m doing what I’ve always dreamed of doing, but then again I suppose I was doing that before and back at home it seemed a whole lot less frightening…”

“So are you happy?” Tina pressed me for an answer.

“Acting makes me happy,” I replied. “But sometimes all the stuff that goes with it is hard to deal with.”

“Ah, yes,” Tina nodded sagely. “The trappings of fame.”

We smiled at each other.

“I’m in a theatre club,” Tina said. “I know its a bit obvious to be in a theatre club in a dramatic arts school, but some of us have devoted ourselves to theatre as an art form because we feel it’s more relevant to what acting is truly about.”

“Sounds interesting,” I said, and I meant it because although I’d done a lot of TV and even film in my short career, I’d never done any theatre. Not even a school play.

“If you’re really interested, we’re putting on a production of
The Seagull.
Do you know it?”

I shook my head slowly feeling a little bit stupid.

“You’d love it,” Tina assured me. She hesitated again, biting at her bottom lip. “Look, if you can get away from the witches, why don’t you come one day after school and see what you think?”

“The witches?” I bit my lip but smiled. It was a pretty good description of what Adrienne and Nadine could be like, cackling and plotting all the time. “Well…”

But before I could answer, the loo door swung open and Adrienne appeared, fully made-up and ready to face having her make-up redone.

“Why are you hanging around?” she snapped at Tina sharply, looming over her in her heeled shoes. “Ruby doesn’t talk to you. She doesn’t even look at you, OK?”

Tina didn’t move. She looked at me, her eyebrows raised in a question. “What do you say, Ruby?” she asked.

Adrienne narrowed her eyes at me.

I wanted to say that I would go to Tina’s theatre club because it sounded interesting and fun, and if I hung out with Tina, I might not be nervous and frightened of saying something wrong all the time. There was a chance, I thought, that if I said yes to Tina, Adrienne would be surprised but not offended and might even start to treat her a bit better.
Or
she could despise me and
make my life for the rest of my stay at Beaumont a misery too.

I Just didn’t feel brave enough to find out which. “I don’t think so,” I said, unable to look Tina in the eye.

“I was so wrong about you,” Tina said in disgust. “You’re no better than they are.”

“You dream about being like me,” Adrienne called out after her. “I have nightmares about waking up like you!” She swung an arm around my shoulder and led me off to find Nadine and Hunter and the others.

“I don’t know how she had the nerve to talk to you. Loser!”

I am ashamed to say that I didn’t disagree.

And then that afternoon something weird happened on the set of
Hollywood High.

We were filming a fight scene set in the canteen. It was going to be a food fight started by Lady Elizabeth to try and make Sabrina look bad in front of Hayden. We’d been rehearsing it with bits of screwed-up coloured paper, each a different colour for a different type of food, and in one shot Adrienne and I had even had to have
stunt doubles because the studio wasn’t insured for what injuries some chocolate cake in the face might cause us when travelling at speed.