Hollywood Star (2 page)

“David!”
Jeremy said sharply. “Come, boy.”

I stood in awe as the rat with a name stopped yanking at my trouser leg. Giving me a haughty look, it trotted
over to Jeremy and leapt up into his arms. It was then that I noticed it had a collar. I knew Hollywood was a place where weird fads ruled, that some film stars had pigs for pets and others kept snakes, but I honestly thought that Jeremy was far too sensible to put a collar on a rat and call it David.

“Silly girl,” Mum said, reaching out and ruffling David’s head. “Since when do rats bark? This is Jeremy’s Chihuahua. He’s a dog, silly.”

I stared at the creature who was watching me intently from Jeremy’s arms. Of course he was a dog. I’d seen dogs like him before when we watched Crufts and also quite often peeping out from the specially made handbags of hotel heiresses, wearing diamond-encrusted ribbons. It was Just that everything had happened so quickly I’d put two and two together and made eight. Besides, it was the last kind of pet that I expected Jeremy to have.

“Sorry,” I said, feeling the heat in my cheeks. “I didn’t mean to call your dog a rat.”

Jeremy laughed. “Don’t worry, Ruby. When I first set eyes on him that’s exactly what I thought too. He used to belong to the young woman who lives a few houses down. But when it became more fashionable to have a Iamb on a lead she kicked poor old David out into the
street without a second thought. He found his way here so Marie and I decided to give him a home. When you get to know him he’s really quite a character. I’m sure you’ll be great friends.”

Gingerly, I reached out a hand and tried to pat David on the head. He bared his needly little teeth at me and snarled. I wasn’t sure I agreed with Jeremy.

“David’s a funny name for a dog,” I said, withdrawing fingers quickly.

“I call him David because despite his tiny size he’s prepared to take on any Goliath in a fight. He’s got a lion’s heart.” Jeremy grinned and nodded towards the kitchen. “So, let’s have breakfast and plan our first day together in Hollywood.”

David looked at me from over Jeremy’s shoulder and for a second I wondered if the film of my life had turned into a Disney cartoon. Because I could have sworn that the evil little dog was laughing at me.

As I entered the kitchen I had to stop myself for a second by a fridge the size of a car and take a breath at what I saw. There was my mum, with quite a lot of grey roots showing in her hair and wearing some Jogging bottoms
from Primark, sitting holding Jeremy Fort’s hand with one hand and eating a grapefruit with the other.

That was when it hit me.

This
is my life now. My mum is going out with someone properly famous and rich, and I have Just made a film with him due to be released really soon, which means that before long I might be properly famous too, not Just in Britain – but all over the world. I felt my knees buckle and it seemed as if I had forgotten how to breathe out.

School, Dad and Everest, and even Danny and Nydia seemed very far away from me, and I felt homesick and scared, excited and thrilled all at once. This holiday was going to be Just a taste of what my life might turn into. This lifestyle, this kind of house, even this stupid dog with a stupid name could be the sort of thing that I take for granted in a few short weeks when my film comes out. If the last year had been a rollercoaster, I couldn’t imagine what heights the next year might hold for me.

“Well,” Jeremy said as he finished eating breakfast, “I have to confess that I’ve been so busy with this new shoot that I haven’t bought any gifts yet, so as today is Christmas Eve and time is running out I’ve decided I’m taking you two ladies shopping. You can choose whatever you want – so start thinking!”

“Oh Jeremy, you don’t have to do that,” my mum said happily. “We don’t expect you to buy us expensive presents.”

“Don’t we?” I said, a bit disappointed that all the presents under the tree must be fake after all. Mum raised a warning brow at me and Jeremy laughed.

“It feels funny enough as it is,” Mum went on. “Having someone else doing all the cleaning and the cooking and even the Christmas dinner! I hope you don’t think that the reason I…we…Ruby and I…are friends with you is because of all this. I mean, I knew you’d done well, but I honestly had no idea that you were quite so…well…rich.”

“My dear Janice,” Jeremy said, and he actually picked my mum’s hand up and
kissed
it, “I think you and I both know why we have become ‘friends’ and it had nothing to do with the mere trappings of wealth. Besides, if you don’t want expensive presents, then don’t choose expensive presents.”

“But the option is there to go expensive, right?” I said Just to make my mum’s eyes flash.

Jeremy smiled at me. “I can’t remember the last time I had a proper Christmas like this one, with people that I care for. I never married, never had children. What family I have is far away and distant. So you and your mum’s
gift to me this year is your company, and giving me the pleasure of making your stay a happy one.”

“So
we
don’t actually have to buy
you
anything?” I asked mischievously.

“Ruby!” my mum exclaimed. “Remember you manners.”

“It’s fine, Janice,” Jeremy said. “I think my old friend Ruby here is teasing. Besides, it would be difficult to find inexpensive gifts where we are going.”

“Where
are
we going?” I asked.

“Rodeo Drive. The most glamorous shopping street in the world. What do say, Ruby?”

I grinned at my mum. “I say, let’s go shopping!”

Somewhere between leaving in Jeremy’s silver Rolls Royce and returning five hours later, my mum had forgotten entirely that she didn’t want anything from him at all except his “friendship”.

I’ve never really done designer labels, not because I didn’t want to but because I wasn’t allowed to in case I got spoiled. (I should be so lucky.) It seemed, however, that the same rules did not apply to mums who date film stars and even I recognised the labels on the bags that
she came back with: Armani, Gucci, Donna Karan, to name Just a few. All names of people who make a lot of money selling posh stuff that from a not very great distance looks exactly the same as stuff from Marks and Spencer or Asda. But anyway, it made Mum really happy. In fact, more than happy – she was sparkly and excited, like
she
was the teenager let loose with a credit card and not me.

Surprisingly, I found it much harder to spend Jeremy’s money. I kept thinking about my dad and the last time I had seen him, the night before we flew out. I had gone round to his flat to give him instructions for looking after my cat Everest. I also took the present I’d bought for him, which was a DIY manual because he still hasn’t done up his flat, and it’s all miserable and grey and old ladyish.

He looked miserable too when I went in – like he had started to blend in with his surroundings. He made me a hot chocolate and we sat on the lumpy old sofa.

“Are you still OK about me going?” I asked, because he wasn’t talking.

He gave me a sort of unhappy smile and said, “Of course I am.”

“You’ll be all right,” I said, leaning my head on his shoulder. “You’ll have a nice lunch at Granny’s with
Uncle Pete and all that lot, won’t you? You love Granny’s roasties.”

“It’s not the same though, Rube,” Dad said heavily.

At first I felt guilty, but then I realised that if it was up to me, this Christmas would have been exactly like the last. Me, Mum and Dad sitting round the kitchen table in paper hats, and Everest trying to get a great big turkey leg through the cat flap without anyone noticing. Christmas was always good in our house even when Mum and Dad weren’t getting on so well. It was like in the First World War when all the soldiers stopped fighting on Christmas Day and played football instead. Mum and Dad stopped arguing and pulled crackers, and we laughed at the terrible Jokes because we wanted to laugh and we didn’t care if they weren’t funny.

And I suppose I knew last year, and even the year before that, that they were only trying for my sake, but I was glad they did it, because it meant that they were putting me first. I’ve been doing OK about Mum and Dad splitting up, but thinking about the kind of Christmas I would never have again made me feel cross and sad all at once.

“But, Dad,” I’d said, “it wouldn’t have been the same. Christmas wouldn’t have been us all together anyway, would it?”

Dad shrugged so that my head bumped on his shoulder. I sat up. “I know that,” he said shortly. “But I didn’t imagine that I wouldn’t be able to see you at all because you’d be in America with your mum’s new boyfriend.”

I looked at him. “So that’s what you really mind,” I said, my voice quite sharp. “You mind Mum having a boyfriend.”

“It does feel a bit strange, Ruby,” he said. “That’s all.”

“Well,” I said, and maybe I did sound a little bit more “I told you so” than I meant to. “You’re the one who wanted to break up, Dad. Me and Mum didn’t. And it’s not our fault if your so-called girlfriend chucked you and Mum’s going out with a movie star.”

“So
that’s
how it is, is it?”

Dad’s shout was unexpected and I Jumped as he stood up so that a little bit of hot chocolate slopped out of my mug and on to my trousers. I hadn’t realised he was so upset.

“That’s how what is, Dad?” I said, standing too.

“You and your mum against me.” Dad sounded bitter.

“No!” I started to feel cross. “No, Dad, that’s
not
how it is. It’s
you
that wanted to go. It’s you that wanted to be on your own and have a so-called girlfriend. It’s you, Dad, who didn’t even
think
about how Christmas would
be for me and Mum when you left us. I suppose you’d be happy if all we were doing was sitting around an empty table, Just the two of us, feeling miserable and missing you! Would that cheer you up?”

“You used to be such a sweet little thing,” Dad said and he looked at me as if he didn’t know me. “But you’ve changed.”

“It wasn’t me that changed, Dad!” I shouted. “It was my life and you changed it. All I’m doing is my best to live with those changes, and if you don’t like me, then, well then…I’ll be gone tomorrow!”

And I ran out of his flat and slammed the door and ran back home. And I sat outside for quite a long time, cried for a bit and wondered how it was that my dad, with his terrible jokes and silly hair, had got so angry with me for something that he had done. It wasn’t fair. And then I wiped my tears, put on a smile and went indoors. I didn’t want Mum to know we had argued. She was feeling bad enough about taking me away for Christmas as it was.

“Your dad phoned,” Mum said as I went upstairs to double-check my packing. “He says he forgot to say something to you.”

“I’ll ring him later,” I said. But I didn’t.

And for all of the eleven-hour flight, and most of
yesterday and last night and this morning, I didn’t feel bad about it at all. It was only when Jeremy started buying us presents that I felt awkward, as if accepting gifts that Dad could never have afforded to give me or Mum in a million years was taking me another step further away from him.

So all I got was an iPod, three dresses, two pairs of jeans, some trainers and a great big pair of sunglasses with little diamantes sparkling round the rims, just like you see real film stars wearing on TV. Well. I thought it would be rude not to get anything, even though my heart wasn’t really in it.

As we got back in Jeremy’s car I put the sunglasses on with the tag still attached and flapping in my face. Then I rolled down the window and shouted, “Watch out, Hollywood, here comes Ruby Parker!”

I expected Mum to tell me off, but she didn’t. She was too busy looking in her shopping bags and gazing adoringly at Jeremy. I pushed the button to close the window and put her unusual lapse in making sure I kept my feet firmly on the ground down to jet lag and excitement. After all, it had been a mad day. People stopped Jeremy every few minutes, some to get his autograph but more because they knew him, worked with him or were extremely famous themselves. We even
got followed by the paparazzi for a bit and they took Jeremy’s photo, and even mine and Mum’s, when we went for lunch.

Mum and I thought it was rather funny to be followed around by press photographers when they couldn’t have known who we were. We made a game of changing hats, sunglasses and tops as we went from shop to shop, getting snapped in a new outfit each time we came out.

“Just ignore them,” Jeremy told us. “They take photos of me but they never get printed. I’m far too boring to make a tabloid story.”

And after a while the photographers disappeared in search of the snap that would earn them their fortune. I didn’t think I’d ever see one of the photos they took of us in print.

But I was wrong.

People’s Choice Magazine

We love the English, and especially those Hollywood Brits. For years now
IN THE KNOW has
admired one Brit in particular, legendary actor Jeremy Fort. But is it possible that Mr Fort has recently lost the plot (just like his latest action movie)?

Yes, it’s incredible but true –
IN THE KNOW
can exclusively reveal that Jeremy Fort has ditched stunning supermodel Carenza Slavchenkov for a British mom and we’re not talking Madonna!
(photo top left).

Our sources tell us that Janice Parker is the mother of English child actress wannabe Ruby Parker who features alongside Fort in the soon to be released
The Lost Treasure of King Arthur.
(And the studio’s hoping it
does
get lost!) Apparently, an onset friendship soon turned to romance over tea and English muffins, and good old Jerry has brought his ready-made family to La-La Land for the holidays.
IN
THE KNOW
can confirm he was really splashing the cash on Ruby and her mom on Christmas Eve to the tune of $10,000.

It just goes to show that the British are the most eccentric race in the world. Only an Englishman would swap leggy lovely Carenza for a middle-aged fashion-disaster nobody. Perhaps next time you get out your credit card, Jeremy, you should treat Mrs Parker to a little nip and tuck for New Year?