Hollywood Star (3 page)

The first week in Hollywood passed in a flash. Before I knew it, it was nearly New Year’s Eve.

Until then Christmas had been nice. Or perhaps I should say wonderful because of all the effort that Jeremy and Augusto and Marie put in. But the best I can say is nice, because it was so different from the kind of Christmas I was used to and it would have taken a lot longer than one day to get used to it.

It wasn’t at all like being at home with Mum and Dad and Everest. Mum always used to insist that we all opened only one present before breakfast and then saved the rest till after lunch. But not in Jeremy’s house. We opened all the presents at once, first thing in the morning, creating a whirlwind of shiny paper and ribbon and lots of glittery sparkles that drove David mad.

The Chihuahua even had several gifts of his own, most of which were food-based. One was a sort of royal-blue satin throne bed with a little gold-painted wooden staircase leading up to the mattress. But David was more
interested in ripping up the paper than lounging on the bed, which made him seem a bit more dog-like and a lot less evil nemesis.

As I opened my gifts I found the things I had picked out on Rodeo Drive and a whole lot more besides that somehow Mum and Jeremy had chosen without me knowing. Clothes, shoes – some even with a low heel and a bit of a pointy toe – and best of all a make-up set. I stared open-mouthed at my mum who never, ever let me wear make-up except for work or the occasional event.

“That’s from me,” she said with a smile. “I thought it was about time you had something to practise with. But not to be worn outside the house unless I say so, OK?”

“OK, Mum,” I said and immediately put on some green sparkly eyeshadow. I didn’t look exactly how Anne-Marie did when she wore it, but I was happy anyway.

And then Mum handed me something she had brought from home. I could tell because it was wrapped in normal penguin-in-a-bobble-hat Christmas paper, not covered in tons of ribbons and bows.

“From your dad,” she said. I took a breath and opened it.

It was a blue top from Miss Selfridge that I had shown Dad the last time we went out for lunch. I looked at it and
suddenly I realised how much I missed him. My dad who went into a girls’ shop to buy a top he especially knew I wanted all on his own with no one to help him. The top probably cost a fraction of any of the other gifts that I had, but along with my make-up set it was the best one there.

I wanted to ring Dad and thank him. I looked at my watch and then at my mum. It was Just after ten in the morning here so it would be about teatime at home.

“Go on,” she said with a smile. “Call him and say Happy Christmas from me too.”

But when I dialled Dad’s number the phone just rang and rang, and I imagined his horrible, cold, empty grey flat all those thousands of miles away echoing with the sound. I tried his mobile next, but that went to voicemail. I supposed he couldn’t hear it at Granny’s. I didn’t leave a message because I thought that after the last time we spoke a message wasn’t right, so I padded back downstairs.

After presents came Christmas lunch. It was a bit like I imagine having Christmas at Buckingham Palace would be and was about as different from lunch at home as it could be. Jeremy’s dining room, with its mile-long shiny wooden table that could seat about thirty, was a universe apart from our kitchen table with the wobbly leg and the
giant cat permanently installed under it in the hopes of pinching scraps. David did race up and down underneath the table, yapping for treats and nipping toes, but it wasn’t the same. I wondered what Everest would think of David and I decided that he would probably eat him.

Lunch was delicious though. Augusto and Marie, who were married but didn’t have any children yet, ate with us, which was really nice. The adults drank champagne and Augusto turned out to be very funny, telling us all about the famous neighbours and what they get up to when they think no one is looking. When I asked him how he knew all of these stories he looked very solemn and told me it was Chef’s Code and he could not reveal his sources.

“When chefs get together they are like a bunch of old women gossiping,” Marie said, chuckling.

After lunch Jeremy took us for a walk around his gardens. I trailed a little bit behind as he and Mum walked on ahead hand in hand, while David ran in and out of his legs, threatening to trip him up. They really did look comfortable, like a couple who had been together for years. It was strange: the more time I spent with Jeremy like this, off a film set and just sort of hanging about with
him, the less I saw him as that dynamic, daring actor I admired so much. I mean I still admired and looked up to him, but it was like he was splitting into two people. Famous Jeremy Fort, former dater of supermodels, and just Jeremy, my mum’s middle-aged, slightly balding, easy-going boyfriend. If he had been an accountant he would have been a lot easier to get used to.

By the time I went to bed I was exhausted, but also glad that the day was over. Because as nice as it had been, I still missed that last Christmas with Mum and Dad and the stupid paper hats and Mum trying not to swear when the turkey wasn’t cooked on time. I wished I’d known it was going to be the last one we’d all have as a proper family, because I would have been more careful to remember every detail.

Just before I went to sleep I thought about trying to phone Dad again, but I decided it would be too early in the morning at home, so instead I climbed into my massive bed and stared at the ceiling. Then, after a while, I took all my pillows and piled them down at the bottom of the bed. I decided to sleep upside down. Perhaps it would help me get that holiday feeling back again.

It wasn’t until New Year’s Eve that we saw the column about Mum and Jeremy in
People’s Choice Magazine.
After a week of sightseeing and more shopping trips, we were having a quiet day before Mum and Jeremy went out to a party at a neighbour’s house. (And by neighbour I mean Catherine Zeta-Jones!) I had been invited but I decided to stay at home with Marie and Augusto, because as exciting as it might have been to get dressed up and see how many famous people I could spot (a lot), when it came down to it, it would still be an adult party with no one there for me to talk to. And Augusto and Marie were a lot of fun, plus Marie promised to make me her extra-special hot chocolate drink to toast the New Year in, if I could stay up that late. I said I’d try.

In fact, Mum and I had been picking out a dress for her to wear when we found out about the article. We might not have seen it at all (and things would have been so different if we hadn’t) except for Jeremy’s publicist, Michael White. I’d seen him around before on the set of
The Lost Treasure of King Arthur,
but I never really paid any attention to him because Jeremy seemed to think of him as more of a necessity than a boon and much preferred to deal with Lisa Wells, who was assistant director on the shoot. We were all in the main living area, with Mum
parading up and down in various frocks, Jeremy reading through scripts and giving us his opinion every now and then, and me pretending that I was Tyra Banks on
America’s Next Top Old Model
when the doorbell chimed ‘God Save the Queen’. David went bananas, flying at the door like a four-legged spitfire.

Jeremy sighed when he realised it was Michael and he apologised to us as he got up and went to greet him. I noticed he let David nip at Michael’s ankles for quite a long time before calling the tiny dog off.

I watched them out of the corner of my eye while Mum tried to pick accessories for a bright pink silk dress that was her current favourite. Michael and Jeremy were talking as if they didn’t want anybody to hear what they were saying, their heads close together. Then Michael handed Jeremy a magazine and watched as he read it, rubbing his chin with his hand. Jeremy’s face grew red and he threw the magazine across the polished tiled floor so that it skidded to a stop by my mum’s feet.

“Ridiculous rag!” he bellowed. “This is outrageous. Janice isn’t a celebrity – she’s not putting herself in the spotlight! How dare they attack her?”

“Me?” Mum said with a puzzled smile. She put down the evening bag she had been carrying and picked up the
magazine. Her eyes widened as she took in what she saw there.

“What is it, Mum?” I asked, but she Just stared at the magazine, her confusion turning into a look of horror.

Jeremy came and put his arm around her stiff shoulders. “Janice, I’m so sorry…”

“Perhaps,” Michael said, walking a few steps nearer, “they think that by dating you, Janice is putting herself in the public eye and making herself fair game.”

Frustrated, I took the magazine from Mum’s frozen fingers and read the column for myself.

“Look, Jeremy,” Michael went on, “as irritating and unkind as that is, what the studio and I are really worried about are those other comments. The press have already got it in for
The Lost Treasure of King Arthur
so this could be just the beginning. I think we need to schedule a meeting with them and Imogene’s people asap, start our publicity machine rolling and do some damage limitation.”

“Oh.” My mum finally spoke, her frozen expression suddenly thawing into tears. She sat down with a bump, her silk dress rustling around her. “Oh, I…I am sorry Jeremy,” she said. Her voice was small and she had two pink spots on her cheeks. “I’ve embarrassed you terribly.”

“But nothing they’ve written here is true, Mum!” I exclaimed as I finished reading. I wanted to hug her but I couldn’t unless I shoved Jeremy aside. “You are very fashionable,” I told her. “And you look great for your age and, OK, you’re not as beautiful as Carenza Slavchenkov, but you’re a normal mum not a supermodel!”

It was then my mum started to properly cry and I got the feeling I had made things worse. She turned her face into Jeremy’s shoulder and his arms enclosed her.

“What I meant to say was—” I tried again, but Michael spoke over me impatiently.

“Jeremy, we need to set up that meeting. We have to think about the movie.”

“And we will,” Jeremy said, his voice low as he held my mother. “But right now, Michael, you need to go.”

“I’ll call you,” Michael said, making a phone shape with his thumb and little finger and holding it to his ear.

“I have no doubt that you will,” Jeremy said heavily.

Mum was crying and Jeremy was hugging her and telling her he was so sorry that knowing him had put her in this position, and they seemed as if they were in their own separate world, a world I didn’t have a passport to. So I thought it was probably best if I just got out of the way for a while.

As I picked up the offending magazine and took it into the kitchen where Augusto was making sushi for lunch, I realised that David was scampering after me.

“Feeling left out too?” I asked the dog.

Of course he didn’t answer, but as his tiny nails clicked on the floor tiles I let myself think it was me he wanted to be with and not the scraps he might get in the kitchen. Because Just at that moment I needed a pal and even a rat dog was better than nothing.

“That’s pretty bad,” Augusto said when I showed him the magazine. “These journalists, they don’t think about anyone’s feelings. They don’t care as long as they’ve got something to write in their nasty little rags.”

“And it’s not fair,” I said. “Poor Mum, she’s really hurt. I know what it feels like to hear that people think you’re ugly. But she’s not. She’s just mum-looking, that’s all!”

“Which is a very beautiful way to look,” Augusto said.

“I tried to cheer her up, but I think I just made it worse,” I added miserably. “I don’t know what to say to her.”

“Just tell her that you love her,” Augusto said. “Telling someone that can never make them feel worse.”

“S’pose,” I said, looking towards the other room where Jeremy was probably doing exactly that. I wasn’t exactly jealous, but how could I tell Mum anything if she was always with him? I realised that I hadn’t spent any time on my own with her all holiday and, even more amazingly, I realised that I missed doing that. Even though usually it meant me doing the washing-up while she dried, or folding while she ironed, I liked talking things over with her. We hadn’t done that in ages.

“And that other stuff isn’t so good either,” Augusto said, wielding a large and very sharp knife as he thinly sliced some ginger. I wrinkled up my nose. I really didn’t like the idea of raw fish for lunch.

“What other stuff?” I asked him, eyeing some bright orange, globular fish roe suspiciously.

“About the movie,
your
movie! They are bad-mouthing the film before it even opens and that can’t be good.”

“What?” I said. I picked up the magazine and read the piece again.

“Oh,” I said heavily. I had been too busy being cross to notice it before. “But it can’t be that bad, can it? A couple of nasty comments in one magazine?”

Augusto raised an eyebrow. “If they want to, the press can sink a great film and make a success out of a real turkey.”

He offered me a salmony-Iooking thing and I backed away hastily. To my surprise David Jumped up on to my lap, digging his bony little feet into my thighs, and looked hard at Augusto as if to say he’d try anything I wouldn’t. Augusto threw him a scrap of fish which he caught deftly between his teeth and then waited hopefully for more. I stroked his bony back, which was not nearly as soft as Everest’s, but his warmth on my lap was still quite comforting.

“But why? Why would they want to do that?” I asked, shaking my head.

“Because their only concern is to sell magazines and if they were always lovely to everyone then nobody would buy any. It’s sad but true, Ruby. It’s the meanness and the cruelty that sells copies. The A-list actress who looks fat in a dress, the latest marriage to fail after only six months, the illustrious careers that tumble and fall over one ‘bad’ film.”

“But that wouldn’t happen to Jeremy,” I said. “He’s a British institution, even if he is my mum’s boyfriend. Or to Imogene Grant. Imogene is real star.”

“No, it wouldn’t happen to Jeremy,” Augusto agreed. “Or Miss Grant, but for other actors, younger actors, maybe who were just starting out – well it could mean their career is ended before it even really began.”