Runaway Actress (3 page)

Finishing her wine and heading upstairs to her bedroom, she removed her dressing gown and realised that she was still wearing her diamond choker. She unfastened it and returned it to its blue velvet box. She’d bought it as a special gift to herself after she’d heard she’d been nominated for an Oscar. Most actresses hired their jewellery for Oscar night but Connie had wanted to wear something that was hers – something that she could keep. She remembered the gentlemen from the jewellers who had turned up at her house with a selection of necklaces for her to choose from. There had been an amazing egg-sized sapphire pendant, which had reminded Connie of the colour of the ocean. There was a square-cut emerald necklace, which had looked dazzlingly bright when she’d tried it on against her pale skin. Then there’d been the rubies – twelve blood-red stones nestling in a lace of sparkling diamonds. But, in the end, Connie had chosen the diamond choker. It was breathtaking in its simplicity and could be worn with so many of her gowns.

Brushing her fingers over the stones, she closed the box and took it to the vault in the corner of the room. There, it joined a family of jewels from Connie’s favourite garnet earrings to platinum watches and rings set with every stone imaginable. There was even a diamond tiara in there. Connie had worn it just once.

Taking a quick shower and smearing her face with the latest skin-tightening cream that promised to keep her looking like a nineteen-year-old, Connie slipped between the silky sheets of her bed, her head crashing onto the pale pillows. She felt as if she could sleep for a fortnight. Or for ever.

Closing her eyes, she thought about her beautiful home filled with beautiful things. She had more than any young woman had a right to and she knew how lucky she was, she really did.

‘So why am I not happy?’ she whispered into the dark night.

Connie woke up with a start. There was somebody in her house and that somebody was shouting. Really, really loudly. She groaned and turned over, hiding her head under her duvet. Why oh why had she given her personal trainer a key to her house?

‘Up, up,
up!
’ he cried as he took the stairs two at a time. ‘Sleepyheads don’t get fit!’

‘I don’t want to get fit. Not this morning,’ she said to herself. ‘I want to sleeeeeeep!’

‘WAKE UP!’ he shouted as he entered the room – all six foot five of him.

‘I’m awake!’ Connie said.

‘I want twenty stomach crunches right now!’

Connie muttered something under her breath.

‘What was that, sweetie? You want to do fifty?’ he said with a naughty grin.

‘Go away, Danny!’ Connie said, sitting up in bed, her red hair tousled and tangled.

‘You don’t pay me to go away. You pay me to get your ass moving! Come on,’ he said, clapping a pair of enormous hands together.

Connie sighed. She loved Danny dearly. He was loyal and sweet and always made her laugh, but there were certain mornings when she wished he didn’t exist.

Ten minutes later and they were in the basement gymnasium and Connie was being put through her paces. It was a rude awakening and she really should have been used to it by now because Danny had been turning up three times a week for the past four years.

‘Your body is your business,’ she would silently chant to herself whilst pounding on the running machine. ‘You have to keep in shape,’ she’d repeat with each stretch on the rowing machine.

But if only her body was
her
business. The trouble was, everyone seemed to have something to say about her body. Her trainer, her agent, her publicist – to say nothing of the press who regularly snapped her from all angles and then ran headlines such as ‘Podgy Connie Piles on the Pounds’. The unhappy truth was that acting was about more than her ability to inhabit a role and convince an audience that her emotions were real. It was about how she looked both on screen and off and that pressure could sometimes be unbearable.

After ten minutes on the exercise bike, Connie hung her head.

‘Can we go running, Danny? I want to get some fresh air.’ She looked up and caught Danny’s eye. He didn’t look happy with the suggestion.

‘You know what happened last time.’

‘I know.’

‘We weren’t so much running as running
away!
’

Connie nodded, remembering the hoard of paps that had torn after them with their intrusively long lenses.

‘I wish I
could
run away,’ Connie said.

‘Aw, don’t say that!’ Danny said, his face wrinkling in dismay.

‘But I
do
. I want to go somewhere where I can just be me for a while without a telephoto lens poking at me or some journalist tearing me apart.’

‘I don’t think such a place exists,’ Danny said.

‘No,’ Connie said. ‘You’re probably right. But can’t we at least try to pretend?’

‘You want to go to the park?’

Connie nodded.

‘We’ll have to go in my car, then. Everybody knows yours.’

Connie grinned and grabbed her towel.

Danny’s black RV was parked in the driveway. ‘Get in the back and duck down,’ he said.

Connie climbed in the back of his car, buckled up and then laid her head down on the seat. She’d given Danny her remote control to open the wrought iron gates and, as usual, there was a group of paparazzi camping outside.

‘Don’t they have homes to go to?’ Danny asked as he hit the gas.

‘Apparently not,’ Connie said. ‘I thought about inviting them in for dinner one evening. I’d just come back from a charity gala and felt a bit lonely. It’s always odd to be surrounded by hundreds of people one minute and then to come back here and be totally alone.’

‘But you didn’t invite them in, did you?’ Danny asked, eyebrows raised.

‘No, of course not!’

Danny breathed a sigh of relief. ‘Okay, it’s safe to surface.’

Connie got up from the back seat and it was then that she noticed the newspaper on the seat beside her. She picked it up.

‘Oh, don’t bother reading that,’ Danny said a little too quickly. ‘There’s nothing in it.’

‘Danny, you’re a terrible liar,’ she said, opening the paper and staring in horror at the headline that greeted her on page three.

Connie Alone!

Stunning actress, Connie Gordon, one of the world’s most famous movie stars, attended last night’s ‘Cream of the Screen’ awards ceremony on her own. The 29-year-old actress recently broke up with fellow actor, Forrest Greaves, and it would seem that she’s not been lucky in love since …

Accompanying the story was a photograph of Connie from the red carpet but, instead of printing one of the hundreds of pictures they must have taken of Connie’s famous megawatt smile, they’d published one of her frowning. It must have been the millisecond that she’d caught her heels on her dress. There was also a photograph of the heavily-pregnant Candy with the caption: ‘Expecting great things – the woman Forrest Greaves left Connie for’.

‘Goddamn it!’ she cursed and then her eye caught something else. It was a quote from her mother
.

‘“Connie is devastated,” Vanessa Gordon told us. “She’d already started planning the wedding with Forrest”.’

‘They’ve interviewed my mother!’ she shouted.

‘I told you not to read it!’ Danny said from the front seat.

‘Why do they do that?
Why?
’

‘To sell more papers, that’s all.’

Connie sighed. ‘Take me home,’ she said.

‘What? You don’t want to go running?’

She shook her head. ‘I’m sorry. I just don’t feel like it any more.’

‘But it might do you some good. You know, pound it out of your system.’ He looked at her through the rear-view mirror and noticed the tears sparkling in her eyes. ‘I’ll take you home,’ he said.

Once Danny had dropped her off, Connie kicked off her trainers and wandered through to her office. Her personal assistant had left her diary open on the desk and there was a planner pinned to the wall too. Connie glanced at it. She was meant to be starting rehearsals next week for her next film – and the thought of it made her groan.

‘It’ll do your career no end of good,’ Bob Braskett, her agent, had told her. ‘This is a real up-and-coming director. Teenagers really go for him. You’ll gain a whole new audience here.’

There was also a magazine interview penned in, and two charity events. She sighed. If only she could get away from it all. If only she could escape!

The telephone rang and made Connie jump. She didn’t normally answer the phone but, as her PA wasn’t in until later, she picked it up herself.

‘Connie!’ a voice drawled. It was Forrest Greaves.

‘What do you want?’ she snapped.

‘Aw, don’t be like that, sweetheart. You didn’t give me a chance to talk to you last night.’

‘Yeah? Well,
I
said all I wanted to say,’ Connie said.

‘Yeah, but I didn’t.’

She sighed. ‘What do you want, Forrest?’

‘I want to say that I miss you,’ he said, ‘and I think we should give it another go.’

‘What?’
Connie couldn’t believe what she was hearing.

‘I miss you so much, honey.’

‘Don’t
honey
me! You’re about to have a child with that Candy woman, for heaven’s sake.’

‘That could be anybody’s child,’ he said. ‘Anyway, she means nothing to me. It’s
you
I want to be with.’

Connie felt a shiver of disgust creep up her spine. ‘Forrest—’

‘Listen,’ he interrupted. ‘I know I messed up but I swear that won’t happen again. You’re my one and only, Connie. You know we’re right for each other. I
know
you do.’

‘But I don’t want anything to do with you, Forrest. I—’

‘I mean – come on – I’m an award-winning actor now. I’m right up there with you, baby. Just think about it – what a couple we’ll make. We’ll send Hollywood dizzy. They won’t be able to get enough of us! “Forrest and Connie”, “Greaves and Gordon”! Just imagine the headlines!’

Connie slammed the phone down and let out a scream. How dare he propose getting back together with her when he’d treated her so badly and when he was about to become a father. Why couldn’t he just leave her alone? He really was the limit.

She closed her eyes and took some deep breaths. She needed to calm down before she began hyperventilating.

‘Count to ten,’ she told herself as she breathed in through her nose and out through her mouth for a few steadying moments. ‘That’s better,’ she said. ‘Don’t let him get to you.’

It was then that something caught her eye. Sitting in a neat stack on the desk was the latest fan mail left by her personal assistant. On the top was a curious pink and yellow checked envelope. Connie picked it up and looked at it. It was from overseas. Scotland!

‘It’s tartan!’ Connie laughed, slipping the letter out and unfolding it.

Dear Ms Gordon

It seems rather a long time since I last wrote to you and I’m so sorry! We’ve been very busy here in Lochnabrae. As you know, the fan club is going from strength to strength. We get lots of hits on the website and we even had a Connie Gordon season last month showing a film of yours each night at our village hall. We then voted on our favourite film – it was
Milly in the Morning
, by the way – and then Isla Stuart, who runs the bed and breakfast here, made a ‘Milly’ cake with pink and yellow icing. You’ll notice we’ve got pink and yellow stationery now too – my brother, Hamish, designed a Connie tartan based on Milly’s gorgeous dress in the film. I hope you like it.

Connie took another look at the envelope and laughed. It really was very pretty.

So, as you can see, we’ve been keeping busy. But that doesn’t excuse me forgetting to write to you and I just wanted to extend our invitation to you once again. You know you’ll always be made welcome here in Lochnabrae. It’s a beautiful part of the Highlands with mountains and rivers and our very own loch in which you can swim. (Well, about twice a year if it gets really hot!) We have a small bed and breakfast and Isla says you’d be made very welcome if you wanted to stay. She has radiators in all the rooms and hot water bottles aplenty if you come in winter. Or summer. And I’ve got a spare room too. That’s to say, most of the time – unless Hamish has too many at the pub and can’t make it home which isn’t often, thank goodness.

I know you’re probably very busy in Hollywood with your films and stuff and we must seem like another planet to you but we’re a very friendly planet and we’d love to see you.

All best wishes from

Maggie Hamill

(Administrator of the Connie Gordon Fan Club) xx

Connie read the letter through once more. Lochnabrae. She hadn’t thought about that place for years. It had been the birthplace of her mother and she remembered being fascinated by stories of it when she was young. Stories about icy swims in the loch, thick mists that clouded the houses and snowdrifts that would cut the village off for weeks. It was a magical, almost mystical place on the other side of the world – so far away from the dirt and dazzle of Hollywood.

Connie’s eyes widened as she thought about it. Hadn’t she just been praying for an escape? For peace? For a place where she could lose herself and leave all her troubles behind her including lying, cheating ex-boyfriends and mothers that couldn’t keep their mouths shut? And here was a letter from her fan club promising her all those things. It was fate. It was destiny. It was plain common sense.

Without losing a single moment, she picked up the phone and called her PA.

‘Samantha? It’s Connie. I’m sorry to ring you so early but I thought you should know that I’ll be leaving town today. I’m going away. No, Bob doesn’t know. Tell him it’s family business. I don’t know how long it’ll be for. Yes, he’ll have to deal with those film people himself, and the charity events too. Tell him I need a vacation. A really good vacation.’

Maggie had got up extra early to search the web for photos of Connie at the ‘Cream of the Screen’ awards ceremony. It didn’t take long to find some.

‘Oh!’ she cried, her eyes feasting on the sparkling silver dress she was wearing. ‘That’s
the
most beautiful dress in the world!’ Maggie right-clicked on the image and saved it to her computer for use on the fan site. Copyright? Smopyright! This was fan business and fans needed up-to-date, drop-dead gorgeous photos of their idol.