The Modeliser (6 page)

“Does it happen all the time? Girls falling at your feet.”

Alex smiled at her unsure of what to say, surprised that
she’d been the one to call time on their kiss.

“Sometimes. A lot,” he admitted wryly as he pushed his hand
through his hair. She smiled slowly at him. “But,” he continued, “you didn’t
fall at my feet.” Deanna stared unblinkingly at him before she spoke.

“Doesn’t it get boring?” She asked the question seriously,
expecting an answer from him. And for the first time, Alex considered the
question, he considered his life in LA and for the first time in ten years he
answered honestly.

“Yeah, it gets really boring.” Deanna nodded as though
something she’d always thought had been confirmed. “But…” And now Alex trailed
off. Deanna continued to stare at him, waiting for him to finish the sentence.
“But sometimes, it’s just easy, convenient to say yes.” Alex stared into the
deep brown eyes and recoiled at the pity he saw in her eyes. He was Alex
Golden, superstar, who was she to pity him? And yet as she stared unflinchingly
at him, he knew she had seen past the glamour.

“I’d better get Nikki, so you can get on with…” She trailed
off, already heading into the bedroom to find her friend.

Alex watched her go and a wave of melancholy spun through
him. That one kiss had laid bare the truth that he had so assiduously ignored.
He was bored. He’d been coasting now for so long that he no longer remembered
what it felt like to be fully engaged with anything. And more than anything he
didn’t want to get on with stuff, not the way they’d been. Things, he realised,
would have to change.

“Jordan!
Jordan! Jordan!”

The fans were chanting the name of their favourite character
as Talia walked down the nondescript road, on the outskirts of London, which
would take her into the studios where Encounters was filmed. The gathered
throng of fans screamed themselves into a frenzy as a car with tinted windows
swept through the gates and was waved through security. Talia tucked her ID
pass under her shirt. Much as she loved the show’s passionate fans, who had
made Encounters such a ratings winner, the last thing she wanted was for them
to spot her badge and realise that she was anything other than one of the many
drones that kept the studio running. In good weather and bad, there was
routinely a hardy bunch of fans armed with autograph books and posters gathered
outside the studio’s gates, waiting to catch a glimpse of the actors arriving
for work. Though most were harmless, a few had on occasion tried to snatch
passes so they could sneak onto the set. Talia ducked around them, not removing
her badge till she was safe inside the gates.

“Hi Wayne,” she greeted the security guard as she flashed him
her staff ID badge.

“Good night was it?” He grinned cheekily back at her. Though
he was probably the same age as her, in his late twenties, Wayne seemed to have
worked at the Ashbridge studios forever and was something of an institution.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Talia replied as Wayne
continued to grin at her.

“Saw the pictures in the papers for myself. Looks like a good
night, if you know what I mean," Wayne replied with a wink. “But nobody
bothers to invite us poor security guards,” he finished with a mock grumble.
Talia smiled curiously at him about to ask him what he’d seen in the papers but
he had already turned to sign in another guest and Talia began the walk to her
office, her thoughts turning to the day ahead and the rehearsal drafts and
story documents that would have to be issued that afternoon.

From the outside, Ashbridge was unremarkable; a group of
slate grey buildings and a large car park that looked like so many out of town
warehouses and factories. But moving further in, deep into the rabbit warren of
roads and exits and corridors, you finally came to the beating heart of the
studio. Anyone who thought working in television was glamorous clearly hadn’t
been here. From the single storey canteen building, the smell of cooking food
wafted out but Talia wasn’t fooled. She’d worked here long enough to know that
the smell was deceptive that the food, when one was confronted with it was
little more than school dinners, unappetizing and fattening. And yet the stars
and the crew of Encounters were often seen tucking in at the tables in that old
Canteen, which had stood, rumour had it, for close to 100 years.

As she turned away from the canteen, entering the long
corridor that would take her towards her office, Talia slowed, taking in the
photographs that lined the wall on either side of her. Many of them were black
and white photos, from the studio’s heyday when some of the early classics of
British cinema had been filmed there. Stars from the Forties and Fifties who
would go on to conquer Hollywood were captured in these photographs when they’d
filmed movies at Ashbridge. Beneath each photograph was the name of the film
and the year of its release. As she moved forwards, Talia noted the years
ascending and then the photographs changing from black and white and into
colour. She stopped at the final photo. Her eyes darted to the name of the film
Hiding Places
;
the last film that had been shot at Ashbridge before the studio had been sold
to television broadcasters. Though she had walked this very corridor, hundreds
of times in the four years that she had worked on Encounters, Talia had never
stopped to look at the pictures and now her heart quickened as she looked at
the still shot of a young Alex Golden on the set of the film that had made him
a star. For a moment she was lost in the startling blue of his eyes. Even in a
photograph, he seemed to reach out to her, dragging her in. Suddenly a door
slammed and Talia saw that someone else had entered the corridor. Shaking her
head, she turned away from the photograph and continued briskly down the
corridor, putting Alex Golden out of her mind. By the time she punched the call
button for the lift and then stepped into it, she was already itemising the
list of tasks she had to complete that morning. Her latest story document would
be going up for executive approval today and of course she’d be getting her
promotion in the afternoon. Talia couldn’t wait for the day to get started.

As she took a seat at her desk, Talia sighed at the number of
new emails awaiting her attention. Emails from costume, location, script editors;
all with requests that were somehow pressing. By the time she’d sorted through
the requests and demands being made of her, it was almost lunchtime. Talia
looked up surprised to note that she’d been buried in emails for almost two
hours, so much so that she’d failed to notice that Olly the young assistant
storyliner, whom she’d been training, hadn’t yet arrived for the day. Perhaps
he’d drunk even more than her at last night’s party. She allowed herself a
small smile, remembering Olly’s drunken moonwalk across the dance floor.
Deciding to break for lunch, she reached down into her bag to grab her purse.
The smell of the unappetizing grub from the canteen suddenly seemed like
exactly what she needed. As she unzipped her bag, the zip gave way beneath her
fingers.

“Dammit,” she muttered and then she shrugged, once the
formality of her promotion was dealt with that afternoon, she’d head right over
to the Mulberry store and treat herself to a new designer handbag. As she
straightened up, purse in hand, she started as she was confronted by a tall
form, slinking into the office. “ Christ Ol, I didn’t hear you come in.” Talia
stood as Olly shuffled into their shared office. “Bit hungover are you?” Olly
nodded vaguely, not meeting her eyes.

“Yeah sure.” He leaned down to his computer as though
checking his emails and Talia noted that his face was red.

“What’s up with you?”
 
Talia asked, as Olly’s red face seemed to deepen even more. He sat down
mumbling.

“Nothing.” At this response, Talia shrugged. Olly was often
difficult to read and he tended to keep to himself but his phenomenal knowledge
of the show and his instinct for story more than made up for his occasional
strangeness.

“Want anything from the canteen?” She asked and for the first
time he looked her in the eye and Talia noted that he seemed anxious.

“Look Talia…” he began just as their door opened to admit
Dom, the AD from last night who had kissed her. Now it was Talia’s turn to feel
her cheeks warm as Dom strode up to her already speaking, barely noticing Olly.

“Talia, look we need to…” Dom began and Talia moved quickly.
The last thing she wanted was gossip about her spreading through the crew. She
turned back to Olly.

“Let’s talk later, OK.” Olly shrugged and Talia resolved to
get to the bottom of his mood later. But for now, she had to tend to some
damage limitation with Dom.

Talia fell into step behind Dom, as they moved down the
corridor that housed the editorial and production staff on the show. He seemed
tense and awkward and her stomach churned at the thought that she’d have to let
him down gently. She glanced sidelong at him, he wasn’t bad looking –
slim and tall in the uniform of T-shirt, jeans and Converse shoes that seemed
standard amongst the on-set crew. The blonde highlights in his hair, which
looked more salon bought than sun-kissed were perhaps not to her taste but he
was a nice guy and for a moment Talia wondered why she had to turn him down.
Perhaps they could be discreet, see where things went. She allowed this flight
of fancy to carry her as she followed him through to the bay of lifts. As they
entered he pressed the button for the ground floor, and Talia noted that his
nails were clean.

“Look Talia, we need to talk.” Dom spoke and Talia snapped
back to reality, she wasn’t sure quite how she would cope with him declaring
some grand passion to her. She’d never been good in situations like this, not
since that first time aged 11, when Ben from next door had tried to kiss her
and she’d punched him and run away, ignoring him for the next 7 years.

“Dom,” she started but he silenced her with his hand.

“Look, about last night, it was a total mistake.” Talia felt
her mouth gape open; she’d not been expecting that. Dom ran his fingers through
his blonde hair. “I’m saying this all wrong.” He sighed a deep sigh, almost
rocking on the balls of his feet in the enclosed space of the lift. “I need to
give this back to you.” Dom reached into his pocket retrieving a mobile phone,
which Talia recognised as her own.

“Tamara said it was just a joke….” Dom began but Talia
interrupted him, still staring at her phone.

“Where did you get that?” Talia demanded as she took the
phone from him. Her brow furrowed as she watched the mix of concern and anxiety
on Dom’s face. And why was he muttering about Tamara, the show’s matriarch,
queen bee and all-round nightmare to work with.

“Tamara wanted to borrow your phone, I didn’t know what she
was going to do.” Dom was saying again but Talia had lost interest now. Men,
she’d never understand them. As she stowed her phone away, Talia looked hard at
Dom, she’d not been interested anyway; she consoled herself.

“Dom, you’re a nice guy, but we work together and I think we
should keep it that way. OK." With what she hoped was a firm but friendly
nod, Talia turned allowing a breath of relief to escape her as the lift pinged
its arrival on the ground floor and the doors hissed open. As she strode out of
the lift, she heard him call out her name, but she kept on walking.

Talia
wolfed down an unappetizing and no doubt calorie-laden lunch while sat in the
corner of the canteen, her head buried in a stack of story documents, barely
noticing the frisson of gossip at the tables all around her. If she’d bothered
to look up she would have spotted Donna Windsmere, the English actress who’d
titillated in a series of farcical comedies in the Sixties and Seventies before
re-inventing herself in her late 50s and revitalising her career as the
matriarch of Encounters. On the next table, she would have seen the hottest
young soap actors the country had to offer. But Talia had long grown tired of
watching the beautiful faces. She had little time for the actors and their
daily dramas; it was the imaginary characters and the stories that she created
for them, which fired her up. When she’d first made it to the story office,
Talia had struggled with the actors and their demands, their lobbying and
jockeying for bigger and better stories that would propel them to the cover of
the weekly magazines and serve as a step up to appearing on Dancing with the
Stars or Celebrity Big Brother. She’d quickly learned to be firm and they’d
learned that she could not be bought. Now as she walked back towards her
office, taking the scenic route through the car park and the gardens, in the
hope of not bumping into Dom, Talia was startled by the sound of sobbing. She
looked up to see Angelina Starling, the most popular new actress on Encounters.

“Ange, What’s wrong?” Talia moved forward, immediately
concerned. Unlike many of the other young stars on the show, Angelina had shown
maturity beyond her years, she approached her craft with unexpected
professionalism and it was clear that she would probably go on to have a career
outside the soap opera world. Talia had grown to like her and she moved to
crouch beside the girl watching as she rubbed her eyes rapidly.

“Nothing, nothing,” Angelina replied even as her eyes filled
with fresh tears.