I Heart Hollywood

by Lindsey Kelk

  ‘I don’t know.’ She pulled a couple of curls out from her ponytail and held them out to inspect for split ends. ‘I guess I had Jeff to keep my mind busy for a while but sometimes, yeah. I don’t know.’

  We ate in silence for a few minutes, Jenny concentrating on her salad, me painfully aware that the waiter was still judging me for asking if the crab cakes came with fries. They didn’t.

  ‘What are you going to do about James?’ Jenny asked eventually.

  ‘What do you mean?’ I stalled, not actually knowing the answer.

  ‘Seems to me that if your boyfriend already thinks you’re sleeping with a super-hot guy who is so clearly into you, you may as well,’ she reasoned.

  ‘He’s not clearly into me,’ I replied sternly, but I couldn’t help a tiny internal smile at the thought that he might be. ‘Just because he got a couple of shops to give us some free stuff. It’s nothing to him, Jenny; it’s like you letting your friend crash in an empty room at the hotel or something. A perk of the job.’

  ‘I could totally get used to these kinds of perks,’ she held up the shoe again. ‘But honey, I’m telling you, just from what I saw last night. He likes you.’

  ‘No, he doesn’t and, even if he did, which he doesn’t…’ I fished around in my handbag for my wallet. Expenses be damned, this was going on the work credit card. ‘…I wouldn’t be interested.’

  ‘Yeah you would. If you didn’t have a boyfriend,’ Jenny said, stealing a bite of crab cake from my plate.

  I considered my answer carefully, knowing she would jump on whatever I said. ‘If I didn’t have a boyfriend and I wasn’t working and he wasn’t this ridiculous actor. Maybe.’

  ‘Oh my God, you’re totally hot for him.’ Jenny clapped her hands together. ‘I knew it! I could so tell last night. Angie, how often do you get a chance like this? How often does anyone get a chance like this?’

  ‘That doesn’t matter.’ I blushed from my cheeks down to my toes. ‘And it doesn’t matter how hot he is or if he likes me. It’s just work. Even if it doesn’t feel like it right now, it’s work.’

  ‘You forgot the “I already have a boyfriend” bit.’ Jenny raised an eyebrow. ‘I’d have thought Alex was quite enough of a reason. That’s interesting.’

  ‘No it isn’t interesting,’ I corrected. ‘That just goes without saying.’

  ‘So things are OK? He hasn’t freaked out about the pictures?’

  There was no point hiding this stuff from Jenny. It would only come back to bite me on the arse when I needed her help later, which I always did. ‘He wasn’t best pleased about them,’ I admitted. ‘But it’ll be fine.’

  ‘I figured as much,’ Jenny nodded. ‘He’s totally the jealous type.’

  ‘No, he so isn’t. Is he?’ I asked. ‘What makes you say that?’

  ‘Come on, Angie.’ She wiped her hands on a napkin and then redid her ponytail. ‘Alex is all deep and meaningful muso boy. You don’t get the love songs, the random three a.m. booty calls because “he just had to see you” without a touch of possessiveness. I just can’t see him being OK with you running around Hollywood with a some hot, slutty guy with all the world watching. Can you?’

  ‘I said he wasn’t best pleased about it,’ I mumbled, giving the waiter my credit card without even looking at the bill. ‘But it’ll be OK, won’t it?’

  ‘He’s your boyfriend, I don’t know,’ she said, passing me her lip gloss. She really was a stickler for detail. ‘What do you think?’

  ‘I think we should stop talking about boys, go and get the car, then go for a swim.’ I took my card and the receipt back from the waiter. ‘And if there’s a spa or something, we should get massages. This is still your vacation, after all, and I don’t have to be anywhere until eleven a.m. tomorrow.’

  ‘Got to say, Angie,’ Jenny stood up and started grabbing our many bags, ‘I have always loved the way you think.’

  Chapter Eight

  Right up until the moment James’s limo pulled up outside The Hollywood at four minutes passed eleven the next morning, I’d been waiting for the phone call from Blake to say that they weren’t coming and the interview was off. But there they were and there I was, Jenny’s giant sunglasses on, Starbucks in hand, and (beautiful but looking more battered by the day) Marc Jacobs bag over my shoulder. Taking a deep breath, I sucked it up and opened the car door. If I thought Alex had been upset and Mary was angry yesterday, then I needed a new word for Blake.

  ‘This is why these fucking “day in the life” interviews never, ever work,’ he ranted as the limo pulled away from the hotel, staring me down. ‘You don’t speak until we’re back in the hotel. This is why we should have met for one hour in a hotel suite with a publicist and a security guard and this would never ever have happened.’

  I couldn’t argue with his logic.

  ‘Would there have been bottled water?’ James asked.

  ‘Of course.’ Blake seethed in my general direction.

  ‘And those tiny pastries?’

  ‘No because you’re carb-free this month.’ He folded his arms and gave me an intensely filthy look.

  ‘Blake, calm down, it’s not Angela’s fault.’ James placed a careful hand on his assistant’s shoulder. I slid off my sunglasses and tried my hardest to look innocent.

  ‘No, the pictures were your fucking fault, I already told you that,’ Blake replied, not taking his eyes off me. ‘And it’s your fault that she’s still here. But I’m telling you both, this is it. I’m not leaving your side from now on.’

  ‘I get it, Blake,’ James smiled easily. ‘We’re absolutely going to play by your rules. But if we’re going to be doing a full hour’s talking, I’m going to need a coffee. Coffee Bean is just round the corner, can we get something? You know I hate the coffee at the hotel.’

  ‘Fine,’ Blake said, eyes still locked on me. I thought about putting my sunglasses back on. ‘She can go get your coffee.’

  ‘You want Angela to get out of a limo and order my favourite coffee at my regular coffee shop?’ James reached across the seat and took my hand. I resisted the urge to giggle. Nerves, just nerves. ‘Really, Blake, you’d just be fuelling the fire. This place is always crawling with paps.’

  ‘Crawling,’ I croaked.

  ‘I said not a word out of you until we get to the hotel,’ Blake shot back, climbing out of the limo.

  I held my breath until the door slammed shut. ‘I’m so sorry,’ I choked. ‘I know it’s not funny.’

  ‘Angela, just a sec. Hey, Jack,’ James squeezed my hand then pressed the mic button to speak to the driver. ‘I think I saw some photographers as we pulled in. Can we make a move? Uh, Pinkberry on Beverly Drive?’

  A shadowy nod through the tinted glass and we were off.

  ‘Well, that’s a relief, isn’t it?’ James sighed, stretching his arms out along the back of the seat. ‘Honestly, Blake’s been going crazy since those pictures were posted.’

  ‘And he’s not going to go even more crazy now?’ I panicked. ‘We have to go back for him! He’s going to call the magazine, honestly, James, I’m so close to getting fired right now. If he calls them—’

  ‘He’s not going to call them.’ James picked some nonexistent fluff from his dark blue shirt. ‘How many times do you need telling? Blake can’t cancel anything. And the magazine can’t fire you. I emailed them as soon as the pictures were posted yesterday. I’m only doing this interview with you and they know that.’

  ‘You just don’t make any sense.’ I rubbed my temples and tried not to think about how his shirt was exactly the same colour as his eyes. ‘All I’ve done is cause you trouble. You could have a real interviewer; you could just do that one-hour hotel room thing Blake was talking about and save yourself all this hassle. And the photos, aren’t you upset? Or at least annoyed?’

  ‘Did you do no research before you met me?’ James shook his head. ‘There have been much worse pictures of me leaked online. Pictures, videos. God, things I could never sho
w my mother. And why would I want to sit in a room giving the same old spiel about my next movie, what I like about living in LA, what I miss about the UK, blah, blah, blah, when I could be eating burgers and talking about actual real things with you?’

  ‘Fair point,’ I conceded. ‘But you’re not even a little bit bothered by the photos?’

  ‘I’m only bothered that they bother you,’ he shrugged. ‘I’m used to them. The women that are in them with me are usually used to them.’

  He didn’t even blush. So I blushed for the both of us.

  ‘And I’m sorry, I should have said something at the time. Once you’ve spotted the photographers, it’s usually too late,’ he said, peering out the window. I looked past him, onto the Beverley Hills sign set against a spotlessly manicured lawn. Not quite the Hollywood sign but still, terribly glam. ‘How was your friend when you got back?’

  ‘Jenny? Not amused with me in the slightest,’ I admitted, ‘but she was more or less calmed down by the shopping. Thank you, by the way. That was, well, madness. You really didn’t have to do that.’

  ‘Don’t even mention it,’ James waved away my thanks. ‘And what about your other friend, Joe?’

  ‘I haven’t seen him. I’m so sorry, he was totally out of order.’ I still couldn’t quite believe how pathetic Joe’s behaviour had been. ‘And, like I said the other night, he’s really not my friend.’

  ‘Yeah, he was a bit…’ James paused. ‘Well, never mind. There’s nothing in life that can’t be solved by frozen yoghurt.’

  ‘Oh my God, you’re such a woman,’ I said. ‘I’d like to hear you say that in Sheffield.’

  “Shut up and get your wallet out,’ he said, as we pulled up at the side of the road. ‘You’re buying.’

  ‘Frozen yoghurt?’ I climbed out of the limo after him. ‘That sounds like a fair exchange for everything we bought yesterday.’

  ‘Yeah, but I won’t have to pay for that stuff; this is pricey frozen yoghurt.’

  ‘You have forgotten where you’ve come from, Jim Jacobs,’ I tutted.

  It turned out that Pinkberry frozen yoghurt was ever so slightly magical. As James loaded his with pineapple and strawberries, I packed mine with Coco Pebbles cereal and chocolate chips. And I got change out of ten dollars. Just.

  ‘This is amazing,’ I raved through a mouthful of yoghurty goodness. ‘Shouldn’t this be all tasteless and healthy?’

  ‘It is healthy, or it was until you shovelled all that crap on to it,’ James teased. The street outside was packed with tanned, good-looking men in workout gear and more of the ever-present Ugg girls.

  ‘So I thought we’d crack on with your tour of my favourite bits of LA,’ James carried on, striding down the road, past all the girls that stared and all the men that pretended not to. The only difference today was they were staring at me as much as him. ‘So how about The Grove, do some more shopping? What do you think? That should cheer you up.’

  ‘Sorry, James,’ I hugged myself tightly. Why was everywhere in LA so open? What I wouldn’t give for a shadowy side street or a subway station. ‘I know you don’t want to do the usual sit-down thing, but could we maybe go somewhere slightly less, I don’t know, somewhere less open?’

  ‘Maybe The Beverly Center?’ James finished up his yogurt and dropped it in the rubbish bin. ‘Or Melrose? There will probably be paps on Melrose though.’

  ‘Are there going to be photographers everywhere you go?’ I asked, actively ignoring two girls clutching tiny dogs and huge coffees, staring at us from across the road.

  ‘Maybe,’ James shrugged. ‘Seriously, I told you, it’s not a problem.’

  ‘It is a problem,’ I said, spotting a group of pre-teens, head to toe in Juicy Couture, blatantly comparing the real-life James Jacobs and ‘mystery girl’ to the images on their Sidekicks. ‘I’m sorry, but it’s going to be a problem for me.’

  ‘Not at all.’ James threw his arm around my shoulders. I could practically hear everyone in the street breathe in. ‘If it’s a problem for you then it’s a problem for me. If you could go anywhere in the world right now, where would you go?’

  ‘New York?’

  James smiled. ‘Well, I can’t get you across the country in half and hour but I can do the next best thing.’

  Back in the limo, we drove out of Beverly Hills, through Hollywood, and kept going until James tapped on the glass partition to stop Jack, his driver. As soon as we stepped outside, I felt as though I was home. Gone were the tans, the big boots and the teeny-tiny shorts and in their place were beards, battered Converses and vintage plaid shirts. Starbucks were replaced by corner cafes run by slacker hipsters, Urban Outfitters taken over by vintage stores and the huge cineplexes swapped for a tiny art-house cinema. And while I couldn’t see the ocean, the beautiful blue sky was framed by the hills and mountains that surrounded us.

  ‘You like?’ James asked, leaning against the ridiculously conspicuous limo. I couldn’t believe we were only ten minutes out of Hollywood.

  ‘I like,’ I nodded, slipping my (beloved) bag over my head and across my body. ‘Where are we?’

  ‘Los Feliz,’ he said. ‘It’s as close as I can get you to home without using the jet.’

  ‘I bet the pizza isn’t as good as in Brooklyn,’ I said, looking around. Not one single person was looking at us. ‘So let’s get down to business. Where are we doing the interview?’

  ‘In here,’ he pointed to a small dark doorway behind me. ‘After you.’

  James opened the door from the sunny street into a small, dark bar. I passed through a beaded curtain, blinking. Like Teddy’s the night before, it was lined with red booths, but they were cracked vinyl instead of velvet. The high-gloss sheen of bought-in Old Hollywood glamour, accessorized by Jessica Simpson, was completely blown out of the water by actual, genuine old-school class, accessorized by the slightly stale smell of a couple of decades of debauched nights. The tiny stage in the centre of the room was set up with a drum kit, several guitars and an upright piano.

  ‘Hey, James,’ came a voice from behind the bar that lined the back wall, lit by vintage-looking lampshades. Except I had a feeling they weren’t vintage-looking so much as so genuinely old that they might fall apart if I touched them. The girl talking to James had gorgeous flame-red hair and winged black eyeliner. ‘Just get whatever you need, I’ll be out back.’

  ‘Thanks, Marina,’ James sat down behind the piano. ‘Welcome to The Dresden. It’s my favourite club in all of LA. No paps.’

  ‘You play?’ I asked, sitting down beside him.

  ‘I do.’ James lifted the lid and played a few soft chords. In the darkened room, watching James play the piano, I felt a million miles away from all of it. From the pictures on the website, from Alex, from Mary. I placed my fingers on the cool piano keys and stared at the keyboard.

  ‘You play?’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘I can’t even play the recorder.’

  ‘You sing?’ he asked.

  I looked up into his dark blue eyes and laughed out loud. ‘No, I can’t sing,’ I spluttered. ‘Oh my God, stop it. Didn’t we come here to do an interview?’

  ‘Yes.’ He closed the piano lid. ‘I just feel a bit of a fraud doing the whole “ac-tor” interview thing with you. It’s the journos that create the persona, you know. It’s their questions that bring on the whole “I love the smell of the ocean at midnight” bollocks.’

  ‘Can I quote you on that?’ I asked. ‘Because I don’t have any questions about the smell of the ocean at any time and that sounded pretty good to me.’

  ‘OK, let’s do it this way,’ James said. ‘You ask me a question and then I’ll ask you a question. That should take the pressure off?’

  ‘And give me some ideas for more questions,’ I agreed, rummaging in the bottom of my (full of rubbish but never a pen when you needed it) bag. ‘Since you threw my Dictaphone in the Pacific Ocean, I have been reduced to shorthand, so go slow.’

  ‘I’ll go however fas
t or slow you want me to go.’

  I refused to blush. Refused.

  ‘So, old Jim Jacobs,’ I cleared my throat and put on my most professional face. ‘Desert Island Discs time. Your three favourite albums?’

  ‘Easy and, I’m sorry to say it, not that original.’ James gave me a mock yawn. ‘The Smiths, The Smiths, Nirvana, Nevermind and Pulp, Different Class. Because I know you’re going to make a big deal of me being from Sheffield.’

  ‘You could have gone for Def Leppard,’ I replied, scribbling down his answers and wondering whether or not they would actually be on his ‘most played’ list if I checked out his iPod. Like they would be on mine.

  ‘My turn,’ James stretched his arms out above his head, stretching out his moment. ‘Angela Clark, why are you so bothered about what other people think?’

  ‘You could just ask me my three favourite films,’ I stalled.

  ‘Answer, please.’

  ‘Easy and, I’m sorry to say, not that original,’ I mirrored his stretch and pulled my hair back into a ponytail before letting it fall back down. ‘I’m not bothered. My turn.’

  ‘I don’t think so.’ James shook his head. ‘Do you think I didn’t notice you freaking out when those girls were looking at us outside the yoghurt place? And even though I’ve told you about a million times that your job is safe, you’re still worrying about the interview, about the magazine. So don’t tell me you’re not bothered.’

  ‘You didn’t tell me I had to be honest.’ I pulled a stray strand of hair out of my lip gloss. I would never be a lady. ‘You just said I had to answer your question and I answered.’

  ‘OK then. Your turn.’

  ‘Right,’ I said, surprised. I hadn’t really expected to get off that lightly but I wasn’t about to push my luck. ‘Three things you can’t be without when you’re travelling.’