Rhino What You Did Last Summer

by Ross O'Carroll-Kelly

  ‘It’s Eddie Rockets,’ I go. ‘And I can’t believe you went there. I’ve been going there for focking years.’

  ‘Then she has me listening to – what’s her name, Helen? Oh, yes, Rhianna. Well, there’s even talk of me getting one of these iPods. Have you ever heard the like of it, Ross?’

  ‘Er, no? I focking haven’t. Wait a minute – are you two in, like, bed there?’

  ‘Of course,’ he goes. ‘It’s after midnight. What time is it stateside?’

  ‘Whoa back, horsy! You’re in bed together?’

  ‘Ross, we’re in love.’

  ‘You’re not in love. She’s desperate and you can’t believe your luck that anyone would focking want you. And you’re both making a show of yourselves. Have you no shame?’

  He’s there, ‘What’s wrong with your voice, Kicker?’ trying to change the subject.

  ‘What do you mean, what’s wrong with my voice? I had a focking nose job.’

  ‘A nose job? Why?’

  ‘Er, maybe because I didn’t want to grow old looking like you. And we’re making a reality TV show, if you must know.’

  ‘Oh,’ he just goes and it’s obvious he hasn’t a focking clue what I’m talking about.

  In the background, I can hear Helen telling him to ask me about Erika.

  ‘Oh, yes,’ he goes, ‘you haven’t heard from Erika, have you?’

  I’m like, ‘No – why would I have heard from her?’

  ‘It’s just, as you well know, she and her mother had words – words with a capital W. A lot of things said. Heat of the moment and so forth. But she’s checked out of the Merrion and we’re both worried about her…’

  ‘Maybe she killed herself because she couldn’t live with being related to you.’

  ‘No, she hasn’t done anything so drastic, thank God. No, I had a text from her yesterday, saying she’s fine. She just won’t tell us where she is.’

  ‘Have you not thought that maybe she needs some space? No, because the two of you are too busy with your focking High School Musical routine.’

  I tell him he’s a disgrace and I hang up on him.

  Harvey arrives back from the jacks – we’re sitting outside Swinger’s on Beverly, the sun beating down on our faces, the whole bit – and he catches, like, the tail-end of the conversation.

  ‘Was that your father?’ he goes, like he can’t believe anyone could speak to their old man like that. I tell him not to worry, he’s actually a penis. And he’s used to it. If I was nice to him, it’d be too much of a shock to the system. He’d have a hort attack. Harvey seems to understand.

  Our Ahi sandwiches arrive.

  I ask him how the big romance is going. That’s one of the other things I love about myself since I came out here – I’ve become, like, an amazing conversationalist? He tells me that Hugo’s a yoga instructor and that the sex is amazing and at the top of my voice I’m going, ‘TMI, Dude! TMI!’

  He laughs, then he says it’s not just the things they do together. They talk – as in really talk. And Hugo listens to him.

  ‘I listen to you as well,’ I hear myself go. I don’t know why? But it’s actually nice when he says he knows I listen.

  ‘Mike never did,’ he goes. ‘He was, like, all about his Maserati and his time at Brown and how his wife was such a good person and if she wasn’t, how come she ended up teaching children with special needs?’

  I touch my bandaged nose, thinking I probably shouldn’t spend too long outside. I don’t want to end up with, like, tan lines on my face. ‘So,’ I go, ‘have you had another think about this whole TV thing?’

  See, he’s changed his mind about appearing in Ross, His Mother, His Wife and Her Lover and now he won’t sign the release form for the footage of the two of us in the hospital, where I’m trying on various noses. Which means, roysh, that MTV are going to have to either drop that entire scene or somehow splice Harvey out of it.

  He says he’s just not ready for something like this. Of course, if that’s his decision, roysh, it’d be unfair to, like, push him.

  ‘I’m disappointed,’ I go. ‘But I’ll get over it.’

  He looks suddenly sad. I’m wondering is he going to eat those potato chips.

  ‘Look, can I tell you something?’ he goes.

  I’m there, ‘Of course you can. Fock’s sake, Harve.’

  He takes, like, a deep breath. ‘Remember before, when you asked how my parents took the news?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  I take a potato chip. Fock, my abs and pecs are sore today.

  ‘They don’t know, Ross. They don’t know that I’m gay.’

  I’m there, ‘Fock! But the thing about reality TV is, you can be whoever you want to be. No one’s saying you have to do gay shit. You can be in it as just some random mate of mine.’

  He shakes his head. ‘You don’t understand,’ he goes. ‘They know nothing about my LA life.’

  ‘Your LA life? What are you talking about?’

  ‘Ross, when I’m here, I can be me. When I’m at home…’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I’m different. Look, I grew up in this macho family. I’ve got, like, five brothers. They tinker with cars. They like sports. You understand?’

  ‘Er, I think so.’

  ‘When I call home, I put on this, like, deep voice. I read the football pages so I can pretend to know what my father’s talking about. They don’t even know what I do here. They think I’m in college.’

  I’m there, ‘Dude, you have to tell them – take it from someone who always calls it like it is. With my old pair, I’m always thinking, you know, what if something happens to them and there ends up being things I haven’t said to them? That’s why you hear me offloading to my old man like that. I do it to her as well. You can’t live with regrets.’

  He doesn’t say anything, roysh, except that I should maybe get in out of the sun – otherwise I’m going to end up with, like, a rhino tan.

  Er, remind me again why we’re here?

  I’m actually talking about Whole Foods in Santa Monica, but Sorcha looks at me like I’ve just shed a load in one of her Roberto Cavallis.

  ‘Because,’ she goes, ‘some of us don’t want to see our children poisoned by Agri-Business,’ then she turns around to Erika and says that there’s no point in even trying to talk to me because I’ve no even interest in, like, sustainability.

  It’s all for the benefit of the cameras, of course.

  Erika gives me a little smile and sort of, like, rolls her eyes, as if to say, she’s a bit focking much, isn’t she? And it’s amazing, roysh, because it’s suddenly, like, brother and sister sharing an actual joke?

  She looks amazing as well in, like, the Pencey mini and Alice + Olivia strappy top that I let her put on my credit cord this morning because her luggage is actually lost. I tell her I was talking to the old man earlier and she looks suddenly worried.

  She’s there, ‘You didn’t tell him I’m here, did you?’ and I tell her no, there’s no way in the world I’d do that. I’d rather let the focker sweat.

  She takes Honor from me. I suppose she’s, like, her auntie now as well.

  We’re in the artisan bread section, where Sorcha is, like, squeezing various loaves, testing them for what she calls give. ‘Jackie Keller, the nutritionist who works with Ginnifer Goodwin, said somewhere that it’s possible to eat a good proportion of your recommended daily water intake and artisan breads are, like, seventy-five per cent moisture?’

  Me and Erika pull faces like we actually care.

  Then we get back to, like, family matters. ‘Erika, I know you hate your old dear,’ I go. ‘But can I make a case for you hating him just as much – possibly even more?’

  She’s there, ‘Ross, Charles hasn’t been in my life? The point is, she has? She had, like, twenty-seven years to tell me the truth – but that would have been, oh, too inconvenient for her.’

  I’m there, ‘Would you not think of even texting her? She’s going to
need all the support she can get if she’s got herself mixed up with him again,’ but there’s, like, too much anger in her for her to see sense at the moment.

  Sorcha pushes the trolley on. She says she saw Ashley Tisdale and Jared Murillo in here and that was, like, two weeks before she got a text alert to say they were even dating?

  I grab a leaflet on the shop’s policy regording genetically modified food and make, like, a paper airplane, which I then throw. I get unbelievable distance from it as well. Honor just, like, squeals with excitement and even Erika seems pretty impressed.

  We head for the checkout and the bird – not the Rory Best, it has to be said – storts ringing our shit through. Organic vanilla ricemilk. Grain-fed chicken. Rennet- and rBST-free cheddar. Chewy Multivitamin Gummy Fruits. It’s like, porty time at our place!

  I stort packing all the shit into a biodegradable paper bag.

  Sorcha picks up a copy of Us Weekly while she’s waiting to hear the damage and mentions that waist-cinching dresses are going to be so in this year, although she’d almost literally kill for the tea-length vintage Ossie Clark that Keira Knightley wore to the Oscar nominee luncheon.

  I’m actually putting the flaxseed oil in the bag when, for some reason, I happen to look up and, out of the corner of my eye, I notice the cover of People magazine. Or, more specifically, a photograph of me leaving Barney’s Beanery two nights ago with a bird called Shelby Pienkowski, another of Trevion’s up-and-coming actresses.

  The headline is like, ‘From No Job to Nose Job’, and then underneath it’s like, ‘But Socialite O’Carroll-Kelly Keeps New Schnoz Under Wraps!’

  My hands are, like, shaking with anger, to the point where I find it difficult to even turn to pages fourteen, fifteen, sixteen and seventeen, not to mention the ‘Week to Forget For’ feature on thirty-five, which I also made it into.

  The main story’s like, ‘Celebrity wannabe Ross O’Carroll-Kelly has always had a nose for controversy. Remember giving espresso to a minor? Remember being thrown off the set of a Disney movie? Now, the wild child of literary sensation Fionnuala O’Carroll-Kelly is looking to reinvent himself – with a brand new nose!’ and there’s not a focking mention of me getting kicked in the face against Gonzaga.

  ‘O’Carroll-Kelly (27) was spotted leaving a West Hollywood bar with promising actress Shelby Pienkowski (One Tree Hill pilot, Angel pilot, My So-Called Life pilot) late on Saturday night, sporting two black eyes and with his nose heavily strapped.’

  Sorcha, who’s, like, reading over my shoulder, goes, ‘Oh my God, Ross, you are turning into such a male slut.’

  I’m like, ‘Sorcha, it’s a set-up. Johnny Sarno just wanted a few shots of me out and about with some random bird, doing my thing. Give the public a taste of what I’m like.’

  The story continues, ‘The pair were later seen at nearby Coco de Ville, grabbing a table with Hills stars Audrina Partridge, Frankie Delgado and Doug Reinhardt,’ which is total horseshit, by the way. ‘Eventually, the group moved to the dancefloor, forming a circle and dancing to songs like Justin Timberlake’s “Rock Your Body” and Madonna’s “Holiday”. “Ross looked a bit like Hannibal Lecter with all that strapping on his face,” said one onlooker. “But he didn’t seem self-conscious at all.”

  ‘Shelby wore a gold sequinned bubble mini dress by Jovani with Rene Caovilla sandals.

  ‘A spokesman for the Irish lothario – who is separated from his wife Sorcha (meaning ‘fair one’) – refused to comment. However, a friend confirmed that he decided to have the surgery after years of jibes about his formerly wide and misshapen nose.’

  I’m there, ‘Bastard!’

  ‘It’s even rumoured that it was his monster schnozzle that came between him and former beau Lauren Conrad. What she’ll think of the new one is anyone’s guess. The friend said that Ross has been told to keep it under wraps for at least four weeks.’

  I end up flipping the lid. I whip out my phone and ring Trevion. ‘You focker!’ are the first words out of my mouth. ‘You’ve stitched me up. Again.’

  He’s there, ‘Hey, pipe down, Tin Strawn.’

  ‘Coco de Ville?’ I go. ‘Frankie Delgado? This story’s got your pawprints all over it, so don’t even think about denying it.’

  He’s there, ‘Hey, I’m keeping your name in the papers, aren’t I? How about some gratitude?’

  ‘Gratitude? The deal was we were going to say it was, like, a rugby injury.’

  I get, like, a stabbing pain in my chest. I should stop shouting or I’ll burst my stitches.

  ‘You think anyone’s interested,’ he goes, ‘in some sportsman-who-never-was, having an operation to help him breathe better? You know what people want?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘They want to know that the stars they see on TV are every bit as vain and unhappy with themselves as they are.’

  ‘Oh, is that what you think?’

  ‘Yes, it fucking is, Dorothy. People are going to tune in in their tens of millions to see you take them bandages off your nose. Now quit whining. I got news. Johnny’s over the fucking moon with the footage he’s got so far…’

  I’m there, ‘He’s not going to use the bit where…’

  He’s like, ‘The bit where you get an erection in your pants sitting next to your fucking sister? No. Even MTV’s got standards. But the pilot’s going out second Sunday in May…’

  I’m like, ‘Whoa!’

  ‘Which means we got to keep working. You see that wife and that sister of yours, you tell them they’re having breakfast in Viktor’s tomorrow – just two broads having a girlie chat. As for you, your mother’s in the recording studio eleven o’clock in the morning…’

  ‘Mariah Carey,’ I go. In other words, I’ll be there.

  ‘By the way,’ he goes, ‘I’m thinking about telling her how I feel.’

  I laugh. I actually laugh.

  ‘What,’ he goes, ‘you think I’m too old for her? Too ugly? Is it these scars?’

  I’m just there, ‘Look, just don’t say I didn’t warn you.’

  I ring Christian, just to let him know that his best friend in the world is about to become a huge stor on MTV. It goes straight to his voicemail, so I leave a message telling him that I have news – we’re talking major news – but he doesn’t even ring me back.

  ‘You like fah-ing terrapins?’

  I turn around. There’s a dude standing there with, like, long hair and big aviator shades. Must be ‘Fah-ing’ Ronnie Wheen – as in the dude who’s producing this so-called record?

  I’m there, ‘I have to say I’ve never given them much thought,’ then we end up both staring into this massive tank in the corner of the studio. They are pretty cool, I suppose – they’ve even got their own little Hollywood sign in there.

  ‘They’re my passion,’ Ronnie goes. I probably should mention that he’s, like, English? ‘You wanna see my ’ouse – they’re fah-ing everywhere. See this little fella, keeps eeself to eeself? That’s Syd. You know his song, “Terrapin”? Course you do. Poor fah-ing Syd. Breaks my fah-ing ’eart to see him today. All that fah-ing talent…’

  I obviously haven’t a fah-ing bog what he’s banging on about.

  He’s there, ‘So this Finnhooler’s your mum, eh?’

  I’m like, ‘Yeah – worse luck.’

  ‘Nah,’ he goes, ‘she got a fah-ing great voice.’

  I’m there, ‘There must be something wrong with your ears, then. She sounds like a pensioner bending down for the TV remote.’

  Ronnie shakes his head like he couldn’t actually agree less? ‘I’ve worked wiv the best and she’s fah-ing up there. The uvver fing is, this idea’s the perfect fah-ing synergy, in’it? They make a TV programme of ‘er recording an owbum – the show promotes the fah-ing record and the record promotes the fah-ing show. Everyone’s ’appy – way of the fah-ing future.’

  I turn around to the console and I’m suddenly staring at the old dear through the window of the sound booth, thinking, Wh
at! The fock! Is she wearing?

  This isn’t horseshit, roysh, she’s got on, like, a babydoll dress with leopardskin ballet flats and – sweet suffering fock – her hair up in a beehive, like Amy focking Winehouse. It would actually be hilarious if it wasn’t so sad.

  Trevion arrives with Johnny Sarno in tow. The way he reacts, you’d swear he just walked in to find Megan Fox sniffing his boxers.

  ‘Look at you!’ he goes, his big pumice-stone face going red. She gives him a little girlie wave through the glass – nothing for me, of course. Trevion turns around to Johnny. ‘You give him his instructions yet?’

  Johnny looks at me – everything seems to be funny to this dude – and goes, ‘What we want from you is exactly what you did in Book Soup. Remember, you’re going to be the Spencer Pratt character. So she’s going to start singing and you need to go in there and start verbally haranguing her. Do you think you can do that?’

  ‘Dude,’ I go, ‘this isn’t even work for me.’

  Trevion’s there, ‘We need to do it quickly, too. Then we’re going to get you out of here, because your mother’s got a record to record. We want to have it pressed and in the shops by the time this episode hits the screens.’

  Jesus, what does she sound like, I’m thinking, going up through the scales – doh, ray, me, fah – like she actually knows what’s she’s doing?

  ‘So… lah… tee… dohhh!’ she’s giving it, then she goes, ‘Dohhh!’ again, roysh, except she, like, holds it for ages, basically splitting everyone’s ears.

  Ronnie, Trevion, all the sound engineers, they’re all suddenly clapping. I’m like, er, for what exactly?

  She does a run-through for the first song, roysh, and it’s, like, ‘Grapefruit Moon’. You can hear The Late Jeff Buckley’s voice sing the first, what they call, couplet, then the old dear comes in and attempts to sing the second, then they continue – I don’t know – alternating, if that’s the word?

  Like, no disrespect to The Late Jeff Buckley – because it’s not his fault? – but I can honestly say it’s the most painful sound I’ve heard since a kid from Gerard’s tried to tackle me in a Junior Cup match and, whatever way my studs caught him, he ended up with his nipple ripped clean off.