Taking Hollywood

by Shari King

  She leaves satisfied. He will be later. His publicist enters the room, turns to the sound guy.

  ‘Make sure that last exchange is deleted?’ He nods.

  Of course he does.

  Because no one ever says no in Hollywood.

  2.

  ‘Got to Give It Up’ – Marvin Gaye

  Bel Air, Los Angeles, 2013 A few months later . . .

  Davie Johnston

  It never crossed Davie Johnston’s mind to wonder when he’d stopped feeling lucky.

  This life he’d created had nothing to do with luck and everything to do with smarts. Skill. Talent. It wasn’t a perfect existence, but as he drove his Bugatti Veyron through the landscaped gardens to the door of his $40-million baroque mansion in the exclusive enclave of Bel Air, he knew it was pretty damn close.

  Drego, the Ukrainian gardener, was hosing down the play equipment custom-built for the seven-year-old Johnston twins, Bella and Bray. In this town, his red-haired, fair-skinned twins were a rarity, and it had served them well. Since they were three years old, they’d been in the cast of the hit sitcom Family Three. A week didn’t pass without a request for a family photo shoot from the celebrity mags, and every now and then he indulged them.

  Not that he needed the publicity. He got enough of that presenting American Stars. It was still number one in the ratings, knocking America’s Got Talent and American Idol back to the also-ran positions they deserved.

  He’d be signing this season’s contract any day now, and that would, once again, put Seacrest in his place too. The last decade had been a tussle for supremacy between them, a battle Davie was winning. Thirty million dollars for his last American Stars contract had made sure of that, not to mention the success of the reality shows he produced. Global profit on those had put him in the financial ‘fuck off ’ stratosphere. He never had to ask the price of anything. But he did. Not because he perpetuated the ridiculous myth that Scots were tight with cash – in his experience, generosity was in their cultural DNA. He asked the price because he was smart. Scots invented the telephone, television and the steam engine. Davie invented the most watched shows on the planet.

  He had American Stars. He had The Dream Machine, a sentimental slushfest that made dreams come true and left no heartstring untugged. And his other baby, Liking Lana – a car-crash docu-soap featuring the fucked-up life and family of tarnished has-been Lana Delasso – had finally topped Seacrest’s baby, Keeping Up With the Kardashians, last season.

  He checked his limited-edition gold Panerai Kampf-schwimmer watch – the case designed and made by Panerai, the movement by Rolex. It didn’t get any better, but it did cost $1 million. Two o’clock. The kids wouldn’t be back from the set for another hour. Time for a shower and to put a couple of calls in to the East Coast.

  The second-season premiere of New York Nixons, his latest scripted reality hit, starring the extended family of rock legend Jax Nixon, was due to air next week and Sky, the wayward daughter of Jax’s first wife, Rainbow, was due to stage an overdose in the next couple of days. Cue shock, outrage, sympathy and more free headlines than even the best publicist could drum up in a week.

  That was Davie’s talent. He was adaptable. Saw opportunities. Ran with them. Strategized for success. When the acting jobs dried up a few years after the Oscar, he morphed, schmoozed, spotted the potential in TV. There was a whole new dawn of talent shows just waiting to happen. They’d already stormed the UK market. Davie sought out Simon Cowell, the man behind them, asked questions, listened, learned. Then he developed his own concept, a variation on the UK theme, and took it to the American networks. They commissioned it as a summer filler. To their surprise, it rocked the country. Massive ratings. Massive buzz.

  Davie hitched a ride on that bus of wannabes and it had brought him as much fame, glory and cash as any A-list actor. And when the era of the reality shows dawned, he was in pole position again, using his own cash to bankroll pilots that became syndicated shows that added more zeros to his bank account.

  As he opened the front door, he could hear Drego’s wife, Ivanka, singing some unintelligible song in the kitchen. A Russian chick who dressed like a whore and loved country music. Thankfully, she cooked like a dream, and her OCD meant every corner of the house glistened.

  Ignoring the temptation of the aromas emanating from the kitchen, he headed up the left-hand side of the sweeping double marble and glass staircase. No point eating now, especially when he’d skipped a gym session and headed home early. He’d pay for it tomorrow. Clay, his trainer, was an ex-middleweight champion on the US Olympic team who abided by the only two rules Davie had set at the outset of their partnership: don’t hit the face and don’t kill me.

  Crossing the upper hallway of his palatial home, he lifted his Prada T-shirt – blue, of course – over his head in readiness for the shower. Still moving, he opened the top button of his jeans with one hand, turned the doorknob of his bedroom with the other.

  The brush of the white shagpile carpet muffled the sound of the door opening, giving him a couple of seconds to take in the scene in front of him before the occupants of the room registered his presence.

  The curve of her back caught his eye first. How many times had he seen his wife’s silhouette on billboards and in magazines, and how many other men had jerked off over the perfection of her breasts or the exquisite beauty of her ass?

  Or the deep raven hair, long and thick, that flowed down past her breasts, natural, high, the perfect size for her slender frame. Or the hazel eyes, with flecks of gold that changed colour in the light.

  When he married Jenny Rico nearly ten years ago, he’d sometimes find himself lying awake at night just staring, almost unable to believe that he could touch that body whenever he wanted to.

  Now, from his side view, he could see every contour of her shape as she knelt on the bed, legs open, eyes closed, her head thrown back as her hands caressed her breasts.

  Lying beneath her, another shape, one that would confuse the TV addicts of the nation. On the screen, in the hugely popular cable cop show Streets of Power, these two people were partners, their relationship purely platonic.

  At no point in the show was his wife’s clit being licked to orgasm by her slightly older, more experienced sidekick. Mixed race, her skin a luscious caramel, her hair a waist-length curtain of ebony gloss, Darcy Jay was second only to Jenny in her physical perfection.

  A sound, once familiar, escaped from his wife’s throat and he paused out of courtesy and curiosity, realizing that she was just seconds from coming.

  When her gasps stopped, she fell to the side, reaching over to cradle the face that had been checking out her Brazilian grooming schedule only seconds before.

  ‘I love you,’ she whispered tenderly, and despite himself, Davie winced aloud.

  The two heads on the bed snapped round, his wife’s face creasing into something between quiet amusement and exasperation. Her companion preferred a more vocal demonstration of feeling.

  ‘Jesus, Davie, have you never heard of knocking? Or were you so busy getting your rocks off you forgot your manners? I’ve told you, you’re welcome to join in anytime.’

  All three smiled, acknowledging the exaggeration in the statement. Davie threw his T-shirt in the direction of the bed as he crossed to his en suite, aware that there weren’t many men on earth who wouldn’t have accepted the offer.

  A hot threesome with Jenny Rico and her co-star Darcy Jay. Numbers one and two, respectively, on People Magazine’s Most Beautiful Women list for the last three years in succession. In public, both straight, both gorgeous, both sexy as hell.

  The irony was that this arrangement had been his idea. On the opening night of Streets of Power six years earlier, the three of them had ended up drinking late into the night in a bungalow at Chateau Marmont. Too many bottles of Dom Pérignon had led to clothes on the floor and a sexual experience that came pretty close to heaven. It wasn’t the first time he and Jenny had played around with a n
ew friend, but as the weeks passed, the two women developed a relationship that went far beyond getting fucked up and indulging in some girl-on-girl for fun. And he was no longer invited to the party.

  The transition had been tough, but when it came down to a choice between accepting their relationship or divorce, he’d chosen to go with the flow. Adapt. Hustle. Just like always. To the outside world, he lived a charmed existence with a stunning wife, regularly socializing with her best friend and TV partner, the stellar Darcy Jay.

  The world would say that a guy didn’t get much luckier than that. It was all about perceptions. Illusions. Making the view look very different for those on the outside, looking in. So, no, as the jerk-off wet dream taking place on his bed proved, life wasn’t perfect. But as he told himself every day, it was pretty damn close.

  All he had to do was keep it that way.

  3.

  ‘Make You Feel My Love’ – Adele

  Mirren McLean

  The slam of Mirren’s glass on the marble worktop made the assembled group of PR managers and lawyers blink.

  ‘I was under the misapprehension that keeping my daughter out of trouble and out of jail was what I paid you for.’ Her voice had dropped in tone to somewhere between serious and deadly, masking the inherent weariness that seeped through every fibre of her being. For a fleeting moment she wished that Jack were here, someone to have her back and share the worry, but that was just the exhaustion talking. He’d be on location in Istanbul for two more weeks, shooting a spy thriller with Mercedes Dance and Charles Power, the hottest on-screen couple in Hollywood. Besides, after nineteen years of blissful marriage to Jack Gore, much of it spent separated by the demands of their careers, she could handle this. Didn’t she always?

  Chloe Gore, wild child, Hollywood brat, Californian beauty, her daughter, the one who shunned growth and development for repeating the mistakes of many yesterdays.

  That’s why Mirren knew that this meeting and the next few hours of activity were only delaying the inevitable. She was depressingly aware that later that day she’d sit in this kitchen again, in the home these people had contaminated time after time, and the questions would start swirling around her mind.

  How had she let this happen? Where had she gone wrong? Was it something she’d done? A mistake she’d made? Had she not loved Chloe enough? Did her devotion to Jack somehow shut out her kids? Was she such a terrible mother? How could one child turn out so happy and another so damaged?

  It happened so often it was becoming just another normal day, one that invariably started with the same 7 a.m. call.

  ‘Honey, she’s locked up again. Beverly Hills. DUI. Resisting arrest.’ Mirren’s best friend, Lou Cole, editor of the Hollywood Post, a beautiful black woman who – when it came to all things celebrity – had the encyclopedic intelligence of Einstein.

  A doyenne of the gossip columns, a twenty-five-year veteran of the LA press circuit who had connections in every club, hotel concierge and gutter of the city.

  ‘I’m sorry, hon,’ Lou said sadly.

  Mirren knew the sympathy was sincere. The two women had been friends for two decades, and right from the start their relationship had been a sisterhood in every sense of the word.

  Besides, sometimes she thought Chloe’s bond with her godmother was closer than the mother–daughter ties that had been shredded by years of disappointment and defiance.

  Mirren McLean loved her daughter. But right now, she didn’t like her much.

  Two hours later, the depressingly regular war cabinet was in session in her kitchen, the anxieties of the publicists and lawyers clear in every nuance of their speech and actions. Chloe Gore had made them all plenty over the years. A dozen arrests, a couple of short-term sentences and more incidents requiring damage limitation than any of them could count.

  Strategy agreed, they made their way to the courtroom for a 10 a.m. appearance. Mirren thought she caught a look of empathy as Judge Leighton Hamilton took his seat, and had a vague recollection of reading about a sting involving his teenage son, a tabloid magazine and a large bag of Colombian snow.

  When Chloe shuffled in, she avoided eye contact, kept her gaze on the floor, her lids swollen and ringed with dark shadows. Mirren was desperate to reach out to her, to stroke her tangled hair, but there was little point. She’d tried the love-bomb approach and it had been every bit as unsuccessful as the harsh rejection of tough love she’d tried next.

  As the case was set out by a couple of expensive lawyers in Armani, Mirren zoned out, wondering if the crowds had started to form outside yet. There would be the usual paps, and then there would be the idle curious with their camera phones at the ready. That was the problem. Everyone these days was a potential videographer. Telling stories all over town. Recording snapshots they might be able to flog for $100, or, if they got really lucky, $100,000. They would be out there. Waiting. Calling their friends.

  Perhaps, just like last time, a rumour would already be sweeping the city, claiming that Chloe’s brother, Logan Gore, was inside supporting his sister, and a thousand teenage boy-band fans would be outside right now chanting his name. The noise of the gavel interrupted her thoughts and she listened as Lou leaned forward from the row behind. ‘Mandatory rehab. Under the circumstances, that was the best verdict we could have hoped for, darling.’

  Only when she was almost at the door that led to the bowels of the building did Chloe raise her eyes to meet Mirren’s. The emptiness was harrowing. Nothing. Nothing there at all. Any sign of the little girl she’d adored had been snuffed out by her cocktail of choice: Xanax and coke.

  ‘Want me to come home with you?’ Lou offered.

  Mirren shook her head, causing some of her curls to come free from the grip that held them in a loose chignon. Physically, twenty years in Hollywood had changed her very little. She was still as slender as she’d always been, with just a few crow’s feet belying the passage of the years. She put it down to yoga, SilkPeel and OXYjet facials, and the skills of Dr Lancer, the dermatologist who was on speed dial for half the stars in town. No trout pouts or G-forced faces there. Just small tweaks, natural work that gently took the years off without leaving a trace of a needle or laser.

  ‘Thanks, but I’m fine. I need to get organized. We start shooting next week on Clansman 5.’

  Her other love. The Clansman. He’d come along right after the Oscar, when she realized that millions of American women got their rocks off at the thought of those mythical bare-chested, kilted heroes of historical fiction.

  The Clansman had been her first novel, penned almost two decades before, as she cocooned herself in a tiny Santa Monica apartment in her first year in California. A bestseller, it demanded a sequel, then another. Ten years after it was written, Mirren wrote the screenplay and persuaded a small studio to back her directorial debut. That studio backed a winner. Clansman was now a brand that encompassed novels, merchandise and movies, all of them written and directed by Mirren.

  She was one of the top female earners in the town, rich in everything except maternal satisfaction.

  As the courtroom began to clear, Lou leaned in and whispered in her ear, ‘Can I come and leer at Lex Callaghan’s pecs? C’mon, throw an old broad a bone. I can be there any day you like.’

  Mirren’s eyes narrowed. ‘Lou, that’s a totally inappropriate thing to say. We’re in a court, for God’s sake. And he won’t be half naked until week two.’

  It was impossible to resist. The humour of their friendship had got her through so many tough moments in the last two decades.

  ‘Miss McLean, there’s quite a crowd outside. My men will see you to your car.’

  She smiled in thanks to the sergeant, a tall, handsome guy with the lean, muscular build of an NBA player, who looked much younger than his rank suggested. It wasn’t lost on her that this was the type of man she would want for her daughter. Strong, streetwise, employed, focused. Was it too much to ask?

  As good as his word, the sergeant got her o
ut of the building. There, they were joined by another four officers.

  There was a myth that every officer in Beverly Hills was also a member of the Screen Actors Guild. Looking at these guys, Mirren would hedge her bets that it was only the three with the buffed fingernails.

  They almost got to the car. Almost.

  Later, she wouldn’t be able to remember the paparazzo’s face, only the voice.

  Sitting back at that kitchen table, whisky in her glass, watching the sun come up over the city, the familiar questions once again swirled around in her head.

  How had she let this happen? Where had she gone wrong? Was it something she’d done? A mistake she’d made? Had she not loved Chloe enough? Did her devotion to Jack somehow shut out her kids? Was she such a terrible mother? How could one child turn out so happy and another so damaged?

  But almost immediately they were pushed to the side by the words she’d heard as she left court.

  ‘Mirren!’ a vaguely familiar photographer had shouted as she passed by. ‘Do you have any comment on the rumours that Jack is fucking Mercedes Dance?’

  She hadn’t reacted, aware that it was a common ruse to get a reaction, one that would sell pictures to news desks across the country. An old trick. It meant nothing. Move on, people, nothing to see here.

  But now, as dawn broke and she replaced the whisky with coffee, her gut clenched as the phone call she’d been expecting all night finally came.

  ‘Honey, it’s Lou . . .’

  Chloe was locked up. Only an hour before, Logan had sent a text saying he was just about to go on stage in Miami. So there were only two things that Lou could have discovered that would warrant an early morning call and inject such dread and despair into her friend’s voice. One belonged in the past, had sat on her shoulder since long before Hollywood was her home, and could rip apart her life, her reputation, her career and everything she’d ever achieved. The other lived in the present and came with the prospect of slicing her heart in two. Every instinct told her heart to adopt the brace position.