by Shari King
When Hollie drew up outside at 5 a.m., he’d showered, brushed his teeth, gone through two inches of mouthwash and drunk a gallon of coffee. He checked on Chloe one last time – still sleeping, still breathing – left a note with his cell and asked her to call him when she woke.
If Hollie noticed he was distracted on the way to the studio, she probably put it down to alcohol withdrawal and tiredness. When he arrived on set, there was a bonus waiting – his new trailer, a gift from Wes to congratulate him on his sobriety. Usually he worked out of a standard star wagon, but this one was a whole other level. Fifteen hundred square feet, two storeys, expanding wall, hydraulic roof, full-size gym, full-service kitchen, arched windows, Italian cabinetry, brown leather sofas, a games room, roll-down movie screen, lounge, bar, boardroom, a spiral staircase to the three upstairs bedrooms. It cost $2.5 million.
The row of terraced houses he’d lived in as a kid could fit inside.
And he didn’t give a flying. All he cared about was what was going on in the 1,000 square feet of his minimalist Venice apartment.
Every hour he called home. The first few times, there was no answer. By lunchtime, he’d convinced himself she was dead, and knocked back a few shots of Jack to try to mellow out. By 2 p.m. he had a feeling of dread that was eroding his guts quicker than cheap tequila, when she finally answered sleepily and assured him she was fine. He called again a couple of hours later and that time round she sounded irritable and snappy. He could hear the TV blaring in the background, but he didn’t care. She was there, she was safe, and right now that was all that mattered.
The rest of the afternoon was taken up with the final rehearsal of a fight scene, one that gave his body a pounding because he refused to use a stunt double for the hand-to-hand combat. It was written in the Hollywood rules that no one ever, ever hurt the star, but Zander had pushed it, raged at the stunt director, demanded that he make it authentic and provoked him until he did. Today he enjoyed the pain. It gave him something else to focus on, a reason to think about anything other than the fact that Chloe could be lying in his apartment in a pool of her own vomit.
‘You OK?’ Hollie asked when they got in the car to head home at 6 p.m.
‘Yeah, just . . . you know . . . tired.’
She didn’t look convinced until her expression changed to one of irritation.
‘Tell me the feminist stripper wasn’t back for a second visit last night. Damn! She was. Man, I’m going to have to dip your dick in disinfectant.’
It was so blunt he actually laughed. ‘No stripper, and I don’t think dick hygiene falls within your remit.’
‘Thank God. I tell you, working for you is going to scare me celibate.’
They stopped outside his block and went through their regular ritual.
‘Want me to come in? Last week’s date didn’t work out. I’m back to being a dried-up single husk with the real prospect of dying surrounded by my cats in a house that gives the neighbourhood kids nightmares.’
Zander leaned over and kissed her on the cheek.
‘Rain check? I’m slammed. Need sleep.’
‘No stripper?’ she checked suspiciously.
‘No stripper,’ he assured her as he climbed out.
‘OK,’ she told him through the open window, ‘but I’m bringing Dettox in the morning as a precaution.’
He could still hear her laughing when he dropped $10 into the hat of his homeless mate outside the door.
Upstairs, as he put his key in the lock, he made a deal with himself and the Almighty. If she was still there, he was going to thank God and vow never to touch the drink again. If she was gone, he’d need a drink to get through the night. If she was dead, all bets were off.
Tentatively, he walked inside, gently closing the door behind him and wearily dropping his keys in the bowl on the console table to his left.
Other than the clinking of the keys against glass, there was silence.
The room looked like it had been the venue for a frat party. Food cartons littered tables, beer bottles were strewn across the floor, the blanket from his bed had been thrown over the sofa, and if he wasn’t mistaken, the trousers from his Tom Ford tux were dangling from the handle of the balcony door.
But still there was silence.
This wasn’t good. Really wasn’t good. There was no way she’d made this mess on her own. Other people had been here, a few by the looks of it.
In past times, he’d have dealt with this level of anxiety with coke, but he was expecting to be tested any day now. Alcohol he could explain away as wine with lunch – coke was indefensible. Production would be shut down and there was too much riding on it to go Charlie Sheen.
His teeth clenched as his gaze moved to the bed. When he’d left this morning, she’d been in there, crashed out; now she was gone.
With the stealth of a SWAT team, he swung open the bathroom door. Nothing. He checked the balcony. Nothing. She was gone. Shit.
He was about to concede defeat and call the cops when he saw the note.
‘Hey, sorry about mess – a friend came to collect me and we hung out. Have gone back to rehab. Promise. Will make you proud. Thanks for last night. Will call u tomoz. Cxoxox’
The relief was instant, sheer gratitude that she wasn’t lying in a gutter with a crack pipe by her side, rigor mortis slowly claiming her body. Sure, there was a niggling doubt that she could be lying. Again he called the clinic, asked for Lebron, and again he was told that Lebron wasn’t available. He hung up before they asked him for details. No point. The clinic wouldn’t disclose any information to him. He was going to have to trust her. He weighed up the probabilities. If she’d gone on a bender, it was doubtful that she’d bother leaving a note. However, this place looked like shit, so unless she’d called a clean, sober but highly untidy friend, there was every possibility that she was off the wagon. He knew more than anyone that addicts lied, but he also knew that sometimes they beat the odds and cleaned up. Trust didn’t come easy, but right now he was going to have to have some faith in her.
The tangle of emotions possessed him, taking control of his impulses. He pulled out the sofa and checked behind it, relieved to see that the quart of JD he stored there was untouched. He poured two fingers, peeled off his top, threw it in the laundry and then cleared the place up. Even in his darkest, most wasted days, he couldn’t bring himself to live in squalor. An upbringing in a house that was cleaned daily from top to bottom, with a mother who demanded that her surroundings be as immaculate as her soul, had instilled some habits in his DNA.
He put the food containers in the trash, the clothes and blankets in the laundry cupboard, opened the balcony door to let the sea air neutralize the smell of stale smoke and excess. In the bathroom, he cleared away the wet towels and rinsed down the walls and glass screen. She’d had a shower. He supposed that was a good sign, added weight to the honesty of her note. If she was truly on a bender, then the little things like eating and personal hygiene would have been forgotten.
When the apartment was back to something resembling normality, he lit a cigarette and carried his drink and ashtray over to the sofa. Half an hour of TV, then bed. He had a 6 a.m. call and was back in training all morning with a stunt coordinator with a voice that belonged on a Navy Seal PT instructor. He flicked through the channels. Football. CSI Somewhere.
Talk shows that all said the same. He flicked past those immediately. Last thing he needed to hear was some arrogant asshole earning his million-dollar salary by having a swipe at him.
Flick. Flick. TMZ. Stay. Given that it was an altercation filmed by a pap that had landed him in rehab – again – he should hate those guys. When he’d had a drink, he did. They’d put him under the spotlight so many times, fighting, falling out of clubs drunk, snogging models in alleys, and once – in a particular moment of dignity – pissing in a pot plant at the door of a particularly upmarket Beverly Hills restaurant.
He hadn’t gone back to check if he was barred.
&nb
sp; But he had enough self-awareness to realize that if he didn’t behave like an ass, they’d have nothing to report.
Case in point, Davie Johnston, whose image was now at the centre of the screen. What the hell was he doing? The cameras had caught him in full focus, screaming at a paparazzo at the entrance to the CSA building that afternoon. Jesus, the guy had lost it.
Zander downed his drink in one. They could live another lifetime and still his fists would clench at the sight of Davie Johnston’s face.
His finger moved to the programme button to change the channel when the action switched to the entrance to Lix, the hottest club in town. Davie’s wife, Jenny Rico, and her screen partner, Darcy Jay, were leaving, both of them smoking hot, with that whole rock-chick look going on. Tight jeans, tanks, tailored jackets. Zander smiled. He’d heard the rumours about their off-screen relationship. Now there was a mental image he could live with.
The thought had him so distracted that he almost missed it. Almost.
If the shot had been at a different angle. If the lights had been dimmer. If the cameraman had cut away just a moment sooner.
But no, there it was, in the background. On a female, approximately five foot eight, long black hair that had the synthetic sheen of a wig, his Tom Ford tuxedo jacket was walking into the club.
Fuck.
He realized immediately that this was one of those times when it would be so easy to make a shit decision. A month ago, he would have. But now, with everything riding on this movie, he had to be smarter. He was wrecked. Not drunk enough to fall apart, but too wasted to drive. He picked up his cell and pressed one digit.
‘It’s me. Don’t ask, but I need you to come get me and take me to Lix to pick someone up.’
Silence.
For several moments. Then . . .
‘It’s midnight.’
‘I know.’
Silence. Until Hollie announced, ‘I so need to get a new job. Give me twenty minutes and I’ll be there. Is it gonna get messy?’
‘Almost definitely.’
As usual, Hollie handled everything. She found Chloe passed out in the toilets at the club, bribed the security to get her out the fire exit and into her car, and then picked up the guy with the low baseball cap who’d watched the whole thing from a doorway across the street.
Zander tossed the cap in the back as they pulled off.
‘Where to?’ Hollie asked, trying not to sound too pissed off and failing.
Zander stared straight ahead. ‘Malibu.’
29.
‘Never Can Say Goodbye’
– the Communards
Glasgow, 1987
They were freezing, so they both jumped under the pale pink candlewick bedspread and then huddled into the middle of the bed. They often did this. Not because there was anything dodgy going on but because the house was bloody Baltic and this was the only way to get warm.
The council had been threatening to install central heating for years but had never come up with the goods.
‘Hang on, hang on.’ Mirren leaned over and pressed play on her tape recorder, then immediately turned up the volume. ‘I love this song.’ Jimmy Somerville was just reaching the chorus of ‘Never Can Say Goodbye’. The Communards album had been his present to her on her sixteenth birthday the week before and she’d taped it onto a cassette so they could listen to it anytime.
For a couple of minutes, neither of them spoke.
There had never been any awkwardness between them, but lately he’d noticed that there was sometimes a weird silence.
Maybe she was just bored. Maybe she just wanted to listen to the words of the song. She was like that sometimes.
She turned to look at him, started to say something, then stopped.
‘What?’
‘Nothing.’
‘You were going to say something. What is it? And no, I’m not going downstairs for a bottle of ginger, and no, you look nothing like that burd from T’Pau.’
She hit him in the face with her pillow, then put it back under her head. ‘No danger – she’s ancient.’
The two of them laughed and he felt his temperature rise to somewhere around normal. ‘Thank fuck. Got the feeling back in ma toes.’
He pulled back the cover, ready to move over to the beanbag he always sat on when they hung out up here, then realized that her hand was on his arm, stopping him from moving.
‘What the . . . ?’
Turning back, he saw that she was staring at him, but not in any way he’d seen before.
This was the way that Carol Cassidy stared at him right before he got off with her round the back of the school disco.
‘It’s OK if you want to,’ she said.
He wanted to. He’d wanted to for years, but he’d always thought this was out of bounds. They were pals. She’d had boyfriends and he’d had girlfriends, but they’d never so much as kissed each other after a bottle of cider on a Saturday night.
Did she fancy him? If she did, she’d always done a magic job of hiding it. Or maybe he’d just been too scared to hope.
He leaned over and put his mouth on hers, tasting the strawberry lip gloss she reapplied every five minutes.
Her hand wound round his neck and then stopped on his face, and that’s when an erection filled his jeans. He flushed with embarrassment. There was no way she wouldn’t notice. Please go down. Down. Come on.
He waited for the punch, for her to pull back and have a berzy at him. It was one thing having a bit of a winch, but a hard-on was . . . well, a pure beamer. This was Mirren. This wasn’t what they did together. They hung out. They spent nights talking shite in the hut. And now she was going to have a mad fit because his hard-on was pressing into her stomach and he couldn’t stop it.
What a nightmare.
What a total nightmare.
‘Mirren, I…’
If he said sorry now, maybe she’d pretend she hadn’t noticed and they could forget it. He’d say he was pished and they’d laugh about it tomorrow. He’d had two bottles of Grolsch after the cinema, so she’d believe him.
‘Sssshhh.’
It took a few seconds to realize that the sensation on the front of his crotch was her hand and it was rubbing against him. Touching his zip. Pulling it down slowly. Slowly.
He opened his eyes to see that she was staring at him.
‘Are you sure?’ he asked, whispering, as if raising his voice would change something, make her snap out of it and tell him to bugger off.
‘Yes,’ she said softly. ‘I want to.’
Her eyes looked even more huge than they normally did and he just wanted to stop, to look at her, to remember what this felt like.
Leaning over, he kissed her again. This time his tongue pushed her mouth open wider, and an involuntary groan escaped as her hand moved inside his jeans.
Gently, he felt for the bottom of her jumper and – still terrified that she was going to stop at any second – slid it upwards and cupped her left boob.
‘Are you sure?’ he asked again.
‘I’m sure.’ Her voice sounded different again. Like she was crying. The thought terrified him. Mirren never cried. Panic made him pause. Was he doing something wrong? Something she didn’t like? She’d said it was OK, but maybe she didn’t mean it. Maybe she . . .
‘I love you,’ she whispered.
And that’s when he groaned again and then kissed her even harder, before slowly taking off her clothes and touching every part of her.
Because he’d loved Mirren McLean for as long as he could remember.
30.
‘In a Big Country’ – Big Country
Glasgow to LA
Sarah didn’t know what she’d been expecting, but her introduction to LA wasn’t it. After a fourteen-hour flight via London, she’d been forced to stand in a queue for two hours before reaching an obviously bored, shaven-headed man at the immigration desk. He’d grilled her on her reason for entry, any US work plans and return flight (holiday, none, on
e week later) before waving her through with such a disdainful manner she decided he was clearly disappointed that she hadn’t brightened up his day by being an illegal immigrant, a drugs mule or Catherine Zeta-Jones.
She’d contemplated coming over on a press visa, but the application process was too long and convoluted, so she’d decided a tourist visa was the way to go. It wasn’t as if this was an official Daily Scot story. Yet.
In her imagination, landing in LAX would be almost cinematic, with a futuristic airport and the occasional passing movie star. But no. It was a collection of low, somewhat tatty buildings that were the equivalent of an ageing actor who could no longer deliver the goods.
However, going by the amount of construction, it was getting a facelift. She was definitely in the right city.
No one offered to help as she wrestled her bag off the conveyor belt. It was a Carlton case, in silver, with her initials monogrammed next to the handle. Simon had given it to her yesterday in a bid to show that he was a post-millennium modern man who didn’t care at all that his girlfriend had decided to up sticks and head to LA on what he considered a wild goose chase. They both knew it was a lie. He minded intensely, but knew that resistance was futile.
She tried to call him as she walked for what seemed like miles, following the signs for taxis.
Straight to answering service every time. Either he was in court or still in a huff. She really hoped it was the former. They were a great team and this had been the first stumbling block in an otherwise smooth relationship. Until now they’d rumbled along, their complementary personalities and mutual dedication to their work making their relationship easy. None of the petty squabbles that she heard the other girls talking about in the Daily Scot kitchen on a Monday morning. Just mutual support, great times and wholly satisfactory sex.
The leather on her black biker boots squeaked as she marched along a labyrinth of corridors, finally emerging into a large hall punctuated by sliding glass doors.