Taking Hollywood

by Shari King

  The make-up assistant froze, mouth agape.

  Hollie looked up from her iPad. ‘What? Too much?’

  Zander shook his head, his expression rueful. ‘I thought this town was supposed to be full of sycophants who did nothing but suck up to the talent? How do I replace you with one of those?’

  ‘An Adrianna Guilloti suit is hanging in your dressing room, you have less than five minutes to change, your car is already outside, and it’s available to take you straight home afterwards, where there’s a salad and protein shake in the fridge, both your favourites, and I’ve left a couple of DVD screeners on your coffee table. Still wanna fire me?’

  ‘Yes. But I won’t. Need to keep Americans in jobs. Doing my bit for the economy.’

  Hollie’s laughter followed him along the corridor, and she was still smiling as she walked with him to the limo ten minutes later.

  ‘So how are you really doing?’ she asked, searching his face for clues. ‘Wes wants you to meet a shrink. The one he uses. Which probably means you’ll be cured of the longing to drink but be suddenly desperate to have threesomes with young aspiring actresses who’ll do anything for a break.’

  Her words were flippant, but Zander was still stuck on the first part.

  ‘I’m not seeing another shrink, Holls. Can you make it go away?’ He wasn’t even annoyed, more somewhere between weary and quietly resistant.

  ‘You sure?’

  ‘I’m sure.’

  There was no way he was going down that road again. Every therapist he’d ever known had kicked off by attempting to take him back to his childhood, and if there was anything that was absolutely sure to make him want to drink, it was there.

  Right there.

  Sitting between a fucked-up father, a devout mother and a desperation to escape the burden of both.

  ‘OK, I’ll see what I can do. And I’m just saying, there’s an AA meeting on at Venice Recovery Center tonight, ten p.m.’

  ‘You do keep trying, don’t you?’ Zander said.

  ‘Only because you pay me to,’ she replied, only able to say that because they both knew it wasn’t true.

  It was a different car tonight – no Leandro to keep him company and no drinks in the minibar. Hollie had done her job. Almost. He took a flask out of his sock and threw back some neat vodka. Grey Goose. Just one for the road. One. He’d been sober for days and this wasn’t letting anyone down. Not really. It wasn’t as if he was going to get wasted. Even as he tried to justify it to himself, he knew he was being a dick. How could he have had such focus and determination only a couple of days ago and now it had gone to shit?

  Travel time came in at way over an hour thanks to killer traffic all the way along the 10, so the rest of it was gone by the time he got to Shutters On the Beach, a stunning, elegant five-star hotel on the sands of Santa Monica, with an awesome view of the famous Ferris wheel at the end of the pier. The maître d’ showed him to a table on the terrace with a panoramic view of the ocean. A beautiful thirty-something woman sat waiting, drumming her steel-coloured fingernails on the table. As soon as she saw him, the transition was remarkable – from stern irritation to wide smile in a split second. If this broad didn’t make it in fashion, she’d have a future in acting.

  So they were both in the land of make-believe. She was pretending she was happy to be there, and he was pretending to be sober.

  ‘Adrianna Guilloti. Pleased to meet you.’ There was a slight, sexy trace of a Latin or European accent.

  ‘Zander Leith. And apologies. I thought I was meeting your head of marketing tonight.’

  ‘You were. I’ve sent him on to the airport and I must leave here shortly to go join him.’

  Zander waved away the menus that were being offered by an obviously star-struck waitress and ordered drinks. A martini for her, a soda water for him.

  It gave him time to weigh up what was going on here. Damn, his brain wasn’t kicking in as quickly as it would if it hadn’t taken a car ride that was sponsored by Grey Goose. Hollie had briefed him on the company months ago and he tried to remember what he knew about the boss. She was self-made. Half Italian. Or Spanish. Based in New York, had some major-bucks investors, and their brand was beginning to make real headway in the market.

  As he stared at the woman responsible, he could see why. Sure, she was beautiful. Long, sleek black hair that was straight from the Pocahontas costume department, cheek- bones you could ski off, dark red lips that clashed against her hazel eyes. But it was her style that stood out most. A man’s suit jacket, exquisitely tailored in deep grey, with a white shirt left open just low enough to expose a couple of inches of rich caramel cleavage. A matching skirt, cut below the knee, but tight enough for the highly trained eye to spot the tiny bumps of her stocking clips.

  It might have been the vodka, but right then he was fairly sure that she was the most breathtaking sight he’d ever seen. She didn’t even make a polite pretence about checking her watch. Rolex President in rose gold, he noticed, while detecting the unmistakable aroma of Chanel No.5 and serious cash.

  ‘Forgive me for being direct, Mr Leith, but I don’t have long. I just wanted to meet you and give you an opportunity to reassure me that my investment will be a wise one.’

  OK, so she was straight to the point. Direct. He could handle that.

  ‘I have no doubt that your endorsement will benefit my brand and I think we could have a mutually profitable partnership, but you see, I have become troubled by nightmares . . .’

  Her warm smile and ambient tone made it clear they weren’t of the ghoulish kind.

  ‘And in those nightmares a very wonderful actor is punching someone while wearing an Adrianna Guilloti suit.’

  Either Zander or the Grey Goose decided to play. It was unclear which.

  ‘So, red carpets, editorials, publicity shots – all good. Fights and anything that could lead to your clothes being accessorized with handcuffs – all bad.’

  Her throaty chuckle made something in his groin area stir.

  ‘Yes, exactly. I think we understand each other.’

  ‘Great. I’m sure I can match up to your expectations,’ Zander told her, eyes crinkling, thinking she’d played this game before. Hard-ass. Professional. With just a large hint of so damn sexy.

  ‘That’s good to hear. Now, again, forgive me, but I must go catch my flight.’

  She stood up and offered her hand.

  He took it and kissed it, a gesture that would be cheesy if performed by any other guy. When accompanied by his standard mischievous expression, Zander Leith could pull it off.

  Half the restaurant blatantly watched her go; the other half pretended not to while resolving to up their grooming schedule. And that was saying something in this part of town.

  How much did he want to go after her? Persuade her to stay. He’d just netted a deal that would be worth $1 million this year and yet that was being kicked out of the park by the fact that he desperately wanted to know more about that irresistible creature.

  Long ago, a shrink had told him he had an issue with short-term gratification and taught him some cognitive behavioural therapy to deal with it. He took a deep breath and attempted some CBT in the hope of derailing the urge to go after her, attempt to seduce her and no doubt make a colossal fuck-up that would end with him being dropped from the deal and seeking solace in the bottom of a bottle of Jack. Calm. Focused. Early call tomorrow. Calm. Focused. Early call tomorrow.

  ‘Can I have the check, please?’

  ‘The lady already took care of it, Mr Leith.’

  Pure class. Man, she was killing him. Another time, he told himself. Another time.

  The urge to party hadn’t quite left him, so he decided to walk home. Hollie would kill him for going anywhere on foot without security, but the need to be outside was as irresistible as it was compelling.

  He texted the driver to let him go, slipped out of the French doors leading onto the boardwalk, kept his head down, removing his tie and jack
et as he went. As soon as he reached the sands, he pulled off his shoes and socks, rolled up his sleeves. His $5,000 suit had suddenly become beachwear.

  Now he was a silhouette. Not famous. Not a star. To the few people who lay around the sands in the darkness, he was just another guy strolling along the edge of the water.

  In the distance, the flickering lights of a plane rose from LAX. It was too soon to be the red-eye to New York, but it still resurrected the image of Adrianna Guilloti in his head. There was someone who had it together. Knew what she wanted. Had he ever really felt like that? There had never been a plan or a purpose. It was all just action and reaction, moving along, dealing with the days and getting into shit at night. Short-term pleasure. Long-term chaos.

  What could he offer someone like Adrianna Guilloti? Yeah, there was the money and his face on a billboard, but what else? Would she come bail him out when he got messed up? Forgive him when he fell off the wagon and was papped falling out of Lix with some half-naked babe from a reality show?

  Zander Leith had never had a grown-up relationship in his life. He’d moved from movie to movie, location to location, picking up three-month flings here and there, usually with models who spent the majority of their lives in different time zones.

  And when he wasn’t screwing up his sex life, he was a wasted mess, reacting to paparazzi-baiting, biting back and giving them exactly what they wanted – an out-of-control tosser whose car-crash actions made sellable footage.

  The faint whiff of marijuana and the sound of music playing along the boardwalk alerted him to the fact that he had crossed the threshold from Santa Monica to Venice.

  He thought of cutting across the sands, heading up Rose and going to the 10 p.m. AA meeting. He should. He really should. Maybe it was time to sort himself out. Stop running. Make commitments. That thought, rather than the sea breeze, made him shiver. Besides, last time he’d gone, the room was half full of people who had no problems with alcohol, just a problem getting a role in Hollywood. They were just there for the networking.

  Hello, my name is Chad and I’m an alcoholic. I also did three years in acting class and I don’t mind doing full-frontal nudity.

  Still, right now, he didn’t feel any more together than they were.

  There had to be something seriously wrong with a guy who could shake on a million-dollar-deal and still feel like he had nothing worthwhile in his life, and worse, found it difficult to summon a reason to fix it.

  Ruling out the detour to the AA meeting, Zander walked another few hundred yards, then cut across the sands to his apartment block, speeding up now, decision made. Moral dilemma solved. AA could wait. Right now, at home, a Jack and Coke had his name on it. Just one. Maybe two. For all he knew, there could be ten hours in the harness again tomorrow and that would be a killer with a hangover. Not that he hadn’t done it before. That was the secret. Enough to stay loose, not too much to fall over or slur. He’d managed to live the last two decades of his life mildly drunk, and with the delusion of the veteran alcoholic, he was fairly sure no one knew.

  He let himself in the front door and climbed the stairs to his apartment. Halfway up, a sudden wave of dread hit him. Please God, don’t let Chloe be there again. He’d already dealt with that too many times and he had no desire for a replay.

  The anxiety rose as he turned the corner, only for the trepidation to switch to confusion.

  The first thing he noticed were the grey jeans and the leather boots. Then the black hoodie, with red curls escaping from the inside edges of the hood.

  Shit. Seriously? Again?

  ‘Chloe, come on, you can’t—’

  The rise of her head cut him dead.

  ‘Hey, Zander,’ she said. The voice hadn’t changed. The decades rewound like the reels of a slot machine in reverse. Mirren was staring at him with the steely eyes that haunted his sleep.

  ‘I think it’s time to have a conversation about your relationship with my daughter.’

  42.

  ‘Stay Away’ – Nirvana

  ‘You’d better come in,’ Zander told her, clearly rattled.

  So he should be. The hour she’d sat waiting had been a tortuous internal wrangle between dread, confusion and sheer bloody fury.

  How fucking dare he? He was a grown man, and Chloe was . . . She was a child. Deep down. Underneath all that attitude and bravado.

  He was the last person she wanted to see right now. As if Jack’s affair and Chloe’s addictions weren’t enough to deal with, now she was forced to face the man who’d made it oh so clear he never wanted to see her face ever again. Not that she blamed him. They’d done too much, hurt too deep. Their past was water under the bridge that could still drown them at any moment and they all knew it. That was why she hadn’t returned Davie’s calls. That was why she’d scrupulously avoided running into Zander Leith for the last twenty years. She hadn’t watched his movies. She’d turned her head away from the billboards. She’d switched off talk shows the minute he walked out, stage left, arms open, ready to hug Jay Leno, Jimmy Kimmel, Chelsea Handler. And yet now, looking at his face, that beautiful face, she just wanted to touch him.

  Or kill him.

  It was hard to say.

  He held open the door of his apartment and let her pass. Always the gentleman. Always had been. If she’d had to imagine where he lived, this would be exactly it, she realized as she scanned the room. Wooden floors. White walls. Doors that opened to a balcony overlooking the ocean. Simple. Basic. A few months before, she’d accidentally come across pictures of Davie’s mansion in an architectural magazine, and it was so over-the-top, ostentatious and lavish. Exactly Davie. Loud, extrovert, making a statement. Zander was the opposite end of the ‘look at me’ scale.

  ‘Why here?’ she asked, crossing the room to the balcony doors and looking out onto the ocean, the waves illuminated by the lights along the boardwalk. She got the desire to be near the water; she understood the lack of material stuff, but the location?

  ‘Why here?’ she repeated. ‘Why not Malibu?’

  There was a long pause and she almost turned round to look at him, but she couldn’t. Not yet. She didn’t trust herself not to crumble. The whole time she’d sat out on his landing she’d been preparing her speech. Ranting. Raving. Drilling him for the truth. Now, she just wanted silence, a breather to adjust to the seismic shift and the explosion of feelings the last five minutes had caused.

  ‘I like the noise,’ he said.

  Of course. He’d be miserable somewhere quiet. Cut off from the world. Up in the Colony, the only activity was the occasional delivery or gardener firing up a lawnmower. Here, even with the doors shut, there was music, voices, activity in the distance. That’s exactly the life Zander would choose. For a second she was sad she hadn’t made the same choices.

  Behind her, she could hear a cupboard opening, the clink of glasses, the sigh of someone who didn’t want to be in this moment.

  ‘Drink?’ he said, drawing up beside her, a glass of Jack Daniels in each hand. Reluctantly she took it. This wasn’t a social call, yet not one second of it was going as she’d imagined.

  They both stood and stared into the darkness. Several moments passed before either found words.

  ‘Is she OK?’ Zander asked, almost a whisper.

  Mirren’s rage kicked in again. ‘Why do you care? What’s my daughter got to do with you?’

  He ran his fingers through his wavy hair, still exactly the same style that he’d had for his whole life. It was like a snapshot of their past.

  ‘I met her in rehab,’ he said, as if that should make everything perfectly clear.

  ‘Oh, for Christ’s sake. Of course you did. In this world, that makes complete sense.’

  The bitterness and fury were impossible to conceal.

  ‘So what is this, then? She’s eighteen years old, Zander.’ Saying his name jolted her into silence.

  ‘I know what age she is. There’s nothing you need to worry about here, Mirren. We’re
friends. That’s it. Nothing more.’

  ‘Of course you are.’ Even as she was saying it, she didn’t believe it, and yet she had to, because she couldn’t go there. Couldn’t contemplate it. Couldn’t open her mind to the fucked-up consequences and implications of that.

  ‘Mirren, let me tell you about it. I promise—’

  She cut him dead. ‘You can promise me nothing, Zander. Addicts don’t keep promises.’

  She thrust the glass into his hand, realizing it was trembling as much as hers.

  ‘I have to go. I can’t stay here.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘But I’m warning you, Zander. Begging you. Stay away from my girl. Stay. Away.’

  He nodded his head. Silent. That was Zander Leith all over. Always had been. A man of few words. Deep. Nothing on the surface. Davie always said . . . Davie. The thought made her stop at the door, turn round.

  ‘Davie called me, left a message. Some journalist from the Daily Scot wants to talk to him about our families back home.’

  ‘I know. She called me too. I brushed her off. Davie will do the same.’

  ‘You sure?’

  ‘Yeah. He’s far too smart to let her anywhere near him.’

  ‘I hope you’re right.’ She took a few steps into the hall.

  ‘Goodbye, Zander. Please don’t ever talk to my daughter again.’ With that she started walking and didn’t stop until she reached the car, her head screaming with potential scenarios, all of them too painful to bear.

  Two addicts. Both in her orbit. If they crashed together, the meteor shower would wipe out her world.

  The speedometer didn’t pass sixty as she drove home, coastline all the way, right along the PCH. Thoughts collided in her head, images, scenarios. Was this all her fault? Had she failed Chloe? Was her daughter about to become another victim of her catastrophic past?

  No. She wouldn’t let it happen. She’d do what she had to do. Get Chloe back into rehab. Get her straight. Work with her. Rebuild their relationship. And perhaps when she was in a good place again, she might even tell her. The truth always comes to the surface. Maybe she should be the one to bring it there before anyone else did.