Hushed

by Joanne Macgregor

  I laugh, still not sure of the game between us.

  Just then, as I’d arranged with the driver, the bus stops outside a general-store-cum-café on the outskirts of the village.

  “I’ll be right back.” I move quickly to the front of the bus where the driver is already making an announcement.

  “Last stop before Cape Town, if anyone wants to buy any food or smokes,” he says.

  I hop off the bus and run to the café to place my order. While waiting, I walk around the store, examining the shelves packed with an eccentric assortment of wares — fishing rods, packets of fudge, dangling mobiles made from seashells, jars of marinated mussels, and a strong-smelling type of dried fish called bokkom. A corner of the store stocks a selection of movie DVDs for rental, and in the window is a poster of Logan. Beast: Sun. Release the tiger within!

  Ten minutes later I return to the bus with my contraband in a brown paper bag.

  “These,” I say, giving Logan the large greaseproof packet filled with steaming hot, golden chips doused in salt and vinegar, “are what is known locally as slap chips.”

  “Fries! You are a good woman, Romy. And a merciful one,” he says, already cramming the hot potato into his mouth. He groans and rolls his eyes in pleasure.

  “Do you two need to get a room?” I motion to him and the chips.

  He grins and eats several more.

  “Wonderful,” he says, looking straight into my eyes.

  Flustered, I drop my gaze. The bus lurches into motion, and I pull a bottle of beer out of the paper bag.

  Logan’s grin widens. “They sold you that?”

  “We can buy and drink alcohol when we’re eighteen here,” I explain.

  “Nice.”

  “But we can only drive when we’re eighteen, too.”

  “You’ve got to admire the lawmakers who think it’s a good idea for those two things to coincide,” he says, laughing.

  Logan has a great laugh. Every time he laughs, somewhere a unicorn is born.

  “So can I have it?” He tries to take the beer, but I hold it out of reach.

  “You get this” — I tap the cool, green glass where tiny droplets of condensation bead — “if and when you can pronounce the word slap correctly. Slap, spelt S.L.A.P.”

  “Slap,” he says at once, rhyming the word with “clap.”

  “No, sslupp.”

  “Slurp.” He’s beginning to sound desperate.

  Watching his lips move in slow exaggeration of the sounds, I have to hold myself back from leaning over to kiss the stray grains of salt off them.

  “It rhymes with pup, not burp. S-l-uhh-p,” I say.

  “Slup?”

  “Very good!”

  I twist the cap off the beer bottle, hand it over, and watch how his Adam’s apple moves when he swallows deeply.

  “There was a poster of you in the window of the shop back there.” I gesture back to the village we’ve left behind. “Weird that even in a remote little place like this you’re famous.”

  “Yeah, there’s no escaping the Beast,” he says, with something like regret in his voice.

  Not sure how to reply, I tuck into my own packet of chips, though they taste nowhere near as good as watching him eat his. Finally, he licks salt off his fingers, downs the last of his beer, and sighs.

  “Okay, so now that you’re fed, what did you want to know about sharks?” I ask.

  “Nothing, really. I’m sure I’ll find out lots on Friday.”

  “But … you said that’s why you wanted to come on this bus.”

  “I lied.” He rests his head against the seat, closes his eyes, and yawns.

  “Why?”

  “Cilla and Britney talk a whole lot of nonversation. Besides” — he opens one eye to peer at me — “I need my PA. I must have her.”

  My breath hitches. “What for?”

  He pauses for a long moment before replying. “Forbidden food, obviously. And music — you have an iPod, don’t you?”

  “Don’t you?”

  “We could share yours.”

  I get it out my bag and offer him the choice of music.

  “Y’all have some good music on here, Romy, but also some strange stuff. I’ve just got to try this Whalesong Lullaby.”

  I move up close to him and give him one earbud, plugging the other into my ear. And we drive back through the deepening African night like that, listening to the otherworldly songs of whales calling to each other across vast oceans. Before long, Logan dozes off. His head rests on my shoulder, and our arms, sides, and legs touch in a dozen points of heat and awareness.

  Without moving anything except my eyes — I don’t want to jostle him off me — I look down at his face. His hair has fallen over one eye again. My fingers itch to push it back, to comb through his hair to the back of his neck, but I’m very aware of who all might have eyes on us. Anyone in this bus might carry tales back to Cilla, so I keep my hands folded in my lap, prim as a nun, and whenever anyone glances our way, I shrug my other shoulder, slide my eyes in Logan’s direction, and make a “stars — whatcha gonna do?” sort of face.

  But I do allow myself to breathe deeply. No one can see that, and Logan smells great — kind of sweaty, but in a good way.

  I could happily sit like this for a few more weeks, but all too soon the bus slows to take the exit from the highway. When we stop at a brightly lit intersection of traffic lights, I look out of the window. Straight into the eyes of Britney Vaux.

  The VIP minibus is idling alongside us in the next lane, and Britney — barely two metres away from us — spots Logan’s head on my shoulder. Her mouth drops open in shock, and her eyes fill with outrage. Oh, crap.

  I tug at the earbuds, point at Logan, twist my mouth, and roll my eyes — trying, with this frantic mime show, to convey that his head is only so close to mine because of the listening arrangement. Glaring at me with eyes narrowed to slits and lips pulled into a thin line, she touches a forefinger to her chest, points with a backwards V at her own two eyes, and then points back at me.

  The bus rolls into motion, and I can no longer see her. But her warning stills rings in my ears, as loud as if she’d shouted it: “I’ve got my eyes on you!”

  Chapter 21

  Silence and secrets

  The movie set is about as far away from my parents’ world of the sea as you can get, but I soon feel like I’m finding my land legs. I bust a gut to be quietly capable, well-organised and competent, and surprise even myself with occasional flashes of super-efficiency.

  On Tuesday, I karate-chop and kick the dying air conditioner in Logan’s room back into life, earn Polyp’s gratitude by finding a local supplier of live insects for the dragons, and source diet Dr Pepper sodas for Logan. To my own delight, I discover a brand of mineral water that comes in a bottle with a pointed sipping nozzle and smile-inducing sound effects. Every time Logan takes a sip, his lips make a kissing noise against the nozzle. Sweet melting heaven!

  When Becka asks me where she can find some penguins for a hastily-arranged photo shoot, I direct her to the aquarium at the Waterfront. Britney, she tells me, is jealous of the shark adventure planned for Logan and wants to get some animal publicity shots of her own — though she’s going for the aw-how-cute! look while Logan is still on track for the aah-look-fearless-action-man-has-face-off-with-savage-shark! photo opportunity.

  In lulls between takes, I try to tell Britney more about sharks and whales, but she merely shakes her pretty head.

  “I know enough, thanks.”

  “Enough for what?”

  “Shh, Ronnie.”

  “It’s Romy.”

  “Whatever. Whoever. You’re giving me a headache. Becka? Aspirin.”

  Strangely, having directed me to organise a shark dive for Logan, Cilla gives me the brush-off when I attempt to give her more information about it.

  “Cut the chatter, Romy, I don’t need to hear all about it. Just put it in a memo,” she says.

  So I do,
staying up late Tuesday night to make sure all the details are clearly spelled out. But when I give it to her on Wednesday morning, she merely passes it on Polyp, saying, “You know where to put this.”

  I doubt she even reads it. I suspect Polyp might use it to line the bottom of the chickabiddies’ tank.

  I spend the rest of Wednesday morning sourcing a new Gucci tuxedo and a pair of black dress shoes for Logan to wear to an important function the next night. He’s ecstatically delighted with the new shoes.

  When I tell him, “I thought you’d be happy about those,” something like recognition flickers across his face, but total recall still eludes him.

  It’s not all fun, of course. There’s the daily irritation of reading the rubbish printed about Logan in the tabloids and on the Net and not being allowed to speak up to set the record straight, the morning ritual of slathering on make-up and blow-drying my hair straight and sleek, and continuing to totter around in smart clothes and toe-biting heels in case any paparazzi are lurking about, ready to take a photograph of Logan in my vicinity.

  On Thursday, I spend several frustrating minutes trying to stop the two animatronics guys from inaccurately crafting a blinking eyelid on their shark’s head.

  “Great whites don’t blink, and they don’t have a nictitating membrane on their eyes. That’s why they roll their eyes backwards into their sockets to protect them during attacks.”

  “Cilla wants this shark to blink,” says Techie One.

  “Even if it’s inaccurate?”

  “This isn’t National Geographic, sweet cheeks.”

  “But —”

  “Pass me that mini-screwdriver, will you,” says Techie One.

  “Sorry, were you saying something?” says Techie Two.

  “Oh, never mind!” I snap.

  Perhaps Nana is right about body language, though, because they seemed to have no problem hearing that. As I walk off to find Logan, I hear one of them say, “That’s a nice piece of tail,” and the other agree, “Oh yeah, she can nictitate my membranes anytime.”

  Lovely.

  “Sometimes,” I grumble to Logan after his sparring session with his trainer, “I feel like everyone is trying to shut me up. It’s like no one can hear me.”

  “I know how you feel,” he says, wiping the sheen of sweat off his chest with a towel.

  “What do you mean?”

  “No one wants to hear me say anything except my lines from the script.”

  It’s true. Whenever Logan suggests a different way of playing a scene, or tries to ad-lib a line, Cilla shuts him down immediately. It makes me grit my teeth, because I’m on his side, and because I want to see and hear more of the real Logan Rush.

  The best moments of my job are spent watching Logan act, which he does better than anyone gives him credit for, and peering over Cilla’s and Logan’s shoulders to see the emerging magic of the day’s rushes. I also enjoy getting a sneak peek of Britney before hair and make-up transform her from a pale-lashed, wan, bland set of features to her blonde bombshell “normal” self.

  That’s a balm for my wavering self-esteem.

  Because there are bad moments, too, when reality slaps me in the face and the magic and the glamour vanish quicker than you can say, “That’s a wrap.” Like seeing the daily countdown on the shoot schedule — knowing that the day when the production wraps and the whole circus leaves town is approaching inexorably. Like watching from the hotel corridor as Logan disappears into the penthouse suite for a private function with visiting Hollywood money-men and a clutch of impossibly beautiful supermodels. And with Britney hanging on his arm and smiling smugly over her shoulder at me.

  Masochistically, I replay these moments to remind myself of rules one, two and three, because it’s getting harder to remember about the two different worlds, and not to confuse fantasy and reality, and never to dream that Logan might possibly be interested in me.

  It’s harder because the times when we are together are so sweet and easy and, unless I’m in the grip of a psychotic-grade delusion, flirty. We touch each other far more often than can be accidental — fingers grazing as we exchange script pages and coffee cups, bodies brushing as we squeeze past each other in the kitchenette of his star room, thigh pressed up against thigh as we sit at a table, going through each day’s schedule. And when we talk, our gazes linger and there’s an undercurrent of something else, something that makes my body yearn and my mind forget all the rules.

  But hope alternates with worry. Perhaps Logan is just amusing himself — heaven knows that the hours spent before, between, and after takes are mind-numbingly boring for him. It’s also entirely possible that I’m imagining the electricity between us. Britney’s all over him — flattering and giggling and preening — and the rumours about them are stronger than ever. And every evening they leave together for their hotel, while I head back to the other side of Cape Town — the other side of the world —readying myself for the almost nightly confrontation with my overprotective father.

  I’m careful to keep Friday’s expedition a secret because if Dad finds out about that, he’ll have a complete conniption. After supper with my parents on Thursday night, I go online to catch up on the latest rumours about Logan on the fan sites — it’s enlightening to compare what’s being reported with what I know is actually happening in his life. I discover that my favourite sites are in a frenzy because a British tabloid has reported that Logan and Britney are secretly engaged. In deep disgust, I switch off my computer and decide on an early night.

  In less than twelve hours, I’ll be in a steel cage, several metres under the sea, standing beside one beast while staring into the terrifying jaws of another.

  Chapter 22

  One man’s trash …

  At eight o’clock on Friday morning, I’m on my way to collect Logan from his star room — our transport to False Bay Adrenalin Adventures is waiting in the parking lot — when I hear a shout.

  “Romy! Romy!” Cilla’s calling to me from across the lot.

  She’ll probably have something uncomplimentary to say about how I’m dressed today, but I refuse to go on the shark-diving boat in anything but jeans, sneakers, and the bare minimum of make-up (coloured lip-gloss, waterproof mascara). I’m wearing my bikini beneath my clothes, and I’ve stuffed my wetsuit into my tote bag.

  As I walk over to Cilla, I slip on my sunglasses and tug a floppy straw sunhat down low on my forehead to disguise my mostly naked face.

  “Good morning,” I say.

  “What are you wearing?” she asks, frowning.

  “Great weather for a dive, isn’t it? Are you coming out with us?”

  Cilla hands me a thick stack of post. “This is forwarded mail for Britney and Logan, it arrived with the courier package today — make sure they get it. Tell Logan to check his because it includes mail for Levi,” she says with an odd smile.

  “Who’s Levi?”

  “And tell him there’s been a change of plan for today. We’ll be doing his shark shoot at the aquarium on the Waterfront. Philip’s organised everything.”

  “At the aquarium? What about —”

  “Yeah, they do shark dives there. Britney put us onto it. She’s getting pics done with penguins there today, so we’ll have double the bait for the media.”

  “But —”

  “Logan can do the dive safely in the fish tank there. They say it’s great — glass all round, seaweed, colourful little fishes. And none of the bother of having to go out on a boat. It’s perfect.”

  “But he’ll be disappointed that —”

  “Wise up, Romy. The insurance would never have covered him out at sea.”

  “Did you try?”

  “What did I tell you about backchat on your first day here? Besides, we need to get full publicity from this little stunt, and how would we get all the media onto a boat and underwater in the middle of the effing ocean? No, it’s much better my way. It always is.” She cackles evilly. “You run along now and break the go
od news to Logan.”

  With a sinking heart and heavy feet, I walk back across the lot, slip Britney’s mail under the door of her room and, when Logan opens his door, silently hand him his. He tosses the letters onto the dining table.

  “Hi, all ready for our expedition I see?” he says, flicking a finger at the brim of my hat. “What’s with the long face, Romy? Getting scared for the cage dive?”

  “There isn’t going to be any cage dive.”

  His smile vanishes. “What do you mean?”

  “Cilla’s canned it. She’s turned it into a shoot in a fish tank at the aquarium, so you can get ‘full publicity’ from the stunt.”

  Logan’s face tightens. Then he curses and bangs a fist on the table.

  “She always does this! Every single time I have a chance to do something real, or authentic or interesting, she turns me into a performing poodle for this three-freaking-ring circus. Every time! You remember when I went on the elephant-back safari in India to see tigers in the wild?”

  “No, I wasn’t with you then.”

  “What?”

  “I wasn’t working for you back then.”

  “Oh, right.”

  “But I saw the photos online — awesome!”

  “Faked and photoshopped.” He stares down at the palm of his hand, scratches something there.

  “What? How?”

  “That elephant I was ‘riding’ on? It was the trained, tame animal from the shoot. Make-up added some scars to make it look different — wilder, I guess. And I wasn’t riding, but just sitting on it in the soundstage, in front of a green screen. They added the jungle background and the monkeys later.”

  “But the tiger — the tiger that was prowling into the picture? That scared the elephant into rearing on its hind legs and you nearly fell off and broke your back, but you stayed calm and soothed it? Like … like an elephant whisperer?”

  “The elephant was standing up on command from its trainer, and I was strapped to the saddle. And the tiger was a mangy, old, toothless cat from the local circus. I mean, literally — he had no teeth. And his trainer was just outside of the frame holding out a leg of goat or something to get him to walk past. They superimposed that image, taken at the circus, onto the pic of me. We weren’t even on the same soundstage at the same time. But all the newsfeeds picked up the pictures and the waffle-copy that publicity had written about me being out on safari in the wild when a dangerous man-eater appeared. Total crap, it’s all bullshit.”