How to be Famous

by Alison Bond

  The reality of the situation was that she was unemployed and, according to the US government, undesirable. Yet she was still here.

  She felt that there was really no place for her to go. She could return to England and find something to fill her days, perhaps even something vaguely fulfilling or at least fun. But the prospect didn’t excite her. It was the easy thing to do; where was the challenge? A choice needed to be made but she didn’t like her options.

  Riley said she should quit whining and get back out there. ‘Build a client list,’ he said. ‘You made Serena Simon a star, the others will be lining up round the block.’

  ‘I think Serena was a one-off. Besides, I’m illegal, remember?’

  ‘Base your business in London to get immigration off your back but spend most of the year here.’

  ‘That sounds complicated,’ she said.

  ‘It depends how badly you want it.’

  She knew that the kind of enterprise Riley was suggesting would take one hundred per cent commitment. It might take several years to build a business; even Los Angeles would be sure to lose its sparkle by then. She considered it and thought that perhaps she didn’t want it as badly as all that.

  Her mum read about Melanie getting fired in a magazine. She was on the phone before she finished reading the article.

  ‘There’s a picture of her arriving at Heathrow,’ she said. ‘She looks awful.’

  ‘It’s a long flight,’ said Lynsey, automatically jumping to Melanie’s defence.

  ‘Your dad and me have been talking, you’ll stay here for as long as you like. Just until you get back on your feet, a bit of money behind you. I’ve looked in the local papers and there’s plenty of jobs for girls like you.’

  ‘Girls like me?’ said Lynsey.

  ‘You know, girls with typing skills,’ she said. ‘Think how much you could put away while you’re living here, you could get a deposit together.’

  ‘Actually,’ said Lynsey. ‘I’ve been thinking I might stay for a while longer.’

  ‘Oh.’ There was a long pause. ‘Why?’

  Lynsey went into CMG. She had a feeling that she might find some answers there. As she walked into the ostentatious lobby she remembered the first time, fresh off the bus in a little green dress, she had felt intimidated by the frosty receptionists. Now they greeted her by name and smiled to show off their perfect teeth.

  ‘I’ve brought back my phone,’ she said.

  ‘Go right up,’ said one of them. ‘I’ll buzz Sheridan and tell her you’re on your way.’

  Outside Max’s office she took in the scene. Max was facing his window, feet up on a pile of scripts, obviously deep in conversation with someone important enough for more than a minute of his time. Sheridan was screaming at Andrew, who was searching desperately for something on his desk. Sheridan broke off when she saw Lynsey and Andrew looked grateful for the reprieve.

  Lynsey held out her phone. ‘For you,’ she said.

  Max finished his call and turned around. ‘I never thought I’d see the day,’ he said.

  ‘I was just borrowing it.’

  ‘Didn’t I tell you to give Sheridan fifty bucks and keep the damn thing?’

  Lynsey looked down at her feet. It was annoying how Max remembered everything. ‘Yeah, it slipped my mind.’

  ‘So, you’re leaving?’

  ‘I’m not sure.’

  ‘Barbara O’Loughlin is looking for a junior publicist. You want me to put in a word?’ ‘I don’t have a work visa.’

  ‘Listen, if Barbara wants you she might be able to fix that.’

  ‘But I’m a terrible assistant,’ said Lynsey. ‘You said so yourself

  ‘Then it’s a good thing she’s not looking for an assistant. She has one of those, a great one. She needs someone to share the load, take on some of the smaller fish.’

  ‘I’m not sure.’

  ‘Well, let me know quick. You need to start thinking otherwise you’ll lose what little reputation you have. Nothing says slacker like a gap in a résumé.’

  Lynsey wasn’t sure she wanted to live in a world where taking a break meant you were a slacker. Did she really want to work for a woman with a reputation as a control freak? She’d had her fill of those. And in Hollywood they were hard to avoid.

  That night, back at Flamingo Park, the manager called up to her room.

  ‘There was a guy here looking for you. He wanted your room number.’

  ‘Did you give it to him?’

  ‘No, I said I never heard of you, but I don’t want immigration round here. It’s bad for business, bad for my girlfriend.’

  ‘You think he was from immigration?’

  ‘He was wearing a suit.’

  There was a knock at her door. ‘Shit! I thought you said you didn’t tell him?’ There was another knock, louder this time. ‘Shit!’

  She panicked and hung up the phone, considering hiding under the bed if the wardrobe wasn’t big enough. She could jump in the bathtub and pull the shower curtain around her – it worked in the movies. Were immigration allowed to break down doors? Shouldn’t they be out hunting down the thousands of Mexicans she kept reading about in the republican press? Would she have to pay a fine? Go to prison? Surely she hadn’t made a big enough dent in the economy to deserve this?

  Just as she was about to dive under the bed and get several months’ worth of sand on her favourite flamingo T-shirt, she heard her name.

  ‘Lynsey? Lynsey, are you in there?’

  She relaxed instantly, her nerves evaporated and she started to laugh. She felt drunk. ‘Toby!’ she said, as she opened the door. ‘Don’t you ever do that again.’

  Toby took in her hysterical appearance. ‘Everything okay?’

  ‘I thought you were someone else.’ She slumped down onto a chair and enjoyed a deep sigh of relief. She raked her fingers through her hair and looked at him. It wasn’t a government representative with ID who would call her ma’am and then drag her off to a women’s prison with no hot water. It was just Toby, sweet Toby, who couldn’t be less threatening if he tried.

  ‘How did you know this was my room?’

  He pointed to the bright orange sarong at the window that had come unpinned and was fluttering in the breeze. There was a big faded square in the middle where the Californian sun had steadily bleached away the colour.

  ‘I guessed,’ said Toby.

  ‘Good guess.’

  He looked around at her room, clean but well lived in. Her clothes were piled up on a chair and only one lonely dress could be seen hanging behind the open wardrobe doors. Her CDs were scattered across the table top like roulette chips, her mirror was surrounded by a colourful garland of tickets and backstage passes. It didn’t look like a motel room. It looked like someone’s home.

  ‘You haven’t packed. So you decided to stay?’

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘I just haven’t decided to go yet.’

  ‘Do you have a plan?’

  ‘Me? Well, let me see. My mother thinks I should go home immediately and get started on the grandchildren. Max thinks I should work for the biggest ballbreaker in Hollywood and Riley thinks I should be some kind of international power player with access to a private jet. Everyone seems to have a plan for me but me.’

  ‘And you? What do you want?’

  ‘I don’t know. I could go back, I suppose. I haven’t dismissed it as a possibility but I think the grandchildren will have to wait. It would be much less complicated to find a new job there. Maybe CMG would even take me back in London. If you’re fired in another continent does it still apply?’

  ‘Stay,’ he said.

  ‘It’s difficult,’ she said. ‘I looked at the work visa process and the initial application takes months, plus I’m not even supposed to be here now, somehow I don’t think that’ll count in my favour.’

  ‘There is one way,’ he said. ‘You could marry me.’

  It wasn’t much of a proposal. Out of the corner of her eye she could see a br
a hooked on the back of the door and the crumbs of last night’s cookie feast were strewn over the unmade bed. The ancient plumbing gurgled in the background and outside they were digging up the road. It wasn’t exactly her dream.

  He was waiting for her to reply.

  ‘Don’t be silly,’ she said. ‘That’s the worst plan yet. I thought you were supposed to be smart.’

  ‘Stop joking around. I’m serious. Marry me, Lynsey. It’d be fun, you and me together.’

  He meant it, she could tell. Sure, right now he only meant a quickie ceremony in Vegas and a marriage of convenience but he was willing to bind himself to her and would want to try and live their lives side by side. They got on well and it would be sure to last a while and by then she would have wasted part of her life with a man she didn’t love and might have missed out on something truly special. She might miss Superman walking down the street on the very day that she was prepared to meet him.

  ‘You keep telling me I should take a risk, do something out of the ordinary,’ he said. ‘This is it.’

  ‘I meant travel maybe, not propose.’ She bit her lip and thought about how best to let him down. ‘You’re so sweet,’ she said.

  ‘That sounds like a no,’ he said.

  ‘It is.’ She took his hand. ‘Toby, you don’t love me.’

  ‘I could. At least I think I could.’

  ‘That’s not enough.’

  ‘Says who?’

  ‘Me. And it shouldn’t be enough for you either. I appreciate the offer, I do, but I don’t want to marry someone just for the paperwork. I won’t. One day, when I’m ready, I’ll be so madly in love that marriage will be inevitable.’

  Toby managed to smile. ‘So Disco Dixon’s got a romantic soul, after all?’

  ‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘But if you tell anyone I’ll have to kill you.’

  ‘Think about it,’ he said. ‘Will you do that?’

  Great. One more thing to think about.

  Lynsey took a heavy heart to the fire escape. She felt like she had failed. Her options all seemed to be a step backwards, making her world smaller than she would ever want it to be. Maybe this was as far as she could go. She stepped out onto the roof and looked at the sky. It was a city sky that would never get truly dark. Tonight it was a purpled grey that made the clouds look like thunder. But out towards the west, where the sprawl gave way to the unseen ocean, a few brave stars could shine. Everybody knew the Hollywood dream could turn into a nightmare but yet the people still came. Right now there would be another bus pulling in downtown, or another car pulling off highway fifteen, another plane landing, and with every one came another wave of dreamers.

  ‘Hey, Jack, will ya look who’s come to pay us a visit?’

  Lynsey saw Lou and Jack in their usual position. The cards were on the table between them, they each had a beer and Lou was chewing down on a matchstick. Jack pulled out a beer and popped the top. The pale American beer frothed over the lip of the bottle and Lynsey had a sudden craving for a creamy pint of Guinness that she could watch settle on the bar in front of her. And a packet of Bacon Fries.

  ‘What’s up?’ asked Lou.

  Lynsey sipped the beer. It tasted weak and thin. ‘Guys,’ she said, ‘I need your advice.’

  ‘Go gentle,’ said Jack. ‘Just because we’re old doesn’t mean we’re wise.’ But there was a twinkle in his eyes that suggested he was lying.

  ‘Work has kind of gone pear-shaped and, well, it might be time to move on.’

  ‘You’re leaving the city?’

  ‘Yeah. I might go home.’

  What for?’

  There was no clear answer. Sure, it would be nice to have that pint of Guinness and she certainly missed her family, but these desires could be satisfied in minutes and days. Beyond that she couldn’t say.

  ‘To think about what to do next.’

  ‘We’re taking the RV down south,’ said Jack.

  ‘Now there’s an idea,’ said Lou. ‘You should take a road trip to Mexico with a couple of old-timers, at least until we get over the border and you ditch us for the beach bum of your dreams. You’d be very welcome.’

  Lynsey laughed. ‘You know, that could be the best plan I’ve heard yet. Thanks guys, but I wouldn’t want to cramp your style.’

  ‘You’re sure now?’

  ‘I could stay here, I think. If I wanted to. It might be hard to get papers but I haven’t even tried. I could at least try. So I could stay.’

  ‘If you wanted to?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Why not let the cards decide?’ suggested Jack. He held out the deck of cards.

  Lou licked his finger and tested the wind. He pulled out the eight of hearts.

  ‘Lower than an eight, you twist back home. Higher than an eight you stick.’

  Lynsey considered the cards which Lou fanned out in front of her. The idea appealed to her sense of adventure. This was exactly the kind of buzz she had been missing, the split-second decisions that you rarely even notice making until they turn out for the best. If adventure was all that she wanted then she couldn’t count on geography to bring that to her feet, she would have to search for it and take opportunities to be reckless, just like this one. Stick or twist. If she was the kind of girl that could decide her life on the turn of a card then adventure would always find her.

  She reached into the pack and picked out a card.

  Joker.

  Lynsey laughed. It seemed appropriate.

  Lou looked down at the pack in his hand in complete surprise. ‘Well, I’ll be damned,’ he said. ‘A wildcard.’

  Toby came to see Lynsey off. She had sold most of her belongings to pay her way. Sheridan had bought the best of her black trouser suits, Riley found a home for her VCR, Toby had bought some of her tunes. She was sure that Toby only did this as a way of giving her money. She simply couldn’t see him getting down to disco on a regular basis.

  ‘So you’ll keep in touch?’ she said.

  ‘Of course.’

  She scanned the parking lot. The mammoth RV was taking up two spaces.

  She pointed. ‘Look at that thing. It’s a bus.’

  ‘Now, are you sure you want to do this? It’s not too late – say the word and I’ll take you straight to the airport.’

  ‘I think it’ll be an adventure,’ she said.

  Lou stuck his head out of the window of the RV. ‘Hey! Come on, girly, let’s go.’

  Lynsey hoisted her bag over her shoulder. She kissed Toby on the cheek before she climbed in. ‘Maybe I’ll see ya?’

  ‘I hope so,’ he said.

  By the time they made it to the border it was nightfall.

  To: disco_dixon@yahoo.com

  From: riley@junket.com

  Subject: scandalous

  Hey, Disco, how goes it?

  So, guess which Hollywood heart-throb recently declared his love for a certain teenager on live television? She’s flaunting a rock the size of a softball on her ring finger. According to Fabien he’d marry Serena tomorrow if the law allowed it. Jay asked him if there were any other areas where the law held them back and FS said – get THIS! – ‘True love waits.’ Such sentiment from the five-times holder of the Stud of the Year Award for Servicing Womankind. How sweet. Me? Cynical? Never.

  Latest on Justice. Turns out they might have been a little premature when they ejected MC. The audience rate her. I hear they asked her back. The best part is that she turned them down. That took balls of steel. I always knew she had them hidden in her somewhere. She’s doing Ibsen or something like it in a place called Manchester. Do you know it? She also tucked in a couple of British movies that are supposedly going to be huge sleepers.

  And you, Lynsey-lita, how’s the beach? Toby will be there soon so I hope you have enough shore to share. How dare you bewitch and entice our mutual friend with tales of your life in paradise? Now who will tell me when the stars move house? Toby’s telling the world that this is just a sabbatical for him, but nobody believes he�
��ll ever be back.

  I’ll visit. So be sure you keep a bottle of decent tequila under the bar for me.

  Adios,

  R x