Love in La La Land

by Lynn Forth

  Above all, she wanted to be alone to collect her thoughts, process this strange situation. If only he would go and leave her to sort herself out instead of standing there looking so protective and handsome. Strangely, she felt like weeping with the frustration of it all, and she hated not being in control of her body, her emotions.

  And, to her consternation, Jack’s presence was having a strange effect on both.

  Jack could see she was still in a fragile state and worried about sorting everything out. In spite of his resolve, he immediately found himself offering to help.

  ‘No need to feel anxious about anything,’ he said gruffly. ‘Let me sort everything out for you. I can easily help with your hotel—’

  ‘No, you won’t. Don’t you dare. There’s no way you will go and pay the bill,’ Jane said fiercely. ‘I pay my own way, thank you very much. I hate being beholden to anyone.’

  Jack was surprised by her vehemence, yet pleased at her independence. It was a long time since any woman he had known had offered to pay for anything. Most seemed to want to engineer situations to their own maximum financial benefit, but he could see from Jane’s sudden flush of colour that she meant it.

  ‘I was merely offering to contact them to say you are in hospital, so that’s why you won’t be vacating your room as expected,’ he said mildly. ‘They won’t be too worried about payment, though, because I’m sure you must have left your credit card details when you booked, didn’t you?’

  ‘Yes, yes, of course. Sorry, that was most rude of me. Oh dear. I’m really not thinking straight, am I?’ Her shoulders sagged.

  Jack waited. Would she eventually admit to herself that his help would, in fact, be welcome?

  ‘I think that bump on the head has affected me more than I thought. I can’t believe how bad tempered I’ve been to you. You must think I am the rudest person in the world.’

  She looked mortified. Her troubled eyes welled up, and she brushed an angry hand across her cheek to stop tears flowing.

  Seeing her look so vulnerable, Jack had a sudden desire to stroke the pale strands of hair from her forehead and plant a reassuring kiss on her furrowed brow. He bent forwards and, to his surprise, a trembling Jane responded by tilting her face towards him. Vivid blue eyes gazed invitingly into his; a pulse was beating at the base of her throat, and the loose-fitting hospital gown exposed the creamy skin of her shoulders. Strangely enticed by this sudden proximity, he was just about to kiss her lips when the intimacy of the moment was broken by a stout nurse bustling through the door.

  Jack swiftly turned away, shocked by the tender feelings Jane had aroused in him. What on earth had happened there? What was he thinking of? Kissing Jane was the very last thing he should have done. Shaking his head in disbelief at his foolishness, he resolved to leave as soon as possible.

  ‘So, you are the lucky girl Scott Flynn brought in,’ the dark-haired nurse said enviously. Was she aware of the encounter her entrance had disturbed?

  A dazed-looking Jane answered distractedly, ‘Umm, yes.’

  ‘Well, Miss Jones, Mr Flynn said we should take special care of you. He left strict instructions to contact his PA when you are fit enough to leave. So, how are you feeling?’

  ‘Oh, fine really, I think. Thank you.’

  The plump nurse began checking the pinging machine hooked up to a sensor in Jane’s arm

  ‘Right, Jane, I can see you are in safe hands…’ Jack began, suddenly eager to get away.

  The sharp-eyed nurse gave him a flirtatious smile before busying herself with straightening Jane’s bedclothes.

  Jack was only too aware of her scrutiny. She was one of the giggling nurses at the desk, and he knew the gossip mags paid well for any snippets of gossip or scandal.

  She certainly seemed to be taking her time as she snapped the crisp cotton bedclothes tightly around her pale patient. He would have to be very careful about what was said in her hearing.

  Jane noticed Jack edge to the door. ‘I’ll be getting along then, but if you could give me those details…’

  ‘Yes, yes of course, um… If you could please…please pass me my handbag, I can give you my flight details. Oh, and my hotel room number, so you can inform them of what’s happened.’

  Jack silently passed her huge bag over and watched her rummage around until she found her mobile phone and a little folder of paperwork.

  ‘The easiest thing is to have your cell… um…mobile number,’ he suggested, ‘…and I could put in mine, if you like.’

  ‘Oh yes, thank you,’ Jane said fervently, on the edge of tears at the thought of Jack leaving her alone in this strange place, in this strange town where she knew no-one, with the weird prospect of staying with someone she had only just met.

  And not just anyone. But Scott Flynn!

  Scott Flynn! The fabulous object of her girlish crush. A genuine movie heartthrob. And yet…and yet. Somehow it didn’t feel right.

  She should be aquiver with excitement, delight, amazement. Agog with anticipation. Rushing to text her sisters and friends with ‘Guess who I met? You’ll never in your wildest dreams imagine where I will be staying?’

  Nope. She felt none of that. Just a vague unease, verging on mild panic. A feeling of being out of her depth. Adrift in a new world where she wasn’t certain of the rules.

  She shook herself. How silly. Was she just being her usual control-freak self?

  Looking up, she realised Jack was waiting patiently for her to pass over her phone, and with a rush of relief she knew it would be somehow reassuring to think she could contact him if she needed to.

  Smiling gratefully, she passed over her mobile along with the folder of information. ‘Here’s all the paperwork you need about my flight and stuff. Look, would you mind asking the hotel just to extend my stay, so that if Scott changes his mind, I’ll have somewhere to go? I still can’t believe he really means it. It would be just too embarrassing to turn up and find it was…well, a mistake.’

  She searched Jack’s face for confirmation of her thoughts but he was studiously avoiding her gaze and transferring phone numbers.

  Still worrying about her impending stay, Jane barely noticed the nurse‘s extended straightening of the bedclothes.

  ‘I can’t stay at his place,’ she blurted out. ‘I just can’t. Can I? Scott shouldn’t feel at all guilty about what happened. It wasn’t his fault. It was me being silly.’ Uncomfortable at Jack’s continued silence, she somehow felt compelled to explain to this tall, worldly man her intense, girlish over-reaction on set.

  ‘You see, he’s so gorgeous. I loved him in his last film and I couldn’t believe it when I found out he was in my film… I told everyone…and then when I got a chance to go on set. Wow, I was so nervous. But I thought how wonderful if he was actually there. If I could just see him in the flesh, just catch a glimpse. And suddenly…there he was. So close. Right behind me. Actually talking to me! I was sort of taken aback. I know it’s so silly, but I’m such a big fan…and now he’s actually asked me to stay in his house. It’s all just so amazingly… well, unbelievable.’

  She flopped back breathless onto the pillows and turned wide, starstruck eyes in the direction of the door from which her heartthrob had exited after uttering his bombshell invitation.

  So, perhaps she wouldn’t be averse to a little seduction then, Jack thought grimly. Perhaps Scott was right.

  Perhaps Jane was just like all the other women he had known in La La Land – a pushover when it came to a little stardust.

  Chapter Four

  Jane was very relieved to leave the hospital next morning. All her life she had tried to avoid anything medical – not easy when you’re a doctor’s daughter.

  She still felt slightly woozy, but she wasn’t sure if it was from her injury or from the realisation that yes, she, Jane Jones from England, was actually going to stay in a real Hollywood star’s home.

  Not just any Hollywood star, either. But the one she had yearned over from afar, ached ju
st to glimpse…none other than Scott Flynn.

  And now she had not only met him, talked to him, felt him squeeze her hand, but she was going to get to know him in person. It was all too much to take in. Thinking of his smile, his tender kiss brushing her lips; this was the stuff dreams were made of.

  Just for a moment, her excitement was clouded by the tall, dark presence of Jack Clancy.

  After he had left her yesterday afternoon, she had felt slightly deflated and alone. The stout nurse had fussed over her and told her what a lucky girl she was, and wanted to know all about her and what had happened. But there had been something just a little too intrusive about the questioning, so Jane had pleaded a headache, which was genuine, and fallen asleep.

  When she awoke, her first thought was to phone and tell her mum and all her sisters – especially Milly – about what had happened. But in her muddled state of mind, she couldn’t work out the time zones. Then she thought how foolish she would look if the invitation to Scott’s turned out to be a silly, offhand remark…which it might! So, she just sent a text saying she was staying in Hollywood (she loved using that name) a little longer, and would tell them everything when she got a chance to phone.

  Next morning, Scott’s ‘people’ – an elegantly-dressed, though worryingly thin woman with a strangely immobile face – had rushed her through the discharging process, then escorted her to a sleek silver car. With obvious insincerity, she had assured Jane that if she wanted anything she must call her, neglecting of course to leave her number. Then, without a backward glance, she had rushed off.

  Ensconced in the car’s stylish, air-conditioned interior, Jane peered with mounting excitement, and apprehension, through the darkened windows to glimpse where they were going. The stocky Mexican chauffeur was cool and professional, and didn’t engage in any chat. As they drove through the hot, impeccably neat streets, Jane had an impression of palm trees, high walls, and the total absence of people walking anywhere. The only signs of life were from the occasional tourist coaches cruising around stars’ homes, pausing to disgorge hordes of noisy, brightly-dressed snappers, all trying to photograph the same high gates behind which a Hollywood legend lived.

  As the car slowed down to turn into a wide drive, Jane realised with a tingle of excitement that she was one of the privileged few to be going through a Hollywood star’s gates, and into his home.

  Spellbound by her good fortune, Jane didn’t notice a slumped figure in a stationary vehicle suddenly sit up with interest as her car slowed to a halt. She certainly didn’t notice him pointing his camera at her as Scott’s automobile activated a beam in front of huge metal gates embedded in high adobe walls. The gates slid slowly apart to reveal a large, white, modern, square building with an array of darkened windows. Then they silently closed on the crouched photographer and the broad empty street.

  Her first impressions of Scott’s garden were of long, fern-like plants dotted in gravel beds, and silver sculptures glittering brightly on weirdly-shaped stands. It was very ordered, obviously fashionably designed, totally dominated by a large, oval swimming pool and with very little shade from the strong Californian sun. How very different from the rampant rose-covered walls of her family home and its large garden full of branching mature trees, so good for climbing and for swings. She had a sudden wave of nostalgia for her mother’s riotous flower beds, so colourful and disorderly and always threatening to encroach upon her father’s neat, serried rows of well-staked vegetables.

  But as Jane alighted from the car and squinted in the bright sun, she acknowledged to herself that the weather was hardly typical of her home town. How her mother would love this heat and brightness.

  The hot humidity was not her cup of tea, though, and she was very grateful when Manuel, the chauffeur, escorted her into a cool – actually cold – hallway, where the contrast with the outside temperature was so stark that she shivered.

  Manuel called out, ‘Maria!’ and a sturdy young Mexican woman came forward to greet her with an inquisitive look. Jane smiled and moved to shake her hand, which evidently surprised the other woman. But she took it and returned Jane’s smile.

  ‘Oh, hello Maria, I’m Jane. How lovely to meet you. I hope you haven’t gone to too much trouble for me. I’m sorry to be such a pain, but I will try not to inconvenience you at all. It’s just that Scott…um, Mr. Flynn, said I could stay here for a while.’ Jane stopped as a puzzled frown deepened on Maria’s broad forehead.

  ‘It’s OK, Miss Jones.’ Manuel stepped forward with a grin. He evidently understood much more than Maria. The impassive, somewhat forbidding face he had worn in the car, which had discouraged Jane from chatting, had now disappeared and was replaced by a broad smile which lightened his dark features. Jane had evidently passed some test and gained his approval, so he began to explain in his lilting Mexican voice, ‘My Maria, she doesn’t understand English very well and…you have a strange accent.’

  ‘Oh yes. Oh sorry, I suppose I have. I’m so sorry I don’t speak any Spanish… Some Italian, but no Spanish, I’m afraid. But I will happily learn, if you would help me.’

  ‘Si, si. But first, please, Maria will show you around a little and then to your room. Let me know if there’s anything we can do for you, or if you want something to eat. My Maria is a very good cook.’ He paused and beamed proudly at his shy wife. ‘Mr Scott’s PA, Miss Delia, has told us all about the accident, so if you want to lie down, that’s OK.’

  ‘Oh, thank you, Manuel. That would be nice, but I’d love to see round first, if you wouldn’t mind, just to get my bearings.’

  Manuel looked puzzled, but obviously understood the gist of the reply and said something rapidly to Maria.

  Although Maria’s English was limited, by smiles and gestures the two women managed to communicate as Jane was shown around the house.

  Scott Flynn’s house, she kept reminding herself in amazement.

  The writer in her wanted to find clues to his personality in his surroundings, his décor, his furnishings, and most of all, in the small personal items that would be scattered around the place. She had met Scott the movie star, now to find out what Scott, the person, was really like. Apart from her inherent nosiness about people, she also desperately needed this information for when she met him again, on his home turf.

  As hard as she tried, so far she hadn’t been able to get past his iconic film image, and she desperately didn’t want to appear stupidly starstruck again when he returned home. He was probably bored with all the tongue-tied adoration he must meet every day, so it was important that she should be able to engage with him as a real person. His home would surely provide intimate hints of his private identity, hints of the actual man, and help her to view him as such.

  Eagerly, she scanned the first room she was shown. It was obviously the lounge area, and was decorated in strong primary colours of black and burgundy and white, with stark abstract paintings dominating the walls. Like the garden, it gave every impression of being a showpiece with not a thing out of place. No photographs, nothing old, nothing personal, no much-loved but jarringly bad taste items that spoke of individuality. Jane tried to imagine staying there, living there. The black leather sofas and clear glass tables looked anything but inviting…but she supposed that was Hollywood style.

  In fact, it was the same story throughout the brief tour. Cosy it definitely wasn’t. Thoughts of home came, once again, unbidden. Not London, but her real family home. Shabby, not chic, but definitely comfy and welcoming.

  She wondered briefly what her mum had made of her rapid telephone conversation this morning from Scott’s car, clarifying last night’s brief text message.

  She had told her anxious mother about her slight accident. No, nothing to worry about, just a stupid bump on the head. Yes, she had been well looked after in hospital and, as she had mentioned in the text, her return home would be delayed for a while. And, because by then there was no doubt as to her destination, she had dared at last to reveal the exciting reason
why she would be staying a little longer.

  Here she had paused for effect, before launching breathlessly into her big revelation,

  ‘Um, Scott Flynn has offered to let me stay with him for a while. Scott Flynn, Mum!’

  She held her breath waiting for some reaction to this news, but the name seemed to mean nothing to her mum.

  ‘That’s nice, dear. As long as you are OK. Don’t go rushing around too much. Just take it easy.’

  ‘Don’t worry, Mum, I will.’

  Made slightly selfconscious by the taciturn presence of Manuel, Jane hadn’t gone into any more details and rung off.

  She would love to be a fly on the wall when her mother relayed the message to her sisters. She could imagine the squeals of disbelief and envy and amazement…that is, if her mum remembered the name Scott Flynn. She was quite likely just to say that Jane was staying with some friend in America. Mum had sounded slightly distracted on the phone, but then she often did.

  As soon as she was alone in her room at Scott’s, she would phone her favourite sister, Milly. Although, it would have to be brief, as she knew she hadn’t got much battery charge left on her phone, and she would have to catch Milly between baby feeds.

  She grinned now, looking around Scott’s immaculate home, imagining what she would tell her sister.

  A couple of hours later, Jane relaxed in the shade in the garden, having just finished a delicious salad lunch. She had eaten alone at the edge of the pool, because Maria had made it clear that she was a little uncomfortable with Jane’s presence in her kitchen. And, as conversation between them was stilted and difficult, Jane resigned herself to be waited on at the large, ornate, glass-topped table in the garden.

  She was bored.

  Her initial brief tour of the house had revealed nothing personal about Scott at all. Surely there must be some clues to the real Scott somewhere. Perhaps inhibited by Maria’s presence, she hadn’t looked closely enough. Knowing that Maria and Manuel were now in their quarters across the garden, she retraced her steps round the house. It confirmed her first impressions of a very stylish abode, but certainly not what she would call a home.