Shot Through the Heart

by Matt Cain

  All things considered, if given the choice himself, Hector thought he’d probably opt for a night of passion with Billy rather than Leo. Not that it mattered, seeing as both of them were straight. Lucky Mia.

  As he tossed the last of her fanmail into the out tray, Hector turned his attention to the day’s packages: box after box of free clothes, shoes and accessories, sent from the world’s leading fashion houses in Mia’s exact sizes, just in case she ever fancied wearing any of it when she stepped out in public. At times like this he thought it a shame that he didn’t work for a male star – one of the biggest perks of a Hollywood PA’s job was to keep the boss’s unwanted freebies. Although he had to admit that he loved hearing the squeals of delight from his mother and sisters when they called him on the phone to say that they’d received one of his regular packages back home in Miami.

  As he unwrapped an elegant black dress from Dolce & Gabbana, Hector wondered whether Mia would wear it out on a date with Leo or Billy. Actually, it would most likely be with Billy as she only ever appeared to go out in public with him. Just then he realized how odd the whole set-up was. Leo was a paparazzo, so he obviously knew about Mia’s very public dates with Billy. And Hector himself had arranged for Leo to go to Cooper Kelly’s party, which Mia had attended with Billy, and for him to visit Mia on the set of her photo shoot with Billy. So the two men obviously knew each other. And after two years of working for her, Hector really didn’t think that Mia was the type to lie to men or mess them around. But there was something funny going on and he was intrigued to find out exactly what it was.

  Come to think of it, Mia always made sure that Hector wasn’t in the house when she got home from a date so he had no idea which, if either, of the men ever stayed the night. And whenever he asked how her dates had gone she’d fob him off and change the subject. Reflecting on it now, he realized that she’d been much more secretive with him lately than she’d ever been in the past. The more he thought about it, the more it dawned on him that Mia’s double dating wasn’t quite as simple as he’d first thought. And one thing was for sure – there was no chance that Mia herself would tell him what was going on.

  No, Hector was going to do some digging and get to the bottom of it himself.

  *

  Mia tore down the Pacific Coast Highway, or the PCH as locals called it, on the back of Leo’s motorbike. The wind swept over her face and she breathed in deep, hungry gulps of sea air mixed with the smell of Leo’s leathers and his own manly scent. She’d never thought that riding on the back of a man’s motorbike could be such a sexually arousing experience. But pressing her body up against his and wrapping her arms around him for survival, there was no denying it now.

  Leo turned off the highway at Fairytale Cove, a quiet spot he knew which he told her was one of LA’s best-kept secrets. She didn’t like to tell him that she’d been here a few years ago to shoot a love scene for a chick flick she’d been making. She managed to cast those memories out of her mind as she took Leo’s hand and they walked along the beach, stopping occasionally to kiss, cuddle and paddle in the surf. The sheer release of surrendering to what she now knew was love felt like some kind of drug rushing through her whole body.

  Walking next to Leo, Mia realized just how much taller, stronger and more confident she felt now than she ever had before. Above all, she felt so much more herself when she was with him and she wondered whether this was why people talked about finding their other half in life, someone who completed them. She couldn’t help thinking how ironic it was that whenever she was with Leo she had to wear a disguise to fool the paparazzi, hiding behind dark glasses and a wig she’d worn in one of her film roles – as if she was pretending to be someone else on the outside just so that she could be herself on the inside.

  And yeah, she still felt guilty about revealing Billy’s secret to Leo but when she was with Leo she tried her best not to think about that either. Thankfully, he hadn’t mentioned it since the day of the photo shoot and neither had Billy for that matter. On her very different and very public dates with Billy, the two of them had managed to have great fun, although deep down she knew they were both putting on a brave face and that neither of them wanted to go through with the show-mance. The very thought of it made her feel anxious but she told herself she wasn’t going to let it spoil her date with Leo. She took hold of his hand and gave it a little squeeze. It was funny but whenever she was with Leo, all her worries disappeared – she felt safe and secure, as if nothing could touch her. And she couldn’t remember feeling like that since she was a little girl. Just then she felt her love for him grow in a sudden surge.

  As the sunshine began to fade, Leo drove them up into the Hills and took Mia to another quiet spot where they could watch the sunset together. As they looked out over the vast panorama, she noticed that the sky over LA had that beautiful pink tinge it always had in the evening. Somebody had once told her it was caused by all the smog and pollution in the city. She wondered how something so dirty could create such a beautiful image. She turned to Leo and snuggled into his arms.

  She was so happy right now – happier than she ever remembered being. How could anything possibly go wrong?

  *

  ‘You do realize this is all going to go horribly wrong?’

  Serena stood looking at Mia with her hands on her hips. That afternoon they’d had a massage and they were now in Mia’s lounge getting ready to go through a pile of scripts. Serena had just been told about the show-mance and couldn’t believe what she’d heard.

  ‘You know, all I do is go away for ten days and I come home to find out you and Billy have been fucked up the ass by the Wicked Witch of West Hollywood. Man, the whole thing’s crazy. Why didn’t you call me before you agreed to go through with it?’

  ‘Serena, you were in Sierra Leone. I didn’t want to disturb you.’

  ‘But I was hardly on vacation – I was working!’ Serena had been visiting the set of a film starring another of her clients, Denver Jones, an African-American stand-up comedian turned movie star who’d recently seen his popularity plummet within the black community for marrying a very white, very blonde model. Subsequently, he was trying to reconnect with his core audience by playing a freedom fighter in a gritty drama about the recent civil war in Sierra Leone. The problem was that when he’d arrived on location, he hadn’t been at all happy about the lack of luxury and had soon started making demands that couldn’t be met by the producers. Serena had flown out there on a desperate mission to stop a new war breaking out and after ten days had just about managed to avert catastrophe. ‘You know,’ she sighed, sitting down next to Mia. ‘I’m not saying I didn’t have my hands full but I was on email or my cell out there. And I would have happily taken time out to talk you out of this dumb-ass idea.’

  ‘But is it such a dumb-ass idea? According to Violet this kind of thing goes on all the time.’ Serena could tell this wasn’t the first time Mia had said this line and, more to the point, that she didn’t really believe it.

  ‘Well that’s bullshit – believe me. This kind of thing used to go on all the time. But I know for sure that it doesn’t anymore – not in a world crawling with paparazzi who can upload photos onto the internet in seconds, before you even know they’ve been taken. Not in a world where every regular Tom, Dick and Harry has a camera on their cell phone and spends all their time on Twitter talking about the celebs they’ve spotted. I mean, what if you’re caught out with Leo when you’re supposed to be seeing Billy? It’s way too dangerous, sister. It just won’t fly.’

  Mia put her finger to her lips and shot Serena a look of concern. ‘Sssh! Not so loud! Bob’s in the kitchen and he might hear you. He doesn’t know anything about Leo.’

  ‘But I thought you said he didn’t speak English?’

  ‘He didn’t. But now that he’s dating Ramona he’s learning. Sweet, isn’t it?’

  Serena cocked her head and managed to make out a few lines of heavily accented, disjointed English coming from th
e kitchen.

  ‘You very beautiful.’

  ‘I – you – so happy.’

  She couldn’t stop herself letting out a little chuckle. ‘Well, what do you know? There must be something in the air. Which reminds me, what does Leo think about this show-mance?’

  ‘Oh he doesn’t like it, I guess. But I’m trying not to bring it up with him to be honest. I just don’t want to spoil things.’

  ‘So it’s all going well between you two?’

  ‘Incredibly well.’ She lowered her voice even further. ‘Serena, I think I’m in love with him. In fact, I know I’m in love with him.’

  ‘Well that’s fantastic news. Have you told him this?’

  ‘Not yet. We kind of had an argument when he found out about the show-mance so I don’t want to rock the boat for a while. I’m just enjoying spending time with him and trying not to over-complicate things.’

  ‘Well that’s great, sister, but I hope this whole show-mance doesn’t mess things up for you. Are you totally sure it’s not too late to back out of it?’

  ‘Hmm, I’m afraid so. We’ve done the photo shoot together now and talked about being a couple at the junket. And we’ve already been papped on a few dates this week so we’re kind of up and running. If we duck out now then the whole thing could totally backfire.’

  ‘You’re telling me. Are you sure you don’t want me to get involved? You know, Violet might scare most people in this town but she doesn’t scare me. Maybe I could have a talk to her – get her to do some damage limitation with the press and call the whole thing off.’ Serena thought back to the time that she and Violet had last talked, when they’d had a massive bust-up backstage at the Golden Globes after Violet had insisted that another of their shared clients, Annabel Anders, a Broadway musical star with a famously large bust, wore a cleavage-revealing dress that had been carefully tampered with to pop open at the very moment she stepped onto the red carpet. From Violet’s point of view, it had been a masterstroke – the pictures were a sensation and appeared on the front page of every newspaper around the world. But from Serena’s point of view it had been a disaster – she’d been trying hard to land Annabel the lead role in a heavyweight drama about domestic violence and knew that Violet’s carefully planned accident had completely ruined her chances. She hadn’t been afraid to vent her frustration and the ensuing catfight had caused almost as much of a stir backstage as the wardrobe malfunction had out front.

  ‘No, honestly,’ Mia protested. ‘It’ll be OK. She’s asked me and Billy to go to a meeting in her office later this week. And if you don’t mind, it’s probably better if we go on our own.’

  Serena wondered if Mia was also thinking about what had happened at the Golden Globes. It had been the one occasion when she’d lost her cool in public and she’d vowed never to do it again. Her behaviour had been nothing short of unprofessional and had left her undermined in the face of the dilemma she was facing now.

  ‘OK,’ she shrugged. ‘If you insist. But if there’s any trouble, you let me loose on her.’

  ‘OK, I will. I promise.’

  ‘That’s my girl. Now let’s take a look at these scripts.’

  As she opened the first and began reading, Serena found it difficult to concentrate. She couldn’t help worrying about this upcoming meeting with Violet, who was obviously planning a new twist in the tale and wanted to get Mia and Billy on board. However she looked at it, it was all very fishy.

  And Serena didn’t trust Violet. She didn’t trust her one bit.

  *

  It was 7 a.m. and Billy was thumping his way up a sandy track, snaking a trail through Runyon Canyon. He had a rucksack filled with heavy weights on his back and dark shades covered most of his face. Not that it bothered him if he was spotted or papped while he was out training; Violet seemed to think that it was actually good for his image and made him seem more ‘real’. He couldn’t help smiling at the irony.

  Last night Billy had gone out with Mia to a charity event to raise money for the victims of an earthquake in a poor country he was sure that none of the guests had heard of until natural disaster had made it fashionable. He and Mia had made sure they arrived and left together and had posed for countless photographs during the course of the evening.

  ‘Give her a kiss!’ one of the event photographers had shouted when they were standing arm in arm on the red carpet.

  Billy had made a big show of scooping Mia up in his arms, twirling her around and planting a great big kiss on her mouth.

  That’s for you, Violet, he’d thought.

  Both the photographers and the crowds behind the crash barriers had hollered their approval. Billy couldn’t remember a time when applause and adulation had actually made him feel bad.

  As he thudded his way up towards the summit of the canyon he reflected on how much he hated his show-mance with Mia. And so far they’d only been on three dates. But it all felt so wrong already and he still had a really bad feeling about how it would play out eventually. The trouble was, after the big showdown with Leo at the photo shoot, he didn’t want to say anything to Mia as he didn’t want to rake things up again. He’d felt bad that his problems were interfering with her relationship and he didn’t want to spoil things for her, especially as she seemed so happy now. So he kept quiet, put on a front and made sure the two of them had fun on their dates, nuzzling into her romantically whenever a pap appeared but whispering daft jokes in her ear to try and make her laugh. And maybe he was being over-sensitive about the whole thing anyway. Maybe pretending to date your best girlfriend wasn’t such a big deal after all. It wasn’t as if anybody had smelled a rat yet, or even showed any signs of doing so in the future. If we can just get through the next few months . . .

  As he thought ahead to the future his mind turned to the script he’d been sent for his next film project. He’d been asked to play a womanizer suspected of serial murder in Kissed by a Devil, a sexually explicit thriller which his agent thought would be the perfect vehicle to dirty up his clean-cut image. The trouble was that under the current circumstances he felt uneasy about accepting it. He’d never been offered this kind of role before and couldn’t help wondering if he was only being offered it now because he’d sexed up his image by faking an affair with Mia. In which case he was worried about sinking further and further into a putrid bog of lies and deceit.

  He reached the top of the canyon and looked out over the city. He’d heard that panoramic views like this were supposed to make your own problems seem small and insignificant. Standing there on his own, looking out over the grid of streets disappearing into the heat haze, he realized that this particular view was having exactly the opposite effect on him.

  Once again in his mind he saw himself being buried alive under all the lies he’d told and was continuing to tell. And he was suddenly gripped by a crippling fear of everything going horribly wrong, leaving his career in ruins and himself rejected and even more lonely than he was already. He didn’t know what Violet wanted to talk about at this next meeting but he wasn’t looking forward to it.

  *

  ‘So let me get this straight,’ Ronnie said. ‘Mia’s with you but she’s pretending to be with Billy?’

  Leo tucked into his full English breakfast. ‘Yeah, that’s pretty much it. Mmm, I love black pudding.’

  ‘We call it blood sausage here, Limey. But just rewind a second. Did you just say your girlfriend’s pretending to date someone else and you’re OK with that?’

  ‘Well I’m not exactly thrilled about it but what can I do? It’s her job basically – she has to promote the film.’

  Ronnie made a whistling sound and shook his head.

  It was Sunday morning and the two of them were sitting at a dishcloth-damp table having breakfast in Leo’s favourite British cafe The Tea Zone. It was run by a cheery cockney called George, a fat bald man with white, pasty dinner-lady arms, which Leo always thought had the texture of uncooked pastry. This was Leo’s favourite place for comfort f
ood – although he’d thrown himself into every aspect of the LA experience, when he wanted cheering up there was nothing like a full English. And today Ronnie had joined him.

  The truth was that Leo had been avoiding Ronnie all week. The Shooting Stars agency had been tipping them both off about Mia and Billy’s dates and Leo couldn’t face answering Ronnie’s inevitable questions so had pretended to be ill in bed with a bad case of the flu. But now it was time to man up and face the music. And just as he’d predicted, the questions were coming thick and fast.

  ‘And what about Billy Spencer?’ Ronnie spluttered through a mouthful of food. ‘Is it his job to make out with your girl? I bet he’s loving every minute of it.’

  ‘Oh I wouldn’t worry about Billy. He’s a really nice bloke.’

  ‘Yeah, that’s what everyone says but it’s no reason to let him make you look like a total dipshit.’

  At the next table two loud-mouthed, overly made-up bottle blondes from Liverpool were flicking through a stack of papers and magazines. One of them held up a front-page photograph of Mia and Billy holding hands over a dinner table.

  ‘Phwoar!’ she giggled. ‘That Billy Spencer’s well fit!’