Hollywood Star

by Rowan Coleman

  “She looks about as talented as a slug,” I said, setting the pair off into peels of giggles.

  “A slug!” Adrienne called out, loud enough for Tina to look up. “Tina the talented slug – good one, Ruby.”

  I felt sick inside, horrible and disgusted with myself. But I didn’t stop them. I just laughed along too.

  “Oh, look, there’s Zach Patel,” Adrienne whispered, nodding towards a boy who was walking across the cafeteria towards Hunter’s group. “He’s cute, don’t you think?”

  I looked at the boy they were talking about. He was tall and lanky with a nice friendly smile.

  “You couldn’t call him un-cute,” I said, which I was pleased to find made the girls laugh again.

  “I know,” Nadine said, leaning closer. “And guess what? That’s who we’ve decided is going to take you to the Valentine’s dance.”

  “Pardon?” I said, looking back at Zach laughing with his friends. “Does he know?”

  “He will,” Adrienne explained. “After we’ve styled you a bit more, taken you shopping a few times, turned you into one of us, then we’re going to introduce you to Zach properly. Don’t worry, we’ll tell you how to act and what to say, and we’ll get him to ask you to the dance even though he thinks he wants to ask Lisa Caldwell. We always get what we want.”

  “Best of all, when he asks you and not Lisa Caldwell, she will actually die,” Nadine added.

  “Do we hate her?” I asked. “Why?”

  Adrienne’s razor-sharp glare cut across the room as she got a girl who I assumed was Lisa Caldwell in her sights. “Just look at the dumb moose.”

  I looked across the room and thought that Lisa looked perfectly OK to me. Pretty with glossy curly hair and quite a few friends around her. If I was Zach Patel, I’d ask Lisa to the dance over me any time. She looked really nice, even saying “hi” to Tina as she left, instead of hurling a hurtful comment like Adrienne had done.

  “Well, of course, you two know what’s best,” I said. “It’s Just that—”

  “I know!” Nadine interrupted me. “You’re going to say you have a boyfriend at home and it would be wrong to go to the dance with another guy.”

  I hadn’t been about to say that actually. I had been about to say that surely Zach would only ask the girl he really liked to the dance, not the girl that Adrienne and Nadine thought he should ask. But Nadine’s comment reminded me with a sharp pang that I had broken up with Danny.

  “Actually, I broke up with my boyfriend,” I said a little sadly, glad at last for the chance to talk about it. “I don’t know what happened. One minute we were talking and then—”

  “Perfect!” Adrienne squealed. “This is going to be great. Now you can steal Zach away from Lisa without having to feel bad about it!”

  “Right,” I said hesitantly. “Yay.”

  “Hey,” Nadine lowered her voice and leaned in further, “is it true that you dated Sean Rivers and he dumped you for some English model so you outed him from his secret hideaway as revenge?”

  “No!” I said so loudly that a few other kids looked over to where we were sitting. “No, we were never going out. For a while the press at home and everyone thought we were, but that was a mix-up. It was quite funny actually—”

  “What’s he like?” Adrienne asked me. “Is he as cute in real life as he is in The Underdogs? Is he a good kisser? I bet he’s a really good kisser!” She and Nadine cackled away.

  “I wouldn’t know,” I said firmly. “I haven’t kissed him properly and I didn’t mean to give away where he was living – it was an accident.”

  “So what’s going to happen to Sean now?” Adrienne asked me intently, putting me on my guard. “If anyone knows it’s you, right? And do you know how cool dishing dirt like that will make us? Spill, Ruby.”

  There was something about Adrienne that made you want to do exactly what she told you. I was about to tell her when I remembered why I was in such a mess with my friends back home and had possibly lost Sean and even Danny forever. Mum had told me that plans for Sean’s exclusive interview were top secret. I didn’t want to make the mistake of giving away any more secrets about Sean, especially not to Adrienne who I got the feeling only used her superpowers for evil.

  “I don’t know,” I shrugged. Adrienne squinted at me. “Honestly, why would I know? No one tells me anything.”

  Considering that I am terrible at lying, they seemed to believe me. I decided not to think about what would happened once they found out the truth.

  “Well, I want you to make up with him so that when he comes back to Hollywood you can introduce him to me and we will fall instantly in love,” Adrienne said happily as if her wish really was my command.

  “But what about Hunter?” I asked her, a little shocked.

  “Hunter is the male lead in Hollywood High,” Adrienne said with a shrug. “And he’s the best-looking boy in our grade, so naturally I’m dating him. But if Sean Rivers were available? Well, that would be a whole other story…”

  “Okey-dokey,” I said, even though I didn’t think it. I felt a bit like I was being swept away in a fast-flowing river of crazed girl power.

  “Working with you is going to be so great, Ruby,” Nadine said, her voice suddenly warm and friendly again.

  “Thanks,” I said with a smile, feeling my knotted tummy muscles relax a little. No matter how different or difficult it was to be friends with these girls, at least I could feel good about the fact that they had chosen to like me for me.

  “Hey,” Adrienne said suddenly, “when you go to the premiere of your movie you can take us as your guests and we can all get photographed on the red carpet – how cool will that be?”

  “That will be cool,” I said. Perhaps they didn’t like me for me after all. But they liked me, and even if it was Just because of the people I knew or a potential invitation to a film premiere, as far as I could see it was much safer to be liked than hated by them. And that was the way I intended it to stay.

  When it came to shooting my first scenes for Hollywood High, it was actually quite relaxing compared to hanging out with Nadine and Adrienne, trying to think up mean and funny things to say about whomever they decided to pick on at any given moment. I noticed that all the people at the beginning of the day who’d said “hi” and smiled at me had gradually begun to ignore me until only the inner circles of girls that Nadine and Adrienne approved of would even look at me.

  So, despite my blushing issue, it was actually a relief that all of my first scenes were with Hunter Blake, shot on location outside the school. I didn’t know him at all apart from the article in It’s Your Life! called ‘Get to know Hunter Blake – his Top Ten Favourite Things’, so at least I knew his favourite colour was green and he seemed like a really nice, easy-going boy who reminded me a bit of Sean, except that he made me blush and Sean never did.

  “Hey, Ruby,” he said while we were waiting for Suzie to come and listen to us read our scenes through together. “How was your first day at Beaumont? Have Adi and Nadine managed to clone you into one of them yet?”

  I laughed properly for the first time that day. “They’re still working on it,” I said with a smile, shading my eyes from the sun as I looked up at him. “They’ve been really kind to me. My first day would have been really scary if it hadn’t been for them.”

  “That’s true,” Hunter said, mimicking the deep and gravelly tone of a film trailer voiceover. “They have the power to make your day really great or really, really bad.”

  “I know which I prefer,” I told him.

  “Me too,” Hunter said with a rueful grin. Then I saw Adrienne watching us from a distance and even though I wasn’t standing at all close to Hunter, I took a step back.

  “Hey, guys,” Suzie Blenheim came over. “Let me hear you read the scene through while they set up the cameras and the lighting.” She smiled at me. “We don’t like to rehearse too much, Ruby; we like to keep that realistic, improvised edge. If you want to change the sc
ript a little or if you have any ideas for the scene, then tell us. We’re all very open here, OK?”

  I nodded and felt a bubble of excitement in my tummy. After all, this is what I loved to do. The reason I spent so many years on Kensington Heights, why I made myself sick auditioning for The Lost Treasure of King Arthur and why, despite all of my reservations, I was here today, was to act.

  Acting was the fun part, the wonderful and magical part that made me feel happy and alive. And if I could forget, even Just for a little while all of the complicated and difficult parts that seemed to come with it, then it would be worth it.

  When Hunter and I read through the scene I was a different girl in a different world for a few minutes, and it felt good.

  “That was great, Ruby,” Suzie told me with a broad smile once we had finished. “But I need you to relax a little and remember Lady Elizabeth wants to take Hayden from his girlfriend. So you need to try acting shy and vulnerable, but sort of flirtatious and confident too. Can you do that?”

  I looked at her. “Yes,” I said, thinking to myself that if I could, it would be a first in both my acting and my real life.

  But here I was on the set of a TV show, acting opposite one of America’s hottest young stars. All I had to do was to let myself disappear into the mind of Lady Elizabeth. Instead of being Ruby saying her words, I had to be Elizabeth, I had to think and feel her words. And gradually, after take after take, that special kind of magic you sometimes get when you are acting really well began to happen.

  “That’s a wrap for today, everybody!” Suzie called a few hours later to a ripple of applause from the cast and crew. “Really great work, guys,” she said, coming over to me and Hunter and giving us both a hug. “Ruby, you nailed it, honey. There’s a day off for you kids tomorrow and then interior scenes on Wednesday and Friday. And pick-ups Saturday morning. Good Job, everyone!”

  I walked back to the make-up and costume trailers where I found Jeremy talking to Mr Blenheim.

  “Any time we can persuade you to do a guest role, you let me know,” Mr Blenheim was telling Jeremy. “We love to get quality actors like you on board. It would light the whole show up. Give it kudos.”

  “Thank you. I’ll bear it in mind,” Jeremy said politely, smiling as he saw me approaching. I said hello and goodbye to Mr Blenheim as he left to talk to Suzie.

  “So, Ruby, how was your day of firsts?” Jeremy asked me jovially.

  “Fine,” I said happily. “Great actually, especially the scenes I shot today. I remembered what you taught me.” I looked around. “Where’s Mum. She said she’d be here.”

  “Janice couldn’t make it,” Jeremy said. “A meeting came up at the last minute. She’s with Lisa planning what you and…” He glanced around at the group gathering around us, Adrienne pushing her way to the front. “Well, it was important, Ruby.”

  “Oh,” I said. I felt disappointed. I was looking forward to being with Mum on the drive home, me telling her about my day and listening to her stories. And then maybe we’d sing along to our favourite new song and Mum would get all the words wrong. I wanted to tell her about Adrienne and Nadine and maybe, if she seemed in an understanding mood, even about the girl called Tina who I had been unkind to. I wanted her to tell me that I was wrong to do that, because although I already knew that, knowing didn’t seem enough to stop me doing it.

  “She sends her apologies,” Jeremy said. “And as I didn’t have scenes to shoot this afternoon, I came to pick you up instead of just sending the chauffeur.”

  “That is nice,” I told him, smiling and feeling suddenly very tired. “Thank you.”

  I glanced around at Adrienne, Nadine and quite a few of the other cast members who were all waiting to meet Jeremy Fort.

  “Well,” I said. “Let me introduce you to my new friends.”

  Later that night, after two helpings of chocolate pudding, I climbed gratefully into bed, with David curled up in a tiny bony ball at my feet. I was exhausted and the thought of getting up and going through another whole school day made me feel even more tired. It was something I had to get used to though, because I would be doing it every weekday for the next six weeks. I was supposed to have been back in England, but now it wouldn’t be until late February that I’d get back home. I wondered if Everest would even talk to me because he was bound to know I’d been hanging out with a dog. And not even a proper dog, but the silliest, smallest and crassest dog the world had ever known.

  Tomorrow was going to be hard. Not only because I only had one acceptable thing to wear (which now had chocolate sauce down it), or because my new friends frightened me most of the time. It would also be hard because, despite everything, I was homesick.

  Not Just for the grey skies and wet pavements, a yearning of Jeremy’s that I suddenly understood. Not just for the buildings, my house, my bedroom and my cat. And not only for the people that I missed so much, Dad and Nydia, Danny and the others.

  I was homesick for a home that I was sure had vanished.

  A dad who didn’t seem to care about me any more, friends who hated me and an ex-boyfriend who was probably already dating Jade Caruso.

  I felt like I was homesick with no real home to go to.

  22 Green Park Road London NW1

  Dear Ruby,

  I hope you don’t mind me writing to you. I thought about sending an e-mail, but it didn’t seem right. I thought about phoning too, but i knew it i talked to you I wouldn’t get what i wanted to say elear in my mind.

  I’m sorry that when we spoke on the webeam I was tunny with you and you got upset. Rubes, I know you never meant to spoil things for Sean and everyghing that happened was just you being on TV in America and not realising what you were saying. I saw a tape of you on that show and it was odd. It made me think that you weren’t my Ruby Parker any more; you were Ruby Parker, Hollywood Star. Which made me think, who am I now? Am I the same Danny Harvey that kissed you on the set of Kensington Heights? I don’t think I am any more, which probably sounds strange because you’ve only been gone three weeks, but it’s been long enough for some things to happen.

  Ruby, I think we should break up. You always told me that we are too young to act like Romeo and Juliet and get all serious, and I think you are right.

  You are a good friend and I still really like you. I hope that when you are back we will be OK as friends.

  Take care then,

  Danny

  Chapter Thirteen

  Danny’s letter came on the Saturday after I had finished my first week on Hollywood High. It was waiting for me on a silver plate on the table by the door.

  When I saw his handwriting my heart leapt a little bit. I ran up the stairs with David at my heels and took the letter straight to my bedroom to read, full of happiness to have heard from him.

  My first ever love letter, I thought, as I sat on my bed and opened the envelope imagining all the sweet and lovely things that Danny would say to me and how sorry he was and how much he missed me.

  I was disappointed.

  I didn’t expect to cry, but I did. Suddenly, as the words he had written sank in and I realised that we were actually properly finished, for good. As the tears came and I lay down on my bed, buried my head in the pillow and wept, David’s cold and wet pointed muzzle poked me in the cheek as he licked away the salty tears.

  “Ruby?” I heard Mum’s voice on the other side of the door. “Ruby are you coming down for lunch?”

  I held my breath and waited for all trace of tears to be gone from my voice. I didn’t want Mum to catch me crying.

  “In a minute,” I said when I thought I sounded normal again. Obviously, I didn’t sound normal enough because Mum opened the door and came in, setting David off into a barking frenzy.

  “Oh, shut up, you idiot dog,” my mum said, sending him scooting under the covers with a whimper.

  “Ruby, why are you crying?” she asked me in a much softer voice that made me want to cry even more, because Mum had not been very mum-lik
e recently and I had missed her fussing over me more than I thought possible.

  She sat on the edge of the bed and put the palm of her hand on my back. I pointed at the letter that had slid on to the floor and tried to speak, but my words got all muddled up in sobs. Mum picked up the letter.

  “May I read it?” she asked. I nodded.

  “Oh dear, Ruby,” Mum said when she put down the letter. “I’m sorry about that. I thought Danny was a nice boy, I really did, and you two were sweet together. But you know, you are only thirteen. And you two do live on opposite sides of the world now.”

  “No, we don’t!” I protested. “This is only meant to be a holiday! He says that I’m different, but I’m not. He is. He’s changed and something else apart from his Christmas number one and six thousand Christmas cards has done it to him. And we’re not living here forever.”

  “Well, who knows where events might take us,” Mum said lightly. “Look, darling, I know you feel bad, but I promise you in a few weeks you won’t even remember what you saw in him. In a few years you won’t even remember who he was.”

  “I will!” I answered. “Just because I’m a kid doesn’t mean I don’t feel things!”

  “I know you feel lots of things, but what I’m saying is that they will pass,” Mum said.

  I lay still for a moment and looked at the pattern on my pillowcase. There was something / had to know.

  “Mum.” I sat up and rubbed my eyes, smudging the mascara I’d so carefully applied earlier, practising to get perfect. “Can I ask you something?”

  Mum nodded and smiled.

  “If I tell you that I want to go home, for good, will you promise to take me?”

  Mum looked at me levelly. “Do you want to go home now?” she asked me instead of answering the question.

  I thought about what it would be like seeing Danny and Nydia and the others when I wasn’t friends with them and it made me want to cry again. I swallowed the tears though.

  “No, not right now. But if I do want to go home, even if I get offered loads of roles here and get nominated for an Oscar, will you Just take me without trying to make me stay?”