Hollywood Star

by Rowan Coleman

“Not yet,” Hunter told me. “But this should help let her know.” He took my hand in his.

  “Hunter, I’m not sure…” I began in somebody else’s voice, because mine was not normally that high pitched and girly.

  “Relax, Ruby,” Hunter told me. “I’ve been in one fake relationship for a long time. What better way to end it than with another.”

  “Genius,” Tina said with a little hop. “She’s going to implode.”

  “Why is it that people frequently want to pretend to go out with me?” I said, but very quietly under my breath, because after all if Hunter really did want to date me, I think I might run a million miles in the opposite direction in terror. It wasn’t like it had been with Danny, when I sort of got to like him without really noticing.

  Going out with Danny had been mostly easy. But how do you date a boy you find hard to look in the eye because he’s so handsome? Not to mention one who very soon will be on the other side of the Atlantic from you. Although that might make him easier to date because then at least I wouldn’t have to look at him.

  As we walked around the corner, my hand feeling decidedly odd in Hunter’s, we bumped right into Adrienne, Nadine and the rest of the witchy coven.

  Nadine’s eyes nearly popped out of her head when she saw me holding Hunter’s hand. Adrienne’s face didn’t move a muscle.

  “What’s going on?” she asked Hunter in clipped tones.

  “Look, Adrienne,” Hunter said calmly with the hint of a smile, “I’m sorry you have to find out like this – but Ruby and I are dating now.”

  There was a gasp from the girls behind Adrienne.

  “You are dating her?” Adrienne said with a harsh laugh. “That loser, that – what did the papers call her? Oh yeah, that’s right: a wooden and lacklustre failure who wouldn’t even get a part in a school play. You’d really give me up for that? The girl who describes herself as fun, friendly and fashionable when she really meant to say fat, frumpy and a fraud?”

  “Well, I want to give you up. I’m sure of that,” Hunter said, igniting another flurry of shocked noise behind Adrienne, although I thought I saw the hint of a smile flash across Nadine’s face.

  Adrienne narrowed her eyes into tiny slits and walked towards me, stopping so close that her nose was Just a hair’s breadth away from mine. I was sure I was about to find out what it was like to be punched by another girl.

  “You’re welcome to him,” she hissed in my face. “He’s a loser just like you, Ruby. To think I wasted all that time hanging out with you, being bored out of my brain because I thought you’d help my career. I count myself lucky that you haven’t dragged me down with you. The day you leave here won’t come too soon for me.”

  She tossed her head as she whipped round so that her hair lashed me in the face. “Come on, girls,” she said with a click of her fingers. “Let’s go.”

  Hunter, Tina and I stood there as Adrienne and her pack retreated.

  “Today’s going to be fun,” I said. “I have scenes to shoot with her after school.”

  “Ruby,” Hunter said, “can you let go of my hand now? You’re kind of hurting me.”

  I’m used to my life being a bit like a rollercoaster, up one minute and down the next, but it seemed to me that this particular stretch of rollercoaster was going down, down and down with no prospect of it climbing upwards any time soon.

  As sweet as Hunter, Tina and their friends were, they could only protect me so much from Adrienne’s wrath and each passing day seemed to get worse.

  I’d find blown-up copies of my bad reviews plastered all over the corridors. Photographs of me that had been scanned into someone’s PC and changed, blowing me up so I looked like a great big balloon that was about to pop. Even worse, the photo of my mother that had appeared in People’s Choice Magazine was strewn around the school.

  I’d walk past people who only a few days ago were falling over themselves to be nice to me and they’d snigger, muttering insults directed at me. I’d feel their eyes on me and I’d know they were talking about me even if I couldn’t hear what they were saying. It was Just what Tina must have felt when I did the same to her. I told myself I deserved it.

  Then there was the superglue on my seat that ripped a hole in my linen trousers and which Mum had to get off my leg with nail varnish remover. Someone poured shampoo in my school bag, ruining all of the work that was due to be sent back to Miss Greenstreet that week. Chewing gum was stuck in my hair. Tina cut it out with nail scissors in the girls’ loo. And I got tripped up in the corridor so that I fell flat on my face.

  Mum asked me about the glue and the missing clump of hair from the back of my head. But I just made up a Ruby-like excuse that she seemed to accept. And when she told me off for ruining my homework with shampoo, I Just shrugged.

  It’s funny because when I played Angel on Kensington Heights, girls used to write to me all the time and tell me their problems. Sometimes they’d tell me that they were being picked on or bullied at school, and I’d always reply with the same advice. Tell a teacher and your mum and dad. Make sure you get help. Don’t try and handle it on your own. I knew that was exactly what I should be doing, but I didn’t.

  For the first time I realised that things weren’t always that easy. I didn’t want to tell Mum for starters. It was so important to her that I fulfil my contract on Hollywood High which meant finishing my six weeks at Beaumont; she’d made that pretty clear the other day when she refused to take me home straightaway. Telling her how hard things were might get me home a bit faster, but it wouldn’t make her happy. And I hadn’t seen her really happy – at least not with me – since we’d arrived in Hollywood.

  I just wanted her to see that I hadn’t given up and that any decisions I made about my future were after I had tried my very best. And besides, it wasn’t as if I would be going to Beaumont forever. I just had to keep holding on and I thought that I’d be strong enough to do that.

  Then on the second Monday after the reviews came and Adrienne started hating me, something else happened. I was in English Class when Marianne Green opened the classroom door and exchanged a few words with Ms Martinez.

  “Ruby?” Ms Martinez said, looking up at me. “Please can you go with Ms Green to the school office? You are excused from lessons until recess.”

  “Finally, they’re deporting her,” Adrienne said to a raft of giggles, all of which were quieted by a very stern stare from Ms Martinez. I got up, glancing at Tina as I left. I wondered what on earth warranted me being called to the office. My best guess was the shampoo all over my coursework. I’d copied it out again as best as I could, but it definitely wasn’t as good as it had been the first time. Maybe they were worried I wasn’t keeping up with my studies from home.

  “So, Ruby,” Ms Green asked me as I walked alongside her. “How are things going now for you? Are you still enjoying your stay with us?”

  “Yes,” I said, and I was only half lying. Maybe I did hate what the Adrienne brigade did to me every day, but I liked hanging out with Tina and Hunter, and I had even been to a couple of theatre-club meetings which gave me a chance to forget about everything else. I still loved acting, whether I was any good at it or not.

  “I heard that some of the girls were giving you a tough time,” Ms Green said, and then I thought that this must be what she wanted to see me about and I was relieved because it was less scary than falling behind on my homework.

  “Oh, well, you know what us girls are like. We’re always falling out. We’ll be best friends again by this time next week.” That was a full one hundred per cent lie.

  “I think it’s a bit more than girls falling out,” Ms Green said, nodding at one of the blown-up pictures of me that had appeared since last recess. “Look, Ruby, you can talk to me without having to be afraid. Tell me who is leading this intimidation campaign against you and I’ll deal with them, no matter how important they think they are. We do not tolerate that kind of behaviour from anyone in this school.”

 
“I’m fine, honestly,” I said as we stopped outside her office. “Can I go now?”

  “Pardon?” Ms Green looked perplexed. “Oh no, sorry, Ruby, that wasn’t why I called you out of class. Mr Blenheim and your mother are here for a meeting.”

  “Mr Blenheim?” I repeated. “A meeting about Hollywood High”

  “I think so,” Ms Green said, dropping her gaze from mine as she showed me into her office where Mum and Mr Blenheim were waiting. I realised at once from the look on Mum’s face when I went in what the meeting was really about.

  It was sort of obvious really that they’d cut my part from the show. After all, their leading actress hated my guts, the critics loathed me and in the last few days, try as I might, I hadn’t been able to concentrate properly on anything. So I shouldn’t have been surprised, but I was.

  “Look, Ruby,” Mr Blenheim told me sadly, “this is as hard for me as it is for you. We took a gamble casting you and it’s Just not working out the way we hoped. So we’re releasing you from the contract under the terms agreed with your agent. And you might as well know that the producers and I have decided to cut your role completely from season two. We’re going to call a hiatus to retool the scripts and storyline and launch the season a little later than we planned.”

  I looked at Mum, but for once she didn’t seem to know what to say. She reached over and put her hand on top of mine. “Can you just explain to us exactly why you’re doing this?” she asked Mr Blenheim, while looking at me. “Is it because my daughter isn’t good enough?”

  He thought for a moment before answering.

  “I run a business, Mrs Parker. And in business it’s all about money. And the way things are now, Ruby doesn’t add value to the show. If anything, she risks devaluing it. It’s nothing personal and if it makes you feel any better Suzie is furious with me for caving in under the pressure of our financiers. For the record, my daughter thinks you are very talented, Ruby. But we have to think of the bigger picture. It’s as simple as that.”

  There was a short but intense silence.

  “It’s OK,” I said to Mum. “Actually it’s good because now at least I can go home.”

  “We’ll talk about that later, Ruby,” Mum said.

  “What’s to talk about?” I asked her, surprised. “I don’t have any reason to stay now, do I?”

  My mum looked at me, a look which told me that when she said we’d talk about it later she meant it. I could tell that she was fuming inwardly and I didn’t want that anger directed at me.

  “I’ll be contacting my lawyers, Mr Blenheim,” she said. “To double-check that you can do this.”

  “I understand,” Mr Blenheim said, “but I think you’ll find there’s nothing that you can do.”

  “Please can I come home with you now then?” I asked her, trying hard not to sound like I was pleading.

  She shook her head. “No I’ll pick you up after classes. You haven’t been dropped from school, Ruby.”

  Mr Blenheim and my mum said stiff goodbyes to each other and then Mum took me to one side as I waited to go back to class. “You know that this isn’t about you, don’t you?” she said, and I could see she thought by saying that she was actually helping me. “It’s all to do with politics and money and studio infighting, not about whether you can act.”

  “Yes,” I replied uncertainly. “But…well, Mum, it is a little bit about me – it has to be. I mean, I want it to be about me now. I want to be able to go home, that’s what I want. What’s the point of staying at school here now?”

  Mum gave me a quick hug. “We’ll talk later,” she told me.

  I think I was in shock when I walked back into class. Perhaps Adrienne had something to do with it, but I don’t think it would have taken very much more for the studio to make their mind up about me after those terrible reviews and the drop in box-office takings after the first weekend. I don’t think I had ever felt so rejected in my whole life before.

  Rejected by Danny, and even by my dad who I hadn’t spoken to in weeks. And now rejected by Hollywood. I came here thinking of myself as a film star. I was leaving as a nobody. Not a normal person who still has all their hopes and dreams to follow, but as an actual, literal nobody who’d followed her dreams and had them crushed before her eyes. The thought of it made me feel lost and sad.

  If I didn’t have my dreams and hopes any more – then what did I have?

  Chapter Eighteen

  “I’ve been thinking,” Mum said in the car when she picked me up after school. “About what’s best for you and for your career. And I’ve decided we’re not going home yet.”

  “But Mum,” I protested in disbelief, “why wait around another two weeks – why?”

  “Now, don’t go crazy – but I’m thinking that we’ll stay more like another couple of months. Don’t you see, Ruby? You can’t leave Hollywood in total disgrace, dropped by your TV show and with terrible reviews. If you leave like this you might never be able to come back.”

  “I don’t want to come back!” I told her.

  “You’re saying that now because you’re upset,” Mum went on. “But it won’t be like this every day. In a few weeks you’ll be fine and will want another chance, I know you will. Besides, Ruby, I believe in you. I believe in your talent. I refuse to let your first trip to Hollywood end like this. I’m going to get back out there and line you up some auditions. It’ll be hard, but we’ll do it and I’m sure Jeremy can help.”

  “The last thing I want is to be offered parts because of who I know,” I said. “That’s what got me into this mess in the first place. Don’t you get it, Mum? I’m not good enough.”

  “You’re wrong.” Mum shook her head.

  We sat in silence as Mum pulled into the drive that led to Jeremy’s house.

  “Are you sure that’s why you want me to stay?” I asked as she pulled up and turned off the engine. She looked at me, puzzled.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Do you want me to stay because you ‘believe in me’ or do you want me to stay because you want to stay? So you can live here with Jeremy in his nice house and drive his nice car and go shopping whenever you want and do stupid things to your hair and face. I don’t think it’s me you want, Mum. I think it’s Hollywood.”

  “Ruby Parker, how dare you say that!” Mum roared.

  I scrambled out of the car, slammed the door shut and headed for the front door where David raced out to greet me, yapping at my heels. Mum was right behind me.

  “You know what? It is nice to be with Jeremy. I like living here with him. But I am a person too, Ruby, and I deserve a life of my own!” I tried to open the door with my key, but Mum stopped me. “But nothing is as important to me as you are. Everything I do is for you. And that’s why we are staying. You’ll be grateful in the long run.”

  She opened the door and I ran upstairs to my room and threw myself on the bed. I expected to be crying, but I wasn’t. I was furious. I had never been so angry in all of my life.

  And that’s when I decided: I didn’t care what Mum said. I was going home anyway.

  Later that night, when Mum and Jeremy were downstairs, I crept out of my bedroom along the hall to Mum’s room. It was hard to creep because David insisted on coming with me, taking one or two hesitant steps behind me as I tiptoed along the hall, looking up at me with quizzical eyes. I expected him to break my cover at any second, but he must have sensed the need to sit quiet because he didn’t make a sound.

  I knew exactly what I was looking for. I went over to the dressing table and opened and closed both the drawers, holding my breath as I searched. I was terrified that someone might hear or come in and discover me. I went over to the bedside table and carefully pulled it open. Inside was what I was looking for – my passport and our open return tickets. I picked up my ticket and looked at it for a moment. Was I really going to do this? Was I really going to do the most rebellious and stupid thing that I had ever done in my life?

  I wavered and thought a
bout putting the ticket back, about trying to talk to Mum again. But a swell of anger and hurt rose up in my chest and I thought, What’s the point of talking to Mum? She never listens to me any more. No one ever cares about what I think or what I need. I have to look after myself.

  So I took my passport and my ticket out of the drawer and covered Mum’s up with some Jewellery so that she wouldn’t notice they were missing straightaway.

  Next came the really nerve-wracking bit. I hid the ticket and passport in my room and, knowing I couldn’t have David follow me this time, shut him in my bathroom.

  “I’m sorry, boy,” I told him. “It’s only for a few minutes, OK?”

  He started barking as soon as I closed the door, but David was always barking at something so I hoped nobody would notice and I crept downstairs. I could hear Mum and Jeremy talking.

  “She’s so young,” Jeremy was saying. “A break wouldn’t do her any harm. Child actors who rest and then come back to it later can do so well. Look at Drew Barrymore and Christian Bale.”

  “She’s my daughter, Jeremy,” Mum said crossly. “I know what I’m doing.”

  “I’m just saying that perhaps it wouldn’t do any harm to take her home for a few weeks. Let everything calm down a bit.”

  I could see Mum’s bag on the table by the door. To reach it I’d have to cut across behind where she and Jeremy were sitting. If either one of them happened to glance over their shoulders, they’d catch me in the act. I dropped to my knees and crawled along behind the sofa, hoping that Marie or Augusto wouldn’t suddenly appear.

  As I reached the table I felt along its surface until I got hold of Mum’s bag, but I pulled the strap too hard so that it almost fell to the floor. I caught it just in time. Sitting on the floor and feeling sick with guilt I searched her bag. I slipped her wallet out and tucked it in my pocket. All I needed now was to get back upstairs unseen.

  On the crawl back I noticed that Mum and Jeremy had stopped talking.

  Back in my room, with a furious David released from his imprisonment, I opened Mum’s purse and took out her credit cards.