How to Hide a Hollywood Star

by Avoca Gardener

  Initial awkwardness soon turned to jokes about Shane’s song lyrics or Arch’s fire-fighting technique and scenes from the movies they’d starred in. But the references to Cinderella left me with an aching jaw and a stiff neck and even though Rush would patiently explain that it was a misunderstanding, the sly looks continued.

  It didn’t do the misunderstanding story any credit that Rush and I were now virtually joined at the hip. Much to my amazement he didn’t expect to laze by the pool while I negotiated with the council planner, or read a book while I worried about menus with Simon.

  He arrived in the dining room, ready to work. He phoned suppliers, negotiated with delivery men, met with planners, and talked tough to the telecoms operator. He didn’t delegate anything to me he wasn’t neck deep in already himself.

  I couldn’t figure out his motivation. Why did he care about a dusty hall in a faraway rural town in a country he’d never even visited before? And I mean, he did care, it wasn’t a case of flapping his cheque book and exercising his economic power.

  He could have built a dozen or more community halls without it touching the sides of the interest on his wealth and without needing to be involved in the details. But he cared about what the Bangalow community wanted, he respected their desire to share the fundraising, and he listened with attention when Cathy fussed over just the right colour red or the mayor wanted to rebuild with heritage features.

  Rush Dawson helps local community rebuild hall. It was a headline I’d not expected to see. Yet this was the same guy who deliberately hurt and humiliated his wife. Go figure. Fortunately, I couldn’t care less about the ambiguities of Rush Dawson, what I cared about was spending his money well for a good cause.

  And spend it I did. We had a mobile base station bought up the house so that all our phones worked and we had wireless internet access, the expensive kind, but all we could get at short notice.

  On order, we had a Winnebago decked out as a control room, dressing room and cashier’s office. We had portable toilets, and a ladies powder room, a huge transparent marquee, temporary flooring, fairy and disco lights, a stage with a sound system, a temporary kitchen, tables and fancy fabric covered chairs, crockery, cutlery and drapery. We even had a colour scheme, fire-engine red and silver.

  With internet access, I could keep a regular check on the media. The story about the New Year’s Eve shenanigans had been replaced by a celebrity pregnancy rumour. Toby was pleased and the studio was placated. But the story about Rush and Cecily’s break up was still running strong, with pictures of Cecily looking distraught and being comforted by her mother, and every time the story ran, there was a reference to marriage-busting, gold-digging me.

  Roger Smyth even dug up an old photograph of me at a movie premier event to run with the story. In that shot I was wearing a man’s style black satin tuxedo and looked nothing like the kind of lover a rich and famous man would choose. I looked like me after a visit to the hairdresser, slightly more glam, but still not in Hollywood’s league.

  Rush was keeping a sharp eye on the coverage as well, but instead of showing his pleasure at Cecily’s distress, he read each of the stories with a sort of grim determination which was at odds with the undoubted success of his strategy. He should’ve been pleased. Instead he just seemed, well, sad.

  Late on another jam-packed day, when Helen, Cathy and Brick had left for the night and Shane and Arch were in a huddle over musical arrangements, Rush and I were at the dining room table sharing a pot of coffee and a plate of berries Simon left us.

  “Andi, can you pass that folder with the building quotes from the structural engineer.” I passed it over and poured us a top-up.

  Shane called, “Hey, I’m turning in. Night guys,” which started a round of goodnight calls.

  “You can leave this to me you know.” I indicated the pile of papers.

  “Can’t I help you get the development application completed tonight?” asked Rush.

  “Have you forgotten I work for you, not the other way around?”

  “I thought we were working together. I thought we were making a good team?”

  I stabbed a blueberry with my cake fork. Unexpectedly we were a good team. We had complimentary skills, he was a visionary and I was an expert at the hard yards of making visions reality. His actor’s skills made him a great presenter, he was easy to listen to, but he wasn’t all talk, he was a good listener as well, and he wasn’t worried about changing his mind if someone else had a better idea.

  On a tight deadline, with a hundred different things to do at once, I’d expected to see his temper flare. I’d expected to be on the short end of his massive ego and sense of entitlement. I’d waited to see more of the man who could design a way to humiliate and scar someone he once loved and it didn’t happen.

  What I saw, was the man who could charm dogs and Chamber of Commerce presidents.

  I’d even found myself enjoying his company. He was incredibly witty, well-read and interested in everything and everyone around him. He was attentive and considerate and fun. But he was also an actor and I’d seen close-up how he could change character and it was worth remembering what you saw with Rush wasn’t always what you got.

  “We’re not doing too badly I suppose,” I said.

  “Helen said we’re like two enchiladas.”

  “Helen said that?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Enchiladas?”

  He shrugged. “I didn’t get it either.”

  “Helen said we were like a couple of Mexican tortillas?” I was pretty sure Helen had never eaten an enchilada in her life.

  “Yeah.”

  I looked at him across the paper strewn table. He’d flipped the chair around and was sitting backwards on it resting his hands on the top of the chair back. He was barefoot, wearing his old jeans and a loose fitting t-shirt. He didn’t have the sheer masculine brawn of Arch or the energy and flamboyance of Shane but he was undeniably sexy and there was no getting away from that.

  And I missed sexy in my life. It had been a while since Matt, and we’d not exactly set the bedroom on fire and I’d wasted years suppressing my desire for Michael for fear of losing his friendship. How cosmically unfair was it that I was surrounded by all this masculine beauty and yet I was aching with loneliness? How insanely stupid was it that the man I was most attracted to was the one who’d demonstrated how easily he could be treacherous and cruel?

  “Enchiladas eh,” I said.

  “Yeah. Spiny enchiladas.” He shrugged again and lifted both palms up.

  I realised I’d been staring intently at him. Suddenly embarrassed I made a grab for the coffee pot, but mistimed my lunge across the table and knocked it over. We both jumped up to rescue the files and papers on the table as it tipped and spilled fresh, hot, hazelnut scented coffee everywhere including both our hands.

  “Bugger!”

  I almost laughed. I’d taught Rush an acceptable swear word. “Ow, ow, ow, quick cold water,” I said, and we both hurried into the kitchen.

  At the sink, we held our hands under the cold tap water. We stood close, side by side as the water washed away coffee and the redness left by its burn. He was slightly behind me and reached around me to turn off the tap. I felt his hips and legs against my side and his chest against my back as he lent forward. I breathed in quick, aloud, and he stepped back as though he’d been scalded again.

  “Sorry. I didn’t mean to crowd you.”

  I kept my eyes down. “It’s okay.” I dried my hands on a tea towel and handed it to him. He’d copped the worst of coffee. “Is that still stinging?”

  “A little. We’ve been wounded in the line of duty.”

  “All for a good cause.” If this was Arch I might’ve kissed him better. If it was Shane, he’d have tried to kiss me.

  “You don’t understand why I wanted to do this do you?” Rush tilted his head to look into my eyes.

  “Not really, but it’s a good thing.” What would I do if he kissed me? Wher
e the hell did that thought come from? We were standing too close. I could see he had the longest ever black eyelashes and specs of gold in his green eyes.

  “You seem surprised I’d do a good thing.”

  I stepped back, I needed space. “Do you really want to have this conversation?”

  “Yes I do.”

  “Couldn’t we just leave it? We’re working well together. Do you want me to go back to feeling like I could poke your eyes out with a blunt stick?”

  “Is that what you feel like doing?”

  Best not answer that. Standing so near to him I was confused about what I thought.

  He filled the silence. “If I said sorry now, would you be ready to listen?”

  But the spell was broken. “Where’s that stick?” I said.

  As I went back to the dining room to wipe up the spill it came to me, echidnas. Helen thought we were like a couple of spiny echidnas keeping our distance from each other’s barbs. Helen had always been a clever woman.

  20: Hammock

  I cleaned up and said goodnight to Rush. I was feeling restless and certainly not ready to sleep.

  “Come here, good lookin’,” called Arch from the hammock on the verandah. “Come talk to me.” I hadn’t seen Arch for much of the day. “Climb in, there’s room for two,” he laid aside his guitar and held the hammock folds open.

  I slipped in next to him, well who wouldn’t. He folded me against his side, his arm a muscular pillow for my head. It was so easy to feel comfortable with Arch. I felt like I’d known him forever instead of less than a week. Why couldn’t it be Arch who was funding the re-build project instead of Rush? How much easier that would be, how much less confusing. With Rush my feelings veered wildly from angry disgust to aching physical attraction. He made my head spin and my stomach flip.

  “How’s it going?” Arch asked.

  “I think we’ve got it under control.”

  “It’s going to be a great night.”

  “I still don’t get why it’s so important to Rush.”

  “It’s important to Shane and me as well.”

  “Yeah I know. I’m sorry I didn’t mean to suggest it wasn’t. But I don’t understand Rush’s motivation. He’s involved himself in every detail.”

  “It’s what he’s good at.”

  “He is good at it. He has half the town leaders eating out of his hands. Cathy Donaldson would lie down and let him walk on her. Helen thinks he’s the bee’s knees and Brick has really taken to him, and to top it off, no one, not one person, has breathed a word about you guys being here.”

  Arch set the hammock rocking. “Yeah, that’s Rush all right. He’s especially like that about scratch projects.”

  “Scratch as in itch?”

  “Ah, he didn’t tell you. Scratch as in money and itch. The three of us have a charitable foundation.”

  “The three of you?”

  Arch chuckled and I could hear it rumbling in his deep chest. “Don’t sound so shocked. We set it up so we could do something good with obscene amounts of money we get paid.”

  If I wasn’t in a hammock, I’ve been on my feet, as it was I planted a hand on Arch’s chest and came up on my elbow so I could look at him. “What, the three of you put your money into a charitable foundation?”

  “Jesus, yes Andi.”

  “So this thing with the hall, it’s for all of you?”

  “Yep.”

  Now I sat, making the hammock pitch like a small boat in a storm. “That’s amazing. I get why you and Shane would do this but I don’t really see where Rush fits in?”

  “Seriously?” said Arch, sounding annoyed, looking disappointed in me.

  But yes. “Seriously.”

  “Shit, Andi you’ve got it in for him something awful. He’s not the bad guy you think he is. If it weren’t for Rush, Shane would have pissed his career away a hundred different times, and when I got started I was a scared little mouse. I had no idea what I was doing, how to manage all the attention, or what to do with the money. I’m a minimum wage guy living in a dream that could end tomorrow. Rush is the real deal.”

  Oh God, I’d upset Arch. He was frowning at me, all the smile in his eyes shadowed. “Hey, don’t look at me like I just stole your lunch money.” Which is a good description of what I was doing.

  “He straightened Shane out, and I was smart enough to know if I had him in my life I’d be less likely to screw up. Both of us owe our careers and probably our health and sanity to him. It was his idea to take the money we make and use it to do some good for people.”

  “Rush’s idea?” Vomit, I had to stop sounding like I thought Arch was making this up. I had to stop casting Rush as the devil with a forked tongue. “What sort of projects do you do?”

  “We have an orphanage in Cambodia, a school in Namibia, we support eye surgery programs in Burma and a women’s clinic in Botswana. Geez, I can’t remember all the projects. Rush finds them, works out how we should fund them and makes it happen. Shane and I pony up and do what he asks us, like now.”

  “Why doesn’t anyone know about this?” I lay back down and looked up at two green frogs hanging onto the underside of the roof.

  “Because we want to be able to choose what we do without any pressure. No fear or favour, on our own terms.”

  “Wow!”

  “That’s more like it. Yeah, we’re happy about it. I didn’t want to make that last sequel, but with the money we built an irrigation system in Kenya. It means we can have a bigger impact on the world than giving people something to do on a Saturday night.”

  “But with an agenda like that, why bother with the hall, it’s a tiny thing in comparison?”

  “Because we can.”

  “That’s it?” This time I thought my incredulity was fair. Bangalow wasn’t Botswana or Burma.

  “That’s it. We do what we want and we wanted do to this. It felt right. Don’t be mad with Rush. He’s been a big grizzly bear, but he’s not normally like that. There’s more to it than you know. You’ve caught him at a very bad time. And you won’t let him talk about it.”

  “It’s really none of my business,” I said in a huff.

  Arch pulled me back down against his side and set the hammock rocking. “I think we both know it is your business.”

  I didn’t have a response for that, it was three days until the event and then it was all over. I’d organised the jet to be at Coolangatta to take them to LA and everything would be back to normal—almost everything. I’d been putting off thinking about Michael and ignoring his emails, which wasn’t all that mature.

  “He’s getting to you, isn’t he?” said Arch. His voice was a soft purr, the exasperation gone.

  “Who?”

  “You know.” He elbowed me and the hammock swung.

  “Who?” Ah swear word, I was being deliberately obtuse. Arch didn’t deserve that. “Rush”

  “You’ve been glued together for the last few days and I’ve seen how you look at him.”

  “What do you mean? How do I look at him?”

  “Like you want to poke his eyes out one minute and lick him the next.”

  “I do not!” I sat up abruptly again, tempting sea sickness.

  He laughed up at me. “Coulda fooled me, girl.”

  I slumped back down again. Was I that transparent? “I don’t know why I’m letting him get to me. I’m usually better at separating the personal from the professional.”

  “You don’t?”

  “No.”

  He chuckled. “I know why.”

  “Why?”

  “I think that’s for you to work out.”

  “Ah, what I don’t need in my life is cryptic.” I sighed. I didn’t want to work Rush out. I wanted him to pay up and go home. I wanted to stop thinking about him and wondering what it would be like to feel comfortable in his presence.

  “I’ve been called many things but ‘cryptic’ that’s good, I like that,” he said, as though I’d given him the biggest complime
nt.

  “You’re going to make me ask you about him, aren’t you?”

  “Yep.”

  “I’m not going to.”

  “Okay.”

  “I might never ask.”

  “Okay.”

  We lay in silence, if you discounted the mad racket from the cicadas and the funny barking of the green tree frogs. I was so at ease with Arch and it was wondrous to me.

  The effect of being the youngest of seven with six older sisters had shaped him into a man who was open and gentle and related to women with an easy respect and consideration. The more I saw of him with Helen, Elizabeth and Cathy, the more you could see he simply adored women. He was as relaxed with the masculine zone of search and rescue as he was discussing shoes and clothing. He was just as likely to be interested in martial arts as baking.

  As I lay in his arms rocking gently I thought about how perfect it would be to fall in love with this man and I wished I had.

  There was a big empty cartoon sound bubble floating above us. If it was possible to burst an imaginary balloon I’d have done it so this non-conversation, we weren’t having would be done with. As it was, I could feel the pressure of it bearing down on me.

  He broke first. “You really don’t want to know?”

  “I really don’t.” I was such a freaking liar.

  “Makes me sad.”

  “Why, what does it matter?”

  “I really like you, Andi. I want you to be happy.”

  “What has this got to do with my happiness?”

  “You don’t know? You really don’t know? Get your eyes tested, girl. It’s right in front of you.”

  Now where had I heard a line like that before? Fortune cookie anyone?

  21: Revelations

  Next morning, I woke early and headed for the pool, but the best laid plans are for chess players. Rush was on the pool deck silhouetted against the pre-heat of early dawn. He was shirtless and wore loose fitting cotton drawstring pants. He moved through a series of standing Yoga poses, strong and steady in his movements, oblivious to me watching from the top of the path.