Each movement he made was complete and perfect from the placement of his bare feet to the energy in his fingertips. He moved to an internal rhythm, his body a melody of strength, flexibility and control.
I felt like I was trespassing, witnessing a private moment, like outside Jack’s on New Year’s Eve. I realised I should have gotten out of there the second I saw him. But I was compelled to watch, to experience this side of him, safe in the knowledge this was an uncut, unpolished version of him. No airbrushing, no censoring, no acting. This is what he was like when no one was watching. It was glorious to see.
I had to acknowledge three things. One, my dislike for him had softened, two I found watching him and being with him a physical thrill, and three all that was doing my head in.
I watched until he finished his sequence and when he bent to scoop up a towel I fled back up the path to put distance between the pleasant hum in my body and the knowledge that he put it there.
After breakfast with Arch, we found Rush in the dining room watching a video on his phone. He looked up when we came in. “A video message from Anissa,” he said.
“Excellent,” said Arch. “About time.”
“Yeah, I’m relieved.” Rush sighed, and I could see by the way he slumped in his chair this was more than an ordinary phone call.
“She kept me waiting deliberately.”
“I know you don’t like me saying it, but she’s a bitch, Rush and it’s way past time you were done with her,” said Arch.
Rush stood. “I’m done with her now. I’m truly done with her now.” He gave us a smile and left the room.
“Arch, it’s none of my business, but you called an eight year old a bitch.”
“Ah no, I just called Cecily a bitch,” he corrected.
“Cecily, the ex?”
“Oh yeah, of the prize variety.” He paused. I waited. I could see he was debating what to say next. “You know this is your business. It’s time you knew the whole story, and if Rush isn’t going to tell you, I sure as fuck will.” He sat down at the table. “Ready?”
I sat too. “Reluctantly.”
“Here goes. Cecily and Rush went to Julliard together and they were best pals with another student, Josh Freedland.”
“The scriptwriter?” Freedland was famous too. Mostly for an edgy TV series about shape shifters.
“Yep, that’s him,” Arch continued. “He wanted to be an actor then. So, the three of them go to class together and rehearse together and room together, and both the guys are in love with Cecily. Everyone’s in love with Cecily. But they compete and one day she favours Rush and the next day she favours Josh and she keeps them both on a string.
“Of the three of them, Rush is the one with talent and money. Everyone thinks he had family money, but he didn’t. He had a job, a couple of them: he parked cars, he bussed tables, he poured drinks. He paid the rent while Cecily and Josh went to auditions. Anyway, he gets a break, a role in that hospital soap and next thing you know he gives up parking cars and has a regular salary and the three of them move out of the dive they’re living in to a decent apartment.”
I waved a hand at him. “Not my business. It’s just not.”
He copied me, waved back. “Do me a favour and listen.”
I nodded. I had no idea why Arch thought I needed the deep background on Rush.
“Not long after that Cecily is in Rush’s bed and Josh has moved out. Everything’s going well. Rush gets Cecily a part on the same soap, then he gets a part in a Broadway play, and then a movie offer, and they marry, become America’s favourite couple, and before you know it, Cecily is pregnant and they have Anissa.”
“Most of this is public information.”
Arch wagged a finger at me. “Fast forward five years. Rush is building a serious career and Cecily is starting to make progress but it’s patchy. Then he figures out she’s had an affair with a producer. He confronts her, she gets angry, tells him it’s his fault she can’t get out from under his shadow. He forgives her. But if you ask me, she killed a little bit of him then.
“Shane says he got manic, took on more and more projects, never stopped working. Publicly they were Newman and Woodward, but behind the scenes it was more Taylor and Burton. Cecily kept having affairs and eventually Rush couldn’t forgive her anymore, but he wouldn’t leave her either because of Anissa. He loves that little girl.
“So the last couple of years they live apart, but they keep it quiet. Rush because of Anissa, and Cecily because it’s better for her public image. Rush works and works and when he’s not working, he’s with Anissa or doing something for our scratch projects. Right now, Cecily’s career is in overdrive and she’s everyone’s sweetheart. A divorce could hurt that, particularly because Rush is so well loved.”
Arch paused, sighed and continued. “Just before Christmas, Cecily tells Rush she wants a divorce. He’s not surprised about that, but then she knocks him out for the count. She tells him she’s been having an affair with Josh for the whole time she and Rush were married. The whole ten years. And when he’s on the canvas, she says they want to marry. Bitch!”
I cringed. “Oh. That must have hurt.” This was so unlike the Cecily you read about, the Cecily who visited orphanages and supported social causes.
“It gets worse. Then the hellcat delivers the truly lethal blow. Anissa isn’t Rush’s daughter, she’s Josh’s.”
“Oh my God.” This was like an episode of The Bold and The Beautiful except it was real.
“There’s more.” Arch took a deep breath, letting it out slowly. He was worked up about this. His whole body was tense, leaning forward in the chair, arms braced on the table. “Cecily tells Rush she’ll stop him having any contact with Anissa and shared custody is out of the question unless he divorces her and makes it look like she’s the wronged party—publicly. She’s smart. She knows her reputation is more fragile than his and all she cares about is protecting her career. She needs Rush to look bad to make her look good. If he does what she wants, she’ll agree to share custody.”
I gasped. “That’s blackmail. He could just fight her in court and—”
“He’s not Anissa’s father. Sure, he could fight and he has the money to do it, but he can’t guarantee a win unless he absolutely goes hard for Cecily and exposes all the secrets of their marriage, and even then, there’s no knowing if he’d win. And what sort of legacy is that for Anissa?”
“Isn’t he worried about his career too?”
“Fuck no! He couldn’t give two figs for his career and the irony of it is his reputation is probably enhanced by an affair or two anyway.” Arch shrugged. He looked down at his hands. “Fucked double standard I know.”
“You could say that.” I grimaced. The media coverage had made Rush look bad, two-timing rat bad, but not, lock him up and throw away the key bad, and Cecily was clearly positioned as the wronged party. It was a double standard skewered with a savage twist.
“Rush figures the best thing, the easiest thing, is to give Cecily what she wants. He decides to make it looks like he’s having an affair, giving her the grounds to divorce him and securing his access to Anissa. His plan is to pick up a woman in a bar and make sure they’re photographed in a compromising situation and then make it easy for the woman to sell her story so the press call him a cheating bastard. Except, we wouldn’t let him do it that way.”
Now finally I was beginning to see where this was my business.
“He wasn’t thinking clearly. Shit, he was one-eyed with rage. He was going to hire a prostitute, or ten of them, if he thought it would get him Anissa. He didn’t care if the press tore him a new one. He didn’t care if he never worked again. But we couldn’t let him do that. We hatched this plan to get him out of the US, as far away from Cecily as possible, somewhere we could disappear, hide out, to give him time to clear his head.”
“Sydney,” I said. Now it was making sense.
“You got it.”
“What’s she got?” called Shane,
coming in from the kitchen juggling three golden ripe mangoes.
“She’s got the low down on you, dude.” Arch shook off the seriousness of the last few minutes.
“Man you are so not cool,” said Shane, now in the dining room, still juggling.
Who’s not cool?” This from Rush from the direction of the bedrooms.
I wasn’t going to hear the end of the story. “Me, I’m not cool. I’m about to crack the whip and ask you all to get out of my office.” I gestured to the dining table.
“She so is cool,” said Shane teen surfer boy style to Arch, tossing him a mango and heading back to the kitchen.
“She so is. Apparently, she has a whip,” laughed Arch, but he gave me a look that said we weren’t done, before following Shane out.
From the kitchen, we heard, “Yeah and she’s gonna use it on me later,” and Shane’s bellow of laugher.
“Do you want me gone too?” asked Rush.
I shook my head. I did want him gone, but somehow less so than before. Arch was right it made a difference to know what Rush did was for a better reason than the cold, ugly idea of hurting someone he’d once loved. I still didn’t understand how all this managed to end up with me being the other woman, but now it was my business and I had to find out.
Meanwhile I had work to do. I fired up my laptop. Rush sat opposite me, but instead of doing something productive, he put his elbows on the table, propped his chin in his hands and stared at me.
Perhaps he wasn’t staring at me. Maybe he was just gazing off into space thinking up a diabolical new plan. I tried to ignore him, but when he didn’t move, I started to feel like ants were crawling up my arms. Crap, he was looking at me. Was my hair sticking up funny, did I have food on my face, had I tucked my dress in my underwear?
“What?” I barked to cover the blush I could feel spreading over my chest.
“Ah. Nothing.”
“You were staring at me.” He was making me feel itchy and hot.
“Sorry. I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.”
“Really. Isn’t that something you specialise in?”
He laughed. “I’ll try not to let that happen again.”
“Making me uncomfortable?”
“Getting caught staring at you.”
Now I stared at him. My best ‘you are kidding’ stare, the one I used to show my disapproval to slack shop assistants, lost taxi drivers, and staff who conveniently forgot to do their client reports.
He laughed, rocked back in his chair, folded his arms behind his head and grinned at me. “Is this you trying to make me feel uncomfortable?”
“Yeah. Is it working?” It was making me feel like I might split my seams and all my stuffing would poke out, because surely he’d guess I liked looking at him.
Rush grinned at me and I knew I was sprung. He sat forward. “Epic fail, Andi.”
It was so hard to keep a giggle from smothering my expression of righteous indignation. “Guess I need to try harder. Anyway, I don’t know why you were staring at me?”
“You don’t?” Both of his eyebrows jumped. One stayed raised.
“Have I grown horns or something?” I was certainly red faced I knew that much.
“Or something.”
“I need to work.”
“Am I stopping you?”
“Um...” Then my phone rang. Never had the expression, ‘saved by the ringtone’ felt more apt. The man was a complete distraction. He behaved himself after that, or he got a whole lot better at not getting caught looking at me.
In a break that morning I had Shane in my sights. He came out of the kitchen licking his fingers and I pounced. “Hey, can I ask you a question?”
He closed one eye and screwed up his face. “Is it gonna hurt?”
I laughed. “I don’t think so.”
“Spill, Patrice.” He threw an arm around my shoulder and drew me out onto the verandah. He smelled like sugar baked into something delicious Simon would no doubt serve for dinner.
I disentangled myself from him, but he made it hard by getting all grabby and making me laugh. I finally pushed him away and spilled. “Arch told me about why you came here, about wanting to get Rush out of the US, and about his problem with Cecily and Anissa.”
Shane sat down on the top step with a thump. “Shit that dude has a mouth on him.”
“He thought I should know.”
He considered, looking out over the valley. “Yeah, he’s right. Rush should be the one telling you this, but he won’t. He has a screw lose in his fat head about what he did to you and how there’s no excuse good enough.”
I sat beside him. “Maybe he’s right.”
“Maybe.” All the humour in Shane had quietened. “But Arch is right too.” He leaned into me a little. I didn’t move away, just let his warmth rest against my shoulder and hip. “You should know what went down. I didn’t mean to cause all that trouble with the studio, they were collateral damage. Tell me what do you know already?”
“I know Cecily was virtually blackmailing Rush. That to have shared custody of Anissa he had to—”
“Pimp himself out,” finished Shane.
I nodded.
“That was the idea, but we wanted to give him time to think it through, so we jumped the jet. The plan was to lay low, keep quiet, hang out, but I should’ve known that bitch would keep digging the hole deeper. By the time we got to Sydney she’d added a deadline. The deal was only available till New Year’s Day.”
I think my eyes popped; evacuated the their slots in my head for a moment. Shane put his hand down on my knee and squeezed.
“With time we could’ve worked out a plan. Hired a model or an actress. It could’ve worked out fine. Given Cecily what she wanted, given some willing chick a stab at the fame game, and limited the reputation damage to Rush. Even kept the studio sweet, but we had no time to get control of it. Rush lost it. He figured Cecily was bluffing. She never was that interested in Anissa, only saw the kid occasionally and Josh never saw her at all. Rush figured Cecily didn’t want full custody, so he decided not to play her game. That was the phone call you caught him on outside the bar.”
I remembered how awkward that moment felt. The first of many awkward moments with Rush.
“Instead we decided we’d show her how much we didn’t care by putting on a little show for the press for New Year’s Eve. That meant blowing off the studio, but it was worth it to stick it up that bitch.”
I was confused now. Again. Sweary sweary word. “Were the photos with me a misunderstanding?”
“I told you Rush’d lost it. He was fucked in the head that night. It got a little out of hand. We tried to get you out of the way so you wouldn’t cop the blame from the studio.
“All heart.”
“Our problem was we really liked you.” He threw his arm around me and settled me into his side.
That made no sense. “You’d only just met me!” I left his arm around my shoulders.
“Yeah girl, but you had this broken foot and goddamn crutches and the old bloke in the slippers and the old folk’s bus. Priceless. And then we go to your own home, your own granny’s house, and your dog has a bucket on his head and there’s a damn talking bird in the bedroom.” Shane laughed and gave me a little shake.
“You’re just so real. You have no idea how much plastic is in our lives, plastic people with plastic body parts and plastic emotions. And there you were, real and lovely.” He bumped me with his hip. “We all fell a little bit in love with you straight up. How could we not wanna make it right for you?” He shrugged and I felt colour rising in my cheeks.
“So we sent you home and we go raise hell, get some camera action and we’ve just got started and Rush says he can’t risk it that he’ll do it, he’ll give Cecily her affair. We have a heated exchange to try and talk him out of it and Arch nearly smacks him one, but he’s determined. He gets me to promise to find a photographer to shoot him with you.”
I sucked in a breath. If Sha
ne thought the studio was collateral damage what was I?
“Ah, Andi, I guess you were the right girl in the right place at the right time and yeah, Rush is right too.” Shane squeezed me tighter. “There really was no excuse for what we did to you.”
22: Change of Heart
“Andi, want to see a picture of my daughter?”
Rush and I were in the dining room waiting for the council planner and the builder to arrive with new costings.
“Sure.”
He passed over his phone, set to a photo of a beautiful little honey haired pixie. “This is Anissa. She’s eight. She’s into all things pink and sparkly, puppies and ballet shoes, probably in that order,” said Rush, and I could hear the pride in his voice.
In the photo, Anissa was laughing with her mouth wide and her hair wild, she had a wriggling puppy in her hands. Rush lent over me and swiped the screen to show another shot of Anissa in dance gear, her ballet shoes slung over her shoulder by their ribbons. Another swipe revealed Anissa with her arms around Rush’s neck. The two of them face to face, foreheads touching, totally absorbed in each other.
“You love her very much don’t you?” Oh, top marks for dumb question of the day. This was a man who had proven how much he would do for this little girl. Including sabotage my life.
“She’s the centre of my world,” he said with a big intake of breath. “Just having her in my life makes me want to be a better person, make the world a better place for her. This divorce, her mother...” He shook his head, eyes down on his phone screen. “I thought I was going to lose Anissa and it made me crazy.”
Was he going to tell me his story now? I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear it any more. But he changed tack completely and hit me with a question I wasn’t expecting.
“Do you want kids one day?”
“I—ah.”
He pushed away from the table. “I’m sorry, that’s a God awful personal question, excuse me.” If he was acting, he’d nailed contrite with a side serve of revulsion.
It made me soften towards him. I’m such a sucker! “Since I am your love interest, perhaps it’s a question you should ask?” I said, aiming for humour.
How to Hide a Hollywood Star Page 12