The Ex Factor

by Laura Greaves

  Should I tell her that I haven’t been able to walk around my new neighbourhood because no one walks anywhere in this city? Most of the streets don’t even have footpaths; that’s how much Americans love their cars. Not that it really matters, since I’m virtually a prisoner in my new home. I can’t venture beyond the eight-foot wall surrounding Mitchell’s slick Hollywood Hills mansion without immediately being swarmed by paparazzi.

  But I know Frankie doesn’t want to hear any of that. She wants to hear the too-good-to-be-true Hollywood version. She wants the glitz, the glamour. She wants the Movie of the Week story of the nobody from Narrabeen who was whisked off to Tinseltown by her leading-man lover and lived happily ever after. No one ever wants to see the movie about what happens after ever-after.

  My gaze falls on a heart-shaped Post-It stuck to the edge of the computer screen. In Mitchell’s looping hand are three scribbled sentences: You are the cream to my coffee, the grits to my gravy, the cheese to my cracker, the peanut butter to my jelly. You, Kitty Hayden. YOU. He scrawled the note and slapped it there after coming home from the set one night to find me Googling myself – not my proudest moment – and feeling smaller and smaller with each headline that compared me to Vida and found me wanting.

  A fluttery sensation unfurls in my chest. It’s the same feeling I get every time I’m reminded that, as crazy as it still seems sometimes, Mitchell really is invested in our relationship. I need to get over myself. There have been good moments since I’ve been here. Great moments, even. Plenty of them.

  Maybe I’m just feeling extra sensitive because I know I’m in for another dose of beady-eyed media scrutiny in twenty-four-hours’ time. Now that’s something Frankie will want to hear about.

  ‘Well, we are going to a thing tomorrow night. A premiere thing,’ I tell her.

  Frankie’s eyes flash with excitement. ‘Ooh! Which movie? Not Solitaire already?’

  ‘No, that won’t be out until next year. This one’s called Twist of the Knife. It’s a —’

  ‘Ohmigod, that’s the one Mitchell and Ellis Chevalier are in, right? The one they made right before that tramp Vida ran off with Ellis?’

  I can’t help but smile. Even from twelve thousand kilometres away, my little sister remains my staunchest ally in the apparently interminable ‘war’ between me and Mitchell’s ex.

  ‘That’s the one.’

  ‘Are they going to be there?’ she asks, a look of horrified anticipation on her face.

  ‘I guess Ellis will be. I can’t imagine Vida will turn up, though. She and Ellis haven’t been seen in public together since they announced their separation last month.’

  Frankie inhales sharply. ‘Wow, Kitty. This is huge. I mean, what are you going to wear?’

  I chuckle at her priorities. Sartorial choices first; coming face-to-face with the man who stole the woman who once had Mitchell’s heart – and who perhaps thinks she still does – a distant second.

  My sister starts prattling on about couture gowns, ‘old Hollywood’ glamour and borrowing Lorraine Schwartz diamonds, and I let her words wash over me like water. I wish I shared Frankie’s excitement about tomorrow night’s event, but in truth, I’m terrified. It will be Mitchell’s and my ‘official’ public debut as a couple and, according to the gossip websites that have become my daily fare, our walk down that red carpet is ‘hotly anticipated’ by all of Hollywood. Even Mitchell seems antsy about the level of interest; he’s organised for me to have a session first thing with some celebrity stylist who has her own TV show. She’ll help me choose a dress, shoes and jewellery, and then I’ll spend the rest of the day having my hair and makeup done before we go to the premiere in a stretch limousine.

  Honestly, thinking about the whole extravaganza makes my skin crawl. I told Mitchell I’d happily make up my own face and go to a local salon for a blow-dry, but he wouldn’t hear of it. ‘I want my girl to dazzle,’ he’d said when I protested at all the primping. ‘You’re going to make all those spray-tanned, plastic actresses look like hags.’ But I’m not convinced. Those women are professionally good-looking. They’re all much, much thinner than me, their hair is glossier, their skin more alabaster. If Mitchell loves my ‘natural beauty’ – freckles and wobbly bits and all – as much as he says he does, why is the My Fair Lady makeover even necessary? I can’t help wondering if there’s really only one person he wants me to outshine: Vida.

  I’m suddenly aware that Frankie has stopped talking and is peering from the screen expectantly.

  ‘Sorry, what were you saying?’

  ‘I asked who you’ll be wearing.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Yes,’ she says, clearly exasperated by my failure to understand fashion parlance. ‘Like, which label?’

  ‘Oh, um, I’m not sure yet. I have an appointment with a stylist tomorrow morning, so I guess I’ll pick something – someone – then. You’ve probably heard of her, actually – Saada Gebru?’

  Frankie squeals. ‘No way! The Sudanese former supermodel? From Saada Style? I love that show! She’s amazing. You know she’s dressed, like, Sandy B and J-Law and Maggie Q and, oh, just about everyone. You’re in good hands, Kitty. The woman could make a sack of potatoes look glamorous.’

  ‘Gee, thanks.’ I make a face, but inside I feel a familiar pang. I even miss my sister’s incurable foot-in-mouth disease.

  ‘No! I wasn’t saying . . . you know what I mean! You’re a thousand times hotter than any of those skinny bitches, especially that pouty jezebel Vida Torres.’

  Suddenly, the dogs erupt into a barking frenzy and Frankie almost jumps out of her seat. ‘Holy Christ on a bicycle!’ she yelps. I hear the mad scrabble of claws on floorboards as the pack charges off to investigate whatever it is that’s set them off.

  My heart leaps into my throat. ‘What is it? Is something wrong?’

  ‘No, there’s just someone at the door. Honestly, this lot operate on a hair trigger. I’ll have aged twenty years by the time you come back. I’d better go see who it is. Skype me tomorrow before you go to the premiere so I can see how fierce you look in your posh frock. Mwah-mwah-mwah!’

  Frankie vanishes from my computer screen in a blaze of air kisses and I’m alone again in Mitchell’s empty house with her parting words roiling in my mind: I’ll have aged twenty years by the time you come back. So Frankie seems to think my stay in Los Angeles is temporary, too. Just like Adam, she’s convinced my relationship with Mitchell is doomed to fail.

  Good to know.

  I quit Skype and suddenly I’m looking at a picture of myself in Mitchell’s bed, my face half-buried in the pillow, lips curled into a sleepy smile. Mitchell had snapped it on my first morning in LA – he wanted to capture the official beginning of our new life together, he’d said. I had no idea he’d used the photo as his screensaver, the sentimental schmuck. Although I’d probably find the sentiment that much sweeter if I didn’t look as if I’d been dragged through a hedge backwards in the shot. If memory serves, we hadn’t got much sleep that first night, and it shows.

  A heavy sigh escapes my lips. If the longevity of a fling depended on unbelievably incredible sex, Mitchell and I would be together forever. But it takes more than that to sustain a partnership. As I sit alone in his big, echoing house, I can’t help but wonder what we have in our relationship toolkit besides chemistry.

  On the desk next to the laptop, my phone bleeps. A text from Mitchell flashes up on the screen. Whatcha up to, gorgeous? Missing you – M xx

  Like the sun breaking through on a cloudy day, my gloomy mood lifts. I’m always surprised to hear from Mitchell when he’s working. I just never expect him to think of me while he’s off being a ‘celluloid hunk’, as one of the supermarket rags likes to call him. But somehow he always seems to check in just when I need it the most.

  The screensaver picture disappears as the computer completes its shutdown and the screen fades to black. My momentary elation fades with it. Now my own distorted reflection looks back at me, a mas
k of homesick gloom. I expected moving to LA to be challenging. I knew that the degree of interest in me, and me and Mitchell as a couple, would hit fever pitch. I knew Mitchell would be busy with work.

  But I didn’t think I’d handle it like this.

  I imagined I’d be excited about exploring my adopted hometown, not spending my days watching bad TV in Mitchell’s immaculate modernist mansion. I hoped that being able to curl my body around Mitchell’s every night would somehow make the media intrusion easier to bear; instead Mitchell and I pass like ships in the night and I can barely bring myself to lift my gaze from the ground when I do venture out into the ever-present scrum of photographers.

  I thought I’d be happy, but my life feels as if it’s spiralling out of my control and I don’t know how to wrest it back.

  ‘Oh, get over yourself, Kitty!’ I shout, pushing back from the computer desk and getting to my feet. I shake myself from my head to my feet in an effort to shrug off this cloak of despondency.

  I know what I need to brighten my mood. It’s the same thing I’ve relied on to lift my spirits my whole life.

  Dogs.

  I lift the telephone receiver on the desk and dial 9. The call goes through to the security gatehouse at the front of Mitchell’s property, which is more like a granny flat decked out with a full kitchen and state-of-the-art entertainment system. It’s where Mack is based when he’s not surgically attached to Mitchell or me. The studio making Mitchell’s latest film has its own security teams, so Mack has been at my beck and call lately.

  Example #1517 of how insane my new Hollywood life is: I have a bodyguard-cum-driver now.

  ‘How can I help you, Miss Hayden?’ comes Mack’s pleasant baritone.

  ‘Mack, how many times do I have to ask you to call me Kitty?’

  ‘About as many as I have to tell you it ain’t never gonna happen, ma’am,’ he replies jovially. ‘What can I do for you?’

  ‘I need to be with dogs, Mack,’ I say simply.

  There’s a pause. Clearly the man thinks I’m an idiot. ‘I know just the place,’ he says at length. ‘I’ll bring the car around.’

  Twenty minutes later, I’m perched on a park bench in the 160-acre Runyon Canyon Park with the endless, smog-covered sprawl of Los Angeles spread out below me. Mack hovers a discreet distance away. I asked him to sit with me, but he demurred; it’s as if he knows I just need to sit and take it all in without speaking. He may be a man mountain, but Mack is a sensitive soul. His looming presence means the handful of wily photographers who spotted us as we left the house via the back entrance are keeping a vaguely respectful distance, though I’m sure their telephoto lenses mean they’re not missing a moment of my outing.

  I can imagine the headlines now: Exclusive! Woman sits on bench! Seriously rivetting stuff.

  The park is teeming with raucous, happy dogs of all shapes and sizes who sniff, tumble and play as their owners strike yoga poses, jog the rugged hilltop trails or tap away at their BlackBerries. It’s very Hollywood. It’s also my new happy place. I’m aware of a dull ache at my solar plexus as I think about how much my dogs would adore this, but it’s assuaged by the simple pleasure of being surrounded by so many excited hounds.

  Suddenly, a furry missile appears from nowhere and collides at speed with my shins.

  ‘Oof!’

  Briefly stunned, the fluffy grey bitser – a dead ringer for the Hairy Maclary character in my favourite childhood books – lies prone in the dirt for a moment. Then she gets to her feet, shakes herself vigorously and sits in front of me, dropping a well-chewed tennis ball at my feet. Her jaw drops open and she pants heavily, tongue lolling, giving the impression of a wide grin.

  ‘Well, hello there,’ I say, picking up the slobbery ball. ‘That was quite an entrance you made . . .’ I turn over her ID tag to read her name. ‘Maggie May.’

  She wags her tail and gives a little yip.

  ‘Is this what you want?’ I hold up the ball and Maggie May jumps to attention, spinning in excited circles as she anticipates the next throw.

  ‘Oh no!’ comes a woman’s voice from my right. ‘Don’t touch that!’

  I turn to see a statuesque blonde clad in designer gym gear loping towards me. She’s clutching a plastic ball-thrower and wears an appalled expression.

  I drop the ball like it’s a hot potato. The dog promptly picks it up and trots it over to Lycra Lady, who uses the ball thrower to pitch it far into the distance. Maggie May becomes a grey blur as she streaks after it.

  ‘Sorry,’ I say to Little Miss Lycra. ‘I didn’t see her owner anywhere so I was just going to . . .’

  ‘No, I’m sorry. That ball is disgusting! Nobody should have to touch it with bare hands,’ she says warmly. ‘I was just trying to save you from being covered in drool!’

  She fishes in the bum bag strapped around her waist – Hollywood people wear them without even a smidgeon of embarrassment – and hands me a small bottle of hand sanitiser. ‘Purelle?’

  I’ve never been put off by a bit of dog saliva – it’s a professional hazard in my line of work – but I squeeze a dollop of the antiseptic cleanser into my hands anyway. The harsh scent of alcohol stings my nostrils.

  ‘Maggie May certainly seems to love playing fetch,’ I say as, a hundred metres away, the little mutt picks up her ball and begins the journey back to her owner.

  ‘You have no idea,’ says the woman next to me, plopping down onto the bench. ‘I got her from a shelter. She was rescued from a puppy mill and had never had real toys, so I bought her pretty much everything they had at the pet store. But she’s barely even sniffed them – all she wants is that mangy old tennis ball!’ Her California accent makes everything she says sound like a question.

  ‘That sounds familiar. I have four dogs and they’re exactly the same. They have all the designer toys, but they’re happiest playing with one of my old shoes or a pair of pantyhose they stole off the clothesline.’

  ‘Four dogs! Wow.’ Shading her eyes with her hand, my companion peers into the morass of canines filling the park. ‘Which ones are they?’

  ‘Oh! No, they’re not here. They’re back home in Australia,’ I say, trying to keep the note of sadness out of my voice.

  ‘You’re here on vacation?’ Maggie May returns and drops the ball at the woman’s feet. She scoops it up with the thrower and launches it in the other direction. Once again, the dog takes off after it like a rocket.

  ‘Um . . . I’m sort of . . .’ I try to find the right words. ‘I moved here to be with someone. A man.’

  ‘Oh, that’s so romantic!’ she says.

  ‘Well . . . yeah. I guess it is.’

  My new friend arches an eyebrow. ‘You don’t sound convinced. Not working out?’

  Wow. These Americans sure are direct. ‘No. Well, yes. It’s not that, it’s just . . .’ I exhale loudly. What is it exactly? And why do I feel compelled to tell this stranger about it? ‘He’s great, but he works a lot. We don’t see much of each other.’

  ‘That’s gotta be tough on a new relationship,’ she says.

  ‘It is. I worry, you know, that we’ll drift apart. And I miss Sydney. I really miss my dogs.’

  She reaches down to give Maggie May a scratch behind the ears as she returns with her ball once more.

  ‘So you feel a little stranded?’

  I nod eagerly. ‘Yes, that’s exactly it.’

  She shrugs. ‘Hey, I get it. We’ve all been there. Almost everyone in this town is from somewhere else originally. And LA isn’t for everyone; it’s an acquired taste.’

  ‘Tell me about it. I’m not sure how much more of this place I can take.’ I bite my tongue, regretting the words as soon as I’ve said them. Careful, Kitty. ‘Are you from somewhere else?’

  ‘Minnesota, born and raised,’ she says proudly, flashing a wide smile. ‘I’ve been here about ten years. I’m Molly, by the way.’ She extends an expertly manicured hand and I shake it.

  ‘Kit—’ I stop myself,
though I’m not quite sure why. ‘Frankie. So, are you an actress?’

  She regards me quizzically as she throws the ball for Maggie May again. ‘What makes you say that?’

  ‘It seems like everyone here is an actor, or trying to be.’

  She lets out a hoot of laughter. ‘You got that right, sister! Everyone’s looking for their big break. But me? No. I work in publishing. Are you in the business?’

  Now it’s my turn to laugh. ‘No way! But my, er . . .’ What am I supposed to call Mitchell? My boyfriend? My beau? The guy I followed here like some lovesick teenager? ‘My partner. He’s an actor.’

  Molly looks at me for a long moment, as though she’s seen me somewhere before but can’t quite place me. I’m not about to tell her that ‘somewhere’ is probably the cover of every supermarket rag for the last two months.

  ‘Cool,’ she says finally, and I let out the breath I didn’t realise I was holding. ‘Hey, if you like dogs and you have time on your hands, maybe you should consider volunteering with a rescue. I know the shelter Maggie May came from is desperate for help.’

  My heart gives a little leap at the suggestion. Why didn’t I think of that? ‘That’s a brilliant idea,’ I say. ‘What’s it called?’

  ‘A Dog’s Life Rescue. Here, I’ll write down their details.’ Molly delves back into her bum bag and pulls out a business card and a pen. Turning the card over, she writes the shelter’s address and website on the back.

  ‘Let me know how you get on,’ she says, as Maggie May returns with the ball and flops at Molly’s feet. ‘My details are on the front. I think this one is telling me it’s time to go home for a nap.’

  ‘I will. Thanks so much, Molly. It was lovely to meet you.’

  She clips Maggie May’s leash to her collar and stands up. ‘You too, Frankie. Good luck with everything. I really hope it works out with you and Mitchell.’ She slides on a pair of oversize sunglasses, smiles and strides away.

  Grinning dumbly after her, it’s a full minute before her words sink in. You and Mitchell.