Hiding Hollywood Read online

  Instead, it played out like this. I had turned out all the lights and had my key in the front door. Freedom, holiday and the possibility of an afternoon nap were in my sights. Then the office phone rang.

  I heard it ring at the switchboard through the closed door and then switch immediately to my mobile handset. No caller ID. I could let it go through to message bank and pick it up later, but just my luck it would be Michael, checking to see that everything was alright and I preferred not to freak him out by going missing on day one of his break. So I answered. And then real fun began.

  6: No Room at the Inn

  “Tobias, it’s Christmas Eve,” I said, for at least the third time.

  “Andi, I get it,” Mrs O’Brien’s grown up boy said.

  “I don’t think you do Toby. Everyone is gone, the office is closed and the city is full. You have no idea how impossible it is to get hotel accommodation in Sydney at this time of year, even when money is no object. There is just no room at the inn,” I wailed.

  “Are you saying you guys can’t manage this?”

  Was I saying that? Standing in the darkened elevator foyer with Harvey waiting patiently at the lift doors it did seem like a near impossible ask.

  Shane Horan wanted to come to Sydney and the studio wanted to make sure the visit was a private, unofficial trip, in complete secret, no media attention whatsoever. He wanted to bring his two best friends, both of whom were also A-list stars, and he wanted to arrive on New Year’s Eve.

  That was just four working days away. Four days, where pretty much every service you might want was closed or full up.

  “Andi, are you still there?” asked Tobias.

  “Toby, give me five minutes and I’ll call you back from inside the office.”

  Five minutes to think, five minutes to weight the consequences of taking this on. Of not taking it on. Horan, Drummond and Dawson. Horan, Drummond and Dawson. It didn’t matter how many times my already half on holiday brain repeated their names I was having trouble taking it in. Shane Horan, Arch Drummond and Rush Dawson were three of the world’s most recognisable men, famous for their looks, their lifestyles, their work and their friendship.

  They’d made movies together, Shane and Arch wrote and recorded songs together and with Rush they generally got into a whole lot of mischief that regularly made the front page of a newspaper or website somewhere in the world.

  They wanted to come to Sydney for New Year and hide out.

  I hit the lights and scrambled for the phone with a confused Harvey padding along after me. I needed to phone Michael and pray he would answer.

  Hail Mary, please pick up, but the call went to voicemail and then it hit me. What was I doing? If I told Michael any of this, he’d jump the first plane home and that wasn’t going to happen. And I couldn’t just ring off either; he’d see my missed call and worry. I had to leave a message, one that sounded well, normal.

  “Michael, it’s me. I hope you have arrived safely. I wanted to wish you a terrific break. Nothing new, except we got a very lavish hamper from - wait for it - Mr Tom Flourish. He knows about the tour being cancelled, news does travels fast huh. It’s a fantastic hamper, we shared it around and now we’re officially closed.” As long as he didn’t catch the mild hysteria in my voice that might do the trick.

  I needed to think this through without Michael, but knowing exactly how he would react. He’d say, ‘Oh my God’. In fact he would say that frequently and he’d tell me what a risk it was.

  Get this wrong, displease Shane or any of his high profile mates and kiss the official movie tour goodbye. Get this even half right and get found out by a random blogger with a twitter feed and a handful of followers and kiss the official movie tour goodbye. Say no, annoy Tobias and kiss the official movie tour goodbye. Kiss the official movie tour goodbye and decide how many people to retrench.

  There really was only one answer. Oh my God!

  I’d have to find a place for them to stay that was the right standard, in the right location with the right security. I’d have to feed them, smuggle them into the right restaurants. I’d need transport. I’d need a plan for how to spend New Year’s Eve itself and I’d need the biggest, blackest cover story of a lie to keep all this hidden.

  It had been at least five years since I’d personally put together and led a visit program. This is the sort of work Lainey excelled at. She’d have known exactly what to do and how to do it and she’d have seen the difficulties as an interesting spice to the challenge.

  I was out of my depth. I spent my time as our business manager. I did the hiring and coaching, I managed the finances. I worried about invoices and client reports and where our next projects would come from. I didn’t lead celebrity tour programs anymore and the last time I did, twittering was something your next door neighbour did over the back fence with a cup of tea.

  And have I mentioned I still can’t walk without crutches....

  This was as good as asking me to sling shot Apollo 13 home with a rubber band, some random plastic and a smelly sock. But there was still only one answer. Houston we have a problem and it’s a big one.

  “Toby, I’m back. Of course we’d be delighted to organise and manage the visit, but there are conditions we need to consider and one of them will be the type of accommodation I can find.”

  I spent the next hour and a half with Tobias teasing out the issues and the plan for the visit. I’d had no lunch and Toby had no dinner and Harvey was somewhere with Raymond the cleaner, hopefully not vomiting up the last thing he ate, which I have a suspicion was day old carpet infested Camembert cheese. I certainly hadn’t wrapped presents, painted my toenails, enjoyed a nap, given Harvey a bath or even organised my own plan for Christmas Day.

  What I had done was phoned every hotel, apartment and real estate leasing agent in the greater city region and found out there was only one possible option for accommodation - but what an option. A three bedroom, four bathroom, forty fourth floor suite. It featured uninterrupted, three hundred and sixty degree harbour views, a full time cordon bleu chef, valet and butler service, a private, hidden entryway and the discretion to go with a six star, seven thousand dollar a night price tag. There was only one problem, it was wait-listed by a Saudi Prince and the hotel could not confirm whether the booking would go ahead for three days.

  I explained, cajoled, pleaded. I begged. I tried to gazump and I’m not ashamed to admit I even sniffled a little, but the Prince was a regular client and there was no way the hotel was prepared to give his rooms away until it was certain he didn’t need them.

  What I’d also done was pull in any favour anyone had ever owed me, to arrange discrete tables at restaurants, a car with tinted windows and options to join a party on a yacht or at the Opera House on New Year’s Eve. It was either get it organised now or risk spending a lot of time talking to people’s voicemails as they took their own holiday breaks.

  It was after 10.00pm when I’d finally done everything I could do, collected Harvey who was curled up snoring under the conference room table and headed home. In the car park my phone beeped and Harvey gave me a plaintive whine, echoing precisely my thoughts - what now - but it was only a text from Michael.

  Nce to knw Tom cares. Pool chair reservd. Hve wndrful Xmas & max sleep. Luv M.

  Sleep, hah! That had been the plan - sleep and sarong wearing, but it seems that was not the way my fortune cookie had crumbled.

  7: Enid Blyton

  The phone started ringing at 7.00am, it was Mum and Dad singing, ‘We wish you a merry Christmas’. That was it - I was awake but not necessarily happy about it. We chatted for about twenty minutes, exchanging news about the weather, not a white Christmas for them, my leg, Harvey, Dad’s contract, and other random bits of family gossip like the sale of Aunt Helen’s guest house falling through. We did not, under any circumstances talk about Enid Blyton.

  When they asked what I was doing for the day, I flat out lied. I painted them a wonderful picture of morning visitatio
ns, a seafood lunch with Michael and Lainey, an afternoon nap and an evening of song and dance, well not the last part, they knew I was still a veritable cripple. It simply would not do to tell the truth. Parents, they worry. Parents with daughters on crutches worry more.

  I intended to spend the day in the company of an unwashed dog, for the most part of it asleep. I had my share of the hamper to raid for lunch and possibly afternoon tea. I’m sure I saw a mini mince tart in there.

  My grand plan was to hide from responsibility while I still could and not think about the fact that three of the world’s most bankable, bed-able men would be placing their time and their anonymity in my already crutch filled hands in just a few days time.

  Oh, and potentially Prince Abdul bin Talal would be doing his best Goldilocks impression and sleeping in all the beds I’d hoped to have my three bears snoring in.

  Toby and I had given the Horan three ring circus a code name, both for our own amusement and in the aid of stealth. Enid Blyton. Enid Blyton had been my favourite author as a child. I’d devoured her Secret Seven and Famous Five books and imagined myself eating ham sandwiches and drinking ginger beer while having adventures and solving mysteries involving smugglers.

  There weren’t seven of them, thank goodness, but they were famous and they did need to be secretive and that was enough for us to grasp at Enid Blyton as our code name. It was a reference as far away from Hollywood as my upbringing by the beach in Sydney was from Blyton’s post war England.

  After the parents rang off I did go back to sleep, but Harvey barking at Chook and Chook screeching at Harvey, ‘Bad dog, ‘bad dog’ over and over was hard to ignore. Finally, I braved the day and after a more than satisfactory lunch for one courtesy of Tom Flourish it was time to a go a callin’.

  When I’d moved into my Nanna’s old home, I inherited not only a considerably dilapidated four bedroom Federation house, filled with an odd assortment of aged and creaking furniture, I got Bert and Chook.

  Bert and Chook lived next door. Bert was like a surrogate grandfather to me while Chook was just a right pain in the neck, loud, shrill and obnoxious. Plus he was currently intent on chewing the wooden rose trellis to pieces.

  With Bert and Chook I celebrated birthdays, Easter, Anzac Day, long weekends, Christmas, New Year and The Bathurst 1000. I drew the line at State of Origin matches but the invitation was always open.

  I had a bottle of Bundy Rum for Bert and Harvey had a seed ball for his white feathered nemesis. With gifts in tow, we popped next door for nice cup of tea and a piece of fruit cake. None of us banked on the cat, least of all Harvey. And I guess it would have been funny, if it hadn’t ended up costing quite so much.

  Picture this. One sneaky orange moggy, otherwise known as the Achilles tendon killer, leaping at one dozing cockatoo, tackled by one outraged Staffordshire terrier. It was like being in the middle of a Tom and Jerry cartoon, and that’s exactly how I described it to the after-hours vet who stitched Harvey’s rump, and sent us home with a big dent in my credit card and a bucket for Harvey to wear round his neck so he wouldn’t worry his stitches. That cat and I had a reckoning day coming.

  Back home there was left-over hamper for dinner, a bank of joyful text messages and voicemails from friends to answer and the amusement of watching Harvey trying to detach his new plastic collar by crashing into walls. A Christmas Day to remember.

  On Boxing Day in honour of the tradition of providing boxed gifts to the servants, I dragged my box of research out on the verandah and did my homework. In the box was every English language magazine, newspaper and website clipping generated in the last three years by Enid Blyton. For a dead person she sure got around.

  There were movie and music reviews, red carpet photos, dodging the paparazzi with a hand over the face photos, having a good time at the Cannes film festival shots, gossip column raves, grainy hidden camera pictures of mystery lovers, best friend exposes, sources close to reveals, best dressed lists and worst dressed lists.

  By lunch time I had studied the enemy and I knew his moves and to say I was beginning to feel anxious again was an understatement.

  The expression Master of Universe was coined to describe finance types who belonged to the ‘greed is good’ school. These guys were graduates of a whole other star system where looks, wealth, position, location, acquaintance, convenience, amusement, acquisition and possession were entry level standards.

  Take Shane Horan. Tall, blonde and tanned year round. He was thirty two years old, made his first movie at sixteen, and had an Oscar nomination at twenty-five. He was a martial arts black belt, a qualified deep sea diver, and an experience mountaineer. He was married very briefly to a pop singer, and went through a very public divorce.

  Then there was the band, Running on Empty, which he formed and performed in as lead singer. They had two albums and three hit songs, two of which he had writing credits for. When not somewhere exotic making a movie, he lived on the island of Maui in Hawaii. He was currently dating either a tattooed pop star or New York based model, depending on what particular source you consulted.

  How about Arch Drummond? He was thirty five and a relative late comer to the acting game. Born in Scotland but raised in the United States, he had been a search and rescue officer before being discovered on the evening news, hauling a group of kids to safety when their school bus overturned.

  He had headlined two big box office hits. There was an Arch Drummond action figure and he was a character in a video game. He played lead guitar in Running on Empty and was a dark and swarthy opposite to Shane’s golden appeal. Constantly seen with a different beauty on his arm, he supposedly lived on a houseboat just out of Los Angeles.

  And then there was Rush Dawson. Rush came from Hollywood royalty but behind the camera instead of in front of it. His grandmother was a costume designer, his stepfather a producer.

  He was the heavyweight of the group. Classically trained with a background in theatre, he had two Academy Award nominations and an Oscar to his credit. He was also older at thirty eight, had started to grey and apparently failed to care, to the apparent glee of the gossip writers.

  It was rumoured Rush had signed to direct his first movie. He was married to Hollywood it-girl Harriet Vale and they had an eight year old daughter called Anissa. Oh, and he was also a United Nations Special Representative for HIV/AIDS programs in Africa.

  While Shane and Arch rated at the top of the global hunk-o-meter, it was Rush Dawson who floated my boat. In an alternate world where I got to choose who to be stranded on a deserted island with, I had one firm candidate. Rush Dawson.

  What exactly was it about Rush Dawson that made him my hit pick? He had classically masculine appeal, tall, but not toweringly so, well built but not body builder style. He had that triangular shape going on where his shoulders were the inverted pyramid base to his waist. He had short cropped dark hair streaked with gray and green eyes, under lively dark brows.

  Once there was a full beard and a jagged cheek scar for a Western. Once there was a pony tail and a host of badass tattoos for a movie about biker gangs. He’d played an injured major league footballer, a bumbling college professor, a taciturn hit man, a speech therapist, an addled drug lord and a single dad. He’d done Shakespeare and Saturday Night Live.

  Until he smiled, you could almost imagine he was the too good looking bloke next door who you sneaked looks at while putting the bins out on a Sunday night. When he smiled he was gorgeous. That smile started with a lopsided grin, one side of his lips sliding up milliseconds before the other and then animating his whole face and igniting in his eyes.

  He appealed because he often had his arm protectively around Harriet or Anissa riding on his shoulders. He appealed because when not dressed to kill, he seemed like your much, much better looking than average suburban dad.

  Heck, I don’t know why he’d always appealed to me. It was like asking why I like to eat mangoes, or wear soft leather or smell the scent of jasmine. It was like asking why
a bright blue sky made me happy or the sound of the sea made me feel at peace.

  I looked at images of Rush Dawson and I felt like I’d just eaten the finest mango, while wearing a soft leather coat, in a garden filled with jasmine, under blue skies by the sea.

  The thought of meeting him, outside of a wild private dreamscape, where I was incredibly beautiful and he was incredibly in love with me, blew my mind.

  That the three men were friends was well documented. They were often photographed as a group and had appeared together in two movies with a rumoured sequel to one of them under negotiation. Much of the coverage on them related to jokes and tricks they played on each other and more unsuspecting members of the Hollywood fraternity.

  On paper you could see the connection between Shane and Arch but it was harder to see exactly where Rush fitted in to things and it was harder still to see how the hell I was going to keep their visit a secret.

  They’re actors, they’ll disguise. They can probably all do a passable Australian accent Toby had suggested. And when I’d sounded doubtful, his instruction was, “Improvise darling!”

  8: Someday My Prince Will Call

  I spent December twenty-seventh strapped to my phone waiting for the hotel to call and confirm that instead of Prince Abdul bin Talal, Enid Blyton would have the pleasure of spending enough money to wipe out the debt of a third world country with them. Twice I checked I had still had mobile reception. On the home phone line I spent a couple of hours confirming hire cars, restaurant bookings, optional activities and a sea plane tour of the city and coast.

  All morning I tried to ignore a nagging internal voice that kept going, OMG, OMG, OMG. With a high profile project like this you’d usually have a team of people involved to work quickly, cover all the bases and provide back up.