Hiding Hollywood Read online

  “It’s complicated. That’s probably all I should say. Just give him a chance, he’s not a bad guy. And Andi, any chance of an icepack?”

  Icepack sorted and with new information to digest I went back to my desk to finalise our arrangements. It’s not that I was happy Rush was romantically troubled, but it did make me wonder. If even Hollywood’s finest had trouble keeping a relationship together perhaps there was hope for star crossed lovers like Michael and I after all.

  Late that afternoon I roused the guys and we walked down to the beach. It was impossibly crowded with picnicking families, none of whom paid us the slightest bit of attention. We found a slice of golden sand to call our own and spread out in the sun. Shane and Rush hit the surf and Arch stretched out with a hat over his face.

  “You live in a great city Andi,” he said. “A coast full of beaches like this and an international city all within fifteen minutes of each other. Brilliant.”

  “Speaking of brilliant, thank you for the massage.”

  “My pleasure. Happy to be of service,” his voice was muffled under his hat. We were quiet then, the sounds of kids playing, surf crashing and a radio playing somewhere kept us company until he said, “Andi, if you don’t mind my asking, is there a man in your life?”

  Thank goodness for my big brimmed sun hat and dark glasses. What was it with these guys constantly hyping my temperature with their wits, temper or state of undress? Arch had propped up on one elbow to look at me. After this morning it didn’t seem like it was possible to hide anything from a man who could touch you the way he could.

  “There is a man, my business partner Michael, but we’ve been so busy being colleagues and best friends we put anything more personal aside. It’s my New Year’s resolution to sort that out.” Just saying it aloud made me feel the rightness of it.

  “Oooee, I’m glad about that. I’ll stop feeling sorry for you now girl. Shane will make a play for you, you know that don’t you? That kiss was a start and he was annoyed about the massage.”

  “No, really? I thought the kiss was just, you know, ‘of the moment’ high spirits.”

  “Yeah, well Shane specialises in high spirits so when he ‘of the moments’ you next, you just tell him where to get off or come get me and I’ll tell him for you. You remind me of my sisters Andi and I miss them so much. I’m travelling most of the year, so I hardly get to see them anymore and you just remind me of home.”

  How impossible was it not to fall a little in love with Arch?

  I read for a little bit and he dozed and then I woke him so he wouldn’t burn and he joined the others in the water and I had time to call Michael. Now that it was clear I really could pull this tour off and without being discovered it was time to fess up.

  Michael would huff and puff about being left in the dark and possibly he’d even be genuinely angry with me, and the later I left it to tell him the worse it would be. In the end, I knew he’d come round and even be excited that we’d cracked the Hollywood A-list after all.

  Lainey’s sarong was a great asset at the beach. I tied it on over my swimmers and walked up to the promenade where I was away from prying ears. I rang Michael’s number and hoped I wouldn’t get the message service. I was really looking forward to hearing his voice. It rang and rang and just when I thought it would switch to his message bank a voice said, “Hello, this is Michael’s phone.”

  It was that same voice, the voice of the tinkling glasses, the voice of the tickles. I was stunned into silence.

  “Hello are you there? Hello can you hear me? Hello.”

  It was Lainey. Without the shadow of a doubt. Michael and Lainey. I pressed end and knew it was probably more than just the call that was ending.

  15: Thunder and Lightning

  It was truly hard to credit my own stupidity. Shortest ever New Year’s resolution, maybe I could claim a record and win a prize. Here I was thinking that Michael and I were destined to be a happy couple and all we really were was a big bag of lies, a pile of betrayal, a tower of manipulation. He lied about not wanting a relationship. He betrayed me with Lainey and he manipulated me into thinking I was special to him. He must have been laughing his head off when I pressed a holiday on him and helped him straight into Lainey’s arms.

  Was I blind as well as stupid? Did I have a flashing neon sign behind my back saying, ‘Go ahead, take advantage of me’? I felt sick. I wanted to scream and kick. I wanted to throw up. I wanted to break something. Instead I gathered towels and suntan lotion, which Arch immediately relieved me of, and herded my charges back up the hill to the house.

  Feigning a bigger limp than I really had, I let them walk ahead, because I was scared that the ugly roiling feeling inside me might burst out and splatter them with scalding bile.

  Back at the house Shane and Arch started a ball game with a now bucket free Harvey and Rush hit the shower. I threw myself on my bed and breathed fire at the ceiling, filling my body with heat, until I was in a sweat. Anger was surely better than tears and would serve until I could find a practical way to deal with this. Meanwhile, Michael could drown in his resort swimming pool and if Shane Horan really did make a play for me, he just might find I was willing to play back.

  My ringing phone brought me back from alternating feelings of humiliation and vengeance. I checked the screen. Michael. I pressed end call. He could talk to my voicemail till time ran backwards. It rang again, so he was going to persist, bastard. But a quick look told me this time it was Tobias.

  “What the fuck are you doing Andi?”

  “Toby, what?”

  “Have you got any idea how angry the studio is about this? I thought you were a professional?”

  “What? Toby, now hold on. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “I’m talking about the TV footage, it’s everywhere. You’re fired Andi. I’m on the next plane. I’m taking over and I’m going to make sure you have trouble getting work again.”

  Oh my God.

  “Toby, what footage, we’ve seen nothing here. I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’ve checked every source, we’re clear.”

  “Then you’d better check again. Meanwhile keep them away from any reporters, photographers or news crews, or I will sue the skirt off you for breach of contract. Do you hear me? Do not, for one second, think I’m joking.”

  What fresh hell was this? In the lounge room I turned on the TV in time to catch the evening news and five minutes into the broadcast I stopped being a functional human being. There was Shane, Arch and Rush leading a sing-a-long on the waterfront, shots of Arch dancing, shirt flapping on the street with several intoxicated women in his arms and then of Shane crowd surfing in a bar on Oxford Street.

  There were no hats, caps or disguised accents, they were deliberately playing up to the cameras and these weren’t opportunistic amateur grainy camera phone images, this was professional news reel stuff. This was no accident. This was deliberate and these pictures would be worldwide in twenty-four hours time.

  “We need to talk,” said Shane, leaning casually on the doorjamb. How many times in one day was I going to learn I’d been lied to, manipulated and used?

  “I’ve just been sacked, so right now I’m thinking about throwing you out of my house. Talk all you want, I’m not listening.” I couldn’t even look at him.

  “Andi, Andi, please don’t be mad,” this from Arch, ducking under Shane’s arm and coming into the room towards me. I flinched away from his touch.

  “Of course she’s mad and she has a right,” said Rush flatly, from across the room.

  “Why? I just want to know why you’d risk the studio’s wrath and lie about wanting the trip to be secret?” I said.

  “Take a seat Andi,” said Rush.

  “They did it for me, because I had a problem and....” started Rush.

  “And we weren’t going to let him go it alone,” interrupted Shane.

  “So it was deliberate,” I said.

  “Yep,” said Shane.
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  “We have to tell her the rest,” said Arch.

  Rush frowned, took a deep breath, “I want to divorce my wife, it’s not pretty but I’m interested in hurting her, and the best way to do that is publicly.”

  I was trying not to gasp openly. What sort of person would want to hurt and humiliate his own wife and have the world know about it? I noticed that both Shane and Arch looked uncomfortable as well.

  “I thought timing the divorce announcement with coverage of some good ole partying would be a good way to do that. The more coverage the better. So we engineered this trip. We’ve always wanted to come to Australia.”

  How cold he was, how bitter, hard and calculating.

  “Rush, you should tell her....” said Shane.

  “What Shane, what should I tell her, that I used her? She’ll know soon enough,” said Rush angrily.

  “Everything,” said Arch firmly.

  “She doesn’t need to know everything,” said Rush.

  “She needs to know more,” said Shane.

  “Of course, how right you are,” said Rush, dripping sarcasm. “Andi, there’s more. Tomorrow morning’s newspapers will have the story of my new love interest.”

  “Who is she?” I wondered how he’d had the time to generate that story.

  “She’s a mystery woman,” said Rush.

  “Tell her,” said Shane with considerable menace.

  “It’s you Andi. You’re my mystery love interest, the other woman, the home wrecker, the reason for my marriage break up and my international broadcast ‘up yours’ to Harriet.”

  It occurred to me to laugh and I must have looked bemused. Were they having me on? Was this a cruel joke, an odd way for Hollywood to get its kicks? Me? I was hardly the scarlet woman type. I wasn’t your average bombshell singer/actress/model. I wasn’t famously beautiful and I certainly wasn’t the type of woman you’d dally with in place of Harriet Vale.

  “It’s true Andi. I arranged a wire service photographer to take shots of you and Rush on the cab queue. That’s all it’ll take really,” said Shane. “Not much that gets written about us is actually true.”

  “Me! You could have picked any one of a hundred or more willing women on the street and you pick me. Why?”

  “Because you fit Andi. You were convenient and I could control you,” said Rush sounding bored with the whole thing.

  “What do you mean control me?”

  “You’re a smart girl. I’m sure you’ll work it out,” he snapped.

  I had worked it out. I was convenient. He could control me. If Rush had picked up a singer/actress/model or any beautiful woman off the street, she’d have been chased by every media outlet in the world and offered thousands of dollars for her story and fifteen minutes of fame. Few would resist. The story might have run for weeks. That’s not what he wanted.

  This was a lightning strike mission. Get in, do the damage and get out. With me there was no risk of more information fuelling the fire. With me, it was a one hit wonder. I was the hired help, I wouldn’t be doing any follow up interview and there’d be no tale of my night of passion with Rush Dawson. I was the mystery woman from central casting, a bit part player with a limp on role and no call back.

  “I understand why you want to be out of the city so quickly,” was all I could think to say. I didn’t want to be in the same room with them, particularly Rush, another second more. “We leave at 7am.”

  They had the good sense to leave me alone that night. I heard Shane speak with Toby who agreed to stay in LA and leave me to continue to manage things here. An email from Toby confirmed that arrangement and added an apology which I wasn’t much in the mood to accept.

  I slept badly but woke determined to avoid Rush in particular as much as I could and make the best of things. The morning’s papers put a big dent in that resolve.

  The story of Shane, Arch and Rush’s New Year in Sydney made the front page of two of the national dailies and an inside spread gave more details including speculation about Rush’s mystery woman, the probable cause for his divorce from a heartbroken Harriet.

  The main photo showed the moment he had embraced me to avoid the queue jumping accusation and there was a sequence of shots of him opening the taxi door, holding both my crutches, helping me into the taxi and climbing into the back seat with me. The headline said Rushing Cinderella.

  In the picture, which was a good half page in size and in colour, I was snug in Rush’s arms and smiling up at him. It even looked like romance to me and yet I knew it was manipulation with a capital M. We looked like a couple in love, at least a flat-pack cut-out couple. Where then were the shots of him brooding with his text messages as we drove away? They were the real deal, not this series of poses he’d deliberately staged. Where was my academy award for best performance in the act of deception?

  There was also a picture of Harriet, a red carpet shot. In it she was wearing a figure hugging, short, glittery gown and towering heels, her honey coloured hair casually piled on her head and diamonds at her slender throat. She was tiny, lithe and mischievous looking. Positioned next to her I was large, stiff and clumsy looking.

  Try as I might I couldn’t look at those photos objectively, though for the sake of trying to settle my churning stomach I knew I needed to. It could have been worse, much worse. Critically they didn’t know who I was. They didn’t have a name to put to the images. Yet!

  Then there was the fact that despite looking like Harriet’s chunky polar opposite, for me at least I looked ok. More comfortable behind the camera than in front of it, these pictures had caught me so unaware that I wasn’t trying to look like anything. There was no strained smile with too much gum, no awkward gut pulling in stance, no uncertainty about what to do with my hands.

  If anything I looked well - happy. And Rush, there was this grace to him, this natural elegance. He had his cap on and his glance averted. This was a man so used to having his every move documented he wasn’t even bothering to look for the camera he knew was there. That was certainly playing it cool, a most subtle performance indeed.

  The local and international media appetite for more of this would be insatiable. Right now I was the rabbit everyone was hunting for and the first to find me would make stew of me for the public to eat. Fortunately we were still hidden away in the suburbs, far from prying camera lenses and would be harder still to track down in Possum Creek.

  16: Playing Possum

  All morning I was anxious about us being recognised. Even my boot was a liability, a beacon just daring someone to notice me, but I wasn’t yet strong enough to go without it all day. Hats and glasses on and American accents banished, we made it to the hire car in Coolangatta without incident.

  There was a particularly uncomfortable moment for me in the airport terminal where TV sets were showing the shots of Rush and I in the taxi queue. The voiceover asked if anyone could identify this modern day Cinderella.

  It felt like at any minute someone would recognise one of us and post a photo to Facebook or start a flashmob on Twitter and put us in the eye of a media storm. Only Simon could be secure in his anonymity. The faster we got to our hillside hideaway, the safer from discovery we would be.

  The house was called Allambee, an Aboriginal word which means ‘to remain a while’. Set well back off the road and down a worn dirt track, it was surrounded by banana trees and huge eucalyptus. A big flowering maraya bush and a row of gardenias were in bloom making the air fragrant. Best of all, there was no mobile phone or wireless internet reception so I was free from the need to handle any mystery woman identification, further abuse from Tobias or contact with Michael. It was a sanctuary.

  We’d effectively managed to disappear. The story had followed us of course. Helen was truly disappointed that I wasn’t Rush’s scarlet woman. She’d left us provisions and Simon started on lunch while the men chose bedrooms and settled in. No one was doing much talking and there seemed to be a strain between Shane and Rush. I had no idea what it was and no
interest in finding out.

  By afternoon, Allambee was working its magic on me. No photographer was going to jump out of a bush and catch me unaware. No journalist was going to surprise me with a microphone. I’d started to feel less tense, less exposed and less likely to bite someone’s head off. With Rush my strategy was simply to play possum, other than professional responsibilities, I was dead to him.

  When the worst heat of the sun had gone and the others were dozing or reading, I took a towel down to the pool. I could use this time to get some therapy done. Recovery was going to depend on getting flexibility back into my ankle, and walking in the pool was one thing that would help. I slipped into the cool blue water and walked back and forth. The buoyancy made it easy and I was enjoying the freedom of movement when Arch arrived with a big pitcher of lemon ice water.

  “Do you mind if I join you?”

  “If you like.” Argh, that came out sharp and cold.

  “Andi, you know there is....”

  “I don’t really want to talk about it,” I cut him off. “You had your reasons and it’s not for me to understand. Rush has it right, I’m just the hired help.” I sounded hurt and bitter and I wasn’t helping things.

  “Ok, but if you ask me it would be worth knowing the whole story.”

  “I’m not asking you.” What was that about being less likely to bite someone’s head off? He left the pitcher and went back into the house. I did heel stretches at the side of the pool until I could barely feel my toes anymore and tried not to care how miserable, exposed and alone I felt.

  It was coming on sunset when I tied Lainey’s sarong and went back to the house. I tried to slip into my room without being seen but Shane planted himself in front of me.

  “Are you mad at me?”

  Was this a trick question? I smiled and tried to side step him, but I was flat footed and he was fast and cut in front of me.

  “Are you mad at me?” he repeated.