Читать книгу Ruby Parker: Hollywood Star - Rowan Coleman - Страница 6

The first week in Hollywood passed in a flash. Before I knew it, it was nearly New Year’s Eve.

Until then Christmas had been nice. Or perhaps I should say wonderful because of all the effort that Jeremy and Augusto and Marie put in. But the best I can say is nice, because it was so different from the kind of Christmas I was used to and it would have taken a lot longer than one day to get used to it.

It wasn’t at all like being at home with Mum and Dad and Everest. Mum always used to insist that we all opened only one present before breakfast and then saved the rest till after lunch. But not in Jeremy’s house. We opened all the presents at once, first thing in the morning, creating a whirlwind of shiny paper and ribbon and lots of glittery sparkles that drove David mad.

The Chihuahua even had several gifts of his own, most of which were food-based. One was a sort of royal-blue satin throne bed with a little gold-painted wooden staircase leading up to the mattress. But David was more interested in ripping up the paper than lounging on the bed, which made him seem a bit more dog-like and a lot less evil nemesis.

As I opened my gifts I found the things I had picked out on Rodeo Drive and a whole lot more besides that somehow Mum and Jeremy had chosen without me knowing. Clothes, shoes – some even with a low heel and a bit of a pointy toe – and best of all a make-up set. I stared open-mouthed at my mum who never, ever let me wear make-up except for work or the occasional event.

“That’s from me,” she said with a smile. “I thought it was about time you had something to practise with. But not to be worn outside the house unless I say so, OK?”

“OK, Mum,” I said and immediately put on some green sparkly eyeshadow. I didn’t look exactly how Anne-Marie did when she wore it, but I was happy anyway.

And then Mum handed me something she had brought from home. I could tell because it was wrapped in normal penguin-in-a-bobble-hat Christmas paper, not covered in tons of ribbons and bows.

“From your dad,” she said. I took a breath and opened it.

It was a blue top from Miss Selfridge that I had shown Dad the last time we went out for lunch. I looked at it and suddenly I realised how much I missed him. My dad who went into a girls’ shop to buy a top he especially knew I wanted all on his own with no one to help him. The top probably cost a fraction of any of the other gifts that I had, but along with my make-up set it was the best one there.

I wanted to ring Dad and thank him. I looked at my watch and then at my mum. It was Just after ten in the morning here so it would be about teatime at home.

“Go on,” she said with a smile. “Call him and say Happy Christmas from me too.”

But when I dialled Dad’s number the phone just rang and rang, and I imagined his horrible, cold, empty grey flat all those thousands of miles away echoing with the sound. I tried his mobile next, but that went to voicemail. I supposed he couldn’t hear it at Granny’s. I didn’t leave a message because I thought that after the last time we spoke a message wasn’t right, so I padded back downstairs.

After presents came Christmas lunch. It was a bit like I imagine having Christmas at Buckingham Palace would be and was about as different from lunch at home as it could be. Jeremy’s dining room, with its mile-long shiny wooden table that could seat about thirty, was a universe apart from our kitchen table with the wobbly leg and the giant cat permanently installed under it in the hopes of pinching scraps. David did race up and down underneath the table, yapping for treats and nipping toes, but it wasn’t the same. I wondered what Everest would think of David and I decided that he would probably eat him.

Lunch was delicious though. Augusto and Marie, who were married but didn’t have any children yet, ate with us, which was really nice. The adults drank champagne and Augusto turned out to be very funny, telling us all about the famous neighbours and what they get up to when they think no one is looking. When I asked him how he knew all of these stories he looked very solemn and told me it was Chef’s Code and he could not reveal his sources.

“When chefs get together they are like a bunch of old women gossiping,” Marie said, chuckling.

After lunch Jeremy took us for a walk around his gardens. I trailed a little bit behind as he and Mum walked on ahead hand in hand, while David ran in and out of his legs, threatening to trip him up. They really did look comfortable, like a couple who had been together for years. It was strange: the more time I spent with Jeremy like this, off a film set and just sort of hanging about with him, the less I saw him as that dynamic, daring actor I admired so much. I mean I still admired and looked up to him, but it was like he was splitting into two people. Famous Jeremy Fort, former dater of supermodels, and just Jeremy, my mum’s middle-aged, slightly balding, easy-going boyfriend. If he had been an accountant he would have been a lot easier to get used to.

By the time I went to bed I was exhausted, but also glad that the day was over. Because as nice as it had been, I still missed that last Christmas with Mum and Dad and the stupid paper hats and Mum trying not to swear when the turkey wasn’t cooked on time. I wished I’d known it was going to be the last one we’d all have as a proper family, because I would have been more careful to remember every detail.

Just before I went to sleep I thought about trying to phone Dad again, but I decided it would be too early in the morning at home, so instead I climbed into my massive bed and stared at the ceiling. Then, after a while, I took all my pillows and piled them down at the bottom of the bed. I decided to sleep upside down. Perhaps it would help me get that holiday feeling back again.

It wasn’t until New Year’s Eve that we saw the column about Mum and Jeremy in People’s Choice Magazine. After a week of sightseeing and more shopping trips, we were having a quiet day before Mum and Jeremy went out to a party at a neighbour’s house. (And by neighbour I mean Catherine Zeta-Jones!) I had been invited but I decided to stay at home with Marie and Augusto, because as exciting as it might have been to get dressed up and see how many famous people I could spot (a lot), when it came down to it, it would still be an adult party with no one there for me to talk to. And Augusto and Marie were a lot of fun, plus Marie promised to make me her extra-special hot chocolate drink to toast the New Year in, if I could stay up that late. I said I’d try.

In fact, Mum and I had been picking out a dress for her to wear when we found out about the article. We might not have seen it at all (and things would have been so different if we hadn’t) except for Jeremy’s publicist, Michael White. I’d seen him around before on the set of The Lost Treasure of King Arthur, but I never really paid any attention to him because Jeremy seemed to think of him as more of a necessity than a boon and much preferred to deal with Lisa Wells, who was assistant director on the shoot. We were all in the main living area, with Mum parading up and down in various frocks, Jeremy reading through scripts and giving us his opinion every now and then, and me pretending that I was Tyra Banks on America’s Next Top Old Model when the doorbell chimed ‘God Save the Queen’. David went bananas, flying at the door like a four-legged spitfire.

Jeremy sighed when he realised it was Michael and he apologised to us as he got up and went to greet him. I noticed he let David nip at Michael’s ankles for quite a long time before calling the tiny dog off.

I watched them out of the corner of my eye while Mum tried to pick accessories for a bright pink silk dress that was her current favourite. Michael and Jeremy were talking as if they didn’t want anybody to hear what they were saying, their heads close together. Then Michael handed Jeremy a magazine and watched as he read it, rubbing his chin with his hand. Jeremy’s face grew red and he threw the magazine across the polished tiled floor so that it skidded to a stop by my mum’s feet.

“Ridiculous rag!” he bellowed. “This is outrageous. Janice isn’t a celebrity – she’s not putting herself in the spotlight! How dare they attack her?”

“Me?” Mum said with a puzzled smile. She put down the evening bag she had been carrying and picked up the magazine. Her eyes widened as she took in what she saw there.

“What is it, Mum?” I asked, but she Just stared at the magazine, her confusion turning into a look of horror.

Jeremy came and put his arm around her stiff shoulders. “Janice, I’m so sorry…”

“Perhaps,” Michael said, walking a few steps nearer, “they think that by dating you, Janice is putting herself in the public eye and making herself fair game.”

Frustrated, I took the magazine from Mum’s frozen fingers and read the column for myself.

“Look, Jeremy,” Michael went on, “as irritating and unkind as that is, what the studio and I are really worried about are those other comments. The press have already got it in for The Lost Treasure of King Arthur so this could be just the beginning. I think we need to schedule a meeting with them and Imogene’s people asap, start our publicity machine rolling and do some damage limitation.”

“Oh.” My mum finally spoke, her frozen expression suddenly thawing into tears. She sat down with a bump, her silk dress rustling around her. “Oh, I…I am sorry Jeremy,” she said. Her voice was small and she had two pink spots on her cheeks. “I’ve embarrassed you terribly.”

“But nothing they’ve written here is true, Mum!” I exclaimed as I finished reading. I wanted to hug her but I couldn’t unless I shoved Jeremy aside. “You are very fashionable,” I told her. “And you look great for your age and, OK, you’re not as beautiful as Carenza Slavchenkov, but you’re a normal mum not a supermodel!”

It was then my mum started to properly cry and I got the feeling I had made things worse. She turned her face into Jeremy’s shoulder and his arms enclosed her.

“What I meant to say was—” I tried again, but Michael spoke over me impatiently.

“Jeremy, we need to set up that meeting. We have to think about the movie.”

“And we will,” Jeremy said, his voice low as he held my mother. “But right now, Michael, you need to go.”

“I’ll call you,” Michael said, making a phone shape with his thumb and little finger and holding it to his ear.

“I have no doubt that you will,” Jeremy said heavily.

Mum was crying and Jeremy was hugging her and telling her he was so sorry that knowing him had put her in this position, and they seemed as if they were in their own separate world, a world I didn’t have a passport to. So I thought it was probably best if I just got out of the way for a while.

As I picked up the offending magazine and took it into the kitchen where Augusto was making sushi for lunch, I realised that David was scampering after me.

“Feeling left out too?” I asked the dog.

Of course he didn’t answer, but as his tiny nails clicked on the floor tiles I let myself think it was me he wanted to be with and not the scraps he might get in the kitchen. Because Just at that moment I needed a pal and even a rat dog was better than nothing.

“That’s pretty bad,” Augusto said when I showed him the magazine. “These journalists, they don’t think about anyone’s feelings. They don’t care as long as they’ve got something to write in their nasty little rags.”

“And it’s not fair,” I said. “Poor Mum, she’s really hurt. I know what it feels like to hear that people think you’re ugly. But she’s not. She’s just mum-looking, that’s all!”

“Which is a very beautiful way to look,” Augusto said.

“I tried to cheer her up, but I think I just made it worse,” I added miserably. “I don’t know what to say to her.”

“Just tell her that you love her,” Augusto said. “Telling someone that can never make them feel worse.”

“S’pose,” I said, looking towards the other room where Jeremy was probably doing exactly that. I wasn’t exactly jealous, but how could I tell Mum anything if she was always with him? I realised that I hadn’t spent any time on my own with her all holiday and, even more amazingly, I realised that I missed doing that. Even though usually it meant me doing the washing-up while she dried, or folding while she ironed, I liked talking things over with her. We hadn’t done that in ages.

“And that other stuff isn’t so good either,” Augusto said, wielding a large and very sharp knife as he thinly sliced some ginger. I wrinkled up my nose. I really didn’t like the idea of raw fish for lunch.

“What other stuff?” I asked him, eyeing some bright orange, globular fish roe suspiciously.

“About the movie, your movie! They are bad-mouthing the film before it even opens and that can’t be good.”

“What?” I said. I picked up the magazine and read the piece again.

“Oh,” I said heavily. I had been too busy being cross to notice it before. “But it can’t be that bad, can it? A couple of nasty comments in one magazine?”

Augusto raised an eyebrow. “If they want to, the press can sink a great film and make a success out of a real turkey.”

He offered me a salmony-Iooking thing and I backed away hastily. To my surprise David Jumped up on to my lap, digging his bony little feet into my thighs, and looked hard at Augusto as if to say he’d try anything I wouldn’t. Augusto threw him a scrap of fish which he caught deftly between his teeth and then waited hopefully for more. I stroked his bony back, which was not nearly as soft as Everest’s, but his warmth on my lap was still quite comforting.

“But why? Why would they want to do that?” I asked, shaking my head.

“Because their only concern is to sell magazines and if they were always lovely to everyone then nobody would buy any. It’s sad but true, Ruby. It’s the meanness and the cruelty that sells copies. The A-list actress who looks fat in a dress, the latest marriage to fail after only six months, the illustrious careers that tumble and fall over one ‘bad’ film.”

“But that wouldn’t happen to Jeremy,” I said. “He’s a British institution, even if he is my mum’s boyfriend. Or to Imogene Grant. Imogene is real star.”

“No, it wouldn’t happen to Jeremy,” Augusto agreed. “Or Miss Grant, but for other actors, younger actors, maybe who were just starting out – well it could mean their career is ended before it even really began.”

“Oh,” I said, eyes wide. “Well, that would be terrible. I mean, you spend all that time working hard on a—” I stopped talking and looked at Augusto. “Like me, you mean?” I asked, feeling sick in the pit of my stomach.

“Don’t worry, Ruby,” Augusto said. “If anyone can turn things around it’s Jeremy and, like you say, it’s only a few comments in one magazine. It might be nothing to worry about at all.” He smiled his big warm smile at me, but I thought about the conversation that Micheal had just had with Jeremy and I didn’t feel very much better.

“I can see by the look on your face that you aren’t really looking forward to my sushi,” Augusto said sympathetically. “Anything else I can whip you up for lunch?”

“A plane ticket home?” I asked him miserably. “I think I’m finished in Hollywood.”

“Don’t be silly,” Augusto told me. “You haven’t even begun yet.”

Suddenly David leapt up and, putting his paws on my shoulder, licked my neck.

“Look, even David’s trying to make you feel better,” Augusto said with a chuckle. “You’re honoured that dog likes you.”

“Either that,” I said, squirming “or he wants to eat me.”

When I went back to tell Mum and Jeremy the sushi was ready, Mum seemed happier and brighter, even though her face was still smudged with tears.

“You’re sure that’s what you want?” Jeremy was asking her as I approached. He had one hand on each shoulder as he looked into her eyes. “Because I want you to know that I think you are utterly perfect exactly the way you are. “

I nearly turned round and walked back out the room to simultaneously die of embarrassment and throw up. But my curiosity won out and I stood my ground. I wanted to know what it was that Mum was absolutely sure about.

“I am,” Mum said with a brave little smile. “And besides, if I am going to be with you, then I have to be prepared for this kind of attention.”

At that point I realised that Jeremy was probably going to kiss my mum in front of me, possibly with tongues and everything. I like to think that I’ve been quite cool about things like my dad’s so-called girlfriend and my mum’s megastar man, but witnessing that would be a step too far.

“A-hem!” I coughed loudly enough to make the pair Jump apart and had to suppress a smirk. “The raw fish thing is served, but I’m having a cheese toastie because frankly it looks disgusting to me.”

Jeremy and Mum smiled indulgently at me and as we walked back to the kitchen Jeremy patted me on the back and said, “Are you sure, Ruby? It’s good to broaden your horizons, you know, take a chance every now and then.”

“Yes,” I agreed. “And I want to do that, but I don’t want to eat raw fish. Because it’s fish and it’s raw.”

I waited for either one of them to tell me what they had been talking about, but they clearly weren’t going to. “So?” I asked as we sat down at the table and I saw my mum looking rather fondly at my cheese toastie. “What have you two decided?”

“Oh!” Mum said, looking at Jeremy in a secretive way I didn’t like at all, like I was an outsider. “Nothing much. We were just planning what to do after New Year. Jeremy says we’ve got to make the most of our time left here. I am going to a day spa and salon to have a few treatments, get my hair and nails done, that sort of thing…”

“Really?” I said, thinking a few highlights and some false nails might make her feel better. “Good idea. Am I coming too? Can I go blonde, please, Mum? I am nearly fourteen.”

Jeremy smiled. “No, Ruby, you are coming with me. While you were helping Augusto, I phoned Michael. You and I are going into Wide Open Universe Studios. We’re going to watch a screening of The Lost Treasure of King Arthur, and talk about publicity with Art and Imogene and all the studio people.”

“Are we?” I cheered up. “It will be nice to see Imogene again, and Art – but what about Harry?” Harry McLean was Imogene’s leading man, although I never really got to know him very well as he spent a lot of time in his trailer.

“Ah, nooo, I’m afraid not,” Jeremy said, looking down at his sushi. “He’s not very well at the moment. He’s in a special type of hospital getting better.”

“Better from what?” I asked him.

“Well – let’s just say that too much of anything is bad for you, Ruby,” Jeremy told me with a shrug.

“Even sushi?” I asked him, annoyed not only that he wouldn’t tell me, but that he wouldn’t tell me in such a smug way. After all, I’d had plenty of experience with celebrity health problems before. Brett Summers, my old TV mum, was always in and out of clinics because of her intolerance to alcohol, and Imogene Grant had told me herself about the eating disorder that had nearly killed her. And even though she isn’t quite a celebrity yet, even my best friend Nydia had collapsed and banged her head badly because she’d stopped eating to try and make herself thin. I knew what the pressures of fame could do to a person. I didn’t need Jeremy to keep it from me.

“Anyway” Jeremy went on, smiling at me like I was next door’s toddler, “perhaps if there is time we might be able to show you the set of my new film. The actors are all still on break, but you’ll enjoy seeing the sets, won’t you?”

I should have been over the moon. I should have been cart-wheeling in excitement, but nobody, except possibly David, seemed to have noticed how the events of that morning, the column in People’s Choice Magazine and its sly digs at The Lost Treasure of King Arthur, might affect me. All of that, topped off with Jeremy and Mum kissing, and his smug, smiling ways had put me in a sulk.

“Whatever,” I said quite rudely, pushing my plate away so that it skidded across the polished granite surface. “So for the rest of today I can do what I like, right?”

They nodded, Mum with her thin lips pressed together and a “I’ll talk to you later, young lady” look on her face.

“Can I phone Dad then?” I asked.

“Of course you can, Ruby,” Jeremy answered. “Use the phone in your room if you want to be private.”

“I was going to anyway,” I said, knowing I sounded childish, but not quite able to stop myself. “And then I’m going to see if I have any e-mails and I might have a swim after and then I’ll…” I looked around the room for something else to list. “I’ll take David for a walk. I expect I’ll be busy until dinner, so don’t worry about me – if you were going to anyway, which I doubt. Oh, and Happy New Year!”

And then I flounced. I flounced out of the kitchen and up the stairs and (because I was too busy flouncing with my chin in the air) I flounced into the laundry cupboard and slammed its door shut. Hoping they hadn’t realised, I waited for a moment or two and then ran down the hall to where my room really was and slammed that door too for good measure.

It was a horrible way to behave. Rude and, as my mum would no doubt tell me later, very unattractive. But I couldn’t help it. That was the way I felt. I was all churned up and cross, and I suppose a bit jealous and left out, and I didn’t like it.

I found the phone next to the bed and the piece of paper Jeremy had written down the international dialling code on for me and dialled Dad’s number.

It would be evening back at home, so I was certain that Dad would answer. I was wrong.

It was Dad’s so-called girlfriend who answered.

From: Danny[dharuey@breakaleg.co.uk]

To: Ruby [rparker@beverlyhills.com]

Subject: Re: Hello

Hi Ruby

How is it going over there? Sorry I haven’t e-mailed sooner I’ve been really busy with the new family that have just started on Kensington Heights because I have a lot of scenes with the daughter, a girl our age called melody Butler. She’s playing a character called Lacey St Claire. I spent Christmas Day at my dad’s this year which was quite a laugh as my little brother is still really into it and nearly had a heart attack when he saw Dad had got him a bike! And then I spent Boxing Day at my mum’s which was DK. I got some good presents. Rn mp3 player [but not an iPod], some trainers and, wait for it…R Christmas number one! I know it’s amazing, isn’t it? I can’t believe that Liz finally talked me into recording that awful song, but anyway now Kensington Heights [Vou take me to…] is a hit and it was only released the week before Christmas! I don’t know what they did to my awful voice, but it sounds all right and loads of people bought it! There is even talk about an album, but I don’t know about that.

I bet you are seeing loads of celebrities and forgetting about all of us little people! Looking forward to seeing you in a few days.

Danny

PS Nydia did an audition for this part on a new CBBC show called Totally Busted.