‘Cool.’
At the lift, he turned. ‘Nina, thank you. I know this is gonna be a great movie! You are the best!’
I blushed despite myself. ‘I bet you say that to every writer.’
He chuckled. ‘I wish. No, just you.’
I raised a hand to say goodbye as the doors closed, but he lurched forward and blocked them. ‘I almost forgot – what’s it called?’
‘What’s what called?’ I asked.
‘The pub where I’ll be eating pasties. Just so I can picture it.’
‘There are several in Penworth Ford. Our local is The Bobbin’ Buoy.’
‘Then I’m looking forward to it becoming my local, too.’
11
California Dreaming
‘A swimsuit? For the ocean or for a pool? Lucky I packed both, although I’ll bet they have a pool! Everybody in LA has a pool,’ Chloe cried. ‘I can’t wait to tell Chanel and send her some pictures!’
‘Ah, that’s the thing, darling. No pictures. Luke values his privacy, and I only think it’s fair to respect that.’
‘But, Mum!’ she protested. ‘Everyone posts pics!’
‘Not Jessica, I don’t think.’
‘How do you know?’
‘Well, darling, because Jessica is blind.’
Chloe sat back, eyes wide. ‘Blind?’
‘Yes.’
‘But how does she, I don’t know, put her make-up on?’
‘I don’t know that she wears any. After all, she’s only thirteen, Chloe.’ Meaning, You, my dear, are way too much in a hurry to grow up.
She rolled her eyes. ‘God, and I’m going to have to lug her around Cornwall?’
‘She’s not a trolley, Chloe. She’s a lovely girl who has had a difficult life and who has suffered greatly and with tremendous dignity.’
Chloe snorted. ‘Yeah, I’d like to suffer like that in a California mansion.’
God, the headaches she always gave me. It was no wonder I was getting wrinkles.
‘I hardly think she’d put make-up on secretly and try to scrub it off before she gets home like you do.’
‘Mum!’
‘Exactly. Mum. Not Stupid. Now go brush your teeth and get into bed. You, too, Ben.’
I could see it on his face. Monster Trucks was on and he wanted to watch it to the end. He never asked for anything, and even now he was reaching for the remote to obey me.
‘Oh, go on, then. Maybe just a little longer,’ I offered, tucking him in.
He beamed at me and lifted his arms to circle my neck and I smelled Bold laundry detergent and toothpaste. And home. I held him fast to me and gave him a raspberry, which made him giggle. He may have been academically bright and mature for his years, but he was still my eight-year-old who needed to be reminded of one thing.
‘I love you a million gazillion,’ I said, then turned to bend over Chloe. ‘And I love you a gazillion million.’ But she put her hand up to stop me and yawned.
Crikey, not even LA had mellowed her.
‘Mum!’ she ground out. ‘Alice is knocking on the door!’
‘Oh. Goodnight, then, don’t stay up too late. You want to be fresh tomorrow.’
‘Yeah, yeah,’ she mumbled and turned to face the wall.
I moved into the living area and pulled open the door to see Alice in her nightgown and robe.
‘I can’t believe you’re really going to his house!’ Alice cackled in delight when I told her our plans for tomorrow in front of a bowl of crisps and a beer on the settee. Sorry, couch. ‘I’m so frickin’ jealous!’
‘I guess he wants the kids to bond before they get lumbered together. I’m worried about Chloe’s attitude towards his daughter Jessica, who is blind, so…’
‘Listen to you, talking about Hollywood’s heart throb as if he was your bosom buddy!’
‘Ha ha, very funny. I just can’t believe we will be working shoulder to shoulder.’
She beamed at me. ‘You sooo deserve this, Nina!’
‘I know, I do, right? Sorry for doubting you,’ was all I could say. It was difficult for me to accept that I was finally getting what I had worked so hard for – and more. I just hoped I didn’t soar too high. Because the higher I climbed, the harder I’d fall back down splat on the pavement.
After we’d had a quick drink and Alice went back to her own room, I tried to follow my own advice and get a good night’s sleep, but it was proving rather difficult, so I pulled out my laptop and went onto YouTube to watch some of his interviews.
It was like being a Peeping Tom, getting to know him without him knowing me. From the comfort of my chair, I could peruse and spy on every (well, almost) inch of him without getting caught. I could see the hues of his skin change with fury when he punched his enemy’s lights out, or see his eyes turn from blue to green in the sunshine, or hooded with passion when Julie Shipp slowly unbuttoned his shirt in that famous sex scene in that time-traveller, Yesterday Waits For No One.
Didn’t he feel awkward, knowing that his face and body had no secrets to people all over the world? That every woman knew he had a scar on his back and other outrageously intimate things like, say, the shade of his nipples? And didn’t it bother him that he had no private life? That everyone – bar me – knew all about his girlfriends, past, present and imaginary?
I would feel vulnerable, knowing people on the net were tracking down my every movement, holding polls for which of my dates had the best chance of becoming that special person in my life. These things were personal, no matter what you did for a living.
So I moved on to more harmless things, like his filmography. There were his spy movies, such as Strangers, and his psychological thriller, The Man From Nowhere.
His romcoms included Finally You, Meet Me In Boise and A Year Without You.
And his portrayal of Heathcliff? I’d never seen anything so gut-wrenching. The bugger was indeed talented.
The information about him went on and on, and in the space of a few hours, I knew as much as anybody
