by Rosie Nixon
I thought about the most level-headed person I knew. What would Jas do in this situation?
‘Do you need me to call anyone?’
‘No. There’s no one.’
‘Your fiancé?’
Beau’s intended was the good-looking and highly rated British film director Trey Jones. The couple were regulars on the Hollywood scene and their forthcoming wedding was already creating a buzz in the celebrity world, with rumours that the photography rights had been sold to a glossy magazine in a million-dollar deal.
‘Trey? God, no!’ She was emphatic, which only made me more perplexed.
‘Your publicist?’
I knew about publicists from Smith’s. We would occasionally be asked to close the store for a couple of hours if a big American actress wanted to shop in solitude, away from the hoi polloi, and they always came with a publicist in tow. American versions of British PRs, publicists are straight-talking, brash and infinitely scarier than their UK counterparts. Publicists generally get what they want, when they want it, and never return a favour. But today Beau was shunning publicist assistance.
‘Honey, I’m just glad my publicist is not here.’ She picked up her phone again, and reread the stalker’s earlier message before turning it off.
‘Well—maybe you should go to the police?’
‘Never! Oh God, this is a total nightmare!’
I was nonplussed. Who would be stalking Beau and accusing her of being more than friends with Jason Slater?
‘Actually, honey, maybe there is something you can do for me,’ she said finally, looking at me, coyly, with big, pup-pyish, Princess Diana eyes. Surely Mona would want me to do anything I can to help …?
‘Just say the word,’ I said.
‘Can I trust you, Amber? I mean, really trust you?’ She leaned in close enough for me to smell her delicate, fragrant breath.
‘Of course you can.’
She lowered her voice and checked her phone was definitely off.
‘I should have been honest with you straight away,’ she explained. ‘My stalker is actually from the national press. He’s a journalist from that shitty gossip website Starz. He’s been calling me for the past three days non-stop, intimidating me. He’s a bully. And now he says they’re about to go to press with some photos of me apparently in a “compromising position” with Jason.’ She indicated the inverted commas with her fingers.
‘He’s trying to suggest there’s something going on between us, when of course there isn’t—we were only filming.’
‘If you were filming, can’t you just tell him so?’ I asked.
‘Well, the cameras weren’t actually rolling, but we were rehearsing our scenes. You know?’
I wasn’t sure I did. ‘Does Trey know anything about this?’
‘I really love Trey!’ she exclaimed. ‘He’s my fiancé, Amber. We’re getting married soon. But this stalking reporter is trying to ruin everything. And it sounds like they’re going to print the lies, anyway …’
Tears began to stream down her cheeks, carrying blobs of mascara from her clogged lashes.
‘Beau, it’s okay, please don’t cry. It’s going to be okay, you know …’ I said. ‘Can’t you just tell this reporter he’s got it wrong? Tell him exactly what you just told me?’
She shook her head in response.
‘At least no one is actually trying to kill you,’ I continued, trying for cheery. ‘I thought for a moment you were going to say there was a crazy man about to jump through the window with a handgun. It’s not that bad.’
Lightening the mood didn’t seem to be working. Now the streams of black tears were joining up into one big river that ran down her neck and drip, drip, dripped its way onto the brand new Dolce & Gabbana dress. Mona’s going to go bananas … I needed her out of the dress.
I grabbed some more tissues from the en suite and gently tried to dab at the dress. Beau barely noticed—she wasn’t interested in clothes any more. Her mind was ticking over, formulating a plan that was inevitably going to involve me.
‘So what really needs to happen,’ she said after a few minutes, ‘is for Trey to know these stupid photos are just me rehearsing with Jason, and nothing more, before they get Tweeted all over the world and picked up by every gossip site under the sun in two days’ time. No, I’ve got to get to him first.’
‘Right. I’m sure Trey will completely understand when you explain things to him,’ I offered hopefully, and in the face of all the signs. ‘No one believes what they read on Starz, anyway.’
I didn’t think she’d appreciate knowing most of my friends back home were signed up to the Starz email alerts, and accepted every single word as gospel.
‘Well, what I was thinking was, that that’s where you could help, Amber, like you said you would.’ She widened her blue eyes; the big, sultry eyes that had led so many co-stars into ‘compromising situations’. ‘I was thinking that you could just call up Trey, pretend you were one of my producers on Summer’s Not Over, and tell him that some photos have unfortunately got into the hands of a down-market gossip site, but that you can confirm Jason and I were only rehearsing, so there is nothing to worry about. End of. Right, Amber?’
I remained silent for a moment, while I digested this.
‘But, um, but I’m not a producer … I’m Mona’s assistant. I’m not sure I’d be very good at pretending I’m someone else—I’m not an actress, like you.’
‘But you said you wanted to help?’ She had desperation in her eyes.
I felt panicked. What would Jas do now?
‘Really, Beau,’ I pleaded. ‘I was always rubbish at drama at school. I never got picked for the school plays. I was always the back end of the donkey in the Nativity. I want to help you, I really do, but I don’t think I can do this. What if Trey started asking questions? He might not believe me.’
Right then, we were interrupted by another knock at the door. Mona again—this time shouting through it.
‘Are you feeling better, Beau, darling? You’ve been a very long time. I was beginning to wonder if Amber had fallen asleep on you. She’s probably not coping with the jet lag. The TV people have gone now, okay?’
‘I’m feeling a little better now, thank you, Mona. We’re coming out, literally right now,’ Beau clambered off the bed. ‘So that’s sorted, then, Amber?’ She turned to me. ‘I’ll come back to finish the fitting tomorrow, give you Trey’s number and you’ll call him. I’ll tell you exactly what to say.’
She looked like a different person—certainly not the one who was drowning in tears not more than five minutes ago. She wiped the last traces of mascara stains from her cheeks, added a slick of lip gloss and surveyed herself in the mirror as if nothing had happened. Then she slipped on the Jimmy Choos and swung open the door.
‘Ta-da! You know what, I do love the Dolce, Mona. I’ll bring my Spanx tomorrow and it’ll all be fine.’
I was flabbergasted.
When Beau had changed back into her civvies, Mona promised to call Stefano Gabbana himself to see if she could keep the dress after wearing it for her premiere. Then Beau announced she had to leave, but she’d be back the next day to be filmed as they finished her fitting for the actual Golden Globes. As she made for the door, we all noticed she was missing something—something she had most definitely arrived with—a small grunting pink thing in a leather jacket.
‘Ah, Pinky!’ she exclaimed, her eyes finding AJ, who was still holding Pinky’s lead. ‘Amber, babe, you love pigs—how do you fancy Pinky-sitting tonight?’ She didn’t give me a chance to respond. ‘Thanks, babe! I just need a bit of quality time with my fiancé this evening … you know.’
I knew, all right. Beau needed to be on the ball, vetting her phone for calls from the ‘stalker’. It had now been thirty hours since my last proper sleep, and London felt a very, very long way away. As AJ put Pinky’s lead in my hand, I lacked the energy to do anything about it. Instead, I surrendered myself to whatever a night with a micro-pig mig
ht have in store. The look of disdain on Mona’s face told me the pig would be staying in my room and nowhere else in her clean, white mansion—I didn’t even get a chance to ask what the creature should eat. And I was already dreading the morning and the phone call. This really wasn’t the initiation into the Hollywood scene I had been hoping for. I wondered if I should just refuse to be drawn in. Maybe I should tell Mona about it?
‘You and Beau seemed to hit it off,’ Mona commented frostily as we sped back to her house, Pinky travelling, probably illegally, on my lap. I was gripping him so tightly my knuckles had turned white. One late brake at the traffic lights and we’d have gammon for dinner.
‘S’pose so,’ I responded, abruptly deciding against telling Mona. I didn’t want to appear foolish or out of my depth—for all I knew, this was normal for Hollywood. Besides, Beau had asked me to keep it a secret, and I wasn’t sure if I could trust Mona yet. I didn’t want to turn it into any more of a drama.
When we got back, Klara was in the kitchen, heating what appeared to be a watery soup of over-cooked vegetables. She barely twitched when she saw Pinky enter the kitchen behind me. It’s a pig in a leather jacket, for God’s sake! I felt exhausted now, off-balance and hardly able to keep my eyes open; I went through the rest of the evening in a daze, picking at the turkey chilli Ana had made for us. I didn’t want Mona to think I was a lightweight, but it had been the longest day ever and now I really needed my bed. I led Pinky upstairs and used my last shred of energy to text Vicky: Am sharing my bed with Beau Belle’s micro-pig. Will call tomorrow. Miss you. A x. Then I turned off my phone and passed out.
I woke up a few hours later to a loud crash as Pinky overturned the water bowl I’d left for him on the floor. As it rolled around on the glossy white floorboards and finally came to a halt, I flicked on the bedside light to see him snuffling around the pile of discarded black clothes at the foot of my bed. I didn’t get much sleep for the rest of the night. It turns out pigs are pretty much nocturnal. My head was spinning with Beau’s request and I kept being woken up by Pinky either headbutting the door or scratching at the floorboards as he searched for an escape route. I felt sorry for the little thing. We were both a bit lost in this big, pristine room in a show home high in the Hollywood Hills.
Suddenly a thought occurred to me that made everything seem a little better. There’s a half-eaten family bag of peanut M&Ms in my bag! Maybe a midnight feast of chocolate would help us both.
I managed to lift Pinky onto my oversized bed and he gobbled the M&Ms right out of my hand. As he slobbered and tickled my palm, I wondered whether Nathan and Tamara had the right idea in quitting. I pictured my own bed in my messy room back in London, where the tapping of water pipes and creaking of radiators regularly kept me awake. At one point in the early hours I actually scooped Pinky’s warm body up for a quick snuggle, but he kicked me in the chin. He had powerful trotters for such a dinky animal. Turns out micro-pigs don’t like cuddling, either.
At last it was 7:00 a.m. Warm, buttery fingers of sunlight had appeared around the blinds, bathing the room in a golden glow. I thought how pretty it looked as I groggily got out of bed and went to the ample en suite, noticing Pinky was fast asleep, curled up between two pillows on the floor, the makeshift ‘pig bed’ I had made for him some time in the early hours. There was something about this bathroom that made me feel as if I was getting a big hug, just by standing in it. Maybe it was the underfloor heating. I stood under the power-shower revelling in the moment. It felt so good, finally, to get properly clean. So good until I remembered what lay in store with Beau today. Maybe she’s had a change of heart overnight? The thought of seeing her again made me feel sick.
When I made it downstairs to the kitchen, Mona was reading a printed itinerary of our arrangements for the day over a glass of hot water and lemon. The list had presumably been written by Tamara or Nathan before they quit. We would be spending the morning on ‘appointments’ exactly like the ones Mona had attended at Smith’s, so at least I had a rough idea of what to expect.
After leaving the house, we darted around Beverly Hills in the Prius, popping in and out of a stream of glossy boutiques—greeted with air kisses and enthusiastic smiles, browsing, admiring and borrowing, placing orders and loading up the car with yet more clobber for the suite. During car journeys, Mona handed me her iPhone to make calls. To my relief it contained the contact details of all the fashion PRs I could possibly ever need to call, so there was no danger of me having to keep Vicky up all night as I hunted for numbers.
Pinky came everywhere with me as I assumed the role of Mona’s mouthpiece, note-taker and sunglasses holder, as well as Beau’s pig-sitter.
‘He’s Beau Belle’s, honey, we’re on piglet duty as a favour. Isn’t he fun?’ Mona explained to anyone who would listen, enjoying the opportunity to name-drop and using the term ‘we’ loosely—she blatantly hadn’t come within a trotter’s length of little Pinky the whole time.
Back at the W, the afternoon saw a parade of wealthy-looking girls with smooth Brazilian blow-dries and fresh manicures, clutching python bags and groomed to golden perfection, troop in and flutter out of our suite, buoyed by their appointments with Mona. It was like watching a masterclass in laid-back luxe. Frankly, none of the visitors, with their delicate features, long limbs and good clothes, looked in desperate need of fashion help. Some looked vaguely familiar from bit parts in movies, or photos in magazines of Mona with her crowd. Others just had an air of importance. Perhaps they were up-and-comers, hoping, with Mona’s help, to make their mark as a fresh fashion force this awards season. Whoever they were, all were greeted with hugs and yet more air kisses.
Outfits were tried on, accessories were cooed over and selfies were snapped. Superlatives flew around the room, ricocheting off the walls; everything was ‘fabulous, amazing, sexy, gorgeous, delightful, darling, pretty, major, stunning, beautiful, to-die-for …’ on and on, over and over. There was no need for any other vocabulary, because when you’ve got perfect genes, let’s face it, everything looks great. I was the only person looking less than glamorous, having spent the morning rushing around after Mona and Pinky, answering the door, running items to the changing room, keeping everyone hydrated with Fiji water or on the phone to room service requesting an increasingly bizarre assortment of refreshments, ranging from peppermint teas and espressos through to steaming hot mugs of lemon juice with cayenne pepper and maple syrup. Every couple of hours, Mona would mouth her request for a ‘little pick-me-up’; my first priority was to keep her caffeine levels at the max. She must have had at least four macchiatos before 3:00 p.m. and we’d only got here at twelve. As well as acting as a waitress, I was also tasked with keeping Mona’s database of who was borrowing what, when, and where it needed to be delivered. Mona seemed delighted when I suggested setting up an Excel spreadsheet to keep track of this, instead of the endless Post-it notes she had previously stuck onto her iPad. What kind of PA was Nathan, anyway?
Every now and again I had to phone a PR to request a particular dress or accessory in a certain size, and I also had Mona’s preferred seamstress—an amenable Mexican woman called Maria—on redial, if a gown needed a hem lifting or a bustier tightening. Couriers came and went, and my black ballet pump–clad feet soon ached from running around opening doors and darting wherever I was needed, which was generally everywhere at once. Every time the doorbell rang, my heart leapt as I wondered if it was Rob returning for more filming, or Beau, back to demand I fulfil my promise. She’d been on my mind all morning, her arrival drawing ever nearer, and I still hadn’t worked out what to do about it. I was so busy, it was impossible to think straight.
In the bedroom-cum-changing room, I’d never seen so many practically naked, supermodel-like women. Dresses were pulled over heads with impressive dexterity, flashes of athletic, fake-tanned frames with perky, pointy breasts. This was how I imagined the set of a Juergen Teller photoshoot to look, or the scene backstage during London Fashion Week. I sudden
ly felt self-conscious about what lay beneath my black Zara T-shirt dress.
Mid-afternoon, we were alerted, via a call from the hotel manager, to the news that a high-profile actress had entered the building via an underground passageway so as not to be seen. She’d booked an emergency appointment with Mona to expunge horrific memories of a gown that drew column inches for all the wrong reasons last year.
‘Someone really should have told her that see-through is the ultimate no-no on Oscars night,’ Mona told me as we straightened things up, having cleared the suite of bodies for this VVIP. ‘She hit the jackpot on all the Worst Dressed lists. Should have come to see me then.’
I watched in awe as Mona worked with our ‘anonymous’ star to select a gown for the Globes and another for the Oscars. In the end they went for a subtle black column gown by Armani Privé and a refined petal-pink creation, to reflect her more gamine personal style, rather than her va-va-voom on-screen roles. The whole experience ensured she left a smiling, more self-assured celebrity. It was fascinating to witness how powerful fashion can be. Mona was saving careers. There was no doubt she had the magic touch. I paid close attention to the way she listened to a problem, turned it on its head, sifted through the clothes on offer, did some temple-rubbing and—bingo!—a sparkling solution. It was undoubtedly a skill and the clients loved it. Mona later explained how she would mentally draw a ‘ring of shame’ around a celebrity’s problem parts, and tackle those first.
‘You’ve got to be ruthless,’ she explained. ‘Simply erase what you don’t want to see by drawing the eye to the best bits.’
I wondered what she’d do to exterminate my own ample bottom. I had become more aware of my shape in the past few hours than I’d ever been before. I’m not big, but I’m not toned, which is hardly surprising considering I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve ever set foot in a gym. I’ve always felt lucky to have a size 10 frame, bordering 12 on a fat day. Today, I felt like the Incredible Hulk, and I’d barely eaten anything but berries and M&Ms for forty-eight hours. Mona didn’t seem to eat, either—there had been no suggestion of our stopping for lunch. The image I had of Americans chowing down super-sized burgers, dripping with blue cheese and Thousand Island dressing, was very different to the reality I was facing now, where everyone seemed to be a size zero and the word ‘food’ was an expletive. Frigging hell, I’m hungry. No wonder I can’t formulate a decent plan regarding Beau.
