by Victoria Fox
‘Suit yourself,’ she said, and grabbed her stuff and left.
Aurora woke with the mother of all headaches. She felt as if someone were skewering her brain through her ear-hole. Her room was trashed. Empty bottles and overflowing ashtrays littered the floor, clothes strewn all over the place. She had no idea if it was night or day.
Fuzzily, she rolled over. Casey Amos was fast asleep, his mouth parted, emitting a ragged but gentle snore. He’d kicked the sheets off and his cock was exposed, curled like a dormouse in a nest. His chest was covered in tattoos: naked, big-breasted women, mostly.
Aurora groaned. She felt sore in her stomach and between her legs. Her chest and mouth and eyes hurt from the stuff she’d put in her body but she couldn’t remember what any of it was.
Shrugging on a T-shirt and knickers, she hauled herself off the bed, slowly because she felt faint, and got to her feet. The room swayed. As she tentatively fingered the blind, a jet of scorching sunlight shot in. She felt like a vampire and half expected it to set her skin on fire and she’d just stand here burning like some effigy until there was nothing left except a tiny pile of stinking ash. Who knew, maybe she’d get lucky.
Downstairs, the phone rang. Aurora was tempted to ignore it but the incessant tone was splitting her head in two.
‘Hello?’ she answered groggily.
‘Aurora, what’s the time?’ It was Rita.
She had no idea what the time was. ‘Ten?’ she hazarded, rubbing her eyes.
‘It’s past midday.’
‘Um …’ Vaguely she recalled having to be somewhere.
‘I’ve been calling your cell all morning. Where are you?’
‘At home.’
‘And you’ve only just picked up? I thought something had happened!’
‘My battery must’ve died,’ she offered weakly.
‘Not only have you pissed me off, Aurora, but you’ve pissed off the guys at Strike.’
The record label. They were meant to have met to discuss her next album. Crap.
‘Sorry,’ she muttered. ‘I’m really sorry.’
‘You gotta get it together, kid. This is bad.’
‘I know.’
‘No, I don’t think you do. There’s only so much damage limitation I’m prepared to carry out. You know you’ll get another meet because of your father, but this reflects badly on you and on me. I’m putting my ass on the line with this and it seems like you don’t care.’
‘I overslept.’
‘Like every other day? What about that Princess Perfect shoot you were meant to make last week? Or that interview I set up with USay? It’s embarrassing.’
‘Sorry.’
‘Stop saying sorry and clean up. I thought you wanted to avoid all this. Drugs, partying, guys only after one thing. You’re going down a dangerous road right now and I can’t follow.’ Rita exhaled, exasperated. ‘Ever since we came back from Cacatra you’ve been a damn liability. I thought that place was meant to sort people out!’
The name of the island throttled her.
It’s not happening. It’s not real. Don’t think about it and it’s not real.
But still she caught it in flashes. She remembered how she’d rushed back to the villa that night, demanded of Rita that they leave first thing. She ought to be kissing Rita’s feet for not giving her the Spanish Inquisition, not throwing her efforts back in her face.
‘Never mind,’ said Rita briskly. ‘It’s done. We’ve rescheduled, so just make sure you show up next time. Don’t let me down again.’
‘I won’t.’
‘You won’t let me down or you won’t show up?’
‘I won’t let you down.’
As she hung up, Casey’s arms circled Aurora’s waist. His odour was of smoke and cooking meat and his hard-on was jutting into her back. She leaned forward on the dresser and parted her legs. What was the point in resisting? What was the point in any of it?
Sherilyn Rose peeled open the luxury box of chocolates and ran her bitten, baby-pink fingernails across their dark, smooth shells. Belgian, her favourite.
The housemaid brought a box up every couple of days. She couldn’t go without. They were her only pleasure, her darling treasures. Caramel, raspberry, cappuccino … She’d pop the chosen one into her mouth and let it melt on her tongue till it burst with silky flavour and awarded her the brief moment of ecstasy that made everything all right. Just for now, everything all right.
In the gloom of Sherilyn’s bedroom, she could scarcely make out which she had chosen. That was part of it, and about as much of a risk as she was prepared to take these days. The blinds were drawn against the LA sun, the TV rampant with garish commercials and game shows.
She had been ensconced here for months. It had started with the panic attacks that prevented her leaving the house, then the mansion itself became too much, too unknowable, to bear, each corner a reminder of the sham she was living with her husband and daughter.
As if! But what else was she going to call them?
Her bedroom was the only safe place. Secure. Enclosed. She and Tom had always possessed individual rooms, blaming her restlessness and Tom’s supposed snoring. To the public they’d laughed about that. Ha ha ha, she couldn’t get a wink once he got started! Except in truth they were laughing at the world’s biggest goddamn joke of a marriage that ever there was.
Sherilyn flicked the remote and settled on the shopping channel. She watched as a woman sold her a swan-shaped pendant. She could buy it. Hell, she could buy a thousand of the damn things, ten thousand: a million! She could be sitting right now in a swimming pool neck-deep with swan-shaped fucking pendants and it still wouldn’t make things right.
She ramped up the decibels when she heard Aurora mount the stairs with her boyfriend. Half the night she’d lain awake listening to the soundtrack of their shrieks and yells. She wasn’t about to risk a reprisal now. A nymphomaniac devil: that was the beast they had raised.
The volume got so loud it hurt.
Sherilyn clamped her hands over her ears and the chocolates scattered from the bed, a spherical one rolling across the floor, arcing at the last minute and rounding on her.
It was turning on her. Everything was turning on her.
She didn’t know how much longer she could pretend.
Two thousand miles away, on a sprawling stage somewhere in Tennessee, Tom Nash replaced the microphone, took a bow and heard the roar go up. The grand finale of his sellout tour was an uncontested triumph. He’d sounded better than ever. He’d set the crowd wild with his gyrating dance moves and lilting croon. He’d delivered the most sensational run of gigs of his career. Tom Nash was riding high on the big time. Oh yeah, the magic was still there.
‘TOM! TOM! TOM!’ Women chanted his name over and over, weeping into their sleeves at the certainty he would never be theirs. A few panties got thrown on to the stage, several red roses and the usual knots of paper containing phone numbers and email addresses. Camera phones glittered throughout the auditorium, feet stamped and a new incantation began:
‘More! More! More!’
Beneath his leather slacks, Tom was trembling. But this time, it wasn’t with fear, or self-doubt, or a slinking conscience. This time it was with euphoria, plain and simple. Pumped with adrenalin, he let their adulation wash over him and cleanse the anxiety of the past few months.
Who needed Sherilyn Rose? If anything, Tom was more bankable without her. He had worried he could no longer do it by himself. Now, he’d proved he could. The thought of Sherilyn decaying in her agoraphobic state depressed him, but not tonight. Tonight he was a free agent, the one and only Tom Nash.
He needed this. Just to be him, without a wife, without a daughter, without a goddamn family. Aurora was in a bad place, he’d heard it from Rita Clay: she was going off the rails and he had to intervene, because when had her mother been any help? But he couldn’t, he hadn’t been able to deal with it. He’d wanted some time … away. Just some time. Worry for Aurora had
characterised the last three years and had almost butchered his career. Now, Tom had to be the pop star they all relied on, the man who made the money and kept things on an even keel. Shit, he knew Aurora had called, she’d called countless times, and to his shame he hadn’t picked up. But that was for the greater good, right? Where were any of them without the Tom Nash reputation? In the gutter, that was where. He’d sort her out when he got home.
‘TOM! TOM! TOM!’
The crowd got what they wanted. As the encore began, his number one smash ‘Lady Knows the Way’, the housewives’ screams reached fever pitch.
Tom strutted across the stage, grinding to his audience, living every word and every beat.
He was king of this world. Nothing was going to jeopardise that.
45
Stevie
Marty King called to say the role was hers. It was a British film, a novel adaptation by an acclaimed writer. She would be shooting on location in London.
‘You sound relieved,’ he said.
‘I am. LA’s driving me crazy.’
But it wasn’t LA that was driving her crazy as much as her husband. Things with Xander had deteriorated since she’d returned from Cacatra. He had barely spoken two words to her, not even to enquire after Bibi and their trip, and delivered only vapid chitchat whenever they did speak. He’d been in Vancouver on and off for the past month and Stevie was forced to admit that time apart might be for the best.
The suspicion he was having an affair crept up quietly, insidious, until she woke one morning and was faced with the realisation that this was how it felt to be on the other side. It was the fact she was going to bed alone most nights, Xander stumbling in hours later amid a cloud of alcohol with no justification for where he’d been. It was the freezing out, the rejection, the finding excuses why they couldn’t spend time together. It was his refusal to meet her eye.
She didn’t know what to do. She’d tried again and again to get to the heart of it, pleading with him to open up, because whatever he told her she’d try to forgive. Yet every exchange went the same way, ending in one of them stalking out, unable to continue the dialogue, same as the ugly fight they’d had before she’d left for Cacatra. She was running out of ideas, and of patience.
Hollywood looped vulture-like over the apparent separation, not helped when Stevie was obliged, when Xander was in Canada, to attend parties by herself. Gossip columns flaunted news of SHOTGUN WEDDING HITS THE ROCKS and SINGLE STEVIE … ALONE AGAIN! She tried to ignore it but it was difficult. ‘We’ll get you together for a long weekend,’ encouraged Wanda Gerund. ‘Tip off the press and you’ll be front-page next morning.’
Tonight was the annual Actors League Awards. A month had passed since the notorious Vegas Eastern Sky premiere during which Lana Falcon, an actress whom Stevie had met once or twice and liked, had been attacked by a crazed fan. The industry was feeling vulnerable and tonight would be missing a few key faces.
Stevie hadn’t wanted to fly out to New York but was nominated for a Supporting Role and her publicity was looking weak enough as it was. She didn’t win and would have preferred to return to the hotel, but instead got lynched by Christina Michaels, Dirk’s wife, who, with trademark insensitivity, ploughed into a Dom Pérignon-fuelled rant about failing marriages.
‘Husbands get bored,’ she counselled, shooting Dirk a sidelong glance as he celebrated his triumph as Best Producer. ‘That’s when the girls move in, pretty blondes with juicy tits and asses you could eat sushi off.’ Xander didn’t like sushi but it was a waste of breath to say so.
‘Xander’s not like that.’ It was a mechanical response. She didn’t know any more.
Christina raised an eyebrow, as much as her Botox would allow. ‘They’re all like that. Take it from someone who knows.’
It was debatable which was worse: hanging out with Christina or with Dirk. The man of the moment made a beeline for Stevie as soon as his admirers dispersed. He was drunk.
‘Life’s tough without the guy,’ he confided, swaying gently. ‘Linus and me, we were tight.’ A trio of photographers jumped in and Dirk and Stevie posed together, smiles fixing then vanishing the minute they’d gone.
‘It was sudden,’ she agreed.
‘No kidding.’ Dirk regarded her shadily. ‘You liked Reuben’s place?’ he asked.
It made sense Dirk and Reuben would be cronies. Linus, too. They were the same type: chauvinist, unreconstructed, thought money could buy everything. Maybe it could.
‘Very much. Cacatra’s a beautiful place.’
‘Seems it’s done Bibi a world of good,’ Dirk went on. ‘Heard she got an audition with Sammy Lucas.’
‘It’s about time she had a break.’
Evidently it struck him as an odd thing to say. ‘Getting with Linus was her break.’
‘That depends.’ Stevie wanted to add: If you mean it nearly broke her then I guess so.
He came closer. ‘Wanna know something?’
She raised an eyebrow.
‘There’s some of us thinkin’ Linus’s death might not have been an accident.’
Stevie kept her face perfectly still. ‘Oh?’
‘Ms Reiner should watch herself. Because rest assured we all are.’
‘Don’t try intimidating me, Dirk. It won’t work.’
He spat the words. ‘It’s always attitude with you women, isn’t it? Attitude that gets you into trouble. If you know what’s good for that bitch you’ll bring her straight to me.’
She wanted to hit him, turned before she could and he grabbed her arm.
‘Tell her that Linus’s pals aren’t as boneheaded as the cops,’ he hissed. ‘And you can bet your bottom dollar we’re not gonna rest till we get to the truth.’
The following morning she was back from LA, sore-headed from a sleepless night. Dirk’s threat bothered her more than she cared to admit. He was powerful enough in this world, but if ‘Linus’s pals’ included Reuben van der Meyde then they were up against a colossus. But, she reasoned, what could any of them know about Bibi? What could they prove? Absolutely nothing.
She hadn’t expected Xander to be home till the weekend and was surprised to find him waiting for her back at the villa.
‘What’s this about?’ she asked, bemused as he deposited an enormous bouquet of flowers in her arms, followed by a swift kiss to the lips, the first in weeks.
‘I came back early,’ he said. His hair had grown to just below his ears. It suited him.
Stevie put the stems in water, taking her time, watching as Xander made his way out to the terrace pool and stood with his back to her, hands on his waist. He looked like an orator about to address an assembly.
She followed him out.
‘Xander …?’
He turned. Written all over his face was confession.
‘We need to talk,’ he said. Those four words among the very worst there were. She could see it in his eyes and hear it in his voice. Guilt.
‘I need to be upfront with you,’ he said. ‘I thought a lot about this while I was away and I’ve realised I have to tell the truth. It’s only fair. I want to be fair to you, Steve.’
Don’t be a cliché. Please don’t be a fucking cliché.
Who was it? Some debut actress he’d fallen for, in the same way he’d fallen for her? Some older woman, someone she knew?
Lowering herself into a chair, she held her hands in her lap. Xander crouched next to her.
‘You asked me once if I knew JB Moreau,’ he said quietly. ‘Well, I do.’
She blinked. It took her a second to adjust, the notion of his affair still fresh in her mind.
‘This is about him?’
Xander released a lungful of air. ‘I don’t know where to begin, honest to Christ. It’s complicated, Steve, there’s so much to—’
‘Begin with why you didn’t want me to go to Cacatra.’
He ran a hand across his unshaven jaw, trying to find a way into the labyrinth. ‘OK.’ He cleared his throat. �
�Paul and Emilie Moreau, JB’s parents. I was there when they died.’
‘What?’
‘I was there.’
‘But what’s that got to—?’
‘Listen to me. Please.’
She struggled to remember, a story finally surfacing. ‘The boating accident,’ she said.
‘That’s right.’ Xander watched her carefully. ‘What I’m trying to tell you, Steve, is that it was no accident.’
‘We attended the same school, JB and I. The international academy in Switzerland. I hated it.’
The too-tall Jewish kid who nobody liked. He’d told her before, laughed with her, even—ostracised in his school days for having bookish, boring parents and a bookish, boring life and always doing his bookish, boring homework.
‘This French kid turned up in the middle of semester. He was different from everyone else, kind of detached. He seemed older than thirteen, like the world had shown him all there was to see, and he was weary of it. He didn’t care for rules or authority; he did things his own way. All the boys wanted to be him, me included. All the girls wanted to date him. But he never looked at anybody, just kept himself to himself.’ Xander narrowed his eyes, drawing the memories into focus. ‘You can imagine my surprise when he singled me out, decided maybe I was worth making the effort for. And when JB made an effort, you knew about it. He could make you feel like the most important person that ever lived.’
‘You became friends?’
Xander nodded. ‘He only had one other friend, he said. Nicole, her name was, this girl from his village back in France. He was fond of her, the way he talked about her. She was the only thing that made him happy, over there at least, because his parents didn’t give a thought to him, they never had. Weekends and half terms came about and all the other students were picked up, full of excitement about the holidays. They’d forget to send someone to collect him, because they never came themselves, and he’d stand outside the academy, this lost, lonely kid with his cases, just waiting, and nobody came.’
‘What was it about you?’ she prompted. ‘Why did he pick you?’
‘I think he saw himself in me. A part, however small. I was smart, I was quiet … and I was alone, too, in my way.’ A ghost of a smile. ‘Every decision JB makes is a definite one. He doesn’t bow out of it. If he decides it’s you, it’s you.’
