Hushed

by Joanne Macgregor

  Dad glowers at me, planning his next move. I know, from years of experience, my father’s five-step process for conquering rebellion and resistance. He’s already zoomed through shock, denial, angry outrage and bargaining. Next will be emotional manipulation.

  His face takes on a benevolent expression as he sits down on a sofa and pats the seat next to him

  “Rosemary, my love, come sit here with your father.”

  “S’okay, thanks, I can hear you from here.”

  A spasm of irritation crosses his face before he gets his expression under control again.

  “You know your mother and I love you dearly, and we want only the best for you,” he says, the epitome of gentle reason and loving kindness.

  “I know that, Dad, but we disagree on exactly what that is.”

  “Family and tradition, that’s what we hold dear. And in this family, our tradition is family.”

  “Huh?”

  “We’re sea folk, Rosemary. Your mother and Meriel study it, Cordelia and I buy and sell it, Marina volunteers at the Penguin Rescue Centre. We’ve all made the sea our lives — we may as well have fish tails.”

  “What about Genna? She works at an orphanage.”

  “The Little Fishes orphanage.”

  I give a disgusted snort. “You’re reaching, Dad.”

  “The point is, they’ve all stayed close to home.”

  “The point is, I’m not them. I’m different. I need to get out and see the world.”

  “Haven’t we given you enough right here? Do you dislike us so much that you can’t stand to be with us? Don’t you love us, Rosemary?”

  Uh-uh, no way is he going to manipulate me into the usual outcome of our arguments: guilty capitulation rewarded by gracious fatherly forgiveness.

  “Dad, I love you, but you’re being a bit silly now. I’m not leaving home. I’m just going to work on a film set. And who knows? You may be right — I may be nuts. Maybe it’ll be a lot of hard, boring work, and I’ll get it out of my system and settle down into the family way next year.”

  “The ‘family way,’” he repeats, sounding horrified.

  “I’m not going to get pregnant, Dad!” I snap. “I mean the family business.”

  “But, the movies, Rosemary. Honestly!”

  “I don’t see how a world that makes such amazing magic can be all bad.”

  I kiss him on the forehead, pick up my shoes and packages, and walk towards the door. But Dad is still stuck on step five.

  “I’m disappointed in you, Rosemary.”

  “I’m sorry you feel that way,” I say.

  I’m not, though.

  I’m nervous, excited, scared, and only the teensiest bit guilty. But not sorry at all. There’s a looseness in my shoulders that feels like relief, and a lightness in my chest that whispers of freedom and fun ahead.

  Chapter 14

  Floundering

  The next morning, just as dawn break over the flat silhouette of Table Mountain, I present myself at the main entrance to the film studios. A guard at the security checkpoint takes my name, verifies it with someone on his walkie-talkie, then opens the gate and shows me where to park.

  “Someone is coming to fetch you,” he says.

  I wait, wondering what the day will hold. I have almost no idea what my duties will be, but I’ve armed myself with my new face and hair and clothes, a clipboard, three pens, a multi-tool, a fully-charged phone and backup battery pack, and a small cosmetics purse filled with my newly purchased lipstick, blusher and mini-brush. And a roll of breath mints — just in case.

  A red-haired young woman, perhaps in her mid-twenties, beetles over to me in a golf cart.

  “Are you Romy? Mr Rush’s new personal assistant?” she says in an American accent.

  “Yes, hi.”

  “I’m Becka.” She shakes my hand and indicates for me to take the seat next to her. “Polyp sent me.”

  “Who?” I ask, as we set off with a lurch down the road that leads to the warehouses.

  “Cilla’s PA His name is Phillip, but we call him Polyp.”

  “Why?”

  “You’ll understand when you see him. Here’s your ID.”

  She hands me a new photo-identification badge which I pin to my shirt.

  “Hey, when I say we call him Polyp, I don’t mean to his face. So don’t make that mistake!”

  “Noted.”

  “I guess Polyp’s too important to give you the grand tour himself. He told me to show you the ropes, but I’m sorry, it’ll have to be really quick. Britney’s in make-up now, but as soon as she’s out, she’ll have me hopping.”

  “Britney? Britney Vaux?”

  At that precise moment, it strikes me — I’m really here, on the set of the latest Beast movie. I’m going to meet megastar Britney Vaux. I’m going to see a bunch of other famous actors in action. And I’m going to be spend my days with Logan Rush. The Logan Rush.

  “The one and only.” There’s something sour in Becka’s tone as she says this.

  “Are you her —”

  “Yup, I’m her chore-whore.”

  Torn between a gasp and a giggle, I say nothing. Cilla would approve.

  “Here we are.” Becka parks the buggy and climbs out. “Come, this way.”

  She sets a cracking pace across the lot, pointing out the various departments I’ll need to know. She’s tall and rangy, and I have to hustle to keep up with her, particularly as I’m wearing heels. So is she. I’m pretty sure this can’t be industry practice — there must be a reason PAs are called runners, after all. The heels must be one of Cilla’s cruel idiosyncrasies. I fervently hope she doesn’t have any more.

  “These” — Becka points at the three massive warehouses — “are our soundstages. Most of the shooting takes place in them, except when we’re on location. Pay office,” she says, gesturing to the room where I filled out half-a-dozen forms yesterday. “That’s where you submit your time sheets, and they’ll explain about expenses and reimbursement. The canteen is that way. They make fantastic choc-chip cookies, but their coffee’s poison. Rather get your caffeine fix from the machines on the catering tables inside the soundstages. Officially, breakfast is between five and seven, and lunch between noon and one-thirty. But be prepared to grab something when you can and eat on the run, because they keep us hopping in this job. Well, Logan’s not as bad as Britney. I mean,” she adds in an afterthought, “who is?”

  “Is she difficult to work for?”

  I don’t care, truth be told. I’m much more interested in Logan, but don’t know how to ask about him without sounding like I’m already everything Cilla warned me against becoming — infatuated, obsessed, besotted.

  “Oh, she’s a real princess, alright. Here we are — first stop: Hair and Make-up.”

  She yanks open the door of another of the rooms at the back of the soundstage, and we walk into the air-conditioned coolness. Large mirrors, each bordered with rows of blue light bulbs as well as fluorescent lights, hang at regular intervals along the length of two of the walls. Black, barbershop-style chairs are set in front of the mirrors, and against the far wall are two chairs backed by hairdressing basins.

  The huge fishing tackles boxes which perch on counters below the mirrors, overflow with cotton-wool and cotton-buds; bottles, tubs, tubes and colourful palettes; make-up brushes as big as feather-dusters, as small as toothpicks, and every size in between. Baskets filled with combs, hairbrushes, tongs, dryers and flat-irons are wedged into the corners. And a tall rack of shelves is crammed with wigs, false eyelashes, silicone nails, flesh-coloured bits of “skin,” a few bulbous false noses, and silicone bags that could only be for padding bras.

  A handwritten sign stuck on the wall between two mirrors reads:

  The impossible we do at once. Miracles may take a little longer!

  “Let me introduce you to the miracle workers — Lindy, Mindy, and Ed,” Becka says.

  I greet the man and two women who’re all working on th
e face, hair and nails of a blonde woman reclining in one of the chairs. The man positions a tool resembling a medieval torture device on her lashes, and clamps down hard.

  “Becka? Is that you?” the woman says.

  “Yes, Miss Vaux. Something I can get for you?”

  “A skinny soy latte. And did you find the wheatgrass, Becka?”

  “On it, Miss Vaux.”

  “This year, Becka?”

  “Yes, Miss Vaux.” To me, Becka says, “We need to keep moving. But remember where this room is — you’ll have to take and fetch Logan every day.”

  “Can’t he find the way himself?”

  “Honey, sometimes I don’t know how the stars find their own noses to blow. But, no, it’s more to make sure he gets there and back on time. This way, I’ll take you to his room.”

  I swallowed. This is happening.

  “For some reason, he wanted the one farthest away. Likes his privacy, I guess. Britney’s room is next to Cilla’s. They all overnight at the hotel — the Cape Majesty for stars and PAs, though not you because you’re local — and then get transported by courtesy bus to and from the set every day. But they like to have a place to crash between scenes. Around there, at the back of Stage 2, is the viewing room. That’s where they watch the rushes — the day’s filming,” she clarifies, catching my puzzled expression. “Hey, you don’t happen to know where I can get fresh wheatgrass, do you, for smoothies?”

  “There’s a health bar on the Waterfront. I’m pretty sure they could help you.”

  “Excellent! Her highness has been kvetching about that grass for days now. I know twenty-two places I could source it in L.A., but I don’t know this town.”

  “I hope Mr Rush doesn’t ask for too many odd things.”

  “Ah, he’s a sweetie, not too demanding, just kinda helpless, you know? And he needs to be hustled along, because he dawdles, and that drives Cilla crazy. Be thankful you’re not her PA. She’s a total control freak. Now Britney positively enjoys being demanding and difficult. I’ve got to do everything for her — well, except going through her lines. She’s got some freakish kind of memory thing going on there. Only needs to read or even hear a line once and it’s memorized. But she makes me do everything else, including forging her autograph on stacks of photos for fans. Do you know — oh, special effects and animatronics are that way, beyond the pay office — that in June, when her dog got cancer, I had to take him to the vet to get him put down, then find a place that would cremate him and turn the ashes into a diamond?”

  “You’re kidding me?”

  “I am not. Some days she wears him in a ring on her little finger, and acts like a deeply grieving dog widow. As if! She hardly knew that dog. A little Chihuahua called Bugeye. I had to walk him and play with him. Once she called me at two in the morning to come clean up where he’d been sick on the stairs of her house. This here is Stage 3. But she loved having her picture taken with it. Good for her image — the public are such saps for dogs. When it died, I had to hunt around for another dog that looked just like it.”

  “Logan also has a dog,” I say, pleased that I know something about my star, too. “It’s a beagle called Toffee.”

  “Oh? Never seen it — wonder where he keeps it? Right, here we are.”

  She thumps on a door at the back of the third warehouse labelled Star Room 3A. The nameplate beside the door states: The Beast.

  There’s no reply.

  “Why is his different? I mean, everyone else has their name, but he has the movie title.”

  Becka shrugs and knocks again. “It’s like he is the Beast, isn’t he?”

  “Well, no. I mean, he’s Logan Rush — the actor who plays the Beast.”

  “Same diffs. Either way he’s supposed to be in hair already. You better go on in and bring him out.”

  “Me?”

  “You’re his PA, not me. Go on,” she says, giving my back a little push, “you got this.”

  Chapter 15

  Rush hour

  I knock again on Logan’s door and, when there’s no answer, open it and step inside.

  “Mr Rush?”

  At once, I glimpse him at the back of the room. Sticking my head back outside, I tell Becka, “He’s asleep. Now what?”

  “Now you wake him up — stat! His call time is eight a.m. He must have crashed after they dropped him off this morning. Here are his call sheets for today and tomorrow. Good Luck! You can expect to feel like a fish out of water for a few days, but if you’re seriously not dealing, give me a shout. My best advice: just think on your feet and figure it out as you go along, but always, always, act like you know exactly what you’re doing. And remember, when it comes to the stars and Cilla, there’s no such thing as ‘no.’”

  She shoves some papers into my hand and strides off, already talking into her cell phone.

  Back in Logan’s room, I take a moment to look around as my eyes adjust to the dim interior light. To my left is a compact kitchenette complete with fridge, microwave, minibar and cupboards. A set of blue dumbbells and a Pilates stretch-band sit on top of a round dining table ringed by four matching chairs. I walk silently over the Persian carpet to the middle of the room, where a long leather couch and paper-strewn coffee table face a huge, flat-screen television, with a DVD-player, iPod docking station, hi-fi with Bose speakers, and a PlayStation nestling in the shelves beneath.

  The bedroom area is at the far end of the space — complete with four-poster bed, a narrow desk with leather office chair, and a free-standing wardrobe flanking the doorway to a bathroom. I peek inside. Black tiles, white porcelain, fluffy towels and a fair-sized shower.

  Wow. I could live in a room like this.

  As if they’ve saved the best for last, my feet carry me over to the bed. It’s huge, with creamy drapes twined around the posts, and a mosquito net knotted above. And in the centre of this princely bed, sleeps Logan Rush.

  He’s curled into a C on his side, his face smooshed into a hand tucked under his head, and his other arm flung back behind him. He’s wearing jeans and a white T-shirt, and his hair is tousled and slightly damp, as if from a recent shower. I must not think about Logan Rush in the shower.

  “Um, Mr Rush? Logan?”

  He mumbles something but doesn’t move. I lean over and give him a gentle shake. His shoulder is hard beneath my fingers.

  “Mr Rush? You need to wake up. You’re supposed to be having your hair and make-up done already.”

  He opens one eye and peers sleepily at me.

  “What’s that?”

  “You need to wake up. Quickly. We” — ooh, I like the sound of that word — “we need to get you to hair and make-up.”

  “Right. Yeah. Sorry, must have drifted off.”

  He rubs a hand over his eyes and yawns widely, then looks up at me with more focussed eyes. Blue eyes. With a dark rim.

  “Do I know you?” He frowns.

  “I’m Romy.”

  “Romy. Romy,” he tests the name, looking confused. “No, doesn’t ring a bell. But there’s something about you. Hmm … Did we … Are we …?”

  “No! I’m just your new PA.”

  “Oh, that’s a relief.”

  I don’t know whether to be amused or offended. I opt for feeling flattered instead. He clearly doesn’t recognise me at all after my makeover. Obviously, I look nothing like that bare-faced, wet-haired, bespectacled girl from a week ago.

  Or maybe he doesn’t remember much from that alcohol-fuelled night, period. Should I help him connect the dots? Rather not — there’s no real reason to mention it, plus he might be embarrassed to learn that his new PA has witnessed him blind drunk, scared stupid, and bizarrely obsessed with shoes.

  “Gimme a moment, will you?” Logan yawns again, stretches, and rakes a hand through his hair. One stubborn black lock immediately flops back across his forehead.

  “Okay, but … um … you’re already running late. And Cilla —”

  “Sure, sure.”

 
; When he swings his long legs over the side of the bed and makes for the loo, I scurry outside, where I frown at the Beast nameplate until he emerges a few minutes later, wiping his dripping face on his arms. I set out at a brisk pace, but I’m soon walking alone — Logan’s top speed seems to be a leisurely amble. I pause and try to make sense of the call sheet now clamped to my clipboard while I wait for him to catch up.

  We set off again — together this time and more slowly — towards the make-up department. I’m hyper-aware of him next to me. Six foot one is taller than I imagined.

  “So,” he asks, “What happened to the other girl? Cayleigh? Caitlin?”

  “I don’t know. Cilla hired me yesterday.”

  “Ah, Cilla,” he says, as if this explains everything. He stretches his arms behind his back, and cracks his neck. “And you’re Romy?”

  He still seems a little puzzled. Maybe a memory of me is tugging at the back of his mind.

  “I am. Here we are.”

  I open the door to the hair and make-up room, and Logan trudges inside.

  “Logan!” Britney Vaux says brightly, flashing a smile of teeth so white they’re almost blue. “Here you are!”

  “Here I am.”

  “Finally,” Ed mutters, “the star of the show arrives.”

  “One of the stars.” Britney’s smile turns tight and brittle.

  “Have you been sleeping on your face, again?” Ed asks Logan. “You’re going to need the Extreme Makeover edition today. Look at those bags under your eyes! Where’s my haemorrhoid cream?”

  Haemorrhoid cream? Precisely what part of Logan do they intend filming?

  Ed catches my expression and explains, “It’s an old trick of the trade. Tightens the skin under the eyes.”

  “If you say so.”

  Logan sinks into a chair in front of one of the brightly lit mirrors, closes his eyes, and leans back to receive Ed’s ministrations.

  “What time should I collect him? He’s due to film at” — I consult the call sheet — “eight a.m.”