Hushed

by Joanne Macgregor

  “No, I mean this harness. Well, for starters this harness.”

  “Oh, sure.” I turn back to him. “But then you’ll need to stop whingeing like a wuss and go face the crowds.”

  I reach forward to unclick the clasps on his shoulder harness. Logan steps back and stares at me, agog. The tank slips to the ground with a loud clang.

  “Well, I’ll be … It’s you! Miss Bossy-pants from the cemetery, and with the bunnies. It’s you, isn’t it? Why didn’t you tell me who you were?”

  “I figured you didn’t remember much of that night.”

  “I guess the details are a bit hazy, but I remember … your mermaid hair.” He waves a hand at the wet strands. “And your bikini, and your” — his gaze travels the length of my whole body — “your eyes! How the hell did I not recognise you before?”

  “Well,” I hedge, remembering the plucking and high-lighting and blow-drying and make-up, “I do look a little different now.”

  He lifts a lock of my wet hair in either hand and gently tugs me closer. Suddenly, despite having spent most of the last hour in a tank of chilled water, I feel hot and breathless.

  “Yeah, it’s a huge improvement,” he says and before I can get annoyed, continues, “You look natural, more like yourself. Mu-uch better,” he draws out the word, and my eyes move to his lips. “I like you like this.”

  “You — you do?”

  He traces his hands over my shoulders and down my arms, leaving a wake of goose bumps on my blushing skin.

  “I do.”

  His hands move from my sides, travel along the line where the black wetsuit curls over at my waist, meet at my navel, and then continue up in a straight line until they break apart to cradle my face.

  “I’m going to kiss you now, Romy.”

  Yes! says my body.

  At last! says my heart.

  I mute the warnings of my brain, as his face bends down to mine.

  My lips part. My eyes close. Perhaps they roll back into my head like a shark’s do when in danger, but the bite of his mouth on mine is warm and soft, with the slightest tang of salt from the seawater, and gentle for long moments beyond the reach of time.

  Then the kiss becomes something else. Hard and fierce and hot. He pulls me against the whole of him. His hands hold me as tightly as if I’m again rescuing him from the bottomless ocean. His back muscles move under my hands. He groans deep in his throat.

  I cling to his body. His chest is cool against my own, and his thick hair is wound around my fingers. I’m beyond thinking, beyond breathing — just a breathless core of here and now. I’m clicking into my place in the universe, finally finding my true element. Nothing has ever felt so good. Nothing has ever fit so right.

  We come up for air, breathing raggedly. He’s gone from holding me close to holding me up. My bones are made of hot liquid, my knees of air, my head of spinning light. I stare up all the way into the blue depths of his eyes. His pupils are huge, hypnotic. He cups both hands behind my head and draws me in again. This time, the groan is mine.

  There’s a sound from somewhere far away. I dimly realise that it’s a knock at the door. I drop my arms, step back reflexively, and nearly collapse without his support — I’ve literally gone weak at the knees.

  “Logan? Are you coming?” Even through the door, I can tell that Polyp is peeved.

  “Yeah, on my way,” Logan calls back. His voice sounds rough.

  For a long time, he doesn’t move. And neither do I. We gaze at each other with speaking, searching eyes.

  “I’ve got to go,” he says eventually.

  I just nod. Even if I had breath to speak, my words would be drowned out by the loud gallop of my heart.

  I wish that it could also drown out the tiny corner of my mind registering the fact that Polyp did not enter. Is do-not-disturbing when Logan’s behind a closed door with a female something he’s used to doing?

  Chapter 24

  Need to talk

  Logan Rush Pregnant!

  A representative of the Starlight Studios production company today denied that teen heartthrob and star of the Beast series of films, Logan Rush, is secretly pregnant.

  Rush, currently filming Beast: Stars on location in Cape Town, South Africa, is rumoured to be pregnant with co-star Britney’s Vaux’s baby following a top-secret, hi-tech experimental fertilization procedure at a private medical facility in the city. On-set sources have confirmed that Rush has morning sickness but is keen to hide the evidence. Whereas most moms-to-be crave foodstuffs such as pickles and ice cream, Rush can’t get his fill of oysters. Eye witnesses confirm he is suffering from severe mood swings … (Continued page 5)

  Holy guacamole. My daily Google alert for Logan-related news items has delivered up some doozies over the years, but this takes the cake. The weasel-faced reporter has turned yesterday’s nonevent into the most bizarre tabloid story of the year. It’s beyond ridiculous, it’s insane. Honestly, I don’t know how Logan hasn’t come off the rails with all the rot that gets written about him.

  As expected, there are scads of articles online about his swim with the sharks. Cilla will be pleased to see that many of them make no mention of the little fact that the dive took place in a tank in an aquarium. Most show pics of him swimming half-naked between sharks and rays, others use the Britney hand-smooch pic. According to one tabloid, Logan was attacked by a giant stingray and now needs reconstructive surgery on his hand. Accuracy is clearly not a requirement of celebrity reporting.

  One article, obviously written by a reporter at one of the major international news agencies and then reproduced word for word across multiple sites, irritates me even more than the pregnancy story.

  At Friday’s news conference, co-stars Britney Vaux and Logan Rush would neither confirm nor deny rumours that their on-screen romance was an off-screen reality. Miss Vaux merely laughed and said, “That would be telling,” while Rush said he would prefer to answer questions about the movie rather than his private life.

  Logan had gone straight from our moment of heaven in the changing room to that press conference with Britney. It’s upsetting enough to bring me down from the high I’ve been on since our kiss.

  That kiss! I can still hardly believe it happened. There was no chance afterwards to talk to Logan — it took him hours to autograph and photograph his way through the throng of fans waiting outside the aquarium, and then Cilla whisked him straight back to his hotel. I watched the cloud-cuckoo land craziness from a distance, then cadged a lift back to the studio to collect my car, and floated home on a crazy-hopeful cloud nine. I don’t know what I dreamed last night, but I felt great this morning — until I started reading the newsfeeds.

  I log onto Twitter, check the usual Rusher hashtags, and learn that a sixteen-year-old girl, whose arm Logan signed outside the aquarium yesterday, got a tattoo artist to needle over the autograph with ink. She’s posted a photo of Logan’s signature — now forever tattooed on her arm. Madness.

  My phone beeps an incoming message, and I snatch it up.

  We need to talk. L.

  Crap. That’s what people say when they want to end a relationship, not begin one. I answer cautiously.

  Ok. Where? At your hotel? R.

  No, not pvt enough. On set? Have costume fitting at 11am — see you after at my room?

  See you then.

  :)

  I want to type x’s and o’s, a series of hearts and kissy-lips, or at least three smiley faces, but I rein myself in.

  :)

  On my way out, my father waylays me.

  “You said there wasn’t going to be any filming today,” he accuses.

  “There’s been a change of plan, but I only have to go in for an hour or so.”

  “We never see you these days, Rosemary.”

  “You’re seeing me now, Dad.” I grab my car keys and head for the front door.

  “Just make sure you’re home for family lunch tomorrow. Your mother is going to a lot of trouble to make N
ana’s day special,” he calls after me.

  Shoot, tomorrow is November the seventeenth — Nana’s birthday. I’ll have to go gift shopping this afternoon. On the way to the studios, I try to brainstorm ideas for a present, but my mind slips sideways to dwell on Logan.

  What is he going to say? That the kiss was a mistake and we should stay clear of each other? Maybe even that it will be better if I quit and he gets a new PA? My mind keeps returning, like a shark circling chum in the water, to the 0.1 percent possibility that he’s going to tell me he’s never felt this way before about anyone, and pull me into another wild kiss.

  At half-past eleven, Logan strolls into his room on the lot, pulling the door closed behind him. We hold each other’s gaze for several long, uncertain moments.

  “Come here, you,” he says.

  I move as if in a trance, and then we’re hugging and kissing, and giggling like kids. As the minutes pass, there’s less hugging and giggling, and more deep, languorous kissing. When finally he pulls away, Logan kisses each of my eyelids and then steers me over to the bed. Uh-oh. I’m nowhere near ready for that yet. But he just sits down and gestures for me to do the same. I climb onto the bed and sit cross-legged, facing him. His lips curve upwards in a slow grin.

  “Why so worried?” He envelops one of my hands in both of his.

  “You wanted to talk with me?”

  “I want to do many things with you.” My breath catches at that. “But I have to talk. We need to keep this, us,” he gestures to me and him, “a secret.”

  “Oh,” I say, not sure whether to feel relieved or disappointed. This is neither as good as I hoped nor as bad as I feared.

  “If Cilla finds out, she’ll blow … not so much a fuse as her entire freaking motherboard. She’ll fire you on the spot.”

  Yes, but the job isn’t what matters most to me. My main reason for taking it was to get close to him. Be cool, I warn myself, no confessions of love. Remember rule number whatever.

  “But Romy, your job’s not the point here, trust me.”

  Although I’ve just thought the very same thing, it bothers me to hear him say it. This job may well have mattered enormously to me. For all he knows, I’m planning a career in the film industry.

  “Oh, it isn’t, is it?”

  “No, trust me.”

  Zeb’s warning comes back to me: “You only really need to worry if he begins saying ‘trust me.’” And now he’s said it twice.

  “Romy, it’s your life that matters here.”

  That brings me up short.

  “My life? Cilla wouldn’t kill me, would she? Not literally?”

  He laughs. His eyes are shining amethysts today. “Actually, I wouldn’t put it past her, but that’s not what I meant. No, I’m talking about your way of living, your privacy, your freedom to come and go and do what you like.”

  “I can’t do that anyway. My parents —”

  “Your parents are just trying to protect you. That’s what parents do. Or should do. Loving parents want the best for their kid.”

  “But I’m not a kid.”

  “Oh, I know that,” he says, and there’s such heat in his eyes that I blush. So much for playing it cool. “You’ve had a glimpse into my life. Whatever I do, wherever I go, the whole world watches and comments and judges. Everything I say is twisted and misquoted. If I cut my hair, it’s front-page news. And when there’s no news, they make it up.”

  “I’ve noticed. Did you know you’re pregnant?”

  “What? Never mind, I don’t want to hear.” He waves his hands in the air as if to erase the story. “The point is, I chose this world because I love acting, it’s what I want to do. But I didn’t know, back then, that I’d be trading my life for fame. Are you sure you want that for yourself?”

  “I’m not sure I understand what you mean.”

  “Romy, if people see us together — even just here on set — if there’s even the slightest suspicion of something between us, the crows will descend on you and peck your life to pieces. They’ll camp outside your house, hassle your family, track down your friends and your enemies — especially your enemies, anyone who dislikes or is jealous of you — and pump them for details. They’ll hassle your old school teachers for embarrassing stories, they’ll bribe people you thought were your friends to take photographs of your bedroom, they’ll trawl the web for any grain of information on you, any comment or photo you’ve ever posted. They’ll snoop through your family’s mail and garbage, hide on the beach when you go swimming, follow you wherever you drive. And if they can’t find anything interesting enough, they’ll invent some juicy, delicious scandal.”

  As he speaks, I can see it. I’ve been an anonymous presence on the periphery of his life these past weeks, protected by my clipboard and the fact that I’m so obviously not a part of his world. But if people suspect that there’s a romance brewing, all of that will change. I’ve seen it, up-close — witnessed how the fans, the media, and the industry itself is a ravenous monster, insatiably set on gobbling up his life. And after him, the next person’s. I think about my parents, my sisters, Zeb.

  “You’re young, Romy. Your whole life lies ahead of you.”

  “What are you? Old?”

  “It sometimes feels like that,” he says with a small, self-deprecating laugh. “I’ve been doing the same thing, playing the same role for four years now. I’m kinda trapped in the Beast thing.” His fingers trace an unhurried pattern on the palm of my hand, distracting me. “You can do anything, become anything, go anywhere. And I want that for you — you deserve that and so much more. Are you sure you want this?”

  I’m pretty sure I don’t. I want him, yes, but not the life he’s forced to lead. From the outside, his world seemed so free and exciting. From the inside, it seems a lot more restricted and a lot less satisfying. Besides, I’ve never yearned to be famous myself.

  “And we — you and me — if we go public, we’ll never have another moment alone. And I want moments alone with you. Many more of them,” Logan says, studying my face.

  “You’re right,” I sigh.

  He waits, completely still, for me to explain.

  “We’re going to have to do this in secret,” I say.

  He smiles his slow, lazy smile. “What, this?” He outlines another pattern on the palm of my hand, around my wrist.

  “Yes, and this,” I say. I lift his hand to my mouth. Press my lips to a knuckle.

  “And definitely this.” He leans over to nibble on an earlobe.

  I draw an uneven breath. “And most especially this.” I kiss him, and he kisses me, and then we kiss each other some more. In secret.

  We keep our clothes on, but we shed our reserve, sharing bits and pieces of our lives and families, what we dream of, and what we fear. I add more information to my mental files on Logan: he seriously admires and respects his mother, he seriously doesn’t want to talk about his father, he wishes he could be considered for more serious and challenging roles, and if he winds up on death-row, he’ll want his last meal to be boiled crawfish, fried green tomatoes, and something called collard greens. He hates prejudice, hypocrisy, and narrow-mindedness. (He gets so worked up when he speaks of these that I have to kiss him calm again). He loves hugs and quiet and the ocean.

  “And Toffee, don’t forget Toffee,” I prompt.

  “Nah, I don’t have much of a sweet tooth.”

  “I meant your dog!”

  “What dog?”

  “The beagle that you adopted from the animal shelter four years ago.”

  “I don’t have a dog, Romy, not even one called Toffee.”

  I perch up on one elbow and stare at him, horrified.

  “You mean that’s just a story, it’s just —”

  “B.S.? Yeah. My publicist at the time invented it. He said it would make me appear more sympathetic and increase the aw-shucks factor.”

  Wow. Something to delete from the Rush files, then. I must look woebegone, because he kisses the tip of my
nose and says gently, “It’s all just a show, Romy.”

  A few minutes later, he and I put on quite the show as we cross the lot. He plays the role of a spoilt movie star, issuing orders for the most difficult requests he can imagine — coffee made from beans which have passed through and out of the digestive tract of a civet (who knew?); a helicopter ride to the top of Table Mountain — which is to be cleared of everyone for his visit; five personal bodyguards in black suits; and a bucket of M&M’s from which all the blue ones have been removed by hand. My hand. No one could guess, from his poker face, that he isn’t entirely serious. After a while of this, even I begin to wonder if he’s acting.

  “You are kidding, aren’t you?” I ask in a whisper.

  In answer, he rolls his eyes at me.

  “Okay, just checking,” I say. “You’re a very good actor.”

  “One tries.”

  “One succeeds. Right … so,” I read loudly down my list as we pass the crew who’re working on repairing the shark model that was damaged in Thursday’s filming, “poop coffee, exclusive rights to a World Heritage Site, an Incredible Hulk quintet, and lucky-colour sweeties. That about it in terms of your needs and desires?”

  “Not even close, I have plenty more needs and desires. I’m insatiable.”

  The words are innocuous enough, but the heat shimmer in his eyes as he says them causes me to stumble. He catches me by the elbow to steady me and gives it a squeeze when we part at the gate — Logan heading back to the Hotel, and me heading out to find a present for the woman who already has everything plus a feather boa.

  Chapter 25

  Two letters

  On Sunday, at the family lunch held for her birthday, Nana pronounces herself delighted with my gift — a coffee-table book on the history of London’s West End — and regales us with long anecdotes about her life in the footlights.

  When the family’s attention is on the massive lamb roast Mom brings to the dining table, Nana turns to me and whispers, “And how’s it going with your prince?”