Hushed

by Joanne Macgregor

  I smile and give her the thumbs-up. She crows with glee and pats my hand with her knobbly one, but there’s no chance to give her any details — which is probably a good thing. Logan and I have agreed to keep our relationship private.

  “So, how’s the new job, Romy?” Meriel asks, dropping a spoonful of mint sauce onto her plate.

  “It’s good. You know, fine.”

  “They certainly keep her hopping — we’ve hardly seen hide nor hair of her lately,” Mom says. “She’s been as elusive as a coelacanth.”

  “Have you learned anything about the world of business?” my father asks.

  “Loads.”

  I describe life on the set, being careful to keep my voice casual and my face neutral whenever I mention Logan. I tell them about my duties and all about the shark dive, but none of what happened afterwards in the changing room.

  “Fancy making you go down with him into the tank — where you might have been in danger,” my father says, frowning.

  “She was never in any danger from the Carcharias Taurus, Rex,” Mom says. “I’m glad you got to see an Argyrosomus japonicas, though, and some Dasyatis chrysonota, Romy. Aren’t they impressive creatures?”

  “Oh yeah, I was dead impressed by the creatures in the tank. Great specimens!” Especially one of the homo sapiens.

  “And running around for food and coffee and scripts,” Dad continues. “It sounds like you’re nothing but a dogsbody.”

  “I’d be that wherever I worked my vac. Interns always start at the bottom.”

  “I must say, the world of moviemaking sounds like a whole other world — utterly foreign and very strange,” Mom says. “More potatoes, Rex?”

  “It sounds self-indulgent and crazy,” Marina says, her lips tight with disapproval.

  “I can’t help thinking all that money would be better spent on helping uplift children from impoverished communities.” Genna declines the second helping of roast potatoes Mom offers her, as if to underscore her belief that no one should have too much while others have too little.

  “It’s a business, not a charity. And it injects a lot of money into the local economy, and employs loads of people,” Cordelia says. “Plus, it has better profit margins than you get in the seafood industry. Sorry, Dad, but it’s true.”

  “Life is not all about profit, Cordelia,” he replies.

  “I’m glad to hear you admit that, Dad, really glad.” I’m tired of everyone giving me a go about this. “Is no one happy for me?”

  “Darling, of course we are. It’s just such an odd job. Are you sure you enjoy it? A bright girl like you — what do you actually like about it?”

  There’s no way to answer my mother’s question honestly without declaring my big secret. What I like about the job begins and ends with Logan. I’ve been in the position for long enough to know that my mom and dad aren’t wrong about a personal assistant being a glorified dogsbody. Fetching and carrying don’t make for much mental stimulation or job satisfaction. Even my sisters have a point — the movie industry might appear to be glamorous and magical, but in reality it’s mostly a superficial, self-obsessed and self-indulgent moneymaking machine.

  I don’t know what to say, but thankfully Nana comes to my rescue.

  “Well, I think it all sounds fabulous and magnificent! So enchanting and” — she gives me a big wink — “romantic. Follow your passion, Romy!”

  After lunch, I finally get a chance to relax and catch up on the emails that have been piling up in my inbox since I took the Beast job. Among the solicitations from Nigerian princes, urgings to buy products guaranteed to enlarge my manhood to splendid proportions, and mail from friends, there are increasingly tetchy notes from Zeb, who takes exception to not receiving daily updates on my life and reminds me that he’s moving to his new digs in December.

  I type a quick reply, promising to help him decorate — he may know shoes, but he’s completely ignorant about curtains and bedding — and ask him about his plans for New Year’s Eve. I hit Send, trying not to think about how Logan will be back in the States by then. And I’ll still be here.

  My phone beeps an incoming message. It’s from Logan.

  Meet up tonight? Xo

  My spirits rising, I reply at once.

  Where and when? xo

  While I sit in textpectation, my email inbox pings the arrival of a new message — one that immediately catches my eye. I read it three times to make sure I’m not misunderstanding anything.

  From: Captain@Syrenka.com

  To: OceanGirlR@gmail.com

  Subject: Vacancy on voyage to Southern Ocean

  Dear Romy

  One of our crew has unfortunately had to return home to the US due to a death in the family. This leaves us with an open position on the Syrenka’s December voyage to the Southern Oceans to disrupt Japanese whaling operations there. Since you live in Cape Town, and since we’ll be stopping there on our journey south, I wondered if you would like to join our crew? You’d be signing on for a four-month term, and your duties would include working mostly in the galley, preparing meals, and washing dishes, but as you know, it’s all hands on deck when it comes to taking on the whalers. My cautions and warnings (as set out in my initial information email), still apply, as do the terms of being a crew member, as set out in our original correspondence and your signed application.

  Please let me know as soon as possible whether you would still like to join our mission. We are due to dock in Cape Town on December 14th to restock our supplies, and plan to leave Dec 16th.

  Awaiting your response,

  Kind regards

  Keith Murphy

  (Captain)

  “We know that when we protect our oceans we’re protecting our future.” - Bill Clinton

  P.S. Attached please find a Volunteer Waiver of Liability Form for you to sign.

  Now they accept my application? Now?

  Just as things with my other passion are taking off, I get the letter offering me a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity on the other end of the world, the one thing I’ve wanted to do since forever? If I spend the last few weeks the film production is in town with Logan, I’ll have to turn down this berth. If I take up the Syrenka opportunity, I’ll have to cut short my time with Logan. I’m screwed. I have to choose between my two loves. How can a letter with such good news leave me feeling so bad?

  Then I remember the other letter, the one I rescued from the bin and shoved into my bag on Friday. I retrieve it and place it on the desk in front of me, fitting the edges of the torn halves together. Should I, or shouldn’t I? I’m burning with curiosity to know who it’s from and what it’s about, especially after Cilla’s cryptic comment about mail for Levi. But it’s Logan’s private business — I have no right to read it. Sighing, I toss the torn letter into the rubbish bin and send Captain Murphy a reply asking him for the latest I can give him my answer by. I’m playing for time. Really, what could possibly change by then?

  My phone beeps again.

  Sorry, won’t be able to make it — Britney wants to do a read-through of scene 68 with me. L.

  And what Miss Vaux wants, Miss Vaux gets, right? My mood takes a nosedive.

  Without consciously deciding to, I fetch the letter. I extract the two pieces of paper from the torn envelope, smooth them out, lay them side-by-side, and begin reading. When I finish, I feel, if anything, worse.

  Dear Levi,

  I hope your well. I’m well as I can be in this place. Which is hell on earth for a just man falsely accused and railroaded by the system. You and Wynette have forgot all about me. Its shameful how I bin treated. Not even to speak of that bitch who turned me in, then divorced me. A woman should stand by her man.

  I know your doing well and rolling in cash like a hog in mud. Probly think your too good for me now. Im sure you still don’t want anyone to know bout me so best you send some more funds for another appeal, and to make my life better in here the screws wont do nothing for you unless you can give them c
igrettes.

  Best you write me soon boy.

  Jonas Peabody

  Chapter 26

  Hiding in plain sight

  Two weeks later, sitting on a plush chair in a high-end restaurant, I study the man seated opposite me with distaste.

  His hair is the colour and texture of straw, and his skin is sallow and wrinkled, with dark shadows beneath his eyes. A scraggly handle-bar moustache droops over his mouth. He attracted some odd looks when we arrived at this posh place — good thing I booked a private dining room.

  When asked, “Caint y’all jes do me some hominy grits, back bacon and fried bread?” the waiter had fought giggles while suggesting that a tian of roast warthog with polenta and a gooseberry jus would be just the thing.

  The restaurant is trendy, but I’m not here for the fancy food, or the gigantic chandelier made of dangling wine glasses, or even the magnificent views of the Franschhoek valley vineyards from our window. I frown at the tower of food stacked on the outsize, herb-sprinkled plate the waiter places in front of me, and turn my attention back to the man. He tucks the starched linen napkin into the collar under his chin and looks set to climb into his food with his hands.

  “I’m sorry,” I say, “I can’t face you while I eat. The sight of you will put me off my food.”

  “Well bless your pea-picking heart if you ain’t a feisty lil’ lady! And right purty, too.”

  I move chairs, slipping into the one next to him so that I won’t have to look at him unless I turn. He interprets the chair swap as an invitation.

  “If I said you hed a beautiful body, would you hold it against me?” His hand reaches over to cop a feel. I smack it away. “Ah, snuggle up sugar-britches, I won’t eatcha.”

  “You eat your hog, please. I’m only sitting here so that I don’t have to see your face.”

  “Is that any way to talk to a friendly fella?”

  “Whatever.” I eat a delicious bite of duck breast, and add, “The hair has to go.”

  “You don’t like my mullet? I think it’s the best hairdo that ever was — all business in the front” — he touches the short fringe — “and party at the back.” He tosses his head and winks lecherously at me.

  “Well I think it’s gross.”

  I reach over and yank off his hair. When I rip off his moustache, he yelps in pain.

  “You know,” I say, cocking my head as I contemplate him critically, “you’d think that would be an improvement. But somehow it isn’t.”

  The sallow skin and age -effects look bizarre under his tangle of thick, black hair, and shreds of glue still adhere to his upper lip.

  “Here,” I say, pulling off the wrinkled latex “skin” from under his eyes and handing him a wet wipe, “clean your face. We’re in a private room, and we’re going straight home afterwards, it should be safe to shed your disguise.”

  Wiping the thick layer of make-up off with a few experienced swipes, Logan sniffs in mock injury and says, “I think you only love me for my handsome face.”

  A thrill goes through me at the forbidden word, but I remind myself of rules one, two and three, and opt for humour.

  I gasp melodramatically and clutch a hand to my heart. “How can you say that? I’m not that shallow. I do not love you only for your handsome face.” I think there’s a glint of something intense in his eyes when I say that — but it might just be residual pain from the moustache removal. I grin and add, “I love you for your gorgeous body, too.”

  I give his biceps a squeeze. He pinches my waist playfully then tickles me into giggles. The laughter somehow becomes a kiss.

  It’s the perfect moment in a perfect day. Apart from the mullet disguise, that is.

  I’ve spent the last two weeks on set and on location — fetching, carrying, and generally running my feet off in my now-scuffed high heels. Contact between Logan and me has been restricted to long text conversations on WhatsApp, hidden hugs in deserted corners, stolen kisses in his room and, once, some passionate canoodlery in the “hold” of the fake trawler, muffling laughter with kisses as Cilla stalked about, a chickabiddy on each shoulder, calling out for Logan.

  “Where is that boy? Someone find Romy. Tell her to unearth him.”

  We finally came up with a plan to spend this free day alone together in the Cape winelands. Logan begged Ed to create a disguise for him, saying he just wanted a normal day sightseeing in the Cape without being recognised. Ed was delighted at the opportunity to uglify one of the stars he spent his life prettifying, and set to with gusto, offering Logan a selection of wigs, moustaches and make-up effects. When he was finished, not even Logan’s mother would have recognised him.

  “No fair that you don’t have to wear a disguise,” Logan grumbled as we drove north out of Cape Town.

  “It comes with the fame and fortune, cupcake, so suck it up.”

  I wore my comfortable jeans with a simple cotton shirt and sneakers, minimal make-up and un-styled hair. I loved that I could be myself with him. Loved that he preferred me that way.

  We spent a glorious Sunday morning riding horses on a trail winding through the Franschhoek valley nestled beneath craggy granite mountains, admiring the Cape Dutch architecture of the wine estates and the undulating mauve lines of lavender fields, revelling in the freedom to speak and touch without fear of being discovered.

  It turned out that Logan wasn’t a complete dud as an action-man. He could horse-ride very well — far better than I could, even though I’d had a few months of lessons back when I went through a preteen phase of crushing on horses. He rode like a lazy cowboy, stirrups long and low, and the reins held casually in one hand.

  “Where’d you learn to ride so well?” I asked him, as we splashed through a shallow stream.

  “They got me an instructor for my horseback scenes in Moon. But that was just to smarten up my style — I could already ride when I was a kid.”

  “That’s the first thing you’ve told me about your childhood.”

  A shadow of wariness passed across his features.

  “It was just a normal small-town Southern childhood, I guess. Going to the local school with my sister. She was smarter’n me, I was always catching flack for staring out of the window and daydreaming. We spent summers playing down by the river, catching craw-daddies and making tree houses, and getting into fights with Dwayne Jackson and his gang. There was a farmer down the road that had a horse that would come up to the fence. We’d feed him sugar cubes stolen from the diner and try to sneak rides on his back. He was an ornery mule of a horse, too, nothing like these sweet darlin’s,” he said, patting the neck of his bay.

  I noticed that he had slipped into a deeper Southern accent as he spoke about his childhood. “Tell me more.”

  “We were pretty much dirt poor, especially after my father … died. Well, y’all have read the stories, I’m sure. Sometimes we even went to school with holes in our shoes.”

  Finally — an explanation for his loving obsession with shoes.

  “One time the counsellor bought me a new pair and sent a note home asking if we needed any help. I can still remember the shame on my momma’s face.” When next he spoke, pride replaced the embarrassment in his voice. “My mom was a waitress in a diner; she worked harder’n anybody I ever knew.”

  “Did she really leave you near a sewing machine that fell on your baby toe?” I asked.

  Since the revelation about the elephant picture and the non-existent pet beagle, I half-doubted all the stories I’d read about him.

  “Now, strangely enough, that story is one-hundred percent true. My poor mother still feels guilty about that.”

  As well she should. “And she lives in Atlanta now?”

  “Yeah, with my sister.”

  “Is it true that you bought them a house? And cars?”

  “What is this, twenty questions?” he said, ducking his head in embarrassment. “Let’s ride!”

  We jumped over a small drainage ditch between lavender fields, and he urged h
is horse forward with a click of the tongue and a slap of the reins. I caught up soon enough, though — his wig flew off as soon as he went faster than a sedate trot.

  “Let’s talk about you for a while,” he said, once he was back in the saddle with his mullet back on his head.

  “I’ve told you about my childhood. Nice, normal and happy — pretty dull stuff.”

  “Hey, don’t knock nice, normal and happy. It sounds amazing.”

  There was a note of longing in his voice, but before I could ask him about it, he carried on. “And what about your future — any ideas what you’d like to do?”

  “You sound like my father,” I stalled.

  This discussion was a minefield. I was as uncertain and undecided about my future as a kid in front of a sweet counter. And so much depended on what happened between Logan and me. Picking my words carefully, I explained to him about the offer to crew on the anti-whaling craft.

  “I don’t know what to do. On the one hand, I deeply want to join the Syrenka and do something worthwhile to help whales. But I don’t think I’d want to do that forever. A four-month mission would be an adventure, a chance to escape my protected little life and see something of the world. Maybe I’d even learn a few things about myself. But to do it indefinitely? I don’t think that’s for me. On the other hand, though, when I think about my other options — a degree in business if my dad has his way, or in marine biology if my mother gets hers — I’m totally not enthusiastic. I want to sink my teeth into something worthwhile, something that changes the world.”

  “So, not more celebrity PA’ing then?” he said, his tone light. “You could crew on the good ship Hollywood, you know. We wrap in under three weeks, and I’m not ready to let you go. You could leave home and come with me back to L.A.”

  “And be a film-set flunky forever?” I paused, but he offered nothing more. “No offence, but no thanks.”

  “That’s the gratitude I get for introducing you to the world of wigs, and CG’d jigs and chickabiddies!” He laughed.

  And I laughed, too. Though suddenly I felt like crying.