The Truth about Ruby Valentine

by Alison Bond

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Well, even if word didn’t get out from CMG, Octavia would tell her: “It was awful, you should fire him” – that kind of thing.’

  His sudden familiar tone was a surprise. Was it possible he had been putting on an act for Octavia? He sounded almost as if he was afraid of her, and Kelly felt compelled to reassure him.

  ‘It really wasn’t that bad,’ she said. ‘Honestly, it was sure to happen eventually and at least now it’s out the way. Quick and painless, don’t worry about it, I know I won’t. You have to see the funny side.’

  For a few seconds Max said nothing, merely held her gaze and contemplated. ‘That sounds like something Ruby would say. She always had a soft spot for the funny side. Couldn’t always find it, but when she did it usually worked out.’

  He toyed with his bread plate and for one heart-stopping moment Kelly thought he was about to cry. ‘You’re very like her, you know,’ he said eventually.

  ‘So I hear.’

  He seemed to snap out of his reverie and was all business again. She wondered if she had imagined the distress in his eyes. ‘Where are you staying?’ he said.

  ‘I don’t know yet.’

  ‘Leave it to me.’ He took a cellphone from his pocket and rapidly dialled a number. ‘Sheridan?’ he said, ‘It’s me. Is there something free at the Peninsula? Great. Book the patio room for Kelly Coltrane until further notice.’

  He snapped the phone shut and turned back to Kelly. ‘We keep a couple of permanent rooms at a hotel nearby,’ he said. ‘You’re welcome to stay there while you’re in town. As our guest.’

  Did that mean for free?

  Whenever you want to check out, call Sheridan and she’ll settle the bill.’

  Apparently it did. Outside he hailed her a cab and slipped the driver twenty bucks before he waved her off. Max sure was a useful guy to have around. He organized people as if it was second nature to him. She liked him. He had warmth that belied his considerable power.

  Kelly couldn’t imagine ever working in an office as lavish as his. She thought of her own cubicle at First Fiscal, so temporary that a gust of wind could knock it down, the pockmarks from a hundred past drawing-pins covering every inch of her moveable walls. Max had more space than her entire department. How hard did you have to work to attain that kind of luxury? You’d have to feel passionate about something to devote your life to being the best at doing it, and Kelly had yet to find her particular calling. And if Max was only Ruby’s agent, imagine how Ruby herself had lived. If Kelly had grown up with that kind of lifestyle she might have been a totally different person, someone more like Octavia. This would not have been a good thing.

  It was hard to believe they shared blood; they couldn’t have been more different. At the very back of her mind Kelly had been half-hoping that a reunion with her long-lost sister would fill some of the gaps she felt inside her, but that was before she met her. Octavia was a disappointment. That might sound nasty but it was true. What had she expected? An afternoon of soul-searching, sisterly bonding, making up for lost time? Yes, maybe. Wasn’t Octavia curious to know who she was and what made her tick, or could she tell just by looking at her that she had nothing important to give? Kelly felt naive for expecting too much.

  *

  The Peninsula was just off Wilshire. Wasn’t that where Julia Roberts had stayed with Richard Gere in Pretty Woman?

  When Kelly arrived at the hotel she was awestruck. Excitement mounted inside her as she realized that this palace was to be her temporary home. It was the sort of place that she would normally be too intimidated to walk into, but she was feeling some of the confidence that comes with travelling in a new place where nobody knows who you are. Tucked away into an alcove behind the busy streets, the hotel was an oasis of calm that looked as if it had no right to be there. Lush tropical plants cascaded everywhere Kelly looked and the cool lobby was elegant and tranquil with spotless cream couches and rich mahogany coffee tables. It had a colonial grace about it and she could immediately imagine sinking into one of those couches for a sundowner.

  The hotel receptionist was one of the best-looking guys she’d ever spoken to outside of her Richard Gere fantasies. He had soft green eyes like pale jade and impossibly brilliant teeth. ‘Welcome to the Peninsula,’ he said, and she filled out a couple of forms without really focusing on anything but his soft golden skin. How could a man that beautiful be stuck behind a hotel reception desk? Surely he should be feeding women grapes somewhere?

  She rode five storeys up in the mirrored elevator. It had been a while since she’d seen her reflection and she regarded her tired complexion and ragtag appearance with dismay. The straps on her black vest top had stretched and she was revealing quite a bit of pink bra. It was a wonder that Richard Gere down there hadn’t turned her away, or at least encouraged her to dress a little more conservatively.

  No wonder Octavia had looked as shocked as she did. There was absolutely nothing Hollywood about Kelly. She realized that Octavia must have felt as disparate as she did when they first saw each other.

  Kelly had landed on her feet. Her massive hotel room was sumptuously decorated in pistachio-green and delicate greys. A stylish rug covered most of the hardwood floor. A single orchid stood in a vase on top of the walnut writing desk. The bathroom was like something from a James Bond movie with a big sunken tub and a stellar view of the Los Angeles skyline.

  This was too much. She’d been thinking more along the lines of a Holiday Inn, but this? She dreaded to think what kind of price was normally put on this level of comfort and what it would cost if she broke something. It was enough luxury to make her feel nervous. Too much change all at once was inducing mild panic. She didn’t have to be here, she could just go home and forget all about Ruby Valentine. But that was a false reassurance. Now she had met Max and Octavia she knew that she was unlikely to abort this journey. She thought she understood Ruby a little bit better already.

  Kelly firmly reassured herself that she was good enough for this hotel. She was here as the guest of a major Hollywood agency, and what’s more she was the daughter of a real-life movie star. It was just a hotel room at the end of the day, a bed and a bath, but it was the extras that made it. Like the big bottles of lotions and potions in the bathroom, not fiddly tiny sizes, and the way she could alter the temperature or the curtains or the sound system at the touch of a switch. The way it felt like somebody’s home, with personal touches everywhere, a piece of sculpture perfectly placed, or the small scented bags in the drawers.

  As a celebrity brat shouldn’t she be ripping out the television round about now and throwing it out of the window? Or at least partying so loud that the other guests complained? Instead she was perched pathetically on the edge of a white ottoman and worrying that she might stain it with her grubby hands. This was Ruby’s world, not hers. A shower first then, she decided.

  The shower revived her spirits. She rinsed away the long flight under the powerful spray and stopped being so negative. Only Kelly could have found anything negative in a stroke of massive good fortune like this. By the time she had liberally daubed her hair in a rich conditioning treatment and wrapped herself up in a plump bathrobe she saw her fantastic surroundings more appreciatively.

  She fell on to the bed and laughed at her own luck. If this was what it meant to be the daughter of Ruby Valentine, then she supposed she could get used to it. The bed was thick with soft, buttery fabric and it was enormous. Really too big for one. She thought of Jez and then for a split second pictured the good-looking guy from the airport.

  No, she told herself sternly, Jez. She had a call to make.

  ‘Hi, babe,’ he said. ‘How’s it going?’

  ‘Pretty well,’ she said, which wasn’t a lie. ‘There’s something I want to tell you,’ which definitely was. She didn’t want to tell him at all.

  ‘Do you want to come over?’ he said. ‘We don’t have to do anything, just watch some TV, maybe get the PlaySta
tion out. I’ll cook.’

  ‘I’m in Los Angeles.’

  There was silence at the other end of the phone. It wasn’t very nice, crossing an ocean without telling your long-term boyfriend that you were going, but she knew that if she had told him he would have wanted to come too. For support or something, he’d have said.

  ‘I have to be here,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. I hardly had time to think. There’s so much going on in my head right now…’ She stopped abruptly, aware that she was over-explaining and sounding trite. There was nothing she could say that would make him feel less hurt.

  Momentarily she wished that Jez was next to her. No doubt he’d have cracked open the mini-bar by now and he’d be trying to launch five-dollar macadamia nuts into his mouth by throwing them in the air first, trying to make Kelly laugh and pissing her off in the process because she knew who’d get stuck clearing them up. Then he’d want to order burgers from room service and eat it in bed watching crap American television and getting his greasy fingermarks all over the pillowcases. The desire passed. She needed some space from Jez and she’d get plenty in the kingsize.

  ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘That’s cool.’ He was trying so hard to sound as though he didn’t care. ‘Where are you staying?’

  She told him the name of the hotel she was in even though she didn’t like the idea of him calling her all the time. But wait! Wasn’t the beauty of being in a hotel that you could hang a do-not-disturb sign on your door and tell the staff to do the same with the phone? To Kelly a silent phone and a closed door were the ultimate luxuries. And maybe the fact that Jez didn’t know that about her summed up part of the problem. Sometimes she felt as if he didn’t know any part of her at all.

  ‘How long are you staying?’ he said.

  ‘I’m not sure. I think there are two funerals.’

  ‘Two? Why?’

  ‘No idea. And it could be a couple of weeks before they read the will, maybe more.’

  ‘How much more?’

  ‘I don’t know’

  ‘Like a month?’

  ‘I don’t know’

  ‘Longer?’

  ‘Jez!’ said Kelly. ‘I don’t know, okay?’

  ‘Gotcha. Well, have a good time. Hope you get squillions.’

  It was a line which really needed to be a parting shot in order to give his sarcasm maximum effect, but he went and spoilt it by asking the one question she was hoping he wouldn’t. ‘Do you want me to be there?’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘Right. Bye then. You take care now.’

  And this time he really did hang up.

  Afterwards she called her dad and left a message saying that she’d arrived safely and making a joke about her luxurious accommodation. He rarely picked up the phone when he was working, she knew that, but she was disappointed not to speak to him. She wasn’t feeling good about herself after that conversation with Jez and would have liked someone to tell her that they loved her. To tell her that she wasn’t a bitch and that taking a break from Jez was an acceptable thing to do.

  She crawled into the big bed all by herself and fell asleep wondering what it would have been like to grow up with Octavia as a sister.

  10

  Kelly slept off her jetlag for most of the next day and woke up with a plan. If there was such a special purpose to this trip then she should not hit the usual tourist trail. She was going to embark on a very specialized tour: the Ruby Valentine experience. After all, wasn’t that why she was here? To find out about this woman, her mother, and hope that by doing so she might discover more about herself and start to feel comfortable in her own skin. She didn’t understand what was wrong with her. Jez was kind, funny and good-looking, and she knew she didn’t treat him as well as she should. When people got close to her she tended to put up walls, but Jez was fighting harder than most to break them down. Perhaps if she understood her past a little better she might be less defensive. She pulled on some comfortable shoes and left her room.

  She was surprised to see Richard Gere still on the front desk. Didn’t the guy ever get a break? ‘I’m looking for a video store,’ she said. ‘A big one.’

  He was not only beautiful but helpful too. After considering many options and giving her a rundown on all of them he decided that she would be best served by the Virgin Megastore on Sunset, marked it up on a street map with a big red cross, folded the map and tucked it into her hand. ‘Now,’ he said. ‘Shall I have someone bring around your car?’

  She briefly imagined a world where everyone was as open and obliging. ‘Oh, I don’t have a car,’ she said. ‘Could you call me a cab?’

  ‘No problem,’ he said. ‘We have a variety of Lexus cars at your disposal. We can charge it to the room. It will be right outside and the drive should take around twenty minutes.’

  It took her twenty minutes to drive into work on a good traffic day. Twenty minutes was nothing.

  Kelly was quite disappointed that she was going to a Virgin Megastore, they had those in England. Oh well, it was still a trip to Sunset Boulevard, which was exciting, or was it Sunset Strip? Or were they both the same thing? Didn’t Johnny Depp own a club down there or something? Maybe he’d be working there this afternoon, and she could stop in and get a drink. In the back of a flash car crawling along Hollywood streets she had felt like the kind of girl who could stroll into a hot club on her own and order a glass of white wine. But as soon as the car dropped her off and she walked into the gigantic store she was right back to being the sort of girl who had trouble with too many strangers in crowded places. It was vast.

  The thumping beat of aggressive rap music was loud enough to make her jaw shudder. There were coloured lights everywhere, set into the floor she was walking over, lining each step of the stack of escalators that stretched on for ever, and enough steel, glass and mirrors to make the entire ground floor look like a nightclub.

  Fashionable young people stood in small groups, talking and sometimes dancing – dancing! In a shop! – and ignoring the merchandise towering over them, endless racks of CDs like a giant mosaic of multicoloured plastic. Even from here she could see that territorial gap between the rockers and the pop fans, which existed in every record store she’d been in. The rockers were over in Metal with uniform black on their bodies and around their eyes; the pop fans were spread across the Charts section with clean faces and less clothing all round. There were a few new categories here though, the boys in baggy jeans over in Hip-hop, the wannabe divas with impossibly short skirts in R&B, and some sensible-looking women at the back who were actually buying things. She couldn’t see which area those women were in. Country? Show tunes? Los Angeles might be a cultural melting pot but the flavours would remain distinct. She wasn’t sure where she would belong. She feared that her natural home would be with the sensible women at the back.

  Kelly picked her way through the crowds to Visual Entertainment. She was here because it was time to see what Ruby looked like on screen. She wanted to see all her movies in one go, back to back, the visual appendix to all her Internet research and Sean’s stories. Just get it over with in a single gluttonous marathon. She didn’t know why she felt scared, it wasn’t real, it was just acting. If Ruby was a half-decent actress, then Kelly should be able to forget that it was her mother up there on screen and simply enjoy some classic films. It would be fine.

  At first the Home Cinema department looked promising, a whole floor devoted to DVDs. On closer inspection it seemed that over half the store was all about Lord of the Rings, Star Wars and the latest blockbuster releases.

  She found her way to Classics but there wasn’t a single Ruby Valentine movie to be found. Was that a sign? Nope, she didn’t believe in signs. Maybe Ruby just wasn’t that popular. Maybe they were only especially aware of her back home because of her British roots. Maybe in the wider playing field of stardom she didn’t register that high on the scale. Kelly knew that she was looking for a good excuse not to have to watch the films;
to be honest, she was relieved. Unfortunately, an employee chose that particular time to make his pitch for Employee of the Month.

  ‘Can I help you?’

  ‘I’m just checking things out.’

  ‘Are you looking for something in particular?’

  ‘No,’ she said. Well, actually, yeah.’

  He waited patiently.

  ‘Do you have any of Ruby Valentine’s films?’

  ‘We’re like totally sold out,’ he said. ‘We have stacks more on order. We’re thinking of doing a whole Ruby Valentine display, that’s if we get them before she’s old news. You never know’.

  ‘Can you think of anywhere else I could try?’

  He mused for a moment. ‘Not really,’ he said. ‘Everyone’s mad about her right now.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Oh, totally. Nothing says glamour like a Hollywood suicide.’

  ‘That’s sick.’

  ‘That’s Hollywood. Honey, right now she’s never been hotter.’

  She felt like telling him the truth, just to wipe the tight little grin off his face. But she was concerned that he might make a massive fuss over her, introduce her to all his colleagues and offer to display her too. She wasn’t ready for that.

  On her way back through the store she stopped to look at plenty of CDs but her heart wasn’t in it. She tried listening to some old favourites at the listening stations but nothing could shift her melancholy. Her feet started to ache and she rested them for a while, sitting on a brown leather chair she found hidden in the tiny Classical section and pretending to read the sleeve notes on a recording of Swan Lake. She didn’t know what was going on inside her. One minute she was looking forward to seeing the films, the next she was relieved when they didn’t have them, and now all she felt was a deep sadness that dying had made Ruby more popular than ever.

  She suddenly felt very tired and miserable. It must be that damn jetlag again.