“You okay?” he asked right before we reached the steps.
“Oh, sure,” I muttered. “I fly on private jets every day of the week.”
He shot me a quick grin. “Stick with me, kid, and pretty soon this will all be old hat.”
Twenty minutes into the flight, I was pretty sure there would never come a time when this felt like old hat. The jet was insane. Like, totally crazy insane. I had never seen such a luxurious space, not even on land. Yet here we were, surrounded by leather seats, gleaming mahogany, and marble accents, hurtling through the sky toward Los Angeles at more than five hundred miles per hour.
Insane.
“You’re having fun, aren’t you?” Jackson asked me when he caught me playing with the button that made a TV screen appear from my arm rest as if by magic. And again when he found me sitting with three drinks in front of me, because I hadn’t been able to choose one when the flight attendant asked. And once more when he took me on a tour of the cabin and I reacted to the full-size bed in the back by bouncing on it like a toddler.
“Of course I’m having fun,” I told him, laughing. “Do you have any idea how amazing this all is?”
He plopped down on the mattress next to me, just far enough away to be appropriate. “I probably don’t. It’s hard not to get jaded after so long.”
“Are you kidding me?” I grabbed one of the pillows from behind me and tossed it at him. “We are flying through the air on a private jet right now. And sitting on a bed. With free drinks. And whatever movies we want to watch right at our fingertips. And snacks!”
He tossed the pillow back at me. “The snacks are pretty good.”
I shook my head in mock sadness. “Man, you are so lucky I decided to come on this trip.”
He was still smiling, watching my face. “I am, eh?”
“Absolutely. You definitely need to be reminded of what a spoiled asshole you are. And I am just the girl to do it.”
He threw his head back and laughed. “I think you’re right.”
“So let’s go eat some of those snacks,” I said, reaching out a hand for his.
“And drink the free drinks—which I actually totally have to pay for.”
“Whatever. You can afford it.”
He was laughing again. “You make this fun, you know.”
I felt suddenly shy. I enjoyed teasing him, but the look on his face right now…it wasn’t really teasing. Taking his hand had definitely been a mistake.
“Let’s go get those drinks,” I said. “And pick a movie.”
So we went back up to the front and spent the rest of the flight watching Thomas’s latest movie, World’s End, while we feasted on pastries and canapés and drank mimosas and Jackson shared all the gossip he could come up with regarding Thomas’s various co-stars. It was the best flight I’d ever taken—obviously.
Once we hit the ground, I noticed an immediate change come over him. Sonja, who had spent most of the flight tapping away on her laptop, suddenly descended upon him. She had the itinerary for the rest of the day, which had already changed since we had taken off. Then his phone started to ring, pretty much constantly. His face became more drawn, a tightness obvious around his eyes. I tried to pay attention to Sonja, knowing this was the reason why I was here, but it was hard not to look at Jackson instead. It was unsettling, watching such a change come over him so quickly. Like he had gone from fun and carefree to stressed and overwhelmed in seconds. I wondered if it was always like this for him, working.
As I stepped out of the plane, I was assaulted by the heat and the bright sun. It felt like ages since I’d been in such warm air, and I couldn’t help but stretch my arms out a little, luxuriating in the feeling. Jackson was slipping his Ray-Bans on, and I felt my breath catch a little at the sight. He looked good in L.A.—sunglasses on, his hair glinting in the light, dressed down in a somewhat rumpled button-down and loose khaki pants.
As I moved to get into the black Escalade, I noticed Sonja’s eyes on me—watching me watching Jackson. I felt my face color and ducked my head into the vehicle. I was grateful for the relative darkness of the interior, embarrassed by what she had seen.
You need to get it together, I told myself. You came here to do a job, not to ogle a movie star. You’re doing this for Beth, not for your libido.
When Sonja slid into the car, I moved across the bench to sit next to her, trying to ignore the questioning look Jackson shot me. “Would you mind going over the schedule one more time?” I asked, in my most professional voice. “I just want to make sure I’m not missing anything.”
The drive took about an hour in busy L.A. traffic. During that time, I watched Jackson take half a dozen calls while Sonja briefed me on all the details of the day—what she would be doing for Jackson, how she would be responsible for sharing communication from other people on the team with him. “It can get overwhelming to him,” she said, “if he has to talk to everyone directly.”
I shot a glance at him in the seat in front of us. It seemed like he hadn’t had a full minute without talking to someone since we got off the plane. How much more overwhelming could it get?
Our first stop was a meeting at the studio. I couldn’t help the thrill of excitement I felt as we stopped at the gate to gain access. I was about to enter a real-life movie studio. They shot films here! I tried to peek out the window without being too obvious, wondering if I might see any celebrities.
If I had been looking forward to glitz and glamour, I was disappointed. Jackson was met in the lobby of his office by the producer himself—no receptionist welcoming him. The guy was tanned to the point of looking orange and wore a suit that probably cost about as much as my dad took home in two months from the Ford plant. I took Sonja’s lead, hovering in the background, while the producer welcomed Jackson effusively, even doing the whole air kiss thing that I had been sure was just done in movies. Then they disappeared through the door, leaving Sonja and me sitting in the lobby.
“You’ll find out pretty quickly that there’s lots of waiting around in this job,” she told me cheerily, taking a seat. “But there’s plenty to do in the meantime.”
She pulled out her tablet and began clicking around, answering emails. “I’m doing his social schedule now,” she explained. “You’ll probably do less of this in Detroit, because the industry connections aren’t the same.”
I leaned over her shoulder to see that she was responding to an email invitation to a dinner at some director’s house the following night. “How do you know how to respond?” I asked.
“Well, by now, I know what to accept and what to avoid,” she said. “You’ll ask him.”
I nodded, feeling overwhelmed already. The schedule she had shown me was packed full, and now she was adding social obligations to that. Did he ever get a chance to rest?
“What’s that?” I asked, pointing at a block on the schedule later that day. “Shoe line?”
“Ah,” she said, tapping the pen on the side of her nose. “That’s the real bread and butter here, Sofie. These are the things that bring our man to the next level.”
“The next level?”
She leaned in a little closer, as if about to impart a great secret. “The real money isn’t in acting. Not really.” She gave a tinkling little laugh. “I mean, the acting money is fantastic, don’t get me wrong. More than most of us could ever dream of. But it’s this stuff—” she tapped the shoe line box. “The endorsements. The clothing line. The shoes he designs. The skin and hair care products. The production studio. The restaurant and resort partnerships. This is what makes Jackson Coles not just any old actor. This makes him a mogul. We’re talking serious, serious money.”
I felt slightly faint. No wonder he seemed so busy.
“I had no idea.”
She nodded. “Most actors, even the really successful ones, don’t have their own jets. For Jackson, it’s a necessity. There are simply too many demands on his time to try to fly commercial on a regular basis.”
“Wow.”
“It’s a big reason for this trip. He wants to check in on as many of his partners as he can before shooting starts in Detroit. You’ll have to schedule a lot of these kinds of meetings for the New York trip.”
I didn’t bother telling her that Jackson and I hadn’t determined for sure that I would still be with him by the time the New York trip rolled around. I was too busy remembering an article I had read on Jackson’s box office worth only a few weeks ago. It was reported that he made twenty million on the last Darkness film. And Sonja was basically calling that chump change in comparison to his other business endeavors.
How much money did he have?
But Sonja was already getting back to work, her gossipy moment apparently over. “Now we call the hotel,” she said, pulling out her phone. “To go over the list.”
“The list?”
She pulled up a document on her tablet. “The list. These are all the things we require in our stay. I emailed this to the concierge a week ago, but it’s always good to go over it on the day of arrival. Saves stress later.”
I listened while she called the concierge, checking with him that Jackson’s requirements had been met. I had been surprised to find out that Jackson would be staying at the hotel with us, seeing as how he had a house here. But, according to him, he had a crew in working on the plumbing. As Sonja went through the list, it was evident that every effort was being made to help him feel more at home. From his favorite brand of water being stocked in the mini bar to private access to the gym at designated times, every aspect of his stay had been planned out.
“Jackson usually follows a strict paleo diet while he’s shooting,” Sonja told me, hanging up the phone. “Of course, he’s free to order whatever he likes. But we want to make sure that they have the essentials for his preferred diet on hand.”
She finally seemed to sense my mood, because she stopped to smile at me. “I know it’s a lot to take in. You’ll get the hang of it.”
“I don’t see how.” I’d had no idea that getting Jackson through a trip was such a production. Would it be like this on set, too?
Sonja patted my knee. “Don’t worry, Sofie. I’ll leave you all the information you’ll need. And you should never hesitate to ask him, if there’s something you’re not sure of. He won’t mind, I promise. Plus, I’m only a phone call away.”
I nodded, still feeling overwhelmed. “Now,” she said, back to business as she opened a new document. “Let’s go over the wardrobe.”
For the next twenty minutes, I watched as Sonja coordinated with Jackson’s personal shopper to make sure the proper outfits would be on hand for his various responsibilities. “He usually only carries a small bag of essentials with him,” she explained. “It’s much easier if the clothes, especially for appearances, meet us on location.”
The rest of the day was a blur of activity. After the meeting with the producers, we headed to a studio for a magazine photo shoot. I helped Sonja as she ran around, offering Jackson water under the hot lights, confirming sizes with the costume team, discussing things with the director of photography. By the time it was over, I felt tired, the time change catching up to me, but we were nowhere near finished. Instead, we went to the offices of Jackson’s L.A. agent where he sat in meetings for several more hours, and Sonja and I made phone calls to trainers, costume designers, cleaners, his realtor, a dialect coach.
If I thought being a personal assistant would be a fluff job, I had been proven very, very wrong.
Finally, at five o’clock local time, we finished with the shoe line meeting and headed to the hotel. Jackson sat in the Escalade, eyes closed and head back against the headrest as the driver picked his way through the rush-hour traffic.
“Hey,” he said, opening his eyes at the exact moment that I was watching him. He looked tired, but he offered me a smile. “Come sit by me.”
I unbuckled my seat belt and slid into the seat next to him. He didn’t lift his head, but his eyes remained open, locked on mine. “How are you doing? Was it what you thought it would be?”
“I had no idea it would be so…much.”
His smile tightened a fraction. “It’s not always quite this busy. We’re trying to fit a lot into this weekend so I can get back to Detroit for filming.”
I nodded, but I had a feeling he was underselling it. From the efficient way Sonja dealt with all these things, it seemed pretty certain that this kind of schedule was a regular occurrence.
“Sonja said we have a few hours to relax at the hotel,” I offered. “Then you have a party tonight?”
He groaned. “A bunch of studio execs swanning around, showing me off. Can’t wait.” He seemed to catch himself. “But relaxing at the hotel sounds great.”
“What, uh, do you usually do? To relax, I mean?”
He frowned a little, as if the thought hadn’t really occurred to him. “I don’t know. Take a nap. Talk to whoever’s around.” His smile looked a little grim. “There’s usually always someone around or calls to be made.”
“You shouldn’t work during your down time,” I said automatically, well aware that it probably wasn’t my job to give advice like this. I didn’t care, though—he looked absolutely exhausted. I didn’t like it.
He was studying my face, his expression inscrutable. “Maybe today I won’t.”
He closed his eyes again, and we lapsed back into silence. I spent the rest of the drive watching the city as we crawled along. The traffic was insane, unlike anything I had ever seen. I wondered how anyone could stand it, living here. Then I remembered that it was currently a sunny seventy-five degrees outside and decided a little traffic wasn’t the end of the world.
If I had thought the jet was luxurious, it had nothing on the hotel. I tried to keep track of all the little details—the crystal chandelier in the lobby, the marble floors, the gold leaf overlay on the counter—so that I could fill Carla in, but it was too much. Feeling like everyone could probably tell that I didn’t belong here based on my gaping jaw, I followed Sonja to the counter to check us in. As she talked to the desk clerk, I saw Jackson, from the corner of my eye, being approached by a teenage girl. The security guards moved an inch closer, blocking him slightly, but Jackson only smiled at the girl, taking the offered napkin to sign an autograph and posing for a picture. The girl looked like she was about to faint—but I couldn’t help noticing that Jackson’s smile faded the moment she walked away, replaced by the same tired expression he’d worn in the car.
Finished with checking in, Sonja hurried us over to the elevators. “We don’t like him just standing around in public,” she told me in an undertone. “Usually, he waits in the car while we do the checking in. I’m not sure why he came in today.”
When we reached our floor, Jackson turned to me. “Can we go over a few things?”
“Of course.” I followed him to his room, doing my best not to react when he opened the door. The room was clearly a suite of some kind, and it was decorated just like the lobby—absolutely high-end everything. Gorgeous. I walked to the window and looked down on the traffic far below. “This is amazing.”
But Jackson was scowling. “She was supposed to… Oh, never mind.”
I turned to face him fully. “She was supposed to what? Sonja?”
He smiled, but it looked forced. “I thought I would be in a different room. No big deal.”
I raised an eyebrow. “This one isn’t up to your standards?”
He shook his head, chuckling. “Not at all.”
“Well.” I turned around, taking in the living area, the marble-countered kitchen, the long dining table capable of seating a good dozen people surrounded by velvet upholstered chairs. “We could always switch, if you wanted.”
His tired eyes were twinkling at me in a way that got my heart pounding harder. “Maybe we will.”
He collapsed onto a couch. “God, I’m beat.”
“The time change is a killer,” I said, checking my watch. I had left for the airport a
good twelve hours ago, and it wasn’t even dinnertime yet.
“Try going from London to L.A.”
I made a face. “You do that a lot?”
He shrugged. “I guess.”
I moved to sit on the couch across from him. “So. What did you want to go over?”
“I was wondering if you would come to the party tonight.”
“Oh.” Sonja hadn’t said anything about us attending. “Sure, if you need me.”
He didn’t seem entirely satisfied with that answer, but he didn’t remark on it. I sat there, waiting for him to say more. Surely, he could have asked me to go to the party in the elevator. When he didn’t say anything else, I cleared my throat. “Was that, um, all?”
He sighed, running his hands through his hair. “I guess I… I don’t know. I thought maybe, you might want to hang out?” His expression was painfully hopeful.
“Sure,” I said eagerly. “What did you want to do?”
“I want to not work.” He shrugged his shoulders, his expression slightly amused. “When you said that, in the car, I realized you were right. I shouldn’t work during my down time. I do that too often.”
“I completely agree.” I looked down at my watch. It was five thirty. The sun was still bright outside. “What should we do instead?”
“You have an idea,” he said, watching me. “I can tell.”
“Well, if it was just me, here in this gorgeous hotel in this beautiful weather, I would be spending time at the pool.”
His entire face lit up. “We should do that!”
I laughed at his reaction. “You sound like that’s a novel idea.”
“Well, it is! I never go swimming when I’m staying at hotels.”
I gaped at him. “Why the hell not?”
He shrugged, jumping up. “Too busy, I guess. Let’s go change.”
He looked just like my nephew Manuel whenever we told him we were taking him to the beach during the summer. I stood, trying not to think about how cute he was when he got excited. “I’ll meet you back here in ten?”
“Great.”
I walked to the door, already worrying a little bit about wearing a bathing suit in front of Jackson. “Sofie,” he called right before I stepped into the hallway. I paused at the door and looked over my shoulder. He was standing in the middle of the room, watching me. “Thank you.”
Starstruck Page 7
