‘Who was that chick?’ purred Chrissy, placing her hand on top of his.
He looked away. ‘Just a friend.’ The words stuck in his throat.
25
Rita was over the moon. After months of ‘thanks but no thanks’, she’d received a call that morning which had made her dream of being an actress seem closer to becoming a reality. It was her agent, telling her that she’d been asked to reaudition for Malibu Motel, not for the original part of Kelly Carter, but as a different character, Tracy Potter, a straight-talking receptionist from England.
‘Can you believe it? I was born to play that part,’ enthused Rita, standing next to Frankie as they queued for cinema tickets at Mann’s Chinese Theatre. Renowned for having the concrete casts of footprints and handprints of numerous Hollywood stars on the forecourt, together with the star-studded sidewalk known as the Walk of Fame directly outside, it was Rita’s favourite cinema. ‘If anyone can do a brilliant receptionist it’s me. Forget method acting and all that crap about having to live the part for six months to get into character. I don’t need to. I was the part for the past ten years.’
Paying for their tickets, they made their way through the straggling crowds to the entrance.
‘Look, it must be a good omen. I’ve got the same size hands as Marilyn.’ Rita could never resist joining the other sightseers who crouched on all fours to place their hands on top of the handprints of Marilyn Monroe. ‘The footprints are the same too.’ Proudly she showed off the perfect fit of her stiletto heels.
‘How many times have you done that?’ Frankie smiled, rather tempted herself to have a go.
‘A few,’ admitted Rita sheepishly. ‘But it’s still a good sign.’
‘You don’t need to rely on superstition. You’ve got talent.’
‘Do you mean it?’
Frankie nodded, digging her hands in the pockets of her jacket. ‘Not everyone could have played the back end of Daisy the Cow with such pathos.’ Unable to keep a straight face, she broke into a smile. ‘No, seriously, you’re a great actress. You’ll definitely get this part.’ She was pleased for Rita. Although she never really talked about her career, Frankie knew how important it was to her.
‘I hope so,’ sighed Rita, crossing her fingers. ‘If I don’t get it, I don’t know what I’m going to do. I’ve probably got enough money to last another few months, but if I don’t get any work it looks as if I might have to come back to London and get a proper job.’ She seemed miserable just at the idea. ‘Though I don’t think I can go back to being a receptionist. I can quite happily handle playing one for ten episodes, but not another ten years of actually being one . . .’ Her voice tailed off as she surveyed the Hollywood greats captured for ever in concrete. ‘There’s more to life than answering phones.’
‘Yeah, like learning lines.’
Rita huffily lit a cigarette. ‘You obviously can’t see the appeal of wanting to be an actress.’
‘I can. Five thousand dollars an episode.’ Frankie tested her footprint against that of Jane Russell. It was miles too big.
‘I’m not in it for the money.’ She saw the disbelief on Frankie’s face. ‘Though of course I’d be lying if I didn’t say it would come in handy.’ Blowing out a stream of smoke, she flicked her ash all over Humphrey Bogart. ‘But I’m not like you. I haven’t got a long string of qualifications, I haven’t been to university, and until I started acting I thought I was doomed to a life sitting behind a desk, filing my bloody nails and reading Inside Soap.’
‘I did that with a university degree,’ quipped Frankie.
Choosing to ignore her, Rita continued, ‘You had opportunities, I didn’t. I was trapped. Acting was the only way out.’ She caught herself and smiled self-consciously. ‘Sorry, I’m going on a bit, aren’t I?’
‘Not at all, darling,’ said Frankie, adopting a theatrical accent.
Rita couldn’t help laughing. She knocked off the glowing embers of her cigarette and pinched the end between her fingers. ‘Me? A luvvie? With a name like Rita Duffin?’ Still laughing, she put the red-lipsticked filter in her pocket for later and, linking arms, they went inside.
‘Mmm, I really fancy some of the chilli-cheese tortillas.’ Walking into the refreshments foyer, Rita’s eyes lit up like a fruit machine. She could smell fried food at fifty paces.
‘The camera adds ten pounds,’ reminded Frankie, steering Rita away.
‘But maybe if you get some, I can have a few,’ she said hopefully.
Frankie had known Rita too long not to know that ‘a few’ meant scoffing the lot. Like a parent with a child, she was about to refuse when she caught sight of her wistful expression. It was difficult to say no, especially when she knew that what Rita liked best about going to the cinema was the opportunity to sit on her bum for two hours, eating sweets and ice cream in the dark. Calories didn’t count at the movies.
‘What about popcorn?’ suggested Frankie, relenting and guiding her over to a line of people queuing to buy family-size bags of M&Ms, pick’n’mix, fizzy drinks and buckets of freshly popped popcorn from the machine blowing out the little cream-coloured balls.
Sticking her hands into her Gucci rip-off leather jacket and through her lining, Rita pulled a face at the low-fat, low-appeal alternative. Until her frown faded and her pupils dilated as she caught sight of something that was a lot more interesting than popped corn. ‘Hey, get a load of that,’ she hissed, nudging Frankie’s with her elbow.
Standing in line, Frankie turned to see exactly what ‘that’ was. Not surprisingly, it was a man, but not just any man. Frankie groaned. Trust Rita to get the hots for the guy in a short-sleeved red and white striped shirt, colour-coordinated baseball cap and pinafore, standing behind the counter shovelling popcorn into cardboard tubs.
The popcorn seller must have overheard Rita’s leching – it would have been difficult not to – and he looked up, taking off his cap to push back his surf-bleached hair. ‘Sweet or salt?’ he asked, scoop at the ready.
But before either could answer, he suddenly cried, ‘Hey, Frankiiiiiiieeeee.’ Holding the note, he dropped his plastic scooper and, wiping the sugar from his hands on his pinafore, bounded from behind the counter, flinging out his arms to give her a suffocating hug.
Crushed between a pair of very broad Tropicana tan biceps, Frankie didn’t know what the hell was going on. She looked sideways at Rita, who was frozen, her mouth hanging open, unable to hide her disbelief that her friend somehow knew this Adonis.
Releasing her from his grasp, he laughed. ‘Hey, don’t you remember? It’s me, Matt.’ He began beating his chest. ‘Tarzan.’
Frankie twigged. She hadn’t recognised him without his loincloth. She managed a feeble ‘Hi’, before he drowned her out, jumping around like an over-eager puppy. ‘This is soooo cool, man.’ His grin stretched wide across his face. ‘How are things going?’
‘Great.’ She tried to look enthusiastic, but it was pretty obvious she’d never make an actress. ‘And you?’
‘Rockin’.’ He nodded, swaying backwards and forwards on his heels, unable to stand still. Noticing her staring at his uniform, he reddened. ‘Hey, this is just casual, man, just until I start acting twenty-four-seven.’ He continued nodding enthusiastically. ‘It won’t be long. I’ve signed with a new agent and I’ve been offered some really cool jobs. A couple of weeks ago I was a dead guy in ER, and this week I had a line in a deodorant commercial.’ He stopped smiling and affected a serious face and a dodgy English accent: ‘ “Keeps odours away, all day.” ’ His face split back into a grin. ‘Cool, hey?’
‘You’re an actor?’ Rita, who’d been dying to interrupt, saw her cue and dived in with perfect timing. ‘I’m an actress.’ She flashed Matt her headshot smile.
‘No way!’ Eyes wide with disbelief, Matt looked surprised, as if being an actor was a rare and unusual occupation in LA. Immediately they launched into shop talk. ‘Which classes do you attend? What auditions have you been up for? Who’s your age
nt?’
Frankie stood on the sidelines, feeling very green and prickly. She watched their body language – the way they were smiling at each other, how their bodies were moving closer together, how Matt kept rubbing his chest while Rita kept thrusting out hers.
‘Hey, how much longer have I gotta wait in line?’ interrupted an impatient woman pushing in front of Rita and waggling a ten-dollar bill. ‘I wanna large Pepsi with plenny of ice.’
Rita ignored her. ‘Let me give you my number.’ Making no attempt at subtlety, she dug out one of her cards from her bag and thrust it at him.
‘Cool.’ Matt gazed at her, hypnotised. ‘I’ll call you.’ He grinned, seemingly oblivious of the growing line of cinemagoers that was beginning to zigzag across the patterned carpet of the foyer. Desperate for confectionery and cola, they were becoming increasingly rowdy.
‘Can’t wait.’ She winked and giggled breathlessly.
Frankie couldn’t help but applaud Rita’s shameless pulling tactics. There wasn’t a stutter, a blush or even a smidgen of self-consciousness. Any minute now and she’d be doing her Marilyn Monroe wiggle.
‘Well, bye then.’ Rita fluttered her fingers in a wave.
‘See ya.’ Mesmerised, Matt waved back as a giant of a man strode up behind him and gripped his arm. ‘Me an’ my wife are gettin’ kinda hungry.’ He gestured to a colossal woman slumped against the M&Ms. ‘I wanna half-dozen Twinkies, two tubs of popcorn – one sweet an’ one salt – a pint of Ben and Jerry’s Chunky Monkey, and I wanna have them now.’
Relieved that they were leaving before it all got ugly, Frankie said goodbye. Matt didn’t seem to notice. Despite being pinned against the Snickers promotion by an irate customer, he was too busy staring at Rita as she wiggled across the foyer, transfixed at the way her bottom bobbed up and down, like a surfboard floating on a wave. He couldn’t take his eyes off her. Proof that not all gentlemen – surfers included – preferred blondes.
‘Where’ve you been hiding that?’ Rita stopped wiggling as soon as they turned the corner and began climbing the stairs.
‘Nowhere. I met him on that commercial I did.’ The commercial I did with Reilly, Frankie thought to herself.
‘And you never mentioned him?’ In disbelief, Rita yanked open the door of Screen One and tottered inside. She looked across at Frankie, a horny grin spread all over her face, and then tutted. ‘Bloody hell, you must be in love.’
Frankie flinched. ‘I must?’ She handed in their tickets to the man who stood at the entrance.
‘If you didn’t notice Matt, yeah, you really must still be mad about Hugh.’ She shook her head, full of awe at her devotion.
‘Oh, yeah.’ Frankie relaxed. What had made her think Rita was referring to Reilly, not Hugh? Unnerved by her mistake, she changed the subject. ‘By your reaction, I take it you liked Matt.’ Stuffing the ticket stubs in her pocket, she followed the usher, who was leading them down the aisle, waving his torch from side to side.
‘Liked him?’ Rita rolled her eyes. ‘Put it this way, I wouldn’t kick him out of bed . . .’ She broke off, giggling to herself as she remembered past nocturnal aerobics. ‘Well, not if I can help it.’
Finding the correct row number, they squeezed and excused their way past people’s knees, trying not to knock over cups of Dr Pepper or send buckets of popcorn scattering like ping-pong balls, before eventually arriving at their seats. Flicking them back, they thankfully sat down.
‘But I thought you said you’d gone off men.’ It was a feeble attempt, but Frankie had to give it a go. Rita was showing all the signs of sliding down the slippery slope of lust and she knew it was up to her, as Rita’s best friend, to try and rescue her with the voice of reason. But it was no good. Rita didn’t want to be rescued, ta very much.
‘After seeing that, I’ve been turned on again.’ Grabbing a fistful of popcorn, she lay back in her seat and began chewing loudly. ‘Who wouldn’t be?’
‘Sssshhhh,’ hissed somebody behind them.
Rita tutted, and continued. Leaning closer to Frankie, she whispered loudly, ‘Well, apart from you, of course. But then you’d never even notice another bloke apart from Hugh, would you?’
Frankie hesitated. But she was saved from answering by the title music, which suddenly blared out from the speakers as the film started.
26
Over the next few weeks Rita clocked up six dates with Matt, which in LA was longer than some marriages, and began displaying all the tell-tale signs of a woman smitten: going to bed wearing full make-up and Victoria Secret underwear in case, for some reason known only to those besotted, he should drop by at two in the morning; loss of appetite – even for cheese nachos and Oreos – a phenomenon for Rita; and beginning every sentence with his name, as in Matt’s apartment was so funky, Matt was an amazing actor, Matt had the biggest dick she’d ever seen – and Rita had seen a few.
As the loyal best friend, Frankie listened patiently, trying to look interested as Rita played back his voicemail messages, trying to decide whether or not he sounded keen, too keen, over-keen; dug out her relationship bible, Soulmates in the Stars and read his’n’hers star signs, working out their compatibility according to Venus rising, full moons and something to do with Mercury; and repeated word for word their conversations, while dissecting, analysing and quizzing every word, phrase and sentence.
For hours at a time she regaled Frankie about every detail of the romance of the century, from the way he’d cooked her spaghetti bolognese, looking steamy and muscular as he leaned over the stove with his Parmesan cheese grater, through their first kiss as they’d walked his dog around Runyan Canyon, to how she’d given him his first blow job in the changing rooms at Urban Outfitters. As yet they hadn’t slept together, which in Rita’s chequered love life was an achievement in restraint. But it appeared that Matt was the one who’d been less than forthcoming in the bedroom. ‘He obviously wants us to get to know each other better,’ she’d murmured dreamily, as she’d fingered an old surf sweatshirt he’d put around her shoulders at the movies the night before to keep her warm. ‘Isn’t that sweet?’
Frankie didn’t disagree. After all, if wearing a smelly old sweatshirt and giving fellatio to a man with his Day-Glo O’Neill surfing shorts round his ankles made Rita happy, then Frankie was happy. Except she wasn’t. She was fed up. While Rita spent her evenings with Matt enjoying the head rush of coupledom, she was sat on the sofa with Fred and Ginger, sinking into the abyss of singledom, watching Ally McBeal reruns and trying not to feel sorry for herself. But she did. Rita’s success in both her love life and her career – she’d reauditoned for Malibu Motel and was now waiting to hear – only highlighted the glaring failure of her own life. Apart from the small matters of a failed relationship and being of no fixed abode, with a career going nowhere fast.
In the last few weeks she’d gone from feature writer, to photographer’s assistant, to her current job – Dorian’s cleaner. Not exactly the kind of career ladder she’d been hoping for when she got her 2:1 degree. Knowing she was strapped for cash, Dorian had offered to pay her to clean his flat and water the abundance of plant life on his balcony, which, over the last few weeks, had taken on the appearance of Kew Gardens. She was going to say no, out of pride more than anything else, but the money being offered was too good to refuse.
Not that she didn’t like LA. Quite the opposite. She loved the weather, loved going to the beach, loved hanging out with Rita and Dorian. She was living in a fantastic apartment, driving around with her best mate in a Thunderbird convertible, having as much free time as she wanted. Even her cats were enjoying the sunshine. It was the stuff dreams are made of. But not her dreams.
Looking back, she could now see it had been a crazy idea to come to LA, a crazy idea to think running away could change things. To hope that six thousand miles would solve everything. What had she thought would happen? That LA could wave its magic wand and give her life a Hollywood movie ending? Staying in London had meant facing u
p to a future full of holes where Hugh, their flat in Fulham and her career should be. Exactly, she realised, the same future as she was facing right now. Being in LA hadn’t changed anything. The problems were the same, it was just different scenery. So why didn’t she admit defeat, pack her bags and take the first plane back to the UK? After all, what was there to keep her in LA?
Reilly. Every time she asked herself that question, his name kept popping into her head. It was ridiculous, she hardly knew the bloke, but ever since that day in Malibu, ever since they’d had that awful, stilted conversation, he’d been on her mind. Things kept reminding her of him – seeing a commercial on TV, hearing a Country and Western track on the radio or going to the Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf for her morning cappuccino. One day when she was grocery shopping at Ralph’s Supermarket she thought she saw him near the deli counter, next to the fresh pasta, but when he turned round she discovered it wasn’t him at all. In fact, the bloke looked nothing like him – he had a goatee and was wearing black patent-leather slip-ons with gold chains across the front. Even driving along Sunset, she’d become aware that, without even realising it, her eyes were unconsciously picking out all the Broncos and taking a second look to see if he was behind the wheel. But he never was. He seemed to have disappeared. Vanished in a puff of cigarette smoke.
It crossed her mind to call him up just to say hi. After all, she could easily get his number from Dorian. But she decided against it. Despite what she’d told Rita, she and Reilly weren’t exactly friends – well, not the kind of friends who’d ring each other up just for a chat. What on earth would they chat about? His date with Chrissy? His ex-wife? Her ex-boyfriend? Somehow she couldn’t see it. Nope, she wasn’t going to ring him, just like she knew he wasn’t going to ring her. Which meant that her relationship/friendship/crush/God knows what with Reilly was over before it had even started.
‘Guess what?’ Rita hobbled into the living room on the heels of her feet, cotton wool wedged firmly between each toe. In one hand she was waving a bottle of VAMP nail varnish – fashion trends seemed to take a while to hit LA, where leggings, big hair and purple lip-liner were still very much in abundance – and in the other the phone’s handset.