Hollywood Star (10 page)

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For a while there we went off another
Kensington Heights
hotty, Justin de Souza. But since he’s had that  haircut and that great new storyline, we at
Teen Girl!
think he’s almost back on top. Almost! Those blue eyes still wow us and that dazzling smile is second to none, For old times’ sake Justin comes in at number two.

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Who says
Hollyoaks
hasn’t got what it takes to deliver truly talented totty any more.

Dear Rubes, hello babe!

I just tore this out of ‘Teen Girl!’ for you to see about Danny. It’s so funny, isn’t it? Girls are going Mad for him. I suppose he told you that he had nearly 6000 Christmas cards and I heard applications to the Acadewy have gone through the roof, tons of girls trying to go to school with the love of their life. And it’s only Danny, with his rubbish jokes and awful voice. If they knew Sean Went to the Acadewy too – I hate to think what Would happen!

Anyway you’d better come back soon before an arwy of little girls carry hiM away for good.

Love Annie xxx

PS I sort of like being called Annie now. It’s down to Sean really. The TRUE chart-topping hunk around here!

There were only two days left until we were officially supposed to go home when Anne-Marie’s note arrived, with the article from
Teen Girl!
ripped out and paperclipped to it.

I was glad to see her handwriting on the envelope, even if my boyfriend being at the top of a chart of Handsome Hunks didn’t exactly cheer me up. Especially not when Mum was considering rebooking our return flights home, even though we had not yet heard either way about the audition yet.

I unfolded the magazine article and looked at the photo of Danny that was included in the piece. It was the one where he was resting his chin on crossed arms and staring moodily into the camera as if no one in the whole world could really understand him. He was very good at doing misunderstood; that’s what girls loved about him, each of them certain that they could be the one to do all the understanding. Funny though, because the real Danny, once you got to know him, was about as different
from the boy in this photo as he possibly could be. He wasn’t moody, he was shy, and he wasn’t arrogant or stuck up. He was friendly and probably the most normal teen pop sensation in the history of the world.

I almost pressed the photo to my lips until I realised that probably a few thousand girls had also done the same thing, dreaming about having Danny as a boyfriend. But I didn’t have to dream. Somehow, he actually was my boyfriend. Only I was thousands of miles away and not sure if I would be going back home any time soon.

Nobody, not even my former mum and certainly not my present one, had to tell me that the age of thirteen wasn’t a time to be throwing away amazing chances like guest-starring in a top-rating US TV show Just because I missed my boyfriend. And I really wanted the part now. Not just because I thought that Mum might actually implode and disown me if I didn’t get it (not necessarily in that order). But also because Adrienne and Nadine had both been so nice to me that I thought going to school with them for a few weeks would be exciting and fun.

But that didn’t help the fact that I got jealous when Danny was listed in polls like the one in
Teen Girl!,
or when I found out
(not
from Danny) that he got six
thousand Christmas cards. I’d felt that way before and Danny had told me then that it was crazy to be Jealous of people he had never even met. But I was sure that it wouldn’t be that long before he met someone who was a lot prettier, a lot funnier and a lot nearer to him than I was. He was only thirteen too, after all. He wasn’t exactly going to be waiting for me all of his life.

Still, I would be seeing him soon, even if I didn’t go home in two days. The night after the audition I had e-mailed Nydia, Anne-Marie, Sean and Danny and told them about everything that had happened, including the possibility that I might get a guest role in
Hollywood High.

They had all e-mailed me back overnight. Nydia told me that it would be fantastic if I got it, but that she would miss me. Anne-Marie informed me that Nadine Navarro had featured in the Gap modelling campaign last year and wanted me to tell her what Nadine’s skin looked like close up. Sean warned me not to let Hollywood suck me in and to remind myself that I was still just a kid. And finally, an e-mail from Danny which said he’d be keeping his fingers crossed for me. And then he asked me if I had a webcam because he’d just got one for his computer at his dad’s house and if I had one, then we’d be able to see each other face to face.

I had run to ask Jeremy, who arranged for one to be delivered and fitted the same day, and I had to admit to myself that being the daughter of a film star’s girlfriend was not all that bad.

This evening was to be our scheduled web chat. It would be my bedtime and Danny’s breakfast time and I couldn’t wait to see his face. (And ask him about those six thousand Christmas cards.)

Something to look forward to seemed very important because the atmosphere in Jeremy’s house since I had done the audition was tense, stretched like a balloon on the verge of popping.

Mum’s tan had faded quite a lot so that she no longer looked orange, just a sort of pale yellowy colour. The swelling had gone down on her mouth too, so that I could finally see glimpses of her old self under her glamorous new appearance. But instead of just waiting nervously with me, thinking up ways to distract me and reminding me how nice life was for a normal thirteen-year-old, she launched a military style operation that should have been entitled “Operation Get Ruby Famous”. I overheard her talking to Audrey in London,
listened as she made appointments with casting agents and bookers, and once I even caught her asking Jeremy what contacts he could use to get me another part if
Hollywood High
didn’t work out. I could see that Jeremy was reluctant to get involved, but Mum didn’t seem to notice. So in the end he said he’d see what he could do, but I think it was mainly so that Mum would stop asking.

“Mum,” I’d said to her one morning as she pored over Jeremy’s computer checking her e-mails, “I thought this
Hollywood High
was a one-off. A chance that came out of the blue. I didn’t think…I mean, we aren’t moving here for good, are we?”

Mum looked up. “Mr Blenheim offering you that audition just made me think that while we’re here we should explore our options, Ruby,” she said, as if the question irritated her. “I’ve been underestimating you and what you are capable of achieving. I suppose I got used to you working on
Kensington Heights.
I took it for granted and didn’t see how special you were. And when you got the part in the film, I didn’t really understand what it could mean for us, for you, I mean. But I’m here for you now and I’ve seen how this town works…and I think that you are just as good as any other girl out there, Ruby. In fact, I think you are better. And I want you
to reach your full potential.”

“Reach my full potential?” I repeated the alien-sounding phrase nervously.

And then I had finally said what I hadn’t quite been able to before.

“Mum, if I don’t get the part of Lady Elizabeth, I want to go home. I want to go back to The Academy. I don’t want to live in Hollywood. I mean, what about home and Dad and my GCSEs and my friends? I’m Just not ready.”

Mum had smiled at me and held out her arms, and I went over and sat on her lap like a big baby and rested my head on her shoulder. As she hugged me I felt an enormous sense of relief, like my worries had floated right off the top of my head.

“Listen, darling,” she said. “You don’t have to worry about anything. I know what’s best for you. And I think that staying in Hollywood is exactly that.”

I was so surprised by what she said and so shocked by the weight of fear crashing back down on to my shoulders that I didn’t say anything. Because if Mum hadn’t understood what I had just said, then what was the point of saying anything more?

“Up you get then,” Mum said, shoving me off her lap. “Some of us need to get on.”

I tore the photo of Danny carefully out of the magazine article and tucked it into my Jeans pocket, where David immediately tried to retrieve it in order to eat it, no doubt. Since Jeremy had taken us to all the tourist hotspots during our two weeks here, and we had shopped until we had literally dropped of exhaustion, we hadn’t really done that much for the last day or so except hang around the house and wait for Blenheim studios to call.

I had discovered American TV and had been watching reruns of the first series of
Hollywood High.
The more I watched it, the more I wanted to be in it. It had me hooked from the beginning. The words that came out of each character’s mouth were much cleverer and funnier than any I had ever heard a real teen say, but if I got a chance to say lines like that, I didn’t care whether it was realistic or not.

My other favourite new telly find was C! the Celebrity Channel. It had story after story about who was going out with whom, who’d adopted whom from which country, and who was now not going out with whom,
and more, on a rolling basis. I was sitting on the floor with David on my lap, flicking through the million or so channels that there seemed to be when I stopped on C! because I remembered there was going to be a documentary on the making of
Hollywood High
and I wanted to check what time it was on. It was in the middle of a story and a yellow banner ran along the bottom of the screen which read: STAR’S SECRET HIDEAWAY FOUND!

There was an aerial shot, probably taken from a helicopter, of a building that seemed familiar to me. I stared at it, getting a funny feeling of unease in the pit of my tummy. It was definitely a building somewhere in Britain, an old white stone building with turrets and towers – maybe some kind of castle that I had visited once on a school trip or something. And then, as the helicopter flew lower and I saw the front of the building at a different angle, I realised. It wasn’t a building I had visited, it was a building that I knew like the back of my hand because I went there almost every single day.

It was Sylvia Lighthouse’s Academy for the Performing Arts.

I turned up the volume, sat down heavily on the floor and listened to the voiceover.

“And this is the secret hideaway that young Sean Rivers
fled to when he could no longer take the insane pressure of the attention of the world media. To this elite stage school in London, England, where only the very finest talents are allowed access. It was in this magnificent eighteenth century building, where Queen Victoria is said to have once stopped for tea, that Sean chose to hide himself away from the world, desperate to get some respite from the trauma of being so famous so young. But it seems that the relentless pack of journalists have finally tracked him down and are intent on invading his privacy once more. Let’s go now to Caridee Columbo who can bring you the latest on the terrible intrusion into Sean’s new life from right outside of his school gates.”

“Thank you, Linda. ”

I clapped both of my hands over my mouth as I saw a very blonde, very pink-Iipsticked woman holding a C! Celebrity News microphone standing outside the Academy gates. And she wasn’t the only reporter there. I could also see a swarm of photographers and Journalists with camera crews who looked as if they might be from all over the world.

“Well, Linda, as you can see there is quite an undignified scrum here at the Sylvia Lighthouse Academy for the Performing Arts as the world press try to get a glimpse of young actor Sean Rivers. It was revealed only recently, by his friend and fellow actor, Ruby Parker, that
Sean came here to change his life and try and live out the rest of his childhood in peace. Sean’s house was discovered yesterday by tabloid Journalists, forcing the poor boy to flee with his mother to the school which is still closed for the holidays. As you can see, Sean doesn’t stand much chance of getting that privacy he craves so much any more. All of these people you see behind me want to know only one thing. They want to know the truth behind Sean’s dramatic departure from movie-making which broke years worth of contracts worth millions of dollars. Is it true that Oscar-winning director Art Dubrovnik bullied him on the set of soon to be released
The Lost Treasure of King Arthur!
Or could it be, as some of the rumours are saying, that Sean got carried away with the London party lifestyle, even attempting to steal thousands of dollars worth of jewellery when he was under the influence. Some say Sean was trying to escape his cruel and obsessive father, but the very same father, Pat Rivers, says his son was stolen from him by the bitter, mentally unstable and jealous mother who abandoned him as a child. As you know, Linda, much of America thought of Sean as their son and now they want to know – what exactly has happened to him?”

“It’s an awful shame that he can’t just be left to live his life in peace, isn’t it, Caridee?” Linda, the C! announcer, said.

“Yes, it is,” Caridee said. “It truly is.”

And I thought to myself,
If she really thinks that, then why is she standing outside my school gate doing exactly the same thing as all the other press people? Hounding Sean.

I pressed the mute button on the remote and buried my head in David’s meagre fur. I felt awful, sick inside.

Sean was so happy since he started at the school. Relaxed and acting like any normal fifteen-year-old boy. And now that had been taken away from him, all because of me and my big thoughtless mouth. He would never forgive me. I didn’t think that any of my friends would either.

I looked around. Jeremy’s house was still mostly silent, sunlight streaming in through the windows, even some birdsong in the garden. I could hear the faint clatter of Augusto in the kitchen and Marie laughing with my mother somewhere. Everything here looked and felt the same, but I knew that on the other side of the world all hell had broken loose for Sean, and it was my fault.

When the phone in the hallway began to ring I knew, I just knew with total certainty, that it was Sean. Even though it would be the middle of the night at home and even though there was no way he could know what I had
Just seen on C!, I was certain that it had to be him. I scrambled to pick the phone up before one of the adults did.

“Hello?” I said uncertainly into the receiver.

“Oh, hi, is that Ruby?” An unfamiliar female voice spoke in my ear and I breathed out a sigh of relief.

“Yes, speaking,” I said.

“Hi, Ruby, it’s Suzie Blenheim here – and how are you?”

Suzie Blenheim. My stomach contracted again as I realised that this was it. I was going to find out if I had got the part of Lady Elizabeth. A mixture of emotions churned through my mind because I wasn’t ready to get this particular news at this particular moment when I had other things to think about.

At first I thought,
I don’t want it, I don’t want it any more. I don’t deserve it and anyway I need to go home and see Sean and tell him I’m sorry and help make things better again.
And then I thought about how much Sean must hate me at this moment, and if he hated me then Anne-Marie certainly would, and maybe even Nydia and Danny too. Perhaps I’d have to go back to school with everybody hating me and that frightened me. I’d rather live in Hollywood forever than for that to happen.