HOT SET: Playing with Fidelity (A romantic suspense novel) (17 page)

“
Sorry. That was random.”

“
That’s okay. I do have a mole on my jaw.”

She sent a
smile his way and so they started talking in the intimate glow of the dim flames. They conversed so easily, comfortably and shared things they normally didn’t. Rhys confessed he was disillusioned with Hollywood and how he was only wanted for his fame and money.

“
So, why are you still there?”

“
Fame is like an addiction; you simultaneously hate it but need it at the same time. I’ll stick it out until I get kicked out broke and fat. It’d take a seriously big push to get me out sooner.”

“
Like?”

“
I don’t know. It’ll probably be a woman. It usually is.”

“
Typical bloke, always blaming women.”

“
Of course. Don’t women always blame men?”

“
It’s well deserved.”

“
Hah! What about you?”

“
Huh?”

“
Do you want to end up in Hollywood?”

“
No. Doesn’t interest me. I love acting but I’m happy being small screen, with the occasional film too, it would appear.”

“
Why?”

“
I get to keep some anonymity while still doing what I love, live in the same house as my husband and only have to frock up occasionally for TV events.”

“
Are you not competitive?”

“
My sister is competitive enough for the both of us. I’m happy minding my own business and stickin’ to my day job.”

T
he cracking of the dying fire replaced the sound of their voices.

“
I’m going to bed.” Kate stood and giving Rhys a wave, walked across the compacted red earth to her tent.

Rhys
watched her until she disappeared inside the fabric enclosure and swallowed heavily.

He didn’t get it
. What was it about her that intrigued him so?

Amelia was far more beautiful
whereas Kate had a striking and memorable face while Amelia was the cool, blonde traditional beauty. Amelia was sassy and driven whereas Kate seemed happy to keep her life simple as long as her needs were met. Amelia didn’t do small talk but Kate revelled in it. Kate was a good actor, but lots of people were.

He didn’t know why he was
comparing them anyway, but quickly the thought dissipated into further musings.

Kate
helped a lot around the studio and got coffee for other people and helped Barry and Mac and… It was then the penny dropped.

She was nice
. Genuinely and refreshingly nice. There was no pretentiousness, no blatant ambition. She had none of the avarices most people he associated with had. What’s more, she was acting not for the fame or money but because she liked it. That was rare.

Rhys
hadn’t met many genuinely nice people since he left Brisbane, except for Stokesy and Mike, and he’d come to accept that everyone had some agenda; even Amelia scared him sometimes with her drive. Kate unsettled him because she didn’t, except to help others it seemed, most often to her own detriment. It was strange meeting someone like this and part of him was pleased there were still people like her around.

Watch this one
, his conscience warned.

“
Definitely watch this one”, he said under this breath and turned away.

Amelia was
sitting at a scratched Formica table in the studio’s cafeteria waiting for the next scene to start.

The film was
an action picture about street car racing and she was playing a girl racer. She was wearing a tight, short white skirt, push-up bra under a half-undone red vest and masses of gold bracelets on one arm. Her high heels were pinching her feet and the long brown wig made her head itch. The thick make-up dragged heavily on her face and made her look cheap. Why costume designers thought girl racers wore such a ridiculous get-up was beyond her. She wouldn’t be able to drive a car in this outfit even if she wanted to.

Plus, she was missing
Rhys, terribly. He’d been gone for four weeks already and the time had dragged. She had no friends to visit, only work to distract her, so she was bored and lonely.

Movie making was
so tedious with yawningly long waits and few interesting people to network with. She took a mouthful of her tasteless, rapidly cooling instant coffee whilst continuing to flick through the few magazines in front of her, habitually looking for any reference to herself; or even better yet, a photo. She was on the second last page of her third and final magazine when she saw her name in the gossip columns. She read:
“
Rhys Bradford’s squeeze, Amelia Rhein, was seen at yet another party without her famous handbag. Bradford is currently filming in Australia and rumor has it he’s snuggling with his co-star. I wonder what Rhein thinks about this?”

Co-star
?

Warning signals flash
ed. Rational thought reminded her that gossip magazines were never reliable. Plus, he’d only been gone for a month which surely wasn’t long enough to be snuggling anyone (she conveniently forgot she’d landed him in one night). Amelia flicked open her mobile phone and pressed call on his number. She heard the dial tone call and melodic beeps of the international exchange.

A soothing
female Australian accent came on the line, “we regret that the number you have called is out of range. Please call later.” Damn it. She hung up and pressed his number again. “We regret th...” Dog’s balls! The phone landed on the table with an expensive clatter.

She took
a deep breath and knew it was nothing; but something in this article bothered her and premonition pricked. On the few occasions they’d talked, he had seemed distant and in a hurry to get off the phone. He always had little to tell her about the country and filming in general, leaving her to do the small talk until they figured there was nothing more to say. He did, however, mention his co-stars a lot, one in particular (was it Kathy?). Maybe that’s what the magazines were talking about. What was it he’d said the last time? That he was enjoying her company and was a great actor?

Hands off him bitch, he’s mine.

Amelia’s thoughts had taken her so far away that she didn’t notice the timid waif parked near her table. An electrically-cast shadow fell across the magazine; Amelia looked up. Standing there was a young, small, mousy-looking woman dressed in a grey suit from the 80s, holding a tray of food in tiny white hands. She had enormous, slightly protruding eyes, a small nose and mouth and her hair was pulled back into a messy pony tail with wisps springing out from her temples. She had the look of someone the world was about to swallow whole.

Amelia raised an eyebrow.

“Yes?”

“
Excuse me Ms Rhein, but there are no more tables free.”She swallowed, looking very distressed. “M-may I?”

Amelia did a quick scan of the cafeteria, noting with a flash of bother she was right
. She shrugged.

“
Suit yourself.”

With a dangerous
rattle of plastic-coated food, the Mouse awkwardly dropped her tray onto the table. Everything remained upright… just. Not taking her eyes off her tray, she timidly picked up a lump of bread that passed for a sandwich, held it between the tips of her fingers and nibbled on it.

The two sat in silence, Amelia again flicking through the magazines and giving up on the now
half-drunk cold coffee, Mouse dismantling her food in tiny, repetitive bites.

Suddenly,
Amelia’s ‘filth’ radar flicked to life and she didn’t even need to look to know Bill Gaffod had slimed into the noisy, cavernous room behind her.

Disguised from behind, Amelia picked up the magazine and hid her face behind it, not having the energy to antagonise him today
. As she flicked open the publication, her eye was caught by Mouse staring over her shoulder wearing an expression of absolute terror. Amelia raised an eyebrow and looked around sneakily to connect Mouse’s expression with Bill’s back-slapping amble through the room. There was something frightening about Mouse’s demeanour and Amelia intrigued, flicked quick glances at the other woman from under the fringe of the wig.

By now, Bill
’s black suited, corpulent body had reached the far side of the cafeteria and was now disturbingly within Amelia’s line of sight when something seemed to explode under Mouse and she leapt to her feet in an ungainly scramble to escape the confining table. As she did, her pastel-green tray slid across the small surface, into Amelia’s cold coffee and before either woman could catch it, it sloshed straight down Amelia’s white skirt, down her bare legs and pooled in her shoe.

Amelia, too, jumped to her feet with a yelp.

“Oh God, oh God, I’m so, so sorry!” Mouse exclaimed, even more horrified. She grabbed the few napkins on her tray and knelt down in front of Amelia, trying to ineffectually scrub at the large brown stain.

“
Leave it,” Amelia swiped at Mouse’s hands. “Look, just leave it, okay?”

“
I’m so sorry, it was a total accident, Ms Rhein.” Mouse was still on the floor trying to wipe the mess. “Please, I’ll pay to have it cleaned.”

Half the cafeteria was eyeing them and Amelia didn’t want attention
, especially with Bill in the room.

“
Will you get up? The clothes belong to Wardrobe,” Amelia hissed, annoyed. She stepped out of the high red heels, her foot slick with slimy coffee residue. Mouse didn’t know what to do; to continue to clean up Amelia or to rush from the room crying. She chose the latter.

Mouse bound
ed to her feet, grabbed her tatty bag and dashed from the room. Amelia paid no attention, too intent as she was in tipping the coffee from her borrowed shoe.

The next day, Amelia was outside the studio under some ratty trees waiting on another scene to be set up, yet again in her ridiculously tight costume and itchy wig. She was sitting at one of many picnic tables scattered around the studios grounds, surfing the internet on her phone. At least it was a nice day. Being late October, it was starting to get a little chilly but today the sun was bright and welcoming.

“
Excuse me, Ms Rhein?” a scared little voice peeped next to her.

“
Yes?” Amelia answered automatically before lifting her head. The Mouse was standing there holding some paperwork across her chest like a shield. She was wearing another unflattering suit, this time of rose pink, a small purple handbag hanging off her elbow and her thin hair was pushed back with a brown Alice band. Amelia pursed her lips and sighed impatiently.

“
I just wanted to apologise again for what happened yesterday.”

Amelia shrugged noncommittally
, wanting this conversation over. “I’ve forgotten about it.”

The Mouse rushed on,
eager to speak before she lost her nerve. “You see, I should probably explain that I’m normally not so clumsy. That I was freaked out by someone in the room and...” She shopped abruptly, obviously uncertain about that confession. “Anyway, I just wanted to let you know that I’ve arranged to have the clothes dry cleaned.”

“
That’s the least you could do.”

“
And, to apologise personally to you, here are two A-grade tickets to Les Mis.”

Mouse
held out an envelope which Amelia took, opened up and read the thick cardboard contents. Her eyebrows went up.

“
These are really hard to get. What do you do, again?”

“
I’m the Executive Assistant to Tony Tanner.” The CEO of the studios. Impressive.

And useful.

Amelia’s quick mind went into action. Networking time.

“
Look, we obviously got off to an... um... interesting start. Will you sit down?”

“
Oh, okay!” Mouse was genuinely surprised. “I’m on my lunch break and have a few minutes. Thank you.” Mouse sat down. “I’m Megan, by the way. Megan Carlyle.”

“
Megan. Nice to meet you – mostly.” Both women smiled. Megan pulled a sandwich out of her handbag and started nibbling on it in the same manner as yesterday. She swallowed carefully.

“
Ms Rhein-”

“
Amelia, please.”

Megan smiled again
. “Amelia, I know I can’t say sorry enough-”

“
You’ve said it enough. It’s okay. It’s not as though the coffee was hot.”

“
Thank God for that.”

There was an
uneasy pause.

Megan started,
“you’re on a break?”

“
A forced one. Technical glitch with the sound system, or something.”

“
And in the meantime, you’re sitting here bored as hell?”

Amelia laughed,
“pretty much.” It sounded like this pint-sized woman had some spark after all.

It was then Amelia remembered what had caused Megan’s frightening reaction yesterday
. It may be that she and Megan had more in common than originally anticipated. As the EA to the CEO, she had contacts. Powerful, well-connected ones if the Les Misérables tickets were anything to go by. Amelia decided to take a punt.

“
So, I saw Bill Gaffod yesterday in the cafeteria.”

The response was immediate
. The sandwich fell from Megan’s hand onto the plastic wrapper on the counter and broke apart, the tomato, lettuce and cheese scattering.

“
Oh God, not again.” Panicked and embarrassed Megan started to hurriedly reassemble her lunch.

U
ncustomary compassion hit Amelia’s chest; he’d messed with her, too.

Megan
stuttered, “I’m sorry, did you say Bill Gaffod? He’s a Production Exec right?”

Amelia nodded.

“Have heard of him but never met him.”

Amelia kept her voice low
. “He got to you, too, didn’t he?”

Megan’s head dropped and
with a nod she started to cry, the shoulder pads heaving. Amelia felt pure rage slither down her spine. How many others had there been? How much innocence had been stolen by this sick predator? These vulgar, disgusting bastards ruled by their dirty cocks.

As she watched Megan wipe a thin hand across her eyes
and nose, she had another thought; why hadn’t anyone done anything about it?

Amelia stood and got some paper towel from the toilet block close by, bringing it back to Megan
. She’d never had much experience with how to handle crying people, so she sat uneasily until the sobs lessened.

“
I’m s-sorry.”

“
Seriously, don’t be.”

“
I’ve,” hiccup “done nothing but make a fool out of myself since you met me.”

“
I don’t mind, really.”

Megan blew her nose and gave her eyes a final wipe
.

“
Sorry.”

“
Stop apologising.”

“
Sorry.”Megan laughed then sobered and looked at the counter top. “How old were you?” She asked quietly.

“
Seventeen. You?”

“
Fifteen.”

Amelia swore under her breath
. “You know, we could do something about it.”

Megan grunted slightly
. “I don’t think so. Sick bastards like him always get away with it. Although, I have dreamed about it.”

“
Me, too.”

“
I mean, you’d have to find someone willing to talk to the cops and then it’s all hearsay. Of course he’ll deny it.”

“
Yes, he did,”

“
So you talked to them?”

“
Yeah, but because I got into his car and was a few days short of 18, the cops weren’t that interested. Did you try?”

“
No, I just went back to school and pretended it didn’t happen.”

They went silent before Amelia spoke,
“you know I was serious about trying to bring him down?”

She looked incredulous
, “really?”

“
Why not?”