I Heart Hollywood (11 page)

Why bother? The streets weren’t interesting like in New York or London. No one walked anywhere, the strips of shops were ugly or run down; there was literally nothing to look at. But while I’d been busy not paying attention, the ocean had appeared from nowhere. The Hummer was surrounded by people laughing, running, Rollerblading. We were at the beach.

Practically falling out of the truck, I ran towards the sand, leaving a sandal behind me. ‘It’s amazing,’ I said, more to myself than anyone else. ‘Look at it.’

‘So this is Malibu. Beats Skegness, doesn’t it?’ James said quietly, presenting me with my abandoned shoe. He knelt down and cradled my bare foot in his hand, slipping on the sandal. Instinctively, I caught my breath and my balance, holding onto James’s shoulders. Which was fine until my balance and my breath decided they didn’t want to be caught and I toppled forward in slow mo, right on top of James.

‘Beats Skegness,’ I muttered.

I was only vaguely aware of the fact that my skirt had ridden up well clear of my knickers, but I was intensely aware of the tiny flecks of green in James’s blue eyes, the scar in his eyebrow from a long-departed piercing and how ridiculously shiny every single strand of his hair was. Somewhere not that deeply hidden, my biological clock set itself to Pacific Standard Time and I felt a very strong urge to have all of James’s babies. As soon as possible.

‘That’s twice you’ve fallen for me today.’ James stared up at me for a moment, then brushed my hair off my face. ‘You know your eyes are really beautiful.’

‘What?’

‘Your eyes, they’re really pretty.’ James gently pushed me off and sat up. ‘So, blue. Have you ever thought about going darker with your hair?’

‘Muh?’ Seriously, I was dry-humping him on the beach and he was asking me if I’d thought about cracking out a bottle of Nice ’N Easy?

‘I’m sorry,’ he said, gently pushing me up and averting his eyes while I put myself away. ‘I spend far too much time with make-up artists. They’re always telling me if my hair was darker it would make my eyes look bluer. Apparently.’

‘Make-up artists,’ I nodded. ‘So not all those hot women you’re forever being pictured with?’

‘Not approved,’ James smirked, taking my hand and pulling me up onto the sand. ‘Shut up and come on.’

The endless ocean melted between the cloudless blue sky and golden beach, but it just couldn’t compete with the skin-on-skin contact. I was sure that the tiny thrills that kept tickling up and down my back would go away if I could just speak to Alex. But my phone had only had the decency to buzz once and that was to remind me that the repeat of
Gossip Girl
was starting. Or it would be if I had been in New York and not Malibu. I gave myself a mental shake and breathed out. Either I was just going to have to put Alex out of my mind and get on with the interview, or I was going to have a week’s worth of embarrassing anecdotes and an empty Dictaphone.

‘Shall we sit down for a while?’ I asked, kicking off my sandals and pulling out my ‘I’m a professional’ paraphernalia.

‘Jesus, I suppose so,’ James screwed up his face. ‘I know you’re a journo and everything, but can we at least attempt to keep it fun? I’ll let you in on a secret, I’m not a very good celebrity.’

‘I’ll try,’ I said wryly. ‘And I can let you in on a secret too: I’m not a very good journalist.’

‘Don’t be daft,’ he said. ‘I’ve read your stuff, you’re great.’

‘Don’t you have people to do that sort of thing for you?’ I asked, trying not to be too flattered. ‘Surely you don’t actually read for yourself?’

‘There’s actually just my manager, an accountant somewhere who makes sure I don’t go broke—and Blake. When I first moved here, I had dozens of people, but it just didn’t work. I’ve never been great at letting people think for me and talk for me, and I hate having dozens of people around me when I don’t know if they’re genuine or not. That’s one of the reasons we’re doing this.’ He tilted his head and looked squarely at me. ‘Blake is…Blake is great at running my life but I don’t think he’s the best person to put in front of journalists. All the media people out here are just, well, just too much. They have to know every single thing that you ever did or might do. There was just no privacy, ever. This, by the way, is off the record.’

I held up the Dictaphone. ‘You want me to turn this off?’

Instead of answering, he took it from my hand, turned it over a couple of times and gave it a considered look. Before throwing it hard and far into the sea. ‘Don’t worry about it.’

‘Don’t ever ask to borrow my phone,’ I said, wondering how I would write that off as expenses. Shit. ‘So let’s just sort this out. The magazine told me we were trying to do a piece to explain to all your adoring female fans that you’re not some heartbreaking Hollywood lothario but just a misunderstood artist looking for your perfect woman. What was it that you were expecting?’

‘Well, that sounds good, let’s do that one. What do you need from me?’ he asked, concentrating on running streams of sand through his fingers. ‘I’m literally yours between now and the weekend.’

I tried not to think about what ‘literally yours’ could amount to and concentrate on the job at hand. Ish. ‘I have a billion questions but, to be honest, I’ve never had to work off questions before. How about if we chat, I’ll check the topics we’re supposed to cover every so often, and when I write stuff up at night, you can check it before I send it to my boss?’

‘You’ll never work for
Vanity Fair
, you know that, don’t you?’ he shook his head. ‘But that sounds perfect.’

‘OK,’ I nodded. ‘Before we start properly, though, I have to ask you one thing. And yes, I know I can already hear Blake giving it some “not approved”, but since you just chucked my Dictaphone in the ocean, I’m asking it anyway. Where are you from?’

‘Well, Angela Clark, I went to drama school in London—’

‘Not the biog, thank you very much. Where were you born?’ I pressed. I was getting the honest answer to this if it killed me.

‘Fine, fine, I’m surprised it’s not common knowledge anyway,’ he shrugged. ‘I’m from South Yorkshire. Near Sheffield actually.’

‘No way,’ I laughed out loud. ‘My grandparents lived in Sheffield; I spent every summer there for years. I could hear you had an accent but I couldn’t quite place it.’

‘What did you expect? They don’t really go in for “it’s grim oop north” at RADA,’ he said, flicking a handful of sand at me. ‘Where’s your Yorkshire accent?’

‘Didn’t say I was from there, I just spent a lot of time throwing a tantrum on the floor of Redgates toy shop as a child,’ I said. ‘Happy memories.’

‘Ahh, Redgates. I got all my
Star Wars
figures there. That’s how I knew I wanted to be an actor, I wanted a little plastic figure of me, just like my Luke Skywalker.’ He made a little pile of sand between us, then pressed it flat with the palm of his hand. ‘I thought they made figures of everyone, you know? And when my mum said they only made them of people in films, I decided that was it. I’d have to be in films. God, I haven’t thought about Redgates for years. My mum would take me there on my birthday and then we’d go to the Wimpy on The Moor. How mad is that?’

‘Mad,’ I agreed. ‘Who would have thought: James Jacobs, the toast of Hollywood, Yorkshire born and bred.’

‘Well, I wasn’t James Jacobs then,’ James grinned. ‘Just plain old Jim.’

‘Jim?’ I tried not to laugh. ‘Jim Jacobs?’

‘What’s your problem with Jim? My dad is Scottish.’

‘Nothing, I can just see why you changed it,’ I said, composing myself. ‘You don’t really hear people talking about Sexy Jim or Hot Jim, do you?’

‘I suppose not,’ he said, laughing at something he clearly wasn’t going to share. ‘It’s more of an Old Jim or Pervy Jim.’

‘Or Fat Jim,’ I added.

‘Did you just call me fat?’ He pushed me sideways, knocking me off my balance, back into the scorching sand.

‘No,’ I said, trying not to count up how many times he had already seen my knickers. ‘I called you Fat Jim.’

‘Come on, fat or not, just thinking about a Wimpy is making me hungry,’ he said, jumping up and pulling me with him. ‘Let’s go and get something to eat.’

I nodded and followed, trying not to be distracted by his denim-clad rear as we strode across the sand. He was like a walking, talking Levis ad. There was no possible way he could have spent his formative years anywhere other than an Abercrombie & Fitch catalogue. ‘So when did you leave Sheffield?’

‘Eighteen. I went to study drama in London and never went back,’ he said, beeping the car’s alarm. ‘My parents moved away and there wasn’t much opportunity for an actor up there. Well, there was panto at the Crucible but the less said about that, the better.’

‘Panto?’

‘The less said about panto the better,’ he repeated sternly. ‘It is weird people don’t know where I’m from, I suppose. I got my break here and everyone just assumes I’m from London. Are you going to out me as a northerner?’

‘Can I?’ I asked, hopeful that I would have something to write.

‘I’ll do you a deal,’ he replied. ‘You can have that if you promise not to mention the word panto in relation to me—ever.’

I thought carefully for a moment. ‘Hmm, well…’

‘Angela…’ It was more of a warning than anything else, but I did like hearing him say my name.

‘Fair enough.’

Back at the car park, I quickly checked my phone to find a couple of missed calls from Jenny. I bit my lip, my phone must have been buzzing all the time we were sitting on the sand and it hadn’t even occurred to me to check it.

‘Boyfriend?’ James asked, looking from my phone to my slightly strained expression. ‘If you need to give him a ring, I can amuse myself for a minute.’

‘No,’ I said, dropping the phone back in my bag. I was working, after all; Jenny would understand that. ‘It’s fine. Should you call Blake? I bet he’s going mental.’

‘I bet he is.’ James looked away and smiled. You could almost mistake him for normal people until he cracked out the teeth. Talk about a Hollywood smile. ‘Huh, just the twenty missed calls from Blake.’

‘Really?’

James nodded. ‘He worries constantly. It’s his job.’

‘Shouldn’t you call?’

‘He’ll wait. Now strap yourself in, I drive like a maniac. Apparently.’

‘You don’t say,’ I clicked my seatbelt. ‘Where are we off to now?’

‘Honestly? You’ve got me completely worked up,’ he said, gunning the ridiculously loud engine. ‘So there’s only one thing to do…’

‘Oh my God,’ I moaned. ‘I think I’m in heaven.’

‘You’re amazing.’ James looked so shocked. ‘I can’t tell you the last time I had a meal with a girl that ate the bread. Or even the burger.’

‘Well you might want to prepare yourself,’ I warned him, reaching across the table for a giant handful of fries. ‘I’m about to go into carb overload.’

There appeared to be several perks to hanging around with a movie star. You could leave work and go straight to the beach in the middle of the afternoon; you could talk your way out of a speeding fine by signing an autograph for the policeman’s fourteen-year-old daughter; and you could get a table at 25 Degrees, the most amazing burger restaurant in the entire world, just by smiling at the waiter. I had tried not to feel smug as we cruised past all the people waiting for a table, but it was hard. Yes, it was the James Jacobs, and yes, he was with me. I knew that he was only with me because it was sort of his job but it was still a little bit lovely.

What wasn’t as lovely was panicking about what kind of state I was in when all these people were staring. I hadn’t so much as touched up my lip gloss since we left the studio. And while I wasn’t completely unused to people whispering behind their hands about the man I was with, this was on another level. Loads of people knew who Alex was in Brooklyn, but the difference was that you could be standing in line for coffee in the Starbucks nearest to Alex’s apartment and three of the five people in front of you would also be in bands. While here, as far as I could see, no one else in the restaurant had been nominated for the Best Fight, Best Kiss and Best Actor at the MTV Movie Awards last year. And I was absolutely certain there wasn’t another contender for
Heat
’s Torso of the Week within a hundred-foot radius.

‘I just have to…’ I couldn’t quite finish the sentence; nothing seemed particularly appropriate. So I just shuffled along the leather banquette clutching my (beloved but now slightly sandy) handbag. James nodded, blissfully lost in his giant burger. The restaurant was long and narrow, making it impossible to hide from the dozens of pairs of eyes that followed me all the way out to the toilets. And I couldn’t really blame them: I would have stared too.

‘Are you
seriously
James Jacobs’s girlfriend?’

What I wouldn’t have done was follow me out, grab my arm and ask a really rude question. But then I wasn’t a huge, angry-looking girl with bright red dyed hair and a bum-bag.

‘What? Are you retarded or something?’ she demanded, arms now folded, her face absolutely enraged.

‘Sorry, no, I’m…’ I paused and looked back. James was still scarfing his dinner, absolutely oblivious to the attention he was receiving. ‘No, I’m not his girlfriend.’

‘Yeah, I totally said there was no way you were his girlfriend,’ the girl looked visibly relieved. ‘But my sister…’ she paused to point over at a skinny girl with matching dyed hair waving from a small table opposite the bar. ‘She said you were because she heard you talk and you were British. Are you his sister? You don’t look like his sister.’

‘I’m interviewing him,’ I said, completely flustered. Now I just really needed a wee. ‘So no, I’m not related to him or going out with him. Excuse me, I’m just off to the bathroom.’

‘I’ll wait here, you totally have to introduce me,’ the girl yelled after me. I couldn’t believe it, did Blake have to put up with this all the time? I couldn’t help but wonder what that girl would have done if I
had
been his girlfriend. I’d dealt with the fact that there must be girls that had crushes on Alex (and the less pleasant fact that, before we’d met, he’d been a bit of a slag), but that was all ancient history. The threat from Alex’s groupie following was incredibly limited compared to that of an actor. And James was something else altogether; every woman with eyes knew who he was. And once you combined his celebrity with his looks and the hateful fact that he was actually really, really nice, it was difficult not to have a bit of a crush on him. Not that I did. Honestly. Well, not that I’d ever cheat on Alex.