Aurora felt tired. She always felt tired these days, as if her bones had got old and she couldn’t be bothered to do anything. Sometimes it was too much effort to even get out of bed so she just stayed there, all day, in a dark room, her thoughts taking her to a dark place. But Farrah’s moany bitchface ignited her wrath. Her so-called friend had no idea what she was dealing with—or not dealing with, as the case may have been—and instead had the nerve to whine like a piglet about some jock she could frankly take or leave.
She slapped Farrah. It was sharp and satisfying and left a pleasing pink blotch. Then, with the weird dragging lethargy of a slo-mo action scene, Farrah went for her, grabbing Aurora’s sodden hair and pulling her to the ground, where she began attacking her with her nails. Distantly Aurora realised she was in a fight. She hadn’t been in one before, which in itself was surprising. Farrah’s knee was pressed to Aurora’s chest and her bare tits jiggled violently with the effort.
‘Get off me!’ Aurora managed, as Farrah dug in and scratched, sharp as a cat. She shoved her with force, sending her careening back into a glass coffee table, which duly smashed.
There was a horrible silence.
‘What the hell is your problem?’ Aurora was breathing hard, her body flushing hot and cold. She realised her friend was sitting practically naked in a pool of broken glass and reached out to take her arm. ‘Get up, come on.’
Casey seized Aurora’s hand. ‘Let’s split.’
Clearly no one else here was going to help Farrah. They
were all looking on, dazed: lobotomised onlookers at a tasteless pantomime. The life she was living.
Farrah was a pathetic figure in her underwear. ‘Get up,’ Aurora said again. ‘I mean it.’
‘Fuck you,’ came the response.
Aurora wasn’t fussed about leaving with Casey but the look on Farrah’s selfish little face more than made up for that.
‘Suit yourself,’ she said, and grabbed her stuff and left.
Aurora woke with the mother of all headaches. She felt as if someone were skewering her brain through her ear-hole. Her room was trashed. Empty bottles and overflowing ashtrays littered the floor, clothes strewn all over the place. She had no idea if it was night or day.
Fuzzily, she rolled over. Casey Amos was fast asleep, his mouth parted, emitting a ragged but gentle snore. He’d kicked the sheets off and his cock was exposed, curled like a dormouse in a nest. His chest was covered in tattoos: naked, big-breasted women, mostly.
Aurora groaned. She felt sore in her stomach and between her legs. Her chest and mouth and eyes hurt from the stuff she’d put in her body but she couldn’t remember what any of it was.
Shrugging on a T-shirt and knickers, she hauled herself off the bed, slowly because she felt faint, and got to her feet. The room swayed. As she tentatively fingered the blind, a jet of scorching sunlight shot in. She felt like a vampire and half expected it to set her skin on fire and she’d just stand here burning like some effigy until there was nothing left except a tiny pile of stinking ash. Who knew, maybe she’d get lucky.
Downstairs, the phone rang. Aurora was tempted to ignore it but the incessant tone was splitting her head in two.
‘Hello?’ she answered groggily.
‘Aurora, what’s the time?’ It was Rita.
She had no idea what the time was. ‘Ten?’ she hazarded, rubbing her eyes.
‘It’s past midday.’
‘Um …’ Vaguely she recalled having to be somewhere.
‘I’ve been calling your cell all morning. Where are you?’
‘At home.’
‘And you’ve only just picked up? I thought something had happened!’
‘My battery must’ve died,’ she offered weakly.
‘Not only have you pissed me off, Aurora, but you’ve pissed off the guys at Strike.’
The record label. They were meant to have met to discuss her next album. Crap.
‘Sorry,’ she muttered. ‘I’m really sorry.’
‘You gotta get it together, kid. This is bad.’
‘I know.’
‘No, I don’t think you do. There’s only so much damage limitation I’m prepared to carry out. You know you’ll get another meet because of your father, but this reflects badly on you and on me. I’m putting my ass on the line with this and it seems like you don’t care.’
‘I overslept.’
‘Like every other day? What about that
Princess Perfect
shoot you were meant to make last week? Or that interview I set up with
USay
? It’s embarrassing.’
‘Sorry.’
‘Stop saying sorry and clean up. I thought you wanted to
avoid all this. Drugs, partying, guys only after one thing. You’re going down a dangerous road right now and I can’t follow.’ Rita exhaled, exasperated. ‘Ever since we came back from Cacatra you’ve been a damn liability. I thought that place was meant to sort people out!’
The name of the island throttled her.
It’s not happening. It’s not real. Don’t think about it and it’s not real
.
But still she caught it in flashes. She remembered how she’d rushed back to the villa that night, demanded of Rita that they leave first thing. She ought to be kissing Rita’s feet for not giving her the Spanish Inquisition, not throwing her efforts back in her face.
‘Never mind,’ said Rita briskly. ‘It’s done. We’ve rescheduled, so just make sure you show up next time. Don’t let me down again.’
‘I won’t.’
‘You won’t let me down or you won’t show up?’
‘I won’t let you down.’
As she hung up, Casey’s arms circled Aurora’s waist. His odour was of smoke and cooking meat and his hard-on was jutting into her back. She leaned forward on the dresser and parted her legs. What was the point in resisting? What was the point in any of it?
Sherilyn Rose peeled open the luxury box of chocolates and ran her bitten, baby-pink fingernails across their dark, smooth shells. Belgian, her favourite.
The housemaid brought a box up every couple of days. She couldn’t go without. They were her only pleasure, her darling treasures. Caramel, raspberry, cappuccino … She’d pop the chosen one into her mouth and let it melt on her
tongue till it burst with silky flavour and awarded her the brief moment of ecstasy that made everything all right. Just for now, everything all right.
In the gloom of Sherilyn’s bedroom, she could scarcely make out which she had chosen. That was part of it, and about as much of a risk as she was prepared to take these days. The blinds were drawn against the LA sun, the TV rampant with garish commercials and game shows.
She had been ensconced here for months. It had started with the panic attacks that prevented her leaving the house, then the mansion itself became too much, too unknowable, to bear, each corner a reminder of the sham she was living with her husband and daughter.
As if!
But what else was she going to call them?
Her bedroom was the only safe place. Secure. Enclosed. She and Tom had always possessed individual rooms, blaming her restlessness and Tom’s supposed snoring. To the public they’d laughed about that. Ha ha ha, she couldn’t get a wink once he got started! Except in truth they were laughing at the world’s biggest goddamn joke of a marriage that ever there was.
Sherilyn flicked the remote and settled on the shopping channel. She watched as a woman sold her a swan-shaped pendant. She could buy it. Hell, she could buy a thousand of the damn things, ten thousand: a million! She could be sitting right now in a swimming pool neck-deep with swan-shaped fucking pendants and it still wouldn’t make things right.
She ramped up the decibels when she heard Aurora mount the stairs with her boyfriend. Half the night she’d lain awake listening to the soundtrack of their shrieks and
yells. She wasn’t about to risk a reprisal now. A nymphomaniac
devil
: that was the beast they had raised.
The volume got so loud it hurt.
Sherilyn clamped her hands over her ears and the chocolates scattered from the bed, a spherical one rolling across the floor, arcing at the last minute and rounding on her.
It was turning on her. Everything was turning on her.
She didn’t know how much longer she could pretend.
Two thousand miles away, on a sprawling stage somewhere in Tennessee, Tom Nash replaced the microphone, took a bow and heard the roar go up. The grand finale of his sellout tour was an uncontested triumph. He’d sounded better than ever. He’d set the crowd wild with his gyrating dance moves and lilting croon. He’d delivered the most sensational run of gigs of his career. Tom Nash was riding high on the big time. Oh yeah, the magic was still there.
‘TOM! TOM! TOM!’ Women chanted his name over and over, weeping into their sleeves at the certainty he would never be theirs. A few panties got thrown on to the stage, several red roses and the usual knots of paper containing phone numbers and email addresses. Camera phones glittered throughout the auditorium, feet stamped and a new incantation began:
‘More! More! More!’
Beneath his leather slacks, Tom was trembling. But this time, it wasn’t with fear, or self-doubt, or a slinking conscience. This time it was with euphoria, plain and simple. Pumped with adrenalin, he let their adulation wash over him and cleanse the anxiety of the past few months.
Who needed Sherilyn Rose? If anything, Tom was more bankable without her. He had worried he could no longer
do it by himself. Now, he’d proved he could. The thought of Sherilyn decaying in her agoraphobic state depressed him, but not tonight. Tonight he was a free agent, the one and only Tom Nash.
He needed this. Just to be him, without a wife, without a daughter, without a goddamn family. Aurora was in a bad place, he’d heard it from Rita Clay: she was going off the rails and he had to intervene, because when had her mother been any help? But he couldn’t, he hadn’t been able to deal with it. He’d wanted some time … away. Just some time. Worry for Aurora had characterised the last three years and had almost butchered his career. Now, Tom had to be the pop star they all relied on, the man who made the money and kept things on an even keel. Shit, he knew Aurora had called, she’d called countless times, and to his shame he hadn’t picked up. But that was for the greater good, right? Where were any of them without the Tom Nash reputation? In the gutter, that was where. He’d sort her out when he got home.
‘TOM! TOM! TOM!’
The crowd got what they wanted. As the encore began, his number one smash ‘Lady Knows the Way’, the housewives’ screams reached fever pitch.
Tom strutted across the stage, grinding to his audience, living every word and every beat.
He was king of this world. Nothing was going to jeopardise that.
45
Stevie
Marty King called to say the role was hers. It was a British film, a novel adaptation by an acclaimed writer. She would be shooting on location in London.
‘You sound relieved,’ he said.
‘I am. LA’s driving me crazy.’
But it wasn’t LA that was driving her crazy as much as her husband. Things with Xander had deteriorated since she’d returned from Cacatra. He had barely spoken two words to her, not even to enquire after Bibi and their trip, and delivered only vapid chitchat whenever they did speak. He’d been in Vancouver on and off for the past month and Stevie was forced to admit that time apart might be for the best.
The suspicion he was having an affair crept up quietly, insidious, until she woke one morning and was faced with the realisation that this was how it felt to be on the other side. It was the fact she was going to bed alone most nights,
Xander stumbling in hours later amid a cloud of alcohol with no justification for where he’d been. It was the freezing out, the rejection, the finding excuses why they couldn’t spend time together. It was his refusal to meet her eye.
She didn’t know what to do. She’d tried again and again to get to the heart of it, pleading with him to open up, because whatever he told her she’d try to forgive. Yet every exchange went the same way, ending in one of them stalking out, unable to continue the dialogue, same as the ugly fight they’d had before she’d left for Cacatra. She was running out of ideas, and of patience.
Hollywood looped vulture-like over the apparent separation, not helped when Stevie was obliged, when Xander was in Canada, to attend parties by herself. Gossip columns flaunted news of SHOTGUN WEDDING HITS THE ROCKS and SINGLE STEVIE … ALONE AGAIN! She tried to ignore it but it was difficult. ‘We’ll get you together for a long weekend,’ encouraged Wanda Gerund. ‘Tip off the press and you’ll be front-page next morning.’
Tonight was the annual Actors League Awards. A month had passed since the notorious Vegas
Eastern Sky
premiere during which Lana Falcon, an actress whom Stevie had met once or twice and liked, had been attacked by a crazed fan. The industry was feeling vulnerable and tonight would be missing a few key faces.
Stevie hadn’t wanted to fly out to New York but was nominated for a Supporting Role and her publicity was looking weak enough as it was. She didn’t win and would have preferred to return to the hotel, but instead got lynched by Christina Michaels, Dirk’s wife, who, with trademark
insensitivity, ploughed into a Dom Pérignon-fuelled rant about failing marriages.
‘Husbands get bored,’ she counselled, shooting Dirk a sidelong glance as he celebrated his triumph as Best Producer. ‘That’s when the girls move in, pretty blondes with juicy tits and asses you could eat sushi off.’ Xander didn’t like sushi but it was a waste of breath to say so.
‘Xander’s not like that.’ It was a mechanical response. She didn’t know any more.
Christina raised an eyebrow, as much as her Botox would allow. ‘They’re
all
like that. Take it from someone who knows.’
It was debatable which was worse: hanging out with Christina or with Dirk. The man of the moment made a beeline for Stevie as soon as his admirers dispersed. He was drunk.
‘Life’s tough without the guy,’ he confided, swaying gently. ‘Linus and me, we were tight.’ A trio of photographers jumped in and Dirk and Stevie posed together, smiles fixing then vanishing the minute they’d gone.
‘It was sudden,’ she agreed.