The Hollywood Effect (3 page)

“So, how was your week, Jen?” Simon asked me.
 

I thought for a moment before answering. “Pretty good, actually. Apart from the ‘Do you know Liam Burns’ questions I got bombarded with today…” The other three teachers just laughed.
 

After having possibly a drink or two too many, I was grateful that I could just walk home.

It was a pleasant enough walk. My feet started leading me along the familiar route to my parents’ house, but I caught myself in time and turned along my new street.
 

I tripped over a crack in the driveway and swore. I fumbled for my keys before realising I was in Tarang and no one locks their doors in this town (the real estate agent had given me the wrong keys the day I moved in. It had taken me four days to even realise) and pushed opened my unlocked door. I paused in my doorway and frowned. The TV was on. I never watched TV in the mornings. I couldn’t have left it on.
 

I closed the door as quietly as I could, then rethought that and opened it again, wincing as it creaked. I might need a quick getaway. I tip-toed to the lounge room, and grabbed the old cricket bat Dad had bequeathed to me when I first moved out of home for security.
 

I froze as I heard someone sigh. There was definitely someone in my house. I quickly wracked my brain, trying to think if I’d forgotten that someone was coming up to visit, but I came up blank. If it was a thief, they would be sorely disappointed by my meagre belongings. Maybe that was why they’d stopped burgling and started watching telly. What kind of crappy burglar stops to watch the telly? What if they weren’t just a telly-watching burglar though? What if they were here to get me? To murder me? Rape me?
 

I shook myself.
Get a grip, Pike
.
It’s Tarang. We haven’t had a murder here since… I don’t even know when. Ever? Statistically you’re much more likely to die in a car accident or get eaten by a hippo than be murdered in your own home by a stranger.
 

I slightly reassured myself and started lowing the cricket bat when I heard the person sigh again - no man, that had definitely been a manly sigh. Whatever the statistics were, that didn’t alter the fact that someone uninvited was sitting in my lounge room.
 

I took a deep steadying breath, plucked my courage down from where it was hovering near the ceiling, and peeked around the corner.
 

My cricket bat thunked to the floor.
 

“What the hell are you doing here?” I demanded.
 

Liam Burns looked up from his position on the couch and grinned at me.
 

“Surprise.”

“Holy shit, Liam! You scared me half to death, you dick.” I clutched my chest. I shoved his feet off my favourite part of the couch and sank down.
 

“Oh. Sorry, Jen.” He didn’t look all that sorry. Not with that smirk on his face. “I thought you would have been home when I got here.”
 

“I was at the pub with a few teachers. Friday night and all that.”

“Oh yeah. It’s Friday. Sorry, I think I’m still on L.A. time. I seriously thought it was Thursday…”
 

“Then I would have been at netball.”
 

Liam frowned at me.
 

“Sorry. I thought you would have been happy to see me.” He looked a bit wounded which took all the wind out of my sails, as usual.
 

“Ugh. I’m sorry. My heart’s still beating a million miles a minute and I think I’m still a bit drunk… Of course it’s great to see you.” I belatedly leaned over and gave him a hug. He held on longer than usual.
 

 
“What are you doing here anyway?” I asked as I extricated myself from his muscular arms. “Your rabid fan club were here earlier but most of them seemed to have moved on.”

“Rabid fan club?”

“The paparazzi, or whoever they were. Reporters. Photographers. Sleazy men camping out in our tree house,” I said.
 

“Seriously? In the tree house?” Liam shuddered. “I feel violated.”
 

“Yeah. Don’t worry, he wasn’t there for long. I was over at Dad’s. Saw him go up. Yelled a few choice words at him. He skid-addled.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t really think that they’d get here so quickly. The tree house? Seriously?”

I laughed, not really amused. “Yeah. Seriously.” I got up from the couch and went into the kitchen. Thankfully I’d packed most of my kitchen stuff away. I opened the fridge and poured myself a cold glass of water and gulped it down.
 

Liam shook his head in disgust. “I had my first kiss up there. Better not let them find that out.” He winked at me.
 

I frowned. “Who with?” The tree house had always been our spot. And Grant and Dan later on. No other girls though. I’d never taken any of my girlfriends up there. They’d always thought it was weird that I was friends with the little kid next door (that he was only a year younger than us made him “little”), and by the time he was a bit more respectable as a choice of friend, they thought tree-houses were lame. Maybe that was the reason I wasn’t really friends with many of them anymore… And I’d definitely never taken a boyfriend up there. The thought of Liam taking a girl up there made me feel a bit twisted inside, even if it was a decade ago.
 

“You, stupid,” he laughed.
 

“Me?” I frowned. My first kiss had been Jonathan Graham in Year 8. It was something best left forgotten with it’s unfortunate resemblance to slugs and washing machines. I’d always thought Liam’s first kiss had been Belinda Morrow when they were in Year 10. We had had that one drunken kiss in Year 12 after which Liam apologised profusely and declared that he didn’t want to ruin our friendship. But that wasn’t in the tree-house, and that definitely wasn’t his first kiss. He’d kissed a lot of girls that year.
 

“Yeah. Don’t you remember? When you were in Grade One and I was in Prep. I proposed to you. You said yes because no one else had asked you yet, and then we kissed.”

I relaxed into the couch and giggled.
 

“Oh yeah. That was very romantic. I vaguely remember it.”

“Only vaguely? I’m deeply hurt.”

“All the other proposals since then have washed out the memory.”
 

He laughed half-heartedly. I frowned.
 

“Don’t get me wrong, it’s great to see you any time, but… Why are you here?”

“Figured they wouldn’t look here. I didn’t even know where you lived. You didn’t give me your new address, by the way.”

“I only moved in two and a half weeks ago! Give me a chance. I did tell you I was moving back.
 
How’d you find me anyway?” I belatedly wondered. I hadn’t even told his parents exactly where I was yet.
 

Liam shrugged. “Uncle Barry.”

Right. I should have known. ‘Uncle Barry’ was Liam’s godfather, and the local real estate agent.
 

“You know he didn’t give me the right keys?”
 

“How long did it take you to figure that out?”
 

“Longer than it should have,” I laughed. “Why are you here?” I asked again.
 

“I told you. Figured the paps wouldn’t know to look here. And Dan lives in a share house with a bunch of people I don’t know, they know where my parents and my brother live and that about rounds out the list of people who I trust at the moment in this country not to dob me in for a quick buck or two.”
 

“That’s not what I meant. Not here as in my house. Here as in Australia.”
 

He frowned at the mute television.
 

“Haven’t you heard?”

“Heard what?”

“Heard about Holly.”
 

“Just spit it out, Burns. I heard a few rumours curtesy of my Year 8s, but I kind of make it a point not to actually read anything about you that’s written in a newspaper or magazine these days. Hope you don’t mind.”

“Not at all. Wish Aunty Janet would take a leaf out of your book… I’ve had to start screening her calls. She still believes everything they write about me. No matter how… idiotic. And then she tells me to think of poor Grandma and what would she think and my god, the woman drives me nuts.”
 

“So, Holly?” I prodded.
 

“Yeah. Holly.” He looked down at me. “You seriously don’t know?”

I shook my head.
 

“Wow.” He shook himself. “Refreshing.”

“What do you mean?” I narrowed my eyes at him.
 

“Just that… well, living over there, you get caught up in this bubble. It’s nice to know that not everyone pays attention. Y’know?”

“I guess… like not hanging out with teachers all the time. You can get a bit caught up in all the school politics.”

“That’s right. How is it being back at the old High?”
 

“Fine. Don’t change the topic.”

“You were the last person I would have picked to end up back there.”

“Don’t change the topic,” I said in my sternest teacher voice.
 

“Yes, Miss Pike. I mean no. I mean…”

“Oh just spit it out. Please.”

“Holly cheated on me.”

“Ah, shit.”

“Yeah.” He sat in silence for a few moments.
 

“Who with?” I prodded.
 

“Does it matter?”
 

“No, I guess not.”
 

“It was her co-star,” he said after a minute.
 

“Oh. Did… did she tell you, or did you have to find out the hard way.”
 

“Saw it on the front cover of a bunch of magazines when we were in the supermarket. I normally ignore those pieces of trash but… there were fucking photos of them. On the front cover. In the fucking supermarket.”

“What did you do?” You couldn’t pay me enough to be famous, not in a million years.
 

“Left her in the supermarket, got on a plane and came here. Do you have anything to drink?”
 

“No, not in the house. Have you talked to her?”

“Not yet. I need some time to think first. I really need a drink though, Jen.”

I looked at the clock on the wall. It was 10:30pm.
 

“The drive-thru at The Bottom should still be open. We can walk up. I don’t think I’m fit to drive at the moment.”
 

“I don’t want anyone to see me yet,” Liam said tiredly and rubbed his face.
 

“Don’t you have some sort of famous-man disguise?”

“Sunglasses would look kind of stupid at this time of night, wouldn’t they?” He managed a grin. Goddamn it, he was gorgeous even when he was heartsick and jet-lagged.
 

“Yeah a bit. Hang on,” I said. I went into my room and rummaged around in the wardrobe. I swore I’d unpacked a pile of beanies a few days ago. I gave a small whoop of success when I found them.
 

“Why on earth do you have so many beanies?” Liam had followed me, and stood leaning in the door-way with his arms crossed and eyebrows raised.
 

“Running joke with Steph. I lost about four of them the first time I visited her in Canada. She sends me a new one every birthday and Christmas. Here, you can pick one. I recommend this one.” I held up a bright yellow and green concoction that made the wearer look like they had a massive fluro mohawk. Liam cracked a smile.
 

“Not quite as inconspicuous as I had in mind, I might just borrow this one if it’s all the same to you.” He picked up one of the more sedate options, a grey Vancouver Canucks branded beanie.
 

“Don’t Canadians call them something else? Not beanie?”

“Yeah… um, toke or toque or something. I always said it wrong.”
 

Liam laughed. “Yeah that’s it. Toque. Not toke.” He pulled the beanie over his hair, just leaving a bit sticking out at the front, then pulled his hoodie up. “How do I look?”
 

“Like a proper drop-kick. Or Liam Burns with a beanie and hoodie on?” I laughed. Liam looked in the mirror and screwed his face up.
 

“I still look like me. Do you have any baseball caps?” His eyes scanned over my room. I wished I’d bothered to tidy it a bit better. I made a mental note to myself to attempt to keep my house clean; one never knows when one is going to be unexpectedly visited by one’s crush. I bit my lip, trying to think. I wasn’t really a cap-wearer.
 

“Oh! Maybe over here.” I pulled out one of the boxes I hadn’t got around to unpacking yet and started rummaging through it. I had a lot of random crap. “Hazzah!” I held up a white cap in triumph. Liam took it from my hands.
 

“Do you only buy hats in Canada?” He pointed at the logo. It was from Grouse Mountain in Vancouver. I laughed.
 

“Must do. Nah, I think that’s a hand-me-down from Steph. Or a present. I dunno. She worked there for a season or two, I think,” I said.
 

“Yeah, I remember. Me and Charlie went to visit her there. She got us up for free.”
 

“Oh yeah, I forgot about that!”
 

Liam pulled the cap on, and positioned it low. “So how do I look now?” I looked in the mirror at him standing behind me.
 

“Like Liam Burns trying to hide from the paparazzi?” I laughed as he scowled at my reflection.
 

“Don’t worry, it’s pretty dark out. I’ll go in. You can lurk creepily outside.”

“Deal.”

We walked side by side towards the closer of the two drive-thru bottle shops in town. The only other place to buy alcohol in town was the supermarket, and it had closed hours ago. The streets were quiet, apart from the loud
doof doof
music I could hear coming from a car that was doing laps of the main street. I’d never seen the appeal of that even when I’d been a teenager.