you knocked it down,’ she told me excitedly, ‘you could really build something beautiful here. I mean that hydrangea –’ she gestured out at the wall beside the pool, where white flowers and green foliage smothered the whitewash – ‘it’s been here like half a century.’
‘Why would you knock it down?’
She looked at me like I was crazy. ‘It’s old,’ she said.
‘That’s why I like it,’ I told her.
‘Isn’t it a beautiful day?’ I ask Tina now.
‘They say there’s a storm coming,’ she says sadly. Tina is not a positive person.
T.J. heaves out the box of scripts. ‘Can you put those in my office, T.J.?’ I look at Tina. ‘How are you?’
‘Good, good,’ Tina mumbles. Her lips are like hard chipolatas. I don’t know whether to offer to pay for it to be sorted out; I know a surgeon who could do it, but maybe she loves those lips, thinks they make her look like Nicole Kidman or something. She says awkwardly, ‘Carmen said to tell you she has lunch ready – you’re on week two of the diet already.’
‘OK, great.’ I take my sunglasses off and head into the sunny hall which smells of grapefruit, the floorboards gleaming in the midday glow. I breathe in. I love coming home. No matter how stupid the day, how cruel some studio exec has been, how spiteful some TV report about me is, being back here always makes things better. I control this environment and I feel safe here.
I decide to start on some of the scripts now: I’m so hungry, but if I hold out a while longer the lunch will go even further, though already I feel kind of faint. I’m glad I don’t have any interviews coming up. You have to munch down a burger and chips to convince the (female) journalist you love food and you’re just naturally this thin. I hate it. I wish I could just say once when someone asks, ‘Candice, no one’s naturally this thin, for fuck’s sake! I’m this thin because I eat bloody nothing!’ I know a famous actress, an A-lister, who wanted a baby but was so terrified of putting on weight that someone else had the baby for her and she wore an expanding prosthetic belly for four, five months. I don’t know how we got like this, but it’s wrong, isn’t it?
Tina follows me into my office as I sit down in the swivel chair and swirl around – I like the swivel chair for that very reason. I touch my fingers together, like when I was young and used to practise being a newsreader.
‘Any messages?’
Tina starts and frowns, glaring at her BlackBerry. A vein pulses on one caramel-coloured temple. ‘OK, well, while I remember, Sophie, Kerry from Artie’s office called about finalising the time for you to meet up with Patrick Drew. They’re thinking coffee, in a cool place in West Hollywood. He’s on board.’
‘Fine,’ I say, without any enthusiasm. I’m sure he’s going to be a massive douche. I wish I didn’t have to bother. Maybe I could get George to come along too? He is the director, after all. The thought of George makes me sit upright – a cool breeze seems to slide over my face and down my neck. George. Mm.
‘There are a couple of additional publicity days next week for The Girlfriend, you remember?’
‘Yep,’ I say. ‘What do I have to do?’
‘Ashley sent over the schedule. You’re in NYC next week, going on The View and maybe Today if we can get it to work. And you’re on Ellen in a couple weeks, I’ve sent the dates to your diary.’
I am twisting round in the chair. ‘Great. You should come then – you love Ellen, don’t you? You could meet her.’
‘OK. Sure.’ Tina looks mortified at my attempt to be friendly. She always does, so I don’t know why I bother, except I hate the fact I work with her and have no other interaction with her apart from conversations about my schedule, my diet, my photo shoots, my security.
The door bangs open and T.J. appears with the box of scripts. ‘Here?’ he says, gesturing to the floor.
‘No, on the desk, please. I’m going to start going through them now.’ I try to sound businesslike.
‘But you hate reading scripts,’ T.J. says. ‘You never look at them.’
‘Thanks, T.J.’ I shake my head and ignore him.
‘Do you have anything on tonight?’ Tina asks me.
I’m waiting for George to call. ‘I’m not sure … I might slob out in the den. There’s an Eve Noel season. Lanterns Over Mandalay’s on TNT tonight.’
‘Oh. Haven’t you seen all her films like a million times?’ asks Tina with a shy smile.
‘I don’t care,’ I say. ‘It makes me happy.’ It’s true, it does, even when I’m sitting there sobbing my heart out at the end of A Girl Named Rose or Triumph and Tragedy, which is a strange film, and Eve Noel herself is strange in it. It’s about a nurse who keeps having visions. I think they were trying to replicate the success of A Girl Named Rose but it didn’t work. It was a big flop. She disappeared afterwards, left this very house and no one knows where she went.
The thought still makes me shiver. I look up at Tina, a wave of longing for something washing over me. Lolling on a couch having silly chats and eating cheesy snacks, dissing programmes on TV – all things I don’t have any more. ‘You should stay over, watch them with me. You’d love A Girl Named Rose.’
‘I – well, I have to – sure, Sophie. Maybe.’
I say, embarrassed, ‘Or … whatever. Of course. So, anything else?’
She hesitates. ‘In fact … there’s two more things. I need to talk to you.’
‘What’s up?’
‘I’ll – no, I’ll ask you about it later.’
I put my elbows on the table. ‘I might be out later, I don’t know. Talk to me now.’
Tina puts her BlackBerry in her back pocket and twists her long, slim fingers together. ‘I need to have some time off. It’s not in my contract. You can – um, I’m gonna need two months.’
‘Two months? Why?’
She flushes and looks furiously at her hands. ‘I – medical reasons.’
I follow her gaze. She bites her nails; it’s the first time I’ve noticed. ‘Are you OK, Tina?’
‘Sure. I’m fine.’ She stares at me defiantly, her dark eyes flashing. I realise she’s quite beautiful; like the nails, I never noticed before. She always looks so downbeat, and those terrible lips … Suddenly it makes sense.
‘Are you having your lips done?’ I ask, and immediately wish I hadn’t. Tina is an unknown quantity. She worked for Byron Bay, the big action star, for several years before me and I think he was such a basket case she wanted a change. She’s been here for three years, but apart from the fact that she has a mom in Vegas and she once got an infected finger from a cactus prick, I know nothing about her. I’ve asked, believe me. I’m nosy, and a little bit lonely, plus there’s something about her I really like. She’s kind of loopy, but cool. But there’s some stuff you just shouldn’t ask. I’ve lost a level of appropriateness, living in my bubble.
‘I’d rather not say,’ Tina tells me firmly.
‘I’m sorry. Tina, I shouldn’t have asked.’ A wash of mortification floods over me. ‘It’s none of my business. Two months is fine – I guess we’ll have to find someone to cover you, and—’
‘I’ve already spoken to Kerry at WAM about it,’ she says. ‘In preparation. She’s talking to Artie and Tommy and I’ve contacted the agency who covered me last time. You liked that girl Janelle, didn’t you?’
‘Sure … sure …’