Film Star (19 page)

“Oh, Daddy got me in. Look, Ruby, let me explain…” Anne-Marie began.

But just at that moment my mum and Jeremy Fort (who I didn't even know was there) came rushing towards me.

“Oh, Ruby, we've found you,” Mum said in relief.

“I wasn't running away again…” I said.

“No, I know,” Mum told me hurriedly. “Look—I had a call from Nydia's mum on my mobile. Nydia's collapsed. She's in hospital.”

It really was winter at last. The days had suddenly got cold and the last leaves on the trees had fallen. I looked out the patio window in Nydia's house on to the garden where I stood and argued with Danny a few weeks earlier, and I watched the trees at the end of the garden, the stark black of their bare branches bristling against the flat pale sky.

None of the last few weeks seemed real any more. Getting the part in the film, driving out of school with Imogene Grant, acting with Jeremy Fort, meeting Sean Rivers, walking the red carpet. Even the award ceremony all seemed like a dream. I could not believe that any of it had ever really happened to me. But it had.

And some of it was wonderful and brilliant. And some of it was awful.

But the worst thing that had happened during those strange few weeks was that I nearly lost Nydia. I nearly lost my best friend, my almost twin, for good.

I
nearly
did.

“What are you thinking?” Nydia asked me from the sofa where she was resting.

“That life gets stranger every day you get older,” I said, turning round to smile at her. “And that I should have been your friend instead of disappearing off to that film set. If I hadn't got that part then none of this would have happened.”

Nydia shook her head.

“Nothing that much really did happen,” she said. “I went on a stupid crash diet and fainted, cracked my head open, got some stitches and a good telling off. That's all that happened really.”

“Nydia,” I said, sitting down on the sofa next to her. “You'd stopped eating. If you'd carried on you could have been really sick. You could have died.”

Nydia and I looked at each other for a moment.

“I know that now,” Nydia said softly. “But I was so angry when I was doing it I didn't think about what would happen to me. I just wanted to be thin; I thought it would solve everything. And I blamed you because I was so angry inside that I just wanted someone to be angry at. It wasn't your fault, Ruby. I've had this secret feeling for a long time that I'm sort of stuck in the shadows, that nothing ever happens to me. I don't get
the part in the film or the celebrity boyfriend. Or
any
boyfriend. I wanted someone, something to blame. I blamed you, and I blamed myself for being fat; I used it as an excuse. It was easier to deal with than the truth.”

“What is the truth?” I asked her, hugging one of her mum's cushions on to my lap.

“That so far I just haven't been good enough,” Nydia said.

“That's not true, you have…” I started, but she shook her head.

“I haven't, Ruby,” she said. “And if anything, you've helped me see that, because I didn't really understand what I was doing until you brought Imogene to see me.”

It had been Imogene's last day, she was flying back to California, but when I phoned her and told her what had happened to Nydia, she put back her flight and went to the hospital to sit with her.

Nydia couldn't believe it when I walked into her room with Imogene Grant.

“Hi, Nydia,” Imogene said, in her soft, gentle voice. “Would you mind if I talked with you for a while?” Nydia shook her head as she struggled to sit up in bed.

“Do you mind, Ruby?” Imogene asked me, and I knew that she wanted me to leave. I shook my head and waited outside for an hour before Imogene came out again. I hadn't ever asked Nydia what she and Imogene talked about that afternoon because I felt it was just between them.

“Imogene told me,” Nydia said, “that every actor, no matter how talented, just has to wait for their moment to come. That they spend their whole life waiting for that first moment and that sometimes it never comes. Or sometimes it only comes once and never happens again. She said if I wanted to be an actor I had to be strong enough to face that possibility.”

“Your mum said you'd had lots of interest since your episodes of
Holby City
aired,” I said.

“Yes,” Nydia said. “But I don't want to play another fat sick girl. That was the other thing that Imogene made me see.”

I waited for Nydia to continue, watching her as she picked at the hem of her jumper sleeve.

“She told me that by crash-dieting I was letting food rule me; I was making myself its slave and turning it from being some everyday thing into an obsession. She said if I let it go on it could have ruined my life, like it nearly did hers.”

“Heavy,” I said, not knowing exactly what else to say.

“I know,” Nydia said. “She's so nice…well, you know. She talked to my mum and dad for ages and gave them the number of a nutritionist who can help us all eat more healthily. And now Mum knows how I feel, and knows how to help me, I feel so much better. I feel like I'm in
control
of my life now.” Nydia shot me a rueful grin. “Well, you know, as much as anybody can be when they've got my mum as a mum.”

I nodded sympathetically.

“I can't wait for you to be back at school,” I said. “Anne-Marie will not shut up about Sean. It's Sean this and Sean that. Blah, blah, blah, blah!”

“And what about Sean?” Nydia asked me, giggling. I shrugged.

“To be fair,” I said, “he will not shut up about Anne-Marie either.”

If it hadn't been for one other discovery I'd made since finishing work on the film, then what happened with Sean and his dad might have been the most surprising thing of all.

On the last day of filming, just after Sean and I had wrapped our last scene and were walking back to our trailers, a black cab pulled into the lot. A woman with reddish brown hair, wearing a white trouser suit, got out and paid the driver.

She turned and looked around her.

“I don't believe it,” Sean said, standing stock still.

“What?” I joked. “Don't tell me it's another fake girlfriend?”

It hadn't taken me long to forgive Sean and Anne-Marie, who had admitted they should have told me when they got together, even if Sean's dad would probably have bricked them both up in separate rooms if he ever found out. Besides, I couldn't stay cross with them: once I knew that Nydia was going to be OK, I was too happy about being back with Danny again to be cross at anyone.

“That,” Sean said, staring at the woman who was now staring just as hard at him, “is my mother.”

“Sean!” the woman called out and ran towards us.

“What do you think you're doing here?” Sean's dad bellowed from the open door of Sean's Winnebago. He must have seen her getting out of the taxi.

“I've come to get my son, if he wants to come with me,” Catherine Rivers said, her chin high. She looked at Sean and her face softened. “Sean, there's so much to
say, to explain, but you should know the only reason I haven't been in touch is because I thought you hated me,” she said. “
He
told me you hated me. If I had known how much you needed me, Sean—you have to believe me.”

I looked at Sean and I could see tears standing in his eyes.

“I don't understand…” he said, looking at his father.

“You don't have custody,” Pat Rivers said, his face so red that it looked like it might explode. He marched over to us and stood opposite Sean's mum. “You have zero rights.”

She glared at him, and I thought she was a little bit afraid, even if she was hiding it.

“All I need is my son to want to come with me and I think you'll find I get all the rights I need.” She looked intently at Sean.

“Sean, I'm sorry I've let you down. But now I know for sure what you're going through I'll get you away from all of this, if you want me to. You can live somewhere where people won't harass or point at you. You can go back to school and make real friends, have a real life. And you won't have to act again unless you want to.”

“Really?” Sean said in disbelief.

“No,” Pat Rivers said. “You can't. You've made
contracts. It would cost me millions to break them.”

“Lucky then,” Sean's mum said without breaking eye contact with her son, “that
Sean's
got millions. It's up to your son. No court in the world will keep you from living where you want to, I promise you. And I know that you and I hardly know each other now, but I promise you I never stopped loving you or being so proud of you. I worried about you every day. I longed for you to get in touch with me. And then Imogene passed your message on to me.”

“Message?” Sean asked her, totally bewildered.

“Why, you little…” Pat Rivers lunged at Sean but somehow, before I knew it, I was standing between him, his fists and his son. He stopped himself from hitting me with millimetres to spare.

“It was me,” I told him, lifting my chin so I could look him in the eye. “I asked Imogene to tell his mother the truth. Sean had nothing to do with it.”

“This is nothing to do with you,” Pat Rivers growled at me. He took a step closer but before he could, Sean's mother put her arm across both Sean and I, guiding us back behind her.

“He said you didn't want me,” Sean said, fighting to keep his voice steady as he pointed at his father. “He said you didn't want to know. Is that true?”

“Oh, my darling,” Catherine Rivers said, with tears in her voice. “I've never stopped loving you, not for a second. I was weak and foolish. I should have kept on trying to reach you, but I gave up. You always looked so happy on TV. I'd do anything to make up the years I've lost with you.”

“Mom!” Sean said and suddenly he was in his mum's arms and they were squeezing each other so tightly I didn't think they would ever let each other go.

“You can't do this!” Pat Rivers shrieked, just as Imogene, Jeremy, Art and two security guards ran across the lot towards us.

“You can't do this!” Sean's dad shrieked again as the security guards held him back.

“Mr Rivers,” Art said, fronting up to Sean's dad even though he was a foot or so shorter than him. “It's quite clear that Sean wants some time with his mother. If you have any sense, I suggest you let him be and go and talk to your lawyers.”

“I will!” Pat Rivers had shouted, turning on his heel and marching back towards the Winnebago. “And you
will
be hearing from my lawyers.”

I looked at Jeremy and Imogene and we looked at Sean, sobbing in his mother's arms, and very, very quietly we walked away and left them on their own.

Which was why it was a bit of a shock a week later when we found out that Sean had enrolled at Sylvia Lighthouse's Academy for the Performing Arts and that he was going to live in London with his mother, at least until he finished school.

Anne-Marie hadn't shut up about it since. And as for Sean? Well, he told me
The Lost Treasure of King Arthur
was going to be his last film for a long time.

“But you're not giving up on acting?” I asked him. He grinned at me and ruffled my hair.

“How could I give up acting?” he said. “After all, I was born to do it.”

The last and most surprising surprise had been when I got home from school one day and found Jeremy Fort sitting in my kitchen.

“Hello, Ruby,” he said. I blinked at him but he didn't go away.

“Hello,” I said uncertainly, just in case he was a hallucination.

“Your mum's upstairs. She invited me over for dinner.” I nodded and sat down at the table. Everest hauled himself up on to the table top and looked menacingly at Jeremy. He didn't like strangers until they gave him food.

“It's nice to see you and everything, Jeremy,” I said, lowering my voice, “but sometimes you're too polite for your own good. You don't have to come to dinner just because Mum asked you to. In fact, it might be better if you didn't.
She's got a bit of a crush on you.
”

Jeremy Fort laughed so loudly that Everest vacated the table.

“I know!” I said. “Funny, isn't it?”

“Ruby, why do think I'm here?” he said.

I shrugged. “Because you are very nice and have a problem saying no,” I said.

“Not exactly,” Jeremy said, leaning closer to me and whispering himself this time. “
It's because I've got a bit of a crush on your mum.
”

“Pardon?” I said.

“You heard,” Jeremy said, winking at me.

“OK then,” I said. “Well, that's…nice.”

Just then Mum had come in from where she must have been hovering about in the hall.

“Oh, good, you're back,” she said, as if nothing
amazing like my
mum
going out with an international film star and thespian had happened. “Risotto for tea anyone?” My cat meowed enthusiastically.

“Not you, Everest,” we all said at once.

The door to Nydia's living room opened and Sean, Anne-Marie and Danny piled in, their arms full of DVDs.

“I think we rented the whole store,” Sean said, dropping his bundle on to the rug.

“It was quite hard to find a film without Sean in, actually,” Danny said, winking at me as he sat next to me.

“That's because he's so talented,” Anne-Marie said fondly, looking at Sean as if she couldn't quite believe that he was really here.

“So exploited you mean,” Sean said wryly.

“Thanks, guys,” Nydia said. “It's really great for you all to come round here and hang out with me. I'm sure you could be doing something more exciting.”

“Do you know what?” Sean said, sitting down on the rug and smiling at Nydia. “For me there is nothing better than spending a whole afternoon doing nothing but just hanging out with friends. Real friends.”

“Yes, it is good, isn't it?” Anne-Marie said. “Hey, I know, we should plan something different for every day during the holidays: ice skating, shopping, cinema, shopping, galleries, shopping…”

“Actually,” I said a bit nervously, “I can't make any plans for the holidays.”