Five for Forever (2 page)

Rick gave her a thankful look and went upstairs.

Five minutes later, the Flint family was at full force at breakfast. Dana, just three years old, sat on her chair on her knees to boost herself up to her siblings’ height. She came after Charles and had a wise, serious-looking round face with long blonde curls hanging left and right, genes somehow coming through from Rick’s mother.

“Aga, tell a joke!” Dana demanded while she shoveled cereal with banana pieces into her little mouth.

“You must be joking, Dana,” was Agnes’s standard reply.

“The joke is on you, Aga!” came the equally expected return.

“No doubt,” mumbled Britta, and Charles crossed his arms in front of him. He was unable to tell jokes, as he always dissected them in his mind to the point where there was no fun left.

“Knock, knock,” Agnes said with a serious face. Her little sister understood the concept of knock-knock jokes.

Dana already giggled, mouth full. “Who’s there?”

“Europe.”

“Europe who?” Dana asked dutifully.

“No,
you’re
a poo!”

Hilarious laughter from Dana, who repeated over and over, “You’re a poo! A poo!” A snort from Britta, infectious laughter from Agnes, and a groan from Rick ensued.

That’s collateral damage to be mitigated later.

Charles frowned. “But Europe is a continent. Why is it poo? Don’t you like Europe?”

Which caused another round of chiming laughter from Dana.

“Charles, don’t worry. You will get it later when you grow a little older.” Agnes smiled and tussled his hair.

The countdown clock hit T-minus fifteen, and Rick clapped his hands. “Move, move, move, aliens, bears, chickens, and dogs. Brush your teeth!”

Britta, Charles, and Agnes got up, put their bowls and dishes into the dishwasher, and distributed evenly to the available bathrooms.

“Hurry up, honey.” Rick coached Dana to eat faster, “I’ll pack my stuff and be back in a minute.”

The clock was down to two minutes. Agnes, Britta, and Charles were downstairs again, checking their school bags.

“Launch checklist: Money?”

“Yes, Dad! We are good.”

“Cell phone?”

“Dad, we are not kids anymore!” Britta complained.

Charles corrected his sister. “Actually, I still qualify as a full kid in all criteria. I am ten years old, junior high . . .”

“Britta, phone charged up?”

That shut his daughter up, because it wasn’t.

Rick hurried back into the kitchen. “Take the battery bank, should give you at least 40 percent charging . . .”

“Have you given me the signature for the field trip?” Charles inquired.

“You dare to ask me this with forty-five seconds left on the clock?”

“I asked you yesterday, Dad! And it is less than ten seconds to sign.”

“Without reading?”

“Dad, don’t be difficult. I am the genius of the family. I don’t need to cheat you,” Charles said with confidence. “And if I did, I’d put all of my 145 IQ points behind it, so that you wouldn’t even notice.”

“Where?”

“On your desk.”

Rick ran across the hall through the kitchen into the den where his home office was located and almost fell over Dana, who came around the corner with some of her puppets in hand.

“Daddy, don’t run!” she admonished her dad.

“This is an emergency, and there is no one to punish me,” Rick replied. “Found it!” He scribbled his signature on the form and ran back into the hall. Charles had opened his bag for the last-second transfer; Britta and Agnes were already out of the door, flagging down the school bus.

“Run, Forrest, run!”
Rick yelled and pushed Charles out the door.

“Love you, Dad,” Charles said.

“Same here, don’t forget to tell your sisters, too,” Rick shouted after him.
A clear way to embarrass them in front of their friends. Little victories!

7:25. The countdown clock hit 00:00:00, gave a buzzer sound that was imitated flawlessly by Dana, and restarted at 23:59:59.

Rick looked at Dana, and they did a routine high-five because they had time for themselves now. They left the house shortly afterward. Rick’s old family van gave its low soothing rumble, and they rolled out the driveway toward the day care, Dana securely strapped in the backseat.

The 5:30 alarm killed Louise’s sleep and the dream of a hot and smelly bed in a doublewide trailer. Her first thought was, Waking up from a dream can indeed be a mercy! You should never go back. Here she was, the highest-paid movie star of her time, and she still felt inadequate and insecure about her roots and her upbringing in poverty. The security monitor beside the bed lit up with a quiet ping, showing her the video feed of her personal assistant Emile entering the house through the front door, the perfunctory Starbucks container in one hand and his leather briefcase in the other, closing the door with his foot.

She gave her body a stretch and got out of bed. She took off the T-shirt she had slept in, stepped naked in front of a full-length mirror, and gave her body a once-over. Not out of vanity, but out of necessity. Independent of her acting skills and her voice, it was her face and her body that determined the monetary value of her next role and the screen impact.
Thirty-six years and slowly showing
,
Lou-baby,
she criticized her mirror-self, and as always, the mirror did not correct her impression. Her blonde hair hung straight and framed a face that an early critic had labeled “an instant classic, to be put beside Marilyn, Audrey, and Julia.” Her brown eyes held a mysterious sparkle that had evoked spontaneous reactions from passersby and school friends since she was a child. The merest hint of wrinkles beside her eyes.
The shape of things to come,
she thought.
I should laugh less.
The rest of her body could pass as ten years younger; that’s what a big investment into fitness and nutrition regiments could buy. A quick turn to inspect ass, legs, and back—all good. One step closer to the mirror, checking the facial skin for anything developing overnight. Any deviation from the norm meant more time in hair and makeup; time and continuity during shots were of essence, and a big pimple on her nose was not a showstopper but rather a costly session for the digital folks to make her nose appear as advertised.

She put on a robe and went downstairs.

A quick wave to Floris, her Dutch bodyguard, who had already finished breakfast, out of the way, in the formal dining room. He was a huge man and looked like the Dutch actor Rutger Hauer at his prime with an additional hundred-pound muscle mass and thin blond hair and rosy skin that did not do well under the LA sun. An early riser, Floris had already had completed his fitness regime and had made a house and garden round to check for signs of intrusion or attempts thereof. He didn’t talk much and tried to stay out of the way whenever possible. He insisted on calling Louise “Madam”; she had given up trying to change him. The big kitchen, originally equipped for big-event catering, held both a breakfast counter and a large, white family dining table. Emile and Louise exchanged air kisses, and Louise helped herself to her Starbucks morning shot. She had stopped eating meat a while ago, abstained from any alcohol, which was necessary after her midtwenties wild-superstardom years, and managed to hold off coffee over the day. The only exception was the early morning latte with fat-free milk and a second shot. She couldn’t even remember when the last time was she had
not
one.

“You look
fa-bu-lous
, Lou,” Emile said in greeting. “A million dollars.”

“Don’t paint the devil on the wall. That would be a step back to TV serials or straight-to-video films,” Louise replied.

Emile was maybe her tenth PA and so far had the longest stamina of all, four years and counting. A gay Indonesian immigrant, he had tried his luck as an actor himself in Hollywood in his early twenties but had found out the hard way that there are not many roles for ethnic minorities and that the competition was even harder than for the Caucasian characters. At twenty-eight, he had a lot of relationship and boyfriend drama, but was fiercely loyal to his employer. Louise was his life. He unpacked a little binder and sat opposite Louise, who was eating some fresh fruit and sipping her coffee.

“The morning edition, my dear.” He pushed over some shooting script pages.

“Any changes?” Louise was a perfectionist when it came to her lines.

“I fear so. From what I could see, they added two lines in the fast-paced middle section.”

“Let’s have a look at it first and then you can run me through it.”

Louise memorized the new lines, and the next twenty minutes were spent rehearsing the complete daily shoot schedule, Emile reading all other parts with full concentration, as Louise hated only one more thing more than stumbling over her own lines: costars screwing up their lines.

At six sharp, the bell rang, and Floris glided toward the foyer like a tiger on the prowl to watch the maid open the door. In breezed a power plant on two legs.

“Stop everything and follow me!” the power plant commanded.

“Yes, sir, madam!” Louise said and got up, attempting to finish her breakfast.

“If you put those calories into your mouth, I’ll give you fifty squats on top,” Simona threatened. A compact Italian athlete with a black ponytail and limitless energy, she had been Louise’s fitness trainer for the last ten years. Simona trained the rich and famous, and Louisa was her steady 6:00 a.m. slot. Louise even paid the $200 when she was away on location to keep the time slot blocked for her forever.

“Then I’ll do what you say,” Louise said, putting the piece of melon back and sliding off her chair. Turning to Emile, she said, “We’ll go over the lines in the car once more; the timing is not right yet.”

An hour later, the hot and cold shower took away most of the muscle pain that Simona had been able to induce with her exercises. They had done a twenty-minute run on the belt and thirty minutes of crossover exercises, including everything from plain push-ups to martial arts dropkicks. The last ten minutes were dedicated to stretching. Simona knew exactly what she could put on the bodies of her clients, and as the fitness and ambition of her clients increased, she was able to adapt to it quickly. Louise came out of the shower, drying her hair. The hairstylist would do the daily routine later, so she towel-dried it and gave it a few brushes to be presentable for the early morning paparazzi. With a towel around her body, she went into the bedroom, where Emile was already waiting with the wardrobe of the day.

“What do we have on the agenda?” she asked, eyeing the suggestions from Emile and her personal stylist. Days blurred when she was shooting, and she could never remember what was on her schedule afterward.

“For studio day we give you something practical. The new boot-cut Armani jeans, with some gorgeous ankle boots and this wonderful Ralph Lauren sweater. It’s very loosely knit and under the right light will show of your body nicely. We add this sexy bra so that people get a hint of you.”

“Add a light cashmere jacket against the air-conditioning, please. You can carry it when we’re in public,” Louise said.

“How very sensible of the greatest actress of her time,” Emile said without a hint of irony. “And stylish, too. We’ll take the little light blue thing you got from Donna. Next item: Actors Guild Women’s Association. The poor babies built their event around your shooting schedule, so excited to have you. Red carpet at six, the red dress here, a new Alexander McQueen piece.”

“Alexander McQueen has been dead for years,” Louise pointed out.

“Whatever! Dinner starts at six forty-five sharp; your dinner speech is after the first course at seven.”

“What am I talking about?”

“
Spirited performances of spirited women in film
. The honoree is your special friend and talented actress, two-time Oscar winner Madge Hardy.”

“Not again!” Louise groaned. Madge Hardy was probably her fiercest competition for acting roles. Each of them had two Oscars under her belt, and they had twice starred in movies together when Madge was an up-and-coming actress and Louise the established star. Those times were definitely over, though. Now they both had their own franchises in the romantic comedy and high-profile action genres. Calling them competitors was a polite way of saying they hated each other’s guts.

“Yes, again, my dear. Accept it—she’s slowly and surely creeping into your spot.”

Louise had started putting on the more casual outfit.

“Dessert spoon down is eight-fifteen. We then switch to this nice little black thing here by your great friend Stella, to give your legs room to move on the dance floor.

“I don’t dance!”

“I know, you know, but no one else knows. It’s a dance club location, so the blogosphere and paparazzi expect a dance outfit. Purely preemptive. Entry at nine, wheels up at ten, back at the ranch at ten-thirty.”

Louise held the black dress in front of her and gave herself a critical eye in front of the mirror. “Should fit. And looks comfortable. Doesn’t seem to press my boobs too much.”

“Next time I’ll tell them to make it one size smaller,” Emile said, noting it in his iPad.

“You want to kill me?”

“Sex sells, Louise.”

Emile wrapped up the rest of the wardrobe, and Louise went back into the bathroom to put on perfunctory makeup.

The studio’s limo service picked Louise up at 7:30 sharp, Floris rode behind in the black Tahoe, and Louise had a second breakfast of a bottle of spring water and an apple. Once more, Emile ran her through all planned lines for the day.

The limo reached the studios after half an hour’s drive. Louise turned to Emile again. “Regarding tonight’s speech for Madge. What spirited performances will I be comparing little Madge’s work to?”

“You know, the usual.” Emile’s eyes flew over his iPad screen. “Bette Davis in
All About Eve
, Susan Sarandon in
Thelma and Louise
, Julia Roberts in
Erin Brockovich
. . . All the nice things.”