Going La La (15 page)

Matt looked apologetic. ‘Well, this is it.’ He shrugged, grinning sleepily. ‘Stay cool, Frankie.’ And giving the peace sign, he loped off, practising his Tarzan strut, while Cedric chased behind, spraying him as if he were a cheese plant.

Reilly watched the muscular guy playing Tarzan speaking to Frankie. What were they talking about for so long? What was he doing helping her with the camera gear? Why was she smiling so much? Feeling a bit put out that she only ever seemed to scowl when he was around, he made his excuses to the people he was talking to – female friends he’d worked with on past shoots – and, grabbing another cup of coffee, walked over to her. He found her on her hands and knees surrounded by a spaghetti junction of sync leads, wires, battery packs, tripods.

‘Finished?’ he asked, unable to resist winding her up.

Frankie scowled and didn’t look up. She continued battling with the tripod.

‘Maybe you should try screwing that bolt, it keeps the legs in place.’

Maybe you should do it your bloody self, thought Frankie, bristling at how he was standing above her, giving instructions. Biting her tongue, she did as she was told and stood the tripod upright. It stayed upright. She was both peeved and relieved.

‘Easy when you know how,’ he drawled, slurping his coffee.

God, that noise. Slurp. Slurp. It set her teeth on edge. He sounded like a dog drinking out of a bowl. Clambering off the floor, she brushed the dirt from her knees and wiped her hands on her sweatshirt. Curly clumps of hair had escaped from her ponytail. Pulling out her scrunchie, she shook her hair, which had begun to ping out all over the place, and tried to retie it.

Reilly watched her, trying to stuff her curls back into her ponytail. She had nice hair. Dark chestnut brown.

‘Here, I brought you some coffee. Thought you could do with some.’

Frankie eyed him suspiciously, but her pride gave way to her caffeine craving. She took it from him, resentfully.

Sighing, Reilly rubbed his stubble. He always found it difficult to stay pissed off – it was too much effort – and anyhow, he could feel his annoyance beginning to wane. Instead, he was starting to feel guilty. OK, so even if she was the stubborn, awkward, bad-tempered bitch who’d stolen his cart, told him to get lost at the party and now smashed up his car, he was fed up of fighting with her.

‘Look, I know things got off to a bad start, but we’ve got to work together today. The job’s not that difficult. I’ve just got to take some stills for the ad agency and a few publicity shots . . . but it’ll be a damn sight easier if we’re not arguing the whole day. Can we call a truce?’ He held out his hand, his freckled fingers still sugary from the doughnut. ‘I’m not such a bastard, you know.’

Frankie wasn’t sure about that, but for once she had to agree with him. She was sick of fighting too. She held out her hand. ‘Truce.’

They shook hands. His palm felt like sandpaper, strong and coarse and sticky with icing. A long lazy grin spread across his face, crinkling up the corners of his eyes like sweet wrappers. It was like a yawn. Frankie couldn’t help smiling back.

Finally they’d called a ceasefire. For now, anyway.

The commercial took for ever. All day long the jungle beat on the stereo was accompanied by the sound of the clapperboard slow-clapping its way through the endless takes and retakes: loincloths had to be changed, a blow-up banana had to be located and one very grumpy lion had to be persuaded to roar for the camera. Thankfully, Shirlene solved the problem by giving him a rack of spare ribs and he roared with approval. As did the animal trainer, who was standing on the sidelines armed with tranquillisers – for both himself and the lion. It was all an eye-opener to Frankie, who’d never realised how much time and effort went into advertising breakfast cereal. Never again would she nip out and make a cup of tea when the commercials were on.

Reilly was on set as the stills photographer, but in the breaks between filming he set up various publicity pictures with Tarzan and the lions. Hunching his broad frame over his camera, the frayed sleeves of his T-shirt rolled up, hair flopping over his forehead, he peered down the lens, screwing up his eyes as he focused. Click, click, click. The shutter rattled off, one frame after another. Frankie watched him, surprised at how different he was behind the camera. Before he’d seemed cocky and arrogant, the kind of bloke she’d avoid at the pub. But with a camera in his hand he changed.

And for the better. OK, the most important job on set was reserved for the director, but when he took a break and disappeared for more coffee and doughnuts, Reilly had five or ten minutes when he was in charge, when he had the full attention of the actors and the rest of the crew. And Frankie watched as his cockiness turned into confidence, his arrogance into professionalism. People on the set listened to his instructions, did what he asked, trusted his opinions. She hated to say it, but she was impressed at the way he handled people, the situation, the stress of having only a few minutes to get a photo right. The way that he didn’t get ruffled, but kept laughing, cracking jokes. Before, at the airport, on the balcony, in the car park, his self-assurance had annoyed the hell out of her, but now, watching him put people at ease, making them relax in front of the camera, it became attractive. And, although she hated to admit it, so did he.

If only the same could be said for herself. Instead, she felt her most unattractive ever, sweating like a horse under the hot studio lights, passing camera equipment and holding reflectors – three-foot-wide circles of silver material – above her head until her arms ached. She felt like one of those contestants in the Japanese endurance competitions. How could this be a job? Jobs involved sitting in comfy chairs in central-heated offices, taking trips to the loo to redo her make-up, chatting near the photocopier, making personal phone calls to her mates, surfing the Net for lastminute.com holiday bargains when she was supposed to be researching features. She thought about her job at
Lifestyle
. Her old job. She mourned it like she mourned Hugh.

‘I need the reflector higher.’ Her thoughts were broken by Reilly, who was crouched behind his tripod. His voice set off a Chinese whisper that rippled through the studio like a Mexican wave.

‘Reflector on set higher,’ repeated someone in the far corner. ‘Raise the reflector . . .’ a voice from the floor. ‘Reflector please.’ Tina with her walkie-talkie.

Frankie groaned. So this was Hollywood. Exhausted, she raised her arms, straining on tiptoes. Whoever said it was glamorous?

Filming resumed and finally it was the last shot. The cameramen zoomed in. Tarzan set off swinging across the jungle set on his plastic vine, beating his baby-oiled chest. He had one line. One vowel. ‘OoooOooOoooOoooOooo.’ How hard could it be?

Hard enough. Half an hour later and the baseball-capped director was still unhappy, stomping up and down and working his way through the second batch of Krispy Kreme doughnuts. ‘Cut!’ he barked through his megaphone for the zillionth time and gathered ‘his people’ together. As if they were in a rugby scrum, they clustered around the clients to talk Ooos. The rumour on the floor was that the clients didn’t think there was enough Oomph in the Ooos.

After a few minutes he re-emerged. ‘OK, we’ll take it from the top. Tarzan, we need less Bee Gees and more Pacido Domingo.’ Mopping his sweaty brow, he readjusted his cap and bit into another doughnut. ‘I want you to play this serious.’

Frankie watched from the sidelines. How anybody could play a cartoon character who made chimpanzee noises and spent all day swinging around in trees serious was beyond her, but she was past caring. With jet lag making her feel like the living dead, it was all she could do to stop herself nodding off.

‘OK, take nineteen, aaaannnnddddd . . . Action.’

Tarzan flew across the stage, beating his chest, giving an Academy Award-winning performance of OoooOooOoo OoooOooo.

The director loved it. It was in the can.

‘OK, it’s a wrap,’ yelled Tina, who’d been waiting to say that all day.

There was a lot of clapping and whooping. The shoot was finished. It was over.

Feeling a huge sense of relief, Frankie crawled over to Reilly. It was gone nine and they’d been so busy they’d hardly spoken since the morning.

‘So, you managed to survive?’ He looked up from dismantling his camera equipment.

‘Just,’ she groaned, flopping on to one of the fold-up chairs.

She waited for him to tell her to get up and give him a hand. But he didn’t. Instead he lit up a cigarette and, taking a long drag, passed it to her. ‘Don’t let anyone see you smoking. The fire officers will freak out.’ Sitting down on the floor opposite her, he leaned his head against the wall.

‘Thanks.’ Frankie took it and, closing her eyes, inhaled.

He watched her, sprawled like a spider in that God awful sweatshirt, her long limbs hanging over the edge of the chair, trying to figure her out. ‘So, what are you doing in LA?’

Frankie shrugged her shoulders, passing him the cigarette. ‘I don’t know, I’m still asking myself that question . . .’ She hesitated. Who was she trying to kid? She knew exactly why she was in LA. ‘I had to leave London.’

‘Why?’ He looked directly at her.

She glanced away, feeling uncomfortable. His questions were too close for comfort.

‘Some guy?’

‘No . . .’ she answered quickly. Too quickly. She wasn’t going to talk about what had happened with Hugh. Not to him of all people.

Reilly regretted what he’d said. He shouldn’t have pushed it. She had been beginning to open up and now she’d snapped shut like a Venus Flycatcher. ‘Hey, look, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to pry . . .’

Frankie looked up. He did seem genuinely concerned. Maybe she was wrong about him. ‘Well, OK, yeah, if you must know, there was a guy . . . my boyfriend, Hugh . . . and a job. I lost them both in the same week.’ There, she’d said it.

‘Unlucky.’ Reilly shrugged, grinding the Marlboro out under his boot.

Unlucky?
Frankie bit her lip. Losing a fiver was unlucky. Being caught in the rain without an umbrella was unlucky. But what had happened to her? How could he trivialise that in the same way? He obviously didn’t have a clue how it felt, or what she was talking about. How stupid of her to think that he might. Annoyed and upset, she stood up, her hands on her hips. ‘Have you ever had someone who you really love, a job that you really love, a home that you really love? And then had them all taken away from you? Have you any idea how that feels?’

Her reaction took him by surprise. Jeez, he’d touched a nerve. ‘Hey, look, I was only saying . . .’

‘Well, don’t. You obviously haven’t a clue.’ Turning around, she began walking off across the studio.

‘Hey, where are you going?’

‘Home.’ A part of her just wanted to get the hell out of there. But a part of her wanted him to call her back again. Ask her to stay. She turned. ‘Why?’

‘What about all this gear, it needs packing up.’ Wrong answer.

Frankie looked at him square in the face. ‘I’ve lost one job, what’s another?’ She glared at him before flouncing back round and marching off.

Leaning back against the wall, he watched her. ‘Frankie,’ he muttered under his breath, but it was no good. She was gone.

Taking a lighter out of his jeans pocket, he lit up another cigarette. But after only one drag he stubbed it out. And sighed. That girl was doing his head in.

17

Rita took the news of the car accident surprisingly well. ‘Oh, well, it’s only metal,’ she’d said, shrugging, standing in the driveway in her sheepskin slippers and Fred Flintstone nightie, shining the torch on the back wings of the Thunderbird, which had been clipped and had crumpled up like a concertina. ‘It’s not the end of the world.’

But after three days of being marooned in the apartment while the car was being repaired, it began to feel like it. Three whole days of reading back copies of the
National Enquirer
and
US
magazine, listening to next-door-but-one’s gardener, who – instead of using an old-fashioned sweeping brush – seemed to spend all day blowing leaves around the path with an irritatingly loud whirring machine, eating take-outs from anywhere that did home delivery and watching
E
, ‘America’s number one entertainment show’, on a continuous back-to-back reel every night on the telly. It was groundhog day, with less excitement. But they had no alternative. This was the only kind of life available to poor souls living in Los Angeles without a car. Not that anybody would be foolish enough to live in LA without a car. Except Frankie and Rita.

By Saturday morning Rita had had enough. ‘That’s it, I can’t take any more
Hollywood True Stories
.’ She flicked the remote control on the TV and stared at Frankie, who was sat next to her on the sofa with Fred and Ginger, tickling their ears and reading the adverts for cosmetic surgery in the
LA Weekly
, a free listings newspaper. This week there seemed to be a sale, with two-for-the-price-of-one offers: ‘Have your breasts enlarged and get your thighs liposuctioned free’ or ‘Treat yourself to a facelift and enjoy a complimentary $2,000 rhinoplasty’. She was particularly intrigued by the special promotion on ‘penis enlargements’ and ‘vaginal rejuvenation’, whatever the hell that was. Obviously there was a lot more nipping and tucking in this town than met the eye.