The Ex Factor (13 page)

His words are like a slap across the face. ‘Do you really think so little of me?’

He makes an exasperated sound. ‘Of course not. I know you’d never set out to land a man with money,’ he tuts. ‘But you’re only human, Kitty, and you’ve had a rough trot the past couple of years. It’s only natural that you want to be taken care of. Just don’t try to dress it up as some grand love affair, is all I’m saying. You don’t have to play coy with me.’

For a moment, I’m literally speechless. I stare at Adam, my mouth opening and closing like a goldfish’s as I fight to find the words to defend myself. But he’s not finished.

‘Have you even stopped for a second to ponder the improbability of this entire scenario? Have you asked yourself why this guy – this guy who could have his pick of any starlet on the planet – is interested in a dog trainer from Narrabeen? Isn’t there some small part of you that wonders, “Why me?”’

‘Why
not
me, Adam? I may be just a dog trainer, but I’m not totally grotesque.’ I offer a watery smile. I’m trying desperately to keep the mood buoyant, but his cruelty has cut me to the core.

Adam blinks, surprised. ‘Of course you’re not, Kitty. I didn’t mean —’ He looks down at his plate and exhales noisily. ‘You’re fantastic. Any mere mortal would be lucky to have you.’

‘But for a demigod like Mitchell to be interested, he must have a hankering for a bit of rough?’

He rolls his eyes again, and fixes me with a look of distaste that sets my blood boiling. He actually thinks
I’m
the one who’s gone too far.

‘Well,’ he says after thirty excruciating seconds. ‘His last girlfriend
was
a supermodel.’

Fury rears up in my belly and I know that if I try to respond I’m liable to throw crockery at him. In all my life, I’ve never been the subject of such a vicious character assassination. Even in some of Frankie’s and my most pyrotechnic arguments, my drama-loving sister has never said anything this mean. I just can’t believe what I’m hearing from Adam, my best friend, the person whose support and approval means more to me than anyone else’s. This isn’t him; the Adam I know would never even think these things, let alone say them aloud. There’s something else going on here; some other issue at play. And whatever it is, at this moment it feels like the future of our friendship depends on me cutting him some slack because of it.

Silently, I count to ten in my head and try a different tack: changing the subject.

‘I’ve got everything sorted for the dogs,’ I say evenly. ‘It’s a surprisingly straightforward journey for them. It’s only a thirteen-hour flight, and their vaccinations are up to date so they won’t have to be quarantined or anything in LA.’

Now it’s Adam’s turn to be lost for words. He simply stares at me, open-mouthed. After what feels like an hour he says, ‘No.’

‘No, it won’t be a drama? You agree?’

He shakes his head. ‘You can’t do this.’

My patience is approaching wafer-thin territory. I’m gripping my fork so tightly my knuckles are white. ‘And why is that?’

He counts his points off on his fingers like he’s explaining something basic to a child. ‘Reggie is deaf and highly anxious. Dolly is twelve years old and has arthritic hips. Carl is . . . well, Carl. And Bananarama . . .’ he trails off, shaking his head again.

‘What? What about Rama? If you’ve got something to say to me, Adam, do me a favour and just spit it out. We’re way past subtlety now.’ I’m aware the pitch of my voice is rising; the people at the next table shift in their seats.

‘She’s old, blind and incontinent. She’s already gone through the loss of your mother, her companion for more than a decade. And now you want to take her away from everything that makes her feel secure, stick her in the bowels of a tin can for thirteen hours and then force her to come to terms with a totally unfamiliar environment. An environment that, let’s be honest, you’ll probably have to drag her out of again within a few weeks when you realise your ridiculous infatuation with Mitchell Pyke is based on nothing but sex and hype, and you scurry home with your tail between your legs.’

He punctuates his tirade by hammering his fist on the table, making our wine glasses jump. His neck is flushed crimson. I’ve never seen Adam so angry.

Hot tears prick at my eyes and I feel my chin start to quiver. ‘I would never do anything that I thought could hurt or upset any of my dogs, especially Rama,’ I say, fighting to regain my composure. ‘You don’t know her like I do, Adam. She’s a tough little thing. A fighter.’

‘
Bullshit
,’ he spits, and for a second I find myself surprised that his usually artful language should be usurped under pressure by such a garden-variety profanity. ‘You’ll tell yourself anything if it justifies what you want to do. And to think I was under the impression Frankie was the selfish Hayden sister. She’s got nothing on you.’

My tears spill over and for a fleeting moment Adam looks stricken. Then his face sets into a stony mask once more.

The waiter appears at my elbow bearing heaped plates of souvlaki just as I get to my feet and toss my linen napkin onto the table. ‘You have no idea what you’re talking about,’ I say as I pick up my handbag. ‘So fuck you, Wordsworth.’

Adam tries to clasp my hand as I push past him. ‘Kitty, wait,’ he pleads.

But I’m done waiting. And if I’m truly the mercenary harridan he says I am, I guess he won’t be surprised.

‘Let me see my babies!’

‘Oh, that’s really nice,’ Frankie replies haughtily. ‘Forget about the little sister – it’s all about the mutts.’

‘Please, Frankie. I can’t tell you how much I miss them.’

With an exaggerated sigh, Frankie picks up her laptop and angles the webcam towards the floor. Reggie, Carl and Dolly sit at her feet.

‘Hi, puppies! How’s my lovely loves? Are you being good for Aunty Frankie? Are you being lovely good doggies?’ For once I’m glad I’m alone in Mitchell’s cavernous house; I’d be mortified if anyone but Frankie were privy to this little display.

The boys cock their heads adorably to one side as they try to figure out why they can see my face and – at least in Carl’s case – hear my voice when I’m not actually in the room. Dolly whines excitedly, as though she expects me to climb out of the computer screen at any moment and throw her a Schmacko. If only I could.

‘Where’s Bananarama?’ I ask.

‘She’s asleep on your bed,’ my sister says, her face filling the screen once more. ‘She’s been in there practically twenty-four-seven since you left. I think she’s really missing you.’

I feel my heart constrict as if there’s a fist around it. I miss Rama, too. I miss all the dogs. I miss my house and my own bed. I miss Narrabeen beach and that azure Sydney sky that no other place on earth can emulate. I even miss my moody, unreliable sister. Sometimes I miss them all so much it feels as if I might collapse under the weight of it.

And I miss my mother so much I can barely breathe.

These weekly Skype chats with Frankie are wonderful, but they also serve to remind me just how much time I’ve spent feeling utterly consumed by longing since arriving in Los Angeles with Mitchell a month ago.

‘Do you think she’s okay, though?’ I ask. ‘I mean, is she healthy?’

Frankie would laugh if she knew how many hours I’ve spent fretting about Rama’s wellbeing since leaving Sydney. Adam and I didn’t speak again before I flew out; he called, but I was too devastated by his verbal assault at the restaurant to talk to him, much less see him. So, for the first time in years, I took Bananarama to see a vet that wasn’t him. She confirmed Adam’s suspicion that Rama is simply slowing down with age. Unfortunately, she also agreed with Adam on one other thing: that bringing Bananarama to Los Angeles would be too stressful for her frangible little body to cope with. I couldn’t bear the thought of taking Reggie, Dolly and Carl with me and leaving Rama in Sydney, confused and missing her playmates, so after many sleepless nights, I made the gut-wrenching decision to leave the dogs at home with my sister. And a long,
long
list of instructions.

With hindsight, I know it was the best thing for them – not that I’d ever say so to smug, self-righteous Adam. But it doesn’t change the fact that their absence makes me feel like I’m missing a limb.

‘Adam says she’s fine. She’s just old and a bit sad,’ Frankie says.

Not sad
. Old I can just about cope with, but the thought of delicate little Rama feeling even slightly melancholy makes me blink back tears. God, I’m a freaking mess lately. It might be always sunny in California – even now, disconcertingly, in the so-called depths of the northern winter – but it seems to be perpetually raining in my soul these days.

Still, I adopt my breeziest tone and say, ‘You’ve seen Adam, then?’ I didn’t tell Frankie about the awful things he said to me that night, and if she noticed his conspicuous absence from the house in the lead-up to my departure she didn’t mention it. As far as my sister is aware, everything’s still hunky-dory between me and my best friend.

‘Don’t worry, Rama’s really okay. I didn’t “take her to the vet” as such. Adam just happened to be here so I asked him to have a look at her. I knew you’d want a full report,’ she says with a giggle.

I frown. ‘Why was Adam there?’ He’s always been cold towards Frankie – although admittedly he seems to have defrosted a little recently – and now he’s apparently written me off, too. What possible reason could he have for popping by?

‘But enough about these fleabags!’ Frankie says abruptly. ‘I want to hear about
you
. What Hollywood adventures have you had this week?’

I don’t know where to start. Should I tell my sister about the long days and nights I’ve spent alone while Mitchell shoots his latest movie? Maybe I should tell her that, despite my shiny new work visa, I’ve had no luck finding training work because ‘the town’ – that’s what Hollywood people call Hollywood, because they literally can’t fathom a world beyond it – already has an oversupply of animal wranglers. Perhaps she’d like to know how my continuing unemployment is causing friction between me and Mitchell, because he doesn’t want me to work at all and I’m determined to make myself useful.

Should I tell her that I haven’t been able to walk around my new neighbourhood because no one walks anywhere in this city? Most of the streets don’t even have footpaths; that’s how much Americans love their cars. Not that it really matters, since I’m virtually a prisoner in my new home. I can’t venture beyond the eight-foot wall surrounding Mitchell’s slick Hollywood Hills mansion without immediately being swarmed by paparazzi.

But I know Frankie doesn’t want to hear any of that. She wants to hear the too-good-to-be-true Hollywood version. She wants the glitz, the glamour. She wants the Movie of the Week story of the nobody from Narrabeen who was whisked off to Tinseltown by her leading-man lover and lived happily ever after. No one ever wants to see the movie about what happens
after
ever-after.

My gaze falls on a heart-shaped Post-It stuck to the edge of the computer screen. In Mitchell’s looping hand are three scribbled sentences:
You are the cream to my coffee, the grits to my gravy, the cheese to my cracker, the peanut butter to my jelly. You, Kitty Hayden. YOU.
He scrawled the note and slapped it there after coming home from the set one night to find me Googling myself – not my proudest moment – and feeling smaller and smaller with each headline that compared me to Vida and found me wanting.

A fluttery sensation unfurls in my chest. It’s the same feeling I get every time I’m reminded that, as crazy as it still seems sometimes, Mitchell really is invested in our relationship. I need to get over myself. There
have
been good moments since I’ve been here. Great moments, even. Plenty of them.

Maybe I’m just feeling extra sensitive because I know I’m in for another dose of beady-eyed media scrutiny in twenty-four-hours’ time. Now
that’s
something Frankie will want to hear about.

‘Well, we
are
going to a thing tomorrow night. A premiere thing,’ I tell her.

Frankie’s eyes flash with excitement. ‘Ooh! Which movie? Not
Solitaire
already?’

‘No, that won’t be out until next year. This one’s called
Twist of the Knife
. It’s a —’

‘Ohmigod, that’s the one Mitchell and Ellis Chevalier are in, right? The one they made right before that tramp Vida ran off with Ellis?’

I can’t help but smile. Even from twelve thousand kilometres away, my little sister remains my staunchest ally in the apparently interminable ‘war’ between me and Mitchell’s ex.

‘That’s the one.’

‘Are they going to be there?’ she asks, a look of horrified anticipation on her face.

‘I guess Ellis will be. I can’t imagine Vida will turn up, though. She and Ellis haven’t been seen in public together since they announced their separation last month.’

Frankie inhales sharply. ‘Wow, Kitty. This is huge. I mean, what are you going to
wear
?’

I chuckle at her priorities. Sartorial choices first; coming face-to-face with the man who stole the woman who once had Mitchell’s heart – and who perhaps thinks she still does – a distant second.

My sister starts prattling on about couture gowns, ‘old Hollywood’ glamour and borrowing Lorraine Schwartz diamonds, and I let her words wash over me like water. I wish I shared Frankie’s excitement about tomorrow night’s event, but in truth, I’m terrified. It will be Mitchell’s and my ‘official’ public debut as a couple and, according to the gossip websites that have become my daily fare, our walk down that red carpet is ‘hotly anticipated’ by all of Hollywood. Even Mitchell seems antsy about the level of interest; he’s organised for me to have a session first thing with some celebrity stylist who has her own TV show. She’ll help me choose a dress, shoes and jewellery, and then I’ll spend the rest of the day having my hair and makeup done before we go to the premiere in a stretch limousine.

Honestly, thinking about the whole extravaganza makes my skin crawl. I told Mitchell I’d happily make up my own face and go to a local salon for a blow-dry, but he wouldn’t hear of it. ‘I want my girl to dazzle,’ he’d said when I protested at all the primping. ‘You’re going to make all those spray-tanned, plastic actresses look like hags.’ But I’m not convinced. Those women are professionally good-looking. They’re all much,
much
thinner than me, their hair is glossier, their skin more alabaster. If Mitchell loves my ‘natural beauty’ – freckles and wobbly bits and all – as much as he says he does, why is the
My Fair Lady
makeover even necessary? I can’t help wondering if there’s really only one person he wants me to outshine: Vida.

I’m suddenly aware that Frankie has stopped talking and is peering from the screen expectantly.

‘Sorry, what were you saying?’

‘I asked who you’ll be wearing.’

‘
Who?
’

‘Yes,’ she says, clearly exasperated by my failure to understand fashion parlance. ‘Like, which label?’

‘Oh, um, I’m not sure yet. I have an appointment with a stylist tomorrow morning, so I guess I’ll pick something – some
one
 – then. You’ve probably heard of her, actually – Saada Gebru?’

Frankie squeals. ‘No way! The Sudanese former supermodel? From
Saada Style
? I love that show! She’s amazing. You know she’s dressed, like, Sandy B and J-Law and Maggie Q and, oh, just about everyone. You’re in good hands, Kitty. The woman could make a sack of potatoes look glamorous.’

‘Gee, thanks.’ I make a face, but inside I feel a familiar pang. I even miss my sister’s incurable foot-in-mouth disease.

‘No! I wasn’t saying . . . you know what I mean! You’re a thousand times hotter than any of those skinny bitches, especially that pouty jezebel Vida Torres.’

Suddenly, the dogs erupt into a barking frenzy and Frankie almost jumps out of her seat. ‘Holy Christ on a bicycle!’ she yelps. I hear the mad scrabble of claws on floorboards as the pack charges off to investigate whatever it is that’s set them off.

My heart leaps into my throat. ‘What is it? Is something wrong?’

‘No, there’s just someone at the door. Honestly, this lot operate on a hair trigger. I’ll have aged twenty years by the time you come back. I’d better go see who it is. Skype me tomorrow before you go to the premiere so I can see how
fierce
you look in your posh frock. Mwah-mwah-mwah!’

Frankie vanishes from my computer screen in a blaze of air kisses and I’m alone again in Mitchell’s empty house with her parting words roiling in my mind:
I’ll have aged twenty years by the time you come back
. So Frankie seems to think my stay in Los Angeles is temporary, too. Just like Adam, she’s convinced my relationship with Mitchell is doomed to fail.

Good to know.

I quit Skype and suddenly I’m looking at a picture of myself in Mitchell’s bed, my face half-buried in the pillow, lips curled into a sleepy smile. Mitchell had snapped it on my first morning in LA – he wanted to capture the official beginning of our new life together, he’d said. I had no idea he’d used the photo as his screensaver, the sentimental schmuck. Although I’d probably find the sentiment that much sweeter if I didn’t look as if I’d been dragged through a hedge backwards in the shot. If memory serves, we hadn’t got much sleep that first night, and it shows.

A heavy sigh escapes my lips. If the longevity of a fling depended on unbelievably incredible sex, Mitchell and I would be together forever. But it takes more than that to sustain a partnership. As I sit alone in his big, echoing house, I can’t help but wonder what we have in our relationship toolkit besides chemistry.

On the desk next to the laptop, my phone bleeps. A text from Mitchell flashes up on the screen.
Whatcha up to, gorgeous? Missing you – M xx

Like the sun breaking through on a cloudy day, my gloomy mood lifts. I’m always surprised to hear from Mitchell when he’s working. I just never expect him to think of me while he’s off being a ‘celluloid hunk’, as one of the supermarket rags likes to call him. But somehow he always seems to check in just when I need it the most.

The screensaver picture disappears as the computer completes its shutdown and the screen fades to black. My momentary elation fades with it. Now my own distorted reflection looks back at me, a mask of homesick gloom. I expected moving to LA to be challenging. I knew that the degree of interest in me, and me and Mitchell as a couple, would hit fever pitch. I knew Mitchell would be busy with work.

But I didn’t think I’d handle it like this.

I imagined I’d be excited about exploring my adopted hometown, not spending my days watching bad TV in Mitchell’s immaculate modernist mansion. I hoped that being able to curl my body around Mitchell’s every night would somehow make the media intrusion easier to bear; instead Mitchell and I pass like ships in the night and I can barely bring myself to lift my gaze from the ground when I do venture out into the ever-present scrum of photographers.

I thought I’d be happy, but my life feels as if it’s spiralling out of my control and I don’t know how to wrest it back.

‘Oh, get over yourself, Kitty!’ I shout, pushing back from the computer desk and getting to my feet. I shake myself from my head to my feet in an effort to shrug off this cloak of despondency.

I know what I need to brighten my mood. It’s the same thing I’ve relied on to lift my spirits my whole life.

Dogs.

I lift the telephone receiver on the desk and dial 9. The call goes through to the security gatehouse at the front of Mitchell’s property, which is more like a granny flat decked out with a full kitchen and state-of-the-art entertainment system. It’s where Mack is based when he’s not surgically attached to Mitchell or me. The studio making Mitchell’s latest film has its own security teams, so Mack has been at my beck and call lately.