The Ex Factor (20 page)

I sink back into the pillows and squeeze my eyes shut. My mind races as I try to process everything Frankie has said. Is there really any truth to it? Do I have a thing for life’s charity cases? Am I some crazed control freak?

I have to admit Frankie’s right about the dogs. I’ve rescued animals since I was a little girl. Every spring I’d bring home featherless baby birds that had fallen from their nests, hand feeding them until they grew strong enough to fly. Later, when I learned to drive, I’d borrow Mum’s old Honda and do laps of the nearby Wakehurst Parkway at dawn on weekends, collecting possums and wallabies that had been injured by cars overnight. Mum was horrified at first. ‘Most sixteen-year-olds want to borrow their parents’ car to snog boys in,’ she’d say, ‘not to run a mobile vet clinic for mangled wildlife.’ But after a while she started joining me on those early-morning missions, and she’d knit woolly beanies to use as nests for the orphaned babies.

Okay, maybe I am a sucker for a furred or feathered hard-luck story. I’ll give Frankie that. But so what? Plenty of people would see that as an admirable quality. Some people might even wish they were more like me. Unless . . .

It’s not about the dog. It’s never about the dog.

Suddenly, I see myself as Frankie must see me. She’s right: she’s not some ‘little girl lost’.

I am.

I peg people – and animals, and even inanimate objects – as victims because I need to rescue them, even when they don’t need to be rescued at all. My dogs. Mum’s dog. Mum’s wonky old cottage. Frankie. Adam.

Mitchell.

I need to save anyone and anything I possibly can, because I couldn’t save the thing that was most precious to me. I couldn’t save my mother.

This time I don’t bother trying to stop the tears. Frankie takes my hand and lets me cry.

When I finally feel able to speak again, my voice is choked and breathless, like a toddler trying to talk through a tantrum. ‘I’ve spent the past two years wishing I could turn back the clock, to somehow make Mum tell us she was sick when we still had time to do something about it,’ I say, my chest heaving with the effort of it. ‘But there wasn’t anything we could have done, was there?’

‘No,’ Frankie says simply.

I’ve been trying to paper over imagined cracks in everyone else’s lives while failing to see the yawning chasm in my own. ‘I’m the one who needs fixing, aren’t I?’

‘Yes.’

Even though I know that it’s true, Frankie’s confirmation still feels like a slap across the face.

There’s another question on the tip of my tongue, but I can’t bring myself to ask it.
Did I try to fix Mitchell?
The possibility that I was drawn to him not for the man he is – not even, as Adam suggested, for his money and fame – but because he represented a ‘project’ is too awful to contemplate. Just like this house I laboured over, did I try to rebuild a shattered man in some mad effort to distract myself from my own grief? I don’t think Frankie, even with her newfound insight, will be able to unravel that one. I don’t know when I’ll be able to wrap my head around it myself.

But I do know that, just like the house, I’m in need of some serious work. I need to strip myself back to bare boards and start again. It’s a terrifying prospect.

‘How, Frankie?
How
am I going to fix myself?’ I search my sister’s face for the answer, and am beyond relieved when I see that familiar glint in her eyes.

‘I may have a few ideas,’ she says with a grin.

Mum always said the telephone is for wimps; if you really want to make an impression, she said, you’ve just got to turn up. Mitchell obviously would agree with her, fond of the show-stopping gesture as he is. As I teeter across the polished concrete floor in a trendy converted warehouse, balancing precariously in wedge heels Frankie assured me would convey gravitas and professionalism, I find myself fervently hoping that Danica Keane is of the same mind.

I’ve come to the inner-city headquarters of Really Good Ads to beg for my job back. Being out of work for the best part of three months, not to mention the costs involved in transplanting myself to Los Angeles and back again, means my bank balance is looking decidedly scary. Plus, if I ever want my business to be firing on all cylinders again, I need to put myself in front of the people who hire people like me right away. Time is money in my business, in that if you’re out of the game for any length of it, you don’t make any.

But it’s not really about the money, if I’m honest. After all, as Frankie pointed out, I’ve got plenty of equity in the form of the Plymouth sitting in my driveway. She’s all for me selling the car, not just to raise some quick cash, but to send a public ‘screw you’ message to Mitchell. No matter how many times I explain that I don’t feel the need to avenge my broken heart, that there was no dramatic betrayal or bad behaviour, that we just didn’t ‘work’, Frankie won’t be dissuaded from her wish to see Mitchell suffer. It’s quite sweet, in a twisted sort of way. I don’t have the heart to tell her that, the more I rake over the situation in my mind, the more I’m starting to feel as if it’s Mitchell who should be shouting ‘screw you’ from the rooftops – at me.

No, I need to work because I need to do something. I need a reason to wash my hair, swap my pajamas for actual clothes and leave the house every day. I need to reclaim my life. I may not
want
to move on from Mitchell, but I have no other choice.

Mitchell hasn’t called me since I left LA, and I haven’t called him either. The pack of reporters camped opposite my house is dwindling by the day. Even Vida Torres has curbed her stream of passive-aggressive tweets now that she and Ellis have split again and he’s filed for divorce. The world is quickly forgetting there was ever a ‘Kitchell’. And although I still miss Mitchell – still want him, still feel a physical ache in my heart whenever I think of him – it’s time I tried to do the same.

Grovelling at Danica’s feet is part two of my plan to help me recover my pre-Mitchell mojo. Part one of the plan involved, at Frankie’s insistence, shopping.
Lots
of shopping – another reason why I need a cash injection ASAP. My sister has always been a fan of the ‘breakover’, her term for adopting a drastic new look after a relationship hits the skids. Which is how my easy, work-appropriate uniform of shorts and T-shirts came to be replaced by a wardrobe full of drapey printed pants, form-fitting maxi dresses and vintage kimonos. When I’d complained that it was all entirely impractical for my hopefully soon-to-be-revived work life, Frankie pointed out that it was all stretchy and machine-washable. I couldn’t really argue with that, though I did put my foot down when she tried to convince me to ‘pull a
Sliding Doors
-era Gwyneth’ and cut my long auburn hair into a peroxide pixie cut. Hair aside, my revamped look is a riot of colour and pattern, and even I’m forced to admit that changing my appearance has helped me feel a little more in control of my life. My new outfits make me feel the tiniest bit sunnier, and I’m all for faking it until I make it.

‘And besides,’ Frankie had added, ‘prints are ideal for hanging out with grubby dogs all day. They hide a multitude of sins.’

A multitude of sins.
My sister actually said that. Adam’s verbose influence, no doubt. I still haven’t spoken to him, although he and Frankie seem to be as thick as thieves. I make a mental note to call him soon. ‘Get best friend back’ can be part three of the plan. I’m sure Frankie will approve.

I wobble up to the Really Good Ads reception desk and lean my full weight on it to prevent myself from falling over. These shoes have got to go. Despite Frankie’s proclamation that wedges are ‘the sneakers of the high-heel world’, there’s no way I’ll be able to run around after dogs on a movie set in these.

That is, of course, assuming I’ll ever have the opportunity to run around after dogs on a movie set again.

‘Is Danica Keane in?’ I ask the receptionist.

‘Let me check. Do you have an appointment?’ she replies, picking up her phone.

‘No. I’m, uh, here to ask for my job back,’ I babble, feeling foolish. ‘I’m hoping she’ll be impressed by my initiative.’

She smiles warmly. ‘Nice. What’s your name?’

I tell her and she punches in Danica’s extension. ‘Hi, Dan, it’s Shelley. I have a guest for you at reception. Kitty Hayden? She’d like to — mmm-hmm. Right. Oh, I see.’

My heart sinks. ‘Oh, I see’ surely doesn’t bode well for me.

‘Of course. I’ll ask her.’ The receptionist cups her hand over the receiver and looks up at me, surprise writ large on her face. ‘Danica says thank god you’re here,’ she whispers.

My jaw drops. ‘She does?’ I’m all geared up for shameless pleading; the possibility that Danica might actually be happy to see me hadn’t even entered my head.

She nods. ‘And she wants to know if you know anyone with Pharaoh Hounds.’

Martha McGuire hasn’t changed one iota in the three months since I last saw her. She’s still enormous, still bubbling with barely suppressed excitement and still talking a million miles a minute – only this time her stream of constant chatter is devoted to badgering me with questions about what really happened between me and Mitchell.

‘I mean, obviously I’ve read all the magazines. You know me, Kitty – I do love my gossip. But I’m savvier than your average reader, dear,’ she’d said all of two seconds after climbing into my van. ‘I know half of what they print in those rags is made up. So where better to hear the truth than straight from the horse’s mouth, eh? You can tell Aunty Martha, love. I won’t breathe a word. I may talk a lot, but I’m like a steel trap when I put my mind to it. The things I could tell you! But I wouldn’t do that, you see. I’ll take them with me to the grave. Go on, then. Was he a total bastard?’

Martha crosses her arms over her impressive girth and looks at me expectantly. I scan the road ahead, willing the Kamay Botany Bay National Park visitor centre to appear so that I can get out of the car and away from the McGuire Inquisition. But the dense bush either side of the bitumen fails to yield an escape route.

‘Hmm?’ I murmur, feigning distraction. I need to buy a few seconds to compose a response that will shut down Martha’s prying without putting her offside. Though her first disastrous foray into the movie business doesn’t seem to have dampened her enthusiasm for it, I can’t risk Martha changing her mind and refusing to let Zulu, Sphinx and Caesar appear in Danica’s commercial. I’ve already played my ‘second chance’ card with my boss; I can’t afford to blow it this time. Which is why I’ve broken my own previously unbreakable rule a second time and let Martha come to the shoot with me.

‘Get it off your chest, sweetheart. You’ll feel better for it,’ Martha presses. ‘A problem shared is a problem halved, as they say.’

They
may indeed say that, but something tells me that revealing any juicy tidbits about Mitchell to Martha McGuire would see my particular problems quadrupled.

‘That’s such a kind offer, Martha,’ I say, deciding finally to err on the side of flattery. ‘And I’d love to get it all off my chest, I really would. But . . .’
But what? But
I wouldn’t tell you what I ate for breakfast, let alone why I walked away from the man I love?
But
I’d bet my house that ruthless reporter, Erin McInerny, is more discreet than you?

‘But I signed a confidentiality agreement,’ I say at last. There, that seems pretty watertight. And even if she does leak that little nugget to the media, it might actually work in my favour; if they know I legally can’t tell them anything, maybe it will convince them to finally leave me alone.

Martha’s eyes widen to the size of Krispy Kreme donuts. ‘
Did
you?’ she breathes.

‘Mmm-hmm. So, you see, my hands are tied.’

‘Those Americans.’ She shakes her head, appalled. ‘Such a litigious lot.’

Her words catapult me back in time – back to my doorstep the day I met Mitchell. Well, the day I
slapped
Mitchell and he came to my house, not to threaten legal action as I’d feared, but to apologise and ask me to go out with him. I’d labelled him a litigious American that day myself, and he’d laughed and I’d realised that maybe I’d been too quick to judge him. My heart gives a painful thud now at the memory of it; that picture in my mind’s eye of one of the world’s most desired men standing humbled and hopeful on my verandah.

That was the day that changed everything, and the irony of the fact it began the same way as today – with me driving Martha McGuire and her dogs to a shoot – isn’t lost on me. What a grotesque symmetry. The idea of history repeating fills me with a strange sense of foreboding, as though Martha is some kind of dog-hair-covered talisman whose mere presence has the power to turn my life upside down a second time. I’d laugh if it weren’t so utterly pathetic.

At last, a squat beige building flanked by flagpoles looms out of the trees – the visitor centre. Its car park is crammed with the usual litany of trucks, vans and portacabins necessary on an outdoor film shoot, as well as a fleet of shiny black four-wheel drives lined up in front of the centre’s main entrance.

‘Ooh, they’re fancy,’ Martha says, pointing to the off-roaders. ‘Is it a car ad?’

It’s not a car ad, and for a moment I’m at a loss to explain what the role of the enormous cars might be. Then the penny drops.

‘It’s a skincare commercial – some miracle face cream derived from ingredients used by ancient Egyptian royalty, according to the brief. They’re using the Cronulla dunes as the Egyptian desert’ – I stifle a giggle as Martha emits a derisive snort –’but they’re a few kilometres from here and access to the beach is by four-wheel drive only. The cars must be for ferrying people and equipment between here and the location.’

‘Why not just set up all this stuff
at
the location?’

I shrug. ‘There’s power, water and loos here. It’s no doubt easier and cheaper to use this as a base than cart it all across the sand. There’s probably this much stuff again at the site, anyway.’

‘Well, I’d hate to be the one who has to tidy it all away,’ Martha says primly as I nose the van into a parking space.

I cut the engine and open my door to be greeted by a rush of icy air. The sky today is just as clear and blue as the last time I worked with Martha and her dogs, but that had been late March and the heat of summer lingered. Now we’re deep into winter, and though the sky may be cloudless, there’s precious little warmth in the sunshine. I’m glad I put fleece jumpers on Martha’s dogs before we left her house; with their smooth single coats and lean frames, Pharaoh Hounds feel the winter chill more than most dogs. At least their role in the commercial is small – I pity the poor actress who’s surely going to have to spend all day frolicking in the frigid sand in a toga.

‘Kitty!’ Danica’s voice is warm despite the cold. I turn to see my employer striding across the car park towards me, wearing a broad smile and a coat so enormous it looks as if she’s wrapped in a duvet. ‘Isn’t this weather utterly foul?’ she says with a theatrical shiver. ‘I’m terrified we’re not going to be able to get the talent out of her dressing room. She’s come from the northern summer to this!’

The words ‘toughen up, princess’ are on the tip of my tongue, but I manage to swallow them. The last thing I should be doing on the first day of my second chance with Danica is insulting ‘the talent’, whoever she is.

‘Danica, this is Martha McGuire,’ I say instead, gesturing to my corpulent companion. ‘Martha owns our animal actors, Sphinx, Caesar and Zulu.’

Danica extends a feather-and-down encased arm. ‘So lovely to meet you, Martha,’ she says, shaking her hand. ‘I can’t tell you how relieved I am that you and Kitty were able to fly into action at such short notice. I almost had a stroke when the client called two days before the shoot and said he wanted
Pharaoh Hounds
.’ She says the name of the breed as though her client had demanded unicorns rather than dogs.

‘Happy to help, darl,’ says Martha. ‘It’ll be nice to actually see’em on screen this time. No punching the star today, eh, Kitty?’ She laughs throatily.

Danica raises a quizzical eyebrow and fixes me with a ‘please explain’ expression. Awesome. Now is just the time to dredge up memories of the day I met Mitchell.

‘That’s a slight exaggeration, Martha,’ I say, tittering nervously. ‘The last time Martha and I worked together was on the set of
Solitaire
, and there was, uh, an incident . . . It was silly, all a misunderstanding, really . . .’

I stop babbling when I see Danica’s face turn ashen. She takes a step towards me and places a mittened hand on my arm. ‘Kitty —’

But whatever she’s poised to say is interrupted by a burst of static from within her coat. ‘Danica, are you there?’ a crackly voice booms.

Kitty what?

Danica fumbles a small walkie-talkie from her pocket and turns away slightly as she brings it to her mouth. ‘I’m here, Gary. What’s up?’ She releases the talk button and the buzz of static again fills the air.

‘We’re about ready down here,’ the disembodied Gary replies after a moment. ‘Have the mutts arrived yet?’

Kitty what?

‘Yes, the
dogs
are here,’ Danica says, shooting an apologetic look at Martha. ‘I’ll send them down.’ She slips the walkie-talkie back into her pocket and turns back to me. ‘That’s Gary, our director. He wants to run through the dogs’ role in the ad before the rest of the cast head down to the set. Let me find a driver to run you all down to the dunes. Can you wait with the dogs over by the four-by-fours?’

Kitty what?