The Ex Factor (5 page)

‘Whoa! Hey there, big fella!’

‘He can’t hear you,’ I say. I use both hands to wrench Reggie’s boulder-sized head into more polite territory, though not without noticing the tiny tingle where my hand brushes Mitchell’s worn denim jeans. ‘He was born deaf.’

Mitchell snaps his fingers in front of Reggie’s face. The quick movement captures Reggie’s attention and he fixes his gaze on the sweet-smelling stranger. Mitchell drops his right arm down by his knees with the open palm facing up, then brings his hand up towards his right shoulder in a beckoning motion.

Reggie sits.

Next, Mitchell holds the same arm directly out in front of him at shoulder height with his palm facing the floor. Reggie is still watching him intently. When Mitchell lowers his arm toward the floor, Reggie lies down.

‘Good boy,’ he says, offering Reggie a thumbs-up and a scratch behind the ears.

Reggie sighs contentedly and closes his eyes, and any lingering anger I might have felt toward Mitchell vanishes in that instant.

‘How do you know dog sign language? Did you learn it for a role?’

He shakes his head. ‘I learned it when I was a kid. We had this Dalmatian, Hugo. He was such a great dog, but he was deaf and we didn’t know it right away. He was always getting into trouble because he couldn’t hear us. Like, he’d run off and wouldn’t come back when we called him or he’d dig holes in the yard because he never heard “stop that”. My dad got tired of having this bad dog. He wanted to get rid of Hugo, but there was nothing wrong with him, you know? He was a healthy, boisterous dog – a puppy, really – who just couldn’t hear.’

‘What happened to him?’

‘I made my dad promise me that, if I could figure out a way to train Hugo, we could keep him. So I went to the local shelter and persuaded one of the volunteers there – Patti was her name – to teach me dog sign language. She must have thought I was crazy! This eight-year-old kid, desperate to “talk” to his deaf dog. But Hugo picked it up right away. He was such a smart little guy.’

Mitchell smiles a little as he remembers his faithful companion. ‘He lived to be fourteen. That’s really old for a Dalmatian.’ There’s a definite note of pride in his voice, as if Mitchell’s care and attention were the key factors in Hugo’s longevity. And who knows? Maybe they were.

‘You don’t speak to your father anymore?’ I cringe the moment the words leave my lips. I only know this little factoid because Martha told me, and the last thing I want to do is remind Mitchell how he stumbled across us dissecting his private life yesterday.

His face clouds momentarily. ‘Not for years,’ he says crisply. ‘I’m not one to bash my head against a brick wall.’

Cryptic. I’m itching to pry further, but I think I’ve squeezed enough personal information out of this guy for one day. Best to stick to small talk. ‘Do you have a dog now?’

‘No. My, uh, Vida didn’t like them.’ He takes a hasty gulp of his water and looks away, but the damage has been done. The ex-girlfriend’s name has been lobbed into the conversation like a hand grenade.

‘I think I owe you an apology too, Mitchell,’ I say just as the atmosphere in the room becomes really uncomfortable. Saying his name aloud feels strangely illicit; it’s like those two syllables together generate an electric charge. ‘I’m sorry you overheard Martha and me talking about your love life. It was really rude and totally unprofessional, especially in your trailer.’

Mitchell smiles wearily and runs a hand through his hair. ‘You don’t need to apologise for that. It’s a professional hazard. I’m used to it, believe me.’

‘Still. I’m not a gossip. Just so you know.’

He gives me a long look. I can’t read him in that moment, but I feel my pulse quicken.

‘I know,’ he says at last. ‘I think there’s a lot more to you than meets the eye, Kitty.’

‘Uh-huh. More water?’ I say, because I have to say
something
.

Mitchell looks at his (no doubt ridiculously expensive) stainless-steel wristwatch.

‘Thanks, but I’d better go. Early call tomorrow.’ He eases his foot out from under Reggie’s chin and stands. ‘I’m going to get you your job back. It wasn’t fair that you were fired. Everyone on
Solitaire
knows that.’

‘Thanks but, um, no thanks. I think my getting the boot —’

Mitchell cringes at my clumsy choice of words.

I remove my foot from my mouth and try again. ‘Sorry. I think my being
let go
was a blessing in disguise. That du Renne is a psychopath. I don’t want to work for somebody like that, and I wouldn’t want to put another dog through it either.’

He nods thoughtfully. ‘Okay,’ he says. ‘I’ve gotta say, I admire your integrity.’

He looks at his watch again but doesn’t move toward the door. He looks out the window. He looks at the dogs lined up in their beds. They look back at him.

Finally, Mitchell looks back at me and takes a deep breath. ‘It’s fine that you don’t want the job back, but . . .’ A pained expression crosses his handsome face.

‘But what?’ I prompt gently.

He takes a deep breath. ‘What I’m really trying to say is that I’d like to see you again.’

The sentence is so unexpected, so downright shocking, that he could have said he’d like to dress up in my clothes and I’d have been less surprised.

‘Are . . . are you asking me out?’ I hope the expression on my face doesn’t reflect the weird mix of terror and something like joy that I feel inside.

‘Yes,’ he says. ‘But I’m not doing a very good job of it.’

Mitchell Pyke is asking me out. Mitchell Pyke, a bona fide, honest-to-goodness film star. And he’s
nervous
about it.

‘I’d like to go out with you.’ I’m not aware I’m going to say those words until they’re actually forming on my lips. And yet there they are, hanging between us.

Mitchell smiles. Not the tentative half-smiles he’d flirted with earlier, but a big, broad, happy grin.

‘Great. That’s great,’ he says, visibly relieved. ‘Tomorrow night?’

I nod. The power of speech appears to have deserted me.

‘I’ll call you tomorrow then.’ And he heads for the door.

Frankie propels out of her room like a missile the second I close the front door behind Mitchell.

‘What happened? Is he going to sue? I didn’t hear shouting. I figured that was a good sign.’

I hold up my hands to stem the tide of her questions. I need a moment to process this.

‘He’s not suing,’ I tell her. ‘He apologised. And then he asked me out.’

Frankie’s jaw drops. ‘You are fucking kidding me.’

I shake my head slowly. ‘I’m not.’

She plants her hands on her hips. ‘So, let me get this straight. I get dumped by Dominic the douchebag and you punch a movie star and get a date?’

‘That seems a fairly accurate summary.’

Frankie marches into the living room.

‘Where are you going?’ I ask her retreating back.

‘We’re going to need more wine!’

Frankie insists we go shopping the next day. ‘I will not allow my sister to go out with Mitchell Pyke in some hideous sack that’s covered in dog hair,’ she says as she drives us toward the local shopping centre with far more speed than is necessary. ‘You know your date is going make the papers. I’ve got my reputation to think about.’

‘Do you really think that’s really true?’

‘Yes. You need a total wardrobe overhaul.’

‘No, I mean about the papers. Do you think they’ll write about me? About
us
?’

‘Um,
hello
. Local nobody swept off her feet by international megastar. That’s a story, sis.’

I groan aloud. ‘Maybe I shouldn’t go. It’s probably not worth it.’

Without warning, Frankie pulls the car haphazardly up to the kerb and slams on the brakes. The abrupt manoeuvre is met with a chorus of horns and shouting from the drivers behind us.

‘Jesus, Frankie! Are you trying to get us killed?’

She turns to face me, a no-nonsense look on her face. ‘What exactly is your problem?’

‘How much time do you have?’

‘I’m serious, Kitty. What is this aversion you have to doing anything you might remotely enjoy? You don’t have to be so serious all the time. It’s like you’re allergic to fun.’

‘I am not allergic to fun,’ I say huffily. ‘But really, what’s the point in going out with someone like Mitchell? Aside from the whole “stratospherically famous” thing, he lives in Los Angeles and he’s only here for a few more weeks. Where can it possibly go?’

Frankie rolls her eyes. ‘Well, I hope for your sake it goes straight to some plush suite in a fancy hotel. No one’s saying you have to marry the guy. You just need to get laid.’ She says this in a very matter-of-fact way, as though my becoming another notch on Mitchell’s bedpost will solve all the world’s problems.

‘Oh, come on, Frankie. I’m not going to sleep with him on the first date. I’m not like . . . like . . . you know.’

‘You’re not like what? Like me?’ She raises her eyebrows in mock outrage, but I can tell she’s amused. ‘Well, maybe you should try to be a bit more like me, big sister. You might like it.’

Frankie pulls back onto the road without looking, prompting another flurry of honking behind us. As she weaves in and out of the traffic, Frankie’s words play on my mind. Is she right? Am I a stick-in-the-mud who doesn’t know how to have a good time? It’s true I haven’t had a proper boyfriend since before Mum died. I’d been with Daniel for a couple of years, but I ended it when she got sick. He didn’t understand why I couldn’t suddenly drop everything and escape for the weekend or go bar-hopping through Surry Hills with him on a Wednesday night. He didn’t like how much she needed me.

Since then there’ve been a couple of short-lived things. I couldn’t really call them relationships. I met Ryan at the dog park right after we lost Mum, but that fizzled out after a few weeks. Then there was Chris, a friend of Adam’s. We met at a house party and went out a couple of times, but he trotted out the ‘I like you as a friend’ speech before we’d even slept together. That was, what, a year ago?

I guess Frankie has a point; things have been pretty barren on the man front lately. But it’s not as if I have loads of time to devote to a relationship. Between my business, the dogs and the house, not to mention trying to get Frankie to behave vaguely like a grown-up, most days I count myself lucky if I can get from dawn to dusk without some major crisis unfolding. Where would a serious boyfriend figure among all that?

Then again, if my dream about Mitchell is anything to go by, something serious is not what I need right now. Once more, the memory of his insistent fingers in my dream makes my breath catch in my throat. He might not be a long-term prospect – I’m still not entirely convinced I even
like
him – but I am sure of one thing: I want him.

‘Okay,’ I say.

Frankie looks at me curiously. ‘Okay what?’

‘Okay, I’ll go out with Mitchell and I won’t overthink it and if . . . 
something
should happen between us, then that would be fine.’

My sister looks genuinely astounded. ‘And here I thought we were just going to get you an outfit. I didn’t realise epiphanies were on the shopping list.’

Frankie parks the car and steers me into all the shops I usually avoid, then forces me to try on the shortest, tightest and most plunging clothes they sell. After two hours, I haven’t bought a thing and my earlier resolve is wavering.

‘I can’t wear this stuff,’ I wail as I discard yet another postage-stamp-sized dress.

‘Why not?’ comes Frankie’s disembodied voice from beyond the fitting-room curtain.

‘Well, I’m thirty, for one thing, not thirteen. And I don’t even know where Mitchell is taking me tonight. He hasn’t called yet to confirm the plans.’

Cold horror suddenly grips my insides. Oh god. He hasn’t called. I dart out of the fitting room and grab my handbag from underneath the chair Frankie’s sitting on, idly inspecting her fingernails.

‘That look might be a little risqué for a first date,’ my sister says blithely, looking-but-not-looking at my bra and knickers. ‘The underwear usually happens at the end of the evening. If you’re lucky.’

But I’m not listening. I grapple for my phone and check the time: three-fifteen p.m. No messages are displayed on the screen. I check the missed-calls list: nothing. The day is practically over and Mitchell hasn’t called. Is he planning to stand me up?

‘You’re doing it again,’ says Frankie, still picking at her nails. ‘You’re overthinking it.’

‘You don’t think it’s weird I haven’t heard from him by now?’

She looks at me at last. ‘Don’t be that girl, Kitty.’

‘What girl?’

‘That girl who second-guesses herself. That girl who gets all crazy needy just because some guy with a hot body and a big bank balance gives her the time of day.
That
girl,’ she says.

‘You make me sound like some adolescent groupie.’

‘Don’t forget that Mitchell asked you out
after
you slapped him across the face in front of a hundred people. He’s seen you at your worst and he wants to get to know you anyway. He’ll call you when he calls you. Now,’ she stands and ushers me back into the fitting room, ‘try on the black one.’

‘What’s the point in buying a dress if he never calls?’ I cringe inwardly at how pathetic I sound.

‘Then screw him. At least you’ll have one halfway decent frock in your wardrobe.’ She snaps the curtain shut as if to say ‘no further correspondence will be entered into’.

I buy the dress. And shoes and a bag. But I still feel like a teenage drama queen.

That is until I check the messages on the home phone and discover that Mitchell called at nine o’clock this morning, while I was out walking the dogs.

‘Hi, Kitty. I should be done here by four today,’ that deep American drawl booms into my hallway. ‘I thought if you’re up for it we could hit the beach for a late swim and then grab some dinner. I guess I’ll make it to Narrabeen around five . . . oh. This is Mitchell Pyke.’

I glance at the Alessi wall clock – another of Frankie’s investments. It’s a quarter to five. Oh, good. The international superstar will be here in fifteen minutes and he expects to see me in swimwear.

‘Frankie! Help!’

My sister appears at the end of the hall, her arms laden with bikinis. ‘I heard it,’ she says. ‘I’ve had a look through your cossies and obviously they’re all foul. You go shave your legs while I pick one of mine. The dress you bought is all wrong for a casual dinner, so I’ll find you something for that, too. Go!’

I nod and race for the bathroom. Sometimes my sister is exceedingly useful.

By the time Mitchell knocks on the door – on the dot of five, I’m both impressed and peeved to note – my legs have been denuded and my hair piled into a messy topknot and secured with a print scarf. I’m wearing a retro-style emerald-green one-piece under a voluminous Camilla kaftan – both Frankie’s – and flat beaded sandals. The shoes, at least, are mine. So are the silver and turquoise bracelets clanking on both wrists. Well, they’re mine now; they once belonged to my mother.

‘You look amazing,’ Frankie whispers as she gives me a final once-over.

‘Are you sure? It’s not a bit too . . .’

‘What?’

‘I don’t know. Talitha Getty circa 1968?’

Frankie arches an incredulous eyebrow. ‘Yeah, I don’t know who that is. Go on your date, but tomorrow we’re going to get you some twenty-first-century style references.’ And she shoves me unceremoniously toward the front door.

But it’s not Mitchell standing on the other side of it after all. It’s Adam.

‘Greetings, m’lady,’ he says, doffing an imaginary cap. ‘My, don’t you look resplendent. You didn’t need to get all dolled up on my account.’

‘Oh! Adam, I’m so sorry. I didn’t . . .’

Over his shoulder, I see the now-familiar black four-wheel drive roll to a stop at the kerb. The back door opens and Mitchell jumps out. There’s clearly no battling Sydney’s rush hour when you’re a movie star.

The instant I set eyes on Mitchell, I know my sister was right: the tarty black dress would have been totally wrong. He’s wearing khaki board shorts with a sky-blue, short-sleeved shirt and no shoes. He could pass for the quintessential Aussie surfer boy if not for that intangible ‘something’ he exudes. I guess it’s what they call ‘star quality’.

He saunters up the garden path. ‘Wow,’ he says with a broad smile. ‘You look . . .’

‘Like the hippie that time forgot?’

‘I was going to say incredible.’

‘Oh. Well. Thank you.’

We grin stupidly at each other for a moment.

‘Ahem,’ says Adam.

‘Hey, there,’ says Mitchell, thrusting a hand in Adam’s direction. ‘I’m Mitch.’

‘Adam,’ he replies, shaking it meekly.

‘You’re a friend of Kitty’s?’

‘I’m . . . I’m her vet.’ I’ve never seen Adam look so pale.

‘Adam! You’re not my vet. I mean, you are, but . . . Mitchell, Adam is my best friend. We used to live together.’

I’m babbling like an idiot. Why, of all the tidbits I could have chosen to tell Mitchell about Adam, did I go for that one?

‘Oh?’ Mitchell says coolly.

‘We were flatmates. And now Adam has come round to check on Bananarama’s eyes and I completely forgot and I’m the worst best friend ever.’ Yep, definitely an idiot. ‘You don’t mind waiting a few minutes, do you?’

Mitchell shrugs. I get the feeling he does mind. He minds quite a bit.

‘Nonsense!’ Adam pipes up, apparently having regained his ability to string sentences together. ‘You two go on your . . . date. Have fun! I’ll see to Bananarama and be on my way. Is Frankie in or should I lock up behind me?’

Without waiting for an answer, Adam strides into the house.

‘Shall we go?’ Mitchell says after a moment. ‘I thought we could walk. You’re only a couple streets from the beach, right?’

I nod and step out of the house, pulling the door closed behind me. I make a mental note to call Adam later and grovel. He was clearly mortified. Although, come to think of it, there was really no reason he should have been. Sure, it was flaky of me to forget he was planning to drop by, but there seemed to be more to it than that. Was he star-struck?

As Mitchell and I stroll past his car, a burly black man steps out of the driver’s side and begins to follow us. He doesn’t say anything and lags a few metres behind, but his mere presence is unnerving.

‘I know we didn’t get off to a great start yesterday, Mitchell, but is the chaperone really necessary? I promise I won’t slap you again.’

Mitchell glances back at the behemoth behind us. ‘Oh, sorry. That’s Mack. Don’t mind him. He’s just my bodyguard.’

I try not to appear as disconcerted as I feel. ‘Your bodyguard? What do you imagine is going to happen to you on the mean streets of Narrabeen?’

‘You’d be surprised,’ he says darkly. His tone makes the skin at the back of my neck prickle.

‘Should I be worried?’

Mitchell turns and sees the freaked-out expression on my face. ‘No! Sorry, Kitty. I don’t mean to sound dramatic. It’s just, well . . . I’m not sure how to say this.’

I’m not sure I want him to, whatever
this
is. But I say ‘Go on’ anyway.

‘The thing is, I’m really famous.’

‘I know.’
Believe me, I know.

He shakes his head. ‘I don’t think you do. I mean,
really
famous. I’m not saying that to be arrogant. It’s the truth. I’m recognised wherever I go. All over the world, people want a piece of me. No matter where I am or what I’m doing, there’ll be someone trying to take my picture, to sell it to one of those god-awful magazines and make a quick buck out of Mitchell Pyke.’

He sounds bitter, and I guess it’s justified. Although nothing really justifies talking about yourself in the third person. That’s just not okay.

I scan my quiet suburban street. ‘It looks like you’ve got a night off tonight though,’ I say. ‘No photographers here.’

Mitchell gives a thin smile and what looks like genuine sadness flashes in his eyes. It’s the same expression he wore on the cover of
Starz
magazine.

He stops walking and leans in close. ‘See that red Hyundai over my right shoulder?’ he says quietly. I peer in that direction. Sure enough, there’s a battered Accent parked about a hundred metres away. In the passenger seat is a man with a telephoto lens trained on us.

‘Oh my god!’

‘And the pizza delivery guy on the opposite corner?’

I turn and look the other way. A skinny guy in a Domino’s uniform is fiddling about with the front tyre of his delivery bike. I can see a camera slung over his shoulder, too.

I can’t believe it. Paparazzi. In my street! ‘How did they even know you’d be here?’

‘These two followed me from the set. That happens in LA, too. They’re permanently camped outside my house. Or people tip them off.’

‘Tip them off?’

‘Yeah, like if I go to a restaurant, the maitre d’ will call a snapper and pocket a hundred bucks for his trouble. Or, you know, the receptionist at my doctor’s office will fax my medical records to
TMZ.
’