Unlucky Break (11 page)

He’s so nice,
she thought. For a moment she allowed herself to imagine what it would be like if he was her uncle or her father, instead of her aunt’s employee. Maybe he would take her away to live a normal life, with normal people.

An older woman opened the door. She was carrying a mop. ‘He’s in the bedroom,’ she said, pointing, and left Andie in the dark hallway of the house.

Andie walked tentatively down the hallway in the direction the woman had indicated. At the end, it opened up into a huge space with bookshelves lining the walls. An enormous L-shaped sofa sat at one end, and the room was dotted with chairs that looked perfect for curling up with a book.

Rugs covered the floorboards. Next to one of the chairs was a low marble table covered with books, papers, scripts and coffee cups. A laptop sat open on a desk, almost inviting her to sit down and write. The room opened onto a deck, where a lap pool stretched out like a blue carpet along the middle.

It was a beautiful room – exactly the kind that Andie would have in her own house, if she had a choice.

‘Hello,’ she heard, and she jumped. She turned to see James on crutches, his face pale but still achingly handsome.

‘Sorry, did I scare you?’ he said apologetically.

He doesn’t recognise me,
Andie thought, grateful and disappointed at the same time. She smiled nervously. ‘That’s okay. I was just admiring this room – it’s gorgeous. Like, my perfect room. Hi, I’m Andie Powers,’ she said in a rush, and put out her hand to shake.
Stop talking so much, Andie,
she said to herself.

James gestured to his crutches and made a face as Andie stood there, hand extended. She cringed. ‘Whoops, sorry.’

‘It’s okay. I hope you haven’t been waiting? I only just got home from the hospital. I’m fine, but you know – they wanted to keep me overnight for observation.’

Andie wanted to confess everything at that moment.
I broke your foot. I left you for dead. I’m the girl from the club. I’m here now. I’m sorry.

Instead, she smiled brightly and said, ‘Glad to hear you’re feeling better. Barry sent me over – he said you might need a hand.’

Living with her mother in those last few weeks had taught her how to cover her feelings well.

James smiled. ‘More like a foot! But yeah, I’m finding it hard to do anything for myself. I can’t drive or anything obviously, but also I can’t even organise myself with these painkillers they have me on.’

Andie nodded and looked his forearms in the crutches. Her eyes drifted to the stubble on his face. It was light blonde, glinting in the sunlight pouring through the floor-to-ceiling windows, with chestnut brown flecks underneath. He really was ridiculously good-looking.

I’m sorry
, she repeated in her head.

‘So do you?’ James prompted and she shook herself back to the present.

‘I’m sorry?’ said Andie, feeling stupid for drifting off.

‘Do you have any experience assisting people like this?’ James waved his broken foot at her.

Andie thought about her mother.

‘Yes, I’m very experienced,’ she said. ‘I worked in this area back in Australia.’

It wasn’t even a lie, really. She just hadn’t been paid for it.

‘And have you worked with a celebrity before? Do you understand our wacky world?’

Andie laughed. ‘Well, Cece Powers is my aunt. Actually, she recommended me for the job.’ This time the lie caught in her throat and she swallowed.

‘Oh – maybe that’s where I know you from. It’s been bugging me. You seem really familiar,’ he said, looking at her closely.

Andie plastered a fake smile on her face. ‘Maybe,’ she said.

James smiled. ‘Great. Perfect. So, where are your things?’

‘My things?’ Andie asked, frowning. She wondered if there was something specific she should have brought with her.

‘Your clothes and stuff.’

She looked blank.

‘It’s a live-in position,’ he said. ‘I need someone here overnight because of the concussion. Didn’t Barry tell you?’

Of course Barry didn’t,
thought Andie.
Bastard.
‘Oh. No, he didn’t, actually.’

‘Hmm. Is that going to be okay?’ asked James, shifting his weight on his crutches, his face wincing in pain.

‘Sure. Of course,’ Andie nodded. She didn’t appear to have any other options. ‘I’ll have my things sent over,’ she said in what she hoped was a professional voice.

Her phone rang. Damn, she’d meant to put it on silent. The caller ID said was Jess. She went to press the button to reject the call, looking at James apologetically.

‘It’s okay – take it,’ said James. He eased himself carefully onto the arm of a nearby chair.

Andie pressed the accept button and walked away a few paces.

‘Hi,’ she said carefully.

‘Where the hell are you?’ came Jess’s voice by way of greeting.

‘Um … I’m kind of in the middle of something. Can I call you back?’ she asked.

‘No, you can’t call me back, my name’s Jess. Haha. God, I’m funny.’

‘I’m just doing something,’ Andie tried again. ‘I’ll call you back soon.’ She tried not to let impatience creep into her voice.

‘Wait, why aren’t you at Cece’s? Why did you leave the studio so quickly yesterday? And why haven’t you returned any of my calls?’ Jess asked, without giving Andie a chance to answer any of the questions.

‘I’ve just had some stuff going on. I’ll call you back, I sw–’

‘No, listen,’ yelled Jess and Andie pulled the phone away from her ear and James’s eyebrows raised in amusement. ‘I have news!’

Andie rolled her eyes and shook her head apologetically at James, who mouthed that it was fine.

‘Okay, okay. You have one minute. What’s up?’ Andie said.

‘I. Got. The. Part,’ said Jess. ‘I got the part!’

‘Oh my god!’ said Andie. ‘The sequel?’

‘Yes, the sequel, the war movie,’ yelled Jess.

‘Oh my god, I’m so proud of you!’ Andie squealed, forgetting herself for a moment and jumping up and down. She turned and looked at James, who was laughing.

‘Come over and we’ll drink Diet Coke, talk shit and celebrate me and my awesomeness,’ said Jess.

‘I can’t,’ said Andie, although she could think of nothing better.

‘Why not?’

‘I just can’t, I’ll call you and tell you why later.’

‘Aw,’ said Jess. Andie could hear the pout in her voice. ‘But you’re my BFF! If you can’t celebrate with me, who will?’

‘I’m really sorry,’ said Andie, and she was. ‘I swear I’ll make it up to you. I really have to go now, though.’

‘Okay,’ said Jess in a small voice. ‘Bye.’

‘Bye, Jess. You’re awesome. Congrats again.’ Andie hung up and put her phone away.

‘Big news, huh?’ asked James.

Andie thought he looked older than his twenty-one years. More worn around the eyes than a twenty-one-year-old should be. ‘Yeah,’ said Andie. ‘She got a part.’

‘You sounded excited for her,’ he smiled.

‘I am,’ said Andie, smiling. She was so happy for Jess.

They stood in silence for a moment.

‘Come on over and have a seat,’ he said, pulling himself up on his crutches again. He moved slowly across the floorboards.

Andie followed him over to the L-shaped sofa, watching carefully in case he needed a steadying hand.

‘So, let me tell you a little bit about your role,’ James said as he sat down awkwardly on the leather sofa and put his foot up. He sighed with relief. ‘Basically I have to start the publicity campaign for the film I’ve just done. I also have a bunch of scripts to go through and a stack of fan mail I haven’t answered.’

‘Okay,’ said Andie.

James pointed at his foot. ‘It’s not exactly a great time for this to have happened, but my life was pretty chaotic anyway. Maybe these things happen for a reason. This could be a good chance to get on top of things.’ He smiled philosophically, but Andie felt sick again.

‘So yeah, I need you to run errands, organise my schedule, deal with my agent and my manager and …’ He paused. ‘And I hope it goes without saying that I’m expecting complete confidentiality.’

‘Of course,’ said Andie. She may run from the scene of a crime, but she could keep a secret.

‘So I have a bit of an issue with my ex-girlfriend at the moment,’ he said, running his hand through his hair.

No shit,
Andie thought.

‘Anyway, we broke up a while ago but she still hassles me a lot,’ he said. ‘I need you to be my … gatekeeper for a while. She’s having a hard time letting go,’ he said, frowning. ‘Can you do that?’

Andie could think of nothing better than shutting down Nikki Morgan. She tried to contain her glee as she gave a serious nod. ‘Of course. Breakups are tough for everyone,’ she said. ‘I totally understand. I just went through it myself.’

Why would you say that?
she admonished herself.
Shut up Andie, just shut up.

‘You broke up with someone?’ James asked.

‘Yes, back in Australia,’ she said.

‘I’m sorry to hear that. Did you break it off, or him?’ he leant forward and clasped his hands.

‘I did,’ Andie said quietly.

‘People think the person who breaks it off has it easy,’ said James. ‘But I think it’s sometimes way harder for us.’ He looked at her with so much sympathy in his sparkling eyes, even though he didn’t know her at all. Her heart started to beat triple time.

She looked into James’s eyes and finally understood why writers wrote about love. What poems had expressed for hundreds of years – what it was like to fall in love with a single glance.

Andie’s eyes filled with tears as she remembered discovering Marissa and Cameron in bed together. She’d gone to say goodbye to him, and there they were, lying under his Greenpeace doona.

They were broken up, Marissa had tried to justify weakly, as Andie stood in shock in the doorway to the bedroom.

The last thing Andie had ever said to them as she left his room had been cruel, but it was true and she wanted them both to know it. ‘Marissa eats veal.’

The look on Cameron’s face was almost worth the pain of seeing them together. Andie would never forgive her friend, ever. Marissa had emailed her since, dozens of emails, but Andie had deleted them without reading them.

‘Sorry,’ said James, and Andie realised she’d been silent for a while. ‘You probably don’t want to talk about it.’ James smiled a smile of sad recognition. A spark flew up Andie’s arm and set off fireworks in her stomach.

‘So you’re heartbroken and I’m leg-broken. Maybe we can mend each other then, hey?’ he laughed and Andie smiled a wobbly smile, taking a deep breath to calm herself.

‘Sounds like a plan,’ she said, wishing for the thousandth time in the last twenty-four hours that everything had turned out differently.

After giving her a general tour of the house, James showed her to her room, or rooms, actually. She had a separate lounge area and a walk-in wardrobe off the bedroom, as well as an ensuite. Her bedroom had a view across to the Hollywood sign.

James’s room was on the other side of the house, but there was an intercom system he could use to call her on if he needed her while they were home.

Then James handed her a mobile phone. ‘My manager and agent will call you on this to schedule things for me. Nikki doesn’t have this number but she’ll get it somehow. She’s like a phone-number-seeking missile,’ he said, and Andie saw tension in his jaw.

‘Okay,’ said Andie, thinking of the heel mark left on her stomach after Nikki had kicked her into the pool. There was no way Andie was letting her get to James. Andie may have broken his foot and not owned it but she was here now, making things right.

James left her to settle in to her bedroom. ‘I have a list of things that I’ll need done but I’ll give them to you in the morning,’ he said.

Andie rang Marta and asked her to pack up her things and send them over to James’s place. A bag arrived an hour later and she unpacked in her new bedroom. It was evening by then, and she left her room in search of James. She found him on the leather sofa again, ordering Japanese for them both.

‘You a vegetarian or anything?’ he asked.

She shook her head.

‘Good,’ he said and put through an order for things she had never heard of.

‘Shouldn’t I be doing that for you?’ she asked, when he’d hung up.

‘What? Ordering Japanese?’ he said. ‘I don’t know – do you know the head chef at Nobu?’

‘No-bu. Do you?’ she said. He looked at her blankly and she blushed. ‘Sorry, lame joke.’

‘Are you making fun of the lame?’ he asked, his face serious. ‘’Cause I’m currently in that corner.’

‘God, sorry, no,’ stammered Andie, horrified. Why was she so tongue-tied and nervous? She cursed herself.

James laughed. ‘I’m messing with you! Although you’re right – the No-bu joke was terrible.’

Andie laughed with relief. ‘Yeah, not my best material,’ she said, shaking her head.

‘So, I’ve ordered the dinner – you can get the door when it arrives,’ he said. ‘Deal?’

Andie nodded. ‘Can I get you a drink or something?’ she asked, desperate for a task so she could stop being so nervous.

‘Sure, a clear soda? They’re in the cooler in the butler’s pantry,’ he said. ‘Grab something for yourself too.’

Andie nodded. What kind of flavour was clear? And what the hell was a butler’s pantry? She walked towards the kitchen, hoping it would become apparent. It turned out that a butler’s pantry was a small, but fully equipped kitchen between the actual, open plan kitchen and the dining room.
This must be where they hide the mess when he has a dinner party,
Andie thought. She grabbed two cans from the fridge – there was only Sprite, so she assumed this was what he meant by ‘clear’.

As she looked for glasses and popped open the cans, she caught a glance at her reflection in the glass doors of a cabinet. She made a face at herself. She looked so ordinary.

There was only one thing for it, she thought. If she was going to live in LA among the beautiful people, she needed a makeover. She could hardly believe she was even entertaining the possibility, but if she wanted to truly move on, she needed to become a new woman.

She needed to become the LA-style girl she’d been at the Skyhigh Bar. The girl who’d flirted easily with a movie star, and hadn’t been afraid what anyone thought of her.