The Hollywood Effect, page 4
“No. It’s too bright. And I look hideous.”
Liam just laughed, and I felt a heavy weight on my feet as he sat down on the end of my bed.
“Jen, I’ve seen you worse than this, give it a rest.”
I sighed.
“Fiiiiine. But only because there’s pancakes. I hope your Mum brought maple syrup, I don’t have any.”
“Nah, sorry. Just bacon and orange juice and coffees… but I drank them both already, sorry.”
“Well, that explains the energy…” I grumbled. “No maple syrup? I can’t have pancakes without maple syrup!” With that I threw the blankets off me and got out of bed.
“Your own fault,” Liam smirked at me. “Your house after all.”
“What?” I demanded. Liam was looking me up and down with an odd look on his face.
“Huh? Oh. Nothing. Come on. I’m hungry.”
I followed him out, grabbing my old Monash University hoodie and some pyjama bottoms out of my wardrobe. I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror and felt my cheeks burn. How could I have let him see me like this? My hair was a mess, mascara smudged under my eyes, and worst of all I was wearing barely anything. I was just in a singlet and undies. You could see my nipples. I hastily pulled the hoodie on and pulled up my pyjamas, and gave my hair a quick brush - that just made it look greasy and like I hadn’t washed it for a week, so I messed it up again. Stupid hair.
I quietly followed the tantalising smell of frying bacon to my kitchen. Liam had managed to find his way around my kitchen (which I admired but would never tell him - I didn’t know my way around my kitchen yet) and set a table for two. There was a pile of pancakes to start with, and more batter on the counter. Two glasses of orange juice sat on the table, along with flowers.
“Flowers? Really, Burnsy, you shouldn’t have.”
“Oh. Yeah. Mum brought those too. For you. For having me last night.”
I laughed. “Oh, Linda…”
“Seriously though,” he said as he piled a few pancakes onto his own plate. “Thanks.”
“No problemo, amigo. What are friends for?”
Liam smiled his award winning smile at me. Literally award winning. He’d won some teen choice award for cutest smile or something weird like that. I’d told him he could quit acting now and retire. He’d reached his pinnacle.
“How much bacon do you want?” He poked at the sizzling strips of meat in the pan. I sniffed longingly. Bacon was the hardest to resist.
“All yours, mate.”
Liam turned to look at me quizzically.
“I’m a vegetarian, you numbskull,” I said.
“Since when?”
“About three years ago.”
“Oh. Sorry. I didn’t… wait, I swear we ate steaks and hamburgers last time I was here.”
I shrugged. “I don’t really make a fuss about it. I probably got the veggie burger.”
“Huh,” was all he said.
“What?” I said, a little defensively.
“Nothing. Just something you and Holly have in common. She wouldn’t let me cook any meat in the house though. Oh - sorry - are you going to have to throw this pan out now?” He looked contrite and picked up the frying pan.
“Nah, it’s fine. If I’m being deadly honest, I sometimes fry my haloumi in Dad’s lamb chop grease… don’t judge me.”
Liam laughed and piled all the bacon onto his plate.
“Well, no complaints here then. More for me! Hey, I was thinking…”
“That’d be a first.”
“Exactly. That.”
“Huh?”
“I miss this - bantering, being insulted, being able to insult you. And you know I’m doing it in a loving way. America’s so different in that way. Everyone’s so bloody nice all the time. Holly would probably burst into tears if I called her a lazy piece of shit, and most of my mates would think I was upset at them if I called them dickhead or wanker.”
“Ah yes. Good old Australia where you insult your mates and call your enemies ‘mate’.”
“We’re an odd lot, that’s for sure. It’s good to be back.”
He put the pan in the sink and turned the tap on before I could warn him. Water splashed all over his top.
“Sorry! I should have warned you -“
“It’s okay,” Liam said and pulled his soaking hoodie and t-shirt off.
“I… uh…” I tried to think of something coherent to say. I guess those abs weren’t photoshopped in that last movie of his, after all. “Lemons.” I finally said. “I have a lemon tree outside. We need lemons. For the pancakes. Yeah. Lemons…” I made myself tear my gaze away from those gorgeous ripped abs and somehow managed not to reach out and stroke them. They’d certainly changed a lot since we were in our mid teens!
“All right, lemons. I’d forgotten how weird you are in the mornings.”
“Yeah… mornings. Let’s blame that…”
I got up from the table and led the way outside. The lemon tree was in the front yard. I stifled a yawn as I picked my way through the damp grass. I could feel Liam’s breath on the back of my neck, and tried not to think about the fact that he was topless.
We stood surveying the tree. There was only one ripe lemon on it, out of my reach. Liam reached up over me and grabbed it. Having tall males around was good for something after all. I let my gaze wander around the quiet street. Old Mr Moloney was trimming his hedges next door. Mrs Lewis was putting her bins out. I frowned. Her dementia must be getting worse. Thursday’s were bin nights.
“Oh shit.”
“What?” Liam demanded.
I pointed. Matt Rivers was sitting in the parked car on the opposite side of the street, camera pointed right at us.
CHAPTER FOUR
Who is Liam’s Mystery Girl??
It seems our favourite Aussie hunk might have taken comfort in the arms of an old lover! Liam Burns, the on-and-off again finance of rising star, Holly Monroe, has been spotted back in his hometown in sunny Australia in the arms of a mystery young woman. We’re still waiting on reports of who this lucky lady is, but it could be safe to assume she’s an old flame from Liam’s pre-Hollywood days. Rumours are that Holly wants to reconcile, so we wonder how she feels about this new development! Is it just Liam getting revenge for the whole Jack Lemon incident?! We don’t think Holly has too much to worry about - Mystery Girl has nothing on Our Holly! Check out the pics below and tell us what you think in the comments!
I peeked out from behind the curtains. It seemed like the paparazzi had bred. All of the ones who’d been out the front of Liam’s parents’ house yesterday were now on the nature strip out the front of my house, and then some.
“Why do they care so much this time? They don’t normally follow you home. Much.” I turned to look at Liam. He was sitting on my couch, cup of tea cooling in front of him on the coffee table and scowling at his phone.
“Holly,” he said miserably. “Break-ups. Misery. Scandals. It’s what they thrive on.”
“What do we do?” I asked. Liam just shrugged.
“Do you need to go anywhere?” he asked.
I thought for a minute. “No… but it’s such a nice day, I wanted to go for a walk up the mount, and go to the cemetery…”
“Oh yeah… it’s Grant’s birthday. I’m shit. I totally forgot.”
“You’re not shit. It’s been six years, and you’ve got other things on your mind. I’m sure Grant wouldn’t blame you in the slightest,” I said. “Plus, he never remembered anyone’s birthdays - he forgot his own mother’s one year, remember that?”
Liam laughed. “Yeah, we had to run and buy a bunch of flowers and some chocolates for him. She never knew.”
“Oh, she knew.” I grinned.
“Six years... god, has it really? Damn. It’s fucked up, thinking about all the things he’s missed. I was no-one back then.”
“You were never ‘no-one’, I don’t like it when you say things like that,” I protested.
“Okay, fine, I was just another regular Aussie kid working at the local supermarket stacking shelves coz he was too dumb to get into uni.”
I raised my eyebrows. “You didn’t even apply.”
“Yeah well, I didn’t want to go to uni, so what was the point?”
“Remind me not to get you to come in for Careers counselling...”
“Why not? I made a pretty good go of it in the end. They should know that you can be successful without getting a fantastic Year 12 result. I mean, it’s great that you got an awesome mark and you totally deserved it, but you knew you wanted to go to uni and study. I didn’t. All you guys did. You, Dan, Grant. You all studied your arses off and got great marks and knew what you wanted to do the next year. I had no freakin’ clue. I liked drama, I liked acting. I like writing sometimes, but I hated doing creative writing classes. I just kind of figured it out as I went along.”
“You did a pretty good job with that...” I murmured.
“Well, I didn’t exactly set out to be a movie star mobbed by paparazzi...”
“Mmm, sure,” I said.
“I didn’t, Jen. Things just kind of snowballed. You know that. One thing led to another.”
“You saying you wouldn’t be famous if you had your time over?”
“No. Yes. I don’t know.” He rubbed his face. “Times like this, definitely NO. But it has its perks.”
“Yeah, I bet. That house of yours is pretty nice.”
“There is that.”
“And the car.”
“Well, yeah.”
“And being able to travel whenever you want.”
“Not true.”
“Sure.”
I moved from beside the window and over to the couch.
“Would they really follow us if we just went to the shops?” I asked. “I mean, no offence, but not even you can be that fascinating to make grocery shopping in Tarang news worthy.”
Liam scowled again. Even I had to admit, it was rather cute. “You’d be surprised at what they find interesting. Selena Gomez taking her garbage out is interesting to them.”
I sighed. You really could never pay me enough to be famous on this level. It was crazy.
“Maybe we could make a diversion, like on the movies, and get out of here. I’m getting kinda restless when I know I’m stuck here. If you were’t here, I’d probably spend all day in my PJ’s and not even brush my hair and binge watch some TV show and not even think about going outside... but now that I can’t, I want to leave.”
“Yeah, I know the feeling,” Liam said with a little huff.
We were silent for a few moments, watching the cartoons on the TV.
"Oh, fuck it,” Liam said suddenly.
I looked over at him as he stood up. “What?”
“Let’s go. Screw them. They know I’m here now, there’s no helping that. They can follow us if they want to. Let’s go up to the cemetery and say hi to Grant, and your mum. I’ll go to Mum and Dad’s after to give you some peace.”
“You don’t have to...”
“Nah, it’s okay. I should go see them anyway. Charlie’s coming down today as well. Mini family reunion.”
“Oh, cool. All right, let me get ready. I want to look nice if my photo’s going to be splashed around.” I groaned. “Damn it. I don’t want to go to school on Monday. My students are gonna have a field day. I was already being quizzed about you on Friday. Now there’s bloody pictures of us together and unspeakable insinuations! Ugh.” I threw my hands up in the air in only half-mocked despair.
“Sorry about that...”
“Not your fault, I suppose. Really. It’s that damn Matt Rivers. Slimy bastard. What was he even DOING there anyway?! Despicable man.” I shook myself and headed into my room. I found a nice pair of jeans that I knew made my butt look nice, and sorted through a pile of shirts. After deliberating for a few minutes I settled on a fitted pale blue shirt. I spent a bit more time than usual on my make-up - I wiped off the first attempt after Liam came in, laughed, and said I looked more like I was going to Vegas than a cemetery. “I normally just put some mascara on! I have no idea what I’m doing!” I protested.
“Well then, just put your mascara on. I like you with not much make up on. You look real,” he said. I felt myself start to blush.
“How do I look?” I asked as I stepped out of the bathroom for the second time.
“Lovely,” he said. “How about me?”
I looked him up and down. Jeans and a casual T-shirt, yet he still looked like a million dollars.
“You’ll do,” I said with a slight smirk that I tried to hide.
“Shall we go? Does that shop on the main street still sell flowers?” Liam asked.
“Yeah, I think so.”
“Okay. Let’s run the gauntlet.”
I checked myself in the hallway mirror one last time and tucked a stray curl into place. I looked okay. Maybe even nice. Nothing on Holly Monroe though, I couldn’t help but think, and as that nasty online blog couldn’t help but point out. I should really stay away from them.
“Ready?” Liam turned back and asked me.
“As ready as I’ll ever be,” I said. He opened the door and we stepped out into the sunlight. I looked out over the sea of photographers in bewilderment. I’d always thought Tarang was a safe place. Usually when Liam came home it was an escape for him. Not this time.
We both headed for my little car, parked in the driveway. Liam surprised me by grabbing my hand. I looked at him questioningly, but he just smirked.
“What was that?” I asked as we got into the car. He just shrugged.
“Something for them to write about,” he laughed humourlessly.
“Liam Alexander Burns, are you trying to use me to make Holly jealous?” I demanded as I put my seatbelt on and started the car.
“No! I...”
I turned to him and gave him my ‘look’ that I usually reserved for students who were trying to tell me they forgot their USB at home but they swore they’d done the assignment. At least they’d moved on from ‘the dog ate my homework’ excuse…
“Well... maybe. Sorry.”
“So you should be.” I reversed slowly out the driveway, paranoid that I’d run over one of the paparazzi and that they’d try to sue me.
“Just ignore them,” Liam said as we backed through the swarm.
“Easy for you to say,” I said. “You’re used to this. I didn’t sign up for this - I’m not interesting. I’m nobody.”
“You’re not nobody.”
“To them I am,” I said. We cleared the crowd and their flashing cameras.
“They’re the definition of no-one,” Liam said dismissively.
He stared stonily ahead as we drove up the street.
“Should I give them the grand tour of Tarang?” I asked, glancing in my rearview mirror. A handful of cars had started following us. Liam laughed.
“It’ll be the highlight of their day. Hey, who knows, we could be doing wonders for the Tarang tourism trade,” Liam said.
“What tourism trade?”
“Exactly.”
“You probably already are. They’ve got to be staying somewhere,” I said. “They’ve probably booked the hotel and motel and the B&B right out.”
“The biggest event since the last local wedding.”
It didn’t take us long to get to the main street. I was careful to drive like a nanna and stick to the speed limits. Didn’t want to give them anything else to write about that my students could hold over me.
I led my train of vehicles down the wide, tree-lined main street. The rose bushes were looking particularly lovely at the moment. Maybe one of the paparazzi moonlighted as a garden photographer. Another thing that I liked about living in a country town was the parking. I hadn’t had to learn to parallel park or reverse park or anything like that until I’d moved to the city. The bays were long and plentiful in Tarang. All you had to do was drive right in. If there wasn’t a park in front of the shop you wanted, you’d just drive around the block and more often than not there would be a spot when you came back. My ex-boyfriend Evan - a complete city boy if there ever was one - would laugh at me doing laps in Melbourne trying to find an easy park.
Today was a good day. One empty spot right in front of the florist. I parked and stopped the car. The paparazzi started to slow down, but a large B-double truck with a load full of cattle was bearing down on them, and they seemed to decide it was safer to keep going. I watched out of the corner of my eye as they drove around to the other side of the avenue and set up with their camera’s pointing our way.
“Do you want to stay in the car?” I asked as I undid my seatbelt and fished around the backseat for my handbag.
“Nah,” Liam said and got out of the car. “Secret’s out, no point hiding anymore. I’ll just be as boring as possible. Buying flowers and going to the cemetery, not sure how they can sensationalise that. Come on.”
I followed him into the florist, and tried to resist glancing over my shoulder at the waiting camera’s. I had the mad urge to wave at them. It didn’t take us long to pick out two bunches of flowers - one a nice purple and pink bunch for mum, the other a slightly more masculine looking arrangement, although I’m not quite sure how you can make a bunch of flowers masculine.
We paid for the flowers, and both held a bunch as we walked back to the car. The false calm was too good to be true.
“Miss Pike! Miss Pike!” a familiar voice called out. I turned, slowly and with a small amount of dread. Marnie and some of her friends were standing there, with varying degrees of bulging eyes and open mouths.
“Er… hi, girls,” I said. “Some of my students,” I murmured to Liam on the side.
“Hi, Miss,” said two of the girls at the same time. None of them were looking at me though. They were all staring at Liam. I wasn’t quite sure what to do.
Marnie quickly glanced at me, with something like awe in her face.
“Miss, can we… can we please get his autograph? Pretty please?”
I half laughed. “It’s not up to me. Ask him!” I waved my hand casually at Liam who was standing there, a bit like a lump. He shook himself.
