Runaway Actress (2 page)

The beautiful face stared back at her. Soft white skin that was almost luminous, dark red hair like a silk curtain, bright hazel eyes and that gorgeous megawatt smile that regularly graced a million magazines.

‘You’ll be wearing that smile tonight, won’t you?’ Maggie said, checking the online Connie diary and noting that it was the ‘Cream of the Screen’ awards ceremony. Maggie gazed out of the window but, for once, she didn’t notice the view. She was imagining the gowns and the jewels and the wonderful new photos of Connie that she would soon have for the website.

‘How wonderful it would be to walk down that red carpet,’ she said with a wistful sigh. ‘Lucky, lucky Connie.’

A big bright smile. That’s what everyone wanted so why was it so hard to give? Connie walked down the red carpet, trying desperately not to trip over in the silver sequinned dress, which kept wrapping itself around her legs. It was most uncomfortable even if it did make her look like a million dollars. It was the last time she’d be wearing one of Tierney Mueller’s designs, that was for sure. He’d practically submerged her with clothes for the last few months and she’d finally given in but she was regretting her decision now. She had to give an award tonight and that meant the long torturous walk out onto the stage with the whole of Hollywood watching.

It’ll be fine, she told herself. Or at least it couldn’t possibly be as bad as the time one of her spaghetti straps had fallen down, revealing far more of Connie Gordon than the press had ever seen.

‘CONNIE!’ they shouted now. ‘Over here.’

‘One more!’

‘This way!’

Connie smiled. She felt like such a fraud. It was her third red carpet event that week and she knew she must be the envy of every woman in the world and yet what she wanted more than anything was to be sitting at home in her favourite jumper and jeans, eating a large tub of ice cream in front of the movie channel. It really was absurd. After all, she’d worked extremely hard to get to this moment, hadn’t she? All the years of dance classes and auditions, drama classes and auditions, singing classes and auditions. This was what it was all about. This was the kind of event that said,
Hey world, I’ve arrived. Aren’t you jealous? Don’t you wish you were me?
Take that journalist over there, Connie thought, sidling over to a female reporter who was gesticulating at her so much her arms were in danger of spinning right off her body. What would the reporter give to change places with Connie – to wear the dress, to be photographed, to present the award? And what would Connie give to exchange places with her? The journalist would be going home in half an hour. For a moment, Connie imagined the scene. There’d be some cute guy cooking dinner for her and an adorable toddler would have just woken up to greet his mommy.

Connie sighed as she thought about the empty mansion that was waiting for her in Bel Air. She had a cook, a cleaner, a PA and a gardener. There was the boy who took care of the pool, the guy who took care of her cars. There was the hairdresser, the image consultant, the agent, the lawyer and the accountant. Then there was the orthodontist, the personal trainer … and on the list went. But there was nobody who’d be there to kiss her when she got home. Nobody to massage her feet and tell her she was gorgeous. Oh, she was told she was gorgeous often enough – by the fans, the journalists, the photographers. But they didn’t count. When she went home, she left the adulation behind and life felt very empty indeed.

‘Connie Gordon!’ the journalist yelled as Connie joined her at the barrier. ‘I have Connie Gordon with me,’ she said, turning to her cameraman. ‘Who are you wearing tonight, Connie?’

‘Oh, it’s a Tierney Mueller.’

‘And you look
gor
geous. Absolutely
gor
geous.’

‘Thank you,’ Connie said graciously.

‘I hear you’ll be presenting an award tonight.’

‘Yes. Best supporting actor.’

‘And which of the nominees do you favour?’ the journalist asked.

‘I think they’re all incredibly talented. I couldn’t possibly choose,’ she said diplomatically. That was the game to play: be gracious, be diplomatic and keep bloody smiling.

The ‘Cream of the Screen’ ceremony was fairly new as award ceremonies went. Not quite as glitzy as the Oscars nor as prestigious as the Golden Globes, they were still an opportunity for the stars to come out and shine. As Connie entered the Art Deco theatre where it was being held, she caught sight of a few of the famous faces there. She had to stop and pinch herself sometimes. At events like this, she still felt like such a newbie even though she’d been in the business since she was six.

‘Connie!’ a voice called. She turned around and came face to face with Carter Maddox, the infamous journalist, and he had a camera crew with him. ‘Over here, Connie!’

There was no getting away from him so Connie dug deep for her smile again and joined him.

‘And you are looking very glam tonight. How are you?’

‘I’m fine, thank you, Carter.’

‘Who are you wearing?’

‘Tierney Mueller,’ Connie said, sighing inwardly at the originality of his questions.

‘And who’s accompanying you tonight?’

Connie’s eyebrows rose. Now, that was a question she hadn’t been expecting.

‘Don’t tell me the
gor
geous Connie Gordon is alone tonight?’

‘Yes, I am, Carter.’

‘Well, men of America, you should be ashamed of yourselves,’ Carter said, turning to the camera. ‘I really think you should’ve made more of an effort.’

‘No, really Carter – don’t—’

‘Isn’t there anyone out there who’d kill to have this lovely lady on their arm?’

Connie rolled her eyes, imagining the crank letters from the men of America she’d be receiving over the coming months.

‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ a voice announced on the tannoy. ‘Please take your seats. The ceremony is about to begin.’

Connie sighed with relief and made a hasty departure from Carter Maddox.

She was just entering the auditorium when she felt a hand on her bottom. Spinning around, she came face to face with Jeff Kline.

‘Hello, gorgeous,’ he said.

If anyone else called her gorgeous tonight, she would scream.

‘What are you doing here, Jeff ?’

‘Nice to see you too! Not still sore, are you, honeybun?’

‘Don’t call me that. I’m not your
honeybun!
Not since you sold out to the
Hollywood Recorder
.’

‘But sweetcakes! What did you expect me to do?’

‘You’re a piece of slime, Kline,’ she said, rather liking the rhyme that made. ‘Go to hell.’

She made her way to her seat and hoped that she wouldn’t meet any more of her ex-boyfriends that evening.

But, alas, it wasn’t to be.

They were half an hour into the ceremony when Connie was escorted backstage and given a scarlet envelope and statuette for the award for best supporting actor. It was the moment she’d been dreading.

Just take it slowly, she told herself, hoping she wouldn’t trip over the ridiculously long dress. Nice and slowly.

Waiting for her cue backstage, she wondered how long it would be before she could sneak home. There was a party after the show – several parties – and she’d been invited to all of them but she could think of nothing worse.

‘You’re on!’ a girl backstage suddenly yelled at her.

‘Oh!’ Connie yelled back, venturing forth onto the stage where she was greeted by wave after wave of applause. The host had stepped to one side and the microphone was left for Connie. Walking up to it, she dared to look out into the audience, which was a great mistake because her heart rate doubled almost instantly. It was one of the reasons that the theatre had never tempted her. A live audience – there was nothing scarier.

She cleared her throat and began. ‘Being a supporting actor is no mean feat. It’s often as strenuous and time-consuming as being a lead and yet these vital roles are often overlooked. Not so tonight. We are here to acknowledge and celebrate five fabulous actors in supporting roles.’ She stepped to one side and looked to the screen, which had been set up on the stage to show clips from the five different films. As the lights dimmed, Connie sneaked a look out into the audience. There was Jeff, with a blonde to his right and a brunette to his left. In his element, as usual. And there was Harvey Andreas. She’d really fallen for him. What a mistake that had been, she thought, thinking of Harvey’s inability to commit to just one woman at a time.

As the clips continued, Connie realised, with awful certainty, that she had probably dated about five per cent of the audience there tonight. What a depressing thought. And not one single Prince Charming amongst them. Not
one
.

As the clips finished and the house lights came on, Connie stepped up to the microphone and opened the envelope and saw the name she had been dreading.

Out of all the nominations …

‘And the winner is—’ she said.

A one in five chance and he had to go and win it!

‘Forrest Greaves!’

There was a huge round of applause and she saw the dark-haired actor stand up from his seat and make his way to the stage. He was tall, fit and desperately handsome – your typical love rat – and he had double-timed Connie with some low-life extra on the set of her last film. She still couldn’t believe it. Whilst he’d been sending enormous bunches of flowers to her trailer, he’d been sleeping with Candy in his. The press had had a field day with it and Connie was still coping with the fallout because Candy was about to have his baby and hadn’t wasted any time parading her enormous naked body in front of the glossies.

And now the awards. It was unbearable.

‘Hey, gorgeous!’ Forrest said as he sidled up to her on the stage and leant forward for the obligatory kiss, his hand – unseen by the audience because they were standing behind the podium – copped a quick feel of her bottom.

She threw him a heated glare as he stepped back, thrusting the award at him and moving to one side as he gave his acceptance speech. She was
not
going to make it easy for the press to get a photo of the two of them together.

Once it was over, the two of them left the stage together and, as soon as they were away from the cameras, Connie felt Forrest’s hand on her bottom again.

‘HEY!’ she yelled. What was it with men and her ass? She couldn’t remember putting out an advert in the newspapers saying,
Men – please grab my ass whenever you pass.

Forrest’s hands leapt in the air. ‘Only appreciating what was once mine.’

‘You gave up all rights to that when I caught you with that sleaze in your trailer,’ Connie said.

‘That was a misunderstanding,’ he said. ‘I told you at the time. My zip was stuck. She was helping me fix it. I swear we weren’t a couple until
after
you broke up with me! I swear, Connie!’

‘God!’ Connie said. ‘Can you hear yourself ? You might’ve fooled the judges on the panel tonight but you’re the
worst
actor I’ve ever met.’

Connie didn’t bother returning to her seat. She’d had more than enough for one evening. She found a nice member of staff who called a cab for her and showed her out of a quiet exit where she could make an escape without the clamour of fans and photographers.

Once home, Connie struggled with the dress fastenings. It was more difficult than she’d imagined and it took several minutes of yoga-like twists before she was free and could wriggle out of the skintight fabric. She shook her head upside down, ruffling her hair as she often did when she was stressed.

What a night, she thought. It was the end of a long and taxing week but next week would be just as bad and the week after that wouldn’t prove any less demanding with parties, ceremonies, press junkets and rehearsals. She hadn’t had a break for months – years. Her agent just kept on putting her up for role after role. It was what she’d asked for in the beginning but she’d made ten films in the last four years and she was exhausted.

Kicking off her impossibly high heels, she sighed and pulled on a cool linen dressing gown before making her way to the kitchen. She needed wine: a nice big glass of something very expensive to take the edge off the evening.

Opening her fridge, she was greeted by a positive jungle. Everything was green. It was the usual problem: a fridge full of food but absolutely nothing to eat. Connie groaned at the sight of it. It was all part of the latest LA diet but, however healthy it was, Connie couldn’t help wishing she could just sit down with a hamburger and fries like a regular person. But hadn’t her agent told her to watch her weight?

‘You’re piling it on again, Connie,’ he’d told her last week. ‘This industry doesn’t tolerate fat.’

Fat!
FAT?
Connie had never been more than nine stone in her whole life and, at five foot eight, that was positively skeletal. Sometimes she wondered what it would be like to live a normal life. To get up and not have to worry about what the papers were saying about you, to choose your food because it was what you
wanted
to eat, and not to be constantly told what you were going to be doing for the next year – the next decade.

Grabbing the bottle of wine, Connie padded through to her living room, her feet sinking into the luxurious white carpet she’d chosen for the whole house. It was an enormous room that overlooked the vast swimming pool and gardens, and Connie had filled it with beautiful antiques, from the Regency mahogany sideboard to the satinwood table. A nineteenth-century chandelier hung from the centre of the room. It would have looked more at home in an English Georgian manor house rather than in her very modern Hollywood home but Connie had fallen in love with its sparkling teardrop crystals and insisted on having it.

Her bedroom was the same. Reached by a
Gone with the Wind
staircase, the room was stuffed with the very finest money could buy because what else did she have to spend it on? There was a vast French rococo bed in antique gold, an enormous gilt mirror that bounced the light back from the balcony doors and an exquisite brass-inlaid secretaire in that she locked away all her personal documents.