Private Lives

28



‘Mom!’ Jessica Carr walked into the cavernous living room of her Malibu beach house, a furious scowl on her face. ‘Mom! Where are you?’

She hadn’t had her blueberry pancakes that morning – gluten-, wheat-and dairy-free, obviously, which made them mainly blueberry – and it was making her grouchy in the extreme. Well, that and the ordeal she had to face in half an hour.

‘MOM!’

A small Vietnamese woman appeared from the bedroom holding a feather duster.

‘Mrs Carr goes jogging,’ she said with a grin. ‘You want me make pancakes?’

‘Yes, Mai, thank you,’ said Jessica hurriedly. The housekeeper was a godsend, but she still found it slightly unnerving how the woman seemed to be able to read her mind.

Jessica walked out on to the balcony, looking up and down the beach before she spotted Barbara Carr, power-walking in a pink Lycra sweatsuit.

‘Jesus Christ, she looks like a frankfurter,’ she muttered, sitting down at a glass table.

Her mother had moved into the house right after the Sam story had broken. They’d spent a couple of days at her friend’s place in Cape Cod, then come back to Malibu. Jessica might have been heartbroken, but she wasn’t going to let Sam Charles keep her away from the parties and restaurants of West Hollywood; that was where business was done. But it hadn’t been going so well cohabiting with Barbara. While she was supportive and gung-ho about everything Jessica did, her constant rants about Sam and how he’d destroyed her career, which Jessica had initially revelled in, were now starting to wear her down. Yes, he was a bastard, but he had been part of her life for four years and they’d shared . . . what, exactly? Their lives? Not really. It was rare for them to spend two nights in the same house together. Or maybe she was just feeling vulnerable today. In twenty minutes, Sam’s removal guys were coming to take away his personal possessions. Not that there were many of those: a few clothes, a hideous ceramic coffee table, a running machine. He’d barely left a shaving kit in the bathroom. Maybe he’d been right when he’d said they weren’t – hadn’t been – in love. But what the hell did that have to do with anything in this town?

Sinatra, her golden retriever, came and nuzzled his wet nose against her leg.

‘Come here, boy,’ she pouted, crouching down and wrapping her arms around the neck of her beloved dog. ‘We don’t need Sammy any more, do we?’

The dog licked her face, apparently in agreement, and feeling much better, Jessica went to sit down on the white suede sofa overlooking the ocean. Sighing, she grabbed a red folder from the table and flipped it open: a collection of this week’s Jess-related press cuttings assembled by her PR company. It was thick with news features and gossip pieces from every magazine and paper that counted: everyone from People to US Weekly in the States, and the big Euro titles like Heat, Paris Match and Bunde across the pond, all running different versions of the same story: ‘My Pain, by Jessica’. ‘Bowed but unbroken’, as In Touch put it, Jessica was being portrayed as a strong woman who was rising above her heartbreak. And it didn’t hurt that they all had shots of her looking sad but sexy in a white Eres bikini to show that she still had it.

‘Like there was any doubt,’ she said, tossing the file on to the table and walking back inside.

The Malibu house was one of the more impressive ones on the PCH strip, the road that snaked north from LA and hugged the coast behind some of the most expensive houses in America. She loved being on this private strip, with the glass foldback doors down the beach side of the house that let in the scent and sounds of the ocean, but it had been Sam who’d gone crazy for the stark John Lautner-designed aesthetic. She’d always preferred something more lived in.

Jessica cursed as she heard the intercom buzz. There was no point in shouting for her mother, and Mai was in the kitchen.

‘Do I have to do everything myself?’ she muttered, picking up the phone.

‘Hey, Jess, Jim Parker.’

Rolling her eyes, she pressed the button to let him in.

‘Jess! You’re looking fabulous as ever,’ cried the agent as he swaggered in, looking as much a movie star as the actors he represented: perfect white teeth, a tan Armani suit and a white T-shirt underneath. He looked hip, slick and powerful. ‘So how you doing?’ he asked, glancing around the house with greedy eyes.

‘I’m fine, Jim,’ said Jessica, crossing her arms across her chest, ‘and I don’t mean to be rude, but can we just get on with this?’

‘Sure thing,’ he said, taking his cell phone out of his pocket and barking some orders into it. Seconds later, two men came through the back door, each holding a large cardboard box.

‘It’s all in the den, straight ahead as you go down the stairs,’ Jessica said to them, then turned to Jim. ‘How long do you think this is going to take?’

‘Depends how much has been done.’

Jess clenched her jaw. When Jim had called to say he was sending a removal team to clear the detritus of Sam’s stuff, he’d had the royal cheek to tell her to pack it up. She had thought of making a bonfire on the beach, then telling him to pack that, but she had wanted the job done, so she had taken both her personal assistants off their existing duties the day before.

‘It’s all ready,’ she said with a cold smile. ‘You want to wait outside?’

As if by magic, Mai appeared with a tray bearing fresh papaya juice, and Jessica and Jim moved on to the terrace.

‘So I hear you’ve moved your mother in,’ said Jim, leaning on the balcony as if he owned the place.

‘Doesn’t every girl need her mom at a time like this?’

‘I’d say you’ve been holding up pretty well. I mean, if the press is anything to go by.’

‘Press?’ she said innocently, hoping he wouldn’t see the folder of cuttings still lying on the table.

‘The Enquirer last week?’ Jim prompted. ‘Those shots of you looking sad and sexy by that spa pool in Los Cabos. I noticed Jeff Benton at Pacific did the photos.’

‘Really? I didn’t see it.’

Jim raised his eyebrows.

‘I use him sometimes for set-up pap shots,’ he said knowingly. ‘It’s worked for you, hasn’t it? Every wronged woman in America is rooting for you.’

Jess took a deep breath, hiding her anger. She knew that Jim was on to her. After all, he was one of the smartest, sharpest, most convincing agents in the business. Sometimes she envied Sam for having Jim on his team.

‘What are you saying, Jim? That I set those shots up?’

‘Of course I wasn’t saying that, honey,’ he said, holding a hand up. ‘I was just pointing out that you looked beautiful. A beautiful wounded little bird. That’s all. But I wouldn’t overplay it, if you know what I mean.’

Jim was right, of course. Jeff Benton was the top paparazzo in Hollywood and he had done a fantastic job on the long-lens shots. It had taken two hours of careful choreography and three bikini changes, complete with hair and make-up people fussing around her between shots. They didn’t take that much care on her publicity shoots for her hit TV show, All Woman.

Jim was also right that it had worked beautifully. To every disappointed housewife and lovelorn teenager in America, Jessica Carr was not some pampered distant superstar, she was one of them, a real woman who suffered heartache just like them. And the fact that she looked so good while she was doing it too had got every red-blooded male panting.

‘I hope you’re not planning on ten per cent for this advice.’

‘I could do if you wanted me to,’ he said playfully. ‘You know I’m the best agent in town, Jessy.’

‘I have the best agent in town, Jim. No offence.’

‘Old Harry. She’s the greatest,’ he said with a touch of sarcasm.

‘Hi, honey, you okay?’ Barbara Carr walked on to the terrace, her pink sweatsuit now clinging to her with perspiration.

‘Hey, Barb,’ said Jim, waving his juice glass at her. Barbara looked at him suspiciously.

‘Everything all right, hon?’ she said, not taking her eyes off him. ‘It’s gonna be tough, but you’ll feel better when that bastard’s completely out of your life.’

‘All right, Mom,’ said Jessica with irritation. ‘Go have a shower. I’ll be fine.’

‘You sure?’

‘I’m sure.’

‘Hey,’ said Jim. ‘Do you two ladies want to go out, grab a coffee, while I supervise the workers?’

‘He’s right, honey. This can’t be easy for you.’

Jess rolled her eyes.

‘Okay, okay. Let’s drive over to the Plaza.’

Twenty minutes later, Jessica and her mother slid into her dove-grey Aston Martin and swung out of the underground garage, carefully avoiding the furniture truck standing at the rear entrance, its door open, stacked with boxes. Jess felt a single traitorous teardrop swell in her eye duct, and she blinked it away fiercely.

‘Don’t look,’ said Barbara. ‘Never look back.’

Jessica nodded as she turned the car and slipped into traffic. For once, it was good advice. She gunned the engine and drove away, that part of her life shrinking in the rear-view mirror.