Olivia Joules and the Overactive Imagination Page 6

  She walked back to the water’s edge, putting on the jacket, blowing into the tube to inflate it until it felt tight against her rib cage, then letting the air out. For a moment Olivia felt nausea rising in her throat again. She thought she would find Elsie and Edward because they had been on their balcony on this side of the ship facing the shore. And although she had only just met them, they had brought with them all the comfort and familiarity of home.

  * * *

  Olivia brought back quite a few people, she didn’t know how many. She felt as if she was on automatic pilot and none of it seemed quite real.

  She sat down by a tree, suddenly exhausted. One of the paramedics came over with some water, got her to put her sweatpants back on, put a towel round her shoulders and rubbed her hands. He said she should go to the medical center and helped her to her feet. The mobile phone in the pocket of her sweatpants rang as they walked along.

  “Hey, Olivia. Listen, the OceansApart . . .”

  “Hi, Barry,” she said bitterly. “The OceansRippedApart, you mean.”

  “Listen, are you down there? What have you got for us?”

  She gave Barry what he needed between his interruptions: what she had heard from the paramedics and divers and police, the fragments of recollections people had come out with as she brought them to the shore.

  “Good. Any witnesses? Come on, where are you? Can you get me someone there? On the scene?”

  She caught the eye of the paramedic who had brought her in. He took the phone, listened for a few seconds then said, “You sure sound like one hell of an asshole, sir,” clicked off the phone and handed it back to her.

  * * *

  Olivia let the paramedics take her vital signs and cover the burns on her hand. She ate a piece of bread and took some rehydration salts. Then, with a blanket round her shoulders, she got up and walked around. She saw a woman with auburn hair being brought in on a stretcher. Olivia stood there, bewildered, melting down, the pain from the last few hours reawakening the pain from the past—like hitting an old bruise. She found an empty corner, pulled the blanket over her, and curled into a ball. After a long time, she straightened up and wiped her fist across her face.

  A voice said, “Are you all right, love? Do you want a cup of tea?”

  “Ooh, that looks too strong for her, love. Put a drop more milk in.”

  She looked up and there, holding out a tray, were Edward and Elsie.

  10

  As darkness fell, Olivia staggered back into the foyer of the Delano. She made her way unsteadily, her vision blotchy, to the front desk.

  “Can I have my key, please? Olivia Joules, Room Seven-oh-three,” she said thickly.

  “OhmyGod. OhmyGOD,” said the receptionist. “I’ll call the hospital. I’ll call the emergency services.”

  “No, no. I’m fine, really. I just need . . . my key, and some . . . some . . . some . . .” She turned, clutching her key, looking for the elevator. She couldn’t see where the elevator was. Then the beautiful bellboy was supporting her, then two bellboys, then total whiteout.

  * * *

  For a second, when she woke, her mind was wiped clear, but then the memory of the disaster flooded her consciousness in a tangle of images. She opened her eyes. She was in a hospital. Everything was white except for a red light flashing on and off beside her bed. She was Rachel Pixley aged fourteen, lying in a hospital bed, looking at a zebra crossing, running out of the newsagent’s with a packet of Maltesers and a copy of Cosmopolitan. Running to catch up with her parents. There was a shout, a screech of tires. She closed her eyes, thinking about a woman she had seen on television after the Twin Towers came down: a thickset woman from Brooklyn. She had lost a son and was talking tough. Then she said, “I used to think I’d always want revenge: an eye for an eye, but now I just think, ‘How can the world be so . . . cruel?’ ” And her voice broke on the “cruel.”

  * * *

  The next time Olivia woke, she realized it was not a hospital but the Delano, and the red flashing light was not a heart monitor but the message light on the phone.

  “Hi, Olivia! Hope I’m not calling too early. It’s Imogen from Sally Hawkins’s office at Elan. We got your e-mail and we had a call from Melissa at Century PR about the wannabe story. Yes, Sally would like to go for it. We’ll get onto the travel arrangements. Give us a call when you wake up. Oh, and good luck with the OceansApart.”

  “Hi, Melissa here. I’ve spoken to your editor. We’ll be holding auditions in the Standard Hotel in Hollywood over the next week or so, so I’m really hoping you’ll be able to join us.”

  “Olivia? It is Pierre Ferramo. I am in the lobby. Perhaps you are already on your way down for our rendezvous?”

  “Olivia? It is Pierre at nine-fifteen. I will be waiting for you on the terrace.”

  “Olivia, it appears you have forgotten me. There has been the most terrible disaster, perhaps you have heard. I will telephone you a little later.”

  “Olivia, oh God. It’s Imogen from Elan. Oh God. Call us. Oh God.”

  “Olivia, it’s Kate. I’m just hoping you weren’t anywhere near that ship. Call me.”

  The hotel front desk, the doctor, Kate, nothing more from Pierre. Kate again. Then Barry.

  “Where are you? Listen, can you get out there again? There’s a press conference down at the dock at six-fifteen your time. We’ve got a snapper there. I just need you to get a few quotes, then get off to the hospital for survivors and families. Call me.”

  * * *

  She fumbled for the remote, clicked on CNN, and lay back against the pillow.

  “More, now, on the OceansApart in Miami. As the death toll continues to rise, investigators on the scene say there are signs that the explosion may have been caused by a submarine, possibly of Japanese construction, packed with explosives. The submarine may have been manned by suicide bombers. Again, signs that the terrible explosion on the OceansApart may have been the work of terrorist suicide bombers.”

  The text strip underneath ran: “OceansApart explosion: 215 dead, 189 injured, 200 missing. Terror alert rises to red.”

  She sat at the desk and rested her head on her arms. She felt damaged, exhausted, scared and lonely. She wanted comfort. She wanted someone to hold. She reached for a card on the desk and dialed a number.

  “Hi.” It was a woman’s voice, slight West Coast drawl.

  “Could I speak to Pierre?”

  “Pierre’s not around. Who needs him?” It was the hair-flicking Suraya model.

  “It’s Olivia Joules. I was supposed to meet him this morning but—”

  “Sure. You want to leave a message?”

  “Just, er, just say I was ringing to apologize about missing our meeting. I was down at the docks when the OceansApart blew up.”

  “Yeah. God. That really sucked.”

  Sucked?

  “Will he be back later?”

  “No, he had to leave town.” There was something odd about her tone.

  “He left Miami? Today?”

  “Yes. He had urgent business in Los Angeles. He’s holding auditions for the movie. You want to leave him a message?”

  “Just tell him I called, and, er, sorry about the meeting. Thank you.”

  Olivia put down the phone and sat on the edge of the bed, the sheet screwed tightly in her fist, staring straight ahead, unseeing. She was thinking of the night before: Ferramo leaning close to her on the rooftop deck as she told him about the OceansApart story and her morning appointment with Edward and Elsie.

  “I really do not think that is a good idea”—his breath against her cheek—“because I hope that tomorrow morning, you will be having breakfast . . . with me.”

  She picked up the phone and dialed Elan.

  “Imogen? Olivia. I’m fine. Listen, I’d like to go to LA and do the wannabe story. Straightaway. As soon as you can. Get me on the first plane out.”

  * * *

  As Olivia looked down over Arizona, the sun was setting, turn
ing the desert red. The great gash of the Grand Canyon was already in darkness. She thought of all the deserts she’d flown over before, in Africa, in Arabia. And she wondered: Did Pierre Ferramo know that the ship was going to blow when he kissed me last night?

  11 LOS ANGELES

  As the taxi rattled and bounced over the potholes towards the hills, Olivia wound down the window, relieved by the sense of freedom and vague lawlessness she always felt in Los Angeles. It was so deliciously shallow. She looked up at the giant billboards lining the road: “Looking for a new career? Be a star! Contact the LA county sheriff’s office.” “We’re back from Rehab and Ready to Party,” said an advert for a TV guide. A bench at a bus stop featured a poster-sized shot of a grinning big-haired Realtor: “Valerie Babajian: your hostess for LA Real Estate.” Another billboard for a radio station said simply, “Jennifer Lopez’s brother, George,” and another, which seemed not to be advertising anything at all, showed an artist’s impression of a platinum blonde in a tight pink dress with a figure like Jessica Rabbit. “Angelyne” was written underneath in giant letters.

  “Is Angelyne an actress?” she asked the cabdriver.

  “Angelyne? No.” He laughed. “She just pay for these posters of herself and then she do personal appearances, parties, things like that. She been doing that for years.”

  As the gray-green hills grew closer, lights pinpricking through the dusk, they passed the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center with the Star of David raised on the side.

  “I know what Ferramo’s doing here,” she said to herself suddenly. “The wannabe movie is bullshit. They’re going to hit Los Angeles.”

  Her mind began to whir into a familiar overdrive: missiles launched from the top of the Runyon Canyon dog park, plummeting down into the executive offices at Fox Studios; suicide bombers at the American Idol final; manned torpedoes racing through the sewers. She felt like calling CNN and filing a report. “He’s handsome, he’s good at kissing, but he’s planning to blow us all sky high: Pierre Ferramo . . .”

  Stop it, she told herself. Calm down. Don’t rush to conclusions. But Olivia was angry and disturbed. If Ferramo had anything to do with what happened in the docks at Miami she was going to find out.

  * * *

  The sign for the Standard Hotel on Sunset, in a declaration of wacky subversiveness, was upside down. The hotel, once a geriatric home, had been recently converted to a temple of Hollywood retro-chic. The contrast with its former clientele was dramatic. Seldom had Olivia seen so many beautiful young people gathered in one place talking on mobile phones. There were girls in camouflage trousers and bikini tops, girls in slippy dresses, girls in jeans so low their thongs were two inches above the waistbands, boys with shaved heads and goatee beards, boys in tight jeans which showed everything they had, boys in baggy jeans with the crotch at knee level. There were plastic podlike chairs suspended from chains. Shag-pile carpet graced the floor, walls and ceiling. A DJ was spinning vinyl at the entrance to the pool deck. On the wall behind the reception desk a girl wearing only plain white underwear was reading a book in a glass box. It made Olivia feel like a seventy-year-old obese academic who would shortly be asked to move on down the road to the Substandard.

  The receptionist handed her a message from Melissa welcoming her to LA and saying that the auditions were starting in the morning, and the team would be easy to find around the bar and lobby. Once again, the bellboy insisted on accompanying her to the room, despite her lack of luggage. His head reminded her of a child’s magnetic sketch pad, the sort where you add beards and mustaches to a face using metal filings. The boy, or rather man, had dyed black hair, a goatee beard, long sideburns and black-rimmed narrow glasses. It was a ridiculous look. His shirt was open almost to his waist, showing an Action Man–like chest.

  He opened the door to the room. There was a low bed, an orange-tiled bathroom, a bright blue floor and a silver beanbag.

  “How do you like the room?” asked the bellboy.

  “It’s like being on the set of Barbarella,” she murmured.

  “I think that was before I was born,” he said.

  Cheeky sod. He was definitely in his thirties. He had intelligent bright blue eyes, which didn’t fit with his fashion-victim facial hair. He lifted her case onto the bed as if it was a paper bag. His body didn’t fit with his facial hair either. But, hey, this was LA: bellboy slash actor slash bodybuilder slash brainbox: whatever.

  “So,” he said, pulling open the plate-glass window as if it was a net curtain. A blast of sound hit them. Below, the pool area was in full party mode, heat lamps were blazing, music pounding. Beyond was the LA skyline: a palm tree illuminated, a neon sign saying EL MIRADOR APARTMENTS, a jewel box of lights.

  “Looks like I’m going to get a lot of rest,” she said.

  “Where did you just come in from?”

  “Miami.”

  He took hold of her hand, firmly, authoritatively, like a professional, looking at the burns.

  “Been making fondue?”

  “Yorkshire pudding.”

  “What happened?”

  “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “What brings you to LA?”

  “Do the words ‘air of mystery’ mean nothing to you?”

  He let out a short laugh. “I like your accent.”

  “They all talk like this where I come from.”

  “You working here? You an actress?”

  “No. What are you doing here?”

  “Being a bellboy. How about a drink later?”

  “No.”

  “Okay. Anything else I can do for you at all?”

  Yes, rub sweet oils into my aching bones and change the dressings on my poor burnt hand, you wonderful, wildly strong, intellectual-looking beefcake.

  “I’m fine.”

  “Okay now. Take it easy.”

  She watched him go, then shut the door behind him, locked it and put the chain on. She unpacked her things, colonizing the room.

  Then she turned on CNN.

  * * *

  “And the main headlines again. As the death toll continues to rise, it’s believed that yesterday’s explosion in Miami on the OceansApart, which claimed the lives of over two hundred people, was in fact the work of al-Qaeda terrorists. The toll currently stands at 215 dead, 475 injured and over 250 missing.”

  She called down and asked if the London Sunday Times was in yet: not until the following afternoon. She opened the laptop to look for it online.

  There was a huge headline: OCEANS RIPPED APART. The byline at the top was Dave Rufford and Kate O’Neill. Kate! There were lots of Olivia’s quotes in there and whole paragraphs of her description. Maybe her byline would be at the bottom. It said, “Additional reporting by Sunday Times writers.” She ran a search for Olivia Joules. She wasn’t credited anywhere at all.

  “Fuck it,” she said after a moment. “It’s just bullshit. The main thing is, I’m not dead.” She opened the French doors, so that the sound of fun rose up from the pool deck, and sat down at the desk. It was the northern Protestant work ethic which had helped her escape from the land of the northern Protestant work ethic. Olivia clung to work to keep her safe, like her survival tin.

  * * *

  At midnight she leaned back, stretched and decided to call it a day. The desk was covered with the spoils from Miami: the party list, business cards, scribbled phone numbers on the backs of credit-card slips, a diagram trying to draw some meaning from connections which made no sense.

  She looked up at shots of Bagdhad on CNN and turned up the sound.

  “Do you suffer from reduced bladder control?” The shot had inexplicably changed to show a gray-haired woman giving a ballroom-dancing demonstration to a roomful of people. Olivia clicked off the TV in exasperation. Why couldn’t they give you some clue as to where the news bulletin ended and the incontinence-remedy adverts began?

  She clicked on Avizon.com in her favorites list. It was a low-rent actress slash model agency Web site w
hich she’d found amongst a horrifying 764,000 entries for “Actresses Los Angeles.” There was Kimberley Alford, one in a whole page of startlingly similar Kirstens, Kelleys and Kims pouting provocatively at the camera for producers to mull over and the rest of the world to wank over. She clicked on Kimberley’s nose and her photo appeared full page, with her credentials:

  Modeling level: professional.

  Acting level: professional.

  Ethnic look: Cherokee/Romanian.

  Then her bust size, waist size, shoe size, teeth quality (“excellent”).

  Professional skills: rollerblading, tap, speaks five languages. Has own cheerleader uniform.

  Underneath was Kimberley’s four-line personal message:

  “I am a true four-cornered all-rounder. I can sing, dance, act, model and play guitar! I’m on the right path, and waiting for the door to open that will lead to stardom. Acting is in my blood. My father has done the follow spot at the Academy Awards for twenty-five years. If you turn your spotlight on me, I will blow you away!”

  Olivia turned to Travis Brancato, the wolf-eyed wannabe. His business card led her to a Web site called Enclave, listing the hapless Travis as a “lifestyle budget manager”:

  What is Enclave?

  Enclave is a groundbreaking soft-science-based interface grounded in a qualitative value-increase-based proposition. Through this unique lifestyle enhancement program Enclave enables clients to increase qualitative lifestyle returns on investments to achieve maximum enjoyment.

  Clients allow Enclave to manage a minimum annual lifestyle budget of $500,000, to advise and direct where the money is spent and to negotiate the purchase of qualitative-led concepts, experiences, goods and services.