laughed. ‘Oh no, Dylan, I don’t want you to help him write it. I want you to help get him out of the house! ‘
Dylan frowned. ‘I don’t understand.’
Maggie paused. ‘He had a heart transplant and it’s kind of knocked him around. He was sick for a long time before the new heart and we all thought the heart would make him excited to live again, but he’s depressed.’
‘Why doesn’t he try therapy?’ Dylan asked, thinking of her father.
‘He doesn’t need therapy,’ Maggie snapped. ‘Taking about his feelings isn’t going to help anything; he needs someone his own age to help him engage with life again. You know, to take him out to see friends, concerts, movies, go shopping, just to do stuff with him.’
She threw her hands up as she spoke, as though tossing confetti into the air.
Dylan was worried. ‘I don’t know if I can look after someone who’s had a heart transplant.’
‘You don’t need to nurse him,’ laughed Maggie, ‘you need to show him fun things to do.’
‘I don’t know LA that well yet,’ Dylan explained. ‘I’ve only been here eight weeks and I have to find a new apartment and I have no idea where to even start looking,’
Disappointment flooded through her that this wasn’t the opportunity she had hoped it would be. Everything about this person that Maggie wanted her to help sounded difficult. An introvert heart transplant patient who wanted to be a writer? Hell no.
‘Did I mention it’s a live-in position,’ said Maggie, ‘with full use of a car? The salary is a thousand dollars a week.’ She paused for effect, then said, ‘Cash.’
Dylan only just succeeded in not spitting her soda water across the table.
‘Will you at least come and meet him?’ asked Maggie, smiling radiantly. ‘I can’t say any more until you’ve signed a confidentiality agreement, but I really think you’ll like him. He’s gorgeous, such a sweet guy.’
Dylan did a backflip on her thinking. How hard could it be? He was probably some old guy who’d been in love with Maggie, and all she’d have to do was take him to concerts at the Hollywood Bowl and drive him around to medical appointments.
She remembered her mother’s words: You can do anything you put your mind to, Dylan.
‘Sure,’ she said with a smile that she hoped covered her nerves, ‘I’d love to meet him.’
After all, who could say no to Maggie Hall?
Zoe woke in the middle of the night and sat bolt upright.
There were two things that caused her to wake up fretting at night. One was money—even though she had plenty, it never felt like she had quite enough.
The other was the fear that a stranger was in the house—even though she had a serious security system and nothing like that had ever happened the whole time she’d lived in LA.
But old habits die hard and she was sure she could hear the creak of footsteps in the hallway.
Turning on the bedside light she listened to the silence, trying to calm her racing heart and telling the panicked voices in her head she was safe in her own home. There was no leering foster brother with rough hands about to creep in to her room. Hand jobs had kept him at bay, but she’d always wondered how long that would last.
And still, after all these years, Zoe worried that she would never be safe again.
Just to be sure, she got out of bed and walked into her dressing room.
Her house was modest by Hollywood standards, but her dressing room, the size of a small bedsit, was a tribute to her success.
It was her sanctuary, custom built to her design.
There were shelves for all her bags, racks for her shoes, a centrepiece for her belts and accessories, and all climate controlled by the same people who did the system for the Museum of Contemporary Art.
All of Zoe’s work clothes were elegant, in muted tones and blacks. She preferred to blend into the background at work events, leaving the colour to her clients. However, they were all the best quality: Calvin Klein tunics, Armani suits, Roland Mouret cocktail dresses and white shirts from James Perse.
Her off-duty clothes consisted of jeans, yoga pants and anything that was comfortable and soft. Cashmere cardigans and T-shirts worn till they were as soft as a baby’s wrap. At work she was Zoe Greene, but at home she was herself with a love for beautiful things.
Sometimes, to calm herself, she would clean her leather handbags with a special cream. Other times she would check the soles on all her shoes to see which ones might need repairing. Zoe believed in repairing things. When you had worked so hard to get things, you had to look after them.
She did whatever it took to calm the thoughts and her racing heart.
But when she wasn’t at home, and the fears took over her mind, the only place in the world that could calm her was a department store.
Walking through Barneys, she would feel the weight of her troubles slide off her shoulders.
Now Zoe sat on the padded chair in her dressing room and contemplated her success, but still she felt troubled.
The rumours that Jeff’s studio was in financial trouble had to be true, she thought, and explained his demand that Zoe find a new star for the role of Simone. Clearly he didn’t have the money to pay for an A-list actress.
Jeff had also demanded a lower cost director, maybe someone from Europe, he had said. During the meeting in Jeff’s plush office, staring at the Kandinsky on his wall, Zoe had wondered if it was too late to get out of the deal. But she had signed the papers and was an official executive producer on The Art of Love.
She picked up a pair of Sergio Rossi boots and ran her hand over the smooth, handcrafted leather but she didn’t feel the calm that usually came when she spent time with her possessions. An unfamiliar restlessness surged through her and she wondered what Jeff was doing. Probably taking some young actress to bed with promises of stardom.
Tonight her wardrobe couldn’t fix what she needed, she thought. The only remedy was Barneys and a serious shopping spree.
The next morning she nursed a coffee and ninety-nine problems, as she entered Barneys.
The store felt like retail valium, she thought, as she took in the marble, silver and soft music.
Sleep had finally arrived at her house at four a.m. and now at eleven in the morning, she was feeling slightly hungover when she heard her name.
Turning, she saw Stella Valancia coming towards her in a cloud of leopard print and musk scent.
‘Stella, how are you?’ she asked politely.
‘I
