The hemsworth effect, p.16
The Hemsworth Effect, page 16
‘Just answer the questions. Simple. They’re just about you and your life.’
‘Yeah, but what kind of questions?’
‘Oh, you know, really deep stuff. Like, if you were a Spice Girl, which one would you be? And, what do you think clouds taste like?’
‘What do I think clouds taste like?’ She shot him a look. ‘Is it just impossible for you to ever give a serious answer?’
Heath rolled up the papers he was looking at, tucked them into his back pocket and walked over to Aimee. ‘Look.’ He knelt down in the sand and put his pen behind an ear. ‘I know you’re nervous about this stuff,’ he rushed to continue his sentence as Aimee opened her mouth to interrupt, ‘and you’re allowed to be nervous. No one expects you to know how all this works. That’s why I’m doing this interview with you instead of one of the regular producers.’
Aimee interjected. ‘And who are the other producers? Everyone just wears black and I can’t tell who’s a producer and who’s not. And they all have clipboards and look at me like they know my secrets.’
Heath sighed and entertained the slight derailment to his moment of kindness. ‘There’s lots of producers. Date producers, event producers, storyline producers – and a house producer who stays with Luna and Addie at the Airbnb they’re living in for the summer. Lots. They’re all guns at what they do but they can be a bit… dog with a bone. Instead of throwing you in the deep end with them, I wanted to do this first interview myself. Give it the sensitivity it needs. Any more questions?’
Aimee raised an eyebrow. ‘You? Sensitive?’
Heath swiped his pen out from behind his ear. ‘Is it just impossible for you to give a serious answer?’ He smiled like he’d just won a prize for that quip and stood up. ‘Oh, and some of the questions will be about your personal life. Can you handle it?’
Aimee rolled her eyes. ‘Are you forgetting the podcast inquest about my sex life?’
‘I’ll start off slow…’ He walked back behind the camera.
‘OK, Tracy Grimshaw.’
‘Just remember,’ he called out. ‘State the question in your answer, like I showed you earlier. If I ask you, What’s your favourite ice-cream flavour? You reply, My favourite ice-cream flavour is…’
‘I know, I know,’ Aimee replied, trying to mask her sudden pang of nerves with mild irritation.
‘Alrighty,’ Heath yelled. ‘We good to go?’
The camera and sound guys both gave a thumbs up.
‘We’re good to go,’ Heath declared.
Then one of the crew waved his hand in the air at Heath and pointed to something.
‘Ah, fuck,’ Heath said. ‘We are not good to go. Hold up.’
A guy in all-black jogged over with an orange Esky and plonked it down in the sand next to Aimee. He flipped the lid off it and propped up all the bottles inside. Aimee cocked her head and read the label. ‘CocoRama,’ she said aloud.
‘They’re a sponsor,’ Heath said. ‘It’s a coconut water.’
The crew member arranging the Esky handed her a bottle.
‘No, I’m OK,’ Aimee declined.
Heath laughed. ‘No, you’ve gotta hold it. It’s part of the sponsorship.’
‘So I’m a coconut water spokesperson now?’
‘It’s just part of the show. All you have to do is hold it… But if you wanna crack one open to sip from it mid-interview and then say something like, “Mmmm moist!” then I won’t stop you,’ he laughed.
The hair and make-up lady ran over to quickly pull some strands of hair out of Aimee’s face as the guy finished styling the Esky. Then she started dabbing on more products around the eyes and cheeks.
Aimee winced. ‘Is something wrong?’
‘Just some rough spots, darl,’ the woman in her fifties said. ‘I know what it’s like – happens to me, too.’
Aimee cringed a little. Does she think we’re the same age?
‘I do all the girls’ faces in the morning and they barely need a thing. Especially that daughter of the rich lady.’
‘Ah, yeah,’ Aimee mumbled.
‘The girl glows. Golden. Like caramel dripped over a lightbulb.’
‘Poetic,’ Aimee replied. ‘And a fire hazard.’
Heath clapped his hands three times. ‘C’mon people, we good to go?’ Everyone ran out of shot. ‘Alrighty, we’re good to go… again.’ Heath cleared his throat and crossed his arms. ‘OK, Aimee – let’s ease into it. Tell me about yourself: name, where you live, how long you’ve lived here…’
‘Ah. My name’s Aimee… I’m thirty-six – and I’ve lived in Byron my whole life. I was born here. And I’ve owned a bookstore in town for about eighteen years.’
‘What was it like growing up in Byron?’
‘Hmmm… different—’
‘State the question in the answer,’ Heath gently reminded.
Aimee closed her eyes and shook her head quickly to reset. ‘Right, sorry. Ah… Growing up in Byron was different to how it is now. It wasn’t trendy. Well, it was but it wasn’t. There weren’t lots of celebrities or huge mansions. But it was the beginning of that whole enlightenment craze. Late nineties, early 2000s. New people started coming. And I remember some locals blamed the Madonna Ray of Light album because that’s around the time she got really into Kabbalah and yoga. Anyway, the town was still very different to how it is now.’
‘And what was your family like?’
‘They… Sorry,’ Aimee corrected herself, remembering to state the question. ‘My family were good. Close. Me and my sister, Fleur – who’s Freya’s mum. And our mum and dad owned an antiques store for years. And that became my store – the bookstore. The Dream Explosion. I took it over when they passed away.’
‘Does Fleur still live in Byron with you?’
‘Ah, no…’ Aimee swapped the CocoRama bottle to her opposite hand. ‘No, she actually passed away too. With my parents.’ She paused and scrunched up her face a little. ‘I’m not sure how much of this stuff you wanna go into?’
‘We can stop if you—’
‘No it’s fine,’ she brushed it off, again trying to appear breezier on camera than she actually was. ‘It was a long time ago. I just… didn’t know if it was what you wanted me to talk about.’
‘Whatever you feel comfortable with.’ Heath gave her a nod.
‘Well, I was in my last year of high school. Fleur was twenty-one and had just given birth to Freya about a month or two before the accident. Tim and I had been dating a little while and he had a surfing comp up on the Gold Coast, so I went with him. He had surf comps all the time – Perth, Geelong… one in Bali. He was in talks with Billabong to sponsor and go pro – all that stuff. So I went away a lot with him. And for the store, my parents would go off antiquing – driving around… going to estate sales, auctions, garage sales. They’d drive all around – up and down the coast, country towns. Anyway, while I was with Tim at the comp, Fleur went with my parents on one of their trips.’ Aimee paused. ‘Ah.’ She coughed and looked away. She dug a fingernail into the pad of her thumb and tried not to cry. ‘And… that’s when there was a car… thing. Accident.’ She looked down and felt a tear dripping from her right eye. Then she saw it hit the sand.
‘Guys, I reckon that’s enough,’ Heath directed the crew.
Aimee looked up quickly and nudged the corners of her eyes with her thumbs. ‘No, I’m fine.’ She cleared her throat. ‘I’m fine,’ she said again, unconvincingly. ‘We can keep going. I’m all good.’
Heath looked around the beach. ‘Nah, no more today. We got what we needed.’
Aimee wiped her eyes again and shook her head. ‘I thought I’d be fine talking about that. I wanted to explain it so Freya wouldn’t have to do it on the show later.’
Heath walked over.
‘Sorry.’ She looked out at the waves and forced a laugh. ‘That was probably not what you were wanting. It doesn’t really fit in with… babes and bikinis. Did you need me to say something else? I can give a… less maudlin answer.’
‘Nah. These guys are already packing up.’ Heath nodded at the crew, who were winding their cords and clacking down equipment like a travelling circus about to head to their next town. ‘We’re losing light anyway. The sun’s going down. Wanna go for a walk instead?’
‘A walk?’ Aimee laughed, a little stunned. ‘What for?’
‘I thought we could recreate that opening scene from Grease with Danny and Sandy on the beach,’ Heath gave a mock reply before letting out a laugh. ‘C’mon.’ He nodded down to the water. ‘Just come for a walk.’
* * *
The waves rolled in and skimmed up the shore, wiping out the abandoned sandcastles and big pointless holes that had been dug by little kids throughout the day. Clack, clack, clack. Sandals were whacked together to get rid of every last pesky grain of sand and towels flopped in the breeze as people shook them out before heading back up into town before the light disappeared completely.
‘You know, I’m disappointed you’re not actually a true Karen.’ Heath lightly kicked some water over at Aimee with his foot. They’d both rolled their jeans up and were walking through the shallows down the length of the beach.
‘Well, never meet your heroes.’ She laughed and splashed some water back.
‘It’s why we booked you on the show in the first place. I should sue you for breach of contract. We ordered a Karen!’ He committed to the joke. ‘Legally I should be allowed to get that old lady on the make-up team to cut your hair into one of those short Karen bobs with the choppy highlights.’
‘Ugh, her,’ Aimee groaned.
‘Oh, the only reason you don’t like her is because she didn’t say your skin was like the other girls,’ Heath teased.
‘The woman thinks I’m the same age as her!’
Heath let out a big laugh and kicked the water. ‘Hey,’ he said, switching to a slightly more serious tone, ‘I didn’t know your history when we got you to do the show – but what I said to you that night at the pub was true. I wanna tell a real story about life here. Yours is a real story.’ He looked over at Aimee. ‘You OK with your interview being included?’
Aimee held her hair behind an ear to stop the breeze from blowing it around and thought for a second. ‘Yeah,’ she said, a little hesitantly before nodding more decisively. ‘Yeah. It’s what happened. And with Freya on the show, I’d rather explain it up front than have her put on the spot.’
They both did a little jump to stop a particularly vigorous wave from getting more than just their shins wet.
‘What happened with Freya? After the accident? If you don’t mind me—’
‘No, it’s fine,’ Aimee said. ‘Her dad moved with his family soon after. Sydney. He was young… they both were – him and Fleur. Twenty-one. It was hard. Him moving away with Freya made it harder. I was a mess. I was dealing with everything. And I’d just graduated. I didn’t even have plans figured out for after high school. It was just gonna be travelling with Tim. Surf comps and travel. But I couldn’t go after everything that happened. Mum and Dad’s landlord at the antique store, he was very nice… let me take a few months while I figured out what to do. Then… I sold all the furniture and changed it to the bookstore.’
Heath widened his eyes and exhaled. ‘Wow,’ was all he could say.
‘Anyway, what about you?’ Aimee tried to change the tone. ‘Was your childhood dream to make shows about hot girls shitting in beds?’
‘Please don’t disparage my art.’ Heath pretended to be offended for a second. ‘Nah. Look. This… was certainly not the plan. I’d always done TV – documentaries. Spent most of the ’90s living between South Africa and London. I was twenty-two, twenty-three when I went there. It was around the end of Apartheid, so I was filming a lot for that – a doco and stuff for BBC. The landmines in Angola – I was there filming when Princess Diana walked through that active field. Other stuff…’ He bent over to scoop his hand through the water.
In her head, Aimee tried to do the math and figure out how old Heath was. She hadn’t been able to tell exactly. But the life history pointed to fifty.
‘Then life happened,’ Heath continued. ‘Got married. Had a kid…’
The child revelation caused a huge smile to flash across Aimee’s face.
‘Don’t look so shocked,’ Heath said.
‘I’m not! I just… did not expect that.’ She shook her head slowly as she adjusted to the new perception of Heath. ‘What’s the kid’s name?’
‘Sadie. Ten. She’s perfect.’
‘Sadie,’ Aimee repeated. ‘Great name.’
‘Thank you.’ Heath proudly accepted the compliment. ‘Though all credit for that goes to my ex.’ He gave Aimee the shorthand version with a wave of his hand. ‘We split, shortly after Sadie was born. And that, my friend, is how I wound up making shows about hot girls and their beds.’
Aimee laughed.
‘Reality TV pays a hell of a lot more than docos.’ He shrugged. ‘Can I give you a little piece of advice?’
Aimee tried to think of something sarcastic to respond with, but nothing came. ‘Sure.’
‘Don’t resist. With the show. When you’re around the brats and Brooke – they’re performing for the camera. They want attention. They’ll do anything to make a moment. Usually it’s something awkward or dramatic. So don’t resist it. Resisting will just make it worse. It’s like a snake – the more you struggle, the more it tightens its grip. Just surrender.’
All the colour was almost gone from the sky. Looking up, Aimee nodded, thinking about what Heath had just said.
‘Lemonade,’ she eventually replied.
‘Lemonade?’
Aimee smiled and kicked a little splash of water at Heath. ‘I think clouds would taste like lemonade.’
TWENTY-TWO
There was a takeaway coffee cup in each of Aimee’s hands. One empty. The other full of milky liquid that had gone cold. Aimee plonked both cups on the grass where she was sitting in the park above Main Beach and pulled out her phone to check the time. Then her thumb tapped open the real estate app. She refreshed the recent search results. It was something that she’d been doing so frequently that the actions had become mindless. The results never changed. There was nothing. Nothing suitable, at least. There were shops that were nice but far too expensive. Shops that were terrible and still far too expensive. And shops that were so decrepit they were probably actually illegal to inhabit… while still being far too expensive. Her thumbs flicked the property app closed and automatically tapped on the Instagram icon. Aimee had a secret Instagram profile that she used exclusively to lurk and judge. Lurk, lurk, lurk. Always lurking, always judging. There was no bio or profile pic – just the standard grey cartoon head avatar. Her handle was a jumble of letters and numbers – probably just an auto-generated one. She’d been following Freya’s personal account for years – not because she thought Freya needed to be monitored, she just wanted to see as much of her niece’s life as she could. And she didn’t ever tell Freya because she didn’t want Freya to feel like she couldn’t be herself – no one wants their aunt following them on Instagram.
Aimee searched for Freya’s professional photography Instagram and scrolled through the grid again. Nothing new had been posted since she stalked it the previous night, so she went to a different profile she’d been lurking on a lot lately: Bree’s. Of course, Aimee had found Bree’s profile after meeting her with Tim at the Brats dinner. The flush of shame and pettiness that erupted in her body every time she flicked open the profile wasn’t enough to make her stop. She clicked on Insta Stories and the first clip to play showed Bree and Brooke in the G-Wagon – with Freya leaning between them from the back seat. A Kanye West song played and the words ‘that Gold Coast life with these absolute 10s’ were written in cursive over the top.
‘Scoping out your competition?’ a clipped British voice came from above.
Aimee locked her phone screen frantically. ‘Nina… I didn’t see you there…’ She twisted her body to look up at her. ‘I’m waiting for Freya, she’s late… I thought I’d just…’ She exhaled as her mind caught up. ‘I thought I’d just check their social accounts to see where they are.’ Ten points for quick-ish thinking. The delivery? Not so strong.
Nina smirked at the excuse behind her dark sunglasses. Her silence made Aimee scramble to fill it.
‘Not out filming today? I mean… Do you go out while they’re filming stuff? I’m still not sure what an EP does.’
‘Oh, just dealing with yet another high-octane drama,’ Nina issued a dry response. ‘We were supposed to be filming with Addie and Luna but one of them decided to put on fake eyelashes.’ She let out a big sigh. ‘The lashes were so long they were literally casting a shadow across her entire face. We’ve had to pause everything while the make-up crew deals with it.’ Nina seemed more amused than irritated with the inconvenient delay. ‘Anyway, Freya’s up on the Gold Coast with Brooke and Bree. A crew went up with them for the day… Though it looks like you figured that out all on your own.’ She raised an eyebrow and smiled. ‘They’ll be caught in traffic. Our crew said the main road back into town had been shut off temporarily while another production films this afternoon – that Netflix show… Oceans of Angels. The one with all the cocks – have you seen it?’
Aimee shrugged. ‘I’m… familiar with it.’
‘People will watch anything these days as long as there’s hot people fucking in it.’ Nina let out a laugh as she tilted her head and lit a cigarette. ‘Says the old bat making a show about hot idiots twatting around Byron for the summer.’ She exhaled smoke to the side and half-heartedly corrected herself. ‘Well, not your girl. Or… you.’ Nina turned her attention across the path and gave a nod at something in the distance. ‘Here she is,’ she declared with a firm wave.
Aimee whipped around and saw Freya running across the grass.
‘Well, I’m off to deal with my eyelash drama.’ Nina strode away.
‘Sorry!’ Freya ran over the grass above Main Beach. ‘Just got back from Surfers.’
