The close up, p.1
The Close-up, page 1
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Page numbers taken from the following print edition: ISBN 9781460765289
Dedication
For my mum—my first reader
Contents
Note to Readers
Dedication
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Seventeen
Eighteen
Nineteen
Twenty
Twenty-One
Twenty-Two
Twenty-Three
Twenty-Four
Twenty-Five
Twenty-Six
Twenty-Seven
Twenty-Eight
Twenty-Nine
Thirty
Thirty-One
Thirty-Two
Thirty-Three
Thirty-Four
Thirty-Five
Thirty-Six
Thirty-Seven
Thirty-Eight
Thirty-Nine
Forty
Forty-One
Forty-Two
Forty-Three
Forty-Four
Forty-Five
Forty-Six
Forty-Seven
Forty-Eight
Forty-Nine
Fifty
Fifty-One
Fifty-Two
Fifty-Three
Fifty-Four
Fifty-Five
Fifty-Six
Fifty-Seven
Fifty-Eight
Fifty-Nine
Sixty
Sixty-One
Sixty-Two
Sixty-Three
Sixty-Four
Epilogue
Acknowledgements
About the Author
Praise
Copyright
One
There’s a magic hour in LA, right when the sun sets, that has the whole city sparkling gold and tangerine—even the trash. It’s the kind of light that makes you feel lucky to be alive, like anything is possible. The kind that has you looking out at the view and seeing the grit and poetry of Bukowski’s Hollywood and the LA scenes from Jacqueline Susann’s Valley of the Dolls instead of traffic, smog, and heartbreak. That whispers “Don’t you dare give up, please, I beg you” in your ear.
So look, I’m not saying it was the light’s fault . . . I understand that we’re all grown-ups here with free will. I’m just saying it didn’t help. Because much is made of the Santa Ana winds—the devil winds, they call them.
But if you ask me, it’s that light, that pure, unadulterated hope, that draws us here and keeps us here, that fucks us up the most. It urges us to roll the dice, but by the time we do, the sun has gone and it is dark. And even now, knowing how this story ends, I still can’t say if it was worth the gamble. But I do know what happened.
So let me tell you that instead.
I’m driving up Mulholland Drive, in a white van with a green logo on the side, on the night this story begins. It’s the middle of May, the window is half-open, the sun is close to setting, and I’m frowning at street signs because the British guy in my navigation app has just said “Turn left in six hundred feet.”
And honestly: how am I meant to know how far six hundred feet is?!
I have it set to a British voice because that’s where I’m from—London—and I guess as much as I wanted to leave that little grey island, with its expensive fruit and stairwells that smelled of damp, I still miss it. Especially on days like today. The kind when gravity feels so strong your heart struggles to beat.
“Turn left,” says Mr. GPS, and I do.
Trees and gates and walls blur past as I watch the numbers rise—four, six, eight—and then Mr. GPS says, “Your destination is on the right,” and he’s correct: there’s a gold number ten sparkling from the wall.
I pull into the driveway—an iron gate in the middle of a tall stone wall—and stop at the intercom, take a deep breath, and press the call button. “Zoe from Venice Floristry, I have a delivery,” I say, smiling into the camera. I smile a lot in life, and I’m not sure why because I’m sure as hell not happy. I mean, I want to be happy, or if I can’t be happy, I at least want to be cool and jaded, but I’m neither of those. And the worst part is I’m smart enough to see that.
The crackling stops, the screen goes black, and I reach for my phone while I wait.
There is one message. Vee. She manages the florist’s shop I work for. It’s a picture of her swollen ankle, with a bruise poking out the top of a bandage, as it rests on a yellow velvet pillow with a large embroidered bee.
It’s usually Vee who does these ultra-high-profile deliveries, the kind that double as a networking opportunity. She’s a talented florist in her own right—she trained me up and helps out when needed—but mainly she’s in charge of events, networking, Instagram, and everything extroverted. I, on the other hand, get to hide in the back of the shop with the flower cooler and piles of cut stems in the mornings and just do the routine day-to-day deliveries in the afternoons—birthdays, anniversaries, that sort of thing. The sorts of occasions that make people happy to see you and you can’t mess up. But Vee slipped at four thirty this afternoon and sprained her ankle. So here I am instead.
And it feels like that’s important—like it’s proof of fate or something. Because if I hadn’t been in this exact place, on this exact night, at this exact hour, I never would have run into him. And everything would be different right now.
Everything.
I mean, I definitely wouldn’t be typing this . . . honestly, I probably shouldn’t be typing this.
But I’m a writer; I can’t help myself. This is the kind of story that only happens to you once in a lifetime, and that’s if you’re lucky. So I need to get it all down now before I forget any of the details. Before I lose my nerve.
Anyway, so there I am in the van, staring down at my phone, replying to Vee with: Oww, that looks sore. And pressing Send.
The intercom crackles again, the gate opens, and I drive inside.
Gravel crunches beneath tyres as I head slowly up a long driveway shaded by trees that remind me of England. Ahead, there are three clean and expensive-looking cars neatly parked by a well-groomed hedge and a huge home.
I pull up to a grand circular fountain and park in front of it, then reach into the seat beside me—past my huge bag and a worn-out copy of The Great Gatsby—for the delivery note to check the name: Brian Rollingston.
I pop the back doors, get out, and head around to unload the flowers. The sky is burnt gold now, the sun just a sliver on the horizon. The front door of the house opens, and I turn to look as a woman with her hair in a turquoise scarf says, “You’re late.” And she’s right. Vee was meant to be here at six. But between Vee’s ankle and some crazy traffic, now it’s almost 7:20 p.m. She leaves the door open and then she’s gone again.
I open up the back doors and look inside. Our florist’s shop specialises in “literary-inspired rustic elegance” (I’m quoting directly from our website now) in the English garden style. So that means loose, natural, and unstructured arrangements, with a mix of English garden flowers like roses, peonies, sweet peas, snapdragons, and delphiniums with foliage such as herbs, ferns, stems of pussy willow, and twigs. It really depends on what’s in season, or what our supplier can source. Right now, there are four large arrangements in pristine white plum vases, together with eight matching table centrepieces in the back of the van. They’re all held in place by foam blocks, straps, and a couple of empty containers to stop them moving during transit. I reach for the large arrangement closest to me. It’s heavy, so I take a deep breath, grab it with both arms, and take a step backwards . . . and that’s when I hear them.
Low and heavy barks.
Coming from somewhere behind me.
Shit.
I freeze.
There’s a voice now, a male voice; it yells: “Genius, stop! Randal!” And now there are footsteps too. Shit shit shit. It’s all getting louder. Faster. The barking. The footsteps on gravel. Someone is running . . .
What’s happening? Should I run too?
I turn quickly, just in time to see teeth and slobber and a haze of black and brown. A rottweiler. Paws hit my shoulders. I hold my breath and grab tightly on to the vase but shit shit shit. I fall backwards, against the van. My fingers slip.
Smash.
My stomach clenches as I squint down at the ground: that pristine white vase has broken into five—no, six—pieces, and the vast arrangement of pink peonies, deep-red roses, mossy twigs, and whimsical foliage lies limp and tattered on the pale gravel, bits of chicken wire and green floral foam visible between the cracks. I kneel down quickly to tend to it, like I can salvage things. But no amount of glue and florist’s tape can fix this.
“Sorry. Are you okay? They just love cars, man. I couldn’t stop them,” comes the male voice again. “I’ve only had them a year. They’re still puppies.”
Except . . . Wa
I look up and my mind fills with static.
Because he’s tall and rugged looking with dark hair, bright-blue eyes, and a tan . . .
And no, baby Jesus, don’t do this to me. Not today.
Because it’s People magazine’s sexiest man alive—the one, the only, Zach Hamilton.
Two
Okay, so other places I’ve seen Zach Hamilton before: (1) Netflix, (2) billboards, and, well, (3) my apartment. Three years ago. He was wearing ripped blue jeans, a Nirvana T-shirt, and the same black beads around his wrist as he is right now, walking out my door and saying he’d call. He didn’t call. Not even after I left a very drunk voicemail on his phone (okay, fine, two very drunk voicemails and one unhinged text) asking him whether the three days we’d spent together had meant nothing.
Yes.
It was that bad.
And get this: back then he wasn’t even famous. No, back then I was the one with the book deal (yes, I still have a book deal; it’s complicated) and he was just another good-looking guy in LA with big dreams. And now here we are and the tables have turned and why is there never an earthquake in this city when I need one?
But I have to say something and it’s been three long years—there would have been a hundred other girls since then; he probably doesn’t even remember me. So I go with a nonchalant, maybe-I-remember-you, maybe-I-don’t “Hi . . . Is Brian around?” But my voice betrays me; it comes out flimsy. Weak. Heat moves up my neck.
And I’m intentionally looking down so he can’t see my face, focusing on picking up pieces of white ceramic, but I can see him in my peripheral vision. He’s watching me, his hand on his hip like Adonis. I just want him to go away.
“He’s inside,” he says, crouching down beside me to help, his smile broadening to a grin. “You still have the accent.”
Shit. He remembers.
“I do,” I say, frowning down at the floral foam, bent stalks, and bruised peonies, trying in vain to pull them back into place as that heat creeps up to my cheeks.
Because “I do”? What’s wrong with me? I sound like I’m practising wedding vows.
He picks up the larger pieces of ceramic as Genius and Randal sniff around, wagging their tails, like they’ve done everyone a mini-favour. And I can smell his aftershave—musk and earth; it’s the same one I remember. It was on my pillowcase for five days after he was gone. I had to double wash it.
“Go play,” Zach says to the dogs and points, and they run off. “I’m really sorry about this . . .” He trails off.
He can’t even remember my name.
“Zoe,” I remind him, then wish I hadn’t. It would have been way cooler if I’d let it go.
“I know, I remember . . . we’re both Z names. So what have you been doing; how did the book go? I meant to read it.”
“Good,” I lie, my voice jumping an octave and giving me away. I swallow hard and pray those tectonic plates will shift just a little, just a tad, and change the conversation. And then . . .
“What the fuck is going on here?” comes a booming voice from the house.
I look up and so does Zach as a short man of around fifty-five with a thick head of salt-and-pepper hair and big white teeth strides towards us, hands on his hips. I stand up and put everything I’ve gathered in the back of the van, my jaw clenched—I’m not good with confrontation.
“It was my fault, Brian,” Zach says as he gets to us.
“I doubt that,” says the man, his little red eyes trained on me now. He’s been drinking, or smoking weed. Maybe both.
“We still have three,” I offer, turning back to him and trying to sound upbeat.
“Well, which one did you break?” he snaps as he peers into the back of the van.
“Um . . . an Ophelia’s Dream,” I say.
All our arrangements have literary names like Ophelia’s Dream or Mrs. Dalloway’s Roses or Sylvia Plath’s Tulips or Hemingway’s Last Letter. That was my idea when I first started at the florist’s, and I thought better of it almost immediately. But Vee loved it, she said it gave us a point of difference, and so it stayed.
Brian pulls his hands through his hair. “Of course you fucking did. That’s the important one.”
There are three other identical Ophelia’s Dream arrangements in the back of the van right now (i.e., there is no important one), but I’m scared to point this out. Instead, my mind whirrs, looking for a solution. These are for an event tomorrow morning. An engagement brunch for his daughter: pink peonies symbolise affection, prosperity, and a happy marriage; red roses mean romance . . . His instructions had been clear—everything was to arrive this evening to avoid overwhelm in the morning—but still, there is time. I could go back to the store and make another.
“Um . . . I could bring another one early tomorrow morning?” I say.
He peers into the open van and lets out a short, sharp huff, as his nostrils flare. “Fuck it,” he snaps. “Just bring in what you have. I want this done.” Then he calls out “Henri!” and a man with chiselled, tanned arms arrives.
Brian shoots me a hot look of hate and then storms away to the house.
And all I can do is stare at the door as my eyes prick with tears, because of course this is how today ends; I should have known from how it started.
“Sorry about him,” says Zach from beside me as I turn back to the van. “He gets like this, but he’ll calm down.” Henri starts unpacking the unbroken arrangements and table centrepieces onto the ground.
“It’s fine,” I say, not looking at him because I might cry. Instead, I stare at the ground and pick at my nail polish, searching for something else to say. “What are you doing here, anyway? Are you friends?”
“Brian’s my manager,” he says as Henri grabs the last one. And with that one phrase he reminds me how different our lives are now. I have an agent, sure, but he has people. Multiple.
“Oh,” I say. “Cool. Well, it was nice seeing you again.” I give a small smile, then I slam the rear doors shut and head around to the driver’s door. And I expect Zach to go inside but he doesn’t. He follows me. I reach for the handle, pull it open, get into the van, and pull the door closed after me.
“So, flowers . . . I don’t remember a day job. Is that new?” he asks, leaning against the door.
“Yeah,” I say as I put on my seatbelt.
I got the job at the florist’s after my debut novel bombed two years ago (it was called Fractured, a thriller), because I’d spent most of my advance on rent, overpriced eye-shadow palettes, and books, and it turns out having glitter on your eyelids is only a short-term fix: I needed health insurance and an income too.
I put the key in the ignition.
“So what are you doing tonight?” he asks through the open window, his eyes scanning the seat beside me and seeming to land on The Great Gatsby.
“I have a thing,” I say, glancing into the rearview mirror. My only “thing” is going home, getting under the covers, and reading until today is done.
“A thing? Well, that sounds . . . cool. But if you wanted to cancel . . . I have this party,” he says. “I mean, you could come.”
“What?” I ask, my eyes shifting to him.
“I have a party to go to tonight,” he says, a little slower, with a big smile. “Why don’t you come?”
And there is no way I’m falling for this again. He was charming last time too, and he did his voodoo on me and then I was a basket case, and I can’t afford to get unbalanced right now. Although, I did finally manage to rewrite Fractured after he ghosted me last time . . . It was like my muse fed off the rejection, off the idea of what could have been, off my own descent into obsession and sadness. Those were the exact feelings I needed to understand in order to write it. But no, once is enough, thanks.
“I can’t. I have plans,” I say again. “But thank you.”
My hands grip the steering wheel a little tighter.
“Come tonight,” he fake-whines. “There’s someone you need to meet. A producer friend.”
And as I glance past him at the tangerine sky, I have this micro-glimpse of what my life was meant to be like and a surge of, I don’t know, something dangerous, like “hope”. Like maybe it could still be that way.
And this is what I mean about the magic hour: none of us are immune. Because if the light were stark right now, casting ugly shadows, I’d just go home. But it’s not—the edges of everything are soft and blurry and there’s a golden glow to his skin and he said there’s someone I need to meet and I’ve heard stories about how just one night can change everything for someone. And I think: Fuck it, what have I got to lose?
