Chapter 9: Elizabeth Hurley

Stretching my legs out in front of me and yawning quietly to myself, I settled in my seat for a long ride. I was headed over to England to meet with Elizabeth Hurley about landing a role in another film. Elizabeth was often times called one of the most beautiful and most photographed women in the world, and given the publicity she recieved in the British tabloids, it was not hard to see why. Some of the actresses I have dealt with while I was out in Los Angeles, famous or not, have been major bitches. They think that because they say two lines in some low budget comedy, they are the next Barbara Streisand.

But that was what was unique about Elizabeth. Right after I took over the firm, she called me up to introduce herself and offer her condolences on my father's death. Apparently she had been extremely close to my father (In more ways than one, I'm sure). Since then, she had been just like a long time friend, not being demanding at all towards any acting or modeling work that came along. And more importantly, she always seemed like a down to Earth, normal girl and I admired her free spirit attitude. She knew that she was attractive and she knew that she was famous, but it didn't seem to phase her in any way. That made dealing with her extremely easy to deal with and on a more personal level, made me like her as not only a client but a friend.

The flight from LA to London was a long and tiring one so I slept for most of the plane ride. When we finally landed, I was amazed to see Elizabeth there waiting for me at the terminal. She was dressed down so as to appear like a normal person, wearing a beige sweater that hid her curves for the most part, and a pair of semi-baggy blue jeans. Her feet were inside a pair of ragged tennis shoes and to top it all off, she had a blue baseball cap on. Still, when I saw those soft blue eyes, I knew it was her. I got my luggage and we walked out to her car (a very nice silver BMW Z3) without incident, driving out of the airport and back to her apartment in the upper rich portion of London.

As we were approaching the gate to enter into the building, a young girl came running up, gushing about being a "huge fan and could she please have an autograph". This was one of the few times I had ever seen any of my clients handle their fans, but Elizabeth was very cool about it. She smiled and made the autograph out to the girl on a blank index card Elizabeth carried in her purse. The bitter cold London wind almost blew the card out of Elizabeth's hands, but my reflexes were too quick and I caught it as it was just about to slip away. Handing it back to her, Elizabeth smiled and said thanks.

Making our way through the gate and up the stairs to her loft, Elizabeth explained the index card.

"I adore my fans, but sometimes they are ill prepared. So I carry a stack of blank index cards in my purse just in case they don't have something they want signed," she said, unlocking the door. This was a very kind and smart idea and I was amazed that she would go to such lengths for her fans.

I brought in my luggage and collapsed on the couch. Even though it was only 11 in the morning, it felt like 4 AM back on Los Angeles time. Despite the sleep I got on the plane, I was still exhausted. Laying my head back on the couch, I slowly began to drift off to sleep. Elizabeth stood over me and smiled, leaning me back on to the couch and propping my head on a pillow.

I awoke later that afternoon around 5. Sitting up, I looked around. I could hear Elizabeth doing something in the kitchen, probably fixing tea or a late afternoon snack. I stood up and stretched, straightening out my rumpled traveling clothes (a long sleeve shirt and a pair of comfortable khaki pants) and slowly looked around Elizabeth Hurley's apartment.

The living room area was quite spacious, with very high ceilings that were supported by thick wooden beams. The floor was also hard wood, covered in many places by very thick asian style rugs. The furniture was fairly sparse, although very expensive, with only a coffee table and the couch and a few floor lamps. I wondered how much of this was hers and how much was Hugh Grant's, her former long time boyfriend. Making my way into the kitchen, I could see that Liz was preparing a delicious smelling tea.

Sitting down at the table, she walked over to serve me the tea. I saw that she had showered and changed, and was now wearing only a bath robe. The robe was very elegant looking, a light pink color with white trim around the hems and cuffs.

We made chit chat over tea, talking about Hollywood and relationships and what not. I told her of my past involvement with Alyssa Milano, and like a sister, she was very sympathetic.

"Dean, Alyssa is a sweet girl. I've spoken with her at a few parties," Elizabeth said, sipping her tea. "But if you are anything like your father, it will take a special kind of woman to make you happy," she said with a smile.

After tea, we began discussing what had actually brought me across the Atlantic: work. We spent over 5 hours discussing scripts that I had brought with me. The problem wasn't finding one she liked, it was finding one she didn't like, and we both finally deciding on a comedy with a still undetermined cast. I was cleaning up my briefcase when Elizabeth got out of her chair and stood up, a smile on her face.

"Let's go dancing," she said, her beautiful face coming to life at the idea. Admittedly, I wasn't much of a dancer, but I figured what the hell. I wasn't going to pass up the chance to go watch Elizabeth get her groove on.

"Sure, sounds good. You may want to change clothes though," I said, referring to the bathrobe she was still wearing. Glancing down, she laughed and said "Oh yes. I don't think this would do at all. Give me 5 minutes to change and we can head out,"

I went to the spare bedroom I was using for my stay to change into something more club appropriate. I decided on a pair of oversized blue jeans, tennis shoes and a gray turtleneck sweater. Fixing my hair and adding a light bit of cologne, I walked back out to the living room.

Elizabeth was standing in front of a wall mirror, adjusting her earrings. She was wearing a glittering knee length red dress, slit up the sides up to her calves. The dress crisscrossed in the back with thin straps of material, and the red accented her pale white skin beautifully. Friend or not, it was tough not to realize how absolutely beautiful she was inside of that dress.

Turning around to face me, Elizabeth smiled broadly and adjusted the purse on her shoulder.

"Ready?" she asked.

I nodded, and we were out the door.

The club was located in the "hotspot" of London, which was the old warehouse district. The club we were going to, Rage, was in a converted fish processing plant. The line was around the building when we pulled up and parked, but this didn't even faze Elizabeth. Walking directly up to the bouncer, she stood on her tip toes and gave him a kiss on the cheek. The bouncer, an enormous black man, smiled and stepped aside, letting us in.

"Thanks Nick," I heard her say as we walked past.

Inside of Rage, the club was multi-level, with the bottom floor being the bar area and the general dance floor, a combination of hip hop and some rock music playing loudly. Following Liz, we walked up a winding flight of stairs. The second floor had more of a techno music atmosphere, with lots of people swaying and moving to music blaring out of huge ceiling and wall mounted speakers. Strobe lights illuminated everything, and through the thick fog of cigarette smoke and dry ice I could see lasers shooting by on the ceiling.

The third floor was very high up and much smaller than the previous two, but it was much more intimate. There were isolated areas for couples to go to and a private bar with three bartenders.

Elizabeth walked over to say hello to some friends, so I went to the bar and got us each a drink and found a booth to sit in. Looking around, this part of the club seemed very exclusive. There were lots of models, both male and female, and I recognized a few British celebrities all drinking and dancing and talking.

Elizabeth finally made her way back to my booth but it was only for a second, as she grabbed my arm and pulled me onto the dance floor.

The music playing was a loudly thumping beat by some techno artist, and it was great music to dance to. Elizabeth pulled me close to her and began to bump and grind her body all up and down mine. Despite not liking to dance, and not actually being very good at it, I think I kept up fairly well. I was encouraged by seeing Elizabeth's rhythm and pace pick up with me and soon the rest of the club became a blur as I found my natural groove and Elizabeth and I's bodies merged together in dance, even if it was just for one song.

Over the next few hours, I made my way around the dance floor, dancing with various models and women. All of them were exceptionally beautiful and a couple seemed to take an interest in me. But my mind was always elsewhere, watching Elizabeth dance with nearly everyone. Dancing was her natural element I could tell. Her body was so rhythmic and graceful when she was on the floor, and she looked like she couldn't be any happier than when she was dancing.

As the night wore on, I had slowly drank myself into a sizeable buzz. Looking down at my watch, I saw it was almost 3 AM. I guess I hadn't noticed that the club was starting to thin out a little. But Liz was still out there, dancing like mad. Her hairspray had long lost it's hold on her hair, and now her dark brown hair swung over her shoulder as she danced, part of it sticking to her forehead from the perspiration. As the song ended, Elizabeth's dance partner, a tall well built man with a chiseled chin, said his goodbyes and made his way down the stairs from the club. Glancing around, Elizabeth finally spied me sipping on my tenth vodka of the night in the same booth I had occupied hours earlier. I was very wasted at this point and was hoping Elizabeth was coming over to get me to leave.

"Well, that was fun but I'm exhausted. Shall we go?" Elizabeth said. I just finished my drink and smiled as we headed out.

Elizabeth drove home since I was too intoxicated to do so. At 4 AM, London is a very quiet and empty place. Getting to her apartment and going in, I almost collapsed onto the counter from having drank just one drink too many. Elizabeth luckily caught me though and sat me down into a chair by the kitchen table. The early morning light was just starting to rise over the Thames I saw when I glanced through a window in the kitchen.