Chapter 10

A UPS van pulled up outside the house on Thursday afternoon and delivered a thick padded envelope all the way from Los Angeles. It was the contract for signature. According to the note that George included with it, all the (relatively minor) changes that we’d requested had been incorporated, including the one appointing Miss Sandra Dunham as my personal assistant for the duration of the shoot, at a salary to be negotiated between us, with the studio contributing the sum of eight hundred dollars a week.

I made a note to contact George about what else we needed to set up for that.

I decided that since calling the USA on my mobile is charged at approximately and arm and one and a half legs a minute, I’d use the VOIP phone downstairs, where the charge was a whole penny a minute, and ring Sandy to give her the good news.

Her mobile went to voicemail, and there was no answer from the house phone, probably because Sandy was out and Maria was still sleeping. I rang Sandy’s mobile back and this time left a message telling her not to ring me back, but to text me a time and I’d ring her.

I’d started my online Maths study the day before and printed out all the problems for the session. The arrangements that Mum had made with the school, was that I’d do that and send the answers to them once a week on a Friday, at the same time as I submitted them online, although as she’d pointed out, the post from Canada would take a little while longer to arrive.

Once I’d finished the exercises, and the assignment, I closed my laptop down, after printing the six pages I’d done, and returned to Dr Asimov.

By the time The Mule had revealed the true meaning of his name to Bayta, it was four-thirty, and the downstairs phone was ringing.

I was about to open Second Foundation when my sister shouted up the stairs.

“David, phone, for you,” she yelled.

With no clue as to who would be ringing me, I walked downstairs and picked the handset up off the hall table where she’d put it down.

“Hello,” I said, “this is David.”

“Hello,” a soft female voice on the other end of the line replied, “is that David Barker?”

“Yes, I said it is, who are you?”

“Oh, sorry,” she answered, “my name’s Nessie Sanderson from the Express.”

“Daily or Pontefract and Castleford,” I asked.

“Sadly, not the Daily one,” she replied, “I’ve just seen a story on the AP wire that you’ve been signed to a prime-time sitcom for American TV. I wondered if you’d be interested in meeting up for an interview for the paper. You’re a local celebrity, and it would make a good public interest piece.”

“I’m not sure,” I said, “I need to know what the interview is going to be about, what sort of things you want to cover.”

“Well, it would be about you, how you’ve gone from small-town Yorkshire boy to Hollywood actor in what, two years?” she said, “you know, the typical rags to riches story.”

“Hardly rags,” I said, “my Dad owns a successful business.”

“Then I suppose we’ll have to settle for small-town boy to Hollywood star,” she said, “so are you up for it?”

“I suppose we could,” I said, “when?”

“How about the weekend, then it won’t interfere with school,” she suggested.

“Saturday?” I suggested.

“That’s good for me, where and when?”

“You know the Blue Cup café on Sagar Street?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“How about there at, say, eleven-thirty?” I asked.

“It’s a date,” she said.

“All right then,” I said, “but there’s something you need to know,” I agreed.

“What’s that?” she asked.

“I never kiss on the first date,” I replied, “I’ll see you then. Bye.”

She said goodbye and we hung up.

“Who was that?” Mum asked when I took the phone handset back into the living room.

“Reporter from the Express,” I replied, “apparently somebody called AP has done a story on me and they want to do what she called a ‘rags to riches’ piece on the town’s big Hollywood star.”

“AP is Associated Press,” Mum said, “a news agency that papers and TV news organisations use for back-up stories.”

“Oh,” I said, “well it looks like the studio has put out a story about a young English boy being signed to the lead in a new show, and I’m it.”

“So, the local paper wants to interview you?”

“That’s what she said,” I agreed.

“Well just be careful what you say to her,” she said, “and don’t flirt with her. Where are you meeting?”

“The Blue Cup,” I said.

“Ah well, chances are at least one of your cronies will be there as well,” she said.

“Quite possibly,” I replied, “especially if I tell them about it.”

I went back upstairs and opened Second Foundation, planning on getting a chapter or two in before tea.

The rest of the evening, we found a film on TV and watched that.

Friday was something of a slow day, I still hadn’t got a text from Sandy, so I tried ringing her again with the same result. I was starting to get worried that I had another Mel situation on my hands, but from three thousand miles away, all I could do was wait.

I was up early on Saturday, and down in town by eleven. The Blue cup was empty at that time, apart from Mike, Keith, Dave and Kathy.

“Hi guys,” I greeted them, waiting for Mark behind the counter to hand me my coffee., “what’s new?”

“What’s this I hear about you leaving school?” Kathy asked.

“Not strictly speaking true,” I said, “I’m staying registered but on authorised absence. Come December I’ll be in Vancouver for six months, making a TV series.”

“Wow,” Keith said, “will you still love us when you’re rich and famous?”

“He’s already rich and famous,” Kathy informed him, “and I’m the only one of us he loves.”

Dave looked at me, then at her.

“Actually, she’s wrong,” I said, “I love all my friends.”

“And what’s this I hear about you and Cal?” she asked.

“Nothing to hear, really,” I said, “we are no longer an item.”

“What did she do this time?” Mike asked.

“I’d rather not talk about it,” I said, “it’s still a little raw.”

Keith opened his mouth to say something.

“Leave it, Keith,” Mike warned.

“So, what brings you out this Saturday morning?” Mike continued.

“Oh, I’m meeting a young lady here shortly,” I said.

“You don’t waste much time,” Keith interjected.

“Not that kind of meeting,” I said, “a reporter from the Express. She wants to do a human interest piece on Castleford’s big Hollywood star.”

“Great,” Dave jumped in, “what time does he arrive? Or is it a she?”

“Very funny, Dave,” Kathy said, “behave.”

I just fist-bumped him and laughed.

“So it sounds like this might be worth staying around to watch,” Mike said.

“I was hoping you would,” I replied, “it might save me from making a prize prune of myself.”

“You’re not allowed to do that,” Keith said, “that’s our job.”

Any discussion of whose job it was to make me look a prize prune was cut short when the door opened and a very tall, very thin young woman walked in, looked around and fixed her gaze on us.

“Is one of you guys David?” she asked.

Four of us pointed at Dave and said, perfectly accurately, “He is.”

She held her hand out to him and said, “Hi, I’m Nessie.”

“Oh, hello,” he replied, “I’m Dave Dickinson, and this is my girlfriend Kathy, her brother Mike and our friend Keith,”

“And that,” he said pointing at me, “is the well-known Hollywood heartthrob, and prize prune, David James Barker.”

With that, they all high fived each other.

“Nessie?” I queried, “that’s an unusual name, you don’t look much like a sea monster.”

“Short for Vanessa,” she said.

“Ah,” Mike interjected, “so you’re not going to eat us all then?”

She laughed.

“No,” she said, “I’ve had breakfast today.”

“Well, I can at least get you a coffee,” I said, “unless you’d prefer a tea?”

“Coffee would be fine, skinny latte please,” she said.

Mark, behind the counter, snorted.

“Miss,” he said, “I do black, white and frothy, none of that new-fangled fancy stuff.”

“Frothy then please,” she replied, “now, do you folks mind if I record this?”

She brought out a little pocket digital recorder and placed it on the table between them all.

“That’s a nice gadget,” I said, “but where’s the tape?”

“There isn’t one,” she replied, “it’s all digital. Made by Olivetti, it will record for four hours.”

“Handy, I might get one of those,” I said, “so, ask away.”

“I thought we might start with some background, your family, friends, girlfriend?”

“So, what do you want to know?” I asked.

“Why don’t you just give me a potted biography?” she asked.

Mike snorted.

“Good luck with that,” he said.

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“David has two modes when giving out information, well three really, but one of them is just the second split into two. First, he will not volunteer anything. He will, however, in response to questions do one of two things, either he will give you a full and honest answer, or he won’t answer at all. Anything he does tell you then, you can accept as the truth. He doesn’t lie.”

“That’s interesting,” she said, “why is that David?”

“Because if someone asks a genuine question, they deserve an answer, and if the question is irrelevant, they don’t. Or if the question is too personal,” I said.

“Okey-dokey,” she said, “but some of the questions I ask may be personal.”

“Well, then I’ll decide when you ask just how personal they are.”

“Well, I’ll try and avoid that,” she said, “how about we start with where you go to school?”

“That’s complicated,” I said, “except for Dave we all either go or went to the high school. But now I’m enrolled at St. Wilfrid’s, but, because I’m going to Vancouver for six months, I’m on official leave, and studying online and by correspondence. But the school are being very supportive.”

“So you’re still doing you’re A levels, then?” she asked, “how will you fit that in with acting?”

“Have you ever been on a film set?” I asked.

“No,” she replied, “but if you want to invite me some time, I’d like to.”

“Well, next time you’re in Vancouver eh?”

“Like that’s ever going to happen,” she said, sadly, “so what about girlfriends?”

“I don’t have one,” I said, abruptly.

“Now that sounds like a story there,” she replied.

“Don’t go there,” I answered.

“Then why don’t you tell me about the Vancouver project,” she said.

“All right then,” I said, “here goes. The programme is a sitcom centred on an English teenager, who was the result of a fling between an American GI and an English girl. At the age of sixteen, his mother dies of cancer and he’s shipped off to live with his father in Chicago. The comedy lies in his attempts to adjust to American life. The different school system, dating, just the problems of coping in an alien culture, while growing up.”