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‘Aye.’ Maggie sighed, secretly wondering if Connie ever read the letters. She must have posted dozens over the years of running the fan club. Perhaps they were binned by some personal assistant who was put on stalker alert.
‘And she’s never written back?’
‘No,’ Maggie said. ‘Too busy, I expect. All those films and premieres and things.’
‘That’ll be it,’ Mrs Wallace said. ‘No time for the likes of us,’ she said, nodding towards her usual newspaper.
‘Will that be all today?’ Maggie asked, itching to get back to her correspondence upstairs.
‘Aye. For the time being. Might be popping back this afternoon for some bits if we don’t make it to the proper shops in Strathcorrie.’
‘Right,’ Maggie said. Mrs Wallace was, as ever, the complete embodiment of tact.
‘Their prices are so much better,’ she added.
‘But they’re not on your doorstep, Mrs Wallace, are they?’
Mrs Wallace chose to ignore this last remark.
‘Bye, then,’ Maggie said and, as soon as the shop door was shut, took the stairs two at a time and returned to her other, slightly more glamorous job.
Maggie had been running the Connie Gordon Fan Club for five years now. Set up by Lochnabrae resident, Euan Kennedy, it was to honour the screen presence of one of Hollywood’s most beautiful actresses whose mother happened to be from their small Highland community. ‘Ah, yes,’ Maggie remembered Euan Kennedy telling everyone one evening in the pub, The Capercaillie Inn, ‘her mother was a great beauty. Vanessa Gordon.’ His eyes had lit up as he’d relived some long ago memory of Vanessa. ‘But she had her sights set on bigger and better things. Hollywood, no less! Aye, she was an ambitious one.’
Vanessa Gordon had never made her mark in Tinsel Town, Maggie remembered Euan saying, but had passed on all her beauty and ambition to her daughter, Connie. There wasn’t a resident in the whole of Lochnabrae who didn’t know of the ‘Connie connection’ and there was always great excitement when a new Connie film was released, with carloads of residents making the short journey to the old cinema in Strathcorrie. It didn’t matter if it was a thriller or a romantic comedy, a leading role or a voice-over in an animated movie, they were there to support their Connie.
‘We really should have our own cinema here,’ Euan had announced one evening.
‘Where?’ Maggie had asked, trying to imagine such a luxury in the main street of the village.
Euan shook his head. ‘I don’t know but we should do something – have some way of acknowledging our Hollywood lassie.’
And that’s when he’d come up with the idea for a fan club.
‘With websites and everything,’ he’d said, waving a great hand in the air as if he knew what he was talking about.
‘Oh, you have a computer now, do you?’ Maggie had asked wryly.
‘Well, no, but you do,’ he’d said.
Maggie had leapt at the chance to run the fan club. She’d always adored movies and this was her chance to be a small part of that magical world, and so she’d got to work, creating a website, updating the pages with new pictures of Connie and all the latest movie news.
Then the fan mail had started to flood in with people asking for signed photos of their beloved actress.
‘What shall I do?’ Maggie had asked Euan. ‘They all expect a reply!’
‘Then send them what they want.’
‘But surely we’ll be done for fraud!’
‘Och! Nobody will ever find out.’
‘But it’ll cost money if we start sending out signed photos and things,’ Maggie said, thinking of the meagre income she had from the shop.
‘Then charge them.’
Maggie had gasped and had taken the problem to the Connie Committee.
‘We could make a small charge,’ Hamish – Maggie’s brother – had said. ‘Just to cover costs, you understand.’
‘That’s not unreasonable, is it?’ Euan had said. ‘We can’t have you out of pocket, can we?’
Maggie waited to hear what everyone else thought. ‘Angus?’ she probed.
Angus hurrumped from his corner in the pub. ‘Waste of time. We should have a decent fan club. For westerns.’
Everyone groaned. They were all well aware of Angus’s obsession with the western. He was even wearing cowboy boots just then.
‘Westerns are the thing,’ he said. ‘I’ve got no time for anything else.’
‘Rubbish!’ Maggie said. ‘I saw those tears in your eyes when we went to see Connie in Waltz with Me.’
Angus shifted uneasily in his seat. ‘That was a fly,’ he said. ‘I had a fly in my eye that evening.’
‘Right,’ Maggie said with a grin. ‘Alastair? What do you think we should do?’ she asked, turning to Lochnabrae’s resident playwright for a sensible answer.
‘Well,’ Alastair said, his dark eyebrows hovering over eyes the colour of the loch in summer, ‘the village hall needs some money spent on it.’
‘Aye, that it does,’ Euan agreed.
Maggie frowned. ‘What’s that got to do with the signed photographs?’
‘If we charge for them, any profit could go to the upkeep of the village hall.’
‘But nobody would pay for that!’ Maggie protested.
‘They might if you call it the Theatre Charity. Make a small donation to our Theatre Charity and we will be happy to send you a signed photograph of Ms Gordon,’ Alastair said.
‘And where do I get all these signed photos from?’ Maggie asked.
‘There’s the newsagents in Strathcorrie. They have one of them big printers now, don’t they?’ Hamish said.
‘Okay,’ Maggie said. ‘But how do I get them signed?’
Everyone looked at Maggie.
‘Use your imagination, lass,’ Euan said.
And so Maggie had. She was really quite good at it too because, as a youngster, she used to daydream about what it would be like to be a film star or – at the very least – a character from a film like the ones Connie Gordon played. How wonderful it must be to be beautiful and adored like Connie Gordon and how very different from the little life that Maggie led working in the village shop in Lochnabrae. She would while away many a happy hour in the shop imagining that she was like a Connie Gordon heroine and that a happy ending of her own was just around the corner. For Maggie, running the fan club was like giving in to her inner film star for a few short hours a week and it didn’t seem like she was doing anything wrong.
During those early days of the fan club, Maggie had found a copy of a signed photo of Connie Gordon online and had printed it out, studying the feminine flourish and practising it over and over again until she felt that the very spirit of Connie Gordon was with her and she’d got it just right. Which was just as well because demand was high even with the charge that they made.
Sitting back down at her desk, Maggie woke up her computer and stared at the image on the screen.
‘Hello, Connie,’ she said with a bright smile. ‘How are you today?’
The beautiful face stared back at her. Soft white skin that was almost luminous, dark red hair like a silk curtain, bright hazel eyes and that gorgeous megawatt smile that regularly graced a million magazines.
‘You’ll be wearing that smile tonight, won’t you?’ Maggie said, checking the online Connie diary and noting that it was the ‘Cream of the Screen’ awards ceremony. Maggie gazed out of the window but, for once, she didn’t notice the view. She was imagining the gowns and the jewels and the wonderful new photos of Connie that she would soon have for the website.
‘How wonderful it would be to walk down that red carpet,’ she said with a wistful sigh. ‘Lucky, lucky Connie.’
Chapter Two
A big bright smile. That’s what everyone wanted so why was it so hard to give? Connie walked down the red carpet, trying desperately not to trip over in the silver sequinned dress, which kept wrapping itself around her legs. It was most uncomfortable even if it did make her look like a million dollars. It was the last time she’d be wearing one of Tierney Mueller’s designs, that was for sure. He’d practically submerged her with clothes for the last few months and she’d finally given in but she was regretting her decision now. She had to give an award tonight and that meant the long torturous walk out onto the stage with the whole of Hollywood watching.
It’ll be fine, she told herself. Or at least it couldn’t possibly be as bad as the time one of her spaghetti straps had fallen down, revealing far more of Connie Gordon than the press had ever seen.
‘CONNIE!’ they shouted now. ‘Over here.’
‘One more!’
‘This way!’
Connie smiled. She felt like such a fraud. It was her third red carpet event that week and she knew she must be the envy of every woman in the world and yet what she wanted more than anything was to be sitting at home in her favourite jumper and jeans, eating a large tub of ice cream in front of the movie channel. It really was absurd. After all, she’d worked extremely hard to get to this moment, hadn’t she? All the years of dance classes and auditions, drama classes and auditions, singing classes and auditions. This was what it was all about. This was the kind of event that said, Hey world, I’ve arrived. Aren’t you jealous? Don’t you wish you were me? Take that journalist over there, Connie thought, sidling over to a female reporter who was gesticulating at her so much her arms were in danger of spinning right off her body. What would the reporter give to change places with Connie – to wear the dress, to be photographed, to present the award? And what would Connie give to exchange places with her? The journalist would be going home in half an hour. For a moment, Connie imagined the scene. There’d be some cute guy cooking dinner for her and an adorable toddler would have just woken up to greet his mommy.
Connie sighed as she thought about the empty mansion that was waiting for her in Bel Air. She had a cook, a cleaner, a PA and a gardener. There was the boy who took care of the pool, the guy who took care of her cars. There was the hairdresser, the image consultant, the agent, the lawyer and the accountant. Then there was the orthodontist, the personal trainer … and on the list went. But there was nobody who’d be there to kiss her when she got home. Nobody to massage her feet and tell her she was gorgeous. Oh, she was told she was gorgeous often enough – by the fans, the journalists, the photographers. But they didn’t count. When she went home, she left the adulation behind and life felt very empty indeed.
‘Connie Gordon!’ the journalist yelled as Connie joined her at the barrier. ‘I have Connie Gordon with me,’ she said, turning to her cameraman. ‘Who are you wearing tonight, Connie?’
‘Oh, it’s a Tierney Mueller.’
‘And you look gorgeous. Absolutely gorgeous.’
‘Thank you,’ Connie said graciously.
‘I hear you’ll be presenting an award tonight.’
‘Yes. Best supporting actor.’
‘And which of the nominees do you favour?’ the journalist asked.
‘I think they’re all incredibly talented. I couldn’t possibly choose,’ she said diplomatically. That was the game to play: be gracious, be diplomatic and keep bloody smiling.
The ‘Cream of the Screen’ ceremony was fairly new as award ceremonies went. Not quite as glitzy as the Oscars nor as prestigious as the Golden Globes, they were still an opportunity for the stars to come out and shine. As Connie entered the Art Deco theatre where it was being held, she caught sight of a few of the famous faces there. She had to stop and pinch herself sometimes. At events like this, she still felt like such a newbie even though she’d been in the business since she was six.
‘Connie!’ a voice called. She turned around and came face to face with Carter Maddox, the infamous journalist, and he had a camera crew with him. ‘Over here, Connie!’
There was no getting away from him so Connie dug deep for her smile again and joined him.
‘And you are looking very glam tonight. How are you?’
‘I’m fine, thank you, Carter.’
‘Who are you wearing?’
‘Tierney Mueller,’ Connie said, sighing inwardly at the originality of his questions.
‘And who’s accompanying you tonight?’
Connie’s eyebrows rose. Now, that was a question she hadn’t been expecting.
‘Don’t tell me the gorgeous Connie Gordon is alone tonight?’
‘Yes, I am, Carter.’
‘Well, men of America, you should be ashamed of yourselves,’ Carter said, turning to the camera. ‘I really think you should’ve made more of an effort.’
‘No, really Carter – don’t—’
‘Isn’t there anyone out there who’d kill to have this lovely lady on their arm?’
Connie rolled her eyes, imagining the crank letters from the men of America she’d be receiving over the coming months.
‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ a voice announced on the tannoy. ‘Please take your seats. The ceremony is about to begin.’
Connie sighed with relief and made a hasty departure from Carter Maddox.
She was just entering the auditorium when she felt a hand on her bottom. Spinning around, she came face to face with Jeff Kline.
‘Hello, gorgeous,’ he said.
If anyone else called her gorgeous tonight, she would scream.
‘What are you doing here, Jeff ?’
‘Nice to see you too! Not still sore, are you, honeybun?’
‘Don’t call me that. I’m not your honeybun! Not since you sold out to the Hollywood Recorder.’
‘But sweetcakes! What did you expect me to do?’
‘You’re a piece of slime, Kline,’ she said, rather liking the rhyme that made. ‘Go to hell.’
She made her way to her seat and hoped that she wouldn’t meet any more of her ex-boyfriends that evening.
But, alas, it wasn’t to be.
They were half an hour into the ceremony when Connie was escorted backstage and given a scarlet envelope and statuette for the award for best supporting actor. It was the moment she’d been dreading.
