The Stylist. Rosie Nixon

of the bed. She seemed to want me there.

      ‘Really?’ she snivelled, as though no one had ever offered her support before.

      ‘Really. Er—a problem shared …’

      I put an uncertain hand onto her thin, childlike shoulder, wondering if there was a law against making physical contact with a vulnerable, crying, miniature celebrity. It wouldn’t have surprised me if AJ had her wired.

       Chapter Six

      We were suddenly interrupted by another knock on the door and Mona’s head appeared around it.

      ‘Just me, darlings!’ she announced, as she clocked the scene—me looking worried, and Beau dishevelled. ‘Jesus, has someone died? Do you hate the dresses, Beau? Seriously, honey, if you don’t like the Dolce, there’s plenty more on the rails.’

      Beau played along brilliantly. ‘To be honest, Mona, I’m having a fat day,’ she wiped smudged mascara from under her eyes. ‘Amber’s been trying to talk me into the Dolce & Gabbana, but nothing feels right, you know?’ She squeezed a non-existent love handle for added effect. Mona nodded sympathetically.

      ‘Do we have to do the filming today?’ Beau continued. ‘I’m just thinking—if I skip dinner, get a colonic and wear Spanx, it’ll look much better in the morning.’

      ‘Little sparrow, there’s nothing of you as it is!’ Mona said truthfully. ‘But I’m not going to make you do anything you don’t feel comfortable with. The important thing is that we look after you! The TV people will have to understand.’

      I stood up and crept towards the door, guessing that I’d be in the unenviable position of having to tell the 20Twenty crew they’d made a wasted trip.

      ‘But can Amber stay with me, please?’ Beau asked, intercepting me. I was shocked that she had remembered my name. ‘I’m feeling a bit sick, too. I just need to sit quietly in here for a little while. With Amber.’

      Looking perturbed that Beau had chosen me as her confidante, Mona pursed her lips and forced a smile. ‘Sure.’

      Left alone in the room once more, Beau was suddenly much more forthcoming.

      ‘The truth is, Amber, I’m being stalked.’

      ‘You’re what?’

      ‘Someone, a man, is stalking me.’ She gripped my hand. ‘And I’m scared.’

      She welled up again, her breathing becoming short and irregular. This was either really good acting, or the red blotches and the tears were real—I suddenly felt like we were at a high school pyjama party gone wrong. I dashed to the bathroom to grab her a handful of tissues and took a moment to gather my thoughts. What am I supposed to do now? I remembered hearing a story about a stalker being caught hiding on a shelf in Simon Cowell’s walk-in wardrobe, and hoped the windows in this suite were locked.

      ‘Maybe we should get AJ after all?’ I asked, returning to the room and handing over a stack of tissues. Beau was sitting up on the bed now, her back against the wall, knees tucked into her chest as she clasped a tissue in each hand.

      ‘No need for AJ, I can handle it,’ she insisted.

      ‘Might the, um—stalker—be near us now?’ I asked. Beau subsided into sniffles.

      ‘It started on Twitter, about a week ago,’ she began. ‘He was so nice to me at first, this guy, I thought he was a fan, telling me he liked my movies and he thought I was a good actor and pretty and stuff. It was just innocent banter. But then he kept on asking me about Jason—you know, Jason Slater, my co-star in the movie I’ve just wrapped?’

      I nodded. Everyone knew Jason Slater. He was a big-name actor, chiselled, single, with legions of female fans—he’d broken onto the Hollywood scene with a slew of popular rom-coms, and Beau and Jason had co-starred in the soon-to-premiere chick flick Summer’s Not Over. (The pile of magazines stored under the counter at Smith’s, and the Stick’s constant drip feed of Hollywood news from various online sources, meant I was well up to speed with my celebrity news.)

      ‘Well, this guy kept asking whether me and Jason were more than work buddies. He just wouldn’t let it go,’ she explained, blowing her delicate nose.

      ‘Perhaps he’s just a troll?’ I suggested.

      ‘I thought so, too, but it’s got worse than that now,’ she said. ‘I blocked him, but somehow he got hold of my personal cell number, and he’s been texting and phoning me non-stop ever since.’

      I sat there, racking my brain. ‘Are you sure it’s the same person?’

      ‘Positive, because he asks the same thing—always about Jason. The way he keeps going on—it’s not right, you know? It’s so obvious he’s trying to trip me up, trying to get me to say something that isn’t true. He’s trying to intimidate me, Amber, and I don’t know what he’ll do next. He’s sent me about ten texts already today and I’ve had as many missed calls.’ Her eyes started to well up with emotion again. ‘That was him, earlier. He’s stalking me and I don’t know what to do.’

      I thought about the most level-headed person I knew. What would Jas do in this situation?

      ‘Do you need me to call anyone?’

      ‘No. There’s no one.’

      ‘Your fiancé?’

      Beau’s intended was the good-looking and highly rated British film director Trey Jones. The couple were regulars on the Hollywood scene and their forthcoming wedding was already creating a buzz in the celebrity world, with rumours that the photography rights had been sold to a glossy magazine in a million-dollar deal.

      ‘Trey? God, no!’ She was emphatic, which only made me more perplexed.

      ‘Your publicist?’

      I knew about publicists from Smith’s. We would occasionally be asked to close the store for a couple of hours if a big American actress wanted to shop in solitude, away from the hoi polloi, and they always came with a publicist in tow. American versions of British PRs, publicists are straight-talking, brash and infinitely scarier than their UK counterparts. Publicists generally get what they want, when they want it, and never return a favour. But today Beau was shunning publicist assistance.

      ‘Honey, I’m just glad my publicist is not here.’ She picked up her phone again, and reread the stalker’s earlier message before turning it off.

      ‘Well—maybe you should go to the police?’

      ‘Never! Oh God, this is a total nightmare!’

      I was nonplussed. Who would be stalking Beau and accusing her of being more than friends with Jason Slater?

      ‘Actually, honey, maybe there is something you can do for me,’ she said finally, looking at me, coyly, with big, pup-pyish, Princess Diana eyes. Surely Mona would want me to do anything I can to help …?

      ‘Just say the word,’ I said.

      ‘Can I trust you, Amber? I mean, really trust you?’ She leaned in close enough for me to smell her delicate, fragrant breath.

      ‘Of course you can.’

      She lowered her voice and checked her phone was definitely off.

      ‘I should have been honest with you straight away,’ she explained. ‘My stalker is actually from the national press. He’s a journalist from that shitty gossip website Starz. He’s been calling me for the past three days non-stop, intimidating me. He’s a bully. And now he says they’re about to go to press with some photos of me apparently in a “compromising position” with Jason.’ She indicated the inverted commas with her