Tinseltown. Victoria Fox

belly and yawned. ‘Go on, then,’ he managed through what was shaping up to be a fucking awful headache. ‘Hit me with it.’

      Freddy Judd, a fraction taller than Dom and with all the same good looks, just arranged slightly differently, entered the room, clocked the dishevelled bed, the empty bottles of beer, and tried to find a way of phrasing it that didn’t sound disastrous.

      ‘There’s no way out of it, mate, I’m sorry,’ he said at last, biting back a laugh because it wasn’t funny; it really wasn’t. ‘But it looks like Santa Claus is coming to town.’

      The Celebrity Christmas Parade was an annual extravaganza that took place a week after Thanksgiving on the streets of downtown Hollywood. Hundreds of thousands came in the hope of catching a glimpse of the stars, gracing the procession atop floats and stages, in open-top vintage cars and sleighs dazzling with lights. It was a great promotional opportunity – if you were a daytime-TV D-lister or an actor on his way out the game. Not for the top dogs, the main players, the – Dom cringed – hot-shot-question-marks. Not for him.

      ‘I can’t believe I ever said yes to this stupid gig,’ he muttered darkly as Freddy found them a table outside Maracas. ‘It’s humiliating, fucking humiliating.’

      Freddy attempted to stop a grin pulling free. It was an asset he had over Dom, because he had this pair of really cute dimples.

      ‘You said yes at a time when nothing else was coming up. You needed the—’

      ‘It wasn’t a question,’ snapped Dom bitterly, flipping open the menu.

      Freddy nodded obediently. His appointment as Dom’s PA – a position he’d embraced in the purgatory of post-university job seeking – had dropped him right in at the deep end. Since Dom had made it big, priorities were shifting in seismic proportions.

      ‘All I’m saying is you’ll look bad if you back out. Seriously bad. I’ve tried to pull strings, but, bro, you’re Santa.’ He ordered a beer. ‘Do it for the kids.’

      ‘Piss off.’

      ‘Look, you’ve just got to put on a beard—’

      ‘And a fat suit.’

      ‘I was forgetting the fat suit.’

      ‘Lucky you,’ Dom grumbled. ‘The whole thing’s so … Disney.’ He summoned a charm offensive for a passing troupe of girls in minuscule hot pants. ‘All right, ladies?’

      Freddy watched as Dom signed autographs with a flourish, his good mood temporarily restored. Dom had always been the one who craved attention, while Freddy could think of little worse than having his every move monitored and scrutinised by the vulture-like media. But, despite their differences, he loved his brother and acknowledged that he’d taken the PA role because it was exciting and good money, but also because, if he hadn’t, he could see the future opening up with his brother drifting further and further off into a life he couldn’t understand, until eventually Freddy wouldn’t be able to see him at all.

      ‘So I’ve got to have the tykes clambering all over my lap as well, have I?’ Dom made a face once the girls had gone.

      ‘Not sure. I can find out.’

      ‘Promise them Lego and Barbies and all that bollocks.’

      ‘Maybe. It’s Bratz nowadays.’

      ‘Brats?’

      ‘Never mind.’

      ‘I bet they can’t believe their luck. Probably thought they’d be stuck with Mr Octogenarian Action-Movie-Reject for the fifth year running.’

      It was true. The Parade’s organisers had hit the jackpot big-time. Dom had agreed to take on the role of Santa Claus, the main attraction of the star-spangled celebrations, Saint Nick plumply waving from a glitzy moving float, posing for photographs, chortling like one of the wind-up toys he bribed children with. He had said yes months before, when his star was fledgling, uncertain, a faint glimmer in a vast galaxy. The flipside of Dom’s desire to be famous was that he would agree to everything that guaranteed publicity, like a kind of Tourette’s, and then regret it afterwards. Today, riding high on the crest of newfound fame, wanting above all else to be taken seriously in his craft, the prospect of donning a fat suit and ho-ho-hoing his way through Hollywood was a fate worse than death.

      Who could cancel Christmas? He couldn’t, not with the whole world watching.

      Dom’s phone rang just as the food arrived. Grimacing, he picked up. Freddy stifled another comment when he saw his brother had ordered a chopped salad. A ‘chopped’ salad? As opposed to what, an entire lettuce and cucumber, maybe a tomato vine on the side? But Dom’s stormy glare told him to keep it shut.

      ‘Yes, yes, fine, OK.’ Dom rolled his eyes at the voice down the line, held the handset away from his face a moment and then did that immature but still quite effective thing of tucking his tongue inside his bottom lip and making a face like a fifteen-year-old.

      By the time the call was over, Freddy was halfway through his burger. ‘Lex?’ he guessed. Lex Savage, silver-haired, silver-tongued PR guru, was Dom’s publicist.

      ‘Unfortunately.’ Dom popped a slice of avocado into his mouth while looking enviously at his brother’s plate. ‘I’ve got to start “behaving” now I’m Father-bullshitting-Christmas. At this rate the only bird I’ll be getting my teeth into’ll be the turkey.’

      Freddy laughed. ‘Guess you’d better be a good boy this time of year. Or Santa might not come down your chimney.’

      ‘Santa can stick it up his own chimney.’

      ‘Nice.’

      Dom began stabbing bad-temperedly at his salad. ‘The sooner this is done, Fred, the better. Let’s just get it over with, all right?’

      Chapter 2

      Around the corner, at Pierce Productions on Sunset, Laney Allen’s heart was beating so hard inside her ribcage that it hurt. She pictured it like a glossy red apple being thrown against a thin paper drum. She feared it was going to burst out and land with a wet squelch on her manager’s immaculate desk.

       No, she begged inwardly, praying she had misheard. Please don’t ask me to do it. Please don’t.

      ‘The Celebrity Christmas Parade,’ Julian Pierce said again, annoyed at having to repeat himself. That was the problem with extending these talent competitions to ordinary people because ordinary people, invariably, were idiots. When they won, they were impossible to deal with. ‘You must have heard of it.’

      ‘Of course,’ Laney stammered.

      ‘You’ll be singing “White Christmas”.’ Julian gave her an efficient smile: before meeting the infamous record producer, known in the industry as the ‘Dream Machine’, Laney had never considered such a thing existed. She thought how straight and bright his teeth were, like sugar-coated mints. ‘Thought we’d keep it traditional. Everyone likes that one.’

      Laney didn’t. She hated it. A cold shiver travelled down her spine.

      She kept having to remind herself of all Julian had done for her to stop herself committing to what was rapidly becoming an aversion to him. It was his false altruism and his forced charm, and the way he pretended she had a say in any of this, asking her questions with full stops on the end and making out like he valued her opinion when she knew he’d be quite happy if she never dispensed an independent thought ever again. But if it wasn’t for him … what? Who was Laney Allen six months ago? She was nobody. A twenty-nine-year-old desk clerk perishing in a job she hated, a quiet yes-girl, a nodding puppet: sweet, timid Laney who’d do anything for you but whose niceness made her a sucker, a scapegoat, a soft touch. Now, finally, she had the chance to make things different. She was mad to complain.

      But that wasn’t going to make this damned performance any easier.

      Laney