The Hollywood Effect Read Free Page A

grabbed my jacket off the backseat, and set off at a brisk walk to the pub. It was only two blocks away. Another good thing about Tarang. No excuse for drink driving here! I think everyone in the entire town must be within walking distance of a pub. We had four. For twelve hundred people. I didn’t want to think about what that ratio meant.  
    The Wheatsheaf was its usual bustling self. It hadn’t changed much since I’d turned 18 and started coming here. Friday nights were good for business. I smiled and waved at Nikki, the bartender, when she looked my way. She’d been a year ahead of me at school and we’d had a few classes together.  
    “How’s it going, Jen? What can I get you?”
    “Yeah good thanks, Nikki. Ummm.” I scanned the taps. For a small country pub, they had a pretty good selection I had to admit. “I’ll just have a pot of cider for now, thanks.”  
    “No worries. Did you want to start a tab?”  
    I grinned. “Yeah sure.” I glanced around at some of the familiar, vaguely familiar and not so familiar faces. “Are Jacinta and Veronica here?”  
    “Yeah, I think they’re in the dining room.” Nikki placed the cider in front of me.  
    “Awesome, thanks.” I picked up my mug, and careful not to spill any, made my way through the crowd around the bar and into the dining room. It was a little bit quieter in there, but not much. Must be someone’s birthday , I thought, looking at the long table that had been pushed together and the crowds of people surrounding it. A lot of them looked alike. Some of them I vaguely recognised from the Catholic school. We saw a lot of them at school sports, and they caught the same school buses us state school kids did, so they were often hanging around out the front of our school, waiting for their bus.  
    I spotted Jacinta, Veronica and Simon huddled in the far corner of the room. Jacinta looked up and waved to me.  
    I ambled over, nodding to Mr O’Connor, the local green grocer. Veronica pulled out the seat next to her.  
    Truth be told, I’d had a vague girly-crush on Veronica when I was a student. She’d started teaching at the school when I was in Year 11; she was my biology teacher. She was gorgeous, with her bright blue eyes, sleek black hair and high cheek bones. Her fashion sense stood out amongst our compulsory, daggy, school uniforms (Dan had feigned shock when he’d seen me in a bikini when we were 16 - claimed he’d always thought I was a scrawny boy under the baggy school jumper I was forced to wear everyday) and the older teachers drab clothes. I’d gotten to know her better after she joined the local netball team, and some of the mystique faded away, although I still   respected her a lot. I’d been her best student in Year 12, and we’d caught up a few times in the intervening years. It was nice to have a friendly face in the staffroom that didn’t just see me as a former student, but as an adult in my own right. Some of the other teachers seemed to be struggling with that part…  
    “So, you survived your first week then!” Veronica throatily laughed. Simon, her husband (a primary school teacher) smiled warmly at me.  
    “Yeah, just.”
    “Well, cheers to that!” Veronica raised her glass and we all clinked.  
    “Have you eaten yet, Jen?” Jacinta asked, passing me a menu.  
    “Yeah, actually. I had a bite to eat with Dad.”  
    “Good, ‘cause we already ordered.”  
    I grinned, and then groaned as Matt Rivers came waltzing into the dining room. Thankfully he ignored me and just headed to a table, followed closely by a blonde woman who I thought I saw at the house, and an older man I hadn’t seen before.  
    “What?” Jacinta demanded, looking over her shoulder at where I was staring. I broke my gaze away and shook myself.  
    “Nothing. Just one of those paparazzi vultures that was stalking Liam’s parents’ house this afternoon. He tried asking me if I knew Liam.”  
    Jacinta turned in her seat