The Hollywood Effect by Marin Harlock Read Free Book Online Page B

casually at Liam who was standing there, a bit like a lump. He shook himself.  
    “Of course you can,” Liam said with a disarming grin that he seemed to pull out of nowhere.  
    “And a photo too?” one of the girls asked hopefully.
    “Sure thing,” Liam smiled.  
    Somehow I ended up as the designated photographer, and took over a dozen photos of the girls and Liam, going through all their phones. Of course, they all needed their own photo. The girls stared avidly up at Liam and I did my best not to laugh at them. After handing them back all their phones, and after they all got a quick hug from Liam (Marnie went back for two) they walked us to my car and waved us off. I glanced over at the paparazzi on the other side of the avenue. Their cameras had been pointed at us the whole time.  
    I led our trusty followers out of town, past the high school and up to the cemetery.  
    “Are they really going to follow us into a cemetery? It seems wrong somehow,” I said.  
    Liam shrugged. “We’ll see.”  
    Some of them did. We tried to ignore them. It was a pretty spot, the Tarang cemetery, one of the nicest cemeteries that I’d been to. It was on a hill outside of town, and there was a lovely, peaceful view over the dry lake bed that was now home to the golf course, cricket club and pony club. You could see most of the town, and out over the paddocks to Mt Ngoora. It was all very green and pretty at this time of year.  
    “I hope they’re enjoying the view,” I said.  
    “Yeah.”  
    We walked slowly down the slope to where our friend’s grave was waiting for us. I absentmindedly reached for Liam’s hand. He gave it a quick squeeze and smiled down at me.  
    The graves had grown again. There was a whole new row that had been filled up since Grant had been buried here six years ago. It seemed like too much for such a small town. My mum was one of them. That still seemed surreal at times. Even now, almost two years after she’d died, I still sometimes expected her to call me, or to pick up the phone when I dialled home, or like my latest post on Facebook, or send me some silly email about the benefits of turmeric and how I should put it in all my food.  
    Fucking aneurysm.  
    We stopped in front of Grant’s grave. There were already fresh flowers on the headstone. I imagined his parents had already been up here this morning. I saw Grant’s mum rather regularly these days. Her eyes still looked so sad and haunted. I wondered if mine looked like that sometimes, too.  

    Grant Matthew Fitzgerald  
    29-03-1990 - 25-04-2009
    Our clever, loyal son
    Beloved son of Debbie and John
    Loving brother of Isabelle and Chloe
    Never forgotten.  

    We carefully laid down one of the bunches of flowers.  
    “Hard to believe it’s been six years,” Liam said again.  
    “I know.”  
    “So much has changed.”  
    “I know,” I said.  
    “What do you reckon he’d be doing now? If they hadn’t...”  
    “I don’t know. He didn’t sound so sure about engineering when we were hanging out those holidays,” I said.  
    “Yeah... I dunno, either. He’d been flip flopping between engineering and trying to transfer into med. Maybe he’d be a doctor. ”  
    His life had been cut so short. Grant had only been eighteen. We’d only been at uni for a few short weeks. All that work, all the study to get there... and a month and a bit into it a freak car accident takes it all away. It wasn’t fair.  
    “I mean, who could have predicted back then that I’d become a teacher at Tarang High and be stalked by paparazzi for one weekend?” I tried to joke.  
    “Yeah, who knows, maybe Grant’s music career would have taken off,” Liam said with a sad smile. Grant had been a pretty good guitar player, and was pretty wicked on the old recorder. I’d never realised you could make that instrument actually sound good until he’d played a few tunes on it.  
    I laughed. “He could have led the recorder revival.”