Chasing Daisy

Johnny like mad just makes it even more exciting.
    Davey drives through the gates into Bel Air, the haven of the rich and famous.
    ‘That’s where Elvis used to live,’ he points out, as we start to climb the hill via ever-more-impressive mansions. I try to catch a glimpse of the groomed gardens behind the high walls and hedges.
    The ache in my head seems to have been replaced by butterflies in my stomach. I wipe the perspiration from my brow and tell myself it’s just the side effects of too much alcohol.
    We continue climbing upwards, then suddenly Davey is pulling up outside imposing wooden gates. Cameras point ominously down at us from steel pillars on either side of the car. I feel like I’m being watched and have a sudden urge to put my window back up. Davey announces our arrival into a speakerphone and a few seconds later the gates glide open. My hands feel clammy.
    The driveway isn’t long, but it feels like it goes on forever. Trees obscure the house at first, but then we turn a corner and it appears in front of us.
    It’s a modern architectural design: two storeys, white concrete, rectangular, structured lines.
    Davey pulls up and gets out to open my door. I stand there, trying to control my nerves, as he lifts my suitcase out of the boot. The enormous and heavy wooden front door swings open and a short, plump, pleasantly smiling Hispanic-looking woman is standing beside it.
    ‘Now then! Who have we got here?’ She beams and I like her immediately. ‘I’m Rosa,’ she says, ‘and you must be Meg.’
    ‘Hello. . .’
    ‘Come on in!’
    Davey wishes me goodbye and good luck and I follow Rosa inside, to a large, bright hallway. We go through another door at the end and I stop in my tracks. Floor-to-ceiling glass looks out onto the most perfect view of the city, hazy in the afternoon sunshine. A swimming pool out on the terrace sparkles cool and blue.
    ‘Pretty spectacular, ain’t it?’ Rosa smiles as she surveys my face.
    ‘Amazing,’ I agree.
    I wonder where The Rock Star is.
    ‘Johnny’s away on an impromptu writing trip,’ Rosa tells me.
    Oh.
    ‘He won’t be back until tomorrow,’ she continues, ‘so you’ve got a little time to get yourself unpacked and settled in. Or even better, out there by the pool . . .’ She nudges me conspiratorially.
    I lift the handle on my suitcase and try to ignore my disappointment as Rosa leads me into the large, double-height open-plan room. The hi-tech stereo system and enormous flatscreen TV in the corner tell me it’s the living room. Furniture is minimal, modern and super, super cool.
    I’m impressed. In fact, I’m feeling less and less blasé about this job by the minute, and that’s not helping my steadily swirling nerves.
    ‘The kitchen is over there,’ Rosa says, pointing it out behind a curved, frosted-glass wall. ‘That’s where I spend most of my time. I’m the cook,’ she explains before I get the chance to ask. ‘I try to feed that boy up. If I were a bartender I’d have a lot more joy. He likes his booze, that one.’ She chuckles good-naturedly as we arrive at the foot of the polished-concrete staircase.
    ‘Are you okay with that, honey?’ She glances back over her shoulder at my suitcase.
    ‘Yes, fine!’
    ‘We should really have a butler here, but Johnny don’t like a lot of staff,’ she continues, as she climbs the stairs ahead of me. ‘It’s not that he’s stingy, mind, he just likes us to be a tight-knit family.’ She turns right. ‘Your room is over here. Johnny’s got the big one at the other end, and behind them doors there you’ve got your guest rooms and Johnny’s music studio.’ She points them out as we go past. ‘Your offices are downstairs, in between the kitchen and the cinema.’
    Sorry, did she just say cinema?
    ‘I’ll show you round later,’ she adds, slightly out of breath now.
    ‘Do you live here, too?’ I ask.
    ‘Oh no, honey, I got a family to go home to. Apart from the security staff, you’re the only one who’ll be here overnight. And Johnny, of course. Okay,’ she says, clapping her hands together as we reach the door at the end. ‘This is you.’ She turns the stainless-steel knob and pushes the heavy metal door open, standing back to let me pass.’
    My room is so bright and white that I want to put my shades on. Windows look out over the leafy trees at the back of the house and a giant super-king-size bed is in the centre, covered by a pure white bedspread.