Rickola

Rickola | Chapter Six

Rickola | Chapter Six

© Katelyn Moore

           Rick, can you give us your best Australian accent?

I looked up at the sound of his name. There, on the television, was Rick Avery, smiling out of the screen and straight at me. He wore his dazzling grin—the one that made his fan-girls swoon—as he greeted the camera. He looked beautiful, as always, but I couldn’t help giggling at his response.

          G’day, mate.

I never fully understood why people said ‘G’day’ when they thought of Australia. I mean, barely anyone here said it all, unless you went out west or to the bush. The older generations and the country folk were really the only ones left with such a hearty spirit, which made it funny when foreigners attempted what they thought was a typical Aussie accent.

Everyone failed, just as Rick had.

“What are you laughing at?” demanded Bianca. She glared at me from the other side of the room where she lounged on a beanbag.

I shook my head and smiled, shying away from her incredulous gaze. “Nothing.” She need not know that I spent a good half hour yesterday mimicking the supposed accent of her celebrity crush. In between signing the shirts with his face printed on them and telling me he was leaving for Queensland in the morning, Rick had admitted that Australia wasn’t what he thought it would be. He hadn’t seen a single kangaroo or Crocodile Dundee, and he definitely hadn’t heard what he thought was an Australian accent. Apparently, I didn’t even have one.

But neither did he.

Rick Avery certainly didn’t sound like I thought he would. I had seen him act in a dozen films, so it shouldn’t have surprised me. Australia and America indulged in almost all the same things—music, movies, television—so we spoke with similar, although slightly different, accents. The fact that I was a city girl made that easier to comprehend. His accent wasn’t so strange either; I was just expecting something a little more southern. It was a completely ridiculous assumption considering Rick was born and raised in California.

It was true. The internet told me so.

Rick answered a few more questions for the Behind the Star crew that had caught up with him at the airport before leaving to catch his flight. He was gone and all I had left now were memories, and of course, the opportunity to gush over him anytime I wanted!

I looked back down at the computer on my lap and stared idly at the screen as my mushy brain processed the glorious images of a certain Hollywood heartthrob. Snapshots of Rick at photo shoots, pictures of him on film sets, from his ventures into the real world, and even a few from his arrival at Sydney Airport a few days ago, covered every single inch of it.

I felt a jolt of excitement when I spotted myself in the background of one particular image. His fans surrounded him—I couldn’t see any faces, but I spotted Kylie, Bianca and Asher straight away—and in the far corner of the image was a head of fuzzy brown hair, and the outline of a girl. Me. The fact that I was in a picture with Rick Avery made me feel fuzzier then Myles’ head, fuzzier than my face in the background.

I had spent most of the morning researching—no, stalking—Rick Avery. It was a stupid thing to do, and a total waste of my time, but I couldn’t seem to pull myself away.

Stupid, stupid, stupid!

I should have known better than to spend my time like this. Rick was gone, and even though I knew he would be coming back to Sydney, I was never going to see him again. Besides, he was in Queensland for an entire week; if he hadn’t already, Rick would forget all about me by the time he returned. The Sunshine State was a goldmine for beautiful women. What would Rick Avery do with a silly, little schoolgirl like me?