Pamela Anderson - Star Struck

“What is going on?” Skip demanded, rising and storming to the door. “Where is an ambulance?”

“It’s complicated,” the shop steward said with a shrug.

“No, it isn’t,” Skip said. “It’s 911. How hard is that?”

“Well, the insurance guys are unclear on whose responsibility it is,” Steph explained, covering the mouthpiece of his cell.

“Are you kidding me with that?” Skip snorted. “Well, I’m not sure that it makes any difference whose fucking responsibility—”

There was familiar tire-squealing in the near distance, and a hush fell over the group.

“Thank God,” Skip said, folding his arms.

Jimi drove the car up to the trailer at full speed, knocking over a catering table and some lighting equipment that had been in his way. Without a word he leaped from the car, stormed into the trailer, swept Star into his arms, and carried her out where JC helped him get her into the tiny sports car.

The first of three ambulances arrived just as Jimi was pulling away; two followed the car to the hospital, carrying friends and crew, as did the insurance van.

As always, Jimi’s reaction was unexpected. Suddenly serious and quiet, he pumped the doctors for information, was at Star’s side as much as they would allow him, and even sometimes when they wouldn’t. When he wasn’t at her side, he was just outside whatever door she was behind, sitting on the floor if no chair was available. And then only when he was too tired to pace.

“You really do love her, don’t you,” Billy said, arriving with an order from Starbucks to fuel the little group huddled in the waiting area.

“Dude,” Jimi said, a couple of tears escaping in a puff of what might have been a laugh, “what would you do if it was Skip?”

Billy was so touched and overwrought that he hugged Jimi.

“That may be the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me,” Billy snuffled, breaking the hug abruptly and getting back to the coffee.

“Don’t let it get around,” Jimi said quietly, glad of the comfort. He was truly worried about Star. And he felt guilty for not being there when she’d needed him.

“Mr. Deed?” the doctor said, emerging from the room. “She’s awake and she’s asking for you.”

Without a word Jimi rushed past the doctor and into the room. Kneeling beside the bed, he put his arms around Star, more or less lying across her and the bed.

“Jimi,” she said quietly, stroking his hair. “Get off of me, you’re hurting me, babe.”

“Oh, sorry,” he said, sitting up, afraid to touch her at all.

She took his hand and kissed it.

“As long as you two are here,” the doctor said, closing the door and following Jimi into the room, “I’ve got some news about Mrs. Deed’s condition.”

“So, what’s up, Doc?” Star asked with a little giggle, unable to resist the line.

“Is it serious?” Jimi said, the color draining from his face, feeling as though he might fall.

“Well, yes,” the doctor said evenly. “Star had an ovarian cyst about the size of a grapefruit, which burst. There was a loss of blood and drop in blood pressure.”

“And a lot of pain,” Star put in.

“Yes, and everything looks good,” the doctor went on. “The bleeding is stopped and we’re running some tests, but we’re optimistic. We’ll take care of the surgical correction through the belly button, and she should be up and around soon.”

“Oh, that’s great, Doc,” Jimi said, shifting nervously from one foot to the other.

Star only sighed, too tired for much more.

“The bad news is, you miscarried,” the doctor concluded solemnly.

“Miscarried?” Jimi repeated, disbelieving.

“You mean I was—” Star’s tears cut her off.

“Pregnant.” The doctor nodded. “But not for very long.”

Jimi held Star until she fell asleep, the realization of what they’d lost hitting them again and again.

Inquiries from the film’s producers about Star’s return to the set arrived at the hospital within hours. She was too stunned to reply.

As soon as the doctors gave Star the all clear, Jimi sneaked her out the back door of the hospital with the laundry and into Star’s Range Rover. Jimi had arranged for Theresa and JC to park the room-sized ride by the loading dock, thinking it would be more comfortable for Star than his cramped sports coupe. JC brought Jimi’s car around to the front door of the hospital, and the press cued up to capture the moment. The ploy was pretty successful and they thought they were home free as they made their way to hide out at their unfinished beachfront home.

They didn’t talk much. Jimi didn’t know what to say and Star was too tired to speak. She took his hand as he drove toward home down the familiar stretch of Pacific Coast Highway, PCH as it’s better known to the locals, wedged between the beach on one side and the sheer rock face of the mountains into which the road was carved.

“Thanks for getting me out of there,” she sighed, curling up in her seat.

“Nothing to it,” he said, raising her hand to his lips and kissing it gently. “I’m just glad you’re okay.”

A dark Ford Explorer darted in front of them without warning, and Jimi swerved, nearly plastering their car into the man-made cliff that ran along the shoulder, before rebounding back onto the highway. He flipped off the driver just in time to get his picture taken by the paparazzi inside.

The Explorer played a dangerous game of cat and mouse with the Range Rover in the four lanes of busy traffic on a winding and unforgiving roadway that offered little margin for error. Jimi tried to outrun the carload of paparazzi, but they caught up and cut them off again and again.

Star was screaming and crying, overwrought from an emotional day and the terror of the chase. Jimi too was screaming and overwrought, but his emotions took a more violent turn as he shouted profanities and picked up the speed of the chase.

Finally, patience ran out. On his last pass to gain the lead, he cut in front of the photographers’ car, forcing them off the road, where they hit a parked car and the stone cliff wall before crumpling to a rest. Just as quickly, Jimi had stopped the Range Rover and was running toward them with a tire iron in his hand, Star close behind. The stalkers, unable to get their car restarted, rolled up their windows and locked their doors as they braced for attack.

Star began trying to kick in the driver’s door as Jimi began smashing every piece of glass on the car—the headlights, the mirror, the taillights.

“We love you, Star!” the car’s occupants screamed in their defense.

“Fuck you, you assholes!” she shouted in her blind rage. “You almost killed us. Fuck you!”

As the windshield shattered into a spiderweb of broken glass, the car’s occupants’ dog jumped up on the dashboard and began barking in loyal defense of his indefensible masters.

“Jimi, stop, there’s a dog!” Star screamed, leaping back from the car where she had been trying to break the driver’s window.

It was an act of will, and he took a couple of swipes, denting the car’s hood, before he gave it up entirely, but Jimi let it go. Together the two raced away, frightened more by their own rage than by the accident.

Afraid of retaliation for the incident and on the run from the relentless film producers, they returned briefly to the hotel in Pasadena to get a few things and plan a getaway.

But it was not to be.

Still shaken from the experience on PCH, they headed for the hotel bar to get a drink to settle their nerves. One quiet drink was all they managed.

Jimi’s cell rang.

“It’s JC,” he said, checking the phone. “I’m going to take this one and find out what’s going on.”