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Character Profiles > Paige Smith Olympia Valance

Paige C Smith (aka. Paige Novak) 2014-
Lives: 32 Ramsay Street
Lived: 22, 24 Ramsay Street
Parents: Lauren Turner and Brad Willis, Mary and John Smith (Adoptive)
Siblings: Mason, Amber, Bailey, Ned, Joshua, Imogen, Piper, Ethan (Adoptive)
Occupation: Harold's Store Assistant

After being illegally adopted out to John and Mary Smith at birth, Paige and her adoptive brother Ethan were raised by the wealthy Smiths, and it was more than 20 years before her birth parents came looking for her. Paige was unaware that her adoption had taken place without the consent of her birth mother, Lauren, and that her biological father, Brad, hadn't even been aware of Lauren's pregnancy. When Lauren found out that the daughter she'd presumed dead - who she'd always known as Lily - was actually still alive, she'd told everything to Brad and they'd started a search, which eventually led them to the Smiths in Adelaide. After finding the house that was owned by the Smiths, Brad spoke to Ethan, who claimed that he was an only child, and that they had the wrong family. However, he then contacted Paige and told her that her biological father had just come looking for her, and had left his business card, along with Lauren's phone number.

Vivacious and impulsive, Paige decided to go to Erinsborough to meet the parents she'd never known, but she quickly realised that things were complicated. Lauren and Brad were both now married to other people, and had several other children between them, meaning that Paige also had two step-parents and seven half-siblings. Paige soon met a couple of those half-siblings - Brad's son, Josh and Lauren's daughter, Amber, who were dating - and she managed to immediately get on Amber's wrong side by flirting with Josh, not realising that they were related. Paige then finally came face to face with Lauren, her mother, and in order to get closer to her, she managed to score a job as a waitress at Harold's, the cafe that Lauren owned. She also booked a room at Lassiter's Hotel, making Brad's wife Terese, the hotel manager, suspicious when she paid with cash. After giving a false name, Paige Novak, as she checked in, Paige set about meeting her biological father. Brad managed the local Dingoes Den gym, and Paige arranged to join, where she also spent some more time flirting with Josh, only to learn later that he was Brad's son - her half-brother.

Paige continued to try and find out exactly why her parents were no longer a couple, asking some difficult questions to both Brad and Lauren in an attempt to get to the truth. But with little idea of how she ended up being adopted, and her parents ended up living on the same street but married to other people, Paige decided that she needed to get even closer to them, and when she saw that Mark Brennan was looking for someone to share his house - 24 Ramsay Street - she jumped at the chance, and made it very difficult for Brennan to turn her down. After moving onto Ramsay Street, Paige set about snooping at both the Willis and Turner houses, but was still no closer to figuring out her parents' complicated history. She did, however, begin to realise that Bailey was keeping things from his parents, when she saw him in the kitchen one morning and realised that he was hungover. Later that week, she spotted him taking $100 from the till at the store but, rather than say anything, she took the blame when the suspicion fell on her. In a parting shot with Lauren, Paige accused her of being a terrible mother and not knowing what was going on with her own kids. This prompted Lauren to start questioning Amber, who eventually opened up about Bailey's recent drinking. The whole incident had made Paige consider leaving town without revealing her true identity, but after chatting to a belligerent Bailey, and making him see that he was lucky to have parents who cared so much about him, she stuck around and even managed to patch things up with Lauren and get her job back at the store.

Though relations between Paige and Amber remained strained, she grew closer to Lauren, who told Paige that she was welcome at the Turner house whenever she wanted. Unfortunately, Paige chose the wrong moment to turn up unannounced, as she walked in on the family just as they were recovering from an emotional dinner, during which Matt had told his children about his father's alcoholism. Lauren politely asked Paige if she could come back another time, but furious at the rejection, Paige then went to Harold's, where she was rostered on to close up, and completely trashed the shop.

Paige managed to cover her tracks after that incident, with the Turners believing that some youths had gone in and trashed the place after Paige had accidentally forgotten to lock up. It wasn't long before she faced another crisis, however, when Ethan suddenly turned up in Erinsborough, worried that, in her frame of mind, his adoptive sister was about to do something stupid. Though pleased to have some emotional support, Paige knew that Ethan's presence could blow her secret wide open, if Brad happened to spot him. Things only grew more complicated when Ethan ended up kissing Imogen at the Willis house, and his influence led to Imogen skipping school and being stripped of her school captaincy. With Brad blaming Ethan for his daughter's behaviour and desperate to confront him, Paige realised that Ethan had to get out of town and sent him packing, narrowly avoiding her secret being revealed once again.

Paige then stumbled upon a new way in which she could reveal her true identity, when she got chatting to Lauren one day about an art project. Lauren was planning to enter a piece into the Women of Erinsborough art exhibition, on the subject of family, and was trying to find a way to include 'Lily' in the picture. Sharing her mum's love of sketching, Paige had been keeping a book with drawings of all of her new relatives - each with a couple of words underneath, describing that person. Paige decided that she was going to add another sketch of herself, and give it to Lauren to use in her picture, which would reveal who she really was. However, as Paige was preparing to put her heart on the line, she overheard Lauren talking to Susan about how she'd decided that the past was better left behind her, and that she should move on. Paige was upset to have missed her chance, but found support from housemate Brennan, who let her do some panel beating at the garage to release her anger, wrongly assuming that her frustrations came from her feelings for Ethan, which he didn't reciprocate.

When Bailey received a gift - a telescope from his grandmother - Paige agreed to help him to hide it, as he explained that his mum probably wouldn't let him keep it. As Paige chatted to Bailey about his complicated family situation, she finally learned the truth - that Lauren's mum, Kathy, had been the one responsible for Paige being given away at birth. Privately swearing revenge, Paige let slip the telescope secret to Lauren, and tried to find out more about Kathy. Lauren, meanwhile, decided that it might be time to allow her mum to come and visit Amber and Bailey, and Paige prepared to face the woman who'd completely altered the course of her life. She called Ethan, asking him to give Kathy's name to their parents and see if they recognised it - Ethan then turned up in Erinsborough again, worried that Paige was about to take revenge on Kathy. Paige admitted that she wasn't sure what to do just yet, but when Ethan asked her to join him for a year in Ibiza, she turned down the offer and said that she needed to find a way to get closer to Kathy. She managed to do that when she learnt that Kathy was planning to open a branch of her homewares business in Erinsborough, and explained that she was very interested in Kathy's business model and wanted to help her. Despite an awkward start to their relationship - with Paige knocking a drink all over her - Kathy was impressed with Paige's enthusiasm and agreed to show her the ropes. As Paige spent more time with Kathy, she found out that she had a heart problem, for which she was required to take regular medication. She filed this information away for future use, and was alarmed when, as they went through some paperwork, Paige found out that Kathy had hired a private investigator to track down her 'missing' granddaughter.

As Paige then 'accidentally' noticed the letter from the private investigator again in front of Kathy, she said that she didn't think that it was a good idea to try to find the girl, as Lauren had been through enough already. Kathy disagreed, and continued with her search, soon receiving a call from the investigator telling her that he'd found the missing girl. Paige was left concerned, until she found out that the girl in question was called Megan and lived in Canberra. When Megan came to see Kathy, Paige did her best to join their meeting, but Kathy asked for some privacy. However, as soon as Kathy left to go to the bathroom, Paige confronted Megan and said that she knew that this was either an accident or a con. Megan agreed to go for a walk with Paige, and later sent a text to a confused Kathy, apologising and saying that their meeting had been a mistake. The incident made Kathy suspicious of Paige, and when she learnt from Terese that Paige had been staying in a suite, and paying with cash, when she first arrived, she was further intrigued. Kathy asked Paige to join her on a visit to a supplier and, whilst waiting for her at number 24, she went through her bag and found a photo of Paige at an Adelaide boarding school. Later, Kathy stopped outside Grease Monkeys and sent Paige inside for coffee, taking the opportunity to look in her bag again. This time she found Paige's 'burn book' with the sketches of her parents and half-siblings, as well as one of Kathy, labelled 'Grandma Witch'. Finally realising Paige's true identity, she confronted her as she returned to the car, only for the stress to bring on a heart attack. Kathy was shocked as Paige went to her own bag for the heart pills, admitting that she'd stolen them the day before, and Kathy decided that she had to get to Lauren to tell her the truth. As she sped off in the car, Kathy hit Toadie, and the impact left her being strangled by her own scarf, which had earlier been caught in the car door.

Paige helped to free Kathy, and called an ambulance as Toadie cried in agony on the street outside. At the hospital, Kathy was found to have suffered a heart attack and Toadie had a fractured coccyx, but Paige escaped with minor bruises. When Matt came to the hospital and started asking questions about why Kathy's pills had been in Paige's bag, and Karl was confused by Paige's ID having a different surname to the one she'd been giving, she realised that she had to leave town quickly. After leaving a note for Brennan, and putting the two teddy bears on Lauren's doorstep, Paige headed for the airport. As her taxi failed to arrived, she walked to the bus stop, by which point Lauren had arrived home and worked out the truth. She gave chase, blocking Paige's bus with her car, and the two women sat at the side of the road, with Lauren amazed to realise that the instant connection she'd felt with Paige had gone much deeper than she's realised. Back on Ramsay Street, Brad was equally shocked to realise that his daughter had been living next-door the whole time, but he and Lauren quickly accepted Paige into their lives, with Kathy also willing to let bygones be bygones. Unfortunately, Imogen, Amber, Matt and particularly Terese weren't quite as willing to accept her, and Terese made it quite clear that she didn't trust Paige and would do everything in her power to prove that she was trouble.

As Paige slowly started to get to know Lauren and Brad properly, and managed to win over Josh, Terese's plan to get to the truth about Paige seemed to be working, when she found a witness who'd seen Paige running away from Harold's Store on the night it was trashed. Terese took this information to the police, and Matt was forced to take Paige in for questioning, much to Lauren's shock. As Paige admitted to trashing the store, she explained her reasons behind it, and Lauren was very understanding, and was more annoyed with Matt for bringing Paige in and humiliating her when it wasn't necessary. But as more information about Paige and her previous minor run-ins with the police came to light, Terese was more certain than ever that the girl was nothing but trouble, causing a divide between her and Brad. But as Terese, Imogen and Amber all struggled to accept Paige, she found herself unexpectedly growing closer to Brennan and others began to notice that their friendship was becoming flirtier than normal. After losing a bet, Brennan was forced to take Paige out for dinner, but as she excitedly waited for him, he'd been chatting to Sonya about the obvious attraction that was going on. Paige was then left very upset when Brennan stood her up and, as a storm approached Erinsborough, and Paige and Brennan prepared the house for the onslaught, he acted like nothing had happened and did his best to avoid being alone with her. However, when they were finally left in the house together, Paige confronted Brennan over his actions and the tension boiled over into a kiss.

Although still grieving for his fiancee Kate, and worried that he wasn't ready to move on, Brennan tried to make a go of things with Paige, even when she accidentally turned up to one of their dates wearing one of Kate's dresses, which she'd found in a charity shop. After getting through their initial problems, things seemed to be working out for Paige and Brennan, and she even began to think that she was in love with him, but was left upset when he suddenly started acting secretively, and she mistakenly believed that he was cheating on her with Dakota Davies. Paige's jealous reaction brought an end to the relationship, and she moved out of number 24 and back into the hotel. Terese quickly offered Paige a place to stay with the Willises, surprising everyone, as the two women had been struggling to get along for weeks, and things had worsened when it had been revealed that Brad and Lauren had shared a kiss whilst in Adelaide looking for their daughter. It soon emerged that Terese had decided that having Paige to stay was better than the alternative, as if Paige had moved in with the Turners, then Brad would have been at number 32, and spending time with Lauren, a lot more often. Paige then found herself living with the Turner family, where life was no less tense than with Terese, mainly due to Matt and Lauren's marital problems, and the news that Amber was now engaged to Daniel.

As she attempted to build relationships with her new half-siblings - particularly with Amber, who continued to resent her presence - and met another new relative when Brad's father Doug came for a visit, Paige held onto the hope that she and Brennan might still reunite, and was left very upset as she realised that his attempts to be nice to her were nothing more than friendship, and that he believed that their brief relationship had been a mistake.

Trivia Notes
• Olympia Valance is the half-sister of Holly Valance, who appeared as Neighbours' Flick Scully between 1999 and 2002
• Between episodes 6896 and 6942, Paige's surname was credited as Novak. From episode 6943 onwards, she was credited as Paige Smith