by Patricia Mar
“No, it’s not ok at all. And I don’t even want to have this sort of argument with you on the phone. Being so far apart is not helping, don’t you see?”
“Maybe we should postpone this discussion, then. We can have it when you’re back from Los Angeles.”
“Maybe we should, even though I’d rather not. But what I’d really like to do is…”
“What?”
“Kiss you. I’d like to kiss you and show you how I feel. I don’t think words are enough to express my feelings for you.”
All her anger and hurt suddenly disappeared. She realised that the situation was hard for both of them. “I’m so sorry that we argued. I didn’t mean to, but I was really hurting.”
“I’m so sorry, sweetheart. I wish I had known about that nonsense so that I could have done something to prevent it… Nothing has changed, I still want to marry you with all my heart.”
Sara finally smiled, although her deep bitterness hadn’t completely gone away. “Try and come back soon, you stupid bloody model. We are going to solve everything, because our love is true and profound.”
“I’ll be there tomorrow, and I’ll be all yours.”
“I’ll be here waiting for you, Daniel. I’ll love you forever.”
“Forever.”
23
Decision Time
When he got back to town, Daniel rushed straight over to Sara’s place and waited for her to get home. Luckily for him, Virginia was there at the apartment and she let him in. Although she seemed a little suspicious of him, they had a quick chat, and then she had to go out. It was a lucky coincidence, thought Daniel – he really wanted to have some time alone with Sara.
When Virginia had gone, he sat there thinking about how everything in that two bedroom apartment reminded him of his fiancée. The furniture, the decorations, every object – they were all in her style. He was eager to see her, although he wasn’t totally sure what he should tell her. Their last phone call had been painful because it had forced him to take a rational look at their relationship, and that was something he would have preferred not to have to do. After they’d spoken, he googled the picture that had upset Sara and realised that he couldn’t really blame her for getting upset with him. He would have done the same, and had the picture been of anyone except himself, he too would have thought they were kissing. Little did those paparazzi know how hard it had been to dodge that actress’s attempts to get her claws into him the whole evening: the woman was perfect, but only because she was completely artificial. She was made of plastic, just like a Barbie doll, and was as boring as hell to boot.
He felt as though his whole journey to the USA had been a huge mistake.
He was very well aware that had he seen a picture of Sara allegedly kissing another guy he would have reacted way worse than she had – she was right about that: he was jealous and afraid, and that was why he couldn’t stand the thought of his cousin fooling around with her.
All the things that had happened in the past couple of days had led him to wonder if they did trust each other enough.
And was it even just a question of trust anyway, or was it that being in love had made them fragile and in need of constant reassurance? They were more similar than he’d thought, even if they did live in two completely different worlds. They would have to find their own private space to share if they wanted things to work out between them. That was the only way they could save their relationship.
With his messy hair and two day’s growth of beard, Daniel looked uncharacteristically scruffy. He was sitting patiently on the sofa, leaning back with his eyes closed when he heard the door opening. His heart pounding in his chest, he sat up straight and looked towards it, knowing that he was about to see her and breathe in her fragrance again.
Finally, they saw each other.
Sara looked tired and the dark rings under her eyes told him that he wasn’t the only one who hadn’t been able to sleep well. She’d been suffering because of him when all he wanted was to make her happy. Were they really ready to be with each other?
Sara rushed towards him, and he jumped up and did the same. They hugged one another tightly for a long time, both feeling relieved.
“I’m so sorry, Daniel.”
“I’m sorry, too,” he replied, while caressing her and kissing her hair, which smelled of fruit shampoo. “I did see the picture in the end and I couldn’t believe it. I accused you of not trusting me, but I know now that you had no choice: that picture looks real. But it’s not.”
Sara caressed his demoralised face, “You’re back now, and everything is going to be fine. I’m so sorry that I doubted you.”
Daniel raised her hand to his lips and kissed it, and then led her over to the sofa. “We have to talk about this and make some decisions. We need to find a way to make sure nothing like that ever happens again. I don’t want us to have any doubts about each other.”
Never breaking eye contact, she nodded and took a seat at his side.
“I’ve been thinking a lot over the last few hours. Unfortunately my job forces me to live under the spotlight, even though I try very hard to keep the most precious parts of my private life private. But there’s only so much I can do, Sara. I’m a public personality, and that isn’t going to change.”
“I know. You don’t need to justify yourself to me.”
“I’m not, but I need you to realise that I’m always going to have the media’s attention. Photographers and reporters will always be curious, even obsessive, about me. They are going to take pictures of me at every party, public ceremony or whatever that I attend. And that’s why I’d like you to always be by my side. I don’t want to take part in anything any more if I have to go alone. Soon, you’re going to be my wife, so I think it’s only fair that you live this adventure with me. I want the world to know that we are, and always will be, together, and that nothing can separate us.”
Sara’s mouth fell open in surprise. She hadn’t expected him to be so determined. “You’re asking me to leave my job and follow you everywhere you go, right?”
“Yes, that’s exactly what I’m asking you. I’d wanted you to decide it for yourself, and I was willing to wait for you, but being so far apart changed everything. We both felt insecure while I was away, and that only happened because we were not together. All I want is to have my wife with me, is that too much to ask?”
“Maybe if all this wasn’t so ‘I want, I want, I want’, I’d feel a bit less…” said Sara, going red in the face. She stood up.
Daniel looked confused. “What do you mean?”
“All you seem to think about is what you want. Your wishes. How about what I want? My wishes, my dreams, my needs? Did you forget about them?”
“I thought we had the same dreams. Don’t you want to live with me and be my partner?”
“Of course I want to. But you’re only talking about your life, your job… What role will Sara De Michele play in all of this? Will she only be there to hold your hand? Will she have to live in her successful husband’s shadow?”
“She’ll be my wife, the only woman I love. The woman I want to share everything with, the woman I’m willing to turn my life upside down for.”
“Try and put yourself in my shoes for once: what would I become if I left my job? You fell in love with me – a normal girl with an ordinary life and an ordinary job. A control freak who is slowly learning to open herself up and not to let her insecurities and jealousy dominate her emotional life. A girl who constantly feels inadequate, especially next to you, who is so much better looking, the most perfect man ever! I need to have something of my own, something that’s just my own, even if it is a stupid job as a tourist guide. And anyway, I’m good at it, it’s fun and it pays the bills.”
Exasperated, Daniel stood up too. “You can’t be serious. Do you really want to stay here working as a guide forever? I’m travelling all the time… When would we meet? During our breaks? At the weekends? What sort of marriage would that be?”
“I didn’t ask you to change your life for me,” she said, feeling a lump in her throat. She was trying desperately not to cry, because she didn’t want him to feel pity for her. That discussion was long overdue and represented the biggest problem they had. They had to tackle it once and for all, for both their sakes.
“I know, I am the one asking you. Ok, I’m a bastard, okay, but let’s be honest: my job is very well paid and it allows us to live a luxurious life. We can both live comfortably off it.”
“I know you love your job and I know this is your life style. It’s part of who you are, and I don’t blame you for it.”
“But you don’t want to be part of it, right?”
“I just don’t want to lose myself completely. Loving someone else means you also have to accept them. You fell in love with me for what I am, I don’t understand how you can be surprised now that I don’t want to give up my whole life to become a sidekick nobody will ever even notice.”
“You’re not my sidekick, you’re my whole world! Why is it so bad to want you by my side? I just want to share every possible experience with you and to have an actual marriage.”
“How could it be a real marriage if we were constantly living on the move, without even having a permanent house? Those would be your experiences, not mine.”
“I am not saying that you shouldn’t have a job, but if you’re staying here in Rome, working five days a week, when will we have time to actually live our marriage?” he exploded. “I think you’re just being absurd!”
Sara knew that Daniel was right. She didn’t want him to stop being Daniel Gant, the most in demand male model on earth. It wouldn’t be fair to ask him to give up his career just so she could keep her job as a tourist guide. What hurt her, though, was that he hadn’t even tried to understand how hard it would be for her to just stand at his side without ever feeling like a fulfilled woman. Why didn’t he understand what her job meant to her? She wanted to feel independent and she would never be happy just being some doll he could show off at parties.
“Sara, I’ll ask you again to work for me. I need an assistant I can trust. You would be perfect, and you would know how to handle Marc, because sometimes I feel like strangling him!” he said, looking at her hopefully. He moved closer and smiled vaguely, knowing that there was no stepping back from that proposal. “You would be completely free to make your own decisions, and you’d have to work full time. Please think about it. A job like that would give you the opportunity to show the whole world your abilities and to be with me.”
Sara ran her fingers through her hair. Her heart was still pounding, faster and louder than ever. The future of their relationship lay completely in her hands now and she had to make a decision, but at that moment, she felt too confused. She was well aware that the offer was a good one – and the only one that could solve all of their problems.
“I love you with all my heart. Do you know that?”
“Yes,” whispered Daniel with tearful eyes. He felt as though he was about to lose her, and the thought of that prevented him from breathing. He was terrified.
“I need to think about it. I want to think about what we’ve said. Do you understand?”
Daniel bit his lip. “Aren’t the two of us enough for you?”
Finally, Sara burst into tears and couldn’t stop. She needed to make a big decision, but she couldn’t be rational while she was experiencing all those wild emotions. Maybe it wasn’t totally fair on her, but she couldn’t ask him to leave his job, it would be stupid. He had a career and she didn’t. It would probably always be that way: she would probably never have an important job in her life, but was that a good reason for letting him go? Was she being too stubborn or was there something else going on? Was it about her wanting to have a clear identity?
She wiped away her tears with the back of her hand while, looking insecure, Daniel watched her. He wiped the tears from his face too, then dragged her towards him and hugged her tightly again. They didn’t say another word, because they knew that if they carried on talking there was a good chance they would ruin everything irreparably, and neither of them wanted that to happen.
Daniel held her tight, trying very hard not to give in to his need to cry. He didn’t want to lose her. No amount of fame and celebrity would ever be able to compensate for a loss like that, and his life would be forever empty without Sara.
They stood there, embracing and unable to talk and preferring to believe that everything would solve itself. An hour later, Daniel left the apartment, telling her that she meant everything to him.
Sara believed him and she knew that she loved him just as deeply.
But was love going to be enough?
24
Deep in Conversation
Virginia and Sara were sitting on their respective beds with their legs crossed. They both looked thoughtful and gloomy.
They had been talking animatedly for quite some time, until night had fallen, immersing Rome in wind and rain. In their pyjamas, the girls were now thinking over everything that they had talked about. Sara was going through a lot, and she had really needed to speak to her sister so she could let off some steam and get some support in fighting her insecurities. After her argument with Daniel, she had to make a decision. She couldn’t avoid it, nor could they go on doing nothing and pretending that the problem would eventually solve itself just because they wanted it to.
After hearing what her sister and her fiancé had been arguing about, Virginia had sighed and said, “Look, I can understand that you have a million doubts, but are you really willing to lose him? Daniel Gant is the best thing that has ever happened to you, I wish I had a man like that in my life… A man who loves me, understands me and keeps me warm at night.”
“You’re such a poet…” Sara teased her.
“It’s the truth. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not mad about his attitude and I think that assuming you would just up sticks and follow him wherever he goes was really arrogant. But you have to compromise, there’s no other way to make things work. Do you really want to have a long distance relationship? And do you really want to give up the wedding you’ve always dreamt of for the sake of your job as a tour guide?”
“You know me better than that, and you know that it’s not the job that’s the problem. I just don’t want to forget who I am and end up disappearing behind his fame. We’d never really experienced first hand the consequences of him being so famous before, we were just hiding from what we knew we would eventually have to discuss. I have only been to a few events with him so far, so the paparazzi don’t usually even notice me. But when I become his wife, I’ll have to be at his side all the time, and I’m worried that will make me lose my sense of reality. I won’t be able to remember my former life at all.”
“Aren’t you going over the top a bit? I imagine that being famous makes a lot of things easier. There’ll be things in your life you’ll have to change, sure, but it’ll be worth it.”
“What if I change completely and he stops loving me exactly for that reason?”
Virginia put her hands in her hair and shook her head with frustration. “At this point, I can only think that it’s your fear talking for you. I agree with some of the things you’re saying, but it feels like you’re just using them to avoid the only thing that is really terrifying you.”
“And what would that be?”
“The fact that everything is going to change anyway and that you can’t control your future. The life you’ve had so far is going to end, and you can’t decide what your new life is going to be like. For the first time, you’ll have to wait and see how things go. It’s going to be a surprise, a complete novelty. If you want to be with Daniel you’ll have to adjust to whatever comes, though. All this scares you, but you can be certain that you won’t lose your identity in any case, unless you decide to. And you’re too stubborn to want to do that.”
The bedroom window shook with the wind, which hadn’t stopped blowing for a second, while
the rain rattled against it incessantly.
“I just love him so much! My heart melts whenever I think about him, and when he smiles at me I feel like I’m the luckiest woman on the planet.”
“That’s because you are,” said Virginia, going over to her sister’s bed and kneeling at her feet. “He’s your soulmate, and you shouldn’t let anything ruin your relationship with him!”
Sara smiled at her tenderly. “I know I often make things loads more complicated than they really are. I thought I’d got over that phase, but instead here we are, apparently.”
“Oh, I’m sure they’ll make Daniel a saint before he turns fifty for all the agonies he’s had to put up with having you as a partner for all his life. You, on the other hand, are never going to overcome your insecurities, I’m afraid, so all you can do is learn to live with them and try and keep your anxiety under control.”
“I reckon I should stop thinking that I’m so inadequate all the time. He loves me, why can’t I just accept it?”
“I have no idea,” chuckled Virginia, and they both burst out laughing and took each other’s hands.
“He asked me to work as his assistant. I think he understands that I need to do something useful, that I can’t be just a doll.”
“Listen, I agree that the way he presented this whole thing to you wasn’t great. He was presumptuous, or maybe he’s just used to getting whatever he wants whenever he asks, so he doesn’t feel the need to be a bit more sensitive about it. But he adores you and he knows you better than anybody else. He knows what you need, and he’s perfectly aware that you’re not just a pretty doll. And to be honest, I don’t think he’d even want you to be one, otherwise he would still be with Delphina.”
Sara winced at the sound of that name, but she had to admit that her sister was right. Daniel was in love with her and accepted her weaknesses. He loved her precisely because she was an ordinary person. She was his shelter, the person he could built a home with and around whom he didn’t need to wear a mask. With her he could be his real, unfiltered self. He could be at the same time an extremely resourceful, successful man and a fragile person that she had to protect and help to heal. As she thought about all this, she felt that the protective wall she had built was crumbling and that she could finally breathe properly.