by Mandy Baggot
‘Just a nice dress,’ Lara said again. ‘Something that doesn’t make me look like one of those people who pretend to be statues in the street and scare the hell out of people when they move.’ She sucked in a breath. ‘But something that doesn’t look like “girl from the farm trying too hard”.’
‘I’ll be back,’ Susie said, leaping up and heading out of the changing rooms for the shop floor.
Lara slumped down onto the small, round pouffe of a seat and took her phone out of her jacket pocket. It was likely her friend was going to be ages scouring the dress racks, probably finding some other items she couldn’t do without – like a popcorn-holder or a tissue-grip. She clicked on to Twitter. She’d posted a photo of Chinatown last night, the dancing dragon and some acrobats they had seen on their way back from delicious dim sum. Seth had been in the photo too, just at the corner, clapping in appreciation. The first thing she saw was that she had several notifications, more than several, probably the most notifications she had ever had. She pressed on the bell icon and began to read:
Seth Hunt says he and the woman everyone is calling Lemur Girl, after that dramatic tree rescue at Central Park Zoo, are nothing more than just good friends. The former Manhattan Med star strongly denied rumours of any romance on the eve of the premiere of Gemstone Pictures, The End of Us. Seth, who plays gay writer Garth Mandelson in the movie, is also hotly tipped to take the lead role in an upcoming Universal picture about a man searching for the truth about his parentage …
She was tagged in the tweet, as was Seth. Just good friends. She felt sick. Was this real? Last night they had spent over an hour saying goodnight. The kisses had been hotter than the Szechuan sauce they’d eaten. What was going on?
Fifty-Five
Norma’s Corner Coffee Shop, Queens
‘You OK?’ Kossy asked, putting her hand over Seth’s. He had stopped sipping from his double espresso a while back, as every time he lifted it to his mouth his hands were shaking so much he was in danger of spilling coffee all over his shirt.
‘Yeah,’ he replied. ‘And no.’
‘I hear you,’ Kossy answered. ‘I know I can’t be feeling exactly the same way as you, but I haven’t seen Candice for …’
‘Twenty-eight years,’ Seth offered.
Kossy nodded.
The coffee shop had been Candice’s choice. She said it was quite close to her home. That maybe it was better to meet somewhere that wasn’t her place or their place. Neutral ground. Not that Seth envisaged any sort of battle in this cosy eatery decked out with as much festive flavour as could fit into its confines. The red awning out front with the symbol of a hummingbird as its insignia didn’t signal hostility but perhaps was almost a symbol of peace.
‘Is this her?’ Kossy asked as a woman in her mid-forties pushed at the glass front door.
‘Mom, you’re asking me like I’m gonna know. I don’t know her. I’ve never seen her. You’ve seen her.’
‘Twenty-eight years ago,’ Kossy said again.
The woman was wearing smart dark trousers and a light pink silk blouse underneath a thick dark woollen coat. Her dark hair was short, tucked behind both ears, her cafe-au-lait skin virtually unlined. But then Seth took a closer look, her stance, something in the lilt of her walk and then, her eyes … He stood up, making his presence known. Clearing his throat, he spoke. ‘Candy?’
The woman turned then, facing their table and she smiled, a beautiful smile, as her eyes filled up with tears. ‘Seth,’ she breathed.
Somehow, between the hugs and the kisses and the crying and the amazed looks from all parties, they had managed to order more coffees and the waitress had also delivered a selection of sandwiches they hadn’t requested. Kossy was nibbling at them and Seth knew that was because she didn’t want to talk too much and filling her mouth with food was the only way to stop words from coming out.
‘You have questions,’ Candice said softly. ‘I mean, I know that, Seth. I know you’re gonna have a lot of questions for me and …’
‘Listen,’ he replied. ‘We don’t have to talk about anything you feel uncomfortable with today … Candy.’ It felt odd using her name like that. His mother’s name.
She smiled at him. ‘You’ve been brought up so well. I knew you would do that for him, Kossy. I knew that from the moment I first met you. I’d been to other shelters, you know, while I was pregnant, but it was like, when I met you, I just knew … I knew you were gonna be the woman I left my baby with.’
Seth heard Kossy swallow, knew every emotion would be swirling around inside of her. He watched her take another triangle of sandwich.
‘Seth,’ Candice said, drawing his attention back to her. ‘I want you to ask me whatever you want to ask me. I mean it. You deserve to know whatever I can tell you. I want to do that for you.’
Seth swallowed. He had at least a million questions to ask her, about her life on the streets back then, about her life now, whether she was married, if she had children, but there were only two questions that were burning to be asked above all others.
‘So, was I a twin?’ he blurted out.
‘A twin?’ Candice looked completely bewildered, as if she didn’t even understand the concept.
‘Um,’ Kossy said, trying to swallow away the sandwich. ‘Seth is asking because, when you … left him … at the shelter, there was another hat next to him, in the box.’
‘Another hat?’ Candice queried.
‘I … tried to find you, Candice,’ Kossy continued. ‘I looked for you, all over, I asked Earl and others at the shelter at the time to look for you, I called child protection services, but there was no sign of you. It was like you’d vanished.’
‘And there was no Facebook back then,’ Candice sighed. ‘Well, if there was, the whole world certainly didn’t use it.’ She shook her head then looked at Seth. ‘No, sweet boy, you weren’t a twin. I just left everything I had for you with you. There was a blanket someone had made for me, a couple of hats, some mittens and the clothes you had on … nothing else. Kossy, you know how things were for me.’
‘If I could have found you, Candice, I would have helped you, you know that. We might have found a way to work things out somehow.’
Candice smiled at his adopted mother. ‘And that’s why I didn’t stick around. That’s why I never asked you to take my son, just left him for you.’ She sighed. ‘Because, if I had, you would have tried to make me keep the baby …’ She stopped, looked to him. ‘Keep Seth … and you would’ve signed me up to some programme I wouldn’t have been able to stick to.’ She took a breath. ‘Because you are a good person. And you would have thought that me being with my son was the best thing, no matter what my circumstances. But I know, in my heart, that life would have been nothing but shit for him if he’d stayed with me. And he deserved more.’
‘Who’s my father?’ Seth interrupted.
He watched her expression carefully. He didn’t know her at all. He had to try and work out from her face whether she was being honest. But, why wouldn’t she be truthful? She didn’t even have to be here …
‘I don’t know,’ Candice said quietly.
Seth swallowed, then quickly followed it up with a nod. It was what he had expected, given her lifestyle and her job.
‘I’m sorry, Seth. I wasn’t a great person back then. The life I led, the job I had … you know what I did for a job, right?’ Tears were falling from her eyes now. Full of regrets, shame maybe. He didn’t want her to feel that way.
‘I know,’ he whispered. ‘It’s fine.’
Kossy reached for another sandwich, pushing it between her lips.
‘It’s not fine. None of my life was fine. It was shit. Just like I said.’ Candice wiped at her eyes with the back of her hand, then wrapped her fingers around her coffee cup. ‘Your father could be anyone – from another homeless bum like I was, to my pimp, or any of the fancy businessmen I used to see regularly, although they were always pretty careful.’
‘It’s OK.’ Set
h reached across the table for her hand. Her fingers were small and slender, her skin darker than his … she seemed a little frail, like someone who had spent her days on earth battling through her life and was now completely exhausted.
‘Your eyes,’ Candice said, emotion coating her voice. ‘I knew they were like mine but, seeing them now, with you here, this close …’ She didn’t finish the end of her sentence, maybe she couldn’t, and Seth quickly got up and went across the other side of the table to put his arms around her.
‘It’s OK. I feel the same.’ He held her close and glanced to Kossy who was nodding and looking like she had never been prouder.
Fifty-Six
5th Avenue
Lara couldn’t believe the reflection looking back at her from the mirror was her own.
‘Wow!’ Susie commented. ‘I mean, seriously, wow … like full-blown Kardashian-wow.’
The dress was bright red with a scalloped neckline and it smoothed over Lara’s curves before dropping down to the floor in a full skirt. But what gave it the X-factor was the slit up one side that revealed just enough leg to make it sultry, rather than full-on sexy. She had never imagined herself being able to look this way. It was both invigorating and sad, because she couldn’t get the online article out of her mind.
‘Is this all pointless?’ she asked Susie.
‘Buying a beautiful dress to wear to a film premiere with the most gorgeous man imaginable, apart from my David, that is. If he is still going to be my David, you know, as he obviously wants to throw away potential apartment deposits on presents for his abuela.’
‘The article! All over Twitter! Just good friends!’
Lara had shown the news to Susie when she’d come back into the dressing room with a dress ripe for Helena Bonham Carter or Princess Eugenie but not for her, and Susie had immediately dismissed it as ‘crap’. The report, not the dress. Susie had actually liked that dress …
‘Lara, he’s a celebrity! Don’t you know the rules of celebrity?’
‘Apparently not,’ Lara answered, turning herself sideways and flattening the fabric with her hand as if she was ironing out body creases. She didn’t know anything about celebrity apart from the fact that you apparently got the green light to call yourself one if you’d been on a reality TV show …
‘Well, let me enlighten you. The bare facts are: what a celebrity says on social media is the exact opposite of what they mean.’
‘How does that work?’ Lara asked, looking at her friend with confusion. ‘So, when they say they support worthy causes … they don’t support worthy causes?’
‘No! Don’t be stupid! Not like that! News about them. Like when Bill Clinton went all “I did not have sex with that woman”, he was literally saying “yeah, I shagged her”.’
‘Well, why would he do that?’
‘Bill Clinton?’
‘No, Seth.’
‘Duh! To protect you. If everyone thinks you’re “just good friends”, then people aren’t going to be following you around or wondering what you’re getting up to with your hot Chinese sauce kisses and your almost-sex.’
Lara let out a heavy sigh, going back to looking at herself in the mirror. ‘I don’t know. Maybe this is a sign that I’m moving on too quickly.’
‘Come on, Lara, you didn’t come here to bag a rebound guy. You came here to get away from Dan and his terrible treatment of you. Meeting Seth and getting to know him, it wasn’t planned—’
‘It sort of was. The tweets and the messages, remember?’
‘I know but then it was just over-the-top resilience and sucking it to Dan. Somewhere between a lemur and a burrito on Broadway things really changed.’
Yes, they had. She felt that every time she looked at Seth. Her heart literally packed its case and headed for the stars. Susie had to be right about this, didn’t she?
‘Have you called him?’ Susie asked.
‘No, I can’t,’ Lara said. ‘Not yet, anyway. He’s meeting his birth mother today in Queens. It’s a huge deal for him.’
‘See,’ Susie said. ‘You know everything about his life. He’s sharing all that with you. Ignore this online bullshit because that’s exactly what it is … the poop of a toro.’
‘Susie, you do know you’ve said two Spanish words in a matter of seconds, right?’
‘Have I?’ Her friend looked a little sheepish.
‘Please sort things out with David. He’s a good guy. He’s your guy. Don’t throw things away just because he wants to treat his granny. Men who are nice to their grandmothers should be celebrated not … threatened with scissor-sabotage.’
As she finished her sentence Lara’s phone made a bleep from her jacket pocket.
‘See!’ Susie exclaimed. ‘That will be Seth worrying that you’ve seen the bull-poo article and wanting to reassure you.’
Lara bent down, the dress skirt almost covering the entire floor like she was Cinderella, and pulled her phone from the pocket of her jacket on the ground.
‘What does he say? What time is the limo coming to pick you up? You are getting a limo, aren’t you?’
Lara looked up from the phone, a sick feeling invading her gut. ‘It’s not from Seth,’ she said, the words almost sticking to her lips. ‘It’s from Dan.’
‘Well what the fuck does he want?!’
Lara swallowed. ‘He says he’s made a really big mistake.’
Fifty-Seven
Seth Hunt and Trent Davenport’s apartment, West Village
‘What the fuck have you done?!’ Seth yelled the minute he saw his friend-cum-agent as he banged through the apartment door and into the kitchen-diner.
‘Whoa, there, hey, buddy, how did things go with your mom?’
‘Answer the fucking question, Trent!’ Seth shouted, thumping him on the shoulder.
Trent recoiled. ‘What the fuck, man! That’s my old baseball injury right there and you know that!’
‘Yeah I know that. Stand still and I’ll hit the same spot a second time, only harder!’
‘Is this some sort of method acting rehearsal for a new part I don’t know about or what?’ Trent asked. ‘Because you’re channelling the perfect psycho right now, so I hope that’s the vibe you were going for.’
‘You know I hardly ever check my Twitter, right? Except this time, today, after I met my mom and I turn my phone back on there’s all these bells and notifications, so I look, and I see this!’ Seth held up the screen of his phone, showing one of the articles that were declaring he had told the world that he and Lara were just good friends.
‘Wow!’ Trent said, staring at the screen and seeming to speed-read. ‘How many websites is this on? Whoa! They actually used my phrase “hotly tipped”.’
‘So, this was you!’
‘Yeah, it was me,’ Trent answered, unperturbed.
‘Why would you do that? I told you how I felt about Lara!’
‘And I told you that could crucify this set-up I’ve built. You can’t be the new man in her life. You have to be the gallant knight teaching her to love herself first, you know, females running the world stuff and … “all foods before dudes”.’
‘This is not a game, Trent,’ Seth said through gritted teeth. ‘This is my life. And Lara’s life.’
‘And I’m doing this for both of you,’ Trent insisted, picking up an apple from the fruit bowl and biting into it. ‘I mean, seriously, the chick lives on the other side of the world, how far can this “falling in love” go?’
‘She’s coming with me to the premiere tonight, if she’s still talking to me.’
‘You made that clear. But, this way, with “platonic” on everybody’s minds, she can go back to being the cute Brit girl you’re coaching through a difficult time and I can make things work with Ellen or Jimmy Fallon or James Corden … hey, that guy is British, he would love that UK angle. Everyone loves a male best friend, Seth. They don’t love someone who’s swooped in minutes after the last guy.’
‘Minutes? Seriously?’
And it wasn’t like that. He got that everything had happened fast, but he really believed that Fate was turning the wheel, not him.
‘I’m doing this for you. Putting your professional interests before anything else.’
‘Well, I don’t want you to do that any more,’ Seth told him.
‘Oh, OK, well, I’ll just sit back and put my feet up then, shall I? Watch your career burn.’ He chewed up a mouthful of apple.
‘My career isn’t everything, Trent. I’ve discovered that over the last couple of weeks. I’m not just an actor, I’m not just the next character. I’m a person and I’m a son. And today I found out I’m half Puerto Rican.’ He laughed. ‘My birth mother is Puerto Rican, which means I have a whole lot of heritage I want to find out about.’ He took a breath, feeling both angry and empowered. ‘And I’ve met Lara. And she is one of the most amazing people I have ever met. The first woman I’ve spent time with that just gets me without any explanation. It’s like we’ve always known each other.’ His breathing was shallow now and he could feel himself becoming more and more touched by what he was saying. ‘And I can’t let you take that from me because of some PR spin you think will get me parts over … Ralph Fiennes.’
‘Seth—’
‘No, I value our friendship, Trent. But, this isn’t working.’
‘Come on, man, what are you saying here?’
‘I’m saying, I’m sorry but you’re fired.’
Fifty-Eight
5th Avenue
‘Hi, Dan.’
Just saying his name, to his face, sounded way weirder than it should. And on the phone screen, the face of the only man she had dated before Christmas time in New York looked strangely unfamiliar. Lara swallowed.
‘Lara, you got my message.’
‘Yes. I did.’
‘God, I feel sick,’ Dan admitted with a nervous-sounding cough.
There was something so honest in his expression, but looking at him now, Lara didn’t feel much of anything, except maybe a tinge of regret.