by G J Morgan
“England’s loss, I say.”
“Thank you for these by the way,” she said, wiping the corner of her mouth with a napkin. “They smell lovely.”
“Well, it is Valentine’s. I felt obligated to make a romantic gesture. I must confess I didn’t physically buy them. I can’t take the credit.”
She laughed. “I knew that already, silly. Your mother told me she chose them.”
“You two are becoming quite the tag team.”
“I should introduce you to my mother. Make it even.”
“Does she know about me then?”
“Of course.”
“Oh,” I said, taken aback slightly, counting the number of dates we’d been on in my head.
“She likes you a lot, actually.”
“I’m guessing you must have embellished the truth.”
“Not at all. She admires you for how you have taken on the role of single parent. How you’ve looked after your mother through her illness.”
“You’ve told her about Cassie then, I take it?”
“She’s my mother, Tom. I tell her everything. Think she is just excited I’ve met someone, she’d started to give up hope.”
“You’ve not had many boyfriends?”
“I had one serious one through uni, but he cheated on me with a girl I was sharing a house with.”
“That was nice of them.”
“Ever since then I have wanted to be on my own, focus on my job. Thailand was a good excuse to be single.”
“Shall we go outside, get some air? Seems a waste of a view seeing it from behind glass.”
We walked out onto the terrace, a few other couple had the same idea, coffees and candlelight, the ocean just below our feet.
“You two find it hard being so far apart?”
“More my mother than me, she lives on her own, so this isn’t ideal. She cried a lot at first, but we speak every day, well, we used to. We haven’t spoken this last week.”
“How come?”
“We had a disagreement.”
“Over?”
“Over you, actually.”
“Over me?” I said, sipping my wine. “What have I done?”
“It’s more what I’ve done. Or what I was going to do.”
“And what was that?”
“I told her I was planning on ending things between us.”
“And she disagreed?”
“She most definitely disagreed,” she smiled. “Shall we order coffee?”
“Emma, I thought we… ”
“Tom, I like what me and you are right now. It’s nice.”
“So why are you telling your mum you are ending it? I’m a bit confused.”
“I just got cold feet that’s all. Worried you don’t feel the same. Worried you are just going to fly off and leave me.”
“Emma, we knew this was the situation. We knew I would go home. We knew it couldn’t get serious.”
“I can’t help how I feel, Tom. I don’t want to feel this way either, but I do.”
I didn’t answer, looked down at the decking floor.
“I take it by your reaction that you don’t feel the same then, Tom?”
“I care for you very much, Emma. You know that.”
“But not enough?”
“I didn’t say that, did I?”
“I’m sorry that I’m telling you this, I just wanted you to know how I felt. I can leave if you want me to.” She went to get out of her chair.
“Emma, sit down. Course I don’t want you to go.”
“I’m sorry, Tom. You have been honest from the start, and it is my fault for how I feel right now. It’s just taken me so long to find someone like you. I just feel so angry I’ve let myself get like this.”
Neither of us spoke.
“What do we do now, Tom?”
We stared at each other. She was petite, but she looked tiny sat there, eyes filled with tears, about to break, her world about to collapse.
Somehow, we ended up kissing. A kiss that shouldn’t have happened, but did.
55
“Darling, there is nothing sweeter than the buttocks of a twenty-two-year-old.”
“That specific, hey? I’m afraid twenty-two is even too young for me.”
“I’ve gone younger, I assure you. You should treat yourself.”
“I’m OK, thanks.”
“Always knew this town was ageist.” Marla put a cigarette in her mouth, held it between her red lips as she lit and inhaled. “You fine if I smoke?” already four puffs in.
“I’m surprised you even asked.”
“I must be softening in my years.”
“I hope I’m like you when I’m older,” I said, my head inside new cupboards.
“Who says I’m old? Seventy is the new thirty.”
“What does that make me then?”
“You’re a Baby Jane in this game.”
“The young don’t tend to fare well in this industry.”
“I can see why. The public eye is no place to grow up, all your mistakes for everyone to see. Though the old don’t fare any better. Look at me and you, before and after personified, beauty before it turns bitter and twisted.”
“How old were you when you first got into the game?”
“Started in Broadway in the late fifties. I must have been around eighteen or so.”
“I bet you were a handful.”
“Nothing of the sort, actually. I was the most Yankee virgin who ever walked God’s green earth.”
“Obviously that didn’t last long,” I smiled.
“For some women sex appeal comes naturally. For me it had to be worked at.”
“How long did it take you?”
“Luckily not too long, otherwise my career would’ve been over before it started. Some of us aren’t as lucky as you, darling.”
“I’ve seen your movies, Marla. Stop acting uglier than you are.”
“I’m all tits and make-up, sweetheart.”
“That’s not true.”
“I always knew I wasn’t the prettiest. Meant I had to work a little harder. Find a little niche for myself.”
“And what niche was that?”
“I made myself interesting. I made myself a bitch too.”
“You think that might work for me?”
“You’re interesting, I’ll give you that. You’re too nice to be a bitch, I’m afraid,” she said, moving on to her next cigarette. “Lilly. I want to thank you for this. Whatever you did to get me here, I applaud you.”
“I didn’t do anything, Marla. You got this role on merit.”
She laughed, coughed, laughed again. “I’m old and dumb enough to know merit had nothing to do with it, merit rarely does, my dear. I know you pulled some strings and I’m eternally grateful. You don’t know how much this means. To be given a chance to act again. To know the girls back home are all talking about me behind my back, wishing it was them you were giving one last swansong to.”
There was a knock on the trailer door.
“Come in”, I said.
“Ms Miller.” A girl with a headset. “They need you on set in ten minutes.”
“You tell ’em I’ll be out when I’m good and ready. And get me a tea unless you want a corpse on your hands.”
The girl apologized awkwardly, closed the door behind her.
“Always the bitch, hey, Marla?”
“It’s what I do best.”
“Even if you’re not a bitch.”
“Well, we are actresses, darling. Not being ourselves is what we are paid to do.”
“You could tone it down once a while. Let them see the real you.”
“Arse to that. I’ll be breaking butts till the final curtain. Here, grab me another smoke
and help me down those infernal steps of yours.”
“Do you get nervous?”
“No, never.”
“I always get first-day nerves, it’s like school all over.”
“Honey, they should be nervous of you, not the other way around.”
“You haven’t worked with Max,” I smiled.
* * *
I sat back down on my chair, took a look around me. This would-be home for the next few months, probably the biggest trailer I’d ever had, definitely needed softening, a woman’s touch, felt like I was in a spaceship.
I walked over to the sofa, it was all suitcases and bags, started unzipping things, attempted to put my belongings into the most logical places. Mom had helped me pack, one of her many talents, so far clothes went from suitcase to drawers without much fuss. I’d spent quite a lot of time with her actually, my birthday in Vegas, Thanksgiving obviously, Christmas too. Surprised my mom and sister with a girls’ trip to Cancun, so we spent the last two weeks of January doing nothing but reading trash and drinking margaritas.
I surveyed the kitchen table, it was covered in good luck bouquets. I should have appreciated the gesture, I always did initially, after that it was working out how to keep them alive and fed, and with one vase and no natural light, I doubted it would be that long. Mom had even sent a bunch, signed it from her and Dad, pretending they still came as a pair. Max sent me roses too, no message in that one, knowing Max like I did I bet his PA did it, and knowing his PA, I bet she didn’t even tell Max what good luck was being sent on his behalf.
Max hadn’t been too bad so far, bearable, left me alone for the most part. He dragged me out when required, an event or show, various types of spotlight. Had me dress up and smile so everyone could take their photos and ask their questions. To the big wide world, we were now an item, but in truth we barely spoke and so far, it remained the working relationship he’d promised me from the start. I wasn’t holding my breath, with filming starting today it wouldn’t surprise me if all that changed and my freedom was finally cut short. It was only a matter of time till Max wanted more than a trophy wife and demanded more than kissing cheeks on red carpets.
Not that I’d done much with my freedom so far, most of last year I stayed pretty low key, either in some flea market or department store buying cute things I didn’t need but couldn’t live without. I’d toyed with the idea of a kitten, a Savannah, something female and feline, just like her potential owner. But bought a houseplant instead, to see how good I was at keeping that alive before I looked after something warm-blooded.
I’d started dancing again too, not that anybody knew, managed to find night classes, so twice a week I had a mad dash across town. Felt good to dance again, didn’t realize how much I needed it, how much it grounded me, gave me a definitive line between Goodmanson and Goodridge. There were times last year where I lost my way slightly, did things and took things I shouldn’t have. Thought it might help, of course it didn’t, alcohol and tablets never did and never would, not long term, as always, the cure becomes the cause.
I’d like to say it went unnoticed, my unravelling, when in fact everyone saw it, everyone had an opinion. Some people make mistakes and I made mine on the wrong night on the wrong road last summer. I got caught DUI, pulled over, handcuffed and put in the back of a cop car. It sounds worse than it was, the officers were nice enough, didn’t throw me in a jail cell like protocol would’ve told them to, let me sit and sober up before they let me go.
Mom was embarrassed, Dad hit the roof, Max just laughed, Sally told me not to worry, said she would make it work to our advantage and that she did. The media went crazy, my mugshot on every channel, my apologies printed on every page. Behind closed doors my publicist classed it as a triumph and whilst publicly I was left to hang my head in shame, Team Goodridge were chinking the champagne glasses of a media campaign deemed successful and cheap. Somehow my shocking behaviour had been granted a positive spin and now I was being offered edgier roles by the edgier directors, the poster girl of ‘good girl gone bad’. I didn’t know what was more embarrassing, the crime or the reward.
The only thing that neither Sally nor Max’s legal representatives could fix was the punishment and the judge didn’t seem to like me much. Despite being my first offence, she still dished out a fine and community service with the Caltrans chain gang. God, that was hellish, spent ten days on Ventura freeway with trash tweezers and an orange hard hat, pulling weeds as I sweated out my redemption in the midday sun. And it was still not over, I was still to attend the rest of my prevention programme, designed to educate me on the dangers of addiction, and why I felt the need to be dependent on things my body shouldn’t have. To be fair, the sessions so far had helped, the lady I’d spent time with was actually quite cool, certainly not judgmental, and what at first I had felt a waste of time turned into a mini therapy course. I told her about Tom, not names and places, not the full story, but enough to make her understand my downward spiral.
In a strange way, Tom indirectly played a part in my recovery; it took him giving up on me to get back on my feet. Slowly and gradually, fewer calls and fewer messages, till eventually contact from Tom stopped completely and rather than sadness, I just felt relief. That was when I stopped crying, that was when I started to sleep again. Got my life back in order, attempted to get back into some form of normality, though I realized quite soon my life never would be, the frenzy Max had created meant there was never a day where I truly felt normal.
I was that girl in the magazine, speeding in an SUV, pushing a camera away, hiding her face. It’s not like I wasn’t used to intrusion, I knew my life would be shared, I just didn’t realize how much they wanted to take. My life was not my own, it was other people’s and for the first time in my career I felt genuinely unsafe. I’d become aware of an internet I never knew existed, the dark web, full of twisted fantasies and threats. Even I knew things had to change and that my entourage would have to grow, for my own safety as well as for everyone caught in the crossfire. Quite simply I needed men on the ground, men who could be barged and pushed, men who knew how to read a situation, stop danger up close, but see it coming from far off too. I did everything I could to keep Frank, but in the end, it was him that called it a day. I offered him a promotion to make him stay, offered him more money, more responsibility, but his mind was made up. Tried to give him a full year’s salary, healthcare, a gesture of how much I’d appreciated what he’d done. Typical of Frank, he declined both.
Sally told me he’d got a job in some store, security guard, patrolling the aisles, looking out for kids stealing candy bars. We message each other occasionally, I’d invited him down to stay a couple of times, but he always had a reason not to come. Made me sad I didn’t see him anymore. We both said that nothing would change, when clearly it already had.
There was a knock on my door.
Same girl, same headset, similar request.
“Miss Goodridge, Max is asking for you. He wants you over at wardrobe.”
“Tell him he can wait.”
“He said it was pretty urgent.” The girl went to grab her walkie-talkie.
“Don’t worry. I’ll be a couple of minutes. Sorry, I didn’t mean to snap at you. I was seeing if I could be a bitch. Was it convincing?” The girl smiled, not sure she knew the appropriate answer. Her walkie-talkie crackled, she was being summoned elsewhere.
I sat down at my dressing table, the mirror and bulbs, made me feel immediately like work was about to start. I closed my eyes, took a deep breath. It was an unfamiliar sensation reprising the role of a character I’d played years before, especially a character that admittedly wasn’t far too removed from my own self. Clearly, this was the only reason I was here today, the reason I was now an actress, not still working the graveyard shifts in a dance studio. Practically impossible for Max not to offer me the part, whatever he was searching for those many years ago, he found it
in me the night we first met. And although I was young, had never acted, what he did get was the girl on his page, a ready-made character, all he had to do was aim the camera at me and hope I didn’t try and act.
Problem was, I wasn’t the same me I was back then. A lot had happened in between, not all bad, but not all good either. Where I was damaged before, now I’m not. Where I was fixed before, now I’m broken, they might not like the Lilly I’d become, and the Lilly everyone wanted may not be the Lilly they get this time around.
I sat down, one quick last check before I faced the world. There was a tiny box in front of me, full of little trinkets and photos, silly things really, things to remind me of home. I started to position them, sticking them around the mirror like a picture frame. I would need these memories, things I could cling onto when it got hard, remember why the hell I was here. And I needed to know that, as sometimes even I forgot, got caught up in it all. Every day I needed to know why I was doing this, why I had chosen Max. And no matter how much I enjoyed it, the money it made me, the places I got to see, the people I got to work with, every day I needed to remember why I was here and what Max had made me give up. I didn’t regret what I did and if I had to make that decision again it would be no different. It was love and still is love. It took losing Tom to understand just how much I wanted him back.
I looked at the photos in front of me. Black and white like they were old, when they weren’t old at all. My farmhouse, my mad hotel in the cliffs, my Tom. So sad, the only thing left to do was smile. For the thirteen days we had together, I would always be thankful. We deserved a better chance and Tom deserved a better ending than I gave him.
We both did.
56
A month passed and it was now nearly April.
Hair and make-up had just disappeared out of my hotel suite, so I was left to stare at the end product, marvel at my own breasts and fringe, wonder how they were being held up and what with. The dress was genius, sent by the designer himself, which I assumed I didn’t have to send back. The jewellery was Harry Winston, that for sure I knew wasn’t to be kept, just a loan, a big fat half-a-million-dollar loan. I looked again at myself, I looked amazing, a transformation I hadn’t expected, I felt a fraud taking all the credit, between their three pairs of hands they’d somehow managed to turn me into a happy day again.