by Lee, Corri
In that tomfoolery came a renewed sense of self, the realisation that no matter what colour I dyed my hair or whose heart I broke, I would always have friends- maybe one, maybe a dozen- who would help me find myself again, even if I had to be soaked to the bone on the cusp of November with nipples that could cut glass to get there.
My forced second wave of sobriety revitalised me and gave me the energy to trawl through the wee hours into the morning with those who saw me right- Aiden with his stealthily hidden stash of cannabis, Isaac with his absinthe and teasing advances, Bethany with her many anecdotes from our holiday and girlish charisma, Cornelia with her brash and scathingly honest observations, Adam with his brain that stayed sharp even through dangerous levels of intoxication, and Cole, who provided an unexpectedly paternal interpretation of fate and how we can shape it. I felt like myself again, not pre-N.G. Cecelia, but the woman who wore tatty second hand clothes and sought the implausible path to a fairy tale. Even if I hadn't completely disowned the tendency towards extravagance that had been ingrained in me during my 'mentoring', I was still there underneath all of the designer togs and professionally preened visage.
We sat on deck chairs and kept the door to the club open so that the music still poured through to us, loud enough to turn the roof into the dance floor. Bruno delivered our drinks on request until he eventually collapsed into a drunken wreck in a corner, and I was allowed to relax without the fear of being cherry bombed. Somehow, a guitar materialised in Isaac's hands.
"So do you play?" He shoved it at me expectantly, though I suspected that he didn't believe for a second that I might be capable.
"Of course she doesn't," Bethany scoffed, "Cici is tone deaf." Was she ever in for a shock? Aiden and I covertly traded glances across the roof and shared our secret smile that nobody else saw. He had painstakingly tried to give me guitar lessons during our 'relationship' with limited success. What he never knew is that I'd bought an acoustic guitar of my own when he'd left my life and stowed it underneath my bed, self-teaching from guitar tabs on the Internet on the rare occasions when I was awake and not writing while Bethany was at work.
I decided that it was only appropriate to wow everyone. "Actually," Bethany's jaw dropped in disbelief as I took the guitar and checked it's tuning, "name your tune." Big mistake.
My companions huddled around into a conspiratorial group hug and whispered between them. I heard mention of YouTube and rolled my eyes. Like I possibly needed any more videos going viral after my 'sex tape'.
"Wherever You Will Go," Cornelia announced, breaking their circle. "Chop chop."
"Seriously?" I huffed, shaking my head. "Christ, just rip my heart out and send it to his loft on a silver platter, why don't you?" Not wanting to disappoint, I complied with their demand and played quietly, finding immense satisfaction from Bethany's astonishment, my friends' glassy eyed smiles and the dip of silence from inside the club. All eyes and ears were on me, and for the first time, I truly loved it.
Applause broke out when I strummed the final chord and I found myself in the midst of a rush of arms. "Is there anything you can't do?" Cornelia spat with envy.
"Admit when I'm wrong," I laughed, trading the guitar for a large 'Pumpkin Patch' cocktail.
We crept back into the club when it emptied completely and one by one fell asleep on the balcony, drinks still in hand and music still throbbing quietly. While the night lacked drama, I could not have hoped for a better initiation into the wild world of fame that didn't revolve around who you knew, but what you knew. I was finally popular on the basis of my own merit- at least, I hoped so.
The men teased Bethany, Cornelia and I over our delicate dispositions the next morning, mocking us with suggestions of the breakfasts that we really couldn't stomach. Our heads pounded mercilessly and we all slurred, still a little drunk after a meagre five hours of sleep slumped over each other. Isaac left us in the club to grumble over our smeared make-up and broken nails to do the breakfast run "whether you like it or not" we were told, with the insistence that we all needed a little more meat on our bones. Admittedly, I looked slightly sickly for my slender frame, but Bethany and Cornelia were abhorrently well-proportioned without an ounce of flesh to spare between them. The implication that they needed any sort of image enhancement was ridiculous.
Aiden wandered off to the club's DJ booth to change the music to something a little more savoury than Dimmu Borgir on repeat, and Bethany forced me into a tedious run-down of my itinerary. "So you have book signings for the next three weeks and interviews on morning television shows in between, an interview in New York on th-..."
"New York, what the hell?" She rolled her eyes at me and pushed her smartphone over to me to show me the calendar. I was officially fully booked until the start of December and was warned that I would probably accrue a mass of other invitations for Christmas events. "Do we really have to do this on a hangover?" I groaned, resting my head down on the table in front of me.
"Yes," she sighed, "the first signing is tomorrow and you have to make up for the time you lost in the Bahamas. I've managed to cut out anything that carries a risk factor of five or higher for sight or mention of N.G..."
"Huh?" The men blessed us with a simultaneous grunt resemblant of a group of Neanderthals.
"Nathanielgate. But there has been mention of some women's magazines wanting to interview you about... Him."
I raised an eyebrow and pushed myself up from the table, hobbling downstairs with an inexplicable limp, to help myself to a shot of hair of the dog. "No. Who died and made you my walking diary anyway?" Bethany's jaw stiffened when I looked back at her and she completely gave herself away with the guilt in her eyes. "You are joking. Has anyone else been hired as my bitch?" My jaw dropped as Aiden raised his hand timidly and dug into his pocket to throw a set of car keys at me. I ran my finger over the Chrysler badge and closed my eyes. "He hired you to drive me around?"
"Official chauffeur, Cici- uniform not mandatory. He bought me my own car and everything."
"Fucking control freak!" I shrieked and threw the keys back at him with force, then continued my journey to the bar. "This is exactly why I left, Bethy, because he won't stop controlling me."
"Actually he's controlling us and we're being paid double salaries." I was having real difficulties processing the information. No matter what I did, that man forced his influence on my life. All of the hurt and disappointment I'd felt on the day of N.G. bubbled once again and I could barely see through my rage. What was so hard for him to understand? I couldn't see how I could have been any clearer about not wanting him to be a part of me anymore. Clearly there was only one way to ever get through to that man, and it was to put it in black and white for him. I would write that stupid book and show him exactly how it made me feel when he tried to overrule me like a self-appointed boss or parent.
"Will this book signing tour get me out of London for a few weeks?" Cornelia hung over the balcony to nod down at me and tutted when her phone rang.
"I'm coming to keep you company, I have no work on at the moment and I know how to handle the cows who set the interview questions. We'll be away for the whole of November."
"Good," I sighed, "great. I'd be forced to go back to Tanned and Rampant otherwise." I should have just let Bethany come home alone and applied for a visa. The opportunity to leave the city again was entirely welcome, even if it did involve endless queues and hand-cramping sessions of scrawling my signature across books.
Cornelia answered her phone with a wince and pulled it back from her ear to escape from the roar that met her. "Bloody hell, Isaac, what's the problem?" She paled and quickly turned away from me. "You're gifted at so casually understating the obvious- of course you need to lie. She's..." I waved up at her as I pranced over to a pole and began to spin around it at the sound of Linkin Park, "pole-dancing to Faint. I know, right, so even better for you to keep him away."
I drew everybody's attention as I ably negotiated myself around the pole. I would
never tell them that I had sneakily taken part in a pole-dancing class in the Bahamas as a confidence boosting exercise. God knows I was glad of Isaac's absence or I could have guaranteed that I would have been hired for Cherry Vine. Though I would have to ask him some serious questions over why all of his venues were fitted for strippers.
The more the words of Faint washed over me, the harder I thrashed around, venting my frustrating at the control freak with an assortment of leaps and aggressive hair flips. It was almost as therapeutic as writing had once been.
"Well this is an interesting moment to walk in." I heard the voice over the music even though it was barely louder than a whisper. At the moment it spoke, I was upside down and wrapped around the pole like a python. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that when I turned to look at the doorway and found myself confronted with a gaunt looking face with piercing, almost snow white, empty looking eyes, I lost my grip and quickly crumbled to the floor in a heap. Aiden flew over to pick me up, despite my insistence that I was ok, and set me on my feet where I was hyper-aware of everyone awaiting my reaction.
The image that had been thrust into my mind of a thoroughly broken man was realised in the ghostly pale, drawn, and unshaven face of Nathaniel Alexander. He was haggard and lifeless, and honestly looked as surprised to see me as I was to see him. There was no trace of the man who I'd fallen for through the overly baggy shirt with rolled up sleeves and too-long-to-be-deemed-socially-acceptable chestnut hair, just the pieces of the man I'd left behind when Lobke let us slip away into the sea of cars on the day of N.G.
"Cecelia." His voice was hoarse and slurred, five weeks of alcohol abuse revealed in the way it took him a little too long to process how to say my name. I had expected him to pick himself up and dust himself off when I left, searching for a new trophy wife after sucking up the attention that came from my abandonment. I couldn't have been more wrong. I was this man's Achilles heel and he seemed almost terrified to look at me in case I blew away like dust. Again. "You're back. And blonde."
As ever, I dealt with an emotionally charged situation with sarcasm, dropping down to the floor from the pole's podium and backing slowly towards the staircase. "And you look like crap. Sort it out, Alexander. A few visits to your health spa and a shopping spree might just make you worthy of a place on a best-selling author's arm." The smallest of smiles hit his face and my resolve cracked. I loved that man more for seeing him in such a state over me. As sadistic as that may have seemed, it meant that everything he had ever said to me about my being what completed him had been true. He was only half a man without me. "Don't cut your hair" was all I could say before I had to flee to the sanctuary of the roof before my tears escaped me. I had never expected that first meeting to be so calm and yet so painful.
"What do you need from him?" Cornelia crept up behind me and rubbed circles on my back. I didn't know what I needed- I wasn't sure that there was anything he could do. He couldn't prove that he would stop controlling me unless I laid myself out and took the risk, but I didn't know that either of us would survive if we broke down again.
"Divine intervention," I wept, "if it's meant to be, it'll happen. I know he's not a patient man, but I need a sign."
"I understand."
I eased myself down into the comforting warmth of a steaming hot bath and moaned with relief. Three weeks travelling the UK followed by a week of interviews in the USA had left me stiff and weary. No amount of swanky hotel rooms could compensate for the many hours that Cornelia and I had spent cramped up in the back of the new Chrysler, trying to catch up on sleep after foolishly spending our nights drinking in every uptown wine bar we could find. And nothing could compare to the comfort of being at home in and ones own bed, which was exactly where I planned to go immediately after my bath water cooled.
N.G. had been avoided in all but one interview, easily done in that people actually loved my novel and were more interested in the story behind that than they were about dragging up what was now old news. Hosts marvelled in my tales of mischief at university and the heart-breaking loss of my parents, but praised my idealistic view of romance, even if they all knew that it wasn't feasible and I was now a sceptic.
The one loud-mouthed chat-show host, who dared to break the rules by mentioning N.G., caused an almighty uproar when she cornered me on a live broadcast and asked me if I'd ever really loved the billionaire.
"We're all dying to know, you've both remained silent through your break-up." She'd goaded me while I stared at her blankly, Cornelia seething from the front of the audience. "You must know that there was always some speculation over whether your relationship was a media farce." Cornelia shook her head at me, urging me not to answer.
I sighed and forced a smile. "Our relationship was extremely genuine- I assure you- and our separation has been incredibly painful for both of us. But no single part of it was done for attention- it was just a series of unfortunate and outrageous events that happened mostly in public view."
"Do you regret any of it?"
"Not a single minute."
"Even the very public break-up?"
I paused to seek Cornelia's opinion on just how honest I should be, knowing that everyone I knew would see the interview online. She shrugged at me and folded her arms, giving me free reign to answer how I pleased, though she wasn't impressed. "Particularly not the break-up. I can't speak for Nathaniel, but I know that I have grown a great deal as a person from that tragedy in ways that I never would have done if everything had run smoothly."
"So was the true price of success losing him?"
"I didn't lose him," I knotted my fingers in my lap and sucked on my lips, "he lost me."
That interview still haunted me four days later when Bethany came crashing into the bathroom after her day at Alexander Publishing House.
"You're home!" she squealed, ruffling my hair and seating herself on the side of the bath. She looked completely exhausted, and not in the up-all-night-partying kind of way. She didn't have a single minute to spare when she was working as commissioning editor and my personal assistant every waking hour. "You really held your own at that interview- you did me proud."
"Ugh, are people still talking about that?" I held my breath and ducked under the water to soak my hair. "I've nearly finished writing." The swift change of subject ensured that I wouldn't be dragged to the laptop to watch myself display that embarrassing rabbit-caught-in-the-headlights look again.
Her eyebrows raised in pleasant surprise- I had made significantly faster progress in this novel than I had done with The Price Of Success, most likely because it involved no imagination. "Have you come to any epiphanies?"
"That I should have seen the signs that he was keen on me sooner, I was wrong in my assumptions most of the time and that I have some serious issues with emotional displacement."
"Pfft, I could have told you that. Here," she thrust a stack of post at me, and then tutted at herself and set to opening the envelopes herself, "sorry, water and paper don't mix, do they?" Her levels of fatigue were forcing her to take ditz to the next level. "Phone bill, junk mail, more junk mail, invitation to an interview you've already missed, bank statement- Hello! Alexander Publishing House royalty check." I promptly snatched the letter from her hand and held it well above water level to read.
Dear Miss Douglas,
Please find enclosed two cheques for royalties earned in October and November of this year. Please also find photocopies of two cheques sent on your behalf to GOSH as agreed per our arrangement.
"Oh really?" I wriggled my fingers in Bethany's face for the photocopies, half expecting to find a very small donation in my name. I sat up bolt upright, causing the water to spill over the rim of the tub. "Holy crap, that can't be right." The last time I'd seen so many zeros was when I'd fallen asleep face down on my laptop. Bethany took the photocopies from my hand and passed me the two equally as impressive cheques in my name. "Aren't your authors contracted for seven percent of the royalties? Is this seriously
what's left of my October gains when ninety-five percent goes to charity? How many books did I sell?"
"A lot, but-..." Bethany smiled at me hesitantly and pulled her smartphone from her handbag, texting her assistant and wincing at the reply. "I thought so, Cici. This is your remaining five percent of the full one hundred. The publishing house is making no profit from your book sales, he's given everything to you. Also..." She passed me back the cover letter and tapped at the second paragraph.
Also, please find enclosed the necessary documents relinquishing Alexander Publishing House's control over publication of your works. Any future productions of your work are now under your jurisdiction. Congratulations on your success and all the best.
Nathaniel Alexander, CEO and Managing Editor
"You're no longer bound to the publishing house, Cici. You may have to seriously consider the concept that he's completely cutting you out of his life."
I stared up at Bethany numbly and leaned my head back on the side of the bath. "That's it. It's over." I hadn't really comprehended that there would come a time when Nathaniel would no longer be a shadow lurking behind me, and had arrogantly thought that he would always be waiting for me to give him another chance. Maybe those extra four weeks had given him the time he'd needed to heal and now I was just a bad memory- the woman who had broken him from his shell and shown him the harsh reality that life and love were ugly, no matter how much money you had.
There was no point in writing any more, not when it made no difference to the order of things. Appealing to his inner pedant would be useless when he had no need to apply the knowledge to life. What point would spilling my guts make if it amounted to nothing? It certainly wouldn't do me any psychological benefit to sit there and agonisingly recall every obstinate high-road I'd taken on the way to losing all I'd wanted. My perfect match. The only person I knew to share my eyes. My completeness. My extravagance. My fireworks.