by Lee, Corri
I hauled myself out of the bath and padded into my bedroom to confront my suitcase of memories. Opening it felt like a thousand swords slicing me to pieces. Every fragment of a painful past of loss lay in its depths and evoked a pain so severe that I thought might kill me on the spot. It was like losing my parents all over again, but worse in that I felt like I'd disappointed them somehow. They would have wanted me to fight for something as wonderful as they had, but instead I told him to 'sort it out' and disappeared for a month. It wouldn't have killed me to send him an email or a text to let him know that I was thinking of him, but I chose to wait for divine intervention- something that had failed me once before.
I held the pocket watch in my hand and rubbed at the ball of tension that settled between my ribs. How I wished that it could have been as magical as the man who'd gifted it to me and could take back the nine weeks it had been since N.G. If I could have gone back to that moment, I would have gotten in that car with him and gone wherever he took me, because anywhere had to be better, even if I had nobody but him, than it was to be surrounded by people but without him
I did the most self-destructive thing that I could have possibly done- I called him. Not to beg for my place back on his arm, but just to hear his voice say my name one last time before I packed him away in that suitcase forever and sent everything he'd given me back to the publishing house.
You've reached Nathaniel Alexander, I'm not able to-...
"Shit." That wasn't the voice I'd hoped for. I just wanted him to say my name, to 'give me a rope to hang myself' with as I'd so aptly put it before. I just needed that one little piece of him to push me over the edge so I wouldn't have to live a life of regret.
"Just leave a message." Bethany stood in the doorway of my bedroom and cocked her head. I could see that she had cried too and felt my heart breaking. "Just leave a message and tell him how you feel. What difference does it make if you'll never see him again? At least you'll have said it." I nodded slowly and dialled his number, waiting for the beep before I took a steeling breath.
"Nathaniel, it's... Well you know who it is. Firstly, I want to thank you for honouring our agreement over the donations to GOSH. It would have been so easy for you to just push that aside. Secondly," I glanced up at Bethany and frowned, "I want to apologise for lying on that live interview last week- I'm sure you've seen it. The fact is, I do have regrets. I could say that I regret ever meeting you, but that would be a lie too. I regret that I told you that compromise was necessary when I was unwilling to do so myself. I should have got in that car with you- no, I should have run away with you the minute I knew that you loved me, but I'm so stupidly predisposed to over-analyse everything.
"I should have trusted you not to break me and not cared if you did anyway. I was stupid, and I was wrong, and my biggest regret is that I had to lose you before I realised that my control over my universe was too powerful, and I said the wrong words that sent you away forever. I was stupid to think that you'd wait for me for so long while I publicly flaunted that I didn't need you. Well, I do, and I don't know what I'm going to do without you watching me from a distance still trying to control me. I secretly liked it- I liked that you protected me even when I pushed you away.
"Thank you for everything, Nathaniel. Thank you for all of the lessons that you taught me and the wonderful people you introduced into my life, the friends I found again because of you and the things I've seen that I wouldn't have otherwise had the chance to see.
"But most of all, thank you for the fireworks. Despite everything, the five days I spent spinning in your Catherine Wheel will be the days I treasure the most in my life. I told myself four weeks ago that the price of my success had been losing myself. But really, it was losing you. I'm sorry I didn't realise that earlier."
Bethany cloaked me the minute I put the phone down and joined me in my weep for love lost. "It will get easier and life will get better," she promised. And it did.
Chapter Thirty-Five
"Give us a snog, diamond eyes!" Old Joe drawled at me with his thick cockney accent, holding a sprig of mistletoe over his face. The bar was in full swing for Christmas- tables laden with the gingerbread and mince pies which David's wife baked freshly every morning.
I stuffed the remaining bite of almost ludicrously moist and dense fruit cake into my mouth and licked my fingers. "No funny stuff before the wedding night, Joe, I've told you that before."
"Prick tease." He gave me a light-hearted wink and collected his pint of bitter from the bar top. "It’s good to see you back to your old self, Cecelia." I smiled back at him gratefully, wholly appreciative of the old gents who loved me better in ripped jeans and my new staff t-shirt than the designer finery that had been exiled from my armoire. Okay, I'll admit that the jeans were Ralph Lauren and but I took 'designer casual' to new realms of 'barmaid chic'.
The many streamers and hanging red and gold decorations glinted optimistically from the ceiling, while the modest tinsel covered Christmas tree fought it's hardest to fill me with festive spirit. But I hated Christmas and had done since my parents had died. Even though Bethany's family had essentially adopted me, it was never the same without my own kin.
"Please come back to Shropshire with me," Bethany implored, clutching her hands in prayer, "I hate the idea of you waking up alone on Christmas Day."
"It's just another day for me, Bethy. Just make sure you leave plenty of pizza, ice cream and creme de menthe for me." She whined piteously and dug into her bag for her phone. "As long as you're back for New Year’s Eve, I'll be a happy camper." She whimpered helplessly at my rebuff and pushed another slice of cake towards me.
Like most women, just the word 'Christmas' caused me to gain several pounds of fat, but this was the one year when I would be happy to send my size eight skinny jeans to a charity shop in favour of a nice baggy pair of tens or twelves. Fuck it- if I got fat I didn't care because I didn't have to try to impress anyone any more. I was the person that I'd always been, just lil old Cecelia Douglas- dispenser of beverages of the alcoholic persuasion, just with a few more quid in the bank and an extra tattoo.
Interest in interviewing or photographing me had dwindled after I'd insisted on keeping myself to myself for over two weeks. Cornelia would leave me a voice mail message trying to draft me for modelling work every couple of days, but I pleaded ignorance and deleted them without listening to them. My lack of involvement with the Alexander's meant the end of my popularity, and I was more than happy to just slink away out of view without a fuss.
Shona passed me a rather large cup of Baileys laced coffee and rubbed my back with a yawn. "Can you believe that it's nearly the end of the year?"
"Good riddance," I scoffed, "onward and upward. I have to find another job."
"Uh..." Bethany gritted her teeth at me and pushed her phone across the bar. "Merry Christmas?" I grunted at the sentiment and picked up her phone to read aloud the email she was showing me.
"Miss Marshall, I have received information from Alexander Publishing House that rights to The Price Of Success lie solely with its author Cecelia Douglas and that you handle her correspondence as her personal assistant. As you know, the interest has been huge... blah blah blah..." I passed the phone back to her and shrugged. "Show me the interesting part."
She tutted at me and scowled, scrolling through the email to the final paragraph. "There."
"Ugh..." I scoffed, taking her phone back in one hand while I sipped at my coffee.
In light of this whirlwind success, I would like to request a meeting with yourself and Cecelia to discuss the possibility of a movie adaptation of the book in the New Year. Please call my secretary at your earliest convenience to arrange a time convenient for you to travel to our Hollywood office...
I instantly spat my mouthful out across the bar and wiped my face with the back of my hand. "This is a joke. It's got to be a joke."
"No joke." Bethany shook her head severely before jumping up from her stool and deafening everybod
y in the bar with an ear-splitting hyperactive scream. "Take me with you!" She squealed, "let me sponge off of your fame!"
"You already do," I joked, "when did that email arrive?"
"About five minutes before you read it," she panted through her amateur river dance, "want me to call them now?" I traded exasperated sighs with Shona, as envious as ever of Bethany's exuberance, and shrugged. I wasn't prepared to make a big deal of anything after seeing for myself how easily things could go pear-shaped. "Okay, let me catch my breath." She sighed dramatically and fanned her face. "This is like the best fuck of my life."
"Poor Adam" I noted critically, rolling my eyes at her shaking hands. "Don't pin any hopes on this coming to fruition, Bethy."
"Hush, you. Pessimist." She held up a hand to demand silence and put on her husky telephone voice, stepping outside into the sparse spread of snow to eliminate the sound of The Pogues from the background noise.
"Think anything will come of it?" Shona raised an eyebrow and picked at a mince pie.
I took a deep swig from my coffee and shook my head. "Nah. If stuff like that was supposed to happen to me, I'd be living in Arizona with my billionaire husband and would most likely be knocked up by now."
"Might still happen." I snickered and alternated my coffee with a cheeky glass of whiskey. Shona huffed and flicked at my earlobe. "She's right, you are a pessimist."
"I'm a realist," I corrected her with a snap, "the lower I keep my expectations, the less disappointment I suffer when life goes wrong, and the greater the benefits if I stumble upon a stroke of luck. That was the mistake I made with Nathaniel- I fantasised too much about white picket fences. Besides, why would he give me all of the royalties and book rights if not to exclude me from his life?"
"To prove that he has no control over you and stands to gain nothing from your success?" She sneered at me like I was abhorrently ignorant and emptied a palm full of pastry crumbs into her flip-top mouth. "That was the issue, wasn't it- that he controlled you? His name is only on the first edition copies and they were gold leaf, for fucks sake. They'll be worth a fortune in a few years and you'll reap all the profit." I didn't want her naivety to rub off on me so I shuffled across a metre or so towards the cellar.
"I'm sorry, how old are you again?"
"Twenty-seven."
"Then you're too young to be senile, Shona," I muttered incredulously and reached under my t-shirt to undo the restrictive button on my jeans with a groan of relief. "That's better." There was no way I'd allow myself to be lead onto another downward spiral of false hope. That chapter of my life had ended one thousand, two hundred and fifty-eight words ago- starting now.
Bethany poked her head around the door with a grin while Shona was still berating me for being a 'scroogey sourpuss', wringing her hands with impish glee. "Look who I found lurking outside," she chuckled, throwing open the door behind her to reveal a sock hatted walking trench coat bundled up with a thick scarf.
"You're going to need to do better than walking winter wear, Bethy." She huffed indignantly and pulled off the hat to reveal an untameable mop of auburn hair attached to a man I'd strived to avoid. "Ugh, Isaac."
"Nice to see you too, Cecelia, full of Christmas spirit, I see." He unwrapped his scarf and used it to wipe the dew from his winter-reddened nose.
"Christmas is a farce- I'm not religious."
"Says she who quoted the Lord's Prayer when she thought she was about to pop her cogs."
"Fuck off." I swiped my slice of cake up off the bar and leaned back against the glasses shelves. "What are you doing in my neck of the woods?" If 'fuck off' hadn't expressed my desire for him to do just that strongly enough, reminding him that he was on my turf ought to have.
But he unbuttoned his coat and slung it over the padded seat of one of the bar stools, flashing a lady killing smile at Shona, who promptly swooned and made a repulsive titter that sounded more like a cat being stepped on. "Drinking, actually. What do you recommend?"
I covered my cake occupied mouth with my hand and grumbled 'leaving' before nodding towards the doorway with a glare. There was obviously some sort of defect programmed deep within the Alexander DNA that made it impossible for them to take hints. Either that or they were just so genetically predisposed to arrogance that they thought that they could negate all rules with a wink and a nudge.
"Come now, Douglas, you've been ignoring us. And indulging in a little aesthetic cleansing by the looks of it." He referred, of course, to my hair, which I'd had restored to its original shade of chestnut with the aid of an afterhours appointment with Fabrio Bellissimo aka George. It turned out that the bizarre little moustached man had something of a soft spot for me, which graced me with on demand restyles provided I never let another stylist touch my hair again. "What have you been up to?"
"Living," I answered matter-of-factly, "getting fat and drunk in my very nicely redecorated lounge while listening to death metal.”
"Sounds riveting. I still want a drink." Isaac locked me into an impassive staring competition until I gave in and passed him a bottle of lager from the fridge. "That's more like it. I did actually come for a reason other than to wind you up," he leaned over to dig his hand into his coat pocket and passed me and Bethany a slightly dog-eared envelope each.
"I didn't have you down as the Christmas card type."
"I'm not. Open it." I tore it open with a sigh and pulled out an elegant invitation decorated in shimmering snowflakes.
Cornelia Alexander requests your attendance: this Saturday
for a countryside Christmas celebration.
Dress smart casual and bring overnight bags.
The event carried a risk factor that didn't even fit on the scale of danger. Bethany looked up at me hopefully and fluttered her lashes with the intention of coercing me into attending. I was having none of it. I shrugged and dropped the invite down on the bar like it had bitten me. "Have fun, send me pictures."
Isaac laughed deeply and leaned over the bar to punch me playfully on the jaw. "I'm not actually here to ask your permission- I'm here to tell you that you're coming whether you like it or not."
"Oh, the megalomania is hereditary then." Clearly being a control freak was something that Nathaniel couldn't help. I couldn't for the life of me imagine how Isaac thought that I might want to attend such an event that would place me in the middle of nowhere with his brother with no opportunity to escape. "You are aware that my being there might cause issues?"
"How so?" Isaac took a sip from the neck of the bottle and nodded when realisation struck. "Oh! Hah. Yes, that might be a little perplexing, but no matter. He's not going." I reviled him in disbelief, calling him a ridiculously poor liar with strongly worded condescension and resisted the incredible urge to stamp my feet like a stroppy child.
"Oh please, Cici!" Bethany whined with infantile delivery, "Consider it a last hurrah before you're dragged back into the fray." Isaac turn to her, dwarfed by his raging curiosity, and sidled up to her in that way only the Alexander's could that made a woman give up all of her secrets and her soul. Oh crap, he's ensnared her. "Cici is off to California in the New Year to discuss casting."
"I am? They want it?" I peeped shrilly in surprise and, not knowing where to place myself, vocalised the culmination of my excitement and fear in a drawn out, uneven warble of a drone. "Shit, shit, shit!"
"Casting? As in, movie casting?" I nodded vigorously at Isaac, tightening my jaw to contain the shrill uncharacteristically feminine victory cry that my lungs were struggling to keep a hold on. This wasn't at all like me, to jump head first into high hopes, so I wasn't exactly eager to reveal that I'd let my guard slip. Shona thumped me on the back and shoved me towards the lounge side of the bar, urging me to go and celebrate until closing.
Isaac wrapped an arm around my shoulders in what I presumed to be a congratulatory hug and set me down on his stool. "So you need to come and make a big deal about it. Come on," he goaded, squeezing me against him, "he won't be there."
/> "Alright, fine." I surrendered willingly, knowing that these Alexander men were impossible to beat. Maybe I did deserve to cut loose, and Bethany definitely deserved to finally find her way to one of the exclusive celebrity events which she was born to attend. Part of me thought that maybe our lives had gotten muddled somewhere along the way, and she should have been the one to end up in a tryst with a billionaire. Though judging by the way Isaac looked at her- with a raw sincere need that I could only liken to true affection- her time might still come.
There again, what did I care about anything in that moment? I was going to Hollywood, baby!
Adam, Bethany, Cole and I huddled up in the back of the new silver Chrysler which Aiden had been charged with driving and comprised our dream cast for the impending movie. It still didn't seem real, though I'd spoken to the potential director via Skype and my prospects were virtually cast in iron. The men obviously set their sights on the priceless A-list celebrities who would of course not be available nor willing, while Bethany and I giggled over how the visual representations of the impassioned sexual encounters would be portrayed on the silver screen.
To honour 'smart casual', I had adorned the simple white wrap dress of Bethany's that had won me my 'mentor' and the unbelievable events that had helped me build my novel to a stage that had Hollywood snapping at my toes. I chose to focus on the positive moments and make believe that Nathaniel had been nothing more than a teacher- that our involvement was restricted to our official meetings and that no fire had been kindled between us. Denial was soothing, and nobody defied me.