by B. M. Sandy
Deciding not to fixate too deeply on the idea of a group of middle-aged women swooning over an undead bounty hunter, Jake continued, “Ah - yes. Uh, well, you see...they wanted me to play Rage. It was a three-movie deal, complete with video games and... you know, the works. Drew was really on my case about it this summer - in fact, we had a bit of a row over it, and he threatened me that if I didn’t agree to it, he’d let me go as a client.”
There was a very still moment of silence after Jake said this. He could imagine what was circling round in his mum’s mind - Drew, his agent, the same man who’d come round for dinner, the same man who’d changed his life...that man acted this way.
“Drew said that?” she asked finally.
“Yes.”
“And, I take it, you told him no?” She took a sip of her tea, eying Jake, her expression blank.
“Not then - I called him back and said yes. But the day after I got back to London, I had a late evening meeting with him - to sign the contract, you see. And, well, I just decided I didn’t want to waste the next five years of my life doing something I didn’t want to do. And Drew got quite angry and fired me.”
His mum was silent for a moment, thinking over what he had said.
“Why didn’t you want to do it?”
Jake took a deep breath, steeling himself for what he was about to say.
“I...want to go back to the stage. I don’t want to do films anymore. At least, not right now.”
Before she had a chance to reply, he heard the front door opening and the sound of thumping in the foyer.
“Oh, that’ll be your father. Let me go help him with his shopping.”
She stood and exited the kitchen; Jake stood as well, stretching, preparing himself to greet his father.
Walking into the foyer, he saw his mum picking up brown paper bags, his dad taking off his shoes, kneeling over and not paying him any attention. After his dad stood up, he turned, making eye contact with Jake. Then he smiled.
“Well, look who it is. How are you, son?”
“Very well, thank you.”
They hugged quickly and awkwardly, letting go almost immediately after contact was made. Jake smiled stiffly and the three of them walked back into the kitchen where Jake took a bag from his mum’s hands.
“What do you think you’re doing?” she asked.
“Sit down, mum. I’m going to help. I do know where you keep things, you know.”
With a look of mock-insult, she sat down, he and his dad working to put away the groceries; the only sounds for the next few moments were those of shuffling and the crinkling of the paper bags.
“David, Jake was just telling me about some news,” his mum said suddenly, causing Jake to pause his movements.
“Oh? What sort of news?”
Before she could answer, Jake turned to his dad and said, “I am taking a break for a while from film acting.”
“Oh - a break, then? Like a holiday?” he replied, putting away cans of vegetables and nodding.
“Ah - sort of. I’m going to try to go back to the stage. I want to...go back to my roots, shall we say?”
His dad crumbled up the empty paper bag the cans were in, nodding. “I see.”
There was a brief moment during which Jake was certain his dad would say something else - he saw the intention on his face, a dull spark in his eye, but it passed so quickly that Jake couldn’t be sure it was actually there. The rest of the evening passed without incident; he assumed that his mum would fill his father in on the rest of the story after he left, and Jake found himself relaxing a bit more and enjoying catching up with his parents. These moments, as of late, had been few and far between.
Irrationally, though, he couldn’t help but eye the empty space at the dining room table during dinner, wondering what it would have looked like with Cassie in it.
And suddenly, it became quite clear.
He was a fool. He knew that now; he knew that the second he rang her doorbell the day he left, the second he’d said goodbye. His heart ached all the worse as he told himself this, and the roast in his mouth turned to ash. Cassie was a once in a lifetime thing - he’d never get another chance. He’d never have another woman like her. And he’d never get her back sitting in London.
“Jake, what’s the matter?” his mum was asking, breaking through his thoughts. He set his fork down, swallowing, taking a sip of water to clear his throat. He eyed his father, who hadn’t even looked up from his plate.
“I think I’m...going to go back to the States, for a while.”
Her eyes widened at this, an almost-smile forming on her face.
“Whatever will you do there?” she asked. His dad was looking at him now, his face incredulous.
“I can’t sit here and wonder. I can’t stay here and ask myself for the rest of my life if I made the right choice. I have to do something. Even if it ends in failure. And besides...there’s stages over there, too.”
As he spoke, he became more and more confident that what he was saying was the right thing. He became more confident in his goal. And as he said it - there’s stages over there, too - that fact became so obvious in his mind that he could hardly contain himself. He wanted to go, right now, straight to her. He wanted to grovel at her feet, to tell her how sorry he was for leaving her, for convincing the both of them that splitting up was the right thing to do.
“Is this about that girl, then?” his dad asked, cutting through Jake’s thoughts.
“Her name is Cassie.”
“The one on the magazines.” His dad was watching him now, his gaze curious, uncertain.
“Yes. I know it sounds...a little crazy. But the last two months have been some of the best of my life.” It was difficult to talk this frankly with his dad. He couldn’t remember the last time they spoke about anything other than football and the weather without his mum leading the conversation.
His dad shot a look at his mum, then looked back at Jake and nodded.
“You’ve got to follow your heart. If you don’t, what’s the point?”
Jake set his fork down, staring at his dad. In his entire adult life, he couldn’t remember his dad ever giving him any real advice. He was never involved with his career, and when he heard about Gina, he only shook his head and said, “Such a shame.”
“Really?” Jake asked then. His mum was watching the both of them, a spark of impishness in her eyes, mouth curved in a small smile.
“Son, I may not understand some things - like acting - but I do understand something about love. We spend our entire lives denying ourselves what we want. But I don’t believe in denying yourself something as simple as love.”
“Love is not simple,” Jake said, completely off guard.
“That’s debatable,” his dad retorted. “When I was at uni, your mum and I had next to nothing. We slept on a mattress on the floor in our flat. But we didn’t care. We loved each other. No matter how hard it got, even when we had barely two quid to rub together, we knew we’d get through it because we had each other.”
Jake had heard this story before - but never from his dad’s lips. He looked at his mum, who was nodding next to his dad.
“I don’t even have to ask you what you think of me running off to Pennsylvania,” Jake said playfully to his mum. His heart raced at the thought of Cassie’s face when she answered the door. If he thought hard enough, he could imagine the feel of her in his arms, the weight of her.
“No, I don’t suppose you do,” she replied, smiling.
Decision made, Jake sat back, relaxing. He thought of all the planning he’d have to do, all the arrangements he’d have to make. He shrugged then, a lazy sort of movement that didn’t reflect at all the excitement he felt, the surge of adrenaline, that creeping rush in the wake of his decision.
And then he said, “I suppose I have a lot of work to do now, don’t I?”
It was nearly midnight when Jake landed in Pittsburgh two weeks later, the air surprisingly warm considering the latene
ss of the month.
He’d spent the last two weeks preparing for this. It was quite odd, the knowledge that he was going somewhere without any real idea how long he’d be gone for; he could walk onto that stage and never return to it, if they didn’t like him. They could find him overqualified, or under-qualified, since the last time he was on stage was over six years ago and it was not a major production by any means. He’d put all his affairs in order and politely let go his stylist and publicist, both of whom were quite put out, but they both promised they’d be there when he returned.
If I return, he wanted to interject, but he knew that was outlandish. In the back of his mind, the assumption that he would return, eventually, floated there; he couldn’t stay in Pittsburgh indefinitely and he knew that. He could stay as long as he had work, and work was not guaranteed right now.
His first instinct now that he was here was to call Cassie - but the hour was late and he found himself completely uncertain. What if he called her, just to get her hopes up, and didn’t find a part? What if she denied him? It had been about five weeks since he’d left; perhaps she’d moved on already?
The thought of Cassie moving on was unbearable, and Jake beelined to the luggage pickup, pulling his hat down over his face, hoping upon hope he wouldn’t be recognized. The hour was late; the airport itself wasn’t too busy.
He pulled out his phone, checking his notifications, most of which were wishes of good luck. His mouth twitched a little. Pittsburgh wasn’t exactly an orthodox place to go for theater; New York or Chicago may have been a better choice, London an even better one. But his friends and acquaintances were polite and didn’t mention Cassie at all. The feigned excitement was better than awkward questions, he mused.
After what felt like an age, the luggage track began to move, and Jake waited amongst the other passengers of his flight for his bag. He watched them come out, bag after bag, his eyes following the path they led around the track.
“Jake Mason?” he heard, and he felt the blood rush out of his face as he turned to see a woman, perhaps about twenty, looking at him with incredible disbelief.
Sometimes he wished he could deny it, his own name. But it wouldn’t do. He nodded, forcing a stiff smile on his face.
“Yes.”
The look on her face transformed entirely; he was looking at such pure joy he felt a stab of guilt at previously thinking of telling her she had the wrong person. It was still difficult to wrap his head round the fact that he was the object of such fixation, but all the same, the polite gentleman his mum raised couldn’t find it in himself to turn cold and rude, as he’d seen some actors do.
The woman clapped her hands then pulled out her phone. “Oh, my God. Can we please take a picture? I promise, just one picture.”
“Of course,” Jake replied, hoping that this wasn’t drawing more attention. The woman wasn’t being particularly loud, but the act of taking the picture was sure to draw some looks. Siding up next to her, he put his arm around her and smiled into the camera, hoping it looked more natural than it felt.
After that was done, she checked it and beamed at him.
“What’s your name?” Jake asked.
“Anna. Anna Baxter,” she replied breathlessly.
“Well, Anna, it was a pleasure to meet you,” he said, turning away, looking back to the luggage, and, luckily, spotting his own. He stepped away from Anna and grabbed it, gripping his carry on tighter against him, and nodded to her as he walked away toward the rental car pickup.
As he walked, his phone itched in his pocket. He wanted to call Cassie, badly. He wanted to hear her voice - he could imagine the way it’d sound, scratchy from sleep, almost too quiet to hear. He thought of how she’d look, hair mussed up against the pillow. He nearly sighed with longing.
He couldn’t call her. Not yet. Not until he was certain he’d be staying here for any length of time. He couldn’t drag her into it all over again only to possibly have to rip her apart again.
And, he thought, to rip myself apart again.
18.
It was about ten in the morning, and Cassie was hovering over a sketch she had just started the night before on the patio in her backyard. It was another piece from memory - the weeping mother statue at the graveyard. She was mainly focusing on the shadows, something to fine tune her skills. She enjoyed the peace and quiet of drawing; the only thing she heard was the stroke of the pencil on paper.
The sound of her phone suddenly beeping, though, was louder, and jarred her completely out of her train of thought. She set her pencil down and grabbed her phone, seeing that Sam had sent her a text.
Numbly, Cassie stared at the article Sam had sent to her coupled with, How is this even possible?
The headline read, Jake Mason Spotted At Pittsburgh Starbucks with a photo of Jake, that achingly familiar yet distant face, slightly darkened with the bill of a baseball cap. The very same one he wore the night he picked her up from the bar. The sudden onslaught of the memory of that night - remembering the feel of him beneath her— filled her with a strange mixture of arousal and pain. Her eyes scrolled through the article which ended with a photo of Jake and a fan at the airport, reportedly taken five days ago.
There was no disputing that face - or the time stamp. Jake had been in Pittsburgh for almost a week, and he hadn’t called her.
Her heart, which she had begun to think may actually eventually heal, split open anew, the feelings of loss and grief and now no small amount of anger and confusion spreading through her. She went back to the top, speed-reading the article this time; it said that the reason for his visit to Pittsburgh was unknown and even went on to speculate that he had dropped in to visit his girlfriend - the once mystery woman he was caught in the arms of in July, now identified as Kittanning native Cassie Mills, from ‘a source’. The anger amplified, and she exited the article, opening up her contacts and hovering over Jake’s name.
She could call him. He was in town; he was only forty minutes away. He was wearing that damned baseball cap and obviously trying to lay low.
He hadn’t told her he was coming.
He didn’t tell you he was coming, she thought to herself, because he didn’t want you to know.
Doubt leaked in, overshadowing everything else. Why was he in Pittsburgh? Was it for the movie? Something he had to do? Something he may not be in town long for and therefore didn’t want to involve her in?
But he’s been here for five days.
She’d gotten better at not thinking about him - but now, she thought of their last goodbye, of the look on his face before he stepped away; thinking about it now, with such clarity, it felt like it had just happened yesterday. He hadn’t wanted to leave; she knew him better than to think that he was faking anything about their time together. Jake was a spectacular actor, but he hadn’t acted with her.
She stared at his name on her phone, sadness creeping back. She wanted to talk to him - if only to hear his voice. If only to see him one last time. It would alleviate the ache she’d grown accustomed to, if only for a little while. The thought of seeing him again made her heart race. She felt butterflies in her stomach. She allowed herself to, just for a moment, imagine the way she’d feel with him right in front of her. The way his face would feel against her hand. The way his mouth would feel on her own, with just a small hint of a smile pressing against her.
No, she told herself, forcing the image away. He doesn’t want you to know he’s here.
Scrolling on her phone, she found Sam’s name and called her.
“Hey, Cassie. Give me a second.”
She heard shuffling and waited for a moment until the sound became much clearer and less noisy.
“Sorry. I’m at work. I took five minutes. How are you? Did you read the article I sent you?”
“About as good as I can be, I suppose. And yeah...pretty crazy.”
“He hasn’t called you, or anything?” Sam asked.
“No.” She heard a strange noise, sort of a tsk sound,
come from Sam. “Listen, maybe he’s only in town for a couple of days and doesn’t want to drag me into it. It was...sort of hard to say goodbye, and we didn’t talk about seeing each other in the future.”
She heard his voice then, unbidden, in her mind: Despite everything, I’m still your friend.
“So, you’re telling me you don’t want to hear from him?”
“That’s not what I’m saying.” Cassie stared at the sky, leaning back into her chair. With Sam, everything was simple. Black or white. Yes or no. Up or down. “I’m saying that I can understand why he hasn’t called me.”
“This seems like the perfect opportunity for you to call him. You can finally tell him how you feel.”
“I - no. No. I can’t do that.”
“And why not?” Sam shot back.
Cassie hung her head now, the familiar argument weighing her down. Ever since they made up, Sam had been more apt to tell her how she felt, quicker to give advice. Less uncertain. Cassie liked it, but there were times when it was positively draining.
“I don’t know how long he’s here for. How do you foresee that conversation going? ‘Oh, hey Jake. Saw you were in town. By the way, I love you.’ I really don’t think that’ll pan out.”
“You don’t know how it’ll pan out, because you refuse to even try.”
“I’m especially refusing to try because he hasn’t even told me he’s here. Don’t you think there’s a reason for that?”
“Maybe he’s afraid of your reaction. Maybe he’s afraid of rejection. Cassie, if I know anything, it’s that Jake loves you too. Him being here is a perfect opportunity for you both.”
Cassie laughed at that, the sound grating in her own ears. “Oh? And what makes you so certain he loves me?”
“Because I saw the way he looked at you.” Sam paused; Cassie could feel her hesitating. “He looked at you like he couldn’t believe his eyes. Like you were something unexpected, something he didn’t prepare for...but that he couldn’t get enough of.”
Cassie held her breath, not having a retort for this. She knew exactly what Sam was talking about; she could envision the expression on Jake’s face right before her eyes. It hurt, to hear Sam lay it out like that - to put into words what she so desperately wished she could see again. She sighed into the phone, forcing her voice to stay level.