by Alison Bond
‘I’m not sure,’ she said. ‘It’s not that I wouldn’t want to, because I do, I just don’t want any more regrets.’
Max’s expression changed in an instant from one of concern to one of exaggerated alarm. ‘No, sweetheart, I only meant… I meant separate rooms.’
Ruby’s insides cringed in shame. Of course he meant separate rooms. Men like Max didn’t wait around. If something was going to happen it would have happened way before now. If he found her attractive, which he obviously didn’t. How could she have been so naive? Just because Max was the only person in her life didn’t mean that she was any more to him than a client. She was so humiliated that she couldn’t even blush. Desperately, she tried to backtrack.
‘Darling!’ she laughed. ‘I know, I know. What I meant was that the most important thing…’ She reached for the next words but they didn’t come. What was the most important thing? Why had she started her sentence that way?
‘Ruby,’ he said as she struggled, ‘it’s okay. Honestly. I’m flattered that you’d even consider it.’
She wanted to believe him, she really did, but she still wasn’t sophisticated enough to be fashionably cool about such things. This entire night was becoming unbearable and she began to wish that Max had never crossed the border.
‘I’m seeing someone,’ he said. ‘In LA.’ He glanced around the restaurant. ‘Ruby, the truth is I’m seeing a man.’
Ruby stopped thinking about herself with a jolt. She looked at Max who was sheepishly stroking his chin and looking at her with the innocent eyes of friendship. ‘I thought you knew,’ he said. ‘I thought everyone knew.’
Ruby longed for a deep chasm to open up and swallow her whole. So much about Max snapped into place when he said that. His style. His generosity. His sensitivity. His bitchy streak. The men who always stopped to say hello when he took Ruby out to a nightclub. The nightclubs that he wouldn’t let her go to and the reason why she’d never seen him with a woman who wasn’t a client. She’d just assumed that he was sleeping with all of them except her. Of course he was gay, of course, and everyone probably did know. Everyone except her. Idiot.
‘Forget it,’ she said. ‘I have.’ Her gates slammed shut on the closest thing she had to a friend. ‘Sometimes I think you forget I’m just a girl from the valleys,’ she said. ‘I make silly mistakes.’
She convinced him with her performance over dinner, all smiles and lightness, that the incident had been forgotten. She ended up persuading him to stay over anyway, separate rooms. With all the rumours flying around about the future of this movie she might need his support.
As soon as she was alone again she read Sean’s letter one more time and tried to picture Dante with a baby boy that wasn’t hers. But her own face always popped up in these mental images, sharing a child with him, sharing a life with him. She couldn’t accept that it would never be that way. She firmly believed that there was another chapter to be written between them, but maybe that was just another unsophisticated assumption of a small-town girl. It wasn’t a fairytale, so it might not necessarily have a happy ending. Shortly before dawn she cried herself in to a fitful sleep.
At some point during the night the director, Albert, was fired and the star, Andrew Steele, was asked to replace him. The rumour mill had been generating plenty of heat but the lights were dim; nobody had seen this coming.
Max heard the story first. He was always an early riser and liked to swim. After a dip in the ocean he dried off and ordered breakfast next to the hotel pool. The hotel was accommodating the entire cast and crew and everybody knew each other, except Max. He hid behind his sunglasses and strived to blend in. It didn’t take long for news of the incident to break and it was easy for Max to overhear several loudly voiced opinions.
‘Steele’s been hassling Celestial from the start…’
‘Albert cried apparently!’
‘It’s the best news…’
‘… the worst decision I ever heard.’
Max returned to his room and started making calls. By the time Ruby surfaced he had managed to reach one of the executives at Celestial who verified that Andrew Steele was now directing Viva Romance, effective immediately. Unofficially he also confirmed that Andrew Steele had given them an ultimatum. Either he replaced the director, or he walked.
Max called his office a few minutes after it opened and his assistant filled him in on some phone calls she had already taken. An appointment had been scheduled between Ruby and Andrew. Why arrangements were being made over the phone lines of LA for a meeting that was to take place a few yards away from where he was sitting Max had no idea. This business was starting to overcomplicate itself.
He called Ruby’s room. ‘Get up, look fabulous. I’ll pick you up for breakfast in twenty minutes.’
His instincts told him this was a positive development. Andrew had scheduled a personal meeting with Ruby within hours of being appointed as director, and that boded well. If Ruby was going to be fired, then Andrew would have had somebody else do it for him a little later in the day.
It was convenient for Ruby that a minor crisis had emerged for Max to deal with so that attention was diverted from the events of last night. With a little luck she would soon be able to forget that she had totally embarrassed herself. Max didn’t mention it and neither did she. Her restless night had been blended away with a heavy layer of base foundation and although Dante’s face and his voice and the memory of his sexy touch were drifting constantly through her mind, she was trying to blend them away too.
Are you listening to this?’ asked Max.
‘Yes,’ she said. Focus.
‘If Andrew asks if you’ve seen the movie he directed before, don’t lie, nobody saw it, but say you heard about it, it was about the little Dutch girl.’
‘The little Dutch girl?’
‘That’s why nobody saw it. Don’t worry. He’ll like that you’ve heard of it.’
What did it matter now? If it was no longer about getting Dante back, then what was it all for? Don’t give up. So he was married, so what? That didn’t mean it was over.
*
As it turned out Andrew did indeed ask if she was aware of his previous film and she said that she was.
They met in his suite. There were six other people coming in and out of the room and a second phone line was being installed. It seemed that even the spoilt star could think of a few extra perks if his deal was suddenly changed.
He had classic movie idol looks, so perfect that he was sometimes in danger of seeming bland. His floppy blond hair was too polished, his teeth too straight and white. Andrew Steele hadn’t changed his image for two decades and still played roles meant for heroes in their twenties.
What I always hated about this picture,’ he said, Vas that my guy, my character, just kinda sleeps around. It’s irresponsible and I’m not happy with putting that out there to influence my teenagers.’
‘You have children?’
‘I don’t, no. I mean other people’s children.’ He was unembarrassed. He paused as if searching for the perfect profound expression. Ruby waited politely. ‘The children of America,’ he said. He looked pleased with himself for thinking of this phrase and repeated it. ‘One love. That’s the story this picture should tell to all our teenagers.’
Ruby didn’t know quite what to say. She wasn’t sure that the children of America came to see pictures like Viva Romance, particularly if there was no sex. She knew the children of London wouldn’t.
‘One love, one man, one woman.’ He was getting into his theme, his eyes gazing into the middle distance. Then he focused sharply on Ruby and lifted his hands up to frame an imaginary shot, a gesture so theatrical that she could hardly believe he was serious. ‘The question is, do you want to be that woman?’
Were they still talking about the film? She was flustered, saying that his ideas sounded interesting.
‘Here’s the thing,’ he continued. ‘There’s a lot of you girls on this movie. I need to make
a choice. Some people are going home.’
Home was easier to find for some people, she supposed. If hers was not with Dante then where was it?
She listened as Andrew explained the new direction that he wanted this movie to take. He was forcing it back to old-fashioned values, but he persuaded her that this would make it charming rather than dated – ‘with heaps of laughs’ – and the main female role would be drastically increased, which would probably mean more money and certainly more exposure. He told her about his plans for an uplifting ending which would have them weeping in the aisles with pure joy.
‘I’ve been watching you,’ said Andrew. ‘It’s hard not to.’
She didn’t want to go home. This was her chance. She knew she could convince Andrew that she was the only woman for him. She’d always had a flair for persuading men to do what she wanted. Dante might have been able to resist but he was a one-off. She had to exercise that feminine guile and prove she still had the knack.
‘I want it,’ she said, fixing her icy blue eyes on his and giving him the full force of her most seductive stare. She watched his pupils dilate. ‘You’ll never find anyone as good as me.’
The balance of power shifted. ‘Can we have dinner later?’ asked Andrew.
Max pronounced this a major career opportunity for Ruby. ‘By the end of your dinner he’ll be in love with you, if he isn’t already.’
‘I’ll see what I can do,’ said Ruby, and she was only half-kidding.
Max left for Los Angeles thinking that this girl was a lucky charm and he’d better not do anything to piss her off. Ever.
Andrew had sectioned off a dozen tables on the veranda so that their waterside table for two was completely private. There was a candelabra blazing at the centre, the flames wavering in the sea breeze. When she walked towards Andrew he leaped up to hold out her chair.
If there was one thing that Ruby knew how to do well it was flirting. She gave an inspired performance. She had steered away from romantic attachments in Los Angeles so she enjoyed turning it on once more. She still had it.
‘Everybody’s saying how unbelievably brave you were to stand up to the studio like that,’ she cooed. ‘What happened? Were you scared?’
‘Of course not,’ said Andrew. ‘Albert was destroying this picture, anyone with the most basic film knowledge could see that. I think the studio were grateful someone stopped it going too far.’
‘You saved them,’ said Ruby.
‘I did.’
‘Wow. You’re a hero.’
Andrew ordered champagne and shellfish for both of them. Ruby asked him questions and listened with rapt attention as he talked about himself.
His eyes really were the crazy shade of blue they appeared to be on screen. She’d always suspected that they were tinted somehow. So inky dark that they flashed black in the shadows that danced across his face in the candlelight.
After the first glass of champagne she started to relax. She was glad she had taken a pill before she left her hotel room. Another one before bed and she would sleep like a baby.
She had constantly to remind herself that this was business because the more she stared at Andrew, the more she wondered what it would be like to sleep with a movie star. She couldn’t help it.
Eventually Andrew turned the conversation back to her. What did she like? What did she think? Andrew was a busy man and the Sixties had almost passed him by. She’d listened to bands he’d never heard of and read books he’d never seen.
Before too long Ruby could tell that Andrew was a little bit in love with her. She recognized the signs. This should be the moment when she pulled back, retired to her room with dignity and left him wanting more. But the second bottle of champagne seemed to be even crisper than the first and slipped down as easily as the compliments that Andrew kept throwing her way.
If they could see me now. Her parents, her old school-friends, Ella. What would they say? She had Andrew Steele hanging on her every word. What would Dante say?
‘You’re smart for an actress,’ said Andrew. ‘Is that a British thing?’
Ruby drained her glass, felt the warm buzz cloud her head, looked at his brilliant smile and felt the urge to sweep his floppy blond hair from his forehead. She decided she was done with intellectuals; they were far too much hard work. Dante had never appreciated her. What she needed was a man with whom she could feel confident, not tested. Andrew wasn’t the sharpest tool in the box but he was a movie star so he didn’t have to be.
Are you married?’ she asked.
‘Divorced,’ he said. ‘Well, almost.’
Ruby rebounded on to Andrew Steele with the force of a ricocheted bullet.
She got the part.
It was so easy to have an affair on location. All that time waiting around, all those trailers with double beds. The real world is on hold while you work to create a common fantasy. You spend all your time together, flirting with each other and making coy glances for the camera, kissing for the fourteenth time that day but not being allowed to take it any further. The line between fiction and reality blurs and when the cameras finally stop it feels like the most natural thing in the world to fall in love. You must be well matched; the script says that you’re the perfect couple.
Ruby tried to play it cool. She tried to remember that this thing with Andrew had only started a few weeks ago, and how the last time she was in love it had turned out to be one-sided and she’d ended up hurt. And this was different: Andrew was not some self-celebrating director that nobody had ever heard of outside of a small pocket of London. This was a movie star, they were on location. It should be painless to define this relationship as a fabulous fling, destined to be one of her life’s great stories, and she told herself over and over again that she must not pin her romantic hopes on a household name. But Andrew made it difficult.
He appeared to adore her.
As an only child, and a pretty one at that, Ruby was used to adoration. But Andrew Steele’s particular brand of affection was entirely new to her. He seemed fascinated by every thought she had, and nothing was ever too much trouble for him. True, it was easier for a man in his position to do certain things – redesign her entire wardrobe, extend one of her key scenes, kiss her from the right side so that she looked better on camera – but he was devoted to making her happy. When a couple of other actresses on the film had been nasty about her, this total newcomer pinching a lead role out of nowhere, Andrew had instructed someone to fire them both immediately.
He was powerful. That was a massive turn-on.
She could tell that their relationship was making the scenes between them sizzle. When Max found out about them he had said something about it being the other way around – a couple who are making it in real life lack sexual tension on screen – but he was wrong.
She hadn’t realized how lonely she was, or that the emptiness inside her was caused by solitude as much as a broken heart. The desolate space had been so easily filled with the discovery that comes with new romance. She’d thought that her life was lacking Dante and lacking a sense of purpose, but really all it seemed to take to make her happy was the constant attention of an adoring man. Wasn’t that a bit superficial? Surely she had more to give than this? They talked very little and had sex all the time.
Neither of them mentioned what would happen when the film ended and everyone packed up and moved back to Los Angeles. Even as the final day drew near Ruby still didn’t want to force a conversation about that. She didn’t want to break the spell that the romantic location had cast on them both, she didn’t want real life to intrude. She was content. On screen, as a young girl in love, she was radiant.
The night before the last day of shooting, Andrew hired a fifty-foot sailboat to take them on a starlit tour of the coastline. That was the kind of thing Andrew did, that was why it was hard to keep any sense of perspective.
This wasn’t love. It was an affair, pure and simple. Perhaps it was the way that she could have stayed with Dante,
instead of being a fool and falling in love. Andrew was miles out of her reach, a movie star who could and probably would have any woman that he wanted. For a few brief weeks at the beach he had wanted her. That was enough. It was about keeping your heart close, not giving it away. If you were sensible and contained those silly daydreams of love ever after, while enjoying every moment, then even the goodbye could be sweet.
Ruby was so busy thinking that she must not fall in love with him that when Andrew bent down on one knee beneath the stars she thought that he must have dropped something, and when he produced a white velvet ring box containing a princess-cut ruby on a narrow gold band she had looked down at him in confusion. Then he said, ‘Ruby, my divorce came through last night. Will you marry me?’
Her mind went blank. Then she remembered what a lady was supposed to say in these circumstances and she said, ‘Yes, Andrew, I will.’
Two days later the newspapers reported that Andrew Steele and Ruby Fairbrother were madly in love and had married on the beach. There was a grainy black and white picture of the bride and groom. Everyone agreed that it would help the movie.
Ruby’s parents only knew of their daughter’s wedding because they read about it in the Sunday tabloids. They realized that they might never see her again.
14
Ruby was the flavour of the month for exactly three weeks. The newly-weds returned to Los Angeles via a short honeymoon in Acapulco. For most of the honeymoon, when not doing what honeymooners do, Ruby had lazed around looking at the third finger on her left hand and marvelling at how quickly life could change. She was married! Just like that. It hadn’t taken months of indecision or planning, there’d been no heartache, no picking out china for wedding lists, and there were serene moments during the pretty sunset ceremony when she’d felt immaculately happy.