It Started With Paris

by Cathy Kelly

  Leila looked at her, taking in the small, elegant figure, the rippling black hair, the exquisite face, the marvellous bone structure and those expressive dark eyes.

  ‘You look amazing,’ she said frankly, ‘and plenty of people in their forties have babies … I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that.’ She shuddered. ‘I apologise. It was far too personal …’

  ‘No, I asked you,’ Dara said, shrugging. ‘It’s hard enough trying to raise a teenager on your own, never mind throw a baby into the mix. The rest of the world thinks actors have such a different life. I mean, being a woman is tough, right, whatever end of the spectrum you’re at.’

  Leila kept staring at her.

  Dara slipped off the terrifically high Manolo Blahniks she’d been wearing all morning and sank into the couch, leaning her head back and rubbing her temples.

  ‘Oh Lordy, I’m so tired,’ she said. ‘If one more person asks me about men and why I can’t seem to make up my mind, I think I will just shove their digital recorder down their throat. It’s the men who can’t make up their minds, not me. Do you know how many men can cope with a woman in my position?’

  Leila shook her head.

  ‘None,’ said Dara, ‘absolutely none. They’re either in the business – in which case their ego, their job, their career is way more important than yours, and y’know, God forbid you get any more column inches or better reviews than they do – or they’re incredibly rich megalomaniac businessmen who think they own the world and want a movie star wife to add to their trophy collection. All they want is the kudos of a wife with an Oscar nomination, not a real-live person. I’ve gone out with those sorta guys, Lord help me, and let me tell you, it’s a lot more fun hanging out with the horses on my ranch.’

  It was rare for someone of Dara’s calibre to be so open with a publicist. Leila was mindful of the fact that people had a tendency to overshare when they were tired and emotional, and Dara might regret it later, but at the same time she sensed that the actress needed someone to talk to, not just to listen, so she blurted out: ‘It’s going to sound stupid, but I always thought it was just ordinary people like me who had man problems.’

  Dara laughed, a deep, dirty laugh. ‘I’m sorry, honey,’ she said, ‘I’ve been talking all about me – it’s clear we should have been talking about you! Tell me your story.’

  Leila hesitated for a second, but the request was obviously genuine and deserved an honest response. ‘I was married for a year, then one day I came home to find my husband packing up his stuff. Said he’d been seeing someone else and surely I must’ve known? How could I not have seen that it was all going downhill? Then it was hasta la vista, baby and he was gone.’

  ‘You poor kid,’ said Dara, genuine warmth in her voice. ‘How are you doing now?’

  Leila thought about it. ‘If you’d asked me that question a month ago, the answer would’ve been “broken”. I thought about him every minute of every day, beating myself up for having failed. Now, though … I don’t feel that way any more. A lot of stuff has happened: my mum hasn’t been well and …’ She could hardly fill Dara Car in on everything, so she let it go at: ‘I feel different, as if I’ve got things in perspective and I … I might be ready for another relationship.’

  She exhaled as she finished speaking. It was out there – she’d said it out loud. It sounded crazy: it was crazy. Things between her and Devlin were so distant; she longed for the easy familiarity they used to share.

  ‘And who’s the new guy?’ said Dara.

  Leila knew she was blushing this time. ‘Nobody you’d know,’ she said.

  Dara looked at her, one eyebrow on that exquisite famous face rising in a question mark.

  ‘Really,’ she said, making the word several syllables long. ‘My advice – for what it’s worth – is to grab it with both hands. Life’s tough when you’re on your own. I’m lucky, I have my son. I love him to pieces and he’s everything to me, but one day he’ll be off with his own life and I’ll have to adjust to being alone. When I was a kid, everyone said, Oh, Dara, you’re so beautiful, you’ll always have men running after you. But it doesn’t work like that. You have to grab what you want and hold on to it.’

  Leila felt almost tearful. This was hard-won advice and she was grateful.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said earnestly. ‘After my husband, I didn’t trust anyone – or myself, for that matter. Now, though, I think you’re right …’

  ‘You’re welcome.’ Dara got to her feet fluidly. ‘I think I’m going to go into my suite for a light lunch and a few stretches before the next tranche of interviews – which start at …?’

  ‘Two forty-five,’ Leila replied, without having to look at the schedule. ‘We’re doing two more print and then three TV.’

  ‘In that case I’d better get them to trowel on some more cosmetics,’ said Dara good-naturedly. ‘I’ll see you at two forty-five.’

  Dara’s premiere was the following night. There’d only been a few TV interviews scheduled that morning and Leila had been on duty again. She could see that the actress was looking more tired today, yet she was still able to turn on the magic for the cameras. Leila watched entranced as Dara became something else, the creature every eye in the room was drawn towards. You just had to look at her.

  ‘That’s what makes a movie star.’

  She turned and realised that Devlin was standing beside her.

  ‘You can’t take your eyes off her, can you?’ he whispered.

  ‘No,’ Leila said, feeling that strange flare of jealousy again.

  Did Devlin fancy Dara? Of course he did; every man who’d ever set eyes on her fancied Dara. She had beauty, intelligence, sexiness and vulnerability all mixed up together. She was catnip to men, and yet … she herself had said that getting hold of a real man was almost impossible, even for her.

  ‘So, looking forward to the premiere tonight?’ Leila asked Devlin, then cursed herself for such a stupid question. People in their business didn’t exactly look forward to premieres: premieres were work – and demanding work at that. They had to make sure their stars were cared for, see to it that the media turned out in force, that the fans showed up in sufficient numbers to guarantee plenty of column inches, lots of TV time and a deluge of online reviews and blog write-ups. Only then would Eclipse head office be assured that Dublin were doing their job properly. Sure, they got to dress up in their evening clothes, but it was purely a working gig.

  ‘Yes, I’m looking forward to it,’ said Devlin, shooting her a big smile. ‘We’re going to go out to dinner afterwards, myself and Poppa. I don’t think Dara will join us, but we’ll see who else from her team wants to come.’

  ‘Obviously I’m available for whatever’s needed,’ Leila said.

  ‘I think it’s going to be sort of relaxed, actually,’ Devlin said. ‘Poppa’s a great guy, he’s not one of those ball-breaker managers.’

  ‘Even better,’ Leila said. ‘I could do with a night out.’

  Devlin looked at her curiously, but she managed to keep a slightly fixed smile on her face and turned back to watching Dara.

  Ever since Rome, she’d been wishing that she could go back in time and undo what had happened so the tension would evaporate and they could return to the easy rapport they’d had before. But Dara’s advice had her reconsidering: if it hadn’t been for that night in Rome, she might never have realised how much Devlin meant to her; she might have gone on thinking of him merely as a boss. But he could be more – at least, she’d love him to be more.

  If only she knew how he felt. Devlin had so many women on the go; he might have kissed her purely because she was there. And if that was the case, Leila would die if he had any clue about how she felt.

  The premiere was set for seven, so at six, Leila was in Dara’s suite in one of her favourite premiere outfits: a sparkly black on-the-knee dress with spaghetti straps and a tiny fitted jacket. Marc and Ilona were in the cinema with the security people, organising last-minute details, phonin
g and texting through with requests and information.

  ‘Hundreds here already,’ Ilona had told Leila. ‘It’s a good crowd, though: no trouble and lots of press.’

  Marc kept her up to date on the usual issues over ID verification and people who insisted they were journalists, bloggers and photographers but who weren’t on any of the lists. Leila’s team were well trained and could cope with it.

  Next, a gang of beautiful people had turned up, entirely out of it on lunchtime champagne and far too drunk to be allowed in. They were creating a scene, Ilona said, marching up and down saying Don’t you know who we are? Marc was somewhere else, what should she do?

  ‘OK, let me sort it out. I’ll talk to Devlin,’ Leila said, wishing she was there to defuse things. There was such a thing as bad publicity.

  She phoned Devlin, who was having a drink in the bar with Poppa, and explained the situation.

  ‘We need more security on tonight, ASAP,’ she said.

  ‘Of course,’ said Devlin, ‘I’ll get right on it. Everything OK with Dara?’

  ‘Fine, fine,’ said Leila brusquely.

  ‘And you?’ Devlin asked, his voice softening. ‘Are you OK?’

  Leila hesitated. ‘I’m fine,’ she said calmly. ‘Fine.’

  ‘Right,’ he said. ‘I’m looking forward to dinner, it’ll be nice. I think it’s just going to be the three of us.’

  ‘Good,’ said Leila, smiling as she hung up. For a minute he’d sounded like the old Devlin. That was good. Maybe it wasn’t all ruined. Maybe her instincts were right.

  Finally Dara emerged from her suite, looking startlingly beautiful in a long cream dress which hung off her slender body like a Grecian gown on a piece of sculpture.

  ‘Wow, that dress is amazing,’ said Leila.

  ‘I know, I’m sort of afraid to sit down in it because I think when I get up it’ll be covered in creases,’ said Dara. ‘It’s this material, I don’t know what it is.’

  ‘We could limit the photocall to on the way into the cinema, and then try to ensure the photographers only get you in groups?’ Leila suggested. ‘I’m thinking no posed shots on your own, keep you with other people so there’s less chance they’ll use the shots in the fashion mags and comment on the creases …? I know, impossible to be so specific with photographers, but we can manage it to a certain extent.’

  ‘We’ll try it,’ said Dara. ‘Darned designers. The way they create dresses nowadays, you can only stand up in them and be photographed. You can’t actually, y’know, sit or eat or anything normal. Right, let’s rock’n’roll.’

  In the limo, they chatted.

  ‘How many times have you seen it already?’

  ‘Once,’ said Dara. ‘This’ll be number two. Then, two days’ time in Paris will be number three. Some people sneak out of their own premieres, but I’ve always felt that was sort of rude, ’cos the fans are going to see you leaving early and they’ll think it’s because the movie’s so dreadful you can’t stand to watch it.’

  ‘It’s not a dreadful movie, it’s an amazing movie,’ said Leila, who’d seen it the previous month.

  ‘You’re very kind,’ said Dara. She reached out and touched the younger woman. ‘Very, very kind. Don’t lose that. This business can turn people tough, you know.’

  ‘I won’t,’ said Leila. ‘I have my mother’s dog to keep me grounded. She rolled in fox doo-dah the other weekend and I had to wash her in my mother’s bath. That pretty much keeps your feet on the ground.’

  Dara roared with laughter and then had to try and stop. ‘This dress is killing me. It’s not made for laughing either. No sitting, no laughing. That’s good, I like the sound of that dog. Fourteen-year-old sons keep you grounded too. If my son could see me now, he’d say: Mom, yeah, s’pose you look OK, for your age and everything …

  They both laughed.

  ‘You need something to remind you that this business is a business and all the dressing up is just fantasy. Grounded is good.’

  ‘It is,’ agreed Leila.

  Somehow, all the events of the past few months – her mother’s accident, Katy’s pregnancy, even the problems with Susie – had left her feeling grounded in a way she never had before.

  Life wasn’t to be thought about – it was to be grabbed.

  Sixteen

  Marriage is our last, best chance to grow up. JOSEPH BARTH

  Ruby sat at the back of year five’s classroom and listened to Miss Redmond droning on about some ancient battle. There were times when she was sorry she’d ever decided to study history for Leaving Cert, and this was definitely one of those times. The course was huge and Miss Redmond was not one of those teachers with the charisma to make you want to listen. No matter what great event in history she was describing, she always spoke as if she was giving evidence at an inquiry into the loss of a box of paper clips. Drone, drone, drone.

  Ruby shot a sideways glance at her friend Andi, who was paying attention and making notes. Once upon a time Ruby used to pay attention and make notes, but she didn’t have the energy any more. Or the heart, for that matter. She felt tired a lot of the time; a tiredness that was interspersed with moments of great vitality, normally around mealtimes. She was doing her best to eat as little as possible, but it was difficult.

  She spent hours fantasising about chocolate, or cheese on toast – white bread, of course, with red cheddar dripping down the sides. Then she’d feel angry with herself for becoming so obsessed – it was only food, and despite all her efforts, nobody was noticing.

  Not her mother, not her father, not even Vonnie. Nobody.

  If only she could stick it out a bit longer, then someone would see and everything would be better, surely? They’d realise that she was in pain then, and all of them – Mum, Dad, Vonnie – would see that she was trapped in the middle of this adult battle and she couldn’t take it any more.

  But so far – nothing. They were all too caught up in their own dramas to notice her.

  What would it take to make them sit up? she wondered. She’d thought about running away, but she knew Shelby would be devastated. The whole point about shocking them by losing weight was that it didn’t involve Shelby. She wouldn’t even have to know, let alone get worried about it. That was part of its brilliance.

  If it ever worked.

  The mornings were easiest not to eat, when her resolve was high. No matter how hungry she felt in the morning, she flattened down the feelings, buried them deep inside her and grabbed an apple or occasionally a low-fat yogurt from the fridge. It required no effort to fool her mother. Mum rarely noticed anything any more. She was cooking a huge amount, doing her best mother impersonation and serving up cordon-bleu delights every night to Ruby and Shelby, but she took amazingly little notice of whether they ate it or not. Ruby had become adept at pushing things around her plate, then moving swiftly to the bin the moment her mother’s back was turned. She’d empty her plate, cover up the discarded food with a sheet of kitchen roll and be loading the plate into the dishwasher by the time her mother noticed.

  ‘Fabulous food,’ she’d say blithely, giving her mother a brief hug as she walked past. ‘Must go up and study.’

  Studying was the most amazing excuse for everything. It stopped her mother in her tracks when she was about to get into her stride complaining about Ruby’s father and that woman, as she called Vonnie. It stopped her noticing what Ruby put into her packed lunch. And it made Ruby look like a perfectly behaved teenager. In reality, she’d be staring out the window, messing on her phone, reading, or just lying on her bed in a semi-doze, because she felt tired and was thinking about food.

  Some nights, she gave in and ran down to the fridge, where she stood in the darkened kitchen gorging herself on whatever she could find. Cheese, cold chicken, a bowl of leftover apple crumble. Anything.

  As soon as she finished, the guilt and shame would overwhelm her.

  How could she have given in? Nobody would ever notice if she kept pigging out this way.
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  She’d tried throwing up but she couldn’t do it. Ever since she was little, she’d had a phobia about being sick, and no matter how many times she tried, she couldn’t.

  Finally, exhausted, red-eyed and full of self-anger at her inability to control even one aspect of her life, she’d fall into bed and sleep heavily, to wake shattered in the morning.

  She was almost on the verge of giving up, because nobody paid any attention whatsoever. And then one day, somebody did notice: Maria, the queen bee of her year.

  ‘Ruby, you look fabulous,’ Maria had said as they were changing for sport. ‘What are you doing – South Beach, the Dukan?’

  Ruby had responded with a speculative look. Maria could be an absolute bitch if crossed, but thus far she’d never given Ruby any trouble. Even so, it gave her great pleasure to shrug her slender shoulders and say: ‘Nothing really, Maria. I’m just naturally slim.’

  Maria’s eyes glittered. Ruby knew exactly how hard Maria worked to keep her slim figure, so it was the ultimate irritation to discover someone who achieved the same effect with no effort.

  ‘Oh well,’ said Maria, still not quite able to diss Ruby, because, after all, she was looking totally amazing, ‘whatever it is, you look good.’

  Ruby had felt triumph flood through her. Somebody had noticed! It wouldn’t be long now, surely? Vonnie would see, Ruby knew she would, and Vonnie would tell Dad and it would all stop. Somebody would think about her and Shelby and see how horrible life had become for them. Mum would have to stop thinking about herself long enough to realise she had two daughters to consider. The bitching, the anger, the grand inquisition about the house in Poppy Lane: all of it would stop.

  Beside her in history class, Andi reached out and poked Ruby in the arm.

  ‘Earth to Planet Ruby,’ she whispered. ‘You’re supposed to be writing this down.’

  ‘Oh, er, thanks, Andi,’ muttered Ruby, and stared up at the blackboard, where Miss Redmond was laboriously writing something in handwriting just as boring as her tone of voice.