by Lesley Crewe
Her image smiled back at her in the mirror. “Beautiful. Have fun.”
Ava left the room and pushed the elevator button. The red arrow above the door pinged and the door opened. She always loved this part. The people inside inevitably looked bored and then shocked and then sort of embarrassed when they realized who she was. They either didn’t look at her at all or never took their eyes off her. It was an art to learn how to ignore it and pretend they didn’t exist.
Tonight there were two men in the elevator who knew each other. They were laughing when the door opened, but as soon as she walked in, they shut right up. She turned around and pushed the button. That’s when the frantic hand gestures started behind her back. The door opened and she walked out. As the door closed there was a burst of expletives and yelling.
Too boring.
She walked into the upscale lounge. The lights were dim and the piano music low. All very expensive and chic. She walked over to the bar and sat on a stool, crossing her legs, causing her very short dress to become shorter still.
The bartender came over. “Good evening, Miss Harris. Nice to see you again.” He put a cocktail napkin in front of her.
“Good evening, Frank. Nice to see you too.”
“What can I get you this evening?”
“A rum and Coke please. On the rocks.”
“Certainly.”
She looked around. Quite a few men caught her eye. They were an older group, with money and power to burn. Amazing how they all looked at her legs. Poor pathetic things. Wearing three-thousand-dollar suits and still behaving like the boys in gym class.
Her drink was in front of her. She took a sip and then another while counting down from ten in her head. At two, a man—the leader of the pack—approached with a drink in his hand.
“Good evening.”
“Good evening.” She took another sip.
“Ava Harris, is it not?”
“That’s right.”
He held out his hand. “Michael Lancaster.”
She shook his hand. “Nice to meet you, Michael.”
He slid his body onto the bar stool next to her, as she knew he would.
“Are you in town for a movie?”
“Yes.”
“How interesting.”
“Is it?”
“Well, for someone who knows nothing about the movie industry, it is rather fascinating.”
“It’s not really.” She took a big swallow and then another until the glass was empty.
“May I buy you a drink?”
“Thank you. Rum and Coke.”
He flicked his finger at Frank, who instantly produced the new drinks. Ava picked hers up. “Cheers.”
“Cheers.”
They had a pleasant conversation that lasted two more drinks.
He held out the last one for her. “Would you like another?”
She blinked. “What do I have to do for it?”
“You don’t have to do anything.”
“That’s where you’re wrong.”
He hesitated.
“I can do most things very, very well, so you have gentlemen’s choice tonight.”
He handed her the glass. “Well, I’m nothing if not a gentleman.”
“How did I know you were going to say that?” She swallowed another mouthful.
He snapped his fingers at the bartender. “Check.” The tab was produced and he wrote his name and room number on it.
Michael put his hand under her elbow. “After you.”
He steered her out of the bar while Frank cleaned up the glasses and shook his head.
They got on the elevator. “My room or yours?” he asked.
“Yours.”
They got off on his floor and walked down the hall. He reached in his pocket and took out the room key. He slid it in and pulled it out. The door opened. And then the door shut.
He was the perfect gentleman. At two in the morning, when he was done with her, he got dressed and escorted her down to her door. He said, “You have to be careful. Even in classy hotels, you never know who you might run in to, in the elevator or the hall.”
“Or the lounge.”
He laughed, thinking she was joking.
She shut the door in his face and stumbled into the bathroom, pulling off her dress. She was naked. She’d forgotten her bra and panties. Didn’t matter. He’d either keep them as a trophy or sell them on eBay. She knelt by the toilet and threw up the rum, then washed her face and brushed her teeth. She turned out the bathroom light and teetered to bed, where she picked up the phone and asked for an eight o’clock wake-up call before passing out cold.
Ever the professional, she was up, dressed and ready to go when Trent picked her up at ten.
“God, you look wonderful,” he proclaimed as he came through the door. He grabbed her by the shoulders and kissed her cheek. “Vacation’s done you a world of good, I see.” He looked at her again. “Maybe a little too good. Put on some weight, I see.”
“I’ll stop eating.”
“Good girl.” He rushed past her. “Look, we have a busy day and I’m not sure we’re going to get it all in, but we’ll give it the old college try.” She sat on the edge of the sofa and smiled.
“Where’s that pit bull you insist on keeping around?”
“Lola will be here tomorrow.”
“Thank God. That’s all I would’ve needed on today of all days.” He reached for the phone on the coffee table. “I’ll call and tell them we’re on our way.” He sounded very chummy with whoever it was on the other end of the phone. Good-old-boy kind of chatter, all huff and puff and blow your house down kind of stuff.
Ava gathered her purse and coat and took one last look in the mirror. She mouthed, “Goodbye, Ava,” before she was ushered out the door of the room, out of the hotel and into the car. Trent talked the entire time about how wonderful the new director was and how marvelous his new vision would be and that she should be grateful to be working with the next Woody Allen.
“You’re overselling it, Trent.”
He took offense to that and blustered all the way up to the meeting rooms, and there were plenty of them. A whole day of musical rooms. She sat up and sat down. She was greeted and dismissed. She was ignored and fawned over. She was talked to, talked at, talked about, and talked into. And that was all before the director got there.
When she did finally meet the boy wonder he had on an earpiece and was talking into it. He gestured for them to come in and then turned his back to finish his conversation. There were four other men in the room. It was stuffy and smoky. They stood up in turn and introduced themselves, though she forgot who they were right away.
As she took off her coat, she spied a picked-over meat tray and a pitcher with glasses on a table. She went over and helped herself a glass of water. Trent stopped talking long enough to yell across the room, “Don’t you dare eat that cheese, you little dumpling.”
The men laughed. She didn’t. It was four o’clock and she hadn’t eaten. She picked up a fist full of cheese, sat in a corner and ate it. The men never noticed, so busy were they with their creative pissing contest.
A half an hour went by and the new messiah was still on the phone. She ate more cheese. Suddenly the door opened and Hayden walked in. He didn’t see her. He greeted the men and there was a commotion of good will. Then he spied her.
“Ava.” He sauntered over and gave her a big hug. “Oh baby, baby. I’ve missed you. Give daddy a kiss.”
He kissed her longer then necessary while the men watched, and then let her go.
“You still love an audience, Hayden.”
“You know me so well.” He reached out and held her chin. “Let me look at you. Exquisite as ever.” He paused. “On second thought, you look tired. I hope you weren’t up to something last night, you naughty girl. I want you fresh as a daisy tonight.”
“What are we doing tonight?”
He grabbed her waist and whispered, “I’m taking you to dinner
and then we’re having a repeat performance of my Sydney engagement. I’ve been saving myself all week. How’s that for sacrifice.”
“Overwhelming.”
He laughed and slapped her bottom. “Don’t get saucy.”
The director finally rushed over, as if she’d just walked in the room. He looked about sixteen years old. “Nice to meet you, Miss Harris. I’m looking forward to working with you. Nigel Barrymore, by the way.”
“Hello, Nigel.”
Nigel grabbed Hayden’s arm and they pulled their forearms back and forth in a hip urban grip. “Hey dawg, how’s it goin’?”
“Great, now that my favourite woman is back in town.”
More male bonding crap and then they invited her to sit down. She ended up facing them as if she was the defendant and they were the jury. Scripts were handed out. The usual nonsense was spouted and Ava’s eyes got heavy.
“As I was saying,” Nigel repeated, when he got her attention, “it’s a minor adjustment, but I think it’s absolutely crucial to the crux of the story. Turn to page 54.”
Paper was heard being thumbed through. She looked at it. “Let me guess.”
“Excuse me?” said Nigel.
“This is the lover’s quarrel between Hayden and me.”
“Yes.”
“And there’s something wrong with it.”
“Well, yes.”
“It’s not graphic enough, not sensational enough.”
“True.”
“It won’t grab the sixteen- to twenty-five-year-olds.”
Nigel pointed at her. “Yes! She really is a genius, isn’t she Hayden?”
“She picked me, didn’t she?”
Ava looked at the director. “So you want me to be either in my underwear, a see-through blouse and panties, a bathing suit, or a thong. Am I right?”
“No.”
“What a relief.”
“We want you raped.”
She stood up. “I’m leaving.”
“Sit down, Miss Harris.” The sixteen-year-old suddenly became the prosecutor. “I want to explain my vision.”
“I know all about your vision. It’s about gawking at tits and ass and getting off on seeing a woman powerless and crying for help.”
Trent was purple. Hayden wasn’t far off. Nigel looked at Trent. “Is she serious?”
“Ava, be reasonable.”
Ava walked to the other side of the room and stood by the window. The sky was crying again. Their voices droned on and in the end it sounded like a swarm of bees. She watched tears fall against the window. She wondered if it was crying in Cape Breton too.
Since threats didn’t seem to do the trick, they eventually sent Hayden in to butter her up. He took her into another room and sat down beside her.
“Sweets. I know you hate this kind of stuff, and this isn’t what you signed up for, but honey, shit happens. They’re allowed to make these changes within reason and this doesn’t change the outcome of the plot anyway.”
“If it doesn’t change it, why do it?”
“How the hell should I know? Babe, it’s a gig. When your salary is seven figures, it’s not that hard to make it easy on everybody and just do it.”
“It’s not easy on me.”
He put his arm around her shoulder and kissed her ear. “Sweetheart, it’s me. It’s not like it’s going to be some asshole you don’t know. I’ll be right there. I’ll protect you.”
“You’ll be there and so will thirty crew with bright lights and cameras. And after that, it will be my nieces watching it at the Empire Theatre next fall. Not to mention the millions around the world.”
“Jesus, are you an actress or a nun?”
“Pardon?”
“Shit, it’s a movie. It’s not real. It’s make-believe. It’s not actually going to happen to you. They’ll yell ‘Cut’ and we’ll go get a hamburger.” The only way she was going to get out of that room was to agree, so, in the end, she agreed.
Then they added one tiny thing. She and Hayden would have to have a rehearsal tomorrow because of scheduling problems. But the boy genius thought it would be a great idea to get the good stuff done first. Pump everyone up, as it were.
Released from bondage, Ava went back to the hotel. Hayden was two floors away. They agreed to meet at seven o’clock. She took a shower and ate cashews while she put her face on. She talked to the mirror.
“How did it go today, Ava?”
“The usual. A woman got screwed.”
“Happens a lot.”
“So I hear.”
He tapped on her door and she was ready. They went out for an expensive meal at Elaine’s. Hayden talked and Ava listened. He reached out at one point and grabbed her hand. He kissed the back of it.
“I missed you.”
“Did you?”
“Didn’t you miss me?”
She nodded.
“We’ve got to decide where this relationship is going.” He fiddled with the ring on her finger.
“What do you mean?”
He kissed her fingertips. “While you were away, I realized how much I care about you.”
“While you took a different woman to bed every night.”
He laughed. “Surprisingly, it helped to clarify the situation.”
“You don’t say.”
“I mean it. I was comparison shopping. And you know what?”
“What?”
“They didn’t hold a candle to you.” He squeezed her hand and gave it a little shake. “Can we go, before I take you here on the table?”
They got their coats and took a taxi back to the hotel. He kept his arm around her as they walked into the lobby. Michael Lancaster and a woman who looked like his wife walked down the hall towards them. His wife recognized her and poked him in the ribs. He glanced at her and kept going. She did the same.
Hayden barely let her get her coat off before he was all over her. “Give me a second,” she pleaded. She shut the bathroom door in his face and turned on the tap. She looked in the mirror.
“Do you even like Hayden?”
She stood there for a few minutes before she shrugged. “Does it matter?”
She turned the water tap off and went out. Hayden was naked in the bed waiting for her. He patted the sheets beside him.
“Let’s rehearse before rehearsal.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
After Colleen left, Seamus cleaned up his bedroom carefully, to protect the tiny feet and paws that ran across the floor many times in the run of a day. He swept, vacuumed, mopped, and dried it with a towel. Only when he was satisfied that not one sliver of glass remained, did he sit out on the deck and look at the beach.
He tried to compose a letter in his head as he sat there, but couldn’t get a thought to come out right, so he went into the kitchen and searched for paper. Naturally, he couldn’t find any. He took down a drawing of Sarah’s from the fridge, found a coloured pencil in the junk drawer, and sat at the kitchen table. His hand stayed poised over the paper for an hour. There was nothing he could say. He finally wrote, “Dearest Libby, I love you. Seamus.”
He folded the paper into a tiny square, went into his bedroom and picked up the ring box, putting the note inside. Then he put on a jacket and went out the door. Dexter came with him. He walked to the beach and sat on the log where he sometimes had his morning coffee. It would be dark soon.
Finally he took a flat rock and started to dig. When he thought it was deep enough he took the ring box, kissed it, and put it in the hole. Then he and Dexter filled it with sand. Seamus patted it over. He walked back in the house, lay on his bed and stared at the ceiling all night.
At work the next day, he and Roger only grunted at each other in passing. One of the clerks who worked at the station asked him if he wanted to go out for a bite. He declined. He later heard her complain about him to another clerk, not realizing he was in the coffee room.
“Is he stuck up or is he gay? I can’t figure out which.”
&nbs
p; “Maybe he’s both,” the girl laughed.
“What a waste then.”
“He was married, though.”
“Apparently that means nothing. Lots of gay guys get married. I watched it on Oprah.”
“They do?”
“Yeah. They want kids like anyone else.”
“Why are all gay men really good looking?”
“Not all of them are.”
“Well, a vast majority are. Look at Will on Will and Grace.”
“He’s not gay in real life.”
“He’s not?”
Seamus walked out of the coffee room and right past them. “Neither am I.”
He went through the day with a pounding headache. The sky looked threatening, a dark, broody twilight in the middle of the afternoon. It made the day seem endless. By the end of his shift, he was anxious to see the kids. He missed them and hoped they’d distract him from his thoughts long enough for him to get a little sleep.
Never far away were thoughts of her. He wondered where she was and what she was doing. Was she thinking of him? He worried about her not eating right. Or not eating at all, which reminded him of food and the fact that he needed some. He did himself a favour and went to the grocery store before picking up the kids. Standing in the vegetable aisle, he remembered the day he ran into her. He passed the mushrooms and stopped. He saw her still, wearing that tea towel around her waist and laughing as she looked in the fridge. He picked up a paper bag and filled it with mushrooms. Look, Libby, here’s some for supper. We’ll cook them up tonight.
He put the bag back on the display counter and walked out of the store.
All the way out to Colleen’s he saw her face. He saw her body. He remembered her perfume. She must be with him. Some essence must have stayed, because it was as if she were right beside him. Or maybe I’m going crazy, he thought.
Seamus pulled into Colleen’s and took a deep breath. He had to put Libby away for a while. He needed to love his kids. He mentally kissed her and tucked her into his heart and promised to take her out later, when the kids were asleep.
He walked into the kitchen, a nice normal kitchen, where dishes were still on the counter and pots bubbled away. The TV blared from the family room and Colleen was bent over, looking in her own fridge. “Have you kids eaten all the Dream Whip?” she shouted over her shoulder.