by Shari Low
I’d been so incredibly stupid. Why had I even thought for a minute that I could just arrive here and the movie world would treat me like a long-lost relative and welcome me with open arms and a monthly trust fund? I’d been so pathetically unrealistic. Or optimistic. I still wasn’t sure which. And the craziest thing about the whole situation, the one factor that had left me wondering if there was some kind of genetic affliction that had taken control of my brain, was that I had a horrible feeling that if I could rewind the last few weeks I’d probably do exactly the same things all over again.
I loaded the boys into the car and set off for the beach. For the first time since I’d arrived in LA I didn’t sing that really annoying Sheryl Crow song when I rode down Santa Monica Boulevard. I didn’t sing the fantastic one by the Lighthouse Family when we passed Ocean Drive. I was too busy veering between ‘What Becomes of the Broken Hearted’ and ‘I Will Survive’. If there had been a song called ‘Little Old Self Pity Me’ I’d have been whistling that too.
Bollocks. Bloody, bloody, bloody bollocks.
I still hadn’t told Mark. My stomach flipped at the very thought of it. He’d called me the night before but I’d just bluffed him and told him that the meeting had been postponed for a couple of days. Big bolt of lightning. Bluff? Who am I kidding? That wasn’t a bluff–a bluff is what you did at poker when you were trying to hold on to your last tenner. What I’d done to Mark was tell him a great big whopping lie. The kind of lie that, had it come out of Mac or Benny’s mouth, would have resulted in them being grounded for a month and all their toys dispatched to the nearest Oxfam shop.
‘So you’re not coming home tomorrow then?’ he had asked.
‘No, Mark, I’m not coming home tomorrow. I’ve changed the tickets and left them open. I have to wait to find out what’s happening and then I’ll let you know.’
‘Fine. Can I talk to the boys?’
Fine. That was it. ‘Fine’, in a distinctly fractious tone.
But then, I hardly had the moral high-ground, did I? The moral high-ground had turned into an avalanche the minute I’d started telling great big whoppers.
This couldn’t go on forever. I was going to have to make my mind up about what I was going to do and then face the consequences. It was decision time–head had been surgically extricated from sand.
I still didn’t want to go home. The thought of going back to the monotony and drudgery of normal life did absolutely nothing for me. How would I feel about giving up on my dreams when I was back in the UK? How would Mark and I ever get our relationship back on track? And how would I cope with knowing that the only chance of me coming face-to-face with Jackie Collins was if she took up selling Avon and wandered down our street?
Point one: Answer–devastated.
Point three: Answer–devastated.
Point two: Answer–I had absolutely no idea. Had Mark and I given up? We’d somehow become one of those couples who’d just completely grown apart and woken up one morning realising they had nothing left in common any more.
And then there was Sam. Gorgeous, adorable Sam.
Finally, finally I had to do a bit of soul-searching and ask myself the tough questions that I’d been putting off since the moment I’d realised that there could be more to us than just friends. Could we be happy together?
There, I’d said it.
Could Sam Morton and I be happy together?
And the truth was…we probably could. We’d be happy. We’d have a great life. We’d have absolutely amazing, bend-me-backwards sex and I’d permanently walk like a cowboy.
I was pretty sure that there should be a huge BUT after the analysis of the Sam situation–however, right at that very moment I couldn’t think what it was.
‘Mum, are we ever going to get out?’ Mac demanded.
I suddenly realised that I was sitting stationary in the beach car park. It was lucky Mac had jolted me or I could have sat there in a pensive trance for the rest of the day.
‘Sorry, guys,’ I told them, turning round to make my apologies face-to-face.
That’s when I realised that Benny was wearing a scuba mask. Fabulous. I needed a Samaritans counsellor and instead I got a Navy Seal. I unloaded everything from the car and we–Mum, Mac and Scuba Boy–traipsed down to the sand. ‘Hi Mac, hi Benny!’ came a rousing chorus of calls from assorted small children. My boys raised their hands in greeting, before hi-fiving those within arm’s reach. Lord. They’d gone from the Alpine Synchronised Ski Team to the Mother’s Beach Volleyball Team overnight.
It took me a few seconds to realise that something was strange. At first I couldn’t put my finger on it. It was, it was…why was everyone staring at me? About thirty assorted humans of the female variety had their eyes trained on my moving form and not in a friendly way. It was at that moment in every B-movie Western where the hero cowboy looks up to see 4,000 Apaches advancing swiftly in his direction.
And something else was strange. They looked different somehow.
‘Hi there! Great to see you again.’
‘Muuuuum, Zac just hit me!’ Benny shouted.
Ah, little Zac. So that meant there was a greater than evens chance that the singsong voice behind me was emanating from the extra-wide gob of…
‘Hi Mandy. How are you? Thank you so much for the banana bread, it was delicious. You’re too, too sweet,’ I wittered.
But then marzipan was too, too sweet and it made me want to vomit. As if life hadn’t pissed on me enough in the last twenty-four hours, now I was making small talk with Mandy.
‘Oh, it was my pleasure. Come sit down here, it’ll be nice to have a chat,’ she whined.
I considered my options. I could risk scaring every child in the immediate vicinity by choking myself to death on Benny’s scuba pipe, or I could sit with Mandy.
It was a tough choice. If only those kids weren’t there…
‘So…’ she began, in the same voice my mother uses when she’s pretending that she doesn’t really want to know something that she desperately does want to know about.
‘…How’s Mark?’
Ah. Paws off, banana tart.
‘He’s fine, thank you.’
‘And…did he go back to the UK then?’ she asked, still in that sickly tone. I wondered, if I applied pressure to her windpipe, would her tone of voice change? I doubted it, but I was willing to give it a try.
‘Yes, he did. He left on Sunday.’
Her face fell. I let that hang in the air for a few moments. You know, right up close she wasn’t that gorgeous. Okay, she was, but her pores could do with work.
‘Something wrong, Mandy?’ I asked sweetly. Cruel, I know, but this woman had kissed my husband and tried to bribe my children with inflatable reptiles–I had cause for cruelty.
‘No, it’s just…Carly, can I be totally frank with you?’
She looked so earnest, so serious.
If her next words were, ‘I shagged your husband on a daily basis and now I’m up the duff with twins,’ I had the feeling that this wouldn’t be such a fun game any more.
I nodded, slightly fearfully.
‘It’s just that…’ she began, then paused, struggling for words. Bad feeling. Real bad feeling about this. ‘It’s just that…we’d all kind of got to like him around here. He brightened things up a bit. Every day, same crowd of girls, then suddenly along comes Mark with his cute accent and funny ways and it just kinda brightened the place up a bit. D’ya mind if I tell the others?’
I shook my head in a kind of shock-induced zombie trance. Funny ways? Mark Barwick?
‘Mark did leave on Sunday, girls,’ she shouted over to the rest of the crowd. There was a general groan. This was surreal. Bizarre.
Then I realised what was different about most of the women. Full make-up. Hair groomed to perfection. Comfy trackies out, rock-chick jeans in. Either some reality makeover show had descended on Mother’s Beach or…or…nope, I couldn’t even contemplate it. But…bloody hell, even Consuela was
wearing lip-gloss.
‘He made us laugh. And he was so great with the kids.’ Then she giggled. ‘At least, he was after the first day when the two of them got a little…carried away.’
Carried away? My boys didn’t do ‘carried away’. They went straight from angelic to demonic, and didn’t even stop to pick up a ‘get-out-of-borstal-free card’.
I summoned up the memory of that first day he’d gone solo with them. When he came home he was in a foul mood and I’d just dismissed it. Now I understood–a whole day with the boys when they were seriously playing up could have made Mother Teresa crack and head for the gin bottle.
‘Anyway, tell him we were all asking after him. To be perfectly frank, and please don’t take offence, but I think some of the girls were rather taken with him. Well, he’s not exactly hard on the eyes.’
Incredible. Absolutely incredible. Mark Barwick had left Sam’s house every morning and somewhere in between Pacific Palisades and Mother’s Beach he’d been transformed into the Diet Coke guy.
Good grief, was Mandy ever going to stop talking?
‘Oh, and tell him that I did get engaged to Bob at the weekend–Mark was such a good listener when I was deliberating last week and it was great to talk it through with someone who was completely impartial.’
That’s when I knew this had to be a set-up. There were cameras in the sand bunkers and Ashton Kutcher was about to jump out and tell me I’d been junked. Or punked. Or whatever it was he did when he wasn’t interfering with Demi Moore.
The person she was describing wasn’t Mark. Well, it was…it was…Mark. The old Mark. The Mark I married. The fun, interested, sexy, lovely, decent man that I’d married and somehow turned into a walking zombie.
And at that moment I realised something else.
Benny was thumping Mac with a tennis racket. I just ignored them. That was nothing to do with the big realisation.
What had suddenly come to me was…Sam. We could have a great life. We could be happy together. We could…well, you know the other bits. But he would never be Mark. And the absolute truth was that the only man I had ever wanted to live the rest of my life with was the old Mark.
‘Mandy, can I ask you a very personal question?’
She looked slightly taken aback. ‘Sure,’ she conceded cagily.
‘Mandy…can I kiss you?’
Family Values Magazine
PUTTING THE YUMMY IN MUMMY
THIS WEEK…ME, MYSELF, MOI
Ladies, ponder this question–‘Who are you?’ Are you someone’s wife? Someone’s mother? Someone’s daughter? Just a name on a listing in Debrett’s? Or are you just ‘you’–in all your individual, beautifully groomed glory?
It’s so easy these days to forget that the most important person in your life is you (although Anastasia, that genius of the perfectly plucked eyebrow, does come a close second). You are more than just someone’s appendage–you are a vibrant, sexy, gorgeous woman who should take as good a care of herself as she does of others. Be your own best friend and celebrate yourself in all your unique wonder.
Just because you are a wife doesn’t mean that you should deny your beauty in the presence of other men. Rejoice in it! Flaunt that sexuality! Remember what our mothers taught us on that first pre-pubescent trip to Chanel? That’s right, girlies–sometimes it’s wonderful to look, even if you can’t touch!
And similarly, don’t deny your dreams and aspirations just because you have a family to take care of. Always remember that the concept of staff was invented for a very good reason.
So if you have often dreamed of climbing Kilimanjaro? Then whiz down to the local rock-climbing club and sign up for lessons.
Do you think wistfully of a career in couture? Then research your subject by hitting the shows in Milan, Paris, New York and London.
Do you feel unfulfilled in your marriage and find yourself wondering if your Mr Right has become Mr Wrong? Then put yourself first! Do what’s right for you! Remember, life is short and only you can control your destiny.
Who am I? I am me, myself, moi–my very own best friend.
Step Eighteen
‘Ding dong.’
I smiled at Sam. ‘Time to go through. Come on, boys, let’s go get that aeroplane.’
Benny jumped up and grabbed his Spiderman backpack. Mac just ignored me.
‘Mac, come on, honey, we have to go.’
He’d been like this for two days now, since I announced to him on the way back from the beach that we were going home.
Going home.
Strange thing number 232 that had happened to me in the last couple of days: the phrase ‘going home’ didn’t fill me with dread any more. In fact, while it didn’t exactly make me want to throw a party, drink rum and limbo dance under the living-room coffee table, in a small, strange way (number 233) I was actually kind of looking forward to it. Or rather, kind of looking forward to seeing Mark.
The old Mark. And if he was still buried deep beneath the constraints of work, stress and monotony, then I was just going to have to apply gentle force with a jackhammer and break him out. He was still in there somewhere; I was sure of it. I’d just spent the last couple of years forgetting to look.
I’d never thought I was completely blameless, but I’d realised over the last couple of days that I had more to answer for than I’d first realised when it came to the erosion of our marriage. I’d bemoaned Mark’s neglect in showing any interest or support towards my career.
Pot. Kettle.
When I’d last asked Mark about his work, I think that we were wearing shoulder pads, leg-warmers and George Michael was still straight.
And okay, I’d made half-hearted efforts to reignite our sex life, but that was only after about two years of chronic neglect, and then only when it suited me. Small, helpful details like making sure we were both awake at the time had been casually overlooked.
So when I’d called him on Wednesday afternoon and told him I was coming home, it felt right. Actually, I didn’t tell him, I told the answering machine, because he wasn’t in, but it still felt right.
Because I knew that the truth was that somewhere amid my work, house, kids and the general necessities of life, I’d stopped making an effort. And so had he. But I honestly, truly didn’t think that it was over. It couldn’t be. Because I loved him.
And more importantly than that, he was my boys’ dad. We were a family. And that alone warranted another try–even if one of the smaller members of that very family was currently trying to chain himself to the airport restaurant table with plastic handcuffs. He’d get over it eventually. Although I might have to talk to him in an American accent and feed him nothing but pizza and Hershey bars for a few weeks to help with the transition.
It wasn’t as if we wouldn’t be back. I was sure we would, eventually. Maybe I’d finally finish that script. Maybe I’d write another book and come over to try to pitch it. Maybe I’d find out where Lee Stavorski was working as a Danny DeVito impersonator and come back over to punch him for losing me what could have been two glorious weeks of my life.
Actually, in a way I was grateful for the lesson. Hollywood had chewed me up and spat me out, but at least I now understood the game rules a bit more.
Rule number one: Don’t get your hopes up until the cheque is cashed.
I wondered if I’d feel differently now if I’d been offered a fantastic deal to stay. Maybe. Possibly. But I’d never know, because this was fate giving me a push in the direction that was right for me.
The hardest thing about our departure was telling Sam. But he knew. Deep down, he’d probably known all along.
I’d waited until the boys were in bed on the Wednesday night then taken a beer out to him. He was lying on a lounger by the pool, reading a script by floodlight.
I lay on the lounger next to him, desperately trying to think of the right way to phrase everything that I was feeling.
‘You’re going home, aren’t you?’
Gorgeous, s
mart, sexy and psychic.
‘How did you know?’
‘Mac told me.’
Scratch that last bit.
‘I have to. I still love him, Sam.’
‘I know that.’
‘I’m so, so sorry.’
‘So is this the end of us?’ I asked. ‘Friendship over?’
There was a protracted silence. Doom. I knew this would happen–play with fire and you’ll spoil the broth, as Carol was fond of saying.
‘No. Carly, we’ve been either friends or lovers for the best part of twenty years. Last time you left me you broke my heart by marrying Mark, but we got over it. This time you’re going back to Mark, and we’ll get over that too. We have to–I’ve got godfather duties to perform. Who else will buy Benny his first hooker?’
I spluttered my wine all down the front of my T-shirt–which kind of spoiled the poignancy of the moment.
‘And I know it would never have worked,’ he added.
He did? Why wouldn’t it have worked? I mean, it was perfectly okay for me to be sure that it wouldn’t work out, but he was supposed to be lying here trying to convince me that we were soul mates separated at birth.
‘Because Mark’s the love of your life.’
True.
‘And you’d never have brought your boys to the other end of the world and deprived them of their father on a permanent basis.’
Also true.
‘And everything that makes you unhappy in your life is fixable without me. You don’t need me to live, Carly. You can live without me.’
True. Sadly.
‘And because…’
In the name of the unstoppable gob! How many reasons did he have? I’d have been cool with him quitting after number one.
‘And because…I did a lot of thinking when I was in Italy, and I realised that I’d done exactly the same as you. I’d let my life slide into a rut–too much work, no fun, no love…and then you appeared and suddenly I was laughing again, and it felt so great, and I wanted to do filthy things to you…’