Wishful Thinking

by Lynette Sofras

“I didn’t have to. What are those buzzwords these writers are always going on about – showing not telling? Well, I showed her.” Amber giggled then released a great yawn and curled up onto her side.

  “What do you mean, Amber? What did you show her?”

  “Mm…” was all the response he received before Amber began to breathe deeply and evenly.

  He sighed, pulled the downy duvet over her inert body and left the room.

  When he reached his own hotel room, Christian decided to stay on the phone ringing every number until he spoke to someone, preferably Jess. To his amazement, she answered on the second ring. She sounded surprised and rather sleepy.

  “Jess? Dammit, it’s so good to hear your voice. I’ve been trying to talk to you all week.”

  “I know – I received your texts and emails. Thanks. Is everything going well over there?”

  “Yes, well, you know…look, it’s almost the weekend. I know it’s short notice but how about you and Ben fly out here? You’ve read Tom’s report and you know it’s absolutely safe.”

  “What? To Los Angeles – it would take all weekend to get there and back. It’s impossible.”

  “Not if I meet you in New York. It’s only seven hours. I can fly up there tomorrow, meet you off the plane and we’ll spend the weekend there.”

  Jess laughed incredulously. “No! It’s out of the question – at least in my world. People like me don’t do things like that, remember?”

  “Why not? I’ll get your tickets emailed – all you need to do is throw some overnight clothes into a bag. In fact, don’t even bother doing that – we can shop when you get here. Just grab your passports. George will take you to the airport.”

  “Why, Christian? Is something wrong?”

  “Yes! I miss you. I thought I’d be speaking to you twenty times a day, but I can never find you. Fly out tomorrow for the weekend so we can spend some time together and talk.”

  “No! It’s a nice idea, but impossible. And I have to get Ben ready for school now or we’ll be late. Talk to you later.”

  “Don’t hang up! Don’t go, Jess. I need to talk to you. I know you saw Amber. I don’t know what she told you, but whatever she said, please don’t believe it. Promise me not to believe anything she said?”

  He could almost feel her hesitation powering down the line and closed his eyes tightly for a moment in total frustration. How could he put things right when he didn’t even know what he was up against? All he knew was that somehow Jess had to believe him and not Amber.

  “Jess – I’m not going to hang up until you promise.”

  She sighed. “That’s up to you, Christian. I, however, must hang up and get Ben ready for school. And if you really don’t know what Amber has said, why don’t you ask her yourself? You’re far more likely to see her before I do.”

  ****

  Jess wondered all morning about Christian’s offer and contemplated what it might be like to hop on a plane to New York for the weekend. It was a novel thought, but an idle fantasy. She had already begun the difficult process of expunging Christian from her heart and re-erecting the barriers to protect herself from further pain. However, if she had weakened during the morning, she redoubled the reinforcements in the afternoon when she saw the photo in the evening paper of Christian and Amber taken as they left his hotel together the night before.

  That must have been straight after he phoned me. She must have been there with him! Don’t believe Amber he had said, but what about believing him? She stared for some time at the damning evidence in the newspaper, aching with disappointment. How could he talk his way out of this? He hadn’t even mentioned that Amber was there in Los Angeles with him! I won’t answer the phone to Christian again, she decided. And I won’t go down to Weybridge again. I’ll just finish the outline here and take my proposal in to Melissa next week. If she doesn’t like it, I’ll ask her to assign the project to someone else. In the meantime, I’m going to spend some quality time with Ben and put life back to how it was before we met Christian. Nice and normal.

  But Ben sulked when he discovered he wasn’t spending the weekend at Christian’s house. Stan, the gardener had promised to make him a tree swing, show him how to plant garlic, onions and peas in the greenhouse and, if the weather held, was even going to take him and Jacqui badger-watching. Ben blamed his mother bitterly for spoiling all this and insisted that if Christian phoned, he would tell him what a horrible person she was.

  However it wasn’t Christian, but Adam who saved the day. He too had seen the photo in the newspaper and surmised that she would be upset, as he undoubtedly must have been himself.

  “Look, if you haven’t seen it – please don’t shoot the messenger, but…”

  “I saw it.”

  “You know it’s probably just one of Amber’s crazy stunts.” He sounded weary and Jess pitied him. He didn’t deserve Christian and Amber’s treatment of him any more than she did.

  “It’s no stunt that they’re in L.A. together, staying at the same hotel.”

  “True, although that doesn’t necessarily implicate Chris. He can hardly ignore her if she turns up out of the blue.”

  “No, he knew she was going. I heard her tell him myself. He clearly did nothing to prevent her.” Jess argued.

  “Do what? Sure thing, Jess - you really don’t know Amber, do you? No one prevents Amber from doing what she wants. You should wait to hear Chris’s side of the story, just in case. Anyway, I also wanted to thank you for that delicious lunch. I wondered if I could take you to lunch this weekend to repay you…if you’re not too busy. You said you still had a lot more questions…”

  Jess sighed. “That’s very kind of you, and yes I do. But I’m in the middle of a family feud at the moment. I have some bridges to build with my son.” She went on to outline Ben’s disappointment at his ruined weekend thanks to her selfishness.

  “Well if a swing, some vegetables and a few badgers is all it will take, why not come down to my place in Hampshire tomorrow? We have badgers galore and they’re not as fussy about the weather as their Surrey neighbours. We even have a family of otters at the bottom of our garden.”

  Jess started to demur but he cut her short.

  “Encroach? You do like your fancy words, don’t you, Jess? I might write that one down too,” he teased. “No seriously, my brother and his wife take care of the place for me and they’ll be absolutely delighted. They have kids too, so Ben will have some company around the farm.”

  The offer was too tempting to refuse and Jess accepted gratefully, partly out of curiosity, partly to satisfy Ben and partly to keep herself busy and out of Christian’s reach.

  ****

  Christian was furious. He had woken up to find the photo of him and Amber leaving the hotel together featured large in a dozen newspapers and it took very little imagination to realise that it could well be splashed across all the English tabloids by Saturday morning. He called Tom and told him to cancel or reschedule his bookings for the next few days and to get him on an early flight back to England. Tom argued, but soon acknowledged he was fighting a losing battle.

  “You can always offer them Amber instead. She’s messed up my life enough already this year and it’s barely even started – she owes me.”

  When Amber called him, Christian gave her short shrift. Everything that had gone wrong between him and Jess had been Amber’s fault and he was determined to stop her before she ruined things completely.

  “You need to understand this, Amber and get it into your head once and for all: as much as I love you and care about you, I’m not in love with you. And while we’re on the subject: I’m not the father of your baby and I’m not going to marry you. Do you understand what I’m saying? Now I’m flying back to England today and I suggest you do the same – only preferably not on my flight. Go back to Adam. That’s where you belong.”

  A couple of hours later, he sat in the hotel limo on the way to Los Angeles International Airport. He checked his watch – the
now habitual precursor to calling Jess. By now she should be at the Weybridge house for the weekend, but he called her phone first. As usual it went straight to voicemail, meaning either she was talking to someone else, or she’d switched off her phone. He called the Surrey house but the staff there knew nothing of her whereabouts and claimed not to be expecting her. Evidently she had called to let them know she had changed her plans.

  It would be late at night in England already. He liked the thought of flying out to her while she was sleeping. He hoped to arrive in time to catch her before her day began; to surprise her with a morning kiss; in time to explain the news photo before she saw it. But a glance at the departures board told him such thoughts might be too optimistic. The ‘flight delayed’ message clicked onto one after another international service. He went to the desk to enquire of the reason.

  “We’re waiting on an update ourselves, sir. We think it’s down to weather conditions. There’ll be an announcement just as soon as we know.”

  Christian had no choice but to sit and wait it out. On checking his phone, he saw he had two missed calls from Amber. He ignored them and stared at the departures board, willing for it to switch its ‘flight delayed’ message to ‘now boarding’, but with no success.

  16

  Jess sat in the car for a moment gazing at the farmhouse, completely entranced. It was a long, eighteenth century thatched building that looked as if at one stage it had comprised several different dwellings, possibly built at different times, as it appeared to have at least three front entrances. It was a perfect chocolate-box picture and Ben was as enchanted by it as she was.

  “It’s got hair on the roof! Can I climb on it?” He asked.

  “No, of course not, silly, you might fall off. And it’s called a thatch.”

  “But it’s got a window in it. If I open the window I could touch it. What’s a fatch made of?”

  “It’s thatch and I think it’s something like straw. You’ll have to ask Adam.”

  “Is Adam the farmer with the badgers and otters?”

  “There he is, look.” One of the doors opened and Adam stepped out, followed by an excitable, chocolate-coloured Labrador and a child of around Ben’s age. The dog was the first to reach them and Ben leapt out of the car to greet it with as much enthusiasm as the dog showed him.

  “Welcome! I’m glad you found us,” Adam said beaming at them. “This is Gray, my nephew and that’s Saffy, who always has to be the first to welcome new visitors.”

  Jess said a solemn hello to Gray and Saffy and then turned to Adam. “This place is breathtakingly beautiful. Are you sure it’s real?”

  Adam laughed in delight at her praise. “It is very special. Come in and meet Greg and Kate who do the lion’s share of the work here.”

  She followed him into the house appreciating every sight from the long entrance hall with its exposed beams and inglenook fireplaces at either end, through a cosy sitting room and into a vast kitchen and breakfast room. This was a pleasant room with a delightful mixture of old and new co-existing in perfect harmony: an Aga range against one wall looking just at home as the vast American-style fridge freezer against another and the limestone floor complimenting the granite-topped units. French doors led out onto a terrace and walled garden where the watery January sunlight glimmered feebly.

  She guessed Adam’s brother to be slightly older than him, though Kate looked roughly the same age as her. Coffee was ready and waiting on the vast, oak refectory table and the little group spent a very pleasant hour chatting quietly, though with frequent interruptions from the children. Apart from Gray, there were also two younger children: a boy, Josh of four or five and an angelic, golden-haired toddler, Daisy, who wanted to climb up onto Jess’s knee the moment she sat down.

  It was a while before Jess found herself alone with Adam during a tour of the house and grounds. She wondered how to broach the subject of his strange relationship with Amber and Christian and decided to simply leap in and hope for the best.

  “Did Amber bother to tell you she was going to America, or did you just find out for yourself?”

  He bent down to pull up some straggling dead weeds from a patch of beets in the vegetable plot. “Oh we talked about it – amongst other things. If you mean did I approve, the answer is no. But it’s a bit more complicated than that. Anyway, nothing I said made any difference, so rather than argue, I just left.”

  “She does sound like very hard work,” Jess said mildly.

  Adam snorted and hurled his handful of weeds off into the distance. “Oh she’s that all right. But it’s what she puts everyone else through that’s so painful.”

  Jess nodded. She waited for him to go on but, as he didn’t, felt she should bring her questions onto a vaguely more professional level. “Why exactly did Wishful split up? Was it an amicable decision?”

  He seemed surprised by the question, as if he hadn’t considered it before. “Yes, it was actually. Amber was bigger than the group really – we were in danger of becoming her backing group and that wasn’t part of our vision. She was absolutely right to go solo, but I doubt she would have taken the plunge if Christian hadn’t got that film offer and left first.”

  “But he said that was an interlude. That he’d go back to the band when the time was right, or the song…”

  Adam smiled but the smile didn’t quite reach his pale blue eyes. They retained their rather sad, faraway look. “We’ve all said that – said it so often, we almost believe it. You might even call it ‘wishful thinking’. But it won’t happen, because of Amber.”

  Jess almost stamped her foot in an impatient gesture but instead caught herself and had to satisfy her frustration instead by grinding her heel into the hard earth. “What is it about this woman? Why does she wield so much power over you all?”

  Adam took her arm and steered her away from the kitchen garden towards a gate in the old wall. Several acres of land stretched out before them, leading to forestry land in the distance. Jess heard animal noises, pigs, horses and chickens all busily making their voices heard in the weak January sunlight which sent its pale golden blessing down on them.

  He dug his hands deep into his pockets and looked off into the distance. “Despite what you think, she’s not a bad person, you know. She’s had a very tough life and it just makes you feel humble next to her. And, of course, she pours it all into her singing. She’s massively talented - has about a billion more loyal fans than we do.”

  “I’m not sure what that has to do with it,” Jess muttered darkly. “And her fans don’t have to live in her world!”

  After a long, leisurely lunch, everyone went out of doors to tend to the varying needs of the animals. The pigs and chickens needed rounding up and feeding and eggs collected from the latter; the horses needed cleaning out, grooming and exercising, the goats came in for milking and numerous other chores were all swiftly allocated and efficiently carried out. There was little time for Jess to pursue the subject closest to her heart and she threw herself wholeheartedly into her chores.

  Before dusk fell, Greg took Adam, Jess and the children to the pasture behind the farm to demonstrate the quad-copter and show them how to look for clues of the badgers’ activities. Ben was ecstatic as he examined the machine.

  “We need to look for crawl-marks, broken bracken, tufts of hair in the fences – any signs of recent foraging,” Greg told them as they donned special goggles and scoured the nearby countryside.

  “But will we actually see any badgers? Won’t they be hibernating?” Jess asked.

  “They can’t afford to – they have to feed their young so they come out regularly to forage and they need water too, so we’ll look carefully down by the stream. They’re active most nights, so I imagine the clans have a lot of young ones underground, which is why I don’t want to get too close to the sett with the plane. Once we find their latest runs, we can rig up the hideout and bunk down and wait for them. Remember though, not a sound from anyone. Oh and you city-folk - m
ake sure your phones are switched off now in case you forget later.”

  It turned out to be a magical evening for Jess and Ben and one that almost succeeded in taking Jess’s mind off Christian and Amber for the first time in over a week. It felt good to be out in the beautiful countryside engaged in such different pursuits with her son. She hadn’t seen Ben happier than this, even at Christian’s house and she was grateful to Adam for inviting them. She was slowly, though painfully, coming to terms with the fact that she had read far more into her relationship with Christian than he had ever intended and that in another week she would be back at work and her normal routine re-established. It had been a nice dream while it lasted and had also led to this experience, for which she was grateful. It had to compensate adequately for Ben’s disappointment.

  ****

  The morning had moved on apace by the time Christian cleared the red tape at Heathrow and found himself a taxi to Jess’s place. His plan of surprising her now ruined, he tried her numbers yet again, knowing with a numbing sense of resignation that he was wasting his time. He wondered why he was even going to her flat, but could think of no better plan at the moment. He felt wrecked. Flying always exhausted him and this particular flight, departing after a six hour delay had been particularly gruelling. Try as he might, he had been unable to sleep during any part of the tedious journey and his eyes now felt as if they were rimmed with grit. He badly needed a shower and a nap.