The Morning After

by Sally Clements

  In the makeup trailer, Ethan sat patiently as the makeup lady removed the slivers of rubber from his face. But when Doris approached with a jar of cold cream, he shook his head.

  “Just give me some on a hank of cotton-wool, will you, Doris? I’ll take it off in my trailer.”

  Doris smeared some cold cream onto cotton-wool, and handed it over. “Are you sure, lovey? I can…”

  “I’m exhausted. I need to lie down.” His voice was harsher than intended, so he softened his words with a smile. “I’ve been hanging around for hours.”

  Doris grinned. “I know, we were all watching. It was very exciting. That scene will be dynamite in the movie.” The older woman’s eyes lit with concern. “Would you like me to get someone to bring you a cuppa? You’re looking peaky.”

  Ethan pulled himself out of the swivel chair, feeling the burn ache of abused muscles in his thighs. “I’ll be fine, Doris.”

  He made it halfway across the lot to his trailer before Maggie caught up with him.

  Her skyscraper heels clattered on the asphalt. She was almost jogging—tight pencil skirt gluing her thighs tight together while her calves scissored in rapid motion. He’d told her often enough she didn’t need to dress so fancy while they were on set—she looked completely out of place next to the production assistants and assistant directors strolling around in cargo pants and lace-up boots. But she’d sternly told him she needed to look the part of a Hollywood star’s assistant. She was representing him after all.

  He’d often thought it was much more likely that she wanted to look like a woman to meet his fellow stars, especially the unattached male ones. He couldn’t really blame her for that. She worked hard. And, by all accounts, played hard too.

  He slowed. “Hi, Maggie.”

  She gripped a cup of something steaming in a polystyrene cup. The other hand clutched her android phone. As she reached him, she handed over the cup. “Tea. Just the way you like it.”

  Ethan accepted it gratefully, and ripped off the top.

  “You’re trending on twitter.”

  Crash Carrigan was often trending on twitter. It sure didn’t merit the look of horror on her face. “Let’s talk inside.” If he didn’t sit …

  Maggie’s lips pursed in a thin, you’re-not-going-to-like-this line. She trotted along next to him.

  Ethan lowered himself into the leather armchair in his trailer, and stuffed a cushion behind his back. “So…” he started.

  “It’s about Ireland.” Maggie slumped onto the cot next to him. “And you’re not going to like it.” She chewed on her bottom lip.

  She actually looked worried. In the five years she’d worked with him, he’d never seen Maggie looked worried before. Annoyed and frustrated, but never worried.

  “They’ve even started a hashtag, and one of those annoying couples word smash-ups.”

  A dull ache bloomed in Ethan’s temples. “What are you talking about?”

  “Carethan. It’s a combination of Cara and Ethan. It’s everywhere.”

  “Ca…”

  “Ca-rethan,” Maggie said, stretching the sound out. “Someone got pictures of you and Cara at the event, and they’ve also dug up pictures of you and Cara, uh…” She blushed. “Well, with her in her underwear.”

  “What?”

  “They also found a picture of you hitting her fiancé.” Maggie avoided his eyes. As if somehow thumping that lying dog of an almost fiancé was the greatest of crimes.

  “She wasn’t engaged,” he snapped.

  Maggie’s gaze flicked to his.

  “He’d proposed, but she hadn’t accepted.” He took the cell phone from her hand, and scrolled through the ever growing list of tweets with #carethan before them.

  “My phone’s been ringing every second with journalists wanting a quote. I don’t know what to tell them.”

  The paparazzi were relentless, chasing something like this. If they tracked Cara down...Ethan’s blood ran cold in his veins. Maybe they already had. “Who published the photos?”

  Maggie’s brow creased. “I can’t remember the name, it was a paper in Ireland.” She pushed back the sleeve of her tight black jacket and looked at her watch. “You will be wanted in wardrobe soon.”

  They needed damage limitation. Fast. Adrenalin flooded Ethan’s veins. “Track down a copy of the paper online. I need to see the pictures and what they’re saying.” He drained his tea. “I need to make a phone call.”

  As the trailer door closed behind Maggie, Ethan punched in Cara’s number. It rang for a few moments, then he heard her familiar voice.

  “Ethan?”

  Relief flooded him. “Cara. I heard about the newspaper.”

  “It’s been crazy here.” Fatigue flattened her voice. “I’ve had one hell of a day. The school…”

  Damn, he hadn’t even thought about her job. Having your teacher plastered all over the front of the paper in their underwear would be every schoolboy’s dream, and every teacher’s nightmare. “What happened?” He reckoned he knew the answer to the question before he asked it, but asked anyway. His hand clenched into a fist. If only he was there, he could offer her some sort of comfort.

  A G-rated vision of sliding an arm around Cara’s shoulders, pulling her body close to offer comfort suddenly went right to NC-17 with the thought of pressing his lips against hers, sliding his hand down her back…

  “They sacked me.” Her quiet voice jerked him back to reality.

  Ethan closed his eyes.

  “I won’t get another job as a teacher. Not now.”

  The entire situation was beyond unfair. She’d been so happy when she’d got the job. It gave her the funds to finally strike out from her family to make a home for herself. They’d burned up the wires for nights on end, her telling him of the improvements she’d made to her grandmother’s cottage.

  Once the paparazzi tracked her down things would only get worse.

  “Come out to stay with me.” The words were out before his brain kicked in. If she arrived in America, the press would be more focused on their relationship, not less. But he couldn’t just leave her to the jaws of the rabid press.

  He winced at her brittle laugh.

  “Ah, Ethan.” Her voice warmed with a hint of the old Cara. “That’s sweet, but…”

  “But nothing.” He was responsible for destroying her career. What did she have to lose by spending time with him anyway? At least if she was in his new place in Malibu the press wouldn’t be able to hound her, the estate had been specially chosen because of its high walls and strictly enforced privacy. “I’ve just bought a house in Malibu. I haven’t moved in properly yet, I’ve been waiting for the movie to be finished. You can help me get settled in. I need you, Cara.”

  The idea was perfect. There was less than a week more of filming to complete. They could hang out, talk about old times. Brainstorm ideas to get her back on her feet.

  “You’re feeling sorry for me, Ethan,” Cara’s voice was low and quiet. “I appreciate that, really. But I don’t need you to. It’ll all die down in a day or so.”

  Ethan stood to pace the trailer. “You don’t know the half of it. The internet is buzzing with the story. It’s gone viral. Things are only going to hot up from here on in.”

  “It’s a non-story,” Cara insisted. “Once we both tell them that we’re just friends—”

  “Just friends?” Ethan ran a hand through his hair and held back a groan. “Have you any idea how often celebrities insist they’re just friends, Cara? Just friends means there’s a hot and heavy affair going on. They won’t let it go. If you’re here, at least I can protect you until some other scandal hits the tabloids.”

  He rubbed the ache blooming at his temples. Now they’d got their very own couple-tag, it would be practically impossible for the press to let it go. But at least if they were together they could work something out. Maybe even pretend to be in love, and then have a public break-up. “I’ll organize a ticket and email it to you.”

>   “Don’t.” Cara’s voice was laced with determination. “Honestly, Ethan. I know you want to protect me, but I’m not a child. I don’t…to be looked after.” She must be walking around—the signal was dropping mid-sentence. “My dinner is burning. I’ll…tomorrow.”

  Before he had a chance to respond, she was gone–her voice replaced by dead air.

  Chapter Seven

  Life changes in a split second. When the path that you’re following disappears, there are two things you can do. Stop dead, or search in the undergrowth for another route. Cara smothered jam on her morning croissant, and considered her options. When Ethan suggested a visit to America, she hadn’t for one moment considered it.

  He’d stepped onto the path to his future years ago, when he’d left Donabridge at seventeen to enroll in acting school in Dublin. His mother had been the driving force in helping him achieve his dream, and worked two jobs to pay the fees.

  All her sacrifices paid off the moment he got his first role in a celebrity-heavy movie filming in Dublin. Even as a bit-actor, he’d commanded the screen, and his Hollywood debut had come soon after.

  Unlike Ethan, she’d struggled to find a niche to settle in. Her love of writing and the written word had been the reason she went to college to get her English degree. But an English degree wasn’t worth much in the currency of getting-a-job, so she’d followed it up with a teacher training course.

  Now that dream was over, the future was clouded. At least she had the cottage rent free, but she’d need something to support herself. What that something might be eluded her.

  Cara swallowed a mouthful of coffee. The blows had come so quickly she still reeled from them. Mere days ago, she’d been considering whether she should accept Michael’s proposal. Looking forward to introducing her students to Shakespeare. Now all that was yesterday’s news.

  Just, hopefully, as she was.

  She picked up the gift voucher that Ryan had given her for her birthday and pushed back the kitchen chair. She’d booked a facial and eyelash dye for today a week ago. Maybe being slathered in goo and relaxing while someone fussed over her would restore her spirits. It certainly couldn’t hurt.

  An hour later, lying on the padded couch in ‘Temptations’ with her eyes glued together with black dye, and her face covered in a lavender scented mask, Cara listened to the discordant clanging of the oriental ‘relaxation’ music and tried to still her racing mind. She hated having her eyelashes dyed.

  “Don’t open your eyes. I’ll be back in ten minutes,” the beautician said, instantly filling Cara with the compulsion to flicker her eyelids open, despite the cold paste covering her lashes.

  “Right,” she managed.

  “Relax,” the disembodied voice advised, tucking a warm blanket around her.

  The sound of a match striking was followed by the musky scent of a joss stick, doubtless more ‘atmosphere.’

  Cara’s nose twitched. She only had to bear it for ten minutes. She’d be able to open her eyes soon…

  A door slammed in the outer room.

  “You can’t go in there!” the beautician’s familiar voice warned.

  A cool breeze chilled the mixture on Cara’s face. “Cara Byrne?” a soft female voice with a British accent asked.

  “Who…”

  “I’m sorry, Miss Byrne. I told this woman you couldn’t be disturbed,” the beautician said. “You’ll have to come back. She’s half way through her treatment.”

  “I just have a few questions.”

  Cara’s hands clenched into fists. She fought the instinct to open her eyes, and possibly destroy her vision forever. “I don’t know who you are, but I’m hardly in a position to talk to you at the moment,” she forced through gritted teeth. “Leave me alone please.”

  “My readers would like to know about you and Ethan Quinn,” the voice continued. “If you could just give me a quote…”

  “You want a quote?” Cara felt her blood heat. She was stuck under a blanket, with her face covered with goo, and her eyes iced together. She couldn’t stand up and push the intruder from the room, and the beautician had gone suspiciously quiet, maybe she was agog to hear the quote too. “I’ll give you a quote. Bugger off.”

  Silence. Followed by the slamming of one door, then another.

  “I’ll take the dye off now,” the beautician whispered.

  “You might as well take the mask off too.” No way she staying here one moment longer than necessary.

  She felt the characteristic cold slide of water-soaked cotton wool chill her eyelid.

  “Did she say who she was?” Cara asked.

  Another swipe of cold cotton wool on the other eye.

  “She just pushed in here. Didn’t say anything apart from what she said to you. She had one of those little tape recorder thingys…I’m so sorry, this has never happened before. I feel so terrible, your entire relaxing facial is ruined.” A dry cloth swept over Cara’s eyelids. “You can open your eyes now.”

  Cara’s eyes flickered open, and relief flooded her as the room came into focus.

  “Okay?” The beautician’s face bisected her field of vision.

  “Fine.” Cara forced a smile. “It wasn’t your fault, don’t worry about it.” The face mask slid on her brow as she frowned. “I wonder how she found me.” After all, no one knew of her appointment except her and the salon.

  Cara sank back onto the salon bed, and closed her eyes as the beautician wiped off the face mask.

  The beautician’s blue eyes stared into hers. Her extra-long false eyelashes fluttered. “I saw her from the window. That mini’s yours isn’t it?”

  Cara nodded, as the wet cloth swiped over her mouth.

  “She walked up to it and read the number plate. I guess she must have discovered that was your car.”

  Which meant she must have done quite a lot of research to track Cara down. The reporter must know where she lived too.

  Perhaps she wasn’t yesterday’s news after all.

  ****

  Cara’d told him she didn’t need his help. But she had no idea what she was dealing with. By the time filming was finished for the day, Ethan had, with Maggie’s help, organized a flight from Dublin to LA for the following morning, and cancelled filming for the following day.

  John Mosse hadn’t been happy about telling the assembled cast and crew about the change of plans, but when Ethan had agreed to cover all the considerable expenses involved, and the actors and crew had agreed to work an extra day over the weekend (at a considerable bonus rate, also covered by Ethan) he’d reluctantly agreed.

  “She must be worth a lot,” he said, as Ethan wrote a personal check. “An awful lot,” he reiterated as he glanced at the amount before stuffing the check in his pocket.

  “She is.” Ethan’s heart clenched at the thought of Cara being hounded by the press. She’d been through so much in the past week; she must be at breaking point.

  He climbed into his car and drove to the sterile, empty condo in West Hollywood that served as a temporary home. He threw his keys on the table, added crushed ice from the refrigerator into a tall glass, and topped it up with fresh orange juice. Then he strode to the phone and called Sean.

  “I wondered when I was going to hear from you.” His brother’s familiar lilt sounded so close he could almost be in the same room. “Things are crazy here.”

  “Here too.” Ethan drank a cold mouthful. “I’ve emailed you a ticket. I need you to get Cara onto a plane tomorrow morning. I can take care of her here. She won’t like it, I talked to her earlier and she told me she could handle it, but…”

  “A lot’s happened since this morning,” Sean said. “Cara drove into the station this afternoon, being chased by a ton of reporters and photographers.”

  Ethan clamped his teeth together as tension gripped his shoulders. “Is she all right?” Frustration at not being there made his tone sharp. “She shouldn’t be alone.”

  “Calm down, bro. She’s fine. We dressed her as a
ban-garda and slipped her out of the station without any of them realizing. She’s staying with me. Do you want to talk to her?”

  Ethan gripped the phone. “Yes.”

  After a brief moment, Cara’s husky tones sounded in Ethan’s ear. “I guess you were right.” Her laugh sounded forced. “It’s been crazy.”

  He’d got used to the press’s attention, but Cara had no experience of it. Until he’d brought it to her door. Ethan rubbed his eyes. He shouldn’t have hit Michael, not in a place where every person had a cell phone with a camera.

  “What happened?”

  “A journalist ambushed me in the salon when I was covered in a face mask and getting my eyelashes dyed. I told her to bugger off, so that’ll probably be in the papers tomorrow morning.” She sighed. “Then when I popped into the supermarket on the way home, a photographer stepped up and brazenly took a series of shots of me at the till. Focusing on my shopping basket.”

  Curiosity piqued, Ethan asked, “What had you bought?”

  “Ice cream, black rubbish sacks, and tampons,” Cara replied. “God knows what stories they’ll get from that.”

  “At least you hadn’t bought a pregnancy test,” Ethan said.

  “Yes, small mercies.” Silence followed her words—stretched for long moments.

  “They won’t leave until they have a story. I’ve booked a flight for you tomorrow morning, Sean has the ticket.” Ethan said in a tone that brooked no argument. “I’ll pick you up at the airport.”

  “Isn’t that just going to add fuel to the flames?”

  “Probably, but there’s nothing either of us can do to dowse them at this stage. I want you to be close. At my house in Malibu, at least you can avoid being hassled every time you go outside.” Suddenly he wanted to see her more than he wanted to take his next breath. Wanted to spend every moment with her. To check for himself that she wasn’t hurting by anything he’d done. Wanted to be there for her, in the way she’d been there for him when Aoife Fitzpatrick, the woman he’d thought himself in love with, had followed him to Hollywood and broken his heart.