by Anita Notaro
Chapter Thirty-One
TEN AGONIZING MINUTES later she knew it could only mean one thing. Linda wasn’t his sister, or an Aussie relative or a new member of the cast. They’d looked easy and relaxed together. But why would he do that? Go out with someone else and not tell her first. She’d worried that it was too good to be true, but he’d seemed so into her.
She had to see more for herself, so she made her way back to the bar, eyes just a touch too bright. The barman laughed at her when she asked for her drinks. ‘That lot are practically finished the round. Where’ve you been? The Guinness was going flat and they were starting to riot.’ He took the money and shook his head. ‘Actors, all the same, away with the fairies.’ He was grinning as he handed over the change.
Orla made room as Annie approached. ‘Where did you go? I was about to call the police. I’ve just been telling Marc your news.’
‘Yeah, well done, mate. Terrific.’ He raised his glass and smiled at her as if they were just that. Mates. Annie felt the first trickle of anger but it had nowhere to go. She simply wasn’t used to dealing with such an emotion, she’d suppressed it all her life.
Orla resumed her earlier conversation, regaling Annie with stories of her latest lover. Annie listened and nodded and as soon as there was a break in the chat, asked casually, ‘Who’s that with Marc?’
‘Linda, his girlfriend.’ In three little words, and not the three she’d been secretly hoping for, it was over.
‘Is she Australian?’
‘English. Wealthy. An engineer or something, although she doesn’t look as if she gets her hands dirty much.’
‘How long have they been an item?’ It was torture but she had to know.
‘Yonks. They met in Australia when she was just out of college. I’d say she’s expecting the ring any day but my guess is she’ll be waiting. Our Marc likes his freedom.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘He doesn’t parade her in public too often. Mostly because there’s always someone around he’s been more than friends with. Although he’s probably safe enough here. Most of the cast know what he’s like and we usually warn the new ones.’
‘But . . .’ Annie couldn’t believe it, ‘I thought you all liked him?’
‘We love him, he’s a dote. Just wouldn’t want to take him seriously, that’s all. Marc fancies himself more than any of us could, anyway.’
So that was it. Her fledgling, blossoming, heart-stopping romance was over.
‘Sure, didn’t he even try it on with you that first night?’ Orla poked her in the ribs and Annie almost burst into tears.
‘Hey, you and he went off for a meal, didn’t you?’ She was teasing and laughing as she whispered the words, all nudge nudge, wink wink. Suddenly, she looked at Annie. ‘What’s wrong? You’ve gone all funny.’ She was concerned. ‘What! I was only teasing, honest.’ Something told her this wasn’t right. ‘Annie, what is it?’ she tried again through clenched teeth, staring at her new friend. A thought occurred to her and she could have kicked herself.
‘Annie, you didn’t, you weren’t . . . Oh my God, you were.’
Annie knew she had to pull herself together fast. ‘No, of course not, silly.’ The younger girl wasn’t convinced. ‘We had a bit of a snog, that’s all.’ It was one of her best performances but she knew she had to lie to get the other girl off her back. ‘I suppose, though, I thought he was cute and you know yourself, I kind of hoped . . .’
‘Oh, you’re not alone. I think we’ve all been there. He’s very cute and an outrageous flirt.’ Orla was relieved and, Annie thought, seemed to buy her explanation.
‘But if you’re tempted again, just remember that Linda’s not going anywhere. In fact, I think she moved into his apartment recently.’
It was the ultimate humiliation. Everything fell into place. His reluctance to let her visit, despite being a great cook and her hinting more than once. The way he never called her at night. His lack of affection in public places. The fact that he was always rushing home early. What a complete and utter idiot she’d been.
Annie kept a smile pasted to her face and was immensely relieved when Mike Nichols offered her a lift home at about nine. ‘I’m off over to my sister’s again so I’m more or less passing your door.’ She stood up with alacrity, almost toppling the entire table.
‘Thanks, Mike, that would be great.’ She was feeling a little bit drunk and a big bit stupid and she left without really looking in Marc’s direction.
If Mike noticed her lack of chatter he was polite enough about it. ‘I must say I’m delighted about your part. You really deserve it. You put an awful lot of work into those first episodes.’
‘Thanks. You’ve no idea what it means to be able to get my teeth into something at last.’ She hoped she wasn’t giving away too much about how desperate she was, but he’d always seemed like a friend. ‘It’s all thanks to you.’
‘Nonsense, it would have happened to you anyway. If not on this then on something else. You can’t keep talent down.’ He grinned. After an eternity he dropped her off and she scurried inside and made a cup of cocoa and sat, curled up in the drab, chilly little room in the dark.
No matter how much she tried to reason it out in her head, it seemed inexcusable that Marc hadn’t told her that he had a girlfriend. Unless she’d read way too much into what they’d had? It was all such a muddle. Maybe her lack of experience with men was the real problem. What would Orla have done? Probably had a fling and then moved on. Orla was the type of girl she herself might have been if her mother’s death and her illness between them hadn’t robbed her of every shred of both carelessness and security. It made for a curious combination and Annie knew she needed to toughen up if she was to survive bumping into him all the time on the show.
No matter how much she wanted to blame Marc for what had happened, she secretly felt she deserved it. She’d been stupid to think a man like him could ever really have fallen for a woman like her.
She thought of ringing Libby, but was reluctant to risk pissing off her brand new friend by seeming over-keen, especially while she was feeling mopey like this.
Chapter Thirty-Two
THE NEXT FEW days passed slowly and even though Annie was busy, she was lonelier than she’d been in a long time. But as usual she simply accepted her lot, was thankful for the huge break she’d been given, and worked harder than the entire cast of Southside put together. After a while it worked and she stopped thinking about Marc all the time. She even convinced herself she couldn’t be missing what she’d never really had.
The role of Bobby was turning out to be amazing. The scripts were better than she could ever have hoped for and the papers were beginning to pick up on the character. The TV Press Office was starting to get requests for information and photos of Annie. She was somewhat taken aback and tried to avoid the publicity as much as possible. The now permanently beaming Madge O’Brien had shown her an article entitled ‘Southside’s Sexy Stunners’ and Annie could hardly believe her photo was featured. She bought the paper quickly because she was embarrassed. Later she was startled to read that the ‘gutsy, streetwise Bobby’ was played by ‘sex siren Annie Weller’ who was supposedly ‘driving the viewers wild’ and ‘sending the ratings soaring’. She laughed at the ridiculousness of it and hoped that her father hadn’t seen it.
But it was good for her fragile ego and childishly she wished that Marc would be jealous as hell. She hadn’t heard from him except for a message on her answering machine the evening after the disastrous pub encounter, left when he knew she’d be at work, she suspected. It was bright and chirpy, hoping she was OK about things and suggesting a pint the following week. Annie was still clinging to the hope that maybe it had all been a mistake so she rang him back straight away, but got his answering service. After two or three days of her calls being diverted she came to the inevitable conclusion that he was avoiding her, so she left a cheerful message suggesting that if he wanted to make it up to her he could cook
her dinner at his apartment, as promised. He never phoned back and she hated that it mattered.
She moped around for a while, then put him firmly out of her head and got on with things, as she always did. Something else was playing on her mind these days anyway – she really wanted to see Libby Marlowe again and wasn’t entirely sure why. There’d been a connection between them, she was certain of that. They’d laughed easily together and had told each other a lot of intimate details for a first meeting. Annie worried that she was simply star struck, but Libby had seemed really nice, once she’d thawed out a bit. Perhaps it was the completely contrasting lives they led that made them trust each other: since they moved in such different circles maybe each thought it unlikely that the other would ever meet anyone they knew. Whatever it was, it had left a niggling gap in Annie’s life.
It helped that she was busy with the project of her dreams and by the time she went back into studio Marc wasn’t on any of the schedules, and that helped a lot too. On the work front everything was great. She’d taken Max’s advice and phoned the agent he’d recommended. She hit it off with Susi Carolan at once and the glamorous fifty-something agreed to represent her. She had negotiated a deal that left Annie reeling.
Suddenly, money wasn’t a problem any more and she was able to give up her job in the Grasshopper and not worry. Owen Kerrigan was sorry to lose her but understood her predicament and made her promise to visit them when she was seriously famous.
For the first time in years Annie could relax about her finances and was astonished to realize that she would soon be able to afford the down payment on a one-bedroomed apartment she’d seen advertised in a really upmarket location close to the production company, a complex that boasted a swimming pool and leisure centre in its massive manicured grounds. Securing the mortgage might not be so easy with only a year’s contract, she reckoned, so she decided to do nothing for a few months, just in case it all went belly-up. She was not about to tempt fate, not with her track record.
For the moment, life was very good and if she sometimes ached for the closeness of a best friend or the intimacy of a relationship she was enough of a realist to know that nobody had it all, and was content. Her wish list was simple – a tiny place of her own and maybe a small, second-hand car and, if she was lucky, a few bob in a savings account for the proverbial rainy day. Meanwhile, nothing changed. She continued to live as frugally as she always had and still spent the long, weekend nights eating popcorn and crisps and curled up with only her scripts for company, a lifestyle vastly different from that of the character she portrayed.
When she read one of the new episodes, tucked up in bed early on a Saturday evening, exhausted from a full day’s rehearsals, she couldn’t believe what she saw on the pages.
Bobby was to have a fling with Alan, Marc Robinson’s character. It was a minor storyline, as far as she could tell, but she read on with a great deal of trepidation. Bobby was having her teeth cleaned – a bit unusual for a prostitute, she thought, but then she recalled that several of the ‘girls’ she’d spoken to during her research had told her they were paranoid about personal hygiene, mainly because they felt dirty all of the time while they worked. The suave dentist Alan chatted up Bobby, who fell hard for his charms, unable to believe her luck. It wasn’t written down anywhere but Annie suspected that Bobby would get completely carried away with the possible fairytale ending and see Alan as the answer to her prayers. After a lot of flirting they arranged to meet for a drink and Bobby appeared to be building it all into something much more. Later, when Alan brings her to dinner in a fancy restaurant and treats her like a lady, she is happier than she’s ever been, turning it all into Pretty Woman 2 in her head. Very hard to play anyway, Annie thought as she read between the lines; with the added complication of their real-life situation, she hadn’t a clue how the hell she would handle it.
Fortunately, it all appeared to come to a head quickly because when Alan took Bobby home after buying her dinner, he assumed she was dessert.
Annie studied the script carefully, trying not to panic. She contemplated ringing Max to explain why she couldn’t do it, but hadn’t the courage, then eventually decided to sleep on it but didn’t manage to grab much shut-eye. The following day she went for a long walk and wished she had someone to talk it over with. Briefly she toyed with the idea of ringing Orla, with whom she’d had one or two nights out, but her natural reserve wouldn’t let her easily reveal her inner turmoil, especially not as Orla and Marc were so friendly.
She really wished she could talk to Libby about it, but her bright and breezy e-mail hadn’t elicited any response so far.
In the end, she decided to treat Marc as she would any other actor, and it worked at first. On the rehearsal day she was a bag of nerves and when he waltzed casually into studio she felt very uncomfortable. He clearly wasn’t, greeting her exactly as he did the other members of the cast.
Fortunately, it was Tim Furlong’s week as director. He took control and talked both actors through the storyline. As they rehearsed, Annie felt stiff and awkward and Tim assumed she was nervous and guided her lightly through it.
Judging by his reaction, he wasn’t exactly delirious about her performance. Annie fretted but needn’t have worried, because he was experienced enough to know that scenes like this could be awkward, until the actors got into rehearse/record mode. He trusted Annie: everything he’d seen of her on screen so far had been natural and not in the least contrived. He did, however, mention his concerns to Max on the Monday morning.
‘I’m a bit worried about Annie. She seemed very wooden in rehearsals on Saturday, during the scenes with Marc Robinson. Would you keep your eye on them when we’re recording, just in case?’
If the executive producer was surprised, he didn’t show it. ‘Sure, I’ll pop down for the initial rehearsal and then watch the take on the monitor. Do you think I should have a word with her in advance?’
Tim was anxious not to upset either actor. ‘No, no, I think it will be fine. It’s not a very big storyline and it’s a difficult one to play on TV, ’cause there’s so little written. It’s all in the performance and it’s hard to get that in a cold, bright, half-empty studio with a bored crew looking on. I think it will be all right on the night.’
Chapter Thirty-Three
IT WAS THE day of reckoning for Libby. John and Alex were coming over, after a very tense phone call in which she had used every possible tactic to avoid getting involved in the business. She was dreading the meeting. Carrie had been surprised when she’d rung out of the blue, sounding a bit lost, most unusual for the confident celebrity she knew. Libby tried to tell her some of the details, but the kids kept interrupting and she didn’t get very far. Their conversation ended with Carrie promising to ring her over the weekend, when her husband was around, for a proper chat. Libby felt restless. She picked up the phone twice to call Annie Weller, but didn’t know her well enough to trust her with worries about David’s business that she hadn’t fully thought out herself.
She dressed in black and applied a lorryload of make-up: heavy foundation and highlighter and blusher and powder and blood-red lipstick. Her freshly washed hair was left unattended and she added some jewellery in an effort to look glamorous.
Alex O’Meara was visibly shocked when he saw her, John less so because he’d been to the house several times. She looked tired and grey and bloated, with sunken eyes. The extra weight made her look older and the financial whizkid couldn’t believe she was the same woman he’d fantasized about many times over dinner with David.
Her housekeeper had set up the formal dining table and Libby had prepared a huge bowl of rich pasta with gorgonzola and broccoli, which the two men tucked into with gusto, refusing her offer of wine. Reluctantly, she stuck to mineral water herself.
The details, when they emerged, were worse than she had expected, even though several late-night phones calls with John while she’d been working on the series should have prepared her.
; ‘The basic problem is that David invested heavily in the American market and it took a sharp downturn post nine-eleven, which of course no-one could have predicted.’ Alex O’Meara tried to keep it as simple as possible. ‘When the market plummeted, he didn’t react as I expected. He had a brilliant business brain, yet he seemed thrown in this instance and instead of waiting to see what happened, he began investing on his own account, and borrowing heavily, in order to put money into telecommunications and technology shares and other high-risk stocks.’
‘Why do you think he panicked? That doesn’t sound like him.’ Libby didn’t miss the glance that passed between the two men. ‘What? Tell me.’
It was John who sighed and eventually spoke. ‘Libby, I need you to understand that this next bit is off the record, because I have no proof of it.’ She barely nodded, the sense of impending doom descending immediately.
‘There is a possibility he may have been using client money to fund part of his investments and of course these funds should never be touched for this purpose. Now, this is not something I would ever say in public, nor is it something that should ever be repeated outside this room. It’s based on a hunch I had at the time and a couple of conversations that Alex had with him, although it was never formally discussed.’
Libby looked from John to Alex. ‘Is this what you believe too?’
He nodded.
‘The most important thing though, Libby, is that all client money is safe. I’m merely speculating to let you know why I think he reacted as he did and then borrowed so heavily later.’ He paused, glancing at her to make sure he wasn’t going too fast. She seemed calm and icy.
‘Libby, he’d always taken risks with his own money,’ he said, anxious to make her understand, ‘and in fact, even at the worst moments his investments were performing less badly at a time when others were losing their shirts. The banks trusted him. Of course, he gave them a personal guarantee backed by his own assets.’