What happened between her and Damian seemed like a lifetime ago.
Maybe I imagined the kiss. Maybe I made up the conversation. Hysteria can do that to a person.
Maybe she had been thinking of ways to justify why she shouldn’t feel the way she did right now. Lizle Vlam would be better suited to someone like Damian than her.
A week of dating, trying to see if they were compatible wouldn’t change the reality of the situation; she was a primary-school teacher whose idea of excitement involved mixing a bowl of peanut butter, muesli, yogurt, and marshmallows.
This holiday had been her exotic getaway.
Emma frowned at her one bandaged foot and the other, reasonably healed foot. She should’ve gone with Nomsa.
The dinner conversation flowed around Emma, and she didn’t do much to join it.
Besides, she didn’t need to. Lizle Vlam had been “entertaining” all of them with stories of her adventures.
Emma took a sip from her juice. More like bragging. She suppressed the urge to snort.
“And there I am dangling in the air, the CGI screen—you know the computer-generated image—behind me! And I’m supposed to imagine this huge glacier collapsing and breaking off in chunks around me.” Lizle and Stephanie laughed. “But all I see is the director.”
Lizle turned to Damian, touching his arm for the forty-fifth time since they sat down for dinner. Emma had counted.
“You remember Tony?” Damian smiled at her, nodding. “Oh! Tony can be very animated at times. But he’s short and stumpy, so when he sometimes starts to direct, you can’t help but laugh. Brilliant at what he does,” she added, “but I couldn’t help laughing at this tiny man, shouting directions while I hung in the air with nothing around me, but a green screen!”
Mark had the good sense to smile.
“Oh no!” Stephanie said. “I don’t think I would be able to imagine something that wasn’t there.”
“Really?” Emma couldn’t help asking, “Didn’t you believe in Santa Clause once?”
She could’ve kicked herself. Everyone’s head turned her way.
“Um….” started Stephanie after an awkward silence. “Are you staying close by?”
Damn my cattiness. Emma ignored Damian’s burning eyes on her. She didn’t like his gaze; he saw more than she wanted him to see.
“I invited Lizle to stay with us,” Damian said.
He was still staring at her.
Emma plastered a smile on her face and took another sip from her juice. She wished for a bigger glass.
“Damian’s always such a darling! He knows how I hate staying in hotels.” Lizle touched his arm again. “It’s so kind of him to think of me.”
Emma didn’t miss the suggestive look she gave him. What does it mean?
“It’s a kindness I would show anyone.” His dry tone dispelled any meaning Lizle Vlam could have implied. At least in her mind it did.
She recognized the tone. Hadn’t she been subjected to it since day one? This time she bit the inside of her lip to keep herself from laughing. Lizle Vlam wasn’t winning any points here.
“Even so, not many people would be so kind.” She recovered and turned to Stephanie, having enough sense to see when to quit. But her next words had Emma cringing. “Not after the sex-tape scandal.”
Oh no! She did not go there. But she had and was still doing so.
With an expression of studied mortification, she held a hand to her brow.
“You can’t understand how…sorry I am,” she said her hand going to her chest, the other again touching Damian. “To think people so close to you could…violate you in such a way….”
Emma’s mouth almost dropped open.
Lizle had tears glistening in her eyes. “And those scenes were so good.”
Emma stopped herself in time before she spluttered her juice all over the table. Instead settling for a cough and clearing her throat, when everyone turned to her again.
“Juice. Windpipe,” she said, acting brilliantly, even if I say so myself. She gave another small cough.
Lizle Vlam however didn’t skip a beat, still in scene. “Damian you were really good.”
A snort escaped and Emma covered it with another cough. Stephanie narrowed her eyes at her.
Okay so maybe my acting isn’t as brilliant as I thought.
“And it’s a shame people couldn’t appreciate it in its full context.” Lizle shook her head. “It’s sad really. The hours we put into perfecting those love scenes.”
There was no way to make a laughing choke remotely resemble a cough but Emma tried anyway. With a hand over her mouth, she took a deep breath and cleared her throat again.
Damian’s brow knitted but she ignored him.
Mark seemed more bemused than anything and Stephanie, poor prim and proper Stephanie, stared wide-eyed at Lizle Vlam as if she sported two pointy horns.
“The intensity….”Lizle paused to let the words truly sink in. “It’s something that can’t be manufactured.” Her hand touching Damian gripped him now. “It’s hard to find such chemistry, such a connection between actors.” She gave a watery smile. “I guess it’s the reason why I’m here. I don’t think we will be able to finish the movie without Damian.”
All laughter gone now. Damian, at one point or another, had to go back to his life. Her reality check was overdue, but Emma hadn’t counted on having to pay it so soon.
“He brought such dimension to Lenard Armstrong.” Lizle gave a short laugh then, startling Stephanie. “It didn’t even feel like acting.”
Her words left no doubts about her intentions.
First, she was going to get Damian on the movie set no matter what. And second, she obviously wanted him for herself.
Toying with her now-empty juice glass, Emma couldn’t blame the woman.
She watched Damian as he stared into the distance. He wasn’t listening to Lizle Vlam anymore. But instead of her earlier catty glee, she could swallow the uncomfortable knot in her throat.
It unraveled her how much she could read on his face. How conflicted he was between wanting to finish what he had started and his disgust at the whole scandal. She had heard it in his voice the night he told her about it. He wasn’t only embarrassed, he was also disgusted people would go so far for entertainment.
Emma stared her fill of him while he wasn’t aware. He’s got a face for a smile.
The kind of face that shouldn’t be scowling even though it was his favorite facial expression. She smiled. She would miss him. No way she wouldn’t.
Not because he was Damian Davidson and any person on the planet would remember meeting him, but because his mark was on her.
Stephanie’s voice brought her back. “Coffee or tea anyone?”
Emma blinked. “I think I’m going to head off to bed. It’s been a long day,” Emma said, feeling like she needed to get to her room before she made a spectacle of herself.
“It has been a long day,” Mark said.
He had planned on driving home the same evening but Stephanie convinced him to stay. He would have an early commute in the morning.
“I think I’ll also skip the coffee,” he said, also getting up from the table.
He helped Emma with her crutch. Stephanie paused for a moment, conflicted.
She would have loved to stretch out the evening with Lizle Vlam, however outrageous her behavior, but social graces won in the end. Lizle Vlam was Damian’s guest not hers. Stephanie had to bow out.
“Then I think I’ll also head to bed. The rugby did take it out of me,” Stephanie said.
Emma turned to the stairs so she could hide her amusement.
Balancing comfortably now that she had some practice with the one crutch. “Goodnight, everyone.”
General greetings had been made, but she didn’t miss the fact neither Damian nor Lizle Vlam had said anything about going to bed.
***
“The movie would be nothing without you. We need you. I need you.”
>
Last time they used him to get her back; now they sent her for him.
He couldn’t help scanning his surroundings. Ian had called him late in the afternoon to tell him Lizle was already on his trail. It seemed everyone wanted them to finish the movie. He wasn’t sure if it was what he wanted. To his mind, he would have enough time to decide.
He frowned. “This isn’t about me. What really happened, Lizle?”
“What do you mean?” The confusion on her face seemed genuine. Still he didn’t quite trust it.
“Ian told me about the apology. But both leaks were perpetrated by your people. How could you not know after the first time?” he asked.
She let go of him and ran a hand through her hair. “You know I wasn’t myself. I simply didn’t pay attention. And I’m sorry. It should never have happened. It’s why I came. You didn’t deserve it.”
“I’ll talk to Ian and let you know what I decide in a couple of days,” he said, not giving her much assurance.
She faced him. “Why? What’s keeping you here? Do you have another project? It didn’t seem like it this afternoon.”
Placing his hands in his pockets, he gave a short laugh. “I’m trying to cover all my bases, Lizle. It would be careless of me if I didn’t.”
“Sure, nothing to do with the girl with the crutch. What’s her name again? Emily?”
He frowned. “Emma.”
“Ah, Emma! Yes.”
He ignored the superior smile on her face. “Like I said, I’ll let Ian know what I’ve decided. Really, you shouldn’t have come.”
“Either I had to make things right or wallow in shame. I am the indirect cause of this fiasco. It was done to get back at me,” she replied.
He didn’t say anything, still sensing he couldn’t take her at her word. And he didn’t really know the reason for his suspicions.
“Tell me, Damian, you don’t want to do this movie.” She raised an eyebrow. “I know you do. This movie could mean an Oscar.”
They had come to sit on the sofa when everyone had left.
He knew the conversation they had on the beach would play out again, but to stoop to this level? If she assumed he would do anything for an Oscar, she was wrong. This was more than ignoring trivial gossip about who was dating who.
“Let’s get one thing straight, Lizle. I’m not going to do anything I don’t want to for an Oscar.”
Her body stilled as if frozen for a moment, then she suddenly gave a brilliant smile.
“Of course, no one’s trying to make you do anything you don’t want to! I meant, it’s a great role to pass by.” She gave an elegant little shrug. “But I will stop there. Let’s talk about something else.”
She re-crossed her legs and ended up closer to him.
He got up. “I think I’ll turn in as well. Why don’t you do the same? You must be tired.” He left her without a choice as he held out his hand to help her up.
But Damian hadn’t reckoned on her resourcefulness. As he pulled her up, she stumbled a bit and braced herself against him. A studied move if he ever saw one.
He sighed. She was a brilliant actress, but to someone who knew the craft, she had overacted. Of course, it’s the intention. So maybe he was being too critical.
“Thank you,” she said in a breathy voice, her hand moving slowly on his chest, “I am tired.”
He took a step back, to create some distance.
“Good night then.” He completely let go of her.
A small frown formed between her eyes. “Good night.” The breathiness gone from her voice. She made a start toward the stairs then turned. “You aren’t coming?” A last attempt, he knew.
He shook his head. “I have to lock up.”
She nodded. “Good night then.”
He lied. He wasn’t going to lock up. He was going to take a much needed breather on the beach and then lock up.
Chapter Eleven
Emma rolled around for an hour, sat up, and then ultimately pulled the covers away. She would go make a glass of warm milk. Maybe it will help me sleep.
She grabbed both crutches and made her way down the hallway.
At the top of the stairs, she had the same dilemma as earlier in the evening and decided to slide the one crutch down carefully and maneuver with the other. At the bottom, she picked up her crutch and started to move to the kitchen, but paused; the patio doors were still open.
She moved toward them to lock up, with every intention of having a word with Damian in the morning about thieves and robbers, but she stopped short when the moon reflected the visage of a lone figure walking in the distance. Even from where she stood, she recognized him.
Damian strolled down the beach, not in a hurry.
Without thinking, she took a step out the doors and smiled, noticing his discarded shoes on the patio; at least he’d had the good sense to take them off.
Emma wondered if she should join him or not. She didn’t want to intrude on him, but she also couldn’t keep away from him. When he came to a standstill on the coastline, he made the choice for her, and she walked over to him.
Not knowing why, but feeling the urge to be respectful of his solitude, she moved painstakingly slow. It took forever before she got in speaking distance of him and for some reason, she couldn’t close the distance. Emma stood there, staring like the fool she realized she was.
What was I thinking? She knew pretty well she hadn’t.
Isn’t this a lesson I taught the Grade 2s? Look right and left before you cross the street. Weigh all your options, all directions. To not run heedlessly across the street, like the proverbial deer caught in the headlights.
Damian stood still, a far-off expression on his face. Her approach had gone unnoticed.
She also stared at the sea. It did have a calming effect.
She frowned. She made assumptions. He could have wanted a stroll.
“You know I’ve been to countless beaches.” He suddenly spoke and she jumped out of her skin.
“Ah! Don’t do that!” she said balancing again on her crutches after almost losing both in her fright.
He turned to her. “This time I’m not the one sneaking around.”
“Doesn’t matter.”
He looked back at the sea. “But nothing comes close to SA’s beaches.”
He inhaled deeply and then exhaled.
“You should come home more often then.” A blush crept up her face.
“Home,” he said. “I haven’t thought of this as home in a long time.”
She didn’t know what to say, so she remained silent.
“I’m visiting my parents tomorrow.” His voice carried over the waves even though he spoke softly.
“They’ll be happy to see you.”
“Yeah,” he said.
She didn’t want to pry.
He turned toward her and walked slowly. When he stopped in front of her, she could feel the familiar, uncomfortable tightening in her throat.
A person should never be so devastating.
He touched her cheek, a light frown between his eyes.
“Come with me.” The last thing she expected to come out of his mouth. She blinked, surprise rendering her speechless. “Stellenbosch is a half-hour’s drive from here. It won’t take long. It’ll only be Sunday lunch.”
The distance didn’t matter to her, why he asked her mattered.
She cleared her throat to get her voice back. “Why?”
She was the last person she would think he would ask, especially after what had happened at the rugby game.
His hand dropped to his side. “If it had been any other woman, they would have said yes.”
She rolled her eyes. “I think it’s been firmly established I subscribe to a different subspecies of woman than you’re used to.”
This caused him to laugh and her to smile. Their eyes met and it was hard to ignore how much she loved being the sole owner of his stare.
“I’ll go with you.” The words slipped out before sh
e could stop them.
The smile didn’t leave his face.
“Why?” He asked throwing her question back at her.
She shrugged. “You’ve got a face for a smile.”
She laughed this time as he stilled, seemingly caught off guard by the sheer randomness and superficiality of her statement.
“And that’s why you’re going with me?” he asked with a frown between his eyes, though they still sparkled with mirth.
She shrugged. “Maybe.”
When his grin broadened, she added, “Or I’d like to say I’ve been to internationally known actor Damian Davidson’s parent’s house.”
The fact she hadn’t considered him quite in those terms for a while now wasn’t lost on her.
His jaw dropped. She laughed.
“Will I ever figure you out?” His tone turned serious.
She tried to lighten the suddenly somber atmosphere by tossing her ponytail. “Stick around and find out.” Emma’s words had even her pausing, “Uh…I….” She started but he held up a hand.
“Let’s not spoil things.”
She realized how quickly they had gone back to comfortable footing and then back again to awkward and stilted. “I’m sorry.”
“We should head back. We’ll be leaving at ten.”
“Are Mark and Stephanie also coming?” She asked.
“Mark has to work. Stephanie said she’s having lunch with friends. She got the invitation before I came.”
They must have arranged all of this when she had been asleep.
“And Lizle?” She added Vlam in her head.
He shrugged. “I don’t know how long she’s staying. But I think she won’t be going anywhere; she’ll be too tired from her flight.”
Emma nodded. “So it’ll only be us.”
“Up for it?” he asked.
She hadn’t misheard the challenge in his voice. “Of course.”
They started to walk back, neither inclined to talk.
The moon cast enough light for them to see where they were going. At the patio, they paused as he picked up his shoes. She went in first and watched as he closed and locked the door.
Then he checked the windows and front door. He let her lead the way up the stairs. How different from the beginning this was, she mused, when he had to carry her up the stairs. He took her to her bedroom door and awkwardness sneaked up on her.
Falling for Mr. Unexpected Page 10