“Leny, I haven’t seen Chris for a few days”.
“What? And how about “Love School”, shooting?”.
“He let everything go! He came here some days ago and he close himself into Steven’s office. He tore the contract before him and then he went away. I went to his house the day after and he was quarreling with his agent. It seems he didn’t want to take part in a film cast anymore…I didn’t understand much. I only know that his agent has resigned and Chris will have to pay some very steep fine for what he’s doing. Leny, I’m very worried. When I was with him, I saw a bottle of vodka on the table and his mobile on the floor in pieces. I asked him if he had started drinking once more, but he denied and turned me out. I tried to come back, but he didn’t let me in. He told me he was ill…Leny, I’m very worried! If he turns to drinking again, it’ll be the end, do you understand? He has just sent his career to hell, but now…Oh, Leny, please, catch the first flight and come here. You’re the only one who can save him!”.
Leny risked to fall to the ground for the shock.
To say she was worried was just an euphemism. She was really frightened!
Had Chris started drinking again?
No, it was impossible. She couldn’t believe it. She didn’t want to believe it.
She still remembered how Arthur had taken the news. He was shuttered and had shouted that his grandson should leave that unhealthy world. He had prayed God to make Chris come back home, with him, safely, where he would be surrounded by beloved people.
Yes, she was going to ask Chris to come back home.
Arthur had never been brave enough to ask it directly and he had regretted it in the end, even if he had always tried not to show it.
Leny decided she wouldn’t make the same mistake again this time.
She had to do it for Arthur, for Chris and for herself.
12
Only Emily’s hug could make Leny forget the uproar of the last thirty hours.
It had been difficult to give up her job after she had been looking for it for so long, but running out of her boss’s office to avoid the gust of insults describing her like an “ungrateful, immature girl”, had been still worse.
Getting home and running to prepare her luggage, trying to fill it with hope and courage, hadn’t been simple at all, especially when she thought about catching the flight alone.
The idea of travelling for hours on a flying object which hadn’t been equipped with wings by nature itself really scared her, but the one of being alone made her tremble with fear even more.
Luckily the chemist had given her some magic pills to keep under control the tension which could go sky-high if she felt the terrible turbulences shaking the plane several times. Thanks to Heaven and to the chemist, Leny slept like an angel all the while.
When she got to the airport, she almost started crying like a little girl because of the mess and the continual comings and goings of the people pushing her left and right like a puppet.
She would have gone to ask an airport guardian for help, if she hadn’t seen a girl waving like a crazy, with a huge sign showing her name “Leny Perks”.
Only when she came out of the car which had taken her to the set where her cousin was working, she could really relax.
“Emily!”, she exclaimed, scared for everything she had gone through.
Her cousin held her tight. “Was the journey ok?”.
“Quite. And what about you? How are you?”
“I’m ok. I’ve just finished shooting the last scene of “Love School”, sixth season. Come. I want you to meet someone”.
Without uttering a word, Leny let herself be dragged by her cousin, who was holding her hand like they used to do when they were children to cheer each other up. She heard Emily introducing her to a lot of people, including some actors of the film series, but Leny just waved softly with her hand.
She was then dragged to a part reserved for offices.
“Steven, this is my cousin Leny”, Emily exclaimed getting into a large room full of scene objects lying everywhere.
Leny saw the famous film director Steven Maddle coming towards them.
If in photos he looked a bit like a bear, he was still worse in real life, with his boxer face hidden by an unkempt beard, bushy eyebrows and carbon-like, messy hair.
Next to Emily, they looked like the characters of “Beauty and the Beast”.
Leny could just see him smile, but his adoring glance towards her cousin was unmistakable.
They loved each other. Very much.
“I’m pleased to meet you. Em has been talking so much about you”.
“The pleasure is mine. Emily has been talking about you as well…about you two”, Leny started, regretting immediately her blunder, which was making Steven’s grim look come out. Maybe nobody should know about their story or maybe he was sure she wouldn’t understand them.
“Ste, she knows about us. I told her”, Emily intruded to calm down the man.
“Em, what have I told you a thousand times?”.
“She’s like a sister to me. And then she’s really happy for us, aren’t you, Leny?”, she asked with an imploring glance.
“Of course! If Leny is happy, so am I”, Leny comforted him with one of her shy but spontaneous smiles.
“Even if the man you’re talking about is twenty years older than she?”, Steven checked her.
“Nineteen, shit! Not twenty!”, Emily got immediately angry.
“Em, don’t be rude”, he scolded her at once.
“Nineteen or twenty, that makes no difference. Love doesn’t know age”, Leny immediately mediated, feeling guilty for that quarrel between them.
Luckily things calmed down fast and without wasting time, Steven explained Chris’s situation to her.
“Just before his grandpa’s death, Chris came to me and told me he wanted to give up the series. He had already told me at the end of the second season, but then I could convince him, while he has been really determined this time. I offered him more money, but he told me he had to go home. In the end we agreed we would put an end to the last season with a fight against the Big Crazy gang. We shot the scene about his admission to the intensive care unit just before he got the news about his grandpa. I asked him to think it over again, but he left for Pieville. When he came back I asked him if we could wake up his character from a coma, but he answered Max had already died according to him and he didn’t want to play the part. I tried to insist and I offered him a new contract, but he tore it before me. A fuss was kicked up with the whole cast at that moment, but Chris didn’t come back. We have decided to make one more season now and then we’ll probably close down. Without Chris, “Love School”, has no more reason to go on”.
“I learnt he wanted to leave the series just after our return from Pieville, otherwise I would have told you at once”, Emily added sorrowful.
“And where is he now?”, Leny asked trying to realize the last news.
“At home”.
“Yes, his agent has called me several times. It seems that Chris wants to give everything up and he doesn’t want to talk to anybody. Rumors say he has turned to drinking once more”, Steven explained worried.
“It’s evident we must do something, Leny”, Emily fidgeted. “We can’t let him do something rash”.
“Of course, but how?”.
“Chris doesn’t know what to do anymore. This is obvious. He has a deep existential crisis. He doesn’t know if he can go back to Pieville and if someone is waiting for him, but at the same time he doesn’t want to stay here. What’s more, paparazzi are stuck to him like vultures and he is locked at home”, Steven explained to her.
“Leny, you must talk to him. Absolutely”, her cousin added.
Leny agreed in the end.
“Of course you’ll have to stay alone. I’ll leave you my chauffeur. He knows where Chris lives. It will take less than an hour to go to him. You’ll find a small diary on the car seat. The code to go through the gate is o
n the third page. Wear my clothes and these sunglasses now, so when you get out of the car, you won’t stir up a mess due to the sight of a new young woman in Chris Hailen’s life…The scoop of the day”, Emily organized everything, dragging Emily into her changing room to change her clothes.
Twenty minutes later, Leny disguised as Emily Keys went through the set and got into a very sumptuous white limousine, guarded by a stocky man, whose face was half-hidden by sunglasses.
“Leo, bring my cousin to Chris, ok? No questions and if someone asks, tell them it’s me”, Emily ordered fast to him, before she hugged her cousin.
Even if she was stunned by the fastness of the events, Leny sat on the large back seat of the car.
She didn’t even heard the car moving.
She relaxed on the seat, worn-out and thinking about Chris.
She would do anything to bring him back from that hell!
She had been travelling for forty minutes, when the car got stuck into traffic.
Even if she was worked up at the thought of seeing Chris in a short time, she could just sleep on the seat, waiting to get out of the jam which was causing an outburst of hoots and made all the drivers much more nervous.
Trying not to bother about it, Leny let her fall down on the soft leather, her eyes lost towards the streets made dark by the windows color.
At a certain moment the car could go on for a couple of meters and Leny started looking at the outside of a café. It was just that café. The one where everything had started.
Even if the chairs and the tables had changed, Leny remembered immediately the only time she had sat at that café. It was the summer of the journey Emily, Chris and herself had offered to each other.
Emily had had the idea of going on holiday to one of the favorite places for film directors and actors.
It was their first holiday together, without their parents.
They had stayed for ten days, spending all their money to get into the most exclusive places, known by famous people.
Unfortunately they hadn’t been very lucky and they had never been able to approach anyone who really mattered in the movie world.
“If we want to shoot to fame in the show business, we have to be noticed! This is our only possibility”, Emily had kept repeating every night.
She remembered how her cousin had got really broken-hearted to the day before the last.
They had spent all their money and they would soon go back to Pieville.
They were going to give up, when they saw the famous film director Steven Maddle drinking an aperitif, just while they were sitting at that café.
They had spent more than five minutes discussing how to approach him.
“Emily, are you sure he is Steven Maddle?”, Chris had asked her skeptical.
“Of course! This is the opportunity we were looking for, guys!”.
“But Steven Maddle is on the edge of bankruptcy. His last movie “Love sentence”, has been a complete flop”.
“I liked it”, Leny had commented shyly, as she had seen it three times
“It wasn’t bad, but the actors were brainless. If we had been the actors, it would have turned out a success”, Emily had affirmed confident.
“So, why don’t you try to catch his attention playing the part of Susan and Matt in “Love sentence”, when they split up? I remember the scene took place in a café. You should try to remake it”, Leny had suggested looking for Chris’s approving glance.
“Excellent idea”, Emily and Chris chorused.
She could still remember how the scene had attracted not only the film director’s attention, but also that on all the customers in the café, while they shouted at each other, following the movie’s cues.
Emily was right: when Steven approached, he clapped his hands at their improvisation and he exclaimed: “If you had been in Kirke Nose’s and Jessica Ticker’s place, my film wouldn’t have been a flop. I’m working on a new project, guys. It’s a TV series for young people and you would be perfect for the part. Have you got time for a little talk?”.
And so two new stars were born in Hollywood’s sky.
Just before Leny’s moved and excited eyes.
Coming back to the present, Leny wondered whether she would have done the same choices, if she had known how things would end up.
“Miss Perks, we have arrived. You must deal the opening code of the gate”, the chauffeur’s voice in the interphone brought her suddenly back from her thoughts.
Shivering with anxiety, she took the little pink diary on the seat arm-rest and she read the code.
She then wore sunglasses again, she let the window down and she dealt the number on the keyboard.
After a short while she heard the gates opening, but she was immediately distracted by some flashes and voices calling her Emily Keys. They were all interested in her story with Chris and if rumors saying they had split up and Chris was leaving the series were true.
Relieved that Emily’s disguise had worked, she closed herself again into the car.
She heard the car going on along the gravel for several meters, then it stopped.
“Miss Perk, here we are. I’ll wait for you here. Take your time”, the chauffeur warned her kindly.
Only when she had gotten out of the car, Leny could realize she was in a very large property, in the middle of which stood such a big villa that Leny had to turn her face right and left to see it by a single glance.
“What can he do with such a large house if he lives alone?”, Leny wondered moving uneasily to the door.
Before she rang the bell, she turned back for the last time.
The garden was wide and the gate very far.
The limousine which had brought her had disappeared.
Trying to control her shivers, she breathed deeply for a long time. Then she rang the bell.
A few seconds later, the door opened violently.
“Fuck, Emily, how many times have I told you not the use the code to get in! I want to be left alone”, Chris growled, peeping out just a bit.
Feeling terribly embarrassed and uneasy for the misunderstanding, Leny took off her glasses and tried to smile.
“Leny…”, Chris whispered in a very low voice, so shocked he had to grasp the door jam.
His red and bright eyes, his pale face and unkempt beard immediately showed his indisposition, worrying Leny still more.
“Chris, are you ok?”, she asked him sweetly seeing he was so unsteady. He looked very weak.
Without waiting for his answer, she approached him, caught him by his arm and took him inside.
Coming closer, she realized Chris was even panting.
“I’m well. Just a bit of temperature”, he answered bewildered. He couldn’t understand yet that Leny was before him.
“I think it’s more than a bit”, Leny disagreed, touching his forehead and dragging him to the sofa dominating the wide living room next to the hall.
“I’m ok”, he said again, stupefied by that strange contact.
Leny laughed amused. “You’re like your grandpa! You never accept being ill! Having a fever it’s not a crime. Have you got an antifebrile?”.
Chris took a long time before he answered.
“Over there”, he told her pointing at a long corridor.
Leny was going to move, but Chris took her hand. “Leny, what are you doing here?”
“Chris, I love you and I couldn’t stay in Pieville without you anymore”, she answered, letting her heart drive her.
“Leny, I love you too and I want to be with you, but my life is…”, he tried to explain, but she put her finger on his lips to make him silent.
“First let’s think about making the fever go down, then we’ll talk about it”.
Leny could find the right medicine at last and she dragged Chris to the bedroom to rest.
“Don’t go away”, he prayed her just before he fell asleep, his hand still holding hers.
“I promise”, she answered, lying next to
him on the blankets.
Chris slept all day and Leny finally decided to try and make something to eat.
With some difficulty, she could find her way through that wide, minimalist and aseptic place, so different from her home.
She got to the kitchen, where she found an empty bottle of vodka in the garbage can.
Feeling scared, she promised to herself once more to bring Chris far from that house at all costs.
Lost in her thoughts, she started making a hot broth and plain mashed potatoes with no butter, then she rolled it into small sausages wrapped in slices of ham.
She still remembered how Chris, when he was a child, was crazy for the potatoes and ham rolls that Leny’s mother prepared for him.
She prepared them very carefully, so she wasn’t aware of Chris’s arrival.
“I thought you had gone”, Chris panted holding her tight in his arms.
“I’m making dinner. You were sleeping so well that I didn’t want to wake you up”, Leny comforted him returning his hug and realizing that the fever had risen again.
“I thought I had lost you”, he whispered with his face plunging into her hair.
Lost you? What was he referring to? Before he left Pieville or now?
“You haven’t lost me, Chris. You’ll never lose me because I love you and I’ve come here for you. I know your life is here, where you have this huge house, the job you love…but I need you and I suffer when I see you like this. I’ve just found a bottle of vodka in the garbage and I fear to ask you…”.
“Leny, I don’t drink anymore. My agent brought that bottle to play a nasty trick to me after I had sacked him, but I immediately emptied it into the sink and I threw the glass away. Please, believe me”.
“I believe you, but I can’t go living with the fear that you should start hurting you again, far from me…Chris, I love you and seeing you like that makes me crazy. Please, I pray you, come back to Pieville with me”.
Chris stared at her for a long time. He couldn’t believe that Leny had been able to tell him those things, as she had always drawn back for his actor’s dreams.
In Love with a Star Page 13