The Road To Her Part 29

I covered a wad of cotton wool with cleanser and started removing the heavy make-up that was used on us in order to show up better on camera. When I was done, I leant on the sink and stared at my fresh, scrubbed face looking back at me. I could no longer hear Bella speaking, so I unlocked the bathroom door and went back into the main compartment of the trailer and, finding the trailer now empty, saw a hastily scribbled note on the table in front of the chairs where Bella and I had just been sitting.

Tom forgot the kids. Do you want my husband? Sometimes think I could happily be single. See you Monday.

In haste, B x I looked for my phone, but when it was clear that Bella hadn't dropped it behind one of the cushions or left it in a prominent place where I could see it, I realised with a sinking heart that she'd taken it with her.

"Great!" I said aloud. "So not only do I have a weekend on my own, I now also have a weekend without my phone."

I grabbed my coat and bag, hauling it onto my shoulders. With one more quick glance around the trailer, and with the thought in my head that I'd have to go to Bella's in the morning to collect my phone, so at least I'd have something to do, I left the trailer and made my way home.

It was just gone five thirty in the afternoon when the intercom to the apartment rang. The commute getting back across town from Primrose Hill had been tedious, as it always was in the middle of the week.

I was still annoyed about my phone. By now, I thought, it would probably be back at her house, no doubt being batted around her lounge floor by one of her cats. Well, I could wait until the morning to go and collect it. Now I was home, all I wanted to do was kick off my boots, put slippers on my feet, pour myself an enormous gla.s.s of wine, and sit and watch TV until either hunger or cramp forced me to move again. It had been one of those days.

The intercom in my apartment rang again, refusing to be ignored. I sighed at its shrill, impatient buzzing and dragged myself reluctantly from the sofa, wincing at my tired, aching legs. There was only one person I knew could ring an intercom like that, and I really hoped she had my phone with her, and I equally hoped that she didn't have any of her children with her.

The intercom rang for a third time, just as I'd reached my door to answer it. Muttering about patience being a virtue, I pressed the b.u.t.ton, reaching down at the same time to pull a boot off, kicking it across the floor, and then leaning down to take the second one off.

"Bella?" I waited to hear the familiar, breathy voice of Bella.

"Holly, it's me."

I froze. Elise.

"Buzz me up."

Chapter Thirty-four.

Icicles cascaded down my back the second I heard her speak. For one split second I felt dizzy and instinctively put my hand out to the wall to steady myself.

"Holly? You there?"

Just hearing her voice again after so many weeks of silence made it seem like I'd just seen her that morning. She'd only said a few words to me, but the sound of her soft, low voice was still making my head spin and my heart thud in my neck. I swallowed hard.

"Elise." My voice sounded reedy, strained.

"Can I come up?" Elise asked.

"Why?" I sounded childish, but I didn't care.

"Please? It's important." Elise said softly.

Without replying, I pressed the buzzer on the intercom. I wandered back into my lounge, my mind racing, imagining Elise in the lift, wondering what she was wearing, whether she was alone or had someone with her-stupid, crazy thoughts like that. I started frantically thinking about what I was going to say to her and how I was going to act towards her, and I jumped at the soft tap on my front door.

I glanced at my reflection in the mirror, adjusted my hair a little, then opened the door. My throat tightened as I saw her standing in front of me, looking just as stunning as she had the last time I'd seen her. Of course, physically she looked the same, a little thinner, perhaps, but same great hair, same beautiful eyes, cute dimples. At the same time, though, there was something different about her. I couldn't put my finger on what it was, but it was as if she was meeker-shyer, almost.

"So? You've seen me," I said, leaning my arm against the door frame, barring her way.

"I need to talk, not just see you." Elise stepped back slightly, looking at my arm blocking the door.

"Oh, now you want to talk?" I said.

"Please?"

Finally stepping aside to let her in, I closed the door and leant back against it, watching her as she wandered into the apartment, looking around.

"Any spiders lately?" She turned to me and smiled nervously.

"What are you doing here, Elise?" I pushed back from the door and walked towards the window, glancing across at her as I pa.s.sed her.

"I came to apologise," she said.

"You came all the way from America to say you're sorry?"

"I gave up on America," she said quietly.

My heart lurched. "Why?"

"Why do you think? You." Elise slowly walked towards me.

I folded my arms tight across my chest. "Why now?"

"I did a lot of thinking while I was away," she said.

"You want a round of applause?"

Not rising to my bait, Elise walked to my window and stared out across the city.

"The view never changes from your window, does it?" She turned her head and looked at me over her shoulder. "I like the consistency about that. I need that."

"Don't we all?" I muttered.

"This is what I'm trying to tell you," Elise said. "I've done a lot of thinking while I was away, and I realised I need stability in my life." Her eyes roamed over my face. "Because I've never had it before. You give me stability." She swallowed. "Gave. You gave me stability."

"I make you want to hide from who you really are, remember?" I said. "Isn't that why we both realised it would never work?"

"One day, when I was staying at my friend's apartment in LA," Elise said, ignoring my comment again, "I looked out his window and I realised that everything had changed since I'd last been there." She dug her hands deep into her pockets and turned back to face the window. "But it wasn't the scenery that had changed. It was me." She stared out in front of her. "When I looked out his window, all I wanted was to see London spread out in front of me, not LA," she continued. "Then I realised, it wasn't about the view. Not really. I didn't want to be there anymore. I wanted to stand with you in your apartment and look at the same scene that we'd stood and looked at together countless times." Elise paused, breathing softly. "I wanted you to be standing beside me," she said quietly, "but when I turned round, you weren't there."

"I wasn't there because you were grown-up enough to realise we wanted to live our lives differently," I said, loving how her hair fell around her neck, and fighting the urge to touch it. "I was devastated when you left, but you know what? In hindsight, if it hadn't been you that ended it, then it would have been me."

"And I'm grown-up enough to know how selfish I've been," Elise said, finally turning her back on the window and facing me. "I never wanted to leave, but I didn't see what choice I had. Now I'm glad I did go because when I got there, I felt empty, not like when I was last there." She came towards me and sat on the arm of my sofa. "Everything came back to me. I remembered how selfish I'd been when I was living there before. I was selfish because I didn't have anyone else to think about-or to care about. All I had was myself." Elise leant over, resting her arms on her knees. "I was so insular," she sighed, "only caring about me and my career." She looked up at me, holding my gaze. "Everything changed when I came to England and met you, but I never realised it at the time. Never...appreciated it. It wasn't until I was staring out my friend's window that I realised I hadn't left selfish Elise in LA. I'd taken her to London, left with her again, and now she was inflicting her selfishness on someone who she really cares about. You."

"So what are you saying?" I asked, my throat tight. I wanted to be angry with her, but each gaze up at me from under her fringe, each sigh from her, each look of anguish on her face just made me want to go to her and gather her up in my arms. "You just left me! Without a word! I had to hear it from Kevin that you'd gone, for f.u.c.k's sake. How could you have done that to me?" My eyes p.r.i.c.ked with tears.

"I'm saying that I'm sorry for everything I've done, and that I want to try again," Elise replied, her face sincere.

"Jesus, Elise. How can we be together?" I asked. I leant against the wall, my legs feeling like jelly. "We want different things. I want us to be open as a couple. You want total secrecy. How would it ever work?"

"Something happened when I was in LA," Elise said slowly, "that made everything so much clearer."

"Right," I said, my heart thumping even more wildly than it was before. Please don't tell me you hooked up with a guy when you were there. I swallowed hard. "So what happened when you were away?" I asked, dreading her answer.

"I had my very own eureka moment," she said, "which got me on the first plane back over here."

I shook my head. "I don't understand."

Elise stared down at the floor, absent-mindedly turning one of the cloth bracelets on her wrist. "My agent over there," she said slowly, "called me one day, asked to see me."

"To offer you work?"

"More like, to offer me men." Elise shrugged.

My stomach plunged. "Other actors?" I managed after a few seconds, the words nearly choking me.

"Yeah." Elise didn't look up. "He produced this file, full of headshots of actors," she went on, "ones who are further up the greasy pole than I am. You know the type?"

"I know, yeah," I replied. "Young and perfect, just the sort of guy your agent wants you to be seen with." I looked at her, trying to read her reaction to my words.

She finally lifted her head and looked back at me, her face expressionless. "Do you know what he said to me?" she asked. "Do you know what the f.u.c.k he suggested?"

I shook my head.

"He told me to look through the photos and choose the one I thought I'd look best with." She threw up her hands. "Can you believe it? He actually asked me which one I wanted to hook up with."

I let myself slowly slide down the wall until I was sitting on the floor, then brought my knees to my chest, clasping my hands round them. "Hook up as in...?" I asked weakly.

"How do you think?" Elise sprang up from the sofa, her hands shaking. "As in, go to premieres together and be visible. My agent said I'd look good with any of them, but he wanted to give me a choice," she scoffed. "He told me to make out for the cameras with them. He said it would help get my face known in good old Tinseltown, and that it wouldn't do the actors' credibility any harm to be seen out with the cute English chick." She emphasised the last words.

"And what did you say?"

Elise ran her hands through her hair."What do you think?" she cried, her eyes filling with tears. "Do you really think I'd be that shallow?"

"No, I..." I dropped my gaze. "I'm sorry."

"He offered me work, as well," Elise continued, "said that most of the guys in his grubby little portfolio were in soaps or TV movies-that kind of thing." She sat down on the floor next to me, our shoulders touching. "He said he could get me work in the same programmes." Elise turned her head and fixed me with her adorable eyes. "Every character he offered me was the same shallow piece of nothingness that couldn't even hold a candle to Casey."

"So?"

"I realised nothing would ever compare to what I have here with you." She paused. "What I had here. No character could ever be as good as Casey, no bit part in some cable-channel soap could ever match up to what I had on Portobello Road." She put her hand to my cheek, bringing my head round to face her. "And the thing that makes it so f.u.c.king awesome here is that not only do I have an incredible character to play, but I get to play her opposite you."

"But you'll always be worried about what other people think, won't you?" I tried to keep the wobble from my voice. "That'll always stop us. I can't live like that, always running scared."

"I won't be. I promise." Elise's hand stayed cupping my face.

"You will, Elise," I said quietly. I squeezed my eyes shut, forcing a tear to spill down my cheek. Elise wiped it away with her thumb. "It'll always be like that," I whispered. "You worrying about what people think, or what they might say, because of your career. That's the difference between us." We held each other's gaze. "I don't care what people think."

"No." Elise shook her head, tears filling her eyes, too. "I've thought about nothing else since I've been away." She took her hand away from my face and wiped her eyes with the inside of her wrist. "If being with you means I lose my career, then the career wasn't worth having," she said earnestly.

"You say that now..."

"I just want to do ordinary things with you, Holly." She put her hand on my leg and stroked it. "I want to go to sleep with you every night and wake up with you every morning. I want to row a boat down the Thames with you, eat picnics in the winter with you. I want to rid your kitchen of spiders and spend silly afternoons picking your socks up off your bathroom floor and fixing spotlights that we both know won't work." She was half laughing and half crying by now.

I stared at her, feeling as though someone was squeezing my already bunched-up heart and draining every last ounce of blood from it.

"I don't care what I do, Holly, as long as it's with you." She wiped at the mascara running down her cheeks, smearing it even more.

"I don't want to go back to a life without you because without you I don't have a life. Can't you see that?" Tears were now cascading down her face, Elise no longer bothering to wipe them away. "I don't want to be Brad Bentley's pretend girlfriend, when I can be your real girlfriend."

"Brad who?" I smiled.

"Exactly." I felt Elise relax against me.

I gazed at her, not daring to move. It was as if I was in one of the dreams I'd had so many times since Elise left. I half expected to wake up and find that none of the last twenty minutes had actually happened.

I squeezed my eyes shut and opened them again. She was still there. Perhaps this wasn't a dream after all.

"So?" Elise took my hand. "What do you say? Can you forgive me?"

Chapter Thirty-five.

"This is everything I've wanted to hear for such a long time, but how do I know you mean any of it?" I looked at Elise, tears starting to p.r.i.c.k at my eyes again. "How do I know you won't get cold feet the first time someone sees us out together and go running off again?"

"I won't," she said slowly, lifting my hand to her face and kissing it. "I promise you, I won't."

"I don't know if I believe what you say anymore, though," I said. "That's the trouble. I just don't know if I can trust you again."

"Can't you at least try?" Elise asked, her eyes pleading.

"I don't know," I said, my resolve starting to waver. "I don't know what's the right thing for me to do."

"What's right is that I love you!" Elise said. "And I know it's going to take you time to trust me again, but I'm begging you. Just give me one more chance. I want to prove to you that I mean everything I'm saying right now."

I linked my fingers through hers.

"And how will you do that?" I asked, hypnotised by the feel of her skin against mine. "I won't let you hurt me again."