What Now?

by Shari Low

  It was about 5 p.m. in LA right now and he was probably busy, so I didn’t expect him to reply. I was surprised when the three little dots appeared to show he was typing.

  Sam: I’m sorry.

  * * *

  Me: You’re not.

  * * *

  Sam: Okay, I’m not. Can I buy back your love?

  That made me laugh.

  Me: Dinner at the Cheesecake Factory, but I’m making no promises.

  * * *

  Sam: I’ll start saving. We’ll go big.

  * * *

  Me:

  Me:

  Me:

  In typical perimenopausal mood-swing fashion, something in that last comment triggered an insecurity and wrecked the moment. I ended up going for a superficial reply of…

  Me: Deal. See you soon xx

  I flicked my phone off and shoved it in the pouch in my seat.

  ‘We’ll go big’ reverberated in my head. I was already big.

  I knew it was stupid and shallow, but I hadn’t seen Sam in a couple of years and, last time we met, I looked very different from the way I did now. It shouldn’t matter. We were friends. My size or shape wouldn’t change how he felt about me in any way. Problem was, it changed how I felt about myself. I definitely had less confidence. Definitely didn’t feel easy in my own extra skin.

  And yes, there was a tiny bit of me that registered that Sam was an ex-boyfriend of a million years ago, and no woman wants to bump into a former lover when she’s feeling about as attractive as mud.

  If I’d known I was going to do this, I’d have been down at the community centre for twice-weekly boxercise classes, I’d have got the juicer out of the hut and I’d have buried my biscuit tin in the back garden. I might also have got my eyebrows done, perhaps a bit of fake tan, sorted out my roots and attacked the forestry situation on my legs.

  As it was, I was going to the city of perfection looking like I’d been marooned on a desert island for the last few years – one where the indigenous population rejected all modern civilisation except Dunkin’ Donuts.

  To my left, I could hear Toni fidgeting, so I reached out across the gap between our seats and stroked her hair. ‘You all right, sweetheart?’ I asked quietly, aware that a few people around us were dozing, including Val, who was now breathing deeply, with the occasional gentle snore.

  ‘Yeah,’ she answered, but I wasn’t convinced. Something was definitely off with her.

  ‘Want to stretch our legs?’ I asked her, keen for an opportunity to chat to her. We usually only spent time together in a family group, so it was nice to have some one-on-one time.

  We walked to the back of the cabin, where there was a tiny area of space outside the toilets. I didn’t want her to feel I was interrogating her – plenty of time for finding stuff out in the next two weeks – so I went for casual chit-chat.

  ‘I bet Charlotte is so jealous she’s not here too. You should definitely photoshop daily pics with movie stars and send them to her,’ I joked.

  Toni shrugged. Again. She must have the fittest deltoids in the country. ‘Doubt she’d even notice.’

  Ah, was there some tension there? Had she fallen out with her sister. They were such different personalities. Right now, Charlotte was off spending her summer working as an intern for a prestigious property development company. She was driven like Carol but had that easy way with people that came straight from her dad. Everything she did, she excelled at. I could see how that would be annoying for a sibling.

  ‘You okay there, ladies?’ Drew, the lovely cabin crew manager who’d served us, was now breezing past on his way to the galley.

  ‘We’re fine, thanks,’ I assured him. ‘Just stretching our legs. Don’t want to ruin the experience with a deep vein thrombosis.’

  He was still chuckling as he disappeared behind the curtain that separated the swanky bit from behind the scenes.

  Just when I was giving up on Toni engaging in any meaningful way, her curiosity got the better of her. ‘Aunt Carly, what exactly is the deal with you and this Sam guy?’

  The question surprised me at first. This was Sam Morton. Hollywood heart-throb.

  But, of course, that was past tense. Toni wouldn’t have any real idea who Sam used to be in any of his former lives. He was at the height of his fame when she was only seven or eight, before he’d made the shock decision to take himself out of the public eye and gone behind the camera. Since then, he’d had a far lower public profile but huge success, producing some of the best romcoms of the last decade. Benny was his godson, and Sam made sure he caught up with the boys whenever he was in London, but as far as I could remember, Toni had only met him a couple of times, and that was years ago.

  ‘He’s just a friend,’ I answered honestly.

  For the first time today, her face broke into a smile, and she nudged me. ‘Come on, Aunt Carly, dish the dirt. I want to know details.’

  Oh God. Truth or Lie? Truth or Lie? She was eighteen going on nineteen. That was old enough to hear what actually happened, wasn’t it? And maybe sharing the story would help her trust me, and perhaps she would then share what was going on with her?

  I reached over and pulled back the galley curtain just a tiny bit.

  ‘Drew, can I have a gin and tonic please? Actually, I might need a packet of crisps too.’

  How to sum up a twenty-five-year tumultuous relationship in one conversation?

  I took a deep breath and contemplated where to start.

  The only place that made sense was at the beginning.

  9

  Hong Kong, 1994

  Lover – Taylor Swift

  Full disclosure: the first time we met, Sam thought I was a hooker. Which was ironic, given how things turned out.

  I was twenty-five, and after a few years working in nightclubs in Glasgow, Amsterdam and Shanghai, I’d landed my dream job: managing an uber-exclusive, exquisitely trendy, illustrious nightclub in the basement of the prestigious Windsor Hotel in Hong Kong. Problem was, I’d been working and living in the chain’s sister hotel in Shanghai for the previous two years, so I was well out of date with the current fashions.

  In a rush to do a covert reconnaissance of the club before the staff found out who I was, I donned the only ‘suitable’ clubbing outfit in my suitcase – a black mini dress that barely covered my buttocks at the back, and had a zipper that ran from chest to hem at the front. I know. My only excuse is that it was the nineties and it was a throwover from when I’d lived in Amsterdam a few years before. The perfect dress for a night out in the Amsterdam nightclub world? Absolutely. But for a chic club in a five-star hotel in Hong Kong? Not so much.

  The muscle-bound steward with the London accent on the door of Asia, the hotel’s basement nightspot, clearly thought the same. I can still remember every detail of my first impression:

  6’2” tall. Hair, the colour of Dairy Milk, crew-cut. Brown eyes with eyelashes that you could stir tea with. Square jawline. Sun-tanned. White teeth, crowned and straight. Nose that has been broken. At least twice. Broad shoulders. Defined pecs. Washboard abs that I couldn’t see, but I just knew they were there. Slim hips. This guy was an ‘after’ picture for a health food supplement advert.

  He was clearly reluctant to let me in, but I showed him my room card and he waved me past. A few hours later, when I left the club alone, he made his judgements clear.

  ‘No business tonight, love?’

  Determined to insert a modicum of class into the situation, I gave him an aloof smile. ‘Not tonight. You see, I’m very, very expensive and I don’t think any of that lot could afford me.’

  The following evening, when the Food and Beverage Director of the hotel called a meeting of Asia’s staff and introduced me as the new manager, Sam’s face was a priceless picture of mortification, but it broke the ice and sparked an undeniable attraction.

  Within a couple of weeks, we were living together in his apartment in Causeway Bay. Sam had big dreams and he was working to mak
e them happen. Already mastering Cantonese, by day he taught martial arts to kids, and was planning to open an academy as soon as he’d saved the funds to rent his own premises. By night, he made extra cash by working on the door of the club, a job that came with the extra pressure of fending off the advances of lusty customers.

  We had a great time together and fell into the kind of easy rhythm that happens when you laugh a lot, have loads in common, and you’re still in that first flush of love where you spend as much time as possible indoors and naked. Still, it was a surprise when, a few months later, ten minutes before midnight on New Year’s Eve, the music in the club fell silent. The DJ called me to the dance floor, and my heart thudded, positive that there had been some kind of electrical shortage or a major life-threatening catastrophe. If only.

  Instead, in front of a packed room of revellers, Sam Morton walked towards me, holding a microphone. ‘Cooper, I love you very much.’ There was a chorus of ‘Aaaaahs’ from the crowd and hollers of ‘Go, Sam!’ from the bar staff. ‘Marry me,’ he said.

  Bugger. Fuckety Damn Bugger. My brain screamed a silent, ‘Nooooooo’. I didn’t want that. It was too soon. And my cheeks were burning because I bloody hated being the centre of attention. I loved him, but I already had a couple of broken engagements behind me and I wasn’t ready to commit to any more than that. What was I supposed to do, though? Three hundred pairs of eyes were on us, waiting for my answer. Again, Fuckety Damn Bugger.

  ‘Yes,’ I said, because, well, I couldn’t say no.

  Streamers flew, poppers popped and the cheers raised the roof, and when my gorgeous, kind, smart fiancé picked me up and swung me around, I told myself we’d make it work.

  For a while, we did.

  But six months later, my one-year contract at the club expired and I was offered a transfer back to another Windsor hotel in the UK. Sam begged me to stay, but I was homesick and ready to see my family and friends again. Also, I was running one of the best clubs on the island. What would I do if I stayed? There was no option to extend my contact so I’d have to leave the hotel chain, and if I did that, there was no way I’d find another job of the same level.

  After torturing myself with indecision and investigating every option, I decided to take the UK job for a year. That’s all I was asking. If Sam really wanted to spend the rest of his life with me, then surely he could make a long-distance relationship work?

  ‘Please don’t go, Cooper. I don’t want to live without you. Don’t leave.’

  ‘Then wait for me, Sam. I promise I’ll come back in twelve months.’ I truly meant it. The way I saw it was that if we were meant to be together, then this would work. Absence makes the heart grow fonder and all that cliché stuff.

  ‘But don’t you see, if you really loved me, you wouldn’t leave?’ he replied.

  Wow. He didn’t even try to see it from my point of view.

  My indignation rose. Was that what it came down to? Emotional blackmail?

  ‘Sam, I’m going. I have to.’

  Eventually, he shook his head, shrugged.

  ‘Then go,’ he murmured, voice thick with sadness.

  He got up, grabbed his jacket and left.

  I slowly slipped off my engagement ring and placed it gently on his bedside table. I flew out of Hong Kong that evening, closing the door on my relationship with Sam, at least for a while.

  Five years later, on my quest to revisit all the men I’d loved, I returned to Hong Kong to track down the man I’d deserted so abruptly. It took some serious detective work, but I discovered that he still visited three homeless guys who lived outside our old apartment every Friday, to take them cash and food, just as he’d done when we were together.

  That’s why I was sitting on the step of our former home when he drove up in a flash sports car, the first sign that he’d upgraded his life.

  ‘What did you do, Sam, rob a bank?’ I spluttered.

  ‘Cooper! What the hell are you doing here?’ Was he pleased to see me? I wasn’t sure if his expression was 100 per cent astonishment or 100 per cent delight.

  ‘I forgot my keys. I came back five years ago and you weren’t in, so I’ve been sitting here ever since.’

  His face cracked into a huge smile as he hugged me. Delight. Definitely delight. Maybe this was it. Maybe he was the one. Maybe I’d finally found my happy ever after.

  That night, the revelations about his new lifestyle continued. Incredible apartment at the Peak. Designer clothes. Not bad for a martial arts instructor, I thought.

  Turns out, that wasn’t quite the case. Later that evening, while Sam was out, his phone rang, and a woman left a message requesting a date with him. Then another. Then another. Only hours after my optimism peaked, it sank like a stone in Hong Kong harbour as I realised my former fiancé was making a living as a high-class escort.

  By the time he came home, I was numb, just silent tears streaming down my face as I tried to understand how this had happened. ‘Why, Sam?’

  It took a while, but he eventually slayed me with the truth.

  ‘After you left, I couldn’t bear it,’ he said. ‘I didn’t know what to do with myself. Everything hurt so much and I was so angry. I would go to work every night and watch all the couples, looking so happy, and I couldn’t believe that it wasn’t us. One night, one of the women that I trained asked me to go to a company dinner with her. It was a “partners” function and she didn’t want to go on her own. I felt sorry for her, so I went. And afterwards, she insisted on paying me for my time, said it was just like a personal training session.

  ‘The next week, she called again. Then her friends started calling and, before I knew it, I was booked out every night. Gradually I charged more and more, but the business just kept coming in. Soon after, I gave up everything else. I was making more money than I could ever have dreamt of. And it was so easy.’

  His devastated expression made guilt and sorrow seep from my pores.

  ‘So you never opened your martial arts school?’

  ‘No,’ he answered, and there was more sadness and regret in that one word than I could bear.

  My silence prompted him to continue.

  ‘At first, it was just dinner and conversation, then somewhere along the line it became… more. I didn’t care. They were buying my time, I was already selling myself, so what did it matter? I was convinced I’d never fall in love again and that part turned out to be true…’

  A knife twisted in my chest.

  ‘… So now this is who I am and it works for me. No strings, no emotion, no hurt. In a few years’ time, when I don’t look so good, I’ll take the money and run. I’ll retire from this life and find something else to do. Things happen, Carly. We don’t always end up how we’d imagined in life.’

  Wasn’t that the truth.

  That could have been the end of it, but the thing with Sam was that, well, I loved him. I stayed in Hong Kong with him for a while, not as a lover, but as a friend. He wanted to try again, but getting past the ‘so many people have rented my boyfriend’s penis’ thing was just too big for me. I couldn’t do it.

  A few months later, I returned to Scotland for Carol and Callum’s wedding, met Mark again, and realised he’d been the one for me all along.

  Back in Hong Kong, Sam’s life took another incredible twist. One of his clients turned out to be a lady with serious Hollywood connections and she encouraged Sam to write about his life. It was one of those crazy occasions where the stars aligned and shot out bolts of brilliance. Sam’s story, Gigolo, became a massive box-office hit, with him in the starring role, kicking off a meteoric Hollywood ascendance that saw him winning the types of roles that usually went to Pitt, Affleck and Damon. It seemed that the movie fans could forgive his alternative career choice because he’d delivered it up for their entertainment.

  As far as my relationship with him went, there should have been nothing more to report, but a few years later, we added another chapter to our story.

  Back in Scot
land, married to Mark, and with two young children, I was knackered, frazzled, unfulfilled in my career and frustrated about what I perceived as my husband’s serial indifference, so when my first novel was picked up by an American talent agency, I was thrilled. Mark, not so much. He didn’t share my optimism that this could be great for us, and refused to take a chance on going to LA and seeking out the holy grail of a movie deal that could set us up for life.

  In the end, I took my boys, a suitcase of dreams and an inflatable alligator to Tinsel Town, and my old friend, Sam, welcomed us into his mega mansion with open arms. My boys adored him, the feeling was reciprocated, and we spent weeks in a wonderful fantasy bubble, living the kind of sun-kissed, luxurious life that only happened in Baywatch and old episodes of Charlie’s Angels.

  I never did get the movie deal, but we had the time of our lives and it was so natural, so easy to be around Sam, that I suppose it was inevitable that the lines of our relationship would get blurred. As far as I was concerned, it was a platonic relationship. A true friendship, uncomplicated by thoughts of the sweaty bendy stuff.

  And it was. For a while.

  Until Sam dropped a bombshell that made me wonder if I’d chosen the wrong man.

  10

  Los Angeles, 28th July, 2019

  Woman Like Me – Little Mix featuring Nicki Minaj

  ‘O. M. Effing. G,’ Toni exclaimed, wide-eyed, over the noise of a ping in the background. ‘I can’t believe you were, like, legit, a movie star’s girlfriend. So what happened when you took Mac and Benny over to stay with him?’

  ‘Sorry, ladies,’ Drew said, sticking his head out of the galley curtain. ‘The captain has put on the seat-belt sign because there might be some turbulence ahead, so I’m afraid you need to return to your seats.’