by Krys Janae
“I’m sorry.” He said, and she saw him wipe his face. He was crying. “She was in London with us, for the movie ”
Alisa was shaking with anger. She must have blacked out briefly because when she came to, her hand was stinging and his face was turned away and bright red. It was a good thing she’d kept her suitcase packed; she grabbed it once again and headed towards the front door.
“Alisa, I’m sorry …”
“I’m sorry is the best you have? How long has this been going on? Since London?”
He blinked.
“Oh my God, please don’t tell me she came here while I was in New York…” Alisa was seeing so much red, it made her dizzy. She braced herself against the door frame. It explained everything: times he was unaccounted for in London, his rampant behavior over Evan, and getting mad over her New York booking before she left. How could she have overlooked that? He was the old Logan, that jittery, moody, volatile man with whom she struggled over the drug problem with prior to their marriage. Then another factor dawned on her: maybe the reason Kirsten was bothering Evan so much was to keep tabs on them both while they were home fucking in her bed? “No. You know what? Please don’t answer that. I-I don’t even know what to say anymore. Logan, how could you? I may have been in a room alone with Evan, but that is nothing compared to this. You ran to her, of all people? I think I would have expected to see Miche ”
“No. I would never.” He stopped her before she could even finish the name of that dreadful ex of his. Logan looked appalled that she would even mention her, but it wasn’t uncalled for, considering his history with drugs and that terrible woman.
“But what? Kirsten was next best?”
Her husband made a bold move and stalked towards her. His hands were on her arms in an instant, gripping tightly. She was sure his fingers would bruise her.
“Logan, stop!” Alisa backed away, yanking her arms from his grip.
His eyes widened as she moved from him, and he reached out again.
“Just … no.” Slamming the door behind her, Alisa made her way to the den, figuring she should probably stay in there for the night.
Chapter Eight
What are you working on currently?
Well, because of confidentiality agreements I’m bound to, I can only tell you that I’m working on the next book in the Gateway series, on top of writing for Family Insurance, the television series, and I’ve got ideas for a couple of new books.
One of your best-selling novels, Gateway, has been turned into a movie. What were your initial thoughts when an adaptation first became a possibility?
It has been a dream to have the movie come to fruition. I couldn’t believe it when the studio called and told me my book was already in script form, written by [Logan], and ready to go. As a self-published author, I was generally a one-man-show, but when I arrived in L.A. it was meeting after phone call after emails and texts. It was all so wild but well worth it. It was like hopping into a Formula One car and letting it go on cruise control. I have not looked back since.
I understand you’re playing Theresa Garrett on Family Insurance now. I also see that you have Evan Gable cast as Aaron Wallace. Evan is also the director on the next film. What’s it like to work with him?
(Exhales) Well, it was definitely not something I expected to be doing, but so far it’s been great. Evan and I met a few weeks ago to discuss the film, and the roles of Theresa and Aaron were kind of thrown at us. So we picked them up and ran with them. He and I share a neat bond over our love for music, [New York City], and pumpkins.
Pumpkins?
(Laughs) An inside joke.
Logan was away in London filming for Mark Addams’ new action movie, how did that affect your daily routine?
I’m not going to lie; it was hard. Being home alone was tough, but we kept in contact almost every day while he was gone. Other than that, I’m happy for him. He’s been working very hard for a part like that, and it is a great opportunity for him to be in a film directed by [Addams].
Have you encountered any conflict or creative differences with either Evan or Logan?
Not really. I’ll discuss the details of my books or give directorial advice, but that’s about it. They’re comfortable enough to let me know if they think there’s an error in my writing or if a scene isn‘t going smoothly. Even if we don’t see eye-to-eye on something, we talk it out and find a compromise. Actually, we recently met for the Gateway sequel, and it went smoothly. I can’t wait to begin work on it!
Alisa was at work reading her latest interview with a fan, who was a blogger and wrote reviews for books, television, and movies. It was a lengthy but fun interview, and without seeming too vain, she enjoyed reading through it. She was just about finished when she heard two of her fellow writers from the show come in and park themselves in their respective chairs. Briefcases snapped open and shut, papers were shuffled, and the very necessary coffee was delivered directly to their door.
If there was one particular area at the studio she cherished, it was the writer’s room. Weeks before filming started, Alisa met with at least four other writers to organize and fix the scripts for the show, A great time was had collaborating with comedic geniuses and other storytellers; it kept her creativity going. Today she was there with only two of them to discuss the main parts of the scripts before the teleplays were worked on, and they were outlining what might happen after their mid-season finale.
Alisa yawned and stretched.
“Are you all right, Alisa?” Andrew Holt, one of the lead writers, waved his hands in front of her.
“Hmm?” Her tired eyes blinked.
“I was asking you something.” He snickered.
She slowly nodded. “Yeah, I just … my mind was elsewhere. I’m sorry.”
“Long night?” Candace Pratt thumbed through one of her notebooks, not even looking up from her work.
“Something like that.”
Alisa had been in a daze since they arrived. She’d been worried about her husband. He hadn’t come home the night before, and he hadn’t made an effort to contact her. She impulsively checked her phone again.
Looking at her over his frames, Andrew began, “Now that you’re playing Theresa, I wanted to check and make sure you’re on board with the idea.”
“I’m well aware.” Alisa smiled.
“You’re 100% okay with this arc opening up for her? I mean, it could essentially go in any direction, really, but if this is what you want to do … the fans seem to love the two of them together, so I don’t think it should be an issue. I think it’ll be fantastic.”
“Is Logan okay with that?” Candace set her glasses on top of her notepad and set her favorite blue pen down beside them. Her inquisitive blue eyes were staring at Alisa, eagerly awaiting an answer.
“I suppose he’ll have to be.” She said through her Hollywood smile.
They all laughed.
“Well, it’s settled then.” Andrew rubbed his eyes and yawned. “Damn, I can’t wait to get to mid-season so we can take a few weeks off.”
“You and me both. Except I get to move on to movie work. There will be no rest for me.”
“That’s right. How’s that going?”
Alisa shrugged at Candace. “I think it’s gone swimmingly so far. After being in New York and seeing some of the locations we may get to shoot at, possibly even into Canada … it’s tremendous. Casting-wise we were lucky enough to get Jenn Vega—”
“I heard! Congrats!”
“Thanks.” She smiled.
“With Jenn there … and Joey Rider, I’m sure the sequel will kill at the box office.”
Alisa nodded, “Yes. Other than that, it’s just meeting and hashing out the plans we have for the movie itself. I’m told it’s going pretty well.”
Candace and Andrew both nodded at her, smiling proudly. “We are so glad you were able to hop on as a writer, and now cast member, on the show. Just hope you can handle all the fame.”
Alisa exhal
ed a laugh, a chortle almost. “Me too.”
They all chuckled.
“The mid-season is set …” Candace’s voice trailed off into some of her own notes, but Alisa honed in on what she had written down on her outline.
She was trying to write off Theresa’s character, but both Candace and Andrew didn’t think it was appropriate to dismiss a strong female lead like Theresa so quickly. She would become minor after the mid-season return, though featured a little more than Aaron. He would have little-to-no screen time, since the focal point shifted back to the main family: Dawn, Ray, Logan, etc. Evan’s focus was going to be needed for the new movie, and if they wanted him after the production, then so be it.
The one bit of her notes she could not let go was that Theresa and Aaron ended up together after much resistance. When asked why, it was explained that Theresa needed to figure out exactly what would make her happy.
Make her happy … she thought to herself.
Who was she kidding? Alisa was not happy. Not in the least. Every day she was worried that Logan would hug her only to slap her (in a mental sense) with another off-putting mood swing. She kept thinking it over. Theresa, though a brand new character to the audience, had been in the making for months before the season started. She was a character Alisa took to heart because of their striking similarities.
What makes you happy? Alisa asked herself. Was staying up late at night, waiting for her own husband to come home, more than likely drunk or high, the life she wanted? Did having the title “Mrs. Rider” make her happy, especially now that he was out living the life of a movie star once again?
Alisa’s phone vibrated on the stack of papers sitting in front of her on the table. The content of the message was enough to make her sick to her stomach. She politely excused herself and immediately left the studio.
***
There was one comfortable spot in the Rider’s house, one she liked to go to when she wanted to be alone. It was the stairs just outside on their back patio. It had a beautiful view, but today she wasn’t focused on that. She became aware she had been out there for hours as the sun started to set, but she didn’t care. The urge to release a loud scream overcame her, so she roared loudly at the sky, screaming all of her frustrations at the heavens. It may have been wishful thinking, but she believed this drama only unfolded for fictional characters.
Alisa wanted to pack up, get into her car and just drive, but she was too angry, too upset, and way too disgusted to do anything. The motivation drained out of her.
Later, hours after working on letting go of her grief, she decided to get up and moving to distract herself. Alisa prepared dinner for the fourth night in a row. Every night she set out place settings for herself and one other, lit candles for ambiance and fragrance, and even popped open a bottle of wine, perfectly paired with what she had fixed. Each night she would polish off the bottle, alone, only having eaten a fraction of what she dished up for herself. Each night she listened to music to fill the silence. The one thing she hoped would change this evening would be her husband coming home. She wanted him to fill the seat that was set for him and explain what she had seen.
“Just hope you can handle all the fame”… The words of her fellow writer echoed in her head. It was something that was reiterated time and time again, a constant reminder that surrounded her choice to marry the superstar.
“Just ride it out”… John advised. He told her that infidelity was a common occurrence in show business, but Alisa didn’t want to give in to that fact. She didn’t want to fulfill that stereotype. She took John’s advice when it was good advice, but she disagreed with John for essentially advising that she ignore the fact that he was not only using again, but he was cheating. She didn’t want to admit to how miserable she had been, but it was there, it was ugly and was staring her directly in the face.
On the other hand, how could Logan be so callous? He’d been living it up with his friends, leaving her at home to go party with Christian and whichever scumbag managed to turn up there. She digressed; not all of them were scumbags, but likely most of them were. It was tough for Alisa to understand how he could turn from being the perfect husband who offered her a perfect life – to the moody, entitled, superstar who couldn’t stay put for a few hours to be with his wife.
Alisa wiped away tears when she heard the door open. She set the half empty bottle of wine aside. Normally she would have felt a decent buzz from the dark liquid, but she’d drank it over a long enough period of time to feel more numb than anything.
He stumbled outdoors to find her and sat at the table.
“Where were you last night?” Again, she could have just filled in the blanks, but Alisa had worried herself sick. There was a heavy feeling in the pit of her stomach.
“Sweetheart, I was at Christian’s. You know that.” Logan’s words were slurred, and after observing him for a moment, Alisa could clearly see that his eyes were shifting. It wasn’t the way her husband would act, at least not sober. This man sitting in front of her, this stranger, was not her husband.
“Please don’t ‘sweetheart’ me …” Her voice wavered.
Logan chuckled to himself and took a drink of the wine from her glass.
“Logan.”
“Babe, I was out. I’m home now. Is that all right with you?”
“Was she there?”
“Who?”
“Don’t play games with me, please. Just answer the question.”
“Yeah, I guess. There were so many people there—”
She flipped the phone around to reveal the photo on the screen. She’d received the message from Joann a few hours ago. Her heart broke to even look at it. Logan was with Kirsten on the side of Christian’s house. An amateur paparazzo had snapped the photo. It was blurry and pixelated from the zoom, but it got the point across. The ugly, brutal point.
Logan and Kirsten were kissing; there was no doubt about that. Hands were in places deemed inappropriate in public. She felt sick.
Logan fell silent.
Alisa felt the stinging warmth of more tears as she closed her eyes. She couldn’t take it anymore, hiding behind the façade while her personal life went to hell. When she first discovered that he went back to using, she couldn’t bring herself to say it out loud. But there was no ignoring the fact that a huge wedge had been driven between them. There was a problem that could no longer be ignored.
It took a lot to stand on her own two feet, but she managed. She found herself standing by the door next to her luggage, which she had already packed in preparation for this moment. Alisa reached for her bags.
“No, please,” There was some semblance of his actual self in that plea. “Alisa, please don’t go.”
That voice, that shaking voice, stabbed her in the heart. So much so that she stopped in her tracks. She could never handle the sound of his voice when he cried.
“Baby ...” Logan’s voice was barely a whisper.
It pulled on her heart so heavily. The hot tears ran down her face.
“I’m sorry, Logan. I can’t do this anymore.”
As if his buzz had been killed, his jaw dropped. Logan’s eyebrows rose, and he was clearly in shock. Maybe it was because he wasn’t used to people walking away from him, but Alisa could only bear so much.
“Logan, I know I shouldn’t walk away, but I’m not happy anymore. I tried to help you, I did … but this is not what I expected when I married you.” It took everything in her not to lose it. Alisa never stopped loving Logan, even after she found out his problem had surfaced yet again. She felt selfish for leaving, but she would be killing herself to stay. It was clear he didn’t want to be helped; not now, not after he got what he wanted out of her.
It made her sick to think about it; had this been his ploy all along? The big bad movie star gets the girl and just as quickly as she builds the castle around her—he comes with his mighty sledgehammer of bad choices, causing it to come crashing down?
She couldn’t deny that she still l
oved him very much, but it was too painful to stick around. Alisa knew she would never hear the end of it from her mother, and especially her friends, if she allowed this situation to fester.
Whatever makes you happy… This time, she could hear John’s voice telling her this, and she would heed that advice. Clearly, she was unhappy in her current place, so she needed to change it.
The relationship they had built, the fairy tale ending that she once coveted and had come to cherish, was falling apart. Every step she took away from the scene sent another pillar within their marriage crumbling. Alisa thought about how things might play out if she stayed but considering the flint that lit the wick, beginning with his accusations about Evan, she knew she had to go. His recurring drug use was a fight that she wasn’t willing to have.
He still said nothing.
“I’m going to … I need some time.”
In a matter of seconds she was behind the wheel of her car, driving down the street. Her eyes were blurred by tears, and she knew she had to pull over to the side of the road before she could make the call. She hoped she tapped on the right contact, but the phone was already dialing out.
“Hey, I was just about to text you.”
“I see.” She sighed, relieved to hear his voice.
“What’s up?”
“I need to go somewhere ... anywhere. Can I come stay with you for a while?”
“You have perfect timing. I just got home.”
“Thank you.” She sniffled and used the back of her hand to wipe the mixture of tears and makeup from her face.
“Is everything all right? What’s going on?”
“I just need somewhere …”
He knew that cue and offered a sympathetic sigh. “Okay, of course, sweetie. Come over, please.”
“Thank you, John.”
Chapter Nine
Three Weeks Later …
