Kelsey looked astounded by a revelation she hadn’t considered. “But maybe I’ll have some people turn in applications, and I can start interviewing tomorrow and—”
“But they won’t be dropping off their applications first thing in the morning. So let’s relax, okay?”
“I don’t know, I—”
“For me?” Ashley asked, feeling a dagger of sorrow pierce her heart. “We have a lot of catching up to do. And I don’t want things to get off on the wrong foot like with what happened with Alex. I walked in the door, and he was already going off on me. I love him, but he’s really intense.”
Kelsey chuckled. “That’s a new development.”
“Hmm. Sounds mysterious. I want to hear all about it. Inside.” Ashley cocked her head toward the entrance. “Let’s go.”
After entering and taking a seat at the bar on the first floor, Kelsey ordered a Bud Light, and Ashley got a bottle of Mike’s Hard Lemonade.
Before retreating, the bartender, a man in his late twenties with short black hair eyed Ashley. “Hey, you know, you look like that actress.” He snapped his fingers. “What’s her name? She’s kinda popular. Probably needs a truck to carry all the money she makes.”
Kelsey gave her sister a sidelong glance. “Yeah, I see what you mean. I think her name’s Ashley something-or-another.”
“That’s it,” the bartender said, grinning. “But I hear she’s a total bitch. My cousin, Ivan, he lives out in LA, and he was an extra on one of her movies. I forget the name of it, but Ivan said that she held up the whole set because she had a toothache. Later that day, Ivan goes over and tells her he’s a big fan, that sort of thing. And get this: she flicks a wrist at him and says, ‘You’re pestering me. I don’t have time for this.’”
“Wow,” Ashley said, incredulous. “You’re right. What a bitch.”
“So,” the bartender said, winking at both of them. “What are you two doing out this late on a Sunday night?”
Ashley flicked her wrist at the bartender and said in a haughty voice, “You’re pestering me. I don’t have time for this.” Then she grinned at him.
“Yeah, you couldn’t be her. No offense, but she’s actually a pretty good actress.”
She brightened. “No offense taken. But I’m just catching up with my sister. We haven’t seen each other in fifteen years. And I don’t know when we’ll get a chance to talk again, so we’re trying to make the best of it.”
“Okay, no problem,” he said, strolling to the other end of the bar. “But if you need anything, let me know.”
“Did that really happen?” Kelsey asked her. “Holding up the set and about his cousin, Ivan?”
“Well, it was more than a toothache. I had to have my molars extracted immediately. Afterwards, my cheeks blew up like I’d stuck gobs of ice cubes in them. I went to the set, but the director sent me to the make-up artist, hoping to find a way to reduce the swelling. We didn’t have enough money for CGI. And I didn’t hold up production. The director just skipped ahead to a few other scenes. As for the cousin, Ivan, if I remember correctly, he reeked of liquor and cornered me the moment I got to my car. He grabbed my breasts. I screamed and security came and kicked him off the lot.”
“Jesus,” Kelsey said. “Does that type of thing happen a lot?”
“No. For the most part, Hollywood is like high school. Everybody acts a little too immature, when they’re not nursing bruised egos and planning revenge on those who’ve thrown them under the bus. But once in a while someone catches you by surprise. Now do you understand why I change my phone number and email address so often?”
“I figured it was something like that.”
“Next to your line of work, it’s incredibly easy. So you’ll never hear me complain.”
“Since you make $100,000 a picture…” Kelsey grinned.
“That was an error in a magazine. They never checked with my agent, manager or publicist. I actually got paid $10,000 on that film. But with taxes and the cost of living so crazy in LA, I didn’t make out that great considering I was between TV shows.”
“Very glamorous.”
“Did you hear I’m going to die soon?” She updated Kelsey about the writers’ plans to kill off her character as well as her run-in with Gayle.
“She’s such a bitch!” Kelsey said. “I think she actually enjoys hurting people with the written word.” She picked up on the mood-change in her sister’s demeanor. “What’s wrong? You look guilty.”
“Because I feel guilty.” She lowered her gaze to the wine cooler. “I’m the reason Gayle wanted to punish you and Alex.”
“I don’t understand.”
Ashley caught her up on what she’d learned earlier tonight.
“But how could you have known? The whole thing makes no sense.”
Ashley’s experiences in high school hurt her family more than she’d ever imagined. “I wish I would’ve made time to come visit.” She reconsidered that remark. “But then I’d have to—”
“See Mom and Dad.”
Ashley nodded. “And that’s something I’m still not prepared for.”
Kelsey didn’t say anything. She just listened.
“Did you hate me? For leaving?”
“Never. But I was really sad. For a few years, I wanted to be you on Halloween.”
Ashley felt her eyes moisten. “Really? Why?”
“Because you were so pretty and had so many friends.”
“They were my friends, but not when it really counted.”
“And, of course, there was Scott.”
“Ah, yes. The reason why my friends stopped hanging out with me. He was the best part of high school.” She gave it a little more thought. “And the worst.” Ashley expected her sister to press for details. But that didn’t happen. Again, Kelsey just listened. And that was a rarity for Ashley.
Throughout her career, very few people listened to anything she said. From her agent and manager, who interpreted contracts and sent her upcoming projects, to producers and directors, who had their own visions of what should be shown on film and had no interest in the opinions of an actress who played a secondary character to fill in the plot. In Hollywood, where egos ran rampant, everyone had ideas and each person felt obligated to share them.
But since her sister listened, Ashley decided to do something she wouldn’t have conceived of doing fifteen minutes earlier. She told Kelsey exactly what led to her break-up with Scott and why she left home without even saying goodbye.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
“Would I like to get an explanation why she blew me off?” Scott asked Damon as they walked down to the first floor of Sanitarium. “Of course. Who wouldn’t want closure? But it wouldn’t change anything. The bottom line is that she tore my heart out and didn’t care. Why would I want to get back together with someone like that? I’d just want to find out why she couldn’t explain why she did it. That’s all.”
“Well, maybe you’ll get your chance. Sooner rather than later.”
“I hope so.” That’s when he touched down on the ground level and spotted Ashley sitting with her sister at the bar. His pulse jumped. And indignation burned in his soul, once more stoking the permanent fixture of pain in his heart.
Their eyes met from across the room. Ashley lowered her lashes.
Scott couldn’t tell if she was ashamed for having wronged him all those years ago, or if she simply didn’t want to talk to him. But he didn’t care how she felt. He wanted answers, and this time, he planned on getting them. “Give me a few,” he said to Damon and left him in the distance, heading toward Ashley.
Kelsey, noticing him make his way toward them, raised her eyebrows, alarmed. She hopped off her bar stool, said a few words to her sister, and swerved around the bar towards Damon.
“Hey,” Scott said, slipping into the chair that Kelsey just vacated.
“Hi.” She looked at the varnished black countertop as she wrapped a palm around the wine cooler, straining her muscles so tight tha
t her knuckles turned white. Despite the tension, her hand trembled. As if fearing her other hand would do the same, Ashley pulled it off the counter and placed it in her lap.
Scott ordered another bottle of root beer.
“Still afraid to drink?”
“After what happened with my dad and brother? Always. Besides, in a way, it’s still beer.”
She offered him a closed-mouth smile. “It was nice of you to help out my sister.”
“That’s what nice guys do, I guess.”
Her upper lip momentarily curled into a snarl, but she still wouldn’t meet his gaze. “You put on a good show.”
“I just played covers. No originality there.”
“You put a twist on ‘Grenade’ and ‘Head over Heels’. But a Katy Perry song?”
She referred to his version of “Wide Awake.” It made him smile. His teenage-self would have blasted him for placing so much trust in a pop song. But nowadays he preferred to listen to all kinds of music as long as they had a message.
Last Valentine’s Day, he’d heard Katy Perry’s song and identified with it to such a degree that it helped him get over Ashley. It took fifteen years and that song to finally give up on them as a couple. So he decided to play it tonight to emphasize how he’d released the past and looked toward the future. Just as important, he sang it to lessen any guilt Ashley might feel over having thrown their relationship away.
“That song has a lot of emotion in it,” Scott said. “No songwriter can ask for more.”
“You sounded torn up.”
“If you don’t feel it, the audience won’t either.”
At that, Ashley raised her head and looked into his eyes. Tears glistened.
“That song summed up how I felt… when I got over you.” After all the torment he’d endured from her actions so many years ago, he liked seeing her fidget. He needed to see it. God knew he’d done the same thing month after month, year after year, whenever a woman came on to him, and he inevitably told her that he needed to get over someone else before beginning a new relationship. And he felt more than a bit odd knowing they had no chance with him, all the while never realizing that they probably pitied him for holding on to someone who hadn’t held onto him.
Ashley nodded. “Have you visited your dad? Did you ever patch things up with him?”
Scott met her eyes with a steely gaze. “Nope. And I don’t plan to. If you love someone, you don’t mistreat them like that.”
She clenched her jaw as though trying not to say something she’d later regret. “So you know why I’m here, but what about you? What finally drew you back to Bedford Falls?”
“I think I needed… answers.”
Scott chuckled and raised his bottle. “Cheers to that.”
She clinked glasses with him and gulped down some of her wine cooler as he did the same with his root beer.
“Well, you’ve become a success. How does it feel?”
“Are you kidding?” she asked. “With that crowd tonight? On only a few hours’ notice? You’re the one who should feel successful.”
Scott didn’t need fifteen years of silence between them to know that she was disappointed with the direction her career had taken. “But you’re on a pretty popular show.”
“No one even knows my name. I’m barely even acting. My character, like so many female roles nowadays, isn’t very dimensional. I’ve always wanted to feel a sense of accomplishment with acting.” She laughed, a strangled annoyance lurking deep in her throat as she motioned to the bartender to bring over another wine cooler. “Any actress could fill my role. I just need to look my best, and that’s good enough for the producers.” When the bartender replaced her wine cooler, she took a sip. “And I’m thirty-two. I might as well be in a coffin. Soon, they’ll kill off my character and get some hot twenty-year old to give our male viewers someone to fantasize about.”
Scott didn’t fall for the bait. She’d appeared in more movies and television shows than he’d recorded songs. She had no reason to feel like a failure, whereas Scott couldn’t help but laugh at her frustration. He’d written a string of hits for today’s top artists, and no one knew his name. The people who recorded those hits got all the credit. Each performer had top-notch vocal skills, but they needed him to write those songs.
And until today, until he’d listened to Ashley explain how unfulfilled she felt in Hollywood, he hadn’t given much thought to how he’d given away great material that attributed to other artists’ success. All the while, he stood in the background, accepting paychecks for his assistance but lacking the critical acclaim other performers garnered based on his contributions.
Then he gave some consideration to how Ashley regarded her audience: “our viewers.” It reinforced that she took pride in the show she starred in. “You’re more beautiful than you give yourself credit for. Definitely more gorgeous than some twenty-year-old.”
A sympathetic expression held sway over her.
Digging his fingernails into his palms, Scott had no intention of releasing that thought from his mind. But he had no regrets. He’d loved and lost. It happened to countless people every day. He had no illusions that he deserved better than anyone else. At the same time, Scott wished he…
“Thank you for saying that, but—”
“You’re the best actress on that show,” Scott said, unsure why he’d aired that opinion. “You have the hardest job: being tough but beautiful. You need to earn respect from what you say and how you act. No one gives it to you for anything less.”
“Really?” Ashley asked, looking hopeful. “I never thought of it that way.”
Scott felt a glimmer of satisfaction that he’d made her feel special. And just as in the past, he wanted to stretch that sensation. “Everyone else has it easy: kill some zombies. Dust some vampires. And they get respect. But you? Hell, every viewer may think you’re beautiful, but they hate you for it. Men know they’ll never get you. And women realize they may never be so gorgeous. And you ignore all of that. The whole time, you’re strong. You don’t get by with outward appearances. You’re tough but still feminine.”
Although Ashley didn’t have an on-screen romantic partner, Scott found her as hot as when they first met. That she’d gained a few pounds and had some lines at her eyes somehow made her look even more graceful.
He couldn’t recall seeing anyone more stunning. The mere thought of slipping his fingers through her hair made him think twice about getting over her. After all, he wouldn’t have given it any thought if he had no interest in her. And that worried him. More than that, it made him want to leave right this moment.
“That means a lot to me,” Ashley said. “I got so fed up with most female characters in scripts that I started writing a paranormal series of my own. That way, I could play the parts that aren’t available… or rather, the ones I never get.”
“Good. Be proactive. You’ll never fail, if you never give up.”
“I just wish you…” Shaking her head, Ashley said, “Never mind. Let’s forget the past.” She raised her wine cooler. “To the future.”
Scott gave her a sidelong glance. “I disagree. The past makes us who we are…right this moment. You and me?” He cocked a head at the young man across from them, a blond twenty-five-year old, soaking his sadness in the glass of alcohol near his left hand. “I need the past. Don’t you?”
“No, I don’t. The past doesn’t matter. It’s what happens right this moment and next month and a year from now that matters. We can’t change the past. So I never even think about it.”
That statement made Scott feel stupid. For over a decade, he’d longed for the past. And now she all but told him that what he’d dreamed of day after day, year after year, didn’t matter. “You just pretend we never happened?”
“Exactly. It’s a waste of time. It has no bearing on the future.”
Scott gritted his teeth, trying not to say something he’d regret later. “I disagree. After you blew me off, why would I even waste
my time thinking about someone new who disrespects me like that?”
Ashley furrowed her brow. “What do you mean? I didn’t blow you off.”
“The hell you didn’t!” he said, raising his voice, unable to contain his anger. “I never heard from you since graduation day until now.”
“Oh, really?” So on graduation day, you weren’t making out with another girl?”
“No, I wasn’t,” he said, closing in on her. “I’d never do that. I loved you.”
“So much you had to kiss another girl in our spot. Our secret spot.”
Scott gave her statement some extra thought. It reminded him of the time Gayle had cornered him, thrown her arms around his shoulders, pressed up against him, and kissed him without the least bit of warning.
He’d pushed away from her, stating that he loved Ashley. Gayle had raged at him, calling him a coward and saying that Ashley was a fake, that she didn’t really care for him, that he could do better.
At the time, Scott just listened as she bashed her fists against his chest, unsure of what else to do. He hadn’t encouraged Gayle to come on to him, so he didn’t know how to handle the situation except take her abuse. She’d obviously cared for him, and since he empathized with her, Scott didn’t want to hurt her feelings. And because of that, he watched as tears streamed down her face, as she cursed at him, as she continued to pound away at his chest.
But he hadn’t responded to her kiss. Yet, it seemed that Ashley had seen the “indiscretion,” and had come to a misinformed conclusion. “I didn’t kiss another girl.”
Now Ashley hopped off her stool and stomped up to him. “I saw you sucking face with Gayle. Don’t deny it. I saw it!”
“You saw wrong,” he said, meeting her anger with his own. “I didn’t kiss her. She kissed me. And I stopped it a second after it happened.”
Ashley, breathing heavy from their heated exchange, stepped back, regaining her breath. “So it was all my imagination? You didn’t care for her?”
One More Chance (A Bedford Falls Novel Book 3) Page 16
