She walks over to my desk and places a coffee cup down—one of the recyclable ones, I note, making a mental note to flaunt that in front of Yoko later.
“Thanks.” I pick the cup up with a shaking hand and bring it to my lips.
She opens her mouth to say something, then snaps it shut again. “Honey …” She squeezes my arm, and indecision wages a war in her eyes. “Do you want to go grab some lunch?”
“Yes.” My voice is high and small, and I grab my naughty handbag and all but run out to the elevator.
My best friend should be the last person I feel like turning to right now. But some things are stronger than jobs and jerks. Friendship.
We make it to Longrain and are seated quickly. The waiter places down two water glasses and I order wine and food for the both of us, as I always do, and then we’re left alone.
Courtney reaches across the table, linking her fingers through mine. “I’m so sorry, Madison. I never wanted to hurt you—”
“It’s fine. Mike cheated.”
Her eyes widen and she pulls her hand back to her heart. “What?”
I sniff, and press my eyes shut for a moment. I will not cry. I will not cry. “I came home early after … you know … and he was with another woman.”
“That fuck!”
Diners at other tables shoot her a look, and she withers them with a glare.
“On your birthday.”
“I know.”
“After the promotion—”
“I know.”
“And the wedding …”
I sigh. “I know.”
“Maddie, I am so sorry to hear that. I just …” She shakes her head and shrugs. “I never would have thought it.”
This time, my voice is so quiet, I’m almost unsure if I speak the words aloud. “I know.” My heart twists, and I try to push the pain away.
“Well hey. He wasn’t the perfect guy, was he?” she asks.
I squint. “What do you mean?”
“You know …” Courtney shrugs. “We did used to call him Missionary Mike.”
I manage a small smile. After a few too many wines, I’d once told her about Mike’s lack of sexual ambition. He was a one-position, no-foreplay kind of guy.
But he loved me. And we were perfect together. Everyone always said so.
And surely that was worth a million orgasms put together.
Cutlery clinks against plates and laughter rolls across the venue. When the door creaks open, I look up.
Standing there is Mike and the mystery blonde from yesterday.
My stomach twists, and I clutch at my chest.
Then I clutch at my butter knife. And wonder how deep it would lodge in his arm if I pitched it from here.
“Are you okay?” Court leans forward, her eyes wide with concern.
“I think I’m going to be sick.”
And I do. How can he be taking her out to lunch? I know we’re not together anymore. I know he was cheating. But this? The very next day? This is …
“Oh my God!” Courtney hisses, spinning back to face me after looking at the front door. “He’s here?”
I nod, my throat dry, as if I’ve just licked a mouthful of sand.
“Is that—”
“Yes.” I squeak. I shove my hands under my legs to stop them trembling. This is bad. This is really bad.
He’s a jerk, and a dickhead—
And I still love him.
Even though I shouldn't.
“I’ll go tell him to leave.” Courtney pushes back in her chair.
I thrash out my arm to stop her, knocking over my water glass. It thuds against the table, and liquid spills everywhere. We both snatch up our phones to avoid flood damage.
“Don’t go. This is Sydney.” I slump back in my seat, and Courtney lowers back into her own. I right the fallen glass and dab at the mess with my napkin, but it’s no use. The damage has already been done. “We both work in media. The sad truth is I’m going to see him everywhere.”
Courtney purses her lips. “I don’t know what to say.” She gives a small shake of her head. “Love you, Maddie.”
I smile up at her from under my lashes. She’s been with me through thick and thin. “Love you, too.”
I glance up again, and Mike and the girl have been seated on the far side of the restaurant. From here, I can’t see his face, but hers is clear.
She’s younger than me. It’s the first thing I note. No more than nineteen, I’d guess. Her blonde hair is ramrod straight, and her skin porcelain. Despite having these pale features, she’s somehow balanced. Perfect. The picture of Nordic beauty.
Mike says something, and she laughs, and the sound is nails to my heart. I’m angry and hurting, all at once. That should be me laughing. That should be a joke meant for me.
I glance down at my lap, desperate to think of something else. To somehow regain control of my life, even if I don't know what my life is any more.
And to stop staring at the enemy.
“I just want to say … I’m truly happy for you with the promotion. I’m sorry if I seemed a little weird,” I say in a quiet voice. And it’s true. I am sorry. I just wish there was a way for her to be happy and me to be happy, too.
“It’s fine.” Courtney tucks a strand of hair behind her ear, then turns the conversation back to the topic at hand. “Have you left him?”
“Yes.”
“You’ll stay with me.”
I shake my head. “No. I’ll crash with my folks and do the two-hour commute for a while, and then find a new place. I need to … I have to do this on my own, you know?”
“Oh, I’d still charge you rent.” Courtney laughs, then turns serious when I only manage a small smile.
“Ever since high school, I’ve been Mike’s girlfriend. Or Madison who works in fashion. Now I’m just …” I look around at the sea of diners. Everyone seems so content. Like people satisfied with who they are. Even Mike’s girlfriend sure seems to be happy.
Girlfriend.
Can I call her that?
“I’m lost.”
“We’re going to get you through this.” Courtney nods, then a spark flashes over her face. “Actually, I might have just the thing.”
The waiter delivers two glasses of wine.
“Oh yeah?” I nod to the pale yellow liquid in front of me. “Is it more of that?”
“No.” Court laughs. “I was invited to this week-long yoga retreat on an island off Bali next week. We’re covering it in Live Well. Why don’t you—”
“Oh no.” I hold up my hand. “No, no, no, no, no, no.”
“Why ever not?”
I hold up one finger, making a list. “First of all, it’s Bali. Have you ever heard of Bali belly? What if I get sick? And it’s so dirty, and—”
“An island off Bali. Like where The Beach was filmed. In fact, they’re using the other side of the island for a film right now.”
“So just because it’s good enough for Leo, I should do it, too?”
“All I’m saying is it will be clean and the food will be good. I’m sure Leo wouldn’t settle for second best.” She smiles. “Next objection?”
I hold up finger number two. “I don’t do yoga.”
“You don’t have to. You could take the beginners course.”
“I meant in principle, not in practise.”
She sighs, and a small frown creases between her eyes. “Madison, listen to me. You need to sort your head out. You just said you’re a mess and you feel like you’re losing your identity.”
I swallow. She has a point …
“This will be the perfect way to find yourself again. You can go in my place, since I’m not working on the mag now. And best of all, it’s free.”
I consider my options, tracing out a pattern on the tablecloth in front of me with my French-tipped nail. The truth is, I have nowhere else to go. I have nothing better to do.
Still, it’s yoga. I’ll probably get bored. Or fall asleep. Or fall asleep b
ecause I’m so bored. “I don’t think it’s my thing.” I shake my head. “Yoga’s so slow and …. peaceful.” I choose the word carefully, so as not to offend her. “I’m more of an ‘act now, strike while the iron’s hot’ kinda girl.”
“And look at where that’s got you.” She drills me with a stare, and I slump.
She has a point. So far, my life decisions have led me to this major dead-end. I’m in a job I don’t like, single, and homeless. Maybe a week away won’t be a bad idea. At least on the island, I’ll run no risk of running into Mike. And worst-case scenario, I can work on my tan …
Mike’s girlfriend laughs on the other side of the restaurant, and the tinkling sound makes my mind up for me. I need a break. “Okay.”
“Okay?” Her eyes light up.
“Okay.” I wrap my fingers around the stem of my wineglass. “What have I got to lose?”
Courtney raises her glass in a toast. “To sorting your life out.”
“To finding myself.” Our glasses clink together, and we each take a sip. The wine is crisp and cool, and heaven as it travels down my throat. My hangover-induced shakes disappear as I place the glass back down on the table.
“Hopefully you can find a new guy in the process.”
I take one last glance at Mike and the blonde as he reaches over and takes her hand.
That’s a much harder pill to swallow.
Chapter Seven
Tate
“Are you speaking to me yet?” I slump down in the seat next to Janie, placing my phone on my lap to avoid it getting crushed in my back pocket. iPhones. Essential to living, but so damn breakable.
She looks up from her cell, raising her eyebrows. “Eighteen and a half hours of peace. That’s all I ask for.”
I smirk, and punch her softly in the arm. “You gonna fire me because of this?”
“I wish I could,” she mutters. “But I think you need to go to family court for that.”
I laugh. “That’s not what I meant, Sis, but I’ll take it.” She just sighs, and pulls an eye mask out from her handbag, snapping the elastic around the back of her head, the silk mask resting against her forehead. “You’re the best—you know that, right?”
She fixes me with a pointed glare. “Yes. I am the best. And that’s how I got the interview with Helen suspended due to an inappropriate line of questioning, but the live studio audience saw, and it’s still going to reach people online.” Janie sighs. “Tate, you have to understand. The studio took a chance on you as a relative newcomer. You have a morality clause in effect, with ‘no negative press’ a real stipulation. You effed up not only by letting someone video you having sex, but when you spoke back to the talk-show host like that. Big time.”
“To be fair, it was three years ago. I was all of eighteen? You know what growing up in that house was like. I didn't know what I was getting myself into.” Nor did I know that Shade would end up turning into a money-grabbing psycho and put a fake time/date stamp on the video to make it look like I’d cheated on my current girlfriend.
Janie arches an eyebrow. “Cock in vagina? Not a problem. Cock in front of a camera? I don't give a damn about your age, you should have known better.”
An elderly man seated across the aisle turns to us, shaggy brows raised, and Janie shoots him a glare.
“Hey! It’s not like I altered the video,” I say, but quickly raise my hands when Janie’s wrath fixes back on me. “But you’re right. I’m wrong. I know.”
“Have you spoken to her yet?” Janie asks, and I shoot her a puzzled glance. “Mikaela. Your partner.”
Ouch.
“No. I left her a voicemail, but she’s in transit. She had a shoot somewhere in Antarctica or something. Snow Angels, I think the theme was.” I shrug.
“Hmph. Convenient.” Janie’s voice is high-pitched and sceptical. It’s fair enough; she knows how I avoid conflict.
“Can you please put your seatbelt on, sir?” a flight attendant asks. Her smile is big, Colgate perfect, a mile wide.
If only I could take her to join the mile-high club …
“Sir?”
“He’s doing it now.” Janie jabs me in the arm with her elbow, and I feign hurt while clicking the belt into place.
“Sorry, beautiful.” I smile at the hostess. “I promise I’ll be better behaved for the rest of the flight.”
“He won’t,” Janie mumbles.
“She knows me so well.” I wink at Smiles. “Maybe I’ll be bad, then.”
“Pass me the vomit bag.” Janie leans forward and rifles through the pocket on the back of the seat in front of us. “Your sleaze is making me sick.”
I laugh, and Smiles turns her attention to my sister. “Can I get you anything to make your flight more comfortable?” She nods at my sister’s protruding twenty-six-weeks-pregnant stomach.
“I’m fine, thanks,” Janie says, and Smiles moves on, leaving me and my older and wiser big sis alone.
Well, as alone as you can be on a plane full of a few hundred-odd people.
“Let’s talk damage control.” Janie picks up her phone again and opens the Notes app, bringing a file full of little words written in Comic Sans MS. “The video is out there. It’s real, even if the time/date stamp was doctored. We can argue that it’s a fake, but mud sticks. It won’t be long before someone bigger than Helen bloody Grady—why you fucked her, I have no idea—”
“I didn’t fuck—”
“Oh no.” Janie holds up a hand. “I know the look of a woman scorned. You fucked.”
I shrug one shoulder. “I fucked.”
“See? Older and wiser, remember? It’s easier just to agree with me.” Janie looks back to her phone. “So, this is going to hit headlines, and soon. We can hire Mikaela’s lawyers, and—”
“Hold up. What?”
Janie looks at me, her eyes wide. “Hire. The. Lawyers.”
I shake my head. “Nuh-uh. No way.”
“Why don't you want to sue? Defamation is a big deal.”
“Janie, you know we don’t have a lot of cash right now.” I glance at her stomach. “We’ve invested in the house for the baby. It’s not worth spending money trying to take Shade to the cleaners when we know that family has about as much cash as a broken Laundromat.”
“But if we win, she has to pay our legal anyway. I know money’s tight right now—”
“Real tight.”
“But this is worth it. This shoot is all expenses paid, and once we’re back in the States we just need to survive two months before you hit the road for promo and we get that second pay cheque. It’ll be hard, but we’ll manage.”
I study her. Janie’s always been the one who took care of finances. She’s good like that. And if she says we should sue, we should probably sue. “If you’re sure then.”
“I’m sure. Besides, I think she’ll settle out of court. She won’t want to drag her kid through all that.”
“Sorry, what?”
“I think she’ll settle—”
“Not that part,” I interrupt. “The bit about the baby.”
Oh.” Janie nods. “That part of the story was real. She’s had a kid. Two years old.”
I suck in a breath. If her story is true, the timing more or less checks out. Janie and I lived with the McPhersons for five years, till I was eighteen, thanks to the rotten luck of the foster system. During that time, Shade and I bumped uglies on more than one occasion.
But a baby? What the ever-loving fuck?
Jane takes in my stunned expression, and sighs. “Don’t tell me you think—”
“It can't be mine,” I hiss, my eyes bugging. “This isn’t just some video where she’s altered a time-date stamp. This is way too much of big deal.”
Janie shakes her head. “If you’ve seriously got a kid you somehow don't know about, even I can’t save you. The studio has specifically said no negative press or they’re delaying release and therefore, the second half of your payment—and I’m pretty sure an illegitimate child wo
uld classify as bad media.”
A chill runs down my spine. This movie is my make or break. It’s the one thing I got into all this for.
I shake my head. “Nope. No way. A baby? I mean, how would that even happen?”
“Well, when a woman and a man love each other very much—”
“Funny.” I roll my eyes. “I mean how would it happen to me? I’m careful. I use protection.”
Janie shrugs. “The same way it happens to women the world over. It broke. Or you used it too late. They’re only ninety-something per cent effective, anyhow. Did you check the expiry date?”
“Condoms have an expiry date?”
Janie shoots daggers at me, and I hold my hands up in defence. “Kidding. Kidding.”
I turn the problem over in my mind. Shade has a kid, but it can't be mine. And as long as I can convince the studio execs that the video was doctored and keep the story on the down-low, and sort things out with Mikaela, it’ll all be fine.
“Want me to have Mikaela’s legal guys find out if the kid is yours, too?” Janie asks.
“No.” I shake my head. I know Shade McPherson. She’s not the type to respond well to men in suits. She’s more the manipulate-you-directly type. “I’ll call her when we get off the plane. Ask her myself.”
“I’m proud of you, little bro.” Janie squeezes my arm. “Looks like you’re manning up.”
I smile, but my mind is a million miles from here. It’s on Shade, the foster sister from hell. She has to be kidding. Or lying. Trying to make a quick buck. I turn to my real sister and study her face, her blonde-brown hair, her fine features. “Do you think she’ll admit it was all a lie?”
Janie sighs and looks out the window. The plane rolls over the tarmac, rain spatting against the double window pane. “I don’t know what I believe. All I know is, managing your PR was a zillion times easier when you were Mikaela’s doting boyfriend, and not Manwhore Masters.”
Fame (Not Like The Movies #1) Page 4
