The Heartbreak Cafe

by Melissa Hill

  A tight knot rose in her chest and again, she went back out to the hallway and started to mount the stairs. ‘Charlie? Hon …are you here?’

  As she reached the top of the stairs, finally she heard some sign of activity; a low noise that sounded like the TV on with the volume turned very low. Moving down the landing she saw a strip of light under the bottom of the door to Charlie’s room. ‘Charlie?’ she whispered, gently opening the door.

  He was sitting on the bed and staring blankly at the TV, the sound barely audible, with a selection of newspapers splayed out in front of him. When she saw his expression, so blank and devoid of animation, she knew something was seriously wrong. She knocked on the doorframe, trying to alert him to her presence.

  ‘Hey, I’m back,’ she said, attempting a smile, but as he turned to face her, that smile quickly faded.

  ‘So?’ he replied coldly and Ruth’s heart sank. She supposed she couldn’t blame him for still being upset with her for taking off so quickly but …

  ‘I mean I’m back. I’m finished with LA.’

  ‘Yeah. For how long?’

  ‘For good.’ Ruth smiled; it actually felt good to say the words out loud. ‘I told them all to shove it, the studio, my agent, even Chloe. I’m probably going to get sued by every lawyer in Hollywood but what the hell.’ She shrugged, trying to make light of the situation, but found it was impossible when faced with such a wall of indifference. She was desperate for him to say something encouraging, something to show her he was happy to see her. Yet still his expression didn’t change. ‘Aren’t you happy to see me?’

  ‘How can I be happy?’ he grunted. ‘It’s only a matter of time before you change your mind again, isn’t it?’

  ‘What? No, you don’t understand. This time, I’m here to stay. I told everyone that I was finished, that I didn’t want any of it, that I –’

  ‘Really. Then what the hell is this?’ He grabbed one of the newspapers and threw it in her direction. The pages flitted to the floor and Ruth reached down to pick it up, realising that yet again she was in trouble, although for what she didn’t know.

  Opening out the page she was confronted with a huge picture of her and Troy kissing at the airport. The headline above it read ‘Celebrity Reunion! Ruth and Troy’s Love-Fest with Their New Baby!’

  She sighed loudly. ‘Oh come on honey, this is nothing. You know by now how these things work.’

  ‘How can you say that?’ he cried, his voice shaking. ‘How can you just … dismiss it like that?’

  Ruth was genuinely shocked at his reaction. Surely he knew that this was just the paparazzi and their usual garbage, a dressed-up photo-op designed to sell copies.

  ‘No really Charlie, he ambushed me,’ she said, trying to explain. ‘I was walking along in the airport with Chloe and all of a sudden I turn around and Troy was there. He was doing it for the cameras. He practically knocked me over. I was so shocked.’

  ‘Yes, you look very…shocked all right.’

  She looked at the picture again, trying to see it from his point of view. Troy had an arm wrapped around her and his other hand was resting on her belly. His mouth was on hers and her eyes were closed, her hand on Troy’s chest. The picture reflected passion and contentment, when Ruth knew that in reality they were squeezed shut out of distaste, and her hand was on his chest in an attempt to push him off of her. But without knowing that, Charlie was right; this picture did look like two lovers being reunited after a long and painful separation.

  She groaned internally, unable to believe this was happening. ‘No sweetheart, you have this all wrong. If you could have only seen…’

  ‘Oh I see, is that what you want me to do? Follow you around like a good little nobody playing second fiddle to this idiot? That sounds like a great life.’

  ‘Charlie honestly, please. I pushed him away, I didn’t kiss him back; he wasn’t even supposed to be there! He was just using it to get press.’

  ‘You see, that’s the difference between you and me Ruth, what you use to market yourself and to grab some time with cameras is something I see as a non-negotiable piece of life.’ His eyes rested on her stomach. ‘You can use whatever you want to further your career, but don’t expect me to be a part of it.’

  ‘No!’ Ruth cried, stung at the implication. ‘I would never use the baby like that! Look, I know what it looks like, but if you would just believe me when I tell you that I realised all that, I realised I didn’t want to be a part of that, and didn’t want the baby to be a part of it either. I’d barely set foot in LA when I told the driver to turn around and take me back to the airport – back to you. I thought you’d be proud of me, that you’d be happy I’m giving it all up, for us, for the baby. Don’t you see?’ She felt the sob building in her throat, almost as if she was choking.

  Charlie looked at her dully. ‘I don’t believe you.’

  ‘You don’t believe me? Well, do you want me to call a witness, Charlie? Because I told them all to get stuffed! There was a driver there, he can tell you….’

  ‘I’m not talking about what you said to who when you had this sudden epiphany or whatever the hell it was,’ he said nastily. ‘I’m talking about the fact that I don’t believe you’ve made such a choice. It will be only a matter of time before you change your mind again, resent me, resent the baby, and frankly Ruth, I can’t take it. You’ve walked out on me twice now, I can’t do it a third time.’

  ‘I didn’t walk out on you this time! I said I would be back, and now I am like I told you I would.’

  ‘Yes, but it’s always your interests, it’s always about you and what you want, what you decide. You just trample the people who love you because you feel like you can, but Ruth, you can’t with me – not anymore. I can’t be another sideshow for you until something better comes along.’

  ‘No, no Charlie, you have to listen to me … I want this life. I want what we have….’ She was crying now, full on crying. She was one step away from throwing herself at his feet and begging, and would do it too, if it meant that he would listen to her.

  ‘Maybe you do think you want this life, at least for the moment, but Ruth, you’re fickle, you know that. The moment you get bored, the moment that life seems too steady, too normal, is the moment I’m going to wake up and find myself alone again. We’re too different, this can’t work and I’m trying to save us both the misery by putting an end to it right now. Can’t you accept that?’ His voice had softened just a touch and Ruth realised that he truly did believe what he was saying. ‘I just wish that … oh, I don’t know … I wish when that phone call had come through the other day from your assistant that you could have let it ring. That you could have seen through it all. That you could have seen how they were manipulating you. I saw it and I told you and you still went. But you didn’t even consider what I thought because it was all about you.’

  ‘That’s not fair, I had to see for myself, and now I know I made the right choice – ’

  ‘You made it too late, Ruth. As I said, I can’t live like this, can’t live not knowing how your mood is going to change from one day to the next.’

  Ruth didn’t know what else to say. She didn’t know how she could convince him. It seemed as if his mind was made up. He didn’t want her.

  ‘What about the baby?’ she asked feebly, her voice barely audible.

  Charlie looked at her for a long moment before finally uttering words that cut her like a knife.

  ‘Ruth it’s not even mine.’

  Much later that day, she stood looking out the window of her bedroom, tears streaming down her cheeks. Sleep had evaded her and a low level panic made every nerve in her body stand on end. It was over. Charlie didn’t want her. He didn’t want the baby either.

  She had cut herself off from her career, had smashed her life in L.A. into a million pieces, all for a life here that rejected her. She had nothing, she was starting from scratch again and now she was going to be saddled with a baby on top of it.

  S
o she was selfish. A fickle person, always changing her mind.

  Sudden bitterness towards Charlie and his words flooded her heart. She loved him, had given up everything for him. She had only considered him and her baby had done everything for them. And where had it got her?

  She gritted her teeth. Maybe Charlie was right; maybe she was just like the rest of them. Her thoughts drifted through the faces that she knew in L.A., Chloe, Troy, Erik. Maybe her mistake wasn’t just giving up everything for Charlie, but actually thinking that she could have a normal life, be a normal person when she’d spent most of her life pretending to be someone else.

  It was ironic. To think that Ruth Seymour had spent five years in Hollywood trying to get to the top and now she was willing to throw it all away to become Mrs Nobody Single Mom.

  Ruth’s heart raced. Charlie was right – what had she been thinking?

  At that moment, her BlackBerry buzzed and she picked up the device and looked at the screen, seeing that it was an email from Erik.

  Maybe there was hope, Ruth thought, maybe she wasn’t entirely cut off and more importantly, maybe it wasn’t too late to make amends. Now that she knew for certain that things were over with Charlie, she might as well go back to LA and try and get things settled with her contracts. She could meet with the studio and see if they could work something out about the scheduling for The Soldier’s Daughter, something that would work around the baby.

  The baby…

  While juggling all of that stuff sounded fine and do-able when she had Charlie behind her, Ruth knew deep down that LA was no place for a single mother.

  Erik’s email was brief and to the point.

  I don’t know what the hell is going on with you, but for everyone’s sake I hope it’s just hormones. We have forty-eight hours until the TV studio hits us hard with a lawsuit so I suggest you get your ass back here pronto. Oh, and Peter Jackson just called and he’s still interested – for now.

  Ruth stared down at her stomach, realising she had a very big choice to make.

  Movies, or motherhood?

  Chapter 33

  Nina’s due date was getting closer by the day and she knew she needed to solidify her plans before things were out of her control.

  After bumping into Steve in Dublin she was even more convinced that Jess was right; maybe there was a better solution – one that would work for everyone.

  She followed Trish into the room that she felt they’d been living in for months. Trish was nearing the end of her research and Nina was glad, she was tired of spending most of the summer sitting in a windowless room for hours on end.

  ‘I tell you, I’ll be happy to get this out of the way once and for all,’ Trish said with a roll of her eyes. ‘Problem is, I think it’s all a bit well …boring.’

  Nina looked at her. ‘Well how interesting can a photographic history of Lakeview actually be after all?’

  ‘I know, but with the old timers’ stories and the stuff from the archives, I really thought we could come up with something fresh and interesting. Instead it’s reading like an old fashioned tourist brochure.’

  ‘Yes, but everyone will buy to help the charity in any case. Especially if there are photos of themselves in it.’

  ‘Hmm, there are still only so many black and white photos of old buildings I can use. I need something to hang it all together, a theme as such, but at the moment the theme might as well be “Lakeview – a place where nothing much happens.”’

  ‘I thought history was the theme,’ Nina ventured, not really understanding what her friend was hoping for. And at the end of the day it was a charity book for the locals, not a potential Pulitzer winner. ‘What about the Ruth bit? That’ll be interesting, won’t it?’ she asked, referring to the section on ‘local heroes’ in which Ruth was the only person featured.

  ‘Yes, but I’d hoped to interview her properly for that. Fat chance now that she’s gone back to LA.’

  ‘No, she’s back.’

  Trish’s head snapped up. ‘What?’

  ‘She’s back – for Charlie, I suppose. I saw her yesterday. Why?’ Nina’s brow furrowed at Trish’s troubled expression.

  ‘Oh no reason. Did you see the pictures?’

  ‘Yes, I felt so sorry for her. Everything’s been so quiet for her here lately it was horrible that they tracked her down like that.’

  ‘I’m not talking about the ones of her and Charlie outside the shops,’ Trish said. She reached into her handbag and pulled out a newspaper. ‘I mean these.’

  Unfolding the newspaper, Nina was horrified to see a snap of Ruth and Troy Valentine locked in a passionate embrace. ‘What? When did this happen?’ she asked wide-eyed.

  ‘A couple of days ago I think – while she was in L.A.’

  ‘But why would she be snogging Troy Valentine? What about Charlie?’

  ‘Who knows?’ Trish shrugged. ‘All I heard was she flew back to LA to talk about some big movie role. Did she say anything when you met her yesterday?’

  ‘I didn’t meet her. I was heading home from the café when I saw her pass by in her dad’s car. So what all this about a movie role? Is she going back to LA then? And how come you know so much about all this?’

  ‘Oh, just something I heard on the grapevine. But I’ll tell you one thing, when she’s accepting that Oscar, I hope she gives us some credit for putting her back on the Hollywood map.’

  ‘Trish, what on earth are you talking about?’

  She smiled. ‘Well … as a true journalist, I couldn’t exactly let a good story go to waste, could I?’

  Nina looked at her. ‘Oh no. What did you do?’ But already she understood. Trish had leaked the story about Ruth’s pregnancy. ‘Ah, Trish, how could you? She trusts you, she told us about that in confidence and you betrayed her.’

  ‘Oh come on, she’s a Hollywood actress, there’s no such thing as “in confidence”. Besides, she loves the press!’

  Nina shook her head, not understanding her friend. Irrespective of the fact that she was a journalist and it was part of her job this just seemed so unscrupulous. ‘I think that was really mean of you. Think of how she must have felt when she was ambushed by that photographer here in her home town. And think of how Charlie must feel.’

  ‘Come on, it’s not like she’s dying! Hollywood are going crazy over the story of her and Valentine’s baby, and my help may well have led to her being offered a part that could win her a bloody Oscar. She’ll be delighted.’

  ‘I’m going to phone her,’ Nina said, reaching into her handbag for her mobile.

  ‘What? Why?’

  ‘To see how she is, of course. Those pictures must have really upset her. She can’t stand Troy Valentine now, and goodness knows what Charlie thought when he saw them.’

  ‘Ah Nina, leave it be …’

  ‘Why? Unlike you, I actually consider her a friend, and I’m worried about her.’

  ‘I suppose I didn’t really think of that …’ Trish sat there, a serious look on her face.

  ‘Ruth? Hi, it’s Nina. Look, I just saw those photos and I was wondering if you were …what? Sure …I’m just at the library with Trish – where else?’ She smiled. ‘Yes if you want to that would be great. OK … see you soon.’ She snapped the phone shut and turned to Trish. ‘She’s coming here.’

  ‘What – today?’ her friend replied, white-faced.

  ‘Yep. I was right – she does sound upset.’

  ‘Nina … maybe we won’t mention anything about …’

  ‘You leaking her personal life to the press? What do you think Trish?’

  ‘Ah Nina, come on. I was only doing what any decent journalist would –’

  ‘No you weren’t, you were betraying a confidence and I think you need to come clean and apologise.’

  ‘But she’ll go through me! ’

  ‘Well, you should have thought of that before, shouldn’t you?’ Nina knew she was being sanctimonious but she couldn’t help it. Trish it seemed had made a habit
of hurting other people for her own ends and needed to be made aware of the consequences of her actions. While she couldn’t do anything about poor Dave’s wife, at least she should ensure Trish was confronted by the fallout of her actions concerning Ruth.

  The two worked silently for a while, Trish idly flicking through some of the older newspapers, until about a half hour later, Ruth arrived.

  She seemed the worse for wear and looked very tired. All the usual glamour was today absent. ‘Hi,’ she said glumly.

  ‘How are you?’ Nina smiled, her gaze automatically going to Ruth’s growing bump. ‘Wow, you’ve got even bigger since the last time I saw you.’

  ‘Unfortunately,’ Ruth huffed and sat down in a chair.

  ‘Are you OK?’ Nina asked gently. ‘You sounded a bit down on the phone.’

  Ruth shook her head and bit her bottom lip. ‘No, I’m not. Not at all.’

  ‘What happened? Did something go wrong at your meeting with Peter Jackson?’ Trish blurted out.

  Ruth’s eyes narrowed. ‘What are you talking about? How do you know that?’

  Trish said nothing, just nervously looked around the room and Ruth’s gaze quickly rested on the newspaper photo sitting in front of her. Nina could see that all the chips were starting to line up. ‘You? You were responsible for bringing them here?’

  ‘Look, Ruth, I thought you would be happy about it OK?’ Trish said guiltily. ‘I mean, everything was so quiet for you here, whereas now the media are all over you.’

  ‘Did it ever occur to you Trish that maybe I don’t care about that? That maybe I was liking the quiet and that I wanted to be left the hell alone?’ Ruth raged, ripping the newspaper page in two.

  ‘But why would you want that?’

  ‘Because of Charlie – why else? But then that didn’t work out either.’ She went on to tell them about Charlie’s reaction to Troy’s staged photos and how he was still refusing to talk to her. ‘So congratulations Trish. You’ve ruined my life.’