Unluckily in all that information people didn’t talk just about her but also about Chris Hailen, the idol boy who had thrown into raptures thousands of fans and made dozens of actresses and singers go crazy, including the famous Shannon of F3 and Donna, who he had had a restless love affair with inside the series “Love School”.
Both Emily and Chris were always gorgeous in every situation and were always joined by other world- famous people.
The latest photos showed instead Chris and Emily always together, after they had announced their love story, following years of prayers by “Love School”, fans, who wanted to see the two protagonists of the series, Sarah and Max, together also in real life.
With trembling hands, Leny opened the last album she had made for Chris.
Ages had passed since she had opened it for the last time, but that fleeting and sweet smile of seven years before was still impressed in her mind and if the motto “far from the eyes, far from the heart”, was true, it hadn’t worked for her because there was no magazine, no talk show or radio program which avoided talking about the boy’s life and his follies and alcohol problems.
Loving someone so far away and finally so… unattainable was so painful.
Exhausted and with a heavy heart, Leny closed the album softly, trying not to linger on the images of the fascinating and very good-looking boy on the cover.
She put the last and not yet listed articles into the binder and pressed everything at the bottom of the box, wishing she could bury her feelings as well. She finally sealed the box with a double tape and she pushed everything at the far end of the closet together with the other boxes she had been gathering in the last month, since she had been forced to give up the flat when she had lost her job at the law firm Marshal & Son.
Embittered for the last events of her horrible life, which had been turning for the worse since she had been left by the two most important people of her life, she went to the bathroom to have a long revitalizing shower before she left to go to Arthur’s.
Two hours later she was back in Pieville, the small village where she had spent all her childhood and adolescence with her beloved cousin Emily, she had also shared her house with, and Chris who lived in the detached house next to hers with his grandfather, Arthur Hailen.
To avoid raising suspicions, Leny waited some minutes more before she went to Arthur’s.
She hadn’t talked with anybody about her sacking hoping she would soon find another job, but it didn’t seem to be so easy.
Twenty-seven days and eight interviews had passed, but she was still unemployed at the moment and if she didn’t leave her flat soon, she would have also become indebted and she would lose the car she was finishing to pay for.
With a long sigh, Leny went out of the car and walked fearfully towards Chris’s grand-father’s house.
“Arthur, I’m Leny”, she exclaimed coming into the old man’s house, suddenly worried because she didn’t find him in front of TV watching his usual detective evening movie.
“Leny”, muttered the man in a panting voice from the bedroom.
Immediately anxious, Leny started running to the room, where she found Arthur lying in bed with an irregular breath.
“You have been working in the kitchen garden again, haven’t you?”, Leny immediately reproached him, noticing the muddy boots at the foot of the bed, before she went to the kitchen to take the pills the hospital had prescribed him after his admission for a bad bronchitis which had kept him in bed for the whole month of February.
As soon as Leny helped him to take the medicine with a glass of water, Arthur relaxed and his breath became regular in a few moments.
“Arthur, you are eighty-two. At your age you can’t afford doing…”, Leny warned him but the furious and scornful glance he always showed when someone spoke about his old age kept her from going on.
“I’m old, not disabled”, he croaked sour.
“I know, but I don’t want you to strain yourself. You’ve been out of hospital for a short time and you haven’t recovered yet. You know that I’m going to help you with the kitchen garden”, she reminded him, happy she had been taking care of that poor old man for all those years…and not just because Chris had asked her before he left.
“I know, but you work and I don’t want to bother you”, he muttered with a strange light in his eyes.
“Even if I work, I come and see you every evening and we’ll spend the free weekends sowing what you like, ok?”.
“Of course, your job…”.
“Yes, but you mustn’t worry about it”.
“Mustn’t I?”.
Lenny nodded cheerfully, trying to hide the feeling of guilt for the lie she had just told to the only person she had been trusting with everything in the last five years.
“That’s strange…Just think that I called Andrew Marshall this morning to ask for news about his father suffering from Alzheimer and he told me he sacked you a month ago”, he mumbled feigning indifference, while his fissure-shaped eyes communicated something completely different.
Leny’s smile disappeared at once.
She should have known that Arthur would discover it sooner or later thanks to his long- lasting friendship with her ex-boss’s father. By the way, Leny had got that job as a secretary in the law firm of the lawyer’s son as soon as she finished high school thanks to Arthur.
“I’m sorry… I wished I could tell you, but I didn’t know…”, Leny whispered guilty keeping her eyes down on his black polished shoes.
“People say they sacked you because you made advances to Andrew”.
“That’s not true!”, Leny shouted indignant.
“That’s what I answered too and then when I asked for an explanation, he muttered something about the crisis and the staff cuts”.
“The truth is I lost my job because of that viper of Pamela, Andrew Marshall’s new wife. She sacked me and Laurel because we are both young and single. She was afraid we could go to bed with that monster of her husband. She accused us of flirting with him and then she fired us. It will be enough if she gives us our gratuity”.
“I’m sorry, but I don’t understand…You’re not single”.
“I split up with Travis some days ago”, the girl confessed blushing for the revelation of her umpteenth lie and trying not to specify that she was talking about fifty-six days.
“Why am I not at all surprised?”, Arthur burst out nervous trying to get up from his bed.
“I thought he was the right one, but it didn’t work at the end. That happens!”, she justified herself worried about the coming telling-off.
“You are saying so every time, Leny! It’s a pity your love affairs never last three months! I was sure you and Travis had already split up two months ago”.
Old fox!
“It’s not easy”.
“It will never be easy if you go on loving my silly grand-son!”, Arthur shouted suddenly troubled as it always happened when talking about Chris.
A nod in her throat prevented Leny to answer that sentence.
“Leny, dear, I’m very fond of you and I love you very much, but you must stop keeping linked to the past. Chris won’t come back and you are too beautiful to waste your youth for someone who isn’t here”, Arthur claimed in a painful voice due to his beloved grand-son’s distance.
“Chris will be back”, Leny whispered trying to calm down the old man’s troubled soul.
“He won’t be back anymore! He is too busy to live like a Hollywood star to remember his grandpa. The only thing he can do is filling my bank account with such high amounts I couldn’t spend in two lives’ time! Silly boy!”, growled the old man who had refused in all those years to use that money apart from paying his medical cares and a woman who looked after the house and the meals four hours a day and five days a week.
“Arthur, why don’t you call him? Why don’t you talk to him?”, she tried to ask him once more uselessly since she knew his stubborn and proud nature.
�
�Absolutely not and I forbid you to do so”.
Leny nodded giving up. It was useless to make Arthur reason.
She still remembered the furious quarrel they had when he was taken to hospital for an ictus which luckily had just slightly compromised the functioning of his right leg or after his admission last month.
Leny had nursed and supported him all the time. She knew Arthur didn’t want to bother his grand-son. But she didn’t agree with him. She had often wished to betray Arthur’s trust and call Chris, but she never could. Except for once, after the grand-father’s ictus. Chris’s agent answered that time and even if Leny insisted on talking directly with Chris for a family problem, he didn’t let her talk with the boy.
She had finally given up talking with Chris and she had decided to take care of the whole situation and to push Arthur to use his grand-son’s money to renovate the house and make it more comfortable for his walking difficulties and to hire a carer and a nurse who could take care of him when she was working.
They had also talked about hiring a gardener once, but Leny loved working the land, so at the end that had come to nothing.
“As you wish, but you can’t go on behaving like this with Chris. He loves you, you know. He’s just trying to make his dream come true and become someone”, Leny defended him.
“Become someone? Do you mean an alcohol-addicted actor coming in and out of recovery institutes?”, Arthur got so angry he was caught by a big cough.
“We can’t understand the pressure Emily and Chris are subject to. It can’t be easy to succeed in that field and at that level. But Chris must be a smart boy and probably the second time was also the last one. He hasn’t had problems like that for thirteen months by now”, she informed him remembering Chris’s last interview where they talked about his alcohol problems.
He had declared he had lost his head, but now he had found it again. Leny remembered also how he had put his hand on his heart while he was saying so and just after some months in some photos made in the Caribbean, Chris was shown coming out of the sea waves with the compass card tattooed on his swollen and tough left pectoral, the result of a very tiring training which had strengthened his body till it had a perfect shape.
“When you get to have a similar addiction, your aren’t making your dream come true anymore, but you are just falling into the abyss, Leny. I’ve told it to him as well”, Arthur reminded her, knitting his forehead at the thought of their last conversation, when he had clearly told him not to call anymore if he didn’t want to come back home, and to keep his money for himself.
Surrendering to Arthur’s stubbornness, Leny finished tiding his kitchen and making his dinner before she went out and see her mother on the opposite side of the street.
“If you need money, I…”, Arthur offered before Leny left.
“No, I’m ok. I had saved some money”, the girl lied since she hated charity.
“It doesn’t matter. You are taking me to the bank on Monday and I’m making a deposit for you”, he persisted before he let her go. Helping her economically now she was unemployed was the least he could do after all she had done for him in all those years without asking for a return.
As soon as she got at her mother’s, Leny started to zigzag around the many boxes filling the hall.
“Are you moving?”, Leny asked troubled when she went into the kitchen and found her mother making roast-beef for dinner.
“No. They are Emily’s latest presents. I put your name on the ones for you”.
“Some more clothes?”, she asked snorting.
“Clothes, shoes and make-up! You can’t believe what you’ll find inside! There is also F3’s last CD with an autograph and a dedication for you”, her mother explained always happy.
Leny tried to show the same happiness, but she couldn’t.
She hated to be the nerdy cousin who was always wearing designer clothes thanks to her cousin- actress.
She could never understand if the people around her considered her for what she was or because she was the cousin of the famous Emily Keys. Even the group of high school friends she still met sometimes on Saturday evening had never shown a real interest in her, apart from considering her a source of gossip about her cousin’s and Chris’s star life.
She charged snorting on her car the packets which would soon join the others piled up at the bottom of her box-room.
She then went inside again and, whishing she wouldn’t get more surprises, she sat at the table where her mother had already put into the dishes the steaming roast-beef.
“How is work going?”, her mother started, before she took a large forkful of roast-beef.
“Well…This roast-beef is excellent!”, Leny said in a hurry suddenly on the alert.
“I’m happy. You know, with this crisis…Do you think they could also hire Mary, the baker’s daughter, at the law firm? She has been at home for a year and she can’t find a permanent job”.
“I don’t think so. I’ll ask however”.
“Thanks. And how are you getting on with Travis?”.
Leny made an effort to avoid choking with the meat.
Was it possible that her mother should have the ability of making the most uncomfortable questions at the worst moment?
“Very well”, her daughter mumbled filling her mouth with another morsel at once.
“I’m so happy! I really think Travis is the right man for you and what’s more he is a policeman. It’s always comfortable to have a policeman in the family”.
“Of course”, Leny muttered suffering for that questioning.
Luckily her mother’s phone started ringing.
It was Rose, Emily’s mother.
“It’s Rose!”, she exclaimed happy as a child. Since her sister spent most of the year with her daughter in Los Angeles and on the set of “Love School”, Leny’s mother really looked forward to her sister’s phone calls because she missed her a lot.
“I’m going”, Leny warned her getting up from the table. She knew she wouldn’t see her mother for an hour at least and she wanted to run away before she was asked more uncomfortable questions.
“Finish your dinner”.
“It’s late and promised Travis I would go to the cinema with him tonight”, she lied shamelessly, before her mother withdrew into her bedroom to talk cheerfully with her sister.
She cleared the table in a hurry and without losing more time she went to the car parked on the little and ill- lighted dirt road.
As soon as she closed the door, she started breathing again.
She hadn’t even realized she had been keeping her breath all the time.
How had she got stuck into a situation like that?
How could she lie so shamelessly to her mother and Arthur?
How could she believe that by hiding her problems, they would disappear by magic?
How could she believe she could go through it alone?
Hot tears streaked her face, making also the waterproof mascara finally melt
She kept her head bent on the driving wheel for a long time crying desperately.
She didn’t know why she was crying.
She only knew she felt terribly alone.
She started giving out a moan which gathered the seven years she had spent without her cousin’s fondness and Chris’s presence and love.
She had thrown herself head down to build a fake life with a good job, a boyfriend, a beautiful house in order to make everyone proud of her, but at the end everything had fallen like a castle of glass and she was finally forced to face that loneliness and desperation which she had never listened to in all those years.
2
The day after Leny got up quietly trying to start by the right foot in a spirit of optimism, but she had just time to make coffee when Diana, Arthur’s carer, phoned her.
“Diana, what happened?”, Leny immediately fidgeted, scared. The last time Diana had called her, Arthur had gone to hospital for a breathing crisis.
“Mr. Arthur
…he has had a heart attack. They are taking him to the Federal Hospital…it looks serious”.
Leny didn’t ask anything else.
She got prepared in a hurry and run to the emergency room, where she had to wait for the doctor for twenty minutes and when he arrived, he immediately explained that the situation was serious.
“His age, his respiratory insufficiency and now also his heart…I’m sorry but I don’t want to deceive you. You must prepare for the worse. You should call his grand-son”, the heart specialist stated taking her to the room where they had settled Arthur.
Leny went near him and hold his hand tight, her heart broken in seeing him so pale, connected to an artificial respirator and with a dozen suction caps to control his heart beat.
“Please, Arthur. You can’t do that to me”, she whispered distressed to his sleeping body
Feeling her legs turn weak, she sat down and let unhappiness overwhelm her. Thanks heaven she was alone.
Many hours passed before Arthur woke up, but the respirator didn’t allow him to speak and he finally surrendered and fell asleep.
Leny spent the whole day in hospital, trying to find a solution or a cure with the doctors, but with no results.
“Why don’t you go home and have a rest? You can’t do anything here. It’s just a question of time”, the nurse suggested her.
Feeling exhausted, she decided at last to go to Arthur’s home to fetch a pyjamas and other things he could need. She didn’t want to surrender to the inevitable.
She would fight. She would never give up.
Even if he was elderly, Arthur was still a strong and very lively man.
But as soon as she got into the house, she felt the world crumble down on her.
She tried to pluck up courage and to put some clothes into a bag, but as she went on moving in the house, she felt a stronger and stronger sense of death in front of her.
Shuttered, she let herself fall onto the bed.
She opened a drawer of the night table next to the bed.
In Love with a Star Page 2
