I turned the television off. I couldn't stand watching myself.
I thought about what Matty had said. As much as I loved to wallow in self-pity, he was right. I had opportunities most people dreamed about. I'd been offered acting roles but acting had never appealed. I had enough trouble getting through the shooting for a 30 second commercial. I'd also been offered other opportunities. Talk show hosting and the like. The problem was that I wasn't good with people. No one believed that but it was true. At least with modeling, I rarely had to open my mouth.
If I had my way, I'd get out of the spotlight altogether. Sometimes, I liked to think about having a little house in the country. Growing my own food. All that kind of thing. I'm sure it was much harder than I imagined but it seemed like a good life. Other times, I thought about returning to school. I could go to university. That'd been such a distant dream when I'd been growing up. Girls like me didn't go to university. Not just girls. No one in our neighborhood cared about education. That kind of thing was treated with suspicion. Just being seen reading book would get you beaten up. Most of the girls I'd known back then hadn't finished high school. Neither had I but that was because I was working, not because I had to drop out.
The nurse came in with my dinner. She was a little bit plump with a crinkly smile. Something about her face just radiated warmth.
"Smells good," I said. It really did. It made me realize how hungry I was.
The nurse smiled. "That woman, Madeline, told me not to bring you dessert but I did. I figure you're a grown woman and you can decide for yourself."
I liked this woman already. Nurse Bridget, her name tag said.
I took the cover off my food. It really did smell amazing. Not the usual hospital mush. And that dessert, wow, it was some kind of parfait. Mainly fruit. It couldn't have that many calories. Madeline could stick it. I'd eat every bite.
"Nurse Bridget, if you could do anything with your life, what would you do?"
"Ha, you're asking me? You have the dream life. Travel, wearing those beautiful clothes, dating famous rock stars."
If she meant Matty, I wouldn't bother explaining that he wasn't my boyfriend. The rest of it, I guess I took it for granted now. I got given clothes and jewelry and handbags. I had wardrobes full of stuff I'd never even worn. What do you do with it? Give a one-off designer dress to the charity collection and someone's sure to find out. Throw it in the garbage and some paparazzi will find it.
"It doesn't last for long. The modeling, I mean. And it's not all it's cracked up to be. What's it like, being a nurse?"
She sighed. "Hard work. On your feet all day. Long shifts."
"It must be satisfying though. Knowing you're helping people."
She pursed her lips. "Sometimes you help, sometimes you don't. It can be satisfying some days. Why? You thinking of quitting the glamorous lifestyle and taking up nursing?"
I laughed. "I'm far too squeamish. I'm thinking about a career change, though."
She'd class me with those you can't help. That's where I belonged. I guess I didn't exist to give someone else job satisfaction.
"I think about it all the time," Nurse Bridget said. "Mostly, I think about how nice it'd be to not have to work and just spend the days at home being a mother to my girls."
"You have kids? How old?"
She started telling me about her girls. The youngest one had autism and needed extra care.
"She's at a great school but I always feel I don't have enough time to give her. No matter what, it'd never be enough."
Before she could tell me more, someone called for her.
"Got to rush," she said.
I guess she had other patients to look after and I'd taken up plenty of her time. I wondered if she resented having to mollycoddle bored rich people like me when she could've been at home with her family.
"Tell me all about your girls next time," I told her. "I want to hear."
I smiled at her and she smiled back.
"You're not at all like they say. You're really nice." Then she covered her mouth. "Sorry."
I guess that could've been taken that the wrong way but I laughed. I did have a reputation for being a bit snotty but it wasn't so much snobbishness. I had to protect myself. So many people I met just wanted to take something from me.
Time dragged after that. A few times, I grabbed my phone to message Matt, just to have him entertain me. But Matt was working. He needed to distance himself from me. I couldn't rely on him like that. Other than Matt, there was no one else I wanted to talk to, though. No one I wanted to visit. Not a single friend.
The next day, Madeline came in again.
"Ash Savage wants to visit you."
"I'm okay with that."
"Are you? Are you really?" She stared at me intently.
"I'm not some frail little snowflake who'll fall apart because my ex-boyfriend has a new relationship."
"Fiona, that's exactly what you are. You're so used to having everything you ever wanted in life that you can't deal with the one thing you can't actually have."
That was all well and good for Madeline to say but she knew nothing. Nothing about what I wanted, nothing about what I'd had. And I wanted to see Ash. I was curious about how this new love had changed him.
"Madeline, I want to get out of modeling."
"And do what?"
"I don't know. You're my manager. You find something. Toss some ideas around. There must be something I can do."
She sighed and sat down.
"For the time being, this is what you have to do." She handed me my schedule. This month had been blocked out but the rest of the year looked pretty intense.
"But after all this..."
"Fiona, you're lucky to have this. In a year's time, I'll be lucky to book you half these jobs. Maybe you should see about getting some Botox while you're in here. You're edging awfully close to twenty-five. Make the money while you can."
Madeline was right, of course. And I had no other talents.
Fiona
ASH CAME TO VISIT A few days later. I wanted to see him, to see for myself that it was really over, that there was no hope for us. I guess part of it was like wanting to press against a wound to see if it still hurt. Madeline thought I wasn't strong enough for this yet, but I wondered if I'd ever be strong enough.
Somewhere deep inside me, I'd always believed Ash and I would end up together. That's the way it worked in movies. No matter how tumultuous things are, the hero realizes he loves the girl at the end. He rushes to the airport and declares his love before the plane takes off or he stops her just before she marries the wrong man. That's the ending I'd intended for Ash and me. I hadn't banked on the girl in that ending being someone else, not me.
He brought me flowers. A huge bouquet of brightly-colored blooms, so typical of Ash. It was nice gesture, even though I had a room full of flowers now. He didn't bring the girl. I was glad of that. I could be strong but not that strong.
"You look happy," I said.
"I am. Finally, I am."
Just looking at him, I knew I could've never brought that kind of light to his eyes. I wanted to be the one who did, but I wasn't. That was a hard hit to take. Still, I smiled. Even if it hurt, I'd never show it.
"Tell me what she's like."
"Oh, she's a bitch and she thinks I'm scum sometimes but it works. She's got a beauty like no other woman I've met before. She's a photographer, that's how we met. She's talented and hardworking and insanely independent."
Every bit of that hurt me more.
"She sounds like quite a woman." I hoped that didn't sound bitchy. I didn't mean to be bitchy. A bit resentful, maybe, but not bitchy.
Ash didn't notice. That glow she'd given him was too strong for my words to penetrate anyway.
"She really is. Fiona, we're getting married."
I'd known he'd tell me that but still I sucked in my breath. But I smiled. I needed to let him have his happiness unmarred. Even if we had nothing else, our friendsh
ip mattered a lot to me and he'd come to all the trouble to visit.
"Congratulations."
As I said the word, I realized I really did mean it. I was happy for him. I was happy to see someone from our old dysfunctional group get what they really wanted in life. Maybe there was hope for us all.
Ash stood up and paced the room. He wasn't the type to sit still easily. He looked out the window.
"Great view you've got here."
"Yeah."
Small talk. Maybe he didn't like saying too much to me.
"You have to stop doing this, Fi." He kept looking out the window.
"Yeah, everyone keeps telling me that. It's not like I did it on purpose. Things just got out of hand. You know what it's like."
If anyone knew, it was Ash. But he was reformed now, and sometimes they were the worst of all, the reformed sinners. But he turned around and grinned at me.
"Yeah, I'm the last one to talk, right? Get me, with the self-righteousness. It freaked me out though." We both laughed, then Ash stopped laughing. "I just want you to be happy, Fiona."
I nodded. What do you say to something like that? It's not exactly like I wanted to be unhappy, I just had no idea what I needed to do about it.
"Because you're in love and now you want everyone to share your happiness?"
"Something like that. How are things with Matty?"
Smooth transition there.
"Good. He's a good person."
"He's the best."
I sure wasn't going to get into the whole Matty and me thing. It didn't seem very tactful to tell Ash I could never date Matty because Matty was way too good for me, when I'd been perfectly happy to date Ash. It was just Ash and I were the same. Well, we had been the same. This new Ash, he was nothing like me. Maybe the new woman was better for him that I ever could've been. I'd just dragged him down. She'd obviously made him make something of himself. I could only dream of being a woman like that.
"Matt's gone to New York," I told him. "Did you hear about that? He's playing on The Freaks' album."
"Damn it. Bastard." Ash screwed up his face. "I'll never get him to work with me if he's getting offers like that. I really want him in my band. Do you think you could say something to him?"
"I could but I won't. He doesn't want to work with you. Can't say I blame him. I wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy."
I watched him as he leaned against the windowsill. It'd been a long time since I'd dated Ash. The two of us as a couple wasn't even something I'd put much thought into in recent years. It'd just lingered there, in my mind, as a possibility. A fallback position.
It the news of his marriage hurt but it sure as hell didn't destroy me. It didn't even cause the same twinges inside me that I'd felt when Matty said he was leaving for a week.
Looking at Ash, sitting with the sun beaming in behind him, I wondered if I'd ever really loved him. We'd been the perfect couple once. That's what the entire world had said. But we'd been selfish kids.
I wasn't a fourteen-year-old girl with an infatuation any more. Maybe, all along, I'd been more in love with the idea of Ash and I as that perfect couple than I'd ever been in love with Ash himself.
Soon enough it was time for Ash to leave.
"Are you going to invite me to your wedding?" I asked him.
"Do you want to come?" He raised his eyebrow, surprised that I'd ask.
"Yes, actually, I think I would. I'd like to meet this woman who quashed your massive ego."
He gave me a crooked grin.
"She might've dented it a little but an ego like mine will never be quashed."
With that, he left.
I sat alone for the rest of the afternoon. Without my unrequited love for Ash, without that unwritten happy ending, just who was I?
Matt
JUST FOR A MOMENT WHEN I was playing, I forgot about Fiona. I forgot about wanting to get back home to her and the need to protect her. It didn't last long, a few seconds at the most.
Playing on The Freaks' new album was a fun experience, though. Different music than what I was used to, much darker and moodier.
The first day or two had been a challenge for me to get my head around. I got given the songs and had to learn them. As a studio musician, I had no input into the sound. I just turned up and did as I was directed. Most of that direction came from the sound engineer in the recording studio.
A lot more playing and a lot less thinking. Kind of made me wonder why they'd flown me all the way out there.
On the third day, Damo, the lead singer, came into the studio when I'd finished for the day. He pulled a couple of beers out of the fridge and handed me one.
"You've been working with us for a few days. What are your thoughts?" he asked.
"My thoughts?" I worried that he wasn't happy with my playing.
"Yeah, how do you see this album?" Then he started talking about one of the songs.
"Well, I'm not sure it's how I'd approach it." I didn't want to criticize their style but I thought the arrangement was a bit too heavy-handed. I'd have pared it back. Left a lot more space for the listener.
I picked up my guitar and showed Damo what I meant. It was easier to demonstrate than put it into words. He hardly seemed to listen as I played.
When I finished, he nodded his head. "We'll do it like that."
Damo never talked much, which wasn't an issue for me, but that seemed like a big stamp of approval. I liked his no bullshit style. Since the last group I'd been in was StarX, I was used to things being a lot more dramatic.
I didn't see Damo again until the last day of recording. He came into the studio and sat at the desk while I laid down the final bits. I made sure I'd be out of there in plenty of time to catch my flight home.
He came in while I packed up my gear.
"Thanks for helping us out."
"No problem. Not sure what I actually did, though."
He grinned and sized me up. "You're modest. I like that."
I wasn't sure about modest, I didn't have a pumped ego though.
"We're going on tour next month. If you're interested, we have a spot for you. We've been meaning to get in a second guitar for a while but haven't found anyone we can work with."
Touring in the States? No way. These last five days had been hell. I didn't want to be some weirdo, lurking in the background of Fiona's life, but I sure didn't want to be on the other side of the world if she needed me either.
"Sorry, mate. No can do."
"You sure? This tour is going to be massive. Some of the world's primest venues. I don't want to talk us up but by the end of this tour, we're going to be one of the biggest bands in the world."
I didn't doubt that for a second. It'd be a lie to say that didn't tempt me. The fame meant nothing. I'd had enough of fame in this lifetime. Fame was a crock of shit. What tempted me was the music they played. They were one of the few bands around doing something new, really pushing the boundaries. I'd love to be part of that, in a group with musos who really loved music.
I shook my head.
"I don't doubt that you'll have the world at your feet, but I've got to get home."
"Is it a chick?" he asked. He laughed, then flipped a cigarette into his mouth and lit it. "Of course, it's a chick. It's always a chick. But women come and go. This is a once in a lifetime shot."
I shook my head again. "This woman doesn't come and go."
"You've got it bad. She must be something special."
I thought about the first time I'd seen Fiona. She'd walked into the room, the sun behind her so that her blonde hair created a halo around her. We'd been hanging out backstage at some event, bored out of our skulls. I'd never seen a girl like that before. I'd been glued to my seat, wanting to talk to her, to say one word to get her to notice me. Every hormone in my teenage body had been set on fire. As I stood up to introduce myself to her, Savage approached her first. Savage had nothing holding him back. He made some joke and she'd laughed. The two of them looked so perfe
ct together. I sat back down, and the rest was history. History recorded in every gossip magazine in the world.
"Yeah, she's something special," I said.
I wasn't sure how I'd survive the flight home, just wanting to see her without this distance between us. I messaged her from the airport.
"On my way back," I said.
"Finished already?"
I wanted to ask her a million questions, to find out how she was and how she'd been doing. But I didn't want to overwhelm her. I kept it simple.
"How did the recording go?" she asked.
If Fiona ever found out I'd turned down The Freaks to get back to her, she'd kill me. But she'd never know. I'd made sure of that.
Fiona
"WHY ARE YOU SMILING?" Nurse Bridget asked me.
"Am I?"
"Yes, you look much happier than you have in days. Something special happen?"
I glanced over at the message on my phone. That didn't make me happy. I had no real need to see Matty. If I smiled, it was about something else.
"Nothing in particular. Any word on when I can get out of here?"
Nurse Bridget bustled around my room, changing the sheets on my bed. I'd moved over to the armchair. I'd been watching a movie but had turned it off when she came into my room.
"The doctor will discuss that with you tomorrow."
I sighed. "You don't have any insider information about that, do you? I really need to get out. I can't make money while I'm sitting on my butt. If I don't work, I don't get paid."
"Tell me about it." Nurse Bridget smiled. "You must have plenty of money, though. You're a star."
"It's not so simple. I've got savings but a lot of money is tied up." That's what Madeline had told me.
I had money enough to pay the hospital bill but I'd be left on a tight budget after that. I didn't just want to get out of here to have my freedom. Places like this didn't come cheap.
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