Dark Angel 03: Broken Dream (12 page)

Luckily Macy grew impatient and started to tug Charlie out of the cold. We went down the corridor into a small room where Larry King was holding a quick post-rushes meeting with Jack’s co-stars, Rocky and Angela. Also there were Rocky’s girlfriend, Lisette, Lucy Young and of course Gwen and Orlando.

Lucy held a finger to her mouth when she saw us enter to warn us that Larry was about to speak.

‘I really needed Jack to be here this morning. We may have to reshoot some of the boathouse interiors and I need to look at his schedule for the second half of January. Now I hear that he’ll be in Europe.’

‘I texted Natalia,’ Charlie informed him. ‘Jack can’t make it, but she’s on her way.’

Larry nodded. ‘OK, so, Charlie, maybe we can put you in some of the sequences and keep Jack’s input to a minimum. But I guess it depends on whether Natalia will agree to that on Jack’s behalf.’ He and Charlie went on to discuss specifics of the star’s contract while Macy sat down at a table with Orlando and Gwen, who gestured for me to join them.

‘They talk about Jack like he’s all washed up,’ Macy sighed.

I agreed. ‘He doesn’t even recognize how much control he’s handed over to Natalia and Charlie.’

‘One day he’s going to wake up and find they don’t need him any more. Charlie will be doing it all for him.’

‘Sshh,’ Lucy warned as Macy raised her voice high enough to make Larry glance her way.

‘Tania, I’m so excited you’ll be in Mayfield with us,’ Gwen said in a low whisper as we sat beside her and she squeezed my hand. ‘How cool is that.’

‘Me too!’ Macy bubbled with positive energy as she told Gwen about her invitation to spend Christmas in Bitterroot. ‘I’ll be there. Plus Charlie’s going to fix it with Lucy so that Tania and I get to spend time in the editing suite. We’re so lucky to get this break. I can’t believe it!’

I’d sat opposite Orlando in the only vacant chair, waiting on tenterhooks for him to acknowledge me with at least a smile. It seemed ages before he even looked at me. Then when he did, he was wearing the cut-off, distracted look that I was starting to dread. He didn’t pay attention to Macy either, only tuning in when Gwen had something to say.

‘We’re booked into the biggest ski lodge in Mayfield,’ she told us. ‘Jack and Natalia and the whole cast – we take over the entire Carlsbad Lodge. Do you know it?’

‘Sure – it’s top of the range.’ Orlando jumped in with an answer.

‘Naturally. This is Jack and Natalia we’re talking about, right?’ Gwen smiled. She locked him into her bright gaze.

‘It sits right under Carlsbad Peak. There’s a dirt road up to an old silver mine. I could drive you there if you’d like to see it.’

I groaned inwardly. If he was doing this to punish me, it was working. But if it wasn’t deliberate, I was in even deeper trouble because it meant I wasn’t on Orlando’s radar any more. I was history.

I saw him fix his attention on her, lapping up every word she said about the schedule for Mayfield, keeping eye contact and laughing at her small jokes, going to fetch her a Coke from the machine, sitting down again and twisting his chair away from me to face her more directly and shut me out.

I saw his back, the way his hair curled on to his collar, his hand resting on the table, fingers drumming lightly.

I saw her face, almost free of make-up, with a touch of mascara to curl her long lashes upwards from her light-brown eyes – the same hazel colour as Charlie’s, while all her other features were a contrast to his. Her eyebrows were light and arched, her face a perfect heart, with a small chin and a cupid’s-bow mouth.

She looked at me, blinked, smiled and turned her gaze back to Orlando.

As soon as I could slip away, I texted Grace in Bitterroot and told her what had happened.
I’m losing him. He’s the love of my life, my soul mate. What do I do?

She told me not to give in.
Orlando loves you
, she reminded me.
Who is this Gwen woman anyway?

She’s beautiful. He’s hooked.

So fight
, Grace texted.

She gave me the strength to go back in there.

While I’d been outside, Natalia had been spirited in through another back door. Adam was with her, but not the two younger kids, and while Natalia talked to the director, Charlie had taken on the usual role of surrogate dad.

‘Hey, Adam, come over here. Stand on this table and wait while I clear the window. Now look out. Your snowman is still out there by the lake, see?’

‘Snowlady,’ Adam corrected as Charlie hoisted him up. He showed no interest in the half-melted figure. Instead, he reached out and traced shapes in the misted part of the pane.

Here was this five-year-old kid standing on a table in a room full of adults, trying to make sense of the world by drawing snowflakes and then a sun hidden behind a cloud. He looked to me like the loneliest little boy in the world so I went up to him. ‘Hey, Adam.’

He turned and smiled.

We leave the room. We look for the light. We rise above the world, through soft snow that has started to fall, through grey clouds, holding tight to each others’ hands. We raise our faces to the warm sun
.

‘
When evil comes, I will be here,’ my good angel reminds me
.

I smiled back at Adam. Was he really my good angel amidst all the darkness? Would this small child have the power to protect me from my dark angel’s wrath?

Charlie came and swung Adam from the table on to his shoulders. ‘Mommy wants me to take you shopping,’ he told him. ‘We can go to the biggest toy store in the city. You get to choose whatever you like.’

‘I want to go home,’ Adam insisted. He looked uncomfortable on Charlie’s shoulders, being whisked from one situation into another.

‘Later, buddy. First we shop. Then this afternoon you fly out with Mommy and your sister and brother.’

‘What about Daddy? Is he coming too?’

‘Maybe. Maybe not.’ Giving Macy a quick kiss on the lips, Charlie carried Adam towards the door.

‘See you in Mayfield,’ Macy called after him, not quite concealing a sudden panic that she’d miscalculated and the night she’d spent with Charlie might mean nothing to him. You could see it in her eyes, hear it in her high-pitched voice.

‘See you,’ he called casually, doing nothing to calm her fear. He paused in the doorway and turned. ‘Tania, you’ll be there too – right?’

‘Sure she’ll be there,’ Natalia answered for me, her business with Larry King finished. She was pulling on her black, fur-trimmed leather gloves and zipping up a soft crimson jacket. As she waved goodbye to Adam, she took my arm and walked me down the corridor, inviting me to sit with her in the back of the car waiting at the door.

‘Stay and talk,’ she invited. ‘I know you have a plane to catch, but I’ll get you to the airport on time and fast-track you through security, no problem.’

‘What about Orlando and Macy? What about our bags?’

‘Charlie will take care of all that. Shall we drive?’

I nodded and felt the car ease away, driving slowly out of the park, under an archway of trees draped with Christmas lights and across Fifth Avenue on to Madison.

‘Tania, I need to talk to you about Adam,’ Natalia began.

We were sealed off from the cold grey world inside a limousine, looking out at wealthy shoppers going in and out of twinkly designer stores under the all-seeing lenses of security cameras.

Adam – my one pinpoint of light in the dark cosmos.

Keep a hold of my hand. When evil comes, I will be here
.

‘Adam likes you,’ Natalia went on. ‘He talks about you all the time, says how pretty you are and how you know the right things to say. That’s a rare connection for him and it makes me think it would be cool for you two to have more time together,’ she confided. ‘As a general rule, Adam doesn’t take to strangers. I guess that’s because of the life we lead.’

‘You travel a lot,’ I agreed.

‘And our kids are pretty closeted. They have to be, given all the security issues. And then we have the paparazzi to deal with.’ Natalia fell silent as the driver continued to cruise the streets east of Central Park. It was only as we passed the wide arched doors of St James’ Church that I glanced at her and saw her fighting back tears. ‘Take no notice,’ she sniffed, reaching into her bag for tissues. ‘I hate it when I do this.’

‘It’s OK, I understand.’

‘I have no right to complain. The whole female population of the planet would kill to be in my shoes – right?’

‘I guess. But they don’t see the pressures of living the way you do.’

‘They don’t see the real Jack either.’ Natalie’s mini meltdown led her to opening up some more. ‘You know what I’m talking about?’

The grabbing the bottle and the groping, the falling-down drunk and the chasing after his female co-stars.

‘I tried to get Charlie to warn Angela,’ she confessed. ‘But then I realized the girl doesn’t care how she reaches the top or who she has to get horizontal with. As far as she’s concerned, Jack is just one more asshole along the way.’

Ouch. This was her own husband Natalia was talking about.

‘I’m sorry. I shocked you,’ she said.

‘No. I do understand, honestly.’

‘So thank you, Tania. You brought a breath of fresh air into our lives – I mean, for the kids and me, and we really do look forward to getting together again. And meanwhile, you and Orlando fly home to Bitterroot to spend Christmas with your families.’

And because Natalia had come clean with me, I shared with her in the back of the silent, gliding limo. ‘Orlando’s changed. He’s drifted away from me over the last few days.’ It was my turn to reach for a tissue.

‘Do you know why? Is it Gwen?’ Natalia’s intuition kicked in and she immediately hit the target.

‘You noticed?’

She nodded. ‘She was pretty much in your face at the party, wasn’t she? You want me to tell her to back off?’

‘Yes. No. It wouldn’t help. Orlando is the one who has to choose.’

‘I hear you. But I could get her taken off the movie. We could find a replacement. You want me to do that?’

‘Don’t tempt me.’ It was my turn to suck it up. ‘But again, no thanks.’

‘You’re not ruthless enough, huh? Or is it that Orlando would blame you if Gwen lost her job and it would make things worse?’

‘It’s that.’

‘So anyway, let me talk to Charlie. He’ll know what to say to Gwen without being too obvious. But you don’t know anything about this. We haven’t had this conversation, OK?’

Her insistence wore me down. This time I didn’t say no.

The clouds were heavy but the snow held off as we cruised on to Park Avenue. As the car stopped outside Natalia’s hotel she gave me a personal invitation to join her and the kids the next evening. ‘The Carlsbad Lodge at six thirty.’ Then, before she stepped out of the car, she tapped on the glass partition to speak to her driver. ‘Drive Tania to the airport. Get her upgraded and fast tracked through security. Her flight leaves at two forty-five.’

I sat in a window seat looking down on Manhattan – on the grey Hudson and the East River, on the miniature tower blocks below us. Orlando sat beside me in our upgraded seats while Macy settled in a couple of rows behind.

As the plane rose bumpily through the clouds, thick white vapour streamed by the window, cutting out my view of the ground. Wing flaps clunked, jet engines churned, the fasten-seat-belts signs stayed on until we reached our cruising height and the flight attendants rolled their trolleys along the aisle.

‘Drinks, beverages, snacks.’

Orlando shook his head, hardly glancing up from a book Gwen had given him at the airport. She, not Charlie, had been the one to drive him and Macy to JFK but she’d already said goodbye by the time Natalia’s driver had dropped me off.

I asked for water and tried to steady my nerves. ‘It feels so good to be going home,’ I murmured.

He didn’t respond, wouldn’t share in my relief to be leaving my dark angel behind. So I prayed to myself that it was over. There would be no more stalker, no visions of underground hell, no repetition of what had gone before.

And I worked out ways to convince myself.

First up, what was so unusual about being mugged in the city? It happened every day – no way was I special. All the stuff about carousel horses coming to life and subway workers being crushed by rockfalls was pure imagination, like Orlando said. In other words, for the first time in my life I flatly denied my own psychic gift.

Secondly, even if – worst-case scenario – we were talking dark angels, where was the towering Zoran figure in this new situation; the charismatic leader rallying his troops? Where were the beautiful seducers like Jarrold and Daniel to ensnare me and draw me to the dark side?

In New York there was only the cult of Jack Kane and look how flimsy that had turned out. The guy had no power, was only clinging on to his star billing thanks to the people he had around him. He presented no threat at all.

And now we were going home to the mountains, Orlando and I. We would soon be walking by Turner Lake, rekindling the emotions I longed to feel again.

‘Don’t you love the way the clouds look from up above?’ I murmured. They were golden and bright, a soft cushion of light.

His head didn’t turn; his eyes stayed fixed on the page.

We flew on. I watched the sunlight on the clouds, heard a small voice telling me to hold tight to the hand he offered.

T
he moment they knew I was home, Grace and Holly rushed to my house.

‘The sisterhood is back together!’ Holly crowed, hugging me and demanding to know every detail of my trip.

Grace as usual kept down the decibels but her welcome-back smile let me know she was pleased to see me. ‘How are things?’ she asked quietly.

‘With Orlando? Later,’ I replied. Right now Holly was firing out questions about the shopping, the restaurants, the cinemas and theatres, the whole Christmas vibe of New York. And once in a while she remembered to include Macy, who was sitting quietly for once. ‘You two met at the film studies course, right?’

‘Actually, in Central Park,’ Macy told her. ‘We were together in the crush waiting for Jack’s helicopter to arrive.’