Love At First Fright, page 29
“That’s nice,” he’d said, looking quietly out of the window. Later that night she’d looked out of her bedroom window and seen him sitting on the ground by the grave, tidying the earth around her.
* * *
—
The following day, Rosemary settled down onto the sofa to watch the Theo Drake Show. It was live on television at 9 p.m. in the UK, so it was only midafternoon here.
They’d texted a little before filming, but once he’d arrived at the studio she knew he’d be so busy she wouldn’t hear from him until after the show.
Her dad slumped down onto the sofa beside her, kittens swarming onto their laps and climbing up their legs.
“Fudge?” Rosemary waved a tin that she’d bought from a specialty shop in Foxleigh village. She decided not to tell her dad about the shop’s name, which—thanks to a vandalized “r”—was called The Fudge Pant y.
“Did I ever tell you you’re my favourite daughter?” He chuckled as he pilfered a handful. Rosemary grinned, and flicked to the satellite TV channel that would allow them to watch British shows in real time.
The opening credits of the Theo Drake Show flashed onto screen, accompanied by the theme music, and Rosemary felt her heart jump to her throat. This was really happening. What would Ellis say? Would he really announce to the world that they were together? Once again, she had a feeling that she was on the precipice of one of those Big Life Moments™ and soon there would be no going back. Good, she wanted Ellis. She wanted to share a life with him.
On TV, Theo Drake welcomed Ellis to the sofa. He was dressed in a sharp suit, but Rosemary could tell immediately something was wrong. His skin was pallid in the spotlight’s harsh glare, his walk to the sofa stiff and disjointed. Had he been sick since she left, perhaps? He certainly looked it. When he sat down on the sofa he took a long gulp of whiskey, and then he seemed to compose himself, pasting a winning smile on his face. But Ellis wasn’t fooling Rosemary. Something had happened. A pit opened in her stomach.
“Well, he looks very nice,” her dad said beside her, smiling at the way Rosemary had edged to the front of the sofa.
“Um, yeah, he does,” she replied in a hollow voice. There was no denying that Ellis was magnetic on screen, but his smile didn’t reach his eyes.
Theo Drake asked Ellis a series of questions about his most recent Soldier of Justice film that would soon be arriving on streaming, as well as filming for When the Devil Takes Hold. So far, nothing out of the ordinary. Ellis had told Rosemary that he liked going on the Theo Drake Show because the questions were never out of order. So why was Ellis taking a deep gulp from his whiskey glass like he needed the Dutch courage?
And then came the moment, the question that would mean no turning back for either of them.
Theo affected a conspiratorial air. “Now, Ellis, we couldn’t have you on the show without discussing what went down at a little London bookshop called The Reader’s Rest recently, could we? Please put our audience and viewers at home out of our misery and tell us…what is the nature of your relationship with the scream queen of horror fiction and the screenwriter of your most recent movie, Rosemary Shaw?”
Ellis’s skin looked pallid and sweaty under the studio lighting. He didn’t speak, but stared down the barrel of the camera as if he were looking directly at Rosemary.
“Say something,” she whispered at the screen.
A photo appeared behind him and Ellis shifted to look at it: it was of the two of them in the bookshop, holding hands as they escaped the horde of fans.
“Rosemary is a good friend. A colleague. She did an amazing job on the screenplay adaptation of When the Devil Takes Hold, and I attended her book signing because I enjoy…reading her books.”
Rosemary swallowed but her mouth tasted like ash. Her vision tunnelled, blackening at the edges. Tinny laughter from the TV echoed in her skull and nausea clawed up her throat. It wasn’t possible. She must have misheard him.
“Are we meant to believe that you hold all your colleagues’ hands as you walk around on set then?” Theo asked Ellis.
“You’d be surprised, I’m very tactile with my friends,” Ellis said, and smiled at his interviewer, but it was all teeth.
“Why are you lying?” Rosemary said to the screen, but her voice came out as a broken sob.
Ellis shifted in his seat but didn’t look any more comfortable. “As you know, I’m still dating Jenna Dunn.”
She watched his mouth form the words, but they didn’t sink in. This wasn’t the same man who had built her an office, who had said he’d move across the world to be with her! It had only been a day and a bit since she’d left England, was she so forgettable? A rational part of her brain knew that this had Ellis’s agent’s stink all over it, why else would he have said he was still with Jenna? But she thought he was braver than this, he’d come out to her, and she thought that perhaps he was finally bold enough to stand up for himself against Brody.
Rosemary stood abruptly.
“Sweetpea?” Her dad reached for her hand.
“Give me a minute, Dad.” Tears blinded her as she stumbled out into the backyard. The sunset shouldn’t have been as beautiful as it was, with lily-pink clouds and the trills of hooded warblers and Northern mockingbirds coming from the trees.
She sucked in breath after breath, and almost had to stifle a bitter laugh when she saw Ellis’s face appear on her ringing phone.
She didn’t want to face him, but she had to know. Rosemary picked up.
“Rosemary, please let me explain. It wasn’t what it looked like.”
The gravelly tone of his voice, the voice that she loved, dug into her gut. Hot, angry tears pooled at her chin.
“You don’t get to explain, Ellis. You lost that opportunity the moment you announced to the whole fucking world that you’re not with me.”
“I had to. I did it for you,” he said, his voice sounding distant and broken.
“What the fuck does that mean? You did it for me? Am I supposed to thank you? Let me guess. It was Brody, right? Brody told you you had to say those things and so you just had to?”
“Yes.”
“That’s fucking weak, Ellis. And you know it. You let him walk all over you and you couldn’t stand up to him? Not even for me?” Her hands shook.
“He was going to tell everyone,” Ellis said.
“What?”
“At first I thought he was doing the same old blackmail, threatening to tell everyone about my ‘perversions,’ but I told him I didn’t care. And that’s the truth. You know that I’m bi, so does all my family and everyone who matters to me. I don’t care if the world knows, Rosemary, that’s what I told Brody. And I fired him.”
Rosemary’s hand was shaking so hard she had to clamp the phone to her ear with her shoulder. “I don’t understand. Why then…?”
“He had footage.” Rosemary’s blood ran cold as she heard Ellis’s words. “Brody had us followed, that weekend on set when Jenna came for the photo opportunity. I’m such an idiot, I thought I saw a car tailing us, but I figured I was just being paranoid. He had a video of us, on the hill I think, when you were going down on me. He said that if I didn’t tell Theo Drake that we were only colleagues, and that I was dating Jenna, he’d release the video. It would have ruined your career, Rosemary. I didn’t give a shit about myself, but you? You’re about to reach a new level of fame for an author, and I didn’t want this to bring you down.”
“That was not your decision to make, Ellis!” she shouted. “You said you would always tell me these things, that we would talk through them, together. Was it so impossible to try to call me?”
“There wasn’t time. I had to make a decision. I did what was best for you, love.”
“You have no right to decide what’s best for me.”
“Rosemary, it would have been torture; you would have been notorious for all the wrong reasons. Constantly being hounded, photographed, stalked. They would have fucked up your life, and your family. I did what I had to do to protect you. Because I love you.”
Could you feel a heart as it broke? Everything she had wanted to hear, and it was too late. Even now, a rational part of her brain was agreeing with him. It did sound like torture, all that focus, all that notoriety and fame for the wrong reasons. She hated to think that Ellis might be right—what if she couldn’t handle it? Rosemary knew she wasn’t being rational but the hurt cut too deep to ignore. Don’t push him away over this, he’s hurting too, a small voice inside her shouted but it was easily drowned out. She needed space. She needed to breathe.
When Rosemary spoke it was as if she was outside her own body, hearing another in her place.
“No, Ellis. You did it because you’re scared, and ashamed. That wasn’t for me. I can’t do this, I need space. Just don’t contact me. Please.” Rosemary hung up. Angry, hot tears slipped down her cheeks and Rosemary crumpled to the grass and gave into the ache that ripped from her throat in a sob. She loved him, he loved her. And it was all over.
* * *
—
Rosemary awoke sometime later lying on top of her bed, a blanket thrown over her, not knowing how she got there. Something was tickling her ear. She turned her head, only to be met with the softest, warmest belly of Little Bee, who had curved her tiny body around the side of Rosemary’s head, her little foot pressed against the side of Rosemary’s neck. On her chest, weightless, the ghost cat was curled into a ball, watching Rosemary with her luminous eyes. As if she was saying, I’m here, go back to sleep. Rosemary’s body felt numb. It was too soon to think, she wasn’t ready for that yet. She let herself fall back to sleep, soothed for a little while by Bee’s gentle breaths.
35
Rosemary awoke to a knocking at her bedroom door.
“Hey, sweetpea, can I come in?”
“Yeah,” she rasped.
Her dad came in, carrying a cup of coffee and a strawberry glazed donut with sprinkles that he must have gone into town for, just like he’d always done to cheer her up when she was a kid. He put them down on the bedside table and opened her blinds.
“I’m not going to ask you if you’re okay, because that would be a stupid thing to ask when I know you’re not. So, all I’m going to say is I love you, and that Dina and Immy have been calling the house all morning trying to speak to you. They said when you wake up you should ring them.” He bent down and pressed a kiss to her forehead. “I’ll be downstairs if you need me.”
Rosemary groaned and pulled herself into a seated position in bed. She’d put her phone on Do Not Disturb and now she checked it there appeared to be over one hundred messages from Dina and Immy in their group. She pressed for a group call.
“I’m going to fucking MURDER him,” was the first thing Immy said as her face popped up on the screen.
“You murder him and I’ll hex him, I don’t care what the repercussions are,” Dina said. Rosemary caught sight of herself on the phone screen. Christ, she looked terrible, her face puffy and red from crying.
“Hey,” she croaked out. Bee had jumped back up onto the bed and was now kneading tiny biscuits between Rosemary’s legs. Thank god for this little cat.
“How are you doing, habiba?” Dina said, peering closer into the phone as if she could get a better view of Rosemary.
“I don’t know. I don’t really understand what happened.”
“Did you break up? I don’t get why he said those things.”
Rosemary let her tears fall freely as she told her friends everything.
“Fucking men,” Dina said. “You tell me if you want me to do any spells on him. When it comes to people hurting my best friends, I have no moral high ground.”
“I’ll let you know,” Rosemary said. She took a sip of coffee and had a bite of her donut, and slowly returned to life.
“The worst thing was, I was going to tell him I loved him, too.”
“Oh, Rosemary.”
“I know. Such a fool.”
“Not a fool,” Immy said vehemently.
“Not at all, habiba. But you know how hard coming out can be, maybe it’s true, that he did what he did because he thought it was the best way to protect you. It doesn’t mean you have to agree with it, and I’m with you one hundred percent,” Dina assured her. “You take the time you need.”
“I know. I know you’re right. I just need space from it all.” Rosemary hiccuped.
“What are you going to do now?” Dina asked.
“Stay home for a bit. There are kittens, and it’s nice to be around my dad. I want to finish the script for Julia, and I have to turn in my draft.”
“And after?” Immy said.
Dina frowned. “Don’t push her, Imms.”
“It’s okay. I don’t know yet,” Rosemary admitted. Did she still want to move to London? That had been the plan before, but now, after Ellis? She needed to figure out how much she wanted her future there, if he wasn’t in it, and how much of her desire to be there had been tied with him. Already, a part of her knew that she did still want to go. That being with her friends, in the country that felt most like home to her, was the future she wanted. But she needed time.
“I’ll figure it out.”
“You will.” Dina nodded. “And you call us every day.”
“If you don’t, we’ll be forced to get on a plane to come to you,” Immy threatened.
“I love you both.”
“Right back at you.”
* * *
—
Two days later, Rosemary was done wallowing. She needed fresh air and the sun on her skin. She’d woken up just after dawn, soon after her dad, and they stood silently in the kitchen watching the morning light flood the fields.
“Merry Christmas Eve, sweetpea.” He passed her a Christmas cookie to have alongside her coffee.
“Happy Christmas Eve, Dad. Thought I might join you out in the greenhouse today, if that’s alright.”
“Could always use the help.” He smiled.
They spent the morning checking the rows of plants for frost damage—it had been an especially cold winter, and they could harvest only a few flowers from the greenhouse, which her dad sold in the local town farmer’s market once a month. If her mind drifted to memories of Ellis’s greenhouse, or the time they’d spent together in the vegetable patch, she quashed the thoughts.
After a few hours of manual labour, Rosemary felt more herself than she had in days.
“I’m going to heat up some casserole if you want some,” her dad said.
“Thanks, I’ll join you in a minute. Just want to go see Mama.”
He nodded, sadness flickering across his face.
Her mom was buried under the cherry tree, its dark branches curved protectively over the well-cared-for patch of grass. They had laid a small headstone on the ground and sowed her grave with wildflower seeds that sprouted into a riot of colour every spring. Rosemary sat down beside the grave.
When her mama had told her she wanted to be buried under the tree, Rosemary remembered asking why, and her mama had said that when she died, she wanted to become a part of the world around her, and to Rosemary that sounded like a lovely way to go on living.
“Hey, Mama,” she said, running her fingers through the delicate green stems of dormant flowers. She sat in silence for a while, letting the damp cold seep through her limbs and clear her head. After being cooped up in the stuffiness of her bed it was a nice change. She looked back at her family home, winter sunlight reflecting off the windows, but her eye was caught by something small and orange trotting up the dirt path to her.
Little Bee, dwarfed by the long grass, had followed Rosemary all the way from the house. And she wasn’t alone. In her wake, her edges glowing silver, was the ghost cat, Little Bee’s mama. The small kitten scampered over to Rosemary, who held out her hands and picked up Bee, cradling her to her chest.
“What a brave girl you are coming over here.” She tickled Bee under her tiny chin. The ghost cat came around and sat down by Rosemary’s knees. “You making sure your baby is going to be safe with me, Mama?” She said to the cat, who looked up at her with too-wise eyes.
Rosemary sat under the cherry tree until her stomach began to grumble.
“Come on, let’s go home,” she said, placing Bee in her oversized coat pocket. The ghost cat ran ahead of them on the dirt track.
“She’s with you?” her dad said, nodding at Bee, as Rosemary walked into the kitchen through the back door. “Couldn’t see her anywhere and I was worried.”
“She followed me out to the grave. Her mama was with her, though, I think she’s keeping an eye on her baby.”
Her dad smiled, and ran a hand through his thinning hair. “Ready to eat?”
“Please.”
They sat at the table and ate in companionable silence for a bit. Rosemary noticed her dad’s gaze kept flitting to a book on the countertop, titled A Rake for the Lady. She smiled to herself, thinking just how much Cecilia and Juliet would have enjoyed reading a book like that.
“Dad, are you reading Regency romance?”
“What? Oh, um, it’s for book club.”
“You’re in a book club?”
Her dad looked sheepish. “Just a small local one, they run it out of the church centre on Wednesday evenings. We read all kinds of stuff, not just romance. This was Maria’s pick.” He went and pulled the book off the counter and showed it to Rosemary. She noticed he’d dog-eared many pages, and when she flicked through she saw he’d underlined some of the more romantic passages in pencil.
