Chapter Twelve

I wasn’t sorry to see Tom, but I was surprised. Both his sisters and their partners were staying in town, so I’d assumed he’d want to be with his family on Christmas. I’d arranged with Diane to pop round with their presents the next day.

“This is a pleasant surprise,” I said as he kissed my cheek.

“I had to show you my new sweatpants,” he said, stepping back and spreading his arms wide with a grin so I could see them in all their glory.

“Very nice,” I said, smiling at the absurdity of his excuse. As far as I could tell, his new sweatpants were the exact same as his old ones, minus a hole or two. “Come on in.”

“Thanks. I was given three pairs of new sweats.” He smiled sheepishly. “I think my family was trying to tell me something.”

I giggled; his old pair had been beyond past it and quickly moving into hobo territory, despite Diane’s darning of the holes. Of course since he was in pain, I wasn’t about to suggest he wear something else.

“I can take a hint,” he said.

“After three months, sure you can,” I teased. “Would you like a drink?”

“I’d love a coffee.”

“Irish?”

He hesitated for just a moment before giving in. “Go on, then.”

He followed me through to the kitchen and watched as I made the drinks.

“So how was your Christmas?” he asked.

“Really nice.” If I sounded surprised, he looked surprised.

“Your dad was okay?”

“He gave me a camera.”

“Okay . . .”

“It means he approves of my photography,” I explained. “He’s not a very touchy-feely guy and he has a real problem saying mushy stuff. He researched cameras and bought me an amazing one. His way of saying that he accepts and supports my choice. And he said my photos were ‘very interesting,’ so I expect to be notified by the Nobel committee any day now!”

“That’s terrific, love! I’m so glad for you!” Tom grinned. “Um . . . is there a Nobel Prize for photography?”

“No idea!” I laughed. “What about you? How was your Christmas?” I asked.

“Really good! Christmas is about the only time we can all get together these days, so it’s great to see everyone. I can’t believe how much the children have grown!”

I handed him his Irish coffee, and we made our way into the living room.

“So I know we said we’d wait until tomorrow to exchange presents, but . . .” Tom looked sheepish.

“You got impatient?” I guessed with a grin.

He shrugged, looking a little contrite as he pulled a small, wrapped box from his pocket.

“Well, you must let me get yours too.”

I fetched two parcels from under my desk. He’d chosen his favorite photograph of mine from the sound series, titled Plug in, Baby for the guitar intro that had created the ripples in the water. I’d framed it for him on a forty-by-forty-inch canvas. I’d had to send it away to have it printed that large, but it was worth it. I’d also got him something else so he’d have a surprise.

“You go first,” I suggested as I sat next to him on the sofa.

I handed him the larger gift. He seemed surprised by the size, but the way his face lit up as he took in the full picture warmed my heart.

“This is amazing!” he said. “I want to order three more.” He held the frame at arm’s length to get a better look. “And you must charge me proper prices this time.”

He’d sent some of my pictures as Christmas presents to his friends, but I’d refused to charge him more than cost plus 10 percent. I felt really odd taking money from a friend. And besides, giving my photos to his friends was really more in the line of advertising.

“Why?”

“I have this massive wall in my place, in the living room. It’s just painted white. This is big, but I think four of these in a row would look amazing!”

“Okay.” We could quibble over cost later. I’d happily give him my art—he was the reason I was really pursuing it, after all.

“And on the note of payment . . .” He leaned the picture against the coffee table and pulled a letter-size envelope from his pocket. “I took the money I thought should be fair and donated it in your name to the Guide Dogs.”

I took the envelope from him and opened it. Looking up at me on the letter was the most beautiful yellow Labrador puppy with an enormous puppy grin on his face.

“Oh my God, Tom! Really? That’s . . .” I was speechless, but only for a moment. “You rat! Now I can’t even argue with you about it! Seriously, what a wonderful idea!” I leaned over and impulsively kissed his cheek.

Tom looked pleased. “You are now the proud mother of a puppy called Thor who is just beginning his guide dog training. You should get regular updates on his progress and lots of pictures.”

“Not Loki?” I teased.

“No, not Loki, I’m afraid.” He grinned at me. “For some reason, the folks who need guide dogs aren’t too chuffed by the idea of being led around by the god of mischief!”

“Thank you.” I hugged him tightly and then said, “Looks like it’s your turn again.” I handed him my other present.

“Ooh, interesting,” he said as he took it. It was large and flat. He turned it over a few times before he tore it open. “This is amazing!” He laughed with delight, turning the director’s clapper board over in his hands. “Useful and thoughtful. Thank you.”

He put the board down, turned to me, and hugged me tightly. I breathed deeply, inhaling the scent of him and reveling in it. God, why did he have to be so attractive? Or anyway, since he was so attractive, why couldn’t I get over myself and ask him out?

“And now for your real gift,” he said, lifting the small box and handing it to me.

I opened the paper to find a bracelet box, then I lifted the lid to find a gold charm bracelet.

“Oh my god!” I cried, taking it out so I could see the three charms already attached.

The first was a tragedy-comedy mask.

“Because you’re helping me with my film,” he said, his expression like an eager puppy’s. I felt it had additional meaning because of his career; it represented him.

The next one was a beer bottle.

“For the bar where we met,” he explained.

The last one was a camera—with a goddamn diamond for a lens!

“Self-explanatory,” he said with a shrug.

“Tom, it’s beautiful,” I told him, and it was. It was also touching because he’d chosen charms with such meaning. “But I can’t accept it.”

My hands were shaking. This was far different than sponsorship of a guide puppy! But oh!

“What? Of course you can!” Tom’s enormous grin fell away.

“Tom, this must have cost a fortune.”

“The diamond’s a fake,” he said firmly, rolling his eyes for effect. He took it from me and carefully put it on my wrist as he explained. “It’s totally synthetic, cubic zirconia or glass or something.”

His head was down, concentrating on the fiddly business of fastening the tiny clasp. I could see his face had gone a bit pink. His fingers trailed over my wrist, and he took a deep breath before he raised his head.

Once he was done, I hugged him tightly—and for far longer than I should have, really.

“The diamond’s not fake, is it?” I asked softly.

“No,” he admitted, his blush deepening. I knew I shouldn’t accept it. It was clearly far too expensive, but I couldn’t bring myself to disappoint him. He seemed so pleased! And it was so thoughtful.

I laughed as we pulled away. I sniffled and wiped my tears away before they could fall.

“Thank you. It’s lovely, and I’ll cherish it.”

His warm smile in reply made my heart do a flip-flop like a young girl in the throes of her first crush. I searched for a change of subject. If we went on as we were, I’d end up crying all over him.

“Do you want to stay and watch a movie?” I asked.

“I’d love to,” he answered quickly with a smile.

“You don’t have to get back?”

“Mum’s sleeping. Emily’s doing things I don’t want to think about with her fiancé, and Sara and her daughter are watching the Doctor Who Christmas special.”

I fingered the theater charm on my bracelet.

“Can you watch your own films?” I asked. He’d seemed all right with it at the premiere, but that was a professional obligation.

“You mean, do I cringe in horror and hide behind my hands?”

“Something like that.” I giggled.

“No. It was a bit difficult when I was younger, but you have to get used to it. If you can’t look at your performance honestly and objectively, then you can’t improve,” he said seriously.

“So do you spend all the time you’re watching thinking what you could have done better?” I was honestly curious about this point.

He thought for a moment. “Generally, no. Thanks to modern digital methods, we can usually play scenes back while still filming them, or right after, which means I catch any ‘false’ moments and can correct them. Plus, once you’ve wrapped and it’s in the director’s hands, you have to trust the production team. Maybe they’ll use a take you didn’t think was the best but that gives them what they were looking for.”

“So you can enjoy watching your own films?”

“Sure. Especially if it’s been some time since I last saw it.”

“Do you fancy watching something of yours then?” I asked. It might be hideously awkward, watching him while he sat beside me, but the premiere hadn’t been.

“If you like.” He grinned, pleased I would choose something of his.

“You pick.”

He thought for a moment. “Do you know what I haven’t seen for an age?”

I shook my head.

“The Deep Blue Sea. It’s not very festive, but it’s a brilliant character story.”

I frowned. “Are we talking killer sharks or the Terence Rattigan play?”

“The play,” he confirmed with a laugh.

“You weren’t in that.”

He seemed amused by my assertion.

“No, really. That had Mr. Darcy in it.” I was confused. I knew Tom wasn’t in it—I would surely have remembered.

Realization dawned, and his face cleared. “One version did, yes. Then about fifteen years later, I remade it.”

“Oh!” I laughed at my confusion. Of course he’d remade it! “Okay, let’s watch that, then.”

“Okay.”

He searched the listings. It was available, so I got us fresh drinks and we sat back to watch. As the opening credits rolled, I found myself trying to suppress a grin.

“What?” he asked me.

I shrugged.

“No, come on. What has you smiling?”

I was going to have to say something, but I couldn’t come up with a good enough evasion.

“I was just thinking that the last time I watched this play was because I had a crush on Colin Firth. Now I’m watching it again because . . . because you’re in it.”

“Just because I’m in it?”

“Yes.” My cheeks burned with embarrassment. I was still trying to hold a grin in.

“Not because you have a crush on me too?”

“Nope.”

He leaned closer and whispered in my ear, “I think you like me.”

I had to press my lips together to keep from laughing out loud, both with glee and mortification. I knew my cheeks had to be blushing bright red!

“You do, don’t you?” He continued teasing me.

I realized he wasn’t going to stop, so I turned and gave him the once-over.

“Eh, you’re no Colin Firth.”

Tom gasped and clutched at his heart. “How could you?”

It was much easier to hold my mirth in now that I was the one teasing him.

“He’s Mr. Darcy.”

Tom opened his mouth to argue, then paused. “All right, fair dues.” He turned toward the television. We both glanced at each other a moment later. As our eyes met, our facades cracked and we began laughing.

Tom reached out and took my right hand in his left, drawing it over to his thigh and leaving it there, his hand over mine. For the duration of the movie, every shift in movement brought us closer. Finally, my back rested against his chest, his right hand had possession of mine, and his left arm was wrapped around my waist.

He was very comfortable, I decided. Ikea should definitely start selling a version of him.

“So,” Tom said when the movie finished. “What did you think?” His shoulders were a little stiff with anxiety.

I sat up. “It’s still a beautiful play, and your Freddie was lovely.”

“Really?” He seemed surprised. “Most people hate Freddie.”

“I know, but most people are sexist idiots who think a man should take care of a woman and that people in a relationship should be everything to each other.”

Tom didn’t reply, and I wondered if I’d offended him somehow.

“I mean, you must empathize with Freddie to have played him so sympathetically,” I argued.

“No, I do. That’s why I was drawn to playing him, but I always approached it from the point of view of him being a soldier. His experiences cloud his worldview; he saw so much death that life becomes about living every moment to its fullest. Responsibility takes a back seat.”

“I think you’re right,” I agreed. “He’s a damaged man, but what most people miss is that Hester is a damaged woman too.”

“By Freddie,” Tom nodded.

“No, by sexism. Her husband and Freddie both have other things in their lives. She just has them.”

“So you think Hester should have got a job?” Tom’s brow furrowed as he considered my point.

“It doesn’t have to be a job, just a purpose. Something outside of her relationship that is primarily hers. Ideally a few things, actually—like work, hobbies, friends, charity work, children, hell, even a dog. But she only ever has her husband or lover. No one could be happy with only that, not even in the fifties. When they fail her, she has nothing.”

Come to think of it, Hester’s isolation mirrored mine in some ways. I shivered. I had had thoughts of suicide too, at one particularly low point in my marriage. Darren had asserted that he was enough for me, but he’d always told me that I wasn’t good enough for him. There were definite parallels there between Hester’s situation and mine, even if she wasn’t being physically abused. Though her husband had withheld sex, and maybe that was a kind of abuse.

“So are you saying I should have included that in my portrayal?” His head tilted to the side.

“Oh no, Freddie was perfect. Well, perfectly imperfect.”

He squeezed my hand.

“So what about you?” I asked. “What drew you to Freddie?”

“Because he’s so different from me, I think.” He thought for a moment. “He’s a hero, but he’s also reckless. He’s romantic but fickle. He lives completely in the moment, not worrying about what’s ahead, and that’s a trait that I’d love to have.”

“You seem to do okay living in the moment.” He’d always seemed very present. Well, except about his plans to make his film. And his impatience to be completely healed. So maybe he wasn’t quite as content with his life as I’d assumed.

“But I don’t, not really. I’ve always felt the need to do well. To get good grades, to succeed, to please people, to do my best. I worry about my ability to meet other people’s expectations—and my own. Freddie doesn’t care if he gambles away his rent money because he had fun doing it. He’s the kind of man who would spend his last pound to make you smile. He just doesn’t care where the money is coming from, or whether it doesn’t come at all.” He shrugged. “I can’t imagine living my life like that.”

“But it’s more reckless than admirable, isn’t it?”

“Undoubtedly, but there’s also something to be admired as well. Don’t you think? The ability to live in the present is so rare that we let countless happy moments pass us by because we’re so worried about what might happen in the future.”

This was starting to remind me of my parents, always so preoccupied with doing well and being financially stable that, in many ways, they’d missed out on many of the joys of life.

And wasn’t I letting fear stop me from pursuing Tom? Maybe I needed to take a leaf out of Freddie’s book.

“You’re right.” I smiled, hoping that my thoughts didn’t show on my face. “But like most things, you need a balance between looking out for your future and not missing your present.”

“Agreed.” He smiled.

“Is that why you act?” I asked. “So you can do things you wouldn’t usually?”

“Well, yes. But it’s more than that. I want to experience the whole breadth of human emotions, if I can.”

“Okay . . .” I hoped he wouldn’t take what I was about to say the wrong way. “But—and please don’t take offense at this—aren’t you just pretending?”

“Actually, no.” He smiled, so I could see he wasn’t offended. “The situations I respond to are make-believe, but my reactions to them are real, or as real as it’s possible to make them. I have to find the piece of myself that would react the same way so that my performance is true to my character, not an act.”

“But what about when you’re playing murderers? How can you find that piece of yourself?”

“I think that everyone has the capacity to be a murderer. It all depends on circumstances, doesn’t it? I’m not a murderer and I don’t want to be one, but I recognize that I’ve been very lucky. I’ve never been abused, I’ve never been dirt poor, I’ve never been around criminals, and I’ve never known real cruelty. Now, after stepping into the shoes of a few killers, I think I can better understand how some people are able to cross that line.”

“So you’re saying it’s not their fault?”

“No, I’m saying that all babies have the potential to kill. They also have the potential to do great good. No one is all good or all evil; most of us hopefully end up in the lighter shades of gray. That doesn’t mean that under the wrong circumstances we couldn’t end up like a killer on the news. Maybe what those circumstances have to be is different for everyone but while not all abused children go on to kill, all serial killers were abused as children. Monsters aren’t born, they’re created.”

“So acting helps you understand the human condition?”

“Yes!” He grinned. “If only I could put it as succinctly.”

“I love hearing your thoughts,” I said. I had one thought that had been bugging me, and I finally felt brave enough to ask. “What about when you put your heart and soul into something and it isn’t well received?”

“It hurts,” he admitted with a sigh. “If I was doing this for praise alone, then it might crush me. I’ve seen it happen to colleagues.” He shook his head regretfully. “But each role increases my understanding of human nature. If I know that I gave that character my all, I have to be satisfied that I did a good job. In the end, my performance is all I have control over, so I have to be happy with that.”

“Just like you have to get used to directors using what you don’t think is your best take?” I remembered our earlier conversation.

“Exactly.” He smiled and nodded, seemingly pleased that I got it. Then he leaned closer and confided, “But it does hurt. It’s like someone criticizing your baby. Or maybe your sister. You can criticize your own project, but it’s hard to hear it from anyone else.”

I laughed because that’s exactly how I felt about my photographs!

***

After Tom left, I began to question what had happened between us that evening. We had definitely been intimate as we sat together on the sofa. I tossed and turned all night.

Like Freddie from the play, Tom was charming. I knew that love was dangerous. I didn’t think he’d ever hit me, but that didn’t mean that he couldn’t hurt me.

Tom came from a different world, one of glitz and glamour where the women oozed sex appeal. I couldn’t compete with that. More to the point, I didn’t want to! I liked dressing up sometimes, sure, but maintaining that perfect facade would be like wearing a costume all the time.

I had done it when I was with Darren. Never again!

But could Tom accept that? I knew the work drew him to acting. It enabled him to explore aspects of humanity that he might never get to in ordinary life. Once that was done, he had to sell what he had made, which meant partaking in the show of show business. Publicity was a vital part of his job and often involved world tours that lasted for weeks.

I tried to convince myself that Tom only participated in the circus because he had to—but I knew he didn’t have to. He’d told me he started in the theater. There was no real pomp and circumstance in the theater. Sure, the show itself was styled to perfection, but if you waited at the stage door, you saw actors stripped of makeup, wearing casual—and more importantly, comfortable—clothes. Sometimes they even came out fresh from the shower.

It didn’t come more real than that.

Tom could still work in the theater, if he wanted.

I told myself that movies and television offered a greater range of parts and that was why he did them, not because he wanted fame and fortune. And he had said that he did still want to do theater work, so maybe it was all about the role for him, not the fame.

But my doubts wouldn’t let go. No matter how much I tried to tell myself that Tom wasn’t looking for that perfectly groomed veneer that Hollywood so prized, I couldn’t quite make myself believe it.

Even knowing that my own fears were driving these irrational thoughts didn’t help. After all those years of painfully carving off pieces of my personality to sculpt myself into Darren’s idea of a perfect wife, would I end up doing the same for Tom? Or always feel like I should? Did I even know how to just be myself with a man anymore?

I contemplated heading off a relationship with him before it really got started, but we had made a promise to help each other. Besides, it broke my heart to even consider it.

So really, I consoled myself, it was already too late to avoid the possibility of future pain with him. I might just as well hold on and see whether our friendship bloomed into something more, right?

As I stared at the ceiling for nearly two hours thinking about Tom, I found myself restless and squirming. It took me a bit before I realized that what I was feeling was . . . arousal! After spending all evening cuddled up against Tom, the warm scent of him still lingered in my nose.

It had been so long since I’d felt this way. God, I’d nearly forgotten what it was like! I’d bought my battery-operated boyfriend more as a gesture, two fingers up to Darren, than with any real expectation that I’d ever want to use it. Maybe tonight would be a good time to try it out?

With a huff of irritation but also a twinge of excitement, I got out of bed and found my vibrator.

I just needed to get laid, I thought half an hour later as I finally drifted off to sleep, smiling at my own bad joke.