Chapter Eight

The day before the premiere of Inside Man, Diane, Tom, and I ventured up to London, where we were booked for a two-night stay in a three-bedroom hotel suite. I’d stayed in nice hotels before but this was positively opulent! Joanna, my neighbor, had agreed to look after Buttons while I was away.

Tom had an intense afternoon of press interviews that he had to leave for almost as soon as we arrived. Most of the next day would be devoted to more interviews as well. I would dread such a thing, but Tom seemed eager.

Diane and I went shopping while he worked. I was looking for a nice little black dress for the premiere since I hadn’t brought any of the designer clothes from my married days with me. All my new clothes were rather more suited to knocking around a sleepy little seaside village. The most expensive things I owned were two dresses from Marks and Spencer. I knew I wouldn’t be photographed that evening, but all the other women there were bound to be dressed up. I’d be damned if I was going to let the side down.

Unfortunately, all the little black dresses I found were rather soulless. I flipped past dress after dress, feeling increasingly frustrated. Diana came to check on my progress, of which there was none. She frowned as I held up one.

“Kelsey, this simply won’t do! You might as well wear a Stepford Wives uniform as any of these!” She clicked her tongue over the offerings.

I nodded dismally, feeling on the verge of tears. Granted, my reaction might have been colored by having been Darren’s wife, dressed in designer garb while crumbling inside. I had always been so terrified at not looking up to his standards whenever he took me out to some fancy party. Those nights nearly always ended with a new bruise or two.

Oh God, what have I set myself up for by going out to another fancy event with a man so clearly out of my league?

We heard a small snort and turned to find one of the store clerks hovering nearby. I nearly cringed, thinking we’d offended the woman. She just grimaced and rolled her eyes.

“Sorry, I’ve just never heard someone put it so succinctly before,” she whispered in a conspiratorial tone after a quick glance around. “We have a new buyer who apparently thinks bland is the new black! You might have better luck in the shop three doors down, though.”

“Oh God, thank you for the tip! I was beginning to worry it was just me!”

The woman laughed. “It’s not just you!” She tilted her head at the door, mouthing, “Run!”

Diana grabbed my hand. Giggling like schoolgirls, we scooted out of that dismal shop.

The shop she recommended was brilliant! It had a sort of vintage vibe that I confess I was instantly drawn to.

Inside it was tiny—well, London rents aren’t cheap!—and it carried a handful of lower-end designer labels. The dresses all seemed to be vintage inspired, from about the 1920s onward, but most were in fifties’ and sixties’ styles. I found some lovely choices and went into the changing rooms with four different dresses. Diana passed me a fifth while I was changing.

I eventually chose an off-the-shoulder lace dress in burgundy, which had an A-line skirt, but I didn’t get the petticoats to fill it out. It would be perfect for the premiere. I also bought an emerald rockabilly wraparound dress that tied at the waist because Diana gasped and insisted I get it when I emerged from the dressing room.

Tom had offered to get us tickets to a show for that first evening, but knowing how much traveling he had coming up, both Diane and I refused, preferring to share a nice, quiet dinner in the hotel’s restaurant.

The next day, Tom ventured down to the conference rooms where the interviews were scheduled. Diane and I went to the hotel spa. They broke us down with facials and deep-tissue massages, and then after a delicious lunch and a soak in the hot tub, they pampered and primped us to perfection. When we returned to the hotel room we just had to slip into our dresses.

Tom was running late, but Diane assured me that was par for the course with these things.

When he did return, we made him take his time and not rush. The red carpet wasn’t going anywhere. He’d had his suit specially tailored to be roomy in the legs, and his balloons weren’t visible at all. He intentionally didn’t have them filled before, as they left his skin feeling irritated and itchy, and he wouldn’t have any more fills while he was away. He knew it would put his operation back a few weeks, but I couldn’t fault his choice.

Tom intentionally skipped his physiotherapy on the day of the premiere so that he wasn’t in pain on the red carpet, especially since it could take a while to get from one end to the other, but he clearly felt a little cramped after sitting for most of the day. He paced around the suite while Diane and I put our jewelry on and had a final check in the mirror.

“You both look lovely,” he told us as he came up behind us, smiling and giving us each a peck on the cheek.

“You too,” I said, reaching up without thought and smoothing an imaginary wrinkle on his lapel. I snatched my hand back, blushing. I think a tuxedo is one of the sexiest things a man can wear, and Tom wore his very well.

And so, with a woman on each arm, he escorted us down to the waiting limousine.

The car dropped Diane and me off first, on one side of Leicester Square—I had dubbed it the “hoi polloi entrance”—where friends, family, reviewers, and other assorted noncelebrities entered the building. Still, even if we weren’t famous, the atmosphere in the square was infectious. The excitement of the crowds soon cheered Diane and me. We paused by the entrance just to see how Tom was doing. He looked to be in his element, laughing with someone who held a microphone in his face.

We ventured inside and to the bar area so we could have a drink while we waited for the movie to start. To begin with, it was just us regular folk but as time went on, more and more famous faces appeared.

Tom joined us after about forty-five minutes, and we made our way into the cinema to see what all the fuss was about.

I caught Tom watching me a few times during the movie. I realized that I was one of the people he was enjoying seeing react.

The movie was more Mission Impossible than Jason Bourne, but it had more levity than both of those franchises combined. The humor didn’t detract from the plot or turn the movie into a farce, though. Tom was brilliant, naturally.

We ventured to the after-party next, and Tom stopped to answer a few more questions on the way into the club from the reporters and paparazzi who were assembled there.

I was worried that since the after-party was in a nightclub it would be all loud music that we couldn’t talk over. While there was music, there were quieter areas where we could mingle and chat.

I think Tom wanted to dance. I saw him cast many longing looks toward the dance floor, but obviously he couldn’t right then—certainly not to the up-tempo stuff they were playing. Fortunately, so many of his friends and colleagues were eager to chat with him that he didn’t have a lot of time to pine for his dancing days.

A few of Tom’s celebrity friends chatted with me. Although I was awkward to begin with, I soon realized that they were perfectly normal people, just perhaps a little more charismatic than us regular folks, and I relaxed.

From across the room, I noticed Tom start to flag and wince sometimes. To be honest, I think I had reached my limits of social interaction, so I suggested we return to the hotel. Tom tried to insist I stay, but I reminded him that I was a bit of an introvert and was more than ready to leave.

Diane agreed. As we traveled back to the hotel, I had to marvel at my evening. I was amazed that even though I was nervous, I had ventured away from my only two friends there and had actually conversed with strangers—some of them incredibly famous strangers! I wouldn’t say I was brimming with confidence, but I had come a long way from the mouse who lived under Darren’s thumb.

Diane took herself off to her bedroom. Tom and I decided to order a midnight snack as the buffet at the after-party hadn’t really made up for missing a meal. We tucked into posh hamburgers and fries while Tom quizzed me about the movie and shared a few anecdotes from making it, such as how one of the extras had tripped and fallen into the pool during a scene but because the take was good, it had stayed in the movie.

We stayed up later than we should have, I think because we would be separated the next day. I almost offered to go with him again but I reminded myself that he still had a girlfriend.

When we finally did turn in, I slept fitfully and awoke unrefreshed.

Tom left at noon to take the train to France for the next premiere the following night. Then Germany, Italy, the Americas, and finally China. He would be very busy for a while.

I hugged him goodbye for longer than was probably appropriate and made him promise to text and phone.

I was going to miss him something rotten.

***

Tom called me from France the next evening, after he finished for the day. I can’t actually remember much of what we talked about, but the call lasted for nearly an hour.

The day after, he texted me in between interviews. I sent him a few funny pictures to keep his spirits up. He called again that night, and the next. I offered to call him sometimes because I knew international calls could be hellishly expensive, but he wouldn’t hear of it.

I looked up a few of his interviews. He might have been wearing makeup to cover the shadows under his eyes, but I could tell he was tired by his demeanor. Less sparkle, more serious.

During my search for clips, I was surprised to find a couple of pictures of me! From the dates, I think they were taken soon after he’d had the balloons implanted in his leg. The surgery rumors probably tempted a few paparazzi to come and see how he was. Then the week of rain stopped us walking on the beach and I guess the paps moved on to bigger and better things. I wasn’t sure how I felt about being photographed without my knowledge. It left a slightly bad taste in my mouth, but I wasn’t named in the pictures and we weren’t doing anything noteworthy, so I let it go and decided not to dwell on it.

Although, wasn’t that around the time when my car got keyed?

I’m terrible at remembering dates so I couldn’t be sure. It didn’t seem to matter anyway. Nothing else had happened since I’d started parking it on Diane’s driveway.

I’d known that being in public with Tom meant possibly being photographed, but it was an abstract concept that I’d been prepared to risk. Now it had actually happened I reconsidered my stance. Once again, I decided that being with him was worth the risk of a few snaps being taken. We weren’t doing anything wrong, after all.

In many of the interviews I watched, the interviewers asked about his injuries. He explained, time and again, that he was having surgery sometime next year and should soon be fully recovered. He played down the pain and discomfort he was in but he was honest about his frustration with his lack of mobility.

Some interviewers even asked if they could see his leg, which I thought was intrusive. Tom evidently agreed, as he remained polite but declined in no uncertain terms. Honestly, how would those people feel about someone demanding that they strip off in front of cameras to display their own scars?

The phone calls got a little trickier when he flew to the States because by the time he was generally finished for the day, I was sound asleep—and usually had been for a few hours. We texted a lot, though.

While searching for interviews, I saw pictures of him with Evelyn, taken at the New York premiere.

I’d almost forgotten about her, but here she was, once again rearing her ugly head and reminding me that Tom wasn’t available.

I suppose I’d been romanticizing our friendship. Because we got on so well together, I allowed myself to think that becoming a couple was inevitable, just a matter of me deciding I was ready.

I tried to tell myself that it didn’t matter—because I wasn’t ready. I would probably never be ready.

Evelyn might not last, and I was almost certain she wouldn’t. Just looking at her hanging on his arm, I realized that he needed an Evelyn, not a Kelsey.

Evelyn went to premieres and was happy to be on his arm while attending events. Kelsey liked taking the plebeian entrance and left Tom to walk the red carpet alone.

Evelyn would not give paparazzi beach snaps a second thought. Kelsey thought they were sleazy.

Evelyn looked every inch the Hollywood babe: slim, tall, and with a mane of long, lustrous, perfectly styled hair hanging to the middle of her back. Kelsey was tall, average build, with a very nice but rather boring shoulder-length brown bob.

And yes, I realize that thinking about myself in the third person is odd. I’ll bet Evelyn doesn’t do strange things like that.

Tom managed to call a couple of times, but the ease we’d had before seemed to have gone. Things felt stifled and awkward. Part of that might be my fault, but I also thought Tom had changed. I imagined it was because Evelyn was in the room with him when he called, or she wasn’t far away. Maybe he’d needed a reminder that he had a girlfriend too.

I missed Tom and our easy conversations, but I wasn’t about to sit around and pine for him.

In the afternoons when we would have gone for a walk, or he would come and share tea with me if the weather was bad, I went out and took landscape photographs. I’d been neglecting nature recently as I worked mostly at the artist’s studio.

When it rained, I went to the studio and tried to find ways to make sound waves in water more visible.

I bought a large bass amp—secondhand from a pawn shop—but no matter where I put it or how powerful the bass, it just didn’t create enough movement in the water. I stripped the amp down so I could see the speaker cone and set about building something unique, namely a water tank with a plastic sheeting base so that the speaker directly moved the water as it vibrated. I opted for black plastic and shone bright, neon lights through the water, which would show up nicely against the black.

I jerry-rigged something from an old fish tank by cutting a large hole in the bottom and covering it with a watertight film of pond liner sealed with wax at the edges. I put red, blue, green, and yellow lights on each side, shining through the water. As music played, I photographed it from above.

The results were stunning! Seriously, after I played around to get things right, they wildly exceeded my expectations.

I turned the color saturation up digitally, but I knew these photographs would be the ones I displayed in the studio’s art show next year—if I chose to enter.

Diane went to the December show with me, but by that time I hadn’t quite perfected my technique with the speaker. In fact, I’d killed a speaker that very morning when my attempt at a watertight seal proved less than effective.

I was intimidated by some of the work on display, which felt far superior to mine. I tried not to make comparisons, especially since most of the mediums on display were so different from photography.

Tom phoned that evening. He sounded tired, which might have thawed me slightly as the conversation flowed once again. I told him all about my efforts to connect a speaker to a water tank, and he told me what he’d learned from his director, who was also on the press tour. He had allowed Tom to pick his brain in regards to the short movie he wanted to make. There were a few things he couldn’t answer, mainly about UK entertainment law, but Tom had some British friends who had directing experience and he would talk to them when he got home, he told me.

And then I had to poke the elephant in the room and ask how Evelyn was.