London Celebrity @LondonCelebrity. 3h
The curtain goes up; the actress goes down. Elaine Graham’s dramatic collapse at the Metronome caught on camera...ow.ly/QT4Qh
Lainie entirely blamed the rain-splattered Fun Run. She never exercised, and she never got sick. Then she ran a 5k and had to take to her bed like an ailing spinster. Coincidence? She thought not.
It began innocently enough with a mild headache before the evening show. Fortunately, Meghan’s handbag contained enough pills and potions to stock a small pharmacy, and Lainie was able to pinch a couple of ibuprofen tablets. The stash also included a jumbo-sized box of condoms. Meghan’s usual workday must be a lot more exciting than her own.
Instead of improving after the medication, the nagging ache in her temples became a full marching band of drummers by the second act.
Will had picked a bad night to behave like a complete tosser.
Things seemed slightly off from the first line of the opening scene. Lainie was jumpy and fidgety, and for the first time ever, the adrenaline rush didn’t wear off after the curtain had risen. She continued to be hyper-aware of her senses: the dust motes dancing in the beams of stage lighting, the swishing silk of her skirts, the smell of paint and turpentine from the backdrop touch-ups that afternoon.
Will was even worse. He was speaking too loudly, moving a little too deliberately, and he’d turned handsy. Every time they had a scene together, he was right up in her face and touching her as much as possible.
The unacknowledged catalyst for all of the upheaval was Richard. Richard, and herself, and the odd new vibe between them. To give him his due, he wasn’t really doing anything to be provocative. His performance was a lot more consistent than hers or Will’s. But the episode on the couch that morning seemed to have crashed through an invisible barrier. The tension between them was humming. It was as if there was an electric wire that connected her gaze to his, and when their eyes met—sparks.
Bob, in a hurried word at intermission, congratulated her on putting up a good show of chemistry. “But maybe tone it down a notch during performances. You’re supposed to be passionately in love with Geoffrey at the moment, not eyeing up Bandero’s codpiece.”
Margaret was even more blunt: “You are aware that the entire audience is waiting for the plot twist where you boot Will off the stage and fall on Richard like a rampaging tiger?”
If the theory of Lainie and Richard as a couple had bothered Will, the visual evidence of their attraction was proving too much for him. He had never played his antagonism toward Richard’s character with such convincing fervour. Richard, in his turn, was slowly being driven to react. There was a subtle edge to his voice as he spoke his lines, and that small show of disquiet was so unusual for him that Lainie was taken aback.
The crowning misfortune was that Richard’s character was present onstage when she threw herself at Will for their love scene. Her own character, Julietta, was defiant and uncaring of an audience to her passion. Lainie did not share her nonchalance. She had always felt awkward kissing Will within five feet of Richard, even when the latter had been a more distant thorn in her side. The audience was at least separated from the action by a certain amount of physical distance and the metaphorical fourth wall. It gave an illusion of privacy under the hot lights.
Richard was standing close enough to measure their breathing patterns.
And Will didn’t help matters by deciding to chuck professional standards out the window and involve his tongue in what should be a solely smoke-and-mirrors-and-platonic-lips manoeuvre.
He was lucky she wasn’t a violent person and that she valued her career prospects, or he would have come away from the encounter with a bloody chin. It took considerable effort not to wipe her mouth with the back of her hand. She glared daggers at him even as she smiled and swayed into his hold, apparently besotted and aroused.
There was a loud crack when Richard set down the tankard of coloured water he was holding. His eyes were glinting as he watched them. Usually, he played his part in this scene with amused boredom: the malevolent aristocrat who viewed the lower-class Julietta as a negligible speck on his horizon, a gullible bug to be crushed beneath his boot. It was not, Lainie had always thought, much of a stretch for his acting abilities. She was fairly sure he had considered her a sort of human prop in the past. An irritating prop that walked and talked, had deplorable taste in men, and wouldn’t stay where it was put.
Richard, as Bandero, said something snide; Will retaliated, and Richard suddenly grabbed him by the throat. They were nose to nose, and the atmosphere had nothing to do with pretence. Lainie thankfully seized upon her cue and darted from the stage, crossing her fingers and uttering a silent prayer that they made it through to the curtain with no incidents. One thing to be thankful for: Alexander Bennett wasn’t in the house tonight, so they wouldn’t be hauled over the carpet tomorrow morning for unprofessional behaviour.
Her throat was scratchy, and she went to beg another over-the-counter remedy from Meghan.
Her dresser frowned and touched a palm to her forehead. “You do look a bit flushed. How bad do you feel?”
“Bit achy.” Lainie looked at the bottles of cough syrup Meghan held in each hand and chose the children’s version with the picture of the giraffe on the box. Artificial cherry flavouring was one of her secret vices. “I hope I’m not coming down with something.”
“After what I’ve been hearing about you and Troy, I suspect a brainstorm at the very least.”
“Yes, well, there’s a story there. I’ll fill you in at some point.” Lainie swallowed a dose of medicine. “Don’t worry. I haven’t lost my mind just yet.”
Haven’t you?
She ignored that traitorous little voice within and put a hand to her temple. She couldn’t wait to get home to bed. She was starting to feel nauseous and the memory of the blueberry pancakes was coming back to haunt her.
“I’m not sure we can say the same for your menfolk,” Meghan said. They could hear the raised voices from the stage as Will and Richard warmed up to their altercation. “I was actually kidding when I wished they would make more judicious use of their swords.”
Lainie was plucking restlessly at the fastenings of her gown, and Meghan pushed her fingers away and loosened them for her. “Careful. You can’t have them too loose or the show is going to go unexpectedly burlesque. You have too much up top to run around unsupported.” She retied the ribbons. “And your feminine charms are obviously potent enough. Ten quid says one of them ends up a barbecue skewer yet.”
The callboy signalled to Lainie before she could retort. With a muffled growl, she shimmied her skirts back into place and returned to the wings to await her cue. Only a couple more pages of dialogue to get through. Then she could take Chloe’s dagger through the neck and drowse in her dressing room until the curtain call.
She was pallid and shaky by the time she performed her final scene. Her onstage death had never been more convincing. Richard caught her arm as she wobbled past him in the wings. He frowned down at her, the movement cutting a line through his heavy makeup. He was quite revolting in full costume. Dissipated wasn’t the word for it. He looked as if he’d spent the past thirty years draining the contents of a distillery and neglecting to wash his hair.
“Are you all right?” he asked sharply. He put a large, cool hand to her forehead. She wished people would stop doing that. Her swipe at his fingers was feeble, and he looked even more concerned. “You look shocking.”
“Look who’s talking. You’re probably single-handedly keeping the hair-oil industry solvent with this production.”
“Go and lie down. Before you fall down.”
Meghan was waiting to help her remove the bloodstained items of clothing before she had to reappear on the stage, and he spoke brusquely to her. “Get the medic to have a look at her.”
“I don’t need a doctor! I’m fine.”
Her traitorous body succumbed to a coughing fit, and he raised his eyes to the heavens. “Medic,” he repeated to Meghan. “Now.”
The callboy gestured urgently for Richard’s cue, and he returned to the stage with a reluctant glance back at her.
“You heard the man,” Meghan said. “Get off your feet and I’ll find someone to stick a thermometer in your ear.”
Lainie glared at her. “Since when do you listen to the greasy dictator out there?” She stamped off toward her dressing room, aware she was being a total pill.
Her mood was not improved by the doctor, who had latent comedy ambitions and kept up a running stream of jokes about treating the walking dead. She, like the proverbial Queen Vic, was not amused. By the time Meghan half carried her back to the stage for the curtain call, she was drowsy and feeling strangely detached from her legs. She walked forward when nudged, and listened, as if from a distance, to the rolling thunder of applause. Will’s hand was slippery with sweat, and she kept dropping his fingers.
“What’s wrong with you?” he hissed close to her ear as they took the full cast bow. She wavered, and he made a grab for her. “Jesus! Stand up!”
Lainie turned a look of dignified reproach on him. “I’m fine,” she said, very clearly.
And then she passed out on a West End stage in front of two thousand people.
* * *
Sight and sound returned with considerable force and volume. She opened her eyes in the epicentre of a furious argument. Masculine voices snapped back and forth above her aching head, and she blearily tried to focus on who or what was responsible for the racket.
“I think I can manage to get her home without your assistance, thanks.”
She knew that biting sarcasm. Blinking, she raised her eyes and looked up at the underside of Richard’s stubbled chin. She was close enough to his skin that she could see the paint contouring on his jaw. She watched, fascinated, as her own finger came up and rubbed at the makeup, helping to blend in a smudgy line. That brought his face down to look at her, and his hand closed around her raised fingers, squeezing them.
His smile was grim—a thin, compressed slash in his bony face. She touched that too, feeling the smooth softness of his lips, testing their resilience. At her movements, the smile became a little more genuine and some of the tension eased from his shoulders. “You’re hell on wheels for my blood pressure, Tig.”
A muscle flexed under her shoulders. She became at least half-aware of her surroundings. Scenery flats towered above her, seeming far taller than usual, and there was a strong smell of paint. She was down on the floor backstage, on Richard’s lap and in his arms.
“Tig?” repeated an incredulous voice, and she rolled her head against Richard’s chest to look at Will.
He was looming above them, glowering down like an enraged genie. “She should be in bed,” he said between clenched teeth. “The doc said she needs rest and fluids. Not a cuddle on a damp floor.” He added snidely, “And being quite familiar with her bed, I’m happy to transport her there. I can also do it less conspicuously, in a car that doesn’t look like the Batmobile.”
Richard completely ignored him. He was still looking down at Lainie. With the pad of his thumb, he rubbed gently between her eyebrows, exactly where the worst of the pain was grumbling. “I know you were bowled over this morning, but this seems a bit extreme.”
She closed her eyes on a wave of nausea and snuggled her nose into his neck. “Prick,” she murmured.
“And on that sentimental note...” Richard rose to a standing position, still holding her. Even in her semi-comatose state, she was impressed that he accomplished the move with no visible staggering or hopping to keep his balance. It would have been a bit of an anticlimax with Will’s critical glare fastened on them.
Meghan drifted in and out of sight with her belongings, and Lainie felt herself being lowered into a car. Camera flashes went off, voices clamoured, and Richard snarled something over his shoulder. He kept his body angled protectively in front of the open door, keeping her out of range for decent shots. The interior of the car was spongy and warm—her old friend, the Ferrari, again. Lainie stroked the leather seat and drifted off to sleep.
She was lying on her own bed the next time she woke, which was such a relief that she almost cried. Wonderful, familiar hands were helping her into her pyjamas. She blinked up at her mother. “Mum?”
“Bonus of having such a notorious daughter.” Rachel Graham smoothed down Lainie’s vest top. “When she takes a nosedive onstage, I read about it online five minutes later.” She pushed back a lock of Lainie’s sweat-tumbled red hair and smiled down at her. “You never did do things in a small way, did you, darling?”
“Oh.” Lainie groaned and scrubbed her hands over her face. “I’m so not going to be happy about that when my head returns to normal size. Where’s Richard?”
Her mum’s eyebrows rose archly. “Your devoted swains are sitting in opposite chairs in the lounge, looking like thunder. I suspect words would be exchanged at some volume if it weren’t for my inhibiting presence. As it is, they’re quietly growling and snarling at one another like a couple of territorial bulldogs. You do lead an interesting life, poppet.”
“Will’s here too?” Lainie turned her cheek on the pillow, trying to find a cool spot. “Can you please get rid of him, Mum?”
“With great pleasure.” Like Sarah, Rachel had borne the brunt of Lainie’s initial reaction to the Crystalle situation. Without going so far as her husband’s threats of castration, her opinion of Will was short and brutal. She pulled the covers up, resisting her daughter’s attempts to kick them away. “In another five minutes, you’ll be freezing. That temperature is raging.” At the door, she paused. “And shall I also eject the other brooding presence?”
Lainie mumbled something into the pillow, and her mother hid a smile. “I’ll tell him he can come back for a few minutes in the morning, shall I?”
Will at his most belligerent was a puny opponent for her mother. Lainie heard the altercation, and he was ousted from the flat in less than sixty seconds. Richard was made of sterner stuff. It took her mum almost five minutes to get rid of him, and he insisted on having another look at Lainie before he left.
The bed dipped as he sat on the edge of it, his eyes fixed on her face. She stared miserably back, and he unexpectedly leaned down to kiss the spot on her forehead where the imprint of his thumb still teased. “I’ll be back to check on you in the morning,” he said. “Try not to succumb in the interim.”
“Following your Pat orders?” Lainie asked drowsily, and he snorted.
“Completely flouting them.” There was a tiny note of bewilderment beneath the sardonic words, as if he was surprised by his own behaviour. “I’ve been commanded to stay well out of the infection zone. They don’t want to inflict more than one understudy at a time on a paying audience.”
“Oh.” Lainie’s fevered brain struggled to cooperate. “Maybe you should stay away.”
“I have no doubt whatsoever that I should stay away.” He touched a light hand to her hair and stood up. “Nevertheless, I shall see you tomorrow.”
* * *
It was still dark outside when Richard followed Lainie’s landlady back up the stairs to her flat the following morning. And he was still on edge.
He’d been trying to keep his focus away from Lainie when she’d taken a header into the stage floor and just about given him a fucking coronary. He’d been less immersed in his role than usual, partly due to Farmer’s unprofessional stirring. He could cheerfully have thrown Lainie’s ex-lover the length of the theatre. He had never liked Farmer. The antipathy was mutual, and now personal.
He wasn’t used to worrying about someone. He’d pushed the speed limit to get her home from the theatre and away from the vulture press, thankful that he possessed a comfortable car for her. He hadn’t realised her skin could go several shades whiter than her usual shade of pale. The spots of burning red on her cheeks and the purple smudges beneath her lashes had prevented her from looking like a black-and-white still.
He approved of her mother. Rachel Graham had calm eyes and a no-bullshit demeanour. And a way of handling Farmer that was almost artistic. He’d been less appreciative when she’d tried to evict him, as well.
He coolly returned Cat Richard’s stare when he passed the lounging lump on the landing. The cat looked heavily disapproving, but could be feeling euphoric for all anyone would know. It was not a pretty face.
Twinsies. Jesus.
He knocked on the door, only just overcoming the instinct to walk straight through and into Lainie’s bedroom.
Rachel answered the summons. She examined him thoughtfully, her eyes moving from his head to the soles of his boots. It was difficult to read anything into her expression. She would have made a very good Rosalind.
Her daughter was more of a Beatrice.
“How is she?” He moved forward, forcing her to take a step back and let him into the flat.
“Good morning.” Rachel had an empty coffee cup in her hand, which she took into the kitchen. “Her temperature is still up. She’s asleep.”
Without waiting for further permission, he walked down the tiny hallway to the equally miniscule bedroom. Lainie was curled up in the middle of a double bed that left very little remaining floor space. The room smelled like her. Flowery. Sweet. With a slight undertone of sweat at the moment.
He sat gingerly on the edge of the bed, looking down at her, and touched his hand to her face. Her forehead and cheeks were burning hot against his fingertips. He smoothed his hand over her forehead, stroking back the damp, matted red hair.
She looked bloody awful, and he said as much to her mother.
Rachel’s gaze moved to where he rubbed his thumb in a rectangular pattern on Lainie’s collarbone. “It’s a nasty bug. But she’ll be fine.”
Once more, the feeling that was attempting to crawl up his throat from his chest had nothing to do with a solely physical attraction, and he intensely disliked the sensation it left in its wake.
“Of course she will.” She had the flu in the twenty-first century, not the bubonic plague in the seventeenth. He took her hand in his. With little awareness of his actions, he brushed her knuckles back and forth across his lips.
Rachel gathered a pile of dirty washing and quietly left the room. She looked thoughtful.
* * *
Lainie’s existence had narrowed to a series of brief, uncomfortable intervals between naps. Her mum stayed in her flat, sleeping on her couch—fortunately with no idea what other activities occasionally took place upon its cushions—and ferried her back and forth from the loo. They both balked at assisted showering, but Rachel did hover outside the bathroom door and insisted it be left open a crack so she could hear if Lainie face-planted into the tiles.
“I’ll shut my eyes and grab for a towel if I have to come in and save you. Although in case you’ve forgotten, fruit of my loins, I have seen your bare bottom before.”
“There was less of it then,” Lainie managed to retort through her congested misery.
Richard was quite often present during her periods of consciousness, and even Will made a number of determined appearances. She was amazed he even ventured past her bedroom door. He wasn’t the type to mop a fevered brow and hold back hair to facilitate puking. It might be gratifying if he didn’t spend ninety percent of his visits scowling at Richard.
She would usually be self-conscious about men sitting by her bedside when she hadn’t had the strength to wash her hair. However, it was hard to care when she felt like something that had recently been dug out of a sarcophagus.
Her fever peaked on the third day, and she was almost delirious when Richard forced his way past her mother. The back of his hand pressed against her forehead and her cheeks.
“Shouldn’t she be getting better by now? Does she need the hospital?” he asked through a fog. Her mum’s voice was a low, soothing murmur. She smiled into her pillow. He was getting the “oh, these silly children” parental tone. Her dad never managed quite the same blend of reassurance and condescension.
Then she was drifting again in a pleasant, dozy sea, carried along on a boat of Paracetamol. Will swam by at one point, and she hastily rowed away. He tried to steal her hand, and she jerked it free of his grasp.
“Don’t touch her.” It was a captain’s voice. Cool. Commanding.
Will, sneering, “Think you have exclusive rights, do you?”
“I think she doesn’t even want your hands on her when she’s unconscious. Wise woman.”
Blessed quiet, and a sense of receding heat. Her eyes opened a crack. The room was dim and the strip of visible window between the curtains was black. Night. There was someone sitting on her bed. She could smell warmth and spice and man.
“Will?” she asked blearily, apprehensively.
A hand gently touched her cracked lips. “No. The better option.”
She closed her eyes again and smiled against his fingers. “Richard.”
The stroking touch moved to her cheek and played at the edge of her hairline.
“You smell nice,” she said drowsily.
“Thank you. You smell like cherries and chemicals. I think it’s the cough syrup.”
“Sorry.” The word was a sigh.
“It grows on you.”
“What happened to Will?” she asked, a faint frown tugging at her brows. “Did he drown?”
There was a long pause. “Not unless he took a very circuitous route home via the Thames.” And, with an edge, “Do you want him?”
She moved her head fractionally on the pillow. It hurt too much to shake. He shifted, and she quickly moved her hand. Gripped a knee. “Don’t go.”
A feather-soft kiss on the tip of her nose, so lightly that it might have been part of the dream. “I’m not. Not yet.”
“‘S it late?”
“Almost midnight.”
“Tired.”
“Sleep, then.” Another light touch on her cheek.
“No. You. Tired.”
“I’m all right. I’m a hardy soul. Unlike those wee weaklings who go to pieces after one workout.”
“It was raining.”
She heard his muffled laugh.
“Play,” she muttered. Worry was niggling at her, but she couldn’t quite...
“Certainly, if you think you’re up to it. I vote for strip poker.”
Her body temperature was still at a level where humour didn’t resonate. “No,” she managed crossly. “Play.”
“Is surviving without you, although only just. Your understudy is rubbish.” He rubbed her fingers. “Don’t worry about it yet. The theatre-going public are still getting their night out and their box of Smarties, and Farmer is leaving the stage in one piece on a regular basis.”
“Don’t hurt him,” she said sleepily. She arched her back against the mattress, impatient with the persistent ache in her joints.
He slid a hand beneath her hips, gently kneading up her spine, and she made a soft sound of relief.
“Don’t moan like that,” he ordered with a husky half laugh. His face was close to hers; she could feel the tickle of his hair against her ear. “It gives me ideas, and the timing is inappropriate.”
“Sicko.” She smiled again without opening her eyes.
“Yes, you are. Hence my hesitation.” His breath fanned her ear as he spoke. “You seem awfully concerned about Farmer there, Tig.” He nudged her cheek with his nose. “You’re obviously delirious in your weakened state. Repeat after me: I have no interest in Will Farmer.”
“No interest,” Lainie murmured obediently, and Richard carefully tucked a piece of hair behind her ear.
“He’s an ugly bastard who doesn’t have a quarter of Richard’s talent.”
“Richard...no talent...”
“We’ll work on the deplorable ad-libbing when you’re better.”
* * *
Four days after her mortifying collapse, Lainie woke in the evening with a clear head. Her aches had dulled and her stomach had settled, and she felt almost like a rational human being again.
Her mother looked up from the armchair at the foot of the bed and smiled. “Feeling a bit better? You’ve lost that dazed look and your colour is better.” She put down her iPad and studied her daughter approvingly. “Yes, definite improvement. You look mildly hungover, which is at least five steps up from yesterday’s corpse.”
Lainie ran her hand over her midriff, grimacing at the clammy feel of her top. “Always supportive, Mum, thanks.” She looked around the bedroom. Despite the endless parade of sweating, tossing, turning and vomiting, it looked cleaner than usual. “Did you vacuum in here while I was out of it?”
“I also dusted, and I rearranged your wardrobe. Trousers at the left end, dresses at the right. This is a very small flat, Lainie.”
“Meaning there was nothing else to do?”
“Meaning it wouldn’t kill you to clean more often.”
“I do clean. On Sundays.” Not every Sunday, but most...well, some.
Rachel propped up the pillows behind Lainie’s shoulders and helped her to sit up. “Do you think you can manage something to eat? I haven’t been able to get more than a cup of instant soup down you the last few days. You won’t have the energy to walk to the loo soon. What about some toast? A boiled egg?”
It had been a long time since her mother had brought her a sickbed tray. Lainie thought back to her school days. “Marmite toast?” she suggested, weighing the suggestion against any lingering nausea. It sounded quite tasty. She must be on the mend.
“Marmite toast it is. I’ll bring you a cup of tea.”
“You’re a goddess among women.”
She was shattered after eating the toast and standing up for a proper shower, but the joy of clean hair was worth the wobbly legs. Lainie lay back against a mound of pillows and carefully combed through the long, wet strands.
“What time is it?”
Her mum looked up from her book. “Almost ten o’clock.” Correctly interpreting the reason for the question, she added, “The show will be over soon.”
“I’ve missed three performances,” she realised, dismayed, and her mother shrugged.
“It was hardly avoidable, darling. You couldn’t even sit up without assistance. I’d say you’re going to miss at least two more while we build your strength back up. You couldn’t possibly make it through three hours onstage like this.”
“They’ll probably revert me to the understudy.”
“Nonsense. Don’t let the post-flu blues take over. You’ll be back to work by the weekend. Put that phone down.”
Lainie didn’t look up from her dialling. “I’m just checking my voice mail.” As she listened to the automated voice, she asked, trying to make the question casual and failing, “Has Richard really been here every day?”
The fake indifference didn’t fool her mother. Rachel looked amused, and more than a little speculative. “He’s not too good at taking no for an answer, is he? Yes, he’s been here every day. Every morning without fail, usually before I was dressed, and each night after the show. I imagine we can expect his charming company shortly.”
Lainie hit the button to listen to her messages and cast her mother a quick, concerned glance. “He hasn’t been rude to you, has he?”
Rachel considered. “No. Not rude. Fairly abrupt, but I gather that’s a personality quirk and not a cause for personal offence. And I think any curtness stemmed from concern about you. He’s looked almost as bad as you have, my sweet. The stubble grows more alarming with each passing day. I assume he doesn’t have to shave for his role.”
“No, they actually add more hair,” Lainie said, deleting a message from Bob. He was definitely not a priority call right now. She traced the pattern on the bedcovers. “Has he been worried?”
She could remember snatches of conversation. Gloriously strong hands. Whispers of kisses. Comfort.
“In his very stoic, sarcastic manner, darling,” Rachel said lightly, “I’d say that was an understatement.” She tilted her head. “Do you know, despite his unfortunate manner, I think you might have done all right there. He’s a step up on Will, who unsurprisingly has been a bloody nuisance.”
Lainie made a face and deleted another unimportant message. “He’s only hovering again because of Richard. He can’t stand him.”
Rachel snorted. “The feeling is clearly mutual. I thought about baby-proofing the room when they were here together. No sharp or heavy objects in easy reach.” Her narrowed eyes were mischievous. “I had thought you shared Will’s dislike.”
The flush that crept into Lainie’s cheeks had nothing to do with fever. She avoided her mother’s amused gaze. “I...it’s complicated.”
“You’re not updating your relationship status on Facebook. I don’t think it’s at all complicated. Unless you go around kissing and cuddling all of your castmates, in which case we need to have a word about priorities. And I don’t recall you muttering anyone else’s name in your delirium.”
“Mum.” Lainie’s face was burning now. She started to reply, but broke off when she heard her agent’s voice. “Message from Carey. Shit. I should have let her know I’ve been sick.”
“Richard rang her.”
Lainie’s head shot up. “Richard rang her?”
“Eye on the ball, that one.”
She wasn’t sure how she felt about that, but Carey’s three-day-old message wasn’t going to pause to let her reflect. She listened, and her hand stilled on the blankets. When Carey’s clipped, businesslike tones came to a halt and she had ended the call with a brief, “I hope you’re feeling better soon,” Lainie glanced at her watch and then tapped the screen to bring up her agent’s number. She followed Carey on Twitter, so she knew she was regularly awake and still working at this time.
“Problem?” Rachel asked, watching her daughter’s impatient fidgeting.
“It’s that period drama I auditioned for,” Lainie told her, putting her finger over the receiver hole in case Carey picked up while she was speaking. “The adaptation of Mollie Blair’s Somerset County. The casting director bumped up the callbacks to this week. They wanted me to come in yesterday.”
“Oh, dear. Can you reschedule?”
“I hope so. I—hi, Carey, it’s Lainie...Yes, just starting to improve, thanks. Look, I just got your message about the Somerset County audition, and...Oh. Is there any chance of rescheduling? I think that...Yes. Yes, I know...I see...Yeah. It is unfortunate.” Lainie scrunched up her face, and Rachel made a sympathetic grimace in response. “Okay...Yes, might as well have a look at it. You never know...Okay, thanks, Carey. Talk to you in a couple of days.”
She ended the call and stared down at the phone. “Crap.”
“No joy, obviously.”
“No. Apparently the producer has a one-shot policy. Show up at your allotted time, or don’t show up at all.”
“I’m sorry, darling.”
Lainie set her phone aside and leaned back against her pillows. She felt completely drained of both energy and enthusiasm. “Me too. I really wanted that role. Even after all my back-and-forth about it.” She sighed. “I confessed my little confidence crisis to Richard.”
“Oh? And what words of wisdom did he offer?”
“He told me to grow a spine and get over it.”
That startled a laugh from Rachel. “He doesn’t beat about the bush, does he?”
“He bulldozes right over the bush.” Lainie hesitated. “I told him about Hannah too.”
“Did you, darling?” Her mother’s smile was a little wobbly. “Good. I’m glad you talk about her. I hope he was sensitive about it.”
Lainie’s eyes were unfocused as she thought about the past—both last year and far more recently. “Yeah. He actually was.”
Rachel nodded, and Lainie put her hand over her mother’s and held it for a moment. Hannah had been her parents’ miraculous late-in-life baby, born ten years after their elder daughter, twenty years after their sons. At the funeral, their dad had called her an unexpected gift, a child they had been blessed to receive and to keep for as long as they had. It was one of the few fragments of speech she could remember from that day, which had passed in an unreal blur. Even when a death was inevitable, when there was theoretically time to mentally prepare, it still...stunned in its reality. She couldn’t imagine what it was like trying to adjust in the case of an accident, when life changed—and vanished—in a split second of tragedy.
“She would be so chuffed about everything you’ve been doing.” Rachel smiled at her. “Not just the charitable work, which, let’s face it, would just bring on more groans about Saint Lainie—” Lainie rolled her eyes “—but all your career success. It would have made her year to read about her big sister in the tabloids. Endless mockery would have ensued.”
“I know. I thought about that on the opening night of the show. That she wasn’t there.”
“Who knows? Maybe she was watching,” Rachel said, and then paused. She made a face. “Or maybe not. Jacobean drama—not really her thing. She was more likely enjoying a free screening of the latest Channing Tatum film.”
Lainie laughed. “She wouldn’t have been all that psyched about a period drama either. She thought the only good thing about my going into drama was that I might eventually be able to introduce her to Zac Efron. Oh, well.” She tapped her phone. “Maybe I would get a few more cool points for a romantic comedy. Carey is sending over a script for an independent film. Onwards and upwards.”
Despite her blithe words, she was still disappointed over the missed audition, and couldn’t hide her glum mood from Richard when he arrived from the theatre.
He stopped in her doorway when he saw her sitting up in bed—and not reaching for a bucket or visibly sweating, which made a nice change. A certain tension seemed to leave his shoulders as he surveyed her. “It moves. It’s alive,” he said drolly, in a very laconic Frankenstein impression.
“Confirmation that comedy isn’t your forte.” Lainie suddenly felt ridiculously shy. She yanked the bedcovers up past the neckline of her skimpy vest top, and he followed the defensive gesture with a quizzical brow. “How was the show?”
“Trying. I’m underpaid, and your stand-in is dire.” He hitched his perfectly creased trousers and sat down on the end of her bed. “And your ex-lover is a blithering idiot.” His sardonic eyes sharpened. “What’s the matter with you?”
“I’m recently recovered from the plague. Pardon me for not looking my best.”
“You look fine. Shampooed and combed is a good look for you. What’s wrong?”
“Why would anything be wrong?” she hedged.
“I have no idea. That’s why I’m asking,” he said impatiently. “I can tell by your face. You must be an absolute liability in a poker game.”
“It’s nothing.” Lainie pulled hard at a loose thread. “Just a job thing.”
“Yes?”
“The audition for Somerset County was brought forward to yesterday, and obviously I missed it as I had my head in the loo at the time. Apparently the producer is not big on second chances.”
“You spoke to Carey?”
“Yes. Nothing doing.”
“Who’s producing?”
She told him, and he nodded. “I’ve worked with him before. Fairly superhuman expectations of his cast and crew, and no patience with delays. He would have very little time for an actor who succumbed to illness anywhere near his set.”
“Swell.” Lainie reflected that they must have got on quite well together, being equally intolerant of normal human failings. She didn’t say so aloud. Richard had actually been very—shockingly—patient with her during the past few days.
Typically dismissive of an unfortunate circumstance that couldn’t be altered, Richard shrugged. “You can concentrate on your stage career.”
“Yes,” she said, deciding not to mention the possible rom-com yet. She could imagine his opinion of that, and it would be short, aggravating and mostly comprised of four-letter words.
He was studying her with a slight frown. “But you wanted it.”
“Yes.” She moved irritably. He was probably about two seconds from pulling out a sarcastic violin. A little mood music for her pity party. “Never mind. It is what it is.”
“How philosophical of you.” He looked preoccupied.
She tried to lighten the topic. “I suppose my new horizontal take on the traditional bow made a few headlines.”
Richard seemed to make an effort to focus his attention on her. “I expect the charmer who filmed the whole thing on his camera phone can afford an upgrade to a better model this week. By the way, your dear friend Greta French whispered to her live audience about your mysterious long-standing disease. She fears your public collapse is a sign the end is nigh.”
Lainie tried to be outraged, but her sense of humour got the better of her. She saw Richard’s mouth twitch, and gave into a giggle.
He smothered a yawn, and she shook her head. “I realise it would be beneath your dignity to confess that you’re knackered, but you need to get to bed. You look like you haven’t slept for a week.”
“Feels like it too,” he surprised her by admitting. He rolled his neck in a slow stretch and sighed. “Yeah. Bed. I’ll get on that.” One eye opened. “I assume I’m still not being invited to get on yours?”
“You are, as usual, correct.” Lainie reached out and rubbed his stubbly jaw. “And, for God’s sake, shave. My neighbours will think you’re a drug dealer. My professional reputation has been embarrassed enough for one week.”
Richard nudged aside her hand and stood up, groaning when a joint cracked in his knee. “Our fake relationship is prematurely aging me.” He leaned over the bed, his face hovering inches from her nose.
“Can I help you?” she asked politely, and shivered when their breath mingled.
He eyed her mouth. “I’m considering whether it would be worth the risk of infection.”
“I think that ship has sailed. You’ve been rubbing up against my germs for days.”
“Well, in that case...”
His lips parted hers, warm and firm, his hand supporting the back of her head.
“Well?” she managed huskily when he pulled away a fraction. Her fingers were knotted in the collar of his shirt.
He looked down at her. “Results inconclusive, pending further investigation.”
His mouth returned to hers, and she made a slight sound that might have meant anything. Protest. Need. Gratification. Doubt.
With her forehead leaning against his, she drew in a shaky breath. “Still just...rehearsal, yes?”
“Mmm.” He nipped at the bow of her upper lip. His eyes were at lazy half-mast, a glittering glimpse of blue. “‘Merely corroborative detail, intended to give artistic verisimilitude to an otherwise bald and unconvincing narrative,’” he murmured in agreement, à la The Mikado.
“I love it when you talk musical theatre to me.”