Fifty-Two
Three weeks later
Alex stuffed the latest draft of Thirteen into her laptop bag and grabbed her sunglasses and phone from the table. “Okay guys, see you Monday. Enjoy the weekend.” She waved to Laurel and the set designer.
Her second-last weekend in New York City beckoned, and she couldn’t wait for it to start. Late nights spent reviewing Thirteen meeting notes and early mornings plotting out the Gran-Joan graphic novel over FaceTime with Lucy had left her exhausted and desperate for some me time.
Rushing down the hall, she checked her texts one last time. Steve, an editor at a New York men’s magazine, had been pursuing her via texts since they met at a 59E59 press night two weeks earlier. He was cute and fun, but Alex wasn’t keen, politely declining his offers for coffee or drinks. Unfortunately, his latest text proved he had yet to take the hint: Alex, I’ll be in your ’hood this afternoon. Let’s get that drink!
She perched her sunglasses on her nose and rushed through the door, hoping for a quick, anonymous getaway…
Ugh. Midtown’s August humidity had other ideas, smothering her like a heavy wet blanket. She could get used to the honking taxis and clogged sidewalks, but New York’s suffocating summer heat always made her wilt. Turning right on East 59th, she slogged west into the sun, towards Central Park. The subway would be hot and crowded, so an hour or two spent reading under a shady tree was the perfect way to let rush hour simmer down before her underground descent into Columbus Circle Station.
“Alex!”
A male voice fought with the traffic and a helicopter hovering somewhere overhead. She squinted over her shoulder but didn’t see Steve in the parade of hurried New Yorkers. Thank God! Alex was a common name. She kept going, her phone buzzing in her hand.
“ALEX!”
She ignored the text and turned around, her sudden stop drawing dirty looks from the sidewalk brigade fighting to get past. Rising to his feet, a guy with a scruffy moustache and beard, wearing sunglasses and a ball cap, was brushing the sidewalk off the butt of his jeans. His ratty white t-shirt was weighed down by a backpack. He looked homeless.
She impatiently turned away and glanced at her phone: Marmalade.
…What? The blaring taxi horns, rumbling car engines, and raised voices pushing past vanished. Alex swung around, her jaw dropping along with her stomach.
“Hello stranger.” Mark squeezed the strap of his backpack, a quick smile raising the corners of his mouth. He stuffed his phone into his pocket and moved closer, his body swaying to the left and back again. Nerves? Or was the pavement too hot for his feet? He removed his sunglasses and hung them from his t-shirt’s collar. His normally bright eyes were dull and weary, like life had taken a cruel toll since she had last seen him.
Alex laid a shaky hand on her pounding chest, barely able to speak. “Hi…?”
Mark tugged at his beard. “You look well, Lex.”
Jesus—you don’t, Mark! “What are you doing here?”
“Simon told me where to find you.”
“Simon?” Alex backed up towards the building, out of the flow of foot traffic. Mark followed and leaned against the wall. He smelled of sweat, like he had just come from a muscle-blasting boot camp workout. He flew up from Mexico to see me?
“I know, right? I couldn’t reach Freddie, so Si helped me out, surprisingly.” He looked over his shoulder at the people rushing past.
With Mark’s attention elsewhere, Alex’s gaze fell to his feet and flew upwards: Converse, tear in the knee of his faded jeans, sweat stains on his t-shirt, hair peeking out over his ears…
He turned back, tilting in. “Look, can we go somewhere quiet to talk?”
Alex’s eyes got lost in his beard. Mark with a beard! What?! Her sunglasses saved the day—Mark couldn’t see her wide-eyed stare. His whiskers were dense and in desperate need of a pair of scissors. “I was headed to Central Park.”
“Great.” He nodded. “That will be great.”
They walked along East 59th Street to the park’s entrance just off Fifth Avenue, but their conversation didn’t progress as far as they did: they talked about the steamy weather and nothing else. Alex took a sharp right, passing a cart selling hot dogs, pretzels, and soft drinks.
Mark fanned his face. “Can I get you water or an ice cream? It’s so hot…”
“No, I’m okay, thanks,” she said with a pinched smile. “But don’t let me stop you.”
He fished out several American dollars from his jeans pocket and joined the small line looping around the cart. Alex stepped back, her eyes studying every inch of her ex-boyfriend while he busied himself reading the cart’s menu. His jeans hugged his ass and his t-shirt, discoloured with perspiration, stuck to shoulder and back muscles Alex hadn’t seen before—souvenirs of his ‘Rock’-worthy Full Throttle 3 workout regime, no doubt. His hair crept past the back of his collar, most likely grown for his movie role. It was so odd. He looked so different, and yet…the same. She had intentionally stayed away from Throttle’s online press, but all clues today pointed to the fact that Mark’s character was rough around the edges and frankly, a bit of a mess.
Water purchased, he turned back to Alex. “Christ, I could never live here.” He cracked open the bottle and took a large satisfying swig. “It’s too much. I always thought London was busy, but this is another level of insanity.”
“How long have you been here?”
“A few hours.”
“You haven’t given it a chance.” Alex began walking down a winding path, the park’s famous pond to their left.
Mark sped up and tucked the water bottle under his arm. He lifted his cap. His hair fell past his eyes, reaching his nose. He swept it back, hiding it away again under his hat.
“So you’re saying I didn’t see the best of New York, camped out outside that theatre?”
“You camped out waiting for me…on that hot sidewalk?”
“Yeah.” He winced. “For two and a half hours. Sorry if that sounds stalky, I didn’t want to miss you. Simon was great, but he wouldn’t give me the address of where you’re staying. Shit, listen to me—that sounds even more stalkerish.” His ramble took a break for another large gulp of water. “This is more like it.” His eyebrows lifted approvingly as he took in the mature trees and green grass along the path. “It’s amazing how the street noise is muted. It reminds me of St. Stephen’s Green in Dublin—only massive. So…how are you?”
“I’m good. Thanks.”
“Freddie said Thirteen is going ahead off-Broadway. Alex, that’s so incredible. I’m so happ—”
“Thanks.” Alex stopped and crossed her arms. “Why are you here?”
“I need to talk to you.”
“Mark, I know about New Year’s. Really, you should have just FaceTimed from set—”
“Lex, I know you know about New Year’s. That’s not why I’m here, and I wasn’t on set. I came from Dublin.” His hand squeezed the water bottle. “I dropped out of Full Throttle 3 two weeks back.”
“What?”
“Turns out it was an offer I had to refuse.” He smirked.
“A million-dollar refusal? Must have hurt.”
“You know I don’t care about the money, and you were right…the Full Throttle script was absolute fucking shite.”
“I never said it was shite.” She nudged her sunglasses up her nose.
“You didn’t have to—the look on your face at the Court did.”
“So, if you’re not doing Full Throttle 3, what are you doing?”
“Figuring stuff out.” He swallowed heavily, playing with the sunglasses hanging from his collar. “Look, there’s something I have to tell you…”
Alex inhaled deeply. Was this the truth Niamh said Mark owed her, so they could move on? Knowing Mark, if she sent him away, he would wait patiently for another opportunity. She didn’t want him sitting outside 59E59 again.
“Okay…follow me.”
She led Mark to a secluded bench with a view of Gapstow Bridge and the pond. Several pairs of Mallard ducks quacked and playfully wiggled their tail feathers in the murky water while tourists sought shade and ice cream.
Mark sat down heavily and rested his backpack on the ground. His left foot stepped on top of his right, which fidgeted underneath. He half-smiled at Alex and looked away, opening and closing the cap on his water bottle several times.
“After the truth about New Year’s came out, I needed time to think, somewhere away from London. Staying with Mum made sense. I was still attached to Throttle, so I hired a trainer there to continue my prep. I sought proper help for my stomach ulcer, too.”
“Stomach ulcer? Since when?”
His eyes found Alex again. “Since October. I was diagnosed in Austria before Tom’s wedding.”
“Seriously? You’ve had it that long?”
“Yeah. It wasn’t always bad, but when it flared, I would slink away to the loo, hide in a stall, gritting my teeth until my pain meds kicked in.”
An ulcer, not drugs…an ULCER. Another one of my assumptions—wrong! “Mark, you should have told me.”
“I had to hide it.” He yanked his ball cap farther down over his eyes. “You would’ve told me to pull back on work, take a holiday.”
Alex pursed her lips.
He looked down. “And you would’ve been right. I just didn’t want to hear it—or slow down. Thing is, my body made that decision for me. By mid-June, I could barely climb out of bed.”
“You should have listened to your body earlier—”
“I know, but the biggest movie of my career was coming up. I should have been feeling like I was on top of the world, right? Nope. I felt completely numb, detached from everything going on around me. I was in a really dark place but didn’t know why. It scared me. I couldn’t see a way out. So, six weeks ago—on your birthday, actually—I decided I needed help.”
“What kind of help?” Alex lifted her sunglasses, leaving them on top of her head.
“A psychologist. I’ve been going twice a week.” He tossed back the last of his water and took a deep breath. “Lex, I have to tell you something…a secret, one Freddie doesn’t even know.”
She swallowed. “Okay.”
“I know you’ll have questions. I promise, I’ll answer every one, but…just listen, okay?”
“Okay.” Alex wiped her sweaty palms on her skirt.
“In 1990, my uncle died. Dad inherited his pub, called Keegan’s…”
Alex nodded. “Yeah…”
Mark looked down at his shoes. “And remember I told you my middle name was Kieran? It’s not…I lied.”