Later that night, I couldn’t sleep, anxiety pulsing through my veins.
I was supposed to be on set, in hair and makeup, at 8 a.m. In a few hours from now, I would be transformed into a young Gloria. But as I lay in bed, Will sleeping soundly next to me, all I could think about was that picture of my mother. Why had it been in Marge’s attic? Why did I feel like Gloria wasn’t telling me the whole truth? And why had my mother never mentioned that she’d once been friends with her favorite romance novelist?
A swath of moonlight shone in through a slit in the curtain, illuminating Will’s bare chest as it slowly moved up and down with the easy breathing of sleep. I leaned my head against it, felt the warmth of his skin, the steady rise and fall of his body against my cheek. And then my anxiety shifted. How would everything change tomorrow morning when shooting began? When Will saw me transformed into Gloria? This moment, or whatever we were sharing tonight, was certainly fleeting, and yet, I already knew I didn’t want it to be.
When Will had texted me just after eight tonight to ask if I was free, and I had texted back and told him to come up to my room, neither one of us mentioned what had happened in Gloria’s suite earlier in the day. Or the fact that somehow my dead mother was involved in Gloria’s past. We didn’t mention any of it as I’d let him in, or as I’d shut the door and kissed him.
We didn’t say a word about the movie, about his mother, or mine. We didn’t say anything at all; we pulled off clothes, moved to the bed, explored each other’s bodies greedily as if we had been craving only this one thing all day.
Here, in my hotel room, only the two of us, a new tacit ground rule emerged: there was nothing else. No one else. Just me and Will. But how could that possibly continue for much longer?
Will shifted a little in his sleep, rolled onto his side, wrapped his arms around me, pulled me close and sighed. And then at last, my body relaxed. I leaned into him, and the pulse of anxiety slowed.
My last thought before dozing off was how comfortable it felt to be this close to him. How, for the first time in a long time, I felt like I was home.