London, 2017
“Don’t worry, this will save you.” Jack walks into my bedroom with two steaming mugs of what looks like coffee.
“What are you doing here?” I pull the duvet up around me.
“Well, that’s gratitude for you! I was just going to put you in a taxi last night, but I wasn’t sure you’d make it, and I was right. You puked on the journey home. Twice. And that was just the beginning. I thought you said you could drink? I stayed the night to make sure you didn’t choke on your own vomit. I think the words you are probably looking for right now are thank you.”
“Thank you,” I say after a little while, processing everything he has just said, unsure whether his words fit the gaps that the holes in my memory have left behind. I take the coffee, it’s too hot, but it’s strong and I gulp it down. I look at the pajamas I’m wearing, wondering how I got into them if I was as out of it as he’s suggesting. It’s as though he reads my mind.
“I helped get you out of your dress, mainly because you’d been sick all down the front of it just after you got out of the cab. I cleaned you up a bit and you got changed yourself. I didn’t see anything I hadn’t already seen on set, and I slept on the floor.”
I look at where he is pointing and see a pillow and a blanket on the carpet. My cheeks are so hot I’m certain my face must have turned purple with embarrassment. I can’t seem to find the right words to say, so I stick with the two that seem most appropriate given the circumstances.
“I’m sorry.” As soon as the whisper of an apology escapes my lips, my eyes fill with tears. I just keep making endless mistakes and messing everything up, I don’t know what’s wrong with me.
“Hey, it’s okay.” Jack puts down his empty coffee mug and sits on the bed. “You’re obviously going through a difficult time in your personal life right now after everything you said last night.”
What on earth did I tell him?
“We’ve all been there, believe me. You’ll be all right, I promise. It’s lucky I knew where you lived. You were adamant about not telling the taxi driver or anyone else your address.”
Having a stalker will do that to you.
My mind rewinds Jack’s words and plays them again.
“How did you know where I live?”
His cheeks take their turn to redden, and I’m surprised to discover that Jack Anderson is capable of blushing.
“I live a couple of streets away from here, just a house I’m renting while we’re filming at Pinewood. I’ve seen you running in the mornings. I’ve even said hi a couple of times, but it’s like you’re in your own little world, then you jog on past like we’ve never met.”
I don’t know what to say. I do tend to zone out, not even noticing the other runners that I pass, all chasing dreams they’ll never catch. It seems a little strange that he would live so close and never mention it before now, but I remind myself that my husband is the bad guy in all this, not Jack and not me. I mustn’t start getting paranoid.
I hear my mobile vibrate with a text. It’s charging on Ben’s side of the bed for some reason. I pick it up, reading the message before Jack reaches over, looking a little flustered and taking the phone from my hand.
“That’s mine,” he says. “Sorry, I was almost out of battery, so I borrowed your charger … I wasn’t planning to spend the night.”
That’s the trouble with iPhones, they all look the same. I decide not to mention what I just read.
Call me later, Alicia xx
I had no idea that Jack and Alicia were close enough to be exchanging text messages. I tell myself that it’s none of my business. I don’t want to sound like some kind of jealous schoolgirl.
“Do you know where my phone is?” I ask.
“I’m not sure. You dropped your bag downstairs, you sort of collapsed when we got through the door. I had to carry you up to the bathroom…”
I stand up and everything hurts. I think I might be sick again.
“Whoa! Maybe you just stay where you are, I’ll go get it,” he says, and I notice that he takes his own phone with him, as though he doesn’t trust me enough to leave it behind.
When he returns with my handbag, I’m relieved to find both my mobile and wallet inside; I was worried I might have lost them in that state. I turn on my phone and the screen lights up, a display of double-digit notifications on almost every app.
“That’s weird—”
“Shit.” Jack stares down at his own phone again.
“What is it?”
The wrinkles that fan his eyes disappear with his smile and seem to resurface on his now-furrowed brow. When he doesn’t answer, I open Twitter. It’s a fairly new account and I’ve never had so many notifications or DMs. To be fair, I don’t engage with social media too often, but this is insane. I click on a link and it takes me to an article on the TBN website, written by Jennifer Jones. Beak Face.
LOVE ON AND OFF SET AT PINEWOOD STUDIOS
My eyes are drawn to the pictures before the words written beneath them, because they are of me. There’s one of Jack and me in the bar last night. Another of us taken on set, simulating sex on a hotel desk. It looks real. The final one is of us in my dressing room. I’m wearing the silk nightdress from yesterday’s shoot, which leaves absolutely nothing to the imagination, and Jack appears to be holding me tenderly and kissing the top of my head. I don’t understand how someone could have taken this photo; we were the only two people in the room.
The words are even worse:
Jack Anderson left his wife soon after the filming of Sometimes I Kill began. Aimee Sinclair is still married, but didn’t want to talk about her husband during the interview. Now we know why.
I check my emails; there are hundreds. A lot of them from all those people who used to be my friends. I scan through them without reading, stopping when I see my agent’s name in among them. The message is short, even by Tony’s standards.
Aimee,
I think you should come in for a chat. Sooner the better.
Tony
x
I read the message twice. Due to the brevity, it doesn’t take long.
It all makes sense now: his text the other day, the unreturned calls. I digest his words, and having forced myself to swallow them down, I am satisfied I have understood them correctly: my agent is going to dump me and I am finished.