Breathe (15 page)

‘Please stay.’ He put his hands on my shoulders and placed his lips on my forehead. The scent of him was intoxicating, I was struggling to keep my head clear.

‘I can’t, Christopher. I can’t handle this.’

‘Why? What changed?’

‘Nothing has changed. Not really. I need some air.’ I pushed past him and went through the door. My mind was in a daze, but somehow I made it back to the entrance. It was liberating to feel the wind on my face as I stood on top of the stairs. But this was as far as my plan went. How would I get home? I debated going around the corner to see if Charles was there and if he would take me home again. Then I heard Christopher step up behind me.

‘Please come back inside.’

‘No, Chris. I need some space to think. I’ll call you later.’

‘Then at least let me get Charles to take you home.’

‘Is there a problem, Christopher?’ I heard Julia’s voice approaching. I really didn’t need to see her now.

I heard Christopher call my name as I walked down the driveway. I got to the gate but it was locked. I
t took me a minute to find a button that opened a door to the left of the gate, but I was finally able to get of their property.

I was half expecting to find a bus stop down the road, but I was walking down the hill for at least five minutes without any sign of it. Nor did I see any taxi passing. In fact, there were hardly any cars in sight. It didn’t take long for me to regret putting on high heals when I left home. I was walking down the hill, not sure if I was even going in the right direction. I thought I recognized a tall glass building from when I sat in the car with Charles, but I could be wrong. They all seemed alike when you pass them in a blur. I turned right in the bottom of the street, just to fin
d another long street with tall buildings and closed off properties. No taxi and no buss. But there was traffic in the end of this street, which was promising.

A car slowed down behind me, and then drove up to my side. It was a black Mercedes. The passenger window lowered, and I expected to see Charles, relived that he would take me home. But it w
asn’t Charles behind the wheels; it was Christopher. My own body betrayed me with flying butterflies in my stomach.

‘Get in.’ His voice was quiet and demanding. 
             

I didn’t argue, my feet were already killing me.

‘Are you OK?’             

‘I’m fine
,’ I answer.

‘Did I scare you? When I told you h
ow I felt, did I scare you off?’ He looked over at me as he drove down the hill.

‘It doesn’t matter, Chris. You’re married, I should have known better.’ 

‘So are you ever going to let me explain?’

‘What? That you have an open marriage? That you can screw around all you like?’

‘It’s not like that. I don’t screw around. But I need to know that I can trust you. Only a handful of people know the truth, and I would like to keep it that way.’              

‘Do you want a scouts honour?’ That made him laugh. The sound made me happy.

‘I will have to take my chances. I’m in too deep now, anyway.’ He took his arm from the steering wheel and traced a finger on my thigh. It made my whole body react. I stopped his finger, and held his hand in stead.

‘So what’s your story?’

‘I am married, but not in the sense you think. My marriage with Julia is strictly platonic. We might have been in love with each other a brief period, but that was a long time ago.’

‘I don’t get it. Why did you marry her?’

‘Julia and me, we have been friends for a long time. We grew up together. Her father even paid for my acting classes so we could attend the same school. We were dreaming of making it big, and moved to Hollywood, confident that we would make it. But after too many auditions and no parts, we had to give up and move back home. Her dad had some connections here, and we were both able to get small parts in crappy movies. The change came when we started showing up at premiers and red carpet events. We were young and at that time in love with each other, and the photographs loved us. And the more media expose we got, the better parts we were given. I would love to say it was talent, but you don’t get anywhere in this business unless the crowd loves you. And they loved seeing us as a pair, especially after we played a married couple in the movie
Haven.
One thing led to another, and the next thing I knew, our agent had sold our wedding rights to some magazine.’

‘You were in love, but not any more?’

‘Oh, I love Julia, but as a friend. The romantic part was gone before we were married a year.’

‘But you have been married for seven years, haven’t you?’

‘Yes, something like that.’

‘Why?’ 
             

‘Why what?’

‘Why are you still married? You can basically get all the parts you want now.’

‘No, that’s not true, although I have been fortunate. It’s just that I had never had any reason to get divorced. You see how the paparazzi follow single actors, placing everyone they date on the cover of some magazine. I couldn’t handle that. I love my job, but I like my privacy.’

‘You never had a reason? Are you saying that you haven’t fallen in love during the last seven years?’

‘There have been some girls, of course, but never anything serious, and never something like this.’ He
squeezed my hand.

‘And what about Julia? Where does she stand in all of this?’ She sure as hell didn’t like me messing with her so-called marriage. 

‘I can’t tell you her motivation.’

‘Why not? Is she still in love with you?’ It wouldn’t surprise me.

He sighed. ‘Julia has been in a steady relationship for several years.’

‘So why would she want to stay married to you?’

‘The same reason I have. She doesn’t want the media exposer. And she doesn’t want the press to know about him. Let’s just say that he has commitments elsewhere.’

‘He’s married?’ I gasped. Who was the hypocrite now?

‘Rock and glass house?’

‘Yeah, I know’ I muttered. It wasn’t any of my business anyway. I just wished I knew this before I faced her.  

‘I put a lot of trust in telling you this, you know that don’t you?’

‘I know. But I’m not sure I believe you, though.’

‘You don’t?’

‘No, this might just be a trick to get in my bed again
.’ I grin at him.

‘Oh, really? Since when do I need a trick? Ouch!’
             

I hit him in the head, luckily the car were standing still waiting for the green light. 

‘But I do find it hard to believe that you’re just friends when you live together, and always seems to be in the spotlight together. You always appear like the perfect couple.’

‘We do, don’t we. But seriously, we are just friends. Best friends, but no benefits.’ 

We drove in silence for a fem minutes. I was staring into my hands, trying to sort out what he had said. It all sounded to good to be true, and I was setting myself up for a huge heartbreak.

‘So where do I fit in to all this
?’ I said after a while. I’m nobody after all. I couldn’t possibly measure up to his wife.

‘I don’t know. I just know that I need to be with you. If you think that this is going to be too complicated, then I’ll try to stay away. But I really hope you will give me a chance.’

I had been so occupied with the things he had said, that I hadn’t noticed that we had reached my building until he stopped the car outside. Frank was standing outside the entrance, enjoying a small ray of sunshine and ignoring the car.

‘
I don’t know, Chris. I don’t know how it would work. Do you call me every time you need to get laid? Am I to sit by the phone waiting?’ I would do it, there was no doubt about that. But I knew it would slowly kill me.

‘God, Sara! No! It’s not like that. But I wouldn’t mind if you could pick up when I called you. Or at least answer my text. What ever you want, I’m there. I only demand discretion. Everything else, let’s just take one day at a time.’

He was waiting for me to exit the car. I didn’t want to leave him. It was much easier now that we weren’t in proximity to his wife, and if I believed his story, then we weren’t really doing anything wrong.

‘Do you want to come upstairs?’

He looked at his watch, and considered something.
‘I need to call Anna and let her know. Can you give me five minutes?’

‘Here, you can take the key and enter the garage. I’ll meet you upstairs.’ I gave him my card and exited the car. He was already holding his phone to his ear.

Frank smiled to me as I walked up the stairs, and held up the door for me.

‘Hey, Frank. I seem to have misplaced my key, can I please have the spare card?
’

‘Certainly, Miss Nord. Do you want me to block the other one, in case someone else finds it?’

‘No, that won’t be necessary, I’m sure it’s upstairs somewhere.’

He followed me inside, and found a new card from behind the desk. He had to activate it before he gave it to me. I was impatient, and pushed for the elevator while I was waiting. I wanted to make
it upstairs before Christopher. 

I had just enough time to put away my try-on clothes from this morning, when I heard the door unlock. It was a small thing to be doing, but hearing him let himself in was dangerously satisfying. I went into the hallway to meet him. He handed me the card, but I didn’t take it.

‘Maybe you could hold on to it a while?’

His face lit up in an enormous smile, and I couldn’t help smiling back. He put the card in his shirt pocket, and followed me into the living room. 

‘Do you want some coffee?’ I went into the kitchen and grabbed my own mug while waiting for his answer. I hoped he didn’t come up just to have sex, and I regretted not clarifying that before I gave him my key. I wanted to slow things down a bit, he had given me too much information, and I needed some time to adjust. It was kind of ironic, really, that I wanted to slow things down now that I knew about his platonic marriage. Somehow I felt that the risk of being hurt was bigger now than before.

‘Coffee sound
s great.’ He came after me, and grabbed his own mug from the cabinet above. His familiarity with my kitchen was satisfying as well. We each got the Caffé Intenso, and went back into the living room. Christopher pointed at the curtains, and I hurried to close them before I seated myself in my regular corner of the couch. I didn’t get why he bothered to live a make-believe marriage when it made him this paranoid. I got that the media could be a pain sometimes, I’ve seen the magazine pictures of celebrity, where it was obvious that the photographer was hiding in a bush. But wouldn’t it be better just to ignore them? I remembered something my mother wrote in her letter, about my father being terrified about a scandal, and that the media wouldn’t leave me alone if they found out about me. I forced those thoughts away. I wasn’t supposed to think about him. But it did make me wonder what it would be like if I was an “official” child. I knew his other children got the media attention frequently. I wouldn’t be comfortable with that.

‘What are you thinking about?’ Christopher asked, breaking my train of thoughts.

‘Why you work so hard on keeping your personal life private. It sounds a bit overboard to stay married because of it.’

‘Maybe. I’ve never made a big deal over it. I get along really well with Julia, and it’s nice to have someone you can take to the premiers and mandatory gatherings, that doesn’t make you headline news the next day.’

I wanted to ask what the other woman he had been with thought about this. But I didn’t want to picture him with someone else. It was better to play ignorance. I took his hand, the one without the wedding ring, and twisted my fingers in his.

‘So, are you going to tell me the real reason you invited me to your home today?’ I asked, my eyes locked in his.

‘I told you the real reason. I want you to create something special for the room, something just for me. You haven’t changed your mind have you?’

‘I don’t remember ever agreeing.’

‘But you have to. I’m looking forward to having you stay at my house.’

‘I’m not staying at your house, Chris.’

‘Why not?’

‘Do you really think that the media would leave you alone if you kept a concubine at your house.’

‘But don’t you see, having you there to do some work would be a perfect excuse.’

‘Yeah, if I were a carpenter!’

‘You know, I have been thinking of adding a conservatory on the west wing.’

‘You obvious haven’t seen me with a hammer. Seriously, Chris, Do you really think Julia would want me to stay there several weeks.’

‘That is not an issue. Besides, you have to give her a benefit of a doubt, she is my best friend, and I would really like you two to get along.’

‘Your probably right. But I’m still not staying. It would be too weird.’

‘OK, how about this: If you can start next week, then you will have the whole house to your self. Well, almost, Anna will probably be there. Will you consider it then?’