Page 17 of Need to Know

“Hmmm. I’ll take you salsa dancing,” I suggested. It was a good opening offer.

“What else?” Damn! Martine drove a hard bargain! “Two tickets to my London première,” I proposed.

“And, an intro to your sexy co-star?”

“Fuck…yes. Alright!”

“Deal. I’ll be at the pick-up bay in forty minutes.”

The less Benji knew about my movements the better. I returned to my seat and whispered into Lucy’s ear, “I’ve arranged a pick-up.” She nodded in understanding.

The Eurostar train was now speeding through Kent toward London. France may have been sweltering in the blistering heatwave, but today England was getting a respite from weeks of summer heat. The scene through my window was of a dull grey day with heavy rain. The shitty weather did me a favour. I carried a small backpack go-bag that contained travel essentials. I dug into it and removed a pouch with a black pack-away raincoat and trousers that were handy to pull out to shield from wet weather, as well as being useful as a disguise. I unfolded the tightly packed trousers, carefully fitted my booted feet into the legs while still seated, and then shrugged into the jacket. I stood and pulled the trousers up, then sat again. Lucy gave me a nod; she’d sent a text to Ziggy to tell him the plan. When the announcement monitor above the aisle said that we were thirty minutes from London I rose, shrugged into my backpack and started to walk up the aisle into the next compartment, and the next, so that I was closer to the top of the train. The paps recognized all of the major London talent agents, and as they knew Lucy was with me in Paris, they’d be keeping an eye out for her to locate me. I waited in a vestibule and readied myself. As soon as the train passed under the Queen Elizabeth Bridge, I knew we had ten minutes to arrival. The announcer informed that we were coming into London St Pancras International and so passengers prepared to disembark, pulling on coats, and then crowding the aisle, their luggage taking up too much space.

When the train doors finally opened and passengers began their slow trudge to the station exit, I hung back. When several hundred passengers had disembarked, I hitched my small backpack higher, pulled up the hood and stepped down onto the concourse. Swiftly I moved off, weaving between the passengers heading toward the double escalators that moved down to the ground level exit. We walked the route that went from a narrow crowd control lane, to a bright wide-open station hall edged by shops and bustling with travellers. It was then that I saw them, the ants—a huddle of photographers with their phallic lenses. They searched the crowd for me. A particularly tall, portly man was walking ahead of me, and so, I hunched my shoulders and moved behind him until I passed through passport control. I didn’t hear anyone shouting “There he is!” so I positioned myself beside a woman with a stroller and pretended we were together as she headed for the exit doors. I couldn’t deny the thrill I felt at outsmarting the press.

“Here, let me get the door,” I said as I hurried ahead and held the glass door for the woman with the stroller. It was raining outside, so on exiting she pushed the buggy aside out of the stream of travellers and dragged the rain cover down over her sleeping child. I paused and stood beside her to check my phone to see if Martine was delayed.

“It’s a bloody washout! I’m kinda relieved. I couldn’t take the heat another day,” the woman said conversationally.

“Right! It was roasting in France. The change is a bit of a shocker. Do you have far to go?” I asked.

“Nah, my hubs is on his way, traffic’s brutal though…you know everything floods in Central London as soon as we have a drop of rain.” She searched in her shoulder bag and pulled out a packet of cigarettes and a slim lighter then offered me one. I shook my head. At the pickup bay I saw a couple of bedraggled photographers sat on mopeds wearing red windbreakers. They were the ones that Ziggy had warned about. Then I recognized the lovely Husqvarna Svartpilen 401 motorbike that pulled up at the curb. It was a sleek, agile bike that cut through traffic with ease; it was Martine’s favourite ride in the city. I wished the lady with the baby good luck, and then hurried down the steps. Martine immediately passed me her spare helmet. I pulled down my hood, before putting the helmet on and then straddled the back of the bike. It was raining hard now and I was glad for the waterproof trousers and jacket. After threading my arms around Martine’s slim waist, we moved into the flow of traffic. I pushed the fogging helmet visor up so I could see. A glance at a wing mirror showed that the paps on mopeds had spotted us, and they were following behind. This wasn’t our first rodeo. Martine knew the streets of London better than most native Londoners and she’d gotten me out of a few tricky situations over the years. She headed down the Euston Road before zipping through the backstreets of Fitzrovia, pulling into a sheltered alley between two red brick houses. Riding to the end of the alley she then turned the bike around to face the road. Martine eased her visor up, “Where do you want dropped off?”

“Golden Square,” I stated. “What are we waiting for?” I asked confused as to why we’d stopped.

“Cool your jets superstar! Any minute now,” she grinned as we both stared up the alley into the pummelling rain. Sure enough, a couple of minutes later two mopeds puttered past and continued up the road. Martine waited for a beat before the bike moved off again, taking the opposite direction.

Fifteen minutes later, I was dropped off outside the Global studios building on Golden Square, and the paparazzi were nowhere to be seen. I got off the bike and thanked my friend, putting the helmet into her courier box on the back of the bike.

“I’ll be in touch with the tickets,” I said.

“And a meeting with the lovely Mr. Linden!”

“Yeah, yeah…I’ve got you!” I shook my head. She wouldn’t let me forget that! Martine blew me a kiss before she moved off into the traffic. I checked my phone. I’d arrived too early for work, so I headed for the nearest café to have a bit of lunch and shelter from the downpour. On the way to the cafe I couldn’t help but notice the plastic covered news stand display…as I was on the front page of every tabloid! I paused to take-in the images. I was pictured mid-leap as the attacker, his face in a rictus grin of determination, headed for Nate. The photos were dramatic, and as we were surrounded by photographers at the time, they’d captured us from every angle. I saw the frozen look of horror in Nate’s eyes when he realized what was happening, and I noticed the security guard who was supposed to be protecting Nate was staring at our pretty, scantily clad co-star Padme instead of his principal.

After lunch and a few easy hours in the studio fixing errors in the thriller audiobook narration, I was finally free to head home and relax.

****

CHAPTER TEN

Nate

Readying for the live TV interview I was at my desk in my home studio. Two screens were open on my desktop, one live-streaming the broadcast, and the other a Zoom window connected to the downtown New York TV studio. A glass of iced Kombucha sat on my desk to the left, my silenced phone was to my right, and a page of notes lay on the desk in front of my keyboard.

“Welcome to Entertainment A-OK, I’m Mindy Sommers!” The perky primetime presenter was seated in front of a giant back-lit pink and purple neon A-OK! logo. I was strangely nervous, not just because wanted to get the interview over and done with, but because I longed to see Jack in real time. I doodled on the page of notes, drawing lines of ducks as I waited anxiously for the studio Zoom page to go live so the interview could begin.

It had been an intense couple of days. On Monday evening I’d attended an emergency session with my therapist Dr. Kushmann and we’d talked through the implosion of my marriage. Then, as Erik had stated, first thing on Tuesday morning I was served the summons with notice papers. I’d expected them, but having the official court papers in my hands and seeing our names heading the forms bought home the crushing finality of the situation. We didn’t love one another anymore. Our dreams of a lifetime together had come to this; a collection of legal papers coldly stating that we’d failed at love. It was demoralizing to fail. But there was no point in stalling. I wasn’t fighting to get Erik back, and so, I’d met with my lawyer Carina Ramos. As I expected and she’d put the case forward that the divorced could be way more lucrative if I contested, she would happily work to squeeze millions more out of Erik. I didn’t want an ugly, protracted back and forth fight that could drag on for years. I signed the forms stating that I agreed with all that was being asked in the divorce summons. I’d get twenty million and the penthouse worth double that. Carina explained that, as the divorce was uncontested, we could get the marriage dissolved in as little as six weeks. I needed to move on to the next chapter of my life.

Next, I’d visited my physician for blood work. The test results were negative, and so I supposed it was one mercy that my soon-to-be ex-husband hadn’t given me an extra, unwanted gift!

I was pulled from my rambling thoughts when a small screen on the Zoom page suddenly displayed the smiling handsome face of my co-star. Immediately, his boyish smile lit me up. Jack waved with both hands like a giddy kid. Our microphones remained on mute so we couldn’t speak to one another. He mimed some actions which I understood to mean ‘I’ll call you after this’. I nodded and gave the thumbs up in response. I was curious about where Jack was for the video call and what his background said about him. He wasn’t using a green screen with a stock image, like me. There was a wall of white modular IKEA Billy bookcases behind him and I could see rows of books, the BAFTA award he’d won for Harmon Hall, was placed to the left, and framed photographs were to the right. I enlarged his screen so I could see the details. Jack was as fresh-faced and handsome as always. He was wearing a stonewashed blue Fraggle Rock t-shirt that said ‘Dance your cares away’. It clung to his sculpted chest, and man, that t-shirt was so him! At noticing the t-shirt I laughed out loud. Jack assessed me with those playful chocolate brown eyes while sipping from a mug of what I knew would be tea. Jack loved what he called ‘Builders tea’, it’s a British thing, look it up! I tried to focus on the books on his shelves, reading the titles of several thrillers, a little Shakespeare, and some gay classics with romance titles in the mix too. Then I noticed the photos. One of the photos was of Jack when he was younger. He was hugging a mixed-race girl with a cloud of Afro hair. They both looked to be in their late teens or early twenties at the time the photo was taken and both appeared carefree and joyful. Then there was another of Jack with the same girl, both of them in white theatre make up that made them look like Pierrot and Harlequin characters. Jack waved to get my attention. He pointed at me, then with two fingers pointed at his eyes, then at the photo. Damn, he’d caught me out ogling the framed pictures on his shelf. I shrugged, nodded. I was glad the CIA never came knocking because; in real life I’d be a god-awful spy!

A male voice I knew to be the producer Chas Boudreaux suddenly said “Hi, Mr. Linden, and Mr. Boyd. Just to let you know, this is a four-minute segment with a video insert break and we’re going live in sixty seconds. Please remember, don’t swear during the interview.”

I took a sip of my Kombucha, then sat up straight, cantered myself and took several breaths. Both Jack and I gave one another a nod and thumbs up. Soon, the producer was counting down, “5, 4, 3, 2, 1, go.”

“Welcome back. I have such a treat for you all now. I’m delighted to be speaking with two very talent actors. Nate Linden and Jack Boyd are stars of the new blockbuster thriller movie ‘Need to Know’ that you’ll see released nationwide this Friday. Hi Nate, Jack thanks so much for joining me on Entertainment A-OK!”