Page 3 of From Notting Hill with Love…Actually
I looked hesitantly down at the front of my shirt.
“Oh my dear, how rude of me. Let me give you something of mine to change into while I work.”
Oscar went through another door into what appeared to be a laundry area. “Here,” he said, reappearing. “Freshly laundered this morning.” He smelt the T-shirt. “Ah, lily of the valley, how appropriate for you with your exquisite lily-white skin.”
“Thank you,” I said, blushing a little as I took the shirt from him. I’d always been self-conscious about my pale skin and often tried to hide it with fake tan and makeup. But here was someone complimenting me on it for a change. I felt myself warming to Oscar.
“I will return in two shakes of Delilah’s tail,” Oscar said, leaving Delilah and me alone in the kitchen.
Delilah glanced at the door Oscar had just gone through, and I could have sworn she rolled her eyes.
Quickly I changed into the T-shirt before Oscar could return.
“All decent, are we?” he asked, popping his head around the door.
“Yes, fine now, thanks.”
He winked. “Not that you’ve anything to worry about from me, you understand.”
I’d kind of gathered that.
“Would you like to ring your friend now?” Oscar asked. “Then I’ll make a start on your shirt.”
Oscar made us both a cup of herbal tea while I rang my best friend, Maddie. After a few of the pointless questions thatpeople always ask in these situations, like “Where did you lose it?” and “Have you looked in the last place you had it?” Maddie said she didn’t have the address on her but promised to get back to me as soon as possible.
I watched while Oscar went to work on my shirt. While he soaked, sprayed, and scrubbed, I learned how he had inherited his house when his aunt died and how he had started his boutique with the rest of the money she’d left him.
“So, darling, are you going to tell me just why you’re moving to Notting Hill for only a month?” Oscar asked while he was finishing up my shirt. “Or do I have to guess?”
“No big mystery. I’m house-sitting, that’s all.”
“Oh, is that it?” Oscar said with disappointment. “I thought it was going to be a much more interesting tale.”
“Well,” I said, eager not to let him down but also desperate to tell someone what I was up to—I was never great at secrets, “there is a bit more to it, actually. But I warn you it’s rather a long story.”
“I knew it!” Oscar said, clapping his rubber-gloved hands together ecstatically. “Wait one moment. I’m almost finished here. Let’s go through to the lounge andthenyou can tell me all about it.”
We settled down comfortably on Oscar’s sofa in his equally chic lounge. I wasn’t sure why I hadn’t just stopped at the “house-sitting for a month” excuse. That’s what I’d planned on giving everyone before I arrived in Notting Hill as the reason for my being here. But Oscar seemed to have a way about him that made you want to open up and tell him your whole life story.
“Right then, darling—tell me everything,” Oscar instructed as he tucked his legs underneath him on the sofa, while Delilah curled herself up into a furry ball on his lap.
So I did.
I began to explain the strange chain of events that had led to my arrival in Notting Hill earlier that day…
Two
“And the Oscar goes to…”
Johnny paused dramatically, and his chocolate-brown eyes darted up from beneath his long, dark lashes to survey the audience in front of him.
Yes, we were in the palm of his hand, and so probably were the millions of people watching around the globe, as he toyed with us all before he tore into the fateful gold envelope that would mean joy to one and misery to all the others.
Did I imagine it or had he glanced at me just then before he ripped open the envelope?Doesheknowsomething? Does he have some inside information on who the winner is? Or maybe there’s another reason he might be looking at me like that?I’d always suspected Johnny Depp and I would make a fine couple, and now it seemed, on this most significant of nights, I was about to discover the feeling might be mutual.
“Scarlett O’Brien!”
Yes, it was me! Johnny was callingmyname. I was finally going to claimmyOscar from one of my favorite actors,and, I hoped, by the look on his face as I glided elegantly toward him in my Stella McCartney gown, soaking up thecongratulations of my fellow Oscar nominees as I passed by, a whole lot more. It was what dreams and fantasies were made for.
