Page 52 of Hollywood Hotshot

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

Aheavy sigh slippedby her lips as she wandered, yet again, from room to room in the quiet house. The dogs glanced up at her as she passed their napping spot for the hundredth time since returning home. She searched her mind to think of anything worth doing. But it was stuck re-running memories of her times with Taylor. Hearing his laugh as the dogs chased him around the yard, seeing his beautiful eyes flicker open and stare into her own first thing in the morning. So full of a look akin to love.

It couldn’t have been love. Wouldn’t he be with her now if it had been love? Her mind’s eye stared back into the memory of those teal eyes, trying to decipher what emotions they held. Gratitude? Affection? She could only think whatever emotion played in his eyes on those luscious, languid mornings waking up beside him didn’t matter anymore. Clearly, whatever she had meant to him, it was not enough to keep them together. And neither had been the sex before those mornings together. How great they had seemed to her then, and now she questioned even that. Perhaps it all was just for fun on his side.

Roberta paused at the kitchen window to stare into the backyard. A lone rabbit sat near the wood line, nibbling deep green blades of grass. Usually, the sight of wildlife in her yard thrilled her. Her heart ached for the solitary creature. It struck her as particularly poignant that this creature, a very social animal, much like herself, should also find itself alone. Her heart reached out for the ball of fur with its dark, wary eyes and twitching nose.Well, at least it can manage to eat something.

She had tried to eat alone. The eggs had tasted like rubber in her mouth. After one bite, she spooned them into the dogs’ dishes. Even Bling had enjoyed a few nibbles.

What if Melissa hadn’t come back? Would she and Taylor still be together, or was their breakup inevitable? Maybe he was just having his fun with her until her stay ended. Thinking of the possibility, a white-hot rage sliced through her chest.

In a flash, the rage evaporated, replaced with humiliation at how easy she had been. Was it possible he was out for whatever she was willing to give up? Roberta stomped out of the kitchen, heat searing her cheeks. How much of herself she’d revealed to him. How he must have laughed at her little truths and secrets. All the while giving up none of his own. Poker-faced, he had listened and smiled, nodded, and laughed with her as she opened her heart and soul, but he had said nothing similar. He had not shared any secrets or bared any of his own soul, she realized now, months too late.

Tired of the same path from kitchen to living room to hallway back to kitchen, she fled out the front door for a breath of fresh air. She hadn’t been outside since last evening. Sleep had eluded her, and she’d wandered the yard in the moonlight thinking of Taylor.

The rabbit saw her rounding the corner of the house, and it skittered away into the underbrush. Roberta stopped to observe its white, fluffy tail disappear beneath the ferns outlining the border of the woods and the yard.

“Taylor, Taylor, Taylor!” Roberta clasped her hand to her mouth, shaking her head. She continued her slow walk around the yard, stumbling over the uneven soil.

Her feet brought her back to the house. The dogs watched as she took the stairs two at a time up to her office. Staring at the shelves of multicolored binders, once so cheerful but now silent and trivial. A thundering wave of tears crashed through her as she remembered Taylor reading her words. God, how stupid they must have seemed to him. The wave rose up like a tsunami and crashed down again. Just like Pete, Taylor had read them. Just like Pete, he had shared them with other people without her knowledge or approval, opening her up to ridicule. Wiping her tears away with the back of her hand, Roberta swore under her breath. “I have to give up this stupid dream. I have to destroy them all. They are worthless.”

Adrenaline surging through her body, she pulled the earliest manuscripts from the shelf, tossing them into the trash bin. When it was full, she hauled it down the stairs and outside to the abandoned garden. A quick trip into the house for matches and a trip to the edge of the trees for sticks, and she was ready.

Hands shaking and teeth compressed, Roberta assembled the sticks and a little paper in a hole in the neglected garden. It took three tries before her trembling hands could strike the match head to the strip to ignite the neat pile. She stepped far back, tears running down her cheeks.

Still trembling, she scrutinized the fire as first it smoldered, then caught at the edges, before bursting into a conflagration of orange and red.

Images flashed through her mind at breakneck speeds; visions of firefighters and fire trucks, bright red strobe lights, and smoke filling her bedroom. Her knees started to buckle as the trembling rattled throughout her entire body. Reaching backward, she pulled an old weed bucket closer, overturned it, and sank down on it before her legs gave out. Head slumped forward, eyes closed, she concentrated on breathing steady and evenly.

The tremors continued. She took a deep yoga breath and let it out slowly. Opening her eyes, she forced herself to watch the flames. When they started to die down, she ripped more manuscript pages out of their binders and fed them into the fire.

She had hoped the ache in her heart and her fear might ease with the sight. That the smoke, like smoke at a Chinese altar, would send forth her words to oblivion, freeing her spirit. Like smudging sage leaves, the despair and horror would flee, leaving her soul light and airy again, relieving the thudding ache in her chest. Roberta’s heartache had no relief watching her words burn to ashes before her eyes. Their destruction, compounded with the loss of Taylor in her life, made her chest hollower than before.

A shift of the sticks in the fire sent a shower of orange sparks into the inky night sky. Roberta ran for water, afraid the bits of flying embers might ignite a pile of dried leaves or desiccated weeds. Stretching the garden hose out from its reel to the garden, she struggled, out of breath. Turning the water on and leaving the nozzle off to hold back the torrent, she flopped back down on the bucket to catch her breath. A gentle breeze had struck up, and the smoke and embers rose and floated in crazy, wild patterns.

“You can’t do anymore.” The rest would have to wait a little longer, or maybe tomorrow night because of the wind. She itched to rid herself of those damn useless pages before the sun rose so she could begin anew. A life without Taylor, a life without writing. Her heart protested, seeking to be free. “No, it has to be done tonight.”

Watching the smoke drift in several directions, Roberta tried to imagine her days from tomorrow onward. What would it hold for joy and comfort now? Her dream of being a writer was over. That dream had no future. It was time to move on. She gazed up at the stars, pleading for their wisdom and a release from the ache in her heart, but the fire’s light obscured them from view.

Her eyes detected the headlights of a vehicle coming from far off. Roberta’s eyes followed it as it snaked its way down the country road toward her house. She gasped as it turned into the end of her driveway instead of passing by.Just someone turning around. But it kept coming up the long drive through the woods to her house.

A fireman who saw the flames? Or a cop? The vehicle came to a halt in front of her garage. The car engine shut off, as did the lights, leaving the area bathed in darkness again. Roberta didn’t recognize the car. Unease settled deep in her, and she instinctively patted her back pocket for her cell phone.Pull it out now, or wait to see who’s in the car?When the driver didn’t step out immediately, she pulled the phone out. She stood and walked, putting herself between the fire and the vehicle so the light from the fire didn’t blind her.

A dark figure rose from the car before she heard the car door slam shut. Footsteps scraped the driveway’s asphalt coming nearer until the figure hit the edge of the lawn.

Her chest tightened, and her hand rose to her throat. She knew that silhouette. Knew the character of that walk, the beat of the footsteps in a pattern so well remembered.

“Roberta,” he said, walking across the shadows, entering the aura of firelight. He stopped three feet from her.

Roberta froze. She couldn’t speak. The can of worms that wriggled in her stomach every time she saw his face or heard his name had started a riot. She wanted to pound his chest with her fist and tell him to leave while burying her face in that same chest and crying with relief that he had returned to her. He must be here to explain why he was going to marry Melissa, here to say goodbye. Roberta shook her head and turned away.

“Roberta, I’m sorry,” Taylor said, taking her hand.

“Don’t. Please don’t. You shouldn’t be here. You’re marrying Melissa,” she said, dodging his grasp. “Just go away.”

Taylor held up both palms and stepped backward. “No, I’m not. I’m not marrying her. We’re finished. It was all a big hoax, Bertie. She blackmailed me into going along with her plan. I went along with it until I could figure out how to destroy those photos.”

“What photos?”

---