In Love with a Star Read online

  There was a photo of Arthur with a baby Chris in his arms.

  She took the well-framed photo into her arms and she felt faint.

  She decided she would take it to Arthur.

  She was going to close the drawer when she saw a slip of paper with a name and a phone number, in Arthur’s handwriting.

  It was Chris’s phone number.

  When Arthur was hit by the ictus, he made her promise she would never call Chris for him and she accepted even if unwillingly.

  But now she felt she couldn’t keep that promise anymore.

  She took the piece of paper with trembling hands and sniffing.

  She grasped her mobile and dialed the number.

  She hadn’t heard Chris’s voice for ages and her heart started beating very fast, but she felt nausea when she thought about what she should tell him.

  After a very long series of rings and trials, Leny heard an agitated and shrill voice on the phone.

  “Chris?”, she asked troubled.

  “No, I’m his agent”.

  “Sorry. Can I talk to him? It’s an emergency! His gran….”.

  “Listen, I don’t have time for bullshit. Turn to someone else”.

  “But it’s Chris’s grand-father! He’s dying”, Leny shouted furious for the man’s insensitivity.

  “Chris is turning a scene on the set at the moment”.

  “I don’t care at all! I must talk to him immediately! Do you understand? It’s really a question of life or death!”, Leny became more and more furious, shattered by the kind of people surrounding Chris. She wasn’t surprised he had started drinking with people like that around him.

  The agent muttered something rude but in the end he called Chris, who came to the phone soon after.

  “Grandpa?”, he asked hesitant.

  Hearing Chris’s voice, still deeper and warmer than in the past, made her brain go into orbit.

  It was different from the one heard in movies.

  “Chris…”.

  “Leny? Is it you?”, the man whispered faintly.

  “Yes…I’m sorry, but your grandpa is ill…Very ill…He had a heart attack and…”, she tried to explain, but her words were stuck to her tongue. How could she tell him his grand-father was dying?.

  “I’ll take the first flight and get there”, he answered suddenly icy.

  He couldn’t add anything else because the line was interrupted.

  I’ll take the first flight and get there. She would soon see Chris again. How long had she been dreaming about that moment? How much had she wished to see him again, to hold him tight and…to kiss him?

  What a pity it should happen in a situation like that.

  She would rather wait seven years more, if that meant giving Arthur more years of life.

  She couldn’t sleep that night fearing a phone call from the hospital.

  The streets were still deserted the next morning went she went to the hospital.

  Diana, who had spent the night there, was grateful for the early change and went away.

  Leny was left alone with Arthur, who hadn’t woken up yet, so she started messing about the bag, filling the closet with a change of clothes and a pijamas and putting the photo on the night table next to the bed.

  “Thanks”, Arthur muttered tiredly having just woken up, seeing Leny put the portrait on the table.

  “Arthur! How are you?”, Leny exclaimed anxious, letting tears of relief fall down her cheeks.

  “I’m dying”.

  “Don’t say that. You’ll get over”.

  “I’m old, Leny. I’m not afraid of death. I will at last be able to hold my son and my wife tight again”.

  “Oh, Arthur…”.

  “I only regret I couldn’t see Chris again, but if you meet him, tell him I love him. I’ve always loved him and I only wish him to be happy”.

  Leny was silently grateful to herself because she had called him.

  “I’m sure he will be back soon, so you’ll be able to tell him all that”.

  “You have phoned him, haven’t you?”.

  Leny nodded slowly, trying to wipe away the tears from her blushing face with the sleeve of her sweatshirt.

  “Promise you’ll tell him what you feel when…”, she tried to say before a new respiratory crisis which made the alarm of the device connected to his heart ring.

  Leny run out of the room scared, calling for help and after a few seconds a doctor and a nurse got into the room, praying her to wait outside.

  “Please, don’t die”, Leny went on saying while she walked up and down the corridor like an animal in a cage.

  Some minutes passed before Arthur’s room was let free.

  “I’m sorry, but I don’t think Mr. Hailen will survive the day”, the doctor warned her before he was called for a new emergency.

  Leny decided to spent the rest of the day in hospital praying to see Chris come as soon as possible.

  Luckily towards lunch time, her mother informed her she had gone to the airport to fetch Chris, Emily and her sister Rose.

  It seemed that everyone wanted to be near Chris in such a difficult moment.

  Even if Leny hadn’t had breakfast, she didn’t feel like having a single slice of bread. A watery and too sweet tea from the ward machine was enough for her.

  She was going back to sit next to Arthur’s bed when he woke up again.

  “Leny, dear…”, he muttered in a furry voice.

  “Arthur! How are you?”, Leny immediately enquired caressing his sunken and wrinkled face.

  “I’m…thirsty”, he could just say.

  Leny did her best pouring him some fresh water in a plastic glass given by the hospital.

  She then lay on the bed, making room with her knee and helping him to raise his head.

  Because of his excessive weight, she helped him with the pillows, then she hold him in her thin arm and helped him to take small sips.

  Some water trickles fell to the corners of his mouth, wetting the sheets.

  “I’ll bring you a napkin or we’ll form a lake”, She whispered softly, trying to stretch still more to the other edge, where the night table was.

  “I’ll help you”, a familiar voice burst out in Leny’s back. A voice she would recognize even among a thousand shouts.

  Scared and happy, she turned suddenly and she found herself one meter from Chris’s tall and strong body.

  She looked for his emerald eyes, but a huge pair of sunglasses hid his glance and didn’t let her understand his mood.

  “The napkins are in the first drawer of the night table”, she was able to utter trying to concentrate on Arthur’s weight which was tiring her arm.

  As if hypnotized, she saw Chris move fast to the night table and take some paper napkins, which he put then on his grandpa’s chest.

  Distracted by the old man’s coughing fits, Leny turned all her attention to him.

  “Arthur, drink a little more”, she invited him trying to make him stand better.

  Luckily Chris understood her intentions and he helped her to raise his grand- father to let him drink more easily.

  This time, Arthur could drink more comfortably and he kept his eyes on the last to arrive, even if he was worn out by the illness.

  As soon as he finished drinking, Leny made him lie down again, arranging the pillows better and trying to taste those short contacts with Chris’s arm which was still holding the old man’s falling shoulders.

  “Chris”, Arthur muttered once he was arranged.

  “Grandpa. How are you?”, his grandson asked him putting down his glasses and bending on his grandpa to kiss his forehead.

  “I’m old”.

  “I’ll leave you alone”, Leny intruded smiling to him.

  “Chris, thank you for asking an angel to look after me all these years”.

  Leny wished to thank him, she wanted to tell him she loved him, but the pain for that situation prevented her from saying anything. She hinted a smile which badly match
ed the tears streaming out of her swollen eyes, marked by the last events.

  She tried to look at Chris, but her tears prevented her.

  “I’ll be out of the door”.

  Once outside, Leny found herself in Emily’s arms.

  “Leny, dear!”, her cousin exclaimed happy enveloping her in a cloud of perfume.

  “Em…Emily…”, Leny muttered still shattered by the contact with the girl she loved more

  than a sister.

  As soon as the hug ended, they looked at each other happy and troubled.

  “Leny, I missed you so much”.

  “I missed you too. How are you?”, the girl asked her, feeling her eyes prickle for the emotion.

  Emily was back! She was back to her!

  She had wished so much to be next to her again.

  She needed so much to be loved and listened to!

  She had been feeling so alone recently and finally the girl she loved the most in the world was back to her!

  She smiled trustfully: things would turn better now. She felt sure of that.

  “I feel great”, Emily exclaimed euphoric wrapped in her superstar look and from the high heels of her Jimmy Choo. “I’m not asking you the same, because you look terrible!”.

  Terrible as these seven years have been!

  She wished to answer her cousin, but Chris came suddenly out of Arthur’s room.

  He was wearing sunglasses again, but a lonely tear showed his pain.

  “He is dead”.

  Dead? Leny felt lost.

  She would have fallen to the ground if her mother hadn’t run to support her, while Emily hold the boy in her arms to comfort him.

  She wished she could run as well to hold Chris tight, but she couldn’t and it was evident Chris and Emily had been engaged for ages even if between ups and downs.

  Who was she to get next to the famous and unattainable Chris Hailen?

  All that happened afterwards was a succession of rapid events which ended with Arthur’s burial.

  In the following days, Leny met Chris only once at his grandfather’s, where he had decided to stay far from paparazzi and gossips.

  She left the documents of the death on the table. She wished to talk with Chris, but Emily never left him alone and their mobiles carried on ringing frantically, so it was impossible for her to go beyond politeness.

  “Thank you for everything you did for my grandpa. He talked about you before he…”, Chris whispered to her after she had said goodbye.

  A lump in her throat blocked her breath while she tried not to be lost in those watery and suffering eyes, which were always so gorgeous.

  “I loved your grandpa”.

  A week after the burial, Rose and Leny’s mother decided to organize a dinner to stay all together again, like in the past.

  “My God, I didn’t remember how small this house is! This kitchen is as big as the bathroom of the Richmond Hotel suite in New York, where I stayed last month”, Emily commenced, after she had checked in detail the amount of fats she would absorb during the meal. “Auntie, how can you live here with Leny? Isn’t it too small for two people?”.

  “Bu Leny doesn’t live here anymore. She has her own house in town. However I like a quite small hose, or we’ll risk to get lost”.

  “Of course, as it happened to mum and me in the new villa I bought. It has four floors and twenty bedrooms opening on a wonderful garden!”, Emily giggled biting the undressed salad.

  In those days spent together, Leny had immediately remarked how the movie world and fame had made her cousin change. Even if she loved her and was proud of her success, she couldn’t avoid turning up her nose in front of the new snobbish side.

  If her cousin had only known she would soon lose the house too…

  No, she still had pride and dignity and she would do her best to avoid being pitied for her misfortunes.

  If she had thought at first of opening her heart to Emily, she was now sure she didn’t want to cut the poor figure of the unlucky country girl.

  “Leny works in Andrew Marshall’s law firm. She has been lucky! You know, with this crisis, finding a job is very hard at the moment”, she went on praising her daughter and making Leny troubled and feeling like a cat on a hot tin roof.

  “Leny, are you a lawyer?”, Emily said surprised.

  “No, she is a secretary”, Claire, Leny’s mother, corrected her, before her daughter could open her mouth.

  “Andrew, the son of my grandfather’s friend?”, Chris interfered turning directly to Leny, after he had kept religiously silent till then.

  “Yes”, the young woman told him, getting up at once to move to the cooker. ”I’ll go and check the turkey in the oven”. How could she lie to those eyes…to Chris? She felt her hands tremble.

  She started breathing and praying till the talk turned to something else.

  While she was turning the meat and checking the cooking of the potatoes, Leny sighed with relief: Emily had finally started telling about her adventures on the set and about the possibility of working on a new movie where she would play the part of Catwoman, the protagonist.

  “Can you realize that! I could play the heroine! And what’s more I would work with John Mess! My God, I’m really looking forward to it! My agent is making lots of pressure to let me have that part!”, Emily started bright, while Leny sat down again trying to keep her eyes on her cousin and to concentrate on her talk.

  She pretended she didn’t notice Chris’s wounded and offended look. Her heart asked for forgiveness but her sense of guilt paralyzed her.

  Even when he helped her to clear the table and charge the dish washer, as they used to do when they were children, she just couldn’t look at his face.

  “Thanks”, she muttered, her heart beating fast, while he was taking the last dishes from her hands to rinse them in the sink.

  Their fingers brushed for a short moment, making Leny’s brain turn to short circuit.

  “Is there something wrong?”, he asked suddenly.

  “No, everything is ok”, she said in a hurry while she finished tidying the kitchen.

  When they were children she used to tell him everything. He was the only one she could open her heart to and now the idea of lying to him made her feel like a worm.

  “Have I done anything…?”.

  “No, absolutely not. I’m just tired”, Leny squealed in too high a voice caused by tension.

  Luckily Emily turned to her rescue, carrying Chris away and letting her be able to breath freely at last.

  She took advantage of everybody’s inattention to take leave and run away from all of them.

  As soon as she got into the car, she felt on the edge of the abyss again.

  She was letting herself be overwhelmed by sadness, when she heard someone knocking at the car window.

  Scared, she rubbed her burning eyes and tried to focus on the shape standing out of the dark.

  Chris was there and he was staring at her worried.

  She opened the window.

  “Is everything ok?”.

  “Of course”, she answered smiling faintly. “Do you need anything?”

  For a moment Chris kept staring at her undecided, then he sighed.

  “I just wished you to say hello and thanks to Andrew Marshall and his father from me for everything they did for my grandpa in the past”.

  She didn’t dare tell him she hadn’t seen Andrew for a month, so she just nodded and said goodbye.

  Only when she got home, or better to the house she should consider hers but she didn’t recognize anymore, since there was nothing around showing it was inhabited, she let herself fall on her bed where she started praying Arthur to help her.

  3

  Leny got distraught and embittered to the next Saturday.

  She had had three job interviews that week and they hadn’t turned good: the cake shop “Sweety Sweety”, considered her too qualified for a job as shop assistant, while for William Jerks’s law firm she was
too little competent, even if she had been working at another law firm and for the job required in the last four years.

  Looking for a suitable dress for the get-together with some high school friends and Emily, Leny realized that just two of the hundreds of dresses Emily had sent her were worth her salary.

  She should maybe start being more cynical and sell some clothes on Ebay.

  In fact, most of them were so elaborated and so much daring she would never dare to wear them in public.

  Exasperated, she finally choose a black sheath dress made precious by strass and a pair of very nice shoes. One of Emily’s presents.

  She wore also make up very carefully, keeping telling to herself she wasn’t doing so just to appear beautiful to Chris’s eyes.

  The meeting was at the pub in town. Emily would be accompanied by Chris and she would join them by her car.

  She stared at herself once more before she left and she was quite satisfied about the result.

  The concealer covered the shadows under her eyes and the lighting powder perfectly hid the paleness and tension on her face.

  She got into the car trying to smile and wishing everything would be ok.

  She knew that all the people in the company, including Sheila, Brad and Tom, were still her friends more for her relationship with Emily than for anything else, but she hoped that now her cousin was back, they wouldn’t ignore her completely that evening.

  She would try hard to smile and be cheerful.

  She didn’t want to show Chris that she was still the shy and silent girl she used to be.

  With a steady step, she got into the car, but as soon as she turned the key, the car let a strange rumble out ending by a blow and then…silence.

  She tried to make the car start, but she couldn’t.

  She tried again and again.

  Nothing.

  The car gave no signs of life…like everything else.

  She couldn’t avoid shouting with rage and frustration.

  After she had well vented her rage punching the driving wheel till her hands hurt, Leny decided to tell Emily about her problem.

  “Please, you must come. I’m alone! Chris has stood me up! Please…”, she prayed her pretending she wasn’t already the center of attention of all the people in the pub.