Page 23 of Desire

“Night, my darling,” I call to Izzy as I return to the lounge where Leo is nursing a beer and flicking through the TV channels. He stops on an old football game, and I have a quick peek to see if it’s Lucas’s team, but it’s not. I settle down in the chair next to Leo and pick up the beer he got for me.

“Are you all right with what Izzy said tonight? You’ve been a bit quiet since,” Leo immediately asks.

So much for easing me in slowly! Mind you, I remember him always being up front even as a child. When we were toddlers, he told me one day we’d get married because I was his. He was only five at the time.

“It was a bit of a shock, but I’m not surprised really. Simon wasn’t the type of father to play with her in the way you did. In fact, we wouldn’t have been in the diner in the first place. It wasn’t his sort of place. He preferred Izzy to learn about more cultured food. I’d have to sneak her snacks after we went out for dinner because she was always hungry. Snails and frogs’ legs are not something you feed a toddler. However, I must admit it has given her a varied diet. She’ll eat a lot of things most children would turn their nose up at.”

“Just not snails and frogs’ legs.”

“Well would you eat them?”

“Hell no, I’m a meat man. Give me a hunk of beef, and I’m happy. Mind you, mymamá’spaella is the best.” Leo makes a groaning sound of delight.

“God, I’ve missed that. I liked the way she’d make me a separate dish with all the prawns shelled because I hated to fiddle with my food. I think I might just have to go to Spain to visit her.”

“I should go myself. I’ve not been for a while, and she’s not been too well.”

“I’m sorry.”

Leo looks so sad I reach out and place my hand over his.

“When my father left, she never really recovered from the betrayal.”

“Maybe when the dance show is over, we can all go there. I know Izzy would like to see some of Europe.”

“I’d like that very much.”

Leo picks up the remote again and starts to flick through the channels until he finds a movie. It’s one of mine. The one I was Oscar nominated for. I instantly cringe, but he leaves it on.

“I’ve never actually watched this movie,” he states.

“This is about five minutes in.”

“Do you mind if I see it?” he asks, and I find it refreshing that he wants to.

Simon only ever watched one of my movies with me and criticized it the whole way through, so we never did it again. However, I had to watch all of his and tell him everything that was brilliant about his acting. As I’m not the biggest fan of action movies, it was often difficult, but I was always polite.

“Go on. Just expect me to cringe at any parts where there’s poor acting.”

“You won’t cringe at all then, I’m sure.”

Leo pulls me a little closer to him on the sofa, and we settle down together and watch the movie. I’d forgotten how good it actually was, and why I received such critical acclaim for it. I’m a young mother in the movie, who’s been raped and left pregnant as a result. I’m outcast by my family because I refuse to get rid of the child. The story follows how my character first starts living on the streets before getting a job and finding somewhere to live. Eventually she has her son and they meet a nice doctor at the hospital who falls in love with her, and they live happily ever after. It’s certainly a hard movie to watch in places but leaves you feeling contented and warm inside. The Oscar winner that year was a friend of mine for her portrayal of a girl with autism in the Victorian era. I cried the entire way through it, so I was glad she won.

When the movie finishes, Leo places down his unfinished beer. He’s been holding it tightly in his hand the whole time the film was playing.

“What did you think?” I’m not sure I want to know, but I ask anyway.

Leo leans forward and shuffles on the sofa so he’s facing me.

“Do you miss Hollywood?”

“Does that mean it was good or bad?”

“It means, do you miss it?”

I think for a minute before replying to his question.

“I thought I would miss it more than I do. I love acting and being someone else, losing myself in the emotions of a scene like the ones you’ve just watched. But do I miss the Hollywood life? No, the intrusion into my personal life was more than I ever thought it would be. I knew there would be some but not to the extent there was. I couldn’t even go to the store without people critiquing what I was wearing. If I forgot my wedding ring, my marriage was falling apart. If I wore the wrong color, I was lambasted. I remember pregnancy watch with Izzy. I didn’t drink champagne at an event because I knew I was pregnant, and it was all over the gossip magazines the next day. They even zoomed in on photos of my stomach to see if I had the start of a baby bump under my dress. I wasn’t one of the most famous actresses in Hollywood, so I don’t know how they deal with it all. To be under the microscope twenty-four seven is not something I think I ever want to do again. That’s much more Simon’s thing. In many ways, it was why he tried to control me so much—he was worried about keeping up appearances. He released our baby scans to the press before we’d even told all our family. I’d wanted to sit down and talk to my mama about it first, but I wasn’t given the opportunity. The announcement had to be orchestrated for maximum exposure to raise our Hollywood profiles. It felt like another acting job in the end. One that was too painful when it exploded because the violence was real.”

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