Page 95 of Love Is…?

Tessa felt, rather than heard, Jayde inhale deeply as if to launch into a tirade in response to Olna’s ridiculous claim. It was becoming more of a train wreck with each word. She couldn’t believe how all-encompassing Olna’s fantasies, her delusions of grandeur, had become.

“Did you? I would have thought going through my agent would have been much more appropriate.” Abby cocked her head inquisitively, and Tessa couldn’t look away. This was a masterclass in pissed-off-ness wrapped in gossamer civility.

“Well, I figured because we were in the same line of business that bypassing agents would be fine. I’d catch up with Tessa, and you and I would run into each other spontaneously.” She smiled, waving her hand between Abby and herself. Tessa’s eyes grew round. “You know, Tessa and I have always helped each other in our careers. I put her in contact with the right people for her first job.”

Tessa flicked a wide-eyed glance at Abby, catching Jayde’s matching gesture. Tessa couldn’t believe that Olna would make such a claim. Even the most basic research would uncover the fact that Abigail Taylor and the Parkers were friends. Olna was too arrogant to either find out that information or too dismissive to bother.

“Did you?” Abby smiled like a parent to a child who was wearing a chocolate moustache and claiming to have no knowledge about where the last TimTam went.

The gall of her ex-girlfriend. Time to bring this debacle to its close.

“Abby, you’re incredibly busy, and I’m so, so sorry for the intrusion. The paparazzi outside were…” Tessa rambled, stopping only when Abby smiled sympathetically, and nodded.Tessa wrapped her fingers around Olna’s forearm. “Olna, if we go out the driveway gate, we can miss the paparazzi, or at least look like we’re a pair of nobodies heading off to the cafe or something.” She turned to Jayde, and mouthed, “I’ll be back in a minute.” Jayde nodded, then reached for Tessa’s hand, pulled her in, and whispered, “You’ve got this,” in her ear.

Abby lifted an eyebrow, then turned to Olna, and delivered that famous gaze. “What a lovely idea. Why don't I escort you.” She made it sound like a question with only one answer.

“Oh.” Olna clearly hadn’t expected to be bundled out of Abby’s presence so quickly. “But?—”

“Olna.” Abby turned towards the driveway gate, forcing Olna to trot along behind. “Your compliment of my front garden is appreciated. I must inform my gardener. Unfortunately, you won’t be able to deliver any further compliments as this is the last conversation we’ll be having.” She stopped abruptly. Her mouth was a straight line; Abigail Taylor was furious, and yet anyone would think that she was having a friendly chat with a bewildered trespasser who’d accidentally blundered into the wrong garden. “Attempting to gain access to me via Tessa is quite the wrong way to go about things, no matter what the industry.” She shook her head. “It is somewhat challenging in my line of work. People try to take advantage when there isn’t one to take, and it winds up hurting people who I care about very much, so here is where I say goodbye,” she said evenly, then flashed one of her trademark smiles at Tessa who grimaced apologetically in return. As Abby turned towards the house, Tessa grabbed Olna’s shoulders and spun her around before she could utter even a syllable.

Then Kyle, who had stepped around the corner because he seemed to possess a radar for knowing when to insert himself into situations, opened the gate just enough for Tessa and Olna to slip through before closing it behind them. As Tessahad guessed, the photographers were more interested in Abby, Sam, or Grace, rather than two seemingly unimportant people walking down the street.

Tessa stopped Olna at the beautiful gumtree growing outside the terrace house five doors down.

“That was ridiculous and incredibly embarrassing. For me, for Abby, and for yourself. Can’t you see what you’re doing?” Tessa snapped, enunciating each syllable.

“I’m making contacts, Tessa babe. I’m networking.”

Tessa glared. “No, you’re not. This is exactly what you did with the Parkers, but then blew them off as not worth your time. Blew me off as well. For that, and… for other reasons.” Tessa balled her hands into fists. “And this time you’ve come halfway around the freaking world to… What? Get into my pants? I doubt it. To say words that are meaningless? Absolutely. You’re doing it all again simply because now I’m working for Abigail Taylor.”

Olna tossed her hands in frustration. “Don’t you see? We could be a power couple. A couple that knows important people. We could make our contacts work to our advantage. It would give us the opportunity to find our niche in the business.”

“I have found my niche, for God’s sake. Families seek me out. Abby and Sam did. I’m very good at my job, Olna, and I like what I do.” Tessa sliced her hand through the air. “No, Ilovewhat I do and you could never see that. You didn’t love what we were, what I did. You didn’t love me.”

Olna grabbed Tessa’s biceps. “I totally loved you! I still could.”

“No. You couldn’t.” Tessa peeled Olna’s fingers from her upper arms. “Perhaps your idea of love is to put pieces of it in lots of places, and you did. Chasing dreams, chasing puffs of smoke, chasing women.” A flash of guilt pierced Olna’s eyes. “But it wasn’t enough for me to just be a piece of that love and in the end I wasn’t even that. Maybe a crumb.”

Olna swallowed, opened her mouth then closed it. The action made Tessa feel strong. This is what she’d meant to say all those years ago when Olna’s hurtful comments, her cheating, her dismissive words about Tessa’s job, about Tessa herself, had cut.

Tessa folded her arms. “To me, love is whole. It’s given as a complete package. You can’t break it into fragments to share around to other people. Not when your actions, and your words, say that your love is the package all bundled together just for that one person. For you, I was never that complete package in so many ways.”

“Come on. We had something.”

Tessa glared. “We did havesomething. You’re right. But we didn’t have everything. I wasn’t your everything, Olna, and to be honest, you weren’t mine.”

Olna tossed her hands again. “But Abigail Taylor, Tessa babe. Abigail Taylor!”

Tessa shrugged. “So what? She’s a mum who’s hired me to look after her daughter. That’s it. She wasn’t a ridiculously famous movie star when she hired me. She was a mum. A person, and I’d never use that bond, that connection, for leverage. Any connection, actually, and I’m still stunned you flew all the way here on that whim. The thought that we’d somehow make our something into an everything? It was never there to start with.”

Suddenly all the air left her sails and Tessa sighed. They stared at each other, and Olna put her hands into her pockets.

“I guess this is it,” Olna said.

“I guess so. I’m good, by the way. Thanks.”

“What?”

“Not once in this whole interaction did you ask how I was. Not once.”

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