Page 7 of The House Guest

But as she passed, people stopped mid-conversation. They turned their heads, men and women alike, to watch her. To stare. Why? Because there was an energy coming off her. Something invisible; something that crackled silently, shifting the molecules in the air around her. No one recognised her – her movie had been a small critical success, seen mostly by hardcore horror buffs and industry insiders – but they recognisedsomething. A sun that shone from within her. The sense that here was someone on the cusp; someone who had been sprinkled with magic dust but hadn’t yet learned to stretch her wings. Like Marilyn Monroe in 1951, Madonna in 1982, Beyoncé right before she joined Destiny’s Child. I watched the faces of the people she passed and I knew that soon she would belong among the stars.

‘Hey,’ she said, kissing me lightly on the lips. A waiter appeared almost immediately and took her drinks order. Her beer arrived quickly and she held the icy bottle against her cheek for a moment. ‘Oh my God, I need this. What a day. I have to keep reminding myself I’m living the dream.’

‘You are.’

She told me about the rehearsal, about how Sally had made her and the lead actor, a guy named Alex, act out the same scene over and over until they’d got it ‘almost’ right.

‘It’s so hard, Adam. Sally is such a ...’

‘Bitch?’

‘No!’ She grinned. ‘I was going to say “visionary”. A perfectionist too.’

‘She’s a tyrant. I saw the way she talked to you and the other actors on the cruise.’

‘I know she can be a little tough – but, well, it’s tough love. She’s making us into better actors. Creating better art. I feel like ... you know, it’s often like being part of a family, being with the cast and the crew, and then at the end you all disperse and you never see half of them again, but this time, I don’t know, it feels different.’

I didn’t point out that she always said this.

‘Sally hasn’t said so but I really think she values me. And Alex is so good, it’s ridiculous. I was struggling so much to capture the agony of the scene, to truly feel it, you know? But he helped me. We did this exercise that ...’ She stopped herself. ‘How was your meeting?’

I hesitated. I really didn’t want to stick a pin in her mood. ‘It was great. He liked it.’

‘Really?’

‘Don’t sound so shocked.’

‘I’m not! I know it’s a great play. So ... what’s going to happen next?’

I tried to keep my voice light. ‘Oh, I’m not sure. He wants me to work on some revisions.’

‘But he sounded keen? Like something might happen?’ She sounded almost as desperate as I felt.

‘Yeah. Definitely.’

I couldn’t look her in the eye.

‘Oh, that’s brilliant.’ She sat back. ‘I can’t believe it. It’s actually happening for us, isn’t it?’ She raised her beer bottle. ‘To success.’

I clinked my bottle against hers, forcing myself to smile. ‘To success.’

We left the Tavern and walked towards the edge of the park. I was dreading the subway ride home. It was rush hour and I didn’t know if I’d be able to bear the crush of bodies. The sweat.

Ruth must have been thinking the same thing. ‘Let’s get an Uber,’ she said.

‘That’s a bit extravagant, isn’t it?’

‘It’s fine. We’ll both have money soon.’ She had barely earned anything from the movie and was being paid a weekly wage forDare, though her agent had yet to pass on any of the money. ‘Anyway, I’ll pay. My treat.’

She took her phone out of her bag and opened the Uber app. At the exact same moment, somebody shot past us on a bicycle, almost colliding with Ruth.

She stared at her empty hand. ‘My phone!’

I broke into a run, shouting out something ineffectual like, ‘Hey, stop!’ Ahead of us on the path, a man looked over his shoulder and saw me running towards him, just as the bike passed him. He must have figured out what was going on, as he gave chase too. But it was no good. The cyclist was way too fast, and was out of sight within seconds.

It had all happened so quickly, in a blur of movement and colour, that I hadn’t got a proper look at the mugger. I recalled something red on his head, a baseball cap or similar. All around us, people stared.

The man who had chased the cyclist came up to us. He was out of breath. He took off his sunglasses for a second and wiped his brow. ‘Sorry, I tried.’

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