Second Chance - Jane Green [48]
Her career took off. A part in a TV series and a cleverly concocted fake romance with one of the hot young stars in film pushed her into the public eye, and soon she was one of the bright young things in London. She was also drinking more and more.
Then the Sun printed an article about the celebs who were so thin they were disappearing in the public eye, and Saffron was the main focus. It still wasn’t enough to make her change.
When Saffron moved to LA for a movie her agent insisted she go to rehab. She didn’t want to, nor did she want to lose the part. Rehab followed, and then intensive twelve-step meetings. AA was her lifesaver. If ever she felt lonely, or insecure, or just needed some company, she could turn up at one of the hundreds of meetings on her doorstep, and instantly feel as if she were at home.
But it was more than just the company. She really lived the programme. She would sit at night writing a daily inventory, would start each day with prayer and meditation, was working her way slowly through the steps.
She was doing what she was told to do: taking it a day at a time, learning to live and let live, learning that she couldn’t do it alone.
It helped that the LA meetings were so glamorous. It made the work fun, and you never knew who you’d see at these meetings. Everyone in the industry, it seemed, whether they had a drinking problem or not, would turn up for the break in the middle – standing around the coffee machine, swapping business cards, handing out bios, talking shop, making deals.
One day Saffron was sitting in the corner, absent-mindedly doodling on the tiny notepad she always brought to the meetings, when she heard a wonderful voice. Rich and warm, she knew it was familiar but couldn’t place it. She had tuned out when he introduced himself, but when she looked up she recognized him instantly. How could you not recognize him, three times voted Hollywood’s sexiest man by People magazine, in one of those fairy-tale marriages with an equally famous film-star wife, one of the biggest earners in the business.
But an alcoholic? She never knew. He shared that day about humility. About how, when he was drinking, he was an asshole. He was grandiose, pompous, thought he knew the answers to everything. He was a nightmare on film sets, he said, but this programme had changed his life, had given him a second chance.
He had learnt the gift of humility, had learnt that he was one of God’s children, no better and no worse than anyone else. He had spent years knowing he wasn’t good enough, and so everyone was judged accordingly: are they better than me or worse than me, and if they were better, he would automatically affect grandiosity. Now, he said, he treated everyone with kindness and respect and wasn’t attached to results. If people were unpleasant, he assumed it was because they were having a bad day, no longer automatically jumping to the conclusion that it was all about him.
Saffron went up to him at the coffee break. He was standing in a corner looking at some leaflets on the literature table, and she could see a number of people ready to pounce, but she got to him first.
‘I just want to tell you –’ she said, her heart beating ever so slightly faster because, even though she wasn’t intimidated by celebrity and had, in fact, acted with some of the world’s finest, there was something about him that was different –‘I just want to tell you that I loved your share. I loved everything you said. It is exactly what my experience has been, and I love that you were able to be so honest in these rooms, that despite your fame, you trust this programme enough to do that.’
He turned and really looked at her then. Intrigued by her English accent, her words, and the force behind them. ‘Thank you.’ He held out his hand. ‘I’m Pearce.’
Their friendship took a while. Initially they’d see each other at meetings, smile hello,