Second Chance - Jane Green [83]
‘I just wanted to thank you.’ Alex pulls back, but keeps hold of her hands, looking Saffron in the eye. ‘Everything you said spoke to me. It was like hearing my story, and I got so much out of your share.’
‘Thank you,’ Saffron says, willing herself not to judge, to find the part in Alex she could love or, at the very least, like.
‘So you have an audition tomorrow? That’s so exciting. What’s it for?’
Saffron’s heart sinks. Of course. As if she expected anything different.
‘A movie,’ she says.
‘I have an audition tomorrow for a movie!’ Alex lies smoothly. ‘I bet it’s the same one. Which one are you auditioning for?’
As if I’m stupid, Saffron thinks; but she smiles pleasantly. ‘It’s the remake of The Wizard of Oz,’ she says. ‘Spielberg’s producing it and I’m up for Dorothy.’
‘Me too! Well, good luck, maybe I’ll see you there,’ Alex says, and practically runs out of the door, clearly about to phone her agent to find a way of getting in on the audition. Saffron smiles to herself as she picks up her bag. Shame there is no remake of The Wizard of Oz. Feeling very unrecovered, she sniggers as she imagines Alex phoning Dreamworks, demanding to be seen.
At home Saffron finds a message from Paul. Nothing much, he says, just caught a rerun of one of her movies on cable TV and he is thinking about her and wondering how she is. She smiles as she hears his voice and calls him back, leaving a message on his machine; then she dials Holly, and leaves a message on hers.
She loves LA. Loves the life she has built out here, but meeting up with this huge chunk of her past has made her homesick in a way she didn’t expect. And not homesick for London – God knows she spends enough time there as it is – but homesick for friends. For real friends. Friends who aren’t rivals, aren’t pretending to be friendly to find work, aren’t judging you for how famous you are.
She is homesick for the people who knew her when it all began. Who loved her when she was a gangly teenager with railway tracks. Who held her hair back on those nights when she had more to drink than even she could handle, spending hours with her as she knelt with her head down the toilet bowl. Those are the friends she misses. Friends like Paul, Olivia and Holly.
Ringing Olivia, Saffron readies herself to leave another message, when Olivia picks up.
‘’lo?’
‘Olive Oil? Saffron here.’
Olivia starts laughing. ‘God, I’d completely forgotten you ever called me Olive Oil. That’s hysterical. Where are you?’
‘LA. Bored. Missing England and my old friends. What are you up to?’
‘Actually it’s not very pleasant. I’ve picked up a stomach bug and I’ve been throwing up for days.’
‘Food poisoning or a bug?’
‘I think a bug. Doesn’t food poisoning end after about a day?’
‘I think it depends on how severe it is. You should go and see a doctor. Unless, of course…’ Saffron allows a dramatic pause ‘… you could be pregnant.’
‘Hardly.’ Olivia laughs, and then the colour drains from her face.
Chapter Eighteen
‘Such a treat.’ Maggie smiles over at Holly and covers Holly’s hand lightly with her own. ‘All these years of not seeing you, and now it’s just like you’re my daughter again, back in the family, and seeing you with your own children, a mother yourself,’ she laughs, ‘it’s just lovely, Holly. And I love that you invited me out for lunch. I haven’t been out anywhere since we lost Tom, and I’m glad I’m able to be out with you.’
‘I’m glad you’re here with me too.’ Holly’s smile is tinged with sadness. ‘It is lovely to see you and to be with you. I hadn’t realized, all these years, how much I missed talking to you. Do you remember how you would sit with me at the kitchen table for hours, talking through my problems, giving me advice, while Tom rolled his eyes and went upstairs in a huff to plug in his headphones and drown out our laughter with Pink Floyd?’
Maggie nods and closes her eyes as she remembers, the pleasure and pain burning a tear down her cheek even through her smile.
‘I think he was always a bit jealous of our relationship,’ Maggie says, ‘of how easy it