“I’m going to leave now.”
“No, you’re not.” He blocks my path. “Stay for one more drink. Journalists and politicians aren’t the only people who need to spin for a living. You need everyone here to think this little incident was nothing, laugh it off. Let them see that you don’t give a shit. Then, and only then, can you leave this party.”
“I hate you right now.”
“I hate me all the time, but I think you should put that to one side for a moment. Think with your head, not your heart, then you can go back to hating me again tomorrow.”
“No, I want to leave.”
He sighs in mock defeat. “Okay, then let me take you home, I’ll call us a taxi.”
“I don’t need you to take me home. Go hang out with Alicia.” He smiles at this, and I feel childish, wishing I could take back the words.
“It’s nothing, it never was. I’m not sleeping with her, regardless of what she might have told you, and I don’t plan to. Christ, she’d probably swallow me whole afterwards, like one of those spiders who eat the male after mating. I’m just being kind because she’s going through a bad patch. Her mother died a few weeks ago, and her grief seems to have consumed her. It surprised me a bit at first, because it sounded like they had a difficult relationship. I always remember this horrible story she told me, that happened when she was a teenager. Apparently, her mum didn’t speak to her for over a week once, just because she didn’t get the lead in some stupid school play, can you imagine?”
He’s talking about when I got the part of Dorothy instead of her, I’m sure of it.
“Alicia ended up running away from home because she thought her mum didn’t love her anymore after that. She slept in a cardboard box on the street for three nights before going back. Even then, her mother never forgave her, said that she had let her down because she didn’t get the part. It’s funny, isn’t it, why we do the things we do? Why we become the people we become? I’ve reached the conclusion that our ambitions are rarely our own. Her mother might have died, but I swear Alicia is still trying to make her proud, desperate for forgiveness. Imagine that; having a ghost for a muse. A few days after her mother’s funeral, her agent dropped her. It wasn’t his fault, he didn’t know, and to be fair she hasn’t even had an audition for months.”
No wonder she hates me so much.
“She said she has an audition for the new Fincher movie tomorrow.”
“Ha! See what I mean! Now, Alicia is someone who knows how to spin! From now on, in any given situation, I want you to think, ‘What would Alicia do?’ Then you should at least consider doing that, instead of being so nice all the time. Nice wins in the movies, but rarely in real life. There is no Fincher audition; rumor has it he’s already decided on the female lead and the deal is practically signed off.”
I feel a moment of pure joy rush through me but say nothing. I’ve learned to keep quiet about everything in this business until contracts have been signed and exchanged. Promises and hearsay are worthless. But I can still feel people staring at me and I want them to stop.
“I need to go home.” The words come out of my mouth wrapped in a whisper, but Jack hears them.
“Let me help you.” He takes my hand, and I let him lead me through the crowds and different-colored rooms towards the exit.
A waiter carrying a tray with a single glass of champagne blocks our path in the middle of the red room.
“No, thank you,” I say, avoiding eye contact.
“It’s Dom Pérignon, not house,” the waiter says. “We don’t normally serve it by the glass, but this was paid for by the gentleman at the bar. He also wanted me to tell you that he likes your shoes,” he adds, looking more than a little embarrassed. I peer behind him, but don’t see anyone I recognize. Everyone I do see seems to be staring in my direction; I don’t think I’m imagining it anymore. My phone beeps inside my handbag, and I let go of Jack’s hand, my fingers franticly searching for it, scared of what it might say—some news alert about what the police think I have done, or Jennifer Jones’s latest online article. But it’s just a text, albeit from a number I don’t recognize. At first, I think it must be a mistake when I read the two words on the screen accompanied by a link. Then I feel my body turn icy cold.
“What date is it?” I ask Jack.
He twists his wrist to consult his Apple Watch. More people seem to be filling the room with every second that passes.
“September sixteenth. Why?”
I read the two words on the screen again, blinking, unsure whether I can trust my own eyes.
Happy Birthday!
I have celebrated my birthday in April for most of my life. Nobody knows that I was really born in September. Except Maggie. But she’s been dead for years.
I watched her die.
I look wildly around the room.
Who bought me this drink?
Who sent me that text?
Who is it that knows who I really am?
It isn’t her that I see, it’s him. Just a glimpse of his eyes watching me from the corner of the red room. My not-so-missing husband finally found. He raises a glass in my direction, but then someone walks right in front of him, and when I look again, he’s gone. Like a ghost.
Did I imagine it?
More and more people are staring at me, I’m not imagining that.
I turn to Jack, but he is busy looking at his phone, and when he looks up, his expression is not unlike all the others being worn by the faces in the room. He looks at me as though he were staring at a monster. I look back at the text message and click the link. It redirects me to the TBN news app, and I see my face on the screen and read my name in the headline.
The sensation is disorienting.
It’s like thinking you were sitting in the audience, only to discover you were actually on center stage the whole time. Surrounded by expectant eyes, but unable to remember your character, let alone your lines. I feel dizzy. I think I might be sick right here in front of them all. The crowd is almost completely silent as I see the now-familiar shape of Detective Alex Croft walking towards me, the sea of expectant faces parting to allow her through.
“Well, isn’t this a nice party,” she says. “Aimee Sinclair, I am arresting you on suspicion of murdering Ben Bailey. You do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defense if you do not mention when questioned something you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence.”
Each one of her words seems to be punctuated with a further loss of hope, until I have none left.
She smiles her crooked smile, then leans forward and whispers in my ear, before cuffing my wrists, “I always knew you were a killer actress.”
Forty-seven
Essex, 2017
Maggie O’Neil sits in her flat reading the Sunday newspapers. She wears cotton gloves on her hands because the flat is cold, and because she hates the sight of them; they are hands that have spent a lifetime working for a living, not acting. Her hands have worked hard because her life has been hard, and nothing about any of it is fair, because life just isn’t. Maggie has been waiting a long time to tell her side of the story, and now that her turn has finally come, she’s enjoying every minute.