Chapter 32

Sandy and I were up early and, after breakfast with Maria, we left for the hospital. We were there for so long, it almost felt like home, but after I’d been sitting in the waiting room four hours, Sandy came hobbling out of the treatment area on a pair of forearm crutches.

The nurse escorting her reminded her to do her exercises daily and to come back in a week for a check-up.

We thanked her and left for home.

“So, when can you start driving again?” Maria asked her.

“They’ll look at my leg again next week and if it’s progressing well enough, after then, otherwise I’ll have to keep on coming back every week until it is.”

“Then we’ll have to make sure you keep up with your Physio exercises,” I said, “I’ll do them with you.”

We were in the back seat and she took my hand and placed it on the inside of her thigh, high up, close to the gusset of her underwear.

“Especially around this area?” she whispered.

When we got back home, my family was out, Maria went to the kitchen to start preparing dinner while I took Sandy upstairs and made her lie down and rest.

“How is she?” Maria asked as I entered the kitchen in search of coffee.

“She seems much happier now the casts are off. She’s having to use those crutches, but she feels she can get around by herself much better. She’s especially happy, I think, at being told that after next week she may be able to drive again.”

“And what about you, what’s troubling you?” she asked.

I let out a sigh.

“Lots of things,” I replied, “work, Sandy, Cal, missing my friends, worry about the future. Will doing school work remotely be enough to get the A level grades I’ll need for Uni, pimples. You know the usual trials and tribulations of being a teenager.”

“All right what are you worried about work wise?” she asked.

“Whether I’ll have any after the holiday.” I said, “will they just decide to abandon the project, lay off all the others and cut their losses.”

“I don’t think that will happen and anyway someone is flying out from LA to see you on the 27^th, so I doubt if that’s on the agenda. Why not shelve that until after then? Next, what worries you about Sandy?”

“Mainly whether she and I can maintain this relationship,” I replied, “I’m conscious of the age difference and that once this job is over, I’ll be going back to England and she’ll be going back to New Jersey. Experience tells me that long distance relationships tend not to work and this wouldn’t be for a few weeks, it would be more or less permanent.”

“David,” she said, reaching out across the table and resting her hand on mine, “firstly do you think Sandy is so shallow. Comes this summer, she’ll be graduated, surely you have jobs for newly qualified film graduates over in England. Don’t you think that’s where she’d be looking?”

“Yes, but,” I began.

“No buts, David,” she said, “I know my daughter she’d follow you into the heart of the sun if you asked her.”

“Then there’s Cal,” she said, “let’s skip her for a moment, you’re missing your friends. Well if that’s the case you’re definitely heading down the wrong path in life. Everybody misses their friends when they’re not there, David and in your job, you’re probably going to be away from home more than you’re at home.”

“That’s the trouble,” I said, “I don’t know that I want this kind of life.”

“Then stop acting and concentrate on your studies,” she answered, “or stop studying and concentrate on your career. Pimples, I can’t help you with, but I’ve never noticed one on you, but then I could always ask my daughter if there are any in places I haven’t seen.”

I think I blushed at that idea.

“And now, the subject of Miss Calista Jane Warner,” she said, “you still have some feelings for her don’t you?”

I thought for a long moment before I looked her in the eyes and nodded my head.

“Yes,” I agreed, “some. I don’t hate her. We’ve been friends since we were five. Best friends and then two years ago that changed. She just seems to have made a habit of ripping out my heart and stamping on it once a year. But this time was the last one, I’m not going into details of what she did, but if she’d stopped to think before she did it, it would never have happened. She just does what she thinks she wants in the moment without any thoughts of how it will affect me, or indeed, anybody else. So I think the answer is, yes, I still love her, but in the same way that I love my friends. It’s better that way.”

“Why is it?” she asked.

“Because I can forgive my friends for breaking my heart in time, I don’t think I can ever forgive the woman I love.”

“Then start by forgiving the friend,” she said, “if nothing else it will make you feel better.”

“But what if...” I began.

“What if you fall back IN love with Cal?” she asked, “in the end David, you have to do what’s best for you, but you also need to do it in a way that doesn’t hurt others too much. I think perhaps that is where your Cal fails.”

I knew she was right, instinctively, but I couldn’t ever picture myself deliberately hurting another person.

We couldn’t talk any further because we were invaded by the returning hordes.

Mum was the first one into the kitchen and immediately asked about Sandy.

“She’s had her casts off,” I replied, “but I think having to walk with crutches has rather tired her out, she’s upstairs resting.”

“I’ll go up and see her in a little while,” she replied.

“So have you all spent up?” I asked the assembled family in the living room.

“Some of us have spent,” Alison replied, “but not excessively. Which reminds me, I must give Sandy your credit card back.”

“WHAT!” I almost yelled, “she didn’t?”

Then I saw that they were all laughing. Alison held her hand out to Dad and he put a five dollar note in it.

“Told you he’d fall for it,” she said, before walking over and patting me on the cheek.

“Still the most easily manipulated boy in the school,” she said quietly.

Mum disappeared upstairs to see Sandy and the rest of us sat down to watch TV until dinner was ready. Mum was back less than a minute later.

“She’s asleep,” she said when she came back.

“Good,” was all I said in reply, “if she doesn’t come down to eat, we’ll save her some for when she awakes.”

Dinner was a very tasty lamb stew, with an added refinement, Mum had taught Maria the noble art of making dumplings and they had been added to the pot. I was hoping that before she left, she’d also teach her how to make a proper Yorkshire pudding, since Maria’s had a habit of turning out like very thick pancakes.

Conversation around the dinner table was mainly about decorating the tree. We had decided that it was to be a communal effort and the tree currently lay outside on the patio, where it had been since it was delivered a few days previously. The girls had decided that they would be the ones to do the decoration and the necessary baubles, streamers and lights all lived in a box in the coat cupboard in the hall. They decided that while they were doing that the males of the family would wrap their personal presents to other members and then the ladies would wrap the rest. That suited us perfectly.

When I finally went up to bed Sandy was still asleep, so I took care of what was necessary in the bathroom and slid into bed beside her. She stirred in her sleep as I cuddled up against her back and, not long afterwards I was asleep with her.

I woke the following morning to a pair of brown eyes gazing into mine. The associated pair of pink lips lowered and kissed me on the end of the nose.

“Morning my lovely sleepyhead,” she said.

“Morning precious,” I replied, “how long have you been awake?”

“About an hour,” she replied, “I’ve been watching you sleep and waiting for you to wake up so you can do your duty.”

“Duty?” I queried.

“You know, the one where you run downstairs and bring me a cup of coffee.”

“Oh,” I said, “I thought you meant something else.”

“Coffee first,” she demanded.

I wandered downstairs into the kitchen to find it deserted, I put the coffee maker on to brew and got two mugs out of the cupboard, put them on the side, got out the cream and sugar for Sandy and waited.

It takes about five minutes for the maker to do a full brew and during that five minutes I sat at the table and thought about the conversation with Maria the day before.

As the machine started its gurgling that signified that the last of the water was running through. I stood and waited the last few seconds before filling the two mugs, replacing the carafe on the heating plate, added cream and sugar to Sandy’s, then took them upstairs.

“You really are a sweet, sweet man,” Sandy said as I put her mug down on her bedside table, “I suppose you’ll want your reward now.”

“Your smile is my reward,” I replied, “but if anything else is on offer, I’d be happy to accept.”

She offered, I accepted, three times.

The day was filled with females seemingly aimlessly wandering back and forth trying the tree in various positions before they put it in the first place they tried. This was the point at which my Dad and I decided that we would make ourselves scarce and headed to downtown Vancouver to do our Christmas shopping.

As we went around, finding and buying suitable presents for those ladies for whom we bought personal gifts we noticed that Vancouver seemed to operate on the same principle as the rest of the world. Most women start their Christmas shopping as soon as the New Year holiday ends, while most men start theirs on Christmas Eve. The crowds were almost exclusively men.

I realised as we walked around the mall that I didn’t know whether Sandy had bought anything for Cal and Mary from the two of us, so I took out my mobile and called her. She confirmed that yes, she had and then refused to tell me what.

I was a little peeved at that, but, at the same time, relieved that it was one less thing for me to consider. I just had to buy for my parents, my sister, my brother and Jean his girlfriend. I don’t know why she was so insistent on me getting those, she was perfectly capable of getting them for both of us.

One of the things I liked about Vancouver back then is I could go out shopping, on my own and very rarely have someone come up with me and ask, “Hey, aren’t you?” It was peaceful. So, I was surprised as we sat at a table in the middle of the food court sipping coffee when a voice behind me said, “Excuse me, but, aren’t you Greg Paradise?”

“No, sorry, I’m not,” I replied.

“Oh, sorry, but you look so much like him,” she answered.

“I’m often told that,” I said.

“Oh, well,” she said, “I’m sorry to have bothered you. Have a nice day.”

“Thanks, you too,” I replied and she left.

“You know, son, that’s the first time I’ve seen you not be welcoming to a fan,” Dad said, “what’s wrong?”

“Nothing really,” I replied, “I just don’t feel like I can be bothered right now.”

“And in a couple of years time, after she has walked away and then realised later that you are who she thinks you are and your next Star Academy film comes out, she says ‘I don’t feel I can be bothered right now,’ and she tells her friends and they feel the same way, then they tell their friends and then what happens?”