Away From the Spotlight (44 page)

“I
promise
.  I love you.”

“I love you too.”

I
entered
the security checkpoint
line
and turned around briefly to find him
watching
me.  I tried to smile and wa
ved.  I
didn’t
turn around again
f
or
fear
I would tear up.

Pam rolled her eyes at the drama.  “You’re not going to be pining away for him the
whole
time we’re gone, are you?”

“No.  I promise.”  I meant to keep that promise.  I was not going to ruin this trip of a lifetime for either Pam or me. 
E
ven if I stayed in London, Will would be too busy filming to have
much, if
any
,
time for me so it
’
s just as well
that I go
.

By the time we
arrived in central
Dubli
n
and checked into our bed and breakfast, it was almost five
o’clock
.  Our
B&B
was a little worn around the edges and our room was small and spar
sely furnished
.
We knew
that
this was likely to be the case
since
we had chosen a central location
n
ear O’Connell Street
over some of the nicer looking B&B
s f
a
rther out from the city center.  We didn’t plan on
being in the room much anyway.

I called Will to let him know we had arrived
.  Will and I planned to keep in touch
via
daily phone calls and I agreed to send him a camera
phone picture here and there.

Upon getting off the phone with Will,
Pam and I
we
nt in search of dinner
and
then
for
a pub crawl around the City Center.  Over the course of the evening, we managed to hit a
number of
pubs
.  We didn’t get quite the same reception as we had in Europe
during
our trip after college.  Although we hadn’t seen too many
red
head
s, we must not have been so unusual in Ireland to call attention to ourselves. 
We’d have a single drin
k and move on to the next pub.

We ended up spending the majority of time in
what became
our last pub of the evening because of
a
tall, dark and
good-
looking Irishman
named
Neil
who had been paying
Pam
a lot of attention. 
I kept a smile on my face while Pam and Neil flirted, but was replaying
my
last few days
with Will
in my head instead of
li
stening to them.  I doubt they noticed. 
At closing time, w
e said our goodbyes and
Neil
promised to return the next night
to meet us
which made Pam happy.

We spent
our time in Dublin
visiting the sites by day and the pubs by night.  We hit Trinity College and
saw
the Book of Kells there, Dublin Castle and St
.
Patrick’s Cathedral and shopp
ed
for
Celtic
jewelry to take home as gifts over the course of the three nights and two days we
spent
in Dublin
.

On
Saturday, the second full-day we were there
, a
s we walked
down O’Connell Street
, I noticed the papers sitting at the entrance of one of the shops and was horrified to see Will and
me
on the front of one of the tabloids.  I
asked
Pam
to
buy the paper for
me so that I could look at it.

The paper made it
abundantly c
lear that
my attempts to look at the ground were useless as w
ere
our attempts to evade the press
. 
The picture on the front was of the two of us dressed to go
to
my birthday
lunch. 
The photo spread on the inside of the tabloid paper
contained
numerous photos of Will and me, some of which were taken when we didn’t know anyone was
watching
. 
U
nder the caption, “Will MacKenzie and American Girlfriend Spend Romantic Week in London,”
there
were pictures of us in front of the London Eye, kissing on Westminster Bridge, walking hand-in-hand in Westminster
,
standing together on the back of our privately chartered boat on the Thames
at the pier, and kissing goodbye at the airport as I left for Ireland
. 
Many of t
hese pictures were taken at
what likely
was
quite
a distance, but
it was clear that it was us.  My eyes widened in horror
.

I took a camera phone picture of the paper and sent it to Will.  He called me back immediately.

“Shannon, I’m
so
sorry.”

“There’s nothing to be sorry for.  I just thought you’d want to know.”

“I already know.  Our pictures are all over the papers here as well.”

“Are you still being harassed?”

“Yes.  It’s okay.  I long ago accepted that this was the price I have to pay.  But
you
,
you didn’t ask for this.”

“I’d go through worse to be with you.”

“You may have to.”

“Don’t be like that.  It
’
ll be fine.  I can’t imagine it won’t blow over
soon and my
fifteen
minutes will be up
.
So where are you now?”  I tried to change the subject.

“The set.  I don’t start shooting until Monday, but others are and I thought I would check
it
out.”

“Well, I won’t bother you then.”

“You never bother me.  I love you.  I want you to go have fun, but be careful.”

“Okay.  I love you.”

That
night,
Pam and I
visited
yet another
pub
.  I was nervous
since
my face had now been plastered all over the
newsstands in Ireland
.  Pam calm
ed
me down
because
she was intent on meeting her friend, Neil, again t
hat
night.  We entered the
crowded
pub and
were immediately were
surrounded by Neil
and three of his friends
.
  Neil’s intention
s
seemed to be two-fold: 
first,
to show off Pam and
, second,
to hook one of
his friends
up with me.  The second scenario was
not
going to happen.

One of the guys
, Sean, was
a black-haired, but fair-skinned, twenty-something
on the shorter side of normal.  Upon introduction, he
said to me, with his Dublin sing-song lilt, “You look fa
miliar.  You been here before?”

“No, it’s my first time.”  I knew where he was going with this and hoped that he wouldn’t make the
connection
.  I turned back to Pam to try to
avoid Sean
.

In
my peripheral vision,
I
noticed
Sean walk
over
to the
massive oak
bar and ask the bartender
for
something.  I froze when I saw what it was
:
the tabloid newspaper I
had bought earlier in the day.

Sean broke back into the group, held up the paper, and said loudly, “So you’re that actor Will MacKenzie’s girlfriend, are you?  Looks like we’re i
n the presence of a celebrity.”

I blushed heavily
when
the group and others nearby
gaped at me
.  I said quietly, “I’m not.”

“You’re not
what
?” Sean replied with a taunting tone.  “Will MacKenzi
e’s girlfriend or a celebrity?”

Pam interrupted, “Neil, can you
tell
your
friend
to
leave
my
friend alone?  If she leaves, I’m going to have to
leave too
.”

Neil responded quickly telling Sean where to go and usi
ng an expletive in the process.

“Oh come on?  I’m just taking the piss.  I didn’t mean anything by it.  You wouldn’t leave would you?”
  His tone was obnoxious.

“Yes
,
I would
,
” I said
and meant it
.

“All right.  I promise to
let it go
.”
 
Sean’s
voice was dripping with false sincerity.

For the most part, Sean complied.  Whenever he would ask a question about
my relationship with
Will, Neil would hit him alongside the head.  Neil’s other two friends
, whose fair
hair and freckled
appearance contrasted sharply with th
at
of Neil and Sean,
were
much
more polite
than Sean
and
,
thankfully
,
didn’t say too much.  I c
ouldn’t
say that I was having a good time, but Pam was.  I wouldn’t leave unless it got really bad. 
I managed to tolerate Sean
until closing time
, but it was touch and go for a while
.

I took p
icture
s
of
Neil and Pam
with their
camera phones on our way out
of the pub
.  They kissed goodbye and we
returned
to our
B&B
to get some
rest before our morning train.

As we walked back to our
B&B
, Pam
acknowledged what I had done.
“Thank you.  I know t
onight
was unpleasant for you and I appreciate that you stayed.”

“That’s what friends do.
  Anyway, hopefully, the story won’t be as big in Europe or at least will have died down.”

I planned on keeping from Will what had happened
t
hat
night to avoid
upset
ting
him.

Pam and I
caught
an early train on Sunday morning from Dublin to Rosslare
on the
s
outhern
c
oast to meet
the overnight ferry to Cherbourg, France. 
After the
ferry
crossing
, we
arrived in Cherbourg
and
made our way to the train station for the
three-hour train ride into Paris.  We didn’t arrive at our
destination
until late afternoon.

In Paris, w
e stayed with
a
girl our age
who
had lived for a while
in the U.S. on an exchange program
with the family of one of Pam’s friends
. 
Isabel
now
worked as an English translator for a large multi-national French company.
  Isabel lived in the tiniest non-studio apartment I had ever seen.  It had a great location though, not far from the Eiffel Tower.
 
Pam and I planned to
spend two nights
in Paris
, sleeping on the floor of the tiny living room before mov
ing on to the South of France.