The Road to Her (6 page)

Finally I put my keys back in my bag and walked over to her, tapping on her window and gesturing to her to bring her window down. “Sounds like your starter motor’s gone,” I said, leaning forwards slightly, trying to sound like I knew what I was talking about. “I think turning it over and over’s just going to make it even worse.”

“Shit!” Elise brought her window back up and turned the key back towards her, pulling it roughly from the ignition. She sat in her car a while, just staring out the front window as if thinking about what to do, then opened the door and got out, cursing under her breath.

“Guess you’ll have to call the breakdown people out,” I offered.

She flicked a glance to me then away again. “I don’t have breakdown.” She sighed. “Just never got round to it when I came back here.” She looked back towards me sheepishly.

“You’ll need a tow to the nearest garage then,” I said, fishing my phone out of my bag.

“Great!” Elise leant into the car and grabbed her bag from the passenger seat. “I have to be in Surrey by six and it’s quarter past five already.” She slammed the car door.

“How long would the train take?” I asked, looking at my phone to try to find the phone number of the nearest garage.

“Too long.” Elise started rooting around in her bag for her phone, too. “Guess I’ll have to cancel Surrey, then. That’ll be one very upset boy.” She cursed again.

“Oh?”

“My nephew’s fourth birthday party.” Elise shrugged and flicked a finger over the screen of her phone, presumably finding a phone number.

Elise had a nephew? Why did I find that so sweet?

“I see.” I paused.

“Stupid piece of junk.” Elise turned and kicked at her front tyre, then grimaced. “Why today of all days, huh? Why?” She jabbed at her phone and held it to her ear.

“Wait…” I touched her arm, the physical contact sending a curious but pleasant jolt through my hand. “I can take you to Surrey.”

Elise pulled the phone slowly from her ear and cut her call. “You’d take me?” she asked.

“Uh-huh.” I nodded, turning back to my car. “But we’ll have to get a wriggle on if we’re to get there for six.”

“Are you sure?”

“’Course.” I started to walk back to my car. “C’mon.”

As I approached my car, a wry thought came to me. Elise might have irritated me that morning, but I figured it was times like this you had to be adult enough to put your animosity to one side and step up to the plate. I thought about my own niece in Scotland, five years old herself, and of how crestfallen she’d be if her favourite auntie were to miss her party. I glanced back at Elise coming across the car park after me and figured, whatever I thought of her and whatever she thought of me, she was still a little boy’s favourite auntie, too.

“It’s very good of you,” Elise now said as she approached my car. She looked hesitantly at me, as if she wanted to say something else, but instead she just came round the passenger side of my car as I gesticulated with my head that the door was open and she could get in.

“Head for the motorway and I’ll tell you which junction to get off at, okay?” Elise said as she buckled herself in and I turned my car around and exited the studio car park.

We drove on in silence for about the first five minutes or so, me trying to ignore my acute awareness of her presence in the car, of her closeness to me, and of her lean legs kicked out in front of her. We exchanged a few comments about the weather, but other than that, we were quiet. It was that awkward, empty silence when you know that you’re both struggling to think of something to say but can’t manage to come up with a single thing.

“I’m glad I’ve got a chance to talk to you again today, actually,” Elise suddenly said, finally puncturing the quiet in the car as we approached the motorway.

“Oh yes?” I glanced up in my rear-view mirror but not at her.

“Mm,” she said, looking straight ahead out of the windscreen.

I waited, but all I heard was the droning of my tyres on the road.

“I just wanted to, well, to say sorry, I s’pose, about being funny with you this morning.” Elise shifted slightly in her seat. “And I wanted to say sorry for saying you’d had a tantrum. That wasn’t the most diplomatic thing to say.”

“Okay,” I said cautiously. “Well, apology accepted.”

And what about saying again earlier that I looked cute when I was annoyed?

Elise didn’t say anything more for a few minutes. Instead, she turned her head and stared out the window, watching the scenery speed past us while I drove on, thinking that I should say something in response but not being able to. I was just starting to get uncomfortable, telling myself I really should try to make conversation with her, when Elise spoke again.

“I think I irritate you, don’t I?” she said, turning her head to look at me this time. “When I suggest things to you during takes and things.”

I stared ahead, concentrating on the road, but inside I was churning. So at least she was aware that she annoyed me; that was a start.

“There are ways and means of telling someone something, I think,” I said. It was the most tactful thing I could think of to say.

“And I guess I haven’t really done much to endear myself to you—or anyone else—have I?”

I didn’t know how to answer that one, but before I could think of a suitable response, she spoke again.

“I’ve been told before I’m a bit full-on,” she said, reaching down into her bag and pulling her phone out. “And I know it can get people’s backs up, so I guess what I’m saying is that I’m sorry I’m the way I am.” She bent her head down and started texting, so I wasn’t sure if she was expecting me to reply or whether I should just let her carry on texting in peace.

“You’re not full-on,” I finally said. “But I think you’re not afraid to tell someone what you think of them.” I paused. “Or tell them what you think of their acting,” I added.

“I do like working with you,” she suddenly said, putting her phone in her lap and gazing back out the window.

“Really?” I replied, surprised.

“Really,” she said, briefly catching my eye then looking away again.

I looked back at her, expecting to see her smirking, but she was still gazing out the window again, her face expressionless.

“But you said I was stilted and hesitant,” I said, adding a small laugh.

“Oh, not that again.” Elise turned and looked at me, exasperated.

I didn’t like the instant change in her attitude and, wanting to keep her in a good mood, didn’t reply. Instead, I asked her how long until our exit junction and then drove on in silence again.

My mind was turning over and over. I was totally dumbstruck by what Elise had just said to me, so much so that I began to think I’d misheard her. She’d stunned me by her confession because she’d shown nothing in her words or approach to me over the last week to suggest anything like that, so to hear her actually tell me had shaken me.

“Next junction, then right round the roundabout.” Elise’s voice jolted me from my thoughts.

She directed me through a one-way system and down some side streets before we arrived at a smart detached house down a leafy avenue. I could see loads of brightly coloured balloons tied to the bushes in the drive and a small banner shouting
Happy Birthday Toby
stretched diagonally across the front door.

“Time to get high on birthday cake and Coca Cola.” Elise unbuckled her seat belt and reached down for her bag by her feet. “I’d invite you in but…”

“Not at all,” I said. “I wouldn’t expect you to.”

She turned and looked at me, maintaining proper eye contact for a good few seconds. “Thanks for this,” she said. “I’m really very, very grateful.”

“No probs,” I replied, smiling. “You okay for a lift back home?”

“My father’s down from Manchester, so I’ll sweet-talk him into bringing me back,” Elise said. “He’ll grumble about driving into London and the congestion charge like he always does, but he’ll do it for me.” She opened the car door. “Like he always does.” She laughed.

I watched her walk up the drive and disappear through the opened door without turning back to look at me. I sat in my car for a moment, suddenly feeling a little bit flat, before reversing back out of the drive and heading down the avenue again and back towards the motorway.

I replayed our conversation over in my head as I drove, thinking what a curious thing it had been for Elise to suddenly apologise out of the blue. I guess it was even more surprising to me that she must have actually been thinking about our past conversations, just as I had done, if she felt the need to apologise for what she’d said. Embarrassment coloured my cheeks at the memory of being so offhand with her, both that morning and before. Perhaps I’d been paranoid and maybe Elise hadn’t been critical of anything I was doing, despite me taking everything she’d said to heart. Perhaps Bella had been right, and I’d simply misunderstood what Elise had been trying to tell me.

And she enjoyed working with me as well! What was that all about? Nothing—and I mean
nothing
—in her behaviour or attitude towards me had ever hinted at anything other than she didn’t think much of me, and yet, there she was, telling me she enjoyed working with me. Did that mean she actually liked me? I was convinced that she probably disliked me as much as I disliked her, but her saying that was now making me question everything I’d thought about her. It was baffling, to say the least.

By the time I entered the outskirts of London I must have replayed our conversation over a hundred times and had finally made up my mind to have a proper heart-to-heart with her about it all. Bella could be right about that as well; maybe Elise wasn’t as bad as I’d made her out to be, and I just needed to give her a chance.

Chapter Six

Friday, was a day off for me, thanks to our good work Wednesday afternoon which had put us ahead of schedule. After a brief visit to my parents in the countryside, I returned to London the same afternoon, surprisingly refreshed from having a whole day away from the capital.

While I’d been away at my parents’, I’d texted Bella, Rory, Robbie, Elise, and anyone else I could think of to arrange a time and place to meet up that night for our planned drinks, so that we could get to know Elise better, and had decided on a club called Bobby’s somewhere out in Mayfair. It was a favourite haunt of the
PR
cast and was very generous in doling out free drinks to us all. We loved it there and always made the most of their hospitality. Well, wouldn’t you? You’re only young once, right?

“Free drinks?” Elise asked when we arrived that night. She followed me out of our cab and into the dark environment of the club. “As in
totally free
?”

She was dressed up to the nines—we all were—wearing a tight jade-green minidress and killer heels, which made her taller than she already was. She looked amazing, towering over me as we weaved our way over towards the bar behind Bella and Robbie.

“Totally, one hundred percent free,” I said. “Perks of the job.”

We arrived at the bar to find someone from our group had already arranged drinks for us all. Elise took the glass of red wine that was handed to her by Bella and raised it to me. “To Jasmine and Casey,” she said, taking a sip from it.

“Jasmine and Casey!” I said, mirroring her action with my glass.

I watched, amused, as Elise drained her drink and looked hopefully at the barman again. When he didn’t notice her, she placed her empty glass on the bar and turned back to me. “Dance?”

“Sure.” I put my drink down. “You two coming?” I draped my arm round Bella’s shoulders and looked at her and Robbie. “Or is this one a bit too fast for you, Bella?”

“You think a forty-something can’t keep up?” Bella reached up and grabbed my hand that was around her shoulder. “Watch and learn, kid. Watch and learn.”

Laughing, the four of us headed to the dance floor, getting sucked into the swell of people in the darkness. Elise and I managed to get separated from Bella and Robbie, swept along amongst a wave of other clubbers dancing around us. It was only when the music finally slowed down, after around fifteen minutes of constant fast-paced techno music, and when I was just starting to get too hot, that Elise suggested we go back to the bar for another drink.

Elise suddenly grabbed my hand and veered off to the left when she saw Bella already sitting at the bar, perched precariously on a high stool and chatting to the barman. I glanced briefly at Bella, thinking I ought to join her, but followed Elise instead.

“You don’t want to sit with the others?” I leant against the bar and jerked my head towards Bella.

“Thought it would be neat to chat with you alone.” Elise shrugged. She lifted her head slowly to a barman, effortlessly catching his eye and summoning him over to us, even though he appeared to be busy with other customers. “Got any champagne?” she cheekily asked when he got to us. “Whatever you’ve got, we’re not fussy.” She looked at me from the corner of her eye. “Especially if it’s free,” she whispered.

I watched as the barman fetched a bottle from the chiller, popped it, then poured us a long glass each, the bubbles rushing precariously to the rims of the glasses before settling down again.

“You look warm.” Elise’s eyes roamed my face, making me self-consciously flick my hair away from my forehead.

“Dancing always makes me hot.” My cheeks burned even more as I spoke, wishing I’d said something less ridiculous.

Two glasses of champagne appeared in front of us.

“To Jasmine and Casey,” Elise said, lifting her glass to me.

“We already did that, didn’t we?” I smiled, taking a small sip, loving how the bubbles pricked my tongue.

“With wine, though,” Elise said. “That doesn’t really count.” She studied me over the top of her glass. “You enjoy playing Jasmine, don’t you?”

“I do,” I replied truthfully. “I can’t imagine her ever not being in my life.”

“You’re so right for the part of her,” Elise said. “I think you totally nail her.”

A sound bite of our first conversation when Elise suggested I was stilted entered my head, and I resisted the urge to respond as I remembered her reaction in the car when I’d mentioned it after another compliment from her.