The One Where The Lines Get Kinda Blurry

The One With The Broken Pact

"Jen, your car's waiting, you're going to be late!"

Jen grabbed her purse and her essentials bag, checked her make up one last time, even though she knew it was going to be professionally re-done at the studios anyway, and pulled at her pink, strapless top, adjusting the fit so that her boobs were the right level of on show but not at risk of popping out. 'Ok' she said to herself, 'let's do this'.

"Don't wait up" she shouted down the corridor to the opposite side of the house as she made her way out of the impressive entrance hall and down the driveway to where her car for the evening was sat waiting, engine on, the driver getting just ever so slightly impatient although he did his best to hide it.  She had told them she was more than capable of making her own way there, but they had insisted on sending a car and so that was where she now found herself sitting, watching the world go by as they travelled through the heavy traffic towards the studios. She couldn't stop her mind from wandering to him and what it was going to be like meeting again after all this time and after everything that had happened since.

Jen had been driving herself in similar traffic and a similar vehicle when she got the phone call to say David's baby had arrived.  A little girl called Cleo, Lisa had told her, no other details yet but she's here and they're both doing well. She had cried when she hung up the call.  Not because she wasn't happy for him because of course she was. She knew he would make the most wonderful father and that little girl was going to have the best life with him. But she couldn't help but feel another sharp pang of sorrow, for the little Lola they had dreamed about all those years ago. Now he was pretty much living that dream but with someone that wasn't her. Selfishly as well, her own biological clock was ticking louder and stronger and although she had recently begun what she hoped would be a serious relationship with Justin, she was feeling her chances of becoming a mother herself one day just starting to ebb away more and more.

Justin was Justin Theroux who she had met on the set of Wanderlust.  They had flirted and teased their way through three months of filming in a remote Georgian village, before finally giving voice to their growing feelings for each other not long after production on the movie wrapped. Justin had at first been Jen's fun partner, her friend with benefits, her playmate, and then gradually she had fallen deeper and harder for him until around a year after beginning their relationship, he had made the giant leap from New York to live in her sprawling Bel Air mansion. He had proposed to her on her 42nd birthday and she had happily said yes. She really thought this time she had found the one who would still be keeping her warm when she was old, grey and wrinkled, and when they married in a low-key ceremony at their home in 2015, she was as happy as she could remember being in a very long time.

Sadly though, she had rapidly realised that he was not going to be that guy. What had started out as flirty and fun, had somehow turned feisty and fiery.  She knew he was a bit of a party boy, which was fine as she loved socialising too, but not long after they had married, she began to suspect that on the increasing number of nights he went out without her, he was not alone.  There were rumours, there was gossip, and she had had a number of her trusted friends telling her to just watch her back as he was not altogether playing things as they should be played.  By the start of 2016, Justin had all but moved into a separate wing of the house.  They shared food and friendship, but their bedroom days were over.

The car pulled into the studio parking lot and the driver opened the door so she could climb out. She checked her iPhone as she walked towards the stage door. Still no reply to her message. She was feeling far more nervous and anxious than she thought she would be. It's just a dinner, it's just ten minutes on stage, it's no big deal, she kept telling herself over and over again. But it was a big deal, to her at least.  She hadn't seen David in person since that day in the bowels of the London theatre some eleven years ago. Eleven whole years. That was one more year than they had spent working together almost every day. Of course, she had spoken to him many, many times since then.  They still messaged occasionally and they spoke a few times a year. She had sent a basket full of gifts for when his daughter had arrived, and he had sent her a lovely card and flowers not long after her wedding to Justin.  But they were not close and that still pained her heart. She remembered with unease the awkwardness between them the last time they had been together in front of the cameras for the Oprah Beverly Hills Hotel interview. God that was awful. She knew they had long since moved past that stage but she just couldn't shake this funny feeling in the pit of her stomach when she thought about coming face to face with him again.