The Show Must Go On

Chapter Eleven: Bed Head

Chapter Eleven Soundtrack: Bed Head by Joey Pecoraro

It takes me an hour to forgive him. Normally, I would have scrunched my anger into a tiny ball, pushed it deep inside me, and never inspected it. But Sandra, my therapist, keeps reminding me that unexamined feelings will always be felt.

So it takes me an hour, but I admit that I am angry with him. I can't understand why, though. I guess I've never bothered to consider when my hatred of him is justified.

Make no mistake. It usually is. He's arrogant, stubborn, and prone to snap judgments that make compromise impossible. He deliberately pushes my buttons and regularly makes me feel incompetent.

But tonight? Tonight he left the pub, invited me to his home, solved my work crisis, and is now quietly working beside me instead of kicking me out. If it weren't Nas, I'd assume it was kindness.

I still think he's trying to trick me. I can't erase years of feeling inadequate or being undermined. But I maybe don't have to be angry. I maybe don't have anything to forgive him for.

'Can you check this email?' I ask, breaking the silence.

'Sure.'

I mean, I'm not going to apologise. I haven't done anything wrong. I'm just being the bigger person by not being angry.

Really, he should be thanking me.

'You're being too nice,' he tells me. Ironic. 'Tell him if he doesn't sort it, you'll kick his ass.'

'He won't believe that.'

He grins. 'Tell him I'll kick his ass.'

'Okay.'

He slides my laptop back to me and, with renewed confidence, I scold the designer (though not in Nas's words). I know Nas is right. And I sought his help with my missing voices, too. Even though he's made me unwelcome, even though we bicker all day: instinctively, in my tipsy panic, I searched for Nas.

I trusted him to fix it. And, loathe as I am to compliment him, I know I at least need to thank him.

'Thanks, Nasir. Really.'

'Eleanor, it's just an email.'

'Not for that.' He glances up from his laptop. 'Thank you for your help with the voices. It wasn't your problem. And I don't think I could have fixed it on my own.'

For a moment, I just look at him. At his dark skin and black hair, the faint creases around his dimpled smile, and those long, graceful hands I would recognise anywhere. I see him every day, but suddenly, I feel like I don't know him at all.

'You could have,' he says quietly. 'I've learned not to underestimate you.'

I can't respond to this. Something overwhelming is in those words, and I can only feel so much tonight. I push this new wonder away. 'Well, thank you anyway.'

'How much longer are we working?' He shoots me that crooked grin, and I laugh reluctantly.

'I'll take the hint, don't worry,' I reply, starting to rise.

'Eleanor, I'm in this long haul. I was just going to offer you an affogato.'

The offer halts me and I plonk back into my chair. 'An affogato? The ice cream, with the coffee on top?'

'You like them, don't you? When you're tired at dinner meetings?'

'How can we have them here?'

'I'm going to make coffee and put it on top of ice cream.'

Ah. That does make sense. 'You don't look like you buy ice cream.' Do I ever say anything intelligent?

He laughs again, that warm, burbling sound that fills my lungs. 'Must be your lucky day.'

The affogato, when he brings it, is creamy and melting and warms my body with a rush of sugar. I can feel Nas silently laughing as an enormous drip slides down my chin and, for a stupid moment, I imagine him licking the sweetness from my lips.

I take the excuse to look around again. Everything is so Nas: the framed vinyls, the stacked cookbooks, the soft smell of him. But I know that instinctively, from learning him during our hours together; nothing here tells me who he is. Where are his memories? Who does he care for?

I ask another question instead. 'How do you live here? Did you sell a kidney or something?' We're paid well, but not this well.

He pats down his sides, miming checking for his kidneys. It's so dorky that I have to laugh.

'I was a millionaire before my eighteenth birthday. Child star, remember?' He says this so casually.

'Ah. Disgustingly wealthy. Got it.'

As he leans back, the muscles in his arm tense and that telltale vein twitches again in his neck. He's going to say something snide, I just know it, and I feel my shoulders tighten in anticipation.

He even starts to speak, but as he sees the look on my face, he pauses. Finally he sighs.

'I'm lucky, I know,' he says instead. 'I know how many people want what I have. But it wasn't easy, being famous so young. I was cast when I was fifteen. I was sixteen when I first had sex, with a woman twenty years older, who knew my agent and said she'd seen the stud potential in me for years. Half the country knows my face, but it sometimes feels like there's no one behind it.'

I'm speechless. He can't look at me as he talks, and this is a relief: I can't bear for him to see the sympathy in my eyes. Instead, I lightly touch his hand, and when he doesn't pull away I softly stroke his knuckles.

He clears his throat and continues, 'Now that it's over, I'm trying to figure out who I am. What I can take from my past, and what I have to leave behind.'

Suddenly, the lack of photos makes sense. Who is left for him to trust? Why would he want to see reminders of his doubts on every wall? 'I'm so sorry,' I tell him.

He smiles softly. 'It gave me this though. This flat. It's the best thing in my life.'

'It's beautiful.'

'It's not about that... It's hard to explain. The money gave me my first real home. One that I chose. Because I moved around so much as a kid, this is the longest I've ever lived anywhere. I know which bakeries put bread on sale in the afternoon. I moved my lamps so they don't reflect on the TV. When I lean out of the window to the left I can see the sunset. They're little things, but they aren't little to me.'

He isn't waiting for a response. My mind is whirring too quickly to speak, anyway. Most of what I feel is guilt: guilt that I judged him, guilt that I mocked him, guilt that I assumed he loved his fame. But swirling there too is something else, something that feels closer to understanding. He wouldn't have told me this even a few weeks ago. I wouldn't have listened then, either. Perhaps both of us have been too quick to criticise, and as the soft lights of the city below washes across my face, I wonder what I will discover next.

*

i LOVE an affogato. ellie is stronger than me because that would immediately have seduced me.