Just An Ordinary Girl ~A Johnny Depp Story~

The Cardboard Box and The Cafe

'...Johnny Depp and Vanessa Paradis were spotted again this month in London, alongside close friend and director Tim Burton, only reinforcing rumors that the two lovers are to star together in his latest picture-'
With a sigh, I closed the newspaper and flung it onto the table, one hand distractedly running over my stomach. As I reached for my telephone, I vaguely recognized that five months ago, that role could have been mine, not to mention that man. Now it was Vanessa's face which gazed up at me from every newspaper, utterly triumphant and victorious. She had replaced me not only in the movie, but in Johnny's life. And now I was eight months pregnant, and very much alone.
Well, not alone as such. Though I'd put on barely a stone and had no visible baby bump, I had realized that I would need to come clean with Ed about the baby, as at some point in the distant future, it would be born and I would need a doctor. Only now, it wasn't in the future. The moment was right on my doorstep, and Ed was going to be required extremely soon.
Ed...
He was the reason I was now sitting here alone, gazing at a photo of Johnny's girlfriend. I refused to look at any pictures of Johnny himself, which had been easy, since I now only left the house when the cupboards were utterly bare or during any other emergencies. I was afraid of an encounter with the paparazzi, afraid that somehow they would miraculously be able to tell that I was pregnant, despite the fact that I could barely even tell myself. So, this irrational little fear had prevented me from passing any posters, DVDs, magazines with his face on. The last time I had seen Johnny in the flesh, Ed had forced me to keep away from him until he realized that I was missing from his life. But that day was so distant now, so very far in the past that I had pretty much given up hope. Memories of him and I together had simply been blocked out, just as I had blocked out and erased the image of his face. I knew that if I dared remember him, then I would go looking for him...and fall right back in love with him. The only piece of the past I allowed myself was now Johnny's car, which sat abandoned in our...my garage, and was almost entirely meaningless, as I wasn't a confident driver. Occasionally, I had used to hope that he would return to collect it, but in truth, it was evident that he neither realized nor cared that it was gone, as he had enough money to buy hundreds of flashy sports cars. More importantly though, I still owned one more object.
I had come across my engagement ring one night quite by accident, laying in the drawer I'd reluctantly left it in the day of Orlando's wedding, and would now and again slip it on, leaving it sitting comfortably on my hand, a future which would never quite exist. Nevertheless, I felt a sort of strange, contented comfort in the small silvery band, and every evening I would place my left hand on my pillow beside my face, and gaze at it through the darkness for a few moments, before slowly closing my eyes and drifting off into a dreamless sleep.
And so, my pregnancy had felt weirdly short, as days flew past in an indistinguishable blur, the darkness of evening blending dully into the light of dawn, as I spent most days lounging around, dwelling on the days which I had happily spent with Johnny, and letting my mind drift onto Keira and Orlando also, and my other friends too, each of whom had their own lives now, lives which were altogether much less complicated than my own. I couldn't remember the last time I'd seen even one of their faces; after weeks of rejecting their calls and ignoring their messages, completely at a loss of what to say, how to explain the situation to any of them, they had seemingly given up, and carried on without me. I hadn't come across pictures of them with Johnny either, which suggested he too had seen nothing of them, his life now revolving around Vanessa once more.
Four weeks passed into three, three weeks into two, two weeks into one, and before I knew it, I had just seven days left until my due date. I had put a room aside for the baby, in which the few items I had purchased for it sat, still in their wrappings and boxes, piles upon piles of soft toys and nappies, alongside the pretty little crib. And one day, when I had slipped into the room to admire it happily, I discovered quite to my surprise, a cardboard box I didn't remember being delivered.
It was somewhat dusty, nestled at the very back of the room, behind all of the other boxes, and was a little bit smaller, which I was deeply thankful for, as, in my curiosity, I had managed to extract it and carry it carefully through to the living room, where I had dropped it onto the carpet with a soft thud, and stared down at it, hands on hips.
As I gazed down at it, desperately racking my brains as to what it was, it struck me that it was probably an unpacked, leftover box from the day I had moved in, all those months ago...yet, I had unpacked all of my belongings, I was certain...and I had absolutely no idea as to what the contents of this box would be. It had no label such as 'Kitchen!' or 'Living Room!' scrawled untidily on it's side as all the others had had, and was, to me, and utter mystery.
I exhaled unsteadily, and before I knew it, my hands were ripping through the sellotaped flaps of the cardboard box in desperate curiosity. When there was a wide enough gap in the lid, I plunged my hands into the box and slipped out the first objects which my eager hands met, laying them across the carpet gently in front of me, so carefully it was as though they were priceless, irreplaceable treasures, before examining them with shaking hands.
A dried scarlet flower which vaguely resembled a rose, a silken ribbon still tied carefully around it's stem. A cassino's café receipt with the price of a single black coffee on it, carefully folded, along with my copy of 'Pride And Prejudice'. What appeared to be a videotape, labeled 'Alice Winning Oscar'. The little white stone from the beach, nestled in a soft, light blue shirt which I vaguely recognized, though I was unsure how. It was too expensive in quality to be Luke's, and sure enough, as I turned it over and over in my hands, a faded coffee stain stood starkly against the luxurious material. The shirt Johnny had worn when we had first met. And finally, a tiny wad of newspaper clippings, pinned carefully together with a paper clip. I vaguely remembered Orlando handing these to me months ago, but I had cast them aside, too angry with Johnny to care about them. But slowly, as I flicked through them expecting some horrible surprise, I was surprised. There were pages upon pages and articles upon articles of praise for me, as a person, and of my performance in the movie.
Slowly, as though in a dream, I turned the box around to see, in the scrawling black script of Johnny's hand, 'Memories For Alice' scribbled across the outside of the box.
It could have been minutes, hours, days before I finally kicked the box aside, an involuntary howl of misery wrenched from my chest, sobbing into my hands, my entire body wracked with tearful gasps as I imagined Johnny carefully collecting together so many meaningful little objects, items which would seem so useless to others. Putting together a box of things we had shared...memories which he himself could no longer remember. Slowly, I retreated to my bedroom, tears still fresh on my cheeks, and clambered under my bed covers, pulling them over my head, agonized, desperately wanting to smother myself, to shield myself from the past and block everything out. At one point, I vaguely felt my hand reach out from underneath the sheets and close over my engagement ring which was laying upon my bedside table, as beautiful as ever, and slip the ring carefully onto my finger, before I buried my face in my slightly damp pillow and shut my eyes as tightly as possible...
I was awoken several hours later by an earsplitting noise, heart pumping in my chest, but after a few seconds I breathed out softly in relief, watching the phone trill away softly beside me, a number flashing up which I did not recognize. With wary movements, I slowly reached out and clasped the telephone with shaky fingers, before pressing it to my ear.
"Hello?" I asked slowly, my breaths still short and gasping.
"H-hello...hello?"
I almost fell out of bed in shock at the response, my heart pounding faster than ever, and opened my mouth to speak, but no words came.
"Hello? Is anyone there?"
It couldn't be. It just couldn't be. But...as I clutched the phone even closer to my ear, I couldn't deny the truth. It was him, it was his soft voice flooding every nerve of my body, like a strange warmth after an eternity of numb cold. It was Johnny.
All at once, I felt like leaping out of bed in absolute ecstasy, a huge smile slowly spreading across my face in utter disbelief as I listened to Johnny's steady breathing at the other end of the line. The grin strained my muscles, causing my face to ache dully...it had been too long since I had smiled like this, yet I couldn't stop myself, almost laughing out loud with delight. It was him, it was really him...at last, he had remembered. He had called me to tell me that he had remembered me, that it was over, after what seemed like an eternity. That he was coming back, that it was all over.
"Hello...Miss Cross...?"
I felt my eyes close in misery, my heart plummeting to my feet in a split second. Miss Cross. He didn't remember me after all, or those words would never have left his lips. Miss Cross was polite, careful, and meant nothing. It was how a stranger would greet another. It was nothing.
The hope fading as quickly as it had come, I sank back into my pillows feeling empty, squinting at my alarm clock through the darkness. Five thirty?!
"Who is this?" I asked robotic, my voice sleepy.
As if I didn't know.
"Um...this is Johnny, Johnny Depp," He muttered, his voice lowered as if other people were around and he was concealing his identity. If I had been within reach of him, I would have taken the phone and smacked him over the head with it. Being secretive was what had gotten us into this mess, with no-one noticing anything out of the ordinary in the fact that he was with Vanessa, and not me. I was a nobody.
"Oh," I replied blankly, my voice emotionless. Yet intrigue swept over me, and I couldn't help but demand, "How did you get this number?"
"I will explain in due course," He replied enigmatically. "But right now, Miss Cross...I must speak to you in person. This is urgent, I assure you. It has to be now."
I blinked in surprise at his firm tone. What on earth was going on here? Was this some kind of odd, surreal dream which I would wake up from in a few seconds...?
"Is there a café close to where you live? Is there anywhere convenient?" Johnny pressed on, ignoring the fact that I hadn't yet agreed to meet him and sounding quite unlike himself. He sounded...desperate.
Um, convenient? Now? I'm sort of pregnant, here!
I fought back my biting reply, still entirely dazed, and after a few minutes of feeble agreement and vague directions to the nearest café where I had promised to meet him within the hour, the call had ended, and I was pulling on my coat...
If the café had not been so deserted at such an early time in the morning, he would have no doubt turned every head in the place as he breezed through the front door in his tailored jacket and stylish jeans, both hanging effortlessly well on his frame. For once, his glasses had been discarded, and he was instead wearing a camel-colored fedora, his hair as untamed as usual, more than a little stubble also visible on his jaw.
After tearing up anything with his name or picture on and carefully avoiding any video stores or shops which sold movies, I had managed to block out the image of Johnny for the most part. I had forgotten the flawless face, forgotten the caramel tone to his complexion, forgotten the odd, surprising tingling sensation shooting down my spine by meeting almost unnaturally endless dark eyes...
"Miss Cross?" The sound of his velvet voice interrupted my musings, and I tried to nod a polite, "Mr Depp," in return, but I was unable to find my voice, and instead merely smiled at the memory of Johnny cracking up when I had first said that to him, utterly bemused by my politeness, and demanding that I called him Johnny and save Mr Depp for when I was angry at him.
"I'm sorry that I called you so early," Johnny started to say, leaning forward on our table over our steaming cups of coffee, and I focused my attention back on him.
He continued to speak, gazing into my face with an indifference which I had never seen from him before. He had only ever looked at me with a warm, soft expression in the past, but now his eyes simply swept over me blankly.
"I needed to talk to you however. It couldn't wait. Believe me, if I didn't think you were important, I wouldn't have jumped on the first plane from L.A when I found...well, anyway, that's not where this begins. Let me start properly," He began, as I said nothing, scared that by talking he would somehow disappear, that I would wake up from the ridiculous dream that he was really here, really sitting in front of me after all this time. Johnny however, opened his mouth to begin.
"It all started when I was watching television. Some show like E Entertainment, I don't know. I was about to change the channel, flick over onto the next, when it happened. A feature, about some elusive girl who they were fascinated by, some Alice Cross. A whole, hour-long program about how she was a celebrity, but was never seen out and about, how she had made some film and then faded out into the background, but how the public wanted more. A pretty girl, with brown hair...and gray eyes," He informed me quietly, his dark eyes flitting onto mine for a second before continuing. "There were clips of her at the Oscars, wearing a pink dress. I went to the Oscars," Johnny said pointedly, but still I gave him no response. Nevertheless, he continued.
"But the funny thing was, something about her face...it was so...familiar. Too familiar. But I brushed off any thought of it, putting it to the back of my mind. It was then that other little things began cropping up."
There was a pause, as Johnny took a sip of coffee. At least, I presumed he did. My eyes were determinedly fixed on the table. He took a deep breath, before continuing once more.
"Little things, Miss Cross. Just small, insignificant little things, like, for instance, smoking. I realized that for some inexplicable reason I didn't smoke anymore, that I found cigarettes disgusting. I would go to sleep every night dreaming of London, and kisses on sofas, and huge white houses with chandeliers. I would hum songs to myself whichh I wasn't even aware that I knew! And a name...I would always think of a name. Do you know what that name was?" Johnny asked insistently. I shook my head, to which Johnny said nothing, a frown appearing on his face, before smiling a smile of grim determination.
"And then finally...I saw this," He said quietly, slipping something out of the inside of his coat and sliding across the table towards me, where I received it with trembling fingers. A 'Pirates Of The Caribbean 2' DVD.
Johnny shot me an intent glance, scanning my face with his chocolate eyes for any recognition or giveaway emotion before continuing.
"I saw this, and I remembered a girl. A girl in my hospital room. Sound familiar?" He asked, with another intense stare.
I shook my head firmly for what felt like the millionth time. Johnny merely sighed, before continuing. "I checked the back of the case immediately, as if the picture of you and I side by side in character on the front wasn't enough, and sure enough, there was the name in black and white. That name. The name which often ran through my mind for no apparent reason. Alice Cross. I decided to check my old phone, one I hadn't used since Vanessa bought me a new one as a gift for the day I came out of hospital, and there it was in my phone book, again. Alice."
I felt a jolt of grudging admiration for Vanessa. She was so cunning, shrewdly buying Johnny a new phone so that he had no way of contacting me. I was quickly distracted from these thoughts though, as, quite suddenly, his eyes were blazing, alight with the burning desire for me to begin talking, to piece together his shattered life.
"I have about a year missing from my life, Miss Cross. Alice. A year. Can you even begin to imagine how that feels? To be told that you are beyond medical help, that you yourself must remember events you're not even certain happened? To always wonder which parts of your life are lies, and which are the truth? To desperately try to recall things...important, maybe even life-affirming things, and to discover nothing more than a blank, empty space in your mind where past emotions and words have completely vanished. And endless, hopeless gap of nothingness?" He paused, his eyes scanning mine steadily, as I gazed at him in awe. No wonder so many people thought he was an incredible actor. Only now, his speech was coming from the heart entirely. He wasn't acting this time.
"I know that you were there," He said levelly, bringing me sharply back to reality, as he nodded towards the DVD on the table without breaking eye contact. "I know that you know me, and that you can help. Can you really deny me my own life?" He finished quietly, and I was startled to find a lump in my throat, and the hot sting of tears in my eyes.
"Okay," I whispered in defeat, speaking for the first time, and Johnny smiled so widely his face looked like it was about to split.
"Let me see..." I sighed, wondering how I could possibly put everything into words without overwhelming him, and ease him into it. I bit my lip.
"When I first knew you, you had just met a girl," I began, without adding that it had been here, in this very cafe where he had met me, a cafe which wasn't the closest to my house as he had requested but much, much closer to my heart, but Johnny blinked in surprise.
"I met Vanessa years ago," He interrupted in confusion, but I shook my head with a tiny, tired smile.
"Not her," I said quietly, and Johnny fell into silence once more, looking as confused as ever.
"Anyway...you met a girl...and you fell in love. Madly. I believe your exact words were that she uh...she completed you," I smiled, my hands shaking in my lap, thankfully concealed under the table.
"How do you know all of that?" Johnny asked quietly.
"You...you told me about it," I replied hesitantly, choked. "We were friends, so you trusted me. A few of your other friends saw you fall in love with her too...Orlando and Ed did, at least. She...loved you too," I finished uselessly, but Johnny was absorbed by my explanation.
"Who was she?" Johnny asked, but I shook my head, allowing my curtain of hair to fall over my face and block him temporarily from view. I winced as I felt a sudden movement in my stomach, a kick, and distractedly placed my left hand over it, before raising my eyes back to Johnny. Only now, his eyes weren't boring into my face. They were fixed on something quite different. In fact, he was staring intently at my...hand.
Slowly, I too lowered my eyes, and felt shock flood through my body to see the ring, which I had forgotten to remove both last night and this morning in my dazed exhaustion, glinting and glittering in plain view.
A moment passed. It could have been an hour, it could have been a day, a week, but a long, long silence fell between the two of us. And even more slowly, Johnny looked back into my face, his own pinched and pale.
"That's mine," Was all he could say, his eyes glazing over as though a million thoughts were rushing back to him, lost emotions, forgotten moments, the memory of me. I was rendered utterly speechless, my fingers crossed in my lap as I willed him to keep remembering. It was then that he truly surprised me.
Casting his eyes to my stomach, he uttered in barely a whisper, "And that...that's mine too, isn't it?"
How he knew, I simply couldn't say.
"It was you," He continued, his voice still quiet. "It all makes sense. The way you touched my face that day in the hospital...you did know me. You did love me, we were engaged! We were...going to have a kid...? Did I...did I know this?" He asked, as though shocked and disgusted with himself for forgetting such an important detail of his own life, and unable to bear the pained look in his eyes, I shook my head furiously.
"No! You didn't know...I was about to tell you, but you...you stormed out. That was the last time you remembered me. When you were angry at me," I bit my lip, gazing into my lap.
Johnny stared at me with wide eyes, as though he had been struck with a massive realization.
"Angry," he muttered, with a shake of his head. "At you?"
At this, we both said nothing. I had no idea why he had been so furious that night; it was the only thing I simply couldn't explain to him. Yet Johnny himself seemed to have recalled why, as he stood up abruptly, his dark eyes now cast away from mine, avoiding looking me in the face.
"I have to leave now. Thank you for your help," He smiled weakly at down at me as I opened my mouth in surprise. Johnny shook his head quickly, gesturing for me to say nothing more.
"I'll be back. I swear," He assured me finally, his voice barely a whisper. He paused, unsure how to bid me goodbye, and he finally settled on tentatively reaching out his hand and brushing my cheek gently with his thumb, before quickly pressing the tips of two fingers to his mouth then placing them upon my cheek. Then he was gone.
I gazed out of the rain-streaked window at his receding figure, watching him until he turned the corner and was thus completely out of sight, my mouth still hanging open in shock at his sudden departure. Within one second, I felt the terrible feeling which filled me when Johnny was not with me fill my body, as I dug my fingernails into my palms furiously, refusing to believe he had left me again, that I was abandoned once more. And quite suddenly, to my surprise, I felt temporarily agonized, unable even to breathe, a sharp pain cropping up in my stomach as though someone had kicked me there, and hard. I recognized the stabbing pains immediately. I was having contractions. And that meant I was going into labor, here, now, alone.
Gasping with pain, heart pounding, I reached for my phone, punching in the first number which came to my head. Orlando's.
"Orlando...it's me. I need help. Now."