Chapter 30 Cynthie
“Not to worry,” I hear Acorn’s voice floating after me. “Meditation can bring up a lot of emotions.”
This room connects to another one with a long table running down the center, scripts laid out behind name cards, ready for our read-through.
My breath is still coming in short, sharp drags.
I head for the French doors, which open up onto a small green space.
There’s a covered patio with a tiled floor and a collection of utilitarian metal garden furniture, and a square of lawn with a couple of benches.
It’s quiet and the air is cool and I suck it down eagerly.
I sit on one of the cold, metal chairs, and place my hand on my chest like Jack showed me. I close my eyes and try to remember what he said, try to breathe just as he told me, and slowly, as I focus my awareness on the pressure of my fingers, the panic eases.
When my eyes open, I find Jasmine standing in front of me. She holds a lit cigarette and eyes me with mild interest.
“Are you all right now?” she asks.
I nod, embarrassed. “Yes, I just had a bit of a funny turn.”
Jasmine rolls her eyes. “There’s no need to be so Victorian about it. Don’t bother with euphemisms on my behalf, just call it what it was—a panic attack. It’s not like you’re the first person in the entertainment industry to have one. You’re not even the first person in this garden to have one.”
Somehow this brusque response is extremely soothing. I manage a smile. “Give me a chance,” I say. “It’s only my second one. I’m still getting used to the idea.”
Jasmine takes a thoughtful drag on her cigarette. “Interesting,” she says finally. “I don’t suppose this would have anythung to do with a certain dickhead named Shawn Hardy?”
I flinch at the name, but then I suppose Jasmine isn’t one to mince her words. “I don’t know,” I say, and I rub my fingers against my forehead. “Probably.”
I don’t hear whatever Jasmine starts to say, because the door behind her opens and Jack appears with a glass of water in his hand. He hesitates on the threshold.
“Sorry.” He looks from me to Jasmine and back. “I wasn’t sure what to do, if you wanted company or not…”
“Don’t mind me,” Jasmine says, tossing her cigarette to the ground and grinding it under her clompy black boot. “I’m going to go and extract everyone from my brother’s wellness retreat and see if we can get some work done.” She shoots me a sharp look. “You take a few minutes, whatever you need.”
“Thanks,” I murmur, but she’s already stomping back inside.
“Hey.” Jack steps toward me, a tentative smile on his face. “You rushed out of there. You okay?” He hands me the glass of water, and I sip it gratefully.
“I had another panic attack,” I admit, and his expression softens with concern. “It wasn’t as bad as before,” I add quickly, placing the glass down on the table beside me. “And I got it under control.”
“That’s good,” he says, and he pulls out the chair across from me, sitting in it and leaning forward. “Was there something specific that triggered it?”
“You mean you don’t find Tibetan singing bowls and women called Acorn to be panic inducing?”
He laughs. “I mean, it isn’t how I’d choose to spend my morning, but I thought it was okay.”
“Yes, I know. You looked totally zen. Top student.”
His mouth pulls up. “I was reciting my lines in my head,” he admits. “I didn’t take in anything poor Acorn was saying.”
It’s my turn to laugh. “You phony.”
“So,” he says, reaching out and tugging one of my hands into his. He brushes his thumb across the top of my knuckles and I watch the movement avidly. “What’s going on?”
I shrug. “Just first day nerves I guess.”
“Is that usual for you?”
His thumb still moves gently back and forth over my skin. “I suppose not,” I say reluctantly.
I can feel him waiting, patiently. I have a horrible feeling he’d sit and wait all day.
“The last film I made wasn’t a great experience,” I say, finally.
“The one you did with Shawn?” I can hear the distaste in his voice as he says the name.
I nod.
“I saw it,” Jack admits. “You were wonderful.”
“I suppose.” I pull my hand away from him, too agitated to keep still. I get to my feet and wrap my arms around my stomach. “There’s Oscar buzz, you know,” I say flatly. “Which is actually a nightmare, because it means more press, more headlines. Being in a room with him for the campaign.”
“I get that,” Jack says. “I’m sorry that his behavior would taint a huge achievement. You should be proud of the work.”
The bark of laughter I give is devoid of humor. “Proud of the work?” I exhale shakily. “I barely remember doing it. The whole experience was awful, even before Shawn and I…” I trail off.
“I’ve heard he’s difficult to work with,” Jack says carefully.
“Yeah. Difficult is one word for it. Nothing I did was good enough,” I say.
“The subject matter was so harrowing, you know—a young mother losing her child in mysterious circumstances, trying to uncover the truth but questioning her own sanity…” I shiver.
“It was hard to live with, and Shawn was determined to wring an authentic performance out of me. I guess he did.”
“What do you mean?”
I sigh. “I don’t…” I start to tell Jack that I can’t talk about it, but something makes me stop. Maybe I can talk about it. With him. “It’s hard to explain,” I say instead.
“I’ll listen. If you want to tell me.”
I’m still not looking at him, but I nod.
I hesitate, weighing my words. “So much of it I only saw afterward. That’s what’s so strange…
At the time it didn’t feel wrong.” I make a sound of exasperation.
“And it’s so slippery that there’s little to tell.
He didn’t really do anything; he just made me feel small.
All the time. He chipped away at my performance first, and then my appearance, the way I moved, the way I talked.
I wasn’t connecting with the material emotionally or intellectually; I wasn’t bright enough to understand what he wanted; I hadn’t got the training; I wasn’t taking it seriously.
I got more and more nervous and edgy, and then I’d break and cry, which was humiliating, but he’d be pleased , and he’d tell me he was only pushing me so hard because he knew how talented I was, what I was capable of.
I started clinging to any bit of praise; I was desperate to make him happy.
” I chew on my thumbnail. “I admired him, and I was determined to deliver. The work was important, you know? We were doing something important.”
I chance a look at Jack and his face is very still, but after a moment he moves his head in a jerky nod.
I huff out another breath. “But it was hard, I suppose. Harder than anything I’d done before, and I started feeling anxious.
I couldn’t eat and I lost weight. I looked ill, and he liked that.
For the part, he said. It was as if it all started to creep in, the character and her mental state…
I don’t know,” I say, rubbing a hand over my eyes.
“He was doing his job, I guess. As you say… he got the performance he wanted. And a relationship with me too, such as it was. I don’t think he planned for that.
God!” I feel for a second like I want to strike out, to hit something.
“It was like I was in a fucking cult by the end. I worshipped him. It makes me feel sick now. I don’t know how it got so far. ”
I turn to Jack again. “But he really did tell me he was separated from his wife,” I say a little desperately. “He told me they were divorcing. I wouldn’t have… I really don’t think I would have… otherwise.” There are tears, and they come suddenly, hard, taking me by surprise.
Jack is on his feet in an instant, wrapping me up, holding me against him so that I can cry, properly cry, against his chest. He holds me for a long time, stroking my hair until my sobs quiet.
“I’m scared I’ve lost it,” I confess, the words muffled against the fabric of his shirt damp from my tears. “What if I can’t do the work anymore?”
Jack eases back from me, his hands holding my forearms.
“Cynthie,” he says, and his face is serious, “you haven’t lost anything. What that man did… it wasn’t directing. It wasn’t art, honey. It was abuse, plain and simple.”
The words are like a shock, and I jerk back instinctively. “No,” I say, a shaky laugh on my lips. “No, Jack, it wasn’t that bad. It was just…”
“Okay,” he says quietly. “We don’t have to say any more about that now, but you just let it sit with you.”
I rub a hand over my face.
“It’s a good thing there isn’t an entire room full of actors in there, along with an actual documentary team, or I’d be worried that I look like I’ve been crying my eyes out,” I say with a tremulous smile.
Picking up on the change in my tone, Jack’s body language shifts completely, ready to put me at ease. He grins. “Yes, at least you can reassure yourself that they’re not at all nosy and excited to jump in everyone else’s business.”
He reaches into the pocket of his jeans and pulls out a clean white handkerchief.
I lift my eyebrows. “You carry a handkerchief?”
“I do.” He folds the fabric into a strip and carefully pours some of the water out of my glass over it. “Here,” he says, “sit down and put this on your eyes. You’ll be good as new in a few minutes.”
“Oh my god,” I whisper, delighted as I turn it over in my hands. “It’s monogrammed !”
Color touches his cheeks. “My gran gave them to me.”
“Well, that’s adorable.” I sit, and the damp fabric is cool and soothing against my eyes. We fall into silence, and I try not to think about why sitting quietly with Jack is so comforting.
“Everyone will be wondering where we are,” I say after a couple of minutes.
“Nah.” I feel Jack stretch out in the chair beside me. “They’ll think I’m out here ravishing you.”
“Hey,” I protest, “I could be the one ravishing you, you know.”
“Good idea. I’m all for equal opportunity ravishment.”
I laugh, something in my chest easing. I pull the handkerchief from my eyes. “What’s the verdict?” I ask. He examines my face carefully.
“Almost back to normal. Think happy thoughts.”
“Distract me with something cheerful, then.”
“Okay.” He gets up, pulling the other metal furniture to the side until he’s cleared a large space in front of me.
“What are you doing?”
“You asked me if I could tap-dance,” is the only answer I get.
“Nooooo!” I squeal, actually wriggling in my seat. “You’re really going to tap-dance for me?”
“I’ll do my best.” He pulls his phone from his pocket and swipes at the screen until music emerges tinnily from the speaker. I recognize it at once as Fred Astaire singing “No Strings” from Top Hat .
“An Astaire man,” I observe.
“I bet you were a Gene Kelly girl.”
“I can neither confirm nor deny.” As it happens, I love both of them.
When we were kids, Hannah and I devoured all their films, leading to our own “tap dancing” performances which—without the benefit of any actual lessons—consisted of the two of us flailing about and making as much noise as possible with our shoes on her mum and dad’s linoleum. “I just wanted to be Rita Hayworth.”
Jack positions himself in the middle of the space, one hand in his pocket, and he sends me a grin. I have a funny feeling in my stomach that might be affection, but then he starts dancing and the feeling rapidly shifts into something else.
He’s tentative at first, but then the muscle memory clearly kicks in and he’s moving effortlessly, the gentle sound of his shoes against the tiles echoing the sharp recorded tapping at the back of the music.
I’ve seen the film enough times to know that he’s doing the same dance Astaire does.
I know with a strange sense of certainty that he taught himself, practicing for hours and hours in front of the footage. I’d bet money on it.
And he looks good . He moves with a kind of louche elegance that’s all Astaire, but his body is big and powerful.
He makes it look easy . He’s so in control.
It is almost unbearably hot, and now I find myself squirming in my seat for a different reason.
The look of concentration on his face falls away to be replaced with exhilaration. He’s enjoying himself.
Finally, he stops. Pink-cheeked and breathless, he laughs. “That’s all I remember. I haven’t done that for ages. Well?” he says in the face of my silence. “Was it all you hoped it would be?”
“And more,” I manage, and I wish my voice didn’t sound so hopelessly needy.
“Are you cheered up enough to head back inside?”
I pull myself to my feet, trying to hide the fact my limbs are trembling like I’m a nervous fawn. “I am. That was amazing. You know, I’d pay to watch you up onstage.”
“Yeah?” He sounds pleased.
“Yes. But I appreciate the private performance.”
Our gazes catch, tangle. His chest rises and falls, and maybe it’s the dancing that has him breathing hard, but what the hell is my excuse?
I turn and make my way toward the door before I actually do decide to ravish him.
“Anytime, Cynthie.” The soft words follow me inside, the second time he’s said them, and I shiver.
I almost believe him.