Out of the Past
Anna wakes on the ebb-tide of a nightmare, the desperate feelings of failure and helplessness washing through her mind and body. The dream is thinning, slipping away, but her conscious mind registers its last remnants. The body on the gurney, the abortive attempt at a resuscitation she screwed up in every way possible. Hands in the wrong position, losing count of the beats, forgetting to add in breaths. The dreams are always different, but the emotions are the same. Failure.
The room is dark. She gropes for her phone on the bedside table. It’s four in the morning. She collapses back into the pillows and tries to school her thoughts, to overlay dream memories with real ones. She is good in a crisis, clear-thinking and analytical even under pressure. She has never lost it. She always has a plan even when she doesn’t know what to do with a patient. Only when she is sure she won’t return to the same awful dreamworld does she shut her eyes to go back to sleep. But despite being dog-tired the night before, sleep eludes her. She tries everything she can think of, adjusting the air conditioning, emptying her bladder and drinking a glass of water to re-hydrate. She tries lying on her left side, then on her right before rolling onto her back. She even tries sleeping on her front, which is far less comfortable than it was in childhood.
Nothing works. Although she can feel the weariness still inside her, her body cannot forget it is midday in her normal time zone. Even years of adjusting to the varied sleep patterns of shift work cannot seem to override the built-in imperative to be up and doing something.
But there is not much to do at four in the morning. Except think.
And her thinking is all to do with Tolly Hyde. Like the rest of the world, her superficial first impression of him is that he is One Fine Man. “Fine” with a capital F in blazing neon as high as the Hollywood hills.
But he was not what she had always thought he would be. Anna is not without connections. She is one of a family of landed gentry with friends in many places. Her father, Baron Larkford, holds the lowest rank in the aristocracy, but it is still sufficient in the British class system to give them privilege. Her mother, Lady Larkford, is the daughter of an earl. Anna’s aunts and uncles have their own distinctions. Through friends and connections, Anna has come across film stars, rock stars, and other celebrities before. She has never been particularly taken with any of them. Some were egotistical, some were self-deprecating. Some were thicker than you would expect, some were cleverer. Some were shallow, some more substantial. But none of them had made her feel one iota of the emotions that Tolly Hyde had aroused.
Anna has always fancied herself impervious to stardust. She would dread to think of herself slobbering after any man in mindless adoration. So it comes as a shock to her to find it isn’t some superior character trait. It was only that she hadn’t met the right star. The way she had reacted to Tolly Hyde wasn’t just the product of lust. She’s honest enough with herself to acknowledge that. Lust is easily dealt with, either with the object itself or alone in a room with a fantasy in your head. But this is new. This longing, this fascination with him, is something she can never allow. She cannot act on it. Because quite apart from all the other considerations, Tolly Hyde is her older sister’s ex. And that fact is deeply inconvenient.
Growing up as one of five girls, Anna had never lacked for playmates. But she was closest to her elder sister, Eleanor. The twins, the youngest, always had each other. Jasmine, the middle child, had never seemed to need anyone.
The pairing of the eldest two had been momentarily interrupted by the arrival of their cousin Serena when she came to live with them. But the twosome had widened to a threesome, and Anna had usually been included in their antics. Despite being the same age as Eleanor, Serena didn’t seek exclusivity, which might have spelled the end of the sisters’ close relationship. As an only child, Serena was overjoyed to find herself in so much company and welcomed all her cousins into her coterie. It was lucky for Anna, because she had followed Eleanor and Serena to the same boarding school. Two years younger, Anna could easily have been ignored, but when the older girls started going to parties with boys, Anna was invited along. It was at these parties that she began to understand how intoxicating her beauty could be for men. It was also at these parties she began to understand how troublesome that could be.
Anna loves her sister deeply, so she’d always failed to understand how Eleanor’s admirers could so easily abandon her to run after her younger sister. But they did. And each one was another chip in her sister’s self-confidence. The thought of having both sisters obviously appealed to some of them, although it left Anna feeling icky. Moreover, some assumed Anna’s lack of committed relationships meant she had no morals and no standards. After one embarrassing incident where one of Eleanor’s boyfriends had tried to climb into Anna’s bed, both sisters had pledged never to date another’s leavings. It was a teenage promise, but it has held for over a decade and Anna has no intention of breaking it now.
She is lying in bed, idly paging through social media, when her phone rings. As if summoned by thought, it is Eleanor.
“You should be sleeping,” she greets Anna.
“Good morning to you, too.”
“It’s afternoon here. Why are you liking social media posts at this time in the morning?”
“Jetlag?” Anna offers.
“Bummer. But I’m glad I caught you. I spoke to Serena yesterday.”
“And?”
“She’s split with Frankie.”
Anna sits up straighter in bed. “She’s what?”
“Finally split with Frankie. Frankie hit a milestone birthday and she gave Serena an ultimatum. She wanted both of them to change jobs, commit to each other, and settle down. Serena chose not to sacrifice her career and Frankie called time.”
“Are you sure? I mean, they have the weirdest relationship out. Is this just another phase of it?” Anna’s cousin is a location manager and so is her girlfriend, Frankie. The two of them seemed to be together when they were physically together and something else when apart.
“She seemed pretty sure. Which brings me to this call. I thought maybe you could squeeze in a visit while you are there?”
“I’ll try,” Anna says. “But last time I was here, Serena was in a desert in Morrocco somewhere pretending it was Mars for a science fiction film. You know what her schedule is like.” Location managers go where they are needed. It’s hard to pin down where Serena might be at any point. Nor could you book in advance, as plans and schedules go awry all the time.
“I just think she could do with a dose of family love about now.”
“And you’ve chosen me to give it?” Anna jests. “You must be desperate. You do know mopey, heartbroken people are not my preferred choice of companion and words of comfort are not my primary skillset?”
“I have faith in you,” Eleanor says.
The noise of a horn and a male voice cussing makes Anna wrinkle her brow. “Are you in the car?”
“Yep. Jacob’s driving. Can’t you tell? I’m not sure I know where the horn is, whereas he’s used it three times already this morning.”
Anna chuckles, but she notices Eleanor’s tone is more waspish than normal.
“Anyway. I’ll let you get back to sleep.”
“Give my love to Jacob,” Anna says before her sister disconnects.
She flops back into her pillows and thinks about it. If someone asked her to give up being a doctor after five years of studying and another five years of training, she would refuse, too. She is not sure she will be much comfort for her cousin apart from fully supporting her choice. Still, Serena is family. She makes a mental note to message Serena later to arrange a get-together, even though it may all be in vain.
She realises she didn’t mention meeting Tolly to Eleanor. She could justify it because Jacob was in the car with her. Which man wants to listen to a discussion of their wife’s ex? But truthfully, at the moment, the Sexiest Man Alive is all hers. If she discussed him with Eleanor, he would have reverted to being Eleanor’s.
Because he did date Eleanor. And he did leave Eleanor to come to Los Angeles and pursue his stellar career. Another one who chose career over love. She wonders how he reconciles that in his big romantic heart. Even if Eleanor has since patched up her heart and married Jacob, there is history between her and Tolly. Anna is in no doubt, if he liked her, Tolly Hyde would be off-limits.
If he liked her.
Because she doesn’t think he does. He showed no sign of being enamoured with her. He didn’t flirt. He didn’t touch her. Not even her hand. There was nothing to suggest he liked her besides his number in her phone and a car ride.
The first was nothing. Stars may be cautious about their contact details because the odd crazy fan can cause them any amount of problems. But stars still want to have friends and that is exactly what Tolly had said. In case you need a friend . To be fair, she hadn’t tried the number. It might actually belong to his assistant.
The car ride was also nothing. Anna has been around enough super-rich people in her life to know how others confuse an irrelevant gesture as a grand sign because of the amount of money involved. Many would regard Anna’s family as wealthy, but Anna has schoolfriends whose wealth is stratospheric. One of those is the daughter of a Russian oligarch. He’d sent a private jet to take a group of his daughter’s school friends to his Mediterranean villa. It was no more than a word to his assistant on his part. It was the tiniest of things to him. But the father hadn’t spent time with them; he hadn’t got to know his daughter’s friends. Those were the real things to judge him by, not jets and fripperies.
So what if Tolly had ordered an upmarket Uber for her? It was as easy as dropping a dime for him. To imbue the gesture with any more significance was silly. All she can reasonably draw from Tolly’s behaviour is a level of kindness and consideration.
But she already knew that. From talking to him for hours, she had understood he was a decent person. One who cared about his mother and sister. Just as family is important to Anna, so she rates anyone who also values family ties. Family can irk. They know your weak spots better than any other. They take forgiveness and tolerance at times. But in the end, through illness and death, divorce or incarceration, it is most likely family who will be by your side. Friends only carry the burden when family doesn’t.
Anna snuggles down into the pillows. In some ways, it is a relief to think Tolly’s kind nature is in play, not the start of some torrid affair. She has fancied men before who don’t like her back. It is a rarity, thankfully. But it does happen. And after a time, her attraction to them subsides. She liked a previous boss, the one who had worked for Operation Smile, but he was married. He wasn’t interested and besides, it was another line Anna would never cross: to destroy a family. She’d had to work with him every day and after a while, the arousal she felt when he was in the room had just faded away. From her own experience, it takes a very determined person to pursue a one-sided relationship. And Anna reserves that determination for her career.
Hopefully, her weird attraction to Tolly Hyde, the fluttery feelings she gets when she thinks about him, will dissipate with time. She just has to endure. In the meantime, she should at least acknowledge his kindness. Not to do so would be rude. And Anna is, after all, British. Rudeness is unconscionable.
She checks the clock. Six local time in Los Angeles. Not too early to send a message. She doesn’t know the hours he keeps. He may be a late riser, or he could already have been in the gym for an hour. She can’t help smiling as she selects Sexiest Man Alive .
If the car last night was you, many thanks. Doctor Anna .
The reply is immediate and it answers the question about whether it is his number or not.
Ah. So you liked my grand gesture .
A grand gesture would have been a helicopter. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves here. Essentially, you ordered me an Uber. But Anna feels the flutter, low in her stomach. A warmth spreads through her. She types, Also next time, warn a girl. I spent the whole time worrying I was in a real-life version of Taken .
Difficult to warn you. I gave you my number. I didn’t take yours.
How unforgivable of him to make sense. An oversight on your part. Now you have it. But just so as you know. If it hadn’t been for my friend, I would never have climbed into that car.
Noted. Sorry. Can’t chat. Got to go .
Anna blinks. They were getting along fine with the banter, much like they had on the plane. But that ending was abrupt. She is not obtuse. She can spot a brush-off. A very definite brush-off. The exchange is strangely unsatisfying. But her quandary is decided. The car was nothing more than a kind gesture towards a stranger. Much like paying for someone’s shopping when they’ve lost their wallet. And they aren’t friends. They aren’t anything. It is just as well. She can already tell she is far too invested in the man who broke her sister’s heart.