Chapter 34
Thirty-Four
Callie watched the swing door settle after Isabella slipped out. Through the narrow gap came faint noises from the front: cases being dragged, someone swearing softly as they tried to wedge a tripod through without taking the paint off.
Mae was looking at the closed door, very still.
Callie was used to people shrinking a little on camera. Playing along, smoothing themselves out. Watching Mae do the opposite—flare up, draw a line, chuck an entire production out of her kitchen—Callie had half wanted to applaud.
She’d also wanted to sink into the floor.
‘You didn’t have to do that,’ Callie said, because it was easier than saying any of the other things spinning around her head like I’m sorry or I broke my own heart too or I know I’m a piece of shit and I hate myself more than you do.
Mae didn’t look at her. ‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘I really did.’
Callie wished, briefly, for the boom back over their heads, for the red tally light, for anything that would force her to keep half her brain on delivery and diction instead of the fact she’d just been publicly accused of breaking Mae’s heart.
‘They’ll cut it,’ she said, trying to sound more confident than she felt. ‘I’ll talk to Neil. He’ll–’
‘You really think that?’ Mae interrupted, with a sort of tired disbelief.
‘He’s not a monster.’
‘He’s a producer,’ Mae said. ‘You just handed him a free soap opera. You think he’s going to say no on principle?’
‘I’ll talk to him,’ Callie said. ‘I can… I don’t know. Offer to shoot something else. Give him something to use instead.’
‘Oh, that’ll fix it,’ Mae said. ‘You offering more of yourself up for public consumption.’
The sarcasm landed like a slap.
Callie swallowed. ‘Mae.’
‘What?’ Mae snapped, that fast. ‘You don’t want to talk about it?
We can pretend it didn’t happen, if you like.
I’m very good at that. Practised from all the years of not having the opportunity to ask anyone about it because they’d fucked off to London to swan about while I was here, with… everything!’
Callie deserved that. She knew she did. And she found herself quite willing to take it. Wanting to take it, even.
She moved closer to the Mae, but only a small step. ‘We can talk about it,’ she said.
Mae didn’t answer that. Not directly. ‘You really didn’t think something like this could happen when you came here?’ she asked. ‘That it could come out in front of a camera?’
Callie hesitated. ‘I didn’t think,’ she admitted. It was the simplest truth available.
Mae huffed. ‘That’s not new.’
Callie let that one burn her, too.
Somewhere out front, someone laughed, high and thoughtless. It felt like it was happening a million miles away.
‘You said I broke you,’ Callie said finally. ‘But I want you to know that I was broken too.’
Mae blinked at her. Then she laughed, a short, incredulous sound. ‘Oh. Did I tell you to fuck off after you told me your dad was dying? Did I forget that part?’
‘I didn’t say I was innocent,’ Callie said. ‘But the way you said it… There wasn’t a big break-up scene where I twirled a moustache and cackled. I was a stupid teenager who said awful things because I was scared.’
‘You implied my dad was making up his diagnosis,’ Mae said.
Callie shut her eyes for a second. She remembered that bit far too well. The look on Mae’s face afterwards had played a part in Callie’s nightmares for years.
‘I didn’t…’ she began, and had to stop, because anything she said would sound like an excuse.
‘You did,’ Mae said. ‘I was there.’
Callie forced herself to meet her eyes. ‘I know I did,’ she said. ‘I know what I said. And I have been ashamed of it since you asked before. For twelve bloody years.’
Mae’s gaze softened ever so slightly, just for a second. Callie almost reached for her hand. She kept talking instead.
‘I was eighteen,’ she said. ‘I’d never loved anyone…’ She broke off. ‘It was us, you and me, planning our future. And then he told you he was dying, and the “us” disappeared and I…’ She made a helpless gesture.
‘Thought he was manipulating me,’ Mae supplied, eyebrows raised.
‘Thought people do desperate things when they’re scared,’ Callie shot back.
‘You thought he’d weaponise it,’ Mae said. ‘To keep me here. Like he’d sit down and brainstorm ways to stop me getting on a train.’
The contempt in her voice made Callie’s heart ache.
‘My dad would never have done that,’ Mae went on. ‘He wanted me to have the choice. He didn’t want me here because he’d tricked me. He wanted me here because I wanted to be.’
‘I know that,’ Callie said. ‘But I was… I was looking at him and seeing my own mum. She’d just told me she was pregnant that night. She was trying to force me to stay and raise another one for her. And I put that on your dad, and it wasn’t fair. It was cruel. I know. And I’m so fucking sorry, Mae.’
The words came out in a rush. She hadn’t said them out loud before. Not to anyone.
Mae studied her, jaw clenched. ‘You could have told me that later, after things calmed down. But you didn’t call or write, and you certainly didn’t visit.’
‘I wrote emails to you,’ Callie said, before she could stop herself. ‘But I couldn’t bring myself to send them.’
Mae’s laugh this time was uglier.
‘You’re right,’ Callie said, voice low. ‘It’s pathetic.’
‘You do realise,’ she said, ‘that from my side of it, you said some horrible things about my dad and then disappeared forever.’
‘I know,’ Callie said.
‘I thought after you’d calmed down, that you’d call, that you’d say sorry and we might be able to… And then,’ Mae went on, ‘he got worse. And he died. And I waited. For you. Because stupid me thought she might not want to talk to me, but she loved him. She’ll come back to say goodbye.’
‘It was already over,’ she said quietly. ‘By the time I knew.’
Mae’s expression didn’t change. ‘Convenient.’
‘It’s true. I found out the day after the funeral,’ she said.
‘In a voicemail from my mum. She thought I knew. She assumed someone had told me. I guess she thought you would. She didn’t know…
’ Callie blew out a breath. ‘I tried to get here the second I found out,’ she said. ‘I got on a night coach.’
Mae gaped. ‘I think I’d remember that.’
Callie laughed, once, humourless.
‘I got as far as the square,’ she said. ‘Three in the morning. Coach dropped me off by the war memorial. I walked past here.’ She nodded at the back door.
‘Stood outside. And I thought, if I knock, she’ll have to deal with me as well as everything else.
She’ll have to deal with all of the mess I left as well as her grief. ’
Mae’s eyes flickered. She looked thrown, for the first time. ‘So then what did you do?’ she said, but there was less venom in it.
‘I went back to the station. Left on the first bus back out, before anyone saw me.’ God, Callie hated thinking about that night. Crying on the coach home while an old man watched her and ate crisps.
‘You could have called,’ Mae said after a moment. ‘Later. You could have texted. E-mailed. Sent a pigeon. Anything.’
‘I know,’ Callie said.
‘Twelve years,’ Mae said.
‘Yeah,’ Callie said. ‘But I didn’t. So yes,’ she went on, because if she stopped now, she might never start again. ‘I left. I said unforgivable things about someone who was only ever kind to me. And I missed his funeral. And I missed you.’
Her voice shook on the last word. She let it.
Mae looked at her for a long time. Something in her face eased. Not much. Just a tiny shift you might not even see if you didn’t know Mae’s face like the back of your hand, even now.
‘You weren’t the only one who said unforgivable things,’ she said eventually.
Callie opened her mouth. Mae held up a hand.
‘I’m not saying that so you’ll feel better,’ she added. ‘I’m saying it because…’ She dragged in a breath. ‘Because if we’re going to tear it all open, we might as well be accurate. I called you self-absorbed and a selfish baby.’
Callie tilted her head. ‘Actually, it was a vain, selfish fucking baby. But you were right. I was.’ Callie stepped closer until they were separated only by the dusting of flour and bowls with unfinished doughnut mix.
‘I’ll stop Neil,’ Callie said. And then had to amend. ‘I’ll try.’
Mae’s gaze met hers, steady and sceptical. ‘Why?’ she asked. ‘So nobody knows you broke my heart?’
‘So, nobody gets to edit our mess into something… cheap,’ she said. ‘You can continue to hate me in all the privacy you deserve.’
Mae’s expression did something uncertain. ‘Who says I hate you?’ she muttered, and then she abruptly started cleaning up. Wiping surfaces, throwing out the contents of the bowls.
Callie’s eyes widened. ‘Do you?’
Mae grabbed a chemical spray and spritzed the surface, wiping it shiny.
Callie watched and waited.
At last, Mae looked up. ‘I don’t know what I feel about you,’ she said. ‘That’s the problem.’
Callie felt hope she’d never dreamed of. A crack had opened up, and a glimmer of light was shining through.