18. Madeleine #2
It was better this way. Best to end it now, rather than later when I was even more in love with him.
My foot found a slippery spot just shy of my cabin and I almost fell to my knees on the icy walkway, but I caught myself at the last second.
I stayed upright. Until I got inside. It was only there, behind closed doors, no cameras in sight, that I let myself sink to my knees and weep in the chill of my lonesome cabin.
I tried to sleep, but it was impossible, so I just paced around my cabin until the first light of day showed through a crack in the curtains.
I took a shower and carefully applied makeup to disguise the puffiness from all that crying.
When I was put together as best as could be expected, I walked over to Blake’s cabin and knocked, praying she was up by now and that I hadn’t wakened her.
I glanced up at the angry sky. It was almost purple, cloud covering low and dense. Snow would come soon. I would ask Blake to take out the footage and then get back to my own cabin where it was safe.
“I need a professional favor,” I said, when Blake opened the door.
She looked at me for a second, long and unhurried, then she stepped back and let me in without a word.
Her cabin was a nest of equipment. Hard drives stacked like books, a monitor, headphones, and a tripod folded in the corner. She’d been up early too. She had coffee brewing.
“I need to talk to you about the film.” I kept my voice in its register and spoke precisely. “If there’s footage of Knox and me … doing whatever we’re doing, I need it cut. Anything with the two of us together, anything that reads as personal. I’d like your word it won’t be in the documentary.”
I’d braced for whatever she was going to say next.
Blake just said, “Okay.”
“Okay?”
“I told you from the beginning, I’d never keep something in that made any of you uncomfortable.”
“Thank you.” I’d come armored for a fight and she’d just agreed to my demands without making a fuss, just as she had when I asked her to take out Rhett’s monologue about me.
Blake touched my arm, her eyes kind. “I’ll flag it all today. It won’t be in the final version. You have my word.”
“That’s kind of you.”
“May I ask why?”
“I don’t want people seeing me,” I said. “Anything personal, I mean. Knox and the band are too much in the public eye. There’s a reason I work behind the scenes.”
“I get that.” She looked down for a moment.
“When I was a kid, wherever we went, people wanted to talk to my father, get his autograph, pitch him an idea for a documentary. I hated it. I just wanted my dad to be my dad. To pay attention to me instead of whatever project he was immersed in. But he was a huge celebrity. Nothing about my childhood felt safe because of it. There were always cameras around, wherever we went, and there I’d be, awkward and shy, walking just a few feet behind him.
He was such a big personality. There was no room for me.
Even though all I wanted was for the cameras to be turned off and to go home to make pancakes with my dad, he never understood that.
He wanted to tell the stories he was obsessed over. I was not one of those stories.”
“I’m sorry.”
“The reason I’m saying it is to tell you that I understand not wanting the world to see something private.
Falling in love with the cameras rolling all around you makes it feel like someone else’s story instead of your own.
I’ll take it all out. You don’t have to worry.
” She smiled. “But I would like to show you some of what we caught. Not for public consumption. Just for you. Later, you might like to show your children the month you fell in love with their father.”
I twitched slightly and placed a cool hand against my hot neck. Children. Father. No, that was not me. That was not happening. Not ever.
Blake turned the monitor toward me and began to play footage of the last few weeks, mostly candid stuff. Me in the sleigh, grinning and singing—off-key. Clearly drunk. But having a heck of a good time.
I groaned, hiding my eyes with my hands for a split second. If any of this got out, I’d be the laughing stock of Nashville.
Blake kept going. There was me at the sledding hill, screaming, both hands in the air, terror and delight all over my face.
Me in the church, candlelight glowing in my eyes, watching something off-camera.
I knew exactly where my gaze had been directed.
Right at Knox. Because that’s all I could do that night.
Bask in his beauty. Then came me at the campfire, laughing with my head thrown back.
The next footage was of Knox and me together.
Him lifting me out of the sleigh, a protective expression on his face.
Another of the two of us with our heads together at the supper table, clearly speaking intimately.
Yet another of the two of us at the stargazing night all wrapped up in the blanket, looking up at the sky with childlike delight.
And finally, a close up of me watching him whittle on stage, then a cut to the moment he gave me the ornament.
Seeing it like this, there was no question.
We were in love. And everyone else on the ranch would have seen it too.
Weeks of me. Or, rather, weeks of Mindy. Mindy, alive and luminous. Singing, laughing, having fun. Weeks of Knox and me together, our attraction impossible to deny. A deep love growing between us.
“I don’t know if I’m strong enough to be with a public figure,” I said to Blake.
“I’ve seen what they’ve done to Ivy and Jack.
Waiting around every corner with their invasive cameras.
Trying to figure out where the wedding was.
You can’t imagine the ruse Rhett and I had to pull off to get them here without the press knowing. ”
“You don’t want the world knowing your business,” Blake said. “It’s perfectly understandable.”
“Is it?” I asked genuinely, hoping she could explain that my reaction was normal.
“You came from humble beginnings, which can be hard to look back on without fear.”
“That’s right. Of going back there. Being stuck again.” That was what I’d told myself, but I knew Mindy was right. She thought he would eventually leave us, and I couldn’t bear the thought of everyone seeing my failure.
“Loving Knox is not that, though,” Blake said gently. “But it would be public.”
“Especially if you put it all in your film.”
Blake shook her head. “Which I won’t do unless you say it’s okay. You have my word on that, and I’m nothing without it.” She paused, tilting her head. “What, down deep, are you truly afraid of? May I take a guess?”
“Sure,” I said.
“You can’t bear the thought of letting the world see you love him and have him leave.”
“And Ivy and Jack. The rest of the band. They would all see me on my knees. A loser. The one who’s left.”
“So it’s safer to keep your distance. From everyone.
Leave first, right? I’ve seen you through my camera for three weeks.
And I swear, it’s like you’re two people.
Before this month, I’d never seen the softer, fun side of you.
To be honest, I didn’t think you had it in you.
It’s been heartwarming to see you opening up to Knox.
Allowing yourself to have fun. Why do you punish yourself so much of the time? ”
“Punish?”
“Isn’t that what you do? Before anyone else can?” Blake asked. “You have this strict regimen for yourself. Any deviation means punishment.”
I didn’t know what to say, so I made a joke. “I thought you were a documentarian, not a therapist.”
“They go hand in hand.” Blake looked at me, compassion in her eyes. “Do me a favor. Be a little kinder to yourself. You’ve worked hard to get where you are, and I can understand being protective of yourself in that way. However, loving a man doesn’t make that suddenly moot. You’ll still be you.”
That was the problem exactly.
“I’ll just be the headline for a week or two—hot guitarist Knox Hartley has a new woman. For a week or so. Until he realizes …”
“Realizes what?” Blake asked.
“So many things. I’m not someone a man can love for a lifetime. I’m too tricky and broken. And everyone will see it.”
“What if it doesn’t go that way? What if Knox is the right man for you?”
I wanted to scream at her in frustration. She didn’t understand. At all. I had to get out of there before I said something I regretted. “I should let you get to work. Thank you for … this. All of it.”
“I’m rooting for you. And Knox.”
I thanked her again and then slipped back outside. Serious snow had started, coming down sideways and fast, mean little pellets hurling to the ground from the close, smoke-colored sky. They fell in my eyes, mixing with tears until I could not tell what made my cold cheeks damp.
When I reached my cabin, Knox was standing at his window. He lifted his hand in greeting, his expression one of love and joy at the sight of me. I gave a quick wave before running inside and locking my door.