37. Anna
ANNA
He walks toward me.
"What are you doing here?" My voice comes out low. "Everyone is looking for you. People think you've been taken. Or worse."
He shuts the door to my office.
“What are you doing here?"
He looks at me for a moment.
"Are we having a boy or a girl?"
I stop.
"A boy," I say.
Something moves across his face. He takes a breath.
"I'm taking you back with me," he says.
"No, you’re not.”
"Anna—"
"You need to get back to set. Right now. Before they fire you."
"I don't care about that."
"Luke. If they fire you from this film, you're done. You know that."
"I'm not leaving without you."
"You have to go."
"I am not leaving without you.”
We stand there.
“You’re saying things you don’t mean right now because you’re tired.”
“I tired because I flew five thousand three hundred miles to get you and know exactly what I’m saying.”
The whole office watching through the glass. Someone has their phone out. I can see it in my peripheral vision. I don't look.
"Luke—"
"You're my person." His voice is quiet. Certain.
"When I'm in a scene, when I have to find real love in myself — I look for you.
Every time. It's always you." His eyes fill.
He doesn't look away. "I love you. I need you.
I want to have this child with you. I want to be his father.
I want to be there for all of it." A beat. "I will not go back without you."
The office is completely still.
He kisses me. I kiss him back.
My mother comes to the door.
"Anna," she says. "I need to talk to you alone."
"I'm going to Morocco," I say.
"Anna. Alone."
"She's coming with me," Luke says. "She's going to have my child. And when we come back — I'd like to marry her, if that's alright with you."
My mother looks at me.
"I'm going, Mom. I love him. I do. He loves me too. He does.”
“I do,” he says.
She holds my gaze for a long moment.
Then she looks at Luke. "If you hurt her again, I will find you and I will shoot you."
Then back at me.
"Go," she says.
The entire office is still frozen. Every desk. Every face turned toward us.
Luke takes my hand.
We walk to the elevator.
Luke presses the button.
I turn back to the room.
Sue is just staring. Lucy at reception is standing.
"I have to go to Morocco," I say.
Nobody has said a word.
The doors open. We get in.
Just before they close I see Margot lower her hands from her face. She waves.
The doors close.
We drive to my mothers house.
I go straight to my room. Luke follows.
He stops in the doorway.
I'm already pulling my passport from the desk drawer. I can feel him looking around.
He's looking at the photograph on the wall. Fourteen-year-old me in the costume that doesn't fit, grinning like I invented theater.
He moves to the shelf above the desk. Picks up my debate trophy.
"Second place," he says.
"I was cheated. Call an Uber.”
He calls the Uber on his phone.
He comes up behind me. He grabs my waist. He kisses me.
"What are you doing?"
"Let's do it in here." Pushing me toward the bed.
"Are you crazy?" I pull away. "We don't have time. We have to go."
“The Uber’s six minutes away.”
I grab my bag. “I’m going to wait outside.”
I walk out.
We go back outside.
Get in the Uber.
He calls Delia. Tells her he's in Montana. He came to get me.
"Are you on drugs?"
"Delia, I'm headed to the airport to go back to Morocco."
"Shut up. I don't want to talk to you. Put Anna on."
"Delia, it's me."
"Is he on drugs?"
"I don't think so."
"Did you know he was doing this?"
"I did not and I would have told him not."
"Anna." Her voice is the controlled fury of a woman who has spent twenty years managing people who do exactly this. "Do you have any idea what the last eighteen hours have looked like? The studio. The insurance company. Max Jacoby has called me four times. Rebecca?—"
"Delia, we'll be there in twenty-four?—"
"Production is shut down. Do you know what it costs to shut down production for three days on a two hundred million dollar film? Do you?"
I don't answer.
"Just get him back on set!"
She slams the phone down.
The Montana airport is small enough that you can see the mountains from the gate. Two runways. A coffee stand. A gift shop selling things with bears on them.
We find two seats by the window while Luke books the connection through New York on his phone.
I look at the mountains through the glass.
Luke takes my hand.
"You okay?" he says.
I look at him.
"Yeah," I say. "I'm okay."
We get on the plane.
Business class. Two seats side by side. Luke takes the window. I take the aisle. He reaches over and takes my hand before we've even pushed back from the gate.
Both our phones start going off at the same time.
brEAKING: Luke Wolfe located. Sources confirm actor is in Montana.
The flight attendant appears beside us. She looks at Luke. Looks again.
"I'm going to need you both to switch your phones to airplane mode," she says. "We're about to push back."
We turn them off.
The engines come up. Montana falls away beneath us — the mountains, the river, the town, my mother's house somewhere in all of it. Gone in seconds.
I lean my head against his shoulder.
Neither of us mentions that he may not have a job in Morocco to go back to.