Neglected and Ignored by My Movie Star Husband novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Overtired

Lance and Camille come home laughing and tell Willa she is overtired. In her study the six notebooks are gone.

"How long have you known?" I said.

"Since the first week of shooting," Mason Kerr said. "The director's copy is in my office, and the notes in it are not Camille's."

"You asked her about them?" I said.

"She told me the initials W.M. belonged to a former assistant who had left town," he said.

"And you believed her."

"I wanted to," Mason said. "It was easier."

"You signed her name on that film."

"I did."

He didn't look away when he said it.

My cab fare was in my clutch, and I stood there with my hand on the clasp and could not make myself open it.

A car pulled up behind him, the valet opened the door, and a woman in diamonds gave the valet a dirty look for the wait.

I was shaking, and I hated that he could see it.

"I can give you a ride," Mason said.

"No."

"Then take my card."

He held it out between two fingers.

I took it because refusing would have meant standing there longer.

A cab pulled up at the end of the red carpet, and I got in and gave the driver our address in Brentwood.

Through the back window I saw Mason standing alone under the heat lamp, watching the cab go.

The gate code still worked.

The house was dark.

I sat on the edge of our bed in my gown with my shoes in my hand and listened to the clock.

At one in the morning the front door opened.

I heard champagne laughter in the hall, and two sets of footsteps.

Lance came into the bedroom with his bow tie undone and the statue under his arm.

Camille was right behind him, holding her heels.

She saw me and stopped smiling and put a hand to her throat.

"Oh, Willa," she said. "Oh, honey. We looked everywhere for you."

"Where did you go?" Lance said. "You walked out in the middle of my speech. Do you know what that looked like?"

"Do you know what the speech looked like?"

He set the statue on the dresser.

"I thanked you, Wills."

"For keeping the house."

"It was a joke. People laughed."

"They laughed at me."

"Nobody laughed at you," Camille said gently. She crossed the room and sat beside me on the bed.

She took my hand in both of hers.

"You're exhausted," she said. "You've been carrying so much. Let me get you some water."

I pulled my hand back.

"Whose film is it, Lance?"

He rubbed his face and gave a long sigh, the one he used with directors who wanted another take.

"It's a team effort. You know that."

"Say whose pages it was."

"Camille's name is on the script. It's on the contract. It's on the screen."

"Because I let her put it there."

"And that was your choice," he said. "Nobody forced you."

"You told me it would be fixed after the awards."

"After the awards, I said. Not in the middle of the awards." He lowered his voice. "I can't change the story the night I win. It would look petty, and it would look like I'm taking it from her."

"Taking it from her."

"It's her name on the page, Wills."

I looked at Camille.

Her eyes were full, and her face was kind.

"Willa," she said softly, "you gave me your story to look after. I've looked after it. I've never once said it was mine alone."

"You said it to two thousand people tonight."

"Lance said it. I was as shocked as you were."

I thought about her wet face before he spoke.

I decided not to say that out loud yet.

"I wrote it at the kitchen table," I said.

"Of course you helped," Lance said. "You always had notes. Your notes are wonderful."

He looked over at Camille, and she gave him a small, tired smile.

It was the kind of smile that passes between two people who have agreed to be patient with someone.

"We'll talk in the morning," Lance said, "when you're yourself."

"I am myself."

"Wills."

"I'm going to get my notebooks."

Camille turned her head, quickly.

Lance shrugged, and picked the statue back up.

I walked down the hall to my study.

It was the small room at the back with the window on the garden, where I kept every draft of that film.

I switched on the lamp.

Six notebooks, hardcover, green ink, one for every draft.

They lived on the bottom shelf of the bookcase where I could reach them from my chair.

I looked at the shelf.

It was empty.

I knelt and ran my hand along the wood.

There was a clean rectangle in the dust, where six notebooks had sat for two and a half years, and nothing inside it.

Behind me in the doorway, Camille said, "Willa? Sweetheart, what are you looking for?"

I kept my eyes on the shelf.

"Where are my notebooks?"

"What notebooks?" she said.

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