Quentin

‘So yeah. Got the afternoon off from the wireworks training. Took me a whole week before I could get another moment to do this bloody video diary – pace is really picking up now with the production. I think I’ve had about a thousand costume fittings in the last couple of days.’ Quentin rolled his neck and rubbed it, his hand flicking his light blond ponytail out the way. He grunted and adjusted his laptop on the bed before him, peering into the little camera. ‘Christ I look ridiculous,’ he muttered at himself. He knew he was stalling, postponing the inevitable. He had thought about it all week, and talked about it to Kenny in between murderously severe fight scene and acrobatics training sessions.

Where was he going to start? What should he actually say? He knew all too well what it all came down to, but he just dreaded the analysis of the whole thing. Picking apart his own actions, his emotions. What was there to talk about, really? He’d lost the woman who in all probability was the one for him. He’d been stupid, insensitive, selfish… But he’d get over it somehow. Get over her. He was certain he’d get over her, if he just repeated it often enough. He’d get over her. So why was he still thinking about her? It had been almost a whole bloody year! He tried not to, tried very hard, but he found that almost daily, something happened that he wanted to tell her about. And sometimes, when he was with Muriel, he closed his eyes and his mind ran away with him, taking him back to how it had been making love to Tazzie, his Tazzie…

Kenny had smiled when he’d told him all that. ‘You’re making progress,’ he’d said; ‘a month ago you wouldn’t even acknowledge that you still have feelings for her.’

‘Did I talk about her then?’ Quent had asked, stupefied. He was sure that he’d kept it all buried deep inside, where it belonged.

‘All the time,’ Kenny had said, his mysterious Asian smile still stretching his mouth wide, ‘you talked about her all the time, Quentin. Although it takes a good listener to understand what you’re actually saying when you’re flying off the handle…’

‘Right,’ Quentin now said to his laptop, girding his loins. ‘Right. Erm… well. Here we are, second entry, uh, what am I gonna say? Yeah. So Tazzie, she left. After she lost the baby. We were really sad, I mean, it was heartbreaking, but then I thought we’d get her preggers again in no time. I mean, we just really…. we really had a very, uh, healthy physical relationship. Fuck, do I really have to say these things out loud?’  He looked up at the ceiling in exasperation. ‘Okay, call a spade a spade. I loved fucking her. Just loved being with her period. In every possible way. Loved her company when we weren’t fucking just as much, she’s bright and special and she always made me feel hungry for her approval, I reckon. Yeah. That was it. I wanted her to approve of me. Got really insecure around her actually. So I don’t understand how I could have been so stupid to bowl her over with all that stuff when we were in London… uh…’ he squeezed his eyes shut and ran a hand over his face, thinking hard. ‘Maybe it was because the support squad came down. Maybe I felt… maybe I got some sort of twisted ego boost out of that, and I wanted to show her my world, you know? Show her what I was capable of. Overcome my own insecurity. But she didn’t care about all that stuff, she just wanted to have a normal life with me, she just wanted it to be us. Together. Can’t believe I didn’t see it then, it’s all so bloody crystal clear now. I was running the show where it should have been us. Us. Tazzie and me.’

Quentin sighed from the bottom of his heart, shook his head, then continued: ‘…can’t really blame her that she ran. I mean, she told me she needed her space. I fucked up royally breaking it off between us, thinking I should try to make it work with Bree because that utter bitch, that utter godforsaken bloody BITCH!,’ Quent shouted at the laptop, his anger suddenly exploding, ‘…had to try and foist someone else’s kid on me. Bree didn’t want me, she wanted publicity. And a lot of money. And here I was, trying to do the right thing, while… No, I don’t blame Taz for anything. She had every right in the world to want to have a good think about what it would entail to get serious with a fucker like me. And so what do I do? I run after her to London, bring down the paps on her, and try to impress her with my squad of camp followers and my fuckin’ self importance act. Lookie here, here comes Quentin Finch. Instead of spending time with her, trying to take away her insecurities… My Mum was so right when she gave me that earful back at Nana about what it entails to be in a serious relationship with somebody…’

He had started to sweat again, his hair getting glued to his forehead. He took an impatient swipe at it and heaved another sigh. ‘So, um, we were supposed to announce our engagement, the engagement I practically forced her into, making her take my ring like that… shit… wonder if she kept it. Maybe she tossed it into a loch in Scotland. Wouldn’t surprise me if she did. But anyway, the day we were supposed to do the press conference, announce the thing to the world and all that, enter fuckin’ Brianna Roberts yet again, suing me for slander and claiming that the paternity test I made her take wasn’t reliable. Supposedly the only way we were gonna find out if the baby really was or wasn’t mine was to wait until the little fucker was born. Well, thank fuck that sorted itself out before I…’

The lock clicked and the hotel room door opened. In waltzed Muriel, key card in one hand and a couple of bags from some very expensive stores in the other. ‘Hi baby,’ she sang, making Quentin look up from his laptop. He quickly clicked pause.

‘Hi M,’ he said noncommittally. ‘What did you do? Thought you were going for lunch with your agent?’

Muriel smiled seductively. ‘I did. And it looks like I’ll get the part. I just need to read, and Steven wants to see if there’s chemistry between Bruce and me. I think he’ll have us do a kissing scene or something. You don’t mind, do you?’

‘Mind?’ Quentin muttered, peering at his computer again.

‘Yeah… me kissing another guy… and him being Bruce, on top of that…’

‘Why would I mind?’

Muriel looked a little fazed, and she put down her bags on the table. ‘Well, because I’m your girlfriend, and because I’m gonna kiss Bruce, who was once married to your former lover Brianna Roberts… Weren’t you arch-enemies?’

‘It was a little more complicated than that,’ Quentin said curtly, not really feeling in the mood to go into it. He just wanted to keep moving; it was hard enough to get started, and now that he had, he wanted to keep the flow going for as long as he could. ‘Listen, M, I was working on my video diary and…’

‘Oh God, am I interrupting your therapeutic moment? Last time you were working on your fucking video diary, you didn’t even want to… You know, Finch, you get so self-absorbed sometimes. You know what? I’m gonna give Bruce a call, discuss the reading with him.’ Muriel scowled and stomped off, leaving Quentin sighing and scratching his head.

He clicked recording. ‘That true? Muriel says I’m self-absorbed. Probably, yeah, I mean, when Bree came out with her little scoop right when Taz and me were to announce our engagement, the media storm hit me hard, and all that same old stuff they always print about me was just being rehashed over and over again… Reckon I really lost it. Looking back now I feel like such a fool, I mean it wasn’t important at all; the most important thing in the world was happening right under my nose; Tazzie and me were drifting apart, and she was sad for losing, losing the baby… Well it wasn’t really a baby yet, but you know, it was really sad… I was sad as well… still am, Probably… reckon I just took it out on all the bloody journos… Christ…’ Quent wiped his forehead. He found it immensely difficult to say these things out loud, but at the same time he noticed how, when he finally found the courage to do so, the pieces of the puzzle seemed to fit together. He had begun to understand his own actions a little better. He hadn’t been insensitive about losing the baby, he’d just transferred his loss; turned it into anger, directed at the press.

‘So… actually, what I was probably doing, was just grieving, in a very weird, distorted way… And I didn’t even notice that I was pushing Tazzie away… Right. That’s not gonna happen to me again then. I’ll keep my eyes wide open.’ Here, he looked at the door through which Muriel had walked, considering for a moment if he wasn’t actually doing exactly the same right now. He heard her voice, talking on the phone to Bruce Henry, Bree’s ex. He really didn’t mind. No, worse than that, he didn’t care. If he was completely honest with himself, he just didn’t give a fuck who she kissed. What she did. If what he said hurt her feelings or not. It just wasn’t all that important.

He clicked pause again and went online, straight to Tazzie’s website. He did that quite often, and especially last week since he had started his diary, he found he went there at least once a day. To check if she’d left a message, or a blog post. To see if people posted at her message board. He’d even contemplated leaving a post himself, but he’d have to register with the board, make up an alias. He didn’t want to do that; he wanted to stay anonymous, and he was superstitious enough to believe that Tazzie would eventually know it was him. Fuck it, she’d probably know straight away, what with her sixth sense and all.

There was a lot of activity at the site, now that her new book had hit the stores. He’d resisted buying a copy so far, but he didn’t think he could postpone it much longer. He desperately wanted to read it. He remembered how her first book had had a profound impact on him, and while he dreaded it, at the same time he was dying to know what she’d written. If he’d find anything in there that reminded him of… of their time together at Nana, when they were working in the cabin together… writing, making love, writing again… that time was engraved in his mind as the happiest, most peaceful time of his life, and yet, the most exciting and the most… the most… He couldn’t really find a word to describe what he wanted to express.

Quentin sighed, and closed his browser. Thought for a bit, then clicked the recorder once more. ‘Right. So, you know, in all honesty, I’m fuckin’ obsessed. Yeah. I really think I am. I mean look at it, look at me; I’m constantly checking out Tazzie’s site, I’m thinking about her all the time, even when I’m trying not to… And I dunno what Kenny thinks, but this video diary thing is really not making things better. If anything, it’s making things worse. I’m forced to live through all that stuff again, and it’s not putting my mind at rest; on the bloody contrary: I feel fuckin’ awful. I wanna throw something out the window, uh, me, preferably, I mean, who’s the fucker here? For fuck’s sake, I’m gonna stop this, here and now. I’ve got Muriel, I’ve got my projects up and running, and I don’t bloody need to rake up all this old shit. Kenny can go fuck himself.’

Immediately after that rant, he stomped on his mouse quite savagely to activate the stop button. Then, his cheeks flushed with an angry red, he flipped his laptop shut, got up, and went through to the other room where Muriel was still chatting on the phone.

Tazzie

She hadn’t slept anywhere but Vince’s flat since that first night one week ago. Slowly, she found herself moving more and more of her stuff to his pad; every time she went to her flat to sort out more packing, she came away with something else that ended up at Vince’s.

He was quite good company. He was kind, intelligent, very upper middle class, friendly, mildly amusing, and not a bad lover. He seemed very much in love with her, which was extremely flattering of course, and he seemed willing to cater to her every need. He also seemed to treat her like she was a precious, porcelain doll, and while right now she welcomed the pampering effect of that, she also realised that eventually, it would drive her totally bonkers. She needed a sparring partner in life, not someone who put her on a pedestal and treat her like a demigod. She wasn’t a demigod, she was just Taryn, Taz, Tazzie, who’d been stupid enough to lose the man she really loved, and lose her child, and…

Thank God she still had Jo, her last link to that painful past, and her best friend.

She’d hesitantly told Jo that she’d met someone and that it appeared to be going well, and Jo had been happy for her, both in her emails and in the long phone conversation she had had with her the day before. Jo in turn had mentioned, very carefully, that Quentin was apparently seeing someone as well, and that she was happy that the both of them seemed to be moving on. Perhaps, she had suggested, when Tazzie felt ready to come back to Nana for a visit, she would bring her new boyfriend, Quent could bring his new girlfriend, and they could all sit down for a bit of a family dinner? She wanted nothing more than for Quent and Taz to remain friends, even though it would be little awkward at the beginning. They were both grown-ups; surely they would be able to manage that?

Tazzie hadn’t said anything to that. She hadn’t known how to. The idea of Quentin going out with someone new had almost made her physically ill; it upset her so. And why, she could not rightly say. It wasn’t that she’d thought he’d remained celibate this last year, pining for her. He’d been all over the news way too often, every time with yet another immaculately beautiful starlet dangling from his arm, and after all, she knew him. She knew the sheer physicality of him. He’d get laid if he’d get the chance, she didn’t doubt that for a second. But just so long as it wasn’t anything serious, she had been able to handle it.

She had actually worried about him this past year, since most of the news reports about him had contained, apart form the beautiful girls and speculations about his love life, some sort of mention of his impatience, his moods, him flying off the handle, him losing it. And not only to journalists, also to waiters, cab drivers, directors and fellow actors, to name but a few. If he hadn’t been so brilliant at his job, one headline had implied, nobody would even bother to work with him. He was just too much trouble.

Be that as it may, apparently there were women in abundance who were dying to go out with him, and now he was seeing somebody. And it was serious. Taryn hadn’t been able to think of anything else since her phone talk with Jo. She’d Googled him, not just once, but at least once daily, and she’d stumbled across a fan site that kept track of all the news surrounding him. She hadn’t told Vince, had just mumbled something about coming down from finishing her book when he asked why she looked so troubled, and had continued to spend hours on end at her laptop. She claimed to be working on her web site, and indeed she was – there were a lot of emails to answer now that her book was in the stores and a lot of message board posts to deal with - but at least half of the time she had been out on the Internet looking for news of Quent. Looking for any news of a party he might have gone to, accompanied by a new starlet; but all she found were reports of him and Muriel Manning, a young, particularly pretty upcoming actress. Taryn remembered very well how she had felt in the presence of Brianna Roberts: she’d felt like a stupid, hairy, unwashed object that had just crawled out from under a stone. She was sure that, if Quentin and this Muriel were ever to get serious enough for a wedding, and were she to be invited, she’d quite possibly die from the feeling of inferiority next to this extremely beautiful girl. Not that she was even considering going, if and when; the thought alone made her feel sick all over again.

She hadn’t been able to make love to Vince since she’d heard the news from Jo. Something had locked, deep inside her, and she didn’t know how to unlock it again. Vince knew of course that something was the matter, but couldn’t put a finger on it, and Tazzie refused to speak about it.

What she did do, after reading a magazine article about how Quentin spent long hours online allegedly to keep track of what was written about him, was sit at her laptop even longer, wondering if they were visiting the same sites. Wondering if he’d ever visit her site. Of course, her stats didn’t give her any clues. She got hits from all over the world. And he definitely didn’t have a profile that he used on her board, she was certain of that. She just knew that she would have been aware if he had left her a message.

Vince plied her with good wine, home-cooked Italian food,  classical music and candle light, and while she really tried for his sake to be a good companion (she couldn’t bring herself to calling herself his girlfriend yet), she just couldn’t relax, and she couldn’t put Quentin from her mind. She was sure even the last sliver of hope, the last minute possibility of ever getting back together with him was now brutally smashed to pieces.

She felt Vince’s feelings for her, they were a warm comfortable brown and soft as an old flannel, if she’d have to describe them in colours and textures. She felt them, but couldn’t respond to them, only compare them to the myriad of colours, the overwhelming totality of sounds, and scents, and skin both soft and rough to the touch, both smooth and stubbled, that made up Quentin’s feelings in her particular perception of them. Quentin was like… it was like he came into focus a thousand times sharper, compared to Vincent. Vince stayed a blur. A friendly but from time to time mildly annoying blur.

Taz knew she couldn’t fool herself, and Vince, much longer, but she just dreaded to go back to her old flat. She was going to the States in two weeks, for the Aere Perennius book Award, a prestigious annual literary do, where books that were predicted to become worldwide eversellers were put in the spotlight. To her immense surprise, her book had come out on top of the shortlist (she was speechless to even have made the shortlist, and when the US corporate lawyer had made an appointment with her to inform her that she was going to be the winner, and made her sign a ton of embargo contracts, she had been even more stupefied), and so her presence was requested to give a formal speech, preside at the big charity dinner and accept a check of a quarter of a million dollars.

The festival was in fact nothing more than a very large marketing campaign, but the efforts behind it made it work: almost all books that had headed the shortlist had never gone out of print since. And the absurd amount of money for the authors attached had ensured that they kept producing for at least another couple of years. Yet because of the enormous involvement of the world’s largest media conglomerates, at the same time it was an event with almost Academy Award glamour.

Vince wanted to go as her date. Of course he did; no way would he, a UK editor, get admitted to the APA otherwise, but Tazzie had so far been able to circumvent giving him an outright no. She didn’t want to bring Vince; if she was completely honest with herself she wanted to go alone. And not only because she had severe doubts that their brittle, budding love affair would make it, but also because the APA was in Los Angeles this year; LA, where she knew that Quent was working on his Kung Fu film.

She might see him again. And while she knew that he was busy being happy with Muriel Manning, she just didn’t think she could face running into him with Vince by his side, pretending to be happy and in love herself. She wasn’t happy and in love, she missed Quent and she wanted him back.

As soon as that thought had formed itself in her mind, she knew it was the truth. She wanted Quentin back. She didn’t know what she was going to do about it, or even if she should do something about it, but the fact was that she was trying to have a, well, an affair with someone while her heart still belonged to another.

She would have to tell Vince he couldn’t come with her. She’d stay with him for the next two weeks then go to the US; she’d be there for at least three weeks, what with all the media interest the award would generate. It was odd, really, that she knew so long in advance that she’d get the award. She’d kept her mouth perfectly shut; not even Vince knew. But she knew, and she knew it might bring her right back into Quentin’s path.

Chapter Three

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