Runaway (3 page)

And then it hit me.

Casey and I had been friends for so long that we often joked about having a kind of telepathy between the two of us. But in that moment when I looked over at her, my eyes wide with sudden realisation and a smile rising to my face, I was pretty sure that Casey really was reading my mind. She stared at me briefly with confusion for a moment, before mirroring my expression.

‘You didn’t…’ She started, ‘And you never told me?’

‘It was my first big paycheque and I didn’t know what to do with it! I mean, come on, if you had the means to buy a secret hideout wouldn’t you do it?’

‘A secret hideout? That’s what you’re calling it?’

‘Well, it is pretty damn secret. Even you didn’t know about it…’

‘I can’t believe you,’ Casey laughed, ‘Where is it?’

‘Up north. It’s called Watertown, it’s a quaint little place with a tea shop and bookstores and corner shops, right next to a logging community. It’s off the map, and there are hardly any television. Nobody would know who either of us were.’

If you’re wondering what I was talking about… Basically, when I first got paid for my first big movie I did what anybody would do – treated myself with a little, put a whole lot into my rainy day savings, but even then I still had some leftover. Casey and I had always joked about absconding to a secret hideout if things ever got rough – namely the end of the world or whatever. But now that I actually had the financial means to do it, I couldn’t resist. It was literally a dream…

‘So what’s the house like?’

‘It’s great,’ I said, ‘a lovely little oakwood place by a lake, with a dock and rowing boats and everything…’

‘Jeez, Emma it sounds like something out of a romance movie…’

‘Believe me, my life’s starting to feel more and more like a movie as the days go by… So what do you say?’

We both looked back and forth at each other, our blank, analytical faces slowing changing into uncontrollable smiles.

‘Why not,’ Casey agreed, ‘It’ll be great. We can get away from this lot, you can have some time away from that douchebag that cheated on you… What could go wrong?’

Chapter Three

Two hours later and we were pretty much ready – I had showered, packed enough clothes for both myself and Casey to last the week, and had a separate bag set up with pretty much everything I would need in an emergency.

‘Well, I think we’re ready…’ I said, standing by the door in an old style rock t-shirt, a jacket and a pair of faded jeans.

‘I can’t believe we’re doing this…’ Casey smiled, looking over at me. ‘You’re one of the biggest young female stars in the world right now, and we’re just gonna jump ship…’

‘I know,’ I said shamefully, ‘But like you said, the schedule’s free, and let’s be honest, I think we both deserve a holiday.’

‘Truer words have never been spoken, Emma, my dear.’

In some ways the two of us really were a double act. I needed her, and she needed me. And I would always be grateful for having a best friend like her behind the scenes, figuring all this stuff out for me…

‘There’s just one problem,’ Casey continued, ‘I’m not quite sure how we can get out of here without being seen by the angry mob…’

She was right - the moment we stepped out there we would be swarmed upon. I had this image in my head of those groggy pieces of camera footage where celebrities run from paparazzi or people going to court cover their heads with jackets so their faces are hidden.

‘We could go down the fire exit,’ I smiled, ‘Belly flop onto the crowd below like rock stars. My t-shirt even suits the occasion.’

‘It’s tempting,’ Casey laughed, crossing her arms beneath her chest and looking around, ‘But we need something inconspicuous. Something that puts us in plain sight without them even realising… And the cab’s gonna be here in ten minutes so we need to come up with something, and
fast…’

I knew what she meant, but what could we do? Make a run for it? That seemed like our only resort… Until-

I looked over at Casey, that lop-sided grin having risen to her face that told me she had an idea that was better than brilliant.

‘You still have all those old props from your sets around, don’t you?’ She asked.

‘Yeah, of course.’

‘Do you have Meredith’s outfit? You know, the walking stick and the flowery dress and the big hats?’

‘Somewhere in my back room, yeah…’ I looked at Casey sceptically, eyeing her up and down as her smile grew wider and wider.

***

‘This is beyond insane…’

‘Correction; it’s genius.’

We had seen the cab arrive from my apartment window, and now we were down at the empty reception hall on the ground floor, making our way towards the front door. Outside, through the blurred glass, we could both see the vague outline of press members shuffling back and forth, shouting nonsensical things as they waited for a sliver of an appearance or a statement on the love life of a person none of them knew. But these things sold, and people have to eat, don’t they?

Casey stood by my side before we got to the door – she looked just like herself, save for a larger pair of sunglasses retrieved from her bag and an enormous, rather unbefitting flowery wide-brimmed hat that was pulled down over her face.

I, on the other hand, was pretty much unrecognisable. My hair was tied up in a bun, the worst curtain-like blue and green dress you’ve ever seen in your life covering up the t-shirt and jeans beneath it, and a hat similar to Casey’s covering my face.

Why, you might ask?

‘Trust me, you look exactly like your typical grandmother type-person, nobody’s gonna know it’s you.’

‘This is still madness,’ I said, ‘And if this hat blows off or something they’re all gonna think I’ve had some kind of nervous breakdown in the wake of last night, like I’ve aged fifty years or something. Can you imagine the headlines?’

‘ ‘A-Lister Emma Clarke to star as octogenarian mother of love-struck triplets in new romantic comedy’.’

‘Oh, shut up…’

We had packed everything into one bag that Casey was now pulling along behind her on wheels. This was the image we were going for – young granddaughter escorting her frail grandmother to a cab.

‘I’ll be honest, when I woke up this morning I did not anticipate that we were gonna get to wear disguises… This is the most fun I’ve had in-’

I looked over at Casey with a flat, unamused expression from beneath my hat. She tried to hold back her laugh.

‘Just treat it like one of your parts,’ she said, ‘it’s just like a scene in of your movies!’

‘Believe me, I’m beginning to feel more and more like that as the days go by…’

‘Okay, here we go. Ready?’

‘Ready…’ I sighed, hooking my arm around Casey’s and crooning myself over to look as close to the part as possible, making sure to keep my head down.

Casey hit the button on the wall by the door, clasping her hand around the handle and pulling the door open as it buzzed and clicked, and we stepped out into the early afternoon sun.

A wall of noise suddenly hit us, I keeping my head as low as possible and shuffling by Casey’s side as we made our way through the crowd.

‘Out of the way people, out of the way!’ Casey screamed, ‘What, are you just gonna stand around and get in the way of my poor old grandma?’

I struggled to stifle my laughter from beneath the hat, shuffling along with slow haste as we made our way to the edge of the sidewalk. All I could see were pairs of feet in sneakers, camera leads and equipment bags. Around me I caught the occasional wisp of sound or the end of a conversation or reading in front of a camera-

‘
Everyone
is wondering just what Miss Clarke’s response is to this situation-’

‘-hasn’t been seen since this morning-’

‘—love life covered extensively in the media-’

I clenched my eyes shut for a moment, trying to keep a hold on myself as we made for the cab. I didn’t quite know how to feel, but for some reason the ridiculousness of this whole situation hit me, and I couldn’t help but smile.

‘We’re nearly there…’ Casey whispered out of the edge of her mouth, before I saw the yellow paint of the cab come into view. ‘Jump in, quickly, I’ll get the bag…’

I let go of Casey’s arm and near enough dived into the cab after pulling the door open – pretty uncharacteristic for an elderly woman.

Seconds later she came hurtling in through the passenger door on the other side of the cab, slamming it shut behind her before patting the back of the drivers seat, screaming ‘go, go, go!’ as I tried to keep down an undeniable smile at the craziness of this whole thing.

The taxi took off down the block with a screech of the tires – perhaps the driver had been a little too intimidated by Casey’s drill sergeant impression. Looking out of the window I caught a few of the waiting photographers and press members turning their heads in the direction of the noise – but all they saw was a cab turning at the nearby intersection. Although, if some of them had a keen eye, they might have noticed the flowery dress and the wide-brimmed hat dumped in a pile on the sidewalk…

Chapter Four

We all have reasons for our actions. It used to be something that I thought about a lot more when I was younger, the reason that people get out of bed in the morning to do what they do, they reason I myself get up in front of a camera and pretend to be somebody else… The reason I do it, is… Well, I guess that I have a couple of reasons. Sometimes it’s just easier to pretend to be another person because being yourself can be so difficult. And sometimes… Well, a lot of the time… I feel like I want to work hard and get a lot done for my sister, Maria. Because she deserves that.

But I don’t want to talk too much about that just now… Besides I had potentially just skewed my career into a direction that I wasn’t totally sure about.

True, I had enjoyed the whole spontaneous idea of this plan, of absconding to a lakehouse hideaway for the week to relax, shop and kick back with my best friend, away from the press and the drama of this whole thing, but I was causing even more drama just by running away from it all, from Marcus…

You freaking jerk…
I thought,
Why did you… No, I’m not even gonna ask myself that question. It was his fault for what he did, and not yours. Reality check, Emma.

That said, I was still understandably messed about this whole thing. We hadn’t even been together a year, but that didn’t mean that I could just stop thinking about him, like I was flicking some kind of switch in my brain to turn off my thoughts about him… Although I wished that I could.

We took the taxi to the airport, booking ourselves in on a last minute flight to Long Island, just a stones throw away from Watertown. we decided to hit it up first class – you only live once, right? I say this because usually I had a habit of taking economy – staying grounded was my number one rule, and it reminded me of trips with the family when I was younger. And when it comes to times like these, remembering home can be a really important thing.

***

‘Emma, do you even remember yourself where the house is?’

‘Hey, give me a break, I never actually anticipated myself making some kind of getaway in my life, y’know?’

‘All right, all right…’ It was late afternoon and we had finally touched down - now we were passing along country roads surrounded by hay fields and lone trees in the evening sun. It was a beautiful place, but we were a little caught up in figuring how to actually get to the house first.

Casey leaned forward in her seat towards our second cab driver of the day, tapping him on the shoulder.

‘Excuse me,’ she asked politely, ‘How far is it to Watertown?’

The man had a heavy city accent, clad in a cap and a worn lumberjack shirt.

‘You just answered your own question, Miss.’

I watched a beleaguered expression on Casey’s face as she looked out the front window of the cab, before her eyes suddenly focused in on something and she smiled suddenly.

‘Hey, Emma, we’re here!’

I looked out the front window from the backseat, seeing not your ordinary welcoming town sign – it wasn’t just a wooden marker at the side of the road, it was like something you would see on the dock of a beach carnival or fairground, a huge wooden banner that arched over the road, held up by columns on either side that framed the road. It was expertly decorated with
Watertown
written across it, a small, calligraphic
Welcome To
written just above it. It looked like it had been put up only yesterday.

‘Now I remember why I liked it here so much,’ I smiled, sitting back in my seat as we passed beneath it.

‘All right, Clarke, you haven’t got me convinced yet,’ Casey laughed, sounding like some kind noir detective.

‘Convinced?’ I asked, ‘Convinced about what? This was your idea.’

‘My idea? Who was so adamant about getting away from the press and that slimy douchebag of an ex of yours?’

‘Uhh…’ I started, ‘Well, technically, both of us.’

‘Oh, yeah…’ Casey said, looking off to the side and grinning, ‘Let’s just call it even.’

‘Deal.’

At that moment the cab moved into the actual town, onto the main street, if it was big enough to be called that. It was your typical smalltown community, with shops, grocery stores and cafes lining both sides of the street. The kind of quiet town where anybody could come to disappear.

‘Looks like you really
did
make the right choice, Emma,’ Casey said, both of us smiling as we looked out of the windows, watching the people pass. ‘And I doubt anybody around here knows who you are… Or even has a TV, so there’s that.’

‘We haven’t gone back in time, Casey,’ I laughed, ‘I just doubt that there’s a Cineplex or something around here… Which is fine by me.’

‘Me too.’

‘So where can I drop you two ladies off?’ The cab driver asked, slowing down a little as he drove up the quiet street.

‘Uhh…’ Casey stammered, looking over at me and shrugging her shoulders.

‘Is there a lake around here?’ I asked, leaning towards the front seat, ‘Like a kind of main lake in town?’

‘You must mean Lake Wilverston,’ he said.

‘Yeah, that’s the one!’ I said, ‘Could you take us there? Not into the lake, I mean, but to the road, I guess, around it?’

‘Sure thing,’ he laughed, shaking his head before setting off again.

‘What are we gonna do? Set up a tent?’ Casey said.

‘I told you, it’s a lakehouse. Although I’m not exactly sure which one…’

***

We both thanked the cab driver as he got back into his car after helping us with the bags, before watching him take off back up the road until we couldn’t hear the engine at all, and there we were; two women in their mid-twenties, an actress and her agent, dressed in city clothes with city bags and city presences, out in a remote town in the North.

Casey and I looked at each other before taking in our surroundings, a lake fifty or sixty yards down from the road we stood on, surrounded in it’s roughly circular shape by lakehouses and high reaching, lone trees.

‘Be honest,’ Casey finally said, ‘On a scale of one to tourist, how out of place do we look right now?’

‘Please,’ I laughed, ‘This isn’t
Legally Blonde
or something. You know that neither of us are that clueless.’

‘Except for which is your house,’ Casey smiled.

‘I do… Kind of.’

‘I can’t believe you came to see it without me,’ she said in her mock-offended manner, shaking her head and squinting at me. ‘I’m your best friend.’

‘I’m sorry,’ I grinned, ‘But I wanted it to be top secret.’

‘Don’t worry, honey, I’ll forgive you… Eventually,’ Casey winked at me. ‘But that still doesn’t help us with figuring out where it is.’

‘I know which one it is,’ I said confidently, ‘It has a marker on it.’

‘What do you mean a marker?’

‘I left a mailbox outside of it with my name on it.’

‘You put your name on the mailbox of your hideout?’

‘Well, no, it’s not
my
name,’ I said, ‘How stupid d’you think I am?’

‘Whose name is on it, then?’

‘You’ll see when we get there.’

‘What?’ Casey asked, as I pulled up the handle on my bag and set off down the rough road. I heard her pick hers up promptly before running after me. ‘I don’t like surprises, you know that. Just tell me.’

‘No,’ I laughed, ‘Wait till we get there, and you’ll see.’

‘You’re such a spoilsport…’ Casey sighed, walking by my side as we both laughed easily in the late afternoon sun.

***

But, as it turned out, she didn’t have to wait long at all. The road we walked circled around the whole lake, giving onto the driveways every one of the luxurious cabins that surrounded it.

And it was the first house that we came to.

I was a little ahead of Casey, intent on checking the mailbox, my face lighting up as I read the name on it.

‘This is it!’ I shouted back to her, taking in the sight of the house before me.

I hadn’t been here in years, but I wished that I had.

It was like something out of an old painting, an oak-coated, wooden building with two windows either side, a porch and a slanted, panelled roof. We couldn’t see it right now, but a dock led from the back out onto the lake, and with the sun hitting it… Well, I was feeling happier than I had since last night, back when everything had been fine and simple…

‘This is the place?’ Casey asked, panting deeply after having caught up with me. ‘How did you have such good taste without me consulting you? And anyway, what’s this name?’

She pandered past me to the mailbox, leaning over and peering at it. The weather had worn it down over the last few years, but it was still pretty visible.

‘
My
name?! You used my freaking name to buy this place?’

‘Yeah,’ I said, ‘They put me on the spot when I signed the lease, and I didn’t want to put mine because it kind of defeats the purpose of it being a secret, so I just put down the first one that came to mind.’

‘Well…’ Casey breathed, looking up at the house. ‘Seeing as how nice it is, I’ll let you off. I wouldn’t mind living somewhere like this, anyway… Well, as long as there are a few bars around…’

‘Here? I doubt it,’ I laughed, ‘Come on, let’s get inside. I wanna see the damage.’

***

For all the years of it being uninhabited, the house wasn’t actually that bad. I mean, sure, the place was a little musty, and we had to dust down a couple of spaces, but other than that we were pretty much set; we had a furnished living room, a working flat screen that had been untouched for ages, a kitchen that was pretty much good to go, and three bedrooms that we could choose between. Once we had set our bags out in our rooms, kicked our shoes off and sat back on the cushioned sofa in the living room, the quiet background noise of the TV that had started up without trouble for company, we were pretty much set.

Well, that and the seven year old bottle of merlot Casey had found in the kitchen – ‘Emma, you won’t believe what I just found!’ - the only thing that had been in any of the cupboards, aside from dishware, glasses and cutlery.

So we sat there, our shoes and socks off, our feet up on the coffee table half-watching a local early evening news show.

‘I still don’t know if this was a good idea,’ I said, fiddling with the base of my wine glass. ‘Now that we’re here… I don’t know, it just feels a little odd.’

‘Of course it’s gonna feel odd, Emma. You’ve been living in the city for years, millions of people know your name and you were with a guy most women would cut their freaking legs off to be with…’ Casey said, shrugging, ‘Unfortunately for them, they still probably think he’s some kind of hero and no the total sleazebag that we know him to be.’

‘I know…’ I said, feeling a sudden sadness begin to overwhelm me as the thought of Marcus came back to me, ‘I just… I really thought that things were gonna be different with him… I thought that we really had something special…’

I couldn’t help myself from how I felt… I should have been done with him, I
wanted
to be… But that wasn’t how I felt. It’s a pity that we can’t just turn off our feelings for those around us, like flicking a switch…

‘I just don’t know how I’m supposed to feel about all this…’ I said, a tear running down my cheek as I felt my eyes begin to sting, sniffling through it quietly.

‘Oh, honey, come on, don’t cry,’ Casey said comfortingly, setting down her wine glass and giving me a hug, ‘No woman should ever shed a tear over a man, unless you’re mourning him or something, you especially. Don’t waste your time on it for one minute. You’re Emma Clarke, you’re a superstar, you shouldn’t have to worry about that stuff…’

‘It doesn’t matter what I am,’ I said, calming myself down, ‘It still happened. I still got cheated on…’

‘But that isn’t your fault. You didn’t do anything wrong, he did. I told you, guys like that don’t change. In a way it’s kind of good that it happened this early on… Can you imagine being with him for years and then this kind of thing happening, after all that time? It’d be devastating…’

‘You’re right…’ I said, breathing deeply before taking a big swig of my wine. ‘I’ll be okay, I just need to get my mind off it.’

‘Well, that’s what we’re here for,’ Casey smiled taking a drink of her wine and sitting back in her seat. ‘And that’s also what this wine is for.’

I giggled and took another sip. I held up my glass and eyed it with a frown, seeing just how much of the large glasses we had gotten through.

‘It’s a pity that we don’t have more of it, though…’ I lamented, looking over at the almost empty bottle on the table. ‘Saying that, we really do need to head into town to get some food…’

‘Or…’ Casey said, that look coming to her face that meant she had another
brilliant
idea in mind, ‘we could just get some food at a diner or a bar or something in town, see what local
beverages
they have to offer, and worry about the food shopping tomorrow! Who knows, there might be a cute bartender to take your mind off things…’