home to her, the waste, the terrible, terrible waste this all was. One more time. Maybe, just maybe—
“Harry.” She buried her pride and forced her voice to stay calm. “Please, can’t we just forget about everything and start over?”
He was already watching the rehearsal and making mental notes he hoped he could remember when the time came. Nothing seemed to stay put in his mind anymore. “What do you mean, over?”
“I mean, forget about the arguments, forget about—“ She didn’t want to go into details. Details made it harder to forget. And she wanted to forget, desperately, wanted to forget everything that had happened these last ten years. “—about everything. I love you, Harry.”
Funny how forced the words sounded to her ear as she said them. She still loved him. Didn’t she? Or was she only waltzing with shadows of what had once been, afraid to admit that the music was over, afraid to sit down?
The words sounded a little forced from lack of usage, she decided. There was a time she said it every day. As did he.
“We need to rebuild what we had.”
He had wasted enough time with her. He began to walk away, sparing her words only as he moved. “There’s nothing wrong between us.”
She stared at him, wondering if he was so far gone into his own world that he actually believed what he was saying. “How can you say that?”
“Very easily. If there’s something wrong, then you’ve created it. You weren’t supportive enough of me to—“
The dam broke. All the thing she had endured, all the hurts, humiliations she had put up with, she had done because she felt that somehow, someday, he would stop and realize all that she had gone through. For him to say that she wasn’t supportive told her that everything she believed to be true was not. Someday wasn’t coming. He remembered nothing, was grateful for nothing, would never feel any contrition for his hurtful words and horrible behavior.
“Not supportive of you? I sublimated my entire life for you!” she cried.
He reached over and ran his fingers over the five carat diamond bracelet on her wrist. “Must have been very hard on you.”
She stared down at the bracelet as if it was something she had never seen before, something ugly. And, in a way, it was. It marked the schism between them. He had given that to her at the premiere of his first film. His biggest success.
“These were trinkets you gave me, not things I asked for.” She shook the bracelet in his face angrily. “The only thing I ever asked for was you.”
“But you didn’t say no when the ‘trinkets’ came.” His tone was scornful.
“You’ll never understand, will you?”
“The only thing I understand is that you’re getting in my way here, Johanna. I have a picture that is already falling behind schedule and those damned bastards back in Hollywood are going to have me cut up and served as an appetizer at their next gathering if I don’t deliver a blockbuster. “
She picked up her purse. There was no point in staying here and arguing with him. There was no talking to him. Maybe he was right. Maybe it was her fault somehow. Maybe he would be more receptive once he came home, came back from England, had this picture wrapped. There was nothing else she could hope for.
“I’ll see you at the hotel,” she said quietly. “By the way, happy anniversary.”
“What?”
“Never mind.”
He didn’t even bother to watch her walk away. He was relieved that she was going. She was crowding him, all the time crowding him, wanting pieces, just as everyone else did. And he had none to spare. He needed to concentrate on getting this picture done. And he had such trouble concentrating these days.
He began to look around the set for Garrison. Garrison had promised him that he would score this morning and if he didn’t have a hit soon, he knew he couldn’t hold himself together much longer.
Chapter Six
The noise on the set elevated to a roar, swirling all around
Aj Harmon, Christopher Harmon