Away From the Spotlight (38 page)

I
climbed
out of the shower and put on a short bla
ck silk nightgown. 
I
got out the
hair dryer that I bought in England on my last trip and started to dry my hair.  I giggled
under my breath
when I recalled blowing a few
old
B&B fuses with my
megawatt
American
h
airdryer and converter at
the beginning of my last trip.

My hair was almost dry when Will arrived carrying
what looked like
enough bags to
feed both of us for the
entire
week.
 
I walked out
into the living room
when I heard hi
s
return
, and stared in mock shock at the amount of food as he placed the
bags on the dining room table.

“This place is brilliant.  I wanted you to be able to try a little of everything.” 
Then h
e looked at me and, instead of his usual smile, he looked serious.  “You may want to stay away from the windows.  There’s a photog
rapher hanging around outside.”

“Really?  Do you have a p
roblem with that here too?”

Will
w
alked into the kitchen
to get plates, silverware and napkins.
When he returned
, he arranged the items on the dining table and
answered, “I haven’t been here enough to know.  Someone must have recently tipped them off to where I live.  Our tabloid press is worse than yours.  I’ve just been lucky so far because I haven’t spent a whole lot of time here since I became famous and, until recently, haven’t maintained a permanent residence
here
.”

He
paused
and became thoughtful
.
“When we go out tomorrow, we’ll have to
go out the back.”

“What do we have planne
d?  You still haven’t told me.”

He started to serve up some of the food and didn’t look up.  “You’ll have to
be surprised.  I can say that I’
m glad you’ll
be with me for your birthday.”

“You remembered that, did you?

He looked up then. 
“Of course.  I noticed
you
haven’t brought it up si
nce I asked you
when it was a few months ago
.”

“Because
I knew you would go overboard.”

“There is no su
ch thing when it comes to you.”

I rolled my eyes.  “Not that I don’t appreciate all your efforts, but it makes me feel
guilty
when you do so much f
or me and I can’t reciprocate.”

“You
do
reciprocate.”  He raised his eyebrows.

“No, I don’t and you know it.  Even
if and
when I’m a successful lawyer, I still won’t be able to keep up w
ith you.”  I pouted as I spoke.

“
Is
that
what this is about?  Money?  Who cares about that?  Money is only as good as what you can do
with it. 
I like spending it on you.  What e
lse am I going to spend it on?”

“How about on yourself?”

He frowned.

I
soldiered
on, “It’s not money really.  It’s just that I feel unequal. I was raised to be strong and independent, and sometimes I
don’t feel that way with you.”

“You
are
strong and independent.  Look at you and what you’ve accomplished in your life.  You think
you
feel unequal.  Sometimes
I
feel unequal.  I didn’t get where I am through
intelligence,
hard work and determination like yo
u did.  I just lucked into it.”

“Now
you’re
not being fair.  You’ve worked hard.  You’re smart.  You’re ambitious.  You’ve been successful because of those things.  Everyone has to catch a break to be successful. 
I
t takes more than luck to remain successfu
l and look at you!  Seriously!”

“All right.  All right.  I’ll give up if you do. 
L
et me celebrate your birthday my way,
please?  For me?”

“Yes, but could you try to tone it down at least a little
?
”

“A very little.”

I sighed.  “Okay, I’m hung
ry now after all this arguing.”

The next day
,
all Will would tell me
wa
s that we were going out for
a fairly casual
Sunday
lunch.  I almost responded that it was good that it was casual since my wardrobe consisted of almost nothing but casual, but I kept it to myself.  I figured that “fairly casual” didn’t mean jeans, so I put on black pants
,
a long
,
sleeveless
printed blouse and sandals.
I grabbed a black sweater
in
case
it got cooler outside
.

The photographer didn’t appear to be
outside anymore
so Will went out
the
front to get his car, but
met me out back just in case.

We
d
r
o
ve out of town to the southwest, probably somewhere not far from Heathrow, I
imagined
. 
As w
e
drove through
the small town of Shepperton
,
Will still wouldn’t tell me where we were going other than to
say we were going to
lunch. 
It wasn’t until
we arrived at a single-family
two
-
story
Tudor Revival home
that
I realized what he had done.  I was
then
glad that I had made the effort to look a little nicer than Will’s words
regarding casual dress
would have suggested.  I gulped.  He was going to introduce me to his parents.

Now Will had met my parents, but that couldn’t be avoided as it had been my graduation after all.  I hadn’t arranged it
on purpose
.  Meeting parents had serious connotations
which
made me nervous.  The butterflies in my stomach were making me lose my appetite.

Will knocked on the door briefly
, opened the unlocked front door, and led me inside
.

“Hello?  We’re here.
”

A
s he said this
, a pretty
,
dark-haired
and
slender woman
who
looked like she was
in her
early
40’s
appeared
from the bac
k of house.  At the same time,
a tall
,
broad-shouldered and very fit man with a full head of
only slightly-
graying dark hair
of
roughly the same age came down the stairs.
I then remembered that they had t
wo
daughters
both
older than Will and I realized
that
they had to be much older than they
appeared
. 
All I could think was that my parents
, although they looked good,
would kill to have aged this well
and they were
probably
much younger
.

The woman took my hand and gave me a hug.  “You must be Shannon.  It’s so nice to finally meet you.  I’m Margaret.”

Will’s father shook my hand
with both of his
.  “Iain.”  He smiled warmly.

Margaret took my hand and led me to the sofa in the living room. 
I thought I heard Will’s father
behind me
t
ell Will that I was gorgeous. 
Blind
,
just like his son.

From the look of Will’s flat, I knew
that
his mother would have
good taste, but I was surprised that the look of her ho
use
was
so
much different
than that of Will’s place
. 
Her
home was full of
dark
woods
and jewel tone
s
rather than the light
woods
and modern look of Will’s
flat
.

Margaret sat me down and asked if I would like some tea or anything else to drink.

“Tea would be great, thank you.”  I wanted something to hold in my hand.  I was nervous.

“Do you take milk
and
sugar?”

“Milk, thank you.”

“The same for you
,
Will?”

“Yes.  Thanks, Mum.”

Will sat down next to me and placed
his right arm
along t
he back of the sofa behind me.  His father sat in a wing chair across the large oval coffee table from us.  There wasn’t time for any conversation to start before
Margaret returned, two china mugs of tea in her hand.  She handed one to me and the other to Will
,
and sat down in the wing chair next to that of her husband.

“Will tells us you’re a
b
arrister?”

“A
b
arrister’s a trial attorney here, yes?”  I looked at Will
and h
e nodded.
 
“I will be.  I just took the California Bar Exam.  I get my results in Novem
ber and, if I pass, I get sworn-
in in December.  I can appear in
c
ourt after that.”

“That’s exciting.  Do you have to go to
university
long to do that?” She asked
,
studying me
.

“You have to have a four-year Bachelor’s
d
egree and then it’s another three years for a law degree on top of that.”

“You look so young to have
done
all that.”
  She said that as if what I had told her was unbelievable.

“I’m a little on the young side, I guess.  Some people take a few years off between college
,
you
would
say
university
, and law school.  I went straight through.”

“Shannon’s pretty ambitious,” Will added with pride.
I felt like hitting him to stop him from embarrassing me.  Wasn’t it bad enough that
I
had to be the topic of conversation?

His mother continued the inquiry.
“Will says you
start work
when you return home?”

“
Yes.  J
ust after our Labor Day
h
oliday in September
.  I
’
ll work for
a small
law
firm in Downtown L.A.
  I worked for them part-
time when I was in law school.”

“What will you do while you wait for your results?”

“I’ll be able to work like the other attorneys in
many
respects. 
I just can’t sign any
c
ourt documents or appear in
c
ourt until I’m sworn in.”

“Sounds like you’re set.”  Will’s father spoke this time.  “So what do you like to do for fun?”  He was trying to lighten the tone of the conversation.

“Music, sports, swimming, skiing, traveling
,” I responded, pausing between each answer while thinking
. 
“
I guess that’s it.  I used to like to read a lot, but I stopped due to all the reading I had to do in law school.  I hope to take up that hobby again now.  And, of course, I’ll have to pay a lot more attention to movies.”  I smiled at Will.

“Will told us you didn’t know he was an actor for a while
after you met
.  I
s that true?”
Margaret
asked
.