Blind Love (2 page)

“Alright, have your minions send me tapes of the ceremonies
from the last 5 years. I’ll book some flights and call you
back.”

“Thank
you, doll,” he replied, and said goodnight.

There
was no-one in the world he loved quite like Emily, especially at
moments like this. However, love was quite different than lust, and
lust was what he was thinking about right now. He hung up the phone
and wandered back to the bedroom, picking up a beer as he
went.

“Do
you think I’m pretty?” said the random bar-find of the night as he
came back in. He laughed at this, sliding back to the sheets in the
darkness. He had his contacts in, and he felt half drunk, but it
was still a good enough act to fool the star struck
girl.

“Sure,
babe,” he replied, throwing an arm around her, and kissing her
hard, eager to pick up where they had left off earlier. His hand
drifted down her naked torso, down her taunt stomach and onto her
thighs. She gave a little whimper, curling closer to
him.

“Prettier than the girl on the phone? Was that your
girlfriend?” she asked, and Caius winced at that.

“I
don’t know,” he said, truthfully, but she took it as a tease and
kissed him back.

His
mind flickered back to Emily, her soft skin and long hair. Whenever
he hugged her, he felt as if they matched, their bodies fitting
together perfectly. He missed her terribly, being so far away all
the time, sending her trinkets often.

What
she didn’t know was the words that were unsaid on the phone; the
stilted goodbyes that he wanted to end with ‘I love you’, the
friendship bracelets that he wanted to be a ring. He loved Emily
more than anything on the planet, and he was a Hollywood superstar
now; he should have been able to have any woman he wanted. Any
woman… except the one that would not have him.

Rising
over him with a seductive look, the bar-find raised an
eyebrow.

“Well,
let me change your mind,” she said, and then there was no more
talking, only the sounds of the night.

*

When
Emily’s plane landed in LA, Phil was there to meet her. In recent
years, Caius had stopped coming to the airport, his presence always
causing a stampede that was hard to navigate him through. She tried
to tell herself it was for that reason alone, and not because he
didn’t think she was important. But she felt a little angry when
she pulled her suitcase towards Phil.

“Good
flight?” he asked her, giving her a hug.

The
pair had come to know each other well over the years, often
exchanging text messages, and Caiustmas cards.

“Usual. For all they claim first class is, it really isn’t
that much more comfortable,” she replied. “Where are we
going?”

“Probably just the house, unless you need something first.
Caius is filming until at least 6 p.m., so you’ll have some time to
relax.”

“Take
me to set,” she said, suddenly, as they exited the airport and
headed for the waiting limo. “It’s been awhile since I’ve seen how
he operates at work.”

“To
set?” Phil raised an eyebrow, and then shrugged, pulling out his
phone. “Sure, why not.” He made the necessarily arrangements and
then they pulled out into LA traffic, crawling towards the
soundstage where Caius was filming.

Emily
was anxious to see him again. They were used to being separated for
long periods of time, of course, but lately it felt especially
painful. Of late, their conversations were more frequent, feeling a
sudden surge of closeness as they spoke late into the nights. Caius
had recently gotten voice-to-text on his phone, and they texted up
a storm most days, with daily tidbits and anecdotes. Still, they
had been apart six months, and things might be
different.

Caius
was filming when they snuck onto set, locked in a scene full of
rage and emotion. Still, the second the director yelled cut, he
turned his head in her direction, a grin on his face. To the blind,
every other senses are heightened, and he heard her coming even
when she was tiptoeing.

“EMMY!” he cried, and she went to him at once, hugging him
tight.

It was
instinct, to go to him, rather than have him come to her. It was
just one more little adjustment one made for their blind best
friend.

“I
thought you were going to go home.”

“And
miss out on the chance to see what happens to Calvin?” she asked,
referring to his character on his long running TV show. “What’s the
use of knowing you if I don’t get insider information?”

“You
sneak,” he said, laying a kiss on her cheek. Her eyes flicked up
immediately, out of habit, trying to meet his. He looked tired, a
five o’clock shadow growing rapidly on his chin, in his natural
brown. He looked so much different from the nerdy boy she had taken
under her wing at school. But it was that kiss, something he had
almost never done, that startled her. She and Caius had always been
best friends. But lately, his affection poured out from him in ways
she had never seen.

“Please, let it be lunch time,” she said, smelling the craft
service table.

Emily
was curvier, with an appetite that always amazed him. However, in
the land of Hollywood size 0s, she stuck out like a sore thumb. He
laughed, throwing an arm around her shoulders. All the pent up
emotion from the scene was fading away, now that she was
here.

“It
is. Let’s go feed you, before you fade away.”

“Not
likely,” she replied, watching an impossibly skinny girl give her a
look of disgust as she headed to the table with him. He laughed,
and she forced herself to join him, as they picked up
plates.

“Do
you know what’s here?” she asked him, scanning the long banquet
table.

“There’s some pretty good garlic chicken somewhere,” he said,
and she spotted it, heaping a few forkfuls on his plate. “I have a
kissing scene this afternoon, and I hate her guts, the stuck up
bitch.”

“Ew!”
she replied, helping herself to some salad and a brownie. “Do you
want a brownie?”

“Cupcake,” he said, and she nudged his hand into the right
direction. “I’d rather be kissing you than her,” he said as a joke,
and she laughed.

“Wow,
you must really hate her!” She giggled, letting him lightly rest a
hand on her back as she took him towards a table.

“Yeah,” he replied, although it wasn’t as strong. He did hate
her…. but he’d really rather be kissing Emily.

*

“Is it
possible we can get you a specific seat?” Emily asked, that night,
as she laid out the diagram of the Oscar theatre. She had sketched
it in rough, with measurements scribbled in to remind her. They
were using the ballroom of Caius’s mansion to practice. She had
laid out a row of chairs the exact distance from the stage, and
then placed enough books on the floor to imitate the three steps up
to the stage.

“They’ll be assigned, but not until a few days before,” he
replied, sitting lazily in an armchair, a beer in his hand as he
listened to her work. Emily was moving around frantically, her
perfume floating around him every time she passed.

“Right. Well, whatever, seats are easy. Just run your hand
along the backs until you reach the end of the row, and then along
the sides until you feel no more. Then, bang: front row!” Her voice
was lilting, a leftover accent from her childhood in England. When
she used to sing, it disappeared completely, the American
pronunciation taking over. But when she spoke, it was still
prominent. “Get up.”

He
obeyed, heading towards where he knew she was. She took his hand,
placing it gently on the end seat of the row. He tried to take a
step forward, and she stopped him.

“Whoa,
wait. I’ve made this place look like the theatre, including a few
camera cords that’ll be there, so you need to slow down and feel it
out.”

“My
Emily, meticulous down to the last rat,” he replied, moving his
hand to wrap around her waist. She giggled, leading him forward
gently.

“Ok,
so it’s 1-2-3-4-5 steps before your foot is going to hit the stairs
on the left side of the theatre. The stairs on the right side are
the same, so whatever side you are seated on should be fine.
However, try and favour the left side; before, there seemed to be
fewer cameras on that side, for some reason. I think there’s a bank
of plugs on the right, so that’s where they stay. Alright… so the
stairs are wide, they are about four steps across, and there’s
three of them going up before you hit the stage.” She took him up
to her makeshift stage – a piece of plywood stolen from the props
department – and balanced on the two sets of ‘stairs’ on either
side of the room.

Emily
was praying her calculations were right. She had done it using
every ounce of math skills she retained, putting the videos onto
her computer and trying to measure everything electronically. If
she was even a step off, she knew it would cause Caius to stumble,
and possibly betray himself.

“Now,
the podium…”

She
droned on and on as she pulled him through his paces, and he was
happy to listen. It had been so long since she had helped him, his
nose practically buried in her hair, his arm wrapped around the
comforting curves of her waist.

“Are
you going to act like a suave Diva and just do an acceptance speech
on the fly?” she asked. “Or should we have a prop paper for you to
pull out and read?”

“I can
use my brain,” he replied, as she laid his hands on the podium.
Suddenly, she wiggled out of his grasp, and he heard her behind
him. “What are you doing?”

“One
more thing,” she said, and touched him, placing something extremely
heavy in his hands.

“What
is this?” he asked, startled by the weight. It felt like a long
pepper grinder.

“That’s an Oscar,” she said. “Phil got it for me, borrowed it
from Meryl Strep… I wanted you to feel it, I heard they were
heavy.”

“Whoa!” he said, his hands running over it, as he felt every
inch of the gold statue. A silence fell over them both, as he felt
it, got to know it with his hands. She had to bite her lip to hold
back the tears, seeing him with it. After all the failure and
rejection, the late night tears of anger and frustration, all the
work they put in to make sure he was at no disadvantage… and here
he stood, about to be honoured with the greatest award from an
industry that had once shunned him. “Em…”

“You’ll have your own,” she said quietly, and he put it down,
reaching out for her. She gave him a tight hug, and he wrapped his
arms around her, kissing the top of her head.

“Only
because of you, of what you’ve done for me.”

“I
didn’t act for you,” she reminded him, and he smiled gently, his
hands going to her face. She relaxed in his embrace, and he rubbed
the back of her neck, causing her to let out a little sigh. She
smelled of roses and lavender, as she always did, a scent that had
turned his head since day one. Her skin was soft under his touch,
and in that moment, he had never experienced happiness that
rivalled the feeling of her in his arms.

“I
want to ask you something,” he said; his face just inches from
hers. Out of habit, she looked up to find his eyes, and was
surprised that they were also full of emotion; un-spilled tears.
“Will you be my date? For the Oscars? I’ll buy you a pretty dress,
I’ll get you whatever you need… but I need you to be by my
side.”

“Caius…” Her breath caught in her throat, and she looked away.
“There are a million girls out there throwing themselves at you, a
million girls who are skinnier and prettier than I am… I see them
in the tabloids every day with you.”

“Like
that matters,” he said, trying to get her to come back to him. He
needed to feel her breath on his face, to be as close to her as
possible. “None of them have your heart of gold, Em. And that’s all
I care about.”

“You
want to be with seen with the likes of me?” she asked, anger in her
voice. “See, only a blind man would be willing to do that. I’m
nowhere near a size 0, Caius, nor am I what anyone would consider
pretty. My eyes are too close together; my hair is a colour that
could only be described as boring. My breasts make a chicken look
well endowed and….” she felt a lump rise in her throat, “I’ve got
scars, Caius, scars that’ll show in a strapless dress. You want to
know why we left England. You want to know why I never made it as a
singer? Because I’m hideous to the world, made hideous by a fire
that took our house. A bunch of school kids went too far with
calling me names one day, and here I am, still fat, still flat and
still alive to hear them every single day.”

“Emily…” he said, but she wasn’t finished.

“I
won’t do that to you, Caius, even if your heart is pure, and even
if you think you love me. We can’t do this. I don’t want an actor
who barely knows himself, and who can never know what he’s getting
himself into. I’ll finish what we started here, and I’ll see you
off, and then I’m leaving, before one more perfect Barbie Princess
looks like she wants to throw up when she looks at me.” He heard
her turn on her heel, and storm across the room, leaving him alone
to navigate the now unfamiliar territory.