Falling into Forever (Falling into You) (22 page)

“Y
our memory is clearly damaged.”

He
gives me a quick grin before pulling out my chair. He’s not so chivalrous when he turns his attention to Eva.

“Eva. Of course. I was hoping Hallie would be unaccompanied by her bulldog, but I suppose we must make sacrifices for the honor of the writer’s presence.”

Eva’s not going to like that one at all.

Nope.

For a second, I think she’s actually going to crawl across the table to gouge his eyes out, but she merely shakes her head and gives him a menacing glare. I can practically see the fumes coming off her, but she’s managing to keep it together. For now.

“
At least I managed to show up on time. Where’s your client, Marcus?”

He hesitates slightly
. “Tied up.”

A shiver of disappointment crosses my spine
, but then I see the faint concern behind Marcus’s eyes. He isn’t telling the whole story. Of course not. I remember all too well. How many times had I been the one to say that for Chris? I even used the same words. Tied up.

Marcus settles back into his seat, and as someone starts to make introductions, I
dig my nails into his hand. I have to know whether Chris is all right. I can’t help thinking that there was something that I should have done. I shouldn’t have left him like that, all alone in the room.

“W
here’s Chris? Tell me,” I hiss into his ear.

“He’s fine, Hallie. Fine
.”

I glance at him
through narrowed eyes.

“Then w
hy isn’t he here?”

“Hallie, it’s not your problem.”

“What do you mean, it’s not my problem? Of course it’s not my problem. But that’s not the question I asked. Where is he?”

“
Still a spitfire, huh? He’s at a meeting.” There’s something that Marcus isn’t saying, but before I can ask what it is, his fingers tighten on mine. “He’s pretty wound up, Hallie. I know I shouldn’t be telling you this, but you need to tread lightly.”

Eva looks at me questioningly, but I shake my head in response instead. I need to tread lightly? What the hell, Marcus?

I turn to him to ask my question again, but he’s already released my fingers. He turns to the group, and I know that he’s quickly morphing back into the dynamic, public version of Marcus. I’m impatiently tapping his hand under the table, but he merely bats it away.

“Let’s speed up the introductions, shall we?
These two here are Eva and Hallie. They want to make sure that this movie makes as little money as possible. They see it as a thought piece, a reflection of modern society and its imminent downfall. Everyone else around this table is in the movie business, and we’re trying to make money. These two purposes are at odds with each other, so we’ll bitch and moan, and we’re all going to have to make concessions. Ultimately, we’re going to make a fucking great film.”

A number of people around the table raise their glasses
and toast his words, but it’s only seconds before people are rapidly firing questions and numbers and names across the table. It’s a faintly familiar scene, but it’s been a long time since I’ve played this particular game and I have other things on my mind. My head starts to spin.

“So, what would you say if I said we could make this
movie in Vancouver for half the cost of a Chicago shoot?”

“If we make these tweaks…”

“We need a female star with some kind of name, but we don’t need to spend a fortune…”

“That’s the casting department, and we need someone to head it up…”

“Are you planning to be on set?”

“What ex
actly is the producer role here?”

Marcus gives me one last
annoyed glance before moving to the other side of the table, and while I want to demand the answers I seek from him, I know I can’t just scream at him in front of all of these people. So, I try to listen to all the ways in which they’re planning to cut up and remix and rewrite Ben’s work. I can’t muster any more than weak enthusiasm and nonsensical arguments. I think I actually told someone that the movie should be shot in Chicago and not Vancouver because Vancouver doesn’t have enough snow. Now, everyone thinks I’ve totally lost my marbles. Great. Thankfully, Eva is living up to her bulldog nickname, going toe-to-toe with anyone and everyone and taking particular pleasure in making Marcus squirm.

After
he concedes a particularly contentious debate about the ending of the movie, I see him give Eva an appreciative stare, which she responds to with a swift kick to his shin under the table. Those two will be fine without me.

Finally,
I find a slight break in the action and I reach for my bag and start to stand up. Whether I’m getting information from Marcus or not, I need to find Chris.

“Thank you all for inviting me,” I say
. “It’s been a pleasure. I have to admit that this is all a bit overwhelming for me.”

I hear a few surprised murmurs, but I’m already up from the table
and in the throes of my best innocent girl act. I’m getting too old for it, but I can’t think of another way to make a graceful exit.

“All this talk of numbers and back-end has my head spinning a bit. I promise, I’ll be more helpful
with the rewrites. I’m definitely better with a computer screen in front of me. But it was so nice to meet you guys. Let’s do this again soon.”

I leave the room before anyone else can offer their opinions about the screenplay.
I’m out the door of the restaurant before Marcus catches me.

“He’ll be…”

“On the roof,” I finish. We stare at each other.

“Hallie…”

“Yes, Marcus?”

“It really is good to see you. Even if you brought
the devil herself along for the ride.”

“Eva is good people
. And I think you might be good people, too.”

That’s my little
thank you, for telling me about Chris, for protecting him, for being a friend to me a million years ago. The air is thick with things unsaid and unseen, and I try to lighten it.

“
You can add that to the list of things I never thought I would say in my life.”

“Hallie?”

“What?”

“I’m sorry. About Ben. About Chris. About all of it.”

“That’s kind of you.” I mean it, and I squeeze his arm. “I’ll see you soon, okay? You’re not going to get the nice Midwest Hallie Caldwell, either. I promise, I’ll be in the fighting spirit. We can go a couple of rounds. Eva may be the bulldog, but I remember how to fight with you quite well, and I think I have a few unfair advantages.”

“I’m sure you do. I look forward to it.
” He winks at me. “Be careful. You’re sitting at the grown-ups’ table now, and so is he. Rewriting history isn’t as easy as it sounds. Believe me. I’ve tried and tried and tried.”

I ignore any of the subtext and
instead take that at face value, which causes me to place an impromptu kiss on his cheek.

“
Eva loves beluga whales. Can’t get enough of them. There’s even a little stuffed one in the top drawer of her desk. Coincidentally, I hear they have a pretty nice aquarium here. They might even have some beluga whales there.”

“Who even said I was interested?”

“You don’t fool me. Not one bit.”

“Neither do you, Hallie.
Make sure he’s all right?”

“Yes. I will.”

He pulls me into his arms for a long embrace.

“I missed you, kid.”

“I missed you too, old man.”

He shakes his fist at me and blows me a kiss before disappearing
back into the room. I don’t want to waste any more time, so I take long strides to the elevator bay. Unfortunately, running is seriously out of the question in these heels.

When I reach the stairwell on the highest floor,
I tentatively push on the doors, which are marked by a gigantic, “Do not push. Alarm will sound” sign. It’s been a long time since I’ve done this, but I remember that generally, the signs are all talk and the alarms don’t actually sound. I’m hoping that’s still the case. Sure enough, I manage to open the door a bit and it looks like I’m not actually going to be the cause of a hotel-wide evacuation.

I’ll take the minor miracles wherever I can get them.

CHRIS

I’m still twisting the bottle in my hand,
feeling the cool glass between my fingers, even after listening to all of the war stories of the people who’ve fought this battle time and again. I push it deeper into the pocket of my coat and remember the Polaroid and the way her smile makes everything around her disappear.

Maybe I can still catch them at dinner. But b
efore I can make it back inside the hotel, I get hit by a barrage of flashbulbs from the paparazzi stalking the front door. I raise my hand to shield my face, but I don’t think I’m quick enough to avoid all of them.

I’ve never been one of those guys who
boohooed his bad luck to be so rich and famous that people actually wanted to buy the grainy photographs of me doing exciting things like getting a cup of coffee. I even like some of the paparazzi.

That
doesn’t stop me from wishing that just once, they would leave me alone.

I step into the elevator. My fingers curl
again around the little glass bottle in my jacket pocket. I’m not going to have a drink. I’m not going to have a drink.

I think about going to dinner, but I don’t think I’m strong enough to see her, especially if she’s just going to keep saying goodbye.

Instead, I make my way up the stairs at the end of the hallway. I push on the door, knowing that the alarm will not, in fact, sound.

Flakes of snow fall on me
the second I open it, but I don’t feel the cold.

She’s there.

HALLIE

I’m not
even sure that he’ll even be on the roof, but I want to believe that he hasn’t changed that much, that he still does his best thinking in the open air. The cold whips through my body and I shiver in the wind as I glance around.

He’s not
here.

My heart drops.

I make my way to the edge and peer out over the city, the flakes of snow melting as they fall into my hair.

Where could he be?

Just as I’m about to give up and spend the rest of the night worrying in my room, I hear a slight thud and I stiffen. It’s either him or security. At this point, I’m not sure what I would prefer.

There’s
impatience and anger in his face when I turn around to meet his eyes.

“What are you doing on the roof, Hallie?
I would have expected Marcus to come up here. Not you.”

I shrug
my shoulders in response and cross to him, staying just out of his reach.

“Sorry to disap
point. I’m sure you had a great, indignant speech prepared, too. You’ll just have to save it for the next time Marcus pisses you off.”

His shoulders slump. “
I repeat. What are you doing here, Hallie?”

“Freezing my butt off, Jensen.”

“I didn’t invite you. Go back inside.”

“I wanted to make sure that you were all right.”

He takes my shoulders in his hands and turns my body so that we’re staring directly into each other’s eyes.

“You shouldn’t have to ask me
if I’m okay. You should never have to ask me that.”

He’s shaking a little and his skin is cold to the touch.

“Let’s go inside, Chris.”

“I don’t want to go inside.”

He sounds so much like Grace that I have to laugh.

“Yes, you do. But more importantly, I
need to get back inside before I actually, literally, begin to freeze. I let Eva talk me into the fashionable choice when I should have gone for jeans and a sweater.”

He opens his mouth to protest, but
he nods when he inspects my shivering form more closely.

“Fine.
We’ll go in.”

He reaches the stairs first, and I follow
until he comes to an abrupt halt about halfway down.

“Hallie,
I thought you needed time to think. To consider. Just a little time, you said. No alternative meanings.”

I can’t fathom why he seems so angry. He’s practically shaking with it. Then, I look more closely into his face.

“Chris, what’s wrong?”

“What isn’t wrong?”

“You’re shaking. Come on.”

“Come on what, Hallie?
”

“Talk to me.”

“What do you want to know?”

I want to know everything, but I can tell that isn’t
what he needs to hear right now. When we reach the bottom of the stairs, the floor is empty, but I don’t want to have this conversation in the middle of the hallway. I’m not sure what conversation I want to have. But I know that I need to keep him talking, that I can’t just let it be. Not when he looks like he just got hit by a freight train.