I meant it. All I had in the Convent was time. The days since I’d made my choice had felt like I was inGroundhog Day, reliving my relationship with Dylan again and again and again. I could do with being so busy I didn’t have a moment to think.
‘Chin up, all right, kid?’ Murray said. ‘This is going to be great for you. You’re going to build a huge public profile, make a bunch of money, and who knows? Maybe you’ll even find true love. Stranger things have happened.’
‘Am I going to be allowed to pick my own boyfriend?’ I asked, curling my fingers into my palm again. ‘Or is the network going to do it for me?’
‘Look, I’ll be real with you,’ he said. ‘The network is going to have some pretty strong opinions.’
I drove my fingernails into my palm so hard I broke the skin.
‘But the choice is ultimately yours,’ he said. ‘The choice is always yours, Cece.’
The radio on his belt squawked, and he touched a finger to his earpiece. ‘I’ve got to run,’ he said. ‘Kumiko’s going to arrive for the big break-up scene in half an hour, and I need to do final checks. I’ll see you later up at the Villa, all right? I want to go through some headshots and bios with you so we can put together a group of guys you might actually be interested in.’
Murray jogged down the steps of the Convent and hauled himself into the golf cart. I leaned against the verandah railing and watched as he disappeared up the hill, towards where Dylan was going to break up with Kumiko and tell Hero Nurse Dylan he loved her.
No. I wasn’t going to cry. No more crying. I’d made my choice.
I went inside and found the first-aid kit, so I could put a Band-Aid on the four bleeding half-moons in the palm of my hand.
They shipped us out ofMarry Me, Julietthe same way we’d all arrived: in limos. ‘Say your goodbyes, girls,’ Carrie the producer said, holding open the door to the first limo that had pulled up outside, driving up onto the grass. ‘No need for all this crying and hugging. Most of you will see each other onJuliet on the Beachbefore long, anyway.’
I’d never been popular in the Convent, and the announcement that I was going to be the next lead onWherefore Art Thou Romeo?hadn’t helped matters, so it wasn’t a surprise that no one really bothered to say goodbye to me.
The only exception was Marija, who came over and hugged me. ‘Make sure you send home some good dudes fromWherefore, okay?’ she said. ‘I want some hotties to hook up with onJuliet on the Beach.’
It was nice of her to go out of her way to acknowledge me. No wonder Dylan had been able to see himself with her.
Marija, Samantha, Kanda and both Jesses piled into a limo, and it drove away. Naya, Parisa, Belinda and Rani followed soon after, herded in by their producer Suzette. ‘Hurry it up, ladies,’ Suzette said, looking at her watch when all of them asked to say their goodbyes. ‘I still have to film an in-the-moment with Kumiko.’
I pretended I suddenly needed to pee very badly to get out of there before the giveaway tears started streaming down my face.
That meant there were only four of us left in a house which suddenly felt very spacious. Amanda was curled up in my friend-zone armchair, hugging a pillow to her chest. Heather was lying across one of the couches, a hand covering her eyes. I was in the kitchen, making myself a cup of tea, more for something to do than anything else.
And Lily, of course, was standing by the fireplace, leaning on the mantle and striking a pose like she was the matriarch in a soap opera. Some things never changed.
‘How long do you think it’s going to take?’ Amanda asked. There was a slight tremble in her voice, which I recognised instantly. You didn’t spend as much time trying to repress tears as I did these days and not know what it sounded like.
I busied myself, trying to decide between chamomile and rooibos tea, even though I knew which one I wanted.
I’d made the right choice, I told myself. If I could save even one other person from ending up heartbroken like Amanda, then I’d done the right thing.
‘Who knows?’ Lily replied, shrugging. ‘Depends how long the break-up with Kumiko takes, for one. Dylan’s such a wet blanket that he’ll probably spend forever comforting her.’
I decided to start reading all the ingredients in both sets of tea bags, focusing intently on the cardboard packaging.
‘And girl-Dylan’s such a ball-buster that they’ll have to spend a million years trying to make that big declaration scene look natural,’ Lily went on.
‘No, she’s not,’ Amanda said. ‘She’s lovely.’
‘Oh, come off it, you think everyone is lovely, Miss Peaches and Cream,’ Lily said. ‘She’ll probably make him do a PowerPoint presentation on all the reasons why he loves her, and then she’ll give him a score out of ten for each one.’
I moved onto the nutritional information. Energy. Protein.
The words were starting to blur in front of my eyes. I blinked furiously. Fat, total. Fat, saturated.
‘That’s not how it’s going to go,’ Amanda said.
‘I can tell you exactly how it’s going to go,’ Lily said. She put on a low voice. ‘?“Oh Dylan G, I love you. I want to be with you.”’
