A Week With Ray Summers

Four

 Dinner passed without incident, though it was a little awkward. I guess its hard sitting with someone like Ray when you’ve just gone from admiring her to hating her to feeling sorry for her, all in the space of a morning. And I’m not great at starting conversation. Neither was she, it seemed. I guess that came from not having many- if any- friends. It was polite, but strained. There was still a barrier between us, but it was different now. We were treading carefully, trying not to agitate the other. It was tiring, and I wasn’t used to it.

 Ray called her chauffeur to come and pick us up. We’d both drunk too much to drive. I didn’t comment on her having a chauffeur. I didn’t want to offend her again. Besides. He was a better driver than Ray.

 We retried the interview back on the veranda. Ray wasn’t being rude to me anymore, but she kept up the sarcasm and slagged off any celebrity who was easy to nit-pick at. I wrote it all down. It made for good celebrity gossip. And I reminded myself it wasn’t my business what sort of a person Ray wanted to present herself as. I’m just the writer that interprets her.

 More champagne was drunk, and I could feel my head getting fuzzy, though it wasn’t even three o’clock. But it made conversation with Ray easier. Smoother. So I kept drinking, and so did she, up until it was time to tour the house. Ray was giggling now, and as we stepped through the sliding doors, she kicked off her silver shoes.

 “I don’t let many people in this house,” Ray said, whispering like it was a secret. Her smile had returned and she giggled again “But you’re fun, and I like you. Maybe we can pretend we’re friends for a while.”

 I wasn’t drunk enough to ignore the comment. It made me feel sad. I didn’t have an abundance of friends either. Just Emma and Ed, really, and Jamie (do boyfriends even count?) But Emma and Ed were good friends. Really good. And two friends are better than none. But I couldn’t say anything to Ray. I was saved from saying anything when I tripped over Ray’s shoes and Ray grabbed my arm to steady me, setting off another peal of hyper giggles in the pair of us.

 I always liked the part of looking around the celebrity’s houses. I’m the sort of person that watches house makeover shows when I’m bored, and I always lusted after Emma’s kitchen whenever I went to her house. But I’d never been much of a designer myself, and money was a bit tight, so Jamie and I kept the house pretty plain.

 Ray Summers had the house of my dreams.

 She had a beautiful living room on the ground floor, with sky blue and gold wallpaper, a proper fireplace and plush red loveseats. The kitchen was open and airy, with green walls and white furniture. There was a table big enough for two. In somebody else’s house, I might have thought it was for a romantic breakfast venue, overlooking the garden. But in Ray’s house, I suspected it was just because she didn’t get much company. She didn’t have a dining room.

 At the front of the house, there was a spacious room that was nearly empty, aside from a bird cage, a bean bag and…a parrot.

 “Freya, meet Barnaby,” Ray said, clucking the bird under its chin as he landed on her arm. It was the most affection she’d shown all day. The bird appeared to be smiling, and it cocked it’s scarlet head at me as though saying hello.

 “Hiya, Barnaby,” I said, reaching to stroke his head. He nipped my finger and Ray laughed.

 “Don’t take it personally,” she said “Like mother like son. Isn’t that right, Barnaby?”

 The bird let out a little squawk and then took to flying around the room, which on closer inspection, I realised had wooden pegs protruding from the walls for Barnaby to perch on. I smiled. I hadn’t quite expected that when I turned up at Ray’s house.