Love in the Spotlight

Chapter Twenty Six - Make sure that this baggage is bearable

As much as she did not want to hear the alarm clock, Alice still did hear it. There was a meeting at 9 am in London Publishing and Mary Howell was supposed to be there as well. Alice had no choice but to get up.
She definitely had too much wine the other evening which resulted in an enormous headache. Shower did not seem to help much, so instead of breakfast, Alice had a coffee and two aspirins.

She reached the publishing shortly after 9, but everybody was already there; cheerful and lively as ever. This of course was opposite to what Alice was feeling.
"Alice." Ian, head of the publishing, approached her. "Great that you could make it. How do you like the cover?" He reached to a big table with piles of Mary's latest novel. It was supposed to be out in bookstores in a few days. This morning's meeting was an unofficial celebration.
"Hi, Ian. Actually, I haven't seen it yet."
He handed her the book. It had limp binding, there were two figures on the front, you could not make out their faces. Alice instantly thought of Rose Midland. She was Mary's fan after all.
"Can I take one?" she asked.
"Of course." He smiled. "Take more if you like. I'm sure . . ."
Alice wasn't listening to him anymore though; she started skimming the crowd for Mary Howell. She spotted her next to the donut stand laughing heartily. She was talking to Edwin Rogers, the other editor. He instantly moved away when he saw Alice approaching. They were forced to work together, but neither of them felt like socializing with one another.
"Alice!" Mary exclaimed, glad to see her. "It's been a while since you and I have talked."
"Congratulations on the book, Mary!" Alice gave the writer a kiss.
"Well, it's thanks to all of you . . ." She raised her hand holding the donut and pointed to the crowd in the room. Her hand then hung motionless in the air. "Is everything all right, Alice?" Mary asked, concerned.
"Yeah, sure." Alice said, confused. "Why wouldn't it be?"
"Well, when we were working on the book you were so . . ." Mary was searching for words. "Well, alive. There were these joyful sparks in your eyes. Now . . . well, the sparks are gone."
"I must admit I had a few glasses of wine last night." Alice forced a fake smile. "They must have killed the sparks this morning."
Mary Howell did not seem to buy it and continued looking suspiciously at Alice. This made Alice feel quite uncomfortable, so she quickly cut to the chase.
"I wanted to ask you, Mary, to sign the book for a friend of mine . . ."
"With pleasure." Mary reached out for the book Alice was holding. "Who should I make it to?"
"To Rose, please."
"Here you go." Mary gave her the book back, still observing her suspiciously. "If you ever need to talk about why the sparks are gone . . . I'm here."
"Bye, Mary." Alice just answered, smiling and moved to the door.
"I'm sure it would make a great story!" Mary called out as Alice was leaving the room.

* * * * * * * * * *

Whatever happened between her and Jon would definitely make a great headline story, Alice thought as she was driving to Rose Midland's house. Newspapers or TV stations would definitely like to hear all the details. Who knows, maybe they still would one day . . . Alice realized that she did not really care much about that anymore. Why was that? What had changed, that this did not scare her anymore. Well, Jon left. This might be the reason. Or maybe it's because Alice generally felt emotionally numb in the last few days . . .
She parked a block from Rose's house and walked the remaining distance, not to give the neighbors reasons to gossip. She opened the small gate and started walking up the stone path. Suddenly she got that strange feeling again, the same she had gotten when she had been here for the first time; something about the surroundings maybe made her think of her own house.
Last time she ignored the feeling, but it was so strong now that Alice stopped in the middle of the path. The words that Jon had said to her, just before he'd left, came to her again ". . . both women that I love, want me only partially." Till now she'd only been focusing on the 'love' part, but finally, on this stone path, she realized what Jon actually meant; Alice started to treat him like his mother did, not accepting the biggest part of Jon's life, actually not accepting who he was.
She was already on the path Rose Midland had taken long ago, metaphorically and in this very moment also literally. Alice looked down at the stones she was standing on and very slowly, as if not sure if she could do it, she stepped from the path on to the lawn surrounding it.