Free Not Without You by Harriet Evans

I guess we’ll have to find someone to cover you, and—’
    ‘I’ve already spoken to Kerry at WAM about it,’ she says. ‘In preparation. She’s talking to Artie and Tommy and I’ve contacted the agency who covered me last time. You liked that girl Janelle, didn’t you?’
    ‘Sure … sure …’ I’m looking at her now, wishing there was something else I could say, some way to cross the gulf between us. ‘She wasn’t as good as you, of course not, but – thanks, so …’ I sound so over-keen, it’s tragic. It’s like a scene from
He’s Just Not That Into You
.
    ‘I’ll leave you now.’ She takes a big breath and her pink tongue runs over her swollen lips. ‘Um, hey. Just one more thing. Deena’s arrived.’
    My mind is still turning over the conversation, and it takes a moment before I catch up. ‘What?’
    ‘I warned you earlier, Sophie …’ Tina looks like she’s about to burst into tears. I wave my hand at her.
    ‘I know, I know. Don’t worry. Oh, jeez. Where is she?’
    ‘In the guest house. Unpacking. Her pickup is in the garage.’
    ‘She has a pickup truck?’
    Tina gives the slightest suggestion of a smile. ‘It’s got three pairs of mannequin legs in the back.’
    With anyone else this would be strange, not Deena. I give a small groan. ‘Listen, can you go across to the guest house and take out the laptop and the projector? Just in case.’
    ‘Sure,’ says Tina. ‘I’ll – leave you then.’
    She closes the door and I stare at the pile of scripts but my eyes dart towards the window, in case Deena’s peering in, watching. My ghoulish godmother is here. When Mum was in London in the seventies, during her brief bid for fame as an actress, Deena was her best friend. They did everything together. Deena was always the star; my mother was dazzled by her, and still is. In the early eighties Deena moved to LA for a part in a TV soap and for a while she was doing well – Mum could boast to people she met in Woolworth’s that she knew someone in
Laurel Canyon
, and that she might have a guest role in next season’s
Dynasty
– but then she turned thirty-five and it all sort of petered out, like it does for hundreds of women here every year.
    But I don’t trust her and I don’t think she’s a good influence, either. Mum behaves like a Bunny Girl when they’re together, wiggling and giggling and batting her eyelashes at everyone, and telling anyone who’ll listen that they used to ‘rule London in the seventies’. Those were her glory days, she’s always telling me. They can’t have been
that
glorious though. I mean, she ended up moving to the middle of nowhere and becoming the wife of a man who runs garages in the Gloucester area.
    Still, Deena’s my godmother. I can’t let her sleep on the streets, can I, but I wish she wasn’t here. My shoulders slump childishly as Tina shuts the door, and I’m left alone gazing around my office at the markers of my career: the MTV movie award for Best Kiss, the magazine covers with my face on, the poster for
A Cake-Shaped Mistake
from Italy that looks a bloody piece of human tissue and not a wedding cake. I pull out the box of scripts, open page one of
Love Me, Love My Pooch
, and start to read.

CHAPTER FIVE
    HALF AN HOUR later I put
Love Me, Love My Pooch
down and gaze around the room. I wish I had a cigarette. Or a gun. I pick some gum out of a drawer and chew three sticks in one go.
Love Me, Love My Pooch
is shit. Perhaps I’ve been blind all these years, just happily saying what people told me to say, but this is a new low. Sample extract:
    Int. House.
    S EAN IS TALKING ON THE PHONE .
    S EAN (chuckling into phone):
    Yeah, she’s a bitch. And those puppies of hers … man, they are cute!
    M EGAN IS COMING IN FROM OUTSIDE . SHE HEARS S EAN TALKING . SHE IS DISGUSTED .
    M EGAN (in hallway, standing holding mittens in hand, mouth wide open):
    What kind of man am I dating! A man who calls women bitches and talks about their