Free Pathway to Tomorrow by Sheila Claydon

with the film.  I spent most of today watching the rushes and then discussing the story with Patrice.”
     
    * * *
     
    By the time they ended the call Marcus had given Jodie a Master Class on how to compose a film score.  He smiled as he pushed his cell phone back into his pocket.  He could think of a number of people who would kill to hear what he had just told her about his work, whereas Jodie hadn’t been impressed at all.  Interested yes, but not impressed.  She hadn’t even cared that Patrice O’Brien was one of the most famous film directors around. It was just another job to her, the sort of job a musician did. Marcus Lewis the international star was an irrelevance. 
    What was it she’d said…that she’d become old news as soon as she stopped competing?  Well he was old news too, as far as performance was concerned.  His compositions and film scores were the only things that kept him in the public eye nowadays. Jodie had never even heard of him before he disrupted her life and he was surprised to discover how much it pleased him. After so long in the public eye it was a relief to be treated as a regular guy who was just doing his job. He also liked the fact she hadn’t protested when he said he would call her again the following day.
     
    * * *
     
    For the next two weeks he called her every evening at the same time, just as she was climbing into bed.  Although he didn’t have much choice due to the time difference as well as their busy work schedules, he still liked the thought of it.  Every time she answered the phone he wanted to ask her what she was wearing and whether her hair was loose. He wanted to ask her if she was sitting in a chair or lying on her bed. He wanted to know if she had waited anxiously for his call or whether she had forgotten about it until the phone rang. For his own self-preservation, however, he didn’t ask her any of those things.  Instead he talked about his day and asked her about hers, and slowly, with Jodie testing him every step of the way, they became friends. 
    That he spent the whole time he was talking to her imagining her with her hair spread across her pillows and her body warm and rosy from a shower was the one thing he didn’t share with her.  Instead he told her about the view from the hotel window. He described Hollywood. He made her laugh with stories about some of the celebrities he had seen cruising the boulevards.   And he missed her the minute he cut the call. 
     
    * * *
     
    “I guess that’s lover boy again,” Izzie stuck her head around Jodie’s bedroom door with a grin.
    Jodie scowled at her.  “Go to bed.”
    “As if,” she climbed onto the bed, hugged her knees to her chest and waited with an expectant grin on her face.
    “I’m not answering it,” Jodie told her.  “Not unless you go away.”
    “Not a problem,” Izzie leaned forward, plucked the phone from her hand and pressed the call button.
    “Hi Marcus.  How’s life in Hollywood?”
    “It’s good.  What about your exams?”
    Izzie sighed.  “And here I was thinking you might mistake me for Jodie and whisper some sweet nothings into my ear!”
    Outraged, Jodie attempted to snatch the phone.  Izzie laughed as she held it out of reach.
    “Gotta say goodbye now Marcus.  Jodie’s not happy. I’ll leave you to calm her down.” She tossed the phone onto the bed as she untangled her legs and made for the door. She was still chuckling as she slammed it shut behind her.
    “Your sister needs to learn some respect,” Marcus told Jodie when she picked up the phone. He was laughing. Jodie wasn’t. Her face was scarlet with mortification and her lips were quivering.
    How could Izzie have done that to her?  How did she even know Marcus kept calling?  Had she been listening at the bedroom door?
    “I’m sorry,” she whispered.  “She had no right.”
    “Hey, don’t let it upset you.  She’s just a kid.”
    “She’s still old enough to know better.”