‘Ruth—’ I began.
But I didn’t get to finish the sentence. Eden had reappeared already, dressed in a pair of jeans and a T-shirt. Her feet were bare and she’d wrapped the towel I’d given her around her head. She had come down the stairs as quietly as a cat.
She took the glass of wine Ruth offered her and looked from Ruth to me then back again. Ruth was right – Eden was pretty. But she had nothing on my girlfriend.
‘Cheers!’ Eden said, raising her glass. ‘Thank you for inviting me in.’
Chapter 2
‘Where have you come from?’ Ruth asked as we went into the living room and sat down. The two women took the sofa, and I sat in the armchair that looked and smelled like it should have been condemned years ago, but which was, apparently, Jack’s favourite.
‘California,’ Eden said. ‘Bakersfield? But the last couple of years I’ve been living in LA.’ She shifted in her seat as she said this, and a frown flitted across her face as if she’d been reminded of something unpleasant. Maybe she didn’t like thinking about home.
‘LA? Are you an actress?’ I asked.
‘God, no.’ She laughed. ‘I couldn’t act to save my life. I’m not in the entertainment industry at all, which I guess makes me pretty rare for someone who moved to LA, right? Except I went there for a guy.’
‘Uh-oh,’ said Ruth.
‘Yeah. And guess what? He turned out to be a loser. The latest in a long line of them. And that’s why I decided I needed to get away for a while. I figured New York was just about far enough.’ She got up and began looking around the room. ‘This place is awesome. I mean, a whole house in Williamsburg? I knew Mona and Jack were loaded but this is ridiculous. Though I’m kind of surprised, to be honest. I thought they’d live somewhere totally minimalist. All, like, polished surfaces and pebbles.’
‘Pebbles?’
‘Yeah, you know. A smooth granite counter with just a polished grey pebble sitting on it. Maybe a fancy-schmancy candle? I wasn’t expecting clutter and old books with broken spines and peeling paint and this.’ She lay her hand on the vintage jukebox that was the focal point of the room. ‘This is, like, the sickest thing I’ve ever seen. Does it actually work?’
‘It does.’ I got up to show her. ‘What do you want to listen to?’
She bent forward to read the names of the seven-inch singles that were stored inside the jukebox.
‘How about the Eagles?’ she said.
I pressed a couple of buttons, and the jukebox, which according to Jack and Mona had been here since the mid-seventies, whirred into life. The needle dropped and ‘Witchy Woman’ began to play.
‘Oh my God, I love this,’ Eden said. ‘My mom used to play it all the time.’ She nodded her head along to the song, one bare foot tapping on the wooden floor. I found myself grinning, and turned to see Ruth smiling too. It was hard not to be swept up in Eden’s enthusiasm.
‘Want me to put something on for you, Ruth?’ Eden asked as the Eagles track ended. ‘What’s your jam? Wait, let me guess.’
A moment later, Bob Dylan started singing ‘Subterranean Homesick Blues’ and Ruth said, ‘How did you know?’
‘You’ve got that look about you,’ Eden said. ‘A poetic soul.’
‘She is,’ I said. ‘Ruth’s an actress. That’s the main reason we’re in New York. She’s got a role in a new play on Broadway called Dare. The female lead.’
‘That’s amazing.’
‘It’s her big break. Well, that and this film she made last year.’
‘Oh, wow. What’s it called? Will I have seen it?’
Ruth waved a hand self-deprecatingly. ‘It’s doubtful. It had a very limited release. A couple of festivals and a few movie theatres but that’s all.’
‘It’s on streaming though,’ I said.
‘Really? What’s it called? I’ve got to look it up.’
Ruth was being typically modest so I told Eden about the film. ‘It’s called The Immaculate and it’s about this woman, a virgin, who gets pregnant and gives birth to this super-evolved girl and—’
‘It’s kind of embarrassing,’ said Ruth.
‘No, it’s great,’ I said. ‘Low-budget but really well written and creepy. And all the reviewers said Ruth is the best thing in it. And now she has this play plus a ton of auditions lined up for more movies. Bigger movies.’
‘That’s amazing,’ Eden said. ‘So I’m meeting you just before you become famous?’
‘I don’t know about that,’ Ruth responded.
‘No, I can feel it. You’re going to be a star. This time next year you’ll refuse to talk to any of us little people.’
Ruth stared into her lap and Eden must have seen something in my face that made her stop gushing about Ruth’s impending celebrity.
‘What about you, Adam? What do you do?’
‘I’m a writer. A playwright.’
‘You wrote Ruth’s play?’
‘Oh, no, I’m not at that level. But I’ve just finished something. I’ve got a meeting about it tomorrow, actually.’
‘Wow. This is so cool. You’re both going to be famous.’
‘This is why I love Americans,’ I said. ‘Your optimism.’
‘That’s us.’
‘Also, Cinnabon.’
Ruth rolled her eyes. ‘Adam is obsessed with Cinnabon.’
‘How could anyone not be?’ said Eden.
‘So, how do you know Jack and Mona?’ Ruth asked.
‘Remember the guy I was telling you about? The loser? He went to college with Jack. They came out to LA to see him a few times. Stayed at my boyfriend’s place. They were always really nice to me. Mona actually told me I was too good for him – for the jerk. She was right.’
The mood in the room had darkened and, now that the music had stopped and the conversation had halted, the house felt very quiet. Eden slapped her own legs and laughed. ‘Listen to me, bumming everyone out. You didn’t tell me how you guys met Jack and Mona. Or did you organise this on a house-sitting website or something?’
‘We actually met them on a cruise,’ Ruth said, sipping her wine.
‘Oh! The cruise they took to the Caribbean? That sounded awesome.’
‘It was,’ I said.
Earlier this year, Ruth had got a gig playing Miranda in The Tempest on a cruise from the UK to the Bahamas via New York. The cruise company were trying to put on more upscale entertainment, presumably to draw a more cultured crowd, and had hired the director Sally Klay, presumably paying her an enormous sum. It said something about Sally’s dark sense of humour that she had chosen a play about a shipwreck, though the audiences that crowded in twice a day didn’t seem bothered.
I had gone along as a paying passenger, partly because I didn’t want to be apart from Ruth for so long, but also because I thought it would give me the perfect opportunity to work on my new play. Lots of empty hours, intermittent internet access, nowhere to go. As it turned out, I had been right. I completed the script halfway through the journey and, shortly after that, I met Jack and Mona Cunningham in the lounge. They had boarded the ship in New York.