Detained

“I’ve always known what happened. I just can’t talk about it. Seeing you, being asked about it like that, well, you saw me panic.”

“Do I remind you of what happened?”

Yes,

but so did the twinge in his ribs, the stiffness in his knee, the headaches, the way parts of the world wouldn’t hold still and wavered in his vision. He should let her go. He had let her go before, pushed her away. Why was it so hard to do again?

“Yes.” The one word that would hurt most. She absorbed it without a sound. “I’m sorry.” Lame, meaningless words to fill the silence. Like the ones he’d put on the card when he’d sent her the grey dress.

“Me too.” Her voice silk soft, all the sharpness gone.

“Darcy, I—”

“Goodbye, Will.”

Disengagement. The thud of nothing in his ear. The resonance of reaping what he’d sown.

He threw the phone on the bed with a force that made it bounce, changed out of his suit into jeans and a shirt and repacked the things he’d unpacked a few hours ago. When Bo called he arranged to meet him in the hotel driveway. He needed peace. He needed serenity. He had somewhere he wanted to be more than anywhere in the world.

A much reduced media pack was still loitering. When Bo pulled up, he walked a straight line from the hotel door to the car, but they were ready for him.

“Will, what about Darcy?”

“Will, are you selling Parker?”

“Will, do you love Darcy?”

“Will, what did you think of Darcy’s interview?”

He ignored them, threw his bag in the back seat.

“Will, where are you going?”

He opened the front passenger door, said the one word in his head, “Home.”

40. Headline

“They who know the truth are not equal to those who love it, and they who love it are not equal to those who delight in it.” — Confucius

Darcy didn’t participate in the stories, but it didn’t stop them running. Long lenses caught her dashing from her car to buy milk and the story headlined as “Darcy Runs from Love”. A shot of her with Russ, Loud and Merrit, preparing for an interview on the steps of the Opera House ran alongside a shot of Will dressed casually with an overnight bag in his hand. Its headline was “Darcy Works while Will Plays”.

And some creative wit dug up a picture of her from three years ago and juxtaposed it against a current shot. In the older photograph she was at a barbeque wearing shorts and a plain white t, hair in a tumble down ponytail, sunglasses propped on her head, tanned, a smile on her face and a cricket bat in her hand. The newer shot showed her looking pensively at her watch. It was fat, carefree and happy, alongside skinny, anxious and lonely. The headline said “Love Hurts: Darcy Pines for Will”.

When she wasn’t in front of a camera or dodging real and imagined ones, she shut herself away. She found it impossible to fathom how her life became such a circus. How buying a takeaway coffee and telling the friendly barista she had a headache could turn into: “TV Star Plagued by Illness”.

Meanwhile, being lovelorn was good for ratings. They were up, in direct proportion to Darcy’s irritability and indecision and the general expectation this real-life love story still had legs.

Brian thought the whole thing was a huge laugh. The inevitable consequence of chasing fame over substance. Andy was largely silent after sniping she was well paid for any inconvenience.

Will didn’t have the same problem. He was vapour. He’d told journalists he was going home and wasn’t seen again. That headline, “Will Parker Leaves TV Star at Altar”, which hit supermarket checkouts two days later, led Alan to ask if her China entry visa was up to date. He was counting down the weeks and so was Darcy.

Her lawyer said the network had her locked in good, she’d be able to fight any suit but she’d have to pay court costs. If she lost she’d end up with nothing except a reputation for being difficult.

His solution had two parts. Part one: try to persuade Will to do an exclusive interview and hope he accepted. If not, hope her sterling efforts in good faith to the contrary made the network back off. Or part two: quit. Do something else. The network couldn’t touch her if she quit.

He said that from the comfort of his palatial Phillip Street offices, wearing a tailor-made suit Peter Parker would’ve approved of. If he’d ever struggled to pay the rent and build his professional credibility, if he’d ever had to ‘take one for the team’ and work freelance with no guaranteed payday, it was a long time ago and well forgotten.

Darcy still sat on her old couch and had a wardrobe full of chain store clothes hanging shoulder to ragged hemline beside her designer ones. Failure wasn’t an option, and neither was quitting, until she could plan an exit with a salary attached to it, and since Alan’s six week deadline had narrowed to three surprisingly quickly, she needed to act.