‘Doesn’t mean it changes anything between us, but I’d beveryinterested to hear how you explain this.’ Olive went inside and only ticked the sign-in sheet next to her name, leaving Oscar to sign himself in. It was a small gesture of defiance and detachment, but it made her feel a little bit triumphant at least and that’s what she felt she needed today. Oscar followedsolemnly behind her, the silence feeling heavier with each step.
‘Did you have a good day off?’ Just the sound of his voice felt like a ball and chain around her heart. The fact he was asking questions she deemed utterly ridiculous made her grip and pull on the straps of her rucksack so tightly that her shoulders started to ache.
‘Small talk, Oscar? Really?’ she snapped.
‘Just… making conversation,’ he said to the back of her head, where her hair was still slightly damp from the shower. She stopped on the landing before the last flight of stairs to her corridor and turned to face him.
‘No, I didn’t have a very good day off, Oscar. Did you?’ Now that he got a proper look at her face he noticed her cheeks were pale and her eyes puffy from crying. He shookhis head as he realised he’d been the one responsible for causing her pain.
‘I guess not.’
Once inside Olive’s dressing room, Oscar closed and locked the door behind them and Olive sat at her dressing table, taking her laptop and her make-up bag out of her rucksack and setting them up ready for the day. She caught his reflection in the mirror, still at the door with his bag and coaton.
‘Well?’
‘Right…’ Now that he actually had to explain, Oscar found himself at a bit of a loss. ‘I have no idea what to say,’ he confessed.
‘That’s a great start,’ she said, squirting a little blob of foundation onto the back of her hand.
‘I have a lot to say, I just don’t know where to start,’ he said, sliding his bag off his back and walking to the radiator on thewall behind her, the heat warming his legs through his cold jeans as he leaned against it.
‘How about with you kissing Tamara?’ She shrugged.
‘I know, I know. I never should have done that. I’m sorry,’ he said, looking at her reflection.
‘Then why did you?’ She tried to hide her anxiety as her heart raced in her chest.
‘I don’t know.’ Oscar shook his head, replayingthe events for the thousandth time. All he could remember was seeing glimpses of everyone’s warmly lit faces, the stickiness of his skin in the hot pub and then Tamara’s lips, thick with lip gloss, lapping against his mouth.
‘Again, great answer.’ She rolled her eyes.
‘Ireallydon’t know! There was no logical reason. No thought process that I can even remember, let alone follow.You and I had had an argument, I was drunk, and she was… there,’ he said, rubbing his now sweating palm on his thighs.
‘Ofcourseshe was there.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ Oscar asked, confusion showing on his face.
‘That must be a joke?’ Olive stopped rubbing foundation onto her cheek and turned to face him.
‘No… what are you talking about?’ Oscar’s head hadstarted to thump. He’d continued to drink through his day off, alone in his flat, and had slept badly since Olive had screamed at him on Shaftesbury Avenue. Thinking straight wasn’t coming to him naturally.
‘Oscar, Tamara’s been trying to get her claws into you from the day we started rehearsals. I’ve lost count of how many times she’s touched your biceps and how many snide remarks she’sslid my way as a result of the attention you’ve been paying me and not her. Of course she was there. Tamara isn’t stupid. She waited until she saw her opportune moment and then swooped.’ Olive felt a little smug at how coherent she was being compared to the bumbling mess of Oscar who stood watching her through the mirror.
‘I think you’re overthinking things a little bit there.’
‘No. I’m not, Oscar,’ she laughed. ‘Sadly, I’m not.’
‘Whodoesthat?’ Oscar said but then immediately thought of his ex-girlfriend, Zadie, and the lengths she had already gone to in order to get her own back. The stories to the tabloids, the tweets, the occasional text message containing a barrage of hate. Oscar knew people like that existed in the world, so was it really beyond the realmsof reality that he had found himself working with someone like that, yet again?
‘Tamara.Tamaradoes that. Stories about her have floated around for a long time and now that I’ve worked with her myself, it’s horrible to know that they’re probably all true.’
‘What stories?’ Oscar asked, feeling the pressure on his chest lessen a little now that he wasn’t the focus of her hard stare.
‘She picks up the latest guy who’s on the rise, uses them to get a little bit further ahead in her career, and then dumps them. She’s what we call a “star-fucker”.’ Olive said, turning back to the mirror before she got so angry at Oscar that she threw him out of her dressing room without the conversation coming to a proper conclusion.Keep calm and get closure, she thought to herself.
‘She has always been quite full on…’ he admitted, thinking back to only a few minutes earlier when Tamara had tried to plant one on him in broad daylight, as if their drunken kiss now tied them together and his relationship with Olive was merely a thing of the past.
‘She has. And you never did anything to ward her off because she’s a pretty girl and you liked the attention.’ Olivedusted powder over her face and enjoyed the excuse of being able to close her eyes briefly and not look at his puppy dog eyes pleading at her in the mirror.
