Choices

Melissa took a deep breath and started over again.

"Sorry, Spencer. Bad choice of words. I'm really glad you're finally willing to talk with me whatever the reason," she whispered. "You never wanted to talk about what happened."

"Why would I? There was nothing you could say at the time that would have made the situation different. The moment you went to bed with Brandon Dickbreath, it was crystal clear to me you were determined to be famous at any cost. I think congratulations are in order. You became Mel Dawn, America's Sweetheart," Spencer's voice was dripping sarcasm.

"Spence..." Mel whispered softly. "I was young, naïve, and stupid. I'd like to think I'm older and wiser now. If I could go back in time I would never do what I did."

Spencer shook his head. "Women and court cases depend on precedent. Past does matter. I want to build a stable family, Mel, not just to be one of many."

That hurt.

"You'd never be one of many, Spence. You are one of a kind..."

"Good line, but I'm not buying it, especially considering how easily you discarded me" he interrupted her. "Look, Melissa, I'm happy things worked out well for you. But you left this," he spread his arms around. "You left me. It nearly killed me when I saw you cuddling and kissing with that asshole."

"I only did it to get the part. Brandon never meant anything to me. None of the men I dated did," she said solemnly. "Please...?

Melissa took a couple of steps toward him.

Spencer recoiled and shook his head slowly again.

"But you dated them anyway. Why? A role in a movie? Publicity stunt? Your picture in a magazine? Sorry, Mel. There is no do-over."

Melissa lowered his head because Spencer's words had hit very close to home.

"I've always loved you," her words sounded like a beg. "I still do."

He snorted. "Yeah, you loved me. Just not enough to be faithful to me. Or have the decency to break up with me first at least," he looked at her defiantly.

"I'll never forgive myself for that. I should've called you or at least come back to town to have one last talk."

"Yes, you should. But you didn't."

"When I landed the role I was over the moon. I got an agent, a manager, a publicist and they just kept pushing and pulling me, and the next thing I knew I was on the set, being part of a successful show and everything just swallowed me."

"Good for you. At least your betrayal paid off."

"It wasn't about you, Spence. I was happy with you. But I wasn't happy with myself. I wasn't happy with my life."

"I would have thought that after ten years you could have come up with something better than this cockamamie explanation. What's wrong? Writers were on strike when they wrote this scene for you? Why didn't you tell me you weren't happy?"

"At that time I felt like my whole life had been already planned and I had no say in it. So, instead of talking with you I took the coward's way out and ran away to California."

"So, it wasn't me?"

"No! Of course not!" Melissa shook her head several times to emphasize her point. "It wasn't you. It was never you. I'm asking you to give me a chance here, Spence. I know I screwed up, but you weren't there so you don't have a clue what I was going through after I left you... I kept getting knocked down. It was harder and harder to keep getting back up and dusting myself off. At some point, it feels like everyone else was getting their big break, and I wasn't. I wondered if my turn would ever come. I was auditioning all the time but no one wanted to hire me. I was spending hundreds of dollars on pay-to-meet workshops and not getting any bites from agents or casting directors. At some point, you start to question everything from your headshots to your talent, to your life choices. I thought about quitting many times. And then I met Brandon..."

"Boo fucking hoo. You can't just show up here and act like you were the victim. You made a choice, Mel. Live with it."

"So you don't have any feelings left for me?"

"What do you think? You stopped being part of my life the moment you cheated on me. You broke my heart, Mel! Don't you get it? Do you have any idea how it feels to see the girl you were supposed to marry kissing another guy? Watching his arms around you and claiming you as his? I nearly died when I imagined you in bed with that asshole! You were supposed to be my forever. Now you're like a repetitive nightmare I can't shake off."

She extended her hand to reach for him but he ignored it.

"I'm sorry for the pain I caused you. Betraying you was the worst decision of my life..." she looked at him with a glint of hope in her eyes. "But we could start over. A fresh start."

Her make-up was running down her face, black and heavy, leaving a path of pain ruining her beauty.

"No amount of words are going to change what happened or restore my image of you. I don't hate you, Mel. Ten years is too much time to keep hating someone, resenting someone... without it taking a toll on you. However, I'll never forget what you did."

Melissa sobbed and whispered, "I'm truly sorry." Then, she turned around and walked away in tears. Watching her backside as she walked away from him felt like déjà vu.

As soon as she left, Spencer let out a string of swear words. It seemed that no matter how hard he tried, once again Melissa had wreaked havoc in his life.

He didn't know what he wanted except for everything to go back to the way it was a couple of days ago when she was just a distant memory.

If he was lucky, in a few days, she'd be gone for another ten years and he wouldn't have to deal with her anymore.

The sad part was that Lindsey would go away with her.

CHAPTER 8

"What are you thinking?" Lindsey asked her sister once people left the house.

"There are too many emotions flowing through me right now," Melissa said.

"You're going to break your fingernails if you clutch your hands any tighter," Lindsey warned her sister. "How did the talk with Spencer go?"

"Not good. He hates me even if he says he doesn't. He doesn't want anything to do with me." And then, between sobs, Mel told her sister about her conversation with her old boyfriend.

"You tried to pick up your relationship where you left off. That was a mistake," Lindsey opined.

Mel pondered her sister's words, "What do you mean?"

"You can't say 'I made a mistake, I'm sorry. I still love you, let's try again.' You'll have to start again from the beginning as if you were two strangers. Let him get to know you. Let him see the difference between the teenager you were and the woman you became. With a little luck, he might fall in love with this new you."

"I don't think we'll be able to stay in town that long. I bet my manager and my agent are mad at me because I left LA without telling them."

"When was the last time you had some free time, Mel? I mean real vacations and not just a day at the spa."

She couldn't answer that.

"Even if they agree to give me a month off, the problem is still the same. Spence won't talk with me again much less agree to go on a date with me."

"I could try to reach out to him for you... again," Lindsey felt a rush of enthusiasm run through her. She was truly excited at the opportunity of spending more time with Spencer.

"Would you do that for me?" Mel clutched her sister's hands. "He needs to understand I still love him and care for him. What I did had nothing to do with him. It gave me the breakthrough I needed in my career. Nothing else. He needs to see things from my perspective."

"That's going to take lobotomizing him," Lindsey thought, being careful not to let her feelings show on her face.

"I'll do my best. But no promises," Lindsey conceded. "But Mel...?"

She looked at her sister.

"First, we need to focus on Mom. She comes first. Let's take some days off to make sure she is okay and settle her business. Then I'll see what I can do regarding Spence."

"Thank you, thank you! You're the best sister and assistant ever!" Melissa said and hugged Lindsey tightly.

Suddenly, Melissa felt all her energy draining. The long day was catching up on her. "I'm exhausted. I'm going up to bed now. Tomorrow we'll take care of Mom and some things on my agenda."

"Good night, Mel. Sleep well," said Lindsey. She was tired herself. It had been an exhausting day full of emotionally draining activities.

CHAPTER 9

That night, Melissa dreamed she was on the set of a film she knew nothing about and in which she didn't want to participate. No matter how much she protested, everyone insisted she played her role. Each time the director shouted, "Action," the crew stared at her, expecting her to know what to do.

She woke up and, for several terrifying seconds, she didn't recognize her surroundings. Then she realized she was in her childhood room.

A ray of sunlight was coming through the drapes. She didn't want to get up and face what lay beyond the bedroom door. She wished she could stay safe in her old bed.

"It's time to get up, Melissa. Mom made tea and toast," Lindsey announced entering her room and opening the curtains to let the light in.

"What time is it?" asked a sleepy voice from the bed.

"Half-past nine. We have a lot of things to do today. Rise and shine."

Melissa sat up and swung her feet out of bed. No matter how appealing, she couldn't stay in bed forever. She shuffled to the end of the bed and pulled on her kimono robe over her short pajamas. Her cell phone sat on the dressing table and she grabbed it before following Lindsey down the stairs.

A bowl of strawberries sat in the middle of the pedestal table and the older woman carried two small plates of toast to the table. "Would you like jam?"

"No, thank you." Melissa slid into a chair. She curled her hand around a delicate blue cup and brought it to her lips. "What do we have on our agenda, Lindsey?"

"We haven't nailed down an exact date for your Tonight Show appearance. We're waiting to see if they'll reschedule to fit your calendar."

Melissa sipped her tea and nodded. "What else?"

"We have to answer Carl about the script he sent you weeks ago," Lindsey informed her sister.

Carl Carlson was Mel's agent.

Mel grabbed a strawberry and bit it in half. She grabbed her phone and punched a number.

After the pleasantries were exchanged her agent went to the point. "Where are you? I called the hotel and they told me you left in a rush..."

"I'm taking care of some personal matters, Carl. Nothing you have to worry about."

"I always worry when you disappear. Did you read the script? It's great, isn't it?" he asked without waiting for a response from her.

Melissa hated when her agent did that sort of thing. He was constantly asking her questions that he never let her answer.

He always expected her to agree, and she usually did, in part because she hated rocking the boat.

Melissa loved acting, but there were times, like right now when she really wanted a break. Her soul needed something normal back in her life. No matter how much she enjoyed being a part of the entertainment business, the life she led was nowhere near normal.

"Hello, Mel? Did you hear me? I asked if you read the script?" her agent's voice interrupted the chain of thought.

Melissa decided to be brutally honest for the first time since she met Carl. "I hated it," she admitted.

"You hated it?"

"Yes, I did. I'm always playing the same role. I'm being typecast as an actress."

"What's going on, Mel? It's not like you to act like that. What is really going on?"

Mel wanted to keep the news of her father's death to herself, so she said, "You keep presenting me with the same scripts over and over again no matter how many times I tell you that I need something different. I want to be challenged. I want to grow as an actress."

"But these parts scream your name, Mel. The public eats it up when you play these roles. This movie will make buckets of money for everyone involved," her agent insisted.

"I don't care about the money," Melissa said surprising everyone including herself.

"And that's why you have me. Because I do."

"I think..." she paused pondering what she was about to say, "I want to take a break."

"Let me call, Al and put him in a group call." Al Jenkins was Melissa's manager.

Melissa realized that she was up against a wall. Her agent and her manager were going to work in tandem against her again.

"Hello, Al. I have Mel in a call, she said she hated the script."

"Hated the script?" her manager belted out. "Mel, darling, it's a brilliant part."

"It's really not," she shouted. "It's the same part I've been playing over and over again since the show."

"She says she wants to take a break from acting," Carlson informed her manager.

"Not this again." Al's annoyed tone was the wake-up call she needed.

"Yes, this again," Melissa said loudly. "I haven't stopped working since Teenage Dreams!"

"You should be grateful for that," Carlson opined.

"You guys keep acting like the world will stop spinning if I take a short vacation. Why is that so hard?"

"Because it's idiotic, Mel," Carlson said with an exasperated tone. "If you start rejecting roles, they give them to somebody else. Then, when you want to go back there won't be a place for you. Your break can wait."

Al added. "You know how many other girls would kill to be in your shoes? Stop being ungrateful!"

"When am I going to be able to have a real-life? The next project is always waiting to start the second my current one ends. I'm tired of being a spectator in my own life. You make every single decision for me, what I want never seems to matter. Whenever I fight to have my voice heard, you raise your voices louder to drown me out. I lost count of the number of times you told me you know what is best for me," Melissa was almost shouting in the end. "Well, news flash, you have no idea what is good for me!"

"You're making this film. Period," Carlson demanded, and Al added. "Do you have any idea how long people will want you in their movies, Mel? They won't want you forever."

"My life had been on hold since I was eighteen. Not anymore," she shouted at the phone.

Then Melissa did something so out of character for her, she couldn't believe she was actually doing it. She hung up and instructed Lindsey not to take their calls.

CHAPTER 10

The doorbell took Spencer out of his thoughts and his work. He had installed a doorbell extender with a wireless receiver, so he could hear if someone was at the door.

"Come on in! It's open! I'm here in the backyard," he yelled.

Lindsey entered the house and made her way very shyly to the backyard.

Spencer waved at her from inside a big shed that he used as a workshop. It has been a week since he had talked with her at the reception. He had been trying to come up with a reason to see her again, but couldn't find any without having to see Melissa too.

Spencer took a good look at Lindsey as she walked towards him. She had a tiny nose and a very appealing petite figure. Her tanned skin tone held the warm color of old copper. She was not gorgeous in the typical Hollywood ideal, but she was beautiful in a very unique way.

"Hi, Spencer. I hope I'm not bothering you at work."

"Hi, Lindsey, welcome to my workshop. You're not bothering me at all. Come in, take a look around. One of the good things about being my own boss is that I can take breaks whenever I want," he said smiling at her.

The smell inside the shed was wonderful, a mixture of wood, varnish, and sawdust. Lindsey thought it was the best smell ever. It was right up there with the smell of Spencer's Eau de cologne.

As she looked around, Lindsey was amazed by all the gorgeous furniture she saw. She had never seen anything that was made of wood look so warm and lifelike.

"Do you like it?" Spencer's voice made her jump.

"Yes! I love everything I see. You're a true artist. These chairs are magnificent."

Spencer's smile grew bigger. "Thank you, Lindsey. You flatter me."

"Just telling the truth."

"So is this what you do for a living or is it just a hobby?"

"It was a hobby at first. Dad was an amateur carpenter so I was always playing with his tools and wood scraps. When I got my graduate degree in Business Administration four years ago, I landed a job in Portland with a wonderful company and was making more money than I'd ever seen. I was also brutally unhappy. I mean, cry me a river, right? A cushy paycheck. A house and a new car. From the outside, my life appeared enviable, and in many ways, it was, but every Monday when I dragged myself to work, I felt as if I were drowning. So I quit to pursue my passion to build furniture."

Lindsey could relate to what Spencer was saying, but she could never see it happening to her. "Quite a life-changing decision."

"Indeed. When I quit my job, in my mind I was opening an old wooden door, leading to a room full of dreams. For many reasons, not the least of which were society's ideas about what it means to 'grow up' and 'get serious' and 'be a good provider', I had closed that door years before. For me, that door opened onto a woodshop, this shed, to be exact," Spencer opened his arms. "I don't make as much money as I did, but I'm happy. And stress-free."

"People must have thought you were crazy," Lindsey commented.

"Some of them did, but I've never been the kind of person to follow the crowd. I've learned that handcrafting a life is a lot like woodwork. You know you want to create something beautiful, a piece that will last. So you take some lumber, make your first rough cut, and go from there. And the process that carries you from the first rough cut to the last finishing coat, that's what makes the masterpiece."

As Spencer explained everything to her Lindsey felt a sense of freedom she hadn't felt in a long time. A feeling that made her smile. She was also stuck at a high-paying job that led nowhere. Like Spencer, she had settled for the old-fashioned definition of success.

She was struggling with anxiety regularly. She had sleeping problems. She didn't have time to relax and enjoy what she was doing. All she knew was hard work, stress, pressure, and exhaustion. She was usually busy juggling a lot of things at the same time.

"You gave me a lot to think about, Spencer."

"I'm sorry, I suppose you didn't come here to hear the story of my life. So, what does Melissa want this time?"

Lindsey couldn't help but laugh.

"You know her pretty well."

Spencer shook his head, "I used to. I remember how stubborn she can be when something gets in her mind. At least she didn't change on that."

"No need to beat around the bush then: she wants a second chance to reconnect with you. Rekindle your friendship if it's possible. Believe me when I tell you she never got over you."

"And what Melissa wants, Melissa gets..." Spencer said with a hint of sarcasm. "Well, you can tell her The Rolling Stones were right, you can't always get what you want."

"Just this morning she told her agent and her manager that she wanted to take a break from acting and they gave her a hard time about her decision. I'm pretty sure they are going to try really hard to make her change her mind. But she's determined to stay here in town for a while."

Spencer was a bit surprised to hear that. "It's about time she started doing something to help your mother besides sending money."

"Well, yes. Helping mother is the main reason why we are staying. But I'm pretty sure you played a big part in her decision too."

Lindsey looked at Spencer waiting to see if he wanted to say something. He just remained silent, so she went on.

"You know, what you told me before about you quitting your job, not only made me think about myself and my own life but also about Mel's life. I think she feels trapped too. She lives in a golden cage, but a cage anyway. "