Original Work: You'll Always Find Your Way Back Home, Chapter 8, Part 4
Chapter 8, Part 4
Because of the flowers from Joshua I was in a much happier mood than I would have been under normal circumstances. It was a lot easier to get my mind off the fact that I was actually shooting a commercial, in front of an actual camera that was going to be on actual television when I had something else to think about than appearing on national television. Thinking about the flowers from Joshua put a smile on my face every time and at least Ms. Sophia, the mysterious, elderly director, got very genuine grins out of me. For someone directing a commercial, I saw surprisingly little of Ms. Sophia, though I did finally get to meet her and was promptly convinced that I’d found someone who was actually shorter than I was. The woman, who had to be pushing seventy, shouted her ideas from a chair somewhere behind the cameras and lights, or she had someone else shout them for her and when she called wrap she walked off set and I never saw her again after that. Definitely not what I was expecting on my first commercial shoot. At least the perfume actually smelled good, like something I would wear and suggest to my friends, so I didn’t mind when I got several bottles to take home with me. Maybe I would even wear some tonight on my…to dinner.
After changing back into the clothes I worn to the shoot, Paul showed us through the back hallways of the warehouse and out the door once more. He smiled when he shook my hand. “I have to admit, you’re not anything like I was expecting.” He confessed before he could convince himself that it might not be such a good idea to admit to a starlet that he was expecting her to be a Grade A bitch. “You’re not as bad as everyone makes you out to be.”
I smiled as though the compliment was actually meant for me and not my sister. “Thanks, good to know the twelve step is working.” Paul smiled and opened the back car door for me, saying another quick goodbye before the door slammed shut.
I settled the vase of flowers on my lap and every time I took a breath my nose was filled with the fragrance of the blossoms. I had the feeling I was about to become one of those girls who pressed flowers into the pages of her textbooks so that she would be able to keep them but I deserved some sort of memento from this insane adventure didn’t I?
The rest of the day was surprisingly free and I wondered what had prompted Schapelle to give me a little time off from impersonating Emilia, but I decided not to ask in case it made her change her mind. Before too much longer we were heading up the steeply inclined driveway of the ever-impressive Thompson household. Schapelle was telling Linda that she had some sort of business meeting to attend so only my mother and I actually got out of the car and walked through the front door.
The dog I’d noticed in the backyard on my first day here came bounding up to the door, wagging his rear end and not seemingly entirely sure if he should pay attention to me or Linda first. He followed me into the kitchen, his golden tail whipping back and forth with excitement, his face friendly and ready for action. I set the flowers on the kitchen table and stepped back to admire them, scratching the dog absently behind his floppy ears as I studied the arrangement.
Garth came into the kitchen eating out of a Chinese takeout container. “Nice flowers.” He said approvingly. “Get them from the shoot?”
“No…I…Joshua Beckett sent them.” I smiled again at the mention of his name. When had I suddenly become Pavlov’s dog?
Garth raised an eyebrow. “Really? Wow.” He seemed genuinely happy and impressed. “That’s great.”
“Yeah he…he wants to go out to dinner tonight.” I cleared my throat when I realized I sounded like I was about to start squealing and jumping around the kitchen. “So…I guess I’m going to go.” I was trying to go for nonchalant, but it was clear I was faking it.
Garth smiled and I could tell his happiness was genuine. “Well, hopefully it won’t be too torturous for you.” He teased.
I shrugged. “Life’s full of necessary evils.”
The dog stuck his wet nose against my hand and licked my palm, reminding me that he was there and in desperate need of attention. “That’s Buster.” Garth nodded toward the dog still requesting my undivided attention. “If you ignore him, eventually he’ll go try to find someone else to play with.”
“It’s okay, I don’t mind.” I scratched Buster’s head. “I have a dog at home.” As it had before, a wave of homesickness suddenly washed over me and I wondered all over again what I was doing here when I could be back home with my friends and family and in my own bed. But when I saw the flowers out of the corner of my eye, the pain suddenly wasn’t so strong.
Garth put aside the container. “You can take him out back if you want to but I have to warn you, he’s a ball-catching fiend and your arm will probably fall off before he gets tired of fetching.”
“It’s okay,” I said again, “it’ll be nice to actually do something normal for a change.” Pretending to be Emilia, being treated like a international superstar and having people stare and gawk at me every time I took a step down the sidewalk was making my head spin and I couldn’t remember if I was myself or Emilia. It would be nice to do something I would normally be doing, even if I was playing fetch with someone else’s dog, in someone else’s backyard. I’d been deposited right in the middle of someone else’s life and now I had no choice but to lead it, for better or worse. Fortunately, things were finally turning more toward better.
Garth pointed me in the direction of the backyard, though when Buster realized where he were heading, he led the way with the type of enthusiasm only a dog is capable of. His entire golden body was trembling with excitement when I reached the sliding glass door and when I slid it open he rocketed out into the backyard like a missile.
Just like the rest of the house, the backyard was well-manicured and I was sure there was a whole staff of people in charge of keeping it that way. There weren’t any of the usual things that one found in a backyard, like a children’s play area or tool shed or any assortment of lawn tools. There wasn’t even a deck, the sliding glass door opened right out onto a patio that had a few flower beds surrounding the cement slab, which had a few chairs but no table positioned on it. There was another structure towards the back of the iron fence that I hadn’t noticed before; it was too big to be a tool shed and looked almost like it could be someone’s living quarters, but Linda hadn’t mentioned that anyone else lived on the property.
Buster dropped a tennis ball at my feet and then kept looking from me to the ball until I had thrown the ball as far as I could across the yard. Within seconds Buster had fetched the ball and had rushed back over to where I stood, eager to repeat the whole process. This went on for several minutes and it was quickly becoming clear that Garth hadn’t been exaggerating Buster’s love for fetching.
When Buster brought the ball back yet again, I switched arms in order to give my muscles a break but the throw wasn’t as smooth as the others had been and the ball sailed into the bushes ringing the inside of the iron fence that went around the entire property. Buster rushed over to the bushes but paced around in front of them, looking unsure of where the ball had gone and how he was supposed to get it.
I jogged over to where the dog was prancing anxiously and knelt down to peer into the bushes. From where I stood, I could hear the sound of someone playing the piano coming from the smaller building to my left. Occasionally the piano would falter or stop but it always regained its strength, starting again flawlessly.
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