Invisible(41)

She gave him the name of a café where she and Jake went for espressos. It was two blocks from her dorm.

“Do you have time today?” he asked her.

“My last class is at three-thirty. I could meet you there at five.” She wanted to be respectful of him. He was an enormously talented, successful man. But she didn’t want to be in his movie. She didn’t want to be like her mother and become an actress.

“I’ll see you there, Antonia,” he promised in a gentle voice. He was everything that Brian Kelly wasn’t. She hadn’t had a date since the Kelly incident. And sophomore year, she had avoided dating too because of Jeff.



* * *



—

She met Hamish at the café as promised that afternoon. He was waiting when she got there. He was wearing a black leather jacket, a T-shirt, jeans, and cowboy boots. She looked like a kid, in jeans and a pink sweatshirt and high-top pink sneakers, with her hair in pigtails. He smiled when he saw her. He liked her, he had the summer before too, and she was so heartbreakingly beautiful, but in a different, unusual way, like Hepburn, just as he had told her. She was very distinguished looking, with a natural grace.

    There was something very protective and fatherly about him, which she sensed immediately. She knew he wasn’t going to threaten her, or get angry with her. He used all the gentlest arguments to convince her.

“You can’t be invisible, Antonia. You’re too beautiful. That’s a gift. You need to share it. Otherwise it’s like locking a jewel in a dark closet where no one can see it.”

“I feel safe that way.” Tears filled her eyes.

“What have people done to you that you don’t feel safe?” She didn’t answer and he reached out and gently touched her hand. “I won’t let anybody hurt you. Ever. I want to protect you.” She believed him. And then, because she did, she nodded.

“Okay, I’ll do it,” she said in a whisper. “But it’s only one small scene, right?”

“It’s five minutes in the film. We can shoot it in three takes when you get out of school in June. We’re shooting it in England this time. In a studio near London. And there’s something else I want to ask you. Brigid and Margaret love you so much. Would you be willing to do a summer job with us, like last year, except in London this time, working for me, not the studio?”

She beamed the moment he asked her. “I’d love it.”

He smiled broadly too. “Fantastic! The girls are going to be so happy. And thank you for doing the scene for me, Antonia. I really appreciate it. And I promise I’ll make it as easy and painless as possible.” Because he was who he was and she knew him, she believed him, and she knew he wouldn’t let her down. She was really excited about working for him in the summer in London, and couldn’t wait to tell Jake.

    She and Hamish left the café together. He stood on the sidewalk, smiling. She looked like a little girl, and she was in a way, at twenty. There was a wonderful innocence about her, which was why he wanted her in his movie. You couldn’t fake that.

They shook hands standing on the sidewalk, and then he gently bent down and lightly kissed her cheek.

“Take care of yourself, Antonia. And remember we’ll take good care of you. I’ll have the girls call you to set up your plane tickets. See you in June.” He smiled at her and walked away. He turned back once to wave, and Antonia was smiling too when she walked back to her dorm. And she did feel safe when she was with him. The only two men she trusted in the world were Hamish and Jake.



* * *



—

Antonia never lied to her father, so she decided to be honest with him before she left for the summer. She went to the apartment to have dinner with him and Lara. She was nervous. She told him about the scene she was going to do for Hamish. She told him at the end of the meal, and Lara looked surprised. Antonia hadn’t told her about it.

“It’s a five-minute scene, a bit part. I’ve read it. It’s perfectly respectable, like a cameo appearance. I just wanted you to know.”

Her father exploded immediately. “You’re just like your mother. You hang around with all those slobs in the movies like a groupie, and you’ll wind up a tramp like her. Maybe you already are. What comes next? Cocaine? You always said you don’t want to be an actress, just a writer, and now you’re doing a part in a movie.” He shoved his chair back so hard, it fell over, and he left it there. His face was red when he stood in the doorway of the kitchen bellowing at her. “I’ve had one slut actress in my life, Antonia. I don’t need another one.”

    She spoke firmly and clearly. “I’m not a slut, or a groupie. Hamish Quist is the most respectable producer in the business. I worked for him last summer, and I’m going to work for him again, doing errands. It doesn’t make me a slut or a tramp because I do a five-minute scene in a movie, with all my clothes on. He says I remind him of Audrey Hepburn. She isn’t a tramp, Dad, and neither am I. I can’t help what my mother did to you, but I’m tired of paying for it, and being punished for it, because you never got over being mad at her. You’ve held it against me for my whole life. I’m not my mother.” She was speaking loudly by the end of it, and he didn’t answer. He stormed out of the kitchen and slammed the door behind him.