The House Guest by Mark Edwards(3)

‘She is,’ I said. ‘Ruth’s an actress. That’s the main reason we’re in New York. She’s got a role in a new play on Broadway called Dare. The female lead.’

‘That’s amazing.’

‘It’s her big break. Well, that and this film she made last year.’

‘Oh, wow. What’s it called? Will I have seen it?’

Ruth waved a hand self-deprecatingly. ‘It’s doubtful. It had a very limited release. A couple of festivals and a few movie theatres but that’s all.’

‘It’s on streaming though,’ I said.

‘Really? What’s it called? I’ve got to look it up.’

Ruth was being typically modest so I told Eden about the film. ‘It’s called The Immaculate and it’s about this woman, a virgin, who gets pregnant and gives birth to this super-evolved girl and—’

‘It’s kind of embarrassing,’ said Ruth.

‘No, it’s great,’ I said. ‘Low-budget but really well written and creepy. And all the reviewers said Ruth is the best thing in it. And now she has this play plus a ton of auditions lined up for more movies. Bigger movies.’

‘That’s amazing,’ Eden said. ‘So I’m meeting you just before you become famous?’

‘I don’t know about that,’ Ruth responded.

‘No, I can feel it. You’re going to be a star. This time next year you’ll refuse to talk to any of us little people.’

Ruth stared into her lap and Eden must have seen something in my face that made her stop gushing about Ruth’s impending celebrity.

‘What about you, Adam? What do you do?’

‘I’m a writer. A playwright.’

‘You wrote Ruth’s play?’

‘Oh, no, I’m not at that level. But I’ve just finished something. I’ve got a meeting about it tomorrow, actually.’

‘Wow. This is so cool. You’re both going to be famous.’

‘This is why I love Americans,’ I said. ‘Your optimism.’

‘That’s us.’

‘Also, Cinnabon.’

Ruth rolled her eyes. ‘Adam is obsessed with Cinnabon.’

‘How could anyone not be?’ said Eden.

‘So, how do you know Jack and Mona?’ Ruth asked.

‘Remember the guy I was telling you about? The loser? He went to college with Jack. They came out to LA to see him a few times. Stayed at my boyfriend’s place. They were always really nice to me. Mona actually told me I was too good for him – for the jerk. She was right.’

The mood in the room had darkened and, now that the music had stopped and the conversation had halted, the house felt very quiet. Eden slapped her own legs and laughed. ‘Listen to me, bumming everyone out. You didn’t tell me how you guys met Jack and Mona. Or did you organise this on a house-sitting website or something?’

‘We actually met them on a cruise,’ Ruth said, sipping her wine.

‘Oh! The cruise they took to the Caribbean? That sounded awesome.’

‘It was,’ I said.

Earlier this year, Ruth had got a gig playing Miranda in The Tempest on a cruise from the UK to the Bahamas via New York. The cruise company were trying to put on more upscale entertainment, presumably to draw a more cultured crowd, and had hired the director Sally Klay, presumably paying her an enormous sum. It said something about Sally’s dark sense of humour that she had chosen a play about a shipwreck, though the audiences that crowded in twice a day didn’t seem bothered.

I had gone along as a paying passenger, partly because I didn’t want to be apart from Ruth for so long, but also because I thought it would give me the perfect opportunity to work on my new play. Lots of empty hours, intermittent internet access, nowhere to go. As it turned out, I had been right. I completed the script halfway through the journey and, shortly after that, I met Jack and Mona Cunningham in the lounge. They had boarded the ship in New York.

They were in their early forties, which made them more than a decade older than Ruth and me, and I was instantly charmed by them. Jack was a professor of psychology at Columbia and Mona was something called a ‘domestic wellness coach’, which meant she told rich people how to rearrange their homes to make themselves feel less stressed out. As far as I could tell it mostly involved chucking stuff away and folding your clothes neatly. But they drank Martinis and talked about summers in the Hamptons, all mixed in with yoga and mindfulness and veganism. If F. Scott Fitzgerald were alive today, I imagine he’d be writing about people like Jack and Mona.

Ruth got along well with them too. She was as passionate about spirituality and meditation and all the rest as they were, and they had been fascinated to hear about her acting career. Jack and Mona came to see her performance two or three times – and when she told them Sally Klay had offered her the lead role in her new Broadway play, and that we would be coming to New York for the summer and beyond, they had exchanged a look of delight.

‘You should stay at our place in Brooklyn,’ Mona said.

‘That’s right,’ agreed Jack. ‘We’re going away for the summer, to this retreat in New Mexico. We were going to look for house-sitters anyway. What do you think?’

We had agreed on the spot. And now here we were, coming towards the end of our stay. It hadn’t been as idyllic as I’d hoped, but it had still been better than staying in a hotel. Or remaining in London while Ruth took on the world alone.