Survivor's Guilt Read online

  Survivor’s Guilt

  Michelle Arnold

  All characters, places, and events in this book are figments of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to real people or events is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2019 Michelle Arnold

  All rights reserved.

  MichelleArnoldbooks.com

  ISBN: 9781085824255

  Cover design by May Dawney

  For Anna, who is always there when I need her

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  To my army of Brits: Claire Highton-Stevenson, Carol Hutchinson, Nic Dodds, and Louise Stevenson – thank you for helping me make Abi real!

  Linda Pietrzak and Elizabeth Weingartner, thanks for your help with proofreading!

  And Kelly Daniel, thank you for the medical advice early on!

  I’d be fumbling in the dark without all of you!

  1

  First Meeting

  June 2017

  Abi prided herself on not being what people expected.

  For one thing, since she’d moved to New York, she surprised people every time she opened her mouth. Most people clearly weren’t expecting the English accent –when they actually got her nation of origin right instead of thinking she was Australian – and then they always had to ask why she was living in New York. One person had told her he didn’t know there were black people in England, and she had given him a lecture on her country’s diversity that she was certain had made him sorry he’d opened his mouth.

  When people actually took the time to get to know her, they found even more surprises. When a book slipped out of her bag and it was something about genomic biology or astrophysics, people always exclaimed that those looked like awfully deep books and that they hadn’t realized she loved science so much. And then came the next question: why wasn’t she a scientist instead of a makeup artist? It was like she had fallen far short of her potential by going into her particular field, a field where she wasn’t expected to be brainy. It was fun trying to get them to comprehend that she had become a makeup artist because she really enjoyed it, but that she also loved science. That someone could have more than one passion seemed to baffle most people.

  She got a lot of flak for that from the people she’d known all her life too. Her mother, Lola, and her Aunt Kiki and Uncle Peter, had watched her love of science and talent for art develop throughout her childhood and had expected her to grow up and do something spectacular, like become a neurosurgeon, or perhaps a great artist. They were a bit disappointed when she chose art over science when applying to University, and absolutely floored when she decided to study makeup. They could have been proud if she’d become a great painter or sculptor, but a makeup artist? They felt she was wasting her talent. They couldn’t seem to understand that this was art, that she was making creations to be proud of. Abi knew how to make a young person look old and an old person look young. With her brushes she could make a person appear to have a completely different facial structure, could remove all doubt about a casting decision when someone was cast to play a real person they didn’t much resemble. She could make a human being look like an alien, a healthy person look ill or badly injured, a living person look like they’d been dead for days. She imagined she could also make a dead person look alive again, but she didn’t plan on ever working for an undertaker.

  No, theatre and television were where she belonged. She loved the performing arts, loved just being close to the magic. Actually being a major part of bringing a make-believe story to life, or recreating a historical event, or making the impossible real…it was a thrill she couldn’t describe. Abi was where she belonged.

  But when she met Greta, she learned that she wasn’t the only person who wasn’t what people expected.

  She had taken a job as makeup artist on the new show Mercy ER, which required her to move from the UK to New York City, her mother in tow. She was excited about the job, which allowed her to really exercise her artistry as she made up guest stars to look like they’d been in horrible accidents. She was also assigned to do regular makeup for one of the supporting cast members, Greta Lang, who played an ER nurse named Ava Lyons.

  The first time she saw Greta, she was sitting alone at the vanity in her small dressing room, wearing a robe over her tailored nurse’s scrubs. She’d already had her hair done, bright red hair that fell past her shoulders in loose curls that had been carefully put in by someone from the hair team. She was strikingly beautiful, Abi thought. Every detail of her face was perfect, with just enough angles to add some drama and just enough softness to keep her feminine. She had a long nose, full lips, and big hazel eyes. She looked like she was pushing forty, which would have some actresses already scrambling to get work done, but she clearly hadn’t done anything, and Abi was glad. There was no way to improve upon this face; any work would be to her detriment. She doesn’t even need makeup to be beautiful, Abi thought as she shuffled in with her bag.

  “Hello,” she said, her low, rich voice tumbling out with the accent that made her feel out of place over here. “I’m Abi. I’ll be doing your makeup.”

  Greta turned and smiled politely. “I’m Greta,” she said, the smile making her features even more beautiful. She made direct eye contact with Abi, which many actresses never bothered to do.

  “Right then, I’ll just get started by hydrating your face,” Abi said, setting up her bag of tricks. She put some hydrating serum on a gauze pad and dabbed it around Greta’s face, hardly able to believe she was allowed to touch such beauty. Get ahold of yourself, she thought. She’d worked with all kinds of actresses over the years and never had this kind of reaction before. But Greta seemed to really take her in as she worked, which Abi wasn’t used to. It was her job to make actors look good; they usually didn’t give two shits what she looked like. Abi suddenly felt very grateful that she’s just gotten her long braids redone, with gold string braided into some of them.

  “You sound English,” Greta remarked. “I lived in London for two years in my twenties, doing some West End productions. I loved it there.”

  “Yeah?” said Abi, squirting some moisturizer onto her fingers and massaging it onto Greta’s face. She felt the heat rising in her cheeks. She was a professional, she’d been doing this job for years, and yet for the first time, she felt like this was just too intimate for a first meeting. She felt like she should be chatting with Greta over coffee right now, not rubbing her fingers in circles over the contours of her perfect face. “That’s where I got my start, working on the West End after Uni.”

  “Really? You must have been good to get hired on the West End right out of college.”

  “I suppose I was alright,” Abi said modestly, with a smile that was anything but modest. Greta’s face was so soft. She must have a good skin care regime at home, which Abi appreciated. It was so much easier to work on someone who already had good skin. “Anyway, I worked there for several years, and then I got on with the BBC. I worked on a lot of shows there.” Accepting that Greta was fully moisturized, she reached for the eye cream and began massaging that on under those beautiful hazel eyes. “I even did some work on Doctor Who,” she said, feeling a spontaneous need to impress the actress.

  “Really,” said Greta, appropriately impressed. “Why would you come here after working on Doctor Who?”

  “What do you mean? This is much better money.”

  “Well I suppose, but from an artistic standpoint, doing alien makeup sounds a lot more exciting that working on some hospital show.”

  “It’s a show about a fast-paced emergency room. I’ll get to give people all kinds of gruesome injuries.” She studied the dark circles under Greta’s eyes before settling on the right shade of corrector, which she began brushi
ng on gently. A real-life overworked ER nurse would probably have much darker circles than Greta had, but this was TV, so she would have none. “Besides, my mum always wanted to live in New York. Always, since she was a little girl.”

  “Did she grow up in London too?”

  “No, she’s from Lagos, actually. Nigeria.” Abi put down the corrector and reached for the concealer. “She’s the youngest of eight children, if you can believe it! She had a fondness for American movies and TV shows when she was growing up, and she just loved anything set in New York. She thought it was the most exciting city in the world. My Aunt Kiki is the oldest, and she was always the brains in the family. She was able to study at Oxford, and she ended up staying in the UK, marrying an English doctor, and settling in London. She’s a geography teacher at a girls’ school. My mum’s parents died when she was twenty, and then she followed her sister to London. Met my dad there – he was also trying to immigrate to Britain, but his application was rejected, and he had to go back to Nigeria. Mum wrote him when she found out she was pregnant and never heard back. Guess he didn’t want a baby.”

  “Men,” said Greta, rolling her eyes. “So she raised you all on her own in London?”

  “Yeah, ended up working as a bartender. I grew up on a council estate, which is what you would call ‘the projects.’ We depended on my aunt and uncle for a lot.” Abi rubbed in the concealer with her fingertips, selected the right shade of foundation, and began brushing it on. “My full first name is Abidemi, which means a child born during the father’s absence. I think it took a long time for my mum to accept that he was never coming back, that he would never be part of my life.”

  “So you’ve never met him?”

  “Never. I’m curious of course, but honestly, it’s hard to miss someone you never knew. And anyone who could desert my mum like that…he can’t be worth knowing, can he?”

  “I suppose not,” Greta conceded. “But maybe something happened to him! Or maybe it’s something he’s regretted for years, but now he doesn’t even know how to find you and your mother. I’d hire someone to find him.”

  “Maybe someday,” said Abi with an amused smile.

  “So you brought your mother with you to New York?”

  “Yeah, and she’s loving it so far. Her dream finally came true! She got a job bartending at The Gilded Mermaid, just down the street from here. She’s getting great tips – apparently the patrons love her unsolicited advice – but the cost of living is so high here. I really hope she can find her own place eventually, because I don’t see how I’m ever going to have a love life with my mother living in my apartment.”

  Greta chuckled. “I bet you don’t have trouble getting offers though.”

  Abi felt the heat rising in her cheeks again. Was Greta actually flirting with her?

  “Well, what about you?” Abi asked, putting down her foundation brush and reaching for the powder. “You used to do theatre. How did you end up on TV?”

  “I’ve been doing both, really,” Greta said. “I got my start in movies and TV when I was young, but I could never get any major roles, and I hated Hollywood even though that’s where I grew up. So I got into theatre, where I was more comfortable, spent a few years on the West End, then moved to New York and worked on Broadway while doing guest roles on television here and there for years. But singing and dancing every night wears you out after a while, and my agent was itching to get me back on the screen, so she recommended I try out for this show, and here I am. At least it’s steady work.”

  “You grew up in Hollywood, then?” Abi carefully brushed powder across Greta’s forehead and down her nose.

  “My parents were both actors,” she said hesitantly. “I’m sure you’ve heard of my mother, Sylvia Strong. She was a big star in the sixties and seventies, and in the eighties too, but that was when she started to have trouble getting parts. She turned forty when I was five, and it’s always downhill from there. She still does bit parts and infomercials, but mostly she travels with her philanthropy missions now. There’s always a fundraising gala to attend somewhere in the world.”

  “Sylvia Strong…I have seen her in old movies! Well, not that old. But I had no idea she was your mum! So your dad is…?”

  “Russell Lang. He continued getting good parts until his death ten years ago. Apparently there is a place in Hollywood for ‘silver foxes.’ They divorced when I was little though.”

  “Those Hollywood marriages never last, do they?” Abi chose a shade of bronzer and got busy with yet another brush.

  “Not when both partners have egos like my parents,” admitted Greta. “I was never really comfortable in that world. Everything’s so…fake. So glitzy. Everyone’s trying to impress everyone else. In LA, even your cashier at the grocery store says she’s writing a screenplay, and your waiter at the restaurant is just planning to be there until he gets his big acting break. Here in New York, it’s easier to just…blend in. To be ignored. There are all kinds of people here.”

  “But you’re a performer,” said Abi, intrigued. “Aren’t you supposed to stand out?”

  Greta sighed. “I’m supposed to, but I’m too introverted to want to. To tell you the truth…” She glanced at the door as if making sure she wasn’t going to be overheard. “I only went into acting because my mother pushed me to do it, and when both of your parents are actors, and your parents’ friends and your friends’ parents are all actors, it’s hard to imagine any other career. And I do enjoy acting. I really do. I love becoming another person. I love singing my heart out on stage. But I hate the other parts of it, all the schmoozing and networking and small talk. I just want to do my job and then go home and be me, which my agent says is exactly why I’ve never made it big. But…I don’t really want to make it big. You have to give up too much.”

  Wow, she’s really pouring her heart out, thought Abi. She wondered if Greta had many people in her life she could be this honest with. “Smile for a minute,” she said, picking up the blush. Greta dutifully smiled, and Abi applied the blush. “I completely understand where you’re coming from,” she said. “I love theatre, and television too, but I prefer to be behind the scenes, helping put together the magic. I’d never want to be a star. It just seems too exhausting.”

  “Small parts are much more comfortable,” Greta agreed when Abi finished with the blush. “I get to have fun bringing a character to life, but I can go to the grocery store without being mobbed by the paparazzi. Most people don’t know my name even if they do recognize me, and I’m not often recognized. They’d much rather talk to Tricia.” Tricia Gladstone, a young blonde bombshell, was the female lead on Mercy ER in her role as a doctor just starting out.

  “So what would you have done, if you hadn’t been an actress?” Abi asked, pausing with lipstick and brush in her hands.

  “Well, don’t laugh,” said Greta shyly. Abi thought her shyness made her even more beautiful, if that were possible.

  “I promise, I won’t laugh.”

  “I think I’d want to be a writer. I love to read, and I’ve made up a lot of little stories in my head, but I never write them down.”

  “Why not? Lots of actresses publish books. Carrie Fisher went from acting to writing.”

  “I’m just afraid I won’t be any good at it.”

  “Well, you’ll never know until you try.” Abi finally brushed on the lip color, trying not to think about how much she’d like to kiss those full lips. “So what genre?” she asked when she was done.

  “You still can’t laugh. Or tell anyone.”

  “I promise. No laughing, no telling. Actress-makeup artist confidentiality.”

  Greta broke into a smile. “I think I’d write romance,” she said sheepishly. “There’s nothing I enjoy more than a good love story.”

  “Yeah,” said Abi dreamily, before snapping herself out of it and grabbing the lip liner pencil. She gently took Greta’s chin in her hands while she worked carefully to outline those perfect lips. I can’t believe I’m g
etting paid to do this, she thought.

  “Your braids are very pretty,” Greta remarked when her lips were done. “I love the gold.”

  “Thanks,” said Abi, taking out her eyebrow brush.

  “Although I’m not sure I’d want to be standing too close to you if you whipped your head around suddenly,” Greta said with a small chuckle.

  “Yeah, well, I wouldn’t want to be standing too close to you on a windy day. All that light, soft, pretty red hair would go flying all over the place. At least my braids can weight themselves down a bit.”

  Greta laughed heartily, and they chatted some more as Abi worked on her eyes. Abi told her how much she loved Liverpool Football Club, how they’d been the best team in Europe when her cousins were growing up but had stopped winning around the time she got old enough to cheer them on, causing her family to label her “The Curse.” She told Greta how she’d stubbornly kept up her support, even though her childhood classmates all preferred Manchester United or Chelsea or Fulham, and how frustrating it was that Americans called football “soccer” and had some completely unrelated, utterly ridiculous sport that they called “football.” Greta had a good laugh about that and promised she was completely neutral as she wasn’t a fan of any sport. Then she talked about her favorite books – many of which Abi had read also – and she told Abi about the house she lived in close to Central Park, how she’d wanted to be near the park because it felt like an easy escape from the city, a way to spend time in nature. She liked to walk there, and to just sit by the lake.

  “I’d love to join you sometime,” Abi let slip as she was finishing up.

  Greta smiled. “I think I’d like to have your company. You’re very easy to talk to.”

  “It wouldn’t embarrass you to be seen hanging out with your makeup artist outside of work?”

  “Certainly not! I refuse to be that snobby, and nobody really notices what I do anyway. The other actors find me unfriendly. I tend to get along better with the crew.”