Ellie bit her lip. “No.”
Graham sighed and rubbed at the back of his head. “Do you think this is a good idea?”
“Aren’t movie stars supposed to be reckless and irresponsible?” she said, attempting a grin, but it was quick to falter.
“I just don’t think—”
“I don’t care,” she said, her voice infused with a flinty resolve. “I’ve already decided.”
Graham hesitated for a moment, and then he nodded. “Okay,” he said. “Then I’m coming too.”
She looked surprised. “No, you’re not.”
“We’ve got the day off shooting, and I’ve got nothing to do on the Fourth anyway,” he said. “We’ll make a road trip out of it.”
“You’re way too conspicuous.”
“I’ll blend in.”
In spite of herself, she laughed. “Not possible.”
“I promise,” he said. “I’ll wear a cowboy hat. And a fake mustache.”
“That’s not the slightest bit melodramatic.”
“Occupational hazard,” he said with a grin.
“How about this?” Ellie said, rising to her feet, the towel still slung around her shoulders. “I’ll sleep on it.”
“Fine,” he said, standing up too. “But I’ll start getting my costume ready just in case.”
As they began to walk up the beach, he reached for her hand. They were quiet, the rocks crunching beneath their feet, the waves rushing up to the shore behind them.
Three more days, Graham was thinking.
He didn’t want to miss a single one of them.
“So are you done for the day?” Ellie asked without looking at him, her head bent as she picked her way over the uneven terrain.
“I am,” he told her. “You free tonight?”
“Oh yeah,” she said, and he could almost hear the laughter in her voice. “I figure we could take a stroll through town, go to the Lobster Pot, maybe make out a little on the village green…”
“Very funny,” he said as they reached the little bank that separated the beach from the trees, and together, they scrambled up the slope. “How about a picnic? We can meet right back here later.”
She nodded. “That sounds perfect.”
It was darker in the grove, where a bluish dusk had settled into every pocket of space, and Graham allowed himself to be led by Ellie, stumbling a bit as they felt their way toward the street. There was something dreamlike about it, with only the grumble of their footsteps and the sound of their breathing, her smaller hand in his, guiding him along. The beach was only a few yards behind them and the road only a few yards ahead, but right here amid the trees, it felt like they were a million miles away from anything. So when the first flash went off up ahead, it took a moment for him to realize what it was.
If he’d been in Los Angeles or New York, or even just up the road in the middle of Henley, his mind would have moved faster, but here in the gathering dusk, emerging from the solitude of the beach, he was slow to understand the implications. In front of him, Ellie had come to an abrupt stop, dropping his hand. But even as the second light went off and the scene took on a fumbling clarity—the glint of a motorcycle, the flurry of footsteps, another flash—all he could do was stand there, blinking.
“Graham,” came the first shout, and beside him, he could feel Ellie stiffen. “Graham, can you give us a smile? How about a kiss?” There were only three of them, but it felt like more; it felt like they were surrounded.
“What’s your name, sweetheart?” one of them asked Ellie, an enormous bald guy who’d been lurking around town since the film crew first arrived. He took a step forward, pacing the edge of the road. They were still mostly hidden in the trees, but there was nowhere else to go from here. “Can we just get one shot?”
It took a moment for Graham to regain himself. He turned to Ellie, grabbing the towel that was slung over her shoulder and whipping it in front of her. When she realized what he was doing, she took it from him, burying her face behind the pattern of seahorses. He put an arm around her shoulders, and though he could feel her resistance, he urged her forward anyway, the two of them tripping over roots and rocks as they made their way up toward the street.
All three of the photographers were snapping pictures now, and it felt different, seeing them here on a quiet stretch of road with no one else around, ominous and just a little bit threatening. They backed up a few steps as Graham’s feet hit the pavement, and he tucked Ellie closer to him, hurrying them in the opposite direction without a word.
“C’mon, Graham,” the bald guy said, jogging out in front of him, then backpedaling, his camera bumping against his chest. The other two were flanking them, trotting along the shoulder of the road, and Graham glared at the guy to his left.
“Just one shot,” he was saying. “One good shot, and we’ll leave you alone.”
“Get lost,” he said through gritted teeth. The photographer lowered his camera, and for a moment, Graham thought that would be it. But then he darted at Ellie, grabbing the end of her towel to yank it away. She let out a little yelp of surprise just as the flash went off, and before he could think better of it, Graham lunged at him, knocking the camera away. It hit the pavement with a splintering sound, and there was the sharp clatter of metal on asphalt, and then a low string of curses as the photographer scrambled to collect his equipment.
The rest of them paused, just for a second. Ellie’s towel had fallen to the ground, and seeing an opportunity, one of the other photographers—the bald one—stepped out in front of them. But before he could even raise the camera, Graham was in his face.
“Put it away,” he said, his voice low, the words gravelly.
The guy hesitated, but only for a moment, looking around Graham to the third photographer, who held his camera tentatively, the lens pointed at Ellie as she bent to grab the towel.
There was a beat of stillness, then two, as they all stood there, the cameras raised like weapons in a standoff. But just as Ellie straightened up again, a flash cut through the darkness—bright enough to leave them all blinking—and as if the two things were connected, as if one triggered the other, Graham’s hand became a fist, and he pulled back his arm, and he punched him.
From: [email protected]
Sent: Wednesday, July 3 2013 10:24 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: (no subject)
You were right. We should’ve just stayed on the beach forever.
Light couldn’t possibly have moved faster. Running water. A high-speed train. Nothing, it seemed to Ellie, could have beaten the pixilated photo and accompanying story that spilled out across the fathomless pages of the Internet late that same night.
Sitting on her bed the next morning, the computer propped in her lap, she watched numbly as the articles unspooled across the screen. But she wasn’t thinking about the media’s version of the story, which seemed to hardly resemble what had happened at all. Instead, she was thinking about the moment itself, the way the photographer had reeled after being hit, tipping sideways like a marionette.
His head had struck the ground with a sound that seemed too heavy to have come from a person, and Ellie had looked on in horror, frozen with shock for a few frightening seconds before he blinked and pushed himself up again. It was Graham who moved first, already shaking his head in apology as he reached out a hand to help him up. But he was stopped cold by a flash, and he turned on one of the other photographers with a menacing glare.