Page 6 of For My Finale

L ilah put her hands on her hips, glaring at the bathtub as if she could intimidate it into revealing its secrets.

It didn’t work. But then, neither had searching for secret buttons, wall switches, or just getting into the water and hoping for the best.

She’d just have to face it. There was no jacuzzi function.

Hard to believe, but there it was. She’d spent half her life living in hotels and the other half living in a house that she couldn’t even map from memory.

A mansion that quite literally had rooms she’d never heard of.

She’d once walked into a butler’s pantry and had to be rescued by her housekeeper.

And every single place that she’d lived in had had a jacuzzi tub. Even the four star hotels, which, frankly, she could stand never having to stay in again. Even five star was pushing it. No, six and seven was where it was at. At least there she’d have a jacuzzi.

She crouched down again, clutching her towel around her, running her fingers along the side of the bath, tapping at the tiles, twisting the faucet. But… nothing. No jets. No bubbles. Just… water.

She groaned and slapped the side of the tub in frustration. Just a normal bathtub. Like normal people had. She sank onto the closed toilet lid, rubbing at her temples. She’d have to have a shower instead. Presuming, of course, that the damn thing worked .

What had she done?

A life of luxury and privilege replaced with this.

Mud and a normal bathtub. The sink didn’t even have a mixer tap, for god’s sake.

It had taken her ten minutes this morning to figure out that one tap had hot water, the other had cold, and she was supposed to…

Actually, she didn’t know what she was supposed to do.

Perhaps switch between the two extremely quickly?

But she had to make this work. At least for right now. There was no plan B. Not that this was much of a plan A, she thought as she showered and dressed. Not that there was a plan at all. Just… this.

And she wasn’t that spoiled. She was an adult, surely she could run a house as tiny as this one? Her stomach rumbled in hunger as she looked into the empty refrigerator. Alright, there was job number one then. Groceries.

She’d go into town, restock the kitchen, and who knew, maybe even make some friends. Small villages were supposed to be friendly, right?

She was going to live here, she was going to eat. And this could be her chance to be one of those people that only ate fresh ingredients and shopped for themselves and put videos of it all on Insta.

It wasn’t until ten minutes later that she realized that she might have drastically overestimated matters.

Walking into the tiny shop on Bankton High Street, the first thing that she saw was a gray-haired woman with a face like a hatchet. A woman that was now watching her every move like she might be about to steal something. Not that there was anything to steal.

Lilah stared at the shelves, mouth slightly agape.

No quinoa. No organic cold-pressed juices.

No organic anything. No sushi grade salmon.

No salmon. She walked around the tiny store three times and found breakfast cereal, cheese wrapped up in greasy paper, and something called Marmite that looked like…

well, like shit in a jar, to be completely honest.

She grabbed pasta and bread, those things she could recognize at least, then made her way to the counter.

“Excuse me,” she said, putting on what she thought of as her most charming smile. “Do you have saffron?”

The woman, who was called Ms. Wilkins judging by the name tag on her overall, frowned. “Saffron?”

“Yes, you know, for risotto? Or perhaps some truffle oil? Or Wagyu beef?”

The woman’s frown deepened. “You what?”

“Wagyu beef, for meatballs,” Lilah said helpfully. “And truffle oil or butter to make a sauce?”

The woman looked at her like she’d just asked for powdered unicorn horn. “We’ve got beef mince and gravy granules,” she said, folding her arms. “Will that do?”

“Um, not really,” Lilah blinked.

“You a chef?” asked Mrs. Wilkins suspiciously, making it sound like an accusation.

“No, I’m…” She reconsidered. “I used to be an actress.”

Mrs. Wilkins gave her a very judgmental stare up and down. “Well then, unless they taught you how to cook that fancy stuff, I’d stick to beans on toast if I were you.”

“Right,” Lilah said unsurely. She looked down at her basket. “Just this then, I suppose.”

“Coming in here asking for truffles,” Mrs. Wilkins said as she scanned Lilah’s shopping. “What’s the world coming to?”

Lilah thought that this was probably a rhetorical question and decided not to answer it.

So much for making friends, she thought, as she shouldered her tote bag and walked out of the shop. She wondered if there was another store close by. Maybe a larger supermarket. She’d have to ask someone.

She turned in what she was fairly sure was the direction of the cottage and almost ran smack into a woman swathed in silk scarves like some kind of expensive mummy. The mummy let out a delighted squeal.

“Lilah Paxton, as I live and breathe, how marvelous!”

“Do we know each other?” Lilah asked, slightly confused .

“Not yet, not yet, but time will be sure to bring us together,” said the woman. “I’m Gloria. Cunningham?” she prompted when Lilah didn’t jump to shake her hand. “Come, you must have heard of me by now. I’m the head of the Bankton Players, the village am-dram society.”

“Am-dram?” Lilah asked, unsure that she’d heard properly.

“Yes, yes, amateur dramatics,” said Gloria. She leaned in. “What you Americans call Community Theater.”

“Ah.”

“And we’ve just decided that we’re going to be doing our rendition of A Streetcar Named Desire,” Gloria went on, oblivious to any sort of facial expression that Lilah might be making.

“The only question, of course, is whether I play Blanche, or we do a gender reversal and I wiggle my way into a white t-shirt to play Stanley.” She looked Lilah up and down.

“You would, of course, make a wonderful Stella, which could make the decision for us.”

Lilah, caught off guard by this, let out a laugh. “Oh, I don’t really do amateur theater,” she said, without thinking.

A silence fell that was so sudden and so thick that Lilah had to check time hadn’t actually stopped.

Gloria’s eyes had turned icy, and she was staring at Lilah in absolute disapproval. “Ah yes,” she said, haughtily. “I suppose you were once a professional, weren’t you?”

Lilah winced. “I didn’t mean—”

But Gloria had already turned on her heel and was striding away, scarves fluttering behind her like little battle flags.

Lilah winced. She was making enemies at quite the impressive speed.

LILAH WAS STARING out of the kitchen window, vaguely wondering if the damn bull was anywhere around and thinking that days in America had never been quite this long. She felt like she’d been awake for three days and it was barely six in the evening.

Unpacking her clothes had taken up a couple of hours. Shopping had taken one more. There seemed to be a surfeit of hours, though. Hours that she didn’t quite know what to do with. Hours that she’d happily lend out to someone else if they needed them because she had absolutely no use for them.

Her phone rang, and she was so glad to hear something that wasn’t just her own thoughts that she snatched it up.

“Lilah, darling!” said Margot, as chirpy as ever. “Now listen here, have I got news for you. There’s an amazing—”

“No,” Lilah said, firmly and loudly.

“But darling, it’s television. First season, already renewed for a second, leading role, executive prod credit, two months filming in—”

“No,” Lilah said again.

“It’s perfect for you. Gritty, smart—”

“No, Margot.” Lilah looked out of the window again. Was it getting dark yet? Was the sun finally starting to go down? “I’m retired.”

Margot sighed. “Lilah, sweetheart, retirement is what rich men do when they want to have more time to play golf and fool around with young wives that they’re too old to actually please. It’s not for you. You’re going to be bored.”

“It is for me,” Lilah said. “And I’m not bored.” Alright, a bit of a lie there, but she’d told worse. “I’m done. No more scripts, no more auditions, no more pretending to be someone that I’m not.”

“Fine, fine,” Margot said airily. “You’ll come running back as soon as you’re bored enough. I’ll call again in a week.”

Lilah was about to protest, but Margot had already hung up.

For god’s sake. Would Margot ever leave her alone? At least the damn press hadn’t tracked her down yet. She took one last look out of the window and decided that it was starting to get dark and therefore she could start to make dinner.

HALF AN HOUR later, the kitchen was filled with smoke. Lilah coughed and waved an ineffectual tea towel in the air before staring at the charred remains of what was supposed to be pasta .

She wasn’t sure what had gone wrong. She’d filled the frying pan with oil, dumped the pasta in, and even stirred it a bit before she got distracted by her phone.

She was a disaster, that was the problem. An actual disaster.

A disaster at cooking, a disaster at trying to make friends, a disaster at having a bath. A disaster at all of this.

She slumped at the kitchen table, resting her chin in her hands. What the hell was she doing here? Was Hollywood really that bad?

She thought about Margot’s offer. About glamorous hotels, industry parties, the constant whirlwind of press junkets and red carpets.

And then she thought about today. About wandering through a grocery store without a single person recognizing her, walking through the village without a bodyguard or paparazzi. She thought about having space to think, room to breathe.

She’d wanted this. There was no point complaining now.

She squared her shoulders, stood up, and grabbed the loaf of bread and a block of cheese. Grilled cheese couldn’t be that hard. Right?