Page 48 of What Would Dolly Do?

I stopped as though I’d been electrocuted, my hand gripping the curved bannister, my bare feet rooted to the spot in the deep-pile stair carpet.

Face to face with a glamorous Hollywood actress I felt like a Beverley Hillbilly in my cotton sundress and no-shoes state.

It wasn’t simply my clothing that was making me feel uncomfortable, it was my appearance in general; here I was, halfway down the stairs in Tom Coltrane’s Nashville mansion, what must Juliana Ripon be thinking?

She eyed me coldly, her huge dark eyes taking in everything from my naked toes to my dishevelled hair.

Despite the fact I was looking down on her from my vantage point several steps up I did not feel like I had the upper hand in this situation.

Shocked and horrified as I was in that moment I couldn’t help being impressed by how beautiful Juliana was in the flesh.

Her black hair was short and glossy and her sulky pout was accentuated with dark red lipstick.

She was dressed simply but expensively in skin-tight black leather pants and her casually worn oversized silk shirt the colour of buttermilk was falling off one pale skinny shoulder.

‘T…t…Tom’s not here,’ I eventually managed to stutter, trying to force my feet to move.

‘I know that,’ Juliana snapped. ‘I thought it was time you and I had a little chat. Rebecca.’

She spat out my name as though it was poison in her mouth.

So she knew who I was. Uh oh. But how did she know I was here alone?

How could she? My mind was cartwheeling but I realised too late I’d been betrayed, perhaps even set up …

Dawn the driver! It had to be. Perhaps she and Juliana were close, maybe she felt Tom’s ex-girlfriend deserved her moment to confront the woman who had ‘stolen her man’ and so had tipped her off that I was here alone waiting for Tom to come home.

An act of female solidarity between women who considered me to be a traitor to the sisterhood.

I wanted to defend myself. But how? I didn’t have a complete grasp of all the facts and now I found myself quite literally on the spot I was furious with myself for not making Tom explain exactly what the situation between him and Juliana was.

Tom! The thought of him made another question smack me right between the eyes; was he really on his way?

Did he even know I was here waiting for him?

Juliana appeared to have more information than I did about that.

‘We haven’t got long,’ she said, ‘so I’ll get right to the point …

’ But then she hesitated and didn’t get right to the point at all; instead she stood tapping one tiny stilettoed foot on the hardwood floor in obvious irritation.

‘Are you going to come down here and face me? You’re giving me a crick in my neck staying up there. ’

I padded down the last few steps and loitered by the marble bannister wishing I could pull my boots back on; being barefoot was making me feel even more vulnerable.

I wanted to push my feet back into my discarded boots, kick up my heels and run for my life down the driveway, flee from Braveheart like a complete coward.

But run where? I had no idea where I was and it would take me a good while to even reach the main road …

and then what? I had no choice. I had to stay exactly where I was and face the music.

Once we were face to face Juliana wasted no more time before making crystal clear exactly what she thought of me. According to her I had thrown myself at Tom and he’d merely submitted in a moment of weakness.

‘As if he’d look twice at someone like you if he was in his right mind,’ she said witheringly. ‘For fucksake, just look at you! How old are you anyway? Forty?’

She was a cheeky little cow although I chose not to say so.

I certainly did feel plain and ancient compared to her twenty-something luminous beauty but I don’t expect fans of her films have ever seen her features twisted into such nasty expressions.

Close up and personal it wasn’t too pretty.

I also suspected her enviable perky bosom was the result of surgical implants, something I’d never felt the need to resort to despite my lack of natural attributes in that department.

As Juliana Ripon ripped into me I decided to keep my mouth shut and take my medicine as politely as possible.

Words like ‘desperate’, ‘mistake’ and ‘bitch’ rattled off the rafters above us while the confrontation continued although it felt like Juliana was being made even more angry by my hesitation to defend myself and give her the satisfaction of a real showdown.

To be honest, my mind was otherwise engaged as it recalibrated from the disappointment of not finding Tom waiting for me with open arms. I was also pondering what Juliana had been alluding to when she’d said Tom might not have been in his ‘right mind’?

What had she meant by that? I could have just dismissed it as another low-blow attack, an attempt to undermine the validity of my relationship with Tom, but it had a ring of truth about it I couldn’t ignore.

I knew Tom had returned to Edinburgh in an emotional state.

He was struggling with issues to do with his fame and career, and had confided some of his thoughts about it all to me.

He was worried he’d fallen out of love with music but I’d helped him see it was really the music industry he was having such a problem with.

We hadn’t delved too deeply into all that but I did know that hanging out with me and spending time in the studio with Fergus had clearly rekindled Tom’s passion for writing and performing.

I think focusing on helping me defeat my stage fright and reinvent myself as Reba Moon had also taken his mind off his own problems and given him a new zest for future projects too.

I couldn’t possibly explain any of that to Juliana and even if I had I don’t think it would have made much difference. According to her she and Tom were made for each other and I was just a meaningless fling with delusions of grandeur. Was she right?

I’d thought I needed to see Tom badly before but now I was increasingly desperate to hear the crunch of car wheels on gravel and know he was about to walk through his own front door and explain what the hell was really going on!

He’d insisted I’d had ‘nothing to worry about’ as far as his beautiful Hollywood girlfriend was concerned.

Well it didn’t bloody feel like that right now!

He’d intimated it was all over between them and I’d believed him.

Had I simply fallen for the oldest trick in the book?

Heard what I’d wanted to hear? It was certainly looking that way and as the onslaught from Juliana continued I had to face the possibility that I’d never been anything other than an inconsequential bit on the side, like a foolish fan or a grubby groupie.

If Juliana’s intention was to shame me it was starting to work.

As my stomach grew increasingly queasy and my skin prickled with fear Juliana delivered the killer blow.

‘I don’t suppose Tom has mentioned that he’s asked me to marry him?’ Her blue eyes were like shards of cut glass and her voice was as sharp as an ice pick. My blood instantly ran cold. ‘No, I thought not.’

Juliana finally appeared satisfied that her mission was complete but as she turned towards the door and started to leave I finally found my voice. ‘Juliana,’ I said, the name of the movie star actress sounding strange coming from my own lips but I needed to tell her, ‘I’m sorry.’

She gave me a pitying look and exited the scene with a final slam of the door.

The noise reverberated around the entrance hall and the inside of my head.

The house I’d felt so welcomed by now seemed hostile and my overwhelming desire was to leave as soon as possible.

But where could I head for? I wanted to leave but I had nowhere to go.

For a split second I fantasised about standing my ground and waiting for Tom to come home so I could give him a piece of my mind.

But my mind was in turmoil and if I didn’t get away as quickly as possible I knew I was going to break down and I didn’t want to cry now, not here and not when Tom may come back any moment and find me. I couldn’t bear it.

My brain was whirling, bile rising in my throat while I tried to work out what to do but then I heard a pinging noise and I remembered I’d left my bag on the dining table in the living room.

Was Tom messaging me? Was he letting me know he was on his way and would be here soon?

I darted through the archway and snatched the phone from my bag.

But it wasn’t messages from Tom that I found.

Instead I was confronted by a screenshot of the back office of Grayson’s Jewellery Shop.

It took me a beat or two to realise what I was looking at.

It was a picture captured from the CCTV footage that showed me ‘stealing’ expensive items from my former workplace.

There was a message with it: ‘Wait until the whole world knows that you are a jewellery thief!’ What the …

? Even in my disorientated state I knew this was a direct threat.

There was no name on the message and I didn’t recognise the number it came from but clearly someone intended to wreck my chances of success.

I knew I hadn’t ever stolen anything but a picture can tell a thousand words and this particular picture along with any accusations made could cause me enormous damage.

That did it. I had to get out of there. I pulled on my boots, wrenched open the front door and looked at the phone still in my hand, but I knew I couldn’t call Tom’s driver Dawn.

I ran like an escaped convict down the long driveway and by the time I reached the gates my getaway car was drawing up outside.

The Uber app had been my saviour and once I’d picked up my luggage from the hotel I’d get it to take me straight to the airport. My time in Nashville was already over.