Reality And Romance

Chapter 4

The following two weeks had been strange. Libby had received several house calls from Andrew’s mother, although she had no idea how she had received her home address. At first, Libby had been annoyed and their conversations had been clipped, as she attempted to ward off Vanessa’s probing at every possible opportunity. It helped that they were frequently interrupted by Andrew, or one of his brothers. Johnny was a sweetheart, bringing over English tea cakes and muffins, lightening the conversation by making Libby laugh with anecdotes about celebrities.

“I’m telling you, Britney is terrified of garden gnomes.” Was an example of a particularly memorable story.

Aaron came over too, although he didn’t really do much to defuse the situation, instead he would bring up McKenzie, and his and his mother’s conversations would descend into shouting matches. It had transpired to the family that Aaron and McKenzie were moving in together. Unfortunately, to do this would be to alert the press to their situation and Vanessa was doing everything in her power to prevent this from happening.

“It’s not fu*king fair.” He scowled, before frowning apologetically, after a particularly bad fight. “Sorry Libby, it’s not your fault,” he apologized, running his hands through his hair before continuing in frustration. “You know when we first starting dating, she kept trying to set me up with other guys, I don’t know where she found them. An army of attractive men and women, models, athletes, lifeguards.”

“Life guards?”

He laughed awkwardly, “Yea…I knew I should have deleted my search history.”

While an army of male models and lifeguards did sound appealing to Libby, she understood his anger. If someone asked her to give up Andrew she would be furious. She felt her stomach drop as a nasty thought occurred to her. What if Vanessa had asked Andrew to give up her?

“She hasn’t…”

“No. She hasn’t tried to set Andrew up with anyone else.” He raised his voice up several octaves, in what was clearly supposed to be an impression of his mother, “‘Libby isn’t a horrible punk like that McKenzie’. Also I think she quite likes the ‘everyday girl finds love with celebrity’ narrative it would create.”
“I know he’s a bit alternative, but that look is very fashionable. You’re mother’s a shrewd woman, I’m surprised she doesn’t see it as a good chance for some PR and to appeal to an alternative market.”

“I think it’s because he said some rude things about the show in his column before. Hell, we only met because he gave me a sh*tty review.” He smirked, as if this were a fond, although not altogether savory memory. “Arrogant fu*ker, doesn’t give a damn what anyone else thinks. Unfortunately, my mother’s all about appearances.”

“What does McKenzie think?”

“Oh, he pretends not to care, but I know it hurts his feelings. He’ll say whatever the fu*k he wants, but God forbid he let on how hurt he is.” Aaron sighed. “Me and him, it’s serious and I want him to be part of the family.”

“And letting him on the show would do that?”

Aaron made a long noise of frustration, “My mother might be a colossal, overly demanding, pain in the ass, but she cares about us. What’s more, she values loyalty above all else, and she will become fiercely protective of anyone under her care; family relationships and business relationships alike. Even people that only go on for a few episodes, so long as it doesn’t interfere with the narrative, she will try and use all her resources to help them. If she lets McKenzie on the show it means that she accepts him, that she accepts us.”

Libby bit her lip, she didn’t really know how to respond. She wanted them to be happy, but she didn’t see any way she could help. Noticing her discomfort Aaron continued. “Hey don’t worry yourself about it. I’m sure we’ll think of something. Hopefully McKenzie will stop being such a stubborn son-of-a-bi*ch and decide to just write something positive about the show for once.”

“Will he not do that?”
Aaron gave a disbelieving snort. “Oh no, they’re just as stubborn as each other. Mom doesn’t want to compromise the reputation of the show by having someone that hates us in the mansion, and McKenzie doesn’t want to compromise his artistic integrity by writing something any less than fu*king insulting about any of us.”

“Even you?” Libby asked, surprised.

Aaron laughed, “Are you kidding me? He goes for me more than anyone. Although at this point I think it’s his way of flirting.”

Libby chuckled, although this soon faltered as a rather nasty thought occurred to her. “Why is Vanessa so desperate to have me on the show? I mean, I know I’ve never written anything bad about it, but I am wandering around dressed as a superhero, isn’t she I don’t know…worried about me embarrassing the family. She wouldn’t…”

“Get you on just to humiliate you? No.” He replied with certainty. “She would never put someone she didn’t trust on that show. Remember, a bad review for anyone on the show is a bad review for her, especially because you’re dating Andrew. If she thought there was any chance of you humiliating yourself, she wouldn’t let you anywhere near it.”

“But then why the trust, I mean she hardly knows me.”

“She knows Andrew and he…” Aaron hesitated, clearly wondering if he was about to say too much. “He cares about you. More than you know.”

*****

With the last two weeks being hectic, given the visits from Vanessa, and Andrew’s subsequent attempts to stop them, all while the entire family and Libby tried to keep her connection to them a secret from the media, they had decided to have a much more relaxed night out. They began with a few hours of Netflix and a heated game of Mario Kart at Libby’s flat, before preparing a cooler of wine, donning their costumes and heading off for a stroll, stopping eventually at the spot where they had had their first date, atop Hillcrest International. Libby sighed as they overlooked the city, impressed that Andrew had known to pick such a nice spot.

“Why this building anyway?” She asked.

“Mom’s accountant works from here, sometimes she would have to come in to see him. When we were younger she used to drag me, Johnny and Aaron along. It could take a real long time for her to get out, so we used to explore the building and eventually we found our way onto the roof.”

Libby gasped, “How old were you?”

“I was about eight I think…”

“Isn’t that young?”

Andrew grinned, “Nah, you’ve met our mom, we were too scared of being told off to do anything that would have put us in real danger. I might not have understood my own mortality, but I was pretty sure that she would be pissed if I fell off the building.”

Libby laughed, “I never had quite that sense. Or just really bad luck. The one time I decide to try on mom’s wedding dress I caught it on a loose nail on the floorboard ripped it to shreds.”

Andrew winced, imagining his own mother’s reaction to that type of mishap.

“Another time. I was playing soccer in the garden with my sister, my mom came out to bring us some lemonade and just as I was aiming the ball, I turned towards her, kicked it wrong, and smacked her straight in the face with it.”

“What happened?”

“She chased me around the garden,” Libby laughed.

Andrew smiled, “It’s nice to know you’ve matured.”

“I have!” She cried indignantly.

“You beat me with a light saber!”

“Pshh, you kidnapped me! At least mine was an accident…”

Andrew sighed, “I was going to let you go, it was meant to be a prank.”

“Yea well…you’re lucky you’re pretty.”

Andrew smiled at this and took her hand. The touch was warm and safe and Libby melted into it, leaning close to him and resting her head upon his shoulders.

“How’s fashion week going?” She sighed, as he stroked the top of her head.

Andrew had spoken a lot about New York fashion week since they’d been together. He was worried. Although he was excellent at designing clothes, he preferred the simple and elegant. Any other year this might have been fine, but this year the producers wanted a theme.