"So you had an arrangement? That was bound to get complicated wasn't it?"
Hazel eyes regard condensation on the glass of ice water clutched in graceful fingers as their owner shifts uncomfortably in the plush hotel sofa. Everything in her posture suggests unwillingness to answer the question, but determination seems to make her eyes snap up to the owner of the question. This was after all her show, her forum, her idea.
The iPhone on the small coffee table between them seems insignificant, but is poised to capture every word and she looks at it briefly... aware. The hotel lobby thrums with activity around them as they sit. Her legs are folded gracefully, her hair and skin flawless, her dress classic. She's beautiful, perhaps even more so now than she had been in her early twenties. Earnestness has been replaced with confidence and self assuredness. She is a picture of graceful and poised perfection, but her eyes give away the storm raging inside. The interviewer waits. This was not his first rodeo, he knew she needed a moment to steel her resolve.
"That word sounds..." she struggles to voice her thoughts, stalling before plunging into the depths. She couldn't not be aware that she was about to change things, to bring into the light truths that would never be able to go back into the safety of their hiding places.
"Yes I suppose so." She says with a final breath, struggle to commit to the truth over "We never put it in those terms, but yes there was an... understanding. That's how it began."
"What were the mechanics of this understanding?" The reporter's remains gentle, he senses she is still a flight risk at this point.
She sighs and swallows with difficulty, moving again to place the glass of water carefully back on the coaster atop the elegant wooden side table beside her chair.
The reporter had been briefed and she had a reputation he was well aware of. Directness was not in her nature, particularly when it came to personal matters. The call had surprised him; genuinely and that did not happen to him often. She was as well known amongst the regulars for her reluctance to speak on personal matters, and her skilled evasions as she was for her classic Hollywood beauty. He had assumed that this was her management's idea, that she was to be an unwilling participant, or at best only partially compliant. He had been stunned to learn that the request had come directly from her, against her manager's advice.
Surprise was really an understatement and he couldn't lie and pretend he didn't know this was going to be a significant event in his career. She was famous, very very famous and equally private. She had requested the opportunity to tell her story though, what had been termed as 'the real story'. Even though it was to apparently involve the truth about a long forgotten hint of scandal with her former co-star. He couldn't imagine what had lead to this decision, but like all comers he knew, he was almost salivating to hear it. The biggest point of interest of them all was why she had chosen to speak now about something that had been so carefully avoided for over a decade, that it had been written off by most as fanciful tabloid invention. He hoped the answer to that would fall out of this conversation.
"You know no-one really warns you," she says finally, displeasure knitting her brows and hardening her eyes "When you go into this kind of job I mean." she gestures vaguely towards the camera positioned as unobtrusively as possible on a tri-pod next to his seat.
Her years of experience have been evident as she has delivered statements and engaged the camera perfectly. He doesn't have to worry, he knows the footage will be good. The decision was made early that he would not bring a crew along. The fewer people present, the more honesty was likely to come forth.
He cocks his head to the side in response to her statement, prompting her to elaborate by knitting his own brows in question. He knows exactly what she means, but he needs to her to say it for the audience. He understands that she's working her way back to the answer to his question.
"That your life is no longer really your own I mean," in turn she understands this game "Once you have some success, your life suddenly becomes the property of everyone else, a part of the show, it's not really your own anymore. You just... it's something you're unprepared for. It's not something you can see from the other side. You don't realise until you're neck deep that the job requires... more than just playing a role in front of the cameras. It never stops."
"People like to believe in fantasies. Particularly of perfect celebrity lives." the reporter offers.
"I guess so." she looks resigned but then her eyes fix on the lens of the camera intensely. "She and I became something to one another that a lot of people would have trouble understanding. We never fit the labels or the boxes. She saved me and she told me I saved her a little bit too."
This was the money shot.
"And through this 'arrangement', were you lovers?" He holds his breath because even though this was an explicitly approved question, he's aware that it's one that has never dared been asked so directly of her before.
She only pauses for a moment, he knows she's been preparing for this underneath her rambling statements and probably for quite some time before that. She's purposefully defying her own character in having this conversation and her discomfort radiates from her.
"Not in the beginning." she says, hazel eyes on the camera, strands of blonde hair falling across them lightly. He doesn't push for clarification yet, aware that they are just at the beginning of her tale.
"You've said more than once now that things were not straightforward? It's safe to assume that you didn't meet, date and fall in love?"
She laughs without mirth then.
"In this business the chances of that happening are slimmer than a phone call tonight from the aliens who live on the moon," she's wearing a smile but her tone is hard. "Besides I've never really had much luck in that arena." she adds, tone softening into wistful.
"So if you start at the beginning, you weren't lovers yet - can you tell me the story? You lived together then right? So how did it all happen?" he knows he's asking for a lot, but that was why he was here. Delivering and delving into a lot was his specialty. She would not have agreed to this without the intention of telling it, he was just her vehicle here after all.
"Okay," she says quietly, lips pursed. She takes another sip of water in a last show of hesitance then stares back up and into his eyes, ready to speak.