‘Will you be okay? You’ll get to do some fun things?’
‘I imagine so. If not, I’ll get plenty of schoolwork done. I’ve been given projects to complete. Usually I come in the holidays, but they got special dispensation this time, due to my mother’s American trip.’
‘When you’re not doing school projects, I look forward to thrashing you at Scrabble.’
‘Not a chance. Prepare to die, Eliza.’ He pulled a face. ‘Sorry. That was an unfortunate choice of words in light of your flying phobia. Prepare to be slaughtered by my word prowess, I meant.’
‘The game is on, Navillus.’
She was rewarded with another smile before she shut her eyes, trying not to think of the landing. She searched for a good mental picture to replace her anxious thoughts. It was easy this time.
She pictured her two godmothers.
CHAPTER TEN
Maxie was at the kitchen table in the apartment she and Hazel rented in central London. She’d just written a note to accompany the newspaper article she was posting to her mother in Australia. Her mum loved reading any of Maxie’s publicity, as long as it wasn’t online. She’d told Maxie she got too angry reading the mean things trolls said about her in the comments. Maxie secretly loved that her mother even knew what an online troll was.
She hoped she’d enjoy this latest article. It was a two-page spread, with one big photo that had required an all-day shoot. Most of the content had been recycled from earlier interviews Maxie had done in the UK and Australia. The old anecdote about her nearly becoming a nun had been trotted out too. Not true, of course, but the media always managed to twist that out of the fact she’d gone to a strict Catholic boarding school that had once been for novitiates. Today’s article even re-used an old quote from her first drama teacher Sister Frances, now in a retirement home for nuns, about Maxie’s early acting talent. ‘She was always a great mimic, and a scallywag. There were three of them – the Terrible Trio, we used to call them.’ Somehow, the newspaper had tracked down the photo of the three of them with Eliza, taken at the school concert nineteen years ago. An enlargement of that same photo now hung in Maxie and Hazel’s study. It would be coming to New York when they moved in a fortnight’s time.
Still, all publicity was good publicity, apparently. Not that the final episode of the current series needed much official promotion. The fans were making enough noise about it online themselves.
Her final episode. It seemed impossible. How many had there been? Two hundred? More? She’d played a baddie on TV for so long now she had almost become accustomed to the reaction from people in the street, if and when she was recognised. It didn’t happen often. Her own usual expression was so cheerful, her smile so broad, that she was the opposite of the angry, bitter woman she played. She knew she had her voice to thank for her acting career, her gravelly, husky voice, which always seemed such a surprise coming from someone as petite as she was.